What happened
Dolly Parton, the music superstar who wrote and recorded iconic songs like “I Will Always Love You” and “Jolene,” died yesterday in Nashville after “bravely facing a brief battle with cancer,” her publicist said. She was 80. Over her six-decade career, Parton wrote more than 3,000 songs, sold more than 100 million records, and won 11 Grammys and numerous other accolades. She also gifted more than 300 million books to children worldwide through her Imagination Library program.

Who said what
From “hardscrabble beginnings to glittering stardom,” Parton’s life was the “stuff of make-believe,” said The New York Times. Her songs “vividly captured details of her impoverished Appalachian upbringing” and “shared her views on love, faith, loss and regret,” said Rolling Stone. Parton’s “curvy physique, massive blond wigs and skin-tight outfits” served her “self-deprecating wit,” The Associated Press said, and she was the “rare celebrity whose appeal transcended generations, geography and politics.”

Parton’s legacy is “not celebrity but humanity,” Country Music Hall of Fame CEO Kyle Young said in a statement. She was a “champion of equality and literacy” and a “picture of dignity, even when dressed outrageously.”

What next?
“At Dolly’s request, a small, private service will be held for immediate family,” Parton’s family said in a statement. “In lieu of flowers,” fans and friends can donate to Imagination Library. 

What happened
Sen. Darline Graham (R-S.C.) yesterday won the Republican primary to succeed her late brother, Sen. Lindsey Graham, defeating hard-right Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) 52% to 48%. At President Donald Trump’s urging, Gov. Henry McMaster (R) last month appointed Graham to serve out the last six months of her brother’s term. 

Trump’s pick for Oklahoma governor, businessman Mike Mazzei, also narrowly beat state Attorney General Gentner Drummond in yesterday’s GOP runoff primary. In Georgia’s heavily Democratic 13th Congressional District, former school board chair Everton Blair Jr. won a special election to fill out the term of Rep. David Scott (D), who died in April.

Who said what
The South Carolina runoff was “seen as a test of Trump’s endorsement power,” The Wall Street Journal said. and he “flexed his political muscles in the final days of the campaign” to get Graham “over the finish line.” Trump “did more to support her than he had for any other Republican candidate this year,” The New York Times said, and it took the strength of his “political capital” — including a rally and $830,000 from his MAGA Inc. super PAC — to “overcome her inexperience” and a “flubbed” debate answer about national security.

What next?
Once Blair and Aisha Wahab, the Democrat who won last week’s special election in California, are sworn in, the GOP’s thin House majority will shrink to just four members, 218 to 214. 

The cosmos may be speckled with black hole stars, celestial entities that have the properties of both black holes and stars. But scientists have only now found one, and the discovery could provide important insight about our universe.

An extremely bright red dot spotted in deep space through NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope in 2024 is likely a new astrophysical source, according to a study published in the journal Nature. Deemed a “black hole star,” the celestial object “resembles an enormous star” but also puts out “100 billion times more energy than any known star can physically produce,” similar to a black hole, MIT said in a news release. The findings “raise new questions and insights” into the “little red dots” observed in deep-space images, “and, by extension, the state of the early universe,” said Gizmodo. 

“It is a very special thing to find an object with no comparison,” lead study author Rohan Naidu told Gizmodo, “given the vast stores of data on billions of stars, galaxies, and black holes that we have in our archival databases.” Officially called MoM-BH*-1, this black hole star will “likely be the first” of many to be discovered, said Popular Science. 

Scientists are planning further research on the “detailed physics of these remarkable objects,” said Naidu. Perhaps it will answer exactly how “massive” they are and what their “‘stellar’ features tell us about their ‘stellar’ atmospheres.”