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VW says it will not pursue Traton IPO for now due to market conditions

Volkswagen logo is pictured during the Volkswagen Group's annual general meeting in Berlin
FILE PHOTO: A Volkswagen logo is pictured during the Volkswagen Group's annual general meeting in Berlin, Germany, May 3, 2018. REUTERS/Axel Schmidt

March 13, 2019

BERLIN (Reuters) – Volkswagen said on Wednesday it would not pursue an initial public offering of its trucks unit Traton due to current market conditions but said the board of management still wanted to list the division if the environment improves.

“In the current market environment, Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft today decided not to continue with preparation of an IPO of Traton SE for the time being,” Volkswagen said in an adhoc statement.

(Reporting by Michelle Martin; Editing by Tassilo Hummel)

Source: OANN

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Conversion is not your mission, pope tells Catholics in Morocco

Pope Francis visits Morocco
Pope Francis greets the faithful as he leaves Saint Peter's Cathedral in Rabat, Morocco, March 31, 2019. REUTERS/Youssef Boudlal

March 31, 2019

By Philip Pullella and Ahmed Eljechtimi

RABAT (Reuters) – Pope Francis told the tiny Catholic community in predominantly Muslim Morocco on Sunday that their mission was not to covert their neighbors but to live in brotherhood with other faiths.

Francis has used his two-day trip to stress inter-faith dialogue. He has also backed Moroccan King Mohammed VI’s efforts to spread a form of Islam that promotes inter-religious dialogue and rejects violence in God’s name.

Morocco’s 23,000 Roman Catholics – most of them French and other European expatriates and migrants from sub-Saharan Africa – make up less than one percent of the population of 35 million.

“Christians are a small minority in this country. Yet, to my mind, this is not a problem, even though I realize that at times it can be difficult for some of you,” he said at a meeting with Catholic community leaders in Rabat’s cathedral.

Conservative Catholics have criticized the pope’s opposition to organized or aggressive recruiting of potential converts.

“The Church grows not through proselytism but by attraction,” Francis said to applause.

“This means, dear friends, that our mission as baptized persons, priests and consecrated men and women, is not really determined by the number or size of spaces that we occupy, but rather by our capacity to generate change and to awaken wonder and compassion,” he said.

Moroccan authorities do not recognize Moroccan converts to Christianity, many of whom worship secretly in homes. Conversion from Islam to Christianity is banned, as it is in many Muslim countries, and proselytising is punishable by up to three years in prison.

“The problem is not when we are few in number, but when we are insignificant,” Francis said, adding that Catholics were called to be an integral part of inter-religious dialogue in a world “torn apart by the policies of extremism and division”.

At a Mass for about 10,000 catholics in a sports arena before he was due to return to Rome, the Pope also stressed the need for inter-religious dialogue, saying people should resist “classifying ourselves according to different moral, social, ethnic or religious criteria”.

On Saturday, Francis and King Mohammed VI visited an institute the monarch founded to train imams and male and female preachers of Islam.

Morocco promotes itself as an oasis of religious tolerance in a region torn by militancy. It has offered training to Muslim preachers from Africa and Europe on what it describes as moderate Islam.

At Saturday’s event, Francis praised the king for providing “sound training to combat all forms of extremism, which so often lead to violence and terrorism, and which, in any event, constitute an offence against religion and against God himself”.

Also on Saturday, Jewish leaders joined Christian representatives in the front row at two events presided over by the pope and the monarch on interfaith dialogue.

Francis’ appeal for inter-religious dialogue was made more poignant on Sunday by the presence in Rabat cathedral of Father Jean-Pierre Schumacher, a 95-year-old French monk who survived what is known as the Tibhirine massacre in Algeria.

In March 1996, seven French monks were kidnapped in a monastery in the central Algerian village of Tibhirine during the civil war between the government and Islamist rebel groups.

The monks were held for about two months and found dead, except Schumacher, who managed to escape.

(Reporting By Philip Pullella; Editing by Marie-Louise Gumuchian)

Source: OANN

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New Zealand police say Christchurch accused to face 50 murder charges

Flowers and cards are seen at the memorial site for the victims of Friday's shooting, outside Al Noor mosque in Christchurch
Flowers and cards are seen at the memorial site for the victims of Friday's shooting, outside Al Noor mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand March 19, 2019. REUTERS/Edgar Su

April 4, 2019

SYDNEY (Reuters) – The Australian man accused of killing 50 Muslim worshippers in gun attacks on two mosques in Christchurch will face 50 murder charges and 39 attempted murder charges, New Zealand police said on Thursday.

