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Americans still don’t trust self-driving cars, Reuters/Ipsos poll finds

An AutonomouStuff Automated Research Development Vehicle drives on the race track during a self-racing cars event at Thunderhill Raceway in Willows, California
An AutonomouStuff Automated Research Development Vehicle drives on the race track during a self-racing cars event at Thunderhill Raceway in Willows, California, U.S., April 1, 2017. REUTERS/Stephen Lam

April 1, 2019

By Paul Lienert and Maria Caspani

(Reuters) – Half of U.S. adults think automated vehicles are more dangerous than traditional vehicles operated by people, while nearly two-thirds said they would not buy a fully autonomous vehicle, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll.

In the same poll, about 63 percent of those who responded said they would not pay more to have a self-driving feature on their vehicle, and 41 percent of the rest said they would not pay more than $2,000.

The poll results outline the challenges that face car and truck makers, delivery companies, technology companies and ride services operators such as Uber Technologies Inc and Lyft Inc. All are plowing capital into developing self-driving vehicles and related hardware. Developers of the technology are making progress, but polls indicate the industry’s efforts to build public trust and commercial demand lag behind.

The findings are similar to those in a 2018 Reuters/Ipsos poll. They are consistent with results in surveys by Pew Research Center, the American Automobile Association and others. In March 2018, after the 2018 Reuters/Ipsos poll, an Uber vehicle operating in self-driving mode struck and killed a pedestrian in Arizona.

Relatively few U.S. residents have seen or ridden in a self-driving vehicle, and experts said suspicion of unknown technology can give way to acceptance once it becomes more familiar.

“People are comfortable with things they know,” said investor Chris Thomas, co-founder of Fontinalis Partners and Detroit Mobility Lab. “When everybody understands the game-changing attributes of automated vehicles, how they can give you back all that time to read or work or sleep, they will start to ask about the value of that recaptured time.”

For companies investing in autonomous vehicles, public mistrust and the unwillingness to pay for self-driving systems are an increasingly urgent problem.

But widespread deployment of fully self-driving vehicles is some years away, industry officials and experts said. Alphabet Inc’s Waymo unit has deployed a small fleet of self-driving vans to provide rides for customers in Arizona, and other companies have self-driving vehicles on public streets in test fleets.

“At the moment, those responses are largely based on zero knowledge and zero experience, so it’s mostly a visceral reaction to something they read about, like the (2018) Uber crash in Arizona,” said Dan Sperling, director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Davis, and the author of several books on future transportation.

Autonomous vehicle companies have been trying for more than two years to get the U.S. Congress to enact legislation that would give a regulatory green light to self-driving cars. So far, opposition has bottled up the industry friendly bills. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration meanwhile has yet to act on proposals to exempt autonomous vehicles from conventional vehicle safety standards.

Two-thirds of survey respondents said self-driving cars should be held to higher government safety standards than traditional vehicles driven by humans.

“Somebody needs to be held accountable,” said survey respondent Carla Ross, 62, a teacher from Norfolk, Virginia. “Those cars shouldn’t even go on the road until they can guarantee a certain percentage of safety.”

The poll’s findings that most consumers would not pay for self-driving vehicle capability underscores concerns within the vehicle industry about the high costs of the technology, such as lidar sensors and high-powered onboard computers. Lidar is similar to radar but uses laser light instead of radio waves.

“I’m concerned that even when we get the technology absolutely right, we will not have the business,” said investor and corporate adviser Evangelos Simoudis, managing director of Synapse Partners, which invests in autonomous vehicle technology startups.

Self-driving expert Bryant Walker Smith, a law professor at the University of South Carolina, said a number of companies “don’t actually want to sell people these cars — they want to rent us these services. They want us to pay every month, every trip.” 

For many Americans, “$2,000 is a lot of money,” he said. “If you’d asked people if they’d pay $15,000 for an advanced safety package or even $10,000 for a luxury trim package, the answer in a lot of cases is going to be no.”

The challenges of turning over critical safety systems to robots are now a central issue in debate over how regulators should respond to a pair of deadly crashes involving Boeing 737 MAX airliners. Investigators trying to determine the causes of crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia are focusing on evidence that an automated flight control system on the jets put the planes into nose dives, and pilots were unable to override the systems.

“If there’s one (airplane) crash a year, it creates huge backlash — and airplanes are far, far safer than cars,” said Sperling.

The Reuters/Ipsos poll surveyed 2,222 people online in English across the United States and it has a credibility interval, a measure of precision, of 2 percent.

(Reporting by Paul Lienert in Detroit and Maria Caspani in New York)

Source: OANN

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Pregnant mother reportedly faces jail time for letting 3-year-old urinate in parking lot

A pregnant mom in Georgia -- who is expected to give birth later this month -- is now facing a court date for a disorderly conduct charge after she reportedly let her 3-year-old urinate in a gas station parking lot.

