CHANGE: The Government May Want to Buy Your Dying Mall. “Local governments worry that dying malls will blight the landscape, so they are buying them up.”

While malls in wealthy neighborhoods continue to attract shoppers and tenants, growing government involvement with shopping centers in less affluent areas is another sign that private investors may be losing interest in the worst performing malls, even ones that can be had at cheap prices.

“It’s a new issue,” said Thomas Dobrowski, executive managing director of capital markets at real-estate services firm Newmark Knight Frank . “When a mall gets to a point of no return and when no private buyer is willing to reinvest in it, it comes down to the value of the dirt.”

Still, government takeovers face many challenges. Malls and department stores often have large, unwieldy footprints, making it tougher to propose another use for them.

“For big boxes in particular, there are limited uses of that space,” said Michele Wildman, executive director at Genesee County Land Bank.

The Genesee County Land Bank in Flint, Mich, currently has a list of 58 commercial properties for sale, including a 101,900-square-foot former Kmart store. But the lack of windows and the large floor plate makes it difficult for such properties to be converted to other uses such as housing.

Plans to reposition malls can also get bogged down if city council members and residents don’t agree to proposed new uses. Some could also be razed when structures are found to be unsound. It can also be complex and time-consuming to buy back malls if multiple parties own different portions of the real estate.

If you’ve never driven past one of these abandoned malls, they’re sad sights to see.

DOG BITES MAN: Ken Starr Makes Makes Explosive Revelation About Hillary Clinton In New Memoir.

In Starr’s memoir, which was obtained in advance by Fox News, Starr recounts his investigation into the death of White House adviser Vince Foster and other matters related to the Whitewater investigation.

“I was upset over Mrs. Clinton’s performance, and was even considering bringing the matter before the Washington grand jury for possible indictment on perjury,” Starr wrote, according to an excerpt of “Contempt: A Memoir of the Clinton Investigation” reviewed by Fox News.

“In the space of three hours, she claimed, by our count, over a hundred times that she ‘did not recall’ or ‘did not remember,'” Starr continued. “This suggested outright mendacity. To be sure, human memory is notoriously fallible, but her strained performance struck us as preposterous.”

Starr said that he ultimately decided not to bring charges against the then-first lady because it would be difficult to prove that she lied when she said “I don’t recall” and “I don’t remember.”

“What was clear was that Mrs. Clinton couldn’t be bothered to make it appear as if she were telling the truth,” Starr concluded.

She still can’t.

YOU DON’T SAY: John Kerry Admits John Edwards Was a Bad Pick.

ROGER KIMBALL: The Intoxicating Effects of Socialist Benevolence. “The result is a campaign to legislate virtue, to curtail eccentricity, to smother individuality, to barter truth for the current moral or political enthusiasm.”

THE CENTURY BOMBER: Engine Upgrades, Digitization to Keep B-52s Flying Into 2050s.

Air Force budget documents state that the current engine, Pratt & Whitney’s TF33-PW-103, “is increasingly difficult to sustain due to diminished manufacturing sources and obsolescent technologies.” The Air Force Propulsion Directorate projects the engine will become unsustainable by 2030, it added.

Global Strike Command is currently working with acquisition leaders as well as the service’s system program office to develop a strategy to buy the new engines, Davis noted. “It affects more than just the engines,” he said, adding that the aircraft’s wiring and electrical systems will be impacted. “It’s not as simple as pulling one engine and putting a new one in.”

The current engines are original to the H models, the last of which came off the manufacturing line in 1962, Davis said. Discussions have been ongoing over several decades about buying new engines, but have until now been tamped down based on budget constraints and the Air Force’s indecision about retiring the aircraft, he added.

We’re supposed to build enough B-21 Raiders to replace every B-52, B-1, and B-2 — the youngest of which was developed and went into production while I was in high school.

DAVID MARCUS: I’m A New Yorker. Here’s How I Teach My Son About 9/11.

As my son grew a little older, the questions became more complicated. Why did the terrorists hate us so much? Did you know anyone who died? Was everyone really sad? I find myself wondering whether I should share the emotional impact 9/11 had on the only city he’s ever lived in, and on America as a whole. Is it wise or even possible to express that level of trauma to a child?