“Other charges are still under consideration,” police said in a statement.

Australian Brenton Tarrant, 28, a suspected white supremacist, was previously charged with only one murder following the attack and has been remanded without a plea.

He is due back in court on Friday. The March 15 attack was the worst mass shooting by a lone gunman in New Zealand.

(Reporting by Tom Westbrook; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

Source: OANN

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Inquiry into Lloyds’ handling of HBOS fraud slips to 2020: source

FILE PHOTO: People walk past a branch of Lloyds Bank on Oxford Street in London
FILE PHOTO: People walk past a branch of Lloyds Bank on Oxford Street in London, Britain July 28, 2016. REUTERS/Peter Nicholls/File Photo/File Photo

March 14, 2019

By Lawrence White and Iain Withers

LONDON (Reuters) – A long-awaited probe into what Lloyds Banking Group executives knew about one of Britain’s worst ever banking frauds is now not likely to be completed until next year, a source with knowledge of the review said.

The investigation by retired high court judge Linda Dobbs was launched in 2017 to assess whether Lloyds properly investigated and reported the fraud at HBOS, which it bought in January 2009.

A spokeswoman for Lloyds did not immediately provide comment.

The bank has previously said it is determined to get to the bottom of what went on, and that the Dobbs review, for which it is paying, will be a thorough investigation.

HBOS was once Britain’s biggest mortgage lender, and was rescued in a state-engineered takeover by Lloyds, which has apologized to victims of the fraud and set up a 100 million pounds ($133 million) compensation scheme.

A team of more than 30 lawyers is sifting hundreds of thousands of Lloyds documents, the source said, as well as interviewing victims of the fraud for which six people were jailed for a combined 47 years in 2017.

The inquiry will begin interviewing Lloyds executives from the Autumn, the source said, starting with more junior bankers and likely to include Chief Executive Antonio Horta-Osorio.

The work involves sifting through the documents to build a picture of what Lloyds’ senior executives knew about the fraud, what they did about it and when.

Lloyds has said that while it was aware of misconduct, it could not have known about the criminal nature of the fraud until the trial in 2017.

Britain’s influential cross-party Treasury Committee of lawmakers in June 2018 wrote to Dobbs asking when the review would be complete, and Dobbs said at that time it would slip into the second half of 2019, confirming a Reuters story from May that year.

Lloyds in November 2018 settled with an ex-employee who accused her former bosses of concealing the fraud. The bank apologized to Sally Masterton, a former senior risk officer at Lloyds, and said that it had agreed to pay her financial compensation.

Masterton alleged HBOS executives knew of the fraud years before the Lloyds takeover and failed to properly disclose it.

The fraud, which took place in the early 2000s, saw the conspirators use their positions to enrich themselves at the expense of struggling business clients, some of which succumbed to insolvency and were stripped of their assets after being advised to borrow unsustainable amounts.

(Reporting By Lawrence White and Iain Withers; Editing by Alexandra Hudson and Elaine Hardcastle)

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Mueller’s report reveals Russia investigation was tainted by ‘Clinton dirt’, Devin Nunes says

California Republican Devin Nunes told Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Thursday evening that the Robert Mueller report shows “Clinton dirt” compiled by former British spy tainted the Russia investigation.

The ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee said the report on page 11 confirms that the salacious Steele dossier was used as part of the memo that established a scope of the investigation into the supposed collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

“When you look at what happened today, remember we talked a lot about the scope memo. What were the directions given to the special counsel?” Nunes said on “Hannity”.

“Well, we now know hidden on page 11, very thinly, still veiled, but we now know they used the Steele dossier, the Clinton dirt, the Clinton-paid-for dirt as part of the memo for the special counsel that directed the special counsel what to do.”

“Well, we now know hidden on page 11, very thinly, still veiled, but we now know they used the Steele dossier, the Clinton dirt, the Clinton-paid-for dirt as part of the memo for the special counsel that directed the special counsel what to do.”

