Donald Trump tweeted out his endorsement for Secretary of State Brian Kemp on Wednesday, a move that comes less than a week before the GOP's July 24 primary runoff for governor of Georgia. There was little indication before this that Trump preferred Kemp over Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, who has the support of termed-out Gov. Nathan Deal, and Trump's tweet only offered the usual «tough on crime, strong on the border and illegal immigration» platitudes that he gives out to pretty much all his endorsed candidates. However, it's possible the White House has decided that Kemp is likely to win next week, and they want to take credit for his victory. And while a recent independent poll from the University of Georgia gave Kemp only a small 44-41 lead, there's a good reason to think he had the edge even before he got Trump's help. Even though Cagle led Kemp 39-25 in the first round of the primary in May, the lieutenant governor has struggled to pick up more support despite decisively outspending his opponent. Trump may also simply prefer Kemp, who used one ad to brag about his «big truck, just in case I need to round up criminal illegals and take 'em home myself,» to the more establishment-friendly Cagle. On Wednesday, Kemp also earned an endorsement from Clay Tippins, who took fourth place in May with 12 percent of the vote. This move was very unsurprising, since Tippins released a recorded conversation with Cagle last month where the lieutenant governor admitted to supporting a bad bill solely to stop a super PAC from backing another candidate, former state Sen. Hunter Hill. Tippins later provided Kemp with more audio of that conversation where Cagle was heard saying that primary voters were too extreme and driven by identity politics. Earlier this week, Kemp also picked up the support of Hill, who took 18 percent of the vote. Cagle is also out with what his campaign has labeled his closing ad, and let's just say he's not ending the extremely nasty campaign on a warm and fuzzy note. The narrator details what he says are Kemp's victims after 20 years in politics, beginning with, «26 women sexually assaulted during massages.» The commercial does not go into any detail about this very explosive charge, but Cagle's allies recently launched a different ad (you know, that spot that resembled a 1970s softcore porn video) arguing that the secretary of state failed to revoke licenses of a business with a «series of sexual assault complaints,» and declaring that they and other companies like them contributed heavily to his campaign. The spot continues by saying that Kemp's legacy also includes «57 farmers stiffed for millions, hundreds of seniors hurt by abusive nurses, [and] 6 million Georgians exposed to identify theft.» The narrator then asks what Kemp has to say about «20 years of failures,» and it shows a clip from his last ad where Kemp says, «I say merry Christmas.» The rest of the ad declares that NRA head Oliver North, Trump's state chair, and Deal support Cagle. Let's make sure Stacey Abrams has the resources to beat whichever Republican emerges next week. Please chip in $3 today!

On Wednesday evening, Donald Trump sat down for an interview with CBS anchor Jeff Glor, and while accounts of that interview have indicated that Trump expressed faith in US intelligence, the actual contents don’t agree. Throughout the interview, Trump shows that he’s unable to call Vladimir Putin a liar, as he savages a long list of U.S. intelligence figures and indicates he only has faith in “his people.” Trump’s statements also include an open claim that there is a secret plot within the U.S. government—a mysterious “they”—working against Trump from somewhere in the deepest deep state to take him down. Far from walking back anything Trump said in Helsinki, his CBS interview did just what could be expected from Trump: It doubled down on his attack on intelligence officials, criticized reporters for reporting, and put forward again the idea that only someone who is a partisan for Trump can be trusted. Glor: But he denies it, so if you believe US intelligence agencies, is Putin lying to you? Trump: I don't want to get into whether or not he's lying. I can only say that I do have confidence in our intelligence agencies as currently constituted. It’s the “as currently configured” part of this that renders everything else moot. Because what Trump is actually saying is that he likes Dan Coats and Gina Haspel—though obviously not enough to say that Putin is lying. But his “belief” in U.S. intelligence agencies stops as soon as it passes the people he personally put in place. And that includes disregarding everything he was told by everyone up until … Tuesday? Wednesday? That part isn’t quite clear.  What is clear is that Trump doesn’t trust anyone except Coats, because he rattles off a long list of people including James Comey, Andrew McCabe, John Brennan, James Clapper, Michael Hayden, and of course Peter Strzok and Lisa Page who get labeled as untrustworthy. And that’s before Trump divulges his belief in a secret cabal within the intelligence community that is out to get him. Trump: You know, Clapper wrote me a beautiful letter when I first went to office, and it was really nice. And then, all of a sudden, he's gone haywire because they got to him and they probably got him to say things that maybe he doesn't even mean. They got to Clapper. They got him to ‘say things’ he doesn’t mean. Only … who is they?

