OFF TRACK: Three vital lines of the French train system were crippled in the middle of the night by a series of arson attacks that left travelers stranded hours before the grand opening ceremonies for the Paris Olympics. Train service is expected to be affected through the weekend, stalling millions of passengers.

  Eurostar said in a statement that all of its high-speed trains going to and from Paris were being diverted. No one has taken responsibility for the sabotage.

  Gabriel Attal, France’s prime minister, said, “Critical points were targeted, which shows that they knew enough about the network to know where to strike.” 

  The fires were set in pipes that carry cables used for signaling. One fire was set near Arras, about 100 miles north of Paris, on the high-speed line between the capital and Lille. A second was set in Courtalain, about 90 miles southwest of Paris. A third attack was thwarted.

  The travel mess is not expected to affect the Olympic ceremonies, but rain is predicted during the hours of the entire outdoor event.

DEGREES OF SEPARATION: Only four days after President Joe Biden pulled out of his campaign for re-election, Vice President Kamala Harris trails Donald Trump by only a single point among likely voters. 

  The NY Tines/Siena College poll has Trump at 48 percent, Harris 47 percent. The last Times/Siena poll on the Trump-Biden matchup had Biden behind Trump by six points.

  The poll shows Harris doing better than Biden among some groups, particularly younger and nonwhite voters. But the poll also has Trump at his highest favorability among registered voters, 48 percent, up from 42 percent in the Times’ last poll.

  The Vice President also picked up the endorsement of former President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle.

  Harris is on a campaign blitz in which she portrays her race against Donald Trump as a choice between a bright future and a dark past.  In a fiery speech to the American federation of teachers she said, “We want to ban assault weapons and they want to ban books,” Ms. Harris said. “Can you imagine?”

  She told the press she’s ready to debate Trump on September 10^th but that he’s “backpedaling” from his prior agreement to debate President Biden on ABC News. She said, “I’m ready, and I think the voters deserve to see the split screen that exists in this race on a debate stage.” 

THE WAR ROOM: Israeli forces retrieved the bodies of five Israelis held in Gaza since October 7^th. They were found in a tunnel 20 yards deep and 220 yards long with several underground chambers.

  Amid growing hopes of a deal to recover surviving hostages, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met yesterday with President Biden. The two were chatty and friendly as they sat for a press availability and did not openly discuss a growing rift over Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza that is leaving near-total destruction.

  John F. Kirby, a White House spokesman, told reporters that Biden planned to press Netanyahu to make the final compromises to reach a cease-fire and possible hostage release. He said, “We need to bring the war to an end and one of the principal things that the president is going to talk to the prime minister about today is how we get there, how do we end this war, and the best way in his view is to get this deal in place.” 

RE-HOMING: California Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered state officials to start dismantling and clearing thousands of homeless encampments in what so far is the country’s most dramatic response to the recent Supreme Court ruling that gave governments authority to remove homeless people from their streets.

  It’s a politically fraught decision for Newsom, a Democrat often mentioned as a potential candidate one day for The White House. California has estimated 180,000 homeless people. There’s would be no immediate place for them to go if the camps are removed. California does not have enough emergency housing.

  Newsom called on state and local leaders to “humanely remove encampments from public spaces” and act “with urgency,” prioritizing those that most threaten health and safety. Some leaders have denounced the Supreme Court decision as permission to impose an inhumane solution on a complex humanitarian problem.

DRUG BUST: US officials say they arrested two top leaders of the Mexico’s powerful Sinaloa drug cartel which has operated a massive international network that transports cocaine and fentanyl into the United States, Europe, and other parts of the world. 

  The Sinaloa Cartel is considered to be one of the most sophisticated and dangerous criminal enterprises in the world. 

  Guzmán López is a son of the notorious crime boss Joaquín Guzmán Loera, known as El Chapo, who was extradited to the US in 2017. Zambada García, 76, known as “El Mayo,” is a co-founder of the Sinaloa Cartel sought by the US for years. Both men were in custody in El Paso, Texas. 

  Stopping the drug trade is like catching rain with a sieve, but Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement, “The Justice Department will not rest until every single cartel leader, member, and associate responsible for poisoning our communities is held accountable.”

THE SPIN RACK: A California wildfire started by a man who pushed a burning car into a gully has grown to 195 square miles near the city of Chico. — Donald Trump tore into FBI Director Christopher Wray for questioning whether the former president’s ear had been hit by a bullet or shrapnel. Trump said on Truth Social, “FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress yesterday that he wasn’t sure if I was hit by shrapnel, glass, or a bullet (the FBI never even checked!), but he was sure that Crooked Joe Biden was physically and cognitively ‘uneventful’ – Wrong!” 

BELOW THE FOLD: The Ohio Supreme Court chewed over the question and ruled that “boneless” chicken wings do not have to be guaranteed to be free of bones.

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