The GOP frontrunner calls it a “hit piece.”

You couldn't beat the topic of Donald Trump, possible abuser of females, for weekend reading, whether you were at a beach or freezing while watching youth sports in Chicago. The opening of the front-page opus was vivid. “Donald Trump and women: The words evoke a familiar cascade of casual insults, hurled from the safe distance of a Twitter account, a radio show or a campaign podium. This is the public treatment of some women by Mr. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president: degrading, impersonal, performed.” (The New York Times)

Trump responded with a characteristic Twitter blitzkrieg. “Everyone is laughing at the ‪@nytimes for the lame hit piece they did on me and women. I gave them many names of women I helped — refused to use.” (@realDonaldTrump) “Fox and Friends” tagged it a liberal “hit piece” this morning and beckoned Rowanne Brewer Lane, the story's central (“debased”) figure, who defended Trump and chided her portrayal.

Joe Scarborough on MSNBC's “Morning Joe” wondered whether the paper took an “off-handed, unfortunate” remark and “overreached...and played into Donald Trump's hands.” Colleague Mike Barnicle called it “totally not surprising” boorish, predictable Trump behavior (“It comes with the dinner”). “TRUMP ON THE DEFENSIVE OVER HIS PAST,” blared CNN's “New Day.” Where was Megyn Kelly when he needed her? We'll have to await her Monday night show, not to mention her big special with Trump Tuesday night. (Mediaite)

At minimum it reminded why the probing of his private life is fair game. “Trump raised the issue of treatment of women and Hillary as an enabler on the campaign trail, yes?” Jeff Seglin, an ethics and public policy expert at Harvard's Kennedy School, said to me Sunday “I’m not sure why it was a front-page story since there’s nothing in the piece that seems earth shattering or all that surprising. But I didn’t see anything in a first read through that suggested it was sourced poorly or inappropriate.”

“Trump loses all sorts of privacy, especially as he has denied the privacy of others. He has opened the floodgates,” says Colin Greer, an educator-playwright who is president of the New York-based New World Foundation, a civil rights organization.” But the story may not move any needles. The suspicion of of Seglin (a former New York Times ethics columnist) is “that it won't change a thing among those who support him and will outrage those who already find his character questionable.” And, of course, Trump won't need any paid advertising to defend himself since there'll surely be few TV bookers to whom he'll say no and no shortage of initial defenders.

Warren Buffett eyes Yahoo

Huh? He's said he avoids investments in industries he doesn't understand, like the internet. But he may be “backing an investor consortium that includes Quicken Loans Inc. founder Dan Gilbert in the second round of bidding for Yahoo's Internet assets.” (Bloomberg). “But depending on how the deal is structured, he might not be betting on a stock’s performance, so much as the company’s continued existence. Moreover, the assets for sale — including finance, sports and video sites — are arguably media, a business he’s long tracked.”

How did Russia screw around with tamper proof bottles?

The New York Times got lots of notice with a two-part report on apparent dead-of-night, cloak-and-dagger Russian skullduggery at the 2014 Winter Olympics that it hosted in Sochi. In sum, it allegedly switched out “drug-tainted urine from the squat containers long thought to be tamper-proof” and saved the butts of many of its medal-winning athletes who had apparently used performance-enhancing drugs.