The party is putting up a costly defense of states and districts that President Trump won easily in 2024. And in places like Georgia, strategists wonder if it’s too late.

© Alex Kent/The New York Times

His powerful super PAC is suddenly spending heavily on some races, after drawing fire from some Republicans that the group might not throw its weight behind the party’s candidates.

© Alex Kent/The New York Times

Trump administration undermining rule of law at home and worldwide, according to intergovernmental report

Key indicators of democracy in the US have fallen to their lowest levels in 50 years, with the global rule of law significantly undermined by the Trump administration’s “threats and actions”, data from a leading thinktank shows.

Around the world, judicial independence, credible elections and freedom of expression, press freedom and access to justice are all at their lowest levels for at least 30 years, according to the Stockholm-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International Idea).

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© Photograph: Étienne Laurent/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Étienne Laurent/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Étienne Laurent/AFP/Getty Images

A recent consultation on corporate reporting prizes the interests of shareholders over society. It’s a step in the wrong direction

The question of what corporations are for is deeply political. In a 1970 article for the New York Times, Milton Friedman argued that the “social responsibility of business is to increase its profits”. The idea that CEOs should worry about providing good jobs was “pure and unadulterated socialism”, he wrote. Friedman and his fellow neoliberals saw companies as vehicles for enforcing their politics. Their ideas endured: UK bosses are now paid 130 times more than average workers.

Despite Andy Burnham’s pledge to end neoliberalism, a 12-week consultation recently launched by his government risks entrenching it. The consultation was first announced as part of the Starmer government’s crusade against “red tape”. The average annual report for some businesses now runs to 98,000 words, and no doubt there are areas that could be simplified. But the consultation proposes removing vital information and presumes that company reports primarily serve shareholders, rather than other stakeholders. Both are steps in the wrong direction.

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© Photograph: Stanford Hoover Institution/EPA

© Photograph: Stanford Hoover Institution/EPA

© Photograph: Stanford Hoover Institution/EPA

An organization allied with Senate G.O.P. leaders has booked more than $51 million in ads. Now, Ken Paxton has a financial edge after months of being outspent by his Democratic rival.

© Shelby Tauber for The New York Times

Republican politicians, donors and lobbyists have been busy networking and partying on the sidelines of a midterm convention that is partly a fund-raiser.

© Kenny Holston/The New York Times

Republicans are hoping to use the Dallas extravaganza as a fund-raising opportunity, with some local parties charging as much as $20,000 to be an “honorary delegate.”

© Kenny Holston/The New York Times

A recently created Republican group tied to the president’s super PAC is pumping cash into half a dozen key midterm races, with the largest amounts going toward Senate contests in Michigan and Ohio.

© Pete Marovich for The New York Times

A political group for the world’s richest man, who is ramping up a midterm spending blitz, began running attack ads against Democrats in Texas, Ohio and Iowa.

© Evan Vucci/Reuters

JB Pritzker, the billionaire governor of Illinois, is continuing to expand his national footprint, this time by using a new group to target Republicans in battleground races.

© Brendan McDermid/Reuters

Scammers hope to siphon off some of the £2.6bn in student maintenance funds paid out each September

You are about to start university and can’t wait but then you receive a worrying text message. It is a few days before the first student loan payment is due to land in your account and apparently someone has tried to alter your bank details.

“Our records indicate that your bank details on your student finance account were changed on Friday 16th. If you did not do this please contact us immediately,” says the text.

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© Photograph: Reeldeal Images/Alamy

© Photograph: Reeldeal Images/Alamy

© Photograph: Reeldeal Images/Alamy

The president’s strategy, message and spending have left the G.O.P. in a difficult spot as lawmakers try to outrun his sagging approval ratings.

© Alex Kent/The New York Times

A financial filing announcing the TV and digital ad buy is the first general election spending by MAGA Inc. The group intends to boost the Republican nominee, Ken Paxton.

© Christopher Lee for The New York Times

The event with the Georgia and Texas Democrats will be hosted by Shonda Rhimes.

© Brandon Bell/Getty Images; Kendrick Brinson for The New York Times

President Trump said he intends to hold some money back, even as Republican candidates ask for financial support.

© Alex Kent/The New York Times

Republican groups had asked the court to clear the way for political parties to pay the same low-cost ad rates as candidates, a move that could undercut a Democratic advantage in the midterms.

© Kenny Holston/The New York Times

Mr. Musk plans to spend at least $100 million in more than a dozen competitive House and Senate races. The tech billionaire helped Donald Trump to victory in 2024.

© Mark Schiefelbein/Associated Press

The ruling effectively reinstates Mr. Bergdahl’s punishment, including his dishonorable discharge, for walking off a base in Afghanistan in 2009, prompting an extensive search-and-rescue mission.

© Ted Richardson/Associated Press

With traditional goals such as stability and home ownership feeling out of reach, young people are focused on the present

By now, we all know the shape of financial nihilism: the throw-your-money-at-anything reaction to the dissolution of the slow, linear path to wealth; the prediction markets, meme stocks, cryptocurrencies and microluxuries growing in its place. We’re left in an economic no man’s land. But financial nihilism only describes where we put our money. What about how we earn it in the first place?

The modern economy has long relied on our need for stable employment – to pay the mortgage, to keep our kids fed, or, for some, to chase prestige and power – to generate the work ethic that keeps the wheel of production turning. None of this is going well for young people. Our jobs are insecure, we can’t afford houses, we’re deferring having kids (if we have them at all), and only 6% of us say a leadership position is our primary career goal. Hope is one of the economy’s most productive inputs, powering our willingness to endure long hours. When the production function of income – the mechanism that turns hard work into a stable salary, then a mortgage, then a pension – breaks down, so does our relationship with the input. I call this production nihilism: my generation’s growing indifference to the kinds of work we’re willing to participate in, and where we’re willing to earn.

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© Photograph: Michael Simons/Alamy

© Photograph: Michael Simons/Alamy

© Photograph: Michael Simons/Alamy

Dark money is flooding the 2026 midterm elections, allowing donors to spend heavily on ads without revealing their identities. Shane Goldmacher, a New York Times political correspondent, explains how donors are able to hide their involvement.