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O’Rourke holds rallies on the Mexican border that Trump threatens to shut

FILE PHOTO: Democratic 2020 U.S. presidential candidate O'Rourke speaks in Plymouth
FILE PHOTO: Democratic 2020 U.S. presidential candidate and former U.S. Representative Beto O'Rourke speaks during a campaign stop at Plymouth State University in Plymouth, New Hampshire, U.S., March 20, 2019. REUTERS/Brian Snyder/File Photo

March 30, 2019

By Tim Reid

EL PASO (Reuters) – Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke will hold a major rally in El Paso, Texas, on Saturday, a city thrust to the center of America’s immigration debate by President Donald Trump and the U.S government this week.

O’Rourke, a former congressman from El Paso, will kick off three rallies in Texas in his bid to become the Democratic nominee a day after Republican Trump threatened to close the U.S border with Mexico as soon as next week.

His rally in El Paso, which sits on the border with Mexico, has been long-planned but the city became central to America’s immigration debate this week.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin K. McAleenan told a news conference in El Paso on Wednesday the southern border system was at breaking point because of the number of illegal immigrants crossing the border each day.

Trump, who says he is still determined to build a barrier along parts of the southern border, said on Friday: “There’s a very good likelihood that I’ll be closing the border next week, and that will be just fine with me.”

He has repeatedly said he would close the U.S. border with Mexico during his two years in office but has not done so.

Trump and O’Rourke held dueling rallies in February in El Paso, which is already divided from Mexico by steel fencing.

Trump wants it reinforced and hundreds of miles of additional fencing built along the border. O’Rourke opposes any new border structures and opposition to Trump’s border wall and immigration policies has been a centerpiece of his campaign.

They will again be a major part of his speeches in Texas on Saturday.

O’Rourke, who announced his White House campaign on March 14, shot to national prominence last year in an unexpectedly close race against incumbent Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz.

His Texas rallies will be watched via livestream at more than 1,000 locations across America, according to his campaign.

O’Rourke, 46, competes in a large Democratic field. More than a dozen candidates have joined the fight to become the candidate to take on Trump in 2020.

The O’Rourke campaign sent multiple requests to potential supporters for campaign donations before his rallies in El Paso, Houston and Austin on Saturday, a common practice among presidential hopefuls. The messages stressed the importance of donating before Sunday, the deadline for first quarter fundraising reports with the Federal Election Commission.

O’Rourke smashed fundraising records as a Senate candidate and raised $6.1 million in the first 24 hours of his presidential campaign, the largest first-day haul of any announced candidate this year.

However, he has struggled to see a strong campaign work ethic translate into a significant boost in early polling.

O’Rourke trails former vice president Joe Biden and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders by double digits, according to early polls among Democratic voters. Analysts warn that polls this early, before the first nominating votes are cast in Iowa in February 2020, are unreliable.

Biden has yet to join the race, although he is expected to announce his presidential candidacy soon.

(Reporting by Tim Reid; Editing by Paul Tait)

Source: OANN

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Why the Mueller report could turn into a never-ending story on the Hill

The Mueller Report covered 448 pages.

For context, the 1998 Starr Report about President Clinton and Monica Lewinsky consumed 445 pages.

Other works of popular literature clocking in at around 400 pages or so?

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen (409 pages). The Shining by Stephen King (447). Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier (449). Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (374). The Neverending Story by Michael Ende (396).

CLICK HERE TO READ THE REDACTED MUELLER REPORT

Perhaps the last title is most pertinent here.

Attorney General Bill Barr released the Mueller Report in the middle of the first major Congressional recess of the year. Both the House and Senate usually break for more than two weeks in March or April to observe Good Friday, Easter and Passover.

Barr long ago announced he'd make the Mueller Report public in mid-April. But that decision frustrated Congressional Democrats, who viewed the timing as nefarious since Congress was out of session and lawmakers were spread to the four winds.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was in Europe, just concluding a speech to the Dail, or Irish parliament, in Dublin. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., was in Rwanda. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., was in New York City.

"The logistics make the release much more difficult," protested Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., a member of the Judiciary Committee. "The administration seems to be purposely creating obstacles and hurdles to prevent full disclosure." Blumenthal added that Barr should have published the report 'well before the recess. It should've been released the day before it was ready."

