scandal

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Pursuing a narrow path to retake control of the U.S. House, Democrats are seeing fresh opportunity in a northeast Ohio congressional district where the Republican incumbent is facing mounting pressure over domestic abuse allegations and a GOP senator, his former father-in-law, said Sunday he is unfit to serve.

Allegations against Rep. Max Miller, a White House advisor during President Trump’s first term who is endorsed by Trump, have been public for years but recently have drawn increased media scrutiny amid an escalating legal back-and-forth with his former spouse, who is the daughter of U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio). That has Democrats sensing Miller could be vulnerable in a district he won two years ago with a little more than 51% of the vote.

The threat to Miller’s candidacy heightened significantly Sunday, as Moreno said his former son-in-law should not be serving in the House and should “seek professional help,” while Miller defended himself against the allegations in a live video on social media.

Miller says he won’t drop out

Moreno, who had been publicly restrained in recent months as the custody dispute between Miller and his daughter Emily played out, said in a lengthy post: “If there are any basic standards of character required to hold elected office, Max Miller fails them. He should not serve in the House of Representatives.”

Moreno wrote that Miller “needs serious psychological help. He is a danger to my daughter, and I hold my breath every minute he has custody of my granddaughter.”

Miller said Sunday that he will remain in his race for reelection before a Wednesday deadline to replace him.

“I’m not dropping out of this race and I’ll win in November,” he said.

Emily Moreno has said that Miller scalded, hit and threatened her while they were married. Miller denied those allegations in the video, as he has in the past.

“It’s incredibly upsetting,” Miller said as he went through a list of the allegations.

Miller also said he had nothing to do with a broken collarbone on their 2-year-old daughter that led Emily Moreno to contact authorities. The pair, who were married in 2022 and finalized their divorce last year, have presented different versions of how the injury occurred, according to court filings and police reports detailed in the magazine Mother Jones that first revealed the child’s injury.

Miller accompanied his announcement with the release of a cache of investigative and court documents related to the custody dispute.

A spokesperson for Emily Moreno, Stefan Mychajliw, said Sunday that the video was “shameful.”

“No loving parent would have ever used their daughter as a PR pawn to save their own political career,” Mychajliw said. “Miller can lie and spin on X, but he cannot do so under oath in a court of law. We are confident that justice will prevail in court.”

Republican reaction

Sen. Moreno’s statement prompted some hand-wringing behind the scenes in his home state, where Trump-endorsed candidates like Miller typically win with ease. The White House did not respond to a request for comment Sunday.

Miller’s Democratic opponent, Brian Poindexter, said no one facing such accusations “belongs in the halls of power.”

State Rep. Mike Dovilla, a U.S. Navy veteran and former presidential appointee to the Office of Personnel Management, and Kevin Coughlin, a former state senator and representative who ran for the U.S. House in 2024 and 2026, were among Republicans whose names were being floated should Miller drop out, according to a high-ranking Republican who discussed the sensitive subject on condition of anonymity.

Democrats have called on Miller to resign, requested a congressional ethics investigation and suggested more help could be directed in the fall toward Poindexter, a union ironworker.

Republicans generally had remained in Miller’s corner until now, saying he has delivered for his district and is electable in November.

Republican Gov. Mike DeWine told Ohio’s Capital Journal that the accusations were troubling and “very serious” but that Miller’s fate should be up to voters.

The tension comes as Republicans are defending their narrow majority in the House in the November races.

Terry Casey, a longtime Republican consultant in Ohio, said Miller remains in a strong position to win the Republican-leaning district, which stretches south from Cleveland and was won decisively by Trump two years ago.

That is unless Poindexter, who has been endorsed by U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), can attract money significant enough to step up his advertising in the 7th Congressional District’s media markets.

“Unless serious people are willing to put in serious money, I’d say beginning around $2 million, it’s all nothing but lip exercises,” Casey said.

The National Republican Congressional Committee declined to discuss whether it would match any influx of Democratic cash. Miller has significantly outraised Poindexter, although the Democrat’s campaign said it has received a surge in social media followers in recent weeks.

Democrats call for ethics probe

Last week, U.S. Rep. Shontel Brown, a Cleveland Democrat, said it “would be wise” for Miller to resign. The House Democratic Women’s Caucus called for an ethics investigation.

“The recent reports of domestic violence and child abuse against Representative Max Miller are deeply disturbing, and Congress can’t ignore them,” Democratic Reps. Teresa Leger Fernández of New Mexico, Emilia Sykes of Ohio and Hillary Scholten of Michigan wrote in their letter. “Allegations of violence against women and children have to be met with the utmost seriousness.”

Other allegations

Miller has denied all allegations of abuse. Last spring, his spokesperson provided documentation to the Associated Press that showed several allegations that he had abused his daughter had been investigated by the Cuyahoga County Division of Children and Family Services and were deemed unsubstantiated. He has sued Emily Moreno for defamation.

The couple’s dispute escalated last week.

On Thursday, lawyers for Emily Moreno asked a judge for a temporary restraining order barring Miller from contact with her attorney, Andrew Zashin. The filing alleges that Miller shouted insults at Zashin and goaded him to “Come at me!” outside a court hearing last May, then grabbed Zashin during a different proceeding on Tuesday.

