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Waves of migrant parents and children enter overtaxed system

A mother cradled a crying toddler as she waited in line with 20 other women to shower. Dozens of fathers quietly held their children's hands in an enclosure made of chain-link fencing.

While these families were held at an overcrowded Border Patrol processing center, a fresh wave of migrants crossed the nearby river separating the U.S. and Mexico and waited for border agents to bring them to the same facility. One Honduran woman carried a feverish 7-month-old baby.

The cycle is repeated multiple times a day. Waves of desperate families are trying to cross the border almost hourly and entering an overtaxed government detention system.

The Border Patrol has become so overwhelmed in feeding and caring for the migrants that it announced plans this week to start releasing some families onto the street in the Rio Grande Valley to ease overcrowding in the processing center, providing the immigrants with a notice to appear at an upcoming court date.

"We have an unprecedented crisis upon us," Robert Perez, deputy commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the Border Patrol's parent agency, said in an interview.

The Border Patrol says it made about 66,000 apprehensions of people crossing the border illegally in February, including 36,000 parents and children, an all-time monthly high.

Immigration authorities expect the number of parents and children to surpass 50,000 in March during the traditional spring spike in migration and potentially reach 180,000 in May, according to two U.S. officials who were not authorized to speak publicly about internal documents.

The Border Patrol ordered expanded medical screenings after the December deaths of two children in its custody. The agency received $30 million to upgrade its South Texas processing center and additional funding to build a similar facility in El Paso.

The autopsy results for Jakelin Caal and Felipe Gomez Alonzo have not yet been released, but Customs and Border Protection has said both children were hospitalized after developing high fevers and nausea.

Children with fevers, colds and the flu arrive daily at the border with their parents and sometimes wait for hours for the Border Patrol to pick them up.

On a recent Thursday, Carmen Mejia's 7-month-old, Lian, was feverish, one of four sick children in her group of 20. His mother had heard about Jakelin and Felipe before leaving her rural town in northern Honduras.

"It made me sad," she said. "But imagine. I'm here, also looking for a future for my son."

Mejia said she hoped to find work to support Lian and two older children she had left behind with her mother.

While she spoke, two more waves of people arrived. The group grew to around 50 before the Border Patrol could load everyone into vans and take them into detention.

Some migrants blamed extortion for forcing them to close small businesses. Others said gangs had killed close relatives and threatened to kill them.

President Donald Trump's administration says most adult border crossers are economic migrants who count on being released if they bring a child and seek asylum. Immigration agency officials have called for Congress to change laws that would allow them to detain more adults and children and deport people from Central America quicker.

Trump's signature solution — and the reason for his declaration of a national emergency — is a border wall, especially in South Texas, where there are comparatively few barriers. But a border wall would not stop families who aren't trying to evade immigration authorities. Those families typically stop after crossing the Rio Grande and wait to be caught.

The Associated Press visited the South Texas processing center where many migrants end up. It's an old warehouse, with overhead lighting that stays on around the clock and chain-link fencing that forms large cages.

Detainees are issued mats and foil blankets to sleep on the concrete floor. Each detainee receives a medical screening.

Dozens of children waited on their own. Many were 10 years of age or older and kept separately from their parents, who are in another wing of the facility at the same time.

Some of the children waiting on their own talked among themselves. Others tried to sleep on mats under the glare of the lights, their foil blankets crinkling.

The facility received worldwide attention last June, during the Trump administration's enforcement of a zero-tolerance policy that led to thousands of family separations. Around 1,100 people were detained at the facility then, many of them children who had been separated from their parents.

The facility opened in 2014 during the Obama administration to address another surge of thousands of unaccompanied teenagers arriving from Central America.

Now the processing center and other facilities in the sector deal with parents bringing young children and pregnant women who sometimes go into labor in detention.

"It isn't meant for families," said Carmen Qualia, an assistant chief patrol agent for the sector. "We're set up for individuals."

