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How Abdul El-Sayed went from political oblivion to progressive breakthrough in Michigan Senate race

DETROIT (AP) -- Abdul El-Sayed, a former public health official who harnessed Democratic frustration with the party establishment, narrowly defeated Rep. Haley Stevens in Michigan's U.S. Senate primary, setting up a crucial test for progressives in a key battleground state.

El-Sayed will face Republican Mike Rogers, a former congressman, in November in a race that will help determine control of the Senate. His first challenge will be unifying Democratic factions after a bitter primary that offered divergent visions for a party desperate for a path back to power.

The margin was extraordinarily close. El-Sayed walked off the stage at his Tuesday night election party without declaring victory, and the race was not called until early Wednesday, after nearly all ballots statewide had been counted. At the time The Associated Press declared him the winner, El-Sayed led Stevens by 14,893 votes -- just under 1 percentage point -- out of more than 1.5 million ballots counted, the most in recent state history.

The political significance of the result, however, extends well beyond the slim margin.

"Abdul's victory was, in my opinion, the most extraordinary victory that I can think of in modern American politics," said Sen. Bernie Sanders Wednesday, a leader of the progressive movement who was an early supporter of El-Sayed's candidacy.

El-Sayed, 41, has never held elected office and entered the race seven years after losing Michigan's Democratic gubernatorial primary by more than 20 percentage points. This time, running on an unapologetically progressive agenda, he overcame more than $60 million in outside spending and an opponent backed by many of Michigan's top Democrats, including outgoing Sen. Gary Peters, and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer.

"In the words of Muhammad Ali, we shook up the world," El-Sayed said early Wednesday, standing before The Spirit of Detroit, a landmark bronze statue in the city's downtown.

El-Sayed was joined on Wednesday by state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, a former opponent in the Senate primary, and Curtis Hertel, chair of the Michigan Democratic Party. It was an initial step toward a unified front after a bitter primary, and it reflected El-Sayed's extraordinary political trajectory in less than a decade.

After losing the 2018 Democratic primary for governor to Gretchen Whitmer, El-Sayed retreated into the political wilderness. He started a podcast, wrote a book and became a regular presence on YouTube and television, slowly building a following while waiting for a political opening he did not know would come.

It arrived when Peters made the surprise announcement that he would not seek reelection, creating an open Senate seat in one of the country's most competitive states.

No evidence? No problem. Trump pushes ahead on false claims that Reflecting Pool was vandalized

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Jeanine Pirro this week found out there is a trade-off between loyalty to President Donald Trump and being loyal to reality.

The U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia -- a fierce defender and decades-long friend -- openly refuted Trump's claims of vandalism regarding one of his treasured construction projects in the nation's capital, admitting in court filings that damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was due to shoddy workmanship.

The moment comes as the Republican president is struggling to convince Americans that they should believe what he is telling them about the economy, his agenda and his war on Iran before pivotal midterm elections in the fall -- and reveals the inherent challenges for his team in delivering hard truths he does not want to hear. Trump has historically engaged in exaggeration, but this was a moment in which he wanted a U.S. citizen, Olympic canoeist David Hearn, to be indicted, tried and possibly imprisoned for the act of touching a chunk of sealant in the already damaged pool.

The White House said that Trump was not aware ahead of time that Pirro's office would drop the charges.

Trump says he told Pirro he was "not happy" about her decision and that a video backed him up even though it is not clear from the footage shot at a distance that any property destruction occurred. "Well I just think she was totally wrong," Trump told reporters Tuesday night. "And everybody saw the vandalism."

By publicly rebuking Pirro, Trump sent a message to other administration officials that he is not to be contradicted, regardless of what the facts show.

"He just blows it up like a keg of dynamite -- it's a form of intimidating employees to be in group-think," said Rice University professor Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian. "'If you work for me, you triple down.' Never disagree with the boss, even in a small fractional way."

Trump has faced withering criticism for launching the war with Iran without fully laying out the rationale for the public or considering that country's ability to withstand intense bombing. Trump snubbed a housing bill to address the affordability problems that voters say are their biggest concern, letting it become law without his signature.

Some Republican lawmakers have suggested that Trump is being sheltered from facts or chalk up his choices to poor staff work. During Trump's second term, Republican senators including Ted Cruz of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina have said Trump was receiving "bad advice," a subtle critique of the president that shifts blame onto the aides who are supposed to be providing him with credible information.

