WIKILEAKS DATA DUMPS THE DNC: Leaves the RNC alone.

A SECOND SHOOTING?

Reports of a second shooting at Marienplatz station #Munich https://t.co/uMwFbEuveB

— Sky News (@SkyNews) July 22, 2016

SKYNET SMILES: NASA’s Curiosity rover can now fire its onboard laser all by itself.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Amazon Prime’s latest perk is discounted student loans.

MUNICH SHOOTING UPDATE:

Shooter is still on the loose in Munich; transport has been shut down.

— Sam Gad Jones (@samgadjones) July 22, 2016

THIS IS NOT THE 21ST CENTURY I WAS PROMISED: Chatbot lawyer overturns 160,000 parking tickets in London and New York.

Dubbed as “the world’s first robot lawyer” by its 19-year-old creator, London-born second-year Stanford University student Joshua Browder, DoNotPay helps users contest parking tickets in an easy to use chat-like interface.

The program first works out whether an appeal is possible through a series of simple questions, such as were there clearly visible parking signs, and then guides users through the appeals process.

The results speak for themselves. In the 21 months since the free service was launched in London and now New York, Browder says DoNotPay has taken on 250,000 cases and won 160,000, giving it a success rate of 64% appealing over $4m of parking tickets.

“I think the people getting parking tickets are the most vulnerable in society. These people aren’t looking to break the law. I think they’re being exploited as a revenue source by the local government,” Browder told Venture Beat.

Indeed.

EXCLUSIVE: Manafort to PJM: Trump’s Speech Had ‘Truth-Telling Tone’

DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: College rifle, pistol-shooting clubs under fire, underfunded amid gun debate.

Mass shootings and increasing politicization of the gun debate have left the activity marginalized, especially at eastern schools “staffed by liberals who have never touched a firearm in their lives,” according to the Young America’s Foundation spokeswoman Emily Jashinsky.

“[As gun issues] become a hotter topic and the more conservatives voice their opinions, the more liberals will try to stifle them,” Jashinsky said, adding that universities are “the most insulated bubbles of leftist thought.”

Do tell.

BREAKING: Shooting spree at a shopping centre in Munich causes ‘multiple deaths’ as armed police hunt gunman.

VIDEO: Trump pivots to the general election by questioning whether Cruz’s dad killed JFK — again.

SOCIALIST PROSPERITY: McDonald’s Restaurants In Venezuela Stop Selling Big Macs.

Bloomberg reports that Arcos Dorados Holdings Inc. stopped selling Big Mac sandwiches in Venezuela this week amid a bread shortage.

The Buenos Aires-based company, which operates more than 2,000 restaurants, says the stop-sale is only temporary, and that other sandwiches are available.

“McDonald’s Venezuela is working to resolve this temporary situation,” Daniel Schleiniger, a spokesman for Arcos Dorados, tells Bloomberg. “Together with our supplier, we are evaluating the best options that will allow us to continue serving high quality food to our customers.”

Bad luck, I suppose.

KEVIN D. WILLIAMSON: What does Hillary want? Her only goal is an inauguration.

Read the whole thing.

ALLIES: Power Restored to Incirlik Air Base in Turkey.

After these last seven years, it doesn’t seem all that strange to wonder what we had to give up to get our NATO ally to switch the power back on at our nuclear airbase.

LONG WAR JOURNAL: Treasury designates 3 senior al Qaeda members in Iran.

I had been assured that welcoming Iran back into the community of nations was essential to securing Tehran’s help in the fight against al Qaeda.

RESET, PART II: Russia Bombed Base in Syria Used by U.S.

U.S. and British special forces based in Jordan cross the border into Syria on missions, helping maintain an unofficial buffer zone on Syrian soil to protect Jordan from Islamic State, U.S. officials said. The special forces would rendezvous with their rebel allies at the garrison, initially used by the CIA. For security reasons, the forces wouldn’t spend the night.

A contingent of about 20 British special forces pulled out of the facility less than 24 hours before the U.S. tracked Russian aircraft on June 16 flying across Syria to the garrison, according to U.S. military and intelligence officials briefed on the strike. The aircraft dropped cluster munitions on the target, according to U.S. officials and rebel commanders.

After that first Russian strike, officers with the U.S. military’s Central Command air operations center in Qatar called their counterparts in Russia’s air campaign headquarters in Latakia, Syria, U.S. officials said. The American officers told the Russians that the garrison was part of the U.S. campaign against Islamic State and shouldn’t be attacked.

Roughly 90 minutes after the U.S. warning was delivered, U.S. aircraft circling nearby watched as the Russians launched a second wave of strikes against the garrison.

A U.S. military surveillance aircraft overhead tried to hail the Russian pilots directly using the frequencies which the U.S. and Russian governments had agreed to use in emergencies.

The Russian pilots didn’t respond.

The airstrike happened before John Kerry reached a deal with Moscow on joining forces against terrorist elements in the Syrian Civil War, which should leave you with no doubt about which side held the upper hand in the negotiations.

RESET: The Russian Air Force Is Back.

THIRSTY WORK: Officials detect THC, marijuana’s active ingredient, in Colorado town’s public water supply.

On Thursday afternoon, authorities notified the town of about 800 people that the water should not be drunk, used to cook with or even to bathe. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment later downgraded the warning — it was safe to shower, brush teeth and do laundry with the tap water. Ingestion remained inadvisable.

There have not been reports of health issues linked to Hugo’s water, according to an AP report. Nor did every Colorado local seem terribly distraught by the idea of a cool glass of THC.

“I might have to go drink some water,” Patsie Smith, the former mayor of Hugo, quipped to the Denver Post.

