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Trump Picks Green Bay, Wisconsin, for Rally on Night of Press Dinner

President Donald Trump will hold a campaign rally in Wisconsin on the night of the annual White House Correspondents' Association dinner in Washington.

Trump's re-election campaign announced Tuesday that the rally will be held April 27 at Green Bay's Resch Center. Trump eked out a narrow victory in the state in 2016.

The president has bucked tradition and skipped the annual black-tie affair every year since taking office. Earlier this month, he said he's skipping this year's dinner for the third year in a row because it's "so boring" and "so negative." He said he would hold "a very positive rally instead."

Presidents and first ladies have traditionally attended the dinner. It's a fundraiser for college scholarships and an occasion where politicians, journalists and celebrities mingle. Journalism prizes are also awarded.

Source: NewsMax Politics

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U.S. lawmakers introduce bill to boost Taiwan ties, amid China tensions

FILE PHOTO: Flags of Taiwan and U.S. are placed for a meeting between U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce speaks and with Su Chia-chyuan, President of the Legislative Yuan in Taipei
FILE PHOTO: Flags of Taiwan and U.S. are placed for a meeting between U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce speaks and with Su Chia-chyuan, President of the Legislative Yuan in Taipei, Taiwan March 27, 2018. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu/File Photo

March 26, 2019

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republican and Democratic U.S. lawmakers introduced legislation seeking to boost Washington’s relations with Taiwan and raise the island’s international profile on Tuesday, which could heighten tensions with China.

Senator Bob Menendez, the top Democrat on the influential Foreign Relations Committee, along with Republican Senators Tom Cotton and Ted Cruz, and Democratic Senators Catherine Cortez Masto and Chris Coons offered the “Taiwan Assurance Act.”

Representative Michael McCaul, the top Republican on the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, plans to introduce a companion measure in the House.

Among other things, the bill would mandate that President Donald Trump review State Department guidelines on relations with Taiwan, direct the Defense Department to make efforts to include Taiwan in military training exercises and expresses congressional support for regular U.S. arms sales to Taiwan.

“This legislation would deepen bilateral security, economic, and cultural relations, while also sending a message that China’s aggressive cross-Strait behavior will not be tolerated,” Cotton said in a statement.

To become law, the measure would have to pass the Senate and House and be signed into law by Trump. Its passage would rankle Beijing as the United States and China are edging toward a possible deal to ease a months-long tariff dispute.

Taiwan is one of a growing number of flashpoints in the U.S.-China relationship, which also include the trade war, U.S. sanctions and China’s increasingly muscular military posture in the South China Sea, where the United States also conducts freedom of navigation patrols.

Washington has no formal ties with Taiwan but is bound by law to help defend the island nation and is its main source of arms. The Pentagon says Washington has sold Taiwan more than $15 billion in weaponry since 2010.

China has been ramping up pressure to assert its sovereignty over the island, which it considers a wayward province of “one China” and sacred Chinese territory.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

Source: OANN

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Bernie’s big bucks: Sanders hauls in $18.2 million, outpacing field so far

Sen. Bernie Sanders hauled in $18.2 million since launching his second straight bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, his campaign announced on Tuesday.

And aides to the independent senator from Vermont touted that they received 900,000 individual contributions in the 41 days from the launch of Sanders’ campaign on Feb. 19 until the end of the first quarter of fundraising on March 31. They said Sanders has “far outpaced” his fundraising from his marathon 2016 race against eventual Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

HARRIS RAISES $12 MILLION, BUTTIGIEG $7 MILLION IN 2020 RACE

The campaign cash figures make Sanders the fundraising leader so far among the large field of Democrats running for the White House in the 2020 race.

Sen. Kamala Harris of California announced on Monday night that she raised $12 million during the January-March period. And South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg said he brought in more than $7 million.

No other presidential candidate has yet revealed how much money they’ve raised during the period, which is the first quarter of fundraising since the start of the 2020 White House race.

Fundraising is considered an important barometer of a candidate's popularity and a campaign's strength. The cash can be used by a candidate to build an organization and hire staff and consultants, increase voter outreach efforts, travel and pay to produce and run ads.