The latest blow-up "reflects a president who is struggling to shape the narrative as his national approval ratings remain extremely low," said Julian Zelizer, a political history professor at Princeton University. "The more controversy that he faces -- over Iran, the Epstein files, inflation and more -- the less control he has and the stronger the chances that he will be forced to confront reality."

The president continues to dwell on the 2020 election that he falsely claims to have won. He likes to boast that America is booming with an unverifiable $19.2 trillion in investments from foreign countries, even as economic growth has been meager over the prior three months. He posted a Jesus-like picture of himself on social media and said after a backlash that he thought it depicted him as a medical doctor.

The White House did not respond to questions about how aides brief the president and whether officials feel comfortable providing information that could contradict his public statements.

Investigators look at why a plane was allowed to take off as President Trump's helicopter approached

WASHINGTON (AP) -- It's not clear why a plane was allowed to take off as President Donald Trump's helicopter was approaching Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on Tuesday afternoon in an apparent violation of safety procedures put in place after last year's midair collision near the busy airport.

Both the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration said Wednesday they were investigating what happened when a commercial jet took off just as Marine One left the White House for Andrews Air Force Base with the president aboard for the first leg of a West Coast trip.

The FAA decided after 67 people died on Jan. 29, 2025, when an airliner collided with an Army Black Hawk helicopter that all takeoffs and landings at the Washington, D.C., airport would be halted anytime a helicopter passes by on a conflicting route. The airspace near the White House and Reagan is heavily congested with military and commercial aircraft.

The airplane that took off Tuesday was climbing above Marine One as the helicopter approached, so the two aircraft were not on a collision course.

The FAA said in a statement that a preliminary investigation showed "there was a momentary loss of separation after which the aircraft continued to move away from one another."

"The air traffic controller was in contact with both the commercial pilot and Marine One pilot during the loss of separation," the FAA said.

The White House emphasized that Trump was never in danger.

"Marine One flights are piloted by some of the best aviators in the world, and at no point was the President in harm's way," White House spokesperson Kush Desai said in a statement.

The Marine Corps defended the actions of their helicopter pilots.

"There were no 'close calls' with the routine Marine One movement," Marine Corps spokesperson Capt. Jacob Sugg said in an email. "Washington National Tower did not delay the helicopter crew, ask them to hold, or otherwise alter their flight profile."

The Wall Street Journal first reported the incident.

Home where astronaut Neil Armstrong's boyhood dreams of flying took off is for sale

WAPAKONETA, Ohio (AP) -- Inside Neil Armstrong's boyhood home, at the top of a creaky stairway, sits his bedroom where he launched model airplanes out of the rear window to measure how far they'd fly.

Hanging in the room now are autographed photos of astronauts who've visited the privately kept house to see where Armstrong's first steps to the moon began.

Owned by a retired history teacher devoted to preserving its past and charming character, the home is for sale for the first time in nearly 40 years. What will become of it remains uncertain.

All over Armstrong's hometown of Wapakoneta, there are reminders of his history-making moonwalk. But few places played a bigger role early in his journey than 601 W. Benton St. -- the house where the Armstrong family settled in western Ohio when he was a young teenager.

It's where Armstrong built planes out of balsa wood and glue in the dining room and constructed a basement wind tunnel to test his models. He'd often pedal his bike from home to take flying lessons at an airstrip.

At age 16, Armstrong made his first solo flight and got his pilot's license. Just 20 years later, he rocketed into space for the first time. After the 1969 moon landing, he taught at the University of Cincinnati.

Today, Armstrong's two-story boyhood home is an occasional stop for visitors to the Armstrong Air and Space Museum in Wapakoneta, even though the house itself isn't open for tours.

When Karen Mikesell bought the place in 1988, she had no idea who once lived there until another teacher soon told her.

As a history teacher who later became a school principal, Mikesell felt a responsibility to "keep it like the Armstrongs had it," she said.

She's hosted nine astronauts, including Buzz Aldrin, who flew to the moon with Armstrong and Michael Collins in 1969.

Aldrin stepped inside the bedroom upstairs a few years after Armstrong died in 2012, Mikesell recalled, "and the tears just streamed down his cheeks."

Over the years, she's been given a moon rock and received a piece of gold foil that covered the Apollo 11 capsule -- a gift from one of the Navy frogmen who helped recover the command module and its crew.

