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The Latest: Avenatti says he’ll plead not guilty to charges

The Latest on new federal charges against attorney Michael Avenatti (all times local):

7:30 a.m.

Attorney Michael Avenatti says he will plead not guilty to a 36-count federal indictment filed against him in Southern California.

Avenatti tweeted Thursday that he intends to fight all of the charges and says he looks forward to the truth being known, as opposed to what he characterizes as a "one-sided version."

A statement from prosecutors to news outlets says details of the case will be released Thursday morning by U.S. Attorney Nick Hanna and the Internal Revenue Service in Los Angeles.

The new charges follow Avenatti's arrest in New York last month for allegedly trying to shake down Nike for up to $25 million and on two counts of wire and bank fraud from Southern California, where his firm is based.

___

7:05 a.m.

Federal prosecutors say attorney Michael Avenatti has been charged in a 36-count federal indictment in Southern California.

A statement from prosecutors to news outlets says details of the case will be released Thursday morning by U.S. Attorney Nick Hanna and the Internal Revenue Service.

The new charges follow Avenatti's arrest in New York last month for allegedly trying to shake down Nike for up to $25 million and on two counts of wire and bank fraud from Southern California, where his firm is based.

The attorney is best known for representing porn actress Stormy Daniels in lawsuits against President Donald Trump. Avenatti has said he expects to be cleared.

Source: Fox News National

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Euro zone governments worry over Italy’s low growth: Eurogroup

FILE PHOTO: Eurozone finance ministers meeting in Brussels
FILE PHOTO: Eurogroup President Mario Centeno attends a news conference at the end of a eurozone finance ministers meeting in Brussels, Belgium, December 4, 2018. REUTERS/Yves Herman/File Photo

April 23, 2019

By Axel Bugge and Sergio Goncalves

LISBON (Reuters) – The euro zone is worried about the heavily indebted Italian economy’s weak growth and needs Rome to implement its budget plans “with credibility”, the head of the currency bloc’s group of finance ministers said.

Speaking in an interview with Reuters, Mario Centeno, who leads the Eurogroup of 19 ministers, said it was essential that the euro zone’s third-largest economy returned to growth while meeting its budget targets.

“It is a challenge we should never be complacent about and that is why there is worry. That is where the big challenge of the Italian economy is — to grow,” he said.

Centeno was speaking late on Monday, on the eve of a Rome cabinet meeting to discuss stimulus measures. That meeting on Tuesday evening is expected to sign off on tax breaks, investment incentives and debt relief for local government.

Italy last year unveiled a big-spending budget for 2019, rattling the euro and other financial markets, but it has so far had little impact on growth. The economy slipped into technical recession at the end of 2018 and is now barely expanding.

The government, a fractious two-party coalition, downgraded its 2019 growth outlook this month to just 0.2 percent, from a December forecast of 1 percent. Its budget deficit is now set to climb to 2.4 percent of gross domestic product, above a goal of 2.04 percent previously agreed with the European Commission.

“Italy is facing some difficulties in this economic cycle,” Centeno said.

“The message is relatively simple: the government has a demanding budget to execute and it needs to be executed with credibility, and we need to gather all our efforts to reverse Italy’s growth tendency.”

Italy’s mix of high debt and low growth has shaken investors who have pushed relative yields on sovereign debt to high levels not only against German government bonds, considered the euro zone’s safest, but also above Spanish and Portuguese paper.

Centeno is also the finance minister of Portugal, which is often praised as an example in Europe for its combination of budget discipline with economic growth over the past few years.

Italy, the euro zone’s second-most indebted nation after Greece, had public debts equaling 132.2 percent of GDP in 2018, up from 131.4 percent in 2017. This year, its economy is again expected to expand less than all its euro-zone peers.

EURO ZONE REFORM

Despite the challenges of Italy and broadly slower growth across Europe, Centeno stressed that the euro zone had experienced a record 22 quarters of uninterrupted growth.

The budget positions of the euro zone’s 19 members are closer than at any time since 1995, thanks to reforms carried out during the debt crisis, he said.

That has resulted in the creation of about 10 million jobs in the euro area since 2013 and brought investment levels close to where they were before the 2009-14 euro debt crisis, he said.

“Europe reformed, today the euro zone is more robust and credible than it was five, six years ago,” he said.

To further reform the euro area and boost competitiveness, Centeno said a common budgetary instrument would go into effect in 2021 when the EU’s next multi-year budget began.

The new tool would set aside existing European funds to support reforms and convergence between economies and to help investments in countries facing temporary economic shocks.

A final decision on funding it is likely to be made in October.

Centeno has pushed hard for the creation of a common budget for the euro, calling it a longer-term project that would “make the euro area more robust and resilient”.

