It’s Wednesday, May 6. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: Eli Lake asks, is the war back on? A Cornell student rejects calls for his university’s president to be fired. Razib Khan on a consensus-shattering new scientific paper about human evolution. Plus: Will Rahn chats with two Catholics about UFOs and aliens. All that and more.
But first: the radicals storming the gates of the Democratic Party.
Have the radicals arrived? In the eight months since he launched his Senate campaign, Graham Platner has risen from populist outsider with a Nazi tattoo to presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party. Last week he edged out Janet Mills, Maine’s sitting governor, from the Senate primary. And he took a victory lap over the weekend when he spoke to delegates of the state party he just conquered.
Typically, a convention speech is a chance to tack toward the center and rally the party around its most popular ideals. Instead, Platner leaned into the hardened class warfare that powered his rise. “For decades, the powerful have taken,” he told the crowd. “Piece by piece, store by store, hospital by hospital, shore by shore, they have taken.” He named the supposed thieves: “billionaires,” “corporations,” “oligarchs,” and “the Epstein class.” And he devoted his campaign to “taking back what is ours.”
A man like Platner might never have reached this summit even a few years ago. Especially among Democrats, professional leaders and donors could usually crush upstart candidates by directing funds toward their preferred, established nominees. This time, that tactic failed badly. Platner lapped Mills in fundraising, and she cited her dwindling coffers when she dropped out.
What changed? Today Ruy Teixeira explains how left-wing candidates found a new source of funding. It’s tipping the scales in primary races, and it could change the face of the party entirely.
Platner isn’t alone. In the Michigan Senate primary, left-wing candidate Abdul El-Sayed has also surged in the polls after entering the race near the bottom of the pack. He’s harshly critical of Israel, and he enlisted anti-Zionist Twitch streamer Hasan Piker for the biggest events of his campaign.
El-Sayed’s aim is to spread a message; governing is an afterthought. Dan Saltman believes radicals are taking over politics because voters increasingly favor performers over producers. Will Michigan voters endorse that approach? Their choice will reflect the direction of the nation.
—Mene Ukueberuwa
President Donald Trump has declared the operation with Iran “terminated,” even as hostilities continue in the Strait of Hormuz, putting the war in rhetorical and legal limbo in the halls of Congress and the eyes of the law. Eli Lake reports on how the administration is factoring in the demands of the War Powers Resolution to scale down operations, while ensuring the Strait of Hormuz remains open and Operation Epic Fury’s goals are achieved.
Cornell University president Michael Kotlikoff made national news when he ran over a student’s foot with his car after a group of pro-Palestinian students followed him to the parking lot after a student debate over the war in the Middle East. Some now want him fired. Cornell student Noah Farb finds it a “shame” that his president might be fired or punished—and tells the full story about the incident that made headlines.
For years, scientists thought human evolution had ground to a halt. A new study has demolished that consensus with a thrilling conclusion: that, as the geneticist Razib Khan puts it, humans “are an adapting animal not just in theory, but in reality.” Read his essay on the groundbreaking paper, and why we are not simply cavemen wearing suits.
Can religious people believe in aliens? In the newest installment of Will Rahn seeking the truth about aliens and UFOs, he talks to two Catholics, Ross Douthat and Diana Pasulka, about why their belief in aliens doesn’t conflict with their deeply held Catholic faith.
On Monday, Alberta separatists claimed to have gathered over 300,000 signatures, enough to trigger a provincial referendum on leaving Canada. But one pro-secession group, the Centurion Project, is under fire for its access to nearly all voter data in the province. In “This Week in Canada,” Rupa Subramanya outlines the scandal worrying some Albertans.
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THE NEWS
Primary voters in Ohio took to the polls on Tuesday, teeing up hotly contested congressional and gubernatorial races. Former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy secured the GOP nomination and will face Democrat Amy Acton in November. Former Democrat senator Sherrod Brown will face Republican incumbent Jon Husted, who was appointed to the seat when J.D. Vance, who unseated Brown, became vice president.
A handful of Indiana state senators lost to Trump-backed challengers in primary elections on Tuesday, just months after they bucked President Trump’s call to redistrict Indiana. Republican Gregory Goode, who voted against the redistricting push, won reelection after defeating two challengers, one of whom was endorsed by Trump. Roughly $12 million was spent in seven races to oust the Republicans who refused the redistricting attempt.
Cole Allen, the alleged attempted assassin at this year’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner, was indicted Tuesday by a federal grand jury on four counts, including attempting to assassinate the president of the United States. Allen was also charged with two firearm-related offenses and assault of a police officer with a deadly weapon.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth confirmed that the U.S.-Iran ceasefire remains intact, even after two U.S. naval vessels dodged Iranian missiles and a drone on Monday while escorting commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz. “The ceasefire is not over,” he told reporters, noting that the escort mission, dubbed “Project Freedom,” is separate from Operation Epic Fury.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) sued The New York Times on Tuesday, alleging that the organization violated federal civil rights law by passing over a white male employee for a promotion. “Federal law is clear: Making hiring or promotion decisions motivated in whole or in part by race or sex violates federal law,” EEOC chair Andrea Lucas wrote in a statement.
The Education Department opened a federal civil rights probe on Monday into Smith College, an all-women’s college, for admitting transgender women. “Allowing biological males into spaces designed for women raises serious concerns about privacy, fairness, and compliance under federal law,” said Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kimberly Richey.
Two people are dead, and three more are injured after a shooting inside a Korean supermarket outside of Dallas on Tuesday morning. A 69-year-old man, Seung Han Ho, was taken into custody, police said, after a brief foot chase. The shooting is believed to have started after what authorities called a “business meeting.”
Thirty theater productions were nominated for this year’s Tony Awards, the group announced Tuesday morning. The nominations are 12 fewer than last year, largely due to a smaller pool of eligible productions currently performing. The two most-nominated shows were Schmigadoon! and The Lost Boys.
Hey, you missed DC Judge Zia Faruqui APOLOGIZING to our indicted Friendly Federal assassin because he felt the poor man was not treated as well as J6 defendants.
Please, Will -- stop with the UFO stuff, okay? 🙄