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Exclusive: Goldman’s China-backed fund bucks trade tensions to buy U.S. firm

The ticker symbol and logo for Goldman Sachs is displayed on a screen on the floor at the NYSE in New York
The ticker symbol and logo for Goldman Sachs is displayed on a screen on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., December 18, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

March 29, 2019

By Harry Brumpton, Echo Wang and Liana B. Baker

(Reuters) – Goldman Sachs Group Inc invested money from China’s sovereign wealth fund in a California-based industrial company and is looking for more U.S. deals, three sources familiar with the matter said, even after increased scrutiny from Washington all but stopped U.S.-China deals last year.

The Wall Street bank is managing a private equity fund called China-U.S. Industrial Cooperation Partnership LP, which it launched with state-owned China Investment Corp (CIC) in November 2017 on the sidelines of U.S. President Donald Trump’s visit to Beijing.

The fund invested alongside Goldman to buy Boyd Corp, a Pleasanton, California-based manufacturer of rubber seals and gaskets, for $3 billion last September, the sources said.

Chinese efforts to invest in U.S. companies have been tripped up over the past year by Washington’s concerns the Chinese were gaining control of sensitive technology or companies that played key roles in the economy.

Reuters reported on Wednesday that the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), a U.S. government panel that scrutinizes deals for national security risks, asked the Chinese owner of the dating app Grindr to divest it, spurred on by data privacy concerns.

Goldman successfully argued to CFIUS, however, that its plan to buy Boyd should be allowed to proceed, the sources said.

CIC’s novel partnership with Goldman illustrates how China is adapting to U.S. curbs on its deal-making, which resulted in Chinese acquisitions of U.S. companies plunging by 88 percent year-on-year in 2018, according to financial data provider Refinitiv, as trade relations between the world’s two largest economies deteriorated.

(Graphic: Chinese acquisitions in the United States – https://tmsnrt.rs/2HzUTVE)

The Cooperation fund was set up expressly to help U.S. companies penetrate the Chinese market. And the fund is touting CIC’s involvement as a strategic advantage in accomplishing this goal.

In a confidential marketing document prepared for Goldman clients and seen by Reuters, the New York-based bank highlighted CIC’s “efficient sourcing of commercial partners and customers,” promising to “bring new pathways for growth via China.”

“The Cooperation fund is a U.S. fund run by a U.S. manager, and is managed to be in compliance with all laws and regulations, including CFIUS,” a Goldman spokeswoman said.

A spokesman for the U.S. Department of the Treasury, which chairs CFIUS, said the panel does not comment publicly on individual cases.

CIC did not respond to requests for comment. The sovereign fund said last summer that it planned to press ahead with the Cooperation fund despite U.S.-China trade tensions, but details of its first deal have not been previously reported. The sources asked not to be identified because the Cooperation fund’s details are confidential.

RIVAL CHINESE BIDDER BALKED

Even though Goldman received CFIUS clearance for the Boyd deal, it did not disclose publicly the Cooperation fund’s involvement in the acquisition and most of Boyd’s 4,200 employees were not told about the Chinese money, the sources said.

A Moody’s Investors Service Inc credit rating note listed Boyd’s acquirer as Goldman’s flagship private equity fund West Street Capital Partners VII. After the deal, that fund transferred a minority stake in Boyd to the Cooperation fund, the sources said.

A Goldman spokeswoman declined to comment on why Goldman’s Boyd-related announcements did not mention the Cooperation fund.

One Chinese company that sought to acquire Boyd outright had balked at the regulatory hurdles.

Kangde Xin Composite Material Group Co Ltd, a Chinese laminates manufacturer, said in regulatory announcements that it abandoned a bid for Boyd because it thought the “China-U.S trade friction” would make regulatory approval of the deal difficult.

Kangde Xin did not respond to a request for comment. Investment bankers said the company’s failure to buy Boyd showed CIC would not have been able to do the deal without the structure offered by the Goldman fund.

“This is a really innovative structure, one which could go a long way to enable them to undertake transactions that would be hard for them to do otherwise,” said Euan Rellie, co-founder of BDA Partners, an investment bank that specializes in cross-border deals, referring to the Goldman fund and CIC.