(Editing by Mark Bendeich and Andrei Khalip)

Source: OANN

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Sunday Show: Democrats Totally Losing Their Minds as 2020 Nears

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Confirmed: Mueller seeking subpoena, contempt citation against foreign corporation

Documents filed with the Supreme Court and unsealed on Wednesday revealed definitively, and for the first time, that Special Counsel Robert Mueller is the party seeking a grand jury subpoena and subsequent contempt citation against an unnamed, government-controlled foreign corporation that has resisted prosecutors' efforts at every turn.

Fox News has previously reported on strong indications that Mueller’s office was behind the case, although neither his office nor lawyers for the unnamed overseas company would provide confirmation.

The proceedings are believed to be linked to attempts by Mueller's team to secure information to present to an empaneled grand jury in the special counsel's Russia investigation. Mueller is looking into not only whether members of President Trump's inner circle improperly colluded with Russia, but also a range of other matters pertaining to foreign activities by high-ranking Americans.

Court proceedings have been closed to the public, and court documents have redacted the name of the corporation. During oral arguments in the case late last year, court officials shuttered an entire floor of the federal courthouse in Washington, D.C., from the public and the press.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller has doggedly pursued a subpoena against an unnamed foreign corporation.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller has doggedly pursued a subpoena against an unnamed foreign corporation.

“Earlier this year, Special Counsel Robert Mueller served a grand jury subpoena on is a 'foreign state' as the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act defines the term," the unsealed filing, written by lawyers for the unknown corporation, reads. "From the outset, argued that it is immune under the FSIA from complying with, a criminal subpoena because American courts lack criminal jurisdiction over foreign states. The Special Counsel has argued from the outset that the FSIA does not apply to criminal proceedings and that, if it does, the statute's exceptions can support criminal jurisdiction over a foreign state.”

In January, the Supreme Court issued an unsigned order refusing to dismiss a contempt citation from a federal judge against the corporation for failure to comply with Mueller's subpoena.

WHAT DID CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS SAY LAST YEAR ABOUT MYSTERY CORPORATION'S SUBPOENA?

The unnamed company -- listed cryptically in court records as owned by "Country A" -- had challenged the subpoena from a federal grand jury in Washington, including daily fines, after it refused to turn over requested documents to U.S. investigators.

The corporation argued that complying with the subpoena would violate the laws of its country and thus constitute an undue hardship. But in December, a three-judge panel for the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals held otherwise.

The judges ruled "that text of the foreign law provision the Corporation relies on does not support its position" and found that the country's counsel -- and a regulator from the country -- offered only an "atextual" contrary interpretation that lacked "critical indicia of reliability."

The appellate panel also rejected the corporation's argument that the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act rendered it immune from prosecutors' request.

An interpretation of federal law that "would completely insulate corporations majority owned by foreign governments from all criminal liability," the judges wrote, "seems in far greater tension with Congress’s choice to codify a theory of foreign sovereign immunity designed to allow regulation of foreign nations acting as ordinary market participants."

The panel found "that text of the foreign law provision the Corporation relies on does not support its position" and found that the country's counsel -- and a regulator from the country -- offered only an "atextual" contrary interpretation that lacked "critical indicia of reliability."

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Shortly after the Supreme Court issued its order upholding the contempt citation, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a separate, partially redacted opinion upholding its earlier ruling against the company. The opinion noted that the company is facing a $50,000-per-day fine for failure to turn over the documents. The papers in question are kept overseas, though the company does have an office in the U.S.

The opinion also noted that prosecutors have been trying to obtain the information since at least this past summer, and the three-judge panel determined it could get involved in the dispute because "there is a reasonable probability the information sought through the subpoena here concerns a commercial activity that caused a direct effect in the United States."

Source: Fox News Politics

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Mozambique starts three days of mourning after cyclone kills hundreds

Drone footage shows destruction after Cyclone Idai in the settlement of Praia Nova, which sits on the edge of Beira
Drone footage shows destruction after Cyclone Idai in the settlement of Praia Nova, which sits on the edge of Beira, Mozambique, March 18, 2019 in this still image taken from a social media video on March 19, 2019. International Federation Of Red Cross And Red Crescent Societies via REUTERS

March 20, 2019

MAPUTO/HARARE (Reuters) – Mozambique started three days of national mourning on Wednesday after powerful cyclone winds and flooding killed hundreds of people and left a massive trail of destruction across swathes of southeast Africa.

Cylone Idai, which hit Mozambique’s port city of Beira on Thursday before moving inland, brought winds of up to 170 kph (105 mph) which flattened buildings and put the lives of millions of people at risk.

Mozambique’s President Filipe Nyusi said in a televised statement on Tuesday that the cyclone had killed more than 200 people in Mozambique but that more bodies were still being discovered.

In neighboring Zimbabwe, the official death count stands at 98 but is likely to grow as hundreds are still missing.