SANDERS WARNS AGAINST PACKING SUPREME COURT

While the haul is impressive, the Sanders campaign did fall slightly short of a goal. Their 900,000 individual donations were less than the 1 million milestone they had attempted to reach during the fundraising period. But they highlighted that while it took them 146 days to reach 900,000 contributions in the 2016 campaign, they accomplished the feat in just 41 days this time around.

“I’m sure all the other campaigns would love to be in that posture,” campaign manager Faiz Shakir said.

They also revealed that contributions came from 525,000 individual donors, with one out of five of those donating to Sanders for the first time.

Senior adviser Jeff Weaver said that the Sanders campaign has already begun setting up organizations in the four states that kick off the primary and caucus calendar – Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina. And he added that in next few weeks, the campaign will be bringing in staff in California, which is the largest of the states to vote right after the early states, on Super Tuesday, which will be held on March 3 of next year.

THE MAD DASH FOR CAMPAIGN CASH

Weaver claimed the fundraising haul will give the Sanders campaign an edge over the competition on Super Tuesday, when Alabama, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont and Virginia join California in voting on the single biggest day of the 2020 nominating calendar.

“These resources are going to allow us to compete on all levels in all of the Super Tuesday states. So while we had to in 2016 make choices in where we could compete – I’m certain that this race, some of our opponents will have to make similar difficult choices – this campaign will have the resources and the volunteer grassroots to compete in every single state in the primary process,” Weaver predicted.

Listing the more than 30,000 donations Sanders’ received in the four early-voting states, and the 167,000 in California, Weaver said, “I think the senator is set up to win in those states.”

SANDERS IN SECOND PLACE IN 2020 PRIMARY NATIONAL POLL

The Sanders campaign said its average donation was $20, and 88 percent of the contributions they received came from people giving $200 or less. They highlighted that the majority of donors are under the age of 39.

The Harris campaign also spotlighted its small-dollar donations, noting that 98 percent of contributions were under $100 and that 99.45 percent of donors could contribute again.

Harris brought in $1.5 million in the first 24 hours of her campaign. That figure was topped in February by Sanders, who raised $5.9 million in his first day as a candidate, and then by former Rep. Beto O’Rourke of Texas, who hauled in $6.1 million in March in the 24 hours after launching his bid. As of Tuesday afternoon, O’Rourke had yet to reveal his first quarter fundraising figures.

The campaigns have until April 15 to file their fundraising reports with the Federal Election Commission.

Buttigieg was the first candidate to reveal his numbers.

THE LATEST FOX NEWS 2020 DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY POLL

Highlighting his grassroots appeal, the Afghanistan War veteran who would become the first openly gay president if he reaches the White House said that his average donation was $36.35.

The fundraising haul is the latest evidence that Buttigieg, who was considered a long shot for the Democratic nomination when he first jumped into the race in January, has become a legitimate contender over the past month, amid a surge in contributions from supporters, growing crowds at his events and rising coverage by the political media.

“You’re going to see bigger numbers from other campaigns today and in the next few days. That’s okay,” Buttigieg told supporters in an email and on social media. “This has always been an underdog project. But with a first fundraising report like this, we certainly cannot be ignored.”

Source: Fox News Politics

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China should fine-tune monetary policy based on economic growth, price changes: Xinhua

FILE PHOTO: A man checks phone at Lujiazui financial district in Pudong
FILE PHOTO: A man checks phone at Lujiazui financial district in Pudong, Shanghai, China March 14, 2019. REUTERS/Aly Song

April 22, 2019

BEIJING (Reuters) – China should fine-tune monetary policy in a pre-emptive way ,based on economic growth and price changes, the official Xinhua News Agency said on Monday, citing a top-level meeting chaired by President Xi Jinping.

Monetary policy should be kept neither too tight, nor too loose, Xinhua quoted the meeting as saying, adding that China will step up fiscal policy and strengthen macro counter-cyclical adjustments, a phrase that usually refers to efforts to reduce pressure on the slowing economy.

(Reporting by Beijing Monitoring Desk; Editing by Kim Coghill)

Source: OANN

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Venezuelan government targets Guaido over national blackout

Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido is under investigation for the alleged sabotage of the country's power grid, the chief prosecutor said Tuesday, as the government sought to pressure an adversary who blames corruption and mismanagement for nearly a week of national blackouts.

