Fist Bump Politics: On the final day of his four-day swing through the Middle East, President Biden will wrap up his campaign to re-establish American influence in the Middle East.

  “The bottom line is: This trip is about once again positioning America in this region for the future,” Biden said yesterday. “We are not going to leave a vacuum in the Middle East for Russia or China to fill.”

  Critical is the relationship with Saudi Arabia, which has been sour. Biden and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman greeted each other yesterday with a Covid-era fist bump rather than a handshake

  As a result, Biden is accused of rehabilitating the reputation of Saudi Arabia’s murderous ruler so he could meet the man and beg more oil for the US.

  Biden said later that he confronted bin Salman in their private meeting about the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, the Washington Post columnist critical of the Saudi regime who was murdered and dismembered in 2018 by Saudi operatives. 

   “I raised it at the top of the meeting, making clear what I thought at the time and what I think of it now,” Biden told reporters. “I was straightforward and direct in discussing it. I made my view crystal clear.”

  Bin Salman and his representatives have denied that the prince had anything to do with it.

Georgia on His Mind: In an investigation that could be the first to indict Trump acolytes for meddling in the results of the 2020 election, the prosecutor in Fulton County, Georgia has sent letters to  two pro-Trump state senators and the chair of the state Republican Party informing them that they could be indicted.

  Fulton County prosecutor Fani Willis is also considering whether to subpoena Donald Trump himself to appear before a grand jury She has already summoned seven of his advisers, including former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

  The inquiry is examining possibly criminal acts including the appointment of unelected pro-Trump electors after the 2020 election and Trump’s phone call to Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger, telling him he needs to “find” nearly 12,000 votes that would win Trump the state.

The War Zone: Russia’s defense minister ordered troops to “further intensify” attacks across Ukraine, according to a statement released. Renewed fighting in the eastern Donbas region and missile strikes across Ukraine signaled that Moscow is becoming aggressive once again.

  The Institute for the Study of War reports that, “Russian forces are likely emerging from their operational pause as of July 15. They say, “The assaults are still small-scale and were largely unsuccessful. If the operational pause is truly over, the Russians will likely continue and expand such assaults in the coming 72 hours.”

  The Russians have taken a beating in this war and are short-handed. The ISW reports that they are putting on a push to form “volunteer battalions” to be given 30 days of training before being thrown into action.

Better Late: Jim Thorpe, the Native American athlete considered one of the greatest all-around athletes in history, has been restored as the sole winner of the decathlon and pentathlon at the 1912 Stockholm Games. Although he had won, the titles were later stripped from him because he was briefly a paid professional baseball player.

  Thorpe crushed the competition in those two events in Stockholm. But he was a Native American and the suspicion always was that US officials did not defend him, partly out of racism and partly out of fanatical devotion to amateurism. 

  The International Olympic Committee in 1982 had restored Thorpe as a “co-winner of both events.” But that was not enough for his supporters who finally won recognition that he was one of the greatest athletes ever to compete.

The Obit Page: John Froines, the chemist who was one of the famous Chicago Seven tried on charges of inciting a riot at the 1968 Democratic National Convention and went on to become an advocate for the environment, has died in Santa Monica, California at age 83. The cause was complications of Parkinson’s disease.

  Having just earned his PHD, Froines went to the convention joining the company of thousands of protesters who ended up in violent clashes with the Chicago police.

  Originally, eight men were indicted, but the case of Bobby Seale, a founder of the Black Panther Party, was severed and he was tried alone. The others among the “Seven” were Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, David Dellinger, Lee Weiner, and Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, co-founders of the Yippies, the Youth International Party. After a raucous trial, all of them were eventually cleared. 

  Froines spent his life in government and academia working on the problems of environmental pollution. Most of the defendants in the Chicago Seven were pot smoking rock and roll products of their times, but not Froines.  “John was straight,” Weiner, told The NY Times. “I’m not going to say we didn’t get along, because that’s not true. But I never had an impulse to say to John, ‘Let’s go smoke some dope.’”

The Spin Rack: Donald Trump’s first wife, Ivana, died of blunt force injuries to her chest sustained in a fall down stairs in her New York City home, the medical examiner reported. — With monkeypox spreading largely among gay men, the centers for Disease Control says there’s a shortage of vaccines.  Nearly 1,500 cases have been reported in the US. — Infamous drug trafficker Rafael Caro Quintero, who was behind the killing of a US DEA agent in 1985, has been caught by Mexican forces nearly 10 years after escaping a Mexican prison.

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