“Court records state that Hefner was told by then-Playboy Playmate Audra Christiansen in 2005 that she was an Epstein survivor and requested the Playboy founder call the FBI, arguing he would have more status than her with the authorities.”

“Hefner allegedly called the FBI several times with the tip, who didn’t investigate the claim for 15 years, according to court documents.”

Said one insider: “It was a very stressful job to do with her children. She never got any sleep, and she didn’t want her performance to slip either, so she decided to stay as long as she could and do the job well. The president did everything he could to keep her.’

Making matters worse, “the president would contact her often and repeatedly ask when she was coming back.”

“The Reaper is used to conduct surveillance and targeted strikes, and it can cost between $30 million and $50 million depending on the type of sensors and weapons it carries, according to the Air Force. The potential taxpayer cost of recent losses is over $1.3 billion for that weapon system alone.”

“Or were they merely temporary setbacks?”

“Trump has said that none of the three rulings — on tariffs, the Federal Reserve and birthright citizenship — will stand in his way. Other paths exist, he said, to get to where he wants to go.”

“Under a national security memorandum that President Trump signed late Wednesday, select companies would work with the Justice and Homeland Security Departments to strike foreign cybercriminal groups with hacks under certain conditions. The attacks would allow both surveillance of the criminal networks and specific types of hacking operations that could lead to disruption, manipulation or destruction of information systems and networks, including virtual and physical infrastructure.”

“Nearly six months on, the protracted war has thoroughly vexed President Donald Trump and administration officials as they try to bring it to an end. It also means Republican lawmakers are being pressed regularly to explain the strategy.”

“Part interrogation of the lawyers before them and part conversation among the justices, those sessions are not as important as the written briefs submitted by the parties. But the arguments that follow those submissions are essentially the only way the public can see the court at work.”

“The ritual had hardly changed in 50 years until the spring of 2020, when the pandemic ousted the justices from the courtroom for 18 months.”

“Scrambling for a solution, they decided to hold arguments by telephone, revised how they posed questions and let the public listen in. Those improvised stopgap measures turned out to be the start of a fundamental transformation of the court’s signature ceremony.”

Wrote Reiner, in the New York Times: “Despite reassurances from the White House to the contrary, at times over the past year, the president has not looked well. I am not Mr. Trump’s doctor, and have only reviewed his records that have been made public. But Mr. Trump is probably the most photographed president in American history, and a variety of physical ailments are easy to see.”

“PolitiFact examined Trump’s recorded public remarks from January through July after its reporters noticed the president repeatedly returning to projects, including the White House ballroom and Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.”

“According to the resolution approved by the Trump-allied board, the inscription underneath the institution’s name would read: ‘Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump.'”

Deadline: Trump-controlled Kennedy Center board votes again to close main performing arts complex for renovations.

“The good news, then, is that Mr Trump’s order will have little practical effect. States, not the federal government, normally set vaccination requirements for schoolchildren. And most of them are guided by abundant evidence that vaccines have driven down rates of infectious disease by a miraculous degree.”

“But as the administration injects more doubt and confusion into decisions over vaccines, parents are increasingly declining them.”

“Amid the concerns, the Pentagon plans to replace one of two aircraft carriers deployed in the Middle East — the USS Abraham Lincoln.”

“The muddled mix of funding streams — whether from private donors, the president himself or taxpayers — has fueled ethical questions about who’s footing the ever-rising bill for the HGTV-reminiscent White House redesign.”

“The target was not the Border Patrol agents who had killed Mr. Pretti, a 37-year-old government nurse, in late January. Instead, it was several left-leaning political organizations — labor unions, a climate change group, socialist collectives — that investigators believed had provided help and money to what they described as the ‘violent opportunists and agitators’ on the street.”

“Yet Iowa is still home to a large bloc of independents—35% of registered voters—and they appear to be swinging left.”

Karl Rove has some advice for Republicans worried about the midterms: Stop calling every Democrat a communist.

Instead, he argues, Republicans should use Democrats’ own words against them.