ANCHOR INVESTOR

CIC, whose assets under management are approaching $1 trillion, also has investments in other private equity funds. But CIC does not typically help companies acquired by private equity funds it invests in grow in China.

CIC also calls itself an “anchor investor” in the Cooperation fund, and the sources said it holds a sizeable minority stake that is larger than its typical private equity fund investments.

“CIC is not involved in the investment management of the fund nor the operation of the fund’s portfolio companies. CIC’s role is to help Goldman Sachs, as the investment manager, identify and pursue opportunities for portfolio companies to do more business in China,” the Goldman spokeswoman said.

The Cooperation fund, which targets $5 billion in investment capital, plans to execute between one and three deals a year on average, adding up to as many as 12 over the duration of the fund, two of the sources said.

The fund is the most advanced in a series of similar investments by CIC. In an interview with Chinese state-owned newspaper Securities Times earlier this month, CIC’s president, Tu Guangshao, said bilateral cooperation funds were a strategy to “achieve a more favorable foreign investment regulatory environment” and “remove some barriers in cross-border investment.”

Tu said CIC has inked a letter of intent for a Britain-China fund, signed a contract for a Japan-China Industrial Cooperation Fund and is “in preparation for” China cooperation funds with Italy and France.

“When you get a couple more cases like this that look successful, other sovereign wealth funds and foreign investors will adopt this model,” said James Lewis, senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank.

(Reporting by Harry Brumpton, Echo Wang and Liana B. Baker in New York; Editing by Greg Roumeliotis and Meredith Mazzilli)

Source: OANN

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Why Pelosi Folded on Trump's Impeachment

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The nation’s top elected Democrat, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, has now declared publicly that her party will not impeach President Trump. In a lengthy Washington Post interview published Monday, Pelosi left the door slightly ajar, saying her decision could change if  “compelling” new evidence emerged. Still, hers was a significant announcement, signaling a major change in the party’s trajectory.

Why did Pelosi make the decision? Why now? What are the benefits and perils for her party and for Pelosi’s leadership?

The longtime congresswoman is a savvy strategist, and her decision was purely strategic. She made no apology for two years of unproven charges, no admission her party had been fundamentally wrong in its most basic and vocal claim since the 2016 election: that Donald Trump is not the legitimate president of the United States. He is illegitimate, they charge, because the election itself was tilted by Russia. The most incendiary charge is that Trump worked with the Russians to rig the results.

No one doubts that the Russians tried to interfere. They are a geopolitical enemy, eager to cause chaos and confusion. But questions arise regarding (1) what impact the Russians had (the consensus is “not much”) and (2) whether the Trump campaign cooperated with them. If Trump worked directly with a foreign adversary to undermine our Constitution, he does not deserve to be president. That was the main reason Robert Mueller was appointed as special counsel, to probe Russian interference and possible collusion with the Trump campaign.

Now, Pelosi is effectively saying, “Never mind.” She did so quietly, with no comment on the powerful charges her party has made against Trump. That’s too easy. What’s her explanation for backing off the incendiary charges? After all, if those charges are true, they should lead to impeachment.

Instead, Pelosi simply said, “He is not worth it.” What she meant, as she implied elsewhere in the interview, is that impeachment is not worth it to her party. She knows the proceedings would soak up all of the House’s time, dominate the media, and then fail in the Senate. Every Democratic presidential candidate would have to take a public stand on it, and the activist base would demand they support it.

Those stances might well be fatal in November 2020. Although impeachment is a big winner with Democratic primary voters, it’s a big loser with the larger electorate. Before turning an elected president out of office, most voters want clear and convincing evidence of “high crimes and misdemeanors.” Pelosi knows that, and she knows the Republicans lost public support when they tried to impeach Bill Clinton for lying under oath. She lived through that (she was elected to Congress in 1987), and she learned from it.

Why did Pelosi make her statement now? For two reasons: To get ahead of the Mueller report and to regain control of her caucus.

The special counsel’s report, which should be handed to Attorney General Bill Barr soon, is almost certain to present no evidence of coordination between the Trump campaign and the Russians. If there were any hard evidence, it would have already appeared in indictments and sentencing recommendations. It hasn’t.

