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Boeing 737 MAX software fix: easy to upload, harder to approve

FILE PHOTO: An aerial photo shows Boeing 737 MAX airplanes parked on the tarmac at the Boeing Factory in Renton
FILE PHOTO: An aerial photo shows Boeing 737 MAX airplanes parked on the tarmac at the Boeing Factory in Renton, Washington, U.S. March 21, 2019. REUTERS/Lindsey Wasson/File Photo

March 26, 2019

By Eric M. Johnson, David Shepardson and Allison Lampert

SEATTLE/WASHINGTON/MONTREAL (Reuters) – Boeing engineers armed with laptops and thumb drives will be able to upload a crucial software fix for the 737 MAX anti-stall system in about an hour. That’s the easy part.

Before Boeing’s workhorse of the future can resume flying, the upgrade must first be approved by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and then by wary regulators around the globe who have grounded it in the wake of two deadly crashes.

Regulators in China, Europe and Canada have signaled they will not rubber stamp an FAA decision to allow the planes back into the air but conduct their own reviews.

With the FAA under pressure for its role in certifying the newest 737, and other regulators challenging its leadership of the airline safety system, Boeing’s money-spinning jet could remain parked for months.

“We are guessing this thing’s not going to be put to bed until the July or August time frame,” said Charlie Smith, chief investment officer at Fort Smith Capital Group, which holds shares in Boeing.

The world’s largest planemaker has been working on the upgrade for its MCAS stall-prevention system since October’s Lion Air crash, when pilots are believed to have lost a tug of war with software that repeatedly pushed the nose down.

Acting FAA Administrator Dan Elwell told the U.S. Senate Tuesday in written testimony that the agency will agree to allow the 737 MAX to return to service “only when the FAA’s analysis of the facts and technical data indicate that it is appropriate.”

Boeing formally submitted a proposed MCAS software enhancement to the FAA for certification on Jan. 21, Elwell’s testimony said.

Prior to certification, the FAA was “directly involved” in the review of the MCAS system but “time yields more data to be applied for continued analysis and improvement.”

Boeing’s flagship new single-aisle jet was grounded globally after a second crash in Ethiopia this month prompted concerns over possible similarities.

As a first step toward resuming flights and unfreezing deliveries, Boeing plans to provide more than 200 airlines and regulators with details on software and training on Wednesday.

Once the new software is approved, adding it will only take an hour per plane, according to an FAA official. But the overall task could stretch on far longer.

The FAA and Boeing will have to redo some analyses – including a formal functional hazard assessment – because they are making changes to a system that was already certified.

After the installation, there will be ground testing and flight tests, though how long these take could vary widely.

“Clearly there is pressure to get the airplanes ungrounded but there is tremendous pressure to make sure it was done right,” the FAA official said.

“The last thing in the world you want is to have the thing hurried and then find problems with it.”

Boeing and the FAA declined to comment.

FAA CHALLENGED

For decades, nations large and small followed the FAA’s lead, but this month many ignored its initial declaration after the second crash that there was “no basis to order grounding the aircraft.”

The agency stood alone among top regulators. First China, then Singapore, Britain and Canada banned flights, before U.S. President Donald Trump announced the MAX would be grounded.

Now, the FAA and Boeing must run the gauntlet of increased overseas scrutiny as they try to unground the jet – with China once again in a position to undo the regulatory pecking order.

Toughening its public stance, China said on Tuesday it had stopped accepting applications to certify individual MAX jets.

Canada, Europe and Turkey have all suggested they will take whatever time is needed to check the software even after the FAA approves it – a move that would normally set a global lead.

The shift in regulatory power poses a challenge to Boeing’s efforts to quickly resolve the crisis, experts said.

Increased precautions by global regulators could also have a broad impact on an aviation system that relies on “reciprocity” between the United States, Canada and Europe in recognizing each other’s expertise in certifying a plane.

Having a regulator such as the FAA do the heavy lifting to certify a plane reduces costs and time, since agencies abroad can validate the results and not have to duplicate them.

