GASLIGHT: President Trump yesterday declared that he is abandoning the 2009 finding that greenhouse gases threaten human life by warming the planet, effectively eliminating the federal government’s authority to fight climate change through regulation.

  Trump says in direct opposition to scientific consensus that climate change is a “hoax.” EPA boss Lee Zeldin celebrate the move as “the single largest deregulatory action in the history of the United States.”

  Trump said yesterday, “This has nothing to do with public health. This was all a scam, a giant scam.” 

  The administration claimed it would save auto manufacturers and other businesses an estimated $1 trillion. But you have to wonder whether the auto companies … or any industry … will change its long term plans for a policy likely to be reversed in the future.

ICE OUT: The entire Department of Homeland Security may shut down this weekend as Democrats block funding for the agency. The bill in consideration did not include the restrictions on immigration enforcement that Democrats have demanded.   

  In Minneapolis, Border Czar Tom Homan announced yesterday that the immigration sweep dubbed operation Metro Surge with 3,000 immigration officers is ending.  

  Immigration authorities say they have arrested 4,000 undocumented immigrants, mostly in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, while clashing with protesting residents and killing two American citizens. “As a result of our efforts here, Minnesota is now less of a sanctuary state for criminals,” Homan said. He also said that “a significant drawdown has already been underway this week, and will continue to the next week.”

  Homan said that he had secured promises from Minnesota County jails for their cooperation in turning over illegal immigrants in their custody.

  Gov. Tim Walz described the operation as “an unprecedented federal invasion in all aspects of life.” He said, “They left us with deep damage, generational trauma. They left us with economic ruin in some cases.” 

FIVE RINGS:  American snowboard phenomenon Chloe Kim came up short of a third consecutive gold in the halfpipe. She won silver … with a dislocated shoulder.

  American Jessie Diggins won bronze in the brutal women’s 10km cross country skiing. 

  The US men’s hockey team knocked off  Latvia 5-1 in the team’s Olympic opener.

  At the end of yesterday Italy led the medal race with 17, with the US and Norway tied at second place with 14. Norway had the most gold medalists, seven of them.

TAKEN: The FBI bumped up its reward for information in the kidnapping of 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie to $100,000 while releasing further information about the masked man caught on video at her front door.

  Guthrie is the mother of “Today Show” anchor Savannah Guthrie.

  The FBI says the man is approximately 5’9” to 5’10”, with an average build. They said he was wearing a black, 25-liter “Ozark Trail Hiker Pack.” 

THE EPSTEIN FALLOUT: The top lawyer for the Goldman Sachs investment firm announced her resignation following revelations in the investigatory files that she had a long relationship with the sex trafficker.

  Despite her clams that her relationship with Epstein was strictly professional, emails written by Kathryn Ruemmler, 54, a former top Obama administration lawyer, show that she advised him on how to respond to questions about his sex crimes and discussed her own dating life while sometimes addressing him as “sweetie” and “Uncle Jeffrey.”

  In one exchange she instructed Epstein about how the law distinguishes between underage victims of sex crimes and adult prostitutes. “I think the point is that if she was underage, she could not legally consent to engaging in prostitution,”  Ruemmler wrote to Epstein in 2015.

THE REGIME:

— A federal judge temporarily blocked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth from punishing Senator Mark Kelly, a retired Navy pilot, who spoke with other lawmakers in a video reminding members of the military that they have an obligation not to obey illegal orders. The judge said punishing the senator would infringe on his First Amendment rights.

  Kelly retired as a Navy captain and Hegseth wants to reduce his rank and retirement pay. The Defense Secretary  vowed to appeal, accusing Kelly of “sedition.”

— National Guard troops sent by President Trump to Chicago, Los Angeles, and Portland, Oregon to suppress crime have been withdrawn. 

— President Trump has asked the National Portrait gallery to commission a new portrait of him to replace the one painted after his first term that was never unveiled. Presidential portraits are not unveiled until after a president has finished serving.

THE SPIN RACK: Iranian authorities are using information from surveillance cameras and cellphone data to identify people who took part in massive anti-government protests in which the government shot and killed thousands. — A smash and grab thief got away with two $2,000 designer hats from a display at the swanky St. Regis Hotel in Aspen. The New York Post called it a “Milliner-dollar Heist.” 

BELOW THE FOLD: The former girlfriend of Norway’s biathlon athlete Sturla Holm Laegreidweighed in about her ex’s admission in front of the world that he had cheated on her causing them to break up.

  The woman told a Norwegian tabloid that it will be “hard to forgive” Laegreid for cheating on her, and for his public confession during a press conference about winning the bronze medal.  “I did not choose to be put in this position, and it hurts to have to be in it,” she said.

  Laegreid said he went public with his confession because he wanted his girlfriend to know how much she meant to him. “I hope I don’t make anything worse for her,” he said. 

  Like, maybe, turning the whole thing into a worldwide tabloid news story.

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