The Democrats must share that expectation. After shouting for two years about “Trump-Russia Collusion,” they have pivoted and begun muttering about “obstruction of justice.” We still don’t know if the Mueller investigation will present any evidence of the latter. Unless there is something big there, the Democrats will need to explain their “collusion delusion,” not to their activist base, but to the wider public, especially persuadable independent voters.

Pelosi was also seeking to regain control of her caucus. Its surging left-wing and headstrong committee chairs are determined to push forward on impeachment, and to do so without any direction from Pelosi or her deputy, Steny Hoyer. She has decided to confront them now, both to demonstrate her control and to ensure Democrats retain control of the House in 2020.

The debacle within her caucus over Ilhan Omar’s repeated anti-Semitic remarks shows how fragile Pelosi’s hold is. Passing a straightforward resolution against anti-Semitism should have been easy, even if there was no stomach for calling out Omar by name. Yet it proved impossible. The left blocked it. To pass anything, the leadership had to include the obligatory swipe at Trump, along with a laundry list of other groups facing bigotry charges. The result was a resolution so vacuous that Omar herself called it a victory.

Pelosi is also trying to rein in powerful committee chairs, specifically Jerrold Nadler (Judiciary Committee) and Adam Schiff (Intelligence Committee), who are directing massive investigations clearly aimed at impeachment and inflicting personal damage on the president. Reps. Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib and others on the left want the president in the dock now. But voters will reasonably ask, “How is this helping the country? How is this leading to good legislation? Isn’t this just partisan harassment?”

If Mueller’s report offers little ammunition for further investigation, then the Democrats will feel the backlash for two years of overheated, misdirected rhetoric. Revving up more high-profile investigations will only compound the problem. Pelosi knows that, and she knows she is House speaker only because the Democrats won a lot of “purple” seats in 2018 with centrist candidates like Conor Lamb of Pennsylvania.

If she leads these Lambs to the slaughter, she’s out of a job, and her party is out of power. That’s why she is trying to head off a serious congressional move to impeach the president.

Charles Lipson is the Peter B. Ritzma Professor of Political Science Emeritus at the University of Chicago, where he is founding director of PIPES, the Program on International Politics, Economics, and Security. He can be reached at charles.lipson@gmail.com.

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Trump’s Pick to Head the World Bank Wins Election

David Malpass, the Treasury official nominated by President Donald Trump to head the 189-nation World Bank, was elected to the job on Friday.

Malpass was approved unanimously by the bank's 25-member executive board. He will begin a five-year term next Tuesday succeeding Jim Yong Kim, an Obama administration pick who stepped down earlier this year, three years before his term was to end.

Malpass was serving in the Trump administration as Treasury's under secretary of international affairs.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Ivanka Trump, the president's daughter and a White House adviser, both praised the choice.

"I look forward to continuing our work to economically empower women globally and further the bank's core mission of ending poverty," said Ivanka Trump, who had worked on those issues with Kim.

Mnuchin praised Malpass for pushing reforms at the World Bank during his time at Treasury.

Malpass has been a longtime critic of the World Bank and its sister lending organization, the International Monetary Fund. He has complained that the bank was lending too much money to China at the expense of poorer nations that do not have the same access to global capital markets as China.

However, in his Treasury post, Malpass helped win support last year for a $13 billion funding increase for the bank.

Malpass, 63, will be the 13th president of the World Bank. Americans have always headed the World Bank, while a European has always headed the IMF since both institutions were created in the mid-1940s.

Critics have said this tradition was no longer valid in a new era with the growing clout of emerging economics such as China. However, no other country put forward a candidate to challenge Malpass.

In a note to World Bank employees after his selection Friday, Malpass said that more than 700 million people remain in extreme poverty in the world. Too many people are not seeing an advance in their living standards, with the poorest nations facing the steepest challenges, he said.

"Faced with these challenges, our twin goals of eliminating extreme poverty and achieving shared prosperity are more relevant than ever," Malpass said. "The Bank Group is strong financially and well equipped with the tools and talent to achieve measurable successes."

His candidacy was backed by a global lobbying effort led by Mnuchin, who promoted Malpass in discussions with foreign finance officials.

