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Best Buy holiday-quarter sales beat estimates; shares surge

The sign of a Best Buy store in Pasadena
The sign of a Best Buy store in Pasadena, California U.S., February 28, 2017. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni

February 27, 2019

(Reuters) – Best Buy Co Inc reported better-than-expected holiday quarter profit and sales on Wednesday, driven by strong demand for wearable devices, gaming consoles and appliances.

Shares in Best Buy surged 10 percent on the numbers, which come at the end of a year when it and rivals Target Corp and Walmart Inc have all benefited from the impact of rising wages, low unemployment and tax cuts on U.S. consumers.

The company said domestic online revenue rose 9.3 percent to $2.96 billion in the fourth quarter, primarily due to higher conversion rates and increased traffic.

Best Buy also forecast fiscal 2020 adjusted profit of $5.45 to $5.65 per share, the mid-point of which was above analysts’ expectations of $5.49.

Best Buy’s domestic comparable sales rose 3 percent in the three months ended Feb. 2. Analysts on average had expected a 2.03 percent rise, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

The company said comparable sales benefited from growth across categories such as wearables, appliances, smart home and gaming but saw declines in mobile phone sales.

Excluding one-time items, the company earned $2.72 per share. Analysts on average were expecting earnings of $2.57.

Total revenue fell 3.7 percent to $14.80 billion, as the year-ago quarter had an extra week, but still came above expectations of $14.70 billion.

(Reporting by Aishwarya Venugopal in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta and Anil D’Silva)

Source: OANN

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Vatican's legal procedures for handling sex abuse, explained

For centuries, the Vatican's canon law system busied itself with banning books and dispensing punishments that included burnings at the stake for heretics.

These days, the Vatican office that eventually replaced the Roman Catholic Inquisition is knee-deep in processing clergy sex abuse cases. The procedures of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith will be on display this week as high-ranking bishops summoned by Pope Francis attend an unprecedented four-day tutorial on preventing sex abuse and prosecuting pedophile priests

Here is a primer on the Catholic Church's regulations for investigating both priests accused of molesting children and superiors who have been accused of covering up those crimes.

___

ARE POLICE CALLED IN SUSPECTED SEX ABUSE CASES?

In countries where clergy are required to report child abuse, bishops and superiors of religious orders are supposed to notify police when someone alleges that a priest molested a child and they are supposed to cooperate with any investigations.

However, the policy is nonbinding and only was articulated publicly in 2010 when the Vatican posted it on its website. Prior to that, the Vatican long sought to prevent public law enforcement agencies from learning about abusers in the clergy.

Irish bishops who considered adopting a mandatory reporting policy in 1997 received a letter from the Vatican warning that their in-house church investigations could be compromised if they referred cases to Irish police.

Nowadays, the Vatican justifies not having a binding policy that requires all sex crimes to be reported to police by arguing that accused clergy could be unfairly persecuted in places where Catholics are a threatened minority.

___

WHAT'S THE CANONCAL PROCEDURE?

Once a bishop or superior receives an allegation of abuse by one of his priests, he is supposed to conduct a preliminary investigation. If the claim has a "semblance of truth" he sends the case to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for review.

The superior often will remove the priest from public ministry pending the outcome of the investigation.

The CDF, as the congregation is known, has a staff of 17 canon lawyers who process the cases. There has long been a case backlog, however, and at one point Francis acknowledged it had topped 2,000, with cases taking years to reach a verdict.

Usually, the CDF sends the case back to the bishop to investigate more fully, either through a full canonical trial or via an expedited administrative process. If the evidence is overwhelming and serious, the CDF can send the case straight to the pope to decide the priest's fate.

___

WHAT ARE THE PENALTIES FOR SEX ABUSERS?

Penalties can range from the mild — a temporary suspension from publicly celebrating the sacraments or exercising ministry — to the more serious, such as defrocking, which is removing a cleric from the priesthood.