That global system of trust, which helps limit costs and keep flying safe, could be at risk from any perception that the United States failed to act, said Teal Group analyst Richard Aboulafia.

“It just makes the system, innovation and the development of new products all the more expensive.”

Mike Daniel, a former FAA accident investigator, said the crash revealed weaknesses in Boeing’s relations with regulators and airlines abroad.

777X CERTIFICATION CONCERN

The FAA’s acting head will tell a Senate panel on Wednesday the agency’s oversight approach must “evolve” too.

But in Canada, Transport Minister Marc Garneau told Reuters Ottawa had already gone further than the FAA following the first crash in October and was ready to move the bar higher again.

“So we don’t always do things exactly the same. It has to pass the sort of safety threshold from our point of view.  And there’s nothing wrong with that,” he said.

Meanwhile, the fallout may spread beyond the 737 family.

Certification could be delayed for the larger Boeing 777X, for which Lufthansa is a launch customer, as European regulators give it more a stringent review, the German airline’s CEO said.

“Overall, foreign authorities will be more thorough in accepting American certifications. I think that for me is one of the outputs of these terrible events in Indonesia and Ethiopia already,” Chief Executive Carsten Spohr told reporters.

(Reporting by Eric M. Johnson in SEATTLE, David Shepardson and Jeff Mason in Washington, Allison Lampert in MONTREAL, Tuvan Gumrukcu in ANKARA, Stella Qiu in BEIJING, Brenda Goh in SHANGHAI, Jamie Freed in SINGAPORE, Tracy Rucinski in CHICAGO, Alwyn Scott in NEW YORK and Tim Hepher in PARIS; Writing by Eric M. Johnson, Tim Hepher; Editing by)

Source: OANN

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Oregon school allegedly allowed parents to bid on their child’s next teacher

An elementary school in Portland, Ore., allegedly allowed parents to bid on their child’s next teacher, according to reports.

Fox 12 reported that an unnamed PTA member said the auction was meant to fill a financial gap.

The news outlet reported that 50 percent of Markham Elementary School’s students come from underserved communities, and 46.1 percent of them receive free or reduced-price lunch.

FELICITY HUFFMAN, LORI LOUGHLIN MOCKED BY FELLOW CELEBRITIES OVER COLLEGE ADMISSIONS CHEATING SCANDAL

“I don’t think it was a good idea; I do know, however, that the intent was really good,” said mother Sarah Simons.

“We don’t have any bad teachers,” Cari Carr, another parent, said. “There are no teachers that people are trying to avoid.”

Of the $52,000 raised in the auction, $1,600 came from six parents who bid on a teacher, Fox 12 said.

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The money has since been returned.

Click for more from Fox 12.

Frank Miles is a reporter and editor covering geopolitics, military, crime, technology and sports for FoxNews.com. His email is Frank.Miles@foxnews.com.

Source: Fox News National

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French $64 million Renaissance-style chateau faces court-ordered demolition

A sprawling $64 million Renaissance-style palace on the French Riveria has to be demolished because it was built illegally, an appeals court has ruled.

Chateau Diter in the Provence town of Grasse, France's perfume capital, includes landscaped gardens, a swimming pool and heliport but needs to be torn down because it was built illegally in a protected wooded area, the Aix-en-Provence court of appeal ruled Monday, according to reports.

The court affirmed a lower court order giving French businessman Patrick Diter 18 months to demolish his palatial estate which he has rented out to film production companies and to weddings for more than $50,000 a day, The Local France reported.

FRENCH CARNIVAL WORKERS RIOT OVER LE MANS FAIRGROUND SPACE

Diter knocked down a humble farm house to build his property which local prosecutor Pierrre-Jean Gaury described as a "pharaonic project, delusional, totally illegal and built illegally," according to the news outlet.

Gaury said the construction occurred “in violation of urban planning rules, as well as of safety and environmental rules” by an owner whose “only concern is money.”