The World Bank board had said last month that it would interview Malpass and expected to make its selection before the World Bank and IMF spring meetings that will be held in Washington next week.

Source: NewsMax Politics

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Nikolas Cruz, Parkland school shooter, might go on trial in early 2020, judge says

A Broward Circuit judge wants the trial for the suspect accused of committing a mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida to begin in 2020.

Judge Elizabeth Scherer said at a hearing on Thursday that she intends to set a definitive trial date soon for Nikolas Cruz. The 20-year-old allegedly opened fire at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High on Feb. 14, 2018, killing 17 people and wounding 17 others — a crime to which investigators say he confessed.

PARKLAND SHOOTING ONE-YEAR ANNIVERSARY: STUDENTS, COMMUNITY UNITE FOR EVENTS HONORING VICTIMS, FIRST RESPONDERS

"I'm asking both sides to take that into account. Pace yourselves," the judge said. "I just ask you to keep that in mind as a goal moving forward."

Assistant State Attorney Jeff Marcus said prosecutors and defense attorneys are working as rapidly as possible to identify and interview witnesses, sort through evidence and begin planning what would likely be the biggest trial in recent Broward County history — if not ever.

"It does give us a place to work toward," the assistant state attorney said of the 2020 goal.

Attorneys for Cruz have said the former Stoneman Douglas student will plead guilty in return for a life prison sentence, but prosecutors have refused that offer.

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Investigators allege Cruz, who's also accused of assaulting a jail corrections officer while in custody, confessed to the shooting the day he was arrested. Prosecutors released cellphone video of Cruz describing beforehand exactly what he planned to do at the school.

Considering he allegedly confessed, Cruz's trial would most likely focus more on his mental and emotional problems, as well as his fascination with violence, guns and death. Those issues also would play a central role in whether a jury chooses to impose the death penalty.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News National

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Iraqi president in Mosul after sinking of ferry killed 94

Iraq's president has rushed to the northern city of Mosul and is holding meetings with security officials there over the sinking of a ferry in the Tigris River that killed 94 people.

President Barham Saleh's visit came as search teams were trying to find more bodies after the ferry, overloaded with holidaymakers celebrating both Nowruz, the Persian New Year, and also Mother's Day, capsized near the city with dozens on board, including families with children.

Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi ordered an investigation and briefly visited Mosul, where he declared three days of national mourning.

Iraqi judicial authorities ordered the arrest of nine workers operating the ferry. The men were detained and an arrest warrant is out for the owner of the tourist island where it was headed.

Source: Fox News World

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Disney sees ESPN+ reaching up to 12 million subscribers by 2024

FILE PHOTO: A screen shows the trading info for The Walt Disney Company company on the floor of the NYSE in New York
FILE PHOTO: A screen shows the logo and a ticker symbol for The Walt Disney Company on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., December 14, 2017. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo

April 12, 2019

By Hilary Russ

NEW YORK (Reuters) – ESPN+, Walt Disney Co’s sports video streaming service, could attract between 8 million and 12 million paying subscribers by the end of the fiscal 2024 year, the company said on Thursday.

Disney’s forecast for significant growth in paying customers in the next few years was disclosed in a presentation of its streaming video strategy to Wall Street.

Operating losses for ESPN+ are expected to be $650 million annually in both fiscal 2019 and 2020, Disney’s chief financial officer, Christine McCarthy, said during an investor day webcast presentation. But the service, which launched one year ago, should reach profitability by 2023, she said.

“I view this positively because I think that they need to illustrate the subscriber growth to validate the investment. They’re putting out some very strong number guides to the market,” said Patrice Cucinello, a director at Fitch Ratings. “They’re going guns blazing at direct consumer.”

As cable and traditional media companies lose subscribers to the likes of Netflix Inc, they are building new streaming video businesses that appeal directly to consumers.

Disney launched ESPN+ a year ago as a way to test its streaming services and distribute additional sports content directly to fans, for a monthly or yearly fee.

Since then, ESPN+ has drawn millions of subscribers, inked sports rights deals, and seen its mobile app rise in popularity. Disney is also moving forward with its larger plans for Disney+, which will stream its trove of new and classic blockbuster movies.

As for current paying sports fans, Disney said the number was currently over 2 million, or roughly what it disclosed in February.

