NEW JERSEY’s gubernatorial election, held in odd-numbered years following presidential contests, offers an early measure of how Donald Trump is faring and how upcoming mid-term elections for control of Congress are shaping up. The two major parties will choose their candidates in a primary election on June 10th. Mr Trump looms large; last November he came within six points of pulling off a shocking upset here. Amid MAGA triumphalism in Washington, Republicans and Democrats will define themselves by who their voters select for what looks likely to be a competitive November contest.

TO SOME he embodies the “revenge of the field-grade officers”, the angry mid-ranking veterans who returned from Iraq and Afghanistan with loathing for the politicians and generals who sent them to fight losing wars. Pete Hegseth, a former army major and now America’s defence secretary, celebrates soldiers “with dust on their boots”. But though he may be a MAGA radical at home, there are signs that he is turning into a surprisingly conventional American globalist abroad.

PITY THE cyclists of New York City. As well as having to slalom double-parked cars and piles of rubbish, they only get a few weeks a year without oppressive humidity or frigid cold. And this spring, even their meteorological bliss has been disturbed. The New York Police Department (NYPD) has started issuing criminal summonses for bike riders committing a slew of seemingly low-level fouls. Now, if caught running red lights, stopping in the pedestrian crossing or wearing headphones, wayward cyclists must appear before a judge, even if they are not contesting the fine. If they do not, they risk arrest.