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Why Ballot Fraud Is as Big as Texas, Despite Local Enforcers

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CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – Although part of her job description is making sure elections are fair and square, Nueces County Clerk Kara Sands hadn’t given much thought to ballot fraud until a constable candidate from a nearby suburb visited her office in May 2016.

The ex-cop was familiar with how voter fraud worked, Sands said, and “he was afraid that people in Robstown were using the mail-in ballots illegally” in a Democratic primary runoff.

That galvanized the Republican official, and it wasn't long before her second-floor office became a repository of voter mischief: Cardboard boxes, ballot application envelopes, voter registration lists and other papers heaped on an aged beige couch, a round wooden table and the across the floor. Atop one stack of papers: a list of mail-in ballot applications all signed and witnessed by the same person, a clue to illegal ballot-harvesiting.

Because much of the fraud involves unwitting older voters and the homebound, Sands also visits local nursing homes and knocks on the doors of voters from whom she has received complaints.

Kara Sands, county clerk: “People don’t even realize their votes are being stolen." 

Neuces County

“People don’t even realize their votes are being stolen,” Sands said. “The harvesters come along at election time and bring food, they have these neighborhoods mapped out and they can go door to door and build relationships. Mostly elderly people are being victimized and they don’t even know it.”

Texas leads the nation in prosecutions of election fraud – since January 2018, 33 people have been convicted of election crimes in cases brought by the state attorney general’s office, and 13 more have cases pending.

Still, many election experts believe that only hints at the fraud actually taking place. Texas, then, may hold lessons as voter mischief, especially involving mail-in ballots, is receiving intense national scrutiny: Last November, legal third-party ballot harvesting in California may have helped Democrats score upsets in congressional races, while in North Carolina similar but illegal harvesting operations prompted officials to call a new election.

Texas is like every other state in that it does not have a well-financed bureaucracy responsible for safeguarding ballot integrity. Instead, this duty largely falls to – and is jealously guarded by -- local officials in each of the state’s 254 counties.

As a result, even in Texas, exposing election fraud relies on a disorganized, ad hoc group of aggrieved candidates and political partisans who suspect foul play. Even then, they must hope to find an official like Sands willing to take on the painstaking work required to identify and investigate potentially fraudulent ballots.

In policing vote fraud, "it’s mostly just people on the ground who report incidents.”

Andy Jacobsohn//Dallas Morning News 

“Once in a while you see the secretary of state’s offices take the lead in these in some states, but it’s mostly just people on the ground who report incidents,” said Jason Snead, senior policy analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation, who maintains a national database that tracks voter fraud cases across the country.

These tipsters usually encounter a system geared to dismiss their claims, according to Dallas attorney (and former judge) Dan Wyde, who has represented several candidates who believe they lost because of mail-in ballot shenanigans. Wyde said local officials and courts often lack the will or the resources to handle these cases.

“The judges are under pressure not to grant a new election, and to affirm or bless the system,” said Wyde, who represented a justice of the peace candidate who unsuccessfully challenged a 2010 Democratic primary in Dallas County. Wyde put on 40 witnesses.  

“This is the kind of thing where it has to be the candidate that is reporting it, and they have this vested interest, so it’s hard to find a neutral party to come in and look and say, ‘Hey, this isn’t how it’s supposed to go,’” Wyde said.

Fraud or Voter Suppression?

Local control of elections is often an obstacle to voter fraud investigations, both in Texas and around the country. Jonathan White, an assistant attorney general and the state’s top investigator of voting violations, was reminded of that in June 2017. That’s when he met with officials from the Dallas County district attorney’s office, including assistant DA Andy Chatham, to discuss a series of complaints from senior citizens on the west side of the city who said they had received mail-in ballots for the May municipal election that they had not requested, indicating their signatures on the application may have been forged.

Some said a man had knocked on their door, claimed he worked for the county and was there to collect their ballots.

Chatham dashed any notion of the state’s attorneys getting involved.

“This is a constitutional issue,” Chatham told White, pointing to statutes that allow for witnesses and assistants in the voting process. “We can handle it, but I can tell you, there is no vast voter fraud ring in Dallas.”

