ended

STRIKES at one of Spain’s busiest airports have already caused problems for holidaymakers – and could continue into next month.

Groundforce workers who cover ground-handling services, check-in and boarding started indefinite industrial action in early August with no end date in sight.

The strikes have been heavily impacting Barcelona El Prat which is Spain’s second busiest airport.

Due to the strike action by Groundforce, it’s been estimated that 11,600 flights and close to two million passengers could be exposed to the action across the two months.

Indefinite industrial action started on August 4 and has continued across the summer holidays with warnings that it’s set to continue.

Groundforce workers at Barcelona El Prat cover ground-handling services including check-in, boarding, ramp operations and flight coordination for 20 airlines at the airport.

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Airlines that use Groundforce include Lufthansa, Air France/KLM, Turkish Airlines and Finnair.

Many airlines fly from the UK to Barcelona including Ryanair, Wizz Air, easyJet and Vueling.

While they don’t use Groundforce, passengers could still be impacted by delays and queues in the airport.

The strike has had an impact on services with the CGT union reported 250 cancelled flights and 6,000 affected bags between August 4-18.

Talking to Breaking Travel News, Jürgen Himmelmann, Co-Founder of Global Work & Travel, said: “The important thing for anyone with a Barcelona trip coming up is that this strike doesn’t currently have a fixed end date.

“If you’re travelling in September, don’t assume that because your holiday is a few weeks away the issue will have been resolved by then.

“That doesn’t mean your flight will be disrupted, but it does mean it’s worth preparing now. Check which airline you’re travelling with, keep monitoring your booking and think about what you’d need with you if your checked luggage was delayed.”

A minimum service requirement has been set by Spain’s Ministry of Transport during the months of August and September.

England all-rounder Sam Curran has been ruled out of the remainder of the English season with a groin injury, ending his hopes of a potential Test comeback this summer.

Surrey’s Curran, 28, last played a Test in 2021 but had been considered for a recall for the series against Pakistan as England look to balance their side after the retirement of Ben Stokes.

Selector Marcus North suggested Curran could have been picked for the ongoing first Test had he not been managing his fitness through The Hundred and said he would come into contention for the third Test on 9 September.

Further assessment has revealed Curran requires surgery on the groin issue, however.

He will have an operation on Friday, ruling him out of the remainder of the season with Surrey and England’s white-ball matches against Sri Lanka in September.

In March, Curran pulled out of this year’s Indian Premier League with a groin issue.

The MI London captain missed one of his side’s Hundred matches and did not bowl his full allocation in four of their other seven group games.

Without Curran, Stokes or another seam-bowling all-rounder, England opted not to pick a frontline spinner for the first Test against Pakistan at Headingley.

They instead attempted to balance their side by picking Dan Lawrence to bat number six and fill the role of spin bowler with his part-time off-spin.

England all-rounder Will Jacks, who filled a similar role in the Ashes last winter, is also absent from Surrey’s squad for Thursday’s County Championship match against Nottinghamshire after having an operation to remove his appendix.

His availability for the T20 and ODI series with Sri Lanka will be assessed.

On what should have been a fun-packed summer holiday turned into a ‘nightmare’ after a family of six were ‘abandoned on the streets’ and told ‘we have no rooms for you’

A mum-of-four has been left ‘devastated’ after what was meant to be a cherished family holiday turned into a ‘nightmare’, after they felt “abandoned on the streets”.

Yasmin Kauser, who hails from Stratford-upon-Avon, had been looking forward to spending some quality time with her four children, aged 4, 12, 14 and 18, and her husband during their annual trip abroad in August. For the occasion, she booked a 10-night package holiday to Turkey through Loveholidays for £4,863, and was set to stay at a four-star hotel.

Following a lengthy journey from the UK, the family of six arrived at their pre-booked hotel in Alanya, Turkey, at around 2am. “We were knackered, we just wanted to go to bed, and the children were sleeping everywhere,” Yasmin exclusively told the Mirror.

But there was an unexpected issue with their hotel reservation. “We were told there were no rooms available for us.”