Nadler argued that Barr's decision to hold a press conference ahead of publicizing the report was villainous. Nadler portrayed this as an effort by the administration to seize control of the messaging in the absence of lawmakers prowling Capitol Hill. Nadler suggested Barr could then spin the conclusions on behalf of President Trump.

"The Attorney General is not letting facts speak for themselves, but baking in a narrative that benefits the White House and doing it before a holiday weekend so it would be hard for people to react," said Nadler, who held a press conference in New York City late Wednesday to pre-empt Barr – then suggested the attorney general cancel his morning presser.

Releasing the report during the recess may mute some Congressional response. But satellite dishes and TV studios are available this time of year. Twitter remains operational. Most of the country doesn't hang on every word out of Washington and know whether Congress is in or out of session. Many Americans wouldn't interrupt their workday to cull through the Mueller Report, let alone actually read it. They'll rely on others to divine meaning from the special counsel's missive.

The timeframe didn't matter to Lindsey Graham.

"The world keeps turning," said Graham late last week as he departed the Capitol, en route to Africa. "I don't need to know any more. I am done."

There were only a few lawmakers on Capitol Hill when the report hit Washington Thursday morning.

The Constitution requires the House and Senate to convene every three days unless one body grants the other leave to abandon Washington. Otherwise, the House and Senate meet in brief, "pro forma" sessions, when each body just gavels in and gavels out. However, that requires the presence of at least one lawmaker.

Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., drew the lot to serve as the GOP's designated, in-person-at-the-Capitol-spokesman-on-the-Mueller-Report once he rapped the gavel at 11:46 a.m. Thursday. Journalists waited for Blunt in the basement of the Russell Senate Office Building to get his views on the report. A couple of reporters sought out Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., who presided over the House’s pro forma session late Thursday afternoon.

Congressional Democrats now see a yawning chasm between the contents of the Mueller Report and the interpretation presented by Barr and want to explore that daylight. It starts with the attorney general appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on May 1 and the House Judiciary Committee on May 2. That's followed by a prospective appearance by Mueller himself sometime next month.

Nadler believes Mueller left a Hansel and Gretel trail of breadcrumbs through the impeachment forest. When asked Thursday about impeachment, Nadler wouldn't rule it out – despite previous statements by Pelosi to the contrary. A top Pelosi aide tells Fox that impeachment remains out of the question. We may hear more from Pelosi on this score in the wee hours of Friday morning when she appears in Belfast, Northern Ireland and takes part in a Q&A.

There is peril for Democrats if they continue to discuss impeachment, which is why they must drive down both sides of the street. Impeachment talk harms moderate Democrats from battleground districts and lots of them would prefer to focus on policy issues like health care, prescription drugs, infrastructure and even gun policy before discussing impeachment.

However, if liberals push impeachment, moderate Democrats have a chance to contrast themselves, not with Republicans, but with members of their own party. They can say "No. I'm not for impeachment. Let's work on bread and butter issues."

But there is a risk for Democrats if they overplay their hand. That’s why Republicans are more than happy to lump all Democrats together. The key is how Democrats finesse this to satisfy both wings of their caucus.

House Freedom Caucus leader Mark Meadows, R-N.C., told Fox News Thursday that Democrats won’t stop attacking the President. Republicans want Democrats to attack the President. That works for the GOP.

The Mueller Report will dominate the news cycle over the holiday weekend, then wane next week as Congress remains out of session. It could then rise like a phoenix when Congress returns at the end of the month, punctuated by Barr's testimony. That could spark another round of media frenzy, which would then die down before ramping up again if or when Mueller testifies.

This is the downside for Democrats, especially moderates who need to hold their seats in challenging districts. Too much talk about the report diverts attention from other policy priorities. Remember that the only other big legislative item on the docket this year is an imbroglio over the debt ceiling, a government shutdown, and, you guessed it, the border wall.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

The recess may have actually helped Republicans. They did not want to be in Washington for the release of the report. This is how some Republicans prefer to embrace President Trump: from afar. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said it was time to move on. House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., said Democrats should apologize and quit harassing the President and his family.

But remember, the hot take is not always the lasting take. Public perception could shift on this, and that could be damaging to Republicans rushing to embrace what Barr said.

After all, this seems to be the never-ending story.

