Upcoming shows
Real News

NOW ON AIR
Now On Air

Alex Jones – Info Wars

12:00 pm 4:00 pm



Maga First News

Upcoming Shows

Join The MAGA Network on Discord

0 0

McLaren extend F1 partnership with Coca Cola

FILE PHOTO: McLaren team principal Zak Brown, poses for a photograph at the McLaren Technology Centre in Woking
FILE PHOTO: McLaren team principal Zak Brown, poses for a photograph at the McLaren Technology Centre in Woking, Britain November 21, 2018. REUTERS/Will Russell

March 16, 2019

MELBOURNE (Reuters) – Former champions McLaren have extended a partnership with Coca Cola after agreeing a short-term deal last year, the British-based Formula One team announced on Saturday.

The deal with will be used to promote multiple Coca Cola drinks brands through the 21-race season that starts in Australia on Sunday.

No financial details were given.

“There was a positive reaction to our 2018 debut as partners on the Formula One track and I’m looking forward to us exploring the full potential of this partnership over the coming season,” said McLaren Racing chief executive Zak Brown.

Last season’s partnership covered the last three races of 2018 in the United States, Brazil and Abu Dhabi and was the first time the soft drinks company’s brand had appeared on a Formula One car.

McLaren have a new driver lineup for 2019 with Spaniard Carlos Sainz and 19-year-old British rookie Lando Norris. Sixth overall last year, the team have not won a race since 2012.

(Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Amlan Chakraborty)

Source: OANN

0 0

Uber’s Amit Jain to leave, co names new Asia-Pacific unit chief

Uber's logo is displayed on a mobile phone in London
FILE PHOTO: Uber's logo is displayed on a mobile phone in London, Britain, September 14, 2018. REUTERS/Hannah Mckay

April 24, 2019

BENGALURU (Reuters) – Uber Technologies Inc said on Wednesday the head of its Asia-Pacific operations will leave the company at the end of next month, and will be replaced by Pierre-Dimitri Gore-Coty.

Amit Jain had joined the app-based ride-hailing company as its India operations chief in 2015 and had taken over as head of Uber’s Asia-Pacific business last year.

The company, which recently unveiled its IPO plans, said https://ubr.to/2vjtq22 Gore-Coty, who heads its EMEA rides business, will also take charge of the Asia-Pacific business.

He will work to “unlock opportunity markets such as Japan and South Korea, and continue our strong momentum in markets such as India and Australia,” Chief Operating Officer Barney Harford said in a statement.

San Francisco-based Uber counts India as one of its major growth markets and has been locked in a fierce battle with homegrown rival Ola for years.

(Reporting by Derek Francis in Bengaluru; Editing by Shreejay Sinha)

Source: OANN

0 0

Dems Join AOC Slamming Trump’s ‘Explicit Attack’ on Omar

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., Friday night called on members of Congress to rebuke President Donald Trump over a video he shared on twitter showing Rep. Ilhan Omar's controversial quote on the 9/11 terrorist interspersed with video of the attacks on New York City.

Omar is quoted in the video saying the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) was founded after 9/11 because "some people did something." CAIR was actually founded in 1994, though its membership spiked after the 9/11 attacks.

"Members of Congress have a duty to respond to the President’s explicit attack today," Ocasio-Cortez wrote on Twitter. "Her life is in danger. For our colleagues to be silent is to be complicit in the outright, dangerous targeting of a member of Congress. We must speak out."

By Saturday, several Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, had spoken out, saying, the president "shouldn't use the painful images of 9/11 for a political attack."

Other comments included:

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.:

"Ilhan Omar is a leader with strength and courage. She won't back down to Trump's racism and hate, and neither will we. The disgusting and dangerous attacks against her must end."

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.:

"The President is inciting violence against a sitting Congresswoman—and an entire group of Americans based on their religion. It's disgusting. It's shameful. And any elected leader who refuses to condemn it shares responsibility for it."

Former Democratic Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum:

"There is no rock bottom to @realDonaldTrump. His tweet is out of context, morally & factually dishonest, & threatening @IlhanMN. His dangerous, cowardly behavior behind a keyboard deserves the strongest rebuke from ALL Americans & a suspension, @jack. #SuspendTrumpsAccount"

Rep. Joe Kennedy III, D-Mass.:

"President Trump understands the weight his words carry. His tweet about Congresswoman Ilhan Omar puts her life & her family’s lives at risk. Our outrage should be nonpartisan. That it’s not will only give him license to continue to incite violence."

Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii

".@realDonaldTrump’s unconscionable attack on Rep. @IlhanMN feeds the racist right wing fear of all Muslims. Once again, Trump shows us there is no low to which he won’t sink."

Source: NewsMax Politics

0 0

T-Mobile, Sprint chiefs to defend deal on Capitol Hill, again

A smartphones with Sprint logo are seen in front of a screen projection of T-mobile logo, in this picture illustration
FILE PHOTO: A smartphones with Sprint logo are seen in front of a screen projection of T-mobile logo, in this picture illustration taken April 30, 2018. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

March 12, 2019

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The chief executives of T-Mobile US Inc and Sprint Corp, which are seeking to merge, head back to Capitol Hill on Tuesday to defend their planned $26 billion deal.

T-Mobile Chief Executive John Legere and Marcelo Claure, executive chairman of Sprint, will be the stars among the six witnesses who testify before the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee’s Antitrust subcommittee. Legere said during a run in Washington on Sunday that he posted on Twitter that he was “really looking forward” to the hearing.

The agreement to combine the No. 3 and No. 4 U.S. wireless carriers, struck in April, was approved by both companies’ shareholders in October and has received national security clearance, but needs approval from the Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission.

It had been contemplated several years ago, but officials in President Barack Obama’s administration urged the companies to drop the idea, which they did.

The deal is unpopular with some lawmakers. Eight progressive senators signed a letter asking the Trump administration to reject the deal, including presidential candidates Bernie Sanders, Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren.

To win support for the deal, T-Mobile previously said it would not increase prices for three years. Sprint said it hopes to complete the regulatory approval process by the end of June.

The committee said it would examine the deal’s potential impact on consumers, workers and the internet.

Lawmakers will likely ask about a report that Legere and other company leaders have spent $195,000 on hotel stays and other expenses at the Trump International Hotel in Washington since the company sought approval for the deal.

Asked on Twitter where he was staying, Legere said, “Trump Hotel? No. I’m staying at the Willard.”

The FCC said last week that it had halted the informal 180-day “shot clock” on the merger review to give the public more time to comment on significant new information from the companies. It said it expects to resume the “shot clock,” at the current Day 122 on April 4.

The deal has run into criticism from unions, consumer advocates and rural operators. The Communications Workers of America has said the deal will eliminate tens of thousands of jobs.

Last month at a congressional hearing, House Democrats raised worries about the deal because the U.S. wireless market has just four main carriers. The industry leaders are AT&T Inc and Verizon Communications Inc.

To defend the proposed transaction, Legere pointed to the company’s history of aggressive pricing, said it would need 11,000 new employees by 2024 and pledged to building the next generation of wireless, called 5G, without equipment from Huawei Technologies Co Ltd or ZTE Corp, two Chinese telecommunications firms distrusted by U.S. national security experts.

(Reporting by Diane Bartz; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Source: OANN

0 0

Ex-Trump Adviser: If Mueller Found No Collusion, House Dems Won't Either

If special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation found no collusion between President Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia, House Democrats won’t either, a former campaign adviser said Sunday.

In an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Michael Caputo, who served as a political adviser to Trump’s campaign in late 2015 and early 2016, said he’s “relieved” the Mueller probe is now over.

“I’m one of dozens of witnesses who have gone through this and as just a witness, I’m going to be able to press play as soon as this is all out there,” he declared.

Caputo, who angrily called for “an investigation of the investigators” last year, lamented Sunday his family “had our lives on pause for two years” — and added that he lost both his home and business.

He added that his testimony before congressional committees was nothing in comparison to with working with the Mueller’s investigators, whom he called “the most impressive array of investigatory talent the American government has assembled in the 21st century.”

“I don’t care what the House Democrats want to go after from here forward, if Mueller can’t find it, they’re not going to find it,” he said.

Source: NewsMax Politics

0 0

Exports, inventories seen boosting U.S. first-quarter growth

FILE PHOTO: An aerial photo looking north shows shipping containers at the Port of Seattle and the Elliott Bay waterfront in Seattle
FILE PHOTO: An aerial photo looking north shows shipping containers at the Port of Seattle and the Elliott Bay waterfront in Seattle, Washington, U.S. March 21, 2019. REUTERS/Lindsey Wasson

April 26, 2019

By Lucia Mutikani

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. economy likely maintained a moderate pace of growth in the first quarter, which could further dispel earlier fears of a recession even though activity was driven by temporary factors.

