The Shipping News: President Trump announced that he has suspended the Jones Act for Puerto Rico, relaxing the 1920 law that says all shipping between two American ports must be on US-flagged vessels. The move theoretically allows more aid to flow into Puerto Rico on foreign ships. Trump had been accused of favoring US shipping companies over the welfare of 3.4 million Puerto Rican residents, who are American citizens.

Trump continues to claim things are going great. “FEMA & First Responders are doing a GREAT job in Puerto Rico. Massive food & water delivered,” he tweeted.

But the big problem has not been getting relief supplies to Puerto Rico, it is getting them off the docks to the countryside. Thousands of shipping containers are backed up in San Juan.

It’s become an island of long lines for food, gas, and water. Most of the island is without electricity. The homeless and roofless can’t get tarpaulins to shield them from the sun. Mothers are having babies at home because they can’t get to hospitals.

The NY Post reports that 2,000 people are on line to get aboard the Royal Caribbean cruise ship the Adventure of the Seas, which was sent to get people off the island.

The administration has appointed a three-star general to coordinate efforts between agencies and White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, “We will not let you down.” It may already be far too late to make that promise.

ICE, ICE, Baby: About 500 people were arrested in the past several days by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officers hunting illegal immigrants in so-called sanctuary cities where police agencies refuse to cooperate with immigration agents.

At least 167 people were detained in Los Angeles. Arrests were also made in San Francisco and San Jose. ICE has conducted similar large operations in recent years, but none that focused on sanctuary cities.

Character Shortage: The social media platform Twitter revealed yesterday that it found about 200 accounts that appeared to be linked to Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election. The NY Times described that as “a small fraction of the number found by outside researchers.”

Sen. Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia, said the company’s presentation to a closed-door meeting of the Intelligence Committee “showed an enormous lack of understanding from the Twitter team of how serious this issue is, the threat it poses to democratic institutions and again begs many more questions than they offered.”

Nation: Actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus, the 56-year-old star of the HBO series “Veep,” announced she has breast cancer. She tweeted, “1 in 8 women get breast cancer. Today, I’m the one.” — Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the third-ranking House Republican who was grievously wounded this past June in a gunman’s attack on the Republican softball team, walked onto the House floor yesterday to the applause of both parties. Scalise was hit in the left hip, suffering serious bone and organ damage, and coming close to death. He told reporters, “It shows you if you fight and persevere, you can overcome anything.” — A second rock fall on Yosemite’s El Capitan injured another park visitor yesterday. On Wednesday, a 130-foot rock fall killed a British man and injured a woman. — Stanford University announced that it is installing a vending machine from which students can buy the “morning after” birth control pill.

Baggage Fees: Secy. of Health and Human Services Tom Price, under fire for spending $400,000 on private jet flights for government business, apologized and said he would reimburse the government.  “Today, I will write a personal check to the U.S. Treasury for the expenses of my travel on private charter planes,” he said in the statement. “The taxpayers won’t pay a dime for my seat on those planes.”

But Price is not paying the full cost of the flights. He said he’s paying only the cost of his seats: $51,887.31.

The Tax Man: The NY Times estimates that President Trump’s tax plan, which he calls a “middle class miracle,” would cut his own taxes by $1.1 billion.

Permawar: The voice of an Islamic State leader the Russians claimed they killed in June is heard on a 46-minute audio recording released yesterday. ISIS might be trying to claim that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is still alive, but it’s unknown when the tape was made.

Keeping Up: Reality television star Kim Kardashian has revealed, unlike her two sisters, she’s not pregnant. She’s having a third child with Kanye West through a surrogate, so evidently real sex was not required.

Kourtney, Kendall, Kim, and Caitlin are kurrently not pregnant.

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