Source: Fox News Politics

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Alberta opposition makes Canadian PM Trudeau the adversary in provincial election

United Conservative Leader Jason Kenney speaks in front of the Trans Mountain Edmonton Terminal in Edmonton
United Conservative Leader Jason Kenney details the "UCP Fight Back Strategy" against foreign anti-oil special interests, in front of the Trans Mountain Edmonton Terminal in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, March 22, 2019. REUTERS/Candace Elliott

March 28, 2019

By Nia Williams

CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) – The main opposition party in Alberta’s April election is using Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as a proxy foe, analysts say, channeling a long-standing sense of western alienation rather than directly attacking a popular premier.

Polls suggest the United Conservative Party is on course to win power in the province, Canada’s energy center, capitalizing on voter concerns about a struggling economy and lack of progress on new oil export pipelines.

However, UCP leader Jason Kenney, a former federal cabinet minister, polls behind New Democrat Party Premier Rachel Notley on a number of personal attributes such as honesty, likeability and trustworthiness, and is embroiled in a scandal over his successful party leadership bid in 2017.

Notley, whose late father led the NDP from 1968-1984, is polling well ahead of her party and seeking to profit from that edge.

To overcome that, the UCP is focusing on Trudeau, with repeated references to “the Notley-Trudeau alliance,” emphasizing her one-time close relationship with the prime minister, while images of their own leader are less visible.

Trudeau is an unpopular figure in Alberta, where many feel he failed to support the energy industry. The prime minister also faces a political scandal on whether he unduly pressured Canada’s former justice minister.

“If you look at the signs the NDP are putting up, their logos are not very prevalent, it’s all Rachel Notley,” said Gregory Jack, vice president at polling firm Ipsos. “The UCP signs are all about the UCP and their brand, and underplaying their leader to a certain extent.”

The UCP’s focus on Justin Trudeau may be effective with older Alberta voters who remember the unpopular National Energy Program in 1980, an effort by his prime minister father, Pierre Trudeau, that sought to give Ottawa more control over the oil and gas industry and a higher share of revenues.

“(The UCP) spin on it is Alberta has been mistreated by a Liberal government and the son of another prime minister who did not treat Alberta well,” said Jared Wesley, a political science professor at the University of Alberta.

Alberta’s energy industry contributes C$80 billion a year to Canada’s economy, but opposition from other provinces has shut down new pipelines like TransCanada Corp’s Energy East project and helped stall the Trans Mountain expansion plan.

Congestion on existing pipelines out of landlocked Alberta left crude bottlenecked in storage tanks and sent prices spiraling to record lows last year, prompting the NDP to mandate temporary crude production cuts.

Alberta has posted budget deficits since global oil prices started tumbling in 2014, and more than C$20 billion in foreign capital has fled its energy sector since 2017.

Notley and Trudeau came to power in the same year and initially forged a close partnership aimed at pleasing the oil industry and environmental groups with a dual strategy that supported new pipelines and introduced a carbon tax.

They fell out last year over delays to the Trans Mountain expansion project. Notley’s camp downplays the relationship that the UCP is working so hard to highlight.

“The job of premier is to work with anyone who has a stake in projects like pipelines. I wouldn’t call it an alliance,” said NDP campaign spokeswoman Cheryl Oates. “A lot of people feel Jason Kenney is stuck in Ottawa trying to rehash a battle that his party lost.”

Kenney was part of the federal Conservative government defeated by the Liberals in 2015. The UCP campaign declined to discuss its election strategy.

(Reporting by Nia Williams; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

Source: OANN

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Exclusive: More than 1 million acres of U.S. cropland ravaged by floods

FILE PHOTO: Paddocks at Nebraska's Washington County Fairgrounds are shown underwater due to flooding in Arlington, Nebraska
FILE PHOTO: Paddocks at Washington County Fairgrounds are shown underwater due to flooding in Arlington, Nebraska, U.S., March 21, 2019. REUTERS/Humeyra Pamuk -File Photo

March 29, 2019

By P.J. Huffstutter and Humeyra Pamuk

CHICAGO/COLUMBUS, Neb. (Reuters) – At least 1 million acres (405,000 hectares) of U.S. farmland were flooded after the “bomb cyclone” storm left wide swaths of nine major grain producing states under water this month, satellite data analyzed by Gro Intelligence for Reuters showed.

Farms from the Dakotas to Missouri and beyond have been under water for a week or more, possibly impeding planting and damaging soil. The floods, which came just weeks before planting season starts in the Midwest, will likely reduce corn, wheat and soy production this year.