Images are burned into the minds of those in New York City on 9/11 and the weeks and months after. Entire walls in subway stations filled with hundreds of photocopied photographs placed by loved ones desperately seeking information. I remember one face in particular. It was a young Asian man wearing a Phillies cap. That’s my favorite team. I never met him, but I can still see his face.

Over time, it became clear hope was lost of finding them, but the photographs remained. They stayed up in many cases for weeks. They took on a new purpose. The city had collectively decided they were works of art, monuments to our grief. As the city slowly went back to something like normal, it did so under the victims’ gaze.

These are the kinds of stories that I tell my son, but I also tell happier stories.

Read the whole thing.

CAUSING ALL THE RIGHT HEADS TO EXPLODE: Bolton Vows to Not Cooperate with International Criminal Court, Threatens Sanctions.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Serena Williams Isn’t Fighting A Sexism Problem, She’s Fighting A Serena Williams Problem.

From what I’ve read so far, Ramos is one of the best umpires the federation. His calls were not personal, and he followed the rules to the letter as he first gave Williams a warning for her first violation, a point penalty for the second violation, and a game point for the third. I realize that in the heat of the moment people can lose their tempers, and there was a lot of heat surrounding Williams. However, Williams cost herself the game by taking it personally and resorting to berating Ramos as a person in return.

One bad turn went into another, and Williams was driving the car with her foot firmly on the gas.

If Williams is to blame anyone for her loss to Osaka, it’s Williams, not Ramos, and definitely not sexism. Her coach actually should shoulder a lot of the blame, but I see absolutely no one blaming him, and he actually confessed to breaking the rules.

Yet Williams wants this to be about sexism, not her entitled attitude.

The social-media excuse-mongering in defense of Williams will lead to even more unsportsmanlike behavior, but that’s OK just so long as the “right” people win. “Get woke, go broke” might already have come to women’s tennis.

COLLATERAL DAMAGE: What to do about 10,000 al-Qaeda-linked terrorists in Idlib?

The UN estimates that there are nearly 3 million civilians in Idlib, about half of them displaced from other parts of Syria, and that 900,000 civilians will be affected by a government assault. UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura said Friday, “The Security Council cannot accept that the civilians of Idlib must face this type of fate. Efforts to combat terrorism do not supersede obligations under international law in the moral conscience of humanity. We must put the sanctity of human civilian life above everything else.”

“If it’s a slaughter, the world is going to get very, very angry,” US President Donald Trump said Wednesday. “And the United States is going to get very angry, too.”

Turkey, which already hosts some 3.5 million Syrian refugees, seeks to avoid another massive inflow of Syrians displaced by conflict, but has been unable to convince non-terrorist armed groups to withdraw and distance themselves from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.

The story also notes that “Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan failed last week to get his Russian and Iranian counterparts to support his desperate bid for a cease-fire in Idlib.” He chose his new allies… poorly.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Never Forget, Florence Update, Trump Economy, and Much, Much More. “Seventeen years ago this morning, four coordinated terrorist attacks claimed the lives of 2,996 people, injured over 6,000 more, and changed the New York skyline forever.”

Tyler O’Neil is filling in for Liz today.

GOVERNOR MOONBEAM: California commits to 100% clean electricity by 2045.

“This bill and the executive order put California on a path to meet the goals of Paris and beyond,” Brown said at a signing ceremony in state capital Sacramento.

“It will not be easy. It will not be immediate. But it must be done.”

At least 20 countries and twice as many large cities have made similar pledges, but California — the fifth largest economy in the world — is by far the biggest jurisdiction to do so to date.

The electric sector represents 16 percent of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions. More broadly, California has set ambitious goals to slash greenhouse gas emissions 40 percent by 2030, compared to 1990 levels.

Does this apply to electricity generated in California, or to electricity sold in California? If it’s the latter, then California’s electrical rates, already some of the highest in the country, will “necessarily skyrocket,” to coin a phrase. If it’s the former, California won’t achieve anything but make Hollywood and Silicon Valley types feel good, while making out-of-state utilities even richer.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Top 5 riskiest airport Wi-Fi.

San Diego: It scored a perfect 10 on Cornet’s scale. They found an SSID called SANfreewifi carrying out an ARP poisoning attack. Cornet estimates you had a 30% chance of connecting to at least a medium-risk WiFi access point at the time they studied the airport.