A complaint from a neighbor led to Diter’s legal troubles.

SILICON VALLEY HIT WITH NEW DIGITAL TAX IN FRANCE

As part of the court case against him, Diter has been fined more than $500,000 and ordered to serve a three-month suspended prison sentence.

If he misses the court's 18-month deadline, he faces additional fines of more than $500 a day.

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As his legal woes mounted Diter admitted making mistakes and said he would demolish any structure built without a permit, The Local reported.

Source: Fox News World

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Explainer: What might be blacked out of Mueller’s Trump-Russia report?

FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Trump declares a national emergency at the southern border during remarks at the White House in Washington
FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump heads back to the Oval Office after declaring a national emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border during remarks about border security in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, U.S., February 15, 2019. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo

April 11, 2019

By Jan Wolfe

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Attorney General William Barr has pledged to release next week Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russia’s role in the 2016 U.S. election and contacts between Moscow and President Donald Trump’s campaign, albeit with color-coded redactions.

While congressional Democrats have demanded the release of the full report with nothing blacked out, as well as the underlying evidence Mueller collected, Barr has said he will redact four categories of sensitive information.

Barr told a congressional committee on Tuesday these redactions will be color-coded and accompanied by notes explaining the grounds for withholding information. It is unclear how much will be blacked out.

According to a March 24 letter Barr sent to lawmakers, Mueller’s nearly 400-page report presents evidence on both sides of the question of whether Trump engaged in obstruction of justice, and while it “does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”

Barr said in his letter that Mueller did not establish that the Trump campaign engaged in a criminal conspiracy with Russia. Barr also said that he as attorney general concluded that Mueller’s evidence was “not sufficient” to establish that Trump committed criminal obstruction of justice.

Here is an explanation of the four categories of information that Barr has said will be redacted.

GRAND JURY MATERIAL

In the U.S. criminal justice system, prosecutors generally must get authorization from a group of citizens known as a grand jury before bringing criminal charges or issuing subpoenas. Grand juries meet in secret to ensure that people being investigated are not tipped off, while also protecting the privacy of potential criminal defendants who ultimately are not charged.

Over the course of Mueller’s investigation, which led to charges against 34 people and three Russian companies, his team used grand jury proceedings to issue more than 2,800 subpoenas and executed nearly 500 search warrants. A provision of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure called Rule 6(e) requires government lawyers to maintain the confidentiality of “matters” before grand juries, with some exceptions.

This rule is unlikely to lead to many redactions in the part of the Mueller report dealing with whether Trump committed the crime of obstruction of justice with actions aimed at impeding the inquiry. For that investigation, Mueller’s team gathered evidence through voluntary FBI interviews with witnesses, which do not implicate grand jury secrecy rules.

Mueller did use a grand jury to question associates of Roger Stone, a longtime adviser to Trump who came under scrutiny due to his interactions with the Wikileaks website that published emails the special counsel has said were hacked by Russia to harm Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. In January, Mueller indicted Stone on charges including obstruction of an official proceeding, witness tampering and making false statements. Stone has pleaded not guilty.

Another key figure who testified before Mueller’s grand jury was George Nader, a Lebanese-American businessman involved in an effort to set up a back channel between the incoming Trump administration and the Kremlin while Barack Obama was still president, according to a Washington Post report.

INFORMATION THAT COULD AFFECT ONGOING CASES

Barr has said he will redact information that could interfere with ongoing prosecutions.

“You’ll recall that the special counsel did spin off a number of cases that are still being pursued,” Barr told lawmakers. “And we want to make sure that none of the information in the report would impinge upon either the ability of the prosecutors to prosecute the cases, or the fairness to the defendants.”

Mueller’s team has enlisted attorneys from other parts of the Justice Department, court records show, to jointly prosecute certain ongoing cases. These include: charges against Stone; witness-tampering charges against Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian associate of Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort; charges against 12 Russian intelligence officers accused of hacking Democratic emails; and a Russian “troll farm” accused of flooding social media sites with propaganda to promote Trump and disparage Clinton.

