Deadline: After a disastrous week of clashes over an immigration bill, President Trump’s border wall, and his unfortunate pronouncements, it’s looking questionable whether Congress will reach an agreement on a spending bill to keep the government running by the Friday midnight deadline.

Controlling Congress and the White House, Republicans are in danger of taking most of the blame if the government shuts down. But Democrats under challenge in next fall’s elections could also take a hit. Ten Democratic senators are up in heavily white states that Trump won last year. Few of them are likely to take a stand for immigrants at the risk of their seats.

Trump is making the issue about the military, not immigration, claiming that Democrats want to take money away from the Pentagon.

Denial: After denying he’s a racist, President Trump took the attack yesterday to Sen. Dick Durbin, who said the President repeatedly used a scatological term referring to Haiti, El Salvador, and Africa.

Trump tweeted, “Senator Dicky Durbin totally misrepresented what was said at the DACA meeting. Deals can’t get made when there is no trust! Durbin blew DACA and is hurting our Military.”

The president clearly said what he’s accused of saying and has chosen to hide behind the interests of young illegal immigrants and the military. South Carolina’s Sen. Lindsey Graham, who has not outright repeated the word, said yesterday, “My memory hasn’t evolved. I know what was said and I know what I said.”

The NY Times’ David Leonhardt and Ian Prasad Philbrick made a list of Trump’s most prominently racist actions and statements going back to the 1970s when he refused to rent New York apartments to black people. They include his statements about Mexican immigrants being rapists and Haitians all having AIDS.

The two writers conclude, “The media often falls back on euphemisms when describing Trump’s comments about race: racially loaded, racially charged, racially tinged, racially sensitive. And Trump himself has claimed that he is ‘the least racist person.’ But here’s the truth: Donald Trump is a racist. He talks about and treats people differently based on their race. He has done so for years, and he is still doing so.”

Nation: A Perris, Calif. couple was arrested yesterday after their 17-year-old daughter escaped from her home and told police that her 12 siblings, ages 2 to 29, were being held captive in the house.

When they got there police found some of the kids in chains and padlocks without  adequate food or water in a foul-smelling house.

Officers did not immediately understand that seven of the 13 were adults because they were so emaciated and undeveloped. They said the 17-year-old girl who reported her parents looked more like she was 10.

“The parents were unable to immediately provide a logical reason why their children were restrained in that manner,” the Sheriff’s Department said in a statement.

David Allen Turpin, 57, and Louise Anna Turpin, 49, were both arrested on nine counts each of torture and child endangerment. They are each being held on $9 million bail.

Rebel with a Cause: Venezuelan rebel Óscar Pérez once starred in a low-budget action movie about a police squad, but yesterday he had the country transfixed as the target of a bloody shootout with security forces.

Last June Pérez, who was a police officer at the time, hijacked a helicopter in Caracas, dropped grenades on the Supreme Court building and opened fire on the Interior Ministry. He called on citizens to rebel against the government of President Nicolás Maduro.

Yesterday, in the midst of the shootout, a bloodied Pérez posted a video on Twitter in which he said, “They don’t want us to surrender, they want us dead!”

Pérez and other rebels were later reported to have been killed. Two policemen also died.

The Obit Page: Dolores O’Riordan, the lead singer of the Irish rock band Cranberries, has died in London at age 46. No cause was given, but her publicists described her death as “sudden.” The band was at its peak in the 1990s with their songs, “Zombie,” “Linger,” and “Dreams.”

Big as the Ritz: Miners in mountainous Lesotho in southern Africa unearthed what is believed to be the fifth-largest gem quality diamond ever found. It weighs in at 910 carats, or 6.4 ounces. A baseball weighs five ounces.

The stone is described as colorless  and very radiant, without any yellow tint. Ultimate value will depend upon how well it cuts, but it will be worth millions.

Apostrophe: In a country in  which virtually no one questions the dictatorial president, citizens of  Kazakhstan are balking at Nursultan Nazarbayev’s overuse of the apostrophe.

Nazarbayev has decreed that  the former Soviet country will move from the Russian Cyrillic alphabet to the Latin alphabet, a linguistic declaration of independence. The problem is in translating sounds unique to the Kazakh language, which has never had an alphabet of its own.

Nazarbayev’s solution is apostrophes. Lots and lots of apostrophes. As a result, The Republic of Kazakhstan, for example, will be written in Kazakh as Qazaqstan Respy’bli’kasy.

Linguists are laughing between the apostrohes. Under Nazarbayev’s system, the letter “S” with an apostrophe indicates “sh” and C’ is pronounced “ch.” Under this new system, the Kazakh word for cherry will be written as s’i’i’e, and pronounced she-ee-ye.

There will be a pop quiz in the morning.

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