Ex-Attorney General and now Texas Governor Greg Abbott: He's accused of targeting Democrats and minorities with fraud enforcement.

Joel Martinez/The Monitor via AP

In this case he was right. The sleuthing in Dallas netted one suspect: Miguel Hernandez, a small-time drug offender, who pleaded guilty to filling in a single mail-in ballot. The unusual thing about this case was the sentence: Hernandez received 180 days in county jail for the misdemeanor, while the vast majority of election fraud convictions in Texas end in plea deals, probation and no jail time. Hernandez, though, was on probation for other crimes when he violated the election law.

White’s heard the objection before -- there’s no significant election fraud in the state. Chatham’s resistance was mild in comparison to the protests of others.

Civil rights groups and others who argue for ballot access also resist voter fraud investigations.

When then-Attorney General Greg Abbott announced in 2005 he was allocating $1.4 million of a federal crime-fighting grant to investigate alleged voter fraud, civil rights groups claimed the action targeted Democrats and minorities and newspapers ran editorials criticizing the move, insisting it would discourage voters.

The Texas Democratic Party and several other plaintiffs, including a city council member in Texarkana who had previously pleaded guilty to unlawfully assisting a mail-in voter, sued the Republican Abbott, who became state’s governor in 2015. They lost. 

Another impediment to electoral fraud crackdowns has been the efforts, mostly led by Republicans, to pass voter ID laws to clamp down on fraudulent in-person voting. Because so little effort is spent investigating such cases, no one knows how many people vote multiple times, or how many convicted felons or illegal immigrants cast ballots. But the consensus is these are rare occurrences and the focus on this form of abuse has given ammunition to those who  crusade for more liberal voting laws and dismiss allegations of voter fraud as political interference into voters’ rights.

This, in turn, reduces efforts to combat mail-in ballot fraud, an abuse that few dispute. For example, in a 2014 ruling on the constitutionality of a Texas voter ID, U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos noted, “[W]hile there is general agreement that voting fraud exists with respect to mail-in ballots, the same was not demonstrated to be a real concern with in-person voting.”

Lon Burnam, a Democrat who teamed with a Tea Party group: “Republicans claim a lot of crap around elections, but this was real.”

Nevertheless, election fraud cases often start with aggrieved parties and partisan political operatives rather than eagle-eyed state officials. That’s what happened in some mostly Democratic precincts of Tarrant County, which long been rumored to be a haven for mail-in ballot harvesting.

The investigation started with an unlikely alliance of former Democratic state Rep. Lon Burnam and Direct Action Texas, a Tea Party-backed operation that supports a particularly conservative wing of the state Republican Party.

Burnam was a nine-term incumbent when he was defeated in the Democratic primary in March 2014 by 111 votes. He filed a lawsuit challenging the election, but money issues forced him to drop it.

“I’ve always been in favor of vote-by-mail programs,” Burnam said. “There’s a line there that you cannot step over, and it is defined by legislation. But we need to enforce that law, and it turns out it’s very hard to find out when people do cross that line.”

Tea Party-aligned outfit checks mail-in ballot applications.

Direct Action Texas

A year later, when Burnam heard Direct Action was pulling ballot applications and poring over signatures, looking for forgeries and other inconsistencies in the May 2015 general election in Tarrant County, he called them. They were sympathetic and together these unlikely partners launched a crusade to gather mail-in ballot applications and ballot envelopes to determine just what was going on.

Burnam joined Aaron Harris, then executive director of Direct Action, and a couple of Democratic consultants and headed over the Tarrant County Elections Administration office.

The group inspected the applications for the mail-in ballots. Within an hour, Harris and Burnam realized that the applications were filled out in a machine-like fashion, each address and name of the requestor scrawled in identical handwriting on scores of ballots.

“Republicans claim a lot of crap around elections, but this was real,” Burnam said.

