WASHINGTON — Throughout Maryland’s Chesapeake region, eating crabs is like a religion — an event reserved for slow summer afternoons with family and friends.

And each person at every paper-covered table has a different way to worship, be it with butter or vinegar, Old Bay or J.O. Spice, or corn-on-the-cob over coleslaw.

There isn’t a right or wrong way eat the hard-shell beauties, but some methods for cracking into them work better than others.

�鶹���� Program Director (and self-proclaimed crab-eating expert) Mike McMearty recently took a trip out to , in Arnold, Maryland, to share some of his best tips for eating crabs — a skill he’s been perfecting for more than 30 years.

Watch the video for his step-by-step instructions:

At The Point, chef and owner Bobby Jones steams and serves about eight bushels of Maryland crabs a day during the height of the season. So it’s safe to say the Baltimore native does his share of crab cracking — both on the job and off the clock. And in his opinion, nothing beats a fresh Maryland crab.

“They might not be the biggest, but they’re by far the most delicious,” he said.

Jones and his wife opened their waterfront dining spot five years ago with a few goals in mind. One was to recreate memories from Jones’ childhood of feasting on crabs with his cousins around an outdoor table at his grandparents’ bungalow on the Eastern Shore.

Another was to showcase the bounty of the bay.

“When we go travel, we want to eat the food from that region, so we really try to show off Maryland and what we have here,” said Jones, whose menu lists everything from soft shell clams to a local tomato salad.

From spring through early fall, the main attraction, and often the cause of a long wait, is Jones’ cooked-live-to-order Chesapeake Bay crabs, which he prepares with his own seasoning blend.

“We are strictly Maryland,” Jones said about his crabs.

“This has been our second full season where I haven’t had to get any from Virginia or any from Carolina. If you just break one in half, you can see … ours are yellow and fatty and delicious.”

Knowing how to properly pick a crab isn’t the only thing that will guarantee a smooth crab-eating experience. Along with the tutorial above, these expert tips from McMearty and Jones will ensure you make the most of your next meal.

Crab tips from the pros: 

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The hearing took a look at Barr’s handling of the release of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia report.

The hearing began Wednesday morning.

Watch it below. 

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Watch a recording of the news conference below.

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Launch happened at 4:46 p.m.

Watch a video of the launch below:

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Live video from the scene showed firefighters working to get the fire under control as the sky began to darken.

Watch a live video feed from Paris below.

Listen to a live audio feed here.

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The intended topic of discussion was the Justice Department’s budget, but Barr did face questions about special counsel Robert Mueller’s report.

A livestream of the testimony has ended, but you can watch it below.

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Sounds great. But that begs the obvious question: Is the game worth your $60?

The short answer: Heck yeah, it is.

Now let’s get into the long answer.

First, The Division 2 is a big game. It boasts more than 30 hours of content — just in the main campaign. Ubisoft speculates it’ll take most players 30-40 hours to hit max level (30).

(For the record, �鶹����’s Will Vitka has 504 hours in The Division 1 … which seems troubling.)

‘Massive’ entertainment

So, as was said, it’s a big game … in pretty much every sense.

It looks, sounds and feels big, too. And the sight of D.C.’s monuments and landmarks in such an apocalyptic state is truly haunting.

Check out the map below.

After a brief, explosive introduction, your very first mission is to fight your way up the South Lawn and secure the White House, which is under siege from a pack of vicious opportunistic criminals who revel in chaos called Hyenas — one of the game’s four enemy factions.

Once you vanquish your foes, the camera swoops dramatically, showing off a White House scorched by weapons fire and flame, surrounded by protective metal barriers and barbed and concertina wire.

1600 Pennsylvania Ave. becomes the Base of Operations.

It’s from here that you will fight to retake Washington, and experience a visual spectacle unlike any other thanks to masterful use of the Snowdrop game engine.

Once you down the last boss, you open up the endgame, which had been bandied about for weeks, possibly months, before the game’s launch. The big reason for this is that the community was (justifiably) annoyed with the lack of endgame content in The Division 1 when it launched in 2016.

