00:00Controversial oyster farmer turned Maine Senate candidate Graham Plattner is officially headed
00:04to the general election this November, squaring up against Republican incumbent Susan Collins.
00:09Tuesday's primary was largely seen as a formality, given the other big name in the race,
00:13Maine's Democratic Governor Janet Mills, dropped out back in April. Her name was still on the
00:17ballot, though again that too was just a formality, but it is important. While Plattner was able to
00:22win his party's nomination, the protest vote that went to Mills will be crucial to watch as the vote
00:28totals are certified. Plattner now faces five-term Senator Susan Collins, who seems to always find a
00:34way to win even when polls show her down. In her last re-election bid, they underestimated her by
00:39double digits. So much for that, she is the sitting senator five times running. We'll have to wait to
00:44see if Plattner's numerous scandals, including a Nazi tattoo, accusations of mistreating women,
00:49and weird Reddit posts that range from off-color to straight-up offensive will be enough to turn
00:56off general election voters. Meanwhile, out West, Republican candidate for California Governor
01:00Steve Hilton has advanced to the general election, where he will face Democrat Javier Becerra.
01:06Hilton, a former Fox News host, had nearly 25 percent of the vote Tuesday, which is enough to
01:11send him through to November. But he has got his work cut out for him in reliably blue California.
01:17Becerra is a former congressman, California attorney general, and Health and Human Services
01:21Secretary under President Joe Biden. The U.S. launched what it called self-defensive strikes
01:27against Iran Monday evening, Eastern Time, after President Trump blamed the Islamic Republic
01:32for shooting down an American Apache attack helicopter that crashed near the Strait of Hormuz.
01:37U.S. Central Command said, quote, the mission is a proportional response to unjustified Iranian
01:42aggression. That tenuous Iran-Israel-U.S. ceasefire is clearly on even shakier ground than it has been,
01:49if we can even call it that anymore. The two pilots involved in the Apache crash were rescued
01:54and are, according to the president, uninjured. The downing of the chopper came just as the
01:59commander-in-chief announced his latest timeline for a peace deal in Iran. In his words, peace is
02:04about two or three days away. But we've been here before. According to the Post's calculations,
02:10the president has made that claim that the U.S. and Iran are close to a deal 37 times since
02:17the
02:17start of the war on February 26th. So just how big were these latest strikes and what does it mean
02:23for the status of peace talks? The Post's Washington reporter, Caitlin Dornbos, got me up to speed.
02:28So it doesn't look like right now that these retaliatory strikes are going to lead the U.S.
02:35back into relaunching a full-scale war against Iran. President Trump has been really careful to try to
02:42avoid that while still making that decision yesterday to go ahead and strike Iran because of
02:50its downing of a U.S. Apache military helicopter just a day before. So those targeted strikes that
02:58were in response to that helicopter downing, those have been rather limited, hitting some cities along
03:05the coastline between Iran and the Strait of Hormuz that are mostly filled with weapons or places that
03:14they have launched weapons from. One in particular that we know was hit was some of the air defense
03:22systems as well as some radar systems that Iran's military, the IRGC that is, uses in its strikes and
03:33to threaten the Strait of Hormuz. So as of now, no return to war. But again, it brings up this
03:40question of how long will President Trump last? How long will his patience last? And is it
03:48a threat of stopping and having this return to war? Right now, it seems like no, but you never know
03:56how the situation goes with this war. We've seen it change multiple, multiple times.
04:01Carmelo Anthony, the Texas teen on trial for the killing of high school football star Austin Metcalf
04:06sobbed on Tuesday as a jury found him guilty of first degree murder. He was sentenced to 35 years
04:12behind bars, but will be eligible for parole after he serves just half that time. Now, race became a big
04:19part of this story. Anthony is black and Metcalf was white. Add to that the fact that the 12 jurors
04:24and six alternates were all white, Hispanic, and Asian without a single black juror, and you have
04:29a powder keg of racial tension. But the no-nonsense judge in the case refused to let the media circus
04:35around all that tension leak into the trial. He held proceedings in a tiny room with only 27 public
04:41seats, turning away dozens of streamers, true crime buffs, and protesters who waited all night
04:47outside the courthouse. He also overruled an objection from Anthony's team after prosecutors
04:52dismissed black jury candidates siding with the prosecution, which claimed the case was, quote,
04:58race neutral. The prosecution and defense pretty much avoided the subject of race when they questioned
05:03witnesses. But outside of the courtroom, well, that's a different story. Protesters on both sides
05:09of the case were largely split down racial lines and spent the trial trading barbs. But luckily,
05:14as of Tuesday evening, nothing more serious than that. For more on these stories and everything
05:19else you could possibly want to know, check out the New York Post in print or online. And don't
05:24forget, like and subscribe to the New York Postcast wherever you get your podcasts and on YouTube.
05:29I promise you'll be glad you did.
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