— Devin Nunes

MUELLER REPORT SPARKS NEW DC WAR OVER RUSSIA PROBE: SUBPOENAS, PAYBACK AND MORE

Nunes alluded to the August 2017 “scope memo” issued by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein that was released to the public last year, albeit heavily redacted, that appears to feature allegations made only in the unverified dossier.

The Republican says Mueller’s report now shows that former Trump campaign staffers Carter Page and Paul Manafort were targeted in the probe in part due to the dossier compiled by former MI6 spy Christopher Steele, whose efforts were funded in part through an opposition research group, Clinton’s 2016 campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC).

“On Carter Page and Paul Manafort, that information came from political opponents, the Clinton campaign fed right into the FBI, directed to the special counsel to go investigate what was in the infamous Steele dossier,” Nunes said. “That is the only thing of relevance that was in today's 450-page report.”

He added: “Rosenstein then directed them to use that dirt, that dossier, which I think makes up the bulk of what is in the scope memo, that we have still yet to be able to see.”

“Rosenstein then directed them to use that dirt, that dossier, which I think makes up the bulk of what is in the scope memo, that we have still yet to be able to see.”

— Devin Nunes

MUELLER REPORT REVEALS CLASHES IN TRUMP’S INNER CIRCLE OVER RUSSIA PROBE

The page 11 of the report details how Mueller was appointed to the special counsel and how Rosenstein directed the scope of his investigation, including targeting Trump’s team members such as Page, Manafort,  George Papadopoulos, and Michael Flynn.

In the same interview on Thursday, Nunes went on to praise Attorney General William Barr for his handling of the release of the report.

But he also stressed the importance of ensuring that the FBI won’t abuse its powers in the future, urging to take “real action.”

CLICK TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

The Republican earlier this month announced that he’s preparing to send eight criminal referrals to the Department of Justice this week concerning alleged misconduct from "Watergate wannabes" during the Trump-Russia investigation, including the leaks of "highly classified material" and conspiracies to lie to Congress and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court.

Source: Fox News Politics

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Fed’s report condemning Alabama prisons: State vows action

Alabama authorities vowed Thursday to begin the monumental task of fixing their troubling prison problems, responding to a U.S. Department of Justice report that condemned excessive violence, inmate deaths and a critical staffing shortage in the state correctional system.

The Justice Department on Wednesday gave the state 49 days to respond with a remedial plan or face a federal lawsuit for conditions so bad the department believes they violate the prohibition on cruel and usual punishment.

"I think it's an enormous task we have in front of us," said state Sen. Cam Ward, head of a legislative prison oversight committee. He called the findings "deeply humiliating" for Alabama. "It's disgusting. I mean, it is."

The federal report released Wednesday reeled off a chilling litany of examples of violence: An inmate died after being stabbed while other prisoners banged on a locked door for help. Another prisoner was strangled, left face down so long that "his face was flattened" by the time his body was discovered. Another prisoner told of being tied up and tortured for two days by fellow inmates in retaliation for reporting a sexual assault.

The Department of Justice wrote that overcrowding, understaffing, excessive violence, a failure to stop sexual assaults, poor facilities and the indifference of officials were among the factors creating what it called inhumane conditions in Alabama's prisons.

Gov. Kay Ivey said Thursday that the state recognizes the problems in state prisons and said the Justice Department identified many of the same concerns the state has already acknowledged. She suggested that the state will do what is needed to avoid court-ordered mandates.

"This is just reinforcing the need we've been seeing all along. This is an Alabama problem. It's got to have an Alabama solution and we'll be addressing that in fast order," Ivey said.

Prison staffing was a key concern of federal investigators.

The state has about 1,500 correctional officers patrolling state prisons. The report called for the immediate addition of 500 more officers.

The Alabama Department of Corrections earlier this year requested legislative funding to hire 500 officers, and said it plans to make the same request in subsequent years. It noted at the time that staffing shortages directly correlated to high rates of violence.

Ward said while the funding may be there, a hiring effort of that magnitude is still an enormous undertaking.

"I don't see how you possibly hire 500 in one year," Ward said.

The department said Alabama also must comply with staffing orders arising from an ongoing lawsuit over prison mental health case by 2020. In that case, the state's own expert recommended the addition of about 2,000 officers, and a federal judge said the state should reach those targets by 2022.