Elderly priest abusers often have been spared defrockings, even for heinous crimes. Instead, they were given a lifetime of "penance and prayer."

Just last week, though, Francis defrocked 88-year-old Theodore McCarrick, the once-prominent American cardinal who was convicted by the Vatican's canon law tribunal of sexually abusing minors and adults.

___

HOW MANY PRIESTS HAVE BEEN DEFROCKED FOR SEX ABUSE?

The Vatican told a United Nations committee that 848 priests had been defrocked and another 2,572 given lesser sanctions from 2004-2014.

Since then, the Vatican has not released any more data on defrockings, evidence that such transparency was not universally welcomed in the Holy See.

There is a fierce debate within the Catholic hierarchy about whether priests should be defrocked for sex abuse or given lesser sanctions. Many powerful cardinals close to Francis, aghast at the thinning of clerical ranks from so many defrockings, favor a more "merciful" approach.

Archbishop Charles Scicluna, who enforced a tough line on abusers when he was the Vatican's lead sex crimes prosecutor from 2002-2012, has recently returned to a position of power at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. He said this week he would support releasing new defrocking statistics.

___

WHAT ABOUT ABUSE COVER-UPS?

While the Vatican under Pope Benedict XVI cracked down on abusive priests, the bishops who shielded them largely got a pass.

In 2015, with demands for accountability growing, Francis agreed to create a tribunal section within the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to handle cases accusing bishops of negligence. But a year later, he scrapped the plan.

Instead, the pope outlined procedures to investigate bishops and punish them, making clear they could be removed from office if they were found to have been negligent in handling abuse cases of their clergy.

In addition, the Vatican office that vets new bishops, in soliciting comments about potential candidates, now includes an "explicit question on how the candidate has dealt with sexual abuse issues and whether he has been criticized for not doing the right thing," Scicluna said.

___

More AP coverage of clergy sex abuse at https://www.apnews.com/Sexualabusebyclergy

Source: Fox News World

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Instagram Suppresses Pro-Life Comic As Leftists Call To Censor Artist

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Source: InfoWars

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EU to grant Brexit delay but may demand a longer extension and conditions

French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Theresa May leave after a meeting to discuss Brexit, at the Elysee Palace in Paris
French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Theresa May leave after a meeting to discuss Brexit, at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, April 9, 2019. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer

April 10, 2019

By Elizabeth Piper and Gabriela Baczynska

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Union will grant Prime Minister Theresa May a second delay to Brexit at an emergency summit on Wednesday but the bloc’s leaders are likely to demand she accepts a longer extension with conditions.

In a sign of just how far the Brexit crisis has sapped British power, May dashed to Berlin and Paris on the eve of the summit to ask Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron to allow her to put off the departure date to June 30 from April 12

But in Brussels, a “flextension” until the end of the year or until March 2020 was shaping up to be the most likely option, EU diplomats said. Such an option would allow Britain to leave earlier if the Brexit deadlock in London could be broken.

While it was not immediately clear what Merkel and Macron, Europe’s two most powerful leaders, agreed with May, an advance draft of conclusions for Wednesday’s emergency EU summit said Britain would be granted another delay on certain conditions.

“The United Kingdom shall facilitate the achievement of the Union’s tasks and refrain from any measure which could jeopardize the attainment of the Union’s objectives,” read the draft seen by Reuters.

As a full member state of the EU, Britain could in theory exercise a veto on any major policy decision.

The draft left the end-date blank pending a decision by the other 27 national leaders on Wednesday evening in Brussels.

“In my view, a short extension would not bring much,” said Detlef Seif, deputy EU spokesman for Merkel’s parliamentary group. “There is no appetite to return to a new European Council every six weeks to decide whether to renew the extension.”

In European capitals there was weariness and exasperation with Britain’s tortuous Brexit divorce after 46 years of membership.

“People are tired and fed up (with Britain’s indecision) – but what to do?” one EU diplomat said. “We won’t be the ones pushing the UK off the cliff edge.”