Brooke Johns told FOX5 Atlanta she was driving around Augusta on Wednesday when her son alerted her he needed to make a pit stop. Johns says she pulled into a gas station parking lot and, after being unable to carry the child inside, let him urinate outside while covering him. That attracted the attention of a nearby police officer.

"I said 'accidents happen.' And he was like – ‘take him in the bathroom,’" Johns said to the station. "What if I would have ran in the bathroom and someone had been in there? What was I going to let him do? Pee on the floor of the gas station?"

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Johns now has a court date at the end of the month -- just days before she is due with her next child, FOX5 Atlanta reported.

The judge that is assigned to the case could drop the charges, but if not, Johns reportedly faces up to a thousand dollars in fines and 60 days of jail time.

Source: Fox News National

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Migrant Yelling “Allahu Akbar” Attacks Italian Police With Iron Rod

A Senegalese migrant has been charged with attempted murder after brutally attacking two police officers in Turin, Italy, while yelling "Allahu akbar," according to local media.

The suspect, identified as Ndiaye Migui, 26, has two outstanding deportation orders against him as well as a history of assaulting officers.

"He shouted 'Allah Akbar,' the exclamation used by Islamic terrorists before carrying out an attack," Il Giornale reports. "Then, brandishing an iron bar, he ran at two policemen who were in the area, and attacked them."

One officer was hospitalized with head wounds, while the other suffered injuries to their hand.

Migui had reportedly assaulted other officers on March 29, but never faced trial because a prosecutor placed a phone call ordering his release, "even though he was unable to trace the identity and the legal status of the person in question," Il Giornale reports, citing minutes from a police report about the incident.

Migui is known to live in a makeshift shack in Turin, and officers attempting to confront him have been subjected to violence as well, leading to deportation orders being filed against him by top law enforcement officials on two occasions.

"The fact is he shows indications of an absolute lack of fear and respect for the police," said police union spokesman Pietro Di Lorenzo.

Migui reportedly attempted to assault staff at the police station during his latest arrest, while yelling condemnations of Interior Minister Matteo Salvini.

"There will be no tolerance for thugs and violent people who attack the police," Salvini said in response.

Alarm regarding security and safety in Turin is growing, according to Il Giornale, which notes that, "Not a day goes by, in fact, that there are no episodes of violence."

Authorities recently began clearing out one of Italy's most infamous migrant settlements at the former Olympic Village in Turin, removing hundreds of squatters from multiple buildings under orders from Salvini.

Infowars Europe reported from the Turin Olympic Village last year, as it was situated just a stone’s throw across the railroad tracks from the NH Lingotto Hotel, site of the 2018 Bilderberg meeting of globalist elites.

Dan Lyman joins Owen Shroyer from Europe to report on the Yellow Vest protesters' reaction to the highly suspicious fire at Notre Dame cathedral in Paris.

(PHOTO: Mauro Ujetto/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Source: InfoWars

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Japan’s March factory output declines, rise in inventories raises concerns

FILE PHOTO: Employees of Toyota Motor Corp. work on assembly line in Toyota
FILE PHOTO: Employees of Toyota Motor Corp. work on the assembly line of Mirai fuel cell vehicle (FCV) at the company's Motomachi plant in Toyota, Aichi prefecture, Japan May 17, 2018. REUTERS/Issei Kato

April 26, 2019

By Stanley White

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s factory output fell in March for the first time in two months and inventories rose at the fastest pace in a year as the U.S.-Sino trade war dents the country’s manufacturing sector.

Separate data showed retail sales picked up in March and labor demand remains the strongest in decades, but these positive figures are unlikely to ease policymakers’ concerns about a slowdown in global trade flows.

Factory output fell 0.9 percent in March, data by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) showed, more than a median estimate for a 0.1 percent decline in a Reuters poll of economists. That followed a 0.7 percent increase in February.

The mounting pressure on Japan’s economy from weak external demand has hurt exports and threatens corporate profits, which could weigh on capital expenditure and make it more difficult to keep growth on track, analysts say.

Industrial output fell in March due to a 3.4 percent decline in car output and a 6.7 percent decline in the production of machines used to make semiconductors and flat-panel displays, the data showed.

In another source of concern, inventories rose 1.6 percent in March, the fastest increase in a year, due to higher inventories of metals, plastics, and heavy equipment.

The rise in inventories suggests makers of these goods could curb output in the future.

Manufacturers surveyed by the ministry expect production to rise 2.7 percent in April and 3.6 percent in May, but METI changed its assessment of output to say it is weakening recently.

Retail sales – a key gauge of private consumption that makes up about 60 percent of the economy – rose 1.0 percent in March from a year earlier, more than a 0.8 percent annual gain expected by economists.

Friday’s batch of data comes a day after the Bank of Japan said it would keep interest rates low for at least another year, in a move to dispel uncertainty over its commitment to support the economy and drive inflation.

