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Snap adds games to Snapchat app to hold on to young users

FILE PHOTO: The Snapchat app logo is seen on a smartphone in this illustration
FILE PHOTO: The Snapchat app logo is seen on a smartphone in this picture illustration taken September 15, 2017. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

April 4, 2019

By Angela Moon

(Reuters) – Snap Inc on Thursday launched a gaming platform within its Snapchat app featuring original and third-party games such as Zynga Inc’s Tiny Royale, aiming to keep existing users engaged longer and attract new ones.

Snap also announced a slew of fresh features and content for existing products, adding shows from Bunim/Murray Productions and BuzzFeed as well as augmented reality filters to include templates of landmarks.

Snap made the announcement at its first-ever Partner Summit in Los Angeles, unveiling features and content aimed at keeping its core base of 13-34-year-olds on its messaging platform longer even as overall user growth has stalled.

Snap faces fierce competition for users and advertisers from bigger and far better-financed rivals like Facebook Inc, whose namesake platform and Instagram photo-sharing app have successfully copied popular Snapchat features like Stories – a personal feed of photos and videos that disappear after 24 hours.

In 2018, Instagram had about 400 million daily active users on its version of Stories, more than twice Snapchat’s daily users.

Snap must also battle for user attention against newer rivals like TikTok, a short-form video app owned by Chinese tech company Bytedance.

The number of daily active users on Snapchat has held steady or fallen for the past several quarters, but the app is still wildly popular among young users.

Snapchat reaches 75 percent of 13-34 year olds and 90 percent of 13-24 year olds in the United States.

“We wanted to build something that makes us feel like we’re playing a board game with family over a long holiday weekend,” said Will Wu, director of Product at Snap told creators and developers at the one-day, invite-only event.

“Something that makes us feel like we’re sitting with friends, controllers in hand, looking at the same screen.”

The games include Snap’s flagship Bitmoji Party, Spry Fox’s Alphabear Hustle, ZeptoLab’s C.A.T.S. Drift Race, Game Closure’s Snake Squad, PikPok’s Zombie Rescue Squad and Zynga’s Tiny Royale, and can be played from Snapchat’s main “Chat” messaging feature.

Snap said the gaming platform will have non-skippable, six-second video ads, a relatively new format that helped the company’s revenue growth in the fourth quarter.

Snap also launched new augmented reality “lenses,” or filters that overlay video, including templates of landmarks like the Buckingham Palace in London, the Capitol Building in Washington D.C., and the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

As part of Snap’s push to expose more of its content outside of the platform, the company also launched “App Stories” with partners like Tinder which would allow users to update their dating profiles with Snapchat Stories.

(Reporting by Angela Moon; Editingby Meredith Mazzilli)

Source: OANN

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125 Democrats And 1 Republican Vote To Lower Voting Age To 16

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Rep. Ro Khanna: Senate ‘unlikely to convict’ Trump but it’s important to hold him ‘accountable for what happened’

Rep. Ro Khanna weighed in on the potential Democrats' push to impeachment President Trump, saying he thinks House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and others in his party “realize that the Senate is unlikely to convict the president" but added that it is still “important to hold the president accountable for what happened.”

Rep. Khanna, D-Calif., made the statements on "Fox & Friends" Tuesday, the morning after he participated in a conference call where House Democrats huddled with party leadership to discuss the next steps after the release of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia report. As some have pushed for impeachment, Pelosi, D-Calif., unequivocally stated her opposition to launching impeachment proceedings against President Trump, calling it “divisive” and “just not worth it."

DEM LEADERS REJECT IMMEDIATE IMPEACHMENT PROCEEDINGS IN URGENT CONFERENCE CALL

“It was a good call. Speaker Pelosi set the tone, she said we need to be deliberate and methodical. There shouldn't be any rush to any judgment,” Khanna said on Tuesday.

