OVERTURNED: A North Dakota judge has overturned the state’s near-total ban on abortion saying that the State Constitution protects a woman’s right to abortion until fetal viability. 

  “The North Dakota Constitution guarantees each individual, including women, the fundamental right to make medical judgments affecting his or her bodily integrity, health and autonomy, in consultation with a chosen health care provider free from government interference,” Judge Bruce Romanick of the district court in Burleigh County wrote in his decision. 

  Romanick, an elected judge, also ruled that the ban violates the State Constitution’s due process protections because it is too vague in defining exceptions. The state’s attorney general vowed to appeal.

  While Romanick’s decision would make abortion legal fairly soon, North Dakota’s only clinic moved to Minnesota after the procedure was banned, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights, which sued to overturn the ban in 2022. 

IT’S POLITICAL: In a sure sign that he knows he got thumped in Tuesday night’s debate with Kamala Harris, Donald Trump announced that he will not debate her again.

  Trump claims he won the debate and posted on his Truth Social website that, “When a prizefighter loses a fight, the first words out of his mouth are, ‘I WANT A REMATCH.’” As he did Tuesday night in the post-debate spin room, he cited unscientific polls that said he won.

  His post accused Harris and the Biden administration of destroying the country. He wrote in his characteristics all caps, “KAMALA SHOULD FOCUS ON WHAT SHE SHOULD HAVE DONE DURING THE LAST ALMOST FOUR YEAR PERIOD. THERE WILL BE NO THIRD DEBATE!”

  Harris hauled in $47 million in campaign donations following the debate. Campaigning in North Carolina she said, “I believe we owe it to the voters to have another debate.”

HOW MANY FINGERS?: When President Biden gave a slack jawed and vacant performance at his debate with Donald Trump in June it set off a panic within the Democratic Party that their candidate was no longer up to the job. And of course the Republicans said they knew it all along.

  Biden was forced to pull out of the race.

  Tuesday night Donald Trump spewed lies, conspiracy theories and incoherent thoughts in a way that suggests he’s in mental decline. That he is intellectually diminished. He claimed Haitian immigrants in an Ohio town are eating peoples’ household pets and that Democrats want it to be legal to execute an unwanted newborn. 

  House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries asked reporters this week, “Can someone give this guy a cognitive test? It’s not clear to me that he’s actually mentally fit to do the job.”

  Richard A. Friedman, a psychiatrist, writes in The Atlantic that the 78-year-old Trump “displayed some striking, if familiar, patterns that are commonly seen among people in cognitive decline.”

  After citing examples of Trump’s rambling and disconnected speeches and answers to questions, Friedman writes, “If a patient presented to me with the verbal incoherence, tangential thinking, and repetitive speech that Trump now regularly demonstrates, I would almost certainly refer them for a rigorous neuropsychiatric evaluation to rule out a cognitive illness.” 

  He says, “For those who do have such diseases or conditions, several treatments and services exist to help them and their loved ones cope with their decline. But that does not mean any of them would be qualified to serve as commander in chief.”

THE WAR ROOM: Ukraine says a Russian missile has hit a grain ship in the Black Sea. It would be the first strike on a grain ship since the two warring countries agreed to secure shipping routes. Ukrainian grain feeds large parts of the world.

  A spokesman for Ukraine’s southern command told the NY Times that the ship was hit by a missile fired by a Russian jet while it was in “the exclusive economic zone waters of Romania.” The spokesman also said the ship was not Ukrainian flagged.

  In the east, the Russians are reported to be closing in on the city of Pokrovsk, a rail and road hub for all of the Donbas region. Taking Pokrovsk would cut the main supply lines for troops in the remaining Ukrainian strongholds across the region.

  North of there, Ukrainian forces are still holding on to about 500 square miles of Russian territory, but the Russians have begun counterattacks.

YARD LINES: Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailo was pulled out of the game against Buffalo last night after suffering a concussion. Ironically he was hit by Buffalo safety damar Hamlin, whose heart stopped on the field two years ago. The 26-year-old Tagovailo lost time to head injuries in 2022 and his ability to keep playing might be in question.

THE SPIN RACK: A Georgia judge yesterday threw out two charges against Donald Trump in the Georgia election case. The heart of the indictment remains in place. — Thousands of workers at Boeing walked off the job in the Seattle area after rejecting a contract offer from the company. The strike hits just as Boeing is trying to increase airplane production after the company’s safety crisis. — New York City police commissioner Edward Caban has resigned on request after federal agents seized his phone as part of a criminal investigation, one of several involving members of Mayor Eric Adams’ administration. High ranking people in City Hall have been the subject of four federal investigations resulting in searches and seizures of cellphones, including that of Commissioner Caban. — Disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein has been indicted on new charges by a Manhattan grand jury ahead of his re-trial on charges of sexual assault. His previous conviction and 23-year sentence were overturned in April. Weinstein is still in custody.  

BELOW THE FOLD: Following the endorsement of Kamala Harris by pop star Taylor Swift, Donald Trump’s running mate JD Vance said, “I don’t think most Americans are going to be influenced by a billionaire celebrity who is fundamentally disconnected from the interests and problems of most Americans.” 

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