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Former FBI Director James Comey is sitting with the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees behind closed doors on Friday to answer (or not answer) their questions. Congress is investigating how FBI and DOJ handled the Hillary Clinton and Russia probes and, as you can imagine, Comey was one of the top witnesses on their list. It doesn't seem to be going as planned. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) appeared to be most frustrated, explaining to the press that Comey came with two attorneys, one of whom has instructed his client to answer very few questions.

Senior officials for the Venezuelan government have reportedly travelled to London for crunch talks with the Bank of England as they seek to repatriate more than $500 million of gold back to Caracas. **SNIP** Venezuela has in recent years been a major seller of gold, and this year alone it has sold about 26 tons, worth close to $900 million, to Turkey. In the past four years, Venezuela's gold reserves have decreased to about 175 tons from about 400 tons, Reuters reported, citing statistics from the country's central bank. Venezuela has been selling its sizeable gold reserves, built up under...

For non-Chinese journalists, in Africa and elsewhere, working for Chinese state-run media offers generous remuneration and new opportunities. When CCTV launched its Washington headquarters in 2012, no fewer than five former or current BBC correspondents based in Latin America joined the broadcaster. One of them, Daniel Schweimler, who is now at al-Jazeera, said his experience there was fun and relatively trouble-free, though he didn’t think many people actually saw his stories. But foreign journalists working at Xinhua, the state-run news agency, see their stories reaching much larger audiences. Government subsidies cover around 40% of Xinhua’s costs, and it generates income...

The Court ORDERS the parties [State Department, DOJ, Judicial Watch] to meet and confer to plan discovery into (a) whether Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email while Secretary of State was an intentional attempt to evade FOIA; (b) whether the State Department’s attempts to settle this case in late 2014 and early 2015 amounted to bad faith; and (c) whether State has adequately searched for records responsive to Judicial Watch’s requests.

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A Los Angeles city councilman proposed on Wednesday that the city require movie theaters and sports venues to serve vegan food. The law would make Los Angeles the first city in the nation to impose such a mandate. At a press conference on the steps of City Hall, councilman Paul Koretz announced the measure alongside representatives from PETA, the Humane League, and the Los Angeles Food Policy Council. The ordinance would require theaters and other “large-scale entertainment venues” that serve food to offer at least one vegan protein option on their menus. “There’s really no downside to it,” Koretz told...

WASHINGTON — Track workers blamed for what Metro had called faked inspection reports are getting their jobs back, after an arbitrator found the reports were done as Metro had instructed. A court filing this week suggested Metro and five track workers who had filed a federal lawsuit over their firings reached a settlement in the case, and Metro and Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689 confirmed Wednesday that an agreement covers most of the at least 16 front-line workers and five supervisors who were publicly disciplined about two years ago. Three of the workers who challenged their firings are not covered...

Three months before the rally, Fields posted to his Instagram account an image depicting a car slamming into a group of people with overlaid text that says: “You have the right to protest, but I’m late for work.” Antony, the prosecutor, said the image gives the jury a “glimpse into his mind” the moment Fields saw the crowd of marching protesters as they approached Charlottesville’s downtown pedestrian mall. “He was presented with an opportunity,” she said. “He seized it to make his Instagram post a reality.”

(CNN) The Boston Globe published a searing editorial Thursday pouring cold water on the prospects of a presidential run for Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren in 2020, a stark contrast to the paper's call for her to seek the White House three years ago. "While Warren is an effective and impactful senator with an important voice nationally, she has become a divisive figure," the Globe editorial reads. "A unifying voice is what the country needs now after the polarizing politics of Donald Trump." The Globe, based in the state Warren represents, writes: "Warren missed her moment in 2016, and there's reason...

A U.S. judge ordered the Justice and State departments Thursday to reopen an inquiry into whether Hillary Clinton used a private email server while secretary of state to deliberately evade public records laws, and to answer whether the agencies acted in bad faith by not telling a court for months that they had asked in mid-2014 for missing emails to be returned. The order risks reopening partisan wounds that have barely healed since Clinton's unsuccessful 2016 presidential bid, but in issuing the order Thursday, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth said the spirit of the Freedom of Information Act required it....

