RESPONSIBLE PARENTING: Jennifer Crumbley testified in her defense yesterday in a Michigan courtroom in what is believed to be the first case in which a parent is being held responsible for crimes committed by their child.

  Crumbley, 45, was charged with involuntary manslaughter after her son, Ethan, shot and killed four kids at his high school in November 2021. He’s now serving life. Prosecutors charge that Crumbley ignored “red flags” that her son was troubled and that she even agreed to let her husband buy the boy the pistol used in the massacre just four days before.

  She testified about text messages that prosecutors say she ignored from her son about the house being haunted and seeing a demon while she and her husband were out riding their horses. She said it was part of the joking culture of the family.

  Crumbley denied a key point, that she declined to bring her son home the day of the shooting after teachers saw that Ethan had made a drawing depicting a gun and the message: “The thoughts won’t stop. Help me.”

  “There was never a time when I refused to take him home,” Jennifer Crumbley told the jury. “If he wanted to go home, I would have taken him.”

  The shooting took place hours later and now Ethan is spending life in prison. Jennifer Crumbley testified, “I wish he would have killed us instead.” 

  But, she said she would not have done anything differently.

ORANGE ALERT: Donald Trump’s former finance chief Allen Weisselberg is negotiating to plead guilty to perjury in Trump’s New York civil fraud trial, several news outlets report. He would have to admit that he lied in the trial and during an interview with the New York Attorney General’s office.

  The plea involves Weisselberg’s statements about the hush money the Trump organization paid to porn actress Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 election. Weisselberg has already pleaded guilty and spent time in jail for Trump-related financial crimes. Pleading guilty to perjury would make him useless as a witness for either the prosecution or defense in a Trump case.

MIDDLE EAST: President Biden yesterday ordered broad financial and travel sanctions on four Israeli settlers … yes just four of them … who are believed to have taken part in violent attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank, a move made in part to curry favor with Arab American voters in the US who are furious about US support for Israel’s war in Gaza.

  The sanctions are also a warning shot to head off growing violence in the West Bank, which is becoming Israel’s second front. Jake Sullivan, the president’s national security adviser said, “This violence poses a grave threat to peace, security, and stability in the West Bank, Israel, and the Middle East region, and threatens the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States.” 

  The four settlers who live in Palestinian territory will be cut off from the US financial system and from accessing any American assets or property. They also will be barred from travel to the US or doing any business with people in the US.

THE WAR ZONE: Only one man stood in the way, but European leaders worked together to convince Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban to agree to a $54 billion plan to keep Ukraine’s economy afloat during the war with Russia. He had been the only holdout among 27 national leaders.

  Some of those leaders both wooed and threatened Orban to bring him around.

  The economic aid is intended to keep Ukraine economically up and running for the next four years, but military aid, particularly from the US, is still a big question mark. 

FAMILY VALUES: Los Angeles Dodgers legendary first baseman Steve Garvey, nicknamed “Mr. Clean,” is selling himself as a “family values” Republican candidate for US Senate from California.

  He does indeed have a family including seven children, some of whom he knows personally. 

  Garvey has had three marriages and two children by different mothers out of wedlock who don’t know him. One daughter said the only time she ever spoke to him was when she ran into him at a Park City, Utah, ski lodge.

  Krisha Garvey, 49, the oldest child by Garvey’s first marriage says, he cut her off 15 years ago and has nothing to do with her or her three children. 

  At 75, Garvey is square-jawed handsome. He’d be cast as President in a nuclear crisis movie.

  But, “There’s something lacking in him, something not authentic,” his daughter Krisha told the Los Angeles Times. “To be a man of the people, to truly have experience of being a totally complete, loving family man … I wouldn’t want the people of California to buy into that just because he hit a ball really well.”

THE SPIN RACK: Toxicology exams found cocaine and other illegal drugs in the bodies of three Kansas City Chiefs fans found frozen to death behind a home where they had been watching a playoff game last month. Their host, Jordan Willis, checked into rehab shortly after his friends were discovered. — The Oregon Supreme Court yesterday barred from seeking reelection 10 Republican state senators who staged a 10-day walkout to block a measure intended to protect abortion rights and gender-affirming health care. State law says 10 unexcused absences from the legislature and you’re out. — Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin yesterday publicly apologized for keeping his prostate cancer treatment a secret.

BELOW THE FOLD:  Arizona State Sen. Anthony Kern, who was one of Donald Trump’s fake electors after the 2020 election and was present on the Capitol grounds during the January 6^th insurrection, has introduced a bill that would allow state legislators to overturn the results of a presidential election in their state.

  When a reporter from the Huffington Post asked Kern about the bill he said, “You are a complete idiot and the Huffington Post is an enemy of the American people.”

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