She outlined: “We remained at the hotel until around 5:30am, when, after I became increasingly frustrated and distressed, they eventually provided just one room for six people instead of the two rooms that had been booked.”

Yasmin says she repeatedly contacted Loveholidays, before the family was “given arrangements to move to a five-star resort”. The family made their way to the resort on the second day of their holiday, around half an hour’s drive away. “I hadn’t slept the night before, and I was exhausted. I’m only human, and I was breaking down because I was that tired, and the kids were very tired.”

‘There are no rooms’

However, when they turned up at the next resort, there was another issue. “At the resort, we waited for around an hour, only to be told that they had no rooms for us,” Yasmin alleged. “I said to them, ‘But we’ve got a reservation from Loveholidays, and they said, ‘There are no rooms’, so you’ve got to leave the hotel’.

She continued: “At around 3pm, I was left with my children on the road with our luggage and without access to suitable toilet facilities or accommodation. We were sitting outside the hotel; everybody was walking out, and we were like homeless people – we were abandoned.”

Yasmin was in touch with Loveholidays to explain the situation, and in an email, the company advised the family to “wait inside the hotel lobby for their safety and the safety of their children”, and said they were working on the issue as a “matter of urgency”.

The mum of four recalled: “I wasn’t panicking as it was around 3pm, the weather was nice, we had some water and snacks from the shop, so we just sat out there.” Although Yasmin added that it was around 40C, and when it got to 9pm, that’s when things became worrying.

“As it started to get dark, I started to panic, thinking, what are we going to do. We’ve got the children, and it was peak season.”

She claimed: “We remained without accommodation until around 11pm. My sister in the UK eventually contacted the emergency number on our behalf. After a further wait of around two hours, Loveholidays arranged emergency accommodation at a three-star hotel.”

Yasmin said that when her sister reached out to Loveholidays, they said they had emailed Yasmin earlier in the day, but the mum claims she never received it. She had told the firm that she was switching between a standard SIM and an eSIM, and the travel company said they tried to rectify the situation promptly.

Yet, they went to the third hotel in the hope of securing a room for their holiday.

“Not knowing what the hotel was like, but being so long on the street, I was just thinking we just need to get into some accommodation and have a roof over our heads”, Yasmin said. “We had to take another taxi to this hotel and eventually received two rooms at around 1am.”

‘Strong smell of urine and mould’

While they successfully obtained rooms, Yasmin was left disheartened. “One of the rooms was effectively a small box room with no windows and was in a condition that I found extremely distressing. There was a strong smell of urine and mould, and I struggled to breathe comfortably in the room,” she said.

Yasmin said she struggled to sleep “in the mess” and, early the next morning, got back in touch with Loveholidays about their accommodation. She claimed: “During the conversation, I was told that they had provided me with ‘shelter’. I was subsequently left in the emergency accommodation for the remainder of the holiday, despite repeatedly raising my concerns.” The family were later moved to another room during their stay at the hotel.

After hearing that Yasmin was dissatisfied with the alternative accommodation, Love Holidays offered her £1,015.99 in compensation for the inconvenience. In addition, they offered the family the option to relocate to an upgraded five-star hotel on an all-inclusive basis, but despite ongoing attempts to reach Yasmin on multiple platforms, they never received a response.

Yasmin said: “I don’t know if I was more tired before I left the UK or after the trip. I was in survival mode all the way through. We should have just stayed at home. This has been the worst experience in my life.”

A Loveholidays spokesperson told the Mirror: “We are very sorry that Ms Kauser’s experience fell below our usual high standards, and are investigating the issues she faced with the relevant hotel suppliers as a matter of urgency.“Our On Holiday Support team worked hard to put things right for Ms Kauser during her holiday, including an offer of cash compensation and a relocation to an upgraded five-star property. Despite several attempts to contact Ms Kauser, we did not receive a response to either of these offers or our subsequent communications and, as a result, we were unfortunately unable to put these solutions in place during her holiday.“We are contacting Ms Kauser to apologise for the stress and inconvenience caused and offer a full refund of her holiday.”