The Commerce Department’s gross domestic product (GDP) report to be published on Friday at 8:30 a.m. EDT (1230 GMT) is expected to sketch a picture of an economy growing close to potential, mostly reflecting the impact of an ebbing boost from a giant fiscal stimulus and past interest rate increases.

Gross domestic product probably increased at a 2.0 percent annualized rate in the first quarter as a burst in exports, strong inventory stockpiling and government investment in public construction projects offset slowdowns in consumer and business spending, according to a Reuters survey of economists.

With global growth still sluggish, the surge in exports is likely to reverse and the inventory build will probably need to be worked off, which could curtail production at factories. That could restrain growth in the second quarter.

The economy grew at a 2.2 percent pace in the October-December period. Growth has stepped down from a peak 4.2 percent pace in the second quarter of 2018, when the White House’s $1.5 trillion tax cut package jolted consumer spending.

Economists estimate the speed at which the economy can grow over a long period without igniting inflation at between 1.7 and 2.0 percent. The economy will mark 10 years of expansion in July, the longest on record.

“The economy remains solid, but we anticipate a slowing in the pace of growth in the medium term as the tailwinds from fiscal stimulus fade and the headwinds of tighter monetary policy take hold,” said Sam Bullard, a senior economist at Wells Fargo Securities in Charlotte, North Carolina.

The economy stumbled at the turn of the year, with a batch of weak economic reports suggesting first-quarter GDP growth as low as a 0.2 percent rate. The soft data stream stoked fears of a recession that were also exacerbated by a brief inversion of the U.S. Treasury yield curve.

Some of the weak data, especially retail sales, were blamed on a 35-day partial shutdown of the federal government, which hurt confidence and delayed processing of tax refunds. Since the shutdown ended on Jan. 25, economic data have mostly perked up, leading to a sharp upgrading of first-quarter GDP estimates.

“Slower, but moderate economic growth is continuing and we might see some slight acceleration as we head into second quarter,” said Sung Won Sohn, an economics professor at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.

WEAK DOMESTIC DEMAND

The improvement in the economy’s fortunes has been mirrored by strong corporate profits for the quarter.

Some economists caution that growth could surprise on the downside because of a seasonal quirk. The so-called residual seasonality has tended to understate economic growth in the first quarter. Though the government said last year it had addressed the methodology problem, economists believe residual seasonality has not been entirely eliminated from the data.

A surge in exports and weak imports are expected to have sharply narrowed the trade deficit in the first quarter. Trade is believed to have added more than one percentage point to GDP after being neutral in the fourth quarter.

Trade tensions between the United States and China have caused wild swings in the trade deficit, with exporters and importers trying to stay ahead of the tariff fight between the two economic giants.

The trade standoff has also had an impact on inventories, which are expected to have increased in the first quarter at their strongest pace since 2015. Part of the inventory build is related to weak demand, especially in the automotive sector.

Inventories are expected to have contributed a full percentage point to first-quarter GDP after adding one-tenth of a percentage point in the October-December period.

Excluding trade and inventories, the economy is expected to have expanded at a roughly 1.6 percent rate in the first quarter. Economists said Federal Reserve officials were likely to focus on this growth measure.

The Fed recently suspended its three-year monetary policy tightening campaign, dropping forecasts for any interest rate hikes this year. The U.S. central bank increased borrowing costs four times in 2018.

“The composition of the data will not look favorably on domestic economic activity, nor provide a positive forward look at current quarter activity,” said Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at RSM in New York. “Policymakers will likely look past this growth report when formulating rate policy.”

Growth in consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity, is expected to have slowed significantly from the fourth quarter’s 2.5 percent rate. Economists said the government shutdown was the main factor behind the anticipated deceleration in spending.

A moderation is also expected in businesses spending on equipment because of the delayed impact of sharp drops in oil prices toward the end of 2018 and fading depreciation provisions in the 2018 tax bill. Supply chain disruptions caused by Washington’s trade war with Beijing were also seen crimping business investment.

(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Andrea Ricci)

Source: OANN

0 0

Pope Francis kisses shoes of Sudanese leaders in plea for peace

Pope Francis pleaded with South Sudanese government officials and opposition leaders Thursday to encourage the continuation of their fragile peace by getting on his hands and knees in a dramatic gesture and kissing their shoes.

