Mueller Prosecutor Calls for a Roger Stone Re-Do

Andrew Weissmann, a top prosecutor on special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe, is seeking a re-do of sorts in the investigation, saying in an op-ed Tuesday that Roger Stone should be hauled before a grand jury to answer questions about his interactions with President Donald Trump in 2016.

Writing in The New York Times, Weissmann also pushed a false claim about the criminal charges against Stone, whose prison sentence Trump commuted on Friday.

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Tuberville Defeats Sessions, Wins Alabama Senate GOP Primary

Former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions lost the Republican nomination for his old Senate seat in Alabama to former college football coach Tommy Tuberville, likely ending a long political career with a bitter defeat egged on by President Donald Trump.

Tuberville, 65, beat Sessions in Tuesday’s Republican runoff as Sessions fell short in his attempted comeback for a seat he held for two decades before resigning to become Trump’s attorney general in 2017.

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FBI Fielded More Background Checks for Gun Buyers in June Than Ever Before

The FBI ran nearly 8 million background checks for gun purchases from March to June, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Background checks for firearm purchases in June reached 7.8 million, up 136% from last year. Checks for civilians pursuing a license to carry were the highest recorded in the last 20 years, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the WSJ reported.

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Whitmer Extends Coronavirus Emergency, Disaster Declaration to August 11

Whitmer MI Capitol overcast

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer extended Michigan’s coronavirus emergency and disaster declaration until August 11, per a new executive order signed on Tuesday.

The extension comes after every region in the state saw an uptick in confirmed cases of COVID-19, Whitmer’s office said. The order was issued under the Emergency Powers of the Governor Act of 1945.

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Justice Ginsburg Treated in Hospital for Possible Infection

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was being treated for a possible infection and was expected to stay in the hospital for a few days following a medical procedure, the Supreme Court said in a statement Tuesday.

The court said that the 87-year-old Ginsburg went to a hospital in Washington on Monday evening after experiencing fever and chills. She then underwent a procedure at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore on Tuesday afternoon to clean out a bile duct stent that was placed last August when she was treated for a cancerous tumor on her pancreas.

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Soros’ Open Society Foundations Pledges $220 Million to Fund Efforts Promoting Racial Equality in the United States

The Open Society Foundations, the philanthropic group founded by George Soros, announced Monday that it would pledge $220 million towards initiatives focusing on racial equality in the United States.

The investment will transform the efforts of political and civil rights groups across the country, and comes as protests continue nationwide over the death of George Floyd while in the custody of Minneapolis police, The New York Times reported.

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Commentary: In-Person Schooling Would Be One of the Safest Activities to Reopen

Most students around the country haven’t been to school since March, when large parts of the country began to lock down in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, the data increasingly suggests that reopening schools entails the least risks and should be a goal of every level of government.

The early hope was that the closures would be temporary, such as Michigan’s school-closure order that was originally meant to end in April—but that was extended for the rest of the school year.

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Poland’s Populist President Duda Edges Euro-Centric Challenger Trzaskowski, Earns Second Term

Polish President Andrzej Duda declared victory Monday in a runoff election in which he narrowly won a second five-year term, acknowledging the campaign he ran was often too harsh as he appealed for unity and forgiveness.

The close race followed a bitter campaign between Duda and Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski that was dominated by cultural issues. The government, state media and the influential Roman Catholic Church all mobilized in support of Duda and sought to stoke anti-Semitism, homophobia and xenophobia in order to shore up conservative support.

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GOP Lawmakers Urge Attorney General to Defend St. Louis Couple’s Gun Rights After Firearm Confiscation

GOP lawmakers wrote a letter to Attorney General William Barr Friday, urging the protection of the firearm rights of the St. Louis couple that saw their guns confiscated after they went viral for defending their home against demonstrators, according to reports.

Mark and Patricia McCloskey were seen in a video brandishing a M16A2-style rifle and small handgun outside of their home as demonstrators broke through a private gate and encroached on their property line in June. Police executed a search warrant Friday and confiscated the couple’s rifle, and later their pistol, despite not yet filing any known charges against the pair, according to KSDK News.

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Judge Theodore Chuang Rules Women Can Get Abortion Pill Without Doctor Visit

A federal judge agreed Monday to suspend a rule that requires women during the COVID-19 pandemic to visit a hospital, clinic or medical office to obtain an abortion pill.

