Republicans have increasingly identified themselves with working-class voters, but high prices are putting that relationship under pressure heading into the midterms. Grocery bills, gasoline, housing and utilities remain immediate concerns, while Democrats are trying to claim affordability as their own issue. The argument here is that Republicans can't simply point backward at the causes of inflation; as the party in power, they now face pressure to show voters that today's household bills are coming down.

The Supreme Court's biggest cases routinely produce ideological showdowns, but the overall numbers tell a different story. More than 44% of cases last term were unanimous, 62% were unanimous or nearly unanimous, and more than three-quarters produced no ideological split—complicating the familiar picture of nine justices divided predictably into political camps.

Twenty-two states and the District of Columbia are suing to block the Trump administration's new public-charge rule, which gives immigration officers broader discretion to consider an applicant's use of means-tested public benefits when deciding whether to grant permanent residency. The lawsuit opens another front in the fight over how heavily economic self-sufficiency should weigh in legal immigration decisions.

A decade after the 2015 migration surge, Europe is confronting the demographic, cultural and political consequences of mass immigration. Rapid population change, integration disputes and concerns about crime and extremism have moved questions once pushed to the margins into mainstream political debate, helping fuel a broader backlash against Europe's immigration consensus.