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Republicans were left reeling on Wednesday after voters swung decisively against them, setting off fears that President Trump and his low approval ratings would again drag down the party’s midterm candidates.

As the scale of their electoral defeats set in, Republicans sought to find culprits, blaming their candidates, the government shutdown, a misguided focus on demonizing transgender issues, and a weak economic message.

Speaker Mike Johnson used a news conference to cast Zohran Mamdani, the mayor-elect of New York City and a proud democratic socialist, as the new leader of the Democratic Party. In emails and group chats, Republican officials slammed their nominee for governor in Virginia as a fatally flawed candidate and chided their donors for not opening their wallets wide enough. And on Fox News, other Republicans argued that Democrats had prolonged the government shutdown for their own advantage.

The one person no Republican dared to blame: Mr. Trump.

Democrats benefited from the president’s role in the elections. He loomed over them but did not do much to actually help Republicans, hosting no fund-raisers or in-person rallies, merely phoning into campaign calls intended to turn out supporters in New Jersey and Virginia. He did not even say the name of Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears of Virginia when he endorsed her for governor in a conversation with reporters aboard Air Force One.

Democratic voters, as they have done in nearly every election since Mr. Trump first took office, surged to the polls to express their discontent with his handling of the presidency. And Republicans again struggled to turn out their MAGA base without the president’s name on the ballot.

In his own understated way, Mr. Trump seemed to acknowledge the problems with Republican turnout.

“They say that I wasn’t on the ballot and was the biggest factor,” he told reporters at a Wednesday breakfast with Republican leaders. “I don’t know about that. But I was honored that they said that.”

In Virginia, not only did Abigail Spanberger win the governor’s race by a margin not seen for a Democrat since the segregationist Albertis Harrison was on the ballot in 1961, but Democrats also flipped at least 13 seats in the state House of Delegates, wiping out a generation of suburban Republicans.

In New Jersey, Democratic turnout surged as Representative Mikie Sherrill, the party’s nominee for governor, received 26 percent more votes than Democrats won in 2021. Republican turnout increased only modestly.

And early county-level results suggested that Republicans did not hold the gains that Mr. Trump made in 2024 with young men and Latino and Black voters. Places like Perth Amboy, N.J., a heavily Hispanic city Mr. Trump lost by just nine percentage points last year, delivered a 50-point margin for Ms. Sherrill.

The governor’s races in liberal-leaning New Jersey and Virginia were always long shots for Republicans with Mr. Trump in the White House, but the party’s defeats still underscored its central political conundrum ahead of the midterm elections.

If Republicans break with Mr. Trump, they risk a public flogging that could depress turnout with the party’s base or cost them in future primary races. But if they defend him, they energize Democrats and independents who are furious with his handling of the federal government and increasingly disenchanted with his stewardship of the economy.

Structurally, the midterm map still favors Republicans. A chain of redistricting efforts across the country is likely to give Republicans an advantage in the contests that will determine whether they maintain control of the House. On the Senate side, all but two of the 22 Republican seats up for election are in states that Mr. Trump carried by at least 10 percentage points in 2024.

Republican strategists say they see a path to keeping control of Congress, albeit a difficult one.

“It centers around three things,” said Corry Bliss, who led the party’s House super PAC for the 2018 election. “The economy being good, the president being motivated and engaged, and the Democrats continuing to be crazy.”

Still, there was clear evidence on Tuesday that Mr. Trump’s actions were acutely damaging to Republican candidates. His approval rating hit a second-term low of 37 percent in a recent CNN poll, and more than six in 10 voters disapproved of how he was handling the shutdown.

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Republicans have a favorable midterm map, but this week’s elections provided new evidence that President Trump’s leadership in Washington is causing a backlash from voters. Credit…Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times

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People who catch COVID while pregnant might have a higher likelihood of having a child who is later diagnosed with autism or another neurodevelopmental condition, a new study has found. The results add to previous research showing that, among other factors, infections in general during pregnancy are linked to autism risk for the child. They do not, however, suggest that everyone who has COVID while pregnant will have a child with autism.

“Even though there’s an increased risk for autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders, the absolute risk still remains relatively low, especially for autism,” says study senior author Andrea Edlow, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital, referring to having COVID during pregnancy.

For the study, published Thursday in Obstetrics & Gynecology, Edlow and colleagues looked at electronic health records of more 18,000 births that occurred between March 1, 2020, and May 31, 2021, during the first year of the COVID pandemic. They compared the likelihood of a neurodevelopmental diagnosis in children born to individuals who had a positive COVID PCR test during pregnancy with those who didn’t.

Of the 861 children born to people who had COVID during pregnancy, 16.3 percent went on to receive a neurodevelopmental diagnosis by age 3 compared with 9.7 percent of the 17,263 children born to people who hadn’t had COVID. The diagnoses included not just autism but also speech and language disorders, motor function disorders, and other conditions. When the researchers controlled for various confounding factors, COVID infection during pregnancy was linked to increased odds of these conditions of nearly 30 percent.

The findings add to a body of evidence—mainly in animals but also in humans—suggesting that various infections during pregnancy, such as influenza or rubella, are linked to a higher risk of having a child with autism or a similar condition. Because SARS-CoV-2 rarely crosses the placenta, scientists hypothesize it’s not the virus itself upping the risk. Rather, they suspect immune activation in the pregnant person could be responsible.