U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang, an Obama appointee based in Maryland, concluded that the “in-person requirements” for patients seeking medication abortion care impose a “substantial obstacle” to abortion patients and are likely unconstitutional under the circumstances of the pandemic.

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Mass Celebrated after Fire Damages Centuries-Old Church

Mass was celebrated Sunday on the grounds of a historic Catholic church in Southern California that had been heavily damaged by fire a day earlier.

The blaze early Saturday destroyed the rooftop and most of the interior of San Gabriel Mission, which was undergoing renovation to mark its upcoming 250th anniversary celebration.

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Chatham Announces Plan to Buy Newspaper Publisher McClatchy

Hedge fund Chatham Asset Management plans to buy newspaper publisher McClatchy out of bankruptcy, ending 163 years of family control.

The companies did not put a price on the deal in an announcement Sunday. The agreement still needs the approval of a bankruptcy judge; a hearing is scheduled for July 24.

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Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham Says He’ll Grant Request For Mueller Testimony

Sen. Lindsey Graham said Sunday he will approve Democrats’ request to invite Robert Mueller to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee after the former special counsel published an op-ed in The Washington Post criticizing President Donald Trump’s decision to commute the prison sentence for Roger Stone.

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Analysis: President Trump Was Correct About the Rapid Economic Rebound Post-Shutdown as Another 630,000 Americans Come Off Unemployment Benefits

Another 630,000 Americans came off continuing unemployment claims the week ending June 27, according to the latest unadjusted data from the U.S. Department of Labor, proving President Donald Trump is right about the economy rapidly recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic state-based shutdowns.

Since the week ending May 9, unadjusted continuing unemployment claims have dropped from 22.8 million to 16.8 million the week ending June 27, a massive turnaround of 6 million Americans who temporarily found themselves on unemployment benefits but then rapidly came off of it on a net basis.

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Mask Mandate Goes Into Effect Monday, Residents Notified Through Emergency Alert

As of Monday, Michigan residents are required to wear a face covering while they are in an indoor public space or while in a crowded outdoor space, per an executive order signed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Friday.

“The heroes on the front lines of this crisis have gone hours without taking their masks off every day – doctors, nurses, child care workers, grocery store workers. We owe it to them to wear our masks when we’re on a trip to the grocery store or pharmacy,” Whitmer said in a statement announcing the mandate. “Masks can reduce the chance of spreading COVID-19 by about 70 percent.

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White Singing Group Formerly Known as Lady Antebellum Seeks Legal Ruling to Confirm Appropriation of Name ‘Lady A’ from Black Singer

The white country band formerly known as Lady Antebellum has chosen to show racial “sensitivity” by suing to appropriate the name “Lady A” from Anita White, a black singer who has used the moniker for decades.

Lady Antebellum on June 11 said they would start going by the name Lady A since “antebellum” carried racial connotations, Billboard said. The suit was filed July 8 in Nashville’s U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee.

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Commentary: At a School Near You, ‘Whiteness Studies’ Aims to Denigrate Its Subject

If you had told me a couple of years ago that a book like Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism would be topping the bestseller lists and receiving accolades from all over, I wouldn’t have believed it.

And I’m speaking as someone who, in my 2012 book The Victims’ Revolution: The Rise of Identity Studies and the Closing of the Liberal Mind, warned about the dire ascendancy of identity studies, which are far less about education than about ideological indoctrination and the promotion of social activism.

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Rep. Mo Brooks Calls for Investigation After U.S. Army’s Chaney Pickard Sends Race-Baiting Email, Labels ‘MAGA’ Slogan and More ‘White Supremacy’

US Army

by Debra Heine   The U.S. Army sent an email to its military and civilian members after the Fourth of July that included a graphic that claimed innocuous words and phrases like “colorblind,” “all lives matter” and the Trump Campaign slogan “Make America Great Again” are evidence of “white supremacy.”…

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Lakers Star LeBron James Won’t Wear Social Justice Message on Lakers Jersey

LeBron James says his thoughts on social justice can’t be contained on the back of a basketball jersey.

The Los Angeles Lakers superstar won’t wear one of the NBA-approved social justice messages on the back of his jersey when the NBA resumes competition later this month in the Orlando bubble.

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Facebook’s Software Kit to Blame for Popular Apps Crashing

Friday’s widespread crashes of popular apps running on the iPhone’s iOS operating system — including Tinder, Spotify and Pinterest — serve as a reminder that Facebook is still tracking you through your phone using sophisticated software, even if you’re not browsing the social network.