The announcement by Tarek William Saab, Venezuela's attorney general, escalated the confrontation between the government and Guaido even as the United States, a key backer of the opposition leader, said it was withdrawing its last diplomats in Caracas. The U.S. has dismissed Venezuelan government accusations that it triggered the power crisis with a "cyberattack."

Guaido is already under investigation for alleged instigation of violence, but authorities have not tried to detain the leader of the opposition-controlled National Assembly since he violated a travel ban and then returned a week ago from a tour of Latin American countries.

Saab said the case against Guaido also involves messages allegedly inciting people to robbery and looting during power outages. Information Minister Jorge Rodriguez appeared on national television to condemn "Guaido and his gang" for their alleged attempt to cut the power as a way of fomenting chaos and toppling President Nicolas Maduro.

Rodriguez said the power grid had been almost completely restored and that water service was also returning. More neighborhoods of Caracas had power on Tuesday morning. But anecdotal reports indicated continuing outages for many Venezuelans, who were already suffering from hyperinflation and shortages of food and medicine.

On Tuesday, long lines of people converged at springs in the mountains of Caracas to collect water in bottles because water pumps have been failing during the power outages. Venezuelans usually use debit cards to pay for food and other necessities since hyperinflation has rendered the national currency, the bolivar, nearly worthless. But the cards haven't worked because of the blackouts, forcing people to scrounge for scarce cash and search for the few shops that were open.

Schools and many businesses remained closed on Tuesday. There were widespread reports of looting on Monday in the city of Maracaibo.

Adding to tension over Venezuela's fate, the last U.S. diplomats in Venezuela prepared to head home as relations between the United States and Maduro deteriorated further.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted late Monday that the U.S., which recognizes Guaido as Venezuela's interim president, was withdrawing the remaining diplomats because their continued presence in Caracas had become a "constraint" on U.S. policy as it campaigns to oust Maduro.

"We made the decision yesterday that it just was prudent to get these folks back," Pompeo said Tuesday in an interview with KTRH, a Houston radio station.

"The situation there is deteriorating," he said. "The Maduro regime's horrific leadership over the last years has just made life there so difficult, it began to make it more difficult for the United States to take the actions that it needed to do to support the Venezuelan people. So we concluded this was simply the right step to take and this was the right time to take it."

The Venezuelan government early Tuesday disputed Pompeo's account, saying it had instructed the diplomats to leave within 72 hours. Their presence "entails risks for the peace, integrity and stability of the country," Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza said.

"These are the same officials that have systematically lied to the world about Venezuela's reality and personally have directed fake, flag-waving operations to justify an intervention," he said in a statement.

U.S. President Donald Trump has said "all options are on the table" in his administration's support for Guaido, who says Maduro is an illegitimate leader and must resign so that Venezuela can hold elections. Maduro accuses Guaido and the United States of plotting an invasion.

Maduro's government in January cut ties with the U.S. over its recognition of Guaido as Venezuela's rightful leader. U.S. officials rejected that on the rationale that Maduro had no authority to take such a step.

Venezuela later retreated and allowed a skeletal staff to remain at the hilltop U.S. Embassy in Caracas as the two countries attempted — in vain — to negotiate an agreement to allow some sort of representation.

Source: Fox News World

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The Black Exodus: Fact Vs Publicity Stunt

“The Black Exodus” is a term that is fast becoming one that the masses recognize, thanks to Kanye West and Donald Trump’s bromance, that has quickly formed a life of its own. inspiring others to see the good in President Donald Trump. Inspired by West’s openness to embrace Trump many people who may or may not have […]

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Judge Blocks Trump Policy of Returning Asylum Seekers to Mexico

A federal judge in Northern California on Monday issued a preliminary injunction that blocks the Trump administration from requiring asylum seekers to stay in Mexico while they await immigration court hearings.

The order derails a key Trump administration initiative to curb an influx of asylum-seeking families at the U.S.-Mexico border, The Washington Post noted.

The ruling came from District Judge Richard Seeborg in San Francisco, and means the Migrant Protection Protocols program must stop by the end of the week, and that those named in the lawsuit be allowed into the United States to pursue asylum.

Last Friday, President Donald Trump had declared the immigration system was overburdened and illegal crossingshad to be stopped.