Do you have a travel story to share? Email webtravel@reachplc.com

The Malm Whale at the Gothenburg Natural History Museum is the only stuffed blue whale in the world, and it’s also once of Europe’s strangest tourist attractions

Roughly 100 years ago, a young Swedish couple ruined it for the rest of us.

They were caught, trousers down, in the belly of the world’s only stuffed blue whale. Not quite the sex-positive Scandinavia it is today, the scandal led officials to snap its vast, gaping jaw shut, bringing an end to the days of ready access to the 16m long sea mammal.

“We must be content with the fact that it was two citizens of our own city that enjoyed this privilege,” the director of Gothenburg’s Natural History Museum said at the time, finding a silver lining in the moral outrage.

Although my efforts to track down the descendants of a couple that, I’d wager, are history’s only to have sex in a cetacean have so far failed, on a recent trip to Gothenburg, I fulfilled a long-held ambition to get inside a magnificent exhibit that remains the only real blue whale on display anywhere in the world.

OPINION

“We only open it on special occasions, such as election days, because the Swedish word for vote (val) is the same for the word for whale (val),” explained Stefen Örgårdm the museum’s current director, as we walked up wooden steps into the whale’s mouth.

On special occasions such as Christmas, when Santa hands out presents from inside the tum, the top jaw is cranked open in an unnatural but convenient way, allowing tall Nordic visitors to enter without bumping their heads, then move on into the belly.

It’s more of a local village hall than Jonah in there, the organs having long been stripped and placed in barrels of ethanol kept in the museum’s cellar. Two wooden benches running beneath simple drapery have taken their place. We looked out through the baleen-trimmed jaws of the leviathan as Stefen told me of the coming autumn’s new exhibition on unloved city animals and why we should reappraise them.

Today, blue whales are among the most beloved of all animals. Mysterious, elegant and massive.

“The biggest animal that has ever lived on our planet: a blue whale. … It’s far bigger than even the biggest dinosaur. Its tongue weighs as much as an elephant. Its heart is the size of a car. And some of its blood vessels are so wide that you could swim down them,” Sir David Attenborough said in Blue Planet. They are the ultimate Guinness World Record animal.

Their population has bounced back from 5,000 to 25,000, after decades of commercial hunting brought it down from a pre-whaling 300,000 peak.

Back in October 1865, when fisherman brothers Olof and Carl Larsson discovered the whale helplessly beached just off the Swedish west coast, the animals were reviled.

Charitably, it was fear of this vast, mysterious beast that caused the Larssons to do what they did next. I will not repeat the details of the two days of barbarity here. Suffice it to say the whale was killed. And then transported by three steamships and two coal barges into Gothenburg, where the naturalist Augustus Malm purchased the body.

“I will stuff everything,” he declared, leaping onto the collapsing carcase to deliver a speech to the assembled masses. And so he did.

Dozens of butchers, plied with as much beer as needed to withstand the violent smell, hacked it into parts, scooped the organs out and removed the skeleton.

There is something about whales that sends people a little mad. In Nobel Prize winner László Krasznahorkai’s book The Melancholy of Resistance, the arrival of a huge whale on a circus truck sparks a riot. Famously, Ishmael is driven loopy by Moby Dick. And so with the Gothenburg whale.

After days of feverish work, Malm was forced to rest as nausea hit. Realising the whale’s owner had gone, a horde of locals rushed in and snatched blubbery souvenirs. Thankfully, enough remained for the whale to be reconstructed.

Its skin and baleen was cured with arsenic, mercuric chloride and a top coat of colourless copal varnish before being placed onto a wooden frame, 30,000 zinc and copper pins holding it in place. The structure was built in four separable sections, making it easier to transport the whale on trucks to its later resting place in the museum’s great hall. A magnificent photo shows the whale’s head being rolled through a hole in the outer wall.

The whale, still pungent all these years later, remains the museum’s prized exhibit, only competing for the title with a magnificent stuffed elephant.

When in Gothenburg, the museum is the must-visit. But there is much else in Sweden’s second city that is also worth exploring.

Head to Haga, Gothenburg’s oldest neighbourhood, and wander down the cobbled streets. They’re packed with excellent homeware, furniture, book and clothing shops, as well as Café Husaren, a cosy wood-paneled spot known for its massive hagabullar cinnamon buns. These seem to be the Swedish version of the stupidly big croissants everyone photographed for their Instagram last year.

