"There are no second acts in American lives," F Scott Fitzgerald once famously wrote. But once in a while in American elections there is the opportunity for a do-over.

So white people who are struggling financially are going to vote Republican. And not by a narrow margin. Asked in a recent Washington Post poll which candidate would do more to advance their families' economic interests, middle-class white voters who said they were struggling to maintain their financial positions chose Mitt Romney. And not by a small margin. In this category he beats Barack Obama by 58% to 32%.

On Friday morning in Brighton Park, a neighbourhood in southwest Chicago, around half a dozen Latina volunteers in luminous bibs patrolled the streets around Davis Elementary school. The school sits in the crossfire of three gangs; the Kings, the 2/6s and the SDs (Satan's Disciples). The trees and walls nearby are peppered with "tags" denoting territory and mourning fallen gang members. There is a shooting in the area every couple of weeks, explains Mariela Estrada of the Brighton Park Neighbourhood Council, which facilitates the volunteers.

Three Nato protesters arrested in a late night raid on Wednesday have each been held on a $1.5m bond over alleged terrorism-related offences.

Three Nato protesters, arrested in a late night raid on Wednesday, have been charged on terrorism-related offences.

Chicagoans woke up on Friday to the prospect of a long weekend of global attention and local chaos, as around 60 world leaders started to arrive for the Nato summit. The front page of the Chicago Sun-Times suggested Nato was an acronym for Now Arrives The Ordeal.

Explaining his desire to host both the G8 and the Nato summits in Chicago, Rahm Emanuel, the city's mayor told an aide: "It's just like the Olympics, only easier to get."

In exit polls during the Republican primaries, voters were given four choices about what they believed to be the most important quality in a candidate: "can defeat Obama", "true conservative", "strong moral character" and "right experience".

Shortly after Mitt Romney's failed 2008 campaign for the Republican nomination his son Tagg set up a private equity fund with the campaign's top fundraiser. One of the first donors was his mum, Anne. Next came several of his dad's financial backers. Tagg had no experience in the world of finance, but after two years in the middle of a deep recession the company had netted $244m from just 64 investors.

Last week, two coalition troops were injured and one killed by Afghan soldiers; the US reached an agreement with the Afghan government to maintain a presence in the country until 2024; and the US failed to break a diplomatic deadlock with Pakistan after the US refused to apologise for killing 25 Pakistani soldiers in November.