Japan’s policymakers are nervously monitoring developments overseas but have few policy options if weakness in the global economy continues to damage the country’s outlook, some economists say.

The Sino-U.S. trade war has also had a negative effect on domestic growth, as a slowing Chinese economy curbed demand for mobile phone parts and chip-making equipment from Japan.

Uncertainty over Britain’s exit from the European Union and jittery global financial markets have added to a growing list of worries for policymakers.

Additional data released on Friday showed Japan’s jobless rate edged up to 2.5 percent in March from 2.3 percent previously, and job availability held steady at 1.63 per applicant, hovering at a 44-year high.

Tokyo’s core consumer price index (CPI), which includes oil products but excludes fresh food prices, rose an annual 1.3 percent in April from a year earlier, more than the median estimate for a 1.1 percent annual increase.

(Editing by Jacqueline Wong)

Source: OANN

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Christchurch harbored white supremacists before massacre

The leafy New Zealand city where a self-proclaimed racist fatally shot 50 people at mosques during Friday prayers is known for its picturesque meandering river and English heritage. For decades, Christchurch has also been the center of the country's small but persistent white supremacist movement.

An expert on such fringe groups says it's probably more than coincidence that the accused mosque shooter, 28-year-old Australian Brenton Tarrant, settled in the region, known for a whiter demographic than the country's north, after frequently traveling abroad in 2016-2018 in what appears to have been an extreme-right pilgrimage.

He went mostly to areas of Europe with a long history of sectarian dispute, including clashes between Renaissance Europe and the Ottoman Empire and the breakup of Yugoslavia following its ethnic and religious conflicts.

The attack has upended New Zealand's image as one of the world's safest and most tolerant countries. It also has highlighted apparent failings by security and intelligence services to view white supremacists as a real threat or to take seriously warnings from Muslim groups of a rise in Islamophobic and xenophobic incidents in recent years.

Tarrant planned his attack on two mosques meticulously and had resolved two years earlier to kill Muslims, according to a manifesto he published moments before the massacre. He actively planned the Christchurch shootings for the past three months, he said in the manifesto posted online and emailed to the office of New Zealand's prime minister minutes before driving to his first target, the golden-domed Al Noor mosque.

Police say they are certain Tarrant was the only gunman but may have had support and are investigating that possibility. He had five guns, two of which were converted into semi-automatic weapons. It's likely that at least some were legally purchased online from a Christchurch gun store.

Possible links between the shooter and white supremacists in New Zealand's south have been alleged by recreational gun user and hunting guide Pete Breidahl.

In a video posted on Facebook on Saturday, he said he complained in late 2017 to an arms officer — a local police officer who monitors people's gun licenses — about the disturbing behavior of members of a rifle club in the southern city of Dunedin that Tarrant reportedly joined.

In the video and comments posted online, Breidahl said the club members had Confederate flags, wore camouflage clothing with rank insignia, vilified Muslims and had homicidal fantasies. He claimed to have met Tarrant, calling him "not right." Police said they have no record of a complaint but are looking into Breidahl's claims further.

Academic Paul Spoonley, who has extensively researched white supremacist groups in New Zealand, said they have been relatively quiet in Christchurch since a 2011 earthquake that forced whole neighborhoods to move and altered the city's demographics with an influx of migrant workers for reconstruction.

"They've been quieter recently but they haven't gone away. They are still here," he said, citing a 2016 incident in which pigs' heads were left at the Al Noor mosque, where 42 people died in Friday's massacre.

A business owner in Christchurch has also attracted media attention since the massacre because his company's vans were emblazoned with neo-Nazi references including the "black sun" symbol that Tarrant's guns were covered with. The same images, which are used as the company's branding, appear on its website.

When AP visited the registered business address, located in one of Christchurch's poorer neighborhoods, three of its vans were parked opposite, their "black sun" imagery removed but still identifiable by a company website address on them. A visibly hostile man standing beside the vans, who did not appear to be the business owner, did not want to answer questions.

Police on Tuesday said they had arrested a 44-year-old man in Christchurch for distributing objectionable material and he would appear in court the next day.

According to Spoonley, the level of hate crimes in New Zealand is low compared with other countries as is the number of white supremacists, but it's "always a challenge to get people to accept that they exist."

"There's a reluctance to see equivalence between the risks presented by right-wing extremist groups and radical Islamic and leftist groups," he said.

Neighboring Australia's white supremacist scene is more virulent, in part reflecting the history of its "White Australia" immigration policy which existed in various forms from soon after Federation in 1901 to as late as 1973. In modern times, the rise of a succession of prominent right-wing politicians — starting with Pauline Hanson and her One Nation Party in the mid-1990s — also legitimized such views.

Spoonley estimates there are 200-250 hardcore white supremacists in New Zealand and about 300-400 people on the edges.

