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China’s troubled Anbang to slash registered capital by a third

A general view shows the headquarters of Anbang Insurance Group in Beijing
FILE PHOTO: A general view shows the headquarters of Anbang Insurance Group in Beijing, China, February 23, 2018. REUTERS/Thomas Peter

April 17, 2019

BEIJING/SINGAPORE (Reuters) – China’s Anbang Insurance Group Co said it would reduce its registered capital by nearly one-third, the latest government-directed step of a massive restructuring of the debt-laden conglomerate to curb financial risks.

A state takeover work group, which has seized control of Anbang since February last year, has decided to trim the company’s registered capital to 41.5 billion yuan ($6.21 billion) from 61.9 billion yuan, pending approval from the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, Anbang said in a statement released on Tuesday.

The capital reduction will not influence the company’s operations or cause any major impact on its solvency and financial situations, Anbang said.

The move is the latest step by Beijing to steadily clean up the aftermath of a harsh government crackdown on Anbang – once one of China’s most aggressive dealmakers overseas with a series of major acquisitions that have caught the attention of global regulators and investors.

Anbang’s former chairman, Wu Xiaohui, who masterminded the overseas deal spree including the purchase of New York’s Waldorf Astoria hotel, was sentenced in May 2018 to 18 years imprisonment for fraud and embezzlement. His appeal against the conviction was rejected by a Chinese court in August last year.

Creditors of the company may request Anbang to pay off its debts or provide repayment guarantees within 45 days after the announcement, the company added.

(Reporting by Cheng Leng in BEIJING and Shu Zhang in SINGAPORE; Editing by Gopakumar Warrier)

Source: OANN

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The Censors Take Aim At Alex Jones

Within hours of Alex Jones and Infowars providing thousands of emails to lawyers for the plaintiffs in a lawsuit brought by surviving family members of the mass shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012, the Huffington Post contacted Mr. Jones. We have your emails, they said. We’re going to publish them. Do you want to comment?

And when lawyers for Mr. Jones went to court in Connecticut this week, NPR read the pleadings filed by the plaintiffs before Mr. Jones had a chance to do so. NPR didn’t call to ask for comment. It just read the plaintiffs’s pleading and ran with it as breaking news.

Just who leaked this material to the press in an effort to keep the press at Mr. Jones’s throat isn’t clear, even if no one will admit to having done so. Indeed, one of the law firms involved in this litigation regularly holds press conferences, replete with a blue background for a stage worthy of the Academy Awards, the firm’s name blazoned on the screen for all to see, no matter what is being said.

There is no mob quite so dangerous as a self-righteous mob, and, believe me, there’s a mob of would-be censors ready to limit free speech in the name of what makes them comfortable.

And then there is Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut. Did a father of one of the Newtown child victims commit suicide this week? It’s Alex Jones’s fault, the Senator said, before any facts were known. Murphy’s a one-trick pony, having ridden the Sandy Hook shootings all the way from obscurity to the U.S. Senate.

It’s open season on Alex Jones. He’s unpopular, and the forces of righteousness are aligned against him. Mr. Jones’s speech, we are told, is toxic. It must be stopped. Google, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter have de-platformed Mr. Jones.

But still Mr. Jones and Infowar continue to broadcast.

What’s all this about?

It’s about the marketplace of ideas. What critics of Mr. Jones fail to realize is that ideas matter. People listen to Mr. Jones because he provides them with a forum. Some of the things folks say to Mr. Jones, some of the things Mr. Jones says, make folks uncomfortable. No one is forced to listen to Mr. Jones. No one is forced to watch InfoWars. People do so because they find something they need there.

Rather than attacking the messenger, folks ought to ask what forces in American life make the message appealing.

I represent Mr. Jones and InfoWars in Connecticut lawsuits brought by surviving family members of victims in Sandy Hook. A separate suit is filed by surviving family members in Texas. Both suits are based on the premise Mr. Jones spread the opinion that Sandy Hook never happened. That crisis actors played roles to create mass hysteria. That the government benefits from this hysteria by making it easier to do such things as limit the right to bear arms.

