IT’S POLITICAL: Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan won the Democratic primary race for Senate, another win for a progressive defeating a centrist congresswoman in the latest victory for the party’s left wing.

  But in Wisconsin the progressive Francesca Hong lost to the more moderate David Crowley to win the Democratic nomination for governor. 

  On the Republican side, Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth beat MyPillow founder and Trump loyalist Mike Lindell to win the state’s Republican primary for governor. 

  Lindsey Graham’s sister, Darline Graham, who is finishing out her late brother’s term as senator from South Carolina with no prior experience in politics, qualified yesterday for the runoff to win the Republican party’s nomination.

  Amy Klobuchar, the powerful four-term senator, won Tuesday’s Democratic primary race for governor of Minnesota to succeed Tim Walz, whose hopes were crippled by a giant welfare fraud scandal. 

EXIT STAGE RIGHT: Paramount chief David Ellison told his senior executives he would pull his entertainment company out of California if there’s no resolution to the lawsuit by 12 states to block his $111 billion merger with Warner Bros./Discovery. 

  Rob Bonta, the California attorney general, blasted Ellison for threatening to move. “It is an attempt to blackmail regulators who are daring to enforce the law,” Bonta said at a news conference.

  Paramount’s merger with Warner Bros. would put two major movie studios, multiple streaming services, and the news networks CNN and CBS News under the same roof, giving Ellison outsized control of news and entertainment for the American public. 

THE WAR ROOM: Russia lately has been using North Korean missiles in its continuing attacks on Ukraine that also include swarms of drones.

  Russia is aiming to exploit Kyiv’s critical shortage of Patriot air defense missiles, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. “Every step Russia takes – increasing ballistic missile production, bringing in North Korean equipment, preparing for mobilization – all of this shows that Moscow is preparing not for peace, but for escalation,” Zelenskyy posted. 

  Strikes on Monday and yesterday targeted the capital, Kyiv, and Zaporizhzhia City where at least 13 people were killed. The Institute for the Study of War reports that, “Russian forces are likely launching small numbers of North Korean-provided KN-23 ballistic missiles in nightly strike packages in an attempt to battle-test the missiles and improve their accuracy.”

  Ukraine has been hitting back.  The Russian online retailer Wildberries … the Russian Amazon … said its logistical facilities in the Voronezh region of Russia near the Ukrainian border was hit and caught fire.

METASTESIS: Over a busy weekend we did not report that former President Joe Biden’s prostate cancer has spread through his body.

  Hunter Biden, the president’s surviving son, told the BBC that,  “It’s metastasized into his bones and further.” He said; “It’s very painful. It’s very debilitating in many respects, but he’s still out there. He’s still doing his thing — that is, he so believes in this country. And as long as he’s alive, I’m promising you, he’s going to continue to fight.”

IGNORANCE IS BLISS: The Trump administration cancelled funding for the annual report on the warming and changing environment of the Arctic that is upsetting natural systems and even feeding international power strategies. 

  President Trump says global warming and climate change are a hoax and he is forbidding research or even mention of the phenomenon in federal agencies.

  Every year for the past 20 years the Arctic Report Card has chronicled the shrinking of Arctic sea ice and snow cover and the thinning of glaciers. The report’s coordinator and publisher, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, is withdrawing its support. Giving no reason, NOAA issued a statement saying; “Coordination of the 2026 Arctic Report Card will not be facilitated through NOAA. All data historically contributed by NOAA to the product will continue to be collected and will remain publicly available.”

  The statement said NOAA would continue to support Arctic research that contributes to “national security, weather prediction, safety of navigation and the economic vitality of coastal communities.”

INFINITE SCROLL:

— A Washington DC judge ordered the Kennedy Center to pay $252,000 in legal fees to a jazz musician who refused to renew his annual Christmas Eve performance contract after Donald Trump’s name was added to the center. The Center sued jazz musician Chuck Redd claiming he had breached his contract, but the court determined that he had not signed.

— The Trump administration yesterday barred federal Medicaid money from being used to provide gender-transition medication and surgery for transgender adolescents. Transgender care is high on the list of things President Trump wants to end.

  Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said, “Children deserve our protection, not experimental interventions that pose serious risks and convey no proven benefits.”

  The administration favors psychotherapy for minors who believe they were born as the wrong sex.

THE OBIT PAGE: Arlene Smith, the lead singer and songwriter with the Chantels, one of the original “girl groups” in the late 1950s who sang the hit  “Maybe,” died on July 29th in the Bronx at age 84.

 “Maybe, if I pray every night
You’ll come back to me
And maybe, if I cry every day
You’ll come back to stay
Oh, maybe”

BELOW THE FOLD: The press can’t let go of the story about how President Trump surreptitiously switched planes departing Turkey after the NATO summit because of an Iranian threat to Air Force One.

  The press pool was left on Air Force One, thinking the president was on board, and being used as a decoy for any actual threat. Not only the press, but also left on board were Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent along with Stephen Miller, the president’s top domestic policy adviser, and Steven Cheung, the White House communications director.

  It seems that the President and Secret Service were prepared to let his closest aides go down in flames with the “Fake News” if necessary.