The court filing quotes Miller’s lawyer as saying his client “just can’t control himself.” The attorney did not return a call seeking comment.

Last month, Miller’s ex-girlfriend, former White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham, filed a lawsuit against him. She accused Miller of violating terms of a confidential settlement agreement they struck to resolve his 2021 lawsuit against her.

That lawsuit alleged Grisham defamed him in her book and in a Washington Post op-ed when she said a former White House staffer — later identified as Miller — physically abused her while they were dating. While the book is vague on the specific allegations, Politico reported at the time that Grisham and Miller’s relationship ended “when he pushed her against a wall and slapped her in the face in his Washington apartment after she accused him of cheating on her.”

Grisham alleged in the new lawsuit filed July 7 that Miller dragged her name into his dispute with Moreno and violated their agreement not to disparage each other.

Democrat’s strategy

For Poindexter, t the accusations against Miller provide a possible path to an upset in November if some conservative-leaning voters opt for him or enough Republican voters are turned off by the domestic abuse allegations and stay home.

“These are serious allegations and deserve the full attention of law enforcement,” Poindexter said in a statement. “If all the allegations against Congressman Miller prove to be true, Max Miller should be in jail, not worried about retaining a seat in Congress.”

Jim Trakas, a former state lawmaker and GOP party chair in northeast Ohio, said Miller is not helped by the fresh developments so close to the election.

“It’s a difficult year for any incumbent,” he said. “Now you have to spend time on this when you want to focus on the main event, which is the pocketbook issues.”

Smyth, Jalonick and Catalini write for the Associated Press.

Eight years ago, during a campaign for Texas attorney general, Justin Nelson ran television advertisements with security camera footage of Ken Paxton pocketing an expensive pen that didn’t belong to him.

Four years ago, George P. Bush went after Paxton by putting up billboards that said “he’s a crook” next to his mugshot from when he was charged with securities fraud.

And this year, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn said “judgment day is coming” as he tried to fend off a Republican primary challenge from Paxton.

All of them lost. Now the question is whether James Talarico, who topped Rep. Jasmine Crockett in an expensive and fiercely contested Democratic primary, will have any more luck as he faces off against Paxton in one of the country’s most closely watched U.S. Senate races.

“The guy’s ability to take shots and just keep moving on and stay in elected office is unlike anything I’ve ever seen in my career, in 25 years of running campaigns,” said Ash Wright, who worked as a senior adviser to Bush.

Paxton never has been convicted and he’s survived by championing conservative legal battles over immigration, abortion and transgender issues in a Republican-dominated state. Much like President Trump, he’s long portrayed himself as the victim of political persecution.

Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico speaks at a rally in Houston in May.

(Danielle Villasana / Getty Images)

Former Paxton challengers and a half-dozen campaign strategists who worked against him warned that Texans may tune out any attempt to revive scandals that they’ve heard about for years, especially when rigid partisanship has convinced voters to be extraordinarily forgiving of candidates’ trespasses.

However, Talarico’s team has studied the previous races and is attempting its own version of the playbook by trying to paint Paxton as part of a broader culture of corruption that has failed to improve people’s lives.

Paxton’s campaign suggested Talarico’s claims were aimed at distracting voters from a record of “out-of-touch views.”

“Every time a fighter, like President Donald Trump and now Ken Paxton, stands up to the permanent political class, even after they are completely acquitted of wrongdoing, people like James Talarico continue pushing the same accusations and claiming corruption,” Paxton campaign spokesperson Madison Cercy said.

Paxton won first reelection despite indictment

Paxton was first elected as Texas attorney general in 2014, and Nelson ran against him in 2018. A Democratic lawyer from Austin, Nelson made Paxton’s indictment on charges of securities fraud central to his campaign, and poked fun at him for picking up another lawyer’s $1,000 pen after finding it at a courthouse security checkpoint.

“Vote Justin Nelson for Texas attorney general,” the narrator said. “He will fight on behalf of all Texans. And he won’t steal your pen.”

Nelson argued that his approach was effective, reflected in Paxton’s narrow margin of 3.6 percentage points in a year when Republican Greg Abbott was reelected as Texas governor by more than 13 percentage points. Nelson’s campaign spent roughly $6.5 million, about half of what Paxton’s campaign spent.

“My message was working,” Nelson said. “I just needed to go louder and longer.”

In 2022, Paxton faced a Republican primary challenge from George P. Bush, the Texas land commissioner and the grandson and nephew of two former presidents from the state.

The securities fraud case was ongoing, and Paxton also was under federal investigation over accusations that he abused his position to benefit an Austin real estate developer, took bribes and retaliated against whistleblower employees.

Paxton responded by portraying himself as a Trump-era Republican and Bush as the heir to a privileged political legacy.

Pro-Paxton organizations spent more than $20 million, about twice as much as Bush and his allies. The race went to a runoff, in which Paxton defeated Bush by 34 percentage points.

Paxton ran against Rochelle Garza, a Democratic civil rights lawyer from Brownsville, in the general election. She said her campaign had a 300-page opposition research file on Paxton but it was difficult to figure out how to approach his past because voters had heard about it for years.

“The amount of potential hits on Paxton can make message discipline challenging,” Garza said.

