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Houston mayor calls for 400 firefighter layoffs so city can afford voter-mandated pay hikes for the rest

Houston city officials plan to lay off 400 firefighters, or about 10 percent of the department's personnel, to fund pay raises that voters mandated in a November referendum.

The administration of Mayor Sylvester Turner, a Democrat who opposed the raises, plans to mail layoff notices within a few weeks. Those who'll be out of work include 68 cadets whom the mayor declined to promote amid a hiring freeze.

The raises required by Proposition B -- which was approved by 59 percent of voters -- would grant city firefighters the same pay as police officers of corresponding rank.

FIREFIGHTER HAS BECOME MASTER OF MAXING OUT OVERTIME PAY

Around $80 million of the city’s $197 million budget gap stems from the raises. In May, Turner will seek to issue back pay to firefighters retroactive to Jan. 1, totaling around $30 million.

“So, basically, on May 9 you want to be hanging out near a firefighter because he’s going to be buying,” Councilman Greg Travis told the Houston Chronicle. “He’s going to have a lot of money on that day.”

Turner said implementing the measure is almost impossible without layoffs.

“When you factor in Proposition B, it’s $197 million that we have to find a way to balance between now and June, and unless there’s additional revenue coming in, we cannot do it without there being significant layoffs," Turner said, according to KHOU-TV.

To close the deficit, Turner will ask all city departments to cut their budgets by 3 percent, which could require more layoffs, though no police officers will be let go, Councilwoman Brenda Stardig said, according to the Chronicle.

The plan would cut $25 million out of the fire department’s $503 million budget, Fire Chief Sam Peña told council members. Despite the cuts, the number of firefighters on duty at any one time will not change, officials said.

“The mayor’s hatred of firefighters now will have terrible consequences for us and for the public," said Houston Professional Fire Fighters Association President Marty Lancton, according to the paper. “He’s willing to destroy public safety in Houston to punish firefighter families. A world-class fire department is being destroyed from within by third-rate politicians.”

“He’s willing to destroy public safety in Houston to punish firefighter families. A world-class fire department is being destroyed from within by third-rate politicians.”

— President Marty Lancton, Houston Professional Fire Fighters Association

During negotiations since Prop B’s passing, the fire union proposed phasing in the raises over three years retroactive to July 1, 2018, with all members reaching parity with police by July 1, 2020.

Turner campaigned against the proposition and warned of potential layoffs if passed. He said Friday that the charter amendment came without a way to fund it.

“People want to put the administration in a box,” Turner said. “If you don’t implement Prop. B, people criticize you for not implementing Proposition B. When we move to implement Prop. B, people say, ‘We don’t want the layoffs.’ Well, you can’t have it both ways.”

Under his plan, firefighters would receive smaller raises if they lack the same educational requirements required by the corresponding police position. For example, a Houston police officer must have a master’s degree to be promoted to assistant police chief. That stipulation does not exist for fire chiefs or fire marshals.

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Some council members were skeptical of the proposal.

"I’m not sure that’s going to fly,” Councilman Mike Knox said.

Turner disagreed.

“If within police, if there are educational requirements to get to a certain rank, then the same thing ought to be expected of fire, if you want parity,” Turner said.

The City Council still needs to approve Turner's plan and vote on what it's willing to give up to balance the budget and pay firefighters, KPRC-TV reported.

The salary debate comes in the wake of national recognition Houston firefighters gained for their efforts during Hurricane Harvey in 2017, which left 68 dead and $125 billion in damage.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News National

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Pence to address U.N. Security Council on Venezuela next week

FILE PHOTO: U.S. Vice President Pence listens as President Trump meets with Fabiana Rosales, wife of Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido, at the White House in Washington
FILE PHOTO: U.S. Vice President Mike Pence listens as President Donald Trump meets with Fabiana Rosales, wife of Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido, in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, U.S., March 27, 2019. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo

April 5, 2019

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – U.S. Vice President Mike Pence will address the United Nations Security Council next week on Venezuela, a White House official said on Friday, as the 15-member body remains deadlocked over how to deal with the country’s political and humanitarian crisis.