“One of the things I think we can all agree about is the Mueller report’s conclusion that there was sweeping and systemic interference in our election by the Russians. I'm working actually with leader McCarthy and others to find some ways of protecting American democracy from future interference. And that’s a place I think many Americans would agree.”

He added: “Every American should be concerned if Russia did it last election whose to say China or Iran wouldn't do it? I represent Silicon Valley. We need to make sure the tech platforms are working with law enforcement so that this never happens again and I think that's a common sense area with where we can all work together.”

TOP DEM DISMISSES POSSIBILITY OF COLLUSION FATIGUE: 'THE RUSSIANS AREN'T GETTING TIRED'

Leaders of the House Democrats backed off the idea of immediately launching impeachment proceedings against President Trump in the urgent conference call Monday evening amid a growing rift among the party's rank-and-file members, presidential contenders and committee chairs on the contentious issue. Well-placed sources said it was a spirited 87-minute call involving more than 170 Democrat members.

Fox News is told by two senior sources on the private conference call that even House Financial Services Committee Chair Maxine Waters, an anti-Trump firebrand, told fellow Democrats that while she personally favored going forward with impeachment proceedings, she was not pushing for other members to join her.

Pelosi and her leadership team were clear there were no immediate plans to move forward with impeachment, Fox News is also told.

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On Tuesday, when asked if he thinks the House Democrats should pursue impeachment Khanna said, “Not right now” adding, “I think what we need to do is have Bob Mueller testify, we need to have the committees do their work. We just got the report a few days ago or a week ago and the committee should do their work.”

Source: Fox News Politics

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North Dakota quadruple homicide suspect at large; tight-lipped cops say victims ‘didn’t do it themselves’

North Dakota cops probing a mysterious quadruple homicide at a property management company say the person responsible is still at large -- but that's about the only bit of information authorities are disclosing.

Officials remain tight-lipped about a description of the suspect, a potential motive for the killings and any details about the woman and three men found dead inside the Bismarck business.

Chief Jason Ziegler said Monday there is no danger to the public based on evidence recovered at the crime scene, but he didn't elaborate on what that evidence is or why cops believe the danger has subsided.

Authorities still don't have a motive in the killings, but there is at least one thing officials are sure of.

"These four people didn't do it themselves," Ziegler said at news conference.

4 FOUND DEAD AT NORTH DAKOTA BUSINESS IN HOMICIDE CASE, POLICE SAY

The bodies were discovered around 7:30 a.m. Monday by officers responding to a medical call at RJR Maintenance and Management in Mandan. Ziegler described the crime scene as "rare," but did not elaborate on exactly what that meant.

Mandan Police Chief Jason Ziegler speaks at a news conference in Mandan, N.D., Monday, April 1, 2019.

Mandan Police Chief Jason Ziegler speaks at a news conference in Mandan, N.D., Monday, April 1, 2019. (AP Photo/Blake Nicholson)

"It's quite a large crime scene, so it's not something that's going to be easy for us to get in and do quickly," Ziegler said of the pace of the investigation.

Officers spent Monday combing through the building, which includes an office area in the front and a large warehouse area in the back, and planned to be there "as long as it takes us to get everything that we need," Ziegler said.

Gina Kessel, 52, of Mandan, showed up at the business Monday to pick up her son, Mitchell Kessel, an employee there. She told the Associated Press that Mitchell "called me, said something is going on," but didn't tell her what exactly.

Gina Kessel, center, comforts her son Mitchell outside of RJR Maintenance and Management, a property management company, Monday, April 1, 2019, Mandan, N.D.

Gina Kessel, center, comforts her son Mitchell outside of RJR Maintenance and Management, a property management company, Monday, April 1, 2019, Mandan, N.D. (AP Photo/Blake Nicholson)

Ziegler said he was not aware of officers responding to any other recent incidents at the business that might have been connected to the killings. Authorities are also waiting on autopsies from the medical examiner's office to confirm the cause of death of the victims.

"At this time the bodies have not been properly identified, therefore the next of kins have not been identified," Ziegler said. "This is currently being treated as a multiple homicide investigation."