The neighbourhood is now pedestrianised, having been saved from mass demolition in the 1980s and built up from a rough, rundown area into the lovely spot it is today.

From there, hop on a tram or bus and head for the city’s Art Museum. A long day wouldn’t quite be enough to get around all six of its floors, so if in a rush, I recommend the Nordic Fin-de-Siècle section to take in the stunning nature paintings of late 19th-century Swedes, before giving the collection of Carl Larssons their dues.

If not defeated by the earlier hagabullar, consider filling up on Sweden’s (much superior) answer to McDonald’s, Max Burger, or picking up one of the country’s famously weird pizzas and heading home.

Like many second cities, Gothenburg is famous for its friendliness. But also for its terrible weather. There is a good chance you’ll be rained on.

With a sliced banana, pineapple, curry powder and peanut pizza under my arm, I retreated from the deluge to my Airbnb on the outskirts of town. Like Stockholm, you’re never more than ten minutes from the natural world in Gothenburg, or more than 20 from a lake or pretty serious forest. Robert’s place in Ugglum was but a short ride from the centre, but could’ve been deep in the woods of remote Sweden, such was the green surroundings and calm of the place.

This was no corporate holiday let landlord spinning multiple properties, but a family home costing around £200 a night where kids’ paintings decorated the walls and a Barbie Dream House stood proudly in the bedroom.

It is one of Airbnb’s Guest Favourite properties, a title reserved for the accommodation firm’s most rated properties. If you’re spending a little longer in the city, a whole host of Airbnb Experiences are available, such as exploring a local chocolate factory with a chocolatier, joining a seasoned sailor to tack down the coast, or trotting through the woodlands on horseback.

Getting to Gothenburg from the UK is quick and is easy. Direct flights from the UK to Gothenburg-Landvetter Airport are operated by British Airways from London Heathrow, Ryanair from London Stansted, Manchester, and seasonally from Edinburgh, and Norwegian from London Gatwick. Return flights are regularly available for around £30.

THIS was the moment thousands of disappointed music fans were left drastically booing after an iconic music act’s gig was cut short.

Fans who had descended on Milton Keynes to see The Fugees perform were left stunned when the concert was pulled after less than an hour.

Sounds of boos echoed around the Milton Keynes National Bowl from disgruntled fans who were left saddended that the performance by Lauryn Hill and co. had been sensationally axed.

The venue was forced to end the concert early due to licensing restrictions which prevented it from continuing on past 11pm.

Lauryn Hill, 51, and Wyclef Jean, 56, took to the stage shortly after 10pm, following an introduction from comedian Dave Chappelle – leaving little time for them to complete their full performance.

Fans were left bitterly disappointed when the pair were unable to perform some of the group’s biggest hits, including their 1996 multi-platinum smash Killing Me Softly With His Song as a result of the venue curfew.

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The pair, who first reunited in London ahead of the music and arts festival, attempted to address the crowd but their microphones were switched off.

Moments later, the giant on-stage screens also went black at the 65,000-capacity venue.

Fan-shot footage showed the pair complain to the crew on stage, with Lauryn pleading to finish the set as boos rang out across the crowd.

Lauryn did remain on the stage, according to eyewitnesses, thanking fans as they broke into an impromptu a cappella rendition of her hit, Ready Or Not.

Speaking following the abrupt end to the show, Wyclef Jean told us: “We’re really sad how it ended.

“We was just getting started, so we’re hoping to continue next year.”

He added: “We had so much surprises on the line up and everybody showed up and we really felt the crowd, that love and that energy, it’s something that they need, something they feel, it just reminds you of unity.

“With so much division, the diaspora calling is just to remind everybody to come together.”

Prior to the disruption, Lauryn performed a packed set featuring tracks from her landmark 1998 debut album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, including Doo Wop (That Thing) and Ex-Factor.

She was also joined on stage by her sons, including Zion Marley and YG Marley — but some fans were left criticising the additional performances for eating into the Fugees’ already limited set time.

