Safe at Home: President Trump landed in the US yesterday and declared the world safe from North Korea. Although the Hermit Kingdom still has its nuclear weapons, Trump tweeted, “There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea. Meeting with Kim Jong Un was an interesting and very positive experience. North Korea has great potential for the future!”

Despite the lack of any specific language or protocols in the Singapore agreement, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the administration hopes that major nuclear disarmament will take place within 2 ½ years. Nuclear experts typically say it could take 10 to 15 years.

In an interview with Fox News, Trump spoke with admiration for Kim, describing the murderous dictator as a  “tough guy.” Trump said, “Hey, when you take over a country, tough country, with tough people, and you take it over from your father, I don’t care who you are, what you are, how much of an advantage you have – if you can do that at 27 years old, that’s one in 10,000 could do that.”

The sketchy nature of the agreement naturally caused journalists and talking heads to question what Trump really got in the deal. Trump does not like to be questioned. With the North Korea threat vanquished in a power meeting, the President declared once again that America’s biggest enemy is journalists.

He tweeted, “So funny to watch the Fake News, especially NBC and CNN. They are fighting hard to downplay the deal with North Korea. 500 days ago they would have ‘begged’ for this deal-looked like war would break out. Our Country’s biggest enemy is the Fake News so easily promulgated by fools!”

Son of Monster Merger: Just a day after a federal judge cleared the way for telecom giants AT&T and Time warner to merge, cable biggie Comcast made a $65 billion cash offer to buy most of 21^st Century Fox, possibly entering a bidding war with Disney. Back in December the Mouse made a $52.4 billion deal to buy Fox.

Shareholders are supposed to vote July 10^th on whether to approve the Disney buyout. Fox can delay that if it decides to seriously consider the Comcast offer. It doesn’t really matter which way it goes. When this is over, the cable/television/internet business will boil down to three or four players who will charge you more money.

Econ 101: The Federal Reserve raised interest rates yesterday and signaled that two more rate hikes are coming this year. The basic rate is 1.75 to 2 percent, which is still close to a free loan. The last time rates topped 2 percent was before the 2008 recession.

The Fed needs to get interest rates back up to something approaching historically normal rates to give it a tool to use when the economy turns down again, because it will.

Sleeping With Elephants: The NY Times says it is conducting an internal investigation into the work history of its reporter Ali Watkins, who had a long term romance with James Wolfe, 57, the  former security director for the Senate intelligence committee. Wolfe has been indicted on three counts of giving false statements to prosecutors about his relationships with reporters.

The Times says Watkins, 26, told the paper about her relationship with Wolfe when she was hired, and that she never received government information from him when they were together. She covers national security and has worked for the paper only since December.

Watkins’ career is in the balance. A Times editor famously once said, “You can sleep with elephants if you want to, but if you do, you can’t cover the circus.”

Those aren’t the exact words he used.

Big Melt: The rate at which Antarctic ice is melting has tripled since 2007, according to a new report published in the journal Nature. The ice is melting so fast that sea levels will rise 6 inches by the year 2100, scientists say.

Between 1992 and 2017, Antarctica lost three trillion tons of ice, resulting in sea levels rising by three-tenths of an inch. Forty percent of that increase occurred between 2012 and 2017.

Prof. Andrew Shepherd, a professor of earth observation at the University of Leeds, said that currently the fringes of Brooklyn, NY have floods once a year. By 2100, he said, that will happen 20 times a year.

California Divisa in Tres Partes: A proposal to divide California into three separate states has qualified for the November ballot. It was pushed by Tim Draper, a billionaire investor in Skype, Hotmail and Tesla. The proposal argues that California is so big as is  that it’s “nearly ungovernable.”

The three states would be Northern California, including San Francisco, Southern California encompassing San Diego and the eastern deserts, and just plain California, the coast from Monterey down through Los Angeles. The People’s Republic of Santa Monica would remain untouched.

The Obit Page: Women’s basketball great Anne Donovan, who won two Olympic gold medals and was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1995, has died of heart failure at 56. Playing at Old Dominion from 1979-83, she averaged 20 points and 14.5 rebounds. She was a leader in US Olympic gold medal runs in the 1984 and 1988.

Speed Dating: Saturday Night Live comedian Pete Davidson is engaged to get married. He’s engaged to singer Ariana Grande. He gave her an engagement ring after about a month of dating. He bought the engagement ring after about a week of dating. Davidson paid $95,000 for the rig. He and Grande started dating within days of each breaking up with long term love interests. Based on the facts above, for forty points, correctly guess the duration of time they will be married.

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