WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced he was appointing State Department hostage negotiator Robert O’Brien as his new national security adviser.

I read the news today, oh boy / … I just had to laugh / I saw the photograph (the Beatles, 1967).  

British and American journalists since the 19th century have known August as “the silly season,” the time when both Parliament and Congress are out of session: less political news, more opportunity to fill pages with accounts of trivial or frivolous matters. So we’ve had photos of bare-chested Vladimir Putin, a dozen people squeezing into a phone booth, massive vegetables, escaped cows, and dogs on surfboards.

Former FBI Director James Comey broke agency policies by keeping and leaking information about private conversations with President Donald Trump, according to a U.S. Department of Justice report released Thursday.

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.