“There’s thousands of acres that won’t be able to be planted,” Ryan Sonderup, 36, of Fullerton, Nebraska, who has been farming for 18 years, said in a recent interview.

“If we had straight sunshine now until May and June, maybe it can be done, but I don’t see how that soil gets back with expected rainfall.”

Spring floods could yet impact an even bigger area of cropland. The U.S. government’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has warned of what could be an “unprecedented flood season” as it forecasts heavy spring rains. Rivers may swell further as a deep snow pack in northern growing areas melts.

The bomb cyclone of mid-March was the latest blow to farmers suffering from years of falling income and lower exports because of the U.S.-China trade war.

Fields are strewn with everything from silt and sand to tires and some may not even be farmed this year. The water has also destroyed billions of dollars of old crops that were in storage, as well as damaging roads and railways.

Justin Mensik, a fifth-generation farmer of corn and soybeans in Morse Bluff, Nebraska, said rebuilding roads was the first priority. Then farmers would need to bring in fertilizer trucks and then test soil before seeding, Mensik said.

The flood “left a lot of silt and sand and mud in our fields, now we’re not too sure if we’re going to be able to get a good crop this year with all the new mud and junk that’s just laying here,” Mensik told Reuters.

CORN CONCERN

For farmers, “the biggest concern right now is corn planting,” said Aaron Saeugling, an agriculture expert at Iowa State University who does outreach with farmers. “There is just not going to be enough time to move a lot of that debris.”

To be fully covered by crop insurance, Iowa farmers must plant corn by May 31 and soybeans by June 15, as yields decline dramatically when planted any later. Deadlines vary state by state. The insurance helps ensure a minimum price farmers will receive when they book sales for their crops.

Nearly 1.1 million acres of cropland and more than 84,000 acres of pastureland in the U.S. Midwest had flood water on it for at least seven days between March 8 and March 21, according to a preliminary analysis of government and satellite data by New-York based Gro Intelligence at the request of Reuters. The extent of the flooding had previously not been made public.

The flooded acreage represents less than 1 percent of U.S. land used to grow corn, soybeans, wheat, rice, cotton, sorghum and barley. In 2018, some 240 million total acres of these crops were planted in the United States, USDA data shows.

Iowa, the top U.S. corn and No. 2 soy producing state, had the most water, covering 474,271 acres, followed by Missouri with 203,188 acres, according to Gro Intelligence. That was in line with estimates given to Reuters this week by government officials in Iowa and Missouri.

Gro Intelligence used satellite data from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Near Real-Time Global Flood Mapping product, to calculate the approximate extent and intensity of flooding.

Gro Intelligence then identified how much of this area was either cropland or pastureland, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS).

Gro Intelligence analysts cautioned the satellite imagery did not show the full extent of flooding in Nebraska, where officials declined to provide acreage estimates to Reuters, or in North Dakota. Nebraska’s governor has said the floods caused agricultural damage of $1 billion in his state.

Cloud cover or snow on the ground makes it difficult to identify the flood waters in NASA satellite data, said Sara Menker, chief executive of the agricultural artificial intelligence company.

LOST CATTLE

In Missouri, floodwaters covered roughly 200,000 acres in five northwest counties adjoining the Missouri River as of Wednesday morning, said Charlie Rahm, spokesman for USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service in Columbia.

In Wisconsin more than 1,000 dairy and beef animals were lost during winter storms and 480 agricultural structures collapsed or damaged, according to an email from Sandy Chalmers, executive director of the Wisconsin state office of the USDA’s Farm Service Agency.

In the Dakotas and Minnesota, melting snows in coming months will put spring wheat planting at risk. Gro Intelligence found nearly 160 million acres have already been flooded in Minnesota.

“That’s yet to come and we will deal with that at least until the middle of April,” said Dave Nicolai, an agriculture expert at the University of Minnesota.

