Upcoming shows
Real News

NOW ON AIR
Now On Air

Maga First News with Peter Boykin

8:00 am 9:00 am



Maga First News

Upcoming Shows

Join The MAGA Network on Discord

0 0

U.S. job growth seen accelerating from 17-month trough

FILE PHOTO: Job seekers and recruiters gather at TechFair in Los Angeles
FILE PHOTO: Job seekers and recruiters gather at TechFair in Los Angeles, California, U.S. March 8, 2018. REUTERS/Monica Almeida -/File Photo

April 5, 2019

By Lucia Mutikani

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. employment growth likely rebounded from a 17-month low in March as milder weather boosted activity in sectors like construction, which could further allay fears of a sharp slowdown in economic growth in the first quarter.

Worsening worker shortages and lingering effects of tighter financial market conditions at the turn of the year, however, suggest the job gains probably remained below 2018’s brisk pace.

The Labor Department’s closely watched monthly employment report on Friday would follow on the heels of fairly upbeat construction spending and factory data that led Wall Street banks to boost their growth estimates for the first quarter.

Nonfarm payrolls probably increased by 180,000 jobs last month, according to a Reuters survey of economists. Investors will also be watching to see if February’s paltry 20,000 job count, the smallest since September 2017, is revised higher.

“A number that is close to consensus and with an upward revision to February will give you some degree of comfort that while the economy is slowing, it isn’t declining rapidly,” said Dan North, chief economist at Euler Hermes North America in Baltimore.

The economy has shifted into lower gear as stimulus from the Trump administration’s $1.5 trillion tax cut package as well as increased government spending fades. A trade war between Washington and Beijing, and slowing global growth have also taken a toll on the economy, which in July will celebrate 10 years of expansion, the longest on record.

Growth forecasts for the first quarter are between a 1.4 percent and 2.1 percent annualized rate. The economy grew at a 2.2 percent rate in the fourth quarter, stepping down from the July-September quarter’s brisk 3.4 percent pace.

Fears of an abrupt economic slowdown could also be assuaged by strengthening wage growth and a low unemployment rate. Average hourly earnings are expected to have increased 0.3 percent in March after jumping 0.4 percent in February.

That would keep the annual increase in wages at 3.4 percent, the biggest gain since April 2009. Strong wage growth could boost confidence that consumer spending would accelerate and support the economy, after consumption stalled in January.

WORKERS ARE SCARCE

The scarcity of workers is driving up wages. The unemployment rate is forecast unchanged at 3.8 percent in March, close to the 3.7 percent that Federal Reserve officials project it will be by the end of the year.

Though job gains have moderated from an average of about 223,000 in 2018, they remain above the roughly 100,000 per month needed to keep up with growth in the working-age population.

Economists say a strong employment report in March would suggest that financial market expectations that the Fed will cut interest rates this year were premature. The rate cut expectations gained traction when the U.S. Treasury yield curve briefly inverted in late March, reviving recession fears.

The U.S. central bank last month suspended its three-year campaign to tighten monetary policy, dropping projections for any interest rate hikes this year after increasing borrowing costs four times in 2018.

“If the recent weakness is only a soft patch and not quicksand, the Fed may surprise markets and decide to sharpen its monetary tools later this year, with a rate hike just in time for the holidays,” said Beth Ann Bovino, U.S. chief economist at S&P Global Ratings in New York.

There are roughly 7.58 million open jobs in the economy. This is despite the labor force participation rate, or the proportion of working-age Americans who have a job or are looking for one, having risen to the highest in more than five years at 63.2 percent.

“Up until now we have had people rejoining the labor force, which allowed businesses to hire people, especially at the unskilled and semi-skilled level,” said Sung Won Sohn, an economics professor at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. “There are signs that well could be running dry.”

Economists expect job growth to average about 150,000 this year. Employment at construction sites is expected to have rebounded after falling by 31,000 jobs in February, the biggest drop since December 2013. Leisure and hospitality sector payrolls are forecast to have accelerated after stalling.