LOS ANGELES (KTLA/CNN) – A transient man is in custody after video shows him pushing a stranger into oncoming traffic. The crime occurred in Downtown Los Angeles' Jewelry District. Police said the man seen in a lime green jacket is a transient that frequents the area. He’s sitting in front of a restaurant around 10 a.m. when the victim, believed to be in his 60s, walks by. Unprovoked, he shoves him into oncoming traffic. The victim is hit by a box truck and ends up under its tire.

Congresswoman-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has not yet been sworn into Congress, but she’s already eyeing a seat at one of the most powerful House committees in charge of taxation laws. The Democratic Socialist’s spokesperson confirmed to Vice News that she will seek a seat on the House Ways and Means committee, which is traditionally packed with seasoned legislators with experience in writing tax code. Rep. Joe Crawley, the top Democrat who was unseated by Ocasio-Cortez this year, was among the members of the committee. She is eyeing the exact same seat that is customarily reserved for New York City.

**SNIP** And according to a panel of transportation experts, the problem will only get worse in the future unless the state begins to better fund investments in its transportation system. "We're behind, to be perfectly frank," said IDOT Secretary Randy Blankenhorn, one of the panelists. "We are not funding transportation as well as some of our neighbors and as our competitors. ... I spend $250 a month on my phone. I spend $50 a month for water. This is the infrastructure of my life. It's what I need to make things happen. And we're spending 50 cents a day on...

Many of you have asked if we will be brewing a fundraiser beer to support Camp Fire relief efforts. The answer is a resounding “yes.” We are proud to announce the upcoming release of Resilience Butte County Proud IPA. We will be brewing Resilience on Giving Tuesday, November 27 and donating 100 percent of the beer sales to the Camp Fire Relief Fund. In addition, we are also asking every brewer in America to brew Resilience and do the same. I’m sending a letter to brewers across the country, inviting them to join us in this effort. We are working...

When the Trump administration blocked the merger of Qualcomm and Broadcom it singled out the risk that the deal would give Huawei an advantage in developing 5G technology. Bloomberg quoted an analyst in China who sees the arrest as the result of the national security White House staff pushing back against the Wall Street-friendly China doves in the White House, led by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who pushed for the trade truce.

Once again Judicial Watch is doing the heavy lifting. Judicial Watch appeared in a DC federal court last month on a motion to compel more testimony from Hillary Clinton as well as to make public video recordings of depositions of top Clinton aides such as Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills. The court ruled that Hillary Clinton must answer more questions about the setting up of her private server. Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton said that the court denied their request to unseal the video depositions of Clinton’s aides. On Thursday, a federal court blasted the DOJ and State Department on...

~Favorite Light or Dark Songs~ "Shine" by Collective Soul *Video* Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark - If You Leave *Video* op thread

Running for president is hard. Deciding not to run? That can be even harder. Over the last year, two-term former Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick has explored the possibility of running for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, urged on by a small army of Patrick devotees in the Commonwealth. Inspiring and experienced, Patrick would have been a formidable candidate. He compiled real accomplishments as governor, putting his state at the forefront of life sciences globally and managing the fallout of the 2008 recession. Since leaving office, he has worked for Bain Capital investing in firms with social benefits. But on...

The US has begun making the necessary preparations to sail a warship into the Black Sea, a move that comes amid heightened tensions in the region following Russia's seizure of Ukrainian ships and detention of Ukrainian sailors. The US military has requested that the State Department notify Turkey of its possible plans to sail a warship into the Black Sea, three US officials tell CNN, a move they said is a response to Russia's actions against Ukraine in the Kerch Strait, which connects the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. For its part, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced...

Fiat Chrysler plans to open a new assembly factory in Detroit to build sport utility vehicles, people familiar with the matter told CNBC. The move comes as all of Detroit's Big Three automakers abandon sedan lines in favor of more popular and profitable SUVs and cross-over vehicles. The industry is also under pressure from President Donald Trump to keep manufacturing jobs in the U.S.