(Reporting by P.J. Huffstutter in Chicago and Humeyra Pamuk in Nebraska; Additional reporting by Tom Polansek and Karl Plume in Chicago; Writing by Caroline Stauffer; Editing by Simon Webb and Matthew Lewis)

Source: OANN

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SAP welcomes Elliott’s $1.3 billion investment; shares hit high

FILE PHOTO: SAP logo at SAP headquarters in Walldorf
FILE PHOTO: SAP logo at SAP headquarters in Walldorf, Germany, January 24, 2017. REUTERS/Ralph Orlowski/File Photo

April 24, 2019

By Douglas Busvine

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – U.S. activist investor Elliott revealed a 1.2 billion-euro ($1.3 billion) stake in SAP on Wednesday and said it supported a new management efficiency drive, sending shares in the German business software company to an all-time high.

SAP has until now escaped the attention of activist investors, steered by co-founder and Chairman Hasso Plattner who has withstood tough competition from U.S. rivals and is still the biggest shareholder in the German company with 6.5 percent.

Yet SAP has never achieved the 40 percent profit margins that Microsoft boasted at its height. It reported an adjusted operating margin of 24 percent for the first quarter as it grapples with a catch-up transition to cloud computing.

Europe’s most valuable technology company now wants to expand adjusted operating margins by a total of 5 percentage points through 2023.

“This is that magic moment that people have been waiting for where they are like, wow, nobody grows like SAP, but can I get some margin out of this growth?” Bill McDermott, the 57-year-old New Yorker who has run SAP for nine years, told Reuters.

“I think our shareholders are going to be super-psyched.”

Boosting margins in the cloud – where SAP’s subscription-based products are hosted remotely – is the holy grail for a company that still makes most of its money from license fees and maintenance for software running on customers’ on-site servers.

The Elliott stake of around 1 percent in SAP is the first German technology investment by the $34 billion U.S. hedge fund group, which has also urged industrial conglomerate Thyssenkrupp to restructure and called on utility Uniper to agree to a takeover by Fortum.

Elliott technology-team partner Jesse Cohn and portfolio manager Jason Genrich have a track record of close involvement with the firms they back, with Cohn for example taking a board seat at online marketplace eBay as part of a deal with management on a strategy review and running activist campaigns at software firms EMC and Citrix .

“Elliott fully supports the initiatives announced today,” Cohn and Genrich said in a statement.

“The company’s shares were clearly undervalued in relation to its revenue growth, and today’s announcement lays the foundation for substantial realization of value.”

SAP’s shares have underperformed rivals Oracle, Salesforce and Microsoft in the past 12 months. It trades at a forward price/earnings ratio of 21, compared to 58 at Salesforce, an all-cloud outfit, 25 at Microsoft and 15 at Oracle, according to Refinitiv data.

“SAP is in the fortunate position that a number of shareholders give us regular feedback – we welcome that feedback, which we take seriously, especially as we advance our plans to meet or beat our 2023 ambitions,” SAP said in response to the Elliott investment.

BEST DAY IN A DECADE

The pivot by McDermott came as SAP reported a quarterly operating loss of 136 million euros due to an 886 million euro up-front charge arising from the announcement in January that SAP would let go of 4,400 people.

After adjusting for that and other one-offs, non-IFRS operating profits rose by 13 percent at constant currencies to 1.47 billion euros, above expectations in a poll of 17 analysts.

Chief Financial Officer Luka Mucic said the staffing exercise, only the second major restructuring since SAP was founded by Plattner and a group of former IBM colleagues in 1972, was on track.

SAP lifted its growth forecast for non-IFRS operating profits this year to 9.5-12.5 percent at constant currencies, while also nudging up its outlook for 2020.

Its shares rose 8 percent – their biggest daily gain since Nov. 2008, adding $11 billion to its market cap. That in turn lifted the Stoxx Europe 600 Technology Index by 2.7 percent to its highest since last July.

SAP will update investors at a capital markets day on Nov. 12 in New York. It is eyeing a multi-year share buyback program as McDermott sets his sights on more than doubling the company’s market capitalization to $300 billion.

Valuing the cloud side of the business at 10 times revenues – in line with industry peers – gives a figure of $200 billion based on projected 2023 revenues, McDermott said. Add to that a core revenue multiple of 4-5 times gives another $100 billion.

“It’s just simple math,” he told Reuters.

