Senate Republicans are returning to a strategy they hope could neutralize their Democratic rivals' financial edge: Find rich people to run. But wealthy candidates running in Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin present a fresh set of challenges. One is hoping to recoup his own money before collecting resources for the fall race with well-funded Democrats. Others face questions about their past or where they live and spend most of their time. In each case, the relative unknown GOP contender is in a state critical to the party's chances to reclaim a Senate majority and is challenging a well-established, robust fundraiser seeking a third or fourth term in the closely divided Senate.

D-Day veteran Charles Shay is about to take part next month in the 80th celebrations of the landings in Normandy that led to the liberation of France and Europe from Nazi Germany occupation. Then a 19-year-old U.S. Army medic, the Penobscot tribe citizen from Maine says he was ready to give his life. He also sought to save as many as he could. Now 99, he’s spreading a message of peace with tireless dedication. Nearly 160,000 troops from Britain, the U.S., Canada and other nations who landed on June 6, 1944 on the Normandy shores. Shay said he did his job and “did not have time to worry” about his situation of being there and perhaps losing his own life.

The fight to allow same-sex marriage and gay clergy has defined much of the last half-century for major mainline Protestant denominations in the U.S. Within these theologically moderate-to-progressive Protestant groups, the decades of wrestling over whether to reaffirm or overturn longstanding anti-LGBTQ+ church policies sowed deep divisions. It’s caused hurt feelings, broken relationships, disciplinary church trials and schisms. The United Methodist Church stripped out its bans and related social teachings over the past two weeks. It is the last of the major mainline church bodies to go through this process.

Dick Rutan, along with copilot Jeana Yeager, completed one of the greatest milestones in aviation history: the first round-the-world flight with no stops or refueling. A decorated Vietnam War pilot, Rutan died Friday evening at a hospital in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. He was 85. His friend Bill Whittle says he died on his own terms, declining a second night of oxygen after suffering a severe lung infection. “He played an airplane like someone plays a grand piano,” said Burt Rutan of his brother, who was often described as has having a velvet arm because of his smooth flying style.