"Without adequate staff, they can't solve these other problems," said Maria Morris, senior supervising attorney at the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The department said that physical conditions of prisons themselves were unconstitutional, noting design problems with the buildings and a lack of functioning cameras, mirrors and fire alarms.

In February, Ivey's administration announced intent to build three new large regional prisons for men that would replace most male facilities.

However, the Justice Department wrote that new facilities might help resolve some issues but "it is important to note that new facilities alone will not resolve the contributing factors to the overall unconstitutional condition" of the state's prisons. Those contributing factors included understaffing, corruption, non-existent investigations, violence, illicit drugs, and sexual abuse, the report said.

Bryan Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, said the focus on construction is a distraction from fundamental issues of staffing and investigative practices.

"I don't think we are going to solve the problems we have in our prisons by building more prisons," said Stevenson. "I'm not indifferent to some of the infrastructure challenges, but when you have a college football team who can't win a game, you don't say, 'Let's build a new stadium, that'll fix our problems.'"

Stevenson also said the culture of the prisons needs to be changed.

"A lot of prisoners feel like they'll be punished for reporting an assault," Stevenson said.

Ivey said the Justice Department has shown a willingness to help as the state develops a response.

Said Ward: "We have to come up with a plan that says we are making an effort. You've got to show you are making a good faith effort on all these targets."

Source: Fox News National

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May could win backing of Northern Irish kingmakers in third Brexit vote: report

Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May is seen outside Downing Street in London
Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May is seen outside Downing Street in London, Britain March 14, 2019. REUTERS/Peter Nicholls

March 16, 2019

By Andrew MacAskill

LONDON (Reuters) – Prime Minister Theresa May’s hopes of getting a Brexit divorce deal through parliament were given a boost on Saturday after a report that the Northern Irish party propping up her government might move toward backing her deal.

The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which has 10 lawmakers in parliament, is close to changing its position for the first time after receiving a promise that the government would put into law a requirement that there be no divergence between Northern Ireland and Britain, the Spectator magazine said.

A cabinet minister involved in the talks with the DUP told the Spectator the chances of the party backing the government’s deal were around 60 percent.

After two-and-a-half years of tortuous divorce negotiations with the EU, the final outcome is still uncertain with options including a long delay, exiting with May’s deal, a disorderly exit without a deal or even another referendum.

To get her deal passed through parliament, May must win over dozens of Brexit-supporting rebels in her own Conservative Party and the DUP lawmakers. She is expected bring back the deal for a third vote after two historic defeats.

The DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds said the party had good talks with British ministers, including the finance minister, on Friday to see what additional assurances would be needed for them to save her deal.

But the opposition Labour Party’s finance policy chief John McDonnell said on Saturday he was concerned that Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond’s presence during the talks means the government might have offered the DUP money to back the deal.

“It will rightfully be seen by the British electorate as corrupt politics and will demean our political system in the eyes of the world,” McDonnell said.

As talks with the government continued, the DUP said there were still issues to addressed and denied that they were seeking money from the government.

The changes would address the DUP’s concerns over the backstop – an insurance policy aimed at avoiding controls on the sensitive border between the British province of Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland. The backstop is the most contentious part of the divorce deal the government has agreed with the EU.

THIRD TIME LUCKY?

After three dramatic days in parliament this week, lawmakers voted on Thursday to have the government ask the EU for a delay beyond the date Britain is scheduled to leave – March 29.

May says she wants to minimize any delay in leaving the EU to just three months, but to achieve that she will need parliament to back her deal at the third time of asking early next week, possibly Tuesday.

Her deal, an attempt to keep close relations with the EU while leaving the bloc’s formal structures, was defeated by 230 votes in parliament on Jan. 15 and by 149 votes on March 12.

She needs 75 lawmakers to change their vote. If she can swing the DUP behind her, along with several dozen hardliners in her own party, she will be getting close to the numbers she needs.

Around 20 Conservatives lawmakers are unlikely ever to be satisfied but she may draw in a small number of opposition Labour lawmakers.

In another sign of how Brexit continues to reshape loyalties in Britain’s politics, a senior Conservative lawmaker quit his local party on Saturday due to disagreements over Brexit.

Nick Boles, 53, has been critical of the government’s threat to leave the EU without a deal and has faced calls from his local party to be ousted as its candidate for the next general election.

Boles said he could remain aligned with the Conservatives in parliament if it is offered “on acceptable terms.”