(Additional reporting by Arno Schuetze; Editing by Michelle Martin, Kirsten Donovan/Georgina Prodhan/Jane Merriman)

Source: OANN

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U.S. new home sales rise to 11-month high in February

A real estate sign advertising a new home for sale is pictured in Vienna, Virginia
FILE PHOTO: A real estate sign advertising a new home for sale is pictured in Vienna, Virginia, outside of Washington, October 20, 2014. REUTERS/Larry Downing/File Photo

March 29, 2019

WASHINGTON, March 29 (Reuters) – Sales of new U.S. single-family homes increased to an 11-month high in February and sales for January were revised higher, suggesting that lower mortgage rates were starting to lift the struggling housing market.

The Commerce Department said on Friday new home sales rose 4.9 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 667,000 units last month, the highest level since March 2018. January’s sales pace was revised up to 636,000 units from the previously reported 607,000 units.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast new home sales, which account for about 11 percent of housing market sales, increasing 1.3 percent to a pace of 620,000 units in February.

New home sales are drawn from permits and tend to be volatile on a month-to-month basis. They rose 0.6 percent from a year ago. New home sales tend to respond more quickly to changes in mortgage rates.

The 30-year fixed mortgage rate tumbled to a more than one-year low of 4.06 percent last week from an average of 4.28 percent in the previous week, according to data from mortgage finance agency Freddie Mac.

Mortgage rates have been declining since the Federal Reserve signaled a long pause in interest rates increases this year. Lower borrowing costs, slowing house price inflation and rising wages have improved housing affordability.

But expensive lumber as well as land and labor shortages remain a challenge for builders. Investment in homebuilding contracted 0.3 percent in 2018, the biggest drop since 2010.

New home sales in the South, which accounts for the bulk of transactions, rose 1.8 percent in February to their highest level since July 2007. Sales surged 26.9 percent in the Northeast and jumped 28.3 percent in the Midwest. They were, however, unchanged in the West.

The median new house price fell 3.6 percent to $315,300 in February from a year ago. There were 340,000 new homes on the market last month, down 0.6 percent from January.

At February’s sales pace it would take 6.1 months to clear the supply of houses on the market, down from 6.5 months in January. Just under two-thirds of the houses sold last month were either under construction or yet to be built.

(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Andrea Ricci) ((Lucia.Mutikani@thomsonreuters.com; 1 202 898 8315; Reuters Messaging: lucia.mutikani.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net)

Source: OANN

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Chinese food-to-ticketing app Meituan Dianping sees losses widen in fourth quarter

FILE PHOTO: Company logo of China's Meituan Dianping is displayed at a news conference in Hong Kong
FILE PHOTO: A company logo of China's Meituan Dianping, an online food delivery-to-ticketing services platform, is displayed at a news conference on its IPO in Hong Kong, China September 6, 2018. REUTERS/Bobby Yip

March 11, 2019

By Josh Horwitz

SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China’s Meituan Dianping, an online food delivery-to-ticketing firm, said its fourth-quarter operating loss more than doubled as fast revenue growth was offset by sharply rising labor costs as it took on more staff.

The company, which is backed by tech giant Tencent Holdings Ltd and listed on the stock market last September, said its revenue grew 89 percent in October-December to 19.8 billion yuan ($2.9 billion).

Food orders made up the majority of sales in the quarter, as they did in the third quarter and the company reported a growing user base and increasing gross merchandise volume for its delivery service. However, these gains were offset by having to pay higher labor costs as order volumes jumped.

As a result, Meituan reported a net loss of 3.4 billion yuan for the quarter ended Dec. 31, increasing from a 2.2 billion yuan loss in the year-earlier period.

The company, which raised $4.2 billion in its IPO, faces stiff competition from rivals such as Alibaba Group Holding Ltd’s delivery platform Ele.me and also ride-hailing firm Didi Chuxing, backed by Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp.

Meituan said its overall transaction volume grew 32.5 percent in the fourth quarter from a year earlier.

Meituan is a so-called super app, offering many services and is a sort of cross between U.S. discounting platform Groupon Inc and online review firm Yelp Inc.

Revenues from “New Initiatives and others” which includes Meituan’s bike-sharing division Mobike and its new ride-hailing service, made up 21.2 percent of total sales.

Meituan’s September IPO was seen by some as a gauge of China’s tech sector, which seemed poised for a slowdown after years of rising stock prices and free-flowing venture capital funding. But its stock has since lost nearly a fifth of its value.

Tencent, which is due to report fourth-quarter results later this month, has seen slowing revenue growth over the last four quarters while companies such as JD.com and Didi Chuxing have announced layoffs in recent months.