“I’m asking you with my heart,” the pope said to the President Salva Kiir, and opposition leader Riek Machar, during a spiritual retreat at the Vatican in Rome. “Stay in peace.”

HORRORS CONTINUE IN SOUTH SUDAN, DESPITE EFFORTS BY GEORGE CLOONEY, WELL-MEANING ACTIVISTS

South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in 2011 with the backing of many western nations, but a civil war erupted two years later and killed at least 400,000 and displaced millions. The conflict began as a feud between forces loyal to Kiir and Machar, the New York Times reported.

Disease, hunger and human rights abuses by both sides led to the exodus of millions into neighboring countries. The pope’s gesture came hours after the military is neighboring Sudan ousted President Omar al-Bashir after 30 years of authoritarian rule, according to the paper.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

The pope encouraged the two leaders to find common ground before stunning both men by kneeling to kiss their shoes.

“I urge you, then, to seek what unites you, beginning with the fact that you belong to one and the same people, and to overcome all that divides you,” he said. “People are wearied, exhausted by past conflicts: Remember that with war, all is lost!”

Source: Fox News World

NOW ON AIR
Now On Air

Alex Jones – Info Wars

12:00 pm 4:00 pm



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

April 26, 2019

By Tom Lasseter and Shri Navaratnam

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

INTELLIGENCE FAILINGS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“LIKE A SPOILED CHILD”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ONLINE RADICAL

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“HARD TO TAKE”

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

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

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

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

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

Zahran went into hiding once more.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Source: OANN

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!
A Wells Fargo logo is seen in New York City
FILE PHOTO: A Wells Fargo logo is seen in New York City, U.S. January 10, 2017. REUTERS/Stephanie Keith

April 26, 2019

By Jessica DiNapoli and Imani Moise

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

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

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

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

Fraser could not be immediately reached for comment.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Spokespeople for Wells Fargo and Spencer Stuart declined to comment.

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

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

STALLED SHARES

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Source: OANN

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!
A worker walks on the roof of a new home under construction in Carlsbad
FILE PHOTO: A worker walks on the roof of a new home under construction in Carlsbad, California September 22, 2014. REUTERS/Mike Blake

April 26, 2019

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The U.S. economy is growing at a 2.08% annualized pace in the second quarter based on upbeat data on durable goods orders and new home sales in March, the New York Federal Reserve’s Nowcast model showed on Friday.

This was faster than the 1.92% growth rate calculated by the N.Y. Fed model the week before.

(Reporting by Richard Leong; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

Source: OANN

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!
Extraordinary European Union leaders summit in Brussels
FILE PHOTO: Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte arrives at an extraordinary European Union leaders summit to discuss Brexit, in Brussels, Belgium April 10, 2019. REUTERS/Yves Herman

April 26, 2019

(Reuters) – Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said on Friday he had assured China’s Huawei Technologies that it would not face discrimination in the rollout of Italy’s 5G telecoms network.

Conte was speaking on a visit to China where he said he met Huawei’s chief executive, Ren Zhengfei. The prime minister’s comments were carried in Italy by TV broadcaster Sky Italia.

“I told him that we have adopted some precautions, some measures to protect our interests that demand very high levels of security … not only from Huawei but any company entering into the 5G arena,” he said.

Huawei, the world’s biggest producer of telecoms equipment, is under intense scrutiny after the United States told allies not to use its technology because of fears it could be a vehicle for Chinese spying. Huawei has categorically denied this.

(Writing by by Mark Bendeich; Editing by Angelo Amante)

Source: OANN

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!
U.S. President Trump departs for travel to Indianapolis from the White House in Washington
U.S. President Donald Trump talks to reporters as he departs for travel to Indianapolis, Indiana from the White House in Washington, U.S., April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

April 26, 2019

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump on Friday was expected to announce his intention to revoke the United States’ status as a signatory of the Arms Trade Treaty, which was signed in 2013 by then-President Barack Obama but never ratified by Congress, two U.S. officials said.

Trump was expected to announce the decision in a speech in Indianapolis, to the National Rifle Association, the officials said. The NRA, a powerful gun lobby group, has long been opposed to the treaty, which was negotiated at the United Nations.

(Reporting By Steve Holland; Editing by Bill Trott)

Source: OANN

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!
Current track

Title

Artist