The new study and previous animal studies together suggest that many types of maternal infection or inflammation can send a signal to the fetus, affecting its brain development, says Kristina Adams Waldorf, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology and adjunct professor of global health at the University of Washington. Adams Waldorf co-authored a study of 1.7 million people born in Sweden who were followed for up to 41 years that found higher rates of autism and depression in those who had been exposed to an infection in utero.

The strongest associations in the new study were for COVID infection in the third trimester and for male offspring. (The increase in odds was not significant for female offspring.) The third trimester is a critical time for fetal brain development, and boys are diagnosed with autism at higher rates than girls in general.

The study has limitations, however. The researchers did not control for maternal health, says Brian Lee, a professor of epidemiology at Drexel University, who has studied the link between infections during pregnancy and autism. People with worse physical health and mental disorders are more likely to have children with neurodevelopmental conditions and are also more susceptible to severe COVID infections, he says.

The study also didn’t specifically control for vaccination status, although very few individuals had been vaccinated during the study period because the COVID vaccine wasn’t widely available at the time. Previous research has shown that vaccination protects pregnant people—who are more likely to get very sick and die from COVID—and their fetuses from the disease.

The study findings come on the heels of controversial statements made by President Trump and Health and Human Services secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., linking Tylenol (acetaminophen) to autism, which the best available evidence does not support. Numerous studies have also shown that vaccines do not cause autism.

It’s important to note that autism is a complex spectrum of conditions—not all of which cause disabilities—with many contributing factors. Genetics is thought to have the biggest influence, but environmental factors such as infection may also play a role.

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As an experienced real estate investor who has witnessed countless market cycles and navigated the intricacies of tax-advantaged investing, I can confidently assert real estate investing offers superior returns compared to traditional investment vehicles.

While financial advisers routinely recommend diversified portfolios of stocks and bonds, groundbreaking research and decades of tax policy innovations have created a compelling case for making real estate the cornerstone of any serious investment strategy.

The data speaks: Real estate’s historical dominance

The most comprehensive analysis of investment returns ever conducted, titled The Rate of Return on Everything, 1870-2015, revolutionizes our understanding of asset class performance.

This Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco study examined over 145 years of investment data across major asset classes, revealing findings that challenge conventional wisdom about portfolio allocation.

The research found that residential real estate delivered superior risk-adjusted returns compared to stocks, while demonstrating significantly lower volatility.

Over the entire study period, real estate achieved returns exceeding 8% annually after inflation, outpacing stocks while maintaining half the volatility of equity markets.

This “having your cake and eating it too” scenario represents the holy grail of investing: higher returns with lower risk.

Even when limiting the data to the modern era, post-World War II, real estate continued to demonstrate its superiority. Housing consistently outperformed bonds and Treasuries by substantial margins, while matching or exceeding stock market returns.

This consistency across different economic periods underscores real estate’s fundamental strength as an investment vehicle.

The study’s findings become even more compelling when considering real estate markets remain largely uncorrelated globally, unlike increasingly interconnected stock markets.

This insulation provides additional portfolio protection during market downturns, as property values in different geographic regions don’t move in lockstep like international equity markets tend to do.

The power of leverage: Amplifying returns through strategic financing

While the San Francisco Fed’s study examined unleveraged real estate returns, the true power of real estate investing emerges when incorporating strategic leverage.

Unlike stock market investing, where margin loans carry significant risks and limitations, real estate allows investors to safely amplify returns through mortgage financing.

Consider a property generating 8% annual returns, purchased with 75% financing at 6% interest. The investor’s actual return on invested capital reaches about 14% annually, significantly outpacing what’s achievable in traditional markets without assuming excessive risk.

This leverage advantage remains sustainable because real estate provides steady cash flow to service debt obligations while appreciating in value over time.

Moreover, real estate leverage is non-recourse in most cases, meaning lenders can claim the property itself only if problems arise, protecting investors’ other assets.

This contrasts sharply with margin investing in stocks, where losses can exceed initial investments and trigger devastating margin calls, a phenomenon that can wipe out even the savviest of accredited investors (and the examples of this are many — such as when Long-Term Capital Management collapsed and Credit Suisse’s Archegos Capital Management defaulted).

Tax advantages: The real estate investor’s secret weapon

While pretax returns favor real estate, the post-tax comparison reveals an even more dramatic advantage.

Real estate enjoys numerous tax benefits unavailable to stock and bond investors, creating superior after-tax returns that compound over time.

Annual depreciation deductions shelter rental income from taxation, effectively providing tax-free cash flow during ownership.

This phantom expense reduces taxable income without requiring actual cash outlays, creating an immediate advantage over dividend-paying stocks that generate fully taxable income.

Capital gains treatment provides favorable tax rates upon sale, but real estate’s true tax advantage lies in strategies unavailable to traditional investors.

These preferential treatments transform good pretax returns into exceptional after-tax wealth accumulation.

The 1031 exchange: Deferring taxes to infinity

The most powerful tool in real estate investing remains the Section 1031 like-kind exchange, which allows investors to defer capital gains taxes indefinitely by reinvesting sale proceeds into replacement properties.

This strategy, often called “defer till you die” or “swap till you drop,” enables investors to compound their returns without tax drag, potentially over multiple decades.