Agency guidelines require that parents are detained for no longer than 72 hours before being released or transferred to long-term detention centers with beds and more facilities. The average detention time for families late last week was about 60 hours.

Most families are eventually bused to a Catholic Charities facility in McAllen, where volunteers provide food and medical checkups before taking them to the bus station or airport.

The future of that facility is in jeopardy after McAllen city commissioners last month ordered Catholic Charities to vacate it by May, after complaints from neighbors.

But the Border Patrol is relying on the facility more than ever. While a few hundred people are sent there daily, immigration authorities dropped 800 migrants at Catholic Charities in just one day this week, leading to volunteers posting pleas on social media for donations and help.

Inside a small clinic behind the main building, Dr. Martin Garza listened to the heartbeat and lungs of 1-month-old Cesar Manuel Romero, cradled by his mother, 21-year-old Lily Romero of Honduras. Romero said she gave birth to Cesar on a bus as it passed through Monterrey, Mexico.

After crossing the border, Romero said they were taken to a smaller Border Patrol station — what she and other Spanish-speaking migrants often refer to as "la hielera," or the icebox. She said another woman in custody loaned her a sweater so she could keep Cesar warm because agents had taken many of her belongings.

She said they were given water that was "nearly frozen." Afterward, they were taken to the processing center and eventually released to Catholic Charities.

The Border Patrol says its facilities follow agency detention guidelines and that it investigates any complaints of mistreatment.

Garza said agents and medical professionals inside detention almost always diagnose major illnesses or injuries. But colds and fevers persist, along with conditions that aren't obvious, he said.

"Infants are wheezing. Infants are having trouble breathing, and some of those things may not get picked up," he said.

___

Associated Press writer Colleen Long in Washington contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News National

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Kim Jong-Un Departs For Hanoi As Second Meeting With Trump Looms

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un boarded his armored train on Saturday afternoon (around 5 pm local time, 8 am in London) and departed for Hanoi, where he will meet President Trump and a team of American diplomats during a two day summit beginning on Wednesday.

The summit will occur against a backdrop of detente with North Korea’s puppetmaster, China – though the uneasy trade truce could very well collapse between now and then, potentially complicating Trump’s negotiations with the Koreans.

Since Kim abruptly announced more than a year ago that he would consider surrendering his nuclear stockpiles, end his anxiety-provoking missile and nuclear tests, and seek an agenda of rapproachment with his southern capitalist neighbors, handing Trump his first major geopolitical “win”, intelligence analysts have warned that almost no progress has been made during their periodic negotiations with the Koreans.

The North, they have warned, has continued work on its nuclear program – Kim’s public shuttering of a nuclear facility last year was merely a charade. And at times, North Korean diplomats have failed to contain their frustrations with the US and warned that they would abandon their commitments unless the US agrees to gradually remove sanctions.

But Trump has brushed aside these concerns. Instead, he has gushed about he and Kim – whom he once derided as “rocket man” – have “fallen in love”, and joked that the North Korean economy will take off “like a rocket” once the negotiations have been completed. The president has even boasted about how his handling of North Korea earned him a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize (the nomination was reportedly submitted by Japanese leader Shinzo Abe), and that, if he had not been elected, the two countries “would be at war right now.”

Amid widespread skepticism about the North’s motives persists, former CIA official Andrew Kim said Friday during a talk at Stanford that Kim told then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo during a visit to Pyongyang last year that he didn’t want his children to “shoulder the burden” of nuclear weapons, Reuters reported.

“‘I’m a father and a husband. And I have children’,” Andrew Kim quoted the North Korean leader as telling Pompeo, when asked whether he was willing to end his nuclear program.

“‘And I don’t want my children to carry the nuclear weapon on their back their whole life.’ That was his answer,” Andrew Kim told a lecture on Friday at Stanford University’s Asia Pacific Research Center, where he is a visiting scholar.