"I would be very surprised if Tarrant didn't make some sort of contact," he said.

The groups, which emerged in the late 1960s, have evolved over time, coalescing for years around fear of New Zealand moving too far from its British roots, anti-Semitism and opposition to Maori sovereignty and Asian immigrants, and then shifting to Islamophobia following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the U.S.

Spoonley, who researched extreme-right groups in the U.K. in the 1970s, said when he returned to New Zealand in the 1980s he was told by authorities there were no similar organizations.

But he quickly found more than 70 extreme-right groups, many of them in Christchurch. He attributes three murders in New Zealand since 1989 to white supremacists, including two that were ideologically motivated — a South Korean tourist in 2003 and a homeless gay man in 1999.

As Tarrant plotted more recently, Muslim groups in New Zealand were growing increasingly concerned by a rise in abuse against the community but say they were ignored.

"There has been an increasing trend which has been brought to the attention of the authorities several times in the last three to four years, including police," said Anwar Ghani, a spokesman for a federation of Islamic organizations. "It was treated not so seriously."

Verbal abuse, hate emails, hate phone calls and assaults that seem to have an Islamophobic and racist motivation, or a combination of the two, are among the hate crimes experienced by Muslims in New Zealand, he said.

The country does not have an official hate crimes database, making it difficult to measure the trend, but some incidents have been widely reported, causing outrage but sparking no real official measures.

Ghani said there are dotted lines between Friday's massacre, hostility to Muslims among a segment of the New Zealand population and the global rise of extreme right-wing movements.

"If the issue is not addressed in a proper manner then the problem will continue to increase," he said. "They are getting bolder and bolder."

Paul Buchanan, a former policy analyst and intelligence consultant for U.S. government security agencies, said the failure of intelligence agencies to detect Tarrant reflects politically based decisions to concentrate resources on monitoring the small number of Islamic extremists in New Zealand.

"My interpretation is that in the past 20 years and since 9/11 a political decision was made to prioritize detection and prevention of homegrown jihadists," he said.

"They decided to go whole hog, 80-85 percent of resources into detecting jihadists," he said. "The rest was devoted to Marxists, environmentalists, animal rights activists. They went for the left."

One such jihadi from New Zealand, along with an Australian, was killed by a U.S. drone strike in Yemen in November 2013 while fighting for al-Qaida.

There was no political advantage in targeting alienated young white men seen by the wider population as mostly harmless "Pakeha losers," a Maori word for white New Zealanders, Buchanan said.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has said the government will convene an inquiry into the intelligence and security services, seeking to understand why Tarrant was able to escape detection.

Tarrant, according to Buchanan, may have been part of a small cell.

"There could be tacit enablers," he said.

"He was planning for two years," Buchanan said. "To be able to do that in utter secrecy suggests someone had to have an inkling that the guy was going to do something and said nothing about it."

Source: Fox News World

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Son arrested in developer's mysterious dog leash death

The mysterious death of a real estate developer found strangled with a dog leash nearby took unusual turn Friday when his teenage son was charged with killing him.

Durham Police said in a news release that Alexander Bishop, 16, was arrested Friday and charged with murder in the death of 60-year-old William Bishop. Bishop, who developed prominent real estate projects in Florida, had been living in North Carolina for the past decade. The teen will be prosecuted as an adult.

Alexander Bishop's attorney Daniel Meier didn't immediately respond to phone calls or emails seeking comment Friday.

The strange death made headlines in two states as what sounded at first like a freak accident soon gave way to investigators' suspicions and an autopsy that ruled the death a homicide. Investigators spent months probing the case — parsing unusual details such as a purported safe filled with gold and filing at least seven search warrants.

When officers arrived, Bishop was in a leather chair in the home theater of the 4,000 square-foot (370-square-meter) house that, according to county records, has an appraised value of around $800,000. It's a short drive from one of the area's oldest country clubs, Hope Valley.

After being found unresponsive, the developer died three days later in a hospital.

What happened began to look suspicious soon after emergency medical personnel arrived. Alexander Bishop told an EMS supervisor that "he wasn't going to be upset about his father dying. He explained that his father verbally abused him and his mom for a number of years," according to a search warrant.

"Alexander explained that there had never been anything physical to occur, just constant verbal abuse over minor things like dishes being left in the sink and homework not being completed," a detective wrote elsewhere in the warrant.

Authorities say the son told them he and the father had been alone in the house at the time. The son told them that he found his father with the leash wrapped around his neck, and the approximately 60-pound (27-kilogram) dog was still attached and "freaking out," according to a search warrant. The son said he removed the leash from his father's neck to check for a pulse.

The boy's mother, who lived elsewhere, soon arrived and told officers her son had called her to say he had found his father in the basement.

An autopsy later determined that William Bishop had died from homicide by strangulation, with ligature marks around his neck.