This is an outlandish form an old genre in American life – the conspiracy theory. Indeed, the Connecticut complaints against Mr. Jones read in part like an undergraduate term paper, replete with a footnote to Richard Hofstadter’s The Paranoid Style in American Politics, published in 1964. The plaintiffs’s lawyers don’t realize that Hofstadter is Exhibit A in Mr. Jones’s defense – conspiracy theory is old news in American life. Doubt it? Look at the back of a dollar bill and try to explain all the symbolism on it.

I’ll leave to the courtroom battle the case involving Mr. Jones. Among the questions to be addressed in that case: Did Mr. Jones host others on a talk show who called Sandy Hook a hoax? If so, isn’t that protected speech? Did Mr. Jones entertain the possibility that it was a hoax, after listening to guests on his show? If so, isn’t that protected speech? Did some people who viewed Mr. Jones’s broadcasts then harass surviving family members of Sandy Hook? If so, what strained theory of causation makes that the fault of Mr. Jones? And if Mr. Jones did believe the shooting was a hoax, how is that different from believing the government killed JFK?

And then there is the central question: How many of the allegations now hurled causally at Mr. Jones are about things he actually said? Some of the allegations now have the status of urban legend. Mr. Jones has become a cipher, a symbol for the hatred of the self-righteous.

There was a time when victims of the horrific were honored, pitied, and provided the time and space they needed for respectable grief. Today victims become instant celebrities and props for the political interests of others. Enterprising victims become spokespersons and public figures. We’ve weaponized pathos. It’s small wonder the misused victims feel even more crushing despair when the glare of sympathy is redirected to newer, more fashionable and au courant victims.

We used to say that no person could be a judge in their own case. Now we flock to the aggrieved to let them pass judgment on the rest of us. Is it any wonder our politics is rudderless and empty suits like Chris Murphy can ride a national tragedy to national office?
I’ve taken to watching Infowars as I prepare to defend Mr. Jones and his companies. Here’s what I have learned thus far – people watch the show, and then call in to the show, to be heard. Mr. Jones listens. He is a far more reasonable listener than many of the callers. Where will these callers go if censors succeed in silencing Infowars?

One theory of freedom of speech is that it serves the purpose of finding the truth by testing ideas in the marketplace of ideas. Hence, the antidote to hateful speech is no enforced silence, but more speech. “If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the process of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence,” The Supreme Court wrote in Whitney v. California, a 1927 decision upholding the right of a Communist to advocate overthrow of the United States government. The same rationale led the American Civil Liberties Union to defend the right of Nazis to march in Skokie, Illinois, through a community of holocaust survivors.

ACLU has retreated today behind a barrier of cowardice, preferring comfortable conformity and solicitude for the censor to the risks that free speech imposes. We are all worse off as a result.

So keep an eye on the Huffington Post. Rest assured that the tongue-clucking editors will select the most outrageous emails they can find. Look! Their pieces will scream. Look at these outrageous ideas! Did the CIA really stage Sandy Hook!? They will ridicule. All this in support of some version of orthodoxy.

I am far less frightened by the cranky opinions of the village eccentric than I am by the demand of the censor. From social media comes the avalanche of hate, either from the left of the right — not long ago I was labeled racist after posting a picture I thought funny; not one of those who were so quick to scorn me actually critically engaged in a discussion of what made a photo of beer bottles into a sign of racism. Politicians want more. They want limits on speech. On what can be said and how it can be said. You know where that leads, don’t you? To censorhip.
I can ignore the crank. I don’t have to watch Infowars or MSNBC. But the government official with a warrant is harder to ignore. To the government I must yield my liberty, even my life. The government scares me in a way Alex Jones never will.

I expect to win the Alex Jones lawsuit. Not because his speech is popular – it is not in the communities close to Sandy Hook. I expect to win it because there is a long history of freedom of expression, even of crazy conspiracy theories, in the United States. Mr. Jones isn’t an outlier. What’s changed is our political culture. Perhaps a goodly number of Americans are prepared to sacrifice the First Amendment on an altar of solicitude. I’m betting – and hoping — that won’t happen in the case against Infowars, regardless of what the Huffington Post publishes in the days to come.