In the US, North Korea has been out of the headlines for a while (the tensions from the summer of 2017, when Americans feared a war with the rogue state might be imminent, seem like a distant memory). But that doesn’t mean the second summit (following the “very successful”, as Trump described it, meeting in Singapore) can’t have an impact on markets and/or the national psyche.

Markets could latch on to any progress (perhaps movement toward formally ending the Korean War) as one more reason to cheer stocks higher. While signs of difficulty could be interpreted as a proxy for the US’s relationship with China (Trump said Friday that Beijing had been “very helpful” in the US’s dealings with North Korea).

Feel-good rhetoric aside, international sanctions are hampering the North Korean economy (though it continues to find ways, like clandestine at-sea oil shipments) to meet its basic needs. But unless something truly unexpected happens, with so much happening back home in the US next week (between Q4 GDP, Jerome Powell’s testimony and the approaching tariff deadline, to name a few), it’s unlikely that Trump’s second meeting with Kim will generate the same cycle-dominating headlines that their last meeting did.

That is, unless Trump accomplishes something that would be truly worthy of a Nobel Prize.


Thanks to a booming economy polls show Trump is still favored to win 2020. Paul Joseph Watson breaks down the path to keeping America great.

Source: InfoWars

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Man charged for toppling statue of Polish priest over abuse

Polish prosecutors say they have charged the first of three men who pulled down the statue of a prominent Solidarity-era priest this week amid allegations the priest sexually abused minors.

Gdansk region prosecutors' spokeswoman Grazyna Wawryniuk said Friday the man was charged with disrespectful treatment of a monument and with damaging it.

If convicted, he could receive up to five years in prison. Two other men are expected to hear the same charges later Friday.

They pulled down the statue of the late Mgr. Henryk Jankowski on Thursday in Gdansk to protest what they called the Catholic Church and society's failure to resolve the problem of clergy sex abuse.

The action came as Pope Francis convened world Catholic leaders to find ways of solving the church's sex abuse crisis.

Source: Fox News World

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CCW Weekend: One Hand

Guns and Gear | Contributor

By Sam Hoober, Alien Gear Holsters

Yes, you need to be practicing one-handed shooting. Start reading into police shootings or watch some bodycam footage, look into some civilian-involved defensive shootings and you’ll find that assuming the perfect modified Isosceles, Weaver or Chapman stance doesn’t happen nearly as often as you’d think.

There’s something to be said for training how you’ll shoot and you’ll shoot how you train of course.

Watch enough videos, read enough reports, and what becomes clear is that you may or may not have the opportunity to assume a two-handed shooting stance. Often enough, people are fending an attacker off with one hand. Additionally, it may happen so fast that you may only have enough time to get the gun out with one hand. This is also why it’s good to practice drawing from concealment with only one hand; you may not have a hand free to clear a cover garment.

If anyone wants to get into the caliber war and the “this is why 9mm is better than .45” in the comments, I suppose this is a good time to do it.

With that said, how to get started?

Well, start small and move up, like with anything else.

First, you need the highest, tightest grip possible. A firm grip on the gun leads to good shooting, one-handed and otherwise; grip it as tight as you can. You can grip too hard, though; what you do is take your carry gun and start to squeeze. Pay attention to the sights.

When the sights start to move or shake, that’s too hard. Let off a little until the gun isn’t moving anymore. If you need to, try to strengthen your hands. Use a hand exerciser and/or do more compound lifts. Barbell rows and deadlifts build grip strength (legs and back too!) and are just good for you anyway.

There are a few different techniques for shooting one-handed. Most common is to just straight-arm it. Extend the shooting hand until your elbow is locking out. Align sights, fire and get back on target.

Some people modify it by canting the gun inward. Doing so ostensibly directs the recoil force more into the trunk of the body rather than torquing the wrist, though some find it makes no difference. Just make sure that you can still get a good sight picture.

