ORANGE ALERT!!:  Donald Trump appeared before the National Association of Black Journalists in Chicago yesterday and proceeded to insult Black people and journalists. 

  Facing a panel of three reporters, Trump said at the outset to ABC’s Rachel Scott that she was “nasty” and “rude” and worked for a “fake news” organization.

  Trump went on to question the racial identity of Vice President Kamala Harris saying, “She was Indian all the way, and then all of a sudden she made a turn and she became a Black person.” 

  Harris’s mother is Indian American, her father is Black, and she has always identified as a Black. She went to all-Black Howard University and pledged to the nation’s first Black college sorority.

  Some of the audience hooted and jeered at Trump. 

  Nevertheless, Trump said of Harris, “I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black. Now she wants to be known as Black. So I don’t know — is she Indian or is she Black?”

  Trump’s staff cut the session short by half an hour. 

  The first tool in Trump’s political tool chest is the personal insult and he has turned on Harris immediately. Transitioning from “Crooked Joe Biden,” he’s converted to “Lyin’ Kamala,” “Laffin’ Kamala Harris” while calling her “crazy,” “nuts,” and “dumb as a rock.” And he has described her inheritance of the Democratic presidential campaign as a “coup.”

THE COCONUT TREE: The United Automobile Workers endorsed Kamala Harris for president, giving her the support of one of the country’s most influential unions.

  “We stand at a crossroads in this country,” UAW president Shawn Fain, said in a statement. He said, “We can put a billionaire back in office who stands against everything our union stands for, or we can elect Kamala Harris who will stand shoulder to shoulder with us in our war on corporate greed.”

   In other political news, a new poll issued by The Economist has Harris leading Trump in a national election by 46-to 44 percent. It’s still a bit early to get a clear picture since President Biden’s withdrawal from the race.

 An Associated Press poll says that 79 percent of Democrats are satisfied to have Harris as the Democratic nominee. That’s more than double the 37 percent satisfied with President Biden as the nominee in a similar poll taken earlier in July.

REVENGE:  Iranian leaders are outraged by what appears to have been an Israeli strike that killed a senior Hamas leader in Tehran, endangering Gaza cease-fire talks and creating a threat of wider war. 

  Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh is reported to have been killed by a rocket that hit the exact room where he was staying in a Tehran residence. 

  Iran said Israel will pay a “heavy price” for the killing of Haniyeh, who was in Iran for the inauguration of the country’s new president.  Israel has not claimed credit. Haniyeh had been involved with the cease-fire talks regarding the war in Gaza.

  The world waits for Iran’s reaction to a killing within its borders. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Haniyeh’s assassination would prompt a “harsh punishment.” In April Iran fired hundreds of missiles at Israel after the Israelis killed a group of Iranian commanders in Syria. 

REMEMBER 9/11: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who planned the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and two co-defendants have all agreed to plead guilty to avoid the death penalty, according to a Defense Department letter sent to the families of the victims. The three will plead to the deaths of 2,976 people. The 59-year-old Mohammed was captured on March 1^st, 2003, in Pakistan and has been held in Guantanamo Bay.

IN FLIGHT: The troubled Boeing aircraft company has named a new chief executive to get the company back on track. Boeing’s board appointed Robert K. Ortberg, a veteran of the aerospace industry, to fix the company’s manufacturing processes and restore its reputation after a door panel blew out of a 737 Max plane in January.

  Ortberg, 64, is a former chief executive of Rockwell Collins, which made electronic systems and other technology for aircraft.

FIVE RINGS: American Katie Ledecky swam away literally with gold in the women’s 1500 meter freestyle in Paris, finishing with an Olympic record 

time of 15:30.02. She has not lost this event in 14 years.

  France’s Anastasiia Kirpichnikova finished with silver slightly more than 10 seconds behind. 

  Ledecky, 27, has won eight Olympic golds over the stretch of four games. She’ll have a shot at #9 in the 800 meter freestyle in which she’s the favorite later this week.

  The US men’s basketball team reached the quarterfinals with a 103-86 win over South Sudan. Really, what’s the point?

 THE SPIN RACK: California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law barring schools from telling parents about changes in their child’s gender identity. — Pentagon research has found that the highest rates of suicide in the military occur among members who work and train around explosions. — Comedian Colin Jost, who has been co-host of “Weekend Update” for 10 years on “Saturday Night Live,” has been picked to host a streaming version of the popular television game show “Jeopardy” to be called “Pop Culture Jeopardy!” — Delta Airlines says it lost $500 million during the CrowdStrike computer programming meltdown that screwed up computer systems around the world. — Scotland Yard has opened a criminal inquiry into whether Washington Post publisher Will Lewis, a Brit, obstructed justice 13 years ago helping Rupert Murdoch in the tabloid phone-hacking scandal.

BELOW THE FOLD: The French Olympic hosts have been trying for months to clean up the river Seine before swimming events in the infamously polluted waters. Even the mayor of Paris took a dip in the river to prove it was safe. But every time it rains, the bacteria levels rise. 

  Yesterday a Canadian triathlete climbed out of the Seine after finishing a one-mile swim and promptly vomited live on television.

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