Consider an investor who purchases a $200,000 property that appreciates to $400,000 over 10 years. Rather than selling and paying $40,000 in capital gains taxes (assuming a 20% rate), a 1031 exchange allows the entire $400,000 to purchase replacement property.

Over multiple exchange cycles, this tax deferral creates exponential wealth accumulation that’s impossible through traditional investing.

The mathematics are compelling. An investor executing 1031 exchanges every seven years over a 30-year period can accumulate about 40% more wealth than someone paying taxes on each transaction.

This advantage compounds over time, creating generational wealth that far exceeds what’s achievable through traditional buy-and-hold stock investing.

Multiple exchanges magnify this benefit. Sophisticated investors often execute three to five exchanges over their investing careers, each time upgrading to larger, more valuable properties while deferring substantial tax obligations.

The stepped-up basis provision means heirs inherit these properties at fair market value, permanently eliminating the deferred tax liability.

Qualified opportunity zones: Accelerating after-tax returns

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) in 2017 created qualified opportunity zones (QOZs), offering additional advantages for real estate investors willing to invest in designated economically distressed areas.

These zones provide a pair of distinct tax benefits that further enhance real estate’s appeal.

First, investors can defer capital gains taxes from any source by investing proceeds into QOZ properties, providing flexibility beyond traditional 1031 exchanges. (Current law defers these capital gains taxes until December 31, 2026, although proposed legislation may extend that deadline.)

In addition, and even more significantly, any appreciation within the QOZ investment itself becomes permanently tax-free if held for 10 years.

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As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump is a phenomenally effective vote-winner, capable of turning out millions of otherwise infrequent voters to deliver the White House and Congress to the Republican Party. But as president, Trump has been an albatross around the neck of his party.

Consider his record as party leader. In the 2017 elections, Republicans suffered sharp defeats in the Virginia and New Jersey governor’s races, with Virginia Democrats sweeping all three statewide offices and winning a majority in the state General Assembly. The following year, in the 2018 midterm elections, Democrats won a landslide victory in the House of Representatives, their largest since 2006. Trump came close to victory in the 2020 presidential but may have contributed to the Republican Party’s defeat in the Georgia Senate runoff election, handing the Democratic Party full control of Washington for the first time since 2011.

Even 2022, a midterm under President Joe Biden, was less successful than it could have been for the Republican Party because of Trump’s influence in the battle for the Senate, where voters rejected MAGA-aligned candidates in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and Pennsylvania. With the 2024 presidential election came another strong Trump performance as he brought out the voters who support him and him alone.

Tuesday was the first major election since Trump entered the White House for a second term. And although voters across Virginia, New Jersey, and New York City were most concerned with the particulars of their respective states and localities, there was no question that this was also a chance to register their discontent in a way that might send a message to Washington and the rest of America.

In each place, Democrats delivered crushing defeats to their Republican opponents. In the Virginia race for governor, Abigail Spanberger, the Democratic nominee for governor, cruised to victory along with Ghazala Hashmi, the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor, and Jay Jones, the Democratic nominee for attorney general, who struggled with scandal in the final weeks of the race. In the New Jersey election for governor, Mikie Sherrill delivered an unambiguous defeat to the Republican Jack Ciattarelli, and in New York City’s three-way mayoral election, Zohran Mamdani prevailed over both a former governor, Andrew Cuomo, who ran as an independent, and the Republican nominee, Curtis Sliwa.

Supporters of the president might pooh-pooh these results as unrepresentative. This isn’t a presidential electorate, they might say; there are different circumstances. But New Jersey and New York City both had high turnout for off-year elections (Virginia had a slight increase). In other words, it really is the case that Trump, specifically, in his capacity as president, inspires ferocious energy and opposition against him among a large part of the voting public.

The results, then, are a marked contrast to the accommodation, capitulation, and outright surrender of prominent individuals and institutions in the face of Trump’s demands. They also serve to remind us of what ought to be a fundamental maxim of democracy: that there is no singular “people” and there are no permanent majorities.

As I have stressed again and again, it is a profound mistake to treat the 2024 presidential election as a referendum on the ideological direction of the United States or as evidence of a realignment or whatever else you happen to have as your hobbyhorse. (Here, I’ll observe that it is unclear if “realignments” actually exist. Even coalitions as seemingly durable as the one that made Franklin Roosevelt president four times showed signs of strain and fracture within a decade of their arrival.)

For some observers, the 2024 election seemed to show a shift of young people and Latinos to the Republican Party. This was said to herald a “vibe shift” in American politics and perhaps a durable turn to the political right. But the truth of the matter is that voters, and especially those who are new and infrequent participants in the political process, are as driven by events and circumstances as anything else. And the key factor last year was voters’ reaction to the inflation that plagued Biden’s term in office.

Americans voted in Trump to lower the cost of living and return the United States to the political and economic status quo as it was before the pandemic. But rather than meet the public where it was, Trump and his cadre of ideologues in the White House took their victory to mean that they could pursue their most radical dreams and try to make good on their extreme preoccupations.

In 2024, the Americans who decided the election voted for lower prices and a lower cost of living. What they got instead were soldiers on the streets, masked agents leading violent immigration raids, arbitrary tariffs, new conflicts abroad, dictatorial aspirations, endless chaos, and a president more interested in taking a wrecking ball to the White House to build his garish ballroom than delivering anything of value to the public. At this moment, in fact, the government has been shut down for more than a month, the House of Representatives has not been in session since the middle of September, and Trump is still talking about defying multiple court orders to restore food assistance to hungry families, even though his own administration announced that it would partially comply.

