Yellow Vest demonstrators aren't letting a ban on mass gatherings or fears of coronavirus stop them from expressing their opposition to the French government, and are staging their weekly protests in Paris.

France's Interior Minister Christophe Castaner on Friday banned all gatherings of more than 100 people but hundreds of demonstrators are continuing the weekly Yellow Vest vigil and are protesting at Paris landmarks.

Thousands of French security forces personnel hit the streets of the capital in a bid to clamp down on the movement, which has now been running for 70 consecutive weeks.

Disco vibes, flare pants, a chorus in Spanish and serious faces, while performing the freakiest of dance moves — Russia's rave-pop-punk hooligans Little Big have impressed the Eurovision crowd with a clip for its contest song.

Little Big, often described as "a Russian mental patient's answer to Die Antwoord," sure know how to make a hit. Two years ago their song, called 'Skibidi,' became a viral sensation, gaining 23 million views on YouTube in just 1 week. Since then it was seen by almost 370 million people, while the dance routine from the clip became a meme.

The Saint Petersburg band's entry for this year's Eurovision contest remained a mystery until Thursday, when the band finally presented their song on Russia's most popular late night talk show. The track called 'Uno,' which means 'one' in Spanish, has both Spanish and English lyrics, and is heavily influenced by disco music.

The owner of an oil pipeline that spewed thousands of barrels of crude oil onto Southern California beaches in 2015 will pay $60 million to to settle allegations that it violated safety laws, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced Friday.

Texas-based Plains All American Pipeline didn't admit any wrongdoing or liability in the consent decree that will end a lawsuit filed on behalf of federal and state agencies. But it agreed to operational changes and to five years of federal and state scrutiny to ensure it is obeying the pollution and safety rules.

The agreement still must undergo a public comment period and needs federal court approval.

On May 19, 2015, oil gushed from a corroded pipeline north of Refugio State Beach in Santa Barbara County, northwest of Los Angeles. The spill blackened popular beaches for miles, killed or fouled hundred of seabirds, seals and other wildlife and hurt tourism and fishing.

Remember when we kicked off 2020 with that little WWIII scare in the Middle East? Oh how quaint all that seems now.

I was going to start off this week with a recap of the craziness that unfolded in recent days as full-on pandemic panic set in in the United States, but leave it to Twitter to come up with the pithiest summary: "What a year this last half hour has been."

That's one way of capturing the shock that many are experiencing right now. But more enlightening still are the responses to that tweet.

"Understatement of the year," one user replied, adding that "Every time you click [refresh], something unbelievable has happened. Literally every second."

Another user responded that "I have a friend who just shut everything off and went out into nature for a day because it was all going to be there when they came back."

Observed yet another: "So much has happened this evening, my mind is literally spinning....I can't keep it straight, and the market opening is 11 hours away..."

So what has got the Twitterati's heads spinning so furiously? A torrent of news about coronavirus that hit the American news media like a tsunami this past week, that's what.

Like the suspension of the NBA, NHL, NCAA Championships and just about every other major sporting event you can think of.

Or the shut down of numerous college campuses (including on-campus housing), which is already leading to riots.

Or the announcement that this or that celebrity has tested positive for the virus.

Or, oh yeah, the worst Wall Street crash since the Black Monday event that led to the creation of the Plunge Protection Team. And the impending shutdown of New York City. And the potential closing off of international borders.

You know, that kind of stuff.

Of course, every crisis has its silver lining: The producers of some of the most risible late night garbage, including Fallon, Colbert and Meyers, have announced they're suspending their shows for the rest of the month!

Yes, it has been a week of non-stop, wall-to-wall, over-the-top news that is enough to make even the sturdiest of information warriors feel queasy. It's not easy to look over the precipice of panic and not feel some vertigo from the view.

It's at times like these that people start worrying about their survival, and not without reason. Even if, as the cooked government numbers seem to indicate, you have nothing to fear from SARS-CoV-2 unless you're an octogenarian with a lung condition, there are still the very real martial law lockdowns and supply shortages and economic collapses to be concerned about.

Whatever your thoughts on what is and isn't really happening here, there no doubt that we're heading into a profound and long-lasting economic crisis, or that we're facing a dramatic change in the way we live our lives. And even the slowest of the slow understand by now that we're about to see a massive power grab by governments the likes of which could scarcely have been imagined at the start of the year.

