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Notre Dame worshipers could pray in ‘ephemeral cathedral’ made of wood; satellite images show scope of damage

Notre Dame's Catholic worshipers feeling misplaced by this week's massive blaze that destroyed the cathedral's spire and roof will be welcomed in an "ephemeral cathedral" of wood in front of the Paris landmark until it reopens, Notre Dame's chief priest said Thursday.

"We mustn't say 'the cathedral is closed for five years' and that's it," Monsignor Patrick Chauvet told France's CNews television channel. "Can I not build an ephemeral cathedral on an esplanade (in front of Notre Dame)?"

FROM THE FLAMES NOTRE DAME WILL REBUILD

Chauvet said the temporary wooden cathedral would host priests who could address the millions of tourists who flock to the 850-year-old Gothic cathedral each year.

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo supports the idea and has agreed to give over part of the esplanade to the church for a wooden structure, Chauvet said.

Recently released satellite pictures also shows the extensive fire damage to Notre Dame; pictured left is the cathedral in September 2018; pictured right is April 17, 2019.

Recently released satellite pictures also shows the extensive fire damage to Notre Dame; pictured left is the cathedral in September 2018; pictured right is April 17, 2019. (Satellite image ©2019 Maxar Technologies)

TED CRUZ SLAMMED FOR JOKING ABOUT DISNEY'S $5M DONATION TO NOTRE DAME CATHEDRAL

The surrogate cathedral will be erected quickly, Chauvet said, though he did not give an approximate date.

On Monday, the fire raged through the cathedral for more than 12 hours, ultimately destroying its spire and roof but sparing its twin medieval bell towers. As the blaze roared, there was a frantic effort to rescue the monument's "most precious treasures," including the Crown of Thorns said to have been worn by Jesus. Recently released satellite pictures also show the extensive fire damage to Notre Dame.

Remarkably, no one was killed in the fire, which occurred during a Mass, after firefighters and church officials speedily evacuated everyone inside.

A day after the inferno, French President Emmanuel Macron set an ambitious goal of