"There is indeed an emergency on our southern border," Trump said a Friday briefing. "It's a colossal surge and it's overwhelming our immigration system, and we can't let that happen. ... We can't take you anymore. We can't take you. Our country is full."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: NewsMax Politics

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Maria Butina, the Russian woman who was accused of being a secret agent for the Russian government, was sentenced to 18 months in prison Friday by a federal judge in Washington after pleading guilty last year to a conspiracy charge.

Butina, who has already served nine months behind bars, will get credit for time served and can possibly get credit for good behavior, the judge said. She will be removed from the U.S. promptly on completion of her time, the judge added, and returned to Russia.

MARIA BUTINA, ACCUSED RUSSIAN SPY, PLEADS GUILTY TO CONSPIRACY

An emotional and apologetic Butina said in court Friday she is “truly sorry” and regrets not registering as a foreign agent.

“I feel ashamed and embarrassed,” she said, adding that her “reputation is ruined.”

Butina has been jailed since her arrest in July 2018. She entered the court Friday wearing a dark green prison jumpsuit and spoke in clear English, with a slight Russian accent.

“Please accept my apologies,” Butina said.

Butina’s lawyer, Robert Driscoll, said after the sentencing they had hoped for a “better outcome,” but expressed a desire for Butina to be released to her family by the fall.

Prosecutors had claimed Butina used her contacts with the National Rifle Association and the National Prayer Breakfast to develop relationships with U.S. politicians and gather information for Russia.

Prosecutors also have said that Butina’s boyfriend, conservative political operative Paul Erickson, identified in court papers as “U.S. Person 1,” helped her establish ties with the NRA.

WHO IS MARIA BUTINA, THE RUSSIAN WOMAN ACCUSED OF SPYING ON US?

In their filings, prosecutors claim federal agents found Butina had contact information for people suspected of being employed by Russia’s Federal Security Services, or FSB, the successor intelligence agency to the KGB. Inside her home, they found notes referring to a potential job offer from the FSB, according to the documents.

Investigators recovered several emails and Twitter direct message conversations in which Butina referred to the need to keep her work secret and, in one instance, said it should be “incognito.” Prosecutors said Butina had contact with Russian intelligence officials and that the FBI photographed her dining with a diplomat suspected of being a Russian intelligence agent.

Fox News’ Jason Donner, Bill Mears, Greg Norman and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News Politics

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An official Sri Lankan police Twitter account was deleted after it misidentified an American human rights activist as a suspect in the country’s Easter Sunday terrorist attacks.

On Thursday, police posted the names and photos of six people that they said were at-large suspects in the bombings that killed more than 250 people.

However, one of the names on the list was Muslim U.S. activist Amara Majeed, who quickly tweeted that she had been falsely identified.

“I have this morning been FALSELY identified by the Sri Lankan government as one of the ISIS terrorists that committed the Easter attacks in Sri Lanka. What a thing to wake up to!” she wrote.

SRI LANKA AUTHORITIES SAY EASTER ATTACK LEADER KILLED IN ONE OF NINE HOTEL BOMBINGS

She wrote in a follow-up tweet that the claim was “obviously completely false” and asked social media users to “please stop implicating and associating me with these horrific attacks.”

“And next time, be more diligent about releasing such information that has the potential to deeply violate someone’s family and community,” she continued.

Later, she wrote an update saying police apologized for wrongly mistaking her as a suspect.

Police said in a statement: “However, although one of the released images was identified as one Abdul Cader Fathima Khadhiya in the information provided by the CID, the CID has now informed that a) the individual whose image was labeled as Abdul Cader Fathima Khadiya is not in fact Abdul Cader Fathima Khadiya b) the individual pictured is not wanted for questioning c) Abdul Cader Fathima is the correct name of the suspect wanted by the CID.”

On Friday, the account, @SriLankaPolice2 was deleted with no explanation. Police did not release more information regarding the mistake.

Majeed, who founded “The Hijab Project” when she was 16 years old, told the Baltimore Sun that it was hurtful to be linked to the attacks.

“Sri Lanka is my motherland,” the Brown University student said. “It’s very painful to be associated with [the bombings].”