As a special tribute celebrates the extraordinary 50-year career of Bonnie Tyler, the Mirror takes a look at the Total Eclipse of the Heart icon’s wild life behind the scenes, including the accident that changed everything

With her unmistakable husky voice and theatrical music videos, there was nobody quite like Bonnie Tyler.

Her unexpected death earlier this month at the age of 75 came as a great sadness to those who’ve followed her distinctive work over the decades.

A legend of ’80s power ballads, many a fan has attempted a karaoke version of Holding Out for a Hero or Total Eclipse of the Heart. But few could hope to hold a candle to Bonnie’s signature rasp and melodramatic stage presence.

The Welsh singer’s extraordinary 50-year career will be celebrated this weekend in a special tribute compilation aired on BBC Two. And it will perhaps surprise no one that magnetic Bonnie’s personal life was every bit as explosive as her musical output.

Little-known real name

While the name Bonnie Tyler may adorn her Platinum-status records, it wasn’t actually the singer’s real name, and it took some time for her to find one that fit.

Britain’s First Lady of Rock was originally christened Gaynor Hopkins, a name she never much cared for as a budding star growing up in the sleepy village of Skewen, near Swansea.

In the early days of her career, young Bonnie began trying out the name Sherene Davies as a stage name, hoping to distinguish herself from the celebrated Welsh folk singer-songwriter, Mary Hopkin, who was just one year her senior.

Speaking with the Leicestershire Press in 2023, Bonnie revealed: “I never really liked my name, so it was a lovely opportunity to change it. My sister had a little girl called Sherene, and I loved that name – it was my name for seven years.”

It wasn’t to stick, however, and after being signed by RCA Records – Elvis Presley’s old label – Bonnie was told that Sherene just wouldn’t do, as it sounded, to their ears, “like a belly dancer”. A search began for a third moniker, with Bonnie taking a creative approach.

She remembered: “I bought two broadsheet newspapers, and I made a list of all the Christian names in one list and all the surnames in another list, and I matched them up until I came up with Bonnie Tyler. It’s been a great name for me, I reckon Steven Tyler must’ve been in the paper that day.”

Scream injury

She is often referred to as ‘the female Rod Stewart’, but the vocal similarities only became apparent after a grim post-surgery accident.

Speaking with the Mirror in 2023, the It’s a Heartache songstress shared how, as her star began to rise in the glitzy ’70s era, belting out ballads began to take a strain. And in 1977, she had to undergo surgery.

Bonnie said: “I started to get a sore throat because all the singing was taking its toll. A doctor discovered that I had nodules on my vocal cords. The only option was for them to be surgically removed. After the procedure, I was told by my surgeons not to talk, let alone sing, for six weeks.”

Unfortunately, after realising she’d forgotten to take strawberries to her brother, Lynn, who was hospitalised with a leg injury, Bonnie momentarily forgot about the doctor’s warning and let out a scream of frustration.

Detailing the incident in her 2023 memoir Straight from the Heart, Bonnie recalled: “I was so frustrated that I’d have to drive all the way back home, I let out an ‘Oh no!’ scream. When I went for a check-up with the specialist, he looked at me and said, ‘You could have done permanent damage’.”

While medics weren’t best pleased, Bonnie’s producer, David Mackay, was impressed by the gravelly sound her vocals produced, once healed. Bonnie said: “I’d always had quite a husky tone to my voice anyway, but as David joked, I now sounded like a female Rod Stewart!”

Marriage to Olympic athlete

Bonnie may have sung about doomed love affairs, but her marriage to a former Olympic judo athlete Robert Sullivan was a long and happy one. The couple first locked eyes back when Bonnie was still singing in Swansea nightclubs, and Robert was a nightclub manager. They tied the knot on July 4, 1973, with Bonnie officially becoming Mrs Gaynor Sullivan – her fourth name.

In a 2012 interview with The Guardian, Bonnie spoke fondly of those early days together, and it appeared the pair were just as smitten as they were as twentysomething newlyweds just starting out. She shared: “I married Robert, my first serious boyfriend, in 1973, when I was 22. I am still very much in love with him and he with me. We never fall out. He is very easy on the eye, which helps.”