Some astronauts autographed their photos with personal messages to Mikesell -- "thanks for taking such great care of Neil's home!" wrote Mike Foreman, who flew on two space shuttle missions.

"You can read books, but you can never have those kinds of experiences that I was able to have because I lived here," she said. "I could go on and on."

State of New Mexico sues Justice Department and Todd Blanche, saying they blocked its Epstein probe

CEDAR CREST, N.M. (AP) -- New Mexico's attorney general sued the U.S. Department of Justice on Wednesday, accusing it of blocking the state from investigating sex crimes at Jeffrey Epstein's sprawling ranch near Santa Fe.

The lawsuit in federal court in Washington, D.C., said the department and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche stonewalled New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez's criminal investigation into Epstein and others, taking steps that "actively harms victims and undermines the public interest."

The lawsuit sought judicial intervention to force the federal government to turn over materials to New Mexico's investigators. It was filed the same day that the New Mexico House of Representatives released a report saying "those directly responsible for protecting New Mexicans relied on others to do their job," including federal prosecutors in New York.

According to the Washington lawsuit, Torrez and his senior prosecutors "have faced sustained resistance" to the kind of information-sharing common between state and federal investigators.

In a statement, the Justice Department said it was not releasing some information the state requested because federal court orders ban disclosing "victim-identifying information carte blanche, and New Mexico has provided no lawful basis to justify such sweeping disclosures."

It said protecting victim privacy remains a top priority, though the Justice Department "remains available to assist New Mexico's investigation consistent with the law and binding court orders."

The lawsuit said the Justice Department and Blanche were hiding information about Epstein and his co-conspirators when New Mexico is one of the few jurisdictions that may still be able to hold Epstein's associates accountable or "provide some sense of justice to survivors."

In a video conference call with reporters, Torrez said his office has made 10 separate requests for key information and has been ignored or denied.

"We have heard repeatedly they will cooperate and what our team has experienced is anything but cooperation," Torrez said.

Gene-edited beagles may offer a future option for people with dog allergies

NEW YORK (AP) -- Matt Walker couldn't pet a dog without sneezing -- until he and other scientists used a gene editing technique to produce a hypoallergenic beagle named Bailey.

Now, he can feed Bailey spoons of peanut butter while she lies on his lap and play fetch with her in Central Park. His allergies didn't go away: Bailey's saliva and hair no longer contain a key allergy-causing protein.

"The feeling right now is sort of a mix of relief and awe and gratitude that it worked," said Walker, a geneticist. His company, Kindred Companion Sciences, created Bailey and her twin Alfie using a Nobel Prize-winning technique called CRISPR.

It'll take years before the millions who suffer from dog-related allergies can walk into a pet store and buy a pooch like Alfie or Bailey.

Scientists have to monitor the long-term health effects of the genetic tweak, and find ways to commercialize the approach to make it affordable. And experts not involved with the effort say it could hurt shelter and rescue animals waiting to be adopted.

"It opens the door to a lot more people being able to own pets. On the negative side, it may discourage people from trying to use strays and unwanted animals that are not engineered to be allergy-free," said bioethicist Arthur Caplan with New York University's Grossman School of Medicine.

Researchers have tried to create hypoallergenic pets before, mostly using cloning. But this led to sicker pups that were too genetically similar. Two years ago, researchers used CRISPR to reduce levels of an allergy-causing protein in a cat named Alsik. But it's not yet clear whether this technique is safe to be tested on other cats.

Dogs that shed less, like poodles, are often thought of as hypoallergenic. But these pups still produce allergy-causing proteins that end up in their saliva, hair and dander, so they can still make people sniffly.

To create Alfie and Bailey, scientists started in the lab. They edited the genetic code inside dog skin cells, switching off the main gene responsible for producing allergy-causing proteins. Then they transferred the edited genetic code into eggs that went into a beagle surrogate that gave birth to two healthy female pups in September 2024. Scientists tested their saliva and fur and didn't find signs of the allergy-causing protein.

They also performed an allergy test, pricking Walker's skin with extracts from Alfie and Bailey's saliva and dander. His skin reacted to samples from a poodle and goldendoodle, but not from the beagles.

The research, published Wednesday in the CRISPR Journal, is the first time such an approach has been tried successfully in dogs.