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NBA roundup: Heat’s loss scrambles East standings

NBA: Boston Celtics at Miami Heat
Apr 3, 2019; Miami, FL, USA; Boston Celtics forward Gordon Hayward (20) dunks the ball against Miami Heat center Hassan Whiteside (21) during the second half at American Airlines Arena. Mandatory Credit: Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports

April 4, 2019

Boston’s Gordon Hayward scored a game-high 25 points and Kyrie Irving added 23 to lift the Celtics to a crucial 112-102 road victory over the Miami Heat on Wednesday night.

Jayson Tatum scored nine consecutive points in the fourth quarter to help Boston remain in a tie for fourth place in the Eastern Conference. Al Horford tallied 21 points, Tatum 16 and Aron Baynes 10, with a team-high 10 rebounds for the Celtics, who won their second straight game and fourth in their last five.

Dion Waiters had 21 points, Hassan Whiteside 18 points and 15 rebounds, Dwyane Wade 17 points, Bam Adebayo 12, Goran Dragic 11 and Kelly Olynyk 10 for the Heat, who lost their second straight and fell to ninth place in the East — out of a playoff position.

Last in the league in free-throw shooting, the Heat went just 12 of 20 (60 percent) at the stripe. They entered at 69.5 percent.

Magic 114, Knicks 100

Nikola Vucevic had 29 points and 13 rebounds for Orlando, which moved into a playoff spot after beating New York in Orlando.

Orlando began the night a half-game behind Miami for the eighth and final playoff position in the East, but with the victory and the Heat’s loss, the Magic moved into a tie with Brooklyn for seventh in the conference.

Mario Hezonja led the Knicks with 29 points while collecting nine rebounds and five assists against his former team. Hezonja was selected No. 5 overall by the Magic in the 2015 NBA Draft.

Rockets 135, Clippers 103

James Harden scored 31 points, grabbed seven rebounds and dished out seven assists, and Chris Paul added 29 points and seven assists to lead Houston to a blowout win at Los Angeles.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 20 points to pace the Clippers, who lost for just the third time in 16 games and fell 1 1/2 games behind Utah in the race for the fifth seed in the West. Danilo Gallinari added 16, and Lou Williams scored 14 off the bench.

Coming into Wednesday’s game, the Clippers had been the only team in the West not to have lost to the Rockets this season, having defeated Houston twice in October. The Rockets made sure that streak ended by grabbing the lead early and never giving it up. The Clippers led once, 2-0.

Trail Blazers 116, Grizzlies 89

Enes Kanter, Damian Lillard and Evan Turner led the way as Portland rolled over visiting Memphis to remain in fourth place in the Western Conference, a half-game behind Houston.

Kanter collected 21 points and 15 rebounds, and Lillard scored 20 points and dished out 10 assists for the Trail Blazers, who have won 11 of their past 13 games. Turner registered his second straight triple-double with 13 points, 12 rebounds and 11 assists in 28 minutes off the bench.

Chandler Parsons scored 16 points for the Grizzlies, who have lost seven of their last 10 outings. Memphis suited up only 10 players due to numerous injuries.

Jazz 118, Suns 97

Donovan Mitchell scored 29 points, Joe Ingles added 27 and Rudy Gobert surpassed Karl Malone in the Utah record book to lead the visiting jazz past Phoenix.

Gobert scored 17 points, collected 13 rebounds and blocked five shots for the Jazz — his franchise-record 63rd point-rebound double-double of the season. Malone had 62 in the 1987-88 season.

Richaun Holmes tallied 16 points and nine rebounds to lead the Suns, and Elie Okobo scored 15 points. Phoenix’s Devin Booker played only eight minutes in the first quarter before sustaining a left ankle sprain. He finished with eight points on 3-of-4 shooting.

Pacers 108, Pistons 89

Thaddeus Young had 21 points, eight rebounds and four assists, and visiting Indiana defeated Detroit for the second time in three nights.

Bojan Bogdanovic and Myles Turner had 17 points apiece as the Pacers snapped the Pistons’ 11-game home winning streak. Indiana defeat Detroit 111-102 on Monday in Indianapolis.

Andre Drummond carried the Pistons with 28 points, 19 rebounds, three assists, three steals and three blocks. Wayne Ellington had 24 points for Detroit.