And speaking to the Times about Robert, who went into property development after hanging up his judo belt, she said, “I think the secret to our success is that we met before I was famous.

“We don’t have children because we left it too late to stop taking precautions, and then I had a miscarriage when I was 40. I was unlucky, but I love all my nieces and nephews. Our house in Mumbles is like Paddington Station because everyone wants to come and visit Auntie Gaynor.”

Bonnie and Robert owned at least 25 properties together, including 22 homes across Berkshire and London, plus a sizeable farm in New Zealand. However, their seaside home in Mumbles and their villa in Albufeira proved to be their favourites, and it was between these two much-loved residences that they split their time.

Bonnie Tyler at the BBC airs July 25 at 8:30 pm on BBC Two.

Do you have a story to share? Email me at julia.banim@reachplc.com.

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Hull KR head coach Willie Peters told BBC Radio Humberside:

“I’m very disappointed. We need to look at what happened. I need to be accountable, players need to be accountable, staff need to be accountable.

“I’m not bothered about the scoreboard, I’m bothered about performance. That was a really, really poor performance.

“We got back at half-time to 6-6, we had an opportunity to put pressure on in the second half, but we didn’t do that. It was our doing.

“We had ill discipline, yellow cards. It hurts. The refereeing decisions are not my concern – my concern is my team and that performance.”

Hull KR: Hampshire, Davies, Hiku, Gildart, Burgess, Lewis, May, Sue, Lawton, Whitbread, Martin, Batchelor, Minchella

Interchanges: Litten, Broadbent, Luckley, Dezaria

Wakefield: Rourke, Walsmsley, Scott, Tate, Johnstone, Trueman, Smoothy, McMeeken, Smith, Rodwell, Storton, Vagana, Tevaga

Interchanges: Pitts, Hamlin-Uele, Faatili, Lawford

Referee: Chris Kendall.

TAMERA Mowry fans couldn’t believe the star’s real age as she took to social media to mark her birthday.  

She and twin sister Tia are 90s sitcom icons after starring in the series Sister, Sister – which aired on Nickelodeon in the UK from 1994 until 1999. 

Today Tamera shared a clip on TikTok revealing the women are celebrating their 48th birthday, and fans refused to believe it. 

The clip showed her being presented with a cake decorated with ‘3’ and ‘8’ candles, before someone off camera switched the first for a ‘4’. 

After jokingly running away from the cake, Tamera stopped and pulled the candles from the cake before holding them up and smiling at the camera. 

She wrote: “We spend so much time running from our age. Well, this year, I’m dancing with it. 48 and grateful, because every year is a gift not everyone gets to unwrap.”

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Rushing to comment, one fan wrote: “Why did I think she’s actually 38? She looks amazing.”

Another said: “There is no way they’re 48!!!”

Someone else wrote: “Oh baby you look 28.”

And a fourth added: “Excuse me, 48? You don’t look a day over 20.”

It comes after Tia spoke out following long-running rumours of a feud between the two sisters.

Confirming there are issues between them, she told Entertainment Tonight: “Yes, there’s distance.

“But when something is important to you… you will make time for it.

“We’ve made a pact with each other that we’ll reach out once per week, and that’s on Sundays.”

Actor Finn Wolfhard has revealed that the ending of Stranger Things, which he had been part of his life for a decade, was ‘depressing’ as he struggled to find himself again

Finn Wolfhard has revealed he felt “really lost” after the ending of Stranger Things. The Canadian actor, 23, became an international star playing Mike Wheeler in the sci-fi drama on Netflix.

But after a decade as the character, Finn says that while he feels somewhat liberated to pursue other career ventures, the show’s ending came at a cost, leaving him feeling “lost”.

Asked in a new interview if he felt liberated, he said: “For sure, yeah. At first I felt really lost, because that’s your life for so long and so many of the crew and cast were so integral to the person that you are and to your identity.”

He went on to tell The Guardian: “You almost have a kind of withdrawal for a little while. Then you realise all those relationships, all those friendships, they’re around forever.”