Rescue crews are still struggling to reach victims, while aid groups say many survivors are trapped in remote areas, surrounded by wrecked roads and submerged villages.

“Challenges remain in terms of the search and rescue of thousands of people, including children,” UNICEF said. It estimated that 260,000 children were at risk in Mozambique. The Red Cross has said at least 400,000 people have been made homeless in central Mozambique alone.

Beira, a low-lying coastal city of 500,000 people, is home to Mozambique’s second-largest port and serves as a gateway to landlocked countries in the region.

Local media reported that there were food and fuel shortages in central Mozambique because Beira was cut off by road.

In eastern Zimbabwe grieving families are rushing to bury their dead because the cyclone has knocked out power supplies and stopped mortuaries from functioning. Zimbabwe’s Grain Millers Association said 100 trucks carrying wheat destined for Zimbabwe were stuck in Beira.

The European Union announced on Tuesday an initial emergency aid package of 3.5 million euros ($3.97 million) to Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe for emergency shelters, hygiene, sanitation and health care. Britain has also pledged aid.

(Reporting by Manuel Mucari and MacDonald Dzirutwe; Additional reporting by Catarina Demony; Writing by Alexander Winning; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

Source: OANN

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MAGAPHOBIA: Elderly man attacked in New Jersey for wearing MAGA hat

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An elderly man was attacked in a supermarket while wearing a MAGA cap, in the latest act of violence and hate towards supporters of President Trump.

The attack occurred at a Shoprite in Somerset, N.J., according to local prosecutors.

The man, whose name has not been released, suffered “minor” injuries, according to NBC 4, a New York-based affiliate of NBC News.

Continue reading here.

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Trump awards posthumous Medal of Honor to Army Staff Sgt. Trevor Atkins

President Trump awarded the Medal of Honor on Wednesday to a U.S. Army staff sergeant killed when he subdued a suicide bomber in Iraq in 2007, saving three members of his unit.

Trump presented the medal –the nation's highest military award for battlefield valor – to the family of Staff Sgt. Travis Atkins during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House.

"Today the name of Staff Sgt. Travis Atkins will be etched alongside the names of America's greatest warriors," Trump said.

Atkin’s son, Trevor, who was 11 at the time of his father’s death, received the medal for his father alongside other members of his family. Trevor remembered the stories his father told him while he was in the military and said the greatest honor his father could receive was the kind words he's heard from his fellow soldiers.

"The medal is something I take a lot of pride in, but it's those words that I take the most pride in," Atkins said.

TRUMP TO PRESENT MEDAL OF HONOR TO KIN OF FALLEN ARMY STAFF SERGEANT WHO SAVED SOLDIERS' LIVES IN IRAQ

Atkins, 31, of Bozeman, Mont., was a member of the Army’s 10th Mountain Division, based out of Fort Drum, N.Y., and was on his second tour of duty in Iraq at the time of his death.

Atkins deployed to Iraq in 2003 and was later honorably discharged as a sergeant. He re-enlisted in 2005 after attending the University of Montana and deployed to Iraq again in 2006. He was promoted to staff sergeant in May 2007, a month before he was killed.

On June 1, 2007, Atkins was on patrol with his unit, looking for a captured American soldier in the town of Abu Samak in Iraq’s volatile Anbar Province. The unit stopped a pair of suspected insurgents. Leaving the protected cover of his Humvee, Atkins approached the two men and quickly realized that one was wearing a suicide vest.

While engaged in hand-to-hand combat, Atkins wrestled the insurgent to the ground as he was attempting to detonate the vest. Atkins had the insurgent pinned to the ground and used his body as human shield to protect his fellow soldiers from the blast.

According to the White House, that valorous act saved three members of his unit that day. The three  were on hand for Wednesday's ceremony.

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Atkins' death came during the bloodiest year for U.S. forces in the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, with a total of 764 service members dying in combat. Of those casualties, 85 percent were from the Army.

The Medal of Honor is the nation’s highest award for valor, and has only been awarded to 3,504 men and one woman since it was created during the Civil War.

More than half, since World War II, have been awarded posthumously. The Iraq War is the only conflict in which none of its Medal of Honor recipients – Atkins is the fifth -- survived the act of valor being honored.

Fox News’ Lucas Tomlinson and Frank Miles contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News Politics

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Logo of the Exxon Mobil Corp is seen at the Rio Oil and Gas Expo and Conference in Rio de Janeiro
FILE PHOTO: A logo of the Exxon Mobil Corp is seen at the Rio Oil and Gas Expo and Conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil September 24, 2018. REUTERS/Sergio Moraes

April 26, 2019

(Reuters) – Exxon Mobil Corp on Friday reported first-quarter profit fell sharply on lower oil and gas prices and weakness in its refining and chemicals businesses that offset modest production gains.