The Mechanics of Mischief

At least half of that comment was surely gratifying to one Republican, Christine Welborn. As director of election integrity for Direct Action, she spends many days at her desk in an aged bleached concrete office building in the suburbs of Fort Worth sifting through mail-in ballot applications. As she demonstrated in January, the work is simple, but laborious. Applications for a ballot by mail must be signed by the voter. Using voter registration applications, Welborn verifies the signatures of the applicant on each document. If they don’t match, it’s a sign of trouble and it needs to be investigated. A person other than the voter can sign as a witness, provided they indicate their relationship to the applicant, but they cannot forge that voter’s name, then send it in.

Top image credit: A detail from this image on an official Texas registration site.

Texas Secretary of State

Welborn shows one such instance – the signatures clearly are mismatched, and yet the ballot application is signed by a witness, as required.

“You see this ballot application, you see this signature and you see this signature,” Welborn said, poring over a stack of copied papers. “Then you look at the original signature from the voter’s registration to vote. And it’s clear that someone other than the voter applied for a mail-in ballot.”

Direct Action has analyzed several elections around the state, from the urban areas to rural counties and heading to points south and east. In some cases, there’s nothing. When Welborn and her associates find potential issues, they send their findings to the state, which takes it from there. Tipsters rarely hear back from investigating agents. Sometimes, there is nothing to find, and dead-ends are part of the job.

Her work, though, has led to one confirmed case by the state.  

Four Tarrant County women were arrested in October for providing false signatures on mail-in ballot applications for the 2016 Democratic primary, based on the initial findings of Direct Action. Among those arrested was Leticia Sanchez, a veteran vote canvasser whose name has shown up as a paid employee of several local candidates over the years. The case is still pending.

“We’ve done this in mostly Democratic races,” Welborn said. “Whatever party, our goal is not to choose who wins and loses, our goal is to find the fraud. You know they don’t want election fraud any more than anyone else.  Everyone, regardless of their politics, wants clean elections.”

Although Direct Action has filed complaints against some Republicans, its partisan bent makes it subject to attack, especially by critics who argue that its work, and its calls to reform mail-in ballots, are really aimed at suppressing minority votes.

Domingo Garcia, Hispanic leader: “They’re trying to rig it so people who are Latino and African-American don’t vote.” 

domingogarcia.com

At a press event at a park on Fort Worth’s north side in the fall of 2016, shortly after Direct Action’s announced its findings that resulted in the October arrests, former Democratic state Rep. Domingo Garcia, a leader in the Dallas/Fort Worth Hispanic community, made it clear he felt Direct Action’s work was politically motivated, aimed at discouraging minority voters who tend to cast ballots for Democrats. 

“We believe there’s a clear attack to rig the system,” Garcia said. “They’re trying to rig it so people who are Latino and African-American don’t vote.” But, he also noted that real instances of voter fraud should be pursued: “Any political thug who is doing it should be reported. “

The investigation in Tarrant County, part of the large Dallas-Fort Worth area, prompted the first reform of mail-in ballot laws in over a decade. State lawmakers passed Senate Bill 5 in 2017, creating heavier penalties for tampering with mail-in ballots and applications, including a provision that would hold a candidate or party responsible if any low-level ballot harvester can be traced to them.

The measure, like Abbott’s 2005 announcement of a crackdown on election fraud, drew criticism from some quarters although by now it was tempered, even timid.

 “I’m kind of here to encourage the Senate to figure out not just criminal penalties,” Matt Simpson, legislative director of the ACLU of Texas, said during testimony on the state senate bill. “Are there civil penalties, are there administrative penalties, are there alternatives to turning to already-filled prisons and jails?”

“We have concerns on the criminal penalty enhancements,” added Yannis Banks, legislative liaison for the Texas NAACP. He worried that having political conversations, or even helping close friends, might end up in breaking the law if an encouragement to vote a specific way were made.

“It would be a shame if someone helping someone were punished,” Banks said.

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Mississippi mom arrested after 2 of 3 kids drown in locked vehicle while she was shopping, police say

A Mississippi woman was arrested on Monday after her two of her three children drowned in her locked vehicle over the weekend while she was in a nearby store, police said.