BREXIT CRISIS

Another EU official involved with Brexit said no European power wanted the chaos that they fear a “no-deal” exit would sow through financial markets and the EU 27’s $16 trillion economy.

Nearly two weeks after Britain was originally supposed to leave the EU, May, the weakest British prime minister in a generation, has said she fears Brexit might never happen as she battles to get a divorce deal ratified by a divided parliament.

After her pledge to resign failed to get her deal over the line, she launched crisis talks with the opposition Labour Party in the hope of breaking the domestic deadlock.

But when she arrives in Brussels, May will is unlikely to be able to trumpet any breakthrough with Labour. After Tuesday’s round of talks, Labour said it had not yet seen a clear shift in May’s stance.

The Northern Irish party which props up her government said May was embarrassing the United Kingdom.

“Nearly three years after the referendum the UK is today effectively holding out a begging bowl to European leaders,” Democratic Unionist Party deputy leader Nigel Dodds said.

An official in Macron’s office said that “in the scenario of an extended delay, one year would seem too long for us”.

He added that if Britain did delay its exit, it should not take part in EU budget talks or in choosing the next president of the EU’s executive commission – and that the other 27 member states should be able to review its “sincere cooperation”.

(Writing by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Source: OANN

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Kazakhstan’s Nazarbayev backs Tokayev for president

FILE PHOTO: Kazakhstan's President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev speaks during his meeting with South Korea's counterpart Moon Jae-in in Nur-Sultan
FILE PHOTO: Kazakhstan's President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev speaks during his meeting with South Korea's counterpart Moon Jae-in in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan April 22, 2019. REUTERS/Mukhtar Kholdorbekov

April 23, 2019

NUR-SULTAN (Reuters) – Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev on Tuesday secured veteran leader Nursultan Nazarbayev’s backing to run in the June 9 snap presidential election, virtually guaranteeing Tokayev’s victory.

Nazarbayev, who leads the oil-rich Central Asian nation’s biggest political party, Nur Otan, asked party members at a pre-election congress on Tuesday to officially nominate Tokayev.

(Reporting by Tamara Vaal; Writing by Olzhas Auyezov; Editing by Darren Schuettler)

Source: OANN

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Czech police advise indictment of prime minister for fraud

Czech police are recommending the indictment of Prime Minister Andrej Babis over alleged fraud involving European Union subsidies.

Prague's prosecution office said Wednesday it has received the results of the police investigation into Babis' possible involvement in the $2 million fraud. Prosecutors will decide whether to press charges against Babis or dismiss them.

The case involves a farm that received EU subsidies after its ownership was transferred from the Babis-owned Agrofert conglomerate of some 250 companies to Babis' family members. The subsidies were meant for medium and small businesses and Agrofert would not have been eligible for them.

Later, Agrofert again took ownership of the farm.

Babis, a populist billionaire, denies any wrongdoing.

Source: Fox News World

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Woman arrested after 7 puppies dumped in plastic bag in California, shelter says

The woman allegedly caught on camera dumping a bag of puppies next to a recycling bin in Coachella, California, was arrested Monday.

Deborah Sue Culwell, 55, was taken into custody around 5:30 p.m. on suspicion of felony animal cruelty, Riverside County Animal Services told Fox News.

'DEAD' DOG ESCAPES GRAVE, SHOCKS OWNERS, AFTER BEING ACCIDENTALLY BURIED ALIVE

Security cameras seemingly caught Culwell on Thursday afternoon driving up behind a store and getting out with a plastic bag.

The woman then was seen walking toward the bin and dropping the clear, plastic bag nearby before driving away.

Around an hour later, a man named John who was rummaging through the trash discovered puppies still alive, officials said.

Culwell allegedly dumped seven puppies. All were 3 days old and believed to be terrier mixes. Officials said had it not been for John's actions, the puppies may not have survived much longer since temperatures in Coachella on Thursday were in the mid-90s.

