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Never saw this article before:

Yeah, January 2012, so a year and a half old. Good number of updates since then ...

The issue with the F-35C trapping was that the tailhook is short and very close to the main landing gear. So when the gear passes over an arresting wire the wire doesn't have enough time to "bounce" back up so that the original hook could catch it. The Navy believes it's solved the problem by changing the shape of the F-35C's hook (and possibly revising the hydraulics that keep it down). Result will be a better-trapping F-35C, but also one that goes through arresting cables faster.

As it is, the Brits are out of the F-35C game, having decided to go back to the STOVL F-35B, eliminating the cost associated with putting cats and arrestor gear onto the QE class carriers.

I think the USN still projects an 11-carrier fleet. There was some talk about either the USS Abraham Lincoln or USS George Washington being decommissioned at mid-life refueling to save the cost. But Lincoln is now undergoing refueling and I haven't seen anything else about decomming Washington early. Should be noted that the Navy IS going down to 10 carriers for a few years, as Enterprise was just inactivated (and is being defueled in prep for decommissioning) with the USS Ford still a couple years away from being commissioned.

Hauling the crews cars on the flightdeck is nothing new. IIRC the two Atlantic Fleet carriers (Forrestal and Saratoga) did it when going up to Philly for their SLEPS in the early/mid 80s.