A CONTROVERSIAL Republican Congressman lost his party’s nomination and Joe Biden drew close to locking up his party’s nomination for President (Shutterstock).

Voters this week moved a controversial Congressman near to the exit and moved Joe Biden closer to locking up the Democratic presidential nomination.

Steven King, a controversial representative from Iowa, was defeated in his bid for the GOP nomination for his seat by challenger Randy Feenstra, a state senator.

King, who has served 18 years in office, had lost the support of local and national Republicans for his comments. “White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization – how did that language become offensive?” he said, according to the New York Times.

Meanwhile, Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, is now within a few delegates of locking up his party’s selection to run for the White House against Donald Trump.

Biden won seven states on Tuesday, with results still outstanding in several other states. He now has 1,967 delegates pledged to him, and he needs 1991 to clinch the nomination, according to Real Clear Politics.

Trailing him in delegates is Bernie Sanders with 1,045. The Vermont senator has dropped out of the race but urged his supporters to cast ballots for him in hopes of having a bigger influence on the party platform.

Pro basketball to return in July

The National Basketball Association will rebound with a 22-team format to restart the season interrupted by the coronavirus pandemic.

ABC News reports that the league’s Board of Governors approved the plan on Thursday (today).  The NBA Players Association will vote on it on Friday.

Teams will begin training in the Orlando, Florida area on July 7 and play an eight-game “schedule” starting on July 31 at the ESPN Wide World of Sports complex. That will determine playoff seeding. The details of the “post-season” have yet to be finalized. The Los Angeles Lakers, Boston Celtics and Toronto Raptors have already clinched playoff berths.

An up-and-down day on Wall Street

Two of the three major stock indexes showed declines on Thursday. The Dow Jones Average rose by 11.93 points to 26,281.82, but the S&P 500 slumped 20.52 points to 3,112.35 and the Nasdaq fell further, dropping 67.10 points to 9,615.81

U.S. is flattening the curve

While the United States is still the nation with the most coronavirus cases and deaths, the general trend here is positive, according to the Johns Hopkins University. The number of new cases peaked around 32,000 a day in mid-April and is now at about 22,000.

The total number of confirmed coronavirus cases is at 6,660,692 as of Thursday, with the United States still the leader with 1,872,557 cases. Global deaths are at 389,620, with 108,208 in the U.S.

It does rain ­– a little – in Southern California

The National Weather Service’s forecast for Friday shows a 20 percent chance of rain in the Orange County area. There will be early fog, then clouds with a high near 72 degrees.  Saturday will be similar, with winds picking up to 20 miles an hour and a chance of rain.

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