The manufacturing sector is expected to mark 20 straight months of job gains in March, the longest streak since the mid-1980s. But the outlook for the sector is less upbeat as motor vehicle manufacturers have announced thousands of job cuts to deal with slowing sales that have led to an inventory bloat.

(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Phil Berlowitz)

Source: OANN

0 0

Tucker Carlson: Congress must address the student loan debt problem and stop colleges from scamming our kids

America's collective student loan debt now stands at more than $1.5 trillion. For some perspective, that's more than the entire GDP of Spain or Sweden or any of the 54 countries in Africa.

Apart from mortgages, student loans are the biggest source of personal debt in this country, more than car loans and credit card bills. That's a staggering amount of debt. It's enough to distort and cripple the U.S. economy. It's enough to stunt the life prospects of an entire generation of young people.

If you're wondering why the majority of Americans under 30 say they prefer socialism, debt is a major reason. Student loans are killing them, and they never go away. Thanks to extensive lobbying efforts here in Washington, student loans, unlike other forms of debt, cannot be erased by bankruptcy.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM TUCKER CARLSON.

The student loan crisis is a modern problem. Just 13 years ago, the average new college graduate owed $20,000 in student loans. Today, that number has jumped to $37,000. Student debt is rising far faster than the earnings of American workers, the very earnings that are supposed to justify student loans in the first place.

For professional degrees, the number goes far higher than that. The average law school graduate carries more than $110,000 in student loan debt. For new doctors, the burden is nearly $200,000 by the time they finish medical school.

Overall, two million Americans owe more than a $100,000 in student loans. Imagine starting life that far behind. Many of the people paying off college loan debt never even earned a degree. They tried to improve their lives by attending college, and they wound up poorer and in bondage. And not just a few of them -- millions and millions of them. What are the effects of this?

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE ENTIRE EPISODE.

Well, the damage is far more profound than anything caused by climate change. Young people are broke. As a result, they're delaying the vital life transitions that were automatic for earlier generations.

In 1990, a quarter of American adults lived with their parents. Today, the number has risen to 35 percent. The home ownership rate for millennials dropped eight points from the generation before. Unable to afford homes, millennials are getting married later and less often. They're also having fewer kids. It's not because they don't want children. According to Gallup, the percentage of Americans who want children has not changed in 25 years. And yet fewer children are being born, thanks in part to rising debt levels, America's middle class cannot replace itself.

That's why we're told we must import millions of new workers from abroad. Young Americans want homes and families. Helping them get those things ought to be our top priority as a country. We can't begin until we reform the student loan system. Why haven't we done that yet?

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP.

Well, a hugely powerful lobby stands in the way -- colleges and universities. Their lobbyists swarm Washington. Not surprisingly, these are the people who benefit from student loan debt. Drive through rural America, and you see how well they've done. In a sea of poverty and despair, you will notice gated islands of affluence. These are colleges.

Colleges control access to the credentials that we are all convinced are necessary and mandatory to achieve success in the modern economy. It's a racket. These are the gatekeepers of modern society and they are ripping off every kid who passes through those gates.

Outside the gates, people are unemployed and dying of opioid overdoses. Inside the gates, it's like the Ritz on South Beach. If you haven't been to an American university lately, see it for yourself. Everything is new. There's been a building boom underway for decades on campuses, all of it funded by debt that is destroying a generation of American kids.

A hundred schools now have endowments over a billion dollars. They are hedge funds with schools attached. What have colleges done with this money? Well, they've hired massive staffs of like-minded people for one thing. From 1987 to 2012, the number of administrators on college campuses more than doubled. That's far bigger than the increase of actual students going to college. College administrators routinely make six-figure salaries. What exactly do they do for that money? Not a single thing that makes this a better country.