As such, for Division 2, publisher Ubisoft and developer Massive Entertainment put a heck of a lot of focus on endgame content. Part of Ubisoft’s “review guide” actually said they hope it “feels like a second game built into The Division 2.” Bold words. It introduces a slew of game-changers: Specializations, gear score, world tiers and the fearsome, high-tech Black Tusk enemies.

Also slated for release over the course of the game’s first year are three new episodes of content that will take players outside the District in Episode 1 (summer), to the Pentagon in Episode 2 (autumn) and an as-yet-unrevealed location in Episode 3 (winter). All three episodes will be free to all players, but those with the Year 1 Pass get early access.

The Division 2 is a visually stunning apocalypse

As you make your way through the destroyed District, you’ll meet the other enemy factions: Outcasts, who seek revenge after forced quarantine; the True Sons, a rogue paramilitary group bent on dominating D.C.; and a secretive military organization called the Black Tusks, which you won’t see until the endgame, and who pose the biggest threat to the player.

Variety is one of The Division 2’s core strengths. Yes, it’s a cover-based 3rd-person (over the character’s shoulder) loot shooter. You’re not going to be debating your enemies at a town hall or trying to pass a key Congressional vote in order to save D.C. You’re going to be killing digital fiends and stealing their stuff. That’s a given. But thanks to the mission design — be it running and gunning through a rooftop garden or duking it out at the Air and Space Museum — it stays fresh.

With one exception.

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In one of the biggest video games of the year, players have to fight their way through the apocalyptic ruins of Washington, D.C. Recreating the District, and destroying it, for The Division 2 was no small task. Here’s how developer Massive Entertainment did it. See photos and video.

There’s an overreliance on having players capture a point and then defend it against waves of enemies until the bad guys’ ranks are thoroughly depleted, then, predictably, you face a boss. There’s a wash, rinse, repeat aspect to missions that gets repetitive.

As you increase in level and gain more skills, the difficulty of the game rises too, but the repetition continues. Instead of enemies coming from one directions, they start surrounding you — but not much else changes.

Thankfully, the way the game doles out gear and rewards makes it addictive enough that you’ll keep playing. Since you’re constantly looking for better equipment, the game hurls loot at you in vast quantities. There’s almost always something useful or has bigger stat numbers to be picked up after each encounter — which is another marked change from the first game.

Ubisoft and Massively have listened to the community and, for the most part, implemented changes the userbase wanted.

Enemies are no longer insane bullet sponges (though having more baddies with less health would be a welcome refinement). They have armor plating that can be destroyed — just like yours — and once you pop off a plate, you can keep hammering that weak spot to speed up the murder process.

Mods for your weaponry no longer take up a zillion inventory slots, because they’re no longer inventory items. Instead, they’re unlocked through progression, and once unlocked can be attached to any number of guns.

The three Dark Zones (the game’s primary PVP areas) have been reworked to include normalization (that normalization, or scaling up of lower-level players, is also present in co-op, where everyone gets brought up to a more-or-less equal playing field, though the system is far from perfect) for newer players, intro missions and safe areas while also including “occupied” Dark Zone events that remove all restrictions.

And they say they’ve taken steps to deal with cheating and toxicity.

It’s everything a fan would want from the sequel to one of gaming’s biggest new franchises.

Except for the story, which we really can’t say much about … since there isn’t one that makes much of an impact from a narrative standpoint. That sounds harsh, but a beginning-to-end narrative isn’t the focus of the game. The overall story is just thin and flat. It’s disappointing.

We miss Rick Valassi … sorta

You can piece together elements of “what happened” by finding scattered audio missives and “echoes” from the recent past. These provide clues but do not create a cohesive, detailed narrative and can easily be missed by players who want to keep it moving.

So, while the narrative is lacking, the world-building is amazing.

The political nudges seem to be everywhere in this destroyed nation’s capital, but that there is no direct message at play here. It’s hard to keep separate while walking through ominously graffitied streets, and even more so when audio clues directly mention Russian-presidential involvement.

Like any work of art, a gaming experience is what you make of it. You can absolutely choose to plow your way across downtown, and you can also find yourself stopping to fend off Hyenas attacking a group of survivors.

