THE WAR ROOM: The war on Iran is between two administrations that have low credibility, but one might be slightly more believable.

  President Trump said in Memphis yesterday that the US and Iran have been talking. “We’ve had very good discussions, very, very good discussions.” He said,  “We’ve been negotiating with Iran for a long time and this time they mean business.”

  Iran says they have not had direct talks with the US but have been trading messages through an intermediate country. Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s Parliament, said on social media that “no negotiations have been held with the U.S.” He said Trump’s remarks were an attempt to “escape the quagmire in which the US and Israel are trapped.”

  Iran launched a fresh wave of missiles into Israel today.

YOU’VE GOT MAIL: The Supreme Court’s conservative majority yesterday appeared ready to knock down the Mississippi law that allows election ballots to be counted within five days so long as they are postmarked by election day.

  At least 18 other states and territories have a similar law.

  Republicans across the country led by Donald Trump have been attacking election laws that allow early voting, remote voting, and late counting of ballots. They’ve argued that mail a ballots and late counts skew against Republican candidates.

  President Trump’s SAVE America Act would require voter identification. Pushing for its passage in Memphis yesterday, Trump said, “Make this one for Jesus.”

AIR INQUEST: Investigators will be inquiring whether short staffing contributed to the accident at New York’s LaGuardia airport in which an Air Canada jet collided with a fire truck crossing the runway. The jet’s two pilots were killed.

  The fire truck was responding to a call about fumes detected on another jet. An audio recording reveals an air controller telling the fire truck to “Stop, stop, stop, stop, truck 1, stop, stop, stop.”

  Later the controller says to the pilot of another jet, “I messed up.”

THE REGIME:

— The administration sent ICE agents to patrol at  airports purportedly to help with security while unpaid TSA agents call in sick during the federal funding shutdown. CNN showed the agents in Atlanta walking circuits of the airport or just standing around, doing nothing to speed security lines.

— Oklahoma Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin was confirmed to be secretary of Homeland Security.

— In President Trump’s fight to abandon wind and renewable energy, the administration agreed to pay the French energy giant TotalEnergies nearly $1 billion to abandon plans to build wind farms off the East Coast and instead invest in oil and gas extraction.

  TotalEnergies agreed to forfeit its leases in federal waters for two wind farms, which were to have been built off New York and North Carolina. They would  return the $928 million they paid for the leases during the Biden administration. The deal was announced just as the Iran war has raised the price of oil by 50 percent.

  Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said, “The era of taxpayers subsidizing unreliable, unaffordable and unsecure energy is officially over, and the era of affordable, reliable and secure energy is here to stay.” He means oil and gas.

— The Defense Department said that it is changing its rules for Pentagon reporters to comply with a recent court order, including closing the work space used by the press and moving them to an annex outside the main Pentagon building. Spokesman Sean Parnell said all journalists now seeking physical access to the Pentagon will require an escort.

  A federal judge had ruled that the Pentagon’s regulations imposed on the press, including that they report only officially released information, violated the First Amendment. Parnell said the department is changing the wording of some rules that journalists must sign to get a credential.

  The Defense Department said its new policies would comply with the court ruling while “without conceding the validity of the court’s analysis.”

— Journalists at the Voice of America sued the Trump administration, claiming that officials infringed on journalistic decisions trying to make them a mouthpiece for the administration. They claim that one official, Hui Jing, demanded “loyalty” to the Trump administration if reporters wanted to “keep their jobs.”

THE OBIT PAGE: Valerie Perrine, an Oscar-nominated beauty and former Playboy Playmate who acted with both her body and her brain in such 1970s films as “Slaughterhouse-Five,” “Lenny,” and “Superman” with Christopher Reeve, died at her home in Los Angeles. She was 82.

  Perrine was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2015.

  A NY Times profile in 1974 said, “She looks and sounds like a sensual Betty Boop, with her cherubic blue eyes, button nose and rosebud lips strangely coexisting with a snug-fitting blouse unbuttoned almost to the navel and a lispy way of speaking.”

  In one of those fateful accidents of life, Perrine had been invited but couldn’t make it to the 1969 dinner party at which the Manson cult family killed six people, including fellow actress Sharon Tate.

THE SPIN RACK: A California jury found that disgraced comedian Bill Cosby drugged and sexually assaulted Donna Motsinger, a former waitress at a Sausalito restaurant, after escorting her to one of his comedy shows in 1972. They awarded her $19.25 million in damages. — Republican Sheriff Chad Bianco in Riverside County California has seized 650,000 ballots in what he says is a fraud investigation into the 2025 special election in which the state decided to redraw its congressional districts to have more Democrats in Washington. Bianco has refused to reveal the warrant for seizure or the affidavit justifying it. — The Pfizer and Valneva drug companies say they have developed a vaccine that is 70 percent effective against tick-borne Lyme disease.

BELOW THE FOLD: Comedian Seth Meyers said last night that President Trump doesn’t want ICE agents to wear masks at airports “ ’cause you definitely want to see their faces when they find out a bottle of water is $9.”

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