Jenea Payne, 25, was at a Stop&Shop in Leland, a city roughly 85 miles northwest of Jackson, while her three young children, ages 1 to 4, were inside her Nissan Pathfinder, the Leland Police Department wrote on Facebook.

MOM KILLED 11-YEAR-OLD TO KEEP HER FROM HAVING SEX: SHERIFF

Payne told investigators that when she exited the store on Saturday, she saw her vehicle was gone and had rolled into Deer Creek.

Police officers and firefighters “jumped into the creek and attempted to burst the windows out of the vehicle in order to get the kids out.”

First responders were only able to rescue one child from the vehicle, and the other two floated away down the creek in the locked SUV, according to police.

A rescue dive team found the vehicle with the children still inside hours later.

Steve Smith, 4, and Rasheed Johnson, Jr., 1, were pronounced dead by the Washington County coroner, officials said.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Marcus Davis, assistant chief of police, told the Clarion Ledger that investigators believe the 4-year-old put Payne’s keys in the ignition, turned the vehicle on and put it in neutral before it rolled off.

Payne was booked on Monday and charged with two counts of manslaughter-culpable negligence and one count of child neglect, the police department wrote. She was released on her own recognizance after she made an initial court appearance.

Source: Fox News National

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Brexit: DUP still seeking time limit on Northern Ireland backstop – MP

Children play soccer on a pitch at the border crossing between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland in Carrickcarnon
FILE PHOTO - Children play soccer on a pitch at the border crossing between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland in Carrickcarnon, Ireland March 30. 2019. REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne

April 3, 2019

BELFAST (Reuters) – Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party remains a key player in Brexit and is seeking a time limit on the “backstop” insurance mechanism designed to keep the region’s border with EU-member Ireland open, a senior member said on Wednesday.

Asked if British Prime Minister Theresa May’s decision on Tuesday to hold talks with the opposition Labour party had frozen it out, DUP member of parliament Jeffrey Donaldson told the BBC that the party was “still in a very strong and influential position” and that events could change quickly.

Donaldson said the DUP’s 10 members of parliament, who prop up May’s government, continued to demand changes to her EU withdrawal deal and would need “at the very least a time limit on that backstop” before they would consider supporting it.

(Reporting by Conor Humphries and Amanda Ferguson; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

Source: OANN

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Khamenei appoints new chief for Iran’s Revolutionary Guards

FILE PHOTO: Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks live on television after casting his ballot in the Iranian presidential election in Tehran
FILE PHOTO: Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks live on television after casting his ballot in the Iranian presidential election in Tehran June 12, 2009. REUTERS/Caren Firouz/File Photo

April 21, 2019

By Parisa Hafezi

DUBAI (Reuters) – Iran’s top authority Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has replaced the head of the influential Revolutionary Guards Corps, state TV reported on Sunday, days after the United States designated the elite group a foreign terrorist organization.

The TV station did not give a reason for the change when it announced the appointment of Brigadier General Hossein Salami to the position.

“The Supreme Leader has appointed Salami as the new commander-in-chief of the Guards, who will replace Mohammad Ali Jafari,” it said.

Major General Jafari had held the post since September 2007.

President Donald Trump on April 8 designated the Guards a terrorist organization, in an unprecedented step that drew Iranian condemnation and raised concerns about retaliatory attacks on U.S. forces. The designation took effect on April 15.

Tehran retaliated by naming the United States Central Command (CENTCOM) as a terrorist organization and the U.S. government as a sponsor of terrorism.

The IRGC, created by late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini during Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, is more than a military force. It is also an industrial empire with political clout and is loyal to the supreme leader.

Comprising an estimated 125,000-strong military with army, navy and air units, the Guards also command the Basij, a religious volunteer paramilitary force, and control Iran’s missile programs. The Guards’ overseas Quds forces have fought Iran’s proxy wars in the region.

The IRGC is in charge of Iran’s ballistic missile and nuclear programs. Tehran has warned that it has missiles with a range of up to 2,000 kms (1,242 miles), putting Israel and U.S. military bases in the region within reach.

Salami, born in 1960, said in January that Iran’s strategy was to wipe “the Zionist regime” (Israel) off the political map, Iran’s state TV reported.