Although Finn and his co-stars, including Millie Bobby Brown, knew the programme would be drawing to a close after the fifth series, it took time for the cast and crew to process it.

Finn said: “Every year it was like, OK, I know I’m going to be in Atlanta filming this thing with the same people for the next however long. It was like my school in a really odd way. Everyone was having a great time, hanging out … All the cast lived in the same neighbourhood. We would go to each other’s houses all the time.

“The vibe [during the last season] was almost like, ‘Oh, we’ll back next year’, but once we got about halfway through, everyone started to realise like, ‘Oh, This is it.’ And then everyone just really valued the time we all had together for that last half.”

While he says that the show ended at the right time, he added: “It was pretty depressing for everyone when it ended … but it feels absolutely right that we’ve ended at the time that we did.”

In the past, Finn has spoken about how he wasn’t prepared for such global fame as a child, admitting that if he had the chance to turn back the clock, he would “put himself in therapy”.

Speaking to People magazine, the actor said: “I don’t think I’d ever go back and do something over, but maybe I would go back to when the show first came out and blew up, and I would directly put myself into therapy.

“But it was so crazy and overnight, that there was not really any time to think about that.” He went on to state that he would “probably” make a mistake in other ways, in childhood, adding that life is about “trial and error”.

Finn has also spoken publicly about suffering from panic attacks and struggling with anxiety from around the age of 15. Despite his struggles, Finn said he didn’t speak to anyone about the issues because of his “whirlwind career”.

He said in the past: “Everyone was like, ‘Look at him, he’s fine. He’s having the best time.’ But in reality, I was probably also developing and things were happening in my brain and anxieties were forming and things that I didn’t realize that I had to bury because of how I had to feel at work.”

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PORTLAND, Maine — This election year is déjà vu for Sen. Susan Collins — the Maine Republican is running for reelection as Democrats pin their hopes on a new candidate to defeat her. Last time, it was state lawmaker Sara Gideon. This time, it’s combat veteran and oyster farmer Graham Platner.

But Collins has proved to be a hard target for Democrats over the years — even for candidates without the baggage of Platner, who has faced criticism for his relationships with women, inflammatory online posts and a previous tattoo recognized as a Nazi symbol. Collins is seeking her sixth term with sky-high name recognition, a record-breaking run of consecutive Senate votes and a history of bringing back federal funding for her state for years.

She is also the rare Republican who sometimes can boost her own popularity back home by keeping her distance from President Trump, and she has perfected that delicate dance even as his tightening grip on the party has cost two of her Senate Republican colleagues their reelection.

Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana lost their primaries when facing Trump-endorsed opponents. But despite the president’s complaints about Collins, he did not campaign against her. Years of practice have made her adept at staying close — but not too close — to the president when it is politically advantageous, and moving away when showing an independent streak is helpful.

“She’s shown time and time again where her state’s electorate is. She understands what’s too far, she understands where she needs to be,” said political consultant Matt Mackowiak, who worked for Cornyn’s failed reelection campaign. Trump endorsed Cornyn’s opponent, Texas Atty. Gen. Ken Paxton.

The road to Senate control goes through Maine

The Democrats need to flip four seats to take control of the Senate in November and hope that Trump’s falling approval ratings and the war in Iran — as well as its subsequent effect on oil prices and the economy — could buoy their chances. Maine is among the top targets, along with Alaska, Ohio and North Carolina.

Platner wants to make the case that Collins isn’t as independent of Trump as her reputation suggests — repeatedly noting that she allowed his Supreme Court nominations to go through, which in 2022 led to the overturning of Roe vs. Wade, a landmark 1973 decision that legalized abortion, among other major issues.

“Susan Collins may have started her career decades ago in Washington with good intentions, but she has become just as spineless and corrupt as the establishment she now serves,” Platner said at a victory party on Tuesday.

Platner supporters are ready for change, said John Keenan, of Sullivan, Maine.

“I think Maine has grown tired of the same old system,” he said. “And putting youth into the campaign, with new instead of a rubber stamp, is very refreshing.”