Russia is limiting flights to and from EU member countries, Norway and Switzerland over the COVID-19 pandemic now raging in Europe, exempting only regular flights from Moscow to their capital cities and charter evacuation trips.

Temporary flight restrictions will go into effect starting March 16, said the government's center for combating the spread of the infection.

However, regular flights to capitals of EU member nations, as well as Oslo and Geneva, will continue through Terminal F of Moscow's Sheremetyevo international airport. Charter flights bringing Russians back to the homeland and repatriating the nationals of other countries will continue as well.

The announcement comes after the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that Europe has become the new center of the COVID-19 coronavirus epidemic, with more cases reported daily than at the peak of the contagion in China, where the virus reportedly originated in December last year.

Russia has already temporarily banned entry to almost anyone coming from Italy as of Friday, as tourists who recently traveled to that country - currently the hardest-hit EU member - account for the majority of cases registered in Russia so far.

Jerry Wayne teamed up with the National Rifle Association (NRA) to challenge former Vice President Joe Biden after a video of their meeting in Michigan went viral.

Wayne, a union auto worker, asked Biden last Tuesday about his gun control plan — and Biden responded by telling Wayne that he was "full of s**t," claimed that he only meant to take "machine guns" like the "AR-14s" and threatened to "take him outside."

On Friday, the NRA released a new video featuring Wayne firing a custom "AR-14" with Biden's profile and the words "full of s**t" on the magazine well along with Wayne's personal message for Biden and anyone else who was thinking about coming for the "AR-14s."

After nearly a year in jail for refusing to participate in a secretive grand jury against WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning has finally been released, but the political persecution she's endured for a decade continues.

On Wednesday Manning attempted to take her own life, just days before she was scheduled to appear before a judge about a motion to terminate contempt sanctions.

"Manning has previously indicated that she will not betray her principles, even at risk of grave harm to herself," her legal team said in a statement about the incident, adding, "Her actions today evidence the strength of her convictions, as well as the profound harm she continues to suffer as a result of her 'civil' confinement."

The following day, Judge Anthony J. Trenga in the Eastern District of Virginia announced that the grand jury she was being tormented into participating in was dismissed and ordered her immediate release.

The change in terminology comes amid increased disputes following the release of the Trump Mideast plan

The U.S. State Department changed its standard description of East Jerusalem Palestinians from "Palestinian residents" of the city to "Arab residents" or "non-Israeli citizens" in an annual global human rights report released on Wednesday.

The overwhelming majority of East Jerusalem's more than 340,000 Palestinians identify as such. The Palestinians have long sought the city's east, which Israel captured in a 1967 war and later annexed in a move not recognized internationally, as capital of a future state.

Palestinians in Jerusalem hold Israeli residency permits but few have citizenship in Israel, which considers the entire holy city as its eternal, undivided capital. Jerusalem is also home to more than 500,000 Israelis.

Psychologist Robert Epstein says that Big Tech is planning to use "subliminal methods" in the upcoming election that could shift up to 15 million votes and cost Trump the presidency.

After the 2016 presidential election, Epstein surmised that search engine bias shifted 2-3 million votes in Hillary Clinton's favor, and he warns that the number in 2020 could be five times that amount.

The author says that Google and other social media giants "can shift opinions and votes in numerous ways that people can't detect" via "a wide variety of subliminal methods of persuasion that can, in minutes, shift the voting preferences of 20 percent or more of undecided voters without anyone having the slightest idea they've been manipulated."

A leak of Google emails to the Wall Street Journal back in 2018 already exposed how Google engineers had sought to investigate how they could manipulate a user's "ephemeral experiences" to change their mind on the Trump travel ban.

Universities and schools are being shuttered, sports activities and public gatherings are being cancelled, individuals are hoarding toilet paper and supplies, travel is being severely constrained, the stock market has crashed, and business activity is nose-diving. Major businesses are forcing their employees to work at home.

This blog will try to summarize the coronavirus threat, suggest that some of the panic-driven actions may not be well-founded, and that there may be a far better, more effective approach to deal with the virus.

Before I begin, let me note two things. I am not a medical doctor, epidemiologist, or viral expert. But I am a scientist with some facility with statistics and data, and my specialty, weather prediction, is all about helping people react appropriately to estimates of risk. And I have talked to a number of doctors about this issue. But don't read any more if my background bothers you.