NIPSEY HUSSLE SHOOTING SUSPECT ID'D BY LOS ANGELES POLICE; SEARCH UNDERWAY

The building has many surveillance cameras, Ziegler said. He also asked other businesses in the area that might have video footage to come forward.

Cars are parked outside RJR Maintenance and Management in Mandan, N.D., on Monday, April 1, 2019. Police in North Dakota said 4 bodies were been found inside the business in suburban Bismarck.

Cars are parked outside RJR Maintenance and Management in Mandan, N.D., on Monday, April 1, 2019. Police in North Dakota said 4 bodies were been found inside the business in suburban Bismarck. (Mike McCleary/The Bismarck Tribune via AP)

On Monday, people heading to the building looking to pay rent, and do walk-throughs for rentals were surprised when they walked up to a crime scene.

"I came here because nobody was answering the phone," Suzette Wall told KFYR-TV.

CLICK HERE FOR THE FOX NEWS APP

The company posted to Facebook early Monday that it was closed for the day. RJR's website identifies the business as a family-owned company that has been handling commercial and residential properties in Bismarck and Mandan for more than 20 years. Its services include collecting rent for landlords, paying mortgages, re-renting apartments, building and grounds maintenance, lawn care and snow removal. It also rents out storage units.

Judy Praus, 70, told the AP she was a longtime friend of the owner's family and had just seen them at a restaurant Saturday. She said she also knew a lot of employees but had no details on any of them.

"When I was notified, I shattered," she said. "Unbelievable."

Fox News' Nicole Darrah and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News National

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Germany indicts suspected rebel over Sri Lanka war crimes

German authorities have indicted a Sri Lankan man suspected of involvement in killing 15 captured government soldiers while fighting for the Tamil Tigers rebel group.

Federal prosecutors said Friday that 37-year-old Sivatheeban B. is accused of membership in a foreign terrorist organization, war crimes, two cases of manslaughter and 11 cases of attempted manslaughter.

The man, whose surname wasn't released due to German privacy rules, was arrested in August.

Prosecutors allege that in 2008 the suspect guarded 15 captured soldiers as they were driven to a site where they were executed, and later helped burn their bodies. In a separate incident a year later, he fired on 13 soldiers, two of whom died.

The rebel group, which fought for a separate state for ethnic minority Tamils, was defeated in 2009.

Source: Fox News World

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Report: Trump Tells Lawyers to Stay on After Mueller Report

President Donald Trump has indicated to his outside legal team that his lawyers should plan to stay on after special counsel Robert Mueller submits his report, The Daily Beast reports.

Trump reportedly told his lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Jay Sekulow that his legal team should plan on sticking around after Mueller finishes his investigation, according to two unnamed sources with knowledge of conversations Trump has had with his legal advisers over the past year.

The Daily Beast notes Trump appears most focused on the investigation being conducted by the Southern District of New York into his family business and former personal attorney Michael Cohen.

Although reports emerged last week the Mueller probe is wrapping up, the Justice Department said last Friday those rumors are incorrect, and  the special counsel's report is not expected this week.

Source: NewsMax America

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Mueller Probe Already Financed Through September

Special Counsel Robert Mueller and the team he assembled to investigate U.S. President Donald Trump and his associates have been funded through the end of September 2019, three U.S. officials said on Monday, an indication that the probe has funding to keep it going for months if need be.

The operations and funding of Mueller's office were not addressed in the budget requests for the next government fiscal year issued by the White House and Justice Department on Monday because Mueller's office is financed by the U.S. Treasury under special regulations issued by the Justice Department, the officials said.

"The Special Counsel is funded by the Independent Counsel appropriation, a permanent indefinite appropriation established in the Department’s 1988 Appropriations Act," a Justice Department spokesman said.

There has been increased speculation in recent weeks that Mueller's team is close to winding up its work and is likely to deliver a report summarizing its findings to Attorney General William Barr any day or week now. Mueller's office has not commented on the news reports suggesting an imminent release.