Separately, referrals by Mueller gave rise to inquiries by federal prosecutors in Washington, Virginia and New York. The New York referral related to Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen, who pleaded guilty to a variety of charges and is due to report to prison for a three-year sentence in May. U.S. prosecutors in Virginia are investigating secret Turkish lobbying involving Michael Flynn, Trump’s fired former national security adviser. In Washington, lobbyist Samuel Patten pleaded guilty to failing to register as a foreign agent for pro-Russian Ukrainian politicians and helping a pro-Russian Ukrainian businessman illegally purchase tickets to Trump’s inauguration.

Stone’s trial is set to begin in November and Manafort has been hit with state charges in New York, so information about those two men could be redacted.

‘PERIPHERAL THIRD PARTIES’

Barr has said he will redact “information that would unduly infringe on the personal privacy and reputational interests of peripheral third parties.” This is another way of articulating a long-standing Justice Department policy of not releasing disparaging information about a person unless the individual is indicted. The policy is grounded in the belief that people who are indicted can defend themselves in court, but people who are investigated without being charged do not have this opportunity.

This policy has been dispensed with before, including in June 2016 when then-FBI Director James Comey publicly pronounced that Clinton had been “extremely careless” in handling classified information even though she was never charged.

Some legal experts have said this policy should not apply to Mueller’s report because it was primarily a counterintelligence operation, rather than a traditional criminal investigation. By focusing on the privacy rights of “peripheral” third parties, Barr may be signaling he will make an exception to the policy in order to allow information to remain unredacted concerning people who, while not charged with crimes, are central to the probe, potentially including Trump.

INTELLIGENCE-GATHERING SOURCES AND METHODS

In investigating Russian election interference, Mueller’s team may have relied on information from top-secret intelligence sources. Justice Department officials last year turned down a request by Republican lawmakers for certain information about Mueller’s investigation, saying doing so could put lives at risk and expose the identity of a U.S. citizen who provided intelligence to the FBI. While redacting such material, Barr might opt to divulge it to certain lawmakers behind closed doors.

(Reporting by Jan Wolfe; Editing by Will Dunham)

Source: OANN

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Sanders says his ideas are now being invoked by Dem candidates ‘from school board to president’

Left-wing presidential hopeful Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., told a crowd in Iowa on Saturday that his agenda, once declared radical by establishment politicians, is now being promoted by Democratic candidates across the country.

“They are ideas that Democratic candidates from school board to president are now campaigning on,” he said, as he listed his policies on everything from health care to climate change.

Sanders was widely seen as a far-left candidate in 2016 when he unsuccessfully challenged the more centrist Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination, but since President Trump’s election in 2016, the party has moved increasingly to the left, and many of the 2020 presidential hopefuls have adopted a number of policies that the self-described Democratic socialist was pushing in 2016.

“The ideas, the agenda we were talking about then were considered by establishment politicians and mainstream media to be radical and extreme. Remember that?” he told the crowd in Des Moines.

“So we came here and we said that we need to raise minimum wage to a living wage,” he told the crowd. “But the establishment said,‘Bernie that’s a radical idea, you can’t double the federal minimum wage.'"

“We said guaranteeing health care to all is a right not a privilege," he said. “They said, 'Too radical, too radical, not something the American people want.'"

He also cited his policies on investing $1 trillion into rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure and by “aggressively” fighting climate change.

Sanders’ comments tap into the broader sense that the party is lurching to the left on an array of ideas -- everything from how to combat climate change to reparations for black Americans. Top 2020 candidates have embraced ideas such as Medicare-for-all and the Green New Deal, ideas that were once relegated to the party’s fringe.

Candidates including Sens. Cory Booker, D-N.J., Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.J., Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., have signed onto Sanders' "Medicare-for-all" bill. Both Sanders and Harris have stated that their plans would end most private health care plans.

