BY THE NUMBERS: A spate of new polls shows Vice President Kamala Harris leading or tied within the margin for error against Donald Trump in several of the battleground states that could decide the election. 

  The Cook Political report has Harris leading Trump 48 to 46 percent in Arizona and tied at 46 in Georgia. Cook also has Harris up by three, 49-46 in Michigan, and the same 49-46 in Wisconsin. 

  Cook has Harris ahead 49-48 in Pennsylvania.  That 48 drops to 43 for Trump if Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is considered.

  The numbers in one state leave no room for debate. Cook has Harris leading Trump 59 to 34 percent in California … that’s 25 percent.

ECON 101: Inflation is slowly deflating. The rate of inflation was 2.9 percent from July to July, down from 3 percent in June and the first time it’s been below 3 percent since 2021. It’s encouraging news for the possibility of the Federal Reserve lowering interest rates next month.

  This gives Vice President Kamala Harris and Democratic candidates ammunition to say that the economy is improving. But the damage is done … prices are significantly higher than they were 2-3 years ago and people have not caught up with their income.  

  The Trump campaign denounced the inflation report as “Kamalonomics.” Trump told a rally in North Carolina that if he’s elected his administration would work to bring prices down, but he didn’t say how. As for Harris he said, “She’s not smart, she’s not intelligent.”

THE WAR ROOM: Ukraine’s military mounted its largest drone attack on Russian airfields, hitting four key sites deep inside Russian territory. 

  Russia is pulling troops off its eastern front and moving them north to where a Ukrainian incursion now holds about 400 square miles of Russian homeland.

  Ukraine says it has captured hundreds of Russian soldiers and Russia has evacuated about 130,000 of its citizens. Russia now is forced to juggle between holding or advancing in the south and defending or repelling Ukraine in the north. That appears to fall into the Ukrainian strategy to get relief in the southern front. It’s also been their plan to bring the pain of war home to Russia.

  What comes next for Ukraine after this surprise incursion could be dicey. If Russia brings up enough forces, the Ukrainians could take a pounding.

DIMINISHING RETURNS: The Israeli military has achieved just about everything it can against Hamas in Gaza, the NY Times reports according to US government officials, yet the war goes on.

  The highest estimate is that Israel has killed about 14,000 Hamas militants and about 40,000 Palestinians overall. US officials are reported to believe that Israel can never achieve its stated goal of totally eliminating Hamas. Neither has Israel been able to get Hamas to return the roughly 115 hostages believed to be still held by Hamas in Gaza.

  Israel has destroyed 70-80 percent of the housing in Gaza, where more than two million people live. If or when the war ends, there’s no plan for what comes after.

FINAL SEMESTER: Columbia University president Nemat Shafik resigned yesterday following turmoil over her handling of campus protests and political divisions at the university over the over the Israel-Hamas war. Shafik is being replaced by Dr. Katrina Armstrong, who was physician in chief of Massachusetts General Hospital the day of the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013. 

   Shafik had been at the job just over a year and becomes the third Ivy League president to resign following the campus protests all over the country.

  Shafik was pulled in every direction. She was accused of not protecting Jewish students yet criticized for twice calling the New Yok cops to clear out pro-Palestinian protesters. She was one of the university presidents who testified before Congress in what amounted to a Republican lynching of the educated elite.

THE MICKEY MOUSE CLUB: When Jeffrey Piccolo’ wife, Kanokporn Tangsuan, died of an allergic reaction after eating in a Disney resort restaurant in Orlando, he sued. His wife, a family medicine doctor, was severely allergic to nuts and dairy.

  Now, Disney lawyers are asking for the case to be settled in arbitration because Piccolo had signed up for a free trial of its streaming service, Disney+, and therefore agreed to settle all disputes with the company through arbitration. Lawyers for the happiest place on Earth said in a filing, “Further litigation would only generate needless expenses and waste judicial resources.” 

THE OBIT PAGE: Wally Amos, who went from selling his bite size cookies in a single store in Los Angeles to establishing a national brand with his “Famous Amos” cookies, has died at age 88.

  A former talent agent, Amos opened his store in 1975 with a $25,000 loan and soon had people lined up out the door. His flavors were chocolate chip with peanut butter, chocolate chip with pecans, and butterscotch chips with pecan. By 1981 he was running a $12 million business.

  He sold his character as much as cookies. Always joyful in his Panama hat and colorful short sleeve shirts, he brought happiness to fattening America. Several times he was cast in television sitcoms. But Amos was not great at running a business and by 1988 he had sold all his interest in the company and became an advocate for childhood literacy.

THE SPIN RACK: The World Health Organization declared the Mpox outbreak in parts of Africa a public health emergency of international concern. The disease used to be called “monkey pox.” — Researchers say that the six ton altar stone for Stonehenge in southern England was hauled all the way from Scotland, about 450 miles. They say the altar matches the “geochemical fingerprint” for bedrock found in northeastern Scotland.

BELOW THE FOLD: Moon Unit Zappa is publishing a memoir and we mention it just because we wanted to say, “Moon Unit Zappa.”

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