Both Trump and his administration are less interested in helping ordinary Americans than they are in fulfilling their idiosyncratic program of austerity, pain, and deprivation. They are all stick, no carrot.

It’s against this backdrop that voters just went to the polls and cast millions of votes against the president by way of Democratic candidates, moderate and progressive, who stood for both affordability and the nation’s most cherished values, who pledged to use their time in office to protect their new constituents from the provocations and assaults coming from the government in Washington.

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Mikie Sherrill Credit…Damon Winter/The New York Times

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Tuesday night was a far cry from the shell-shocked scenes in Democrats’ election headquarters a year ago this November.

In three key races, for Virginia governor, New Jersey governor, and New York City mayor, the party’s nominees drew in huge numbers of the electorate by attacking President Donald Trump and offering plans to tackle what exit polls showed was voters’ top concern: affordability.

The Democratic wins come as Trump and Republicans have seen sinking approval ratings 10 months into his second term.

Here are some of the key takeaways from Tuesday’s election — one year to the 2026 midterms:

Democrats turn the tide

The national spotlight was on Abigail Spanberger in Virginia, Mikie Sherrill, in New Jersey, and Zohran Mamdani in New York City as the first true tests for the Democrats after the party’s punishing defeat in the 2024 nationwide election.

Tuesday’s results showed the party is on the offensive, with all three candidates projected to score sizable wins over their opponents.

“We sent a message to the whole world that in 2025, Virginia chose pragmatism over partisanship. We chose our commonwealth over chaos,” Spanbrger said.

It’s the economy, again

Preliminary exit poll data compiled by ABC News in the three races showed that the majority of Americans were concerned about the cost of living.

Nearly half of Virginia voters said that the economy was the most important issue facing the commonwealth.

In New Jersey, six in 10 voters said that the economy in the state was doing “not so good” or “poor,” while about four in 10 said it was “excellent” or “good.”More than half of voters in New York City said the cost of living was the most important issue they faced

Spanberger, Sherrill and Mamdani all campaigned with affordability as the main focus.

Although each candidate has different proposals to lower costs — with Mamdani being the most vocal with raising the tax rate on the wealthiest to pay for services such as child care — voters in huge numbers were attracted to their messages.

Voters are not happy with the state of the country

Just as with last year’s elections, where nearly every Democratic led state shifted red, voters appeared to want change from the status quo.

A large majority of voters who said they were angry supported Sherrill, saying they were unhappy with how things were going on in the country. New Jersey has never elected a governor from the same party in three cycles in a row.

Record turnout helps propel Mamdani

More than 2 million voters turned out Tuesday in New York City, the first time a mayoral election crossed that threshold since 1969.

Mamdani collected over 1.03 million votes as of 10 p.m. Tuesday, which is larger than the population of five states, according to U.S. Census figures.

The New York turnout mirrored the increased turnout seen during an off-year election.

Historic wins for Muslim candidates

Mamdani and Virginia Lt. Gov.-elect Ghazala Hashmi both made history as the first Muslim Americans elected to their respective offices.

Both had faced anti-Islamic attacks from their opponents and critics from around the country.

Wins sends message to Trump

Trump got indirectly involved in the three races, especially New York City, as he tried to maintain and grow the GOP’s influence following his win.

The president was particularly tied to the New Jersey race as Republican Jack Ciattarelli vocally embraced and welcomed Trump’s support, despite the president’s low approval ratings.

Sherrill took several opportunities to criticize Trump while looking to tie the president and Ciattarelli tightly together. Mamdani and Spanberger also tied their opponents to Trump’s influence.

Mamdani also addressed Trump directly during his victory speech.

“I have four words for you: turn the volume up,” he mayor-elect said to a roar of supporters’ cheers.

The president reacted angrily to the wins on social media, arguing that the ongoing government shutdown and the fact that he was not on the ballot as the reasons Republicans lost.

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Human spaceflight is on the cusp of an intriguing new dawn. For 25 years, astronauts have lived and worked onboard the International Space Station (ISS), starting with the arrival of its first occupants on November 2, 2000. Built through a partnership between the U.S. and Russia in the aftermath of the cold war, the ISS has now witnessed five presidential administrations, the advent and demise of the iPod, and even the lofting of another orbital habitat, China’s Tiangong space station. But the ISS’s days are numbered. By 2031, NASA plans to deorbit the space station. Citing aging hardware and rising costs, the agency will bring it back through Earth’s atmosphere for a fiery plunge into the Pacific Ocean.

If all goes as planned, commercial space stations—outposts operated not by government agencies but instead by private companies—will take the ISS’s place to build on its success. The first of these is set to launch next year, with a slew of others scheduled to follow soon after. All of them have the same goal of fostering a vibrant, human-centered economy in Earth orbit—and ultimately beyond.

“We hope to build habitats for the moon [and] Mars and eventually even an artificial-gravity space station,” says Max Haot, CEO of Vast, a Long Beach, Calif.–based company at the forefront of the private-sector spacefaring push. Vast plans to launch its Haven-1 space station as soon as May 2026. On Haven-1’s heels will be several other habitats from Axiom Space, Blue Origin, and Starlab Space. All of them are intended to reach orbit by the end of the decade (and are still somewhat reliant on NASA as a paying customer).