Republicans have already launched their campaign in support of Collins. The National Republican Senatorial Committee posted a pro-Collins video on the social media channel X on Tuesday that resembled a 1980s video game. It stated that Collins “has brought more than $1.5 billion back to Maine” and that Platner “spent time as a kid at a $70,000 a year prep school in Connecticut.”

Trump has often criticized Collins — but not lately

Even as she faces Platner in November, Collins may have to stay wary of Trump. The president has spent years singling her out for daring to occasionally defy him on some issues.

However, he’s refrained from doing so more recently — especially as Collins failed to draw a credible challenger and cruised to a Republican primary victory.

The White House declined to comment. Political advisors close to Trump, however, said the president understands how critical it is that Republicans maintain control of Congress after November, which requires accommodating Collins. Trump understands the need to avoid a Republican wipeout like 2018’s “blue wave” midterms that saw Democrats flip the House and derail much of the last two years of his first-term plans.

“Senator Susan Collins represents the people of Maine first and foremost and has proven herself to be a dedicated public servant,” said Republican National Committee spokesperson Kristen Cianci in a statement.

Collins spokesperson Blake Kernen said the senator “has worked with five different Presidents throughout her Senate tenure, and has never agreed with any of them on every issue.”

“When she agrees with an effort, she will support it; when she disagrees, she does not hesitate to speak up for what she believes is the right outcome for Maine and for America,” Kernen said in a statement.

Other Republicans ran into trouble with Trump

That didn’t work out for some Republican senators.

Cornyn was among his party’s top voices, rising through the ranks after joining the Senate in 2002. Paxton trounced him in a runoff race days after Trump endorsed the attorney general.

In office since 2015, Cassidy voted to convict Trump during his impeachment trial after the U.S. Capitol siege on Jan. 6, 2021. He lost his primary to Trump-endorsed state Rep. Julia Letlow.

Maine figures to be a more competitive race in November — as evidenced by Trump recently refraining from singling out Collins. That’s despite her voting last week with Democrats to block the nearly $1.8-billion fund the president wanted to create to benefit allies that he claims were unfairly targeted by law enforcement.

“She’s always down in the polls and she survives,” Trump conceded when asked about Collins in an interview with the New York Post last week.

Collins defeated Gideon, the Maine House speaker, by almost 9 points in 2020, the same year that Biden beat Trump by a similar margin in the state.

Mackowiak said that “there’s just no pathway to a MAGA senator from Maine.”

“It does appear that the Trump political operation is soberly analyzing the electoral environment in Maine and really kind of follows her lead as it relates to that state and that race, particularly this cycle,” he said.

Maine Republicans are ‘a bit more pragmatic’

Chuck Ellis, a Republican from Westbrook who runs a digital marketing company, said Collins’ reluctance to move in lockstep with Trump can be a plus.

Although there are some “hard-line” voters who may disapprove, Ellis said, “ultimately a lot of your conservatives, your Republicans, are people who are a bit more pragmatic.”

After Collins opposed the White House’s signature tax cut and spending package last year, and voted against a proposal to claw back $9 billion in foreign aid and public media funding, the president complained about her on social media.

“Republicans, when in doubt, vote the exact opposite of Senator Susan Collins,” he wrote.

Then, in January, Trump lashed out at the “stupidity” of Collins and four other Senate Republicans who joined Democrats to start a debate over restricting the president’s use of force in Venezuela.

She later received a profanity-laced call from Trump.

White House may keep a further distance from Collins’ race

As chair of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, Collins last week cast her 10,000th Senate vote in a row, setting a record.

“She has been able to do and show that ‘I am bringing money and resources from the federal government to Maine to help Maine,’ ” Ellis said.

The president is unlikely to travel to Maine ahead of November despite visiting other states with key Senate races, like Iowa and Michigan. He could even campaign personally for Paxton.

Vice President JD Vance has been to Maine, where he promoted his anti-fraud task force. Collins didn’t attend Vance’s speech in Bangor last month in which he acknowledged the senator’s distance from the Trump administration.

“If she was as partisan as I sometimes wish that she was,” Vance said, “she would not be a good fit for the people of Maine.”

Whittle and Weissert write for the Associated Press. Weissert reported from Washington.