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Mohamed Zahran, the suspected leader of the attacks which targeted six hotels and churches, killed himself in a suicide bombing at the Shangri-La hotel. Police also said they had arrested the second-in-command of the group, called National Towheed Jamaat. Catholic churches in Sri Lanka canceled all Sunday Masses until further notice over concerns that they remain a top target of Islamic State-linked extremists.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News World

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FILE PHOTO: Sri Lankan Special Task Force soldiers stand guard in front of a mosque as a Muslim man walks past him during the Friday prayers at a mosque, days after a string of suicide bomb attacks on Easter Sunday, in Colombo
FILE PHOTO: Sri Lankan Special Task Force soldiers stand guard in front of a mosque as a Muslim man walks past him during the Friday prayers at a mosque, five days after a string of suicide bomb attacks on Catholic churches and luxury hotels across the island on Easter Sunday, in Colombo, Sri Lanka April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Dinuka Liyanawatte/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By Tom Lasseter and Shri Navaratnam

KATTANKUDY, Sri Lanka (Reuters) – Mohamed Hashim Mohamed Zahran was 12 years old when he began his studies at the Jamiathul Falah Arabic College. He was a nobody, with no claim to scholarship other than ambition.

Zahran and his four brothers and sisters squeezed into a two-room house with their parents in a small seaside town in eastern Sri Lanka; their father was a poor man who sold packets of food on the street and had a reputation for being a petty thief.

“His father didn’t do much,” recalled the school’s vice principal, S.M. Aliyar, laughing out loud.

The boy surprised the school with his sharp mind. For three years, Zahran practiced memorizing the Koran. Next came his studies in Islamic law. But the more he learned, the more Zahran argued that his teachers were too liberal in their reading of the holy book.

“He was against our teaching and the way we interpreted the Koran – he wanted his radical Islam,” said Aliyar. “So we kicked him out.”

Aliyar, now 73 with a long white beard, remembers the day Zahran left in 2005. “His father came and asked, ‘Where can he go?’.”

The school would hear again of Mohamed Zahran. And the world now knows his name. The Sri Lankan government has identified him as the ringleader of a group that carried out a series of Easter Sunday suicide bombings in the country on April 21.

The blasts killed more than 250 people in churches and luxury hotels, one of the deadliest-ever such attacks in South Asia. There were nine suicide bombers who blew apart men, women and children as they sat to pray or ate breakfast.

Most of the attackers were well-educated and from wealthy families, with some having been abroad to study, according to Sri Lankan officials.

That description does not, however, fit their alleged leader, a man said to be in his early 30s, who authorities say died in the slaughter. Zahran was different.

INTELLIGENCE FAILINGS

Sri Lanka’s national leadership has come under heavy criticism for failing to heed warnings from Indian intelligence services – at least three in April alone – that an attack was pending. But Zahran’s path from provincial troublemaker to alleged jihadist mastermind was marked by years of missed or ignored signals that the man with a thick beard and paunch was dangerous.

His increasingly militant brand of Islam was allowed to grow inside a marginalized minority community – barely 10 percent of the country’s roughly 20 million people are Muslim – against a backdrop of a dysfunctional developing nation.

The top official at the nation’s defense ministry resigned on Thursday, saying that some institutions under his charge had failed.

For much of his adult life, Zahran, 33, courted controversy inside the Muslim community itself.

In the internet age, that problem did not stay local. Zahran released online videos calling for jihad and threatening bloodshed.

After the blasts, Islamic State claimed credit and posted a video of Zahran, clutching an assault rifle, standing before the group’s black flag and pledging allegiance to its leader.

The precise relationship between Zahran and Islamic State is not yet known. An official with India’s security services, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that during a raid on a suspected Islamic State cell by the National Investigation Agency earlier this year officers found copies of Zahran’s videos. The operation was in the state of Tamil Nadu, just across a thin strait of ocean from Sri Lanka.

“LIKE A SPOILED CHILD”

Back in 2005, Zahran was looking to make his way in the world. His hometown of Kattankudy is some seven hours’ drive from Colombo on the other side of the island nation, past the countless palm trees, roadside Buddha statues, cashew hawkers and an occasional lumbering elephant in the bush. It is a town of about 40,000 people, a dot on the eastern coast with no clear future for an impoverished young man who’d just been expelled.