The United States has sought United Nations support for its backing of opposition leader Juan Guaido as the rightful president of Venezuela. Most Western nations have recognized Guaido as head of state, while Russia and China have stood by socialist President Nicolas Maduro.

“Given the deteriorating humanitarian situation in the country, we believe a briefing is necessary and timely,” the U.S. mission to the United Nations wrote in a request, seen by Reuters, for a meeting next week.

The meeting has been scheduled for Wednesday, diplomats said.

Pence’s address will shine a global spotlight on the issue, but action by the Security Council is unlikely. The United States and Russia both failed in rival bids to get the body to adopt resolutions on Venezuela in February.

The United Nations estimates about a quarter of Venezuelans are in need of humanitarian assistance, according to an internal U.N. report seen by Reuters last week, that paints a dire picture of millions of people lacking food and basic services.

Maduro has said there is no crisis and blames U.S. sanctions for the country’s economic problems. In February Venezuelan government troops blocked U.S.-backed aid convoys entering from Colombia and Brazil. Maduro has accepted aid from ally Russia.

Moscow has also provided military assistance to Maduro’s government.

The White House warned Moscow and other countries backing Maduro against sending troops and military equipment, saying the United States would view such actions as a “direct threat” to the region’s security.

Russia has dismissed U.S. criticism of its military cooperation with Caracas, saying it is not interfering in the Latin American country’s internal affairs and poses no threat to regional stability.

Guaido invoked the Venezuelan constitution to assume an interim presidency in January, arguing that Maduro’s 2018 re-election was illegitimate.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols and Roberta Rampton; editing by Mary Milliken, Tom Brown and Richard Chang)

Source: OANN

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Brazil prosecutor opposes president on commemoration of coup

FILE PHOTO - Brazilian President Bolsonaro participates in Brazil-U.S. Business forum
FILE PHOTO - Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro participates in a Brazil-U.S. Business Council forum to discuss relations and future cooperation in Washington, U.S. March 18, 2019. REUTERS/Erin Scott

March 27, 2019

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) – Brazil’s federal prosecutor’s office on Tuesday said it was opposed to far-right President Jair Bolsonaro’s plan to allow the armed forces to officially commemorate the 55th anniversary of Brazil’s military coup this weekend.

“The coup d’état of 1964 … was a violent and undemocratic rupture of the constitutional order,” the citizens’ rights defender’s office, which is part of the federal prosecutor’s office, said in a statement.

“If repeated in the present times, the conduct of the military and civilian forces that promoted the coup would be characterized as a … crime against the constitutional order and the democratic state.”

Speaking with reporters on Monday, Bolsonaro’s spokesman said the president planned to allow the military to commemorate on Sunday the beginning of the country’s 1964-1985 dictatorship, which the former army captain has long idolized.

Despite Bolsonaro’s move, no public displays by the military are expected, although events may take place behind closed doors in Brazil’s barracks.

Some Brazilian conservatives and members of Brazil’s military view March 31 as the day they liberated the country from the threat of communist usurpation, but many other Brazilians view it as a dark period that resulted in human rights abuses, disappearances and the murder of political activists.

Sunday will be the first time since 2011 that the military will officially commemorate the date.

Former President Dilma Rousseff, a one-time leftist guerrilla who was imprisoned and tortured during the regime, ordered the military to halt commemorations when she took office.

(Reporting by Gabriel Stargardter; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

Source: OANN

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Russia testing Ukraine’s new leader with passport move: Lithuania

FILE PHOTO: Candidate Zelenskiy reacts following the announcement of an exit poll in Ukraine's presidential election in Kiev
FILE PHOTO: Ukrainian presidential candidate Volodymyr Zelenskiy reacts following the announcement of the first exit poll in a presidential election at his campaign headquarters in Kiev, Ukraine April 21, 2019. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By Matthias Williams

KIEV (Reuters) – Russia’s decision to make it easier for residents of rebel-controlled eastern Ukraine to obtain a Russian passport is meant to test Ukraine’s new leader and the West should not recognize the documents, Lithuania’s foreign minister said on Friday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the order on facilitating passports on Wednesday, three days after comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy, a political novice, won a landslide victory in Ukraine’s presidential election.

