The Trump Business: The president-elect decided to settle three fraud lawsuits against his now-defunct Trump University for $25 million. The “university” was supposed to be a real estate sales seminar that would impart the wisdom of Trump. Six thousand former students, some of whom paid up to $35,000, claimed in the suit that the university was a scam that took their money and taught them nothing.

Trump had said during the political campaign that he would never settle the lawsuit.

If the case had gone to trial, Trump would have been a president-elect raising his hand to swear that he’s not a confidence man. Some of his former employees were lined up to testify against him. One said the university was, “a façade, a total lie,” and another said it was a “fraudulent scheme.”

This was the case in which the campaigning Trump complained about the judge, who was born in the US to Mexican parents.  “I’m building the wall, I’m building the wall,”  Trump told the NY Times in June. “I have a Mexican judge. He’s of Mexican heritage. He should have recused himself, not only for that, for other things.”

New York Atty. Gen. Eric Schneiderman said in a statement Trump “fought us every step of the way, filing baseless charges and fruitless appeals and refusing to settle for even modest amounts of compensation for the victims of his phony university. Today, that all changes.”

In Transition: Donald Trump’s appointment of Sen. Jeff Sessions to be Attorney General is shaping up to be one of the first big political fights of the new regime.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren is already campaigning against Sessions, tweeting, “Today, a new GOP Senate must decide whether self-interest & political cowardice will prevent them from once again doing what is right.”

Sessions was a federal prosecutor for 15 years who’s been critical of the Justice Department in recent years. He’s expected to take a tough line on immigration, terrorism, drugs and guns.

Now 69, Sessions failed to win appointment to the federal bench when he was 39 because the Republican Judiciary Committee at the time thought he was racist.

Trump continued appointing right wingers to his cabinet yesterday and he is not ranging far from the small group of people who supported his run for president. The transition team announced that Trump wants Kansas Rep. Mike Pompeo to be Director of the CIA. Pompeo is a West Point graduate and former Army tank officer who has a graduate degree from Harvard. Pompeo was a force in the Congressional investigation into Secy. of State Hillary Clinton and the attack on the US Benghazi consulate.

Outbreak: The Zika virus is no longer a world health crisis, the World Health Organization announced yesterday. Zika causes abnormally small heads and other defects in babies born to infected mothers.

Some health officials still fighting the virus were dismayed, but the announcement really says Zika has been moved to the status of permanent threat. Dr. Peter Salama, executive director of the WHO’s health emergencies program said, “Zika is here to stay and the W.H.O. response is here to stay.”

Permawar: The bombing and shelling of rebel-held parts of the Syrian city of Aleppo over the past several days has been the most intense ever, according to observers. Warehouses are reported to be running out of food with winter arriving. All of the hospitals have been reported to be bombed out.

The government controls the west side of the city and the rebels have the east.

The Obit Page: Sharon Jones, the backbone and voice of the soul group Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, died yesterday of pancreatic cancer at age 60.  Jones was born in the South and grew up in the Bronx in New York. Her song, “How Long Do I have to Wait for You?” is the essence of soul. Jones performed throughout this past summer, knowing her health was failing, saying, “No one knows how long I have. But I have the strength now, and I want to continue.”

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