Norm Pattis is a Connecticut based trial lawyer focused on high stakes criminal cases and civil right violations. He is a veteran of more than 100 jury trials, many resulting in acquittals for people charged with serious crimes, multi-million dollar civil rights and discrimination verdicts, and scores of cases favorably settled.

Source: InfoWars

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Dalai Lama hospitalized with chest infection, feeling better

The Dalai Lama has been hospitalized in the Indian capital with a chest infection and is feeling better.

Spokesman Tenzin Taklha says the Dalai Lama is under medication and likely to spend a day or two in the hospital.

The Tibetan spiritual leader flew from Dharmsala for consultations with doctors in the capital and was hospitalized on Tuesday. The north Indian hill town has been his headquarters since he fled Tibet in 1959 following a failed uprising against Chinese rule.

Takhla said Wednesday the 83-year-old Dalai Lama was feeling much better now.

The Dalai Lama spends several months a year traveling the world to teach Buddhism and highlight the Tibetans' struggle for greater freedom in China.

Source: Fox News World

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Virginia AG: Testing eliminates pre-2014 rape kit backlog

Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring says the first phase of a $3.4 million effort to eliminate the state's rape kit backlog is complete.

Herring announced in a statement Wednesday that testing is complete on 1,770 previously untested kits that were collected before 2014, including some that went untested for decades.

As a result of the testing, officials say 239 "hits" were sent to law enforcement agencies for further investigation, including 144 that confirmed the identity of a previously known suspect and 56 in cases that had been previously cleared by arrest. Officials say at least 58 cases have been reopened for investigation or are currently under review for potential reopening.

The testing also led to 568 DNA profiles being uploaded into CODIS, the national Combined DNA Index System.

Source: Fox News National

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Top Algerian businessman is arrested at Tunisian border

Algerian media say a top Algerian businessman, Ali Haddad, has been arrested at an Algerian border post as he was apparently trying to go to Tunisia amid political crisis in the country.

Journalists at Haddad's private television channel Dzair News said he was arrested overnight in Oum Tboul, close to the Tunisian border, confirming a report from the daily El Watan.

Haddad, long a backer of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, resigned this week as head of Algeria's Business Forum, apparently trying to distance himself from the unpopular leader whose government has been accused of corruption.

Massive protests started last month to demand that the ailing, 82-year-old president resign. Bouteflika, who has been in power for 20 years, withdrew from running for a new term but cancelled Algeria's April 18 presidential election.

Source: Fox News World

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The Latest: 2 dead in Louisiana tornado were mother and son

The Latest on a tornado that tore through Louisiana early Thursday(all times local):

10:10 a.m.

A mother and son in northern Louisiana were killed by a tree that fell on their home during a tornado that tore through the area.

Mike Steele is communications director for Louisiana's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness and said those were currently the only two known deaths in Louisiana from the storm. But he said rescue workers were still combing through the area. He could not give their names or ages.

National Weather Service hydrologist C. S. Ross says it appears the tornado cut a track over 130 miles (209 kilometers) from eastern Texas to the Louisiana-Arkansas border.

The city of Ruston sustained some of the worst damage and Louisiana Tech University there was forced to cancel classes Thursday.

___

8:30 a.m.

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards says two people have been killed by a tornado that tore through the northern city of Ruston early Thursday.

The tornado caused severe damage to buildings, vehicles and power lines and forced a local university to cancel classes.

National Weather Service hydrologist C. S. Ross says it appears the tornado cut a track over 130 miles (209 kilometers) from eastern Texas to the Louisiana-Arkansas border.

Louisiana Tech University President Les Guice said on Twitter that classes were canceled Thursday. The university said no students were reported injured.

The tornado was part of a severe weather system that pounded Texas with rain Wednesday, killing a woman and two children caught in flash flood waters.

The storm moved into Mississippi on Thursday morning.

Source: Fox News National

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Federal judge blocks new Trump administration abortion rule

A federal judge in Washington state Thursday blocked nationwide enforcement of rules enacted by the Trump administration that could strip federal funding from health care providers who refer patients to have an abortion.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Stanley Bastian in Yakima federal court came two days after a federal judge in Portland, Ore., indicated he would block at least some of the rule changes, which were due to take effect May 3.

