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A 28-year-old Frenchman has been sentenced to six months in jail after he published a Facebook post attempting to organize a ‘Yellow Vest’ blockade of a local petrol refinery, according to local reports. Hedi Martin was arrested in Port-La Nouvelle, southern France on January 3, shortly after publishing the post on Facebook, la Dépêche reports. In his post, Martin called for a ‘Yellow Vest’ blockade of the petrol refinery in the coastal town, urging people to “stand up to the CRS [riot police],” according to WSWS. State prosecutors noted video footage of Martin on his Facebook page at several Yellow...

U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah said Friday he supports President Donald Trump's push for a border wall that has led to a government shutdown and questioned why Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi won't agree to "another few miles" of barriers on the U.S.-Mexico border. Romney also said he plans to keep working with other senators to find interim solutions, such as legislation that would make sure essential government employees still working get paid now. The 2012 GOP presidential nominee and new Utah senator acknowledged that it "takes two to tango" but backed Trump's position and chided Pelosi for hers....

UPDATE: It’s all trash. Special Counsel’s office makes a rare comment to the press to say BuzzFeed story was not accurate. BuzzFeed is busted UPDATE: The special counsel's office has taken the rare step of issuing a statement in response to our report on Michael Cohen being directed by Trump to lie to Congress:https://t.co/WA2fZcdK9u pic.twitter.com/PY1r9LxDid— Jason Leopold (@JasonLeopold) January 19, 2019 “BuzzFeed’s description of specific statements to the Special Counsel’s Office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohen’s Congressional testimony are not accurate.” Peter CarrSpokesmanSpecial Counsel’s Office— Jake Gibson (@JakeBGibson) January 19, 2019 ***Oh,...

NEW YORK (AP) — A Duke University team expects to have a product available for election year that will allow television networks to offer real-time fact checks onscreen when a politician makes a questionable claim during a speech or debate. The mystery is whether any network will choose to use it.

RALEIGH -- A software error caused public school students around North Carolina to receive incorrect end-of-term grades this school year, state education officials said. The Department of Public Instruction said it has been advising districts about the problem with PowerSchool software since December, after many schools sent home first-quarter report cards. The error could have affected as many as 109 school districts and 59 charter schools in the state, but it's not clear exactly how many students were impacted. **SNIP** The department initially thought the rounding problem was limited to grades ending in certain decimal points, but Elliot said state...

n a rare move, the office of special counsel Robert Mueller has gone on the record to dispute the bombshell BuzzFeed report from Thursday night, which claimed that the special counsel has evidence that President Trump directed Michael Cohen to lie to Congress. Details: Peter Carr, spokesperson for Mueller's office, told BuzzFeed that their "description of specific statements to the Special Counsel’s Office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohen’s Congressional testimony are not accurate."

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office on Friday issued a rare statement disputing a bombshell news report claiming President Trump directed Michael Cohen to lie about the timing of discussions over a proposed Trump Tower project in Moscow. “BuzzFeed’s description of specific statements to the Special Counsel’s Office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohen’s Congressional testimony are not accurate,” Peter Carr, a spokesman for Mueller’s office, said Friday.

Earlier this month, an experiment on China’s Chang’e 4 lander got cotton plants to sprout on the moon for the first time. Well, they’re already dead.

By ALEX ISENSTADT 01/18/2019 05:04 AM EST Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Republican Gov. Larry Hogan is acting a lot like a guy who wants to run against Donald Trump in 2020 — and the president's reelection team is taking notice. The second-term Maryland governor has been implicitly going after Trump in speeches, meeting with Never Trump Republicans, and planning a March trip to Iowa as vice chair of the National Governors Association. It’s all fueling speculation that Hogan, a 62-year-old cancer survivor who coasted to reelection in liberal Maryland and remains one of the most popular governors in...

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court took no action on Friday on the future of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. It now appears likely that the court will not take up the issue during its current term, which would require the government to keep the program going for at least ten more months. The Trump administration urged the justices to hear appeals of lower court rulings that prevent the government from shutting DACA down, but Friday was the last day for adding cases to the current term's docket, barring unusual circumstances. Any cases accepted in subsequent weeks won't...