Linas Linkevicius, whose own country also has strained relations with Moscow, told Reuters in an interview that the West should consider imposing new sanctions on Russia.

“This is a blatant violation of international law. And basically also a kind of test to the new (Ukrainian) leadership, which is also a usual game,” Linkevicius said.

“The least we can do (is) we shouldn’t recognize these passports. How to do that technically, it’s another issue to discuss. Also (we need) to look at additional sanctions,” said Linkevicius, whose small Baltic nation is a member of NATO and the European Union.

Western nations imposed sanctions on Russia over its 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region and its support for armed separatists battling Kiev’s forces in eastern Ukraine. Some 13,000 people have been killed in that conflict despite a notional ceasefire signed in Minsk in 2015.

Linkevicius, who in Kiev on Friday became the first minister of an EU country since Ukraine’s election to meet President-elect Zelenskiy, said they had discussed the passport issue.

Zelenskiy also raised the possibility of resetting the Minsk ceasefire agreement without giving any concessions to Russia, Linkevicius said.

“DANGEROUS CANCER” OF GRAFT

The minister urged Zelenskiy to deliver on his electoral promise of tackling corruption, which he described as the “most dangerous cancer” facing Ukraine, which hopes one day to join the EU.

Last month, Lithuania’s own relations with Russia came under renewed strain after a Vilnius court found former Soviet defense minister Dmitry Yazov, in absentia, guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in a 1991 crackdown against Lithuania’s pro-independence movement.

Russia branded the verdict “extremely unfriendly and essentially provocative” and opened a probe into the judges involved.

Linkevicius accused Russia of seeking to politicize the judicial process by trying to take revenge on the judges, adding: “This is lamentable.”

(Editing by Gareth Jones)

Source: OANN

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Pelosi Supports Lowering Voting Age to 16

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., says she would support lowering the national voting age to 16.

"I myself, personally, I'm not speaking for my caucus, I myself have always been for lowering the voting age to 16," Pelosi told The Daily Caller after making her preference known at a Thursday news conference.

"I think it's really important to capture kids when they're in high school when they're interested in all of this when they're learning about government to be able to vote."

The issue came up for debate last week in the House as an amendment — and failed — on the "For The People Act" that would overhaul U.S. election and campaign finance laws, The Daily Caller reported.

Since 2013, 13 states have proposed bills to lower the voting age, the news outlet reported. 

Source: NewsMax America

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Cardinal Dolan says Notre Dame Cathedral will rise again: ‘This fire won’t have the last word’

Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York, cited biblical text to help make sense of the catastrophic fire that engulfed the upper reaches of Paris’ soaring Notre Dame Cathedral as it was undergoing renovations Monday.

“It affects all the senses,” he said. “I can see us rising from this dying.”

He added: “This fire won’t have the last word.”

SHOCKING PHOTOS: NOTRE DAME CATHEDRAL CATCHES FIRE

The fire had been threatening one of the greatest architectural treasures of the Western world as tourists and Parisians looked on aghast from the streets below. Paris fire chief Jean-Claude Gallet said the church's structure remained intact.

The blaze collapsed the cathedral’s spire and spread to one of its landmark rectangular towers. A spokesman said the entire wooden frame of the cathedral would likely come down, and that the vault of the edifice could be threatened too.

Dolan offered hope amid the disaster continually at his New York City news conference: “This Holy Week teaches us that, like Jesus, death brings life. Today's dying, we trust, will bring rising.”

Dolan said the fire struck at the heart of civilization, a spiritual home that has endured moments of smiles and tears.

Earlier in the afternoon, Dolan tweeted: “I just went next door to our own beloved Cathedral, Saint Patrick’s, to ask the intercession of Notre Dame, our Lady, for the Cathedral at the heart of Paris, and of civilization, now in flames! God preserve this splendid house of prayer, and protect those battling the blaze.”

Built in the 12th and 13th centuries, Notre Dame is the most famous of the Gothic cathedrals of the Middle Ages as well as one of the most beloved structures in the world. Situated on the Ile de la Cite, an island in the Seine River, the cathedral’s architecture is famous for, among other things, its many gargoyles and its iconic flying buttresses.