(Reporting by Josh Horwitz, editing by Louise Heavens and Susan Fenton)

Source: OANN

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Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Thursday said his government must make men aware of the dangers of poor hygiene after expressing dismay over the 1,000 penis amputations that apparently occur in his country each year.

“In Brazil, we have 1,000 penis amputations a year due to a lack of water and soap,” he said while speaking to reporters in Brasilia after visiting the Education Ministry. “We have to find a way to get out of the bottom of this hole.”

The far-right leader called the figure “ridiculous and sad,” Reuters reported. A spokeswoman for the Brazilian urology society told the news agency the number is based on its official data for penis amputations.

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The amputations were conducted out of necessity over untreated infections, along with complications from HIV and various cancers, she said.

Source: Fox News World

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A top Russian diplomat says Russia is willing to negotiate a new nuclear weapons treaty with the United States and China.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told reporters on Friday Moscow is closely following reports in the United States that the U.S. would like to reach a nuclear weapons deal with both Russia and China, and is “willing” to negotiate. The story was reported by CNN earlier Friday.

Ryabkov also said that Russia “would like to convince” the U.S. to adopt a joint statement that would condemn any use of nuclear weapons.

Ryabkov’s comments come just months after the U.S. withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, a cornerstone of the post-Cold War security, and Russia followed suit. Each claims breaches by the other.

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Government dysfunction and an intelligence failure that preceded the Easter Sunday bombings in Sri Lanka are traced to simmering divisions between the president and prime minister after a weekslong political crisis that crippled the country last year.

The government has admitted to a “lapse of intelligence” after officials failed to act upon near-specific information received from foreign agencies. Suicide bombers exploded themselves last Sunday in three churches and three luxury hotels, killing 253 people and wounding 400 more. Authorities said eight Muslim militants blew themselves up at their targets while the wife of one of the attackers blasted herself on being rounded up by police.

The carnage has brought forth arguments that worshippers and holidaymakers fell victim to the rivalry and a lack of communication between the country’s two leaders — President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.

The Cabinet led by Wickremesinghe says neither he nor his ministers were informed of the intelligence received by the defense authorities. Sirisena is the head of state, defense minister, minister in charge of the police and head of the armed forces. He also chairs the National Security Council, which includes the heads of security agencies and departments. Traditionally the prime minister also plays an important role on the council.

According to Health Minister Rajitha Senaratne, Sirisena has not included Wickremesinghe in national security affairs since a dispute between them came into the open in October last year. This is an unusual departure from the protocol, he said.

Senaratne said that Sirisena was overseas when the attacks took place and even after that, the National Security Council refused to meet with Wickremesinghe as he tried to give them instructions.

Sirisena has also said that he was not informed of the intelligence received and vowed to overhaul the leadership of the defense forces.

The top bureaucrat at the Defense Ministry, Hemasiri Fernando, has resigned at Sirisena’s insistence.

“It is a major factor,” said Jehan Perera, the head of local activist group National Peace Council, referring to the alleged lack of coordination between the leaders contributing to the failure to prevent the attacks.

“The primary responsibility has to be taken by the president, he did not give the information and he did not act,” Perera said. “He had the Ministry of Defense, took the police from the prime minister, chaired the National Security Council meetings and did nothing,” Perera said.

Kusal Perera, a journalist and political commentator, says security and intelligence officials should have acted on the information whether or not they received orders from politicians.

“If they (Wickremesinghe and his party) were not invited to the National Security Council, why did not they say in Parliament that they were not responsible for the security of the country any longer,” said Perera, who is not related to Jehan Perera.

“Saying that now is taking political advantage, not taking responsibility,” he said.

Sirisena and Wickremesinghe belong to different political parties but came together for Sirisena’s presidential campaign in 2015. Their relationships broke down and their differences exploded last year when Sirisena suddenly sacked Wickremesinghe as prime minister and appointed in his place former strongman Mahinda Rajapaksa, whom he defeated in the presidential election. The crisis crippled the country for more than seven weeks to the point of not being able to pass this year’s national budget on time.

A court decision compelled Sirisena to reappoint Wickremesinghe, but the two leaders have been rivals within the same government.

