Sam brown

Unpacking the race for the US Senate

In the middle of the most chaotic presidential election in the modern era, with its death race through senility, assassination attempts and a manufactured coup, voters can be forgiven for their lack of focus on the partisan makeup of the United States Senate. But when it comes to what a Trump or Harris presidency could achieve, the answer may be determined by a handful of extremely close senatorial elections where a dearth of reliable polling has even longtime political insiders flying blind. Democrats have held the Senate since 2021, thanks to Republicans’ bungled attempt to hold on to two key seats in Georgia in the wake of Donald Trump’s attacks on early voting and mail-in ballots.

Senate

A completely satisfying operatic experience: Opera North’s Parsifal reviewed

From our UK edition

When Parsifal finally returns to Montsalvat, it’s Good Friday. He’s trodden the path of suffering but now the sun is shining. Confused, he turns to the aged and broken Gurnemanz: why, on this day of utmost grief, does not the whole of nature mourn? Gurnemanz gestures at the woods and meadows, glowing, as Wagner tells us, in the morning light: ‘You see, it is not so.