https://edition.cnn.com/2026/07/07/business/video/starcloud-space-ai-data-centers-hnk-spc
Maine Democratic Senate nominee Graham Platner said in a video statement Wednesday he was suspending his campaign, taking aim at the Democratic establishment while clearing the way for the party to select a new candidate to take on Republican Sen. Susan Collins in one of the most important contests of November’s midterm elections. Platner’s decision comes after a woman told CNN and Politico he raped her while he was heavily intoxicated nearly five years ago when they were in a casual dating relationship – an allegation Platner denies. “We believe that for the movement to continue it can’t be me — and for that reason we are suspending campaign operations,” Platner said in an 11-minute video posted on X, adding that he intends to file paperwork to withdraw.
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/07/08/politics/graham-platner-drops-out-maine-senate
Let the people decide. That was the defiant message of two of the world’s most famous populists on Tuesday, as Nigel Farage and Marine Le Pen announced, within hours of each other, their intention to defy their country’s norms in order to put the same pitch to the same jury, with both French and British mainstream politics now in the balance. In France, Marine Le Pen took to the evening news to launch her defiant fourth run for the presidency, just hours after a court announced that legally she could. In a sweltering courthouse in central Paris, journalists had crammed into overflow rooms to hear, just after lunchtime, a ruling on Le Pen’s appeal against the 2025 criminal conviction that found her, her far-right National Rally party and 11 of its most senior members guilty of embezzling millions of euros worth of European funds to pay the salaries of party-political workers in France.
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/07/08/europe/farage-le-pen-populist-appeal-intl-cmd
A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the release of more than $5 million to E. Jean Carroll rejecting President Donald Trump’s attempt to delay paying the former magazine columnist a jury found he sexually abused and defamed. The ruling from federal Judge Lewis Kaplan comes after Trump had asked him not to release the money to Carroll until the Supreme Court decides whether it will reconsider his petition to challenge the jury’s finding that he sexually abused and defamed the former magazine columnist. Lawyers for Carroll could not immediately be reached for comment.
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/07/08/world/video/uss-abraham-lincoln-iran-war-vrtc