The detective also sought warrants to search Alexander Bishop's school locker at a private school, as well as servers hosting his school email address.

Bishop and his ex-wife, Sharon, had been separated since late 2016. They were married in 1998 in Florida, where Bishop had worked as a prominent developer.

An attorney for the ex-wife didn't immediately respond to a message Friday night seeking comment.

The couple has two boys, about a year apart in age. William Bishop was granted permanent custody in 2017, according to court documents.

Bishop was a well-known developer in Florida's Hillsborough County, where he's credited with creating several master-planned or gated communities, according to a Tampa Bay Times obituary. The newspaper said he moved to North Carolina in 2008 to pursue an advanced degree.

The father's girlfriend had told investigators that Bishop kept $50,000 in gold and expensive jewelry in a safe located near the theater room, according to investigative documents.

An examination of the son's cell phone showed that he had searched online about the value of gold, how to calculate the value of an estate and how to transfer bank accounts after a death, according to a warrant.

The warrant, signed by Detective T. Huelsman stated: "These searches and websites explain a possible motive for Alexander Bishop to kill his dad."

___

Follow Drew at www.twitter.com/JonathanLDrew

Source: Fox News National

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YouTube Changes Search Algorithm to Suppress Criticism Of Brie Larson And Captain Marvel

Google-owned YouTube changed their search algorithm last week to suppress criticism of Disney’s “Captain Marvel” before its release on March 8th.

From The Verge on Friday:

If you searched “Brie Larson” on YouTube a couple of days ago, the top search results were calls for a boycott of Captain Marvel, and angry rants about Larson’s involvement in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. With one small change, YouTube made all of that disappear.

This week, YouTube recategorized “Brie Larson” as a news-worthy search term. That does one very important job: it makes the search algorithm surface videos from authoritative sources on a subject. Instead of videos from individual creators, YouTube responds with videos from Entertainment Tonight, ABC, CBS, CNN, and other news outlets first.

The algorithmic news tool was first rolled out in October 2017…

You can see their purge in action here:

Here’s those images:

In less than two years time they’ve gone from “we must suppress crisis actor conspiracy theories” to “we must suppress negative movie critiques of Disney propaganda films.”


Words have become redefined by the left over time. Owen Benjamin breaks down how that shapes reality and takes your calls!

Rotten Tomatoes last month similarly conducted a purge of all negative reviews of the film made by the public before the film’s release and even redesigned one of the core functions of their website.

Google now regularly changes search results in response to liberal journos’ complaints:

In December 2018, Google CEO Sundar Pichai claimed in sworn testimony before congress that “we don’t manually intervene on any particular search result.”

Not only is Google manually intervening to suppress anti-establishment voices on the right and the left for their First Amendment-protected political views, but now they’re intervening to suppress negative movie critiques to secure film industry profits.

Source: InfoWars

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Members of The Cranberries, bassist Mike Hogan, drummer Fergal Lawler and guitarist Noel Hogan speak to Reuters during an interview in London
Members of The Cranberries, bassist Mike Hogan, drummer Fergal Lawler and guitarist Noel Hogan speak to Reuters during an interview in London, Britain, April 24, 2019. REUTERS/Gerhard Mey

April 26, 2019

By Hanna Rantala

LONDON (Reuters) – Irish rockers The Cranberries are saying goodbye with their final album released on Friday, a poignant tribute to lead singer Dolores O’Riordan who died last year.

“In the End” is the eighth studio album from the band that rose to fame in the early 1990s with hits likes “Zombie” and “Linger”, and includes the final recordings by O’Riordan, who drowned in a London hotel bath in January 2018 due to alcohol intoxication.

Work on the album began during a 2017 tour and by that winter, O’Riordan and guitarist Neil Hogan had penned and demoed 11 tracks.

With O’Riordan’s vocals recorded, Hogan, bassist Mike Hogan and drummer Fergal Lawler completed the album in tribute to her.

“When we realized how strong the songs were, that was the deciding factor really… There was no point… trying to ruin the legacy of the band,” Noel Hogan said in an interview.

“It was obvious that Dolores wanted this album done because when you hear the album, you hear the songs and how strong they are, and she was very, very excited to get in and record this.”

The Cranberries formed in Limerick in 1989 with another singer. O’Riordan replaced him a year later and the group went on to become Ireland’s best-selling rock band after U2, selling more than 40 million records.

O’Riordan, known for her strong distinctive voice singing about relationships or political violence, was 46 when she died.

“She was actually in quite a good place mentally. She was feeling quite content and strong and looking forward to a new phase of her life,” Lawler said.

“A lot of the lyrics in this album are about things ending… people might read into it differently but it was a phase of her personal life that she was talking about.”

The group previously announced their intention to split after the release of “In The End”.

“We are absolutely gutted we can’t play (the songs) live because that’s something that’s been a massive part of this band from day one,” Noel Hogan said.

