Platner ally Troy Jackson closing in on Democratic Senate nod in key race to face Collins
Former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson appears to be sprinting far ahead of his rivals in the abbreviated race to replace now ex-candidate Graham Platner as the Democratic Senate nominee in the high-stakes showdown to face off with longtime Republican Sen. Susan Collins. Delegates aligned with Jackson won the vast majority of the 319 slots that were up for grabs on Saturday as Maine’s 16 counties kicked off two days of delegate selection for next weekend’s nominating convention. “We’re well on our way to getting the government that we deserve,” Jackson emphasized Saturday night in a video posted to social media, as he addressed supporters. “From the bottom of my heart, thank you.” Jackson is now in a strong position to secure the nomination and face off in the midterm elections against Collins in what’s expected to be a combative and expensive ballot box battle that’s among a dozen nationwide which will determine if the Democrats can win back the Senate majority. The GOP currently holds the chamber 53-47. MEET THE DEMOCRATS GUNNING TO REPLACE GRAHAM PLATNER A fifth-generation logger and a one-time conservative Republican who became a Democrat over two decades ago, Jackson came in third place last month in Maine’s Democratic gubernatorial primary. On Saturday, in the race to replace Platner, Jackson-aligned delegates won more than 90% of the slots, including all 149 in Cumberland County, Maine’s most populous county and home to the state’s largest city, Portland. Along with Platner, Jackson had the support of progressive champion Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont as he ran for governor, and he is currently backed by ‘Our Revolution,’ the group born in 2016 out of Sanders’ first presidential campaign. MAINE DEMOCRATS RALLY BEHIND PLATNER’S PLATFORM IN SPRINT TO REPLACE HIM Jackson, similar to Platner, is running on a progressive and populist platform aimed at working-class voters. He backs raising taxes on billionaires, the universal healthcare system known as “Medicare-for-all,” abolishing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and he opposes military aid to Israel at a time that Democrats are increasingly divided on support for America’s longtime Middle East ally. Nirav Shah, a former director the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention from 2019 to 2023 who later served as principal deputy director of the federal CDC during then-President Joe Biden’s administration, and who came in second in last month’s Democratic gubernatorial primary, secured only a handful of delegates on Saturday. Shenna Bellows, Maine’s secretary of state, who came in fourth place in the race for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, was even further back in the delegate hunt, as was Jordan Wood, a former congressional staffer for then-Rep. Katie Porter of California who unsuccessfully ran for the Senate as well as the Democratic nomination in the state’s 2nd Congressional District this cycle. Maine’s eight remaining counties will select 181 delegates on Sunday. The 500 picked this weekend will join 101 delegates coming automatically from the Democratic State Committee. All 601 will vote for the Senate nominee at next Saturday’s convention in Bangor. Platner, a combat veteran and oyster farmer who was backed by Sanders soon after he launched his bid last August, saw his campaign quickly catch fire. Two-term Democratic Gov. Janet Mills, who was heavily recruited by longtime Democratic Senate leader Sen. Chuck Schumer to run for the Senate, suspended her campaign this spring after trailing Platner in fundraising and in the polls. DEMOCRACY ’26: STAY UP TO DATE WITH THE FOX NEWS ELECTION HUB But even as Platner steamrolled the Democratic establishment and crushed the competition last month to capture the nomination, he had already been forced on defense in the wake of a slew of scandals. Platner dropped out earlier this month, amid calls from top Democrats in Maine and across the country to immediately exit the race following an explosive report containing an allegation of rape from a woman he previously dated. Platner denied the report but stepped aside. While Jackson was among those who quickly called on Platner to end his bid in the wake of the rape allegation, he had previously campaigned alongside Platner and made the case that he was the best candidate to continue the fight for the progressive and populist agenda. SIGN UP TO GET THE POLITICS NEWSLETTER “This movement is always been bigger than one person. It’s about taking on a system rigged against working people, fighting for ‘Medicare-for-all,’ strong unions, higher wages, reproductive freedom, and an economy where billionaires and corporations finally pay their fair share,” Jackson said last week during a Our Revolution virtual town hall, as he pointed to Platner supporters. At last week’s first debate among the replacement candidates, Jackson pointed to Platner and said, “That’s the thing that I think Graham did the best: talked about fighting against the health care industry and the prescription drug industry to make sure that people in this state and this country have affordable, quality health care.”