Hawks 130, 76ers 122

Trae Young and John Collins combined to score 58 points and Atlanta knocked off visiting Philadelphia for its third straight victory over the 76ers.

Young scored 33 points, including a 3-pointer with 1:32 remaining that allowed Atlanta to stretch its dwindling lead back to eight points. Philadelphia missed a great opportunity with 32.5 seconds left when Jimmy Butler drew a flagrant-one foul. Butler missed both free throws and a 3-point try when play resumed as Philadelphia could not cut into Atlanta’s five-point lead.

Philadelphia, which has lost two straight and four of six, was led by JJ Redick with 30 points. He made six 3-pointers but uncharacteristically missed three free throws. The Sixers also got 21 points from Tobias Harris.

Raptors 115, Nets 105

Pascal Siakam scored 28 points and Kawhi Leonard added 26 as Toronto continued its preparation for the postseason with a victory over Brooklyn in New York.

The Raptors, who likely will be the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference, won their fifth straight. Serge Ibaka tied a career high with five 3-pointers and contributed 23 points and 12 rebounds off the bench as the Raptors beat the Nets for the 15th time in the past 16 meetings.

The Nets lost for the seventh time in 10 games and missed a chance to move into sixth place past Detroit. Instead, the Nets are tied with Orlando for the final two playoff spots in the East. D’Angelo Russell led the Nets with 27 points, and Spencer Dinwiddie added 14.

Hornets 115, Pelicans 109

Kemba Walker scored 32 points as visiting Charlotte kept its playoff hopes mathematically alive with a victory over New Orleans. Walker helped the Hornets salvage the final game of a four-game road trip that began with losses against the Los Angeles Lakers, Golden State Warriors and Utah Jazz.

Frank Kaminsky added 21 points, including 18 in the second half, Devonte’ Graham had 13 and Jeremy Lamb 12 for Charlotte, which is in 10th place in the Eastern Conference.

Julius Randle had 34 points and 11 rebounds, his 22nd game this season with at least 20 points and 10 rebounds, to lead the Pelicans. New Orleans lost for the 11th time in 13 games as it concluded a 1-4 homestand.

Timberwolves 110, Mavericks 108

Karl-Anthony Towns had a monster night with 28 points and 13 rebounds, and Andrew Wiggins scored the winning basket with 19 seconds to go to lift Minnesota past host Dallas.

Towns was brilliant throughout, hitting 12 of his 15 shots, including his last two, a jumper to tie with 1:15 to go and then a sweet dribble-drive for a finger roll and a 108-106 lead with 48 seconds to play.

Dallas rookie guard Jalen Brunson tied it with 36 seconds to go, but after Wiggins reclaimed the lead for Minnesota, Brunson missed Dallas’ 32nd 3-point attempt of the game. Fellow Mavs rookie Luka Doncic finished with 27 points, 12 rebounds and six assists in his first back after sitting out two.

Nuggets 113, Spurs 85

Nikola Jokic had 20 points, 11 rebounds and nine assists, Jamal Murray finished with 14 points, 11 assists and six rebounds, and host Denver beat San Antonio, which lost head coach Gregg Popovich to ejection just 63 seconds into the game.

Monte Morris and Malik Beasley scored 19 points apiece, and Gary Harris and Will Barton scored 11 each for Denver. The Nuggets moved closer to clinching home-court advantage for at least the first round of the playoffs.

Popovich called a timeout after Murray’s dunk gave Denver a 5-0 lead. He immediately started talking to official Mark Ayotte, who hit him with a technical. Popovich kept talking as he followed Ayotte and then was hit with a second technical. It was the second time in three games Popovich has been ejected. He also got tossed against Sacramento on Sunday.

Bulls 115, Wizards 114

Walt Lemon Jr. scored a game-high 24 points, the last two coming on free throws with 1.8 seconds left, giving Chicago a narrow victory at Washington.

The win snapped a five-game Chicago losing streak. The Bulls have had a tough time in the last several games as they were again missing some of their top scorers due to injuries. Zach LaVine, Lauri Markkanen, Otto Porter Jr. and Kris Dunn all were out again, and each has missed at least four consecutive games.

Thomas Bryant and Bobby Portis both led Washington with 20 points in a battle between two teams out of the playoff race.