Another technique is to essentially use half of a Weaver or Chapman stance, just without the support hand. You want your shooting hand to extend as far and straight out as possible while keeping the elbow tucked into the body. You may have to lean into the gun until you find a good sight picture. Again, the theory is to direct recoil into the body as much as possible, combating muzzle rise and so on.

Massad Ayoob has been teaching a one-handed technique for years that he refers to as the
“Shotokan Punch,” similar to the punching technique taught in Shotokan karate. The gun hand goes straight out, fully extended with the elbow locked. You put your strong side foot out, slightly ahead of your weak-side foot, like stepping into the punch. While getting into this stance, tuck your support hand up into your sternum, like you’re cradling a football.

Come to think of it, he should have called it the Heisman because it’s basically like an RB giving a stiff-arm, but one digresses.

This gets you leaning into the gun and presents a bit of counter-balance, which can help mitigate recoil as well.

If you haven’t worked on shooting one-handed before, start slow. Starting out with controlled pairs is a good idea, as you want to build accuracy and recoil control before you start in with the 5 by 5 or the Bill drill. Do some work with the weak hand too, as it also gets neglected.

Click here to get your 1911 Pistol Shopping Guide.

Click here to get The Complete Concealed Carry Training Guide

Sam Hoober is Contributing Editor for AlienGearHolsters.com, a subsidiary of Hayden, ID, based Tedder Industries, where he writes about gun accessories, gun safety, open and concealed carry tips. Click here to visit aliengearholsters.com.

Source: The Daily Caller

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Greek police clash with migrants, block access to border route

Migrant children hold flowers as they stand in front of riot police officers next to a camp in the town of Diavata in northern Greece
Migrant children hold flowers as they stand in front of riot police officers next to a camp in the town of Diavata in northern Greece, April 6, 2019. REUTERS/Alexandros Avramidis

April 6, 2019

By Lefteris Papadimas

DIAVATA, Greece (Reuters) – Greek police clashed on Saturday with groups of migrants and refugees camped in a field close to the country’s northern border hoping to cross to neighboring countries and travel onward to northern Europe, witnesses said.

Hundreds of people including children had arrived at the field next to the migrant camp of Diavata near the border with North Macedonia on Thursday and started setting up tents.

They were prompted by reports on social media of plans for an organized movement to cross Greece’s northwest land border with Albania in early April.

Riot police fired teargas at dozens of people – some with children in their arms – who threw stones and bottles as they tried to break a police cordon and reach a road leading to the border.

About 100 tents were pitched in the field which was heavily guarded by police. People refused to leave despite calls by ministers to return to accommodation centers and warnings that onward travel would be impossible.

“It’s a lie that the borders will open,” Migration Minister Dimitris Vitsas told Greek state television ERT on Friday.

Tens of thousands of refugees and migrants, mainly from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, are stuck in Greece from when Balkan countries shut their borders in 2016, closing the main passage towards northern Europe.

(Reporting by Lefteris Papadimas; Editing by David Holmes)

Source: OANN

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Former Trump lawyer Cohen says assisting with more probes

FILE PHOTO - Michael Cohen, the former personal attorney of U.S. President Donald Trump, arrives to testify to the House Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington
FILE PHOTO - Michael Cohen, the former personal attorney of U.S. President Donald Trump, arrives to testify to the House Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., March 6, 2019. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

April 5, 2019

(Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen has received requests for information from at least six government entities since late February, according to a letter from Cohen’s attorney to Democratic lawmakers, a sign of ongoing interest in evidence Cohen may have on his former boss.

The letter was sent by Lanny Davis on Thursday to the Democratic heads of four congressional committees asking that they attest in writing to his cooperation so far and the need to make him available to continue assisting with their probes.

Davis said he hoped federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York would take that into consideration and file a motion to have his sentence reduced and postpone the start of his prison term so he can readily assist investigators.