College presidents often get seven-figure salaries. Their pay is probably the only thing in America rising as fast as tuition costs. Academic publishers are getting rich from all of this, too -- from the debt boom. Prices of textbooks have tripled in the past 20 years. Printing hasn't gotten more expensive; non-academic books are cheaper now than they were two decades ago. But students are a captive market, and they are being exploited ruthlessly. Nobody says a word about it.

So to sum up, young people in this country get poorer every year. College administrators, probably the least impressive group in the country, are getting richer at their expense. It's not a law of the universe that this has to happen. It's a product of policy and of the incentives our society has created over time.

Right now, the federal government allows young people to take out an almost unlimited amount in student loans. Colleges know this, of course, and they hike their tuition to capture as much of that money as they can. Young people have little choice but to go along with it.

Colleges control access to the credentials that we are all convinced are necessary and mandatory to achieve success in the modern economy. It's a racket. These are the gatekeepers of modern society and they are ripping off every kid who passes through those gates.

What's the solution? Well, here's one. Have colleges co-sign the loans. And why shouldn't they? If you and I enter into a partnership in business and we succeed, we share the rewards. But we also share the risk. If we fail, we're both on the hook for that. That's how honest arrangements work. College loans don't work that way. Colleges get rich, no matter what happens to the kids. The kids are on their own.

If students get a degree and a decent job and repay their loans, that's great. But if they drop out of college, or their degrees turn out to be worthless, as so many are, and they can't repay what they have borrowed, so what? The college doesn't care. They've got no stake in the outcome. Colleges get all of the benefit and none of the risk. That is the definition of a scam. It's amazing it could even be legal. It should not be legal.

Maybe Congress could take 20 minutes from the Russia hoax and posturing about climate change and fix one of the actual problems, one of the biggest problems this country faces. Pass a law forcing colleges to share the liability on defaulted student loans. What would be the argument against that? That colleges can't afford it? That taxpayers should shoulder all the risk so that Wesleyan or Brown can build another diversity and inclusion center and hire more useless overpaid Deans of Sensitivity?

It's kind of hard to make that case out loud. It's too stupid. Congress should act now. The student loan system is going to collapse. That is inevitable. Before it does, let's be very clear about who has been profiting from it.

Adapted from Tucker Carlson's monologue from "Tucker Carlson Tonight" on March 18, 2019.

Source: Fox News National

0 0

New Infineon chairman Eder to start in August

Reinhard Ploss, CEO of German semiconductor manufacturer Infineon
Reinhard Ploss, CEO of German semiconductor manufacturer Infineon, holds a wafer while posing for pictures at the company's annual shareholder meeting in Munich, Germany February 21, 2019. REUTERS/Andreas Gebert

February 21, 2019

MUNICH (Reuters) – German chipmaker Infineon Technologies aims to bring in outgoing Voestalpine Chief Executive Wolfgang Eder as its chairman in August, replacing Eckart Suenner earlier than expected.

Eder, who was elected to the Infineon supervisory board last year with a view of taking over as chair in the medium term, is stepping down as Voestalpine CEO in July.

However, he will remain on the Austrian steelmaker’s supervisory board and is expected to take chairmanship of the company in about two years.

His nomination as Infineon chairman in addition to those roles had triggered investor concern about his accumulation of offices.

The chipmaker also hopes to conclude its search for a new Chief Financial Officer quickly, putting a focus on female candidates, Suenner said at the company’s shareholder meeting on Thursday.

Current finance head Dominik Asam is leaving to join aircraft manufacturer Airbus in April.

Earlier this month, Infineon cut its forecast for full-year revenue growth, blaming difficult markets, but said it expects a better second half as demand rebounds and inventories are worked off.

“The boom is over. We are now in a phase of moderate growth”, chief executive Reinhard Ploss told shareholders.

