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Reacting to Donald Trump adding more rallies to his campaign schedule as he falls behind in the polls in swing states, MSNBC's Vaughn Hillyard suggested it is up in the air whether local GOP candidates will want to be seen with him.

After host Ana Cabrera shared new polling showing Trump in a downward spiral since May in seven key states both he and Vice President Kamala Harris will need to win in November, Hillyard suggested down-ticket Democrats ought be happy about the turnaround and Republicans less so.

"He added a campaign event in Montana last Friday night," Hillyard began before adding, "That is where today it is notable he is going to Asheboro, North Carolina, for a campaign rally and on Saturday, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania."

ALSO READ: Harris has figured out Trump’s greatest liability

"You look at those seven states," he continued. "The Trump campaign had been talking about New Hampshire being in play, Virginia being in play, and this is the difficult part for a campaign less than three months out. Suddenly you're working with upwards of nine potentially battleground states, and you have to pick not only where you spend your time but also spend your resources."

"And when you compare it to the Democratic side with their ticket appearing with down-ballot candidates, there are the Senate candidates," he elaborated. "Within North Carolina, there's gubernatorial candidate who right now who has lower polling numbers than Donald Trump. There's a lot that is taking place within the Republican party about Donald Trump's use of time and where he's appearing but also the extent to which he appears or does not appear with some of these down ballot candidates in the extent like Pennsylvania, Dave McCormick."

"Will we see him on Saturday, alongside Donald Trump on stage?" he asked. "There's a lot that the Trump campaign is going through."

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A central stone of the famous Stonehenge monument in southwest England came from 750 kilometers away in northeast Scotland, surprised scientists said Wednesday, solving one mystery but raising another: how did its prehistoric builders move the huge slab so far?

The Neolithic circle of giant stones has been a source of wonder and mystery for nearly 5,000 years -- in the Middle Ages, the wizard Merlin of Arthurian legend was said to have stolen the monument from Ireland.

More recently, scientists have determined that the site's upright sandstones came from relatively nearby Marlborough, while the bluestones arrayed near its centre came from Wales.

But the origin of the Altar Stone, a unique six-tonne slab laying on its side at the heart of the circle, remained elusive.

It was long thought to have also come from Wales, but tests along those lines always "drew a blank," said Richard Bevins, a professor from Aberystwyth University, mid-Wales, and co-author of a new study.

This prompted a team of British and Australian researchers to broaden their horizons -- and in turn discover something "quite sensational", he told AFP.

Using chemical analysis, they determined that the Altar Stone came from Scotland's Orcadian Basin, which is at least 750 kilometres (460 miles) from Stonehenge, according to the study in the journal Nature.

- 'Genuinely shocking' -

The researchers were stunned.

"This is a genuinely shocking result," study co-author Robert Ixer of University College London said in a statement.

The "astonishing" distance was the longest recorded journey for any stone at the time, said fellow co-author Nick Pearce of Aberystwyth University.

Whether people around 2,500 BC were capable of transporting such huge stones from Wales had already been a matter of heated debate among archaeologists and historians.

That a five-by-one-metre (16-by-three-feet) stone made the trip across much of the length of the UK suggests that the British isles were home to a highly organised and well-connected society at the time, the researchers said.

They called for further research to find out exactly where in Scotland the stone came from -- and how it made its way to Stonehenge.

One theory is that the stone was brought to southern England not by humans but by naturally moving ice flows.

However research has shown that ice would actually have carried such stones "northwards, away from Stonehenge", lead study author Anthony Clarke from Australia's Curtin University told a news conference.

Another option was that the Neolithic builders moved the stones over land -- though this would have been extraordinarily difficult.

Dense forest, marshy bogs and mountains all formed "formidable barriers" for prehistoric movers, Clarke said.

- 'Incredibly important' -

Another option is that the stone was transported by sea.

There is evidence of an "extensive network of Neolithic shipping," which moved pottery and gems around the region, Clarke said.

To work out where it came from, the researchers fired laser beams into the crystals of a thin slice of the Altar Stone.

The ratio of uranium and lead in these crystals act as "miniature clocks" for rocks, providing their age, said study co-author Chris Kirkland of Curtin University.

The team then compared the stone's age to other rocks across the UK and found "with a high degree of certainty" that it came from the Orcadian Basin, Kirkland said.

Susan Greaney, an archaeologist at the UK's University of Exeter not involved in the study, said it established the first "direct link" between southern England and northern Scotland during this time.

"The placement of this stone at the heart of the monument, on the solstice axis, shows that they thought this stone, and by implication, the connection with the area to the north, was incredibly important," she told AFP.

Without President Biden in the race, more attention is being paid to Donald Trump's age and how tired he appears.

MSNBC political analyst and Latino USA host Maria Hinojosa made the observation Wednesday when speaking to MSNBC's Ana Cabrera. The host observed Trump keeps mispronouncing Kamala Harris' name, and Hinojosa thinks it's all about "trying to get attention."

"I think, Ana, people are beginning to see the desperation in Donald Trump," said Hinojosa. "It's a little bit strange. It's like you can feel around him that he's in some quicksand. The pick of J.D. Vance (R-OH) is not working out for him."

Read Also: Trump’s smear job climaxed prematurely — and now he’s stuck

Further, she thinks the 78-year-old ex-president is showing his advanced age and low energy.

"He's beginning to look a little desperate, and I have to say I did a double take when I was watching that strange news conference in Mar-a-Lago" last week, she said.

"I was like, wow, Donald Trump, you're looking a little haggard, and I think it's showing in just the way he's speaking and what he's trying to do. It's to try to get attention," she explained.