Early Friday, users of the apps reported crashes when they tried to open them up. Facebook attributed the problem, which was quickly fixed, to a bug in its software development kit, or SDK, a tool developers use to integrate their apps with Facebook.

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Google Selects Mississippi Site for First US Operations Center

Google’s first U.S. operations center is coming to northwest Mississippi.

The company announced Thursday it will lease a new 60,000-square-foot (5,574 square-meter) facility in Southaven, Mississippi, near Memphis, Tennessee. Google expects the site, which will provide customer and operations support to customers worldwide, to be operational by summer 2021.

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Amazon Says Email to Employees Banning TikTok Was a Mistake

Roughly five hours after an internal email went out Friday to Amazon employees telling them to delete the popular video app TikTok from their phones, the online retailing giant appeared to backtrack, calling the ban a mistake.

“This morning’s email to some of our employees was sent in error,” Amazon emailed reporters just before 5 p.m. Eastern time. “There is no change to our policies right now with regard to TikTok.”

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Fire Destroys Much of 249-year-old Church in California

A fire early Saturday destroyed the rooftop and most of the interior of a Catholic church in California that was undergoing renovation to mark its upcoming 250th anniversary celebration.

Fire alarms at the San Gabriel Mission rang around 4 a.m. When firefighters arrived, they saw smoke rising from the wooden rooftop in one corner of the historic structure, San Gabriel Fire Capt. Paul Negrete said.

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Biden-Sanders Proposal for DNC Convention Includes Increased Taxes, Tuition-Free Community Colleges, Other Spending Increases

A task force created by presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., his former political rival, released policy recommendations for the Democratic Party Convention platform committee to consider.

Called the “unity platform,” it emphasizes expanded federal spending and taxation in nearly all platform areas. It calls for increased federal funding for housing, infrastructure, Social Security, and a large-scale government-run jobs program, and increases taxes on higher income earners.

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Thousands of North Carolina Voters Double-Voted, Watchdog Group Finds

Thousands of voters in North Carolina voted twice in one or both of the past two elections, according to a court filing in the key battleground state.

Public Interest Legal Foundation, an election integrity group, announced Thursday that it had filed a brief in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina outlining the number of double votes.

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Commentary: Demoralization, Destabilization, Crisis, and Normalization Are the Four Stages of a Marxist Takeover

It’s important to understand that this is a revolutionary moment in American history, and it isn’t a bad idea to act in ways that would fall under the traditional description of “accordingly.”

But it’s also important to understand that the revolution taking place in America is not yet a “kinetic” one. That may come soon, or it may not. The battle taking place presently is a war of information — or disinformation, as the case may be.

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The Detroit Pistons’ Onetime Home, the Palace of Auburn Hills, Torn Down

One of Michigan’s most beloved sports and entertainment venues was turned into rubble on Saturday with a series of controlled explosions.

The shell and roof of the Palace of Auburn Hills, which was home to three championship Detroit Pistons teams and three Detroit Shock teams and played host to some of the world’s biggest musical acts during its nearly 30-year run, crumbled to the ground following a series explosive pops. The rest of the arena had already been removed.

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Trump Rejects Gov. Walz’s Request for Federal Support to Rebuild Minneapolis from Riots

President Donald Trump has rejected Gov. Tim Walz’s request for federal financial assistance to help rebuild portions of the Twin Cities that were destroyed by rioting.

Nearly 1,500 Twin Cities businesses were vandalized, burned, or looted during the late May riots, with current estimates of the damage exceeding $500 million.

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Commentary: Biden, the Puppet of the Far Left

“Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders Deepen Their Cooperation,” reports the New York Times this week. The story underlines what a puppet of the far left Joe Biden has become. He is taking his policy cues from a socialist and his supporters.

“Allies of Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Senator Bernie Sanders unveiled a sweeping set of joint policy recommendations on Wednesday, a significant if tentative sign of cooperation among Democrats as Mr. Biden’s campaign continues its appeals to the progressive left,” says the Times. “Mr. Biden is expected to adopt many of the recommendations, which were submitted by six policy task forces and cover a wide range of issues including health care, criminal justice, education and climate change.”

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Serbia Police Detain 71 After Fourth Night of Virus Protests

Serbian police detained 71 people after clashes during the fourth night of anti-government protests against the Serbian president that were initially sparked by his plans to reintroduce a coronavirus lockdown.