The ISS will leave behind an important legacy, says Bill Nelson, who was formerly a U.S. senator and a space shuttle crew member, as well as NASA’s administrator from 2021 to 2025, and formalized the timeline for the nation’s pivot to commercial space stations. “The station has done incredible things,” he says, from establishing how to live safely in space to exploring the promise and peril of microgravity environments. All the while, the ISS has been a shining beacon of global cooperation.

NASA’s shift from “operator” of the ISS to a “tenant” on space stations, Nelson says, should help the agency focus on more innovative and daring explorations deeper in the solar system. “It’s part of the evolution of space,” he adds. “It used to be all government. Now we have commercial partners and international partners.”

Some have argued that the ISS could still have a long life ahead if it were to be boosted to a higher orbit, where it could endure intact for decades or centuries. “I think it’s the most amazing thing that humanity has ever constructed,” says Greg Autry, a space policy expert at the University of Central Florida. “It’s kind of like deorbiting Buckingham Palace. It’s an amazing historical structure, and it should be recognized for that.” NASA, however, determined that rescuing the ISS would be too costly and complex. Instead, the space agency opted to pay SpaceX nearly $1 billion to develop a vehicle that will push the station back into Earth’s atmosphere in 2031, leaving China’s Tiangong space station as the only government-run outpost in orbit.

By the time that happens, multiple commercial space stations could be active. Haven-1, the first of them, is a singular, shipping-container-sized structure that will be launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Initially lofted uncrewed, the station will offer stays of up to 10 days for both governmental and private-sector visitors, all of whom are planned to reach Haven-1 via a SpaceX Dragon capsule. The cost of a private booking is undisclosed at present.

“Our core business model is 85 percent sovereign space agencies, including NASA, and then maybe 15 percent private individuals,” Haot says. Onboard, four occupants will have private sleeping berths with inflatable beds, a domed window to observe Earth, and high-speed Internet provided by SpaceX’s Starlink service. A built-in science lab will allow them to conduct research at the station.

Haven-1 is a precursor to a much bigger construct planned by Vast called Haven-2, which is expected to launch by the time the ISS is abandoned. Haven-2 will comprise multiple Haven-1-style modules arranged in a cross shape to enable a continuous human presence in orbit, rather than short stays like Haven-1 will host. It will be joined by the other commercial ventures—Axiom Station, Blue Origin’s Orbital Reef, and Starlab.

New priorities may come with any new private era in Earth orbit. Whereas the ISS was notionally a station focused on science, private habitats will inevitably have a broader purview, from acting as proverbial space hotels to being manufacturing hubs for products imported back to Earth. “You can make much better silicon crystals [for semiconductors] in space,” says Autry, listing one of several perennial arguments for more industrial activity in orbit. “[There are] a lot of different economic drivers that I think will eventually pay off,” and the space tourism business “will be much larger than most people believe.”

Autry points to Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket, which launches paying customers straight up and down on suborbital rides lasting just 10 minutes but has already flown about 80 people (including some repeat customers). “There’s a really strong demand,” he says, arguing that an increase in rides to space—and destinations to reach—shows space tourism can “absolutely” be as accessible as other extreme environments, such as the deep sea. “There’s no reason you can’t get suborbital ticket prices into the thousands of dollars and orbital ticket prices under $1 million,” he says. “I think it will happen in the next 10 to 20 years.”What role science will play on commercial space stations will, to some degree, depend on the tools customers can use onboard. Already, the major players have suggested an assortment of relevant, high-grade laboratory equipment will be the norm. Fabrizio Fiore, an astrophysicist at the Astronomical Observatory of Trieste in Italy, says this means more opportunities for scientists to conduct research that was logistically impossible on the ISS. “Even putting a small thing on [the ISS] is very, very time-consuming and difficult,” he says. “If we are going to have space stations that are not dedicated to governmental astronauts, it will be much easier to build experiments on them.”

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“Exactly one year ago, we had that big beautiful victory, exactly one year,” Mr. Trump said on Wednesday at a breakfast with Republican senators at the White House. “And last night it was not expected to be a victory — it was very Democrat areas — but I don’t think it was good for Republicans.”

Mr. Trump’s own meandering focus on the economy has given plenty of fodder to Democrats. He tore down the East Wing for a new ballroom, lavishly remodeled the Lincoln bathroom, paved over the Rose Garden for a patio like the one at Mar-a-Lago, and threw a “Great Gatsby”-esque Halloween party with the theme “a little party never killed nobody” during a government shutdown and on the eve of cuts to food assistance.

“Trump is indifferent to the pain American families are feeling,” said Representative Suzan DelBene of Washington, who is leading the campaign arm of House Democrats headed into the 2026 midterms.

Only 30 percent of voters believe Mr. Trump has lived up to their expectations for tackling inflation and the cost of living, according to a recent NBC News poll, his lowest mark for any issue asked. And a meager 27 percent of voters in a CNN poll in late October said Mr. Trump’s policies had improved the country’s economic conditions — less than half of those who thought he had made matters worse.

“Trump promised to lower costs on Day 1,” Ms. DelBene said. “It’s a big broken promise from the Republican Party.”