Trump's interview with a Univision reporter showed him struggling to say Harris' name and pretending her last name was unknown by most people.

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Wisconsin Senate candidate Eric Hovde has filed a lawsuit against several local television stations for running an ad from a Democratic political action committee. He's sued all of them except one, the Fox outlet.

Hovde is irate over an ad from WinSenate PAC, which he claims defamed him, WTAQ-WLUK reported Tuesday.

The two accusations he claims are malicious lies are: “Hovde’s family rigged the system to rake in thirty million in government subsidies and loans." And Hovde is currently “sheltering his wealth in shady tax havens around the world."

Politico's Newsletter reported in March that during an unsuccessful Senate run in 2012, Hovde disclosed that he had assets of at least $50 million in insurance companies based in Bermuda, "benefitting from not having to pay U.S. corporate taxes," said Politico at the time. Hovde hasn't disclosed his financials yet, the Politico report said at the time.

ALSO READ: Harris has figured out Trump’s greatest liability

While the ads aired on WLUK-TV Fox 11, they are not named in the suit, only parent company Sinclair Broadcasting is mentioned "for allegations against WVTV-TV in Milwaukee," the WTAQ report said.

"The parent companies of other Green Bay stations are named: Gray Media for WBAY-TV, Nexstar for WFRV-TV, and Scripps Media for WGBA-TV and WACY-TV," the report said.

Hovde is taking on longtime U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI). A poll by The Bullfinch Group that spoke to 500 registered voters taken between Aug 8-11 puts Baldwin at 50 percent and Hovde at 41 percent, FiveThirtyEight cites.

“The Stations had knowledge that the Advertisement contained defamatory statements which were made with actual malice, in that WinSenate either knew such statements were false, or acted with reckless disregard as to whether such statements were true or false,” Hovde’s lawsuit claims.

The PAC behind the ad, WinSenate told the network, “There is absolutely nothing false about the claims in this advertisement. The Campaign has no right to silence WinSenate. Your decision to accept the advertisement should remain undisturbed."

The liberal PAC American Bridge also sounded the alarm about "hedge funds that stashed hundreds of millions of dollars in the Cayman Islands."

Analysts at Goldman Sachs believe that "voters are shifting" as the final months of the campaign approach and Democrats prepare to host their presidential convention in Chicago — with the tide turning in favor of Vice President Kamala Harris.

According to Fortune, Harris "is up by about three percentage points nationally since she became the presumed Democratic nominee after President Biden ended his reelection bid last month. Her margins have also improved in key swing states, including Pennsylvania, with 19 electoral votes, where Trump has just a 0.2 percentage point lead over Harris, according to the Goldman analysts. The vice president needs at least 270 electoral votes to win the election."

This comes at a time when Democratic enthusiasm on the ground has translated into massive rallies for the vice president, which has reportedly panicked Trump and led him to push conspiracy theories about her crowds being A.I.-generated.

Further boosting Democrats, the analysis found that third-party candidates like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are bleeding their support — but disproportionately from left-leaning voters who are coming home to support Democrats, leaving more of the right-leaning voters whom Trump needs to win. Voters are also expressing more support for Democrats down the ballot, with the generic congressional preference favoring Democratic candidates, and a slim plurality of voters in a recent poll even trusting Harris more on the economy.

ALSO READ: Judge Chutkan faces call to seize Trump's passport after threat to flee to Venezuela

It's that last point that could be the one final vulnerability for Harris, Goldman Sachs noted.

Surprise economic instability in the month of July "could hurt her chances of being elected in November, according to the analysts," said the report. "Last week, all major indices closed down for the week after the unraveling of the yen carry trade led to big moves by traders. Weaker-than-expected jobs numbers also yielded concern as the unemployment rate rose for the third straight month to 4.3%."

Notably, though, the S&P 500 has largely made up for the losses it saw since then, and a Federal Reserve decision to cut rates later this year could reassure markets further.

Former Nevada Republican Party chair Amy Tarkanian does not think Donald Trump's Monday interview with X owner Elon Musk won any new voters.

Speaking to International CNBC, Tarkanian explained that Trump's comments were nothing more than the same grievances over and over again.

"I actually didn't learn anything new," she said. "It's pretty similar to one of his rallies. But unfortunately, once again, if you're somebody who were maybe on the fence, or if you were just somebody [who] was just curious, or somebody who has made up your mind; I don't think really it really changed too many minds."

ALSO READ: Why ‘vanilla’ Tim Walz is the ingredient to beat Trump: Dem lawmakers

Host Dan Murphy explained that Trump is losing ground on voters who believe he would do better on the economy, as a recent poll showed that Vice President Kamala Harris now has the edge over him on the issue.

Tarkanian agreed it was bad news, but there is even worse news when the same poll is broken into demographics. Trump has always struggled with female voters and young voters. Tarkanian explained that these numbers look even worse up against Harris.

"Those are two areas Trump has struggled with, even in his first campaign, and he just seems not to have bounced back," she said. "And I think with the pick of his vice presidential nominee, J.D. Vance, and his unfortunate comments that have come to the forefront attacking women, whether it be on reproductive rights or whether it be on statements that women should stay in unhealthy marriages, even if they are violent, for the children. These are things that are not helpful at all for the Trump ticket. He has quite an uphill battle."

A split like this means that voters can end up making decisions on single-issue topics or on how the candidate makes them feel. Harris uses words like "freedom" and "joy," which appeals to more voters. Trump, she said, is still angry.

Tarkanian said the one benefit is that Trump essentially received "two free hours of advertising" for his campaign.

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