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New Trump immigration plan may increase visas for highly-skilled workers

FILE PHOTO: A Ghanian woman poses while holding her family's passports with a U.S. visa in Accra
FILE PHOTO: A Ghanian woman poses while holding her family's passports with a U.S. visa in Accra, Ghana February 1, 2019. Reuters/Francis Kokoroko/File Photo

April 24, 2019

By Steve Holland and Jeff Mason

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A merit-based immigration proposal being put together by White House senior adviser Jared Kushner could lead to an increase in U.S. visas for highly skilled workers, sources familiar with the effort said on Wednesday.

Kushner is expected to present the comprehensive plan next week to President Donald Trump, who will decide whether to adopt it as his official position or send it back for changes, the sources said.

The plan does not propose ways to address young people who came to the United States illegally as children who were protected by President Barack Obama in the 2014 program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), or those people who have Temporary Protected Status, the sources said.

Democrats, whose support the White House would need to advance any kind of immigration legislation through Congress, have insisted that the DACA recipients be protected.

Kushner has held about 50 listening sessions with conservative groups on immigration, a senior administration official said. He has been working with White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett and policy adviser Stephen Miller on the plan and the sources said there has been some intense behind-the-scenes jockeying about the plan.

At a Time magazine forum in New York on Tuesday, Kushner said he was working well with Miller, an immigration hawk, on the topic. The two men are both long-time Trump advisers.

“Stephen and I haven’t had any fights,” he said with a smile.

That drew skepticism from immigration advocate Marshall Fitz of the Emerson Collective, who gave Kushner credit for advancing criminal justice reform but said immigration was a dramatically different issue that Miller was dominating at the White House.

“It’s impossible to see how Kushner could navigate an issue this freighted with history and central to the president’s re-election strategy in a way that would actually move the ball forward,” Fitz said.

As a White House candidate in 2016 and throughout his presidency, Trump has advocated a hard-line policy on immigration, pushing for a wall to be built on the U.S.-Mexico border and using bruising rhetoric to describe people who have fled Central American countries to enter the United States.

Republicans have largely supported his immigration proposals, but the latest White House plan aims to bring them together on a broader basis.

Some in the U.S. business community have asked that the number of highly skilled visas be raised to attract more employees from abroad for specialized jobs amid a booming U.S. economy. Trump himself has talked of the need to bring in more skilled workers.

The immigration plan would either leave the number of highly skilled visas each year at the same level or raise it slightly, the sources said.

The overall goal is to reshape the visa program into a more merit-based system, a key Trump goal. Officials working on the plan have been reviewing the systems used by Canada and Australia as possible models for the Trump effort.

The group has been working on a guest-worker program as part of the proposal to address the U.S. agriculture community’s need for seasonal labor while not hurting American workers, but nothing has been finalized, the sources said. Trump has sought to court farmers in key battleground states to boost his chances of re-election in 2020.

The proposal will include recommendations for modernizing ports of entry along the U.S. border to ensure safe trade while preventing illegal activity. It will also address asylum laws to take account of Trump’s desire to reduce the number of people who overstay their visas, the sources said.

Kushner, who is Trump’s son-in-law, is also a main architect of a Middle East peace proposal that the president is expected to unveil this summer.

His objective on the immigration plan at the very least is to have a document that represents the president’s immigration policy and provide something that Republicans can rally around.

(Reporting by Steve Holland and Jeff Mason; additional reporting by Mica Rosenberg; Editing by Tom Brown)

Source: OANN

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Udall's Surprise Exit Leaves New Mexico Senate Race Wide Open

The New Mexico political landscape was blown asunder Monday night when two-term Sen. Tom Udall stunned fellow Democrats by announcing he would not seek re-election in 2020.

The son of the late U.S. Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall and nephew of the late U.S. Rep. Mo Udall — both icons in the environmental community — Tom Udall has never had difficulty winning his previous two terms and was considered a cinch for his third.

His explanation for leaving was unclear: “The worst thing anyone in public office can do is believe the office belongs to them, rather than the people they represent.  That’s why I’m announcing today that I won’t be seeking re-election next year.”

Udall’s exit paves the way for the likely nomination of a Hispanic Democrat as his successor.  The two most oft-mentioned names are those of State Attorney General Hector Balderas, the top vote-getter of any statewide candidate last year, and six-term Rep. Ben Ray Lujan, Assistant Speaker of the House and past chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Both are about the same age (Balderas is 45, Lujan 46) and committed liberals on every issue from abortion to opposing the Trump agenda.  Both are among the best-known of their state’s politicians — Balderas became New Mexico’s youngest-ever Hispanic statewide official when he was elected state auditor in 2006 at age 33, Lujan is the namesake-son of a well-known office-holder.

Balderas is considered a cinch to run but sources generally feel Lujan may opt to remain in the House where he is thought to have a chance to succeed friend and mentor Nancy Pelosi as speaker when she steps down in 2022.

