It’s Friday, so David Waldman brings us the up-to-date and up-to-the-weekend news.

Two of the national pastimes of Russia, playing chess and poisoning each other, clashed at a regional chess tournament. Apparently, there were no open windows nearby.

Donald Trump… remember him? Yesterday, he held a MAJOR press conference to set the record straight on his crowd sizes. Bigger than Kamala’s! Bigger than Martin Luther King’s!  Same real estate, same everything! Nobody's spoken to crowds bigger than Trump!

Then grandpa dotard reminisced about the time that he and some Brown guy almost crashed their helicopter. Fact-checkers found discrepancies in Trump's story… for instance, it didn’t happen. Second of all, Trump was lying. Third, who would ever expect the truth from Donald Trump at this late date?

What will be the next surprise move from Donald Trump (That won’t be a surprise to anyone)? Jack Smith hopes to give Donald a few late surprises. It would be a nice surprise to see an insurrection charge.

Florida is learning that ideology is a bad replacement for competence. The DeSantis “Stop WOKE Act” violates people's constitutional rights... Who would have guessed that? And, a Florida school district demonstrated superb title-reading skills by banning the book “Ban This Book”.