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Robert De Niro had a simple introduction to Bruce Springsteen’s Tony performance. “I just want to say one thing — F— Trump,” De Niro said. “It’s no longer down with Trump. It’s f— Trump.” More to come…

Former head of Disney’s animation studios announced a sabbatical in November after reports of inappropriate workplace behavior John Lasseter will exit Disney on Dec. 31, the company announced Friday. The former chief creative officer overseeing Pixar and Disney Animation will assume an unspecified “consulting role” at Disney until his departure. Lasseter announced he was taking a sabbatical in November after the publication of a Hollywood Reporter story in which “former Pixar insiders” said he frequently made a habit of “grabbing, kissing, making comments about physical attributes” of women at the company. At the time, Lasseter said his leave of absence...

The plane landed safely at San Jose Mineta International Airport, about 50 miles south of San Francisco. The airline says the passenger accused of smoking was turned over to law enforcement. The remaining 32 passengers were placed on other aircraft to continue their trips. Passengers reported smelling smoke, and one said he smelled marijuana. “It looked like that someone needed to smoke a joint on a plane, and he went into the bathroom, smoked his blunt, and set off the fire alarm,” passenger Jonathan Burkes said.

Wednesday at the New York State Democratic Party’s convention in Long Island, former Secretary of State and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton declared that Democrats “believe in facts.” Clinton said, “I followed in the footsteps of Daniel Patrick Moynihan, someone whose words have been on my mind recently. He said, ‘everyone is entitled to their opinion, but not his own facts.’ Well as Democrats, we believe in facts, real ones, not the alternative kind. It is hard to believe this even needs to be said, but that is where we are these days.”

Robert De Niro, a frequent critic of President Trump who has been playing special counsel Robert Mueller on "Saturday Night Live," talked Tuesday about how he'd like to bar the president from eating at his Nobu restaurant chain. The Daily Mail reported that De Niro, a co-founder of the Nobu restaurant and hotel chain, insisted that he would not let Trump eat in his restaurants, and that he would leave any other eatery where the president entered. “If he walked into a restaurant I was in, I’d walk out,” De Niro said. Chef Nobu Matsuhisa, De Niro’s co-owner, then joked...

Hillary Clinton says she’s “still” not over the 2016 election, and she showed it Sunday during a speech at Yale — cracking a joke about Kremlin interference and busting out a large Russian hat to boot. “If you can’t beat them, join them,” Clinton quipped. The jab came during her commencement speech at Yale’s Class Day. Keeping up with the university’s longstanding tradition of bringing an “over the top hat” to the ceremony, Clinton pulled out a black Ushanka and playfully went to put it on. “I see looking out at you that you are following the tradition of over-the-top...

A former Democratic congressman from Chicago, heading to prison for the third time, says he has “given up on America” and plans to move to Africa after he serves his latest sentence. At his sentencing Thursday, Mel Reynolds, 66, got six months in prison for failing to file tax returns on more than $400,000 he received for consulting work. He also received a scolding from federal Judge Robert Gettleman, who told the Harvard graduate he could recall thinking to himself in the early 1990s that Reynolds had tremendous promise. “It's a tragedy that you squandered the opportunities you had and...

Lebanon held on Sunday its first parliamentary elections in nine years, as citizens expressed cautious optimism that the country's rigid, oft-deadlocked sectarian political system could be swayed. Behind the scenes, however, one of the world's leading powers has quietly eyed the small state as a potential ground to project its power in the Middle East and into the Mediterranean. But it won't be easy. With Syrian rebels and jihadis at bay, and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government set to further extend its comeback, Russia has pursued a cautious overture across the border into Lebanon—a $1 billion dollar arms deal, including...

Confidants of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., told the White House that President Trump won’t be invited to the ailing senator’s funeral, according to a new report. Plans for McCain’s funeral, according to the New York Times, include an invite for Vice President Mike Pence, but not the president. The service will be held at Washington’s National Cathedral. Trump and McCain have had an embattled relationship during the president’s time in the White House...

Continuing his cross-country book tour, former FBI Director James Comey railed against the National Rifle Association and disputed claims that he was considering running for political office. According to the Miami Herald, Comey briefly touched on gun rights in the wake of recent mass shooting tragedies, telling readers at a book event in Miami that the NRA "sells fear" to gun owners. As for specific gun laws that should be put in place to prevent similar shootings like the Parkland, Florida School shooting in February, Comey said he would support "reasonable restrictions" to current laws. He shot down criticism that...

