Monopoly Money: AT&T, the company that once had a monopoly on telephone service in the US before it was broken up, has reached an agreement to buy the media conglomerate Time Warner for $85 billion. AT&T now wants to control the message and the means of delivery.

AT&T owns telecommunications, satellite television, and Cable Television operations. Time Warner owns CNN, HBO, and Warner Bros., along with a long list of other properties.

Federal regulators who will have to evaluate whether this is too much communications power concentrated in one company. It will be the first, and one of the biggest, regulatory cases to face the next administration.

E Minus 16: In a new version of the Gettysburg Address, Donald Trump said at a rally in the Pennsylvania town yesterday that he plans to sue all 10 women who have accused him of groping them. “I look so forward to doing that,” he said, describing the women as liars.

An 11^th woman came forward yesterday.  A porn actress named Jessica Drake says Trump kissed her, offered her, $10,000, and a ride on his private jet for sex. She said she told him no.

Trump had gone to Gettysburg promising to lay out his agenda for his first 100 days in The White House, but he made bigger news promising to sue his accusers. In politics, that’s what’s called being “off message.”

As for his agenda Trump mostly repeated well-known positions on repealing Obamacare and re-negotiating trade agreements. He added new items: a freeze on hiring new federal workers and a two-year mandatory sentence for immigrants who re-enter the US illegally after being deported. He also said he’d block the merger between AT&T and Time Warner.

Some Trump watchers immediately said he made the kind of sober policy proposals he should have made from the start.

World: A train crash in Cameroon yesterday killed 70 people and sent about 600 to the hospital. Witnesses described bodies strewn along the train tracks.

Permawar: Islamic State fighters have executed 284 civilians as Iraqi and Kurdish troops advance on the city of Mosul, according to a report by CNN citing an intelligence source. The dead are described as being all men and boys who had been used as human shields from attack before they were killed.

The Obit Page: Japanese mountaineer Junko Tabei, who was the first woman to reach the summit of Mt. Everest, and the first woman to do “The Seven Summits,” has died at age 77. Tabei had founded an all-female climbing club in the male-dominated Japan of the 1970s. Their slogan was, “Let’s go on an overseas expedition by ourselves.”

Although her team was hit by an avalanche as they slept in Camp II, they dusted themselves off and she got to the top.

Billy Goat: The curse of the Billy Goat is broken. The Chicago Cubs beat the Dodgers 4-2 last night to win a place in the World Series against the Cleveland Indians. The city erupted in celebration. The Cubs have not been in the Series for 71 years, and haven’t won it in 108.

A tavern owner named William Sianis used to bring his pet goat to games, but in 1945 he was turned away from Game 4 of the Series because other fans had complained about the smell. According to legend, Sianis said: “Never again will a World Series be played in Chicago.” The Cubs lost the game and the series to Detroit and not until this day have the Cubs gotten back into the series.

We don’t believe in curses, but it makes a good story.

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