Zahran joined a mosque in 2006, the Dharul Athar, and gained a place on its management committee. But within three years they’d had a falling out.

“He wanted to speak more independently, without taking advice from elders,” said the mosque’s imam, or spiritual leader, M.T.M. Fawaz.

Also, the young man was more conservative, Fawaz said, objecting, for instance, to women wearing bangles or earrings.

“The rest of us come together as community leaders but Zahran wanted to speak for himself,” said Fawaz, a man with broad shoulders lounging with a group of friends in a back office of the mosque after evening prayers. “He was a black sheep who broke free.”

Mohamed Yusuf Mohamed Thaufeek, a friend who met Zahran at school and later became an adherent of his, said the problems revolved around Zahran’s habit of misquoting Islamic scriptures.

The mosque’s committee banned him from preaching for three months in 2009. Zahran stormed off.

“We treated him like a spoiled child, a very narrow-minded person who was always causing some trouble,” said the head of the committee, Mohamed Ismail Mohamed Naushad, a timber supplier who shook his head at the memory.

Now on his own, Zahran began to collect a group of followers who met in what Fawaz described as “a hut”.

At about that time, Zahran, then 23, married a young girl from a small town outside the capital of Colombo and brought his bride back to Kattankudy, according to his sister, Mathaniya.

“I didn’t have much of a connection with her – she was 14,” she said.

Despite being “a bit rough-edged”, Zahran was a skilled speaker and others his age were drawn to his speeches and Koranic lessons, said Thaufeek. He traveled the countryside at times, giving his version of religious instruction as he went.

Also, Zahran had found a popular target: the town’s Sufi population, who practice a form of Islam often described a mystical, but which to conservatives is heresy.

Tensions in the area went back some years. In 2004, there was a grenade attack on a Sufi mosque and in 2006 several homes of Sufis were set afire. Announcements boomed from surrounding mosques at the time calling for a Sufi spiritual leader to be killed, said Sahlan Khalil Rahman, secretary of a trust that oversees a group of Sufi mosques.

He blamed followers of the fundamentalist Wahhabi strain of Islam that some locals say became more popular after funding from Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Wahhabism, flowed to mosques in Kattankudy.

It was, Rahman said, an effort “to convert Sufis into Wahhabis through this terrorism”. Rahman handed over a photograph album showing charred homes, bullet holes sprayed across an office wall and a shrine’s casket upended.

ONLINE RADICAL

It was an ideal backdrop for Zahran’s bellicose delivery and apparent sense of religious destiny.

He began holding rallies, bellowing insults through loudspeakers that reverberated inside the Sufis’ house of worship as they tried to pray.

In 2012, Zahran started a mosque of his own. The Sufis were alarmed and, Rahman said, passed on complaints to both local law enforcement and eventually national government offices. No action was taken.

The then-officer in charge of Kattankudy police, Ariyabandhu Wedagedara, said in a telephone interview that he couldn’t arrest people simply because of theological differences.

     “The problem at the time was between followers of different Islamic sects – Zahran was not a major troublemaker, but he and followers of other sects, including the Sufis, were at loggerheads,” Wedagedara said.

Zahran found another megaphone: the internet. His Facebook page was taken down after the bombings, but Muslims in the area said his video clips had previously achieved notoriety.

His speeches went from denouncing Sufis to “kafirs”, or non-believers, in general. Zahran’s sister, Mathaniya, said in an interview that she thought “his ideas became more radical from listening to Islamic State views on the Internet”.

In one undated video, Zahran, in a white tunic and standing in front of an image of flames, boomed in a loud voice: “You will not have time to pick up the remains of blown-up bodies. We’ll keep sending those insulting Allah to hell.”

“HARD TO TAKE”

Zahran spoke in Tamil, making his words available to young Muslims clicking on their cellphones in Kattankudy and other towns like it during a period when, in both 2014 and 2018, reports and images spread of Sinhalese Buddhists rioting against Muslims in Sri Lanka.

In 2017, Zahran’s confrontations boiled over. At a rally near a Sufi community, his followers came wielding swords. At least one man was hacked and hospitalized. The police arrested several people connected to Zahran, including his father and one of his brothers. Zahran slipped away from public view.