Cohen, who is due to start a three-year prison term on May 6, is still going through a recently accessed hard drive with more than 14 million files, including e-mails, voice recordings and attachments from his computers and phones, Davis said.

“It is our hope that the authorities in the Southern District of New York will consider this total picture of cooperation … and the particular facts involved here to grant Mr. Cohen a reduced term,” Davis wrote.

Cohen was one of Trump’s closest aides and once said he would “take a bullet” for him. But he turned against Trump last year and is cooperating with prosecutors after pleading guilty to tax evasion, bank fraud and campaign finance violations.

Cohen testified before a handful of congressional committees in late February including a dramatic televised hearing in front of the House Oversight Committee in which he denounced the president as a “conman” and a “cheat” and accused Trump of breaking the law while in office.

“There is no doubt that Mr. Cohen’s testimony, both public and private, has contributed substantially, with documents and other evidence, to triggering additional areas for investigation by law enforcement authorities and the Congress,” Davis wrote.

Davis did not identify the six government entities.

(Reporting by Nathan Layne in New York; Editing by Daniel Wallis)

Source: OANN

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Alan Dershowitz to Newsmax TV: Let Govt Function Again

Dragging on the investigations about President Donald Trump and the Department of Justice probe that cleared him of conspiring with the Russians is a bad idea, Attorney Alan Dershowitz told Newsmax TV.

Dershowitz was on Monday's "Newsmax Now" to discuss the news that special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation concluded Trump did not work with Russia to win the 2016 election.

"I don't approve of the effort to try to retaliate against bad investigations with more bad investigations," Dershowitz said. "I think we should have mutual disarmament. Put the investigations behind us. Let the government govern, let the legislature legislate, let the president act presidential.

"I think enough investigations. I'm not in favor of continued investigations on either side."

Democrats have vowed to continue digging into Trump's past despite Mueller clearing him of conspiracy. Mueller, a former FBI director, could not definitively rule whether Trump obstructed justice by firing James Comey as FBI director nearly two years ago.

Some Republicans now want to probe the Russia probe to determine whether the FISA Court warrants obtained by the Department of Justice under former President Barack Obama were justified.

Dershowitz said he thinks there should be an investigation related to the FISA warrants.

"The one area where I think investigation may be warranted is whether or not Justice Department officials misled the FISA Court by submitting the dossier without fully alerting them to the sources of the dossier and the lack of credibility of the person who wrote it," he said.

"And the FISA Court might consider having contempt of court proceedings to determine whether or not they were deliberately misled because misleading a court, particularly a court like the FISA Court, is really very dangerous to democracy."

Later during the interview, Dershowitz declared Trump "completely vindicated and exonerated."

"The only question is obstruction of justice, we have to wait and see what the evidence is," he said. "I suspect I know what it is, and it will be bogus. You can't indict a president or charge a president for firing somebody. That's within his constitutional authority."

Important: Newsmax TV is now carried in 65 million cable homes on DirecTV Ch. 349, Dish Network Ch. 216, Comcast/Xfinity Ch. 1115, U-verse Ch. 1220, FiOS Ch. 615 or More Systems Here.

Source: NewsMax Politics

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Police secure the area where the body of a woman was discovered near the village of Orounta
Police secure the area where the body of a woman was discovered near the village of Orounta, Cyprus, April 25, 2019. REUTERS/Stefanos Kouratzis

April 26, 2019

NICOSIA (Reuters) – Cypriot police searched on Friday for more victims of a suspected serial killer, in a case which has shocked the Mediterranean island and exposed the authorities to charges of “criminal indifference” because the dead women were foreigners.

The main opposition party, the left-wing AKEL, called for the resignation of Cyprus’s justice minister and police chief.

Police were combing three different locations west of the capital Nicosia for victims of the suspected killer, a 35-year-old army officer who has been in detention for a week.

The bodies of three women, including two thought to be from the Philippines, have been recovered. Police sources said the suspect had indicated the location of the third body, found on Thursday, and had said the person was “either Indian or Nepali”.