Fourteen policemen were injured in the rioting Friday evening when hundreds of right-wing demonstrators tried to storm the parliament building in downtown Belgrade, police director Vladimir Rebic said Saturday. Many demonstrators and several reporters were also injured in the protests. More protests were expected Saturday night.

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TikTok Hires Former GOP and Democratic Congressional Staffers to Lobby on US Policy Ahead of the Election

TikTok has hired several Democratic and Republican operatives to lobby the U.S. governmental amid concerns that the social media platform represents a national security threat.

The company hired several operatives recently to lobby on TikTok’s behalf, including Michael Hacker, who worked as a senior advisor to Democratic House Majority Whip James Clyburn of South Carolina, CNBC reported Friday. TikTok hired two executives from the Internet Association as well, according to the report.

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Commentary: Hong Kong Is the Place Chinese Communists Are Working to Destroy

China’s communist government has brought an end to the siege of Hong Kong, or at least a beginning of an end. Their secret police seized a 33-story hotel to establish a new headquarters in the city of nearly 7.5 million people who have lived most of their lives in a human rights-supporting, Western-style democratic system.

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Trump Touts Education, Economic Opportunities for Hispanics

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday creating a program aimed at improving Hispanic Americans’ access to education and economic opportunities.

“We will expand our efforts across all of the federal government to create educational and economic opportunity for Hispanic Americans,” Trump said to applause in the Rose Garden, describing the White House Hispanic Prosperity Initiative.

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Guest Lineups for the Sunday News Shows

Guest lineups for the Sunday news shows:

ABC’s “This Week” — Adm. Brett Giroir, the Health and Human Services Department official overseeing the nation’s coronavirus testing efforts; Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif.
NBC’s “Meet the Press” — Giroir; Gov. Larry Hogan, R-Md.; Alberto Carvalho, superintendent of Florida’s Miami-Dade County Public Schools district.
CBS’ “Face the Nation” — Dr. Jerome Adams, U.S. surgeon general; Mayor Kate Gallego of Phoenix; Terry Shaw, president and CEO, AdventHealth; Tom Wyatt, CEO of KinderCare.
CNN’s “State of the Union” — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.; Education Secretary Betsy DeVos; Mayor Carlos Gimenez of Miami-Dade County, Florida.
“Fox News Sunday” — DeVos; Dr. Tom Inglesby, director of the Center for Health Security at Johns Hopkins University.

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‘Shock’ Poll Shows Trump on Track to Win Reelection

A new poll conducted by the Washington based Democracy Institute for the Sunday Express shows President Trump tied with his rival Joe Biden at 47 percent, but surpassing him in the electoral college 309 to 229.

These positive results for Trump come amid a constant drumbeat of negative media coverage in recent weeks that paints his electoral chances in November as virtually nil.

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Government Memo Shows FBI Did Not Think Michael Flynn Intentionally Lied

The Justice Department this week provided Michael Flynn’s lawyers with a long-rumored government memo which shows that FBI officials did not believe that the former national security adviser intentionally lied in a White House interview at the center of his legal battle.

The memo, dated Jan. 30, 2017, and published Friday, also said that FBI investigators did not believe that Flynn was working as an agent of Russia.

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Conflicting Reports: John Durham May or May Not Wait Until After Election to Bring Indictments

U.S. Attorney John Durham is reportedly feeling pressure to wrap up his investigation into the origins of the Russia probe by the end of the summer, but because his work is ongoing, he may wait until after the election to reveal his findings to avoid looking political.

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Gov. Whitmer Mandates Masks Indoors with $500 Fine; Retail Group Says Rule ‘Impossible’ to Enforce

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed Executive Order 2020-147, requiring Michiganders to wear a mask when in an indoor public space starting at 12:01 a.m. Monday.

The order also requires residents to wear a mask in crowded outdoor spaces and mandates any business open to the public to refuse entry or service to those without a mask, with some exceptions.

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Homeland Security Gets New Role Under Trump Monument Order

Protesters who have clashed with authorities in the Pacific Northwest are not just confronting local police. Some are also facing off against federal officers whose presence reflects President Donald Trump’s decision to make cracking down on “violent mayhem” a federal priority.