Those survivors are part of what keeps the nebulous storyline afloat, as players are compelled to gather supplies and resources for various settlements. You’ll see the Base of Operations and settlements blossom under your care, as tasks are completed in and out of story missions.

Going solo is a challenge — and sometimes even lonely when you’re wandering a familiar city, destroyed. Control points and missions can be punishing on your own, and you can only depend on that trustee turret (or whatever skills you go with) for so much. The game is, of course, best played as a group. Answering calls from random players in need can lead to surprising encounters, where you’re dropped into the middle of an unfolding conflict.

And yet the core mechanics of the game, like its environmental design are so solid, so good, so entertaining that I can overlook that issue and give the game a full-throated endorsement.

The game has its share of bugs, though there are far fewer than when Division 1 came out. One particularly annoying glitch occurs in co-op (the best way to play the game). Sometimes, when party members fast travel, they end up somewhere other than intended. Or they don’t go anywhere at all.

Also, simply moving your character within the game is not always smooth — especially during combat, when you need the game to respond to your key commands the most.

All enemies are fought from behind cover: abandoned cars, mounds of trash and tires, fences and even overturned port-a-potties. As you increase in level, and enemy reinforcements can surprise you by attacking from behind, requiring quick thinking — where can you hide next and take the least amount of damage?

That keeps combat from becoming too mundane because at the start of every fight, you have to be thinking a step ahead without knowing exactly what to expect. So, what’s the problem? Moving from cover to cover is nowhere near as smooth as it should be.

At its worst, an attempt to run out from behind a short wall to reach better cover ended up with Reem’s character climbing on top of the only barrier that stood between her and video game death. Your best bet is to move slowly and deliberately (none of the panicky button mashing that makes Mortal Kombat so fun), and that can be difficult to do in an intense battle.

For a city that’s been thoroughly trashed, D.C. seems very much alive. Unlike the lonely, wintry hellscape of New York City in the previous game, Washington is rife with survivors scrambling to rebuild civilization.

And as in real life, nature surrounds and overwhelms all the city’s concrete and steel. Grass grows wild on the White House lawns. Vines wrap themselves around metal fencing. Weeds sprout from cracked asphalt.

After all, there is no Park Service anymore to keep Mother Nature at bay. But it’s gorgeous to look at.

�鶹���� moves through the city unpredictably, too. Storms of varying intensity impact visibility of enemies. Intense rainstorms are followed by a thick fog hovering over wet asphalt, a sight familiar to anyone who has experienced summer in the D.C. area. You can almost feel the humidity.

During one mission we played late at night, a windstorm whipped up so much dirt and debris, that enemies were barely visible. Luckily, we were barely visible to them too.

There’s also a preponderance of animals. Stray dogs, birds, deer and raccoons run wild.

We were, however, exceedingly disappointed to find out that you can’t kill the rats that scurry around while playing. Can’t blame us for trying to quell the District’s rodent issues.

Side note: Please let us pet the dogs. Hundreds, if not thousands, of pups now roam the dangerous streets and heartbreakingly take off when you get too close. These guys deserve to be saved and recruited, a la Far Cry 5’s Boomer, or at least they deserve to be pet!

The Division 2 is a hell of a sequel. One we won’t be putting down any time soon.

There’s something about saving Washington that’s intensely addictive.

FINAL VERDICT: BUY IT

A free copy of the game was provided for the purposes of this review. Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 is available now for PC, Xbox One and PS4.

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Cohen met with the Senate intelligence committee for several hours behind closed doors on Tuesday, and he is expected to speak before a House panel privately on Thursday.

Testimony began at 10 a.m.

See video below.

Below is a recap of what happened.

5:15 p.m.

Former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen says he’s worried that if the president doesn’t win re-election, there will not be a “peaceful transition of power.”

Cohen is testifying Wednesday before the House Oversight Committee. He told the committee in closing remarks that his loyalty to Donald Trump has cost him his job, his family and his freedom. And he’s worried the country will suffer a similar fate unless people stop supporting Trump.

Cohen has pleaded guilty to lying to Congress and orchestrating hush-money payments to women who said they had affairs with Trump.

He told the committee Trump is a racist conman who repaid him the hush money from the White House after he became president. Trump has strongly denied the allegations.