–Field Level Media

Source: OANN

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The pregnancy of Meghan, Britain’s Duchess of Sussex

Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex, exits a hotel in the Manhattan borough of New York City
Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex, exits a hotel in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, U.S., February 19, 2019. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri

March 11, 2019

LONDON (Reuters) – The Duchess of Sussex, former U.S. actress Meghan Markle, is due to give birth this Spring to her first child with husband Prince Harry, 34, Queen Elizabeth’s grandson.

The baby, who will be seventh in line to the British throne, is expected in April after Meghan, 37, disclosed she was six months pregnant in January.

Here is a timeline of some major events Meghan has attended during her pregnancy:

Oct. 15: Harry and Meghan, who married in May 2018, announce they are expecting their first child in the spring of 2019 while in Australia on their first overseas tour as a married couple.

Oct 24: Meghan cut back on some of the couple’s busy program during the tour to Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific but did join her husband for engagements on a trip to Fiji.

Nov. 19: The Duke and Duchess attended the annual Royal Variety Performance at the London Palladium.

Dec. 10: At a star-studded event, Meghan presented the designer of her wedding dress with a prize at the London Fashion Awards.

Dec. 18: Meghan joked she was feeling “very pregnant” during a Christmas visit to a care home where she joined residents making decorations and singing festive songs.

Dec. 25: Harry and Meghan joined the other senior members of the British royal family at a traditional Christmas Day church service at Sandringham, eastern England.

Jan. 14: During a trip to Birkenhead in northern England, Meghan told well-wishers that she was six months pregnant but said the gender of her baby would be a surprise.

Jan. 16: Meghan and Harry attended the Cirque du Soleil’s “Totem” show at London’s Royal Albert Hall, an event aimed at raising awareness and funds for Harry’s Sentebale charity.

Feb. 1: Crowds braved freezing conditions in Bristol for a visit by the royal couple who visited the western city’s Old Vic, built in 1766 and the oldest continuously working theater in the English-speaking world.

Feb. 7: Harry and Meghan attended an awards ceremony for the Endeavour Fund which supports the physical and mental recovery of injured and sick servicemen and women

Feb. 12: The couple attended a play at London’s Natural History Museum about the young Charles Darwin’s 19th Century expedition on HMS Beagle, in aid of forest conservation, an issue supported by Harry.

Feb. 24: On what was expected to be their last overseas trip before the birth of their baby, the royals arrived in Morocco’s Atlas Mountains where they showed their support for rural girls’ education.

Feb. 25: As part of their Morocco visit, the couple attended a cooking event and sampled food made by chef Moha Fedal, host of Morocco’s version of the Masterchef TV show.

March 8: Meghan joined a panel discussion held by The Queen’s Commonwealth Trust to mark International Women’s Day at King’s College, London.

(Reporting by Michael Holden; editing by Stephen Addison)

Source: OANN

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‘Whitey’ Bulger’s cause of death in prison revealed

The death certificate of Boston mob boss James “Whitey” Bulger revealed that the notorious criminal died last year from “blunt force injuries of the head.”

The document obtained by Fox News from the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources on Thursday showed that the 89-year-old was found dead on Oct. 30, 2018 at 8:21 a.m.

FLASHBACK: MURDERED GANGSTER WHITEY BULGER HOPED FOR ‘PEACEFUL DEATH’

The death certificate of Boston mob boss James “Whitey” Bulger revealed that the notorious criminal died last year from “blunt force injuries of the head.”

The death certificate of Boston mob boss James “Whitey” Bulger revealed that the notorious criminal died last year from “blunt force injuries of the head.” (West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources)

He sustained injuries as a result of being “assaulted by other(s),” which occurred in his “prison cell” at the U.S. Penitentiary, Hazelton in Bruceton Mills, W.V., the certificate said.

The “final manner of death” was deemed to be a homicide, according to the document.

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The death of Bulger, who was a fugitive for 16 years and sentenced to life in prison in 2013, came after he was moved from a prison in Florida and had a stop in Oklahoma City before arriving at the high-security facility in West Virginia.

