IN WHAT WORLD?: In a sometimes heated announcement, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said she appointed the state’s Attorney General Letitia James to act as a special prosecutor looking into the accusation of a gang rape in a Cornell University frat house two years ago.

  Faulting primarily the Cornell police, but also the local prosecutor, Hochul said, “In what world would the police learn from the victim that she had literally been gang-raped” and not pass those allegations to the district attorney.”

  Going after the local DA, Hochul said, “When the Tompkins County district attorney announced that he was reopening the case, he pointed to Jane Doe’s statement that said it did not establish that a crime had occurred. But new reporting raises serious questions about the information his office relied upon when it made that decision.”

  It’s a messy case with legal complications, to say the least. The accuser, identified only as Jane Doe, admitted to having a threesome with two frat boys but now says that grew into a drug and alcohol fueled night in which students had sex with her against her will. The tale includes snorting ketamine off a frat boy’s penis. 

  Seven current or former Cornell men were named in Jane Doe’s lawsuit against both the university and the fraternity brothers. Four of the men have admitted sexual contact they said was consensual. One of the seven has sued the university to have his disciplinary record expunged.

  It’s not an easy case to press in either civil or criminal court. At what point did consent evaporate? On the criminal side, New York law makes it harder to prosecute for rape when the accusing woman was voluntarily under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol.

  Overall, this case paints a dismal picture of one of the most elite universities in America all the way from the students, the fraternity culture, and through the police force and administration. As Hochul asked, “In what world?”

ECON 101: Employers added only 29,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate rose to 4.2 percent, according to the Labor Department. It was a downfall from healthy job growth in recent months.

MORE ABOUT ME: President Trump personally ordered budget director Russell Vought to use taxpayer money for television campaign-style ads praising him and his presidency, The NY Times reports. That resulted in a $20 million contract that used money from the Department of Homeland Security, the Times reports according to its sources people familiar with the matter.

  The ads have run across a variety of cable and network television outlets. The Times reports that Mark Paoletta, the budget office’s counsel, and Will Scharf, the White House counsel, both said it would be legal to use DHS funds.

  An ad called “Military Hype” shows images of fighter jets and missile launches with a clip from  Trump’s February speech announcing the war with Iran. “This regime will soon learn that no one should challenge the strength and might of the United States Armed Forces,” Trump says in the ad. 

  One of the spots, a three-minute-long ad titled “God Made Trump,” was broadcast during the Republican midterm convention in Dallas.

  Pressed on the propriety of the commercials and having the government pay for them, Trump said; “You have to understand. I’m not promoting a candidate. I’m not promoting myself because I’m not running for office. I’m promoting the country.”

PRESIDENTIAL BUSINESS: Donald Trump is running a contest in which the top 185 holders of his $Trump meme coin will be invited to an exclusive evening at his private club in Washington.

  The top 29 purchasers of the crypto keepsakewill be invited to a VIP reception “with YOUR FAVORITE PRESIDENT,” and the top four will receive an 18-karat Trump-branded gold watch.

  Trump has already made about $1 billion off his crypto ventures … but … a big but … a report from the watchdog Public Citizen says investors have racked up $4.7 billion in paper losses on Trump crypto assets managed by the president’s adult sons.

THE SPIN RACK: The co-pilot who stabbed the captain of an Israel-bound FlyDubai flight this week used an emergency crash axe in his effort to take over the plane, according to officials in the United Arab Emirates. —  A federal judge in El Paso ordered a stop to border wall construction across the Big Bend region.  Judge Kathleen Cardone said the Trump administration cannot rely on waivers of environmental and other laws it had granted itself to speed up the construction. — Philadelphia’s nearly 200-year-old museum, the Academy of Natural Sciences with its giant T-rex skeleton, has closed for lack of attendance and income. There was a last-minute surge of visitors after the closure was announced, but not enough to save the museum.

BELOW THE FOLD: The Florida Department of Education is rewriting standards for science instruction that would almost entirely eliminate evolution and climate change. It’s okay, though. The kids will learn about survival of the fittest in the real world.

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