Representatives of key congressional committees involved in Trump-related investigations say they have received no guidance from Mueller's office regarding his investigation's progress or future plans.

The probe, which began in May 2017, is examining whether there were any links or coordination between the Russian government led by Vladimir Putin and the 2016 presidential campaign of Trump, according to an order signed by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

Critics of the probe, including Trump allies, have suggested the investigation is a misuse of taxpayer funds and should be wrapped up quickly.

Justice Department documents show that Mueller's office reported spending around $9 million during the fiscal year which ran from Oct. 1, 2017 to Sept. 30, 2018. No figures are available for the current fiscal year.

Ninety days before the beginning of a federal government fiscal year, which starts on Oct. 1, special counsels such as Mueller "shall report to the Attorney General the status of the investigation and provide a budget request for the following year," according to the regulations.

Department officials said that under these regulations, a special counsel should request funding for the next fiscal year by the end of June. It is not known if Mueller is preparing such a request for fiscal year 2020.

Russia has denied meddling in the 2016 presidential election. Trump has said there was no collusion between his campaign and Moscow, and has labeled Mueller's investigation a "witch hunt."

Source: NewsMax Politics

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FILE PHOTO: An aerial photo looking north shows shipping containers at the Port of Seattle and the Elliott Bay waterfront in Seattle
FILE PHOTO: An aerial photo looking north shows shipping containers at the Port of Seattle and the Elliott Bay waterfront in Seattle, Washington, U.S. March 21, 2019. REUTERS/Lindsey Wasson/File Photo

April 26, 2019

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. economic growth is running at a 1.1% pace in the second quarter as the gains in exports and inventories recorded in the first quarter are expected to reverse, Morgan Stanley economists said on Friday.

“Our preliminary expectations for growth in the second quarter sees large drags from net exports and inventories after their contributions in 1Q,” they wrote in a research note.

Gross domestic product increased at a 3.2% annualized rate in the first three months of the year, driven by a smaller trade deficit and the largest accumulation of unsold merchandise since 2015, the Commerce Department said earlier Friday.

(Reporting by Richard Leong)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: The Deutsche Bank headquarters are pictured in Frankfurt
FILE PHOTO: The Deutsche Bank headquarters are pictured in Frankfurt, Germany, April 25, 2019. REUTERS/Ralph Orlowski/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By Tom Sims

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Within hours of the collapse of merger talks with Commerzbank, Christian Sewing scrambled to convince investors and employees that Deutsche Bank can stand on its own two feet.

The Deutsche Bank chief executive told staff, many of whom opposed a merger because of significant job losses, that while he had not been “skeptical” about the Commerzbank talks, he was cautious about the chances of success from the start.

And another top Deutsche Bank executive said on Friday that it had been Commerzbank that initiated the talks, suggesting there was no desperation on their part for a deal.

Commerzbank denied that version of events, ending the apparent truce between the normally highly competitive cross-town Frankfurt rivals over the past six weeks.

German hopes of creating a national banking champion able to challenge global competitors were finally dashed on Thursday when Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank ended their talks due to the risks of doing a deal, restructuring costs and capital demands.

For Sewing, the failure to clinch a deal has left the 49-year-old chief executive of Germany’s largest bank, who took over just over a year ago, with his back to the wall.

Credit ratings agency Standard & Poor’s, which downgraded Deutsche Bank last year, said on Friday that Deutsche Bank “will remain under strain”, adding that it “seems to have acknowledged the need to adjust its strategy”.

Under Sewing, a new leadership has tried to revive Deutsche Bank’s fortunes, but it has faced money laundering allegations and failed stress tests, as well as ratings downgrades.

At the heart of the debate over its future is whether it should focus its business on Germany and draw a line under its costly global ambitions to take on Wall Street’s big guns.