Three other Democrats mentioned for the Senate are Lt. Gov. Howie Morales, Secretary of State Maggie Tolouse Oliver, and Rep.  Xochiti Torres Small.  But all are in their first terms in their current offices and thought unlikely to challenge the more seasoned Balderas and Lujan.

Even Republicans admit that New Mexico is leaning more toward Democrats.  Last year, Democrats won races for the governorship and U.S. Senate seat, maintained their majorities in both legislative houses and picked up a Republican U.S. House seat. 

At this early stage in the race, Republican hopes are pinned on Steve Maestas, self-made millionaire developer and political newcomer.  A graduate of Catholic High School who never went to college, the hard-charging Maestras launched the development company that went on oversee more than 50 projects throughout the Southwest.  A political newcomer, Maestras is considered a strong conservative.

Prospective candidates for a Senate seat that has just become open may, of course, change dramatically when the primaries are more than a year away.  For now, about the safest bet one can make is that the race to succeed Tom Udall is wide open. 

John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.

Source: NewsMax Politics

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California wildfire risk motivates newsrooms to collaborate

After the Carr Fire tore through our community of Redding, California, last summer, we mostly avoided the "what if" question.

Lines of cars tried to get out of the neighborhoods near the Sacramento River. A fire whirl the likes of which few had ever seen — a towering beast with 143-mph winds, the strength of an EF3 tornado — bore down on us.

It stopped just short of the cars that crept along, bumper to bumper.

What if it hadn't stopped?

That was in late July, and by November, we had an answer.

When the Camp Fire struck, people in Paradise, 85 miles south of Redding, didn't have time to get out. The cars were found in burned-out lines. Eight bodies were recovered from vehicles, two others were found near vehicles, and dozens of other people never made it out of their houses.

In all, 85 people perished. This is how bad it can be.

Tragedy, as we all know, brings people together. Journalists are no exception.

After the Paradise fire, Sacramento Bee Editor Lauren Gustus drove to Chico to meet with David Little, then editor of the Chico Enterprise-Record. Gustus is the top editor for McClatchy's western papers, and the Enterprise-Record is part of MediaNews, which publishes papers throughout the state.

They decided the critical issues surrounding wildfire in California were big enough to merit an ambitious partnership.

Soon the USA TODAY Network, where I work, and the Associated Press joined. We would tackle the issue from several critical perspectives. Our goal is to illuminate problems and point to potential solutions. We wanted to spark life-and-death policy discussions and to inspire Californians to get involved, to hold their leaders accountable and protect their own families and communities.

Two weeks ago, the first collaborative stories revealed the extent to which construction standards determine the destruction or survival of homes. These articles incorporated sophisticated data analysis, identifying 10 California communities at high risk as the next dry season arrives.

The second half of our reporting work is focused on how we get out.

In California, there are no statewide standards for evacuation planning, and most of the high-risk communities we surveyed had either no plan of their own or had one that was minimal or secret. A data analysis showed many existing exit routes are inadequate.

More traffic jams like those in Redding and Paradise are nearly inevitable, and they will happen throughout the state.

But the problem need not paralyze us.

We hope after reading these stories you'll feel more empowered to take action. California can't afford to live through another year like the one we just had. And we must do better at getting people to safety when the fires do come.

___

Silas Lyons is the executive editor for USA TODAY Network newsrooms in Northern California, Nevada and Utah. The USA TODAY Network includes The Redding Record Searchlight, The Reno Gazette Journal, The Ventura County Star, The Salinas Californian, The Visalia Times-Delta and The Desert Sun in Palm Springs.

Source: Fox News National

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Fed says minutes to be released on time as offices close

FILE PHOTO: A police officer keeps watch in front of the U.S. Federal Reserve in Washington
FILE PHOTO: A police officer keeps watch in front of the U.S. Federal Reserve building in Washington, DC, U.S. on October 12, 2016. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo/File Photo

February 20, 2019

SYDNEY (Reuters) – The U.S. Federal Reserve said minutes of its January policy meeting would be released on Wednesday as scheduled though its offices in Washington would be closed due to bad weather.

On its Twitter account, the Fed said: “Due to inclement weather, Federal Reserve Board offices in Washington, D.C. are closed today. The FOMC minutes will be released as scheduled at 2 p.m.” (1900 GMT)

Its calendar was also updated to show the change. It added that daily and weekly statistical releases would be published on the first business day that Fed offices in Washington reopen.

(Reporting by Wayne Cole; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)

Source: OANN

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WH Tells Official to Ignore Subpoena by House Panel

A former official, who oversaw the security clearance process, has been told by the White House not to comply with a House subpoena ordering him to testify, CNN is reporting.