Fox News’ Ryan Gaydos contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News National

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Nintendo cautious on Switch China launch timeline, dampens low-cost console talk

FILE PHOTO: Attendee plays a video game at the E3 2017 Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles
FILE PHOTO: An attendee plays a video game next to the Nintendo booth at the E3 2017 Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles, California, U.S. June 13, 2017. REUTERS/ Mike Blake

April 25, 2019

By Sam Nussey

OSAKA (Reuters) – Japan’s Nintendo Co Ltd cautioned it will take time for the launch of its Switch console in China and dampened speculation about introducing a low-cost version of the device.

Nintendo’s partner Tencent Holdings won approval last week to sell the hybrid home-portable device in China. But though Nintendo Chief Executive Shuntaro Furukawa praised Tencent and the partnership on Thursday, he said Switch sales in China wouldn’t begin soon.

The news of the partnership and hopes that it will extend to mobile gaming helped lift Nintendo’s stock price to six-month highs last week. Mobile and PC gaming in China, the world’s largest video games market, dwarfs the market for consoles, whose growth has been pegged back by local regulations.

Nintendo’s push into mobile is yet to deliver a major hit, although analysts point to Mario Kart Tour, developed with DeNA and due for release this summer, as a possible contender.

The Kyoto-based gaming company, which has a reputation for making conservative forecasts, said it would sell 18 million Switch console units globally this financial year, up 6.2 percent from last year.

It expects operating profit to rise 4.1 percent to 260 billion yen ($2.3 billion) this year, well below an average analyst estimate of 342 billion yen, according to Refinitiv data.

Media reports that Nintendo is preparing a low-cost version of the Switch have helped push its shares higher in recent weeks.

Furukawa said at a news conference that while the company is always developing new hardware internally it has nothing to announce and had no plans to reveal new hardware at the E3 trade show in June.

Nintendo sold 16.95 million Switch hardware units in the year just ended, slightly undershooting its revised forecast of 17 million units. Nintendo had initially forecast sales of 20 million units before Furukawa took up the role in June.

The Switch games pipeline continues to create fan excitement, with two full Pokemon titles due later this year.

Nintendo expects to sell 125 million copies of Switch games in the current fiscal year, versus 118.55 million in the year ended in March.

The industry is facing a shake-up with established console gaming companies like Nintendo and Sony Corp exposed to competition from new entrants like Alphabet Inc’s Google offering browser-based games streaming services.

Furukawa said he welcomed new technology bringing games to users.

Nintendo’s shares closed up 1.3 percent ahead of the earnings announcement. Its share price has risen 32 percent year-to-date, pushing its market capitalization above 5 trillion yen.

(Reporting by Sam Nussey; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

Source: OANN

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We Should Worry When Zuckerberg, Dems Start Agreeing

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Democrats are fawning over Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s call for “new rules” to regulate internet companies like his — and that should worry every freedom-loving American.

Don’t be fooled. This is not some humbled executive begrudgingly accepting that his industry needs regulation. This is one of the richest men on earth inviting the American government to help him do what he already wants to do anyway.

Let’s be perfectly clear: Every single regulatory measure Zuckerberg is calling for would benefit his company, his political allies, and himself personally. At best, regulation would just deflect from the unsavory practices of Facebook and its competitors; at worst, it would enlist government sponsorship for those practices.

Democratic Sen. Mark Warner greeted Zuckerberg’s announcement by saying he was “glad to see” that “the era of the social media Wild West is over.”

Of course, when Warner refers to the “social media Wild West,” he’s not talking about tech giants routinely censoring and shadow-banning conservatives, banning memes that lampoon their journalist friends, and blatantly discriminating against Republican candidates during election campaigns.

No, Warner means the Wild West of relatively unbridled free speech that allowed millions of Americans to crack the consensus forged by the political establishment of both parties in 2016.

When he says “the Wild West is over,” Warner means just what Google’s CFO meant when he promised to “use the great strength and resources and reach we have to continue to advance really important values,” just days after President Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton.

Those on the left are determined to prevent a repeat of the 2016 presidential election, which is why they are so adamantly pushing for more censorship online. It’s just their luck that they have a potential ally in Zuckerberg, a man who would love to throw this hands up and say, “Hey, the government handles that.”

In his Washington Post op-ed, Zuckerberg calls for an “independent body” to do his censorship for him and decide what “counts as terrorist propaganda, hate speech, and more.”

