Today’s biggest stories:
- Donald Trump told the New York Times that he’d consider abandoning NATO allies in the event of a Russian invasion if he felt they weren’t paying the U.S. enough.
- A video recording shows a black Miami-area man named Charles Kinsey lying on the ground with his hands in the air seconds before being shot by police. Kinsey is expected to survive.
- Ted Cruz spoke at Wednesday’s RNC session, but pointedly did not endorse Trump, and the Republican delegates were not happy about it. Cruz later said that he will not support any candidate who, like Trump, implies Cruz’s wife is ugly and that his father helped assassinate John F. Kennedy. That seems fair!
- Newt Gingrich was Wednesday night’s designated guy who talks about how terrorists are comin’ to get ya.
- Here’s a leaked draft of Trump’s Thursday-night speech, which goes heavy on the alleged criminal threat presented by undocumented immigrants.
- Right-wing pundit Laura Ingraham ended her Wednesday speech with a gesture that really looked a lot like a Nazi salute but, you know, probably wasn’t.
- Fox News honcho Roger Ailes was forced out of his job under a cloud of sexual harassment charges, but don’t expect Fox News to change very much in his absence.
- A federal judge ruled against a restrictive voting law for the third time this week.
- There are (on-duty) police officers from all over the country at the RNC.
- The NBA has decided not to hold its 2017 All-Star Game in Charlotte because of North Carolina’s controversial transgender bathroom law.
- And here’s today’s Trump Apocalypse Watch.