Sanders made similar comments on Thursday in Council Bluffs, Iowa, reminding a crowd there that he was the original champion of many of the ideas that are now being seen in most 2020 Democratic candidates’ platforms.

"Shock of all shocks, those very same ideas are now supported by candidates -- Democratic candidates -- for president," he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News Politics

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'The Most Politically Intolerant Americans'

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Intolerance of the other political party has become a hallmark of civic life in the United States. But speculation ranges widely about the causes and cures.

The left blames President Trump and those who voted for him. The right points the finger at a hostile media and arrogant political elites. Both sides exculpate themselves.

 In an online article at The Atlantic, Amanda Ripley, Rekha Tenjarla, and Angela Y. He review some of the research, which shows partisan prejudice in the country afflicts both sides and is on the rise. “For example, parents are less likely to vaccinate their children when the other party’s president is in the White House,” the authors report. And “[r]egardless of who is in power, mutual-fund managers are more likely to invest in funds handled by fellow partisans, a bias that does not lead to better returns.”

Worse than the damage partisan prejudice inflicts on health care and prosperity is its transformation of political opponents into enemies of the state: Americans “are more and more convinced that the other side poses a threat to the country.”

But, as the authors assert in “The Geography of Partisan Prejudice,” intolerance of political differences is not evenly distributed throughout the nation. A PredictWise poll commissioned by The Atlantic produced results — based, it should be said, on a combination of data and aggressive extrapolation — that Ripley, Tenjarla, and He found “surprising in several ways.” The core finding, contrary to their expectations, was that “the most politically intolerant Americans” lived in neighborhoods that tended to be home to a higher proportion of whites and people who were “more highly educated, older, more urban, and more partisan themselves.” Drawing also on the research of University of Pennsylvania professor Diana Mutz, the authors explain that “white, highly educated people are relatively isolated from political diversity. They don’t routinely talk with people who disagree with them; this isolation makes it easier for them to caricature their ideological opponents.”

The authors are confident that they have discovered a correlation: “Older Americans and people living in or near sizable cities, from Dallas, Texas, to Seattle, Washington State, seem to be more likely to stereotype and disdain people who disagree with them politically.” But Ripley, Tenjarla, and He lament that, based on the social science research, they can’t determine “what is causing what.”

Perhaps the scientific evidence has not yet been comprehensively gathered and thoroughly sifted and analyzed. However, in a parenthetical remark grounded in Mutz’s research, the authors themselves provide a potent hint about causes: “people who went to graduate school have the least amount of political disagreement in their lives.” Although the Atlantic writers overlook the hypothesis, there is good reason to suppose that an important contributing factor to the partisan prejudice disproportionately afflicting denizens of major metropolitan areas is the stifling climate of opinion fostered by, and the politicized education on offer at, America’s top colleges and universities.

According to the interactive map of the distribution of partisan prejudice across the country that accompanies the authors’ article, Middlesex County in Massachusetts occupies the 100th percentile. That “means that 0 out of every 100 counties are more prejudiced against the political ‘other.’” Middlesex County is home to Harvard University.

New Haven County, home to Yale, falls in the 85th percentile; Mercer County, where Princeton is located, ranks in the 86th percentile. San Mateo and Alameda counties in California’s Bay Area, the locations of Stanford and UC-Berkeley, respectively, both made the 90th percentile.

Out leading colleges and universities are not only situated in places that are overwhelmingly “more prejudiced against the political ‘other.’” They also duplicate within their academic communities the conditions that foster partisan prejudice.

Living in “politically homogeneous” neighborhoods generates partisan prejudice because it thwarts the formation of “‘cross-cutting relationships,’” according to the Atlantic authors. “[D]ecades of research into how prejudice operates” shows that “humans are more likely to discriminate against groups of people with whom they do not have regular, positive interactions.” Furthermore, “in America, people who live in cities (particularly affluent, older white people) can more easily construct work and home lives with people who agree with them politically. They may be cosmopolitan in some ways and provincial in others.” And “[a]s politics have become more about identity than policy, partisan leanings have become more about how we grew up and where we feel like we belong. Politics are acting more like religion, in other words.”

