Missed Message: The FBI admitted yesterday that it fumbled a Jan 5^th tip from someone who knew the accused Parkland, Fla. shooter, reporting that Nikolas Cruz owned a gun and might attempt a school shooting. The bureau said it failed to act on the tip telling them that Mr. Cruz had “desire to kill people, erratic behavior, and disturbing social media posts.”

The threat should have been forwarded to the FBI Miami field office for assessment, but it was not.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott, whose response to mass shootings is to call for prayers, said FBI Director Christopher Wray should resign for the failure. Wray said in a statement. “I am committed to getting to the bottom of what happened in this particular matter.”

Russian Indictments: In what appear to be the first legal consequences of Russian efforts to sway the 2016 election, thirteen Russian nationals and three Russian organizations have been indicted by the grand jury serving Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

They are accused of illegally using social media to support Donald Trump and damage his opponent, Hillary Clinton. The 37-page indictment says the defendants have conspired since 2014 to violate laws that prohibit foreigners from spending money to influence US elections. The indictment also says the foreigners used stolen identities and posed as Americans to commit fraud and deceit, including wire and bank fraud in what was “information warfare against the United States.”

The indictment describes an organization called the Internet Research Agency, working out of St. Petersburg, as the hub of the operation.

The charges are in some ways symbolic because it’s unlikely the US will be able to extradite any of the defendants to face trial.

Deputy Atty. General Rod Rosenstein said several times that the indictment does not claim that the conspiracy affected the outcome of the election, but it does say the focus was on “battleground” states that could make a difference. It says some of the Russians “communicated with unwitting individuals associated with the Trump campaign and other political activists.”

Trump took all this as exoneration, tweeting, “The results of the election were not impacted. The Trump campaign did nothing wrong – no collusion!” He didn’t condemn what the Russians did.

The indictment does not name Russian President Vladimir Putin, but he is believed to have ordered up the election campaign that created hundreds of bogus social media accounts that eventually reached hundreds of thousands of Americans.

Sex and the Married President: President Trump had a nine-month affair with former Playboy playmate Karen McDougal back in 2006, according to an article posted by Ronan Farrow on The New Yorker website. Trump was married to his current wife, Melania at the time.

Farrow tells how when Trump’s election prospects were heating up, American Media, Inc., owner of The National Enquirer, bought the rights to McDougal’s story with the intention of locking it up and never publishing it as a favor to Trump. It’s called “catch and kill.”

Given the President’s lifelong reputation, reports of affairs are not likely to damage him as they would other politicians.  But Jonathan Chait writes for New York Magazine that such stories lend credence to the theory that the Russians have some real dirt on the President that they are using to influence or blackmail him.

In particular there is the story in the infamous “Steele Dossier” about Trump cavorting in a Russian hotel room with prostitutes that he convinced to pee on a bed once slept in by President Obama. It would not be unlike the Russians to have evidence or even video of that.

Chait says, “Far from being bizarre, imagining Trump paying prostitutes to pee on a bed as a primitive revenge ritual, and Russians taping the episode, is perfectly consistent with what we know about both parties.”

The Gun Beat: President Trump visited victims of the Parkland school shooting yesterday. He has said nothing about guns since the massacre, but Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel, a gun control advocate, is speaking up. “If you’re an elected official,” Israel said, “and you want to keep things the way they are, and not do things differently, if you want to keep gun laws as they are now? You will not get re-elected in Broward County.”

It’s Political: As expected, former Massachusetts governor and presidential candidate Mitt Romney announced he’s running for the Senate from Utah. He would replace Orrin Hatch, who’s retiring.

Romney is the son of the late Michigan Gov. George Romney, who ran for the Republican nomination for president in the 1968 election.

Five Rings: After struggling in the short program, US skater Nathan Chen landed an unheard of six quadruple jumps in the free skate, but it wasn’t enough. Yuzuru Hanyu of Japan won the gold and Chen ended up fifth.

— Skier Lindsey Vonn, who had the unfortunate position of running first in the women’s Super G ski race, finished a disappointing 6^th. There are big hopes for her in the downhill. The event was won by Ester Ledecka, 22, of the Czech Republic, who also plans to compete in the snowboarding giant slalom.

Glass Houses: Design is everything at Apple computer, where the legacy of founder Steve Jobs is to have no walls between form and function. But lately the people at Apple themselves have been bumping into some pretty significant walls — glass walls according to Time magazine.

  The new Apple headquarters building in Cupertino, Calif. is surrounded by 45-foot high curved walls of glass. Even the work “pods” are surrounded by glass. The magazine reports that workers walking while focused on their devices keep walking into the glass walls. Somebody could get Siriously hurt.

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