The Virginia Mess: Amidst a political mess in which three top Virginia political leaders have been involved with incidents of white men wearing blackface, the politician under the most pressure to resign today is the one who’s actually black. A second woman has come forward to accuse Virginia’s Lieutenant Gov. Justin Fairfax of sexual assault. 

  A woman named Meredith Watson went public yesterday to accuse Fairfax of raping her while they were students at Duke University in 2000. His first accuser said he assaulted her at the Democratic National Convention in 2004. Where there’s two, there are often more.

  Facing a wave of calls for his resignation, Fairfax said, “I demand a full investigation into these unsubstantiated and false allegations.”

  With Fairfax now taking the brunt of the heat, Gov. Ralph Northam has survived nearly a week after the revelation of a racist blackface and Ku Klux Klan picture in his medical school yearbook page. He has refused to resign and is trying to outlast the public and political outrage. 

Public Exposure:Federal prosecutors are examining the claim by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos that he was the target of extortion and blackmail by The National Enquirer, The NY Timesreports. The Enquireroffered to hold publication of explicit photos hacked from Bezos in exchange for a statement that the Enquirerhad not revealed his extramarital affair for political reasons connected to President Trump. Bezos owns The Washington Postand President Trump is on a personal crusade against Bezos and the paper for its coverage of his presidency.

  The Enquirer, and its parent American Media, were the companies that bought the stories about Trump’s affairs with two women in order to keep them silent during the 2016 campaign. American Media and its officers were granted prosecutorial immunity in the case in trade for their inside information, but that deal could be cancelled if the company is found to have broken the law in the Bezos matter.

  The big deal here is that Bezos appears to be the first major figure to stand up to the Enquirer and say he’s not playing their game. As these things go, more may follow. 

  The company issued a statement saying, “American Media believes fervently that it acted lawfully in the reporting of the story of Mr. Bezos, nonetheless, in light of the nature of the allegations published by Mr. Bezos, the board has convened and determined that it should promptly and thoroughly investigate the claims.”

  It’s a little like OJ saying he was going to find out who killed Nicole.

Your Five Minutes: In a testy standoff with the House Judiciary Committee, Acing Attorney Gen. Matthew Whitaker said he never briefed President Trump on what’s going on with the Special Counsel Russia investigation.

  “I do not believe that I have briefed third-party individuals outside of the Department of Justice,” Mr. Whitaker said. “I have received the briefings myself, and I’m usually the endpoint of that information.”

  Whitaker virtually never answered questions directly. Frequently asked to answer “yes or no,” he always delivered a speech instead.

  The committee controlled by Democrats was trying to find out whether Whitaker was appointed by Trump to thwart the Special Counsel investigation. He refused to answer those questions.

  With each panel member given five minutes each for revolving rounds of questions, Whitaker actually had the nerve to tell Chairman Jerrold Nadler that his five minutes were up.

Korea:President Trump announced that he will have his second summit with South Korean dictator Kim Jong-un February 27 and 28 in Hanoi, Vietnam.American intelligence agencies say there have been no concrete results from their first meeting in which Trump says Kim agreed to give up nuclear weapons.

 Nonetheless, Trump tweeted, “North Korea, under the leadership of Kim Jong Un, will become a great Economic Powerhouse. He may surprise some but he won’t surprise me, because I have gotten to know him & fully understand how capable he is. North Korea will become a different kind of Rocket – an Economic one!”

The Roundup:Fire in a dormitory at a Brazilian soccer training academy killed 10 young players. The dormitory may have been improperly built. — Bruce McArthur, a serial killer who stalked and killed eight gay men in Toronto, has been sentenced to life in prison. Some of his victims were close friends.

The Obit Page:Albert Finney, the enduring British stage and screen actor who broke into the public eye playing the rebel and the angry young man, has died at age 82. He worked long past his original typecast. 

  Finney came up with fellow angry young actors Alan Bates and Tom Courtenay, who played the Red Army Gen. Strelnikov in “Dr. Zhivago.”

  Finney starred in on stage and in the movies “Tom Jones,” “Murder on the Orient Express,” “Under the Volcano” and “Erin Brockovich.” He was nominated for five Oscars, but never won.

Health Check:President Trump is bordering on obesity but is otherwise in good health according to his annual checkup. His doctors advised the hamburger-munching President to drop 10 or 15 pounds and get some exercise other than jawboning the country.