“A few people have said to us about maybe even doing a one off where you have different vocalists… as kind of guests of ours. A year ago that’s definitely something we weren’t going to entertain but I don’t know, I think it’s something we need to go away and take time off for the summer and have a think about.”

Critics have generally given positive reviews of the album; NME described it as “(seeing) the band’s career go full-circle” while the Irish Times called it “an unexpected late career high and a remarkable swan song for O’Riordan”.

Their early songs still play on the radio. This week, “Dreams” was performed at the funeral of journalist Lyra McKee, who was shot dead in Londonderry last week as she watched Irish nationalist youths attack police following a raid.

“We wrote them as kids, as a hobby and 30 years later they are on radio and on TV, like all the time… That’s far more than any of us ever thought we would have,” Noel Hogan said.

“That would make Dolores really happy because she was very precious about those songs. Her babies, she called them and to have that hopefully long after we’re gone… that’s all any band can wish for.”

(Reporting by Hanna Rantala; additoinal reporting by Marie-Louise Gumuchian; Writing by Marie-Louise Gumuchian; Editing by Susan Fenton)

Source: OANN

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2020 Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren participates in the She the People Presidential Forum in Houston
2020 Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren participates in the She the People Presidential Forum in Houston, Texas, U.S. April 24, 2019. REUTERS/Loren Elliott

April 26, 2019

By Joshua Schneyer and M.B. Pell

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Senator Elizabeth Warren will introduce a bill Friday that offers new protections for U.S. military families facing unsafe housing, following a series of Reuters reports revealing squalid conditions in privately managed base homes.

The Reuters reports and later Congressional hearings detailed widespread hazards including lead paint exposure, vermin infestations, collapsing ceilings, mold and maintenance lapses in privatized base housing communities that serve some 700,000 U.S. military family members.

(View Warren’s military housing bill here. https://tmsnrt.rs/2Dy5aht)

(Read Reuters’ Ambushed at Home series on military housing here. https://www.reuters.com/investigates/section/usa-military)

The Massachusetts Democrat’s bill would mandate both regular and unannounced spot inspections of base homes by certified, independent inspectors, holding landlords accountable for quickly fixing hazards. The military’s privatization program for years allowed real estate firms to operate base housing with scant oversight, Reuters found, leaving some tenants in unsafe homes with little recourse against landlords.

The bill would also require the Department of Defense and its private housing operators to publish reports annually detailing housing conditions, tenant complaints, maintenance response times and the financial incentives companies receive at each base. The provisions aim to enhance transparency of housing deals whose finances and operations the military had allowed to remain largely confidential under a privatization program since the late 1990s.

The measure would also require private landlords to cover moving costs for at-risk families, and healthcare costs for people with medical conditions resulting from unsafe base housing, ensuring they receive continuing coverage even after they leave the homes or the military.

“This bill will eliminate the kind of corner-cutting and neglect the Defense Department should never have let these private housing partners get away with in the first place,” Warren said in a statement Friday.

The proposed legislation comes after February Senate hearings where Warren, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee who is seeking the Democratic nomination for the 2020 U.S. presidential election, slammed private real estate firms for endangering service families, and sought answers about why military branches weren’t providing more oversight.

Her legislation would direct the Defense Department to allow local housing code enforcers onto federal bases, following concerns they were sometimes denied access. Warren’s office said a companion bill in the House of Representatives would be introduced by Rep. Deb Haaland, Democrat of New Mexico.

In response to the housing crisis, military branches are developing a tenant bill of rights and hiring hundreds of new housing staff. The branches recently dispatched commanders to survey base housing worldwide for safety hazards, resulting in thousands of work orders and hundreds of tenants being moved. The Defense Department has pledged to renegotiate its 50-year contracts with private real estate firms.

Congress has been quick to take its own measures. Earlier legislation proposed by senators Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris of California, along with Mark Warner and Tim Kaine of Virginia, would compel base commanders to withhold rent payments and incentive fees from the private ventures if they allow home hazards to persist.

(Editing by Ronnie Greene)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: Offices of Deloitte are seen in London
FILE PHOTO: Offices of Deloitte are seen in London, Britain, September 25, 2017. REUTERS/Hannah McKay/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By Noor Zainab Hussain and Tanishaa Nadkar

(Reuters) – Deloitte quit as Ferrexpo’s auditor on Friday, knocking its shares by more than 20 percent, days after saying it was unable to conclude whether the iron ore miner’s CEO controlled a charity being investigated over its use of company donations.

Blooming Land, which coordinates Ferrexpo’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) program, came under scrutiny after auditors found holes in the charity’s statements.

Ferrexpo on Tuesday said findings of an ongoing independent investigation launched in February indicated some Blooming Land funds could have been “misappropriated”. It did not provide any details or publish its findings.