Controversial program paying drug users for used syringes becomes permanent in NYC
New York City is permanently bankrolling a program that pays people up to $10 a day for used syringes, a controversial effort critics argue puts taxpayer dollars into addicts’ pockets rather than getting them treatment. The program, known as the Community Syringe Redemption Program, was quietly made permanent through Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s first city budget after the city’s $126 billion spending plan set aside $3 million to continue it beyond its pilot phase, the New York Post reported. The funding appeared in budget documents submitted to the New York City Council on June 30, shortly before lawmakers approved the budget. Participants receive 20 cents for every used syringe they return, with payments capped at 50 syringes, or $10 a day, according to the New York City Health Department. The city operates eight redemption sites — five in the Bronx and one each in Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens — where enrolled participants can drop off used needles during scheduled collection hours. MAYORS WANT TO KEEP HANDING OUT FREE CASH AFTER FEDERAL FUNDS DRIED UP The program launched as a pilot in March 2025 after legislation backed by progressive City Council members passed in 2022. It is run by Addiction Response Resources, a nonprofit that also started a similar syringe redemption program in Boston, under an $11.1 million contract that runs through the end of next year, the Post reported. Health officials say the program has collected more than 2.3 million used syringes since it began about 16 months ago, the outlet reported. During its first year, the city paid out about $292,000 to more than 1,700 participants. Sanitation Department data cited by the Post shows workers have collected 26,229 discarded needles so far this year, down from 64,560 during the same period in 2025. According to the Post, the city is paying for the program with more than $189 million in settlement funds it received from major opioid manufacturers and distributors — money some critics argue should be directed toward addiction treatment instead. EX-EMPLOYEE OF TAXPAYER-FUNDED NONPROFIT CAUGHT SELLING FENTANYL NEAR LA PARK: DOCS Queens Republican Councilwoman Joann Ariola argued the opioid settlement money used to fund the program “should all be going toward addiction treatment services — not for paying users to turn in their needles for cash,” the Post reported. She added that the program “is putting money in the pockets of addicts” instead of helping them overcome addiction. Bronx Democratic Councilman Oswald Feliz credited the effort to remove discarded syringes but warned the city “should not recklessly create conditions that can threaten the safety of vulnerable communities,” according to the Post. Some participants see the program differently. Tamia Wright, 43, told the Post it had become “definitely a side hustle” after returning used needles at a park in the Bronx, adding she planned to spend the money on “weed… and cigarettes.” City officials say the program is meant to reduce dangerous syringe litter in neighborhoods that frequently report discarded needles. The Health Department says improperly discarded syringes can pose risks of needlestick injuries and disease transmission, and urges residents to safely dispose of sharps or report syringe litter through 311. Health Department spokesperson Rachel Vick defended the program, saying it helps residents “live in a community free of syringe litter” while safely disposing of medical waste and connecting people in need with nearby care.