(Reporting by Alexander Hübner; Writing by Arno Schuetze; Editing by Jan Harvey)

Source: OANN

0 0

Pulitzers Given to Aretha Franklin, Author Richard Powers

Aretha Franklin received an honorary Pulitzer Prize on Monday, as judges praised the Queen of Soul "for her indelible contribution to American music and culture." Competitive Pulitzers were awarded to books about two other giants of American history: Frederick Douglass and Alain Locke.

David W. Blight's 900-page "Frederick Douglass" was named the best work of history, while the biography prize went to Jeffrey C. Stewart's "The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke." Richard Powers' innovative novel "The Overstory," which shows us the world through the perspective of nature, won for fiction. The drama prize went to "Fairview," by Jackie Sibblies Drury, and Eliza Griswold's "Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America" won for general nonfiction. Ellen Reid's opera "p r i s m," which tackles sexual and emotional abuse, was given the music award, and Forrest Gander's elegiac "Be With" the poetry prize.

Franklin, who died last summer, was the first woman singled out for an honorary Pulitzer, which has been given to Bob Dylan and John Coltrane among others. The lives of Franklin, Douglass and Locke spanned and helped define more than a century of political and social change: Douglass was the country's leading abolitionist of the 19th century, Locke the so-called "Dean" of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and 1930s and Franklin a transcendent and inspiring voice of the civil rights and feminist movements of the 1960s and 1970s.

"I think one of the through-lines of those three lives is music," says Stewart, whose Locke biography also won a National Book Award.

"Frederick Douglass was one of the first people to provide an intellectual portrait of the spirituals, to show they were not just religious music, but statements of humanity and longing for freedom among the slaves. For Locke, spirituals were his favorite musical forms because they had that religious-philosophical dimension of the black experience, culled into a unique aesthetic form. And then you think of Aretha Franklin, who came out of gospel and brought into it popular music. So you can see a real continuum."

Drury's "Fairview" brings the story of African-Americans into the present, skewering white people's obsession with black stereotypes. It begins as a contemporary domestic comedy involving a well-off black family and ends with the invisible fourth wall destroyed and the audience pulled down a rabbit hole of race and identity. The Pulitzer board called it a "hard-hitting drama that examines race in a highly conceptual, layered structure, ultimately bringing audiences into the actors' community to face deep-seated prejudices."

Powers, 61, has long been praised by critics and fellow writers for his blend of science, literature and technology; Margaret Atwood has likened his gifts and ambitions to Herman Melville's. The Pulitzer for fiction could well bring commercial success to the author, whose previous works include "The Echo Maker," winner of the National Book Award.

"The Overstory," shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, is a case of an author's life changing a book and a book changing his life. The author was teaching at Stanford University when he began the novel, six years ago, with the idea of telling a story through non-human protagonists. For research, he visited the Smoky Mountains and was so overwhelmed he ended up moving to a home on the Tennessee side of Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

"I've been itinerant for much of my life, and this was the first time I really felt I belonged to one place," he said. "From here on out, I can't imagine writing anything that isn't under the spell of this book."

Source: NewsMax America

0 0

Vt. House Passes Bill Legalizing Elective Abortions Until Birth

The Vermont House passed a bill Thursday that gives women the right to have elective abortions up until birth and strips away rights of unborn babies.

The House approved H-0057  by a 106-36 vote. The bill allows women to abort a baby at any time and for any reason up until birth. “Every individual who becomes pregnant has the fundamental right to choose to carry a pregnancy to term, give birth to a child, or to have an abortion,” the bill reads.

Interference by the state, law enforcement or a public entity with an attempt to procure or induce an abortion is illegal under the proposal. Women have a “fundamental right the freedom of reproductive choice and to prohibit public entities from interfering with or restricting the right of an individual to terminate the individual’s pregnancy,” according to the bill’s text.

An unborn baby also has no rights, according to the bill, which reads, “A fetus shall not have independent rights under Vermont law.”

Kaitlin Bennett breaks down the facts on abortion.