“We announce that if Israel takes any action to wage a war against us, it will definitely lead to its own elimination,” Salami said after an Israeli attack on Iranian targets in Syria in January, Iranian media reported.

Israel sees Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs as a threat to its existence. Iran says its nuclear work is for peaceful purposes only.

Israel, which Islamic Iran refuses to recognize, backed Trump’s move in May to quit a 2015 international deal on Iran’s nuclear program and welcomed Washington’s reimposition of sanctions on Tehran.

(Writing by Parisa Hafezi; editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise, William Maclean)

Source: OANN

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Sen. Schumer on Impeachment: 'Let's Wait for the Report'

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said he is withholding judgment on whether he supports the possibility of impeaching President Donald Trump until after the Russia investigation concludes and the report is issued.

"I'm going to wait for the Mueller report," Schumer said, according to The Washington Times.

"Let's wait for the report."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made headlines Monday when she insisted impeachment is "divisive to the country" and she is not in favor of pursuing impeachment of the sitting president.

"And he's just not worth it," she said.

With Democrats now in control of the House, they are probing into Trump's background as they search for anything that shows Trump might have broken the law. At the same time, special counsel Robert Mueller is conducting a Department of Justice investigation into whether the Trump campaign conspired with Russia to win the 2016 presidential election.

Some recent reports suggest Mueller's probe could be over soon.

Source: NewsMax America

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Suit filed over gun controls inspired by synagogue shooting

Gun rights groups sued Tuesday to block Pittsburgh from enforcing firearms legislation passed after a synagogue massacre, accusing city officials of blatantly defying the state's prohibition on municipal gun regulation.

Democratic Mayor Bill Peduto signed the bills into law in a ceremony at the City-County Building, declaring the community had come together "to say enough is enough."

"There was a lot of opposition. But more people within this city quietly showed their support," Peduto said. "We are going to take some action, we are going to do something positive and, yes, it is going to be everlasting. Change only happens when you challenge the status quo."

Minutes later, a coalition of gun rights groups sued to get the newly minted laws overturned, calling them "patently unenforceable, unconstitutional, illegal." Separately, the Allegheny County Sportsmen's League asked a judge to hold the city, Peduto and six council members who voted for the legislation in contempt of court, contending they violated a 1995 legal settlement in which city officials dropped an earlier effort to ban assault weapons and agreed to "abide by and adhere to Pennsylvania law."

"It is unfortunate that ... taxpayers will be burdened by the city's elected officials believing it is acceptable — and even gloating — that they are violating the Pennsylvania Constitution and Crimes Code," Joshua Prince, an attorney who filed both actions, wrote in a statement.

The new legislation restricts military-style assault weapons like the AR-15 rifle authorities say was used in the Oct. 27 rampage at Tree of Life Synagogue that killed 11 and wounded seven. It also bans most uses of armor-piercing ammunition and high-capacity magazines and allows the temporary seizure of guns from people who are determined to be a danger to themselves or others. The first two laws are due to take effect in 60 days, the self-harm law in 180 days.

The three bills — proposed not long after the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history — was weakened ahead of the vote in an effort to make it more likely to survive a court challenge.

State law has long prohibited municipalities from regulating the ownership or possession of guns or ammunition. While one of the Pittsburgh bills originally included an outright ban on assault weapons, the revised measure bars the "use" of assault weapons in public places.

A full ban on possession would take effect only if state lawmakers or the state Supreme Court give municipalities the right to regulate guns, which is seen as unlikely in a state where legislative majorities are fiercely protective of gun rights.

___

Rubinkam reported from northeastern Pennsylvania.

Source: Fox News National

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After defeating Islamic State, Syrian Kurds eye political battle

Senior Kurdish official Badran Jia Kurd is pictured during an interview with Reuters, in Qamishli
FILE PHOTO: Senior Kurdish official Badran Jia Kurd is pictured during an interview with Reuters, in Qamishli, Syria January 3, 2019. REUTERS/Rodi Said

March 12, 2019

By Ellen Francis

QAMISHLI, Syria (Reuters) – Syrian Kurdish authorities that led the fight against Islamic State are prepping for their next battle: a political struggle to win international recognition for their autonomous region and aid to help it recover from the war.