There is no legitimate source of information available to the public (and I don't have any inside information) about the current health status, actual prognosis, or future plans of Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. While all the inferences posters keep making about what is PROBABLE are well-founded, the truth is, no one knows anything except that she has cancer, she was surgically treated in the third week of December 2018, and that her return to work is taking longer than was originally hoped for by her supporters and friends in the media. That's all anyone who is a legitimate source...

.. so much worse than previously thought. A scathing internal Navy probe into the 2017 collision that drowned seven sailors on the guided-missile destroyer Fitzgerald details a far longer list of problems plaguing the vessel, its crew and superior commands than the service has publicly admitted. Obtained by Navy Times, the "dual-purpose investigation" was overseen by Rear Adm. Brian Fort and completed 11 days after the June 17, 2017 tragedy. Their report documents the routine, almost casual, violations of standing orders on a Fitz bridge that often lacked skippers and executive officers, even during potentially dangerous voyages at night through...

On Tuesday, Islamist terrorists affiliated with the Somali group al-Shabaab attacked an upscale hotel in Nairobi, Kenya, killing at least 21. It wasnÂ’t the groupÂ’s first attack in Kenya. The radical group, which at one point was affiliated with al Qaeda, has used KenyaÂ’s heavy Somali refugee presence as cover for a number of attacks in Kenya and against Kenyans, most famously at the Westgate Mall in 2013. That Kenya remains a contributor of both soldiers and police to AMISOM, the African Union Mission in Somalia which seeks to defend the country against al-Shaabab, only puts it further in the...

Washington (CNN) -- Over the past few days, the political gridlock that's led to the longest government shutdown in US history has devolved into a tit-for-tat between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and President Donald Trump. On Wednesday, Pelosi all but disinvited Trump from giving the State of the Union address in the House chamber, initially citing security concerns and suggesting the President wait until the shutdown was over. On Thursday, Trump hit back and canceled Pelosi's undisclosed plan to visit US troops in Afghanistan along with a congressional delegation, effectively blowing the cover for what is normally a secret trip....

Starting up an online biz. Guess you could call it an e-commerce site. I know there are a lot of IT guys, coders, etc here so thought I’d ask. What I need: Professional host for website with managed (?) database, ease of use Medium traffic with traffic spikes Process credit cards and PayPal Email for company use and marketing I’ve looked until I’m totally confused now. I want it to be a clean, professional company that once the website is set up I and my 2 daughters can manage the site...add campaigns, remove campaigns, etc. I also want to be...

My S&P500 account has gone up pretty good in the last few weeks after a bigger hit prior. If the price of gas is going more towards $2/gallon and China is backing down on trade I certainly see it as a cause and effect The only other big thing on the horizon I see is the prospect of a big beautiful wall. Too much collateral damage without one. I'm talking drugs, violence, hit and run vehicle accidents. Gotta get better if Trump is in office for 6 more. Things will never be perfect but tell me how much China and...

Among the tens of thousands assembled in Washington for the 46th annual March for Life was conservative pundit and headliner Ben Shapiro. Shapiro’s speech started with highlighting the noteworthy American ideals of “life and liberty,” urging Americans to move forward by protecting such values for the unborn. “America was founded on the promise of God-given rights. Chief among them was life and liberty,” Shapiro said. “While America has imperfectly fulfilled that promise, we always move forward to for the perfection of that promise.” “We built the country for our children,” Shapiro added. “We built our lives for our children. And...

The Supreme Court has suspended scheduled oral arguments on the Trump administration’s plans to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census. Oral arguments were to be held February 19, the day Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was expecting to return to the bench, after missing the past two weeks of the public sessions, while recovering from recent lung cancer surgery. But in a brief order on Friday, the justices decided to put matters on hold after a federal district court judge on Tuesday ruled the government could not proceed with its plans. Challengers to the census question then asked the...

“President Pelosi” trended on Twitter on Friday as President Donald Trump’s haters fantasized about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) becoming the next president after BuzzFeed reported that Trump ordered his then-personal lawyer Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about a proposal to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. Pelosi is third in line to the presidency, and the Buzzfeed report, which was based on anonymous sources, caused left-wing activists to dream about Trump and Vice President Mike Pence both getting removed from office or resigning.