Senator Darline Graham had been seen as a caretaker for her brother’s seat after his sudden death. Now she has the president’s nod in what was shaping up to be a crowded fight to succeed Lindsey Graham.

Also, U.S. start-up activity is booming. Here’s the latest at the end of Friday.

The fund-raising race is tighter than it seems.

Chinese officials appear to think that President Trump’s accusations that China interfered in the 2020 U.S. elections were driven by domestic politics, not foreign policy.

There were orange skies in 2023, 2025 and now again in 2026. Over the last few years, one thing has become glaringly clear: The East Coast is totally unequipped for the next climate disaster, wildfires. The Opinion writer David Wallace-Wells explains that with every climate disaster, we’re not just adapting to a “new normal,” but bracing ourselves for what’s next.

Federal health officials have linked a large cyclosporiasis outbreak to shredded lettuce served at Taco Bell. Is lettuce from grocery stores and restaurants OK?

Most G.O.P. lawmakers had little to say about the president’s claims of election vulnerabilities, and he did not appear to move the needle on the voting restriction bill he championed.

The president said on Friday in a social media post that Canada was failing to manage its wildfire response as smoke has blanketed U.S. cities including New York and Chicago.

The interplay between the burning fires, the smoke itself and quickly changing weather patterns is making the next few days more uncertain than usual.

Investors are growing uneasy about increasing competition from China in the global race to dominate artificial intelligence.

China’s Moonshot AI unveiled a freely available artificial intelligence model that seemed to narrow the gap with cutting-edge offerings from U.S. tech companies.

Intelligence agencies provided the White House with a trove of declassified documents that President Trump cited on Thursday as evidence of election vulnerabilities.

Markwayne Mullin reiterated the president’s false claims about voting security while escalating the administration’s legally questionable attempts to control state elections.

Shipping traffic was at its lowest level in more than a month and oil prices moved higher as the Iran war continued to disrupt the supply of energy.

A deal would underline how scarce computing power is for artificial intelligence development, and could create a new business for Meta.

Like his predecessors, President Trump has struggled to turn battlefield successes into long-term victories.

See some of the best images from the world’s most popular sporting event.

Satellite imagery shows the wide footprint of the smoke across the continent.