5 p.m.

Michael Cohen says President Donald Trump devalued his assets in order to pay lower real estate taxes.

Cohen, Trump’s former attorney, is testifying before the House Oversight and Reform Committee.

His comment on Trump’s assets came in response to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat.

Cohen says Trump claimed Trump National Golf Club in Briarcliff Manor, New York, was worth more than what he reported to local tax authorities. Cohen says that in order to reduce real estate bills, he would devalue the assets and then put in a request to tax officials for a deduction.

Cohen also testified he had knowledge that the president inflated his assets to an insurance company.

4:55 p.m.

President Donald Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, says he’s seen the president’s tax returns but hasn’t gone through them.

Cohen is testifying Wednesday before the House oversight committee.

Trump broke with decades of tradition for presidential candidates by refusing to release his income tax filings during his 2016 campaign. He has said he won’t release them because he is being audited.

Cohen on Wednesday undercut that rationale, saying he presumes Trump is not being audited.

Cohen says he asked Trump for paperwork about the audit to prepare Trump’s response to reporters about the issue but never received any documentation.

Cohen says Trump didn’t want to release his tax returns because he “didn’t want an entire group of think tanks, who are tax experts, to run through his returns.”

3:40 p.m.

The Florida Bar has opened an investigation into a U.S. congressman from Florida after it received a complaint about a taunting tweet he made hours before Presidnet Donald Trump’s former attorney, Michael Cohen, testified before a U.S. House committee.

Florida Bar spokeswoman Francine Walker said in an email Wednesday that an investigation has been opened into Republican Matt Gaetz, but confidentiality rules prevent her from offering any further details.

Gaetz, who is a Florida Bar member, has 15 days to respond.

After an initial evaluation, the case is sent to a branch office and then a grievance committee, if Bar officials believe it has merit.

If the grievance committee finds probable cause, charges are filed with the Florida Supreme Court and then a judge is appointed to hear the case.

3:20 p.m.

A spokeswoman for President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign is dismissing Michael Cohen’s testimony as coming from a felon and convicted liar.

Kayleigh McEnany says in a statement Wednesday that Cohen is offering “what he says is evidence, but the only support for that is his own testimony.”

Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer, is appearing before the House Oversight and Reform Committee.

In his testimony, Cohen painted Trump as a racist and conman who acted like a mob boss. He said Trump used those around him to tamp down allegations that could be damaging to him.

McEnany emphasizes that prosecutors have said Cohen had an instinct to blame others and committed crimes, in part, to benefit himself.

Cohen has pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations and lying to Congress.

2:40 p.m.

President Donald Trump’s former lawyer says he was pressured by the president to lie to first lady Melania (meh-LAH’-nee-ah) Trump about hush money payments paid to a porn actress who alleged she had an affair with Donald Trump.

Michael Cohen tells the House Oversight and Reform Committee that the president put him on the phone with Mrs. Trump, and Cohen says he misled her in that conversation.

Cohen is referring to $130,000 that he arranged to be paid to porn actress Stormy Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford.

The White House has denied that Trump had an affair with Daniels.

2:10 p.m.

Fordham University is confirming it received a letter from Donald Trump’s then-lawyer threatening legal action if Trump’s academic records became public.

Ex-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen has testified to Congress that Trump directed him to write letters warning his schools and the College Board not to disclose his grades or SAT scores.

Cohen has given the House Oversight and Reform Committee a copy of his letter to Fordham. It was dated May 2015, about a month before Trump started his presidential campaign.

Fordham says the letter from Trump’s lawyer was preceded by a phone call from a campaign staffer. Fordham says it’s bound by federal law barring the release of student records.

Trump attended the Roman Catholic university in New York City for two years. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania.

Penn and the College Board declined to comment.

1:50 p.m.

Ex-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen says President Donald Trump called him and asked him to mislead the public about hush money paid to a porn actress.

Cohen says during testimony before the House Oversight and Reform Committee that Trump called him in February 2018 to discuss the public messaging about $130,000 paid to porn actress Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet about allegations of an extramarital affair.

Cohen says Trump asked him to say that the president “wasn’t knowledgeable” about the payments.