Planned Parenthood was investigated in 2017 for the alleged illegal sale of baby body parts, a practice that would become legal under the Vermont proposal.

“I trust women. Therefore I cast my vote in favor of codifying protections Vermonters already have in safeguarding this fundamental reproductive right,” Democratic Rep. Becca White said applauding the bill, according to The Washington Times.

“To this day, I can’t think of a single scenario where I thought a late-term abortion would help to improve a woman’s mental health,” doctor and Kansas Rep. Roger W. Marshall wrote in a February op-ed. “Contrary to the pro-abortion movement, regardless of the mother’s underlying medical health, I never saw the scenario where we had to choose between a mom’s life and a baby,” Marshall wrote.

Marshall is an obstetrician who has delivered more than 5,000 babies in western Kansas over 25 years. He also served as an OB-GYN at a state mental health hospital and prison.

(Photo by Quinn Dombrowski / Flickr)

If the law passes, late-term abortion doctors can be expected to set up clinics in the state to which women would travel to seek elective abortions until birth.

“It is official. The Vermont Democrat Party now holds the dubious distinction of being the party of unlimited, unrestricted and unregulated abortion-on-demand throughout pregnancy,” Vermont Right to Life executive director Mary Hahn Beerworth said in a statement.

The legislation will now move to the Democrat-controlled Senate for a vote.

Rhode Island, Virginia, Maine, New Mexico and Maryland are considering proposals to expand abortion access. New York passed the Reproductive Health Act in January, codifying a woman’s ability to abort under state law and allowing women to have abortions after 24 weeks to preserve the mother’s health.

Seventy-five percent of Americans support significant abortion restrictions and say abortion should not be legal after a woman is three months pregnant, according to a January Marist poll.

Alex Jones exposes the globalist agenda to demoralize the population to death.

Source: InfoWars

0 0

U.S. to wrap case against drug company executives tied to opioid crisis

FILE PHOTO: John Kapoor, the billionaire founder of Insys Therapeutics Inc., leaves the federal courthouse in Boston
FILE PHOTO: John Kapoor (R), the billionaire founder of Insys Therapeutics Inc., leaves the federal courthouse during the trial accusing Insys executives of a wide-ranging scheme to bribe doctors to prescribe an addictive opioid medication, in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S., March 13, 2019. Picture taken March 13, 2019. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

April 4, 2019

By Nate Raymond

BOSTON (Reuters) – Prosecutors on Thursday will present their closing arguments in the trial of the wealthy founder of pharmaceutical company Insys Therapeutics Inc and four colleagues accused of contributing to the U.S. opioid epidemic by bribing doctors to prescribe an addictive fentanyl spray.

John Kapoor, who served as the Arizona-based drugmaker’s chairman, and his co-defendants are the first executives of a painkiller manufacturer to face trial for conduct that authorities say was tied to the deadly opioid crisis.

Prosecutors say Kapoor oversaw a wide-ranging scheme to bribe doctors nationwide by retaining them to act as speakers at poorly-attended sham events at restaurants ostensibly meant to educate clinicians about its fentanyl spray, Subsys.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has only approved Subsys for use in treating severe pain in cancer patients. Yet prosecutors says doctors who took bribes often prescribed Subsys to patients without cancer, helping boost sales at Insys.

Prosecutors said Kapoor also sought to defraud insurers into paying for Subsys. He is alleged to have had help from 2012 to 2015 from his co-defendants, former Insys executives and managers Michael Gurry, Richard Simon, Sunrise Lee and Joseph Rowan.

All five have pleaded not guilty to racketeering conspiracy. Lawyers for Kapoor acknowledge that Insys paid doctors but contend that he believed they really were being paid to talk up the product’s benefits.

Beth Wilkinson, Kapoor’s lead attorney, told jurors at the trial’s start in January that he had no idea about any “side deals” that were being cut with doctors.