John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana, AKA Orange County: It’s the airport to get to the happiest place on Earth but you will not be happy if you don’t use a VPN there and get hacked.

Houston Hobby Airport: This is the smaller airport to Houston Intercontinental, AK George H W Bush airport. Hobby has often has cheaper fares but that doesn’t mean y9ou should cheap out on your protection. Maybe just tether to your wireless carrier there.

Southwest Florida International Airport in Fort Myers: Oh all those spring breakers flying through and looking to ‘gram. A feast of data for the hackers. You really want to make sure your using https there.

Newark Liberty International Airport: If you can hack it there you’ll hack it anywhere. It’s up to you to secure your ports!

Cellular data isn’t that expensive, provided you aren’t streaming video. And a trustworthy VPN can be had for a nominal monthly fee.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: The Circus of Resistance.

After the latest hysteria dies down, this chapter in the ongoing psychodrama will be revealed for what it is: a fantasy of a wannabe coup that is not going to happen. The commentariat’s silly claim that the op-ed was “extraordinary” and “newsworthy” is laughable. There are hundreds of “senior officials” all throughout every presidency, no doubt more so in the outsider Trump’s, who are disgruntled. On any given day, any newspaper could root out a “senior official” to write anonymously anything it wished to fit a preconceived narrative. What is extraordinary is not an op-ed from some sort of a mad David Stockman taken to the woodshed or defrocked Don Regan losing a war with Nancy Reagan, but that the New York Times hunted down someone of #theResistance to create a hysteria that an unhinged Trump must be removed.

By the scale of past White House melodramas, this is no big deal. It is not as if an off-the radar, rogue band in the White House was caught selling arms to Iran and using the profits to fund resistance to Daniel Ortega’s Marxist regime in Nicaragua. The gossip about Trump’s mental processes are no more dramatic than the rumors were about a doddering Reagan in his second term, which later were trafficked by his own son, Ron Jr. (“Father had Alzheimer’s in office”). Trump is not, in Woodrow Wilson fashion, near comatose and locked up in a White House bedroom, while Melania takes over the country. His aides are not covering up the fact that Trump’s blood pressure is peaking at 250 over 150, or that some mornings he cannot get out of bed—as was true of FDR as he campaigned for a fourth term in 1944.

There’s no refuting VDH’s facts or reasoning, although you might take issue with his assertion that the hysteria will die down. Certain stories or tactics will come and go, but the hysteria isn’t going anywhere but up.

LATE-STAGE SOCIALISM: As the price of baby formula in Venezuela soars, moms turn to each other for help.

In Venezuela, baby formula has become so expensive for families that some mothers have begun turning to other women for breast milk donations or even to nurse the babies directly.

President Nicolás Maduro’s government eliminated five zeros from the national currency in an attempt to combat wild inflation in Venezuela, but now a medium-size can of imported baby formula costs even more — 3,300 bolivares or about $33 at the black market exchange rate.

And finding formula to buy isn’t easy. It means going to a resale market because it is almost impossible to find in regular supermarkets or pharmacies.

Marianella Herrera Cuenca, a sociologist from Central University of Venezuela, heard during her visits to poor and middle-class homes about informal networks of women who were helping other mothers by supplying their children with breast milk when they couldn’t afford to purchase enough formula.

A study by Herrera Cuenca and others at the university into the lives of poor mothers in Venezuela — the results have not yet been released publicly — found that as many as three in 20 mothers are being helped to feed their babies by relatives or friends who supply breast milk.

Plus: “39 percent of Venezuelans kids in underprivileged neighborhoods are not breastfed all the way to the six-month mark — and many are then fed with the water used to cook rice or spaghetti, or with corn flour mixed with cow or goat milk, diets that could make them even more undernourished.”

But people opposed to socialism are “uncaring.”

TYLER O’NEIL: Freed From Twitter Jail, Benghazi Hero Kris Paronto Thanks Trump Jr. For Powerful Obama Smackdown. “Sooo Twitter doesn’t censor, eh Jack Dorsey?”

SCRAPPLEFACE: Serena Fights For a Woman’s Right to Be a Jerk.

