Today's edition of quick hits:
* This is especially important in the event of a possible presidential pardon: "The Manhattan district attorney's office is moving forward in preparing a case against Paul Manafort in connection with state tax and bank fraud-related charges, a source familiar with the matter told NBC News."
* I'm very glad I didn't write a single word this week about the recent rumors about the imminent delivery of a Mueller report: "Attorney General William Barr will not receive the final report of special counsel Robert Mueller by the end of next week, says a senior Justice Department official."
* The latest Trump cabinet mess: "Prosecutors have begun presenting evidence to a grand jury in Washington in their probe of whether former interior Secretary Ryan Zinke lied to federal investigators, according to two individuals briefed on the matter."
* Venezuela: "Venezuelan soldiers opened fire on a group of civilians attempting to keep open a segment of the southern border with Brazil for deliveries of humanitarian aid, causing multiple injuries and the first fatalities of a massive opposition operation meant to deliver international relief to this devastated South American country, according to eyewitnesses and community leaders."
* Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R) "wore a Confederate uniform in a photo published in his 1980 college yearbook, the Tennessean newspaper reported Thursday, in the latest instance of a state leader coming under scrutiny for past actions that critics have decried as racially insensitive."
* It's almost as if the president is unpopular in some parts of the country: "On Election Day 2016, six residential buildings called Trump Place stood in a row on Manhattan's Upper West Side -- a legacy of Donald Trump's efforts to develop that site and a sign of the Trump name's enduring value in New York. Soon, Trump's name will be gone from all of them."
Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.