The largest U.S. oil producer’s first quarter earnings fell to $2.35 billion, or 55 cents a share, from $4.65 billion, or $1.09 a share, a year ago.

Analysts had expected Exxon to earn 70 cents per share, according to Refinitiv Eikon estimates.

Shares were trading down about 2.7 percent in premarket trading on Friday.

Exxon’s oil equivalent production rose 2 percent to 4 million barrels per day, up from 3.9 million bpd in the same period the year prior. The company said its output in the Permian Basin, the largest U.S. shale basin, rose 140 percent over a year ago.

(Reporting by Jennifer Hiller; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

Source: OANN

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A Baha’i advocacy group has expressed concerns over the fate of minority Baha’is at the hands of Yemen’s Houthi rebels ahead of the appeals hearing for one of the community leaders sentenced to death.

The Baha’i International Community said in a statement Friday that the hearing for Hamed bin Haydara, detained in 2013 and sentenced to death last year on espionage and apostasy charges, is due on Tuesday.

The statement quotes Bani Dugal, the Baha’i community representative at the United Nations, as saying the prosecution hasn’t addressed Haydara’s appeal but is instead making “absurd, wide-ranging accusations.”

International rights groups have decried the prosecution of Yemeni Baha’is by the Iran-backed Houthis.

Iran has banned the Baha’i religion, which was founded in 1844 by a Persian nobleman considered a prophet by followers.

Source: Fox News World

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Afghan President Ashraf Ghani speaks during the inauguration of the newly-elected parliament in Kabul
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani speaks during the inauguration of the newly-elected parliament in Kabul, Afghanistan April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Omar Sobhani

April 26, 2019

By Rupam Jain and Hameed Farzad

KABUL (Reuters) – Afghan President Ashraf Ghani encouraged newly-elected lawmakers to participate in the peace process with the Taliban as he opened on Friday the first session of parliament since a controversial election.

Ghani has invited thousands of politicians, religious scholars and rights activists to an assembly known as a loya jirga next week to discuss ways to end the 17-year war.

Several opposition leaders have said they will boycott the four-day assembly in Kabul, saying it was pulled together without their input and is being used by Ghani as he seeks a second term in a September presidential election.

“We have presented the peace plan on a regular basis and we are committed to it,” Ghani said in the first session since parliamentary elections marred by technical problems, militant attacks and accusations of voting fraud last year.

“Based on this plan, there will be no peace deal and negotiation that does not have the green card of the parliament,” he added.

Officials from the United States and the Taliban have held several rounds of talks to end the Afghan war.

U.S. negotiator, Zalmay Khalilzad, has reported some progress toward an accord on a U.S. troop withdrawal and on how the Taliban would prevent extremists from using Afghanistan to launch attacks as al Qaeda did on Sept. 11, 2001.

The insurgents have so far rejected U.S. demands for a ceasefire and talks on the country’s political future that would include Afghan government officials.

The loya jirga, a centuries-old institution used to build consensus among competing tribes, factions and ethnic groups, is an attempt by Ghani to influence the peace talks and cement his position for a second term, Afghan politicians and Western diplomats say.

Amid growing political divisions in Kabul, opposition politicians have demanded that Ghani step down when his mandate ends next month, and give way to an interim government to oversee peace talks with the Taliban. Ghani has ruled that out.

The country’s top court said last week Ghani can stay in office until the presidential election in September.

(Reporting by Hameed Farzad, Rupam Jain, Editing by Darren Schuettler)

Source: OANN

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Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein Thursday defended special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation while slamming former President Barack Obama’s administration for being slow to take action on Russian interference in U.S. elections and ex-FBI Director James Comey for telling Congress the agency was investigating collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

“Our nation is safer, elections are more secure, and citizens are better informed about covert foreign influence schemes,” Rosenstein said in a speech to the Armenian Bar Association, marking his first public remarks after the Mueller report was released, reports CBS News.

He also pointed out that the investigation revealed a pattern of computer hacking and the use of social media to undermine elections as “only the tip of the iceberg of a comprehensive Russian strategy to influence elections, promote social discord, and undermine America, just like they do in many other countries,” reports The Wall Street Journal.

The Obama administration also made “critical decisions,” including choosing not to publicize the full story about Russian hackers and social media trolling, “and how they relate to a broader strategy to undermine America,” said Rosenstein.

He noted that the Mueller probe began after Comey disclosed during a hearing before Congress that President Donald Trump “pressured him to close the investigation and the president denied that the conversation occurred.”

Rosenstein said two years ago, when he was confirmed, he was told by a Republican senator that he would be in charge of the probe and that he’d report the results to the American people.

However, he said he didn’t promise to do that, because it is “not our job to render conclusive factual findings. We just decide whether it is appropriate to file criminal charges.”

Source: NewsMax Politics

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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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