Among the most celebrated works of art inside: its three stained-glass rose windows, placed high up on the west, north and south faces of the cathedral. Its priceless treasures also include a Catholic relic, the crown of thorns, which is only occasionally displayed, including on Fridays during Lent.

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“It was with horror that I saw the pictures of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris ablaze.  Having visited that magnificent gothic Church and prayed in it many times, I join all of those in France and elsewhere who receive this news with such pain,” Cardinal Donald Wuerl of the Archdiocese of Washington said in a statement to Fox News.

“In a special way, we offer our prayers and express our solidarity with all the people of France and particularly the faithful of the Church of Paris of which Notre Dame is the Cathedral.”

Source: Fox News World

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Motive Revealed In Smollett Case: Actor Concocted Hate Crime After Racist Letter Failed To Impress

Actor Jussie Smollett appears to have concocted a hate-crime hoax because he was upset that a racist letter sent to the Empire studio didn’t get a “bigger reaction,” reports CBS 2 Chicago. As a result, Smollett allegedly paid two men $3,500 each to rehearse and then attack him a week later in an attempt to frame Trump supporters as violent racists. 

When the letter didn’t get enough attention, he concocted the staged attack,” a source told CBS 2 Investigator Brad Edwards. Other sources corroborated that information.

The blockbuster revelation into at least part of Smollett’s potential motive comes two days after CBS 2’s Charlie De Mar reported Smollett and two brothers — Ola and Abel Osundairo — staged the attack on Jan. 29 in Streeterville. –CBS 2 Chicago

CBS 2 reporter Charlie De Mar spoke on the phone with the Osundario brothers Monday afternoon, who said in a joint statement: “We are not racist. We are not homophobic, and we are not anti-Trump. We were born and raised in Chicago and are American citizens.

Smollett received a letter containing a “white substance” at Empire‘s Chicago Cinespace Studios where the show is filmed, prompting a HAZMAT response that failed to gain much traction. The “white substance” was later found to be aspirin.

The note was crafted with letters apparently cut out from magazines to form words. The pieced-together message contained racial and homophobic threats directed at Smollett. A magazine is one of the pieces of evidence retrieved from the brother’s home last week during a search conducted by CPD. Investigators also recovered a book of stamps. 

The brothers are acquaintances of Smollett.

When asked about the letter in a televised interview last week, Smollett said, “On the letter, it had a stick figure hanging from a tree with a gun pointing toward it.” It also had “MAGA” — reference to President Donald Trump’s campaign slogan Make America Great Again – written as the return address.

In due course all the facts will reveal themselves and at the end of the day my clients are honest and credible” the brothers’ attorney Gloria Schmidt said.

CBS 2 Chicago

Smollett appeared in a play with a similar “assault”

The Daily Mail reported on Monday that Smollett “landed in Chicago shortly after midnight” one day after he was in New York City for a reading of the play “Take Me Out,” which features a gay character who is attacked using “the same racial slurs Smollett told police his attackers screamed at him, including ‘f****t’ and ‘n****r.'”

On Monday, Smollett’s new crisis management rep Anne Kavanaugh reported “There are no plans for Jussie to meet with Chicago police today. Any news reports suggesting otherwise are inaccurate. Smollett’s attorneys will keep dialogue going with Chicago police on his behalf.”

Smollett picked the wrong camera

After the alleged “attack” on January 29 in which Smollett alleged that two attackers recognized him, shouted racist and homophobic slurs at him (from the reading he had just flown back from), beat him up, poured a bleach-like liquid on him, wrapped a noose around his neck, and warned him “This is MAGA country!” – Smollett made sure to tell Good Morning America last week that he spotted a surveillance camera that caught the entire incident.

Alas, as Breitbart‘s John Nolte notes, Smollett then admitted his disappointment that the camera was facing the wrong way.

And one can imagine, had there been surveillance footage of the attack, the investigation would have proceeded very, very differently.

Once police had the footage, it would leak. Once cable and network news had the footage, it would loop endlessly. The fact that the two brothers are black wouldn’t matter. CBS Chicago reports that a black face mask was found in their apartment. Smollett told police the attackers wore face masks. With those face masks, the organized left (the media, Democrats, celebrities) were allowed to assume his racist attackers were white. Breitbart

Just another hate crime hoax in America (allegedly, of course).