Kapoor’s 2017 arrest came the same day U.S. President Donald Trump declared the opioid crisis a public health emergency. In 2017, a record 47,600 people died of opioid-related overdoses, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Two top former executives – Michael Babich, Insys’ chief executive from 2011 to 2015, and Alec Burlakoff, its ex-vice president of sales – testified against Kapoor after pleading guilty to carrying out the scheme at his direction.

Babich, who joined Insys in 2007 after helping manage investments for Kapoor at the pharmaceutical industry veteran’s family office, told jurors Kapoor wanted a “return on investment” from paying doctors to act as speakers.

Much of the trial’s testimony focused on how Insys marketed Subsys to doctors. One witness testified that Lee, a former stripper who became a regional sales director, gave a doctor a lap dance at a Chicago club one time while promoting Subsys.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Tom Brown)

Source: OANN

0 0

UN probing North Korea sanctions violations in 20 countries

U.N. experts say they are investigating possible violations of sanctions on North Korea in about 20 countries, from alleged clandestine nuclear procurement in China to arms brokering in Syria and military cooperation with Iran, Libya and Sudan.

A report to the Security Council obtained Monday by The Associated Press also details the appearance in North Korea of a Rolls-Royce Phantom, Mercedes-Benz limousines and Lexus all-wheel drive luxury vehicles in violation of a luxury goods ban.

And it notes a trend in North Korea's evasion of financial sanctions by "using cyberattacks to illegally force the transfer of funds from financial institutions and cryptocurrency exchanges."

The report's executive summary obtained in February had said North Korea's nuclear and missile programs "remain intact" and its leaders are dispersing missile assembly and testing facilities.

Source: Fox News World

NOW ON AIR
Now On Air

Maga First News with Peter Boykin

8:00 am 9:00 am



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)

Source: OANN

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!
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)

Source: OANN

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!
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)

Source: OANN

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!
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

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!
FILE PHOTO: Funeral of journalist Lyra McKee in Belfast
FILE PHOTO: Pallbearers carry the coffin of journalist Lyra McKee at her funeral at St. Anne’s Cathedral in Belfast, Northern Ireland, April 24, 2019. REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne/File Photo

April 26, 2019

BELFAST (Reuters) – Detectives investigating the murder of journalist Lyra McKee in Northern Ireland last week suspect the gunman who shot her dead is in his late teens as they made a further appeal to the local community who they believe know his identity.

McKee’s killing by an Irish nationalist militant during a riot in Londonderry has sparked outrage in the province where a 1998 peace deal mostly ended three decades of sectarian violence that cost the lives of some 3,600 people.

The New IRA, one of a small number of groups that oppose the peace accord, has said one of its members shot the 29-year-old reporter dead in the Creggan area of the city on Thursday when opening fire on police during a riot McKee was watching.

The killing, which followed a large car bomb in Londonderry in January that police also blamed on the New IRA, has raised fears that small marginalized militant groups are exploiting a political vacuum in the province and tensions caused by Britain’s decision to leave the European Union.

Police released footage on Friday of immediately before and after the shooting showing three men who were involved in the rioting and identified one as the gunman who they believe is in his late teens. 

“I believe that the information that can help us to bring those responsible for her murder to justice lies within the community. I need the public to tell me who he is,” Detective Superintendent Jason Murphy told reporters.

Murphy said those involved in the disorder on the night were teenagers or in their early 20s, and that about 100 people were on the ground watching the trouble as it unfolded.

He added that police believed the gun used in the attack was of a similar caliber to those used before in paramilitary type attacks in Creggan. 

“I recognize that people living in Creagan may find it’s difficult to come forward to speak to police. Today, I want to provide a personal reassurance that we are able to deal with those issues sensitively,” Murphy said, echoing similar appeals in recent days.

(Reporting by Amanda Ferguson, editing by Padraic Halpin and Toby Chopra)

Source: OANN

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!
Current track

Title

Artist