Abigail Spanberger, a Democratic former congresswoman, flipped the governorship of Virginia with a campaign highlighting the fallout for the state’s economy from Mr. Trump’s efforts to dismantle parts of the federal government. Mikie Sherrill, a four-term congresswoman, won with a platform that prominently included a Day 1 promise to declare a state of emergency on utility costs and freeze rates.

Both won by double digits.

The New Jersey race was especially revealing because the Republican nominee, Jack Ciattarelli, had tried to tap into the same frustration that voters have about the economic status quo — and direct that rage at Democrats who control the state government. But ads that had attacked Ms. Sherrill as “more of the same but worse” ultimately fell flat.

Kiersten Pels, a Republican National Committee spokeswoman, said that “these off-year races in deep-blue states aren’t predictors of 2026.” She insisted that voters still trusted Mr. Trump and that Democrats had gone “far left.”

Mr. Mamdani’s rise from obscurity to national stardom showed the mobilizing power of affordability for Democrats. He used a campaign centered on specific and sweeping promises to defeat a once-powerful former governor, Andrew M. Cuomo.

And Mr. Mamdani contrasted his own economic focus with the president’s wandering eye on the topic, at times saying that Mr. Trump had won on three promises in 2024 — to punish his enemies, do mass deportations and ease the cost of living — but only followed through on the first two.

Robert Blizzard, a Republican pollster, warned his party not to dismiss Mr. Mamdani and his “laserlike focus on” affordability, even as Republican strategists were eager to make the 34-year-old democratic socialist the next face of the Democratic Party.

“Don’t just chalk up a Mamdani win to a woke candidate winning a woke city,” Mr. Blizzard said. “This is the wake-up call for policymakers on both sides of the aisle about the importance of focusing your campaigns on cost and affordability.”

In Washington, congressional Democrats have opened a front in the affordability wars through a government shutdown that is now the longest in American history. Senate Democrats are so far refusing to vote to reopen the government unless Republicans and Mr. Trump agree to address health care costs that are rising as federal subsidies lapse.

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President Trump was a central character in this week’s elections, even though he never held rallies in Virginia or New Jersey, where key elections for governor unfolded. Credit…Anna Rose Layden for The New York Times

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In many parts of the country, home prices are still climbing, and inventory remains historically low. But the Federal Reserve has cut rates twice this year, and with more cuts expected, home sales and mortgage refinancing could soon pick up. That also means sellers will need to up their game in a more competitive market.

Fixing that leaky shower or replacing an aging roof could make all the difference. We’ve rounded up the top 13 features today’s buyers want most, according to a National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) survey. Some updates are quick and inexpensive DIY projects, while others require more time, money, and professional help, a challenge in the midst of ongoing labor and material shortages.

Overall, buyers are opting for smaller homes with design touches important to them, like a master bath on the main floor or a front porch. Buyers want to have plenty of comfortable, well-lit outdoor space. They also value nearby parks and walkability.

Want a higher sale price? Invest in the right upgrades

As the housing market continues to rebound, would-be sellers should think twice before skipping out on areas of their homes in need of serious upgrades. Home buyers are willing to spend more on homes with higher-quality finishes in sought-after neighborhoods. Ensure your home is in top condition to get the most attention and the highest possible price.

With a few exceptions, you’re unlikely to recoup all your remodeling costs when you sell. According to Remodeling magazine’s 2025 Cost vs. Value report, sellers were estimated to recoup 18% to 268% of the cost of the 23 projects considered in the report. For example, the average cost of a mid-range bathroom remodel is $26,138 (up from $24,424 in 2021). You’d recoup about $18,613 (74%) of that amount within a year.

The cost of doing nothing to your home can be far greater than the small loss you’ll incur on any home improvement project. “Getting stuck in time with your home isn’t a smart move and is rarely rewarded financially at sale time,” said Compass broker Brian K. Lewis. “In fact, it may cause your house to linger longer on the market longer. As a result, you’ll likely have to pay ongoing mortgage, maintenance, and staging costs.”

If you want to get the most bang for your buck, focus on features that most home buyers really want to see and that you’ll enjoy for as long as you live in the home. Home improvements can be expensive, but the right upgrades could help you command a higher sale price when it’s time to move.

If you’ve built up equity, consider using a home equity line of credit (HELOC) or a cash-out refinance to reinvest in your property and boost its long-term value.

Use the tool below to explore and compare today’s top home equity loan and HELOC offers to see how much you could borrow from your home’s value, powered by Bankrate:

Selling your home? Here are the 13 home features buyers want most.

1. Laundry room

 

• Cost of laundry room addition: $8,000 to $30,000
• Minimum cost of a laundry room renovation: $1,300

More than anything else, homeowners want a dedicated laundry room where they can hide the dirty clothes and stack the clean ones until they get put away. A separate laundry room tops the National Association of Home Builders’ (NAHB) list of most-wanted home features by buyers.

If you don’t have an existing laundry room and want to add one, the basement is usually the easiest (and cheapest) place to put it. The utility lines are already there, and in many cases, the basement is unfinished, so you won’t have to demolish anything first.

If you’re investing in a new washer and dryer, look for Energy Star-certified models that will save you energy and money. Add good lighting and a utility sink, where you can wash out or presoak heavily stained or dirty items. Depending on your budget and space, you can add stock or custom cabinetry, a folding table or countertops.