Paxton ran as the leading legal opponent of President Biden, promoting a string of lawsuits against Biden’s Democratic administration on immigration, abortion and gender policy.

Overwhelmingly outspent, Garza lost by roughly 10 percentage points.

Some supporters see Paxton as a ‘flawed’ fighter

There was more trouble ahead for Paxton.

He split with his wife, who later filed for divorce “on biblical grounds.” He also was impeached by the Texas House, although the Senate acquitted him in 2023 and allowed him to remain in office. The securities fraud case ended in 2024, and Paxton was directed to pay nearly $300,000 in restitution.

Throughout the years, he’s maintained strong support from Republican voters like David and Nancy Lapp, a retired couple from the small town of Wolfforth. They described him as a conservative warrior who has been a victim of persecution.

“He’s had his share of scandals, and almost all of them have, so it’s not necessarily disqualifying anymore,” said David Lapp, 76. “He’s a flawed person, no doubt about it, but he fights for traditional American ideals.”

He added that “nowadays, as long as you’re not in jail, they’ll elect you.”

Beaumont writes for the Associated Press. Associated Press reporters Jesse Bedayn in Del Rio, Texas, and Marc Levy in Wolfforth, Texas, contributed to this report.

ESPN’s 30 for 30 will launch the first two of six podcast episodes July 28 examining the gambling scandal that resulted in Shohei Ohtani‘s interpreter Ippei Mizuhara going to prison for stealing nearly $17 million from the baseball superstar and gambling it away.

The podcast, titled “The Betrayal of Shohei Ohtani” is told by Tisha Thompson, the ESPN investigative reporter who led the outlet’s groundbreaking coverage in March 2024.

Ohtani, who signed a record 10-year, $700-million contract with the Dodgers in December 2023 after playing six years with the Angels, apparently trusted Mizuhara implicitly. He said he was unaware that the interpreter regularly ransacked his bank account for more than two years.

The podcast will recount Mizuhara’s life before he began working for Ohtani in 2013 when both were with the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters in Japan. When Ohtani moved to the United States to play for the Angels in 2018, Mizuhara came with him.

Thompson interviews childhood friends and colleagues of Mizuhara, but the interview that will generate the greatest interest is a 90-minute phone call she had with him 16 hours before she published the story. Thompson got permission from Mizuhara to tape the call and it remains the only interview he has given.

Mizuhara told her that Ohtani had helped him pay off his gambling debts, a story he recanted a day later. The Dodgers fired him the same day they opened the 2024 season with a game against the San Diego Padres in Seoul, South Korea.

IRS special agent Chris Seymour gave Thompson the first interview of his career, and what he and prosecutors say about Mizuhara’s motive goes beyond the narrative that he had a gambling addiction, according to ESPN.

Another interview by Thompson is with bookmaker Mathew Bowyer, who explains on tape that his relationship with Mizuhara began during a hotel poker game with Angels players. Bowyer pleaded guilty last year to running an illegal gambling business, money laundering and filing a false tax return. He was sentenced to 12 months and one day in prison and ordered to pay $1.6 million in restitution to the IRS.

Episodes one and two — “The Letter O” and “The Interview” — will debut July 28, followed by episodes dropping every Tuesday and Thursday through Aug. 11.

New Delhi, India – Brajesh Kumar climbs three floors every evening to sit in solitude on the rooftop terrace of his house overlooking the Ram Temple in Ayodhya in northern India’s Uttar Pradesh.

Over decades, the 65-year-old has seen the once-sleepy town metamorphose into the biggest flashpoint of the Hindu majoritarian movement, championed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Where the temple stands used to be the site of the 16th-century Babri Mosque, but in 1992 a Hindu mob tore it down, sparking religious riots that killed nearly 2,000 people across the country, mostly Muslims.

Two and a half years ago, Modi presided over the consecration ceremony of the new temple, devoted to the Hindu god Ram. Many Hindus believe Ram, the god worshipped as an epitome of righteousness, was born there.

To Hindu devotees like Kumar, the temple – despite the controversy and deaths that defined its birth – brought a sense of serenity.

Until recently.

For the past month, the temple has been embroiled in allegations that those entrusted with its management have instead embezzled donations worth potentially millions of dollars that the site attracted from devotees.

“We have been betrayed [by the management], who have looted our faith, nothing less,” Kumar told Al Jazeera. “Left to them, they will sell us all one day in the name of religion and stuff their own pockets.”

The allegations have led to police investigations, arrests and political fallout that could shape elections in India’s most populous state that are only months away.

Ayodhya’s can of worms

Since its inauguration, the Ram Temple has been among the top religious sites in India, attracting millions of Hindu devotees.

An independent trust, the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust, manages the shrine. Although it is outside the purview of the government, its executive members wield political influence, and some of them come from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the ideological wellspring of the BJP.

The corruption allegations first surfaced this month after Mahipal Singh, a former supervisor of the trust’s accounting team, publicly called out irregularities. Al Jazeera could not reach him for comment.

After a public uproar, Akhilesh Yadav, a former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh from the opposition Samajwadi Party, picked up the issue, alleging that millions of rupees in donations had gone missing.

The mounting pressure pushed the state government, ruled by the BJP, to form a three-member investigation team, which has submitted a report on the alleged misappropriation of donations.

