Rising Stars: California’s Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom won the Democratic party’s nomination for governor in the state’s primary yesterday. Newsome, who was previously mayor of San Francisco, is on a trajectory to one day run for president.

“It looks like voters will have a real choice this November — between a governor who is going to stand up to Donald Trump and a foot soldier in his war on California,” Newsom told hundreds of supporters at a San Francisco nightclub.

Under California’s primary system, the top two vote winners move on to the general election, regardless of party. Democrats appear to have gotten on the ballot in seven California congressional districts that they have a chance of winning in the fall.

Fashion Loss: Kate Spade, the designer who hit it big with women’s handbags, committed suicide in her New York apartment yesterday. She was found by her maid, hanging from a doorknob. She was 55.

Her husband was at home and her daughter at school when the fashion icon hanged herself with a red scarf.

Spade’s sister said she had suffered depression for years. News reports say Spade left a note for her 13-year-old daughter. She was reported to be having marital problems with her husband, Andy Spade, the brother of comedian David Spade.

Spade branched out into other clothing and accessories, but she made her name with sharply fashionable and affordable handbags. The NY Times said, “Her name became a shorthand for the cute, clever bags that were an instant hit with cosmopolitan women in the early stages of their careers.”

Bikini Swamp Girl Massacre: Millions of Americans learned yesterday that there’s still a Miss America pageant when the event’s directors announced that the competition would no longer include the bikini walk and evening gown.

The pageant directors — actually they say it’s no longer a pageant but a “competition” — said they are trying to keep up with the times in the age of the #MeToo sexual harassment movement.

Former Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson, a former Miss America who successfully sued her boss Roger Aisles for harassment and now chairs the organization said, “We are not going to judge you on your outward appearance.”

She said the competition will be based on the young women’s accomplishments and aspirations.

The bathing suit thing has been part of Miss America since its inception in 1921 as a gimmick to prolong the summer season in Atlantic City. Now they’re going for beauty over brains. Reality might hit hard. If they can’t keep an audience with girls in bikinis, they’re taking a big gamble on going without them.

The Russia Thing: President Trump admitted in a tweet that he’s angry at Attorney Gen. Jeff Sessions for recusing himself from the Russia investigation because otherwise he would have had the attorney general shut it down.

  Trump wrote, “The Russian Witch Hunt Hoax continues, all because Jeff Sessions didn’t tell me he was going to recuse himself…I would have quickly picked someone else. So much time and money wasted, so many lives ruined…and Sessions knew better than most that there was No Collusion!”

Trump was on a Twitter tear yesterday, blaming Democrats for separating illegal immigrants form their children, and again blaming Democrats for crime, taxes, and budget deficits.

But his focus was the Russia investigation. He said, “This is a level of criminality beyond the pale. This is such a grave abuse of power and authority, it’s like nothing else we’ve seen in our history. This makes the Nixon Watergate burglary look like keystone cop stuff.”

The Gun Beat: Education Secretary Betsy DeVos told a Senate panel that the federal school safety commission formed by President Trump will not deal with the role of guns in school massacres.

  Trump formed the Federal Commission on School Safety and appointed DeVos its chairwoman about a month after the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland, Fla.

 Vermont’s democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy asked DeVos, “Will your commission look at the role of firearms as it relates to gun violence in the schools?” Leahy asked.

DeVos: “That is not part of the commission’s charge, per se.”

Leahy: “I see. So you’re studying gun violence and not considering the role of guns.”

DeVos: “We are actually studying school safety and how we can ensure the students are safe at school.”

News Roundup: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced yesterday he’s canceling the August recess to try to clear a backlog of legislation and judicial nominees he blames on the Democratic minority. — An additional 100 or more homes have been destroyed this week by lava flowing from Hawaii’s Mt. Kilauea. A surge of destruction has probably more than doubled the 117 homes already known to have been burned and covered. — California Judge Aaron Persky, who gave a light sentence to a Stanford University student convicted of raping a fellow student, was recalled by the voters yesterday.

Natural Selection: Kelly Sadler, the White House aide who said it doesn’t matter what Arizona Sen. John McCain says because he’s dying, has been bounced. — An Oregon man who had taken LSD and stole a car right in front of police officers later said he thought he was playing Grand Theft Auto. — In Middletown, Conn. a woman who was a customer at a Wendy’s restaurant was so upset with her botched order that she hit the clerk with her burger.

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