In fact, Cohen says Trump directed and coordinated the payments. Documents also show Trump personally signed at least one check paid to Cohen to reimburse him for the payments.

The White House has denied Trump had an affair with Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford.

1 p.m.

President Donald Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, says prosecutors in New York are investigating conversations that Trump or his advisers had with Cohen after his hotel room was raided by the FBI.

Cohen is testifying before the House Oversight and Reform Committee, and he was asked by a Democrat, Raja Krishnamoorthi (krish-nah-MOOR’-thee) of Illinois, about the last contact Cohen had with Trump or any agent representing the president.

Cohen says it was about two months after his hotel room was raided by the FBI in April 2018. But Cohen is declining to provide more specific details and says prosecutors are investigating the matter.

Cohen has pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations, lying to Congress and other offenses.

He’s been cooperating with prosecutors and is expected to begin a three-year prison sentence in May.

12:45 p.m.

For much of Michael Cohen’s congressional testimony, Republicans on the House Oversight and Reform Committee have called President Donald Trump’s former lawyer a liar.

Rep. Paul Gosar (GOH’-sahr) of Arizona and other Republicans say Cohen can’t be trusted for what he says about Trump because Cohen pleaded guilty last year for lying to Congress.

At the hearing, Gosar put up a sign that read “Liar, Liar Pants on Fire” and called Cohen a “pathological liar.”

Democrats shot back, with Massachusetts Rep. Stephen Lynch saying committee Republicans “aren’t afraid you’re going to lie. I think they’re afraid you’re going to tell the truth.”

Cohen turned the focus on the president, saying lying became “the norm” working for Trump.

12 p.m.

President Donald Trump’s eldest sons are tweeting their thoughts about Michael Cohen’s public testimony — and they’re ridiculing him as a disgruntled ex-employee out to try and save himself.

Cohen is the president’s former lawyer who’s cooperated with special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation and is set to begin a three-year prison sentence in May. Cohen is testifying before the House Oversight and Reform Committee.

Donald Trump Jr. tweets that Cohen’s testimony sounded “like a breakup letter” and that it’s “funny how things change when you’re trying to save your ass.”

Trump Jr. and Eric Trump suggest the longtime Trump loyalist is retaliating against the president after getting rejected for a White House job.

Eric Trump tweets Cohen was “lobbying EVERYONE” to be chief of staff and that it “was the biggest joke in the campaign.” Cohen tells the committee he was never interested in such a position.

Eric Trump also is taking aim at Cohen’s impending prison sentence by tweeting a Republican Party video about Cohen with the title, “Have Fun in Prison!”

11:17 a.m.

President Donald Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, says he doesn’t know whether Trump colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election, but he has “suspicions” about that.

Cohen tells a House committee that he witnessed instances before the election in which Trump was informed about WikiLeaks’ release of Democratic National Committee emails and about a Trump Tower meeting that included campaign advisers, Trump’s oldest son and a Russian lawyer.

Cohen says Trump had told him that the younger Trump “had the worst judgment of anyone in the world.”

Cohen also said Donald Trump Jr. “would never set up any meeting of any significance alone _ and certainly not without checking with his father.”

Cohen has turned on his former boss and cooperated with special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. Cohen begins a three-year prison sentence in May.

11:15 a.m.

“Not true.”

That’s the word from Roger Stone, a confidant of President Donald Trump, in response to a claim by Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen.

Cohen has testified to a House committee that Stone told Trump that the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks planned to release emails damaging to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.

Cohen says Stone told Trump in July 2016 that Stone had just gotten off the phone with Julian Assange, who run WikiLeaks, and that there would be a “massive dump” of emails harmful to the Clinton campaign.

Cohen’s allegation would contradict the president’s assertions that he was in the dark on this issue.

It’s not immediately clear what evidence Cohen has to support the allegation or how legally problematic the claim it might be for Trump.

Stone has pleaded not guilty to witness tampering and obstruction in Mueller’s investigation

11:10 a.m.

President Donald Trump’s former lawyer is apologizing to Congress and the American people for, in his words, “actively working to hide from you the truth about Mr. Trump when you needed it most.”