CARING FOR THE LITTLE GUY: Leonard Maltin, Daughter Claim Michael Moore Stiffed, Slandered Workers.

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: How realistic are sci-fi spaceships?

BREAKING: Congressman Ron DeSantis Steps Down to Campaign Full-Time for Florida Governor Against Andrew Giullum.

YUGE STORM: Trump Cancels Mississippi Rally as Hurricane Florence Bears Down on Coast.

“SHUT UP,” THEY EXPLAINED: A New Color of Censorship from the SPLC.

“Bloodmoney,” Color of Change’s smear campaign, seeks to shut down the fundraising abilities of conservative organizations by pressuring credit card companies and payment processors to deny access to conservative groups blacklisted by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Color of Change falsely accuses all of these groups of promoting violence and white supremacy.

Two weeks ago, the group’s pressure campaign successfully misled Mastercard into refusing to process donations for the Freedom Center, until an outcry forced the company to change course. Though the battle may have been won, Color of Change’s censorship campaign continues.

Color of Change’s “Bloodmoney” campaign is a blood libel. The effort falsely links conservative organizations targeted by the SPLC—including some run by African-Americans and Jews—to the Charleston church shooting and the violence in Charlottesville. The leftist group founded by CNN’s Van Jones and funded by George Soros is out to censor conservative organizations by choking off their fundraising.

The Gleichschaltung has arrived whether you care to recognize it or not.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): This sounds perilously like a conspiracy to interfere with the exercise of civil rights, which — as the SPLC should know — is both a crime and a cause for civil liability.

CIVIL RIGHTS IN ACTION: Teen girl fires shot at armed intruder in Spanaway.

The teen told returning deputies that after the first incident, she and her mom had gone across the street to check on the woman involved in the first incident. The girl returned home first to find the power had been shut off and grabbed a .22 pistol, deputies said.

Moments later, she heard a noise coming from the backyard and saw the man from before standing in her door.

The teen said the man told her “she was going to die” and tried to stab her with a knife several times. He managed to cut her shirt and give a light wound to her home before she kicked the man away and fired one shot at him. The man ran off.

Deputies saw a man who matched the description walking down a nearby road and arrested him. He was found to have a knife, black airsoft pellet gun, 35 rounds of hollow point 9mm ammunition, and black gloves, deputies said.

It’s a shame she missed.

TYLER O’NEIL: 6 Child Abuse Victims Who Grew to Reject the Transgender ‘Bullsh*t.’

THE KID DOESN’T STAY IN THE PICTURE: Michael Moore takes mic away after David Hogg urges foreign meddling in American elections.

Hogg was the critical of the idea of not allowing convicts to vote in elections.

As Hogg ranted about what he saw as an injustice, someone yelled, “Shame!”

“Turn that shame into your vote,” he responded, adding, “if you’re not Canadian.”

“Um,” he continued, turning to Moore, “I think Canadians can donate to political campaigns in the United States.”

Moore shook his head in disagreement.

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“They can’t?” Hogg asked.

“Well, uh, vote here,” he said, causing the audience to laugh at his best attempt at covering his ignorance.

“Learn from us,” he lectured the audience. “Don’t let this happen here because we need to come to you guys if we stay on this track.”

Moore then took the mic away from him.

Seems like the alleged documentarian doesn’t approve of anyone going off his script.

MOLLIE HEMINGWAY: Obama Treated Press Worse Than Trump Does, But Media Didn’t Care.

“That is is not my recollection of the eight years under President Obama,” Hemingway said. “He blamed many bad things in the country on people watching Fox News. He claimed it was on every bar in the country why Democrats were hurt. He tried to freeze out Fox News in multiple instances. He spied on reporters. He’s one of the worst presidents when it comes to actual actions when it comes to the media.”

“President Donald Trump speaks against the press in a way that does not live up to what we would hope to hear in terms of freedom of the press,” she continued. “But when it comes to actual actions taken against the media, the Obama administration was bad and the media didn’t care. When Donald Trump lightly criticizes the press, they boycott him, they freak out about the White House press dinner, and it’s that difference in how they reacted to criticisms by President Obama toward press to how they reacted to criticism from Trump is frustrating.”

It’s different now because shut up.