The suit challenging the changes was brought against the Department of Health and Human Services by Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson and abortion rights groups including Planned Parenthood. Opponents of the rule changes described them as a transparent attack on Planned Parenthood and said they would curb access to care such as contraception and breast and cervical cancer screening for millions of low-income people.

"Today’s ruling ensures that clinics across the nation can remain open and continue to provide quality, unbiased healthcare to women," Ferguson said in a statement. "Trump’s 'gag rule' would have jeopardized healthcare access to women across the country. Title X clinics, such as Planned Parenthood, provide essential services – now they can keep serving women while we continue to fight to keep the federal government out of the exam room."

KRISTIAN HAWKINS: COLLEGES SHOULD RUN FROM 'DANGEROUS,' COSTLY ABORTION DRUGS ON CAMPUS

The planned changes to the federal Title X family planning program, which was created in 1970 and serves 4 million patients, would prohibit clinics that receive federal money from sharing office space with abortion providers as well as banning abortion referrals by taxpayer-funded clinics. Federal laws prohibit the use of taxpayer funds to pay for abortions except in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the woman. Religious conservatives and abortion opponents have long complained that Title X has been used to subsidize abortion providers indirectly.

"This Administration has made clear that we will protect life at all stages, and this rule is another important step," White House Deputy Press Secretary Judd Deere said in response to the ruling.

The Washington state lawsuit said the changes would affect more than 90,000 Title X patients in the state and would force 90 percent of the medical professionals providing abortion and other family planning services to either find new locations, undergo expensive remodels or shut down.

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"All over the country, there are Title X providers looking at their patient schedules and wondering what they were going to do," said Clare Coleman, president of the National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association, which sued. "Now we know that everyone can continue to do their care as they have been doing for the past 50 years."

The lawsuit also claimed that the rule changes violated provisions of ObamaCare, which protects providers and patients from government interference in the health care relationship, and a federal law that requires doctors to provide information about abortion and prenatal care to patients in an unbiased manner. Ferguson also alleged the changes violated the Administrative Procedure Act of 1946 by contradicting Title X regulations without sufficient justification and violated doctors' rights to free speech and women's rights to abortions under Roe v. Wade.

Fox News' Bill Mears, Matt Leach and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News Politics

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FILE PHOTO: The logo of the OPEC is seen at OPEC's headquarters in Vienna
FILE PHOTO: The logo of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries at OPEC’s headquarters in Vienna, Austria December 5, 2018. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger/File Photo

April 26, 2019

JOINT BASE ANDREWS, Md. (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday he called the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and told the cartel to lower oil prices.

“Gasoline prices are coming down. I called up OPEC, I said you’ve got to bring them down. You’ve got to bring them down,” Trump told reporters.

(Reporting by Roberta Rampton; Writing by Makini Brice; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

Source: OANN

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Sonia Bompastor, director of the Olympique Lyonnais womenÕs Youth Academy, leads a training at the OL Academy near Lyon
Sonia Bompastor, director of the Olympique Lyonnais womenÕs Youth Academy, leads a training at the OL Academy in Meyzieu near Lyon, France, April 16, 2019. REUTERS/Emmanuel Foudrot

April 26, 2019

By Julien Pretot

MEYZIEU, France (Reuters) – Olympique Lyonnais president Jean-Michel Aulas was wringing out his women’s team shirts in the locker room on a rainy London day eight years ago when he decided it was time to take gender equality more seriously.

It was halftime in their Champions League semi-final second leg against Arsenal at Meadow Park with 507 fans watching and Aulas realized that his players did not have a another kit for the second half.

“Next time, there will be a second set just like for the men, that’s how it’s going to work from now on,” he said.

Lyon have since won five Champions League titles to become the most successful women’s team in Europe and recently claimed a 13th consecutive domestic crown.

They visit Chelsea on Sunday in the second leg of their Champions League semi-final, with a fourth straight title in their sights.