Carl Kline, who now works at the Defense Department, had been subpoenaed to give a deposition by the House Oversight Committee. White House officials maintain Democrats on the committee were trying to gain access to confidential information.

In a letter to Kline’s lawyer, White House deputy counsel Michael Purpura asked that Kline not show up to the committee as requested, according to The Washington Post.

Purpura wrote that the committee subpoena “unconstitutionally encroaches on fundamental executive branch interests.”

And in a letter to the committee, Kline’s attorney, Robert Driscoll said: “With two masters from two equal branches of government, we will follow the instructions of the one that employs him,” Driscoll wrote in the letter to the committee chairman.

Tricia Newbold, a White House personnel security whistleblower, has claimed the administration had been recklessly granting security clearances to some individuals, the Post said.  Included in those clearances she questioned, was one granted to Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, the newspaper noted.

CNN said the failure of Kline to appear before the committee, will leave open the possibility that the House panel could try to hold him in contempt for ignoring the subpoena.

Source: NewsMax Politics

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Malaysia’s securities regulator issues Goldman Sachs with show-cause letter

The Goldman Sachs company logo is seen in the company's space on the floor of the NYSE in New York
The Goldman Sachs company logo is seen in the company's space on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, (NYSE) in New York, U.S., April 17, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

March 14, 2019

By Fathin Ungku

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Malaysia’s securities commission said on Thursday that it has issued a show-cause letter to Goldman Sachs, which is embroiled in multi-jurisdictional investigations into Malaysian state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).

A show-cause letter typically requires the recipient to explain why they should not be subject to disciplinary action.

“We have issued a show cause to Goldman Sachs,” the chairman of the Malaysia Securities Commission, Syed Zaid Albar, said at a press conference on Thursday.

However, he did not say when the letter was issued or provide any details about its contents. If the commission finds a financial institution violated regulations, its powers include issuing fines or revoking operating licenses.

Goldman Sachs did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Apart from facing civil lawsuits, Goldman Sachs is being investigated by Malaysian authorities and the U.S. Department of Justice for its role as underwriter and arranger of three bonds that raised $6.5 billion for 1MDB.

Goldman Sachs has consistently denied wrongdoing and said certain members of the former Malaysian government and 1MDB had lied to the bank about the use of the proceeds from the bond sales.

(Reporting by Fathin Ungku; Editing by Neil Fullick.)

Source: OANN

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Producers Cut Smollett From 'Empire' Season's Last Episodes

Actor Jussie Smollett's character on "Empire" will be removed from the final two episodes of this season in the wake of his arrest on charges that he staged a racist, anti-gay attack on himself last month in downtown Chicago, producers of the Fox TV show announced Friday.

The announcement came a day after Smollett turned himself in to police, appeared in court on a felony charge of disorderly conduct for allegedly filing a false police report, and left jail after posting bond.

"While these allegations are very disturbing, we are placing our trust in the legal system as the process plays," ''Empire" executive producers Lee Daniels, Danny Strong, Brett Mahoney, Brian Grazer, Sanaa Hamri, Francie Calfo and Dennis Hammer said in a written statement. "We are also aware of the effects of this process on the cast and crew members who work on our show and to avoid further disruption on set, we have decided to remove the role of 'Jamal' from the final two episodes of the season."

Smollett, who is black and gay, plays a gay character on the show that follows a black family as they navigate the ups and downs of the recording industry.

Police said Smollett planned the hoax because he was unhappy with his salary and wanted to promote his career. Before the attack, he also sent a letter that threatened him to the Chicago studio where "Empire" is shot, police said.

As authorities laid out their case against Smollett, the narrative that emerged Thursday sounded like that of a filmmaker who wrote, cast, directed and starred in a short movie.

Prosecutors said Smollett gave detailed instructions to the accomplices who helped him stage the attack in January, including telling them specific slurs to yell, urging them to shout "MAGA country" and even pointing out a surveillance camera that he thought would record the beating.

"I believe Mr. Smollett wanted it on camera," police Superintendent Eddie Johnson told reporters at a Thursday morning news conference. "But unfortunately that particular camera wasn't pointed in that direction."

Smollett's legal team issued a statement Thursday night, calling the actor a "man of impeccable character and integrity who fiercely and solemnly maintains his innocence." The statement called Johnson's news conference "an organized law enforcement spectacle."

"The presumption of innocence, a bedrock in the search for justice, was trampled upon at the expense of Mr. Smollett," the statement read.

Source: NewsMax America

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

April 26, 2019

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Source: OANN

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

April 26, 2019

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

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

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

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

Total operating revenue rose 2 percent to $10.58 billion.

(Reporting by Sanjana Shivdas in Bengaluru)

Source: OANN

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

April 26, 2019

By James Oliphant

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

PAST VS. FUTURE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘ONE OF US’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Source: OANN

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

April 26, 2019

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Source: OANN

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

April 26, 2019

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Source: OANN

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