“MARKET PLAY”

Without a deal, Deutsche Bank now finds itself back at the mercy of equity and debt markets, with UBS analysts warning that in a “stress scenario” it could again “be forced into a ‘debt-driven capital increase’ even with solid capital ratios”.

“Deutsche remains a levered market play vulnerable to external events,” the UBS analysts said in a note.

Sewing, along with many analysts, believes Deutsche Bank can go it alone in the short-term, but will be counting on a turnaround in market conditions to do so in the long-run given its dependence on volatile investment bank earnings.

“To reach our return objective, we also need to see a revenue recovery in our more market-sensitive business,” Sewing said on Friday after reporting results.

“These revenues are available to us in better market conditions given our leading positions in many of these businesses, but we need to capture them,” he added.

Revenue at Deutsche Bank’s bond trading division fell 19 percent in the first quarter, it said on Friday, underscoring weakness at its investment bank.

If those earnings do not improve, Berlin’s desire to keep its biggest bank out of foreign hands may start to wane.

“Germany’s globally active companies need competitive financial institutions that can support them around the world,” German finance minister Olaf Scholz said on Thursday.

(Writing by Alexander Smith; Editing by Keith Weir)

Source: OANN

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Panama's former president Ricardo Martinelli yells to the media while arriving to the Electoral Court in Panama City
Panama’s former president Ricardo Martinelli reacts to the media while arriving to the Electoral Court in Panama City, Panama April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Erick Marciscano

April 26, 2019

PANAMA CITY (Reuters) – Panama’s electoral tribunal has ruled that former President Ricardo Martinelli, who is awaiting trial on wiretapping charges, cannot take part in elections on May 5 in which he was running for mayor of Panama City and a seat in Congress, a spokesman for Martinelli said on Friday.

“The ruling of the electoral tribunal has disqualified him as candidate,” said the spokesman, Eduardo Camacho, calling the court’s ruling a “political decision.”

Officials at the tribunal did not immediately confirm the ruling, which also was reported in local media in Panama.

Martinelli, a supermarket tycoon who ran the Central American country from 2009 to 2014, was extradited to Panama last June from the United States and charged with spying on 150 people, including politicians, union leaders and journalists.

A judge had previously cleared Martinelli to run for mayor of the capital. His critics vowed to appeal that decision.

(Reporting by Elida Moreno and Stefanie Eschenbacher; Editing by Bill Trott)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: Amazon boxes are seen stacked for delivery in the Manhattan borough of New York City
FILE PHOTO: Amazon boxes are seen stacked for delivery in the Manhattan borough of New York City, January 29, 2016. REUTERS/Mike Segar/File Photo

April 26, 2019

(Reuters) – Shares of Walmart, Target and other U.S. retailers fell on Friday as Amazon.com Inc unveiled a one-day delivery plan for its Prime members in a move to further disrupt the fiercely competitive retail landscape.

The e-commerce giant’s announcement on Thursday could cause other brands, manufacturers, retailers, and logistics companies to have to invest more aggressively to compete with Amazon and its delivery, analysts said.

Retailers in recent years have poured billions into ecommerce and faster shipping options and are trying to close the gap with Amazon.

“This is about making it more expensive to catch up and affirms our world view that only the largest and smartest will survive,” Bernstein analyst Brandon Fletcher said.

The move is expected to heighten consumer expectations on e-commerce delivery just like Amazon did with its two-day shipping option for members of its loyalty club Prime, noted analysts.

“The faster you ship, the more people buy,” RBC Capital Markets analyst Mark Mahaney said.

The challenge for non-Amazon players was that very few of the existing logistics and parcel delivery players now have the ability to do nationwide one-day delivery, Morgan Stanley analyst Brian Nowak said.

“And even fewer can do it at the vast scale and reasonable cost that AMZN would need for Prime delivery,” Nowak said in a note.

Walmart Inc’s shares fell about 3 percent, while Target Corp dropped about 5 percent in morning trade.

