The single biggest thing at stake in next month’s midterm elections has attracted only a sliver of the attention dedicated to subjects such as Dr Oz’s dog experiments, girls’ high school sports or Hunter Biden’s drug habit. The most important issue in this campaign is the Republican plan to reduce spending on popular social programs and jeopardize the full ...

Hiroshi Mikitani, founder of Japanese e-commerce empire Rakuten Group Inc, is keeping investors on hold while his own fortune declines. Once ranked the 25th richest person in Asia, Mikitani no longer even features in the top 140, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. It’s not hard to see why: Rakuten shares are trading near levels last seen in 2010 as ...

  By early next year, the US government will likely run out of money to pay for Covid-19 vaccines, tests and treatments. Although President Joe Biden has requested an additional $22 billion from Congress, Republicans are in no mood to continue splurging on the pandemic — not least because so much relief money has already been misspent. Shifting more costs ...