Good morning.

1. Duke Energy Center For the Performing Arts is hosting Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence.

Indiana Governor Mike Pence, the VP nominee to whatever the hell is happening at the top of the Republican ticket, will be speaking at a town hall in Raleigh this morning at the same venue where Donald Trump held a rally last month.

Pence has been cleaning up Trump’s many messes lately, with such courageous proclamations as, “No, I don’t think we should insult that dead veteran’s parents,” and “Yes, I endorse Paul Ryan in his Congressional primary.”

This town hall comes in the wake of Trump replacing his North Carolina state director, Earl Phillips, so, yeah, this whole thing is in shambles right now.

Pence arrived in Raleigh just after 1 a.m. and is slated to speak at 9 a.m. at the Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts. His solo-visit comes amid concerns from North Carolina’s Republican Party brass over Trump’s slow get-out-the-vote efforts here.

So on Wednesday, the Trump campaign decided to shake things up. This week, Trump replaced Earl Phillips as his North Carolina campaign state director.

Trump has tapped Jason Simmons to take over. Simmons is a veteran of Mitt Romney’s 2012 North Carolina campaign team which eked out a Tar Heel State victory over President Obama in their general election matchup.

Even with Trump’s ground game struggles in North Carolina, he only trails Clinton by half a point here in the Real Clear Politics average of recent polls.

2. Supreme Court grants stay to block transgender kid from using the right bathroom.

The Supreme Court, in a surprise 5-3 decision, granted a stay to a Virginia school board that’s blocking teenager Gavin Grimm from using the bathroom consistent with his gender identity. Sound, ah, familiar?

The case was brought by a transgender student, Gavin Grimm, who contested the school district’s refusal to let him use the boys’ bathroom. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit ruled in his favor in April but put its ruling on hold so the school board could appeal. The Supreme Court’s order keeps the old rules in place.

The court’s four conservative justices were joined by Justice Stephen Breyer in blocking the transgender student’s earlier victory. The three other liberal justices said they would have denied the school board’s request.

The battle over so-called bathroom bills has played out in many states as Republican lawmakers seek to force students to use facilities that correspond to their gender at birth, and transgender students fight for the right to follow their gender identity.

3. A man was shot and killed last night in Durham.

Durham police are investigating a homicide after a man was shot and killed early Thursday morning.

Just after 12:45 a.m., police officers were called to the 3500 block of Westgate Drive, near the South Square shopping center off Martin Luther King Parkway, about a shooting.

When they arrived, they found a man inside a green SUV that was on a curb outside of a Taco Bell. He was suffering from a gunshot wound. Another vehicle, a gray sedan, was also found wrecked nearby.

4. A US woman was killed and five others injured in a knife attack in London.

Police believe the attack in Russell Square on Wednesday was “spontaneous”, with victims “selected at random”.

The woman who died was thought to be in her 60s. The injured people were from Britain, America, Israel and Australia.

Police arrested a 19-year-old Norwegian national of Somali origin. They say there is no evidence of radicalisation.

Speaking at a press conference, the Met’s assistant commissioner for specialist operations, Mark Rowley, said the police investigation “increasingly points” to the attack being “triggered by mental health issues”.

That’s it. Have a good one.