Big Mo: Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren is surging in the polls, becoming the only candidate showing major movement in the numbers.

  A Quinnipiac University poll shows Warren has risen six points to 21 percent in the Democratic primary pack, her best showing so far in any national poll.Thirty-two percent say she has the best ideas.

  But the same poll says that even her supporters question whether she would be able to beat Donald Trump. Poll respondents say former Vice President Joe Biden still has the best chance.

  The Quinnipiac poll has Biden at 32 percent. Quinnipiac quotes its assistant polling director Tim Malloy saying, “Biden survives, Warren thrives and Harris dives as debate number two shakes up the primary.” California Sen. Kamala Harris, who was near even with Biden at 21 percent after the first debate, is now a distant fourth with 7 percent. 

  The Real Clear Politicsaverage of polls has Biden at 31 percent, Bernie Sanders at 15.8, and Warren at 15.5 percent.

National Intelligence:In an effort to stabilize his conflict with the intelligence bureaucracy, President Trump announced he’s naming retired Navy admiral Joseph Maguire as the acting director of national intelligence after failing to install a  political loyalist from Congress. Maguire is the director of the National Counterterrorism Center.

  Dan Coats resigned from the job after having conflict with Trump.

  Trump is suspicious of career bureaucrats who do not pledge him their fealty. He passed over Sue Gordon, the deputy director of national intelligence, who said she’s resigning.

Safe at Home:Following the Parkland, Florida school massacre last year, the  President of the National Rifle Association tried to convince his organization to buy him a $6 million McMansion in a gated Texas community where he thought he and his wife would be safe.

  The Washington Post reports that Wayne LaPierre and his wife rejected an upscale high rise in Dallas with security features in favor of a 10,000-square-foot faux-French lakefront house with views of a golf course in Westlake, Texas. Although security was their stated purpose, Susan LaPierre noted the lack of space in the men’s closet of the master bedroom, according to emails described to the Post.

  Although the deal never went through, the New York attorney general’s office is examining the plan as part of its investigation into the gun lobby’s tax-exempt status.

Not the Right Time:Echoing the standard Republican line that the immediate aftermath of a mass shooting is not the time to talk about gun control. Maine Sen. Susan Collins said she found it “extremely disappointing” that millions of people are calling for gun reform after the mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton. Collins told a conservative radio show on Wednesday, “There are times for political debate, but this is not one of them.”

  This is the standard Republican line after mass killings even though a clear majority of Americans want the Senate to cancel their summer vacation and do something about guns.

  A newUSA Today/Ipsospoll says 67% of Americans want the Senate to pass the universal background check bill passed by the House of Representatives. That even includes 59 percent of Republicans. 

The Immigration Beat:A 41-year-old Iraqi man who grew up in the United States and was deported to his home country died for lack of medicine to treat his diabetes.Jimmy Aldaoud had bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and depression in addition to diabetes. He frequently got into trouble and landed in jail in Detroit where he grew up. In Iraq where he was not able to speak Arabic he ended up sleeping on the street.  Aldaoud died in Baghdad after days of vomiting blood and begging to return to the United States.

The News Roundup:Andrew McCabe, the former deputy director of the FBI and a favorite target of President Trump, has sued the agency for wrongful dismissal, claiming his firing was retaliatory and politically motivated. McCabe was one of the first FBI officials to inquire whether the 2016 Trump campaign had suspicious ties to Russia. — A rocket engine explosion on a naval test range in northern Russia killed two people, injured six, and resulted in what defense officials described as a “brief spike” in radiation levels in the city of Severodvinsk. You know the old disclaimer; “Officials say there’s no danger to the public.” — In the weeks before the El Paso shooter killed 22 at a Walmart, the suspect’s mother called the police concerned about whether her 21-year-old son was mature enough to own assault rifle he had bought.

If You Build It:Major League Baseball announced that next year the Chicago White Sox will play the New York Yankees on the ball field built in an Iowa cornfield for the 1989 baseball tearjerker, “Field of Dreams.”

  Kevin Costner played a farmer who hears a voice urging him to build the field and he ends up playing ball with the ghost of his dead father and a team of baseball legends. It was “Beaches” for men.

  Since then the field has become a tourist attraction. We’re sniffling just at the thought of next August’s game.

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