| Did Jeff Sessions lie under oath? | | Some Democrats say he did. Here's why: Jeff Sessions' met twice with the Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak . However, Sessions did not disclose these encounters during his confirmation hearing to become Trump's attorney general. At the time of the contact (July and September), Sessions was not only serving as a surrogate for Donald Trump but had been named chairman of the Trump campaign's National Security Advisory Committee. President Trump said Thursday he "wasn't aware at all" of Sessions' meetings and that the attorney general still has his "total" confidence. (Sessions' situation differs from that of Michael Flynn, who resigned.) However, some members of Congress — including Republicans — want Sessions to recuse himself from overseeing the FBI investigation into Russia's interference in the U.S. election system. Some Democrats are taking it further: calling for Sessions' resignation. "Putin will push and push and push until somebody stands up to him," former President George W. Bush said Thursday. Trump, Kellyanne Conway, Sean Spicer, Sessions and others on the Trump team have denied campaign officials' communications and connections with Russian officials at least 20 times since July. (Related: The New York Times broke some big news, too.) | | Colin Kaepernick is standing up | | San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick isn't continuing his national anthem protest in 2017. Kaepernick, who is expected to opt out of his contract with the Niners, hasn't spoken about his decision, but USA TODAY has the word from an anonymous source. Last season, Kaepernick refused to stand during "The Star-Spangled Banner" before Niners games to draw attention to racial inequality and police brutality. He had said he would stop when he felt it was appropriate. Since he hasn't made his decision public, we're not sure why he deemed next season appropriate. The country was strongly divided over Kaepernick's protest: Some called him a patriot, others called him a traitor. The controversy affirmed that while we agree patriotism means love for and pride in one's nation, we don't agree on what a patriot looks like, how a patriot acts and what a patriot should do if he or she feels the country is moving in the wrong direction. Another time he sat out? Casting his ballot. Kaepernick didn't vote for president saying it "didn't really matter" to him whether Trump or Hillary Clinton won. This, some argued, made him " absolutely irrelevant." | | Snap crackles and pops on Wall Street | | Evan Spiegel is 26 years old, and he just made a lot of money. His company, Snap, the parent behind red-hot messaging app Snapchat, went public, trading shares on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol SNAP (naturally). The company priced shares at $17, but they opened trading at $24, a 41% jump. Now the hard part begins. What can Snapchat do to speed up user growth? This problem has plagued other one-time social media darlings, (ahem, Twitter). Also, is now a good time to ride the Snap wave? And if you don't know the first thing about Snapchat, don't worry: We got you — even on the new Groups feature. | | Was new Interior secretary's commute bad? Neigh | | First days at new jobs tend to be pretty banal: Meet some folks, shake a few hands, check out the lunch options and nail down the commute. But Ryan Zinke, the new secretary of the Interior, took his commute by the reins and spurred some excitement along the way: He rode to work on a horse . Zinke rode from the National Park Service stables on the National Mall to his new office, just off the Mall. He (and his horse) were then greeted by more than 350 federal employees, and a song was played on a hand drum by a Bureau of Indian Affairs employee, who is from Montana's Northern Cheyenne tribe. Zinke is a fifth-generation Montanan and the first person from the state to serve on a presidential Cabinet. The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, a bureau within Interior, tweeted a photo of its new boss. Dig the hat. | | This is a compilation of stories from across USA TODAY. | |
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