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John Welsh, of Riverside County Animal Services, told Fox News that around 30 dogs were found at Culwell's home on Monday.

The seven puppies Culwell was accused of dumping were doing well in the care of a foster volunteer, Welsh said.

Source: Fox News National

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Cambodian authorities have ordered a one-hour reduction in the length of school days because of concerns that students and teachers may fall ill from a prolonged heat wave.

Education Minister Hang Chuon Naron said in an announcement seen Friday that the shortened hours will remain in effect until the rainy season starts, which usually occurs in May. The current heat wave, in which temperatures are regularly reaching as high as 41 Celsius (106 Fahrenheit), is one of the longest in memory.

Most schools in Cambodia lack air conditioning, prompting concern that temperatures inside classrooms could rise to unhealthy levels.

School authorities were instructed to watch for symptoms of heat stroke and urge pupils to drink more water.

The new hours cut 30 minutes off the beginning of the school day and 30 minutes off the end.

School authorities instituted a similar measure in 2016.

Source: Fox News World

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Explosions have rocked Britain’s largest steel plant, injuring two people and shaking nearby homes.

South Wales Police say the incident at the Tata Steel plant in Port Talbot was reported at about 3:35 a.m. Friday (22:35 EDT Thursday). The explosions touched off small fires, which are under control. Two workers suffered minor injuries and all staff members have been accounted for.

Police say early indications are that the explosions were caused by a train used to carry molten metal into the plant. Tata Steel says its personnel are working with emergency services at the scene.

Local lawmaker Stephen Kinnock says the incident raises concerns about safety.

He tweeted: “It could have been a lot worse … @TataSteelEurope must conduct a full review, to improve safety.”

Source: Fox News World

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The Wider Image: China's start-ups go small in age of 'shoebox' satellites
LinkSpace’s reusable rocket RLV-T5, also known as NewLine Baby, is carried to a vacant plot of land for a test launch in Longkou, Shandong province, China, April 19, 2019. REUTERS/Jason Lee

April 26, 2019

By Ryan Woo

LONGKOU, China (Reuters) – During initial tests of their 8.1-metre (27-foot) tall reusable rocket, Chinese engineers from LinkSpace, a start-up led by China’s youngest space entrepreneur, used a Kevlar tether to ensure its safe return. Just in case.

But when the Beijing-based company’s prototype, called NewLine Baby, successfully took off and landed last week for the second time in two months, no tether was needed.

The 1.5-tonne rocket hovered 40 meters above the ground before descending back to its concrete launch pad after 30 seconds, to the relief of 26-year-old chief executive Hu Zhenyu and his engineers – one of whom cartwheeled his way to the launch pad in delight.

LinkSpace, one of China’s 15-plus private rocket manufacturers, sees these short hops as the first steps towards a new business model: sending tiny, inexpensive satellites into orbit at affordable prices.

Demand for these so-called nanosatellites – which weigh less than 10 kilograms (22 pounds) and are in some cases as small as a shoebox – is expected to explode in the next few years. And China’s rocket entrepreneurs reckon there is no better place to develop inexpensive launch vehicles than their home country.

“For suborbital clients, their focus will be on scientific research and some commercial uses. After entering orbit, the near-term focus (of clients) will certainly be on satellites,” Hu said.

In the near term, China envisions massive constellations of commercial satellites that can offer services ranging from high-speed internet for aircraft to tracking coal shipments. Universities conducting experiments and companies looking to offer remote-sensing and communication services are among the potential domestic customers for nanosatellites.

A handful of U.S. small-rocket companies are also developing launchers ahead of the expected boom. One of the biggest, Rocket Lab, has already put 25 satellites in orbit.

No private company in China has done that yet. Since October, two – LandSpace and OneSpace – have tried but failed, illustrating the difficulties facing space start-ups everywhere.