2. Patio

• Small patio (about 49 sq. ft.): $250 to $2,500
• Medium patio (about 144 sq. ft.): $750 to $7,200
• Large patio (400+ sq. ft.): $2,000 to $20,000

In today’s housing market, outdoor living spaces have become one of the most coveted outdoor home features.

It’s important for homeowners not to neglect the backyard area when prepping for resale, says Mike McGrew, chairman and CEO of McGrew Real Estate, a Lawrence, Kansas-based realty firm.

“When most buyers see a house with a really nice backyard, they start to envision themselves sitting outdoors with friends having drinks,” McGrew adds. Also, outdoor areas offer more living space without the cost of a large-scale home addition.

With the popularity of home renovation reality shows, many buyers have come to expect the eye-catching exterior features. The more expensive the home, the more buyers desire exterior features, such as an outdoor kitchen or fireplace.

Because patios are generally made of concrete or pavers, they tend to cost less than a wood deck or porch to construct and are generally easier to maintain, say, with powerwashing versus periodic staining and resealing or painting. However, their resale value will likely be less than a deck or porch.

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We come into the world screaming and vulnerable—entirely dependent on adult caregivers to keep us safe and teach us how to connect with others. The nature of these earliest relationships influences how we behave towards others and see the world long after we’ve grown, but in more complex and nuanced ways than researchers previously thought, according to the results of a large, decades-long study examining how the quality of children’s interactions with parents and close peers went on to influence their relationships in adulthood.

In particular, early dynamics with mothers predicted future attachment styles for all the primary relationships in participants’ lives, including with their parents, best friends, and romantic partners, the study found. “People who felt closer to their mothers and had less conflict with their mothers in childhood tended to feel more secure in all of their relationships in adulthood,” says Keely Dugan, an assistant professor of social personality psychology at the University of Missouri and lead author of the study, which was published in October in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. “That’s a really striking finding because it demonstrates the enduring impact of that first person who is supposed to be there for you.”

Early childhood friends also played a strong role in predicting how participants approached their future close friendships—and their romantic connections. “When you have those first friendships at school, that’s when you practice give-and-take dynamics,” Dugan says. “Relationships in adulthood then mirror those dynamics.”

The idea that earliest relationships have an outsized impact on our lives was popularized in psychology by Sigmund Freud. British psychiatrist John Bowlby later incorporated some core Freudian elements to create attachment theory, which helps explain variations in how people approach close relationships. “Some people are quite comfortable depending on others, opening up to them and using them as a secure base, whereas other people lack that confidence and trust,” says the new study’s co-author, R. Chris Fraley, a professor of psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Researchers today define attachment styles by where people fall along two dimensions, each shaped by early experiences with caregivers. The first, attachment anxiety, measures your level of confidence in the availability and responsiveness of those you are close to. People high in attachment anxiety might have more intense fears of abandonment or need for reassurance. The second factor, attachment avoidance, involves how comfortable you feel opening up to others and depending on them for support. Those high in avoidance may believe that people cannot be counted on or trusted, so they avoid asking for help or emotional support—even if they need it. A relationship with high attachment anxiety, avoidance, or both is defined as more insecure, while a relationship that is low in both attachment anxiety and avoidance is considered to be secure: “You feel comfortable and close to the other person, you trust them to be there for you, and you feel supported,” Dugan says.

It can be difficult to study exactly how early relationships go on to influence attachment style, though, because people’s retrospective reports of what happened to them in childhood are skewed by memory failings and emotional and cognitive biases, Dugan notes. Of the relatively few studies that have examined associations between early caregiving experiences and adult attachment styles, she adds, all have focused almost exclusively on a single early relationship: the maternal one.

To more deeply understand how early relationships with a wider variety of people impact attachment styles, Dugan, Fraley, and their colleagues turned to a landmark longitudinal study of 1,364 children and their families from around the U.S. It began when the children were infants and ended when they were 15 years old. Once the young participants were old enough to speak, they were surveyed about the quality of their relationships with their fathers, mothers, and best friends. Researchers also surveyed participants’ primary caregivers—who were mostly their mothers—and observed them interacting with their children. That study showed robust evidence that early experiences with caregivers matter for social development.

Between 2018 and 2022, 705 of the original participants, who by then were 26 to 31 years old, agreed to a follow-up study to collect information about their current relationships with their parents, best friends, and romantic partners. For those 705 participants, Dugan and her colleagues analyzed associations between the quality of early relationships and later attachment styles in adulthood. They found several notable patterns. First, a person’s relationship with their mother tended to set the stage for their later attachment style in general, as well as for their specific approaches to individual relationships with friends, romantic partners, and fathers. For instance, people who had more conflict with their mothers, were less close to their mothers, or had mothers who were reportedly harsher and showed less warmth during childhood and adolescence, tended to feel more insecure in their adult relationships.

The researchers didn’t find many associations between participants’ relationships with their fathers and their future attachment styles—perhaps because most identified their mother as their primary caregiver. “This cohort’s first assessment was in 1991, and even though the burden of caregiving still heavily falls on mothers, fathers were even less involved back then, on average,” Dugan says. “In cases where a father was the primary caregiver, the results might be flipped—but we don’t have that data.”