Source: InfoWars

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A worker walks on the roof of a new home under construction in Carlsbad
FILE PHOTO: A worker walks on the roof of a new home under construction in Carlsbad, California September 22, 2014. REUTERS/Mike Blake

April 26, 2019

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The U.S. economy is growing at a 2.08% annualized pace in the second quarter based on upbeat data on durable goods orders and new home sales in March, the New York Federal Reserve’s Nowcast model showed on Friday.

This was faster than the 1.92% growth rate calculated by the N.Y. Fed model the week before.

(Reporting by Richard Leong; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

Source: OANN

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Extraordinary European Union leaders summit in Brussels
FILE PHOTO: Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte arrives at an extraordinary European Union leaders summit to discuss Brexit, in Brussels, Belgium April 10, 2019. REUTERS/Yves Herman

April 26, 2019

(Reuters) – Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said on Friday he had assured China’s Huawei Technologies that it would not face discrimination in the rollout of Italy’s 5G telecoms network.

Conte was speaking on a visit to China where he said he met Huawei’s chief executive, Ren Zhengfei. The prime minister’s comments were carried in Italy by TV broadcaster Sky Italia.

“I told him that we have adopted some precautions, some measures to protect our interests that demand very high levels of security … not only from Huawei but any company entering into the 5G arena,” he said.

Huawei, the world’s biggest producer of telecoms equipment, is under intense scrutiny after the United States told allies not to use its technology because of fears it could be a vehicle for Chinese spying. Huawei has categorically denied this.

(Writing by by Mark Bendeich; Editing by Angelo Amante)

Source: OANN

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U.S. President Trump departs for travel to Indianapolis from the White House in Washington
U.S. President Donald Trump talks to reporters as he departs for travel to Indianapolis, Indiana from the White House in Washington, U.S., April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

April 26, 2019

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump on Friday was expected to announce his intention to revoke the United States’ status as a signatory of the Arms Trade Treaty, which was signed in 2013 by then-President Barack Obama but never ratified by Congress, two U.S. officials said.

Trump was expected to announce the decision in a speech in Indianapolis, to the National Rifle Association, the officials said. The NRA, a powerful gun lobby group, has long been opposed to the treaty, which was negotiated at the United Nations.

(Reporting By Steve Holland; Editing by Bill Trott)

Source: OANN

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A remote controlled robot for the 'Isotopium: Chernobyl' game is seen at the game's location in Brovary
A remote controlled robot for the ‘Isotopium: Chernobyl’ game is seen at the game’s location in Brovary, Ukraine April 25, 2019. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko

April 26, 2019

By Margaryta Chornokondratenko

KIEV (Reuters) – A Ukrainian computer game that brings to life a town abandoned after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster may not sound like everyone’s idea of fun but has attracted 60,000 people globally since its launch in October.

Players of “Isotopium: Chernobyl” drive tanks around the ghost town of Prypyat near Chernobyl, knocking out competitors as they search for an energy source called isotopium and collecting points every time they find some.

While the game takes its theme from the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl in northern Ukraine, which marked its 33rd anniversary on Friday, it was also inspired by the 2009 science fiction film “Avatar”.

Newcomers to the game think they have entered a virtual world when in fact they are controlling a real robot, equipped with a camera and computer, which makes its way around a model of the town rendered down to the tiniest detail.

“When playing our game, for the first 5-10 minutes many players don’t understand that it is not fictional,” said the game’s co-founder Sergey Beskrestnov. “They message us saying: ‘You have cool texture, you have good graphics, your designer is good, well done. You have a cool operating system.’

“People then reply: ‘It is not an operating system, it is real,’ and the player can’t believe it is real,” said Beskrestnov, speaking mid-game from Prypyat city square as he towers over surrounding five-storey buildings.

Kiev-born Beskrestnov was just 12 years old when on April 26, 1986 a botched test at the nuclear plant in the then Soviet Union sent clouds of smoldering nuclear material across large swathes of Europe, forced over 50,000 people, including Beskrestnov’s family, to evacuate and poisoned unknown numbers of workers involved in its clean-up.

