Trump World: Former Trump company executive Allen Weisselberg, once a right-hand man to Donald is expected to plead guilty today to illegally avoiding taxes while working  at the former president’s family business. 

  Weisselberg is accused of 15 felonies, including failure to pay taxes on a Trump-owned apartment and private school tuition for his children.

  While the plea is a blow to the company, which faces trial on similar charges, the Trump Organization’s longtime chief financial officer will not be required to testify or give evidence against Trump himself, The NY Times reports. He will, however, be required to testify against the Trump Companies, and that will be trouble.

  Originally charged with crimes that could have earned him 15 years in prison, the plea deal might let Weisselberg  off with as little as 100 days in the clink, the Times reports. He dodged serious taxes, and serious time as well.

The Cheney Bounce: Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, who was crushed in Tuesday’s primary because of her opposition to Donald Trump, said on NBC’s “Today” show yesterday that she just might run for president. She told host Savannah Guthrie that, “It is something that I am thinking about, and I’ll make a decision in the coming months.”

  Trump was jubilant about her loss, posting on his Truth Social website, “This was a referendum on the never ending Witch Hunt. The people have spoken!”

  Cheney, however, is getting praise from unusual sources for standing up against Trump and losing her seat.  NY Times columnist Frank Bruni writes that, “Come January, she will no longer be Representative Cheney because she represents steadfast principle in an era with a devastating deficit of it. History will smile on her for that.”

  Bruni notes his disappointment with Cheney on some big issues, abortion up front. While cautioning that “She’s not some paragon of altruism,” Bruni adds, “there could be no dispute, at least not among honest and sensible patriots, about the correctness of her positions on Trump, on her party’s fealty to him and on the peril that he poses to the future of American democracy.”

The Agency Caught Covid: Admitting that her agency botched the Covid-19 outbreak and resulting pandemic, Dr. Rochelle Walensky,  director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, rebuked the CDC’s handling of the disease and announced plans to reorganize the agency’s structure to curb continuing outbreaks, spend less time publishing little-read papers about rare diseases. 

 Walensky said, “We made some pretty public mistakes and we need to own them.” 

  The CDC got scathing reviews on confronting Covid. If it had been a Broadway show, it would have closed.

  “For 75 years, CDC and public health have been preparing for Covid-19, and in our big moment, our performance did not reliably meet expectations,” Dr. Walensky said acknowledging her agency’s failings. “My goal is a new, public health, action-oriented culture at C.D.C. that emphasizes accountability, collaboration, communication and timeliness.”

Abortion Beat: New state laws restricting or outlawing abortion are causing all kinds of complications about medications pregnant women can take, whether they can abort a deformed fetus, or whether an underage mother can be forced to bear a child.

  That last one was answered by a Florida appeals court upholding a lower-court ruling that denied a 16-year-old an abortion because she lacked the maturity to make the decision, despite her arguments to the contrary that she “is not ready to have a baby.” The teenager in question says she has no parents, doesn’t have a job, and “the father is unable to assist her.” Florida law forbids a minor to have an abortion without parental consent.

Hoop Dreams: Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James has agreed to a two-year, $97.1 million contract extension makes him the highest-earning player in NBA history.  LA Times sports columnist Bill Plaschke writes, “Two more years of injury reports, two more years of bad drama, two more years of embarrassing mediocrity.”

  Plaschke says, “A franchise lacking in youth and depth just tied its fortunes to a guy who will play his final guaranteed season at age 39.”

The Spin Rack: After a jury found that three drugstore chains pushed mass quantities of painkillers despite being aware of their abuse, a federal judge ruled that CVS, Walgreens, and Walmart must pay $650.5 million to two Ohio counties. It’s the first time a judge has exacted a financial penalty from drug companies for their part in the opioid crisis. — Led by higher food prices, inflation in Britain has hit 10.1 percent. — Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani was in Atlanta yesterday appearing for six hours before a Fulton County special grand jury investigating postelection meddling by Trump and his operatives. Giuliani’s has been told that that he is a “target” in that investigation. — Former Vice President Mike Pence yesterday called on Republicans to stop attacking the FBI over its search of former President Trump’s Palm Beach home saying it’s the Justice Department that should be held accountable. He did not say that Trump should be held accountable for hoarding secret documents. 

Book Shelf:  Reviewing Jared Kushner’s new memoir “Breaking History,” for The NY Times, Dwight Garner calls the book “soulless” and says  “Kushner almost entirely ignores the chaos, the alienation of allies, the breaking of laws and norms, the flirtations with dictators, the comprehensive loss of America’s moral leadership, and so on, ad infinitum, to speak about his boyish tinkering with issues he was interested in.” 

  Trigger warning: In our favorite lines from the review Garner says, “Kushner’s fealty to Trump remains absolute. Reading this book reminded me of watching a cat lick a dog’s eye goo.”

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