Rajapaksa, who is the minority leader in Parliament, blames the government for weakening intelligence and dropping its guard, which he had maintained to defeat the separatist Tamil Tiger rebels 10 years ago to end the 26-year-old civil war. He also criticized the government for the detention of intelligence officers accused of extrajudicial killings and abductions during the closing days of the war, which he said crippled the security apparatus before the bombings. According to conservative U.N estimates, some 100,000 people were killed in Sri Lanka’s conflict.

Sirisena summoned an all-party conference Thursday to which Wickremesinghe was also invited. At the conference, Sirisena stressed “setting aside all the political beliefs and difference (so that) everybody should collectively commit towards building a peaceful environment within the country,” a statement from his office said.

“It is not a secret that the disagreements between me and the government aggravated over the past two years,” Sirisena told the country’s media executives Friday. “One of the reasons for that is weakening of military intelligence and arresting military officials unnecessarily and my speaking up against it within and outside the government.”

Jehan Perera said that the security threat could prove politically advantageous to Rajapaksa and his family, with a presidential election scheduled at the end of this year. Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, a younger brother of Mahinda, was the powerful defense secretary during his brother’s reign and has expressed his interest to join the contest.

“People are saying we want a stronger leader and they are talking about Gotabhaya. It (the blasts) has worked to their benefit,” Perera said.

Source: Fox News World

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Cyprus police are intensifying a search for the remains of more victims at locations where an army officer, who authorities say admitted to killing five women and two girls, allegedly had dumped their bodies.

Police said Friday’s search will concentrate on a military firing range, a reservoir and a man-made lake near an abandoned mine approximately 32 kilometers (20 miles) west of the capital Nicosia.

On Thursday, the 35-year-old suspect told investigators that he had killed four more people than he had previously admitted to. All the suspect’s alleged victims are foreign nationals.

Police have already found the bodies of a 38-year-old Filipino woman and two as yet unidentified women.

Search crews are now looking for the daughter of the 38-year-old, a Romanian mother and daughter and another Filipino woman.

Source: Fox News World

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A California man who allegedly fatally shot his ex-girlfriend in broad daylight last month before fleeing the country has been returned to the U.S. following his arrest in Mexico on Wednesday, authorities said.

Julio Cesar Rocha, 25, of Montlcair, is accused of shooting his 25-year-old ex-girlfriend Thalia Flores and a second unidentified male victim March 21 around 2:45 p.m. while the two were sitting in a vehicle in the parking lot of a discount store in Chino. Both communities are about 36 miles east of Los Angeles.

ARREST MADE IN DOUBLE HOMICIDE OF EX-PRO HOCKEY PLAYER, COMMUNITY ADVOCATE, POLICE SAY

Julio Cesar Rocha, 25, of Montlcair, Calif. was located in Mexico Wednesday and returned to California where he faces murder and attempted murder charges related to the death of his ex-girlfriend, Thalia Flores.

Julio Cesar Rocha, 25, of Montlcair, Calif. was located in Mexico Wednesday and returned to California where he faces murder and attempted murder charges related to the death of his ex-girlfriend, Thalia Flores. (City of Chino Police Department)

Flores died at the scene. The man, whose name was not released, walked to a nearby hospital where he’s recovering from his gunshot wounds.

Rocha allegedly fled the scene and remained at large for more than a month, the Daily Bulletin reported. He was formally arrested at 4:30 p.m. after arriving at Los Angeles International Airport from Mexico, KTLA-TV reported.

The suspect was booked at the West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga on murder and attempted murder charges, the City of Chino Police Department said on Facebook.

Flores ended her seven-year relationship with Rocha just two months before her death and still lived in fear of him until that point, a sister of the victim, Bernice Flores, told the Daily Bulletin.

“He said himself so many times to other people, ‘If I can’t have her, no one will.’ ” Flores said, adding that her sister stayed in the relationship longer that she would have liked in fear that Rocha would hurt her or her family if they broke up.

Rocha was convicted on misdemeanor battery in 2016 and sentenced to 60 days in prison. He was originally charged with misdemeanor assault with a deadly weapon, but the charges were lowered in a plea deal, the Daily Bulletin reported.

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Rocha was convicted of misdemeanor resisting or obstructing a peace officer in 2014. A second charge of misdemeanor battery was dropped in a plea deal, and Rocha was ordered to complete a 26-week anger management course, according to San Bernardino County Superior Court records. Rocha was later arrested and sentenced to 10 days behind bars for failing to complete the course.

Source: Fox News National

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