WATCH: Josh Hawley issues blistering rebuke of McConnell over ‘obligation’ to country
As questions persist about Kentucky Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell’s condition, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., issued a blistering rebuke about his team’s handling of the crisis, reminding them of their “obligation to your constituents.” The 84-year-old former Senate majority leader has been absent from the upper chamber for over a month now after a fall at his home left him hospitalized. His absence, coupled with the sudden death of late Sen. Lindsey Graham, leaves Senate Republicans down two crucial votes amid a dead sprint to wrap up key parts of President Donald Trump’s agenda. Speaking with Fox News Digital, Hawley, a conservative populist, said he wishes McConnell and his family well and hopes for a recovery. At the same time, however, Hawley said that “at a certain point you do have an obligation to your constituents and the country to tell them what’s going on.” MCCONNELL FACES FRESH CALLS TO COME CLEAN ABOUT HEALTH ISSUES “To be down a vote,” Hawley continued, “We’ve got a slim majority; it’s not easy.” While Hawley said he would “defer” to Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., on how to handle McConnell’s situation, he noted that the lack of GOP votes is hurting priorities like the voter integrity measure, the SAVE America Act. “I just hear a lot from leadership that, ‘Well, we don’t have the votes for this.’ Like the voter ID, we don’t have the votes for that. Well, we might want to do something about that,” he said. Hawley also said that he too, has been “totally in the dark” about McConnell’s condition and said, “I never had any idea about any of his health stuff.” “I hope he recovers, but I also hope that they get the transparency out there to help people know what the situation is,” he said. ‘THIS IS NOT NORMAL’: AOC UNLOADS ON MCCONNELL’S PROLONGED ABSENCE Asked whether he believes McConnell’s condition evidences a need for age limits to serve in office, Hawley quickly shot back, “Well, I’m a term-limit guy, so I’m all for that.” “Nothing against colleagues who are older,” he continued. He pointed to 92-year-old Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, saying, “Chuck is sharp as a tack and spry and all that stuff.” “But I do think there needs to be term limits. People just come here and stay forever. And I don’t think it’s what the founders intended; I don’t think it’s what people want. So, I’ve always been a big proponent of a constitutional amendment for term limits.” McConnell is completing his seventh term in the Senate. He was first elected to the chamber in 1984. This June, he was hospitalized after a fall in his Washington, D.C., home. He later developed pneumonia while in the hospital. After an extended period of silence, McConnell issued an open letter to Kentuckians in which the senator addressed his prolonged absence. McConnell attributed his fall to mobility issues left from his childhood fight with polio. SEE IT: GOP SENATORS SPLIT ON MCCONNELL QUESTIONS AS TUBERVILLE SEEKS TIMELINE, KENNEDY DEFENDS LEADER He acknowledged that at the advice of his doctors, he “won’t be able to return to the Senate floor to vote quite yet.” However, McConnell emphasized, “I have every intention of finishing the job you elected me to do” and said, “I’ll keep working hard to get back on the Senate floor as soon as possible.” He also pledged to keep his constituents updated on the progress of his recovery.
FIFA World Cup 2026 sees major increase in goals from outside the box
A trend of teams defending deep has enticed forwards to take shots from outside the penalty area, Jurgen Klinsmann says. The proportion of goals scored from outside the box has doubled at the World Cup in North America from the previous tournament in Qatar, FIFA says. Sixteen percent of the goals scored in this World Cup came from outside the penalty area, versus 8 percent in 2022, FIFA’s Technical Study Group (TSG) revealed on Saturday. Recommended Stories list of 3 items list 1 of 3Kylian Mbappe breaks all-time World Cup scoring record with 22nd goal list 2 of 3Saka hat-trick helps England down France to win World Cup Bronze Final list 3 of 3Netanyahu declares support for Argentina ahead of World Cup final end of list Football experts explained the reason behind the increase: a trend of teams defending in a low bloc and pushing the opposition to try their luck from long range. Jurgen Klinsmann, a member of FIFA’s TSG, said the large number of players in and around the box also makes it more difficult for goalkeepers to track the ball from afar. “There’s no space – eight, nine players are in the box or outside the box, so it is definitely a recipe for shots from the outside,” the former US national team manager told reporters. “It’s something fun for us coaches to watch … We saw some beautiful goals that way.” Arsene Wenger, FIFA’s chief of football development, also paid tribute to the quality of the shots being taken. “The balls look fast. Shots – they delivered rockets from outside the box, really. The ball – boom, the quality of the shots was great in this tournament,” he told reporters. Argentina, in particular, have relied on long-range shots while trailing to break down sides sitting deep. The team has scored five goals from outside the box, including the screamer from Enzo Fernandez that brought them back into the match in the 85th minute of the semifinal against England. Julian Alvarez also hit a spectacular curler from 22 yards out against 10-man Switzerland in extra time to help book Argentina’s place in the semifinal. In the third-place match on Saturday, English midfielder Declan Rice found the bottom corner from outside the box in the third minute in what turned out to be one of the wildest encounters of the World Cup, with France losing 6-4. Adblock test (Why?)
