Schoolyard News: In retaliation for Speaker Nancy Pelosi essentially cancelling the State of the Union address, President Trump scotched Pelosi’s planned trip to foreign war zones. She was about to leave yesterday forAfghanistan.

    In a snidely-worded letter calling for Pelosi to support his border security “movement,” Trump told Pelosi, “I am sure you would agree that postponing this public relations event is totally appropriate.”

  Delegations to war zones usually travel on military aircraft, but Trump won’t allow it this time. He said, “Obviously, if you would like to make your journey by flying commercial, that would certainly be your prerogative.”

Pravda:President Trump ordered his lawyer Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about his plans to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, Buzzfeed reports. They attribute their story to two federal law enforcement sources. The website says, “Trump also supported a plan, set up by Cohen, to visit Russia during the presidential campaign, in order to personally meet President Vladimir Putin and jump-start the tower negotiations. ‘Make it happen,’ the sources said Trump told Cohen.

By the Numbers:Never over 50 percent, President Trump’s approval rating has slipped to 39 percent in the midst of the government shutdown. Fifty-three percent of Americans disapprove of the President’s performance, according to a new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll.

  Significantly, Trump is losing support in what has previously been his near unshakable political base.

  He’s down 18 percent among suburban men, 13 points among white evangelicals, and 10 points overall among Republicans, although 83 percent are still with him.

  Nearly unmoved are white men without a college degree.

Star Wars: In  a speech yesterday, President Trump called for a new network of missile defense systems capable of shooting down any missile fired at the United States. It recalls President Ronald Reagan’s infamous “Star Wars” defense system that was never built.

  “Our goal is simple: to ensure that we can detect and destroy any missile launched against the United States anywhere, anytime, any place,” Trump said.

  What’s interesting is that Trump wants a technical defense for the sky, but a concrete wall on the ground.

Blue Privilege:Three Chicago police officers were acquitted yesterday of charges that they lied to cover for a fellow officer who had shot and killed an unarmed teenager.

  It was a bench trial, heard only by a judge, not a jury. Judge Domenica Stephenson said in her decision that, “This court finds that the state has failed to meet its burden on all charges.”

  Police video clearly shows that the victim, Laquan McDonald, was walking away from officers at an oblique angle when he was shot 16 times by Off. Jason Van Dyke.  Prosecutors said the cops shooed away witnesses without interviewing them. They wrote in their reports that the 17-year-old had tried to stab three officers, and that he tried to get up even after he was riddled with bullets. He didn’t.

  Civil rights organizations had hoped it was a clear case of cops covering for a cop. Van Dyke, the officer who killed McDonald was convicted of second-degree murder. He’s scheduled for sentencing today.

The News Roundup:  A car bombing at the Bogotá police academy yesterday killed as many as 21 people. Columbia might be reverting to its violent past.— Former CBS Chairman Les Moonves, who was fired for being a lying sexual creep, is fighting back to get his $120 million severance. The company said he was fired for just cause, denying the severance lump, but Moonves is asking to go to arbitration. He was paid almost $70 million a year. — The number of migrant children separated from their families may be far greater than the 2,700 reported by the government, according to the General Accounting Office. They say there was a sharp increase in family separations in 2017, long before the Trump Administration’s “zero tolerance” policy.

The Obit Page:Mary Oliver, a Pulitzer-winning poet who focused on the natural world, has died at age 83.

  She was a rare poet who was consistently able to sell and publish her work. She won a Pulitzer Prize in 1984 for her collection “American Primitive,” and the National Book Award in 1992 for “New and Selected Poems.” 

  Summer Brennan writes in The Paris Reviewthat, “There was a view in her poems and in her person of an America that was both beautiful and profoundly lonely. She was not blind to the country’s unthinkably cruel and violent past; nor did she imagine the natural world that she loved so much as an empty Eden. She saw it, very clearly, as a treasure stolen from someone else.”

Here it Comes:A winter storm is moving across the northern states bringing snow and freezing rain. Anywhere from one to two feet of snow is expected from western New York all the way through main. Expect air travel to be messy. 

The Other Woman:The 29-year-old mistress of notorious drug lord El Chapo testified yesterday about their life of crime together.  Lucero Guadalupe Sánchez López talked about drugs and love.

  Mrs. El Chapo was in court during the mistresses testimony. Asked how she felt about it she said in English, “I don’t speak English.”

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