I’m reminded of the story, perhaps even true, of a Salvation Army fundraiser who had been accused of allowing his local organization to accept “tainted” money. “The only thing tainted about it,” he was supposed to have said, “is that there taint enough of it.”

THE END OF SECULAR TURKEY: The state of emergency is over when the purge of the military is over.

Speaking to Reuters on Thursday, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that the state of emergency could be extended beyond three months, primary to facilitate the purge of the armed forces. He said that “this state of emergency is not a curfew” and that people “will still be on the street minding their own business and getting on with daily life.”

The purge in question will be overseen by the new Supreme Military Council (YAS) structure due to come to life on August 1st. Erdogan told Reuters that a new coup attempt was possible and made clear that the main objective of the state of emergency was purging the army.

Latest estimates speak of 10,000 arrests and 60,000 suspensions or dismissals from the military and the public administration. Erdogan suggests the Gulen movement is “another separatist terrorist organization” drawing an analogy with PKK.

Erdogan admits that the fact that many members of the opposition did not vote for the state of emergency was “food for thought,” saying that he had not given up on the notion of constitutional reforms to allow for stronger executive power for the President.

“Opposition” is a dangerous place to be in Erdogan’s Turkey.

LONE WOLF: Attacker in Nice plotted for months with ‘accomplices,’ prosecutor says.

[Paris prosecutor Francois] Molins said authorities are investigating five suspects who are in custody on terror charges related to the attack that Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel carried out on Bastille Day, France’s main national holiday.

One suspect allegedly sent Bouhlel a Facebook message saying, “Load the truck with tons of iron and cut the brakes. I’ll look brother.”

Bouhlel, 31, drove a 20-ton truck through hundreds who had gathered to watch the Bastille Day fireworks on the Mediterranean city’s waterfront.

An analysis of cell phone and computer content — including a photo of last year’s Bastille Day fireworks event focused on the crowd — showed Bouhlel had been planning the assault since at least 2015, Moins said.

We may never know what really motivated them.

THIS DOESN’T SEEM LIKE A GOOD IDEA FOR A LOT OF TINDER USERS: Introducing Tinder Social.

If you want to go out, then Tinder will ask you to invite one of your “friends on Tinder Social” from a selection of your Facebook friends who may or may not be on Tinder.

Once you invite one of your existing friends, you can then begin swiping left or right on groups and individuals looking to go out.

“Users must unlock Tinder Social by opting into the feature. If a user opts in, Tinder will display a list of Facebook friends (who have also unlocked Tinder Social) to choose from to add to their group,” a spokesperson for Tinder told Mashable when questioned about this feature.

In other words, if you want to use the feature, you should make sure you’re 100% OK with your Facebook friends knowing you use the app.

There are bound to be more than a few comedo-tragic results for the internet to share and enjoy.

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: A tale of two Teds.

FROM THE EARTH TO TRAPPIST-1C: 2 ‘Nearby’ Exoplanets Confirmed to Be Rocky — and May Be Habitable.

Judging from the size and temperatures of the three planets around TRAPPIST-1, researchers previously suggested that regions on each world could be habitable — that is, have surfaces with just the right temperatures to harbor liquid water, a key ingredient of life as it is known on Earth. However, it was uncertain if these three planets were rocky worlds like Earth.

Now, TRAPPIST-1’s discoverers have found that the star’s two innermost worlds, TRAPPIST-1b and TRAPPIST-1c, are indeed primarily rocky planets.

The scientists made this new discovery by pointing NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope at TRAPPIST-1 to catch a rare event on May 4: a double transit, when two planets — in this case, TRAPPIST-1b and TRAPPIST-1c — pass in front of their star at nearly the same time.

The story also reports that “nearby” is still about 39 lightyears from Earth.

CHANGE: Donald Trump Sets Conditions for Defending NATO Allies Against Attack.

During a 45-minute conversation, he explicitly raised new questions about his commitment to automatically defend NATO allies if they are attacked, saying he would first look at their contributions to the alliance. Mr. Trump re-emphasized the hard-line nationalist approach that has marked his improbable candidacy, describing how he would force allies to shoulder defense costs that the United States has borne for decades, cancel longstanding treaties he views as unfavorable, and redefine what it means to be a partner of the United States.

He said the rest of the world would learn to adjust to his approach. “I would prefer to be able to continue” existing agreements, he said, but only if allies stopped taking advantage of what he called an era of American largess that was no longer affordable.

Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty says that “an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all.” It has been invoked only once in NATO’s 67-year history, in defense of this country after the attacks on Washington and New York City of 9/11/2001.

THE END OF SECULAR TURKEY: Turkey declares a state of emergency for three months.

Turkey declared a state of emergency on Wednesday, a move that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said would enable the state to act faster against those who plotted a failed coup.

In a late-night televised address, Erdogan, who has been carrying out a large-scale purge of the country’s institutions, sought to reassure the country that the measure — which would be in force for three months — will protect democratic freedoms. But the move consolidates more power in the president’s hands, allowing him to rule by decree.

“Faster?”

UH-OH: Bourbon Boom Creates Spirits Shortage.

The resurgence of cocktails has led to a 315-percent spike in Kentucky bourbon production since 1999. The industry, however, is struggling to keep up. Whiskey needs a few years to age and many distilleries didn’t anticipate today’s demand.

For example, the Buffalo Trace Distillery is suffering from a shortage. Freddie Johnson said the company’s high end brands, like Pappy Van Winkle, need more than 20 years to age.

“The bourbon aging in the warehouse right now is really for the bourbon of tomorrow and the bourbons that were enjoying today is the bourbon of a generation before,” said Johnson.

Because there is not enough Pappy to meet demand, some online liquor stores are re-selling bottles for 10 times their retail value.

There’s no need to panic until some ambitious politician proposes a government solution.