Somalia races to save Radio Mogadishu’s fading archive
Mogadishu, Somalia – Thousands of reel-to-reel tapes sit in an air-conditioned room in the archive of Somalia’s public radio, Radio Mogadishu, stacked on steel shelves and lined up like old manuscripts beneath a thick layer of dust. Each reel contains a small fragment of Somalia’s 20th-century history, from news bulletins to speeches, music and voices that were once beamed out across the nation’s airwaves, some dating back to the early 1950s. Recommended Stories list of 3 items list 1 of 3EU targets Somalia with visa curbs as president pushes back on returns list 2 of 3Israel fetes Somaliland’s leader as it seeks to expand Red Sea influence list 3 of 3Somali intelligence helps US arrest alleged leader of Minnesota fraud end of list Abdiqadir Geedi Robleh, an archivist at Radio Mogadishu, threads a reel onto an old tape machine, connects it to a computer, and records the contents of each tape. A tape with a love song by Mohamed Mooge Liban, a prominent singer fills the room, and Robleh is transported, he says, to his youth. He is working with a small team to digitise and methodically order approximately 400,000 hours of broadcasts, officials here say, before the magnetic tape deteriorates beyond recovery, taking with it a crucial record of the country’s past. Abdiqadir Geedi Robleh cues up a tape, ready to hear a recording. [Abdimajid Abdillahi Farah/Al Jazeera] “This is the world’s largest store of Somali language music, culture, dramas and everything else, and at the moment it is locked away from the public in a kind of prison,” Robleh tells Al Jazeera. “We’re working to preserve it but also open it up in future to the public.” Founded in 1951 during the Italian colonial era, Radio Mogadishu would grow into Somalia’s largest and most important public broadcaster. It initially broadcast in Italian and Somali before introducing foreign language services, including everything from Swahili and Oromo to English and Arabic. In its heyday, it was among the most influential and distinctive voices in East African media, reaching audiences as far afield as Tanzania, Ethiopia, and the Middle East with a style of radical pan-African broadcasting reminiscent of Radio Cairo in the Nasser years. With the exception of a brief hiatus in the 1990s, when it fell under the control of a warlord, it has served not only as a key source of news for Somalis and audiences across the region, but also as a vital repository of the country’s collective memory. The effort to preserve its archives has gathered new momentum this year. In early June, Somalia’s information ministry and the UNESCO regional office for Eastern Africa – the UN’s heritage agency – brought archivists from across the country to a workshop in Mogadishu, aimed at eventually registering its contents with UNESCO’s Memory of the World programme, which catalogues archives of important historical value. “Protecting this knowledge isn’t just relevant for Somalia, but it is relevant for everyone,” said Guilherme Canela, a senior UNESCO official who is overseeing the project. Thousands of tapes fill the shelves of Radio Mogadishu’s archive, holding decades of Somali history [Abdimajid Abdillahi Farah/Al Jazeera] An expert assessment carried out in April counted roughly 45,000 tapes and reels, representing an estimated 400,000 hours of material recorded since the station’s founding. More than 85 percent remain playable, but around one in 10 has deteriorated with age, and more than 5 percent has been destroyed or severely damaged, according to UNESCO. Radio Mogadishu’s collection was recognised both for its size and because so much of what it holds exists nowhere else. Some were damaged in an electrical fire in 2018, Robleh says, while others were lost during fighting in 1992, when US forces battled Somali militias in the streets of Mogadishu. During the worst of the