GRAMM SLAMS “PORN” STORY

GOP presidential candidate Phil Grammadmits that $7,500 of his money somehow wound up financing a never-completed, R-rated movie called “Beauty Queens,” but the Texas senator vehemently denies that he ever had any interest in financing pornography. Wednesday night, Gramm branded as false an account of the 1974 transaction by his former brother-in-law, George Caton, reported this week in The New Republic. One of the story’s most damaging charges: that Gramm took an interest in movie investing after watching a film called “Truck Stop Women.” TIME Austin bureau chief S.C. Gwynne notes that no one, including The New Republic reporter, has yet established that any allegedly Gramm-related movie is pornographic.