At the heart of their achievements is a pervasive ethos that promotes gender equality throughout the club, starting in the youth academy.

In 2013, Aulas appointed former Lyon and France player Sonia Bompastor as head of the Women’s Academy — the female equivalent of one of France’s top youth set-ups that has produced players such as Karim Benzema, Alexandre Lacazette and Hatem Ben Arfa.

At the Youth Academy, girls and boys share the same facilities.

“Pitches, physiotherapy rooms are the same for all,” the 38-year-old Bompastor told Reuters.

As the girls train under the watch of former Lyon and France international Camille Abily, the screams of the boys practicing can be heard nearby.

The boys and girls also benefit from the same psychological support that includes hypnosis sessions and yoga.

“We have a ‘mental ability’ cell and the hypnotist acts on the girls’ subconscious, on their deeply held beliefs after observing them on and off the pitch,” Bompastor added.

SAME TREATMENT

One message the Academy staff are trying to convey is that girls are as good as boys.

“Women’s nature is such that we have low self-esteem. So self-esteem is a big topic for our girls,” said Bompastor.

This is not the case with the boys, she added.

“Some 14, 15-year-old boys still think they would beat our professional players, we tell them this would not be happening. We still need to work on those beliefs,” she said.

Female players also have to face questions that their male counterparts do not, Bompastor explained.

“In France there is a problem with the way women are considered, there are high aesthetic expectations. So we get heavy questions on femininity, intimate questions that men don’t get,” she said.

OL’s Academy has been held up as a shining example for others to follow, even in the U.S., where women’s soccer has a wider audience than in Europe.

“About one third of the (senior women’s) squad comes from the Academy, we have a good balance,” said Bompastor.

“I’m getting tons of requests from American universities and foreign clubs, who want to come and visit our facilities.”

‘ONE CLUB’

The salaries of the senior players is one area where there remains a large discrepancy between Lyon’s men’s and women’s teams.

While the three best-paid women players in the world are at Lyon with Ballon d’Or winner Ada Hegerberg earning 400,000 euros ($445,520) a year, this figure is dwarfed by the around 4 million euros earned annually by men’s player Memphis Depay.

There is, however, a level of interaction between the men’s and women’s players that is not present at many other clubs.

“When you talk about OL you talk about women and men, you talk about one club and you feel it when you are here or outside in the city,” Germany defender Carolin Simon told Reuters.

“We see it when we play in the big stadium. It’s not ‘normal’ for women’s football,” the 26-year-old, who joined the club last year, added.

Lyon’s female players also enjoy respect from their male counterparts, Simon said.

“It’s very cool, it’s a big honor to feel that it doesn’t matter if you are a professional man or woman. We talk with the men, there are handshakes, it’s a good atmosphere and it’s also why we are successful,” said Simon.

“The men respect us and it’s not just for the cameras.”

Her team mate, England’s Lucy Bronze, sees the men’s respect as key to improving women’s football.

“We might not be paid the same but they are just normal with us, they see us as footballers the same as they are,” Bronze told Reuters.

“Being at Lyon has really opened my eyes. To improve women’s football, it starts with having the respect of your male counterparts. It’s the biggest thing because they can influence so many people.”

(Reporting by Julien Pretot; Editing by Toby Davis)

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FILE PHOTO: Ethiopian migrants, stranded in war-torn Yemen, sit on the ground of a detention site pending repatriation to their home country, in Aden, Yemen
FILE PHOTO: Ethiopian migrants, stranded in war-torn Yemen, sit on the ground of a detention site pending repatriation to their home country, in Aden, Yemen April 24, 2019. REUTERS/Fawaz Salman/File Photo

April 26, 2019

GENEVA (Reuters) – Yemeni authorities have rounded up about 3,000 irregular migrants, predominantly Ethiopians, in the south of the country, “creating an acute humanitarian situation,” the U.N. migration agency said on Friday.

“IOM is deeply concerned about the conditions in which the migrants are being held and is engaging with the authorities to ensure access to the detained migrants,” the International Organization for Migration said.

The migrants are held in open-air football stadiums and in a military camp, it said in a statement.

