Pillow Talk: The National Enquirer has released former Playboy playmate Karen McDougal from the contract that gave the tabloid exclusive rights to her story about having an affair with Donald Trump before he was President.

Letting McDougal out of the contract shields President Trump from getting dragged into McDougal’s lawsuit claiming the Enquirer bought her story with the intention of burying it to protect Trump.

McDougal gets to keep the $150,000 she was paid but would have to pay the Enquirer $75,000 in profits if she re-sells her story.

Trump still has to deal with the lawsuit by porn actress Stormy Daniels, who wants her non-disclosure agreement to be voided. Remember also that since the FBI raided Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen, the details of all this stuff may already be in the criminal justice system.

Trump also put his foot in the bucket, tweeting about the composite sketch posted of a man Daniels claimed threatened her in a parking lot “A sketch years later about a nonexistent man. A total con job, playing the Fake News Media for Fools (but they know it)!”

Daniels’ lawyer said he’s going to add defamation to the lawsuit against Trump.

The Koreas: South Korea confirms that it is in formal talks with the North to formally end the Korean war, which most people forget is technically still on. Fighting ended with no peace treaty 60 years ago.

South Koreans also say North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has said he’s willing to give up his nuclear weapons for the right kind of security guarantees. One thing he’s always angled for is formal diplomatic recognition from the US.

CIA Director Mike Pompeo, who’s awaiting congressional confirmation as secretary of state, recently travelled to North Korea to meet Kim and lay the groundwork for a possible face-to-face meeting with Trump.

The President started hedging his bets yesterday, telling reporters at Mar-a-Lago, “If I think that it’s a meeting that is not going to be fruitful, we’re not going to go. If the meeting, when I’m there, is not fruitful, I will respectfully leave the meeting.”

Rum and Coca Cola: Cuban President Raúl Castro, 86, is expected to stand down from control of the country and its communist party today for his hand-picked successor,  57-year-old  party stalwart Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez. It will be the first time that one of the Castros has not been in charge since 1959. Raúl Castro succeed his brother Fidel 12 years ago.

Raúl opened up the country to some private enterprise and significantly, after more than 55 years of bungled diplomacy on both sides, finally established formal diplomatic relations with the US.

Obsession: He has plenty of serious issues on his agenda, but President Trump can’t get over James Comey and his new book, “A Higher Loyalty.”  Trump tweeted a new version of why he fired the former FBI Director. “Slippery James Comey, the worst FBI Director in history, was not fired because of the phony Russia investigation where, by the way, there was NO COLLUSION (except by the Dems)!”

Remember what Trump told NBC’s Lester Holt last year: “Regardless of recommendation I was going to fire him knowing there was no good time to do it. In fact when I decided to just do it I said to myself, you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made up story.”

Environmental Pollution: With his $43,000 sound-proof phone booth, first-class air travel and 20-man security team, EPA Director Scott Pruitt has turned out to be the most controversial and hated member of the Trump administration. The man who spent much of his adult life fighting environmental protection is now in charge of it.

A NY Times editorial says, “Despite stiff competition, Scott Pruitt, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, is by common consensus the worst of the ideologues and mediocrities President Trump chose to populate his cabinet.”

That would have any normal person hiding in Pruitt’s $43,000 sound proof phone booth, but it goes on, and here’s just one more line. “As it turns out, Mr. Pruitt is not just an industry lap dog but also an arrogant and vengeful bully and small-time grifter, bent on chiseling the taxpayer to suit his lifestyle and warm his ego.”

Get in the phone booth and close the door.

Blackout: The Puerto Rico Power Authority proudly announced yesterday that electricity had been restored to nearly the entire island, seven months after Hurricane Maria destroyed the .grid.  Then just hours later an accident knocked out the lights all over the island once again. An excavator had come too close to a high voltage line.

The Obit Page: Former CNN correspondent Richard Blystone, a rumpled and world-travelled reporter who traipsed through the world’s danger zones, has died at age 81. He covered everything from Vietnam to the Gulf War. Once during a live broadcast while Israel was under missile attack, an anchor cautioned Blystone to be careful and he dryly replied, “Oh, it’s a big world and a small missile. I don’t think it’ll hit me.” — National Public Radio’s longtime anchor Carl Kasell died of Alzheimer’s disease at age 84. With a baritone voice any radio announcer would kill for, Kasell read the news on NPR from 1979 until his retirement in 2009. For 16 years he was also the official scorekeeper on the radio quiz show, “Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me!”

The Write Stuff: The White House yesterday issued a statement praising the late former First Lady Barbara Bush and her lifelong efforts to promote literacy. The statement was dated April 17, 2017.

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