Islamic State’s territorial defeat in Syria marks a critical moment for Kurdish forces who partnered with Washington to fight the jihadists. They now hope Western military allies will lend them political support.

Victory over Islamic State at Baghouz, a shred of land at the Iraqi border, will herald “a new phase”, said Badran Jia Kurd, advisor to the Kurdish-led administration running north and east Syria.

“There will be efforts and a struggle to gain political legitimacy for this administration … and towards finding a peaceful solution” to the Syrian conflict, he told Reuters during an interview in Qamishli.

The main Kurdish parties and their allies hold nearly a quarter of the country – the biggest chunk outside the hands of President Bashar al-Assad’s government. Their control is underpinned by a large military force, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) which the Kurdish YPG militia spearheads.

But while the SDF has developed close ties with the United States, Washington has balked at extending political recognition to the authorities seeking autonomous rule. The West has trodden carefully largely because of the concerns of Turkey, which sees the YPG as part of the outlawed Kurdish PKK movement that has waged an insurgency on Turkish soil for decades.

Just three months ago, Kurdish authorities were thrown into crisis when President Donald Trump abruptly announced his decision to withdraw U.S. forces. Washington has since partially reversed course, and now plans to leave 200 troops in northeast Syria along with about 800 to 1,500 troops from European allies.

Trump’s move drove the Kurdish-led administration to seek fresh talks with Assad via his key ally Russia. They hope for a political deal that would safeguard their autonomy and shield their region from Turkish attack.

LEFT OUT

Millions of Kurds live in territory straddling Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria. In Iraq, they govern an autonomous region.

Kurdish leaders have consistently been left out of U.N. efforts toward ending Syria’s eight-year war. They have always insisted their aim is regional autonomy within a federal Syria, not independence. The West’s reluctance to engage politically with them remains a deep source of frustration.

“Honestly, until now, no clear, positive stance has taken shape … even from the actual partners that we fought side by side with,” Jia Kurd said.

Diplomatic efforts would focus on deepening relations with European allies, the United States and other countries in the coalition that has been fighting Islamic State, he said.

He added that foreign states need to help rebuild infrastructure and revive the economy to prevent an Islamic State resurgence or invasion by hostile forces – an apparent reference to Turkey.

Jia Kurd said nascent contacts with Damascus had stalled and accused the Syrian government of a refusal to negotiate.

In a speech last month, Assad warned Kurdish fighters not to rely on Washington and said only the state could protect them.

Assad, now controlling most of the country with Russia and Iran’s help, has pledged to recover every inch.

Jia Kurd said the rhetoric had killed hopes for dialogue and could lead to “a dangerous and catastrophic direction” toward conflict that the administration in the north does not want.

(Editing by Tom Perry)

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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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Traders work on the floor at the NYSE in New York
FILE PHOTO: Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., April 24, 2019. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

April 26, 2019

By Sruthi Shankar and Amy Caren Daniel

(Reuters) – U.S. stock index futures were flat on Friday, as investors paused ahead of GDP data, which is expected to show the world’s largest economy maintained a moderate pace of growth in the first quarter.

Gross domestic product probably increased at a 2% annualized rate in the quarter as a burst in exports, strong inventory stockpiling and government investment in public construction projects offset a slowdown in consumer and business spending, according to a Reuters survey of economists.

The Commerce Department report will be published at 8:30 a.m. ET.

The GDP data comes as investors look for fresh catalysts to push the markets higher. The S&P 500 index is about 0.5% below its record high hit in late September, after surging nearly 17% this year.

First-quarter earnings have been largely upbeat, with nearly 78% of the 178 companies that have reported so far surpassing earnings estimates, according to Refinitiv data.

Wall Street now expects S&P 500 earnings to be in line with the year-ago quarter, a sharp improvement from the 2.3% fall expected at the start of April.

Amazon.com Inc rose 0.9% in premarket trading after the e-commerce giant reported quarterly profit that doubled and beat estimates on soaring demand for its cloud and ad services.