civil war, police colonel Abshir Hashi Ali risked his life to prevent the contents of the archives from being looted. When fighting engulfed Mogadishu following the 1990 collapse of the government, he said he ran back “with the aim of conveying to Somalis the wealth that is stored here”. Abdi Jeite, the station’s director, says the digitisation drive began as early as 2012, but has been held back for years by a lack of resources. By his estimate, only approximately 10 percent of the archive has so far been converted. “We’ve got some new tools, and more training for our archivists, but there is still a lot of support needed,” he says. An old reel-to-reel machine used to play and digitise tapes at Radio Mogadishu’s archive in Mogadishu begins spinning [Abdimajid Abdillahi Farah/Al Jazeera] To understand why the archive matters so much, it helps to understand what radio once meant in Somali life. “Radio Mogadishu was arguably the preeminent media institution in post-independence Somalia,” Iman Mohamed, an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota and historian of Somalia, tells Al Jazeera. “In a society that prizes orality above the written word, radio was uniquely effective at creating a common public sphere through which ordinary people could feel bonded to one another and to a shared sense of nationhood,” Mohamed adds. Though Somali audiences could also access BBC Somali, Radio Hargeisa, and opposition stations when the government began to deteriorate in the latter part of the 20th century, it was Radio Mogadishu that dominated the “soundscape of urban Somalia”, Mohamed said. That dominance made Radio Mogadishu a national factory of talent. “If you were a musician, poet, playwright or producer, Radio Mogadishu was the platform you wanted to appear on,” Robleh, the archivist, said. “It made Somalia’s stars.” Robleh points to the label on a tape of a love song recorded at Radio Mogadishu in 1974 [Abdimajid Abdillahi Farah/Al Jazeera] Robleh, the archivist, added that many BBC Somali journalists who went on to have distinguished careers first cut their teeth at Radio Mogadishu, which became an important pipeline for Somali-language talent to the BBC. Hassan Dahir, a former journalist at the station, was one of many Somali children who grew up
Tate brothers arrested in Miami on rape and sex trafficking charges
Andrew and Tristan Tate arrested in Miami on rape and sex trafficking charges NewsFeed Controversial manosphere influencers Andrew and Tristan Tate have been arrested in Miami over allegations of rape and sex trafficking brought by UK police. The brothers are already facing 21 charges in a separate case. UK prosecutors are seeking their extradition. Published On 19 Jul 2026 Adblock test (Why?)
Who is Gitanjali Angmo? Sonam Wangchuk’s wife in spotlight amid activist’s indefinite hunger strike
Sonam Wangchuk, a winner of the Ramon Magsaysay Award, has been on an indefinite hunger strike for three weeks to demand the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over the NEET-UG paper leak scandal.
Sonam Wangchuk’s wife Gitanjali Angmo demands his immediate discharge from hospital
Wangchuk’s wife told reporters that despite the climate activist’s transfer to Safdarjung Hospital, a planned march to the Parliament would go ahead.
Amarnath, Vaishno Devi Yatras suspended from July 19 amid IMD’s adverse weather forecast
Amarnath Yatra and Vaishno Devi Yatra, among some of the most sacred Hindu pilgrimages in India, have been temporarily suspended, according said on Saturday.
‘Illegal Protest’: Delhi Police deny permission for CJP’s Sansad Chalo march on July 20, says ‘no permission sought’
Sonam Wangchuk was admitted to Delhi’s Safdarjung Hospital for medical evaluation as his hunger strike entered week 3. Meanwhile, Delhi Police declared the CJP’s “Sansad Chalo” march to Parliament on July 20 as “illegal”, saying no permission was sought.