REJECTED: Ohio voters rejected a constitutional amendment that was part of a Republican plan to block legal abortion in that state. The vote was 57 percent to 43 percent.

  Issue 1, the bill on the ballot, would have made it a requirement to have 60 percent voter approval for future constitutional amendments. That was intended to block a ballot issue this fall that would make access to abortion a constitutional right in Ohio. 

  As many as 2.8 million votes were cast in what the Republicans had hoped would be a low-vote summer election. What they are finding is that the Supreme Court Dobbs ruling that overturned the universal right to abortion has created a political coalition of liberal, swing, and moderate Republican voters. 

  The Ohio Legislature has passed some of the nation’s strictest limits on abortion, banning the procedure as early as six weeks into pregnancy. The passage of that law drove a grass-roots campaign to place an abortion-rights amendment on the November ballot.

ORANGE ALERT: Evidence in the fourth criminal case involving Donald Trump is expected to be presented to an Atlanta grand jury as soon as next week. Much of the evidence regarding election interference in Georgia was collected by a grand jury that did not have the power to issue indictments. 

  Nearly 20 people have already been told that they are candidates for criminal charges in the investigation run by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. Security barriers have already been erected around the Atlanta courthouse.

  The former president has avoided having a mugshot taken for his first three arrests, but local sheriff Pat Labat said, “It doesn’t matter your status, we’ll have a mugshot ready for you.”

  In Washington, the judge overseeing the federal election case denied a Trump request to delay a hearing about rules for handling evidence and set it for Friday. The prosecution wants to muzzle Trump from releasing what could be sensitive information about witnesses against him. 

  Trump has taken on the mantle of a political Jesus for his followers, telling them, “I’m being indicted for you.”

  “They want to take away my freedom because I will never let them take away your freedom,” Trump told the crowd at a campaign event in New Hampshire yesterday. “They want to silence me because I will never let them silence you.”

THE MEMO: The NY Times has obtained the 2020 memo in which a lawyer working for Donald Trump laid out the plan to create slates of fake electors in “a bold, controversial strategy” to “buy the Trump campaign more time to win litigation that would deprive Biden of electoral votes and/or add to Trump’s column.”

  The existence of the memo was first revealed in the federal indictment accusing Donald Trump of conspiracy to overthrow a legal election. The memo from Kenneth Chesebro acknowledged that the Supreme Court would “likely” reject the electors in the end. 

IT’S POLITICAL: Struggling in the Republican polls, Ron DeSantis has replaced his campaign manager, the same man who steered DeSantis to a blowout re-election as governor of Florida.

  The campaign has been pressed for cash and recently had to lay off a third of its staff.  Generra Peck, the campaign manager, is being replaced by James Uthmeier, the chief of staff in the governor’s office. Other major positions in the staff also are being shifted.

  DeSantis has been criticized for not having senior staff experienced in presidential campaigns and these changes don’t solve that. Right now, Trump is running at 53.7 percent among Republicans with DeSantis a distant second at 15.7.

  One of his biggest problems is the focus of his campaign on fighting “woke” culture, which might have played well in Florida, but is not the biggest concern in the rest of the Republican world.

NO GHOST: The Supreme Court has breathed temporary life back into the Biden administration’s regulation of “ghost guns,” the kits that can be bought online and assembled into untraceable homemade firearms.

  The order is temporary, leaving the regulation in place while a challenge to it wends its way through lower courts.

  The vote was 5 to 4, with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joining the court’s three liberals, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh dissented without giving reasons.

THE WAR ROOM: With its Black Sea ports and grain facilities under Russian attack, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video that his forces will fight back against Russia in the Black Sea to ensure its waters are not blockaded. 

  “If Russia continues to dominate the Black Sea, outside its territory, blockading or firing at us again, launching missiles at our ports, Ukraine will do the same. This is a just defense of our opportunities, of any corridor,” Zelensky said.

  Ukraine has already used seaborne drones to attack a Russian warship and an oil tanker.

  “We don’t have that many ships,” Zelensky said. “But they should clearly understand that by the end of the war, they will have zero ships, zero.”

THE SPIN RACK: A single ticket in Florida has won the $1.58 billion Mega Millions Jackpot. — Rockaway Beach in New York was still closed this morning after a woman was bitten by a shark two days ago. — Comedian and entertainer Wayne Brady, the host of “Let’s Make a Deal,” admitted in an interview with People magazine that he is “pansexual.” He said that means “Bisexual — with an open mind!” 

BELOW THE FOLD:  A large black bear officially designated 64F suspected of breaking into as many as 21 homes in South Lake Tahoe searching for food has been captured by California wildlife authorities. More than 150 incidents were originally blamed on a bear nicknamed Hank the Tank, but it turns out three bears have been involved and, anyway, 64F is female.  

-30-