Michael Cohen is also apologizing to lawmakers for lying to Congress in 2017. Cohen pleaded guilty to that lying, among other offenses, and is headed to prison in May.

Cohen tells a House committee that “it seems unbelievable that I was so mesmerized by Donald Trump that I was willing to do things for him that I knew were absolutely wrong.”

11 a.m.

Former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen says he wouldn’t accept a pardon from the president and he didn’t ask for one.

Cohen is testifying under oath before the House Oversight and Reform Committee _ and has said that Trump instructed him to pay off women who said they’d had affairs with the president. Trump has denied the claims.

For more than a decade, Cohen was a key power player in the Trump Organization and a fixture in Trump’s political life.

Cohen is set to begin a three-year prison sentence in May after pleading guilty to lying to Congress in 2017 and committing campaign finance violations while he was working for Trump.

Cohen says he’s speaking before the committee to set the record straight and try to atone for some of his mistakes.

10:58 a.m.

President Donald Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, says Trump personally signed checks repaying him for hush money paid to porn actress Stormy Daniels.

Cohen has presented a check to the House Oversight and Reform Committee. The $35,000 check was from dated August 2017.

Cohen has pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations connected to a $130,000 hush-money deal involving porn actress Stormy Daniels. She alleges an affair; Trump denies it.

Cohen says he personally paid Daniels. But Trump’s current lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, has said Cohen was repaid through a retainer agreement.

Prosecutors have said the Trump Organization paid Cohen in monthly installments to reimburse him for the Daniels’ payment. They say Cohen used “sham” invoices to try to conceal the true nature of the payments.

A second check from March 2017 was signed by Donald Trump Jr. and Trump’s chief financial officer.

10:55 a.m.

The president’s former personal lawyer says Donald Trump lied about his wealth to look richer to Forbes magazine and less wealthy for tax authorities.

Michael Cohen is testifying under oath before the House Oversight and Reform Committee.

Cohen says financial documents show Trump inflated his assets to rank higher on the Forbes world’s billionaires list. Trump ranked 766th on the publication’s latest list, which was released last March.

Cohen claims Trump would also deflate his assets to pay lower real estate taxes.

Democrats have promised an aggressive effort to investigate the president since they regained control of the House in January.

For more than a decade, Cohen was a key power player in the Trump Organization and a fixture in Trump’s political life.

Cohen is set to begin a three-year prison sentence in May after pleading guilty to lying to Congress in 2017 and committing campaign finance violations while he was working for Trump.

10:52 a.m.

Former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen is telling Congress that President Donald Trump lied to the American people about negotiations during the 2016 presidential campaign about a proposed Trump building in Russia.

Cohen says in public testimony before the House Oversight and Reform Committee that Trump “knew of and directed” the negotiations about a proposed Trump Tower in Moscow. Cohen pleaded guilty last year to lying to Congress about the timing of the business proposal.

Cohen is testifying that Trump didn’t “directly” tell him to lie to Congress about the project but he did so “in his way.”

Cohen says that while he was negotiating the Russian business deal during the campaign, Trump would look him in the eye and tell him “there’s no business in Russia.”

10:50 a.m.

The top Republican on the House Oversight and Reform Committee is charging that Democrats are bringing President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, to testify so they can “start their impeachment process.”

Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio tells the committee chairman, Maryland Democrat Elijah Cummings, at the start of the hearing that “your chairmanship will always be identified by this hearing.”

Jordan and other Republicans are challenging Cohen’s credibility because Cohen is going to prison for lying to Congress in 2017, among other charges.

Democrats invited Cohen to testify after he turned on Trump and started cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.

10:45 a.m.

President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, is accusing Trump of being a “racist.”

Testifying under oath before a House committee, Cohen says he heard Trump say that black people “would never vote for him because they were too stupid.”

Cohen says that when he and Trump were driving through a “struggling neighborhood” in Chicago, Trump said that “only black people could live that way.”

Trump has denied charges of racism before, and has said, “I’ve never used racist remarks.”

For more than a decade, Cohen was a key power player in the Trump Organization and a fixture in Trump’s political life.

Cohen is set to begin a three-year prison sentence in May after pleading guilty to lying to Congress in 2017 and committing campaign finance violations while he was working for Trump.