Early experiences with close friends, though, were an even stronger predicter than maternal relationships for determining participants’ approach to—specifically—romantic relationships and friendships in adulthood. “In general, if you had high-quality friendships and felt connected to your friends in childhood, then you felt more secure in romantic relationships and friendships at age 30,” Dugan says. People who enjoyed increasingly close and deepening friendships across childhood and adolescence also showed significant gains in those departments as adults, she adds.

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Last month, Eliud Kipchoge finished a marathon in 1 hour, 59 minutes and 40 seconds – an audacious feat that no one had ever accomplished before. Kipchoge is from the Kenyan Rift Valley region.

A day after he made history, Brigid Kosgei destroyed the women’s world record at the Chicago Marathon. She’s also from the Kenyan Rift Valley.

And in the New York Marathon on Sunday, a Kenyan rookie took down her country’s rock star in the women’s race. Joyciline Jepkosgei ruined countrywoman Mary Keitany’s chance at a fifth women’s title in the contest, but the latter came in second. And Kenyan Geoffrey Kamworor won the men’s race, his second NYC Marathon victory.

They’re all from the Rift Valley region. And people are taking note – marathoners from all over the world go there to train before major races.

East Africans – especially Kenyans and Ethiopians – have dominated marathons for decades, dashing across finish lines as their exhausted competitors barely made it. In the process, they’ve toppled their own records or those of their fellow citizens.

Kenyan marathon runners are such a phenomenon that research organizations have done studies on why they dominate long-distance races.

And experts say it’s mixture of several things.

Most of the elite runners are from the same region

Most Kenyan elite runners hail from the same ethnic groups known as the Kalenjins and the Nandis. The groups make up just 10% of the nation’s population of 50 million – but bring in a majority of the nation’s marathon medals.

“Internationally, Kalenjin runners have won close to 73% of all Kenyan gold medals and a similar percentage of silver medals at major international running competitions,” says Vincent O. Onywera, a professor of exercise and sports science at Kenyatta University in Nairobi.

They’ve passed on the passion for running across generations, turning the Rift Valley – especially the small town of Iten – into a mecca for the nation’s elite long-distance runners. There, children start running at a young age.

A lot of the young people from these areas grow up surrounded by successful runners. Most of them look at running as a way to make money, says coach Bernard Ouma, who trains elite Kenyan runners.

“You see your neighbor run and win, it motivates you to run and win,” he says. As a result, their communities have a deep tradition of running excellence built over the years.

They train and live in a high-altitude area

Most of the Kenyan runners who dominate marathons worldwide train and live in the high-altitude Rift Valley.

Iten, one of the towns that produces elite runners, sits nearly 8,000 feet above sea level in western Kenya. Training at high altitudes contributes to a running dominance that makes running at lower elevation child’s play, Onywera says.

“There is a widespread belief in the athletic community that altitude training can enhance sea level athletic performance, with at least three independent studies demonstrating that altitude training increases both sea level maximal oxygen consumption and running performance,” he says.

Then there’s diet and constant motivation

Iten has become known internationally as the place where long distance champions are made. So much so, runners from around the world go there to train before major races.

Running aficionado and author Adharanand Finn spent a lot of time in the town trying to find out the secret to Kenyan marathon runners. “I had a lifelong fascination with the uninhibited running style of the Kenyans and had always wanted to know the story behind their incredible athletes – I wanted to know what their lives were like. And when I saw there was no book, or at that time no films, on the subject, I decided to go there and write one.”

His book, “Running with the Kenyans,” gives more insight into what he found out. And there is no one major secret, he says.

“As the famed coach of David Rudisha, Brother Colm O’Connell, says, the only secret is that there’s no secret. It’s not one thing but a perfect storm of elements that come together in Kenya’s Rift Valley region to make the people there so strong at distance running,” Finn says.

There’s the location, the way of life, the environment.

“For a start, you have the altitude, the tough rural upbringing, and the fact that children run around everywhere. Then there is the simple diet, the lack of junk food, and the perfect running terrain — rolling hills, dirt roads — all over the place,” he says.

And if that doesn’t lure you in, there’s the proximity to international elite runners to motivate anyone.

“Running offers a great chance to make good money, to transform lives, even to transform whole communities,” Finn says. “This is compounded by the hundreds of role models everywhere. Almost every village has someone who has come back from ‘abroad’ with winnings, and these stars are very accessible and open to supporting the younger athletes.”

As a result, everyone who can run, aspires to be a runner, he says.

“You end up with thousands of people training together, pushing each other, helping each other, inspiring each other. This attracts agents, sponsors, coaches … and it keeps getting bigger. With all this impetus, some great athletes are going to emerge out the other end,” he says. “So really, it’s not a simple answer.”

Some have wondered whether genes play a role

There’s so much speculation on why Kenyans and Ethiopians keep crushing marathon competitions, the phenomenon has long been a subject of study. Organizations such as the British Journal of Sports Medicine have concluded that it’s unclear whether genes have anything to do with it.

“The periodic domination of middle and long distance running by different regions of the world is not a new phenomenon,” it says. “Researchers are yet to confirm a genetic or physiological advantage in being a middle or long distance runner of East African origin, and it is most likely that the reasons for their success are many.”

And while many physiological and anatomical factors have been suggested to explain the East African dominance, research has not revealed any definitive advantage, the study says.

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