The Up First Show: Towards a Smooth Transition Between Ms. Biden and the Presumptive Democratic Presidential Candidate

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Time: The idea of Ms. Harris as the presumptive Democratic nominee will take a few days to ripple through the public consciousness. It will take some time for the pollsters to ask the 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 wondered if Democrats could swap out the presidential candidate if Biden had dropped out. Now, Republicans are more concerned about whether Harris can access Biden’s campaign funds. The campaign said earlier this month that it had $240 million.

The fate of the Ukrainian book-printing factory Factor Druk: Legal challenges, dinosaur discovery, and implications for Cheatle’s campaign against Russian missile attacks

U.S. Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle resigned from her job yesterday, according to the White House. She was reprimanded by both Republicans and Democrats alike for her lack of answers about the assassination attempt on Trump during testimony before the House Oversight Committee.

One of Ukraine’s largest book-printing plants, Factor Druk, looked like a massacre after a Russian missile strike in May. There were seven deaths and 20 wounded employees. There are charred books and printing machinery under the caved-in roof. The attack even destroyed copies of Words and Bullets, a collection of interviews with writers on the war’s front line 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

Predictions from Relationship Experts in the Postpartum Period: Is Kamala Harris a Good Alternative to Biden?

A message to my readers who are new parents: Congrats! How’s your sex life? Chances are, it’s not so great. Between diaper duty, sleep deprivation, hormonal changes and general exhaustion, you might not have time or energy left for physical intimacy. It’s possible you don’t feel ready for sex after having a baby. Here are some tips from relationship experts to help keep the romance alive in the postpartum period.

Today on WIRED Politics Lab, how Democratic megadonors in Silicon Valley are showing their support for Vice President Kamala Harris now that President Joe Biden has dropped out of the race. Lawmakers call Biden’s exit a “coup” online, but why posts from the far-right have exploded.

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.

The 2024 race seems to have been turned on it’s head. We need two things to understand the effect of the change at the top of the Democratic ticket.

Ms. Harris was the one with the power to give what they wanted. Almost a quarter of the voters are double hatred, those who begged the two parties to give them other choices. Now, one party has answered the call, and one question becomes: Is Ms. Harris that longed-for alternative, or is she seen as simply a continuation of the much-maligned Biden candidacy? Early indications are that she gets a two-point bump relative to Mr. Biden among these voters.

Ms. Harris will drive abortion messaging more sharply. When asked about the overturning of the Supreme Court decision on abortion, Mr. Biden had a meandering answer. This issue of abortion is one where voters trust Republicans more than Democrats, and Ms. Harris will make this 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 Democrat Campaign in Silicon Valley: Why Biden Needs a New Candidate, Not a Trump? And How the Right Wing Sees it

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

It is Leah Feiger. The Democratic Party has reportedly suffered a fall in donations since the disastrous presidential debate. Left-leaning donors in the Silicon Valley will open their checkbooks again if a new candidate takes Biden’s place, but they may not because of the assassination attempt on Donald Trump. I’ll talk with David Gilbert later in the show about how the right wing sees this as a coup. The senior writers of WIRED, Makena Kelly and Lauren Goode, have been reporting on the democratic fundraising situation in Silicon Valley. Thank you Makena, welcome back.

[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.”

Podcasts: Podcasting in the WIRED Politics Lab, Podcasts on Spotify and in the Podcasts app on iTunes and iPlayer

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Leah Feiger is @LeahFeiger. Kelly is the name of Makena Kelly. Lauren Goode is a person. David Gilbert is @DaithaiGilbert. Write to us at [email protected]. WIRED Politics Lab newsletter can 888-269-5556 888-269-5556 888-269-5556.

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Israel’s War in Gaza: Why the Trump Administration is Preferring the Strong Support of Israel from a Mixed Trump-President-Electoratically

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can expect a mixed reception today when he’s scheduled to speak at a joint meeting of U.S. Congress. The Republicans are very supportive of Israel in the war in Gaza. But Democrats are increasingly 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. In his speech, Netanyahu is expected to reiterate his belief that Hamas must be destroyed in Gaza.

Joel Clement spent seven years at the Interior Department working on policies meant to help Alaskan communities that are threatened by thawing permafrost and rising sea levels. His work moved forward during the Obama administration. When Trump took over, Clement was reassigned as part of a government-wide effort 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. Many scientists are concerned that such interference would be even more severe in a second Trump term. Here’s why.

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

Bringing Up the Simplest: How Popular Popular Songs Have Been Over the Time-Varying Remixed and Revisited

PhD student Madeline Hamilton set out to explain our emotional connection to popular music and made a different discovery along the way. 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.