At the other end of the political spectrum, Nigel Farage, the politician who probably did more than anyone else to force Britain’s referendum on membership of the European Union, joined protesters at the start of a 270-mile march over what they call a betrayal of the Brexit vote.

In the pouring rain in Sunderland, northeast England, which was the first place in Britain to declare a vote to leave the EU, Farage, wearing a flat cap and carrying an umbrella, said Brexit was now in danger of being scuttled by the establishment.

“We are here in the very week when parliament is doing its utmost to betray the Brexit result,” Farage said. “It is beginning to look like it doesn’t want to leave and the message from this march is if you think you can walk all over us we will march straight back to you.”

The march, which began with about 100 people, is due to end at parliament on March 29, the day the United Kingdom was supposed to leave the EU.

(Reporting By Andrew MacAskill; Editing by Clelia Oziel)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: The Huawei logo is pictured outside its Huawei's factory campus in Dongguan, Guangdong province
FILE PHOTO: The Huawei logo is pictured outside its Huawei’s factory campus in Dongguan, Guangdong province, China, March 25, 2019. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By Ben Blanchard

BEIJING (Reuters) – Britain must get to the bottom of the leak of confidential discussions during a top-level security meeting about the role of China’s Huawei Technologies in 5G network supply chains, British finance minister Philip Hammond said on Friday.

News that Britain’s National Security Council, attended by senior ministers and spy chiefs, had agreed on Tuesday to bar Huawei from all core parts of the country’s 5G network and restrict its access to non-core elements was leaked to a national newspaper.

The leak of secret discussions has sparked anger in parliament and amongst Britain’s intelligence community. Britain’s most senior civil servant Mark Sedwill has launched an inquiry and written to ministers who were at the meeting.

“My understanding from London (is) that an investigation has been announced into apparent leaks from the NSC meeting earlier this week,” said Hammond, speaking on the sidelines of a summit on China’s Belt and Road initiative in Beijing.

“To my knowledge there has never been a leak from a National Security Council meeting before and therefore I think it is very important that we get to the bottom of what happened here,” he told Reuters in a pooled interview.

British culture minister Jeremy Wright said on Thursday he could not rule out a criminal investigation. The majority of the ministers at the NSC meeting have said they were not involved, according to media reports.

Hammond said he was unaware of any previous leak from a meeting of the NSC.

“It’s not about the substance of what was apparently leaked. It’s not earth-shattering information. But it is important that we protect the principle that nothing that goes on in national security council meetings must ever be repeated outside the room.”

Allowing Huawei a reduced role in building its 5G network puts Britain at odds with the United States which has told allies not to use its technology at all because of fears it could be a vehicle for Chinese spying. Huawei has categorically denied this.

There have been concerns that the NSC’s conclusion, which sources confirmed to Reuters, could upset other allies in the world’s leading intelligence-sharing network – the Five Eyes alliance of the United States, Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.

However, British ministers and intelligence officials have said any final decision on 5G would not put critical national infrastructure at risk. Ciaran Martin, head of the cyber center of Britain’s main eavesdropping agency, GCHQ, played down any threat of a rift in the Five Eyes alliance.

(Writing by Michael Holden; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Source: OANN

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Park Yoo-chun, a K-pop idol singer, arrives at the Suwon district court in Suwon
Park Yoo-chun, a K-pop idol singer, arrives at the Suwon district court in Suwon, South Korea, April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji

April 26, 2019

SEOUL (Reuters) – K-pop and drama star Park Yu-chun was arrested on Friday on charges of buying and using illegal drugs, a court said, the latest in a series of scandals to hit the South Korean entertainment business.

Suwon District Court approved the arrest warrant for Park, 32, due to concerns over possible destruction of evidence and flight risk, a court spokesman told Reuters.

Park is suspected of having bought about 1.5 grams of methamphetamine with his former girlfriend earlier this year and using the drug around five times, an official at the Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency said.

Park has denied wrongdoing, saying he had never taken drugs, and he again denied the charges in court, Yonhap news agency said.

Park’s contract with his management agency had been canceled and he would leave the entertainment industry, Park’s management agency, C-JeS Entertainment, said on Wednesday.

Park was a member of boyband TVXQ between 2003 and 2009 before leaving the group with two other members, forming the group JYJ.

