A Nail-Biter in Michigan – The New York Times

Good morning. Votes are still trickling in for one of the biggest primary races of the year, the Democratic contest for a Senate seat in Michigan. We’ll start there.

Still counting

A marquee Senate race in Michigan, which Democrats are watching to gauge the strength of a left-wing insurgence that has swept through primary elections this year, remains too close to call this morning.

Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive former public health official, leads Representative Haley Stevens by just over one percentage point, with more than 95 percent of votes counted in the state. But the largest share of uncounted votes is in Wayne County, which includes Detroit, where Stevens has held an edge. See live results here.

Recent polls had forecast a comfortable victory for El-Sayed, who promised to end U.S. military aid to Israel and attacked Stevens repeatedly for taking at least $30 million from AIPAC, a pro-Israel lobbying group. The race wound up a lot tighter.

“We knew this was going to be a close race, and that’s exactly what we’ve got,” Stevens told supporters shortly before 1 a.m.

Left-wing candidates have won plenty of primaries this year, despite seemingly endless Democratic hand-wringing about their ability to court mainstream voters come November. But their victories have been largely confined to highly educated and heavily blue areas in urban America. El-Sayed wants to break that trend.

At least one progressive candidate scored a decisive win last night: Down ballot in Michigan, the left-wing organizer William Lawrence prevailed in one of the most competitive House districts in the country after his two centrist opponents, each refusing to drop out of the race, split the moderate vote. When I interviewed Lawrence over the weekend, he told me it was his priority “to stop these stupid wars around the world that are wasting trillions of our dollars, including for war crimes committed by Israel.”

More elections results

In Kansas …

• Cindy Holscher, a state senator who called for a pause on the construction of data centers, is the Democrats’ pick to try to keep the governor’s mansion blue in a deep-red state.

• The pastor of the largest United Methodist congregation in the country, the Rev. Adam Hamilton, won the Democratic nominee for Senate. He faces an uphill battle: The state hasn’t sent a Democrat to the Senate in nearly 100 years.

• Voters rejected a ballot measure that would have required state Supreme Court justices to be elected, rather than appointed by the governor. (That’ll be a setback for Republicans hoping to overturn the court’s decision legalizing abortion.)

In Missouri …

And in Virginia: Democratic primary voters chose former Representative Elaine Luria to face Representative Jen Kiggans, a Republican, in a House race expected to be one of the most competitive in the country this fall.

See all of the results from last night’s races.

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Everyone needs a hobby. For Charles Darwin, the father of evolutionary biology, it was carnivorous plants. He obsessed over them, studied their features and wrote about them with obvious excitement. He once remarked that he cared more about sundews — plants that lure insects into gluey traps and eat them — “than the origin of all the species in the world.”

Can you blame him? I can’t. I love carnivorous plants, too. When I was 10 or 11, I spent months begging my parents for a Venus fly trap. (They wouldn’t budge, so I settled for a mini red cactus I found by the checkout line at Home Depot.)

In 1875, Darwin theorized that alpine plants with sticky hairs reminiscent of his beloved sundews, in the genus Saxifraga, could be flesh-eating. He tempted two species with insects but ultimately couldn’t prove they were carnivores.

Now, more than 150 years later, scientists have vindicated Darwin’s hypothesis. A team of researchers served tiny flies to a Saxifraga species in China and found that the plants could digest and absorb nutrients from their prey. A botanist at Michigan State University said there could be hundreds, even thousands, of other species with similarly sticky hairs, including the common tomato. Some of them may be secretly carnivorous.

OPINIONS

What objects best represent American culture? A writer makes the case for the red solo cup, the plastic lawn flamingo, the dog stroller and 22 more curiosities.

Gun culture, a cowboy ethos and rural isolation have contributed to a suicide crisis in Wyoming, German Lopez writes.

MORNING READS

100

— That is the number of endangered plant and animal species that will benefit from a new $200 million project involving organizations started by Jeff Bezos and Leonardo DiCaprio. Bezos’ involvement has raised questions for some conservationists, given that Amazon is helping fuel the problems the fund seeks to solve. “Does it fully offset their responsibility?” said one. “No, but this is a really cool fund that is super needed.”

SPORTS

N.F.L.: Bijan Robinson and the Atlanta Falcons agreed on a three-year deal that makes him the highest-paid running back in league history by average annual salary.

Tennis: Carlos Alcaraz pulled out of the upcoming Cincinnati Open to continue rehab on his injured wrist. With the U.S. Open a little over three weeks away, the defending champ could miss a third straight Grand Slam.

RECIPE OF THE DAY

A lot of one-pot pastas come out dry or gooey. Not Alexa Weibel’s one-pot zucchini-basil pasta. Cooking the noodles in just enough seasoned stock means they’re done in the same amount of time it takes the liquid to reduce into a concentrated, extra flavorful sauce. Mascarpone makes it silky; if you don’t have any, crème fraîche or even softened cream cheese can serve as a stand-in.

When the New York Historical realized that the sunlight shining through the large windows in its new wing could damage some vulnerable items on display, it replaced them with reproductions. The decision started a debate among experts and readers about authenticity, particularly in the age of A.I. Read their thoughts and then add your own.

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