#2026-midterm-elections

#2026-midterm-elections

By rallying behind Talarico, the party sided with someone who pledged to change Washington while finding consensus. The 36-year-old state representative's win over Crockett cements his status as a rising star and will likely make him one of Democrats' most prominent candidates this year. He campaigned with denunciations of 'politics as a blood sport' and an insistence that people want 'a return to more timeless values of sincerity and honesty and compassion and respect.'

United States President Donald Trump has said that he will delay the implementation of tariffs on upholstered furniture, kitchen cabinets and vanities for one year, amid growing concerns over cost-of-living issues. Trump signed an order on Wednesday night, during the New Year's Eve holiday, pausing a planned 50 percent tariff on cabinets and vanities and a 30 percent tariff on upholstered furniture.

Catch up quick: After months of bringing up the idea, Trump and his economic team have been talking about it more actively in recent days, as the president tries to apply pressure on the Supreme Court to uphold his entire tariff program. The president told reporters in the Oval Office Monday night that the checks would start going out in mid-2026 - though Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has cautioned that Congress would have to pass legislation authorizing them, an uncertain outcome.

For all the wailing and gnashing of teeth by Democrats unhappy with the deal to reopen the federal government, and for all the talk about a Democratic "civil war," pretty much everyone in the party agrees the longest government shutdown in history didn't work out that well for them. The lawmakers who "caved" and voted to end the stalemate thought there was no real chance to secure any of the big concessions they had originally demanded - particularly an Obamacare-subsidy extension.

Across the US, in the streets and in their studios, artists and arts workers are resisting the cultural crackdown instigated by President Donald Trump. A joint statement calling for "collective courage" and affirming a commitment to "artistic freedom and independent thought", organised by the National Coalition Against Censorship and the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at the New School in New York, had gathered nearly 1,000 signatures in just two weeks after its release at the end of August.