A scandal involving sex tapes, prostitutes and secret chat about rape led at least four other K-pop stars to quit the industry earlier this year.

The cases sparked a nationwide drugs bust and investigations into tax evasion and police collusion at night clubs and other nightlife spots.

(Reporting by Joyce Lee; Additional reporting by Heekyong Yang; Editing by Nick Macfie)

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FILE PHOTO: An American Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 flight taxis after landing at Reagan National Airport in Washington
FILE PHOTO: An American Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 flight from Los Angeles taxis after landing at Reagan National Airport shortly after an announcement was made by the FAA that the planes were being grounded by the United States over safety issues in Washington, U.S. March 13, 2019. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts/File Photo

April 26, 2019

(Reuters) – American Airlines Group Inc cut its 2019 profit forecast on Friday, saying it expected to take a $350 million hit from the grounding of Boeing’s 737 MAX planes after cancelling 1,200 flights in the first quarter.

The company said it now expects its 2019 adjusted profit to be between $4.00 per share and $6.00 per share.

Analysts on average had expected 2019 earnings of $5.63 per share, according to Refinitiv data.

The No. 1 U.S. airline by passenger traffic said net income rose to $185 million, or 41 cents per share, in the first quarter ended March 31, from $159 million, or 34 cents per share, a year earlier.

Total operating revenue rose 2 percent to $10.58 billion.

(Reporting by Sanjana Shivdas in Bengaluru)

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2020 Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg speaks at a campaign event in Des Moines, Iowa
2020 Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg speaks at a campaign event in Des Moines, Iowa, U.S., April 16, 2019. REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage

April 26, 2019

By James Oliphant

MARSHALLTOWN, Iowa (Reuters) – Four years ago, Donald Trump campaigned in small towns like Marshalltown, Iowa, vowing to restore economic prosperity to the U.S. heartland.

In his bid to replace Trump in the White House, Pete Buttigieg is taking a similar tack. The difference, he says, is that he can point to a model of success: South Bend, Indiana, the revitalized city where he has been mayor since 2012.

The Democratic presidential contender has vaulted to the congested field’s top tier in recent weeks, drawing media and donor attention for his youth, history-making status as the first openly gay major presidential candidate and a resume that includes military service in Afghanistan.

But Buttigieg’s main argument for his candidacy is that he is a turnaround artist in the mold of Trump, although the Democrat does not expressly invoke the comparison with the Republican president.

“I’m not going around saying we’ve fixed every problem we’ve got,” Buttigieg, 37, said after a house party with voters in Marshalltown. “But I’m proud of what we have done together, and I think it’s a very powerful story.”

Critics argue improving the fortunes of a Midwestern city of 100,000 people does not qualify Buttigieg, who has never held national office, for the presidency of a country of 330 million. Others say South Bend still has pockets of despair and that minorities, in particular, have failed to benefit from its growth.

Buttigieg has told crowds in Iowa and elsewhere that his experience in reviving a struggling Rust Belt community allows him to make a case to voters that other Democratic candidates cannot. That may give him the means to win back some of the disaffected Democratic voters who turned their backs on Hillary Clinton in 2016 to vote for Trump.

Watching Buttigieg at a union hall in Des Moines last week, Rick Ryan, 45, a member of the United Steelworkers, lamented how many of his fellow union workers voted for Trump. The president turned in the best performance by a Republican among union households since Ronald Reagan in 1984.

Ryan said he hoped someone like Buttigieg could return them to the Democratic fold.

“He’s aware of the decline in the labor force in America, not just in Indiana or Des Moines or anywhere else,” Ryan said. “Jobs are going overseas. We need a find to way to bring that back.”

Randy Tucker, 56, of Pleasant Hill, Iowa, a member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, said Trump appealed to union members “desperate for somebody to reach out to them, to help them, to listen to their voice.”

Buttigieg could do the same, he said. “In my heart right now, he’s No. 1.”

PAST VS. FUTURE

Buttigieg stresses a key difference in his and Trump’s approaches.

Trump, he tells crowds, is mired in the past, promising to rebuild the 20th century industrial economy. Buttigieg argues the pledge is misleading and unrealistic.

Buttigieg says his focus is on the future, and he often talks about what the country might look like decades from now.

“The only way that we can cultivate what makes America great is to look to the future and not be afraid of it,” Buttigieg said in Marshalltown.

