What happened
Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire former New York City mayor, announced yesterday he was spending at least $80 million to help Democrats win the House. President Donald Trump said on social media that he himself has spent “or will be ​spending” $400 million to boost Republicans, which he characterized as a $100 million addition to his previous commitments. Spending on ads in the 2026 midterms surpassed $10 billion last week.

Who said what
Bloomberg (pictured above) is reprising his 2018 role as “late-arriving white knight” for the Democrats, donating a similar amount to recreate what his team views as his “gold standard” for political impact, The New York Times said. While most “big donors” are investing in Senate races, Bloomberg is “particularly focused on ensuring a sizable Democratic majority in the House.” Campaign finance filings last night confirm that Trump’s MAGA Inc. super PAC is finally sending in the promised “cavalry,” Politico said. The more than $244 million in expenditures since September put “soundly to rest” GOP fears that Trump “just wouldn’t open the PAC’s wallet.”

What next?
Trump is also “relying on a new strategy to salvage Republican seats,” The Wall Street Journal said: “Promising an array of financial benefits to Americans,” some contingent on whether “his party defies the polls and keeps control of Congress.” The latest tax-funded giveaways include $8 billion for farmers and up to $30,000 for government “fraud” tips.

What happened
The daughter of a Venezuelan billionaire seeking a presidential pardon for a bank fraud conviction hired President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer Alina Habba last fall for a job guaranteeing “more than $50 million over four years,” The New York Times reported yesterday. Habba (pictured above) “finalized her deal” to serve as general counsel of Isabela Herrera’s newly registered company while she was “still serving as U.S. attorney in New Jersey,” and started the job while employed as a “senior adviser to Attorney General Pam Bondi.” Trump granted the billionaire, Julio Herrera Velutini, a full pardon weeks later, shortly before he was due to be sentenced. 

Who said what
The “sequence of events raises questions” about Herrera’s pardon, the Times said, and people familiar with Habba’s contract “said they believed that she was brought in to help” secure him clemency. Habba, the White House and the Justice Department denied she played any role in securing the pardon. 

What next?
A “pardon industry has sprouted up” during Trump’s second term, with “wealthy criminals paying well-connected” intermediaries up to $1 million for help, the Times said. But “many pardon seekers” have concluded that directly supporting Trump and his agenda is the “fastest way to secure clemency.” According to The Washington Post, Isabella Herrera, a U.S. citizen, pledged $2.5 million for Trump’s ballroom around the same time she hired Habba.

While much of the world is focused on China’s booming tech sector, newly graduated Chinese students are looking outside the box — and the city — for work. Rising unemployment rates and fierce urban job competition have inspired a trend toward farming among young and often university-educated job seekers.

“For decades,” urban life has been a “defining feature of the Chinese economic miracle,” said the Los Angeles Times. But “declining job prospects in the cities” plus government efforts to “lift up rural areas” have prompted a shift in recent years.

The change comes as Chinese President Xi Jinping has promoted “rural revitalization” as a “cornerstone of his national development policy to mitigate income inequality, stimulate local economies and guarantee the food supply,” said the Times. Local governments are also “jumping on the new farmer trend” by offering tax breaks and loans to “entice young people,” said The New York Times,

This spring, sheep farmer Zuo Xiaoyong’s job posting for shepherds in the Chinese region of Inner Mongolia “quickly turned into a viral phenomenon,” said NBC News. The post earned “millions of views and hundreds of applications” from a generation “eager to escape the stresses of urban life.” 

Older generations are “still stuck in the mindset” that agrarian life is “all about breaking your back in the dirt,” said farmer and recent college graduate Wang Hongbo to The New York Times. He has incorporated drones and AI into his family’s farm to modernize and economize the work.