The detentions began on Sunday in the city of Aden and the neighboring province of Lahj, which are under the control of the internationally recognized government backed by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Iran-aligned Houthi rebels control Sanaa, the capital, and other major urban centers.

Both sides are under international diplomatic pressure to implement a United Nations-sponsored ceasefire deal agreed last year in Sweden and to prepare for a wider political dialogue that would end the four-year-old war.

Thousands of migrants arrive in Yemen every year, mostly from the Horn of Africa, driven by drought and unemployment at home and lured by the wages available in the Gulf.

(Writing by Maher Chmaytelli, Editing by William Maclean)

Source: OANN

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U.S. dollar notes are seen in this picture illustration
U.S. dollar notes are seen in this November 7, 2016 picture illustration. Picture taken November 7. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

April 26, 2019

(Reuters) – Following are five big themes likely to dominate thinking of investors and traders in the coming week and the Reuters stories related to them.

1/DOLLAR JUGGERNAUT

The dollar has zipped to near two-year highs, leaving many scratching their heads. To many, it’s down to signs the U.S. economy is chugging ahead while the rest of the world loses steam. After all, Wall Street is busily scaling new peaks day after day.

Never mind the cause, the effect is stark. The euro has tumbled to 22-month lows against the dollar and investors are preparing for more, buying options to shield against further downside. Emerging-market currencies are also in pain, with Turkish lira and Argentine peso both sharply weaker.

Now U.S. data need to keep surprising on the upside or even just meet expectations. The International Monetary Fund sees U.S. growth at 2.3 percent this year. For Germany, the forecast is 0.8 percent. The U.S. economy’s rude health has given rise to speculation the Fed might resume raising interest rates. Unlikely. But as other countries — Canada, Sweden and Australia are the latest — hint at more policy easing, there seems to be one way the dollar can go. Up.

(GRAPHIC: Dollar outperforms G10 FX – https://tmsnrt.rs/2Dz17S5)

2/FED: UP OR DOWN?

Wall Street is near record highs and recession worries are receding, so as we mentioned above, investors might wonder if the Federal Reserve will start raising rates again.

Such a pivot is unlikely after the Fed killed off rate-rise expectations at its March meeting. And the latest Reuters poll all but puts to bed any risk of rates will go up this economic cycle, given inflation remains below the Fed’s alarm threshold and unemployment is the lowest in generations.

Before the March rate-pause announcement, a preponderance of economists penciled in one or more increases this year. But that has flipped. A majority of those surveyed April 22-24 see no further tightening through December and more are leaning toward a cut by the end of next year.

Indeed, interest rate futures imply Fed Funds will be below the current 2.25-2.50 percent target range by this December.

Recent positive consumer spending and exports data have eased market concerns of a sharp economic slowdown. But inflation probably needs to run hot for a long period to panic policymakers off their wait-and-see course.     

(GRAPHIC: Federal funds and the economy – https://tmsnrt.rs/2DzjTZz)

3/HEISEI TO REIWA

Next week ends three decades of Japan’s Heisei era. Heisei, or Achieving Peace, began in 1989 near the peak of a massive stock market bubble and closes with the country trapped in low growth, no inflation, and negative interest rates.

The new era that dawns on May 1 is called Reiwa, meaning Beautiful Harmony. It begins when Crown Prince Naruhito ascends the Chrysanthemum Throne. But do investors really want harmony? What they want to see is a bit of economic growth and inflation to shake up the status quo.

The Bank of Japan’s stimulus toolkit to revive a long-suffering economy is anything but harmonious and yet it’s set to stay. The central bank confirmed recently rates will stay near zero for a long time. But the coming days may not be harmonious or peaceful for currency markets. A 10-day Golden Week holiday kicks off on April 29 and investors are fretting over the risk of a “flash crash” – a violent currency spasm that can occur in times of thin trading turnover.

The year has already seen two yen spikes and many, including Japan’s housewife-trader brigade – so-called Mrs Watanabes – appear to have bought yen as the holiday approaches. Their short dollar/long yen positions recently reached record highs, stock exchange data showed.

