by Hunter Woodall | Jul 25, 2026 | News
Maine Democrats on Saturday are poised to swap out a scandal-ridden candidate in a critical Senate race for a replacement that gives them a chance to win in November.
That’s the easy part.
This fall’s midterm elections will give Democrats potentially their best window yet at unseating Republican Sen. Susan Collins, a moderate lawmaker who defied expectations six years ago when she won her seat once again. Now whether or not Democrats can defeat her could be the difference between the party having a chance taking back the Senate for the final two years of Donald Trump’s presidency, or struggling to make a dent in his agenda.
Concerns about Graham Platner, the man Maine Democrat primary voters had picked to run against Collins, were apparent even before a woman accused him of sexual assault earlier this month. While Platner issued a denial, he soon left the race which led to a frantic and hastily assembled campaign to find a replacement.
That alternative is former state Senate President Troy Jackson, who appeared to have won over the necessary support needed to become the party’s chosen candidate ahead of Saturday’s party event.
Work to keep Collins in office however, has been underway for months, leaving Democrats with an element of catching-up to do.
“I don’t think they have enough time to put together a coherent campaign. I really don’t. And the candidate who now is in that driver’s seat is maybe not as flawed, but has many flaws,” said Jim Deyermond, chairman of the Maine GOP.
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As GOP celebrates Platner chaos, Collins can still lose
July 9, 2026 / 07:05
Collins is something of an enigma in her party. She’s the
by The Associated Press | Jul 25, 2026 | News
Skydance-owned Paramount on Friday agreed to delay closing its $81 billion buyout of Warner Bros. Discovery well into next year, as a judge continues to consider a challenge from 12 states seeking to block the deal altogether.
In a court filing, Paramount said it wouldn’t close the merger until either a court ruling is made on the merits of the states’ lawsuit or June 1, 2027. The move arrives just days after U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín granted a temporary restraining order to freeze the transaction for several weeks, ruling that the states had raised some “serious questions” and a strong case about the merger’s potential to “substantially lessen competition.”
Paramount called Friday’s agreement a “significant win because the result is exactly what we have sought from the outset: a direct path to a trial based on the evidence.”
The company, which was bought by Skydance just last year, added that this was the “fastest and clearest way” to prove its merger was good for competition and the wider industry.
Twelve states, led by California, sued to block Paramount’s pending buyout of Warner last month — alleging that such a combination would instead “extinguish competition” in Hollywood and lead to fewer choices for consumers, particularly moviegoers and cable customers.
“From the workers and artists who bring stories to life to the families who buy tickets at the box office, Paramount’s illegal takeover of Warner Bros. is a bad deal for all those who count on a competitive entertainment industry,” New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is among those suing to block the merger, said Friday.3
The post Paramount agrees to delay Warner Bros buyout closing
by Sydney Carruth | Jul 25, 2026 | News
Former CBS News “60 Minutes” correspondent Cecilia Vega, one of several prominent journalists fired from the network’s signature broadcast this spring, said she was pressured by the news division’s editor-in-chief, Bari Weiss, and other executives to include misinformation and political bias in reporting that aired this year.
Vega’s account of Weiss interfering with independent reporting is similar to those of two other veteran “60 Minutes” correspondents, Scott Pelley and Sharyn Alfonsi, who were fired after David Ellison, the CEO of Paramount Skydance, appointed Weiss to her position last year. Alfonsi’s contract expired after she criticized Weiss for pulling her segment on torture in Salvadoran prisons from the air. Pelley was fired a day after he reportedly excoriated Weiss and the show’s new executive producer, Nick Bilton, over what he called their lack of journalistic qualifications in an early-June staff meeting.
Vega said during an event Thursday in New Orleans that the “new administration,” meaning Weiss and the executives hired under her purview, asked her to report on events that “never happened.”
Speaking to ABC News correspondent John Quiñones at the National Association of Hispanic Journalists Conference and Expo, Vega recounted pressure to include what she said was nonexistent footage of protesters assaulting Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents into a segment about the the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal immigration agents in Minnesota.
“I’ve gone head-to-head with editors for 25 years in this business,” Vega told Quiñones. “But never in my career, until now, have I felt that those edits, that those suggestions, came from a place of misinformation or politics.”
In a segment about President Donald Trump’s war with Iran,
by Brandy Zadrozny | Jul 25, 2026 | Congress, News
Sade, a self-described mother of three from Michigan, posted a video to Instagram and TikTok earlier this July, expressing a popular sentiment: It was getting harder to make ends meet, as the costs of gas, rent, groceries and other expenses were too high in the state, and wages weren’t keeping up.
“Make it make sense,” the woman posting as sades.journey told her few dozen followers.
That language, “Make it make sense,” was a popular refrain, appearing in more than a dozen other recent videos viewed by MS NOW. In them, small-time creators (mostly women) posted selfies with white overlaid type, bemoaning Michigan’s cost of living. The accounts — all created this year — also posted about other topics of concern, like holding Immigration and Customs Enforcement “accountable” and standing up to President Donald Trump. At about the same time this July, the accounts seemed to settle on a solution for their troubles. As Sade put it, “That’s why I’m looking at Haley Stevens.”
The race to fill Michigan’s open Senate seat narrowed this month to a two-way Democratic primary between Rep. Haley Stevens and physician and former county health director Abdul El-Sayed. Backed by the Democrats’ progressive wing, including Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., El-Sayed’s campaign has outraised Stevens, an establishment candidate who has been endorsed by retiring Sen. Gary Peters, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and, on Friday, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. But outside groups, including the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, and its affiliates, have poured $50 million into the race to boost Stevens. The primary election is on Aug. 4.
These seemingly coordinated social media
by Ebony Davis | Jul 24, 2026 | News
President Donald Trump is set to deliver remarks Friday at the rescheduled White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, three months after an assassination attempt forced organizers to postpone the original program.
The dinner, originally scheduled for April, was interrupted after gunfire erupted outside the Washington Hilton as Trump and other administration officials attended the event. Secret Service agents quickly evacuated Trump, first lady Melania Trump, Vice President JD Vance and members of the Cabinet, while hundreds of attendees sheltered under tables as law enforcement secured the scene.
Authorities later charged a California man with attempting to assassinate the president, alleging he tried to breach security while armed.
The rescheduled event is being held at the Waldorf Astoria in Washington, D.C., with heightened security and a smaller guest list, though hundreds are still in attendance.
“An assassination attempt on our president is an attack on democracy itself,” Former White House Correspondents’ Association President Weijia Jiang said in her opening remarks.
“Tonight, our message is this: We are back. We will not be intimidated. We refuse to let an act of violence have the final word,” Jiang added.
Friday’s event gives Trump a second chance to deliver the remarks he planned to give in April to journalists, administration officials and invited guests.
“I don’t know whether or not I will give the same rather nasty statements, at least as it concerns certain people, but we will soon find out. In any event, it will be a ‘HOT’ ticket!,” Trump said in a Truth Social post on July 2 when announcing he would attend the rescheduled event.
The first lady, who attended the original dinner, will not attend the rescheduled gathering, a White House official confirmed to MS NOW.
by Sharon Zhang | Jul 24, 2026 | Department of Defense, Donald Trump, Iran, News, Pentagon
The Trump administration quietly revised the U.S. troop death count in the Iran war from 18 to 14 this week, seemingly removing the deaths of the four troops killed this past weekend in Iranian strikes even as the administration faces accusations of cover-ups with regard to American casualties of the war. The New York Times reported that, on Wednesday, the Pentagon website that logs troop…
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