The Department of Homeland Security has deployed officers in tactical gear from around the country, and from more than a half-dozen federal law enforcement agencies and departments, to Portland, Oregon, as part of a surge aimed at what a senior official said were people taking advantage of demonstrations over the police killing of George Floyd to engage in violence and vandalism.

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Commentary: Trump Tax Cases Highlight the Court as Servant of the Administrative State

The president was not whining when he tweeted about the continuing “political prosecution” permitted by the two tax returns cases issued Wednesday by the Supreme Court. These two cases, although short-term wins for Trump, illustrate the role of the federal and state courts in the administrative state and reveal the burdens this conglomeration places on a reforming president. Let’s take the worst of the bad news first.

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Turkey’s President Formally Makes Hagia Sophia a Mosque

The president of Turkey on Friday formally converted Istanbul’s sixth-century Hagia Sophia back into a mosque and declared it open for Muslim worship, hours after a high court annulled a 1934 decision that had made the religious landmark a museum.

The decision sparked deep dismay among Orthodox Christians. Originally a cathedral, Hagia Sophia was turned into a mosque after Istanbul’s conquest by the Ottoman Empire but had been a museum for the last 86 years, drawing millions of tourists annually.

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AG Keith Ellison Faces Lawsuit Accusing Him of Coordinating with Bloomberg on Anti-Exxon Crusade

A Virginia-based law firm is suing Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison for access to records revealing his use of attorneys financed by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to engage in a climate crusade targeting oil companies.

The nonprofit Government Accountability & Oversight (GAO) filed a lawsuit Wednesday for records detailing how the Democratic attorney general is allegedly deploying Bloomberg-financed lawyers to advance a lawsuit his office leveled against the fossil fuel industry. The firm’s complaint was filed on behalf of the nonprofit group Energy Policy Advocates.

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Music Spotlight: Derek Jones

Even though Derek Jones’ dad was a drummer and his grandmother played piano, he never played music until later in life.

“We always had music going on at the house at our supper table. If Dad was in charge of the music, we listened to Allman Brothers, Marshall Tucker, Grand Funk Railroad but if Mom was in control [of the music], we listened to Lionel Richie, Jim Croce, stuff like that,” he said.

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66 Percent of Americans Believe Civilians Should Have the Power to Sue Police for Using Excessive Force: Poll

More than 60% of Americans support allowing people to sue police officers for using excessive force against assailants, even if such a move makes the job of police work more difficult, according to a survey published Thursday.

Two-thirds of the public believe civilians should be able to level lawsuits if police officers are engaging in misconduct, a Pew Research Center survey showed. Law enforcement officers are protected through qualified immunity, a doctrine protecting them from civil liability unless they commit clear violations of law.

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Trump Commutes Longtime Friend Roger Stone’s Prison Sentence

President Donald Trump commuted the sentence of his longtime political confidant Roger Stone on Friday, just days before he was set to report to prison. Democrats denounced the move as just another in a series of unprecedented interventions by the president in the nation’s justice system.

Stone had been sentenced in February to three years and four months in prison for lying to Congress, witness tampering and obstructing the House investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election. He was set to report to prison by Tuesday.

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Judge Blocks Removal of More Confederate Statues in Richmond

A judge issued an injunction Thursday barring the city of Richmond from removing any more Confederate monuments, a process that began last week after Mayor Levar Stoney ordered the statues cleared away amid weeks of protests over police brutality and racism.

Richmond Circuit Court Judge Bradley Cavedo issued the decision after a hearing in a lawsuit filed Tuesday by an unnamed plaintiff, local media outlets reported. The lawsuit asked for an emergency injunction to halt the removal of the statues and alleged that Stoney violated state law by ordering their immediate removal.

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Steve Bannon Presents: Descent Into Hell

An all new LIVE STREAM of Descent Into Hell starts at 9 a.m. Central Time on Saturday.

The two-hour special takes a closer look at the life of everyday Chinese citizens under the Chinese Communist Party and will air live on the John Fredericks Radio Network, America’s Voice Network, Dish TV Channel 219, The Epoch Times, ND TV, GTV and GNews in Mandarin.

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Michigan Health Professionals to Be Required to Undergo Implicit Bias Training

Health professionals in Michigan will soon be required to undergo implicit bias training in order to obtain a license, registration or renewal of license and registration, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced on Thursday.

Whitmer said the move was recommended by the Michigan Coronavirus Task Force on Racial Disparities, which was created to respond to the impact COVID-19 had on communities of color.

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