Wiki-Arrest: In a surprising development, the Ecuadorian Embassy in London rescinded diplomatic asylum for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and he was dragged out of the building in handcuffs by British police.

  The Ecuadorians said the prickly Assange wore out his welcome.

  Assange had been holed up in the embassy for seven years after taking refuge there to escape sexual assault charges in Sweden. Those charges were later dropped, but he stayed, fearing arrest by British or American authorities for posting secret documents online. He wasn’t wrong.

  The US Justice Department had indicted Assange on charges that he published classified documents. He’s also suspected of helping Russian operators interfere with the 2016 US election. He could be extradited to face trial. 

 I Spy:Feeding a Trump-inspired conspiracy theory, Attorney Gen. William Barr yesterday told a Congressional committee that he’s looking into whether the FBI and US intelligence services spied on the 2016 Trump campaign. “I think spying on a political campaign is a big deal,” Barr told a Congressional committee. He offered no evidence.

  Trump has claimed many times that President Obama authorized spying on his campaign. 

 Democratic leaders, already disappointed with Barr’s summary of the Special Counsel report that allowed Trump to claim total vindication, are outraged. They say that Barr, recently appointed by Trump, is acting on politics not the law or the facts.

 Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, “the chief law enforcement officer of our country is going off the rails” and “He is the attorney general of the United States of America, not the attorney general of Donald Trump.” 

EnquirerMonths to Live!: Tired of owning a controlling interest in the sleazy National Enquirer, the hedge fund that owns a controlling interest in the supermarket tabloid has put it up for sale.

   The paper that once headlined stories about two-headed babies and evolved to become a scandal sheet that supported the presidential candidacy of Donald Trump, could be sold within days. The paper bought the rights to the story of a woman who says she had an affair with Trump, only to bury it in a practice known as “catch and kill.”

   The Enquirer later signed a cooperation agreement with the Justice Department.

The News Roundup:The Treasury Department says it will miss the House deadline for turning over six years of President Trump’s tax returns. They’re fighting it. — As the Trump administration clamps down on illegal border crossings, vehicles are waiting as long as 10 hours at the southern border to get into the US. — Former Obama White House Counsel Gregory Craig expects to face federal charges related to legal work he did with Trump associate Paul Manafort for the Ukrainian government in 2012. — Former Pope Benedict, who has stayed out of sight and mind since he stepped down, wrote a 6,000-word letter blaming the 1960s sexual revolution for the epidemic of pedophilia in the church. He said, “pedophilia was then also diagnosed as allowed and appropriate.” No, it wasn’t.

The Obit Page:Question: Name the most famous figure from the 1950s quiz show scandals. Answer: Charles van Doren.

  The former Columbia University professor who gripped the nation for 14 weeks with his knowledge of trivia on the quiz show “Twenty-One” only to be revealed as a fake, has died in Connecticut at age 93.

  Van Doren came from an egghead literary family of Pulitzer Prize winners. He mopped his brow and bit his lips as he managed to name the four Balearic Islands, as well as the names for myopia, and missing patellar reflex. When he left the show after missing the name of Belgium’s king. 

  Van Doren became won $129,000 and became a national hero. Then the rumors circulated. Eventually he testified before Congress that it had all been a fraud: he had been given the answers to the questions. “I would give almost anything I have to reverse the course of my life in the last three years,” he said.

 Columbia University fired him and Van Doren worked for the rest of his career at the Encyclopedia Britannica in Chicago. 

Orderly Succession:Actor Alec Baldwin, who plays President trump on “Saturday Night Live,” says he could run for president and beat Trump. “Beating Trump would be so easy,” he tweeted. Okay, fine, but who would play Alec Baldwin on “Saturday Night Live.”

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