The Lower House Committee for Information Policy has backed a motion banning advertisers from promoting alcohol, pharmaceuticals, gambling and weapons on kids’ radio and TV programs. Read Full Article at RT.com

In an interview with CBS on Wednesday, Donald Trump complained that all the coverage of his meeting with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin had not been “fair.” All the networks and papers had focused on his fumbling, fawning appearance at the press conference, his inability to stand up to Putin, and “a few statements” he made throwing his own country under the bus. When it was suggested to Trump that the media had provided wall to wall, accurate coverage of everything said at the conference, his response was telling. TRUMP: I don't care what they covered. They don't, they didn't cover my meeting. The important thing, frankly, was the meeting that lasted for two and a half hours, or almost two and a half hours. And in that meeting, we discussed many, many things that were very, very positive for both countries. But of course there’s a reason why the press hasn’t covered the contents of the meeting. We don’t know the contents of the meeting. Trump has provided only shifting, and vague claims about what was said. The press conference was supposed to tell the world what had happened in the meeting, but it turned into a showcase of Donald Trump showing his preference for Putin over America. Which, for all anyone knows, is exactly what happened in the discussion we didn’t see. Only, as the Washington Post reports, someone is coming forward to talk about that private meeting. It’s not Trump. It’s the Russian ambassador making claims about what Trump promised his country when no one was looking. “Important verbal agreements” were reached at the Helsinki meeting, Russia’s ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Antonov, told reporters in Moscow Wednesday, including preservation of the New Start and INF agreements, major bilateral arms control treaties whose futures have been in question. Antonov also said that Putin had made “specific and interesting proposals to Washington” on how the two countries could cooperate on Syria. Preserving the arms limits under New START would seem to be a good thing, only … we don’t know if that’s true. We don’t know anything. Except that the US military should not be scrambling to discover what happened in this meeting by listing to the Russian ambassador speak in Moscow.

FOR THE KIDS IN YOUR LIFE, AND THEIR SUMMER READING:  Get Ruben Bolling’s hit book series for kids, The EMU Club Adventures. «The type of non-stop action and improbably hilarious fun that only a kid could dream up. ... The EMU Club's adventures perfectly capture the intersection of imagination and wonder - the crossroad that's so often found in cardboard boxes, pillow forts and backyards everywhere.» -GeekDad ”A light, charming read that one can only hope gets into the hands of man a little one thirsting for adventure.”  -BoingBoing ”Filled with wild twists and funny dialogue, this suburban/intergalactic adventure bodes well for later installments.”  -Publishers Weekly Get Book the First, «Alien Invasion in My Backyard,» here.  Get Book the Second, “Ghostly Thief of Time,” here. - AND/OR: Join the INNER HIVE today to sustain Tom the Dancing Bug!

The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, and Carolyn Fiddler, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar. Leading Off ● GA-Gov: Donald Trump tweeted out his endorsement for Secretary of State Brian Kemp on Wednesday, a move that comes less than a week before the GOP's July 24 primary runoff for governor of Georgia. There was little indication before this that Trump preferred Kemp over Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, who has the support of termed-out Gov. Nathan Deal, and Trump's tweet only offered the usual «tough on crime, strong on the border and illegal immigration» platitudes that he gives out to pretty much all his endorsed candidates.​​ Campaign Action ​However, it's possible the White House has decided that Kemp is likely to win next week, and they want to take credit for his victory. And while a recent independent poll from the University of Georgia gave Kemp only a small 44-41 lead, there's a good reason to think he had the edge even before he got Trump's help. Even though Cagle led Kemp 39-25 in the first round of the primary in May, the lieutenant governor has struggled to pick up more support despite decisively outspending his opponent. Trump may also simply prefer Kemp, who used one ad to brag about his «big truck, just in case I need to round up criminal illegals and take 'em home myself,» to the more establishment-friendly Cagle. On Wednesday, Kemp also earned an endorsement from Clay Tippins, who took fourth place in May with 12 percent of the vote. This move was very unsurprising, since Tippins released a recorded conversation with Cagle last month where the lieutenant governor admitted to supporting a “bad” bill solely to stop a super PAC from backing another candidate, former state Sen. Hunter Hill. Tippins later provided Kemp with more audio of that conversation where Cagle was heard saying that primary voters were too extreme and driven by identity politics. Earlier this week, Kemp also picked up the support of Hill, who took 18 percent of the vote. Cagle is also out with what his campaign has labeled his closing ad, and let's just say he's not ending the extremely nasty campaign on a warm and fuzzy note. The narrator details what he says are Kemp's victims after 20 years in politics, beginning with, «26 women sexually assaulted during massages.» The commercial does not go into any detail about this very explosive charge, but Cagle's allies recently launched a different ad (you know, that spot that resembled a 1970s softcore porn video) arguing that the secretary of state failed to revoke licenses of a business with a «series of sexual assault complaints,» and declaring that they and other companies like them contributed heavily to his campaign. The spot continues by saying that Kemp's legacy also includes «57 farmers stiffed for millions, hundreds of seniors hurt by abusive nurses, [and] 6 million Georgians exposed to identify theft.» The narrator then asks what Kemp has to say about «20 years of failures,» and it shows a clip from his last ad where Kemp says, «I say merry Christmas.» The rest of the ad declares that NRA head Oliver North, Trump's state chair, and Deal support Cagle.

