Progressive El-Sayed Projected to Win Primary; Houthi Threat amid Hormuz Talks

Today's top stories, with context, in just 15 minutes.  

On today's podcast:  

1) Abdul El-Sayed is projected to win the Democratic US Senate primary in Michigan, according to NBC, defeating Representative Haley Stevens. El-Sayed will face off against Republican Mike Rogers in the general election. Polls had forecast El-Sayed with as much as a double-digit lead over Stevens. Even with the narrower-than-projected result, El-Sayed’s win portends both a reckoning within the Democratic Party as well as smouldering ideological fissures with the Nov. 3 election looming. The 2026 Democratic primary season has been marked by the intra-party squabble between centrists and progressives over the party’s direction.  

2) Oil erased a decline as Yemen's Houthi militant group issued a fresh threat against Middle East shipping, tempering optimism over US-Iran talks. Houthi spokesperson Yahya Saree said the group would escalate attacks on Saudi vessels in the northern Red Sea — a key workaround route during disruption in the Strait of Hormuz. It comes as the prospect of an interim deal focused on the Strait of Hormuz gained traction after Qatar said a proposal had been drafted and both American and Iranian officials sounded hopeful about reopening the crucial waterway.  

3) SpaceX stock fell after it disclosed higher-than-expected spending on its artificial intelligence business, dampening an inaugural quarterly report that broadly surpassed Wall Street forecasts. SpaceX reported revenue of $7.8 billion, greater than the $6.81 billion analysts estimated on average, and said it lost 9 cents a share for the quarter, less than the 24-cent loss analysts forecast. Musk told analysts that he expects the cadence of AI development to improve dramatically and that SpaceX would reach a $100 billion annual run-rate revenue by year’s end, which is higher than the $38.6 billion forecast by analysts.

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