The Chinese companies are approaching inexpensive launches in different ways. Some, like OneSpace, are designing cheap, disposable boosters. LinkSpace’s Hu aspires to build reusable rockets that return to Earth after delivering their payload, much like the Falcon 9 rockets of Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

“If you’re a small company and you can only build a very, very small rocket because that’s all you have money for, then your profit margins are going to be narrower,” said Macro Caceres, analyst at U.S. aerospace consultancy Teal Group.

“But if you can take that small rocket and make it reusable, and you can launch it once a week, four times a month, 50 times a year, then with more volume, your profit increases,” Caceres added.

Eventually LinkSpace hopes to charge no more than 30 million yuan ($4.48 million) per launch, Hu told Reuters.

That is a fraction of the $25 million to $30 million needed for a launch on a Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems Pegasus, a commonly used small rocket. The Pegasus is launched from a high-flying aircraft and is not reusable.

(Click https://reut.rs/2UVBjKs to see a picture package of China’s rocket start-ups. Click https://tmsnrt.rs/2GIy9Bc for an interactive look at the nascent industry.)

NEED FOR CASH

LinkSpace plans to conduct suborbital launch tests using a bigger recoverable rocket in the first half of 2020, reaching altitudes of at least 100 kilometers, then an orbital launch in 2021, Hu told Reuters.

The company is in its third round of fundraising and wants to raise up to 100 million yuan, Hu said. It had secured tens of millions of yuan in previous rounds.

After a surge in fresh funding in 2018, firms like LinkSpace are pushing out prototypes, planning more tests and even proposing operational launches this year.

Last year, equity investment in China’s space start-ups reached 3.57 billion yuan ($533 million), a report by Beijing-based investor FutureAerospace shows, with a burst of financing in late 2018.

That accounted for about 18 percent of global space start-up investments in 2018, a historic high, according to Reuters calculations based on a global estimate by Space Angels. The New York-based venture capital firm said global space start-up investments totaled $2.97 billion last year.

“Costs for rocket companies are relatively high, but as to how much funding they need, be it in the hundreds of millions, or tens of millions, or even just a few million yuan, depends on the company’s stage of development,” said Niu Min, founder of FutureAerospace.

FutureAerospace has invested tens of millions of yuan in LandSpace, based in Beijing.

Like space-launch startups elsewhere in the world, the immediate challenge for Chinese entrepreneurs is developing a safe and reliable rocket.

Proven talent to develop such hardware can be found in China’s state research institutes or the military; the government directly supports private firms by allowing them to launch from military-controlled facilities.

But it’s still a high-risk business, and one unsuccessful launch might kill a company.

“The biggest problem facing all commercial space companies, especially early-stage entrepreneurs, is failure” of an attempted flight, Liang Jianjun, chief executive of rocket company Space Trek, told Reuters. That can affect financing, research, manufacturing and the team’s morale, he added.

Space Trek is planning its first suborbital launch by the end of June and an orbital launch next year, said Liang, who founded the company in late 2017 with three other former military technical officers.

Despite LandSpace’s failed Zhuque-1 orbital launch in October, the Beijing-based firm secured 300 million yuan in additional funding for the development of its Zhuque-2 rocket a month later.

In December, the company started operating China’s first private rocket production facility in Zhejiang province, in anticipation of large-scale manufacturing of its Zhuque-2, which it expects to unveil next year.

STATE COMPETITION

China’s state defense contractors are also trying to get into the low-cost market.

In December, the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp (CASIC) successfully launched a low-orbit communication satellite, the first of 156 that CASIC aims to deploy by 2022 to provide more stable broadband connectivity to rural China and eventually developing countries.

The satellite, Hongyun-1, was launched on a rocket supplied by the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp (CASC), the nation’s main space contractor.

In early April, the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALVT), a subsidiary of CASC, completed engine tests for its Dragon, China’s first rocket meant solely for commercial use, clearing the path for a maiden flight before July.

