LEADER OF THE PACK: The latest polling of Republican voters shows former President Donald Trump crushing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis by a 37 point lead while the rest of the pack barely registers on the scale.

  Trump’s legal troubles barely matter to his devoted followers.

  The NY Times/Siena poll has Trump at 54 percent among Republican voters, DeSantis at just 17 percent. The poll also says that even if all the other Republicans dropped out, Trump would beat DeSantis 62 to 31 percent. 

  At the moment, DeSantis is losing even in his home state of Florida.

  Former Vice President Mike Pence, former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley, and Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina each registered at just 3 percent support. Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie and Vivek Ramaswamy, an entrepreneur, each hit only 2 percent.

  The indicted and unabashed Trump continues his tirades against what he calls the “Biden Crime Family.”

  The Saturday night tirade at a rally in Erie, Pennsylvania he said Republican approval of military aid for Ukraine should be leveraged against President Joe Biden and his troubled son, Hunter.  He said, “Congress should refuse to authorize a single additional shipment of our depleted weapons stockpiles … to Ukraine until the FBI, DOJ and IRS hand over every scrap of evidence they have on the Biden Crime Family’s corrupt business dealings.” 

THE WAR ROOM: A day after Ukrainian drones hit Moscow and President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine is taking the war to Russia, a Russian missile hit a Ukraine apartment building, killing four people and wounding 33. 

  Yesterday, three drones launched by Ukraine were aimed at Moscow. The Russian Defense Ministry said that one drone was destroyed outside the city and two others hit commercial buildings in the capital after being intercepted by Russian air defenses. Russian state media showed blown-out windows and twisted beams in one of Moscow’s premier skyscrapers.

  “Ukraine is getting stronger, and the war is gradually returning to Russia’s territory, to its symbolic centers and military bases,” Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his daily address. “This is an inevitable, natural, and absolutely fair.”

  The Russians are continuing efforts to shut down Ukrainian grain exports, over the weekend hitting a grain terminal in the southern city of Kherson.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky has vowed to enhance air defenses around the port and the southern coast, but he doesn’t have what the military needs. He’s asking Western allies to speed delivery of more defense weapons as the Russians strike port facilities almost every day. The spokeswoman for the Ukrainian military southern command told French reporters, “In two or three months, we may not have a single port left.” 

BRING OUT THE DEAD: Global warming is giving up the dead adventurers lost in glaciers.

  Earlier this month, hikers found the remains and climbing equipment of a German climber who went missing on a glacier near Switzerland’s Matterhorn in September of 1986. The 38-year-old man was identified by DNA.

  It’s not the first time this has happened as planet warming shrinks glaciers. In 2015 the bodies of two Japanese climbers were found on the Matterhorn. 

  Swiss glaciers lost 6 percent of their volume in 2022 alone. Swiss police said at the end of a statement about this recent find that, “The recession of the glaciers increasingly brings to light missing alpinists who were reported missing several decades ago.” 

THE SPIN RACK: At least 54 people were killed and 200 wounded in a suicide bombing at a political rally yesterday in northwest Pakistan. The attack targeted a rally organized an Islamist party that is part of the governing coalition in Pakistan. No one has claimed credit for the attack, but the Islamic State is suspected. — Fulton County Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis said in a local news interview that she will announce charging decisions by September 1^st in her investigation of efforts to overturn the 2020 election. —A federal judge in Florida dismissed Donald Trump’s $475 million defamation suit against CNN in which he claimed the network’s use of the term “the big lie” in reference to Trump’s election claims effectively linked him to Adolf Hitler. The judge wrote in his decision that, “CNN’s use of the phrase ‘the Big Lie’ in connection with Trump’s election challenges does not give rise to a plausible inference that Trump advocates the persecution and genocide of Jews or any other group of people.” — The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration wants to raise the fuel economy of new vehicles 18% by the 2032 model year, setting the fleet average at 43.5 miles per gallon in real-world driving. — The City of San Francisco has cited the former Twitter for putting a giant flashing “X” on top of its headquarters building without a permit to advertise the company’s whimsical name change to “X.”

BELOW THE FOLD: The Trader Joe’s grocery chain is recalling two types of cookies, a soup, and premade falafel because they might contain rocks or insects. Joe says the rocks are in the falafel, Almond Windmill Cookies, and the Dark Chocolate Chunk and Almond Cookies. The insects are in the Broccoli and Cheddar soup, which is unappealing even without insects. 

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