... Democrats really need a great 2018 midterm, both to avoid an almost irreversible disadvantage in the Senate, and to give it a fighting chance to do well during the momentous redistricting cycle just on the horizon. For reasons that have almost nothing to do with her leadership abilities and other sterling qualities, a President Clinton would have made a great 2018 midterm for her party extremely unlikely, and a debilitating defeat quite possible. (The same would have been true, to be clear, with a President Sanders or a President Biden). A President Trump could make an inevitably bad midterm...

John Kasich ‏ Verified account @JohnKasich 11h11 hours ago I’m fighting for common sense conservative values: pro-growth, pro-trade, pro-immigrant and concern about our rising debt.

"They were never going to let me be president," former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton declared on election night, according to a new book about her campaign. Clinton's sycophants struggled among themselves to figure out who would break the news to 'first woman president,' the book, " Chasing Hillary: Ten Years, Two Presidential Campaigns, and One Intact Glass Ceiling ," by New York Times staffer Amy Chozick, reports. Chozick had to travel with the woman for months as part of her traveling press corps, and knew all about what Hillary was like, up close. According to the Daily Beast, citing the...

Comey: Getting wedgies as a kid in N.J. prepared me for Trump Updated Apr 12, 9:13 PM; Posted Apr 12, 8:56 PM By Noah Cohen ncohen@njadvancemedia.com, NJ Advance Media for NJ.com Decades before former FBI Director James Comey says he faced the mob boss-like tactics of President Trump, the fired lawman got an early lesson in bullies growing up in Allendale, he writes. In Comey's book, "A Higher Loyalty," the 1978 Northern Highlands Regional High School graduate describes suffering through body-shaming, wedgies and getting shoved into lockers, according to the Washington Post, which obtained an advance copy of the already...

Former Vice President Al Gore can't remember a time when our democracy was more directly threatened than today under President Trump. He shared his concerns with CNN's Van Jones over the weekend. With a serious tone and a furrowed brow, Gore recalled the era when President Richard Nixon was "authorizing burglaries, break ins and fire bombings," and still America's resilience proved victorious. With that hopeful history, he thinks we can do it again in the Trump era, when the Constitution is "under assault." "I would bet on American democracy surviving this bleak period, for sure, but the challenge is stiffer...

Parkland activist David Hogg is calling for a boycott of Laura Ingraham’s advertisers after the Fox News host made a comment about some of his college rejections, which he openly discussed in an interview with TMZ. “David Hogg Rejected By Four Colleges To Which He Applied and whines about it. (Dinged by UCLA with a 4.1 GPA...totally predictable given acceptance rates.)” Ingraham tweeted along with a link to a DailyWire story about the rejections. Hogg was turned down by four University of California schools--Los Angeles, San Diego, Santa Barbara and Irvine. The Parkland activist responded by calling on his supporters...

Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg has taken out a full page ad in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and six UK papers today to apologize Cambridge Analytica scandal, according to CNN’s Brian Stelter. The ad starts in bold letters, saying: “We have a responsibility to protect your information. If we can’t, we don’t deserve it.” The ad was published on Sunday, following Zuck’s first public acknowledgement of the issue on Facebook and a subsequent media tour earlier this week. Congress has also put Mark Zuckerberg on notice to potentially come speak with them, with Senator...

SUGAR LAND — One thing Sen. Ted Cruz isn’t doing as he seeks a second term is running away from the president. Despite a checkered history, the Texan boasts about his access and influence on matters ranging from taxes to the Paris Climate Accord. “I spent a lot of time urging President Trump to pull out of that deal,” he recounted. “I spent 45 minutes on Air Force One saying, `Mr. President, this is killing jobs and it’s bad for our economy.'” The day after Trump announced his decision, Cruz continued, “he calls me on my cellphone. He says, 'Well,...

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said Tuesday night that members of his party won’t revise their countermemo, despite requests from the White House to do so. “We’re not going to make any revisions to it. The only question is what redactions will be made. And obviously we’d like to keep those to a minimum,” Schiff told reporters. “The White House has a different interest. I think their interest is in redacting anything that doesn’t reflect well on the White House,” Schiff added.

Unless Trump intends to humiliate himself and America and sell Israel down the river like his predecessors did, the peace process will not be resuscitated. On Tuesday in Bethlehem, the Palestinians demonstrated the choice the Americans now face in their dealings with Fatah – the supposedly moderate PLO faction that controls the Palestinian Authority and the PLO. President Donald Trump and his advisers can play by Fatah’s rules or they can walk away. On Tuesday a delegation of diplomats from the US Consulate in Jerusalem came to Bethlehem to participate in a meeting of the local chamber of commerce. When...