Disney’s own estimates about ESPN+ growth seemed slightly higher than analysts, though its time frame was longer.

Morgan Stanley analysts expect 2.7 million people to be paying for ESPN+ access by the end of fiscal 2019 and 3.9 million by the end of fiscal 2020. By 2022, it could have 6.7 million, Morgan Stanley said.

MoffettNathanson gave a more modest outlook, predicting that ESPN+ will end fiscal 2019 flat, with just 2 million subscribers, growing to 4 million by 2022 and 5 million by 2023.

Analysts at Citi predicted that ESPN+ would have 4 million paying subscribers by fiscal 2020.

(Reporting by Hilary Russ; Editing by Leslie Adler)

Source: OANN

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Tech giants will have to be regulated in future: EU’s Timmermans

FILE PHOTO: Frans Timmermans, the newly elected Party of European Socialists President, speaks during the Party of European Socialists annual meeting in Lisbon
FILE PHOTO: Frans Timmermans, the newly elected Party of European Socialists President, speaks during the Party of European Socialists annual meeting in Lisbon, Portugal, December 8, 2018. REUTERS/Pedro Nunes/File Photo

March 18, 2019

BERLIN (Reuters) – The European Union and authorities around the world will have to regulate big technology and social media companies at some stage to protect citizens, the deputy head of the European Commission said on Monday.

First Vice President Frans Timmermans said introducing regulations would work better if online platforms, such as Google and Facebook, worked with authorities.

Big tech has been criticized by politicians in the United States and Europe over issues ranging from Facebook’s losing track of users’ data to how Google ranks search results.

“At some point, we will have to regulate,” Timmermans told the World Policy Forum in Berlin. “The first task of any public authority is to protect its citizens – and if we see you (tech giants) as a threat to our citizens, we will regulate and if you don’t work with us, we will probably regulate badly.”

Last month, the EU accused Alphabet’s Google, Facebook and Twitter of falling short of promises to combat fake news before the European Parliament elections in May, after they signed a voluntary code of conduct to stave off regulation.

Facebook said on Monday it would increase efforts to fight misinformation before the vote and would partner with German news agency DPA to boost fact checking.

Friday’s massacre in New Zealand has put social media giants in the spotlight. The assault in Christchurch was live-streamed by an attacker through his Facebook profile for 17 minutes, according to a copy seen by Reuters. Facebook said it removed the stream after being alerted by police.

Timmermans said pressure for regulation would come from beyond Europe. “I think globally there will be a call to regulate,” he said.

(Reporting by Paul Carrel; Editing by Edmund Blair)

Source: OANN

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Park Yoo-chun, a K-pop idol singer, arrives at the Suwon district court in Suwon
Park Yoo-chun, a K-pop idol singer, arrives at the Suwon district court in Suwon, South Korea, April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji

April 26, 2019

SEOUL (Reuters) – K-pop and drama star Park Yu-chun was arrested on Friday on charges of buying and using illegal drugs, a court said, the latest in a series of scandals to hit the South Korean entertainment business.

Suwon District Court approved the arrest warrant for Park, 32, due to concerns over possible destruction of evidence and flight risk, a court spokesman told Reuters.

Park is suspected of having bought about 1.5 grams of methamphetamine with his former girlfriend earlier this year and using the drug around five times, an official at the Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency said.

Park has denied wrongdoing, saying he had never taken drugs, and he again denied the charges in court, Yonhap news agency said.

Park’s contract with his management agency had been canceled and he would leave the entertainment industry, Park’s management agency, C-JeS Entertainment, said on Wednesday.

Park was a member of boyband TVXQ between 2003 and 2009 before leaving the group with two other members, forming the group JYJ.

A scandal involving sex tapes, prostitutes and secret chat about rape led at least four other K-pop stars to quit the industry earlier this year.

The cases sparked a nationwide drugs bust and investigations into tax evasion and police collusion at night clubs and other nightlife spots.

