Is That—Is That—Optimism We Feel?  —  What a week, huh?  Thanks for staying with us through it.  Happy Friday.  —  She Nailed It  —William Kristol  —  Success.  —  Kamala Harris's acceptance speech last night was a success.  It capped a Democratic convention that was a success.

RFK Jr. may drop out, but he could still alter a tight presidential race.  Trump is banking on it  —  For the better part of the past year, as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. built and maintained a small but significant base of support for his quixotic White House bid, the two major parties wrestled …

Trump's businesses are raking in millions of dollars from Republican political campaigns - including his own  —  Late last year, former President Donald Trump announced his endorsement of car dealership owner Bernie Moreno for Ohio's Senate seat - elevating an untested candidate …

Trumped in the Ratings  —  MSNBC is posting the strongest total viewership during the DNC.  Conversely, Fox News has struggled. … After night one of the DNC bested night one of the RNC (an average of 20 million viewers to 18.1 million), night two saw the gap open up even wider.

BEYONCÉ NOT AT DNC AFTER ALL  —  EXCLUSIVE  —  UPDATE  —  9:30 PM PT — To quote the great Beyonce: We gotta lay our cards down, down, down ... we got this one wrong.  —  Beyoncé is in Chicago, and getting ready to pop out for Kamala Harris on the final night of the Democratic National Convention ... TMZ has learned.

No one's ready for this  —  Our basic assumptions about photos capturing reality are about to go up in smoke.  —  Photography by Chris Welch / The Verge; AI-altered images made with Google's Magic Editor. … An explosion from the side of an old brick building.  A crashed bicycle in a city intersection.

‘I gave her an A’: Undecided swing state voters make up their minds after Harris' speech  —  Nearly every member of a focus group of undecided voters convened by CNN made up their minds after watching Kamala Harris' acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention.

Why Kamala Harris is looking to WhatsApp to win over Latino voters  —  With WhatsApp used widely by Latinos, the Harris campaign hopes its channel will help activate a community that represents 14.7 percent of all eligible voters.  —  Evelyn Lees was hiking across the mountains of northern …

Supreme Court rejects GOP push to block 41K Arizona voters, but partly OKs proof of citizenship law  —  A divided Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a Republican push that could have blocked more than 41,000 Arizona voters from casting ballots for president in the closely contested swing state …

Secret Service places multiple agents on leave over Trump assassination attempt investigation  —  The U.S. Secret Service has placed multiple agents on leave, including the head of the Pittsburgh field office, as a result of its investigation into last month's assassination attempt …

Kinzinger in DNC speech says GOP is “no longer conservative”  —  Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) said during a speech to the Democratic National Convention on Thursday that the Republican Party is “no longer conservative” under former President Trump.

A 10-Year-Old Pointed a Finger Gun.  The Principal Kicked Him Out of His Tennessee School for a Year.  —  A 2023 state law requires a yearlong expulsion for any student who threatens mass violence on school property.  But some students have been kicked out even when school officials determined that the threat was not credible.