Police said they were searching for a further four people, including two children, based on the suspect’s testimony.

“These women came here to earn a living, to help their families. They lived away from their families. And the earth swallowed them, nobody was interested,” AKEL lawmaker Irene Charalambides told Reuters.

“This killer will be judged by the court but the other big question is the criminal indifference shown by the others when the reports first surfaced. I believe, as does my party, that the justice minister and the police chief should resign. They are irrevocably exposed.”

Police have said they will investigate any perceived shortcomings in their handling of the case.

One person who did attempt to alert the authorities over the disappearances, a 70-year-old Cypriot citizen, said his motives were questioned by police.

The bodies of the two Filipino women reported missing in May and August 2018 were found in an abandoned mine shaft this month. Police discovered the body of the third woman at an army firing range about 14 km (9 miles) from the mine shaft.

Police are now searching for the six-year-old daughter of the first victim found, a Romanian mother who disappeared with her eight-year-old child in 2016, and a woman from the Phillipines who vanished in Dec. 2017.

The suspect has not been publicly named, in line with Cypriot legal practice.

A public vigil for the missing was planned later on Friday.

(Reporting By Michele Kambas; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Source: OANN

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An employee looks up at goods at the Miniclipper Logistics warehouse in Leighton Buzzard
FILE PHOTO: An employee looks up at goods at the Miniclipper Logistics warehouse in Leighton Buzzard, Britain December 3, 2018. REUTERS/Simon Dawson

April 26, 2019

LONDON, April 26 – British factories stockpiled raw materials and goods ahead of Brexit at the fastest pace since records began in the 1950s, and they were increasingly downbeat about their prospects, a survey showed on Friday.

The Confederation of British Industry’s (CBI) quarterly survey of the manufacturing industry showed expectations for export orders in the next three months fell to their lowest level since mid-2009, when Britain was reeling from the global financial crisis.

The record pace of stockpiling recorded by the CBI was mirrored by the closely-watched IHS Markit/CIPS purchasing managers’ index published earlier this month.

(Reporting by Andy Bruce, editing by David Milliken)

Source: OANN

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Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad speaks at the opening ceremony for the second Belt and Road Forum in Beijing
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad speaks at the opening ceremony for the second Belt and Road Forum in Beijing, China April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Florence Lo

April 26, 2019

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) – Fewer than half of Malaysians approve of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, an opinion poll showed on Friday, as concerns over rising costs and racial matters plague his administration nearly a year after taking office.

The survey, conducted in March by independent pollster Merdeka Center, showed that only 46 percent of voters surveyed were satisfied with Mahathir, a sharp drop from the 71 percent approval rating he received in August 2018.

Mahathir’s Pakatan Harapan coalition won a stunning election victory in May 2018, ending the previous government’s more than 60-year rule.

But his administration has since been criticized for failing to deliver on promised reforms and protecting the rights of majority ethnic Malay Muslims.

Of 1,204 survey respondents, 46 percent felt that the “country was headed in the wrong direction”, up from 24 percent in August 2018, the Merdeka Center said in a statement. Just 39 percent said they approved of the ruling government.

High living costs remained the top most concern among Malaysians, with just 40 percent satisfied with the government’s management of the economy, the survey showed.

It also showed mixed responses to Pakatan Harapan’s proposed reforms.

Some 69 percent opposed plans to abolish the death penalty, while respondents were sharply divided over proposals to lower the minimum voting age to 18, or to implement a sugar tax.

“In our opinion, the results appear to indicate a public that favors the status quo, and thus requires a robust and coordinated advocacy efforts in order to garner their acceptance of new measures,” Merdeka Center said.

The survey also found 23 percent of Malaysians were concerned over ethnic and religious matters.

Some groups representing Malays have expressed fear that affirmative-action policies favoring them in business, education and housing could be taken away and criticized the appointments of non-Muslims to key government posts.