That December, the mosque Zahran founded released a public notice disowning him. Thaufeek, his friend from school, is now the head. He counted the places that Zahran had been driven away from – his school, the Dharul Athar mosque and then, “we ourselves kicked him out, which would have been hard for him to take”.

The next year, a group of Buddha statues was vandalized in the town of Mawanella, about five hours drive from Kattankudy. There, in the lush mountains of Sri Lanka’s interior, Zahran had taken up temporary residence.

“He was preaching to kill people,” said A.G.M. Anees, who has served as an imam at a small mosque in the area for a decade. “This is not Islam, this is violence.”

Zahran went into hiding once more.

On the Thursday morning before the Easter Sunday bombings, Zahran’s sister-in-law knocked on the door of a neighbor who did seamstress work near Kattankudy. She handed over a parcel of fabric and asked for it to be sewn into a tunic by the end of the day.

“She said she was going on a family trip,” said the neighbor, M.H. Sithi Nazlya.

Zahran’s sister says that her parents turned off their cellphones on the Friday. On Sunday, when she visited their home, they were gone.

She does not know if Zahran arranged for them to be taken somewhere safe. Or why he would have carried out the bombing.

But now in Kattankudy, and in many other places, people are talking about Mohamed Hashim Mohamed Zahran.

(Reporting by Tom Lasseter and Shri Navaratnam; Additional reporting by Sanjeev Miglani, Shihar Aneez and Alasdair Pal; Editing by John Chalmers and Alex Richardson)

Source: OANN

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Joe Biden may have just stepped into the 2020 ring, but he’s wasted no time in throwing punches at President Trump.

Former Vice President Biden appeared on “The View” Friday in his first interview since officially announcing he is running for the White House on Thursday.

After batting away a softball opening question from host Joy Behar about why he took so long to enter the race, the ex-VP delivered what is likely to be his campaign’s major message.

Asked about the comment in his announcement that a battle is underway for “the soul of this nation,” Biden replied: “What I mean by that is we are not — this is not who we are the way we’re treating people. It’s not who we are as a nation when we’re talking about things like the reason for your problem is the other.

JOE BIDEN’S SENIOR ADVISER IN 2016: ‘WE DON’T NEED WHITE PEOPLE LEADING THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY RIGHT NOW’

“It really is what I said and I really mean it and I wrote an article at the time in “The Atlantic” magazine when Charlottesville happened. This is not who we are. It’s about decency, honor, including everyone. The idea to compare these racists and not condemn them. Neo-Nazis — I don’t ever remember that happening in an administration in well over 100 years.

“I found myself thinking — by the way I travel around the world a lot as vice president and since then I have as well. The rest of the world — I mean, they look at us like my god — what happened to America?”

Behar then asked Biden how he plans to win over “blue-collar voters, a group that Trump won.”

“By making the case that we have to restore dignity to work. Think about this. The way we treat ordinary hard-working Americans who are middle class and working class people fighting to get in the middle class is we treat them like they’re a means to an end as opposed to an ends to themselves,” Biden said.

TRUMP ASSESSES 2020 DEMS; TAKES SWIPES AT BIDEN, SANDERS; DISMISSES HARRIS, O’ROURKE; SAYS HE’S ROOTING FOR BUTTIGIEG

“Go out. When’s the last time we went out and thanked the guy who kept the sewer from overflowing into your basement. What about the woman up on a bucket reconnecting a connection?

“Think about what we don’t do guys. It’s all been about dividing. There’s a real opportunity, incredible opportunity if we just treat each other with more decency.

“My dad had an expression. He said, ‘Joey, a job is about more than a paycheck. It’s about your dignity, it’s about your place in the community, it’s about your place in society and your self-worth. It’s about being able to look your kid in the eye and say it’s going to be okay and mean it.’

“Think about how many people can’t do that today. This president has done nothing to help that group.”

BIDEN VOWS THAT ‘AMERICA IS COMING BACK,’ SPARKING ‘MAGA’ COMPARISONS

Biden’s appearance came after President Trump took a swipe at him in an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Thursday night.

“I think we are calling him ‘Sleepy Joe’ ’cause I’ve known him for a while. Is he a pretty sleepy guy? He won’t be able to deal with [Chinese] President Xi, I will tell you. That’s a different level of energy and, frankly, intelligence. So I sort refer to him as ‘Sleepy Joe.’ A lot of people wanted me to change the word ‘sleepy’ to something else that rhymes with it,” Trump told host Sean Hannity. “I thought it was too nasty.