Zuckerberg actually has the gall to write, “Lawmakers often tell me we have too much power over speech, and frankly I agree,” asserting that while internet companies should be “accountable for enforcing standards on harmful content,” those standards should be dictated by government officials.

To be sure, outspoken conservatives such as Sens. Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley have demanded answers from Big Tech regarding its ever-tightening campaign of censorship against the political right and Silicon Valley’s exploitation of its power over the main forums of modern public discourse to potentially swing elections — but their point has been that censorship of any kind is an affront to the American people. Zuckerberg’s response, however, is to propose more censorship, not less.

It’s all ridiculous. We don’t need leftist bureaucrats to tell us what we can say on the internet any more than we need leftist tech executives to police our speech. We don’t need an “independent body” to protect us from “harmful content” — we already have the Supreme Court, the First Amendment, and 100 years of precedent to guide our governance of public forums.

These are plenty sufficient to prohibit viewpoint-based discrimination while banning illegal acts such as calls to violence and allowing private platforms like Facebook to enact reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions according to their taste.

Sen. Howley, for instance, has proposed that the special privileges Facebook enjoys under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act be conditioned on it serving as a viewpoint-neutral public forum. For some reason, though, that’s not the kind of regulation Zuckerberg is interested in.

Zuckerberg’s other “concessions” are no less self-serving. His call for greater transparency in political advertising, for instance, is laughable. Zuckerberg argues that we already have sufficient regulation of ads run by candidates and parties, despite the fact that Facebook infamously banned Republican ads in 2018, but he asserts that we need stronger rules governing ads about “divisive political issues where we’ve seen more attempted interference,” feeding into the Democrats’ absurd narrative that a few Russian Facebook ads explain Hillary Clinton’s defeat.

In a perfect illustration of the globalist corporate mindset, Zuckerberg also calls for importing privacy laws from the European Union, where people are routinely thrown in jail for social media posts, arguing that “effective privacy and data protection needs a globally harmonized framework.”

Luckily, the regulators President Trump has put in place are wise to Zuckerberg’s game. As FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr put it, “When large corporations call for greater government control, it's not usually an act of charity.”

That’s exactly the sort of hard-headed realism we need to protect our fundamental rights, as Facebook and other Big Tech companies ramp up their campaign of anti-conservative censorship, especially now that Zuckerberg is trying to enlist liberal politicians with tremendous power as allies in that effort.

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Rep. Pete King Blames Ocasio-Cortez For Amazon's NYC Pullout

Rep. Pete King Blames Ocasio-Cortez For Amazon's NYC Pullout

Amazon would have stayed the course with its planned New York City campus if Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., was not an outspoken critic of the deal, Rep. Pete King, R-N.Y., said Sunday.

King was on "The Cats Roundtable" radio show with John Catsimatidis and discussed the project that was canceled earlier this week.

"If Joe Crowley was still the congressman, it wouldn’t have happened," King said.

Crowley, a Democrat, served in the House for 20 years. Ocasio-Cortez, a self-described Democratic Socialist who previously worked as a New York City bartender, beat him in last year's Democratic primary and then went on to win the seat in the November midterm election.

"The Democrats now control everything. If the Republicans controlled the state Senate, this would not have happened. And the fact is, that is where it was really killed," said King, referring to New York's Democratic-controlled state legislature.

Ocasio-Cortez and other critics of the Amazon deal, which would have created 25,000 jobs in Long Island City, said the state went too far in offering the online retail giant tax incentives. After multiple discussions, Amazon said Thursday the planned project was canceled.

"It's like putting a sign up that you can't do business in New York," King said Sunday. "Nothing is ever perfect, but in this case, it was as close to it as you're going to get."

Source: NewsMax Politics

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Egypt extends state of emergency ahead of Coptic Easter

Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi has extended a state of emergency imposed after deadly church bombings by the Islamic State group in 2017.

The decision to extend the state of emergency by three months was announced Thursday, ahead of Coptic Easter.

Egypt has been battling Islamic militants for years, but the insurgency gained strength after the 2013 military overthrow of an elected but divisive Islamist president and is now led by a Sinai-based Islamic State affiliate.

Suicide bombers targeted Palm Sunday services at two churches in April 2017. Christians make up about 10% of the population in Muslim-majority Egypt.

Source: Fox News World

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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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