Last November, the government reversed its pledge to ratify a UN convention against racial discrimination, after a backlash from Malay groups.

Earlier this month, Pakatan Harapan suffered its third successive loss in local elections since taking power, which has been seen as a further sign of waning public support.

Despite the decline, most Malaysians – 67 percent – agreed that Mahathir’s government should be given more time to fulfill its election promises, Merdeka Center said.

This included a majority of Malay voters who were largely more critical of the new administration, it added.

(Reporting by Rozanna Latiff; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Source: OANN

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The German share price index DAX graph at the stock exchange in Frankfurt
The German share price index DAX graph is pictured at the stock exchange in Frankfurt, Germany, April 25, 2019. REUTERS/Staff

April 26, 2019

By Medha Singh and Agamoni Ghosh

(Reuters) – European shares slipped on Friday after losses in heavyweight banks and Glencore outweighed gains in healthcare and auto stocks, while investors remained on the sidelines ahead of U.S. economic data for the first quarter.

The pan-European STOXX 600 index was down 0.1 percent by 0935 GMT, eyeing a modest loss at the end of a holiday-shortened week. Banks-heavy Italian and Spanish indices were laggards.

The banking index fell for a fourth day, at the end of a heavy earnings week for lenders.

Britain’s Royal Bank of Scotland tumbled after posting lower first quarter profit, hurt by intensifying competition and Brexit uncertainty, while its investment bank also registered poor returns.

Weakness in investment banking also dented Deutsche Bank’s quarterly trading revenue and sent its shares lower a day after the German bank abandoned merger talks with smaller rival Commerzbank.

“The current interest rate environment makes it challenging for banks to make proper earnings because of their intermediary function,” said Teeuwe Mevissen, senior market economist eurozone, at Rabobank.

Since the start of April, all country indexes were on pace to rise between 1.8 percent and 3.4 percent, their fourth month of gains, while Germany was strongly outperforming with 6 percent growth.

“For now the current sentiment is very cautious as markets wait for the first estimates of the U.S. GDP growth which could see a surprise,” Mevissen said.

U.S. economic data for the first-quarter is due at 1230 GMT. Growth worries outside the United States resurfaced this week after South Korea’s economy unexpectedly contracted at the start of the year and weak German business sentiment data for April also disappointed.

Among the biggest drags on the benchmark index in Europe were the basic resources sector and the oil and gas sector, weighed down by Britain’s Glencore and France’s Total, respectively.

Glencore dropped after reports that U.S authorities were investigating whether the company and its subsidiaries violated certain provisions of the commodity exchange act.

Energy major Total said its net profit for the first three months of the year fell compared with a year ago due to volatile oil prices and debt costs.

Chip stocks in the region including Siltronic, Ams and STMicroelectronics lost more than 1 percent after Intel Corp reduced its full-year revenue forecast, adding to concerns that an industry-wide slowdown could persist until the end of 2019.

Meanwhile, healthcare, which is also seen as a defensive sector, was a bright spot. It was helped by French drugmaker Sanofi after it returned to growth with higher profits and revenues for the first-quarter.

Luxembourg-based satellite operator SES led media stocks higher after it maintained its full-year outlook on the back of the company’s Networks division.

Automakers in the region rose 0.4 percent, led by Valeo’s 6 percent jump as the French parts maker said its performance would improve in the second half of the year.

Continental AG advanced after it backed its outlook for the year despite reporting a fall in first-quarter earnings.

Renault rose more than 3 percent as it clung to full-year targets and pursues merger talks with its Japanese partner Nissan.