The Dragon, much bigger than the rockets being developed by private firms, is designed to carry multiple commercial satellites.

At least 35 private Chinese companies are working to produce more satellites.

Spacety, a satellite maker based in southern Hunan province, plans to put 20 satellites in orbit this year, including its first for a foreign client, chief executive Yang Feng told Reuters.

The company has only launched 12 on state-produced rockets since the company started operating in early 2016.

“When it comes to rocket launches, what we care about would be cost, reliability and time,” Yang said.

(Reporting by Ryan Woo; Additional reporting by Beijing newsroom; Editing by Gerry Doyle)

Source: OANN

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At least one person is reported dead and homes have been destroyed by a powerful cyclone that struck northern Mozambique and continues to dump rain on the region, with the United Nations warning of “massive flooding.”

Cyclone Kenneth arrived just six weeks after Cyclone Idai tore into central Mozambique, killing more than 600 people and displacing scores of thousands. The U.N. says this is the first time in known history that the southern African nation has been hit by two cyclones in one season.

Forecasters say the new cyclone made landfall Thursday night in a part of Mozambique that has not seen such a storm in at least 60 years.

Mozambique’s local emergency operations center says a woman in the city of Pemba was killed by a falling tree.

Source: Fox News World

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German drug and crop chemical maker Bayer holds annual general meeting
Werner Baumann, CEO of German pharmaceutical and chemical maker Bayer AG, attends the annual general shareholders meeting in Bonn, Germany, April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay

April 26, 2019

By Patricia Weiss and Ludwig Burger

BONN (Reuters) – Bayer shareholders vented their anger over its stock price slump on Friday as litigation risks mount from the German drugmaker’s $63 billion takeover of seed maker Monsanto.

Several large investors said they will not support aspirin investor Bayer’s management in a key vote scheduled for the end of its annual general meeting.

Bayer’s management, led by chief executive Werner Baumann, could see an embarrassing plunge in approval ratings, down from 97 percent at last year’s AGM, which was held shortly before the Monsanto takeover closed in June.

A vote to ratify the board’s actions features prominently at every German AGM. Although it has no bearing on management’s liability, it is seen as a key gauge of shareholder sentiment.

“Due to the continued negative development at Bayer, high legal risks and a massive share price slump, we refuse to ratify the management board and supervisory board’s actions during the business year,” Janne Werning, representing Germany’s Union Investment, a top-20 shareholder, said in prepared remarks.

About 30 billion euros ($34 billion) have been wiped off Bayer’s market value since August, when a U.S. jury found the pesticide and drugs group liable because Monsanto had not warned of alleged cancer risks linked to its weedkiller Roundup.

Bayer suffered a similar defeat last month and more than 13,000 plaintiffs are claiming damages.

Bayer is appealing or plans to appeal the verdicts.

Deutsche Bank’s asset managing arm DWS said shareholders should have been consulted before the takeover, which was agreed in 2016 and closed in June last year.

“You are pointing out that the lawsuits have not been lost yet. We and our customers, however, have already lost something – money and trust,” Nicolas Huber, head of corporate governance at DWS, said in prepared remarks for the AGM.

He said DWS would abstain from the shareholder vote of confidence in the executive and non-executive boards.

Two people familiar with the situation told Reuters this week that Bayer’s largest shareholder, BlackRock, plans to either abstain from or vote against ratifying the management board’s actions.

Asset management firm Deka, among Bayer’s largest German investors, has also said it would cast a no vote.

Baumann said Bayer’s true value was not reflected in the current share price.

“There’s no way to make this look good. The lawsuits and the first verdicts weigh heavily on our company and it’s a concern for many people,” he said, adding it was the right decision to buy Monsanto and that Bayer was vigorously defending itself.

This month, shareholder advisory firms Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) and Glass Lewis recommended investors not to give the executive board their seal of approval.

(Reporting by Patricia Weiss and Ludwig Burger; Editing by Alexander Smith)

Source: OANN

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