Shares in Ferrexpo, the third largest exporter of pellets to the global steel industry, were 23.4 percent lower at 206.1 pence at 1022 GMT following news of Deloitte’s resignation.

“Ferrexpo’s shares are deeply discounted vs peers … following the resignation of Deloitte, we expect downside risks to dominate Ferrexpo’s shares near term.” JP Morgan analyst Dominic O’Kane said in a note on Friday.

Swiss-headquartered Ferrexpo did not provide a reason for the resignation of Deloitte, which declined to comment, while Blooming Land did not respond to a request for comment.

Funding for Blooming Land’s CSR activities is provided by one of Ferrexpo’s units in Ukraine and Khimreaktiv LLC, an entity ultimately controlled by Ferrexpo’s CEO and majority owner Kostyantin Zhevago, Ferrexpo said on Tuesday.

Ferrexpo’s board has found that Zhevago did not have significant influence or control over the charity, but Deloitte said it was unable reach a conclusion on this.

Reuters was not immediately able to contact Zhevago.

In a qualified opinion, a statement addressing an incomplete audit, Deloitte said it had been unable to conclude whether $33.5 million of CSR donations to Blooming Land between 2017 and 2018 was used for “legitimate business payments for charitable purposes”.

Deloitte said on Tuesday that total CSR payments made to Blooming Land by Ferrexpo since 2013 total about $110 million.

Ferrexpo, whose major mines are in Ukraine, has said that the investigation was ongoing and new evidence pointed to potential discrepancies.

Zhevago, 45, who ranked 1,511 on Forbes magazine’s list of billionaires for 2019 with a net worth of $1.4 billion, owns the FC Vorskla soccer club and has been a member of Ukraine’s parliament since 1998.

(Reporting by Noor Zainab Hussain and Tanishaa Nadkar in Bengaluru and additional reporting by Pavel Polityuk in Kiev; editing by Gopakumar Warrier, Bernard Orr)

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Children walk past a damaged building in the aftermath of the Cyclone Kenneth in Pemba
Children walk past a damaged building in the aftermath of the Cyclone Kenneth in Pemba, Mozambique April 26, 2019 in this still image obtained from social media. SolidarMed via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS – THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. MANDATORY CREDIT. NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVES

April 26, 2019

By Emma Rumney and Stephen Eisenhammer

JOHANNESBURG/LUANDA (Reuters) – Cyclone Kenneth killed at least one person and left a trail of destruction in northern Mozambique, destroying houses, ripping up trees and knocking out power, authorities said on Friday.

The cyclone brought storm surges and wind gusts of up to 280 km per hour (174 mph) when it made landfall on Thursday evening, after killing three people in the island nation of Comoros.

It was the most powerful storm on record to hit Mozambique’s northern coast and came just six weeks after Cyclone Idai battered the impoverished nation, causing devastating floods and killing more than 1,000 people across a swathe of southern Africa.

The World Food Programme warned that Kenneth could dump as much as 600 millimeters of rain on the region over the next 10 days – twice that brought by Cyclone Idai.

One woman in the port town of Pemba died after being hit by a falling tree, the Emergency Operations Committee for Cabo Delgado (COE) said in a statement, while another person was injured.

In rural areas outside Pemba, many homes are made of mud. In the main town on the island of Ibo, 90 percent of the houses were destroyed, officials said. Around 15,000 people were out in the open or in “overcrowded” shelters and there was a need for tents, food and water, they said.

There were also reports of a large number of homes and some infrastructure destroyed in Macomia district, a mainland district adjacent to Ibo.

A local group, the Friends of Pemba Association, had earlier reported that they could not reach people in Muidumbe, a district further inland.

Mark Lowcock, United Nations under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, warned the storm could require another major humanitarian operation in Mozambique.

“Cyclone Kenneth marks the first time two cyclones have made landfall in Mozambique during the same season, further stressing the government’s limited resources,” he said in a statement.

FLOOD WARNINGS

Shaquila Alberto, owner of the beach-front Messano Flower Lodge in Macomia, said there were many fallen trees there, and in rural areas people’s homes had been damaged. Some areas of nearby Pemba had no power.

“Even my workers, they said the roof and all the things fell down,” she said by phone.

Further south, in Pemba, Elton Ernesto, a receptionist at Raphael’s Hotel, said there were fallen trees but not too much damage. The hotel had power and water, he said, while phones rang in the background. “The rain has stopped,” he added.

However Michael Charles, an official for the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), said heavy rains over the next few days were likely to bring a “second wave of destruction” in the form of flooding.

“The houses are not all solid, and the topography is very sandy,” Charles said.

In the days after Cyclone Idai, heavy inland rains prompted rivers to burst their banks, submerging entire villages, cutting areas off from aid and ruining crops. There were concerns the same could happen again in northern Mozambique.