Shares of Kohl’s Corp, Macy’s Inc and Nordstrom Inc fell about 1 percent. Grocer Kroger Co was nearly 3 percent lower, while consumer electronics retailer Best Buy Inc dropped 2.1 percent.

(Reporting by Soundarya J and Akanksha Rana in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)

Source: OANN

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A Chinese woman adjusts a Chinese national flag next to U.S. national flags before a Strategic Dialogue expanded meeting, part of the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED) in Beijing
A Chinese woman adjusts a Chinese national flag next to U.S. national flags before a Strategic Dialogue expanded meeting, part of the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED) held at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, July 10, 2014. REUTERS/Ng Han Guan/Pool (CHINA – Tags: POLITICS BUSINESS)

April 26, 2019

By April Joyner

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Even as the lift from optimism over prospects for U.S.-China trade detente shows signs of wearing off for the wider U.S. stock market, upbeat sentiment around China’s economy could bolster shares of materials companies.

Shares of S&P 500 industrial and technology companies, which were buffeted by last year’s tit-for-tat tariffs as well as slowing global demand, have been very responsive to progress in U.S.-China trade relations and a strengthening Chinese economy. This year, those sectors have outpaced the ascent in the S&P 500, which reached a record closing high on Tuesday.

Materials stocks have not been as sensitive, however, even though they also stand to benefit as a stronger Chinese economy lifts global consumption and industrial output. As China has taken measures to stimulate its economy, its economic data have turned more upbeat. That in turn could aid global growth, which has flagged as a result of China’s cooldown.

“What we’re seeing is China spending more on stimulus: fiscal stimulus and monetary stimulus,” said Kristina Hooper, chief global market strategist at Invesco in New York. “That’s likely to be a positive for materials.”

The People’s Bank of China has cut banks’ reserve requirement ratio five times over the past year and is widely expected to ease policy further to spur lending and reduce borrowing costs. The stimulus appears to have boosted Chinese economic data, with factory activity growing in March for the first time in four months.

Yet so far in 2019, the S&P 500 materials index has underperformed the S&P 500 at large, rising just 11.9% compared with 16.7% for the benchmark index. Moreover, it is among the biggest decliners in the period since the S&P’s previous record closing level on Sept. 20. The materials index has fallen 7% over those seven months, versus a 5.2% gain for technology and a 3% loss for industrials. Only the energy index has dropped more over that period.

A trade agreement could serve as a catalyst for a bump in materials shares as a drag on China’s economy is lifted, some market strategists say. Some commodity prices, including those for copper and oil, have ascended this year as the prospects for the global economy have somewhat brightened.

“It all goes back to the global growth outlook,” said Andrea DiCenso, portfolio manager for alpha strategies at Loomis Sayles in Boston. “With the front run in hard data, we’re beginning to see a pretty significant rally.”

Additionally, a trade agreement is expected to include commitments from China to purchase higher quantities of U.S. products such as soybeans, which could benefit companies that make agricultural chemicals, including DowDuPont Inc and CF Industries Holdings Inc.

CF Industries is scheduled to report quarterly results after the bell on Wednesday, and DowDuPont is scheduled to report before the market open on Thursday.

To be sure, even with a trade agreement, some materials companies could face price pressures. Shares of Freeport-McMoRan Inc fell 10.1% on Thursday after the copper mining company posted a lower-than-expected profit as its production slipped and its costs rose.

A rollback of tariffs on Chinese imports, particularly aluminum and steel, would likely prompt a fall in some commodity prices, which could hurt prospects for certain materials companies, said Gene Goldman, chief investment officer at Cetera Investment Management in El Segundo, California.

Even so, those drawbacks may be outweighed by the support for global demand fostered by a U.S.-China trade agreement.

“You could see a number of companies with lowered expectations bring them back up as they talk favorably about the impact that a trade deal would have on them,” said Tim Ghriskey, chief investment strategist at Inverness Counsel in New York.

(Reporting by April Joyner; additional reporting by Sinéad Carew; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Source: OANN

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