Since competition is intensifying from Cambodia, Vietnam and other countries, they have decided to raise the prices by just 10 per cent

The collapse in the price of Bitcoin this year hasn't helped matters either

Calls to break up Facebook in order to even out the playing field for competitors would result in a Chinese tech companies filling the void, said the social network’s co-founder Mark Zuckerberg. Read Full Article at RT.com

About 9,000 kilometers of highways and roads in Russia will be transferred to federal ownership by 2021 before a major rebuilding project to boost the country's road infrastructure and the national economy. Read Full Article at RT.com

The Central Bank of Venezuela will start refining gold in Turkey to avoid US sanctions –  penalties that deter the country from carrying out banking operations in Switzerland, according to the Venezuelan mining minister. Read Full Article at RT.com

DC Universe is like Netflix, a comics shop and a message board all rolled into one service.

Scientists have shown how much sea level would rise if Larsen C and George VI, Antarctic ice shelves at risk of collapse, were to break up. While Larsen C has received much attention due to the break-away of a trillion-ton iceberg from it last summer, its collapse would contribute only a few millimeters to sea-level rise. The break-up of the smaller George VI Ice Shelf would have a much larger impact.

Parkinson's disease, formerly also referred to as shaking palsy, is one of the most frequent disorders affecting movement and the nervous system. Medical researchers have come across a possible cause of the disease - in the patients' immune system.

There is good news for amateur bakers of cakes, muffins and pastries made in extravagant shapes and small and medium-sized baking businesses. Molds will cease to be a problem if the system designed by a research group progresses. This system manufactures non-stick food molds at a low cost. A research group designs a new way to manufacture molds allowing small and medium-sized businesses to improve their creativity.

A large number of bacteria are present in human mouths and may pass into the blood when procedures such as the removal of a tooth are carried out. Chlorhexidine mouthwashes have a powerful antimicrobial effect, but there are opposing positions on its use in these cases.

Using an infrared sensor, biophysicists have succeeded in analyzing quickly and easily which active agents affect the structure of proteins and how long that effect lasts. Researchers have performed time-resolved measurements of the changes to the structure of protein scaffolds, which were triggered by the active agents. Their methods might help develop drugs with little side effects in a quick and targeted manner.

MoviePass competitor Sinemia is lowering prices on the already low-cost movie ticket subscription plans that it introduced earlier this year. Its monthly prices are being cut by $1 across-the-board. The cheapest plan now costs $3.99 per month, which gets you one standard movie ticket for that month. The priciest one, which covers three tickets (and […]

The European Southern Observatory’s latest telescope technology works like a pair of contacts to make cosmic images clearer. A new adaptive-optics module on ESO’s Very Large Telescope in Chile means scientists can capture […] The post Telescope’s Optic Upgrade Produces Super Sharp Images appeared first on Geek.com.

Glass artist Kim KototamaLune creates ethereal sculptures that resemble abstracted organic shapes and faces. She builds delicate glass grids without molds, which she then works into sculptural form and displays in darkened rooms. This presentation allows light to permeate, which both illuminates the sculptures from within and casts dramatic shadows on the surrounding walls. The artist was born in Vietnam and now lives and works in France, and has studied multiple languages. Cultural identity, the origins of life, and in-between spaces play into her inspirations.  More

MANILA, Philippines (AP) - The Philippine immigration bureau on Thursday ordered the deportation of an Australian nun who has angered the president by joining anti-government rallies, but her lawyers called the move «persecution» and said they would appeal. The Bureau of Immigration also wants to prohibit Sister Patricia Anne Fox ...

If you find yourself vacationing in Budapest, Hungary, you could preserve travel memories by taking a few arm-length, low-quality cellphone selfies that will fail to capture the magic of your visit. Or you could hire someone like Dana J. Ardell, a Budapest-based professional photographer who knows photo spots you'll never ...

In an endless stream of absurd moments frozen by the flash of his camera, this photographer has a knack for capturing the darker, peculiar side of the mundane events that surround him.

Last month at E3, I got to check out Lego DC Super-Villains. I found the game highly enjoyable and another worthy entry in the nearly-perfect Lego video game franchise. One of its most […] The post Lego DC Super-Villains Celebrates Start of SDCC With New Trailer appeared first on Geek.com.

MOSCOW (AP) Prosecutors in Kazakhstan say Olympic figure skating medalist Denis Ten has been killed, and they are treating the case as murder.

DURHAM, N.C. (AP) Duke's basketball team will be the subject of an all-access show.

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) Clemson coach Brad Brownell has received a new six-year contract that will pay him $15 million through 2024.

ATLANTA (AP) The Latest on SEC Media Days (all times local):

Iceland's soccer team made a splash in the world cup and now Hatti Magnus talks to PodcastOne Sports Now about becoming the first in his country to play in a major championship in the British Open.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) The Latest on ACC Media Days (all times local):