Pete Buttigieg drops out of U.S. presidential race

Democratic presidential candidate, former Indiana mayor Pete Buttigieg has announced his exit from the U.S. presidential race.

Speaking to supporters in South Bend, Indiana, Buttigieg stressed the values he said his campaign had hoped to promote. "Tonight I am making the difficult decision to suspend my campaign for the presidency," BBC cited him as saying.

Buttigieg pledged he would do "everything in my power" to ensure a Democratic win in November's election.

"We got into this race in order to defeat the current president and in order to usher in a new kind of politics," Buttigieg told a crowd of supporters. Now, he said, it was time to "step aside and help bring our party and our country together."