What is true of the affluent and politically homogenous counties in the United States where partisan prejudice grows most profusely is even more true of the preeminent colleges and universities located inside them. For decades our top institutions of higher education have constructed a curriculum that systematically downplays or excludes non-progressive perspectives and have assembled a faculty, particularly in the social sciences and humanities, strikingly devoid of conservative scholars. Our campuses are provincial in their monochromatic cosmopolitanism. And they have taken the lead in promulgating the notion that opinions and ideas are a function of identity, and therefore to disagree with a person’s views is to attack his or her humanity.

Third-year Yale Law School student Aaron Haviland provides corroborating evidence for the hypothesis that higher education is a major cause of the partisan prejudice that flourishes among more highly educated Americans. In “I Thought I Could be a Christian and Constitutionalist at Yale Law School. I Was Wrong,” he describes widespread and hair-trigger intolerance among his classmates, the preponderance of whom are high-performing graduates of America’s most prestigious colleges and universities.

A graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and the University of Cambridge, a Marine, and a believing Christian, Haviland, along with Federalist Society friends, invited to the law school a lawyer from the Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian legal group that fights for free speech and religious liberty. The invitation provoked intense protest. The outcry began with the law school’s LGBTQ group, which called for a boycott of the event. This demand was swiftly echoed by the Asian Pacific American Law Students Association, the Black Law Students Association, the South Asian Law Students Association, the Latinx Law Students Association, the Muslim Law Students’ Association, the Middle Eastern and North African Law Students Association, and the Jewish Law Students Association.

Some protesters announced that those who favored ADF’s views — broad protection for free speech and for religion, including Christianity — should be denied admission to the law school. Many opponents — not merely of ADF’s views but of allowing members of the organization to express their opinions at the law school — adopted vicious rhetoric and engaged in cyberbullying.

Haviland recounts that he knew before he matriculated that he “would be in the intellectual minority” at Yale Law School. But he had hoped that he “could reasonably disagree with and learn from” his fellow students: “A lot of smart people come to this school, I thought to myself. Although we held different political beliefs, we probably shared a common passion for the rule of law.”

Three years down the road and as he prepares to graduate in a few months, he has come to a grim conclusion: “I was wrong. And now I am deeply disappointed.”

Our colleges and universities fuel the partisan prejudice that pervades the country and which is especially concentrated in their neighborhoods and those in which their graduates tend to settle. For the sake of education and civil discourse, professors and administrators would do well to take to heart an observation with which Ripley, Tenjarla, and He close their Atlantic article: “By cultivating meaningful relationships across divides, by rewarding humility and curiosity over indignation and righteousness, people can live wiser, fuller lives.”

Peter Berkowitz is the Tad and Dianne Taube senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. His writings are posted at PeterBerkowitz.com and he can be followed on Twitter @BerkowitzPeter. He is also a member of the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff. The views expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the United States government.

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Champion-bred pigeon sells for world record $1.42 million

That ain’t pigeon feed.

Armando, a champion-bred racing pigeon from Belgium, sold at an auction over the weekend for a world record amount -- nearly $1.5 million.

“Nobody expected this. No one,” auctioneer Jorge Ferrari, of Pigeon Paradise in Brussels, told Reuters.

The previous record for a homing pigeon sold at auction stood at $425,000.

Two Chinese millionaires engaged in a furious bidding war for Armando in the last hour of a two-week online auction, according to the Guardian. The gavel came down at $1.42 million. The winning bidder wasn't named.

MIRACLE PENNY THAT SAVED WWI SOLDIER'S LIFE TO GO UP FOR AUCTION: 'NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE THIS BEFORE'

Pigeon racing in China is a big sport with race purses in the seven figures.

Two Chinese millionaires drove up the price for Armando the racing pigeon in the last hour of a two-week online auction that ended Sunday. 