Although the content of the report has not been made public, the state police registered a criminal case and have arrested at least eight people, including those involved in counting cash and valuable offerings at the temple.

More devotees have come forward since, seeking the whereabouts of their valuables, including silver bricks and gold jewellery and artefacts, that they had handed over to the trust’s executives.

On Friday, the trust’s longstanding general secretary, Champat Rai, stepped down with other high-profile trustees. The allegations have been particularly damning for Rai, who has been a central figure in the movement for the Ram Temple.

But it has done little to cool down the tensions in the state, where thousands of devotees, including some BJP supporters, feel cheated.

‘Cunning thieves running Ram Temple’

Santosh Dubey was among those tried for tearing down the Babri Mosque in 1992. He has never shied away from his role and instead has flaunted it.

After the mosque’s demolition, Dubey waited for a final verdict about what was to happen to the site from the courts, where both sides fought bitterly for decades. In 2019, the Supreme Court awarded the site to Hindus – even though it deemed the destruction of the mosque illegal. The top court gave a piece of land to Muslims outside Ayodhya to build a new mosque. In 2020, Dubey and others accused of roles in demolishing the mosque were acquitted — the court cited a lack of adequate evidence.

If those verdicts felt like vindication to Dubey, the alleged embezzlement at the temple has enraged him.

“This corruption causes me deep anguish, a pain that words cannot express,” Dubey told Al Jazeera, speaking from Ayodhya. “All I can say is that nothing less than the death penalty would suffice for them.”

“Cunning, dishonest and ruthless thieves are running the Ram Temple, and they have created such an atmosphere of fear that no one is willing to speak out against them,” he said.

Dubey said the government will struggle to ignore the anger among devotees because the episode batters the BJP’s narrative that it is a saviour of the Hindu faith.

This is not the first time that the temple trust has been the subject of controversy. In 2021, the trust allegedly bought land at highly inflated prices using public donations.

BJP spokespeople refused to comment on the recent allegations when Al Jazeera reached them.

‘Impact on upcoming election’

Devotees of the temple and critics of the government are accusing authorities of attempting a cover-up.

Opposition leader Yadav described the state government’s initial handling of the case as “suspicious”. “The government is arresting the counting staff while shielding the big fish who orchestrated the structural rot,” Yadav said while demanding transparency in the investigation.

Karpatri Maharaj, a prominent Hindu seer associated with the Ram Temple movement, told Al Jazeera that the government is using junior employees as scapegoats and arresting them.

Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, is led by the firebrand Hindu monk-turned-politician Yogi Adityanath, who is often seen as a potential successor to Modi within the RSS-led Hindu majoritarian movement known as Hindutva.

Modi’s party lost a significant base in the state in the 2024 national elections when the BJP fell short of a majority, forcing it to rely on allies’ support to stay in power.

For the BJP, which has long used the campaign for the Ram Temple as a central political plank, the new controversy could prove a challenge before elections in Uttar Pradesh scheduled for early next year, political analyst Rasheed Kidwai said.

“It would have a massive negative impact on the BJP if more religious leaders came forward to speak on this,” Kidwai told Al Jazeera. “This is not something that would be forgotten because it is a matter of faith, and the state chief comes from a religious order himself.”

The episode carries broader lessons, he said: Pandering to religious emotions and fanning divisions can bite back. “What has been benefitting the BJP in these years can also cause immense damage,” Kidwai said.

Gary and Sarah Andrews’s daughter Wynter died 23 minutes after she was delivered by Caesarean section at the Queen’s Medical Centre on 15 September 2019 after repeated warning signs of her being in distress had been missed.

Wynter died from a loss of oxygen flow to the brain – which an inquest found could have been prevented had staff delivered her earlier.

Sarah, 41, had been admitted to hospital on 14 September, six days after initially experiencing contractions.

The inquest heard the maternity unit was “busy” when she arrived, with information on the patient’s history not properly handed over to other staff at shift changes.

The inquest found Wynter may have survived if “multiple missed opportunities” had been spotted.

In what would become a recurring theme about warning signs being missed, the coroner cited a 2018 letter from midwives to bosses at the trust, outlining concerns over staffing levels as “the cause of a potential disaster”.

“The grim predictions… were indeed realised some 10 months later when Wynter died as a result of the unsafe practices warned about,” coroner Laurinda Bower said.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) prosecuted NUH over her death in January 2023, with the trust pleading guilty to care failures.

The criminal prosecution resulted in NUH being fined £800,000.

June 17 (UPI) — Shortly after President Donald Trump rescinded his endorsement of Jackson Lahmeyer, a Republican candidate for the House of Representatives from Oklahoma, Lahmeyer dropped out of the race, saying he didn’t want to be “a distraction.”

“After prayerful consideration with my wife, Kendra, and my team over the past 24 hours, I’ve made the difficult decision to suspend my campaign for Congress,” Lahmeyer said in a statement, CNN reported. “I do not want to be a distraction to my family, my church and the great people of Oklahoma’s 1st Congressional District, who deserve a strong conservative voice representing them in Congress.”

Trump endorsed Lahmeyer, a right-wing megachurch pastor and founder for Pastors for Trump, before Tuesday’s primary, after which the candidate was expected to advance to a runoff for the Republican nomination against Rep. Mark Tedford.

