Mueller Disputes Report of Trump Perjury Order | Brexit in Chaos

Special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into alleged collusion between the Kremlin and President Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign issued a rare statement Friday disputing a Buzzfeed report that Trump asked his attorney, Michael Cohen, to lie to Congress. The probe’s statement said the story’s “specific statements” and “characterizations” of its evidence were inaccurate. While the disputation didn’t say what points were wrong, Trump seized on the development, calling it a “very sad day for journalism,” and a pro-Trump media critic asserted that “media errors are always anti-Trump.” Buzzfeed, meanwhile, stood by its reporting.

Like a slow-motion train wreck, Prime Minister Theresa May guided her Brexit plan to certain parliamentary defeat Tuesday, failing even more spectacularly than predicted. Then she survived Wednesday’s equally unshocking no-confidence vote. Britain’s scheduled to leave the European Union March 29, but its parliamentarians “don’t know what they want,” said a Dutch member of the European Parliament. May has appealed unsuccessfully to opposition leaders for help crafting an alternative plan — which EU leaders have scoffed at — while many are pushing to extend the deadline or reprise the 2016 Brexit referendum.

Is the air getting thin? The Swiss mountain confab of leaders, intellectuals and corporate executives kicks off Tuesday for a week of elite elbow-rubbing dubbed “Globalization 4.0.” German Chancellor Angela Merkel will have a final chance to represent the old government-business paradigm — one likely to be excoriated by illiberal newcomers like Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. Shutdown-paralyzed America won’t be represented, while British and French leaders will also tend crises back home. The forum’s new survey, showing climate and other impacts dragging global economies, will likely set the mood.

President Donald Trump met senior North Korean official Kim Yong Chol Friday, emerging with news that Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will meet again by the end of February. The former spy chief reportedly delivered a letter from Kim and discussed progress toward denuclearization, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said. The meeting followed Chol’s latest disarmament negotiations with secretary of state Mike Pompeo, which stalled after U.S. demands for an inventory of nuclear and missile programs. Pyongyang, meanwhile, wants U.S. sanctions lifted.

The Week Ahead: Demonstrators at 350 sites across America are to stage another Women’s March for gender equality and against the Trump administration today in spite of charges that some of the original 2016 march’s organizers were anti-Semitic. Stock markets and other official entities will be closed Monday in honor of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. And on Tuesday, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will announce its Oscar nominations.

Know This: Courts in Chicago have sentenced the police officer who fired 16 shots, killing knife-wielding Black youth Laquan McDonald, to nearly seven years in prison while acquitting three officers accused of falsifying reports on the shooting. A pipeline erupted in flames, killing at least 21 people and severely burning scores more who were reportedly collecting spilled fuel in central Mexico. Russian authorities have reportedly arrested a Belarusian model who claims to have evidence of collusion between the Kremlin and President Trump’s 2016 election campaign.

#OZYfact: People living in conflict zones are more optimistic about peace than those living in less violent nations.

In one sense, it’s a bright line. Northern Ireland’s late-20th-century sectarian warfare demonstrated the futility of maintaining its hard border with the Republic of Ireland. The European Union and its open-frontier Schengen Area eased that problem by erasing a border beset by smugglers and Irish Republican Army attacks. After two decades, Brexit — especially a “no-deal” divorce with Europe — may erect an even harder barrier, one demarcating the EU, prompting new tensions among severed communities that could revive Northern Ireland’s “troubles” so delicately concluded in 1998.

It’s a harmless meme — or maybe a big-tech conspiracy. The “10-Year Challenge” circulating on Facebook, which the social media giant denies initiating, features decade-apart photos that tech consultant Kate O’Neill warns provide ideal data to train age-adjusting facial recognition algorithms. That could help authorities find missing children or elusive suspects who’ve aged. But it could also aid crackdowns on protesters or discrimination by insurers against people who are aging more rapidly than their contemporaries. Either way, O’Neill writes, be aware before you play along.

Patrick Burleigh was everything you’d expect of a 14-year-old — rebellious with a pronounced libido — except that he was a decade younger. Burleigh suffered from a rare genetic condition that triggers early puberty in males, flooding their bodies with testosterone. He was 2 when puberty happened, and like his father and grandfather, he struggled through childhood. But, Burleigh writes, the disorder also shaped who he became, making for an agonizing choice when he faced the possibility of passing this burden on to a biological son.

Multiple strokes changed Beverly Hills Dr. Sherman Hershfield — he suddenly loved poetry. His incessant rhyming took him to the beating heart of Los Angeles’ Black culture. In 2000, Hershfield crashed the KAOS Network’s open-mic events. His first performance — a poem about the Holocaust — didn’t win raves, but it launched his education. A diet of his stepson’s NWA records and an unlikely friendship with hip-hop legend KRS-One helped evolve Hershfield into Dr. Rapp, who turned his symptom into a cure.

Gaming is the fantasy sport of the future, according to the burgeoning betting industry. In fact, at the world’s largest daily fantasy sports operator, DraftKings, the fastest-growing sport last year was esports. That’s just in time as fantasy sports revenue slows from its early days of fast growth. The esports industry is expected to surpass $1 billion in 2019. And while competitive gaming has been a small percentage of global sports betting — $5.5 billion in 2016 — by 2020 it’s projected to approach $13 billion.