There could be legal challenges to Harris’ campaign

Getting Your Ears Wider by Hopping for the Rain: The Case for Ms. Harris as the Presuptive Democratic Presidential Candidate

It’s a good morning. You’re reading a newsletter. You can get it delivered to your inbox and listen to up first, the news show that starts your day.

Time: The idea of Ms. Harris as the presumptive Democratic nominee will take a few days to ripple through the public consciousness. Even then, it will take a few days for pollsters to go back out, ask people their views and then crunch the numbers.

Republicans are warning of legal challenges to a smooth transition from Biden to Harris as the presidential nominee, even as top Democrats back her. Some questioned whether Democrats could swap out the candidate for the presidency after Biden dropped out. Republicans worry about whether Harris can get into Biden’s campaign funds. The campaign said earlier this month that it had $240 million.

The House of Commons: Trump’s Assassination, the Legal Challenges, and the Discovery of a Dinosaurus

HouseLawmakers grilled the Secret Service director about the attempted assassination of Donald Trump. She spent nearly five hours in the hot seat. She said that the agency was conducting its own review into what went wrong, and that it was cooperating with multiple investigations. Lawmakers left without having an answer to the biggest question: How was a man allowed on the roof to look at Trump?

One of Ukraine’s largest book-printing plants, Factor Druk, looked like a massacre after a Russian missile strike in May. Seven employees died, and 20 more were wounded. There were thousands of charred books and printing machinery that lay in smoldering ruins under the roof. Words and Bullets was a collection of interviews with writers who were on the war’s front line, and was set to be released last month. The owner of the printing plant, Serhii Polituchyi, says he has not been deterred from plans to reopen because the industry is thriving. The Ukrainian Book Institute tells NPR that bookstore chains have opened dozens of new stores in the past year alone.

Source: Harris’ campaign faces potential legal challenges. And, a new dinosaur discovery

What Are Your Pregnant Expectations After Your First Sex? Implications of the Recent Presidential Election Results for a New Parent (and Other) Baby

A message to my readers who are new parents: Congrats! What is your sex life like? It’s not likely to be so great. Between diaper duties, sleep deprivation, hormonal changes, and general exhaustion, you may not have enough time for physical intimacy. Maybe you don’t feel ready after being cleared for sex after giving birth. Here are some tips from relationship experts to help keep the romance alive in the postpartum period.

The majority of Americans agree with Biden’s decision to step aside from the presidential race, and most think he should stay in office.

I’m sure I’m not the only pollster who was in the field, trying to measure the impact of the events of just the previous several days: the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, the selection of JD Vance as Mr. Trump’s running mate, the president coming down with Covid, the entire Republican National Convention.

A new NPR/PBS News/Marist poll shows that more voters are moving into the undecided camp since it was found that Kamala Harris is a potential Democratic nominee.

Both Harris and Trump have work to do with the younger and nonwhite vote, as well as with the independents, suburban and white voters.

Ms. Harris will drive abortion messaging more sharply. During the June debate, when asked about the overturning of Roe v. Wade, Mr. Biden’s answer was meandering. One issue where voters say they trust Democrats more than Republicans is abortion, and Ms. Harris has said she will make the issue a centerpiece of her message.

Harris and former President Donald Trump are statistically tied, but 1 in 5 independents, including almost 3 in 10 independent women, now say they are undecided. So these next few weeks will be vital for Harris to reintroduce herself before views solidify.

The Silicon Valley is Doomed to Be: The Associated Fundraising Problem in the era of the Donald-Berry-Hopf Assassination

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.

With more folks undecided, there’s an opportunity for Harris that Biden did not seem to have. It’s another indication of how much of a restart this move is for the campaign.

There is a person named “Leah Feiger.” Fundraising for Democrats had reportedly slowed since the disastrous presidential debate a few weeks ago. The assassination attempt on Donald Trump brought right-wing Silicon Valley donors into Trump’s camp, but with a new candidate set to take Biden’s place, Will left-leaning Silicon Valley donors open their checkbooks again? David Gilbert will be on the show talking about how the right wing is calling this a coup. But first, I’m here with WIRED senior writers Makena Kelly and Lauren Goode, who have been reporting on the democratic fundraising situation in Silicon Valley. Welcome back Makena.

[Archival audio]: With Vice President Harris confirming immediately that she is running saying, “We have 107 days until election day, together we will fight and together we will win.”

WIRED: An App for Politics Lab if You’re an iPad user, or you want to follow WIRED to learn more about the University of South Carolina

If you have an iPad, open the app, or tap a link to open it. You can also download an app like Overcast or Pocket Casts, and search for WIRED Politics Lab. We are on that service as well.

There is a person with the last name Feiger. She is named Makena Kelly. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. David Gilbert is @DaithaiGilbert. Write to us at WIRED.com. You can subscribe to the politics lab newsletter here.

It’s possible to listen to the show through the player on the page, but if you’re a subscriber you can get every show for free.

Joel Clement in Gaza: Why a second Trump term is important. And NASA races to save a telescope, according to the Up First Newsletter

The reception Benjamin Netanyahu will receive at a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress is expected to be mixed. Republicans strongly support Netanyahu and Israel in the war in Gaza. The Democrats are becoming more critical with President Biden calling for a cease-fire. About 200 protestors were arrested yesterday after staging a sit-in against the war in Gaza on Capitol Hill. Netanyahu has expressed his belief that Hamas must be completely destroyed in Gaza, which will likely be the central theme of his speech.

The Interior Department worked on policies for Alaskan communities that are threatened by rising sea levels, as part of a seven-year project by Joel Clement. During the time President Barack Obama was in office his work moved forward. Clement was demoted as a result of the government’s efforts to stop working on climate change. Clement resigned and became a whistleblower on what he and other scientists saw as the Trump administration’s political interference and censorship of science. In a second Trump term, such interference would get worse, according to many scientists. There’s a reason.

Source: Newly undecided voters could be crucial for Harris. And NASA races to save a telescope

History is not everything: a PhD student’s first attempt at explaining the emotional connection to popular music (but not necessarily in trivialities)

PhD student Madeline Hamilton was attempting to explain the emotional connection to popular music when she discovered a different discovery. Her find: Today’s most popular tunes are much simpler than hits from decades ago. Hamilton analyzed more than 1,000 pop songs to show how the vocals have gotten less sophisticated over time. But that doesn’t mean today’s hits lack complexity.