10:30 a.m.

The president’s former personal lawyer claims Donald Trump was told in advance that WikiLeaks planned to release emails damaging to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 White House campaign.

That’s what Michael Cohen is telling the House Oversight and Reform Committee.

In his prepared testimony, Cohen says he was in Trump’s office in 2016 when Trump adviser Roger Stone called.

Cohen says Stone told Trump that Stone had just gotten off the phone with Julian Assange, who run the anti-secrecy WikiLeaks group, and that there would be a “massive dump” of emails harmful to the Clinton campaign.

Cohen’s allegation would contradict the president’s assertions that he was in the dark on this issue.

It’s not immediately clear what evidence Cohen has to support the allegation or how legally problematic this claim it might be for Trump.

Special counsel Robert Mueller hasn’t suggested that merely being aware of WikiLeaks’ plans is by itself a crime.

Stone has pleaded not guilty to witness tampering and obstruction in Mueller’s investigation.

10:25 a.m.

The chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee says the public has a right to hear from former Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s former lawyer.

Democrat Elijah Cummings of Maryland says Cohen’s testimony is necessary because it’s the committee’s job to search out the truth. Cummings says the committee won’t restrict any questions, and that means some lawmakers may ask about special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.

10:20 a.m.

As soon as the House hearing involving President Donald Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, got underway, a key Republican lawmaker claimed that the committee was violating its own rules.

Rep. Mark Meadows, a top Trump ally, said Cohen was showing “disdain” for the committee process by failing to submit his prepared remarks ahead of time.

Meadows claimed it was an intentional “violation of the rules.”

Cohen’s much-anticipated testimony was received by the committee the night before Wednesday’s session, according to the chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland.

Meadows made a motion to postpone the hearing. Lawmakers quickly voted to reject the motion and the hearing resumed.

___

10:15 a.m.

A Democratic member of the House Oversight and Reform Committee says that restrictions on questions about Russia have been lifted when the committee questions Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s former lawyer.

Just before the hearing began, Rep. Gerry Connolly said he’d discussed the issue with the committee’s leadership. The Virginia congressman said previous limits on questions about Russia were “null and void” because Cohen mentioned the issue in his opening statement.

The committee chairman had issued a memo outlining the scope of the hearing, and it didn’t include questions about Russia. Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings had said that he didn’t want to interfere with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.

___

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source

WASHINGTON – Chef Jose Andres used his moment on the Oscars stage Sunday night to honor “the invisible people in our lives.”

Andres, along with actor Diego Luna, took the stage to introduce director Alfonso Cuaron’s “Roma.”

“This beautiful, intimate film – one that gives a voice to the voiceless – reminds us of the understanding and compassion that we all owe to the invisible people in our lives: immigrants and women – who move humanity forward,” said Andres.

Andres has earned recognition for his philanthropic work following natural disasters through his World Central Kitchen, and earlier this year opened a kitchen in D.C. to feed furloughed federal workers. He also owns several restaurants in the D.C. area.

“Roma” won the Oscar for best foreign language film.

Source

It’s well known around these parts that Fraley is a walking entertainment encyclopedia.

According to �鶹���� legend, he can name every movie that’s ever won Best Picture and the corresponding year.

�鶹���� decided to put Fraley to the test, planting participants throughout the station to catch him off guard. See how he did in the video below.

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Smollett turned himself in early Thursday, facing accusations that he filed a false police report about a racist, anti-gay attack last month.

Watch the full news conference below.

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Watch a livestream below.

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The switch-over happened the night of Saturday, Feb. 2. Watch the video below to see �鶹���� anchors Sarah Jacobs and Kyle Cooper usher in a new era for �鶹����. �鶹���� Technical Operations Manager Brian Oliger also goes into detail on how the switch was made — and believe it or not, there wasn’t a big lever involved in the process!

• See photos of �鶹����’s new space
• �鶹���� staffers say goodbye to longtime DC home

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Trump touched on a wide range of issues in his speech, from the ongoing debate over a border wall to infrastructure.

Watch the video below.

After the State of the Union, Stacey Abrams delivered the Democratic response. Watch below.

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