THE GREENLAND GAMBIT: President Trump over the weekend announced that he will levy tariffs on the European countries opposing a US takeover of Greenland, using US taxes to bend them to his will. In response, ambassadors from the 27-nation European Union held an emergency meeting in Brussels yesterday to engineer a response. 

  Germany’s vice chancellor declared over the weekend that European countries “must not allow ourselves to be blackmailed” by the largest power in NATO.

  In a long screed on his Trith Social, Trump claimed; “World Peace is at stake! China and Russia want Greenland, and there is not a thing that Denmark can do about it.” He said of Greenland that, “They currently have two dogsleds as protection, one added recently.”

  Greenland is a territory of Denmark, a member of NATO. Trump said both China and Russia want Greenland and, “Only the United States of America, under PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP, can play in this game, and very successfully, at that!”

  Trump said that starting next month he will place a 10 percent tariff on goods from eight European allies, ratcheting up to 25 percent on June 1. He said Greenland is vital to his plans for a “Golden Dome” missile defense system. He said, “This Tariff will be due and payable until such time as a Deal is reached for the Complete and Total purchase of Greenland.”

COLLISION: At least 39 people are dead after the collision of two high speed trains outside Córdoba along the rail line connecting southern Spain with Madrid. Seventy-three people were sent to the hospital, 24 of them in serious condition.

  One young woman who got out with minor injuries said she saw people dying of their injuries and there was nothing other passengers could do to help.

  The accident happened when the rear cars of a northbound train traveling to Madrid from the country’s southern coast derailed and “veered onto the adjacent track for still unknown reasons,” according to a statement from the train company.

UPRISING: At least 5,000 people including about 500 security personnel have been killed in Iran in the protests which started on December 28 against the religious regime’s woeful economy,  a government official said. 

  The official accused “terrorists and armed rioters” of killing “innocent Iranians,” Reuters reported. The regime indicated that executions of arrested rioters and protesters might still be carried out despite warning of dire consequences from President Trump.

  Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei posted on social media that, “The US President introduced the groups who committed acts of vandalism, arson, and murdered people as ‘the Iranian nation,’” a charge similar to Trump’s own claim that protesters in Minneapolis are being paid.

  Trump said in an interview that it’s time to look for new leadership in Iran.

EXCLUSIVE CLUB: President Trump is inviting countries to join a new international peacekeeping body called the Board of Peace, offering a permanent membership if they’re willing to pay more than a billion dollars in cash within the  first year, according to a draft of the board’s charter reviewed by The New York Times. The board was originally conceived to oversee the rebuilding of Gaza.

STATE MEDIA: It was odd last week when the CBS Evening News gave 12 minutes and 45 seconds to an unedited interview between anchor Tony Dokoupil  and President Trump. Dokoupil did not challenge Trump on his familiar lies and exaggerations. The President said nothing new, nothing newsworthy, yet CBS hawked the interview as an “exclusive,” playing much of it again the next morning. There’s no such thing as an exclusive with Trump because he will always talk to a compliant journalist.

  The NY Times over the weekend broke the story that at the end of the interview Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt delivered a message from the President. “He said, ‘Make sure you guys don’t cut the tape, make sure the interview is out in full,’” she said in a recording of the exchange obtained by the Times. “Yeah, we’re doing it, yeah,” Dokoupil responded. Leavitt said, “He said, ‘If it’s not out in full, we’ll sue your ass off.’”

  The leak to the Times reveals that someone inside CBS was unhappy with the situation.

  CBS issued a statement saying, “The moment we booked this interview, we made the independent decision to air it unedited and in its entirety.” Leavitt told the Times,  “The American people deserve to watch President Trump’s full interviews, unedited, no cuts. And guess what? The interview ran in full.”

THE OBIT PAGE:  Leonard Jacoby, who with legal partner Stephen Meyers brought low cost legal representation and billboard  advertising to the once staid profession of being a lawyer, died in Manhattan at age 83. 

  Their goal was to bring legal services for a flat fee to people who otherwise could not afford a lawyer. Jacoby & Meyers opened clinics in suburbs and strip malls,

staying open late and on the weekends. They became a national brand like a toothpaste or a soda pop.

 Jacoby told The Los Angeles Business Journal, “We set out to be the Sears of the legal profession, good value for a reasonable price.” Their first client paid $15 for them to get back his re-possessed car.

THE SPIN RACK: Five skiers were killed Saturday in a pair of avalanches in the Salzburg Pongau region of western Austria. Four skiers died in one slide and one in another avalanche. — Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro writes in his new memoir that Kamala Harris’s  vetting team considering him as a running mate asked if he had ever been a double agent for Israel.  

BELOW THE FOLD: The National Football League is down to four teams to decide who goes to the Super Bowl. Next weekend’s matchups are the Patriots v. the Denver Broncos and Seattle v. the Los Angeles Rams. 

  Quoth the Raven … The NY Giants snapped up coach John Harbaugh shortly after he was fired following 18 seasons with the Baltimore Ravens.

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