Graham Platner, the oyster farmer whose populist platform took Maine by storm, dropped his Senate bid Wednesday night as controversies over his past stacked up, leaving Democrats without a nominee to take on Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) this fall.
“We’re suspending campaign operations,” Platner told his supporters in a lengthy video posted on social media Wednesday evening, at times growing emotional.
“I intend to file my paperwork to withdraw,” he added. “The process needs to assure that what comes next is reflective of the Mainers, who on June 9 turned out and showed that they are desperate for a different kind of politics.”
Platner’s decision comes after he easily won the Democratic primary last month despite a growing list of scandals, including revelations around a sexting scandal, since-deleted social media posts downplaying sexual assault and criticizing law enforcement and reports of problematic behavior with former romantic partners.



In the space of just a few weeks - the blink of an eye in the timeline of this Middle East conflict - US President Donald Trump has gone from being so popular in Israel he boasted he could be its next prime minister to a man so hated he could qualify for Israel’s next Amalek.
Egypt head coach Hossam Hassan sparked widespread praise on social media after delivering an emotional speech supporting Palestinians during a Fifa World Cup press conference on Monday, ahead of Egypt’s match against Argentina.
Ukraine announced Tuesday it had signed “drone deals” with three more European countries, further capitalising on the expertise it has developed in drone warfare since Russia’s invasion.
A high-rise building in Manhattan was deemed unstable on Tuesday after authorities determined that support columns buckled, spurring evacuation of nearby buildings, according to officials and reports.
Lake Powell, the US’s second-largest reservoir, threatens to plunge to unprecedentedly low levels this year after a historically bleak snowpack failed to raise its water level, scientists and water experts have said, adding renewed urgency to stalled talks over how to conserve a water source depended on by tens of millions of people in the US south-west.





























