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President Biden’s team continues to believe that tens of millions Americans — perhaps as many as 1 in every 5 voters — will cast a ballot for him this year despite their current conviction that he is already too old or not mentally competent to do the job. Biden’s debate debacle laid bare the bet, forcing the 81-year old president to admit the following day at a North Carolina rally that he has a diminished capacity for walking and talking. The concerns that have flared within the party since have focused on a fear that the decline evident at the debate and in other recent public events will only continue, disqualifying him as a candidate.

Former presidents are immune from prosecution for official actions taken while in the White House, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday, but do not have immunity for unofficial acts. The 6-3 ruling along ideological lines likely means that Donald Trump’s federal trial could proceed in D.C., but only after additional delay.

When you map the primary religion in every county in America, the Catholics stand out. This week, we mine the U.S. Religious Census, a decennial count of America’s faithful, for insights into the geography of religious devotion. We also compare people’s claims on church attendance to their actual behavior. If America has a Quran Belt, a Torah Belt or a Bhagavad Gita belt, greater New York City forms its buckle. Almost half of America’s Jews, by synagogue adherence, live in either New York or New Jersey — which also happen to be the second and third most Islamic states, after Illinois. 

In the first presidential debate of 2024, it seemed as though the entire country lost. With multiple gaffes, awkward silences and proclaimed falsehoods that went largely undisputed by moderators — many voters, especially younger ones, are expressing even more discontent and aggravation following the debate with Donald Trump and President Joe Biden. Are you one of them? Share your responses here: https://wapo.st/3zyuOSM

Sending anything to the landfill or incinerator has a negative impact on the environment. But plastic is particularly problematic, experts say. Over the last five years of #PlasticFreeJuly, participants have avoided more than 1.5 million tons of plastic waste, according to the campaign. That’s enough to fill about 80,000 garbage trucks.

The AI gold rush has benefited Silicon Valley chipmaker NVIDIA like no other company, briefly making it worth more than Apple and Microsoft, with a market capitalization of $3.3 trillion. Though its reign on the top of the charts was brief, it crowned a rapid climb for the company, which was little-known outside tech circles just two years ago. For most of its three decades of existence, #Nvidia was mostly a niche player, making computer chips for video games, but the company’s central position in the #artificialintelligence boom has led to a spectacular rise.

David Hruska woke up to the roar of the dam near his Minnesota house — a sound he had fallen asleep and woken up to thousands of times in his 44 years living there. But that day, the sound was pierced by his sister and brother-in-law knocking on his door, urging him to come see the destruction happening outside. He ran outside to see that the roughly 600 feet of land between his home in Mankato and the Rapidan Dam was being torn away, taking an electrical substation and trees with it.

The polarized immigration debate in the United States generally revolves around illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border, but those numbers don’t indicate what happens to these and other migrants who stay in the country. A Post analysis of more than 4.1 million U.S. immigration court records reveals a population that was once overwhelmingly Mexican and Central American but has in recent years spanned the globe. Far fewer migrants have gotten into the country than have been apprehended at the border, the data shows. And those who cleared that first hurdle — and are still facing possible deportation in the courts — have fanned out into every U.S. state.

On Washington Post Live’s “First Look,” Washington Post Live anchor Leigh Ann Caldwell speaks with The Post’s Dan Balz, Jennifer Rubin and Max Boot about Biden’s faltering debate performance amid Trump’s untruths, where the presidential race goes from here and rising gloom among many Israeli citizens.