(GRAPHIC: Japan stocks: from Hensei to Reiwa – https://tmsnrt.rs/2W6a7Fe)

4/EARNING TURNING

Quarterly earnings were supposed to be the worst in Europe in almost three years, but with a third of results in, things are looking a little rosier.

Two-thirds of companies’ results have beat expectations, and they point to earnings growth of 4.5 percent year-on-year. Financials have delivered the biggest surprises, according to analysis by Barclays.

That might just show how low expectations were. In fact, analysts are still taking a red pen to their estimates.

The latest I/B/E/S data from Refinitiv shows analysts on average expect first-quarter earnings-per-share for STOXX 600-listed companies to fall 4.2 percent. That would be their worst quarter since 2016 and down sharply from an estimated 3.4 percent just a week earlier.

Those estimates may end up being a little too bearish as earnings season goes on, quelling worries that Europe is heading toward a corporate recession.

GSK and Reckitt Benckiser will give the market a glimpse of the health of the consumer products market and spending on everything from toothpaste, washing powder and paracetamol.

(GRAPHIC: Earnings forecasts – https://tmsnrt.rs/2DuO2ZF)

5/WAITING FOR THE OLD LADY

Sterling has gone into the doldrums amid the Brexit delay and unproductive talks between the UK government and the opposition Labour party on a EU withdrawal deal. The resurgent dollar, meanwhile, has taken 2 percent off the pound in April. It is unlikely the Bank of England will be able to rouse it at its May 2 meeting.

Despite robust retail and jobs data of late, the economic picture is gloomy – 2019 growth is likely to be around 1.2 percent, the weakest since 2009, investment is down and Governor Mark Carney says business uncertainty is “through the roof”.

Indeed, expectations for an interest rate increase have been whittled down; Reuters polls forecast rates will not move until early 2020, a calendar quarter later than was forecast a month ago. The hunt for a new governor to replace Carney in October adds more uncertainty to the mix.

The recent run of UK data has fueled hopes of economic rebound. That’s put net hedge fund positions in the pound into positive territory for the first time in nearly a year. The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street might temper some of that optimism.

(GRAPHIC: Sterling positions – https://tmsnrt.rs/2XJwUXX)

(Reporting by Alden Bentley in New York, Vidya Ranganathan in Singapore; Karin Strohecker, Josephine Mason and Saikat Chatterjee in London; compiled by Sujata Rao; edited by Larry King)

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Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren suggested that doctors and nurses don’t treat African American women the same way they do white women.

Warren appeared on Wednesday together with a number of other 2020 Democratic candidates at the She The People Forum in Houston, discussing issues concerning women of color.

WARREN’S $1.25T EDUCATION PLAN ‘SWEEPING’ GIVEAWAY TO THE WEALTHY AT EXPENSE OF THE POOR, WAPO EDITORIAL BOARD SAYS

The Massachusetts senator announced on stage a plan to decrease the childbirth mortality rate among black women while identifying a systematic problem with how they are treated.

“And there is a specific problem, as you rightly identified, for women of color who are three, four times more likely to die in childbirth,” Warren said.

“And here’s the thing, even after we do the adjustments for income, for education, this is true across the board. This is true for well-educated African American women, for wealthy African American women, and the best studies that I’m seeing put it down to just one thing, prejudice,” she added.

“That doctors and nurses don’t hear African American women’s medical issues the same way that they hear the same things from white women.”

“That doctors and nurses don’t hear African American women’s medical issues the same way that they hear the same things from white women.”

— Elizabeth Warren

CHARLIE KIRK: WARREN AND OTHER DEMS OFFER FREE MONEY – BUT DON’T TELL YOU PRICE WILL BE YOUR FREEDOM

Warren went on to get into details of her plan, noting that hospitals will be given bonuses if they manage to reduce the childbirth mortality rate among black women in an effort to give financial incentives for those doctors and nurses to provide better care.

“And if they don’t, then they’re going to have money taken away from them,” Warren added.

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“I want to see the hospitals see it as their responsibility to address this problem head-on and make it a first priority. The best way to do that is to use the money to make it happen because we gotta have change, and we gotta have change now.”

Source: Fox News Politics

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