On Sunday, however, The Daily Mail published texts between Lahmeyer and a former Miss Oklahoma pageant winner in which the candidate called her “cute” and mentioned an invitation to his hotel room, The New York Times reported. Lahmeyer acknowledged sending the messages but said they were “carefully cherry-picked,” the Times said.

Trump previously called Lahmeyer a “MAGA Warrior,” saying, “Jackson Lahmeyer has my Complete and Total Endorsement to be the next Representative from Oklahoma’s 1st Congressional District — HE WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN!” But in a social media post on Wednesday, he threw his support behind Tedford.

“I greatly appreciate Jackson Lahmeyer’s hard work under difficult circumstances — he has always been with me, and I will always be wit hhim,” Trump wrote. “But, when it comes to the current Congressional race for Oklahoma’s 1st Congressional District, I will be supporting America First Patriot, Mark Tedford. Mark is Pro Trump and MAGA all the way!”

“HE WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN!” Trump added.

Tedford and Lahmeyer had been running to succeed Rep. Kevin Hern, who is running for Senate. Tedford received 32% of the vote Tuesday while Lahmeyer received 25%. Both did not receive the majority needed to advance directly to the general election. The district heavily favors Republican candidates.

PORTLAND, Maine — Graham Platner, the insurgent Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Maine, will hold his first major campaign rally Friday night as reports continue emerging about his history with women.

Last weekend, his campaign wrestled with stories about sexually explicit messages that Platner sent to several women while he was married. Then on Thursday, The New York Times reported about his relationships with previous girlfriends. Some viewed him positively but others described him as volatile and insulting.

One woman said Platner twisted her arm during an argument and locked her in a room. Platner called that allegation untrue.

But with Maine’s primary around the corner Tuesday and Democrats desperate to rally behind a candidate who can defeat Republican Sen. Susan Collins in November, there’s been little sign of voters or political allies backing away from Platner, who has pitched himself as an imperfect person who has redeemed himself.

Some dismissed news of the text messages as a private matter, one that should be addressed solely by the married couple. Others argue that the need for Democrats to take back control of the U.S. Senate from Republicans is too important to cast aside imperfect candidates.

Yet they’re also wrestling with the question of whether more controversial information surrounding Platner could come out ahead of the November election.

“I think a lot of people are afraid,” said Deb Dagnan, chair of Maine’s Piscataquis County Democrats. “They’re waiting for the other shoe to drop after he gets the nomination. Then what do we do?”

Key to the Senate

Platner is key to Democrats hopes’ to take back the U.S. Senate this year. Yet he’s been bedeviled by near-constant controversies involving his disclosure of a since-covered tattoo of a Nazi symbol, his history of inflammatory online comments and the texting revelations.

Nevertheless, Platner’s most prominent supporters have continued to back the candidate, including Sens. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Ruben Gallego. Platner is scheduled to appear in Bar Harbor Friday evening with progressive Rep. Ro Khanna of California, as well as Democratic candidates for U.S. House and governor, as a part of a “get out the vote” rally in the coastal resort town.

The event is taking place just days ahead of the state’s June 9 primary election, where Platner is expected to secure the Democratic nomination. His top opponent, Gov. Janet Mills, suspended her campaign in late April.

He’ll do so under reignited scrutiny amid reports that he and his wife, Amy Gertner, have had marital difficulties and sought counseling after he allegedly sent sexually explicit text messages to other women.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Gertner had told the campaign in August about the messages, which she had discovered on his phone last year, to make sure they weren’t a liability to the campaign. Platner’s campaign team reportedly decided that the texts were private and being handled by the couple, who were married in 2023.

Genevieve McDonald, a former campaign staffer for Platner, told The Associated Press that the candidate was “sexting multiple women while married” and that “the campaign tried to assess that as an election vulnerability.”

Shortly after the news came out, Platner posted a five-minute video taken by Gertner, who avoided speaking directly about her husband’s reported texts but dubbed the broader coverage as “gossip” and said “being married is hard.”

Voters worry that more scandals lurk

Gertner’s emotional comments about working on her marriage have resonated with some women, who say they are shocked that a former campaign aide would betray someone’s trust and the issue should remain between the couple.

“It’s none of my business as far as I’m concerned,” said Joanne Mason, a local Democratic leader from south-central Maine. “And I would hope that people wouldn’t judge any one person on their own private marriage.”

Valerie Tate, a Democrat from Belfast, described Gertner’s honesty about trying to work on their mental health and marriage as admirable.

“That is not a scandal,” Tate wrote in an email. “That is integrity. Personal growth is not a disqualification from public life. For many of us, it is precisely what made us worthy of it.”

However, Tate conceded that her mind wasn’t fully at ease. With the public still learning about Platner’s past, there is a chance something could emerge as a dealbreaker for voters.

“Of course, there is that concern as there would be in any race with somebody we don’t know all the dramas and the journeys they’ve been on,” she wrote. “Something could come out that would be disqualifying.”

Past controversies simmer

This isn’t the first time Platner has faced questions about his past. He had a tattoo recognized as a Nazi symbol, which he had covered up after starting his campaign.

Platner has said he didn’t realize the meaning of the tattoo. However, a former girlfriend told the Times he joked about it being a Nazi symbol and called it “my Totenkopf.”

