Weather Report: A string of tornadoes struck in the Carolinas last night, leaving severe damage. At least seven tornadoes destroyed buildings and knocked out power. Pictures from Spartanburg, SC show buildings ripped apart and vehicles flipped.

The Niger Question: An effort by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to answer questions about the deaths of four Green Berets in Niger only seemed to stir up more questions.

Marine Corps General Joseph Dunford said that 12 Green Berets patrolling with 30 Nigerien soldiers came under attack, but did not call for help until an hour after the first shots were fired. They were then backed up by an armed drone and eventually French fighter jets.

Nine Nigerian soldiers also were killed. The US wounded, and three dead, were choppered out, but it took two days to recover the body of Sgt. La David Johnson. No explanation was given for the delay and few other details were released.

US Special Forces train and patrol with a lot of foreign armies, but there’s been no explanation for how the US/Nigerien force managed to stumble into a professionally executed ambush in what was believed to be a relatively routine patrol.

Yesterday at the White House, President Trump ignored questions about Niger.

Reporter: Can you tell the public what happened in Niger?

[Trump turns and walks away]

Reporter: Mr. President, any questions on the ambush?

[Trump walks away]

Reporter: Do you have a response to Myeshia Johnson, Mr. President?

[Trump walks away]

Reporter: Can you talk to us about Niger, Mr. President?

[Trump enters White House]

Gold Star: President Trump is actually pushing back against the war widow who says his phone call to her was upsetting, not comforting.

Myeshia Johnson, the pregnant widow of Sgt. La David Johnson, said on ABC’s Good Morning America: “The president said that he knew what he signed up for but it hurts anyways and I was — it made me cry because I was very angry at the tone of his voice and how he said it. He couldn’t remember my husband’s name.”

Trump tweeted, “I had a very respectful conversation with the widow of Sgt. La David Johnson, and spoke his name from beginning, without hesitation!”

But Johnson said, “The only way he remembered my husband’s name was because he told me he had my husband’s report in front of him and that’s when he actually said ‘La David,’” Mrs. Johnson said. “I heard him stumbling on trying to remember my husband’s name and that’s what hurt me the most because if my husband is out here fighting for our country and he risks his life for our country, why can’t you remember his name?”

Pathologies:  We came across an article for Salon about the mental pathology of Donald Trump, written in August  by Bill Curry, who ran twice as the Democratic nominee for governor Connecticut. Curry once met Trump to ask for campaign money, and said all Trump could do was talk about himself. Curry wrote,  “Trump is the Chuck Yeager of lying, a shatterer of records thought untouchable. That he is frozen in pathological, crotch-grabbing adolescence is well documented; that his judgment is often deranged by rage is self-evident.”

But what Curry said as an aside about the press is just as interesting. “The pathologies of American journalism are by now clichés: aversion to policy analysis; addiction to horse-race politics; smashing of walls that once separated news, opinion and advertising; an ideology that mistakes evenhandedness for objectivity. Yet we hear scant talk of reform. The press excels at public rituals of soul-searching but has little taste for the real thing.  That said, its reluctance to discuss mental health reflects its virtues as well as its vices. Of major outlets, Fox News does by far the most psychological profiling. (It turns out all liberals are crazy.)”

Nation: Two courts have reversed $500 million in legal awards to women who claimed that the use of Johnson’s Baby Powder in intimate areas caused their ovarian cancer. — Officials of Alaska’s Iditarod dog-sled race announced that this year four of the dogs belonging to four-time champion Dallas Seavey tested positive for banned substances. He finished second to his father. — NBC News host Megyn Kelly said the claims of her former Fox  News colleague Bill O’Reilly that no women ever went to a lawyer or the personnel department about his sexual harassment is a lie. “O’Reilly’s suggestion that no one ever complained about his behavior is false. I know because I complained,” Kelly said on her morning show. — The LA Times reports that after running a story about 38 women accusing movie director James Toback of sexual harassment, another 200 women came forward to share their stories.

Boys of Summer: The temperature is expected to be in the mid-90s in Los Angeles tonight for the opening pitch of the World Series between the Dodgers and the Houston Astros. It’s not as bad as it sounds because Los Angeles baseball fans arrive during the second inning and leave after the 7^th.

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