Before Kenneth hit, the government and aid workers moved around 30,000 people to safer buildings such as schools, however authorities said that around 680,000 people were in the path of the storm.

(Reporting by Emma Rumney and Stephen Eisenhammer; Writing by Emma Rumney; Editing by Janet Lawrence and Alexandra Zavis)

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A worker holds a nozzle to pump petrol into a vehicle at a fuel station in Mumbai
FILE PHOTO: A worker holds a nozzle to pump petrol into a vehicle at a fuel station in Mumbai, India, May 21, 2018. REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas

April 26, 2019

By Manoj Kumar and Nidhi Verma

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Surging global oil prices will pose a first big challenge to India’s new government, whoever wins an election now under way, especially as domestic prices have been allowed to lag, meaning consumers are in for a painful surge as they catch up.

For oil-import dependent India, higher global prices could lead to a weaker rupee, higher inflation, the ruling out of interest rate cuts and could further weigh on twin current account and budget deficits, economists warned.

But compounding the future pain, state-run fuel suppliers and retailers have held off passing on to consumers the higher prices during a staggered general election, which began on April 11 and ends on May 23, according to sources familiar with the situation.

That delay is expected to be unwound once the election is over. And there could be additional price increases to make up for losses or profits missed during the period of delayed increases, the sources said.

In some major Asian countries, such as Japan and South Korea, pump prices are adjusted periodically so they move largely in tandem with international crude prices.

That was what was supposed to happen in India but the election means there have been many days when pump prices have been unchanged.

In New Delhi, for example, while crude oil prices have gone up by nearly $9 a barrel, or about 12 percent, in the past six weeks, gasoline prices have only risen by 0.47 rupees a liter, or 0.6 percent.

State-controlled fuel suppliers and retailers declined to say why they had delayed price increases, or discuss whether there has been any pressure from the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

A government spokesman declined to comment.

The opposition Congress party said Modi’s government was violating its own policy of daily price revision by advising the state oil companies to hold prices steady.

“The government should cut fuel taxes otherwise consumers will have to pay much higher oil prices once the elections are over,” said Akhilesh Pratap Singh, a senior leader of the Congress party.

(GRAPHIC: India Polls: Fuel price hike lags crude surge – https://tmsnrt.rs/2XLlxik)

Nitin Goyal, treasurer at the All India Petroleum Dealers Association, representing fuel stations in 25 states, said prices were similarly held down for 19 days in the southern state of Karnataka last year, when it held state assembly elections.

Only for them to surge after the vote.

“Consumers should be ready for a rude shock of a massive jump in retail prices, similar to the level we have seen in the Karnataka state election,” Goyal said.

‘CREDIT NEGATIVE’

Sri Paravaikkarasu, director for Asia oil at Singapore-based consultancy FGE, said retail prices of gasoline and gasoil prices would have been up to 6 percent, or about 4 rupee, higher if they had been allowed to rise in line with global prices.

“Indian pump prices have failed to keep up with the recent uptrend in crude prices,” Paravaikkarasu said.

“With the country’s general elections underway, the incumbent government has been keeping pump prices relatively unchanged.”

India had switched to a daily price revision in June 2017 from a revision every two weeks, as the government allowed retailers to set prices.

But the government faced protests last October when retailers raised prices by up to 10 rupees a liter after the crude oil price went above $80 a barrel, forcing it to cut fuel taxes.

Global prices rose to their highest level in 2019 on Thursday, days after the United States announced all Iran sanction waivers would end by May, pressuring importers including India to stop buying Tehran’s oil. [O/R]

Higher oil prices will mean Asia’s third largest economy is likely to see growth of less than 7 percent rate this fiscal year, economists said. Growth slowed to 6.6 percent in the October-December quarter, the slowest in five quarters.

Rating agency CARE has warned that a 10 percent rise in global oil prices could increase demand for dollars, putting pressure on the rupee and widening the current account deficit.

India’s oil import bill rose by nearly one-third in the fiscal year ending March 31 to $140.5 billion, against $108 billion the previous year.

“The increase in international oil prices is a credit negative for the Indian economy,” ICRA, the Indian arm of the Fitch rating agency, said in a note.

“Every $10/ bbl increase in crude oil prices increases the fiscal deficit by about 0.1 percent of GDP.”

Any big price rise would also build a case for the central bank to keep rates steady, or even raise them.

The Reserve Bank of India’s Monetary Policy Committee, which cut the benchmark policy repo rate by 25 basis points this month, warned that rising oil and food prices could push up inflation.

Policymakers are worried that a sustained increase in the oil price in the range of $70-75/barrel or higher can move the rupee down by 3-4 percent on an annual basis.

The rupee has depreciated by 1.24 percent against the dollar since a year high in mid-March.

($1 = 70.1800 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Manoj Kumar and Nidhi Verma; Editing by Martin Howell and Rob Birsel)

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