There’s also been much attention on Platner’s former Reddit posts, which were dismissive of military sexual assaults and used homophobic slurs, for which he has apologized.

Platner has never held elected office and has fashioned a straight-talking, progressive, populist-style campaign focusing on issues such as income inequality, lack of health care accessibility and the rising cost of housing. In return, he’s attracted thousands at his rallies and campaign events and collected millions in campaign funds to further boost his messaging.

“People want somebody new,” said Paige Zeigler, a former Maine Democratic lawmaker and head of the Waldo County Democrats, on why Platner’s staying power has remained strong. “They want somebody that they feel that they can embrace. And Platner is riding that wave.”

Whittle and Kruesi write for the Associated Press. Kruesi reported from Providence, R.I.

When Nick Antosca was a kid, he didn’t like having good dreams.

“With good dreams, I’d wake up and think, ‘Well, that didn’t happen’ and be disappointed,’” he recalled in a recent video interview. “But with a nightmare I’d wake up with my pulse racing and think, ‘I’m OK, I survived.’ I loved nightmares.”

Chasing that excitement and “healthy” catharsis in his daily life, Antosca has built a career on telling crime and horror stories: “Channel Zero,” “The Act,” “Brand New Cherry Flavor,” “Candy” and “A Friend of the Family.”

His newest project is a 10-episode remake of “Cape Fear” for Apple TV, starring Javier Bardem as Max Cady along with Amy Adams and Patrick Wilson as Anna and Tom Bowden.

“I think everything I’ve done is kind of a psychological horror story about the characters and their relationships,” he says, noting that this is true of the best horror tales like “Rosemary’s Baby,” “The Shining” and “Cape Fear.”

Antosca was a fan of both the original 1962 “Cape Fear” starring Robert Mitchum and Martin Scorsese’s 1991 remake starring Robert De Niro. But he felt it was time for a modern revision, a Southern Gothic fever dream that reflects the complexities of life today.

“The terror in ‘Cape Fear’ is about the destruction of the family,” he says. The story was originally about Cady, a rapist released from prison stalking Sam Bowden, who had interrupted his crime and testified against him. In Scorsese’s version, Bowden had been Cady’s defense attorney who, knowing Cady was guilty, had hidden evidence about the victim’s promiscuity to ensure a conviction and long sentence.

The original features “an all-American archetype of a virtuous family pitted against a monster,” while Scorsese depicted a “broken and dysfunctional family and the monster is even more extreme, he’s like a swamp creature.”

“The previous versions of ‘Cape Fear’ are pretty cut and dry,” Antosca says.

The Bowdens are portrayed by Amy Adams as Anna, Patrick Wilson as Tom and Lily Collias as daughter Natalie.

(Apple)

The new iteration features a sexting scandal, social media eruptions and drones — “there’s more ways to terrorize a family in 2026 and the world is scarier today than it was before” — but that’s not what makes it feel different.

“In our version the truth is more complicated, the past is more mysterious and both the family and the monster are more complicated,” he says. “The truth is murkier and that feels current.”

In this adaptation, Anna Bowden had been Cady’s defense attorney, and he’s no longer an illiterate rube but a successful restaurateur who was convicted of murdering his wife and unborn son. After the trial, Anna scandalously married Cady’s prosecutor Tom; he became stepfather to her newborn daughter Natalie (Lily Collias) and they later had a son Zack (Joe Anders).

“The foundation of their happiness is Max’s suffering,” he says, adding that while the crime was local in the previous versions, Cady’s conviction had been a national sensation in this one.

On the surface, the Bowdens are a perfect family, but cracks are rippling with increasing intensity just beneath, a fragility that will soon be exploited by Cady.

“In the first episodes, the family is permeable and a threat could be coming from anywhere,” he says. “Even if in your gut you think it’s Max Cady, it feels like it’s seeping into the family from all different directions.”

When Cady is suddenly exonerated and set free, he shows up to insinuate himself in the Bowdens’ life. Anna, ironically, works for a nonprofit that seeks to exonerate the wrongly convicted.

“All the versions ask, ‘What would you do to protect your family?’ but this also asks, ‘If an injustice was done to somebody, then what are they justified doing in return,’” he says. “I don’t want the audience rooting for Max, necessarily, but I want to trick them into having sympathy for somebody they didn’t expect to have sympathy for.”

To pull that off, “Cape Fear” needed a star as charismatic as Mitchum and De Niro.

Antosca always dreamed of Bardem as Cady: “When I’d pitch networks before there was a script, I’d say, ‘Picture Javier Bardem in this role.’” But this time, his dream came to vivid life.

The two developed the character together, everything from the explanation for Cady’s Spanish background to his exposure to Santería and prison and his “mutated version of the real religion” to the tattoos adorning Cady’s body to an early scene with a panther and the idea of the “psychological jungle,” which inspired Bardem to incorporate a panther’s physicality into his movement and his eyes.

Antosca always dreamed of Javier Bardem as Max Cady: “When I’d pitch networks before there was a script, I’d say, ‘Picture Javier Bardem in this role.’”

(Apple)

“Javier also asked questions about Max’s emotional history that was useful in shaping his character,” he says. “We wanted to show a little more authentic vulnerability, which we see very much in the previous versions intentionally.”