(Reporting by Medha Singh and Agamoni Ghosh in Bengaluru; Editing by Gareth Jones and Elaine Hardcastle)

Source: OANN

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U.S. President Donald Trump hosts Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day at the White House in Washington
U.S. President Donald Trump gives a thumbs up to his audience as he hosts Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day at the White House in Washington, U.S., April 25, 2019. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

April 26, 2019

By Jan Wolfe and Richard Cowan

(Reuters) – The “i word” – impeachment – is swirling around the U.S. Congress since the release of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s redacted Russia report, which painted a picture of lies, threats and confusion in Donald Trump’s White House.

Some Democrats say trying to remove Trump from office would be a waste of time because his fellow Republicans still have majority control of the Senate. Other Democrats argue they have a moral obligation at least to try to impeach, even though Mueller did not charge Trump with conspiring with Russia in the 2016 U.S. election or with obstruction of justice.

Whether or not the Democrats decide to go down this risky path, here is how the impeachment process works.

WHAT ARE GROUNDS FOR IMPEACHMENT?

The U.S. Constitution says the president can be removed from office by Congress for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” Exactly what that means is unclear.

Before he became president in 1974, replacing Republican Richard Nixon who resigned over the Watergate scandal, Gerald Ford said: “An impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history.”

Frank Bowman, a University of Missouri law professor and author of a forthcoming book on the history of impeachment, said Congress could look beyond criminal laws in defining “high crimes and misdemeanors.” Historically, it can encompass corruption and other abuses, including trying to obstruct judicial proceedings.

HOW DOES IMPEACHMENT PLAY OUT?

The term impeachment is often interpreted as simply removing a president from office, but that is not strictly accurate.

Impeachment technically refers to the 435-member House of Representatives approving formal charges against a president.

The House effectively acts as accuser – voting on whether to bring specific charges. An impeachment resolution, known as “articles of impeachment,” is like an indictment in a criminal case. A simple majority vote is needed in the House to impeach.

The Senate then conducts a trial. House members act as the prosecutors, with senators as the jurors. The chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court presides over the trial. A two-thirds majority vote is required in the 100-member Senate to convict and remove a president from office.

No president has ever been removed from office as a direct result of an impeachment and conviction by Congress.

Nixon quit in 1974 rather than face impeachment. Presidents Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1998 were impeached by the House, but both stayed in office after the Senate acquitted them.

Obstruction of justice was one charge against Clinton, who faced allegations of lying under oath about his relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Obstruction was also included in the articles of impeachment against Nixon.

CAN THE SUPREME COURT OVERTURN?

No.

Trump said on Twitter on Wednesday that he would ask the Supreme Court to intervene if Democrats tried to impeach him. But America’s founders explicitly rejected making a Senate conviction appealable to the federal judiciary, Bowman said.

“They quite plainly decided this is a political process and it is ultimately a political judgment,” Bowman said.

“So when Trump suggests there is any judicial remedy for impeachment, he is just wrong.”

PROOF OF WRONGDOING?

In a typical criminal court case, jurors are told to convict only if there is “proof beyond a reasonable doubt,” a fairly stringent standard.

Impeachment proceedings are different. The House and Senate “can decide on whatever burden of proof they want,” Bowman said. “There is no agreement on what the burden should be.”

PARTY BREAKDOWN IN CONGRESS?

Right now, there are 235 Democrats, 197 Republicans and three vacancies in the House. As a result, the Democratic majority could vote to impeach Trump without any Republican votes.

In 1998, when Republicans had a House majority, the chamber voted largely along party lines to impeach Clinton, a Democrat.

The Senate now has 53 Republicans, 45 Democrats and two independents who usually vote with Democrats. Conviction and removal of a president would requires 67 votes. So that means for Trump to be impeached, at least 20 Republicans and all the Democrats and independents would have to vote against him.

WHO BECOMES PRESIDENT IF TRUMP IS REMOVED?

A Senate conviction removing Trump from office would elevate Vice President Mike Pence to the presidency to fill out Trump’s term, which ends on Jan. 20, 2021.

(Reporting by Jan Wolfe and Richard Cowan; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Peter Cooney)

Source: OANN

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