Joe Palazzolo

As a presidential candidate in August 2015, Donald Trump huddled with a longtime friend, media executive David Pecker, in his cluttered 26th floor Trump Tower office and made a request. 'What can you do to help my campaign?' he asked, apparently. Pecker, chief executive of American Media Inc., offered to use his National Enquirer tabloid to buy the silence of women if they tried to publicize alleged sexual encounters with Trump. Less than a year later, Trump asked Pecker to quash the story of a former Playboy model who said they’d had an affair.

Michael Cohen and the publisher of the National Enquirer forged an alliance over the years, looking out for the interests of Donald Trump and each other. Now, federal investigators are examining those ties as part of a wide-ranging probe into Cohen’s personal business dealings and his self-described role as Trump’s fixer. Cohen mediated a dispute between Omarosa Manigault-Newman, who had been a star onTrump’s “Apprentice” reality TV show, and the Enquirer over a story about her brother’s murder.

Apparently, federal authorities have subpoenaed the publisher of the National Enquirer for records related to its $150,000 payment to a former Playboy model for the rights to her story alleging an affair with Donald Trump. The subpoena from Manhattan federal prosecutors requesting information from the publisher, American Media Inc., about its August 2016 payment to Karen McDougal is part of a broader criminal investigation of President Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen.

New York's high court will consider one of the first legal challenges to state and local laws that make it a crime for people to bully others online, especially children.

The 2010 Albany County law, one of more than a dozen around the country that criminalize cyberbullying, pits free-speech advocates against a community that has given prosecutors a larger role in affairs that typically had been handled by schools.

The court's ruling could set the tone for other state high courts hearing challenges to such laws, as well as for states and localities considering criminal penalties for cyberbullying, legal experts said. Besides Albany, four other New York counties and more than a dozen states, including Louisiana and North Carolina, have similar laws.

Speech is generally protected by the First Amendment, but the US Supreme Court has carved out exceptions, such as true threats and fighting words.