To make this series, Antosca first approached Scorsese and Steven Spielberg, who had initially developed the 1991 version. “They were incredibly generous and quite involved,” Antosca says. “They encouraged us to forge our own path.”

The one place they urged some fidelity to the past versions was in the score. “They said the Bernard Herrmann score is part of the DNA and feels like a character in both movies,” says Antosca, noting that Elmer Bernstein adapted the original in Scorsese’s version and Jeff Russo used the same starting point this time around.

Scorsese discussed episodes over FaceTime and Zoom, spending time dissecting a vicious fight scene while Antosca was editing it; shot in color but shown in black-and-white, the blood splattering may make you think of “Raging Bull,” but Antosca says the visceral violence was meant to call up “Casino’s” vise scene.

It may be nearly too much to handle, but Antosca is from New Orleans and says he found it easy to exploit the Southern Gothic sensibilities. “Everything is heightened in the Deep South and we were going for that energy, where something is adjacent to the real world but more saturated, sweatier, more feverish,” he says, noting that while the first episode is “cinematically pretty grounded and traditional, when the family gets shocked out of their comfort zone, things get a little crazy.”

That meant handheld cameras, flares, saturated colors, distortions, negative imagery and odd angles to reflect the growing sense of terror. Antosca promises that in the back half of the series, the show will get even wilder and more destabilizing.

“It just feels like there’s violence in the humidity in the South,” he says.

Subconsciously hearkening back to his childhood sleep experiences, he adds, “I wanted this story to feel like a nightmare that just keeps getting worse and worse and worse and worse.”

For those associated with the club, the desire to watch a successful team next season is blended with a need to shake off the damage Eckert’s actions have caused.

One of the more egregious conclusions drawn by the EFL investigation into Southampton’s practices was that the young analyst intern who was caught spying outside Middlesbrough’s training ground had raised concerns about the task he was given, but was put “under extreme pressure” to carry it out by more senior personnel, including Eckert.

In many workplaces, a senior staff member pressuring a junior colleague into performing a task which violates industry rules would be met with a swift and significant punishment.

But Solak told BBC Sport that the intern was at fault for not kicking up more of a fuss, saying: “I believe that our junior intern felt personally it’s wrong, and he didn’t feel right for doing this, and I think he should have expressed that stronger.”

Solak insisted he has subsequently offered the intern analyst a full-time job with the club.

But the treatment of a young, inexperienced member of staff has raised concerns about the club’s culture.

“The club has lacked in terms of leading on the problem, and sorting out their own mess,” Tessem adds.

“I hope they have all learned a very harsh lesson. When you’ve been caught red handed, you need to take responsibility for the situation.”

If Southampton do manage to keep Eckert in his job, then the question of whether the club really has learned that lesson will continue to be asked.

RIVERSIDE — It would not have been an easy reelection bid in any case for freshman Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Riverside), who barely made it to Congress two years ago.

But now Calvert’s biggest reelection hurdle may be his own indiscretions, which also could pose a problem in surviving even his own party’s June primary.

The reason: After months of denying it, Calvert, 40, has admitted having sex in his car one night last November with a woman who police say is a known prostitute.

Initially, Calvert–a member of a prominent Riverside County family–said he was doing nothing wrong with the woman when police saw them together on a Corona street.

Corona police said simply that the congressman was spotted sitting in his car with a female, that there was no criminal activity and that after a few words the congressman drove off.

But the Riverside Press-Enterprise newspaper went to court to press Corona for release of confidential police reports that had been prepared by officers who were sensitive to the fact that they had a street-level encounter with their local congressman.

The city was ordered to release the report, which indicated that there had been evidence of a sex act under way, and an embarrassed Calvert responded with a prepared statement.

“My conduct that evening was inappropriate,” he said–not because it was illegal, but because “it violated the values of the person I strive to be.” He admitted that he was caught in “an extremely embarrassing situation.”

He said he did not pay for the sex. He said he “panicked and tried to drive away” when the officers confronted him, but “came to my senses” and cooperated with them.

Corona Police Capt. John Dalzell said Calvert was not detained or arrested because “while the officer saw certain things, he didn’t see everything necessary to support a finding that a crime was committed.” Dalzell said there was no witness to an exchange of money for services, and neither party claimed to be a victim.

Dalzell said Calvert did not try to exert influence to avoid arrest. He said the officer’s decision not to pursue the matter “wasn’t a close call. He didn’t even call for a supervisor.”

In his explanation for his conduct that night, Calvert said he had come back from a rough week in Washington and was reeling from his father’s suicide a year earlier, as well as his wife’s request for a divorce, which had been granted just a few weeks before.

“I was feeling intensely lonely,” he said. “I realize now that this, or a similar incident, was probably inevitable.”

Calvert, who worked in commercial real estate before his election to Congress in 1992, was expected to coast to his party’s nomination this year to represent western Riverside County in Washington. His opponent in the primary, conservative Joe Khoury, 47, a professor of finance at UC Riverside, ran second behind Calvert in the primary two years ago but thinks he can prevail this time.

“I thought he was vulnerable, even before this incident,” Khoury said. “Riverside is conservative, and voters’ reaction to this is not pleasant. It plays differently here than it would in, say, Los Angeles.”

