Copycat claims dog Melania Trump

The second day of the Republican National Convention Tuesday is partially overshadowed by a controversy over Melania Trump’s speech Monday, and allegations that she plagiarized portions of it from a speech given by Michelle Obama in 2008. The remarks by Donald Trump’s wife, in part, matched comments by Mrs. Obama nearly world-for-word, according to the Associated Press. “This is totally blown out of proportion,” Trump adviser Paul Manafort told The AP. “They’re not even sentences. They’re literally phrases. I was impressed somebody did their homework to think that that could be possibly done.” On Tuesday, two of Donald Trump’s children, Donald Jr. and Tiffany Trump, were scheduled to speak. A report also surfaced Tuesday claiming that Melania Trump did not graduate from a Slovenia university, but instead dropped out after one year. That’s contrary to material that appeared on a campaign website.

WHO’S LEADING? WHO’S COUNTING?

As Donald Trump heads toward his official designation as the Republican presidential nominee, various organizations are handicapping the 2016 presidential race, using everything from sophisticated metrics to betting odds. The New York Times gives Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, a 76 percent chance of winning the election. Fivethirtyeight.com puts her odds much lower, at 64 percent, while the Princeton Election Consortium put the likelihood at 82 percent. PredictWise, based on various betting markets, puts Clinton’s chances at 69 percent.

TURKISH GOVT. PURGES EMPLOYEES

Over 25,000 people have been fired from a wide variety of jobs in the aftermath of a failed coup attempt in Turkey. According to the AP, the public employees sacked included 1,577 university deans, and 15,200 people in the Ministry of Education. An additional 9,000 people are being detained by the government. An attempt to overthrow the regime of President Recip Taypip Erdogan on Friday was unsuccessful.

JUNE WAS HOTTER THAN EVER

Federal science agencies are reporting that June 2016 was the hottest June since temperatures were first recorded in 1880, according to the Washington Post. Globally averaged temperatures were 1.62 degrees warmer than average. The data on the hot month comes from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The previous all-time high was for June 2015.