Ford Motor Co shares surged 8.5% after the automaker posted better-than-expected first-quarter earnings largely due to strong pickup truck sales in its core U.S. market.

Mattel Inc jumped 8% after the toymaker beat analysts’ estimates for quarterly revenue, as a more diverse range of Barbie dolls powered sales in the United States.

At 6:52 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were down 35 points, or 0.13%. S&P 500 e-minis were down 1.5 points, or 0.05% and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 10.75 points, or 0.14%.

Among decliners, Intel Corp slumped 7.7% after it cut its full-year revenue forecast and missed quarterly sales estimate for its key data center business.

Rival Advanced Micro Devices declined 0.8%.

Oil majors Exxon Mobil Corp and Chevron Corp are expected to report results later in the day.

(Reporting by Sruthi Shankar and Amy Caren Daniel in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D’Silva)

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General view of a destroyed building during World War II is pictured in Warsaw
General view of a destroyed building during World War II is pictured in Warsaw, Poland April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel

April 26, 2019

By Joanna Plucinska

WARSAW (Reuters) – Germany could owe Poland more than $850 billion in reparations for damages it incurred during World War Two and the brutal Nazi occupation, a senior ruling party lawmaker said.

Some six million Poles, including three million Polish Jews, were killed during the war and Warsaw was razed to the ground following a 1944 uprising in which about 200,000 civilians died.

Germany, one of Poland’s biggest trade partners and a fellow member of the European Union and NATO, says all financial claims linked to World War Two have been settled.

The right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) has revived calls for compensation since it took power in 2015 and has made the promotion of Poland’s wartime victimhood a central plank of its appeal to nationalism.

PiS has yet to make an official demand for reparations but its combative stance towards Germany has strained relations.

“Poland lost not only millions of its citizens but it was also destroyed in an unusually brutal way,” Arkadiusz Mularczyk, who heads the Polish parliamentary committee on reparations, told Reuters in an interview.

“Many (victims) are still alive and feel deeply wronged.”

His comments come a month before European Parliament elections in which populist and nationalist parties are expected to do well. Poland will also hold national elections later this year, with PiS still well ahead of its rivals in opinion polls.

EU LARGESSE

Mularczyk said the reparations figure could amount to more than 10 times the estimated 100 billion euros ($111 billion) that Poland has received so far in European Union funds since it joined the bloc in 2004.

Germany is the biggest net donor to the EU budget and some Germans regard its contributions as generous compensation to recipient countries like Poland which suffered under Nazi rule.

In 1953 Poland’s then-communist rulers relinquished all claims to war reparations under pressure from the Soviet Union, which wanted to free East Germany, also a Soviet satellite, from any liabilities. PiS says that agreement is invalid because Poland was unable to negotiate fair compensation.

Mularczyk said his committee hoped to complete its report on the reparations issue by Sept. 1, the 80th anniversary of Hitler’s invasion.

Accusing Berlin of playing “diplomatic games” over the issue, he said: “The matter is being swept under the rug (by Germany) … until it’ll be wiped from the memory, from people’s awareness.”

His comments come after the Greek parliament voted this month to seek billions of euros in German reparations for the Nazi occupation of their country.

(Additional reporting by Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk, Editing by Justyna Pawlak and Gareth Jones)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO - Otto Frederick Warmbier is taken to North Korea's top court in Pyongyang North Korea
FILE PHOTO – Otto Frederick Warmbier (C), a University of Virginia student who was detained in North Korea since early January, is taken to North Korea’s top court in Pyongyang, North Korea, in this photo released by Kyodo March 16, 2016. Mandatory credit REUTERS/Kyodo/File Photo

April 26, 2019

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday said the United States did not pay any money to North Korea as it sought the release of comatose American student Otto Warmbier.

The Washington Post reported on Thursday that Trump had approved payment of a $2 million bill from North Korea to cover its care of the college student, who died shortly after he was returned to the United States after 17 months in a North Korean prison.

(Reporting by Makini Brice and Susan Heavey)

Source: OANN

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