“He’s not going to be able to do the job.”

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Biden officially announced his candidacy in a video Thursday morning, going directly after Trump.

“If we give Donald Trump eight years in the White House, he will forever and fundamentally alter the character of this nation, who we are, and I cannot stand by and watch that happen,” Biden said in the video.

Source: Fox News Politics

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A Wells Fargo logo is seen in New York City
FILE PHOTO: A Wells Fargo logo is seen in New York City, U.S. January 10, 2017. REUTERS/Stephanie Keith

April 26, 2019

By Jessica DiNapoli and Imani Moise

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Wells Fargo & Co’s board has retained executive search firm Spencer Stuart to hunt for a new chief executive, ideally a woman who can tackle its regulatory and public perception issues, two people familiar with the matter said.

Wells Fargo’s ambition to become the only major U.S. bank with a female CEO underscores the need to restore its image with a wide range of constituents, including customers, shareholders, regulators and politicians, after it became mired in a scandal in 2016 for opening potentially millions of unauthorized accounts.

Former CEO Tim Sloan left abruptly last month, becoming the second CEO to leave the bank in the scandal’s fallout.

The board plans to approach Citigroup Inc’s Latin America chief Jane Fraser, one of the sources said. During Fraser’s 15-year tenure at Citigroup, she has gained experience running consumer and commercial businesses as well as its private bank.

Fraser could not be immediately reached for comment.

The board also discussed approaching JPMorgan Chase & Co’s Marianne Lake, but after the bank named her to run JPMorgan’s consumer lending business last week, that option became less viable, the source added. The board wants someone who can convince regulators, employees, investors and customers that the bank has fixed problems underpinning the sales scandal, the sources said.

The bank’s board feels that choosing a woman might please lawmakers in Washington who have been critical not only of Wells Fargo’s misbehavior, but of the broader banking industry for a lack of diversity and gender equality, said the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

It also believes that such a move could bolster Wells Fargo’s image with the households of customers where women play a leading role in managing finances, one of the sources added.

The new CEO will also have to resolve litigation and regulatory matters. There are 14 outstanding consent orders with government entities, as well as probes by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the Department of Labor and the Department of Justice.

To be sure, Spencer Stuart will approach and consider several male candidates for the CEO job as well, one of the sources said. The top priority is to find an external candidate who can navigate the bank’s regulatory issues, the source added.

Finding an outsider who meets all those qualifications and wants the job will be difficult, the sources said. There are few people with the necessary experience, even fewer of those who are women, and it is not clear if any of the obvious candidates would be open to taking the role.

The sources asked not to be identified because Wells Fargo’s board deliberations are confidential.

Spokespeople for Wells Fargo and Spencer Stuart declined to comment.

Wells Fargo’s board has not made any public statements about its requirements for a new CEO, beyond Chair Betsy Duke saying the job should attract the “top talent in banking.”

The board wants to complete the search within the next three to six months, one of the sources said.

STALLED SHARES

After Sloan’s ouster, Wells Fargo’s board appointed Allen Parker, who had been general counsel, as interim CEO. The board has said it is looking for an external candidate as a permanent replacement. It is not clear whether Parker will stay at the bank.

Others whose names have been mentioned by analysts, recruiters and industry sources as perspective CEO candidates include Alphabet Inc finance chief Ruth Porat and Bank of America Corp’s chief technology officer Cathy Bessant.

Wells Fargo shares have stalled since Sloan’s departure on March 29th, while the KBW Bank index has rallied more than 7 percent.

Wells Fargo would be “the best stock on earth to buy” if it had the right CEO, said Greg Donaldson, chairman of Donaldson Capital Management in Indiana.

Donaldson held about 50,000 Wells Fargo shares, but sold the stake last year as problems mounted. The CEO change could convince him to re-invest, depending on who it is, he told Reuters.

“It would be very smart for them to get a woman,” he said.

(Reporting by Jessica DiNapoli and Imani Moise in New York; Editing by Lauren Tara LaCapra, Greg Roumeliotis and Susan Thomas)

Source: OANN

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