When I first read the headlines, I thought it was a joke, some SNL parody that wandered onto the front pages: “Trump inquires about US buying Greenland,” reported CNN mid-August.

The tabloids took it in satirical stride, too. “Trump wants to buy Greenland,” led a New York Daily News cover piece, “But Denmark says he just can’t af-fjord it.” 

WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump has repeatedly discussed the idea of the United States acquiring Greenland with advisers and allies, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. The icy, semiautonomous Danish territory is the world’s largest island. Sources that have talked to the president about it say he wasn’t really serious about buying Greenland, but he brought it up enough times that it made them wonder.

Receiving welfare benefits such as food stamps or Medicaid could disqualify some immigrants from getting their green cards, the Trump administration announced this week. Acting U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Ken Cuccinelli’s defense of the rule has received heavy coverage and criticism.

WASHINGTON—Joseph Maguire, a retired U.S. Navy vice admiral, will take over as acting director of national intelligence, President Donald Trump announced Thursday. Maguire, who currently heads up the National Counterterrorism Center, will replace outgoing Director Dan Coats. It is unclear whether the president will nominate Maguire to fill the role permanently.

President Donald Trump’s nominee for director of national intelligence has withdrawn his name from consideration. U.S. Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas, faced suspicion about his qualifications to lead the U.S. intelligence community.

The former U.S. senator from Indiana, a Wheaton College graduate, and leader of the compassionate conservative sector of the Republican Party during the 1990s was also on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. He was President George W. Bush’s ambassador to Germany from 2001 to 2005 and later returned to the Senate before retiring in 2016.

WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump ended his effort to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census Thursday, announcing in a news conference that he would instead sign an executive order to count U.S. citizens. The order would direct every federal department and agency to give all records related to the number of citizens and noncitizens to the Department of Commerce. “It is essential that we have a clear breakdown of the number of citizens and noncitizens that make up the U.S. populations,” he said. Trump predicted that the administration could find 90 percent or more of the U.S.