Buttigieg knows his sexual preference may be a barrier to winning some blue-collar voters. But he notes that after he came out as gay in 2015, he won a second term as mayor with 80 percent of the vote in conservative Indiana.

Earlier this month, he announced his presidential bid at the hulking plant in South Bend that stopped making Studebaker autos more than 50 years ago. After lying dormant for decades, the building is being transformed into a high-tech hub after Buttigieg and other city leaders realized it would never again attract a large-scale industrial company.

“That building sat as a powerful reminder. We hoped we would get back that major employer that would fix our economy,” said Jeff Rea, president of the regional Chamber of Commerce.

Buttigieg is praised locally for spurring more than $100 million in downtown investment. During his two terms, unemployment has fallen to 4.1 percent from 11.8 percent.

But a study released in 2017 by the nonprofit group Prosperity Now said not all of the city’s residents had shared in its rebound. The median income for African-Americans remained half that of whites, while the unemployment rate for blacks was double.

Regina Williams-Preston, a city councilor running to replace Buttigieg as mayor, credits him for the revitalized downtown. But she said he had a “blind spot” when it came to focusing on troubled neighborhoods like the one she represents and only grew more engaged after community pressure.

“He understands it now,” she said. “The next step is figuring out how to open the doors of opportunity for everyone.”

‘ONE OF US’

Trump touts the fact that the United States added almost 300,000 manufacturing jobs last year as evidence he made good on his promise to restore the industrial sector. But that growth still left the country with fewer manufacturing jobs than in 2008.

The robust U.S. economy is likely the president’s greatest asset in his re-election bid, particularly in states he carried in 2016 such as Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. He won Buttigieg’s home state by 19 points over Clinton in 2016.

Sean Bagniewski, chairman of the Democratic Party in Polk County, Iowa, said Buttigieg would be well positioned to compete with Trump in the Midwest.

“People love the fact that he’s a mayor,” said Bagniewski, who has not endorsed a candidate in the nominating contest. “If you can talk about a positive future, and if you actually have experience that can do it, that’s a compelling vision in Iowa.”

Nan Whaley, the mayor of Dayton, Ohio, which faces many of the same challenges as South Bend, agreed.

“He’s one of us,” Whaley said. “That helps.”

(Reporting by James Oliphant; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Peter Cooney)

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A man looks out at a flooded residential area in Gatineau
A man looks out at a flooded residential area in Gatineau, Quebec, Canada, April 24, 2019. REUTERS/Chris Wattie

April 26, 2019

MONTREAL/OTTAWA (Reuters) – Rising waters were prompting further evacuations in central Canada on Thursday, with the mayor of the country’s capital, Ottawa, declaring a state of emergency and Quebec authorities warning that a hydroelectric dam was at risk of breaking.

Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson declared the emergency in response to rising water levels along the Ottawa River and weather forecasts that called for significant rainfall on Friday.

In a statement on Twitter, Watson asked for help from the Ontario provincial government and the country’s military.

He warned that “flood levels are currently forecasted to exceed the levels that caused significant damage to numerous properties in the city of Ottawa in 2017.”

Spring flooding had killed one person and forced more than 900 people from their homes in Canada’s Quebec province as of 1 p.m. on Thursday, according to a government website.

Ottawa has received 80 requests for service related to potential flooding such as sandbagging, a city spokeswoman said.

The prospect of more rain over the next 24 to 48 hours triggered concerns on Thursday that the hydroelectric dam at Bell Falls in the western part of Quebec could be at risk of failing because of rising water levels.

Quebec’s provincial police said 250 people were protectively removed from homes in the area as of late afternoon in case the dam on the Rouge River breaks.

The dam is now at its full flow capacity of 980 cubic meters per second of water, said Francis Labbé, a spokesman for the province’s state-owned utility, Hydro Quebec. He said Hydro Quebec expected the flow could rise to 1,200 cubic meters per second of water over the next two days.

“We have to take the worst-case scenario into consideration, since we`re already at the maximum capacity,” Labbé said by phone.

The dam is part of a power station that no longer produces electricity, but is regularly inspected by Hydro Quebec, he said.

(Reporting by Allison Lampert in Montreal and David Ljunggren and Julie Gordon in Ottawa; Editing by James Dalgleish and Peter Cooney)

Source: OANN

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