(Reporting by Joyce Lee; Additional reporting by Heekyong Yang; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: An American Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 flight taxis after landing at Reagan National Airport in Washington
FILE PHOTO: An American Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 flight from Los Angeles taxis after landing at Reagan National Airport shortly after an announcement was made by the FAA that the planes were being grounded by the United States over safety issues in Washington, U.S. March 13, 2019. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts/File Photo

April 26, 2019

(Reuters) – American Airlines Group Inc cut its 2019 profit forecast on Friday, saying it expected to take a $350 million hit from the grounding of Boeing’s 737 MAX planes after cancelling 1,200 flights in the first quarter.

The company said it now expects its 2019 adjusted profit to be between $4.00 per share and $6.00 per share.

Analysts on average had expected 2019 earnings of $5.63 per share, according to Refinitiv data.

The No. 1 U.S. airline by passenger traffic said net income rose to $185 million, or 41 cents per share, in the first quarter ended March 31, from $159 million, or 34 cents per share, a year earlier.

Total operating revenue rose 2 percent to $10.58 billion.

(Reporting by Sanjana Shivdas in Bengaluru)

Source: OANN

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2020 Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg speaks at a campaign event in Des Moines, Iowa
2020 Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg speaks at a campaign event in Des Moines, Iowa, U.S., April 16, 2019. REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage

April 26, 2019

By James Oliphant

MARSHALLTOWN, Iowa (Reuters) – Four years ago, Donald Trump campaigned in small towns like Marshalltown, Iowa, vowing to restore economic prosperity to the U.S. heartland.

In his bid to replace Trump in the White House, Pete Buttigieg is taking a similar tack. The difference, he says, is that he can point to a model of success: South Bend, Indiana, the revitalized city where he has been mayor since 2012.

The Democratic presidential contender has vaulted to the congested field’s top tier in recent weeks, drawing media and donor attention for his youth, history-making status as the first openly gay major presidential candidate and a resume that includes military service in Afghanistan.

But Buttigieg’s main argument for his candidacy is that he is a turnaround artist in the mold of Trump, although the Democrat does not expressly invoke the comparison with the Republican president.

“I’m not going around saying we’ve fixed every problem we’ve got,” Buttigieg, 37, said after a house party with voters in Marshalltown. “But I’m proud of what we have done together, and I think it’s a very powerful story.”

Critics argue improving the fortunes of a Midwestern city of 100,000 people does not qualify Buttigieg, who has never held national office, for the presidency of a country of 330 million. Others say South Bend still has pockets of despair and that minorities, in particular, have failed to benefit from its growth.

Buttigieg has told crowds in Iowa and elsewhere that his experience in reviving a struggling Rust Belt community allows him to make a case to voters that other Democratic candidates cannot. That may give him the means to win back some of the disaffected Democratic voters who turned their backs on Hillary Clinton in 2016 to vote for Trump.

Watching Buttigieg at a union hall in Des Moines last week, Rick Ryan, 45, a member of the United Steelworkers, lamented how many of his fellow union workers voted for Trump. The president turned in the best performance by a Republican among union households since Ronald Reagan in 1984.

Ryan said he hoped someone like Buttigieg could return them to the Democratic fold.

“He’s aware of the decline in the labor force in America, not just in Indiana or Des Moines or anywhere else,” Ryan said. “Jobs are going overseas. We need a find to way to bring that back.”

Randy Tucker, 56, of Pleasant Hill, Iowa, a member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, said Trump appealed to union members “desperate for somebody to reach out to them, to help them, to listen to their voice.”

Buttigieg could do the same, he said. “In my heart right now, he’s No. 1.”

PAST VS. FUTURE

Buttigieg stresses a key difference in his and Trump’s approaches.

Trump, he tells crowds, is mired in the past, promising to rebuild the 20th century industrial economy. Buttigieg argues the pledge is misleading and unrealistic.

Buttigieg says his focus is on the future, and he often talks about what the country might look like decades from now.

“The only way that we can cultivate what makes America great is to look to the future and not be afraid of it,” Buttigieg said in Marshalltown.

Buttigieg knows his sexual preference may be a barrier to winning some blue-collar voters. But he notes that after he came out as gay in 2015, he won a second term as mayor with 80 percent of the vote in conservative Indiana.

Earlier this month, he announced his presidential bid at the hulking plant in South Bend that stopped making Studebaker autos more than 50 years ago. After lying dormant for decades, the building is being transformed into a high-tech hub after Buttigieg and other city leaders realized it would never again attract a large-scale industrial company.