Calvert’s campaign manager, Ed Slevin, agreed that Calvert will have his hands full winning the primary because of the Corona incident. “I assume he’s more vulnerable in June among conservative Republicans than he’ll be in November,” he said. “I think that, by then, it’ll be considered old news.”

If Calvert wins the primary, his Democratic challenger is expected to be Mark Takano, a high school history and English teacher and trustee of the Riverside Community College District. Takano lost to Calvert by a little more than 500 votes in 1992, and is expected to handily win his party’s nomination in June against a single challenger.

Takano scolded Calvert for not coming clean earlier about the Corona incident. “Mr. Calvert has only himself to blame for his becoming a bigger issue than putting people back to work, fighting crime and improving our schools,” Takano said.

Democratic Party strategists said that, even before Calvert’s encounter with the woman in Corona, the 43rd Congressional District seat had been targeted for turnover because of what they characterized as Calvert’s lackluster performance in Washington during his first stint there and his vulnerability back home.

After a decade of Trumpism, it should come as no surprise that President Trump’s ethos (presenting scandal as strength, outrage as authenticity and public disgrace as evidence you’re a “fighter”) has trickled down into congressional campaigns of both parties.

In Maine, for example, controversial oysterman and veteran Graham Platner, a Democrat, appears poised to face Republican Sen. Susan Collins, after incumbent Gov. Janet Mills’ failure to launch led her to drop out of the Senate primary.

Under old “pre-Trump” rules, Platner’s campaign would have withered instantly after revelations that he once had a Totenkopf SS tattoo, previously identified himself as a communist, said Black people were poor tippers, and wrote that white people “actually are” as racist and stupid as Trump thinks they are.

Instead, after all this surfaced, Platner actually rose in the polls. Considering the circumstances, there are several reasonable explanations for this.

Maybe Maine Dems have concluded that moral purity tests are politically suicidal after years of watching heterodox figures like Joe Rogan and Elon Musk drift away from the party.

Maybe Platner’s rough-edged outsider persona simply feels more authentic than another interchangeable politician in a pantsuit droning on about “working families.”

Perhaps the difference is that, unlike Trump or Texas’ scandal-plagued Republican Atty. Gen. Ken Paxton, Platner has at least attempted contrition.

Or maybe Maine Democrats have absorbed the same lesson Republicans adopted in 2016: Once voters stop treating scandal as disqualifying, policing your own side for off-the-field behavior starts to look like unilateral disarmament.

I mean, who could blame them for thinking you’ve got to fight fire with fire? America, after all, reelected Trump after 34 felony convictions.

At a certain point, continuing to insist that “character matters” starts sounding like advice Ward Cleaver might have offered Wally on “Leave It to Beaver.”

But Maine isn’t the only example of voters viewing scandalous behavior as a “keeping it real” feature, not a bug.

Another just took place in Texas, when the aforementioned Paxton crushed normie incumbent Sen. John Cornyn in a Republican primary runoff, garnering nearly 64% of the vote.

Paxton, it’s worth noting, was previously indicted on felony securities fraud charges, impeached by the Texas House on allegations including bribery, accused by senior aides of abusing his office to help a donor and real-estate developer and accused by his wife (a Texas Republican politician) of infidelity, just to name a few of his greatest hits.

Yet, not only did the scandals not doom Paxton, they probably helped him. They signaled a willingness to fight, casting him as both a victim and an outsider. There may be no purer expression of trickle-down Trumpism than Paxton, which probably explains why Trump endorsed him.

At this point, you might be thinking that all is lost. But there are counterexamples that lend to optimism.

Paxton’s Democratic opponent in Texas, for example, offers a stark contrast, as well as an opportunity to test the level of our societal decline in November.

Texas Democrats could easily have nominated their own chaos agent in Rep. Jasmine Crockett, a progressive firebrand whose flair for viral combat suggests she understands the incentives of modern politics perfectly well.

Instead, they chose James Talarico — a young state legislator, former middle-school teacher and Presbyterian seminarian — who projects the kind of earnest optimism that lands somewhere between Barack Obama and Pete Buttigieg.

If a Democrat like Talarico can win in deep-red Texas — against a scandal-plagued candidate who shouldn’t get within 10 miles of the U.S. Capitol — it will perhaps provide a modicum of hope that red lines still exist, and that some voters still believe character is destiny.

But regardless of who wins that matchup, the fact that both Paxton in Texas and Platner in Maine emerged as their party’s respective Senate candidates (Platner won’t technically be the Democratic nominee until after the Maine primary in June) still suggests something profound has shifted in American politics.

Not long ago, the scandals attached to either man would have ended a campaign overnight.

Today, they function more like résumé enhancements. Because the defining lesson of the Trump era may be this: Nothing is disqualifying anymore.

If a failed nepo baby and middling reality-TV star can become president, survive endless scandals (think “Access Hollywood”), rack up felony convictions, be found liable for sexual abuse, sit by and watch a Capitol riot, and then return to power anyway, traditional ideas about character and electability are simply no longer relevant.

The question now is whether Trumpism has become America’s permanent political operating system — or whether the new rules apply only to Trump himself.

November will offer some hints.

Matt K. Lewis is the author of “Filthy Rich Politicians” and “Too Dumb to Fail.”