Beskrestnov and his partner Alexey Fateyev used Google maps and hundreds of pictures from the Chernobyl area to recreate Prypyat landmarks, including residential buildings, a hotel, concert hall, amusement park and a stadium.

The game’s real-scale model occupies a 180 square meter (1,938 sq. ft) basement of a residential building in the Ukraine city of Brovary, just 150 km (93 miles) from the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone and 30 km east of Kiev.

Miniature radioactivity warning signs, graffiti on the walls of abandoned buildings and tables and chairs left scattered inside a small cafe all add to the creepy atmosphere of a once lively town.

“It’s a really neat concept …,” Shaun Prescott wrote in a review of the game published by PC Gamer magazine in January. “Controlling the tanks is kinda cumbersome, but they are tanks, after all.”

An attentive player will notice at least one inaccuracy – the real Chernobyl nuclear power plant is not located in town as it is in the game.

It costs $9 to immerse in the atmosphere of a post-apocalyptic town for an hour but only 20 people at a time can play simultaneously. Beskrestnov’s company, Remote Games, said 62,615 people around the world have registered to play the game, including around 15,000 in France and 10,000 in the United States.

A camera fixed on top of a moving tank broadcasts high quality signal in real time, allowing players from as far apart as Australia and Canada enjoy the game without facing any time delay in delivering video signals.

Its creators next ambition is to devise a game featuring the colonization of Mars in which 1,000 people will be able to simultaneously control robots on different missions involved in the operation.

“Many people advise us to contact Elon Musk directly because it resonates his dreams and ideas,” Beskrestnov jokes.    

(Editing by Susan Fenton)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: A Starbucks sign is show on one of the companies stores in Los Angeles, California
FILE PHOTO: A Starbucks sign is show on one of the companies stores in Los Angeles, California, U.S. October 19,2018. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo

April 26, 2019

(Reuters) – Initial optimism over first-quarter results from Starbucks Corp was waning fast on Wall Street on Friday, as analysts questioned the longer-term prospects of its new sales push given subdued overall customer traffic numbers especially in China.

The company on Thursday beat brokerage estimates for quarterly same-store sales on the back of demand for its new Cloud Macchiato, Matcha tea and cold brews in the United States.

However, BTIG’s Peter Saleh was one of a number of sector analysts who said while customers forking out for higher-priced new drinks had helped drive growth in same-store sales, “anemic” traffic at cafes remained a concern.

He and others pointed to a 1 percent decline in footfall at cafes in the Chinese market, viewed as crucial to the chain’s growth for the foreseeable future.

More broadly, transaction numbers, the substitute analysts use for customer traffic, were unchanged in all three of the company’s global regions.

Shares in the company, which hit a record high after the results on Thursday, fell 1 percent in morning trade.

“We remain cautious given near-term headwinds surrounding China, including cannibalization, increasing competition (and) a slowing economy,” Wedbush analyst Nick Setyan said.

Starbucks has also poured money into beefing up its delivery network in China as it battles with local startup Luckin Coffee, whose speedy growth led it to file for an IPO in the United States earlier this week.

New menu items and partnerships with delivery services, the heart of the company’s strategy to win back customers lost to artisanal coffee shops and cheaper fast-food rivals, did help Starbucks’ sales in its home market.

However, analysts said growth in China may continue to be subdued.

Wells Fargo analyst Bonnie Herzog said she expects store expansion in China to take priority over comparable sales growth.

She downgraded her rating on Starbucks’ to “market perform” from “outperform”, arguing that the company facing tough sales comparisons later on in 2019 from last year and the current rich valuation of shares meant the stock had limited room to rise.

“Investors will be hesitant to invest new money in a stock with a topline that, while still strong, is unlikely to meaningfully accelerate,” Herzog said.

Still, the company’s solid same-store growth in the United States, improving profit margins and a lower tax rate for the rest of the year led at least 6 Wall Street brokerages to raise their price targets on the stock to as high as $81.

11 of 29 brokerages rate Starbucks “buy” or higher, 17 “hold” and 1 “sell” or lower. Their median price target is $75.

(Reporting by Uday Sampath in Bengaluru)

Source: OANN

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