“That building sat as a powerful reminder. We hoped we would get back that major employer that would fix our economy,” said Jeff Rea, president of the regional Chamber of Commerce.

Buttigieg is praised locally for spurring more than $100 million in downtown investment. During his two terms, unemployment has fallen to 4.1 percent from 11.8 percent.

But a study released in 2017 by the nonprofit group Prosperity Now said not all of the city’s residents had shared in its rebound. The median income for African-Americans remained half that of whites, while the unemployment rate for blacks was double.

Regina Williams-Preston, a city councilor running to replace Buttigieg as mayor, credits him for the revitalized downtown. But she said he had a “blind spot” when it came to focusing on troubled neighborhoods like the one she represents and only grew more engaged after community pressure.

“He understands it now,” she said. “The next step is figuring out how to open the doors of opportunity for everyone.”

‘ONE OF US’

Trump touts the fact that the United States added almost 300,000 manufacturing jobs last year as evidence he made good on his promise to restore the industrial sector. But that growth still left the country with fewer manufacturing jobs than in 2008.

The robust U.S. economy is likely the president’s greatest asset in his re-election bid, particularly in states he carried in 2016 such as Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. He won Buttigieg’s home state by 19 points over Clinton in 2016.

Sean Bagniewski, chairman of the Democratic Party in Polk County, Iowa, said Buttigieg would be well positioned to compete with Trump in the Midwest.

“People love the fact that he’s a mayor,” said Bagniewski, who has not endorsed a candidate in the nominating contest. “If you can talk about a positive future, and if you actually have experience that can do it, that’s a compelling vision in Iowa.”

Nan Whaley, the mayor of Dayton, Ohio, which faces many of the same challenges as South Bend, agreed.

“He’s one of us,” Whaley said. “That helps.”

(Reporting by James Oliphant; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Peter Cooney)

Source: OANN

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A man looks out at a flooded residential area in Gatineau
A man looks out at a flooded residential area in Gatineau, Quebec, Canada, April 24, 2019. REUTERS/Chris Wattie

April 26, 2019

MONTREAL/OTTAWA (Reuters) – Rising waters were prompting further evacuations in central Canada on Thursday, with the mayor of the country’s capital, Ottawa, declaring a state of emergency and Quebec authorities warning that a hydroelectric dam was at risk of breaking.

Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson declared the emergency in response to rising water levels along the Ottawa River and weather forecasts that called for significant rainfall on Friday.

In a statement on Twitter, Watson asked for help from the Ontario provincial government and the country’s military.

He warned that “flood levels are currently forecasted to exceed the levels that caused significant damage to numerous properties in the city of Ottawa in 2017.”

Spring flooding had killed one person and forced more than 900 people from their homes in Canada’s Quebec province as of 1 p.m. on Thursday, according to a government website.

Ottawa has received 80 requests for service related to potential flooding such as sandbagging, a city spokeswoman said.

The prospect of more rain over the next 24 to 48 hours triggered concerns on Thursday that the hydroelectric dam at Bell Falls in the western part of Quebec could be at risk of failing because of rising water levels.

Quebec’s provincial police said 250 people were protectively removed from homes in the area as of late afternoon in case the dam on the Rouge River breaks.

The dam is now at its full flow capacity of 980 cubic meters per second of water, said Francis Labbé, a spokesman for the province’s state-owned utility, Hydro Quebec. He said Hydro Quebec expected the flow could rise to 1,200 cubic meters per second of water over the next two days.

“We have to take the worst-case scenario into consideration, since we`re already at the maximum capacity,” Labbé said by phone.

The dam is part of a power station that no longer produces electricity, but is regularly inspected by Hydro Quebec, he said.

(Reporting by Allison Lampert in Montreal and David Ljunggren and Julie Gordon in Ottawa; Editing by James Dalgleish and Peter Cooney)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: Funeral of journalist Lyra McKee in Belfast
FILE PHOTO: Pallbearers carry the coffin of journalist Lyra McKee at her funeral at St. Anne’s Cathedral in Belfast, Northern Ireland, April 24, 2019. REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne/File Photo

April 26, 2019

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Source: OANN

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