Not long after this email arrives in your inbox, polls will close in Virginia, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri and Washington State. Many races will have implications not just for residents, but also for Democrats nationwide. You can follow the latest news and results here.

In Michigan, a bitter Senate primary race will come to an end between Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive former public health official, and Representative Haley Stevens, a centrist supported by party leaders. El-Sayed has led in recent polls, and a victory would be a milestone for the progressive left, my colleagues write in our newsletter The Tilt.

Progressive and centrist Democrats are also battling for shots at House seats today. Cori Bush, a democratic socialist who was part of the progressive group known as the squad, is in a rematch with Wesley Bell, a former prosecutor who defeated her in the 2024 primary for her St. Louis-area seat.

In Washington State, the moderate Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez holds one of just 18 House seats rated as tossups by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. In a nonpartisan primary, Gluesenkamp Perez faces challenges from the left and the right.

Negotiations progress on the Strait of Hormuz

A Qatari official said that talks to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which has been blockaded by Iran since February, were in “very progressive stages” and that draft language of a possible agreement had been “circulated among the parties.”

Iran and neighboring Oman — both of which abut the strait — have been negotiating how to administer the waterway, according to Iranian officials. The officials say they are designing the accord to ratify their capacity to control the strait and retain strategic leverage that they did not employ before the war.

Such an arrangement could come with a geopolitical cost for the U.S. Officials familiar with the proposal emerging from Iran and Oman have said that, under the new framework, vessels heading into the Persian Gulf would have to transit a channel controlled by Iran, while outbound ships would travel on a channel near Oman.

Man arrested on suspicion of starting a Spokane wildfire

The authorities in Spokane County, Wash., arrested a 37-year-old man suspected of starting the Old Trails fire, which investigators said appeared to have been intentionally set. The man was carrying waterproof matches and a butane lighter when he was arrested.

More than 700 buildings in the area have been destroyed by three wildfires, and more than 65,000 people have been evacuated. Higher temperatures and drier air are expected through the week. Winds were forecast to increase on Friday and Saturday, bringing back extremely critical fire weather.

How Uber fights sexual assault suits

A 24-year-old Florida woman sued Uber for negligence, claiming that it should have done more to screen out the driver who was serving a 10-year sentence for raping her — a man with prior violent felony convictions.

During her deposition, a lawyer for Uber asked her if she “felt regret” for mixing vodka and Adderall that night, what she had been wearing and if she had felt abandoned by her father or degraded by her mother. The aggressive strategy contradicts Uber’s stance as a champion in the fight against sexual violence, according to a Times investigation.

More top news

Totems of our time

Sculpture dates back to the prehistoric age, to early peoples’ use of stone flints to carve anthropomorphic figures out of mammoth ivory. Every culture since has made its own totems. My colleagues at T magazine set out to determine which sculptures of our era were the most totemic.

They convened a panel of experts that chose 25 sculptures that defined the modern age, including “A Subtlety,” Kara Walker’s immense sphinx coated in sugar; Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s bright pink “Surrounded Islands, Biscayne Bay, Greater Miami, Florida, 1980-83”; and more. Take a look at the rest of their picks.

A librettist’s American legacy

Alex Da Ponte is a figure in Memphis’s indie pop scene. His second cousin, Olivia Da Ponte, is a songwriter for Warner Chappell Music. It’s a family tradition: Both descend from Lorenzo Da Ponte, Mozart’s most important librettist and the man who did the most to introduce Italian opera to the U.S.

Lorenzo Da Ponte, who wrote “The Marriage of Figaro” and “Così Fan Tutte,” fled to the U.S. under a cloud of debt in the early 1800s. He started out in his new country as a grocer, became a professor of Italian at Columbia University and was responsible for the U.S. premiere of “Don Giovanni” — and eight generations of American families.

Dinner table topics

The jumping spiders of social media

Spiders, long maligned as creepy or terrifying, have undergone a remarkable reputational makeover. At the vanguard are jumping spiders: tiny, fuzzy, busy creatures that look cute on camera, staring intently with eight penetrating, beady black eyes.

Unlike the decades-old pet tarantula trade, which has long had a hypermasculine reputation, the jumping spider business is dominated by women. “People are really just discovering how clever and charming these animals are,” Nathan Morehouse, an ecologist, said. “If you as a person are interacting with them as a pet, you quickly begin to realize they’re paying attention to you very closely.”

Have a charming evening.

Thanks for reading. Matt will be back tomorrow. — Whet

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