Nation: The wife of the Orlando nightclub shooter has been arrested on charges of obstructing justice. Noor Salman, whose husband, Omar Mateen, killed 49 people and wounded dozens last June, was also charged with aiding and abetting by providing material support, authorities said. Investigators believe Salman lied when she told them she had no knowledge of her husband’s plan to attack the gay nightclub. Mateen was killed by the police.

The Trump Report: Just days from his inauguration, President-elect Donald Trump is lining up international friends and enemies. China, speaking through two state-run newspapers, says things will get messy if Trump meddles with the “One China” policy that does not recognize Taiwan as an independent country. Trump has said the policy is up for negotiation.

The English-language China Daily said, “If Trump is determined to use this gambit in taking office, a period of fierce, damaging interactions will be unavoidable.”

Next up: Germany. Trump threatened German car makers with a 35 percent border tax on imported cars if they don’t make more of them in the US.

“I would tell BMW that if you are building a factory in Mexico and plan to sell cars to the USA, without a 35 percent tax, then you can forget that,” Trump said.

But he’s talking smooth with Russia. He said he’s considering lifting economic sanctions on Russia in exchange for a nuclear arms reduction. “Let’s see if we can make some good deals with Russia,” Trump told the London Times.

Copy That: Following accusations that she plagiarized passages in her 2012 book “What the (Bleep) Just Happened?”, journalist Monica Crowley has turned down an appointment to the National Security Council. Crowley said in a statement, “After much reflection, I have decided to remain in New York to pursue other opportunities and will not be taking a position in the incoming administration.” She got caught — that’s what bleep happened.

World: Turkish police have arrested the suspected gunman in a New Year’s Eve rampage in a nightclub that left 39 people dead. A picture of the Uzbek national Abdulgadir Masharipov in custody shows him bruised and bloody. Four other people also were arrested.

The Obit Page: Former astronaut Eugene Cernan, who as a crewmember of Apollo 17 in 1972 was the last human to walk on the moon, has died at age 82. Cernan went to space three times. He was the second astronaut to take a “spacewalk” on a tether, and went to the moon twice.

Media Matters: Life is likely to change for the White House Press Corps under President Trump. Incoming Chief of Staff Reince Priebus says the new administration is considering moving the briefing room, which has 49 seats, to a different location to accommodate more journalists. The immediate suspicion among the regulars is that Trump & Co. plan to pack the room with right wing bloggers, radio talkers, and journos sympathetic to the new president.

In a story about comedian Bill Maher in the NY Times, Jim Rutenberg writes, “It’s amazing how much anxiety Mr. Trump’s imminent inauguration is stirring in the free-speech business — but perhaps not surprising given his open hostility toward the press, his willingness to use his platform against any who cross him and his seemingly proud dismissal of the government and political norms that precede him. No one knows whether a year from now, we’ll see today’s fears as overblown, underblown, or on point.”

Add to this a warning that comes from, of all places, Russian journalist Alexey Kovalev, a veteran of covering Vladimir Putin who wrote to advise American reporters covering Trump that: “This man owns you. He understands perfectly well that he is the news. You can’t ignore him. You’re always playing by his rules which he can change at any time without any notice. You can’t …  in Putin’s case … campaign to vote him out of office. Your readership is dwindling because ad budgets are shrinking … while his ratings are soaring, and if you want to keep your publication afloat, you’ll have to report on everything that man says as soon as he says it, without any analysis or fact-checking, because 1) his fans will not care if he lies to their faces; 2) while you’re busy picking his lies apart, he’ll spit out another mountain of bullshit and you’ll be buried under it.”

It takes a Russian to explain the next American president.

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