Lame Duck: Finishing his last foreign tour as President, Barack Obama said in Peru yesterday that he’s willing to give Donald Trump a chance, but will speak up if the Trump administration strays from core American values.

It was an unusual statement by an outgoing President.  “I want to be respectful of the office and give the president-elect an opportunity to put forward his platform and his arguments without somebody popping off,” Obama said.

But he also cautioned that if an issue “goes to core questions about our values and our ideals, and if I think that it’s necessary or helpful for me to defend those ideals, then I’ll examine it when it comes.”

In Transition: As he interviewed candidates for his cabinet, President-elect Trump also took time in the past week to meet with three Indian real estate developers to talk about Trump-branded projects in India.

Trump has indicated no interest in putting his global real estate empire into a blind trust while he’s president and the meeting calls to question whether he will be a full-time president. The three Indian executives said they look forward to expanding their business with Trump because his presidential win raises the value of Trump real estate. Usually in these deals, Trump is paid for the use of his name, but doesn’t own the building.

Trump might not be a full-time resident of the White House either. He’s been described as a homebody who spent extra hours on his jet during the campaign just to sleep in his own bed. Also, The NY Post reports that Melania Trump and the couple’s 10-year-old son Barron will not be moving to the White House until the end of the school year.

With everything he’s got on his plate, Trump still has time to fret about Alec Baldwin’s portrayal of him over the weekend on Saturday Night Live.

At one point a panicked Baldwin/Trump tries to calm himself by chanting, “Big beautiful boobs and buildings, big beautiful boobs and buildings.”

Trump didn’t like it.  The man who will soon have his Twitter finger on the nuclear button tweeted, “I watched parts of @nbcsnl Saturday Night Live last night. It is a totally one-sided, biased show – nothing funny at all. Equal time for us?”

No, it’s comedy and he doesn’t get equal time to try to be funny.

Nation: The police used a water cannon last night against protesters blocking construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. — A San Antonio police detective was killed yesterday in what appeared to be an ambush killing. Det. Benjamin Marconi was writing a ticket for another driver when another car stopped, the driver got out, and shot Marconi in the head as he sat in his car.

A St. Louis officer was wounded in a similar incident in which a driver stopped and fired.

 The Obit Page: Patricia Kutteles, who campaigned for the end of the military’s “don’t ask don’t tell” policy toward gay service members after her son was bludgeoned to death in the Army, has died at age 67. Her son Barry Winchell, who was presumed to be gay by other soldiers, was repeatedly harassed and ultimately killed.

The Big Melt: Sea ice at both poles is retreating at disturbingly rapid rates, according to Prof. Peter Wadhams, head of the Polar Ocean Physics Group at Cambridge University. Wadhams says ice is growing slower in winter and melting faster in summer. Ice reflects radiation back toward the atmosphere, but less ice means the earth absorbs more radiation, speeding up the ice melt. Arctic ice is close to a record low and Antarctic sea ice is at the lowest recorded for this time of year.

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