Two Chinese millionaires drove up the price for Armando the racing pigeon in the last hour of a two-week online auction that ended Sunday.  (Pigeon Paradise)

“The two Chinese [men] had told me in advance that they absolutely wanted Armando,” the pigeon’s breeder, Joël Verschoot, 63, told the paper. “But I didn’t see this coming. This is a crowning glory of all those years in the pigeon sport. The icing on the cake.”

ARIZONA BIRD RESCUE SEARCHING FOR OWNER OF MYSTERIOUS BEDAZZLED PIGEON

Vershoot said Armando was the best in Belgium in 2017 and 2018 and the best in Europe in 2018.

“Three years ago it was clear he would reach the top,” he told the Guardian.

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Next up for the 5-year-old Flemish flier is a breeding date with a valuable hen when he arrives in China

Source: Fox News World

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FILE PHOTO: Customers shop in a Sainsbury's store in Redhill
FILE PHOTO: Customers shop in a Sainsbury’s store in Redhill, Britain, March 27, 2018. REUTERS/Peter Nicholls/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By James Davey

LONDON (Reuters) – With Sainsbury’s dream of creating Britain’s biggest supermarket group in tatters, its chastened CEO Mike Coupe needs to reassure investors he has the plan to arrest a sales decline when he presents annual results next week.

Britain’s competition regulator blocked Sainsbury’s 7.3 billion pound ($9.4 billion) takeover of Walmart’s Asda on Thursday, saying the deal would increase prices. Sainsbury’s shares fell 5 percent and are down 22 percent over the last three months.

For Sainsbury’s fourth quarter to March 9 analysts are on average forecasting a 1.6 percent fall in like-for-like sales, which would follow 1.1 percent decline over the Christmas period.

Monthly industry data from researcher Kantar has also shown Sainsbury’s as the weakest performer of the big four grocers this year and this month it lost its status as Britain’s No. 2 supermarket group by market share to Asda.

While Sainsbury’s has struggled, market leader Tesco has gained momentum, this month reporting a 34 percent jump in full year profit.

Prohibition of the deal was a major blow to Coupe, its architect and Sainsbury’s boss since 2014.

Martin Scicluna became Sainsbury’s chairman last month and when bedded-in may decide that if the group needs a major shake-up it is best carried out by a new leader.

Much will depend on the attitude of 22 percent shareholder the Qatar Investment Authority, which has so far declined to comment, as well as Coupe’s own appetite to continue after 15 years at the group.

THE RIGHT STRATEGY?

Coupe said on Thursday he was confident Sainsbury’s was pursuing the right strategy.

That was a clear indication that Wednesday’s results statement will not include radical changes to the group’s plans, such as a big margin reset — sacrificing profit to drive sales.

However, sources connected to Sainsbury’s said Coupe would likely acknowledge that more needs to be done on prices, so the supermarket business can better compete with its big four rivals – Tesco, Asda and No. 4 Morrisons – as well as German-owned discounters Aldi and Lidl.

Coupe’s strategy is based on differentiating Sainsbury’s food offer, growing its general merchandise, clothing business and bank, while investing in convenience and online channels.

Some analysts believe major change is needed.

HSBC analyst David McCarthy reckons Sainsbury’s needs a margin reset, should allocate more space for core lines and needs to drive better store standards. He said Sainsbury’s might consider closing down space in some of its larger stores and reducing its non-food offer.

For the full 2018-19 year analysts are on average forecasting a pretax profit of 626 million pounds, up from 589 million pounds in 2017-18 – a second straight year of profit growth. A full year dividend of 10.5 pence per share is forecast versus 10.2 pence last time.

Bank and lawyer fees related to the proposed combination with Asda were 17 million pounds in the first half and have reportedly jumped to around 50 million pounds.

(Reporting by James Davey; Editing by Keith Weir)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: FILE PHOTO: A Canadian dollar coin commonly known as the
FILE PHOTO: A Canadian dollar coin, commonly known as the “Loonie”, is pictured in this illustration picture taken in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, January 23, 2015. REUTERS/Mark Blinch/File Photo/File Photo

April 26, 2019

OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canada posted a budget surplus in the first 11 months of the 2018/19 fiscal year compared to a deficit the year earlier as revenues increased mostly on higher tax incomes, the finance department said on Friday.

The surplus for April-February was C$3.1 billion, compared to a deficit of C$6 billion in the same 2017/18 period. Revenues climbed by 8.5 percent, mainly due to higher tax receipts, while program expenses rose by 4.8 percent.

The surplus for February was C$4.3 billion compared with C$2.8 billion in February 2018. Revenues jumped by 12.2 percent while program expenses posted a more modest 6.9 percent gain.

Last month, the Liberals unveiled their new budget, projecting a C$14.9 billion deficit in 2018/19, with the deficit rising to C$19.8 billion in fiscal 2019/20.

(Reporting by Julie Gordon in Ottawa; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

Source: OANN

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President Trump said Friday he would beat Joe Biden “easily” in the 2020 presidential election, suggesting the former vice president could not have enough “energy” to hold the post—taking an apparent swipe at his age.

The president, departing the White House, was asked about Biden’s entrance into the Democratic primary field. Biden announced his presidential bid early Thursday morning, marking his third attempt at the White House.

JOE BIDEN OFFICIALLY LAUNCHES 2020 PRESIDENTIAL BID

“I think we’d beat him easily,” Trump told reporters Friday.

Trump, 72, said he feels “young” and is ready for 2020, and another term for his administration.

“I feel like a young man. I am a young, vibrant man,” Trump said. “I look at Joe, I don’t know about him.”

The president’s comments seemingly were a shot at the age of Biden, who is 76.

BIDEN ENTERS WHITE HOUSE RACE WITHOUT OBAMA’S ENDORSEMENT

“I would never say anyone’s too old,” Trump said. “I know they’re all making me look very young both in terms of age and in terms of energy.”

Biden became the 20th candidate to join the crowded Democratic primary field Thursday. But Biden is not the oldest in the pack. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., is 77 and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., is 69.

Should Trump be re-elected, he would be 74 on Jan. 20, 2021—Inauguration Day. Should the presidency go to one of the elder Democrats in the field—Biden would be 78; Sanders would be 79; and Warren would be 71.

Meanwhile, in a wide-ranging interview on “Hannity” Thursday night, Trump dismissed Biden’s candidacy, nicknaming him “Sleepy Joe,” and saying he’s “not the brightest bulb.” Trump also said that while the former vice president has name recognition, he won’t “be able to do the job.”

Source: Fox News Politics

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Venezuela's Foreign Affairs Minister Jorge Arreaza talks to the media during a news conference in Caracas
Venezuela’s Foreign Affairs Minister Jorge Arreaza talks to the media during a news conference in Caracas, Venezuela April 8, 2019. REUTERS/Manaure Quintero

April 26, 2019

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Treasury Department on Friday imposed sanctions on Venezuela’s foreign minister and a Venezuelan judge, according to a statement on the department’s website.

Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza and a judge, Carol Padilla, were targeted over the ongoing crisis in Venezuela, the Treasury Department said, the latest in a list of officials blacklisted by U.S. authorities for their role in President Nicolas Maduro’s government.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey, Makini Brice and Lesley Wroughton; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

Source: OANN

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Avengers fans gather at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood to attend the opening screening of
Avengers fans gather at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood to attend the opening screening of “Avengers: Endgame” in Los Angeles, California, U.S., April 25, 2019. REUTERS/Mike Blake

April 26, 2019

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Marvel Studios superhero spectacle “Avengers: Endgame” hauled in a record $60 million at U.S. and Canadian box offices during its Thursday night debut, distributor Walt Disney Co said.

Global ticket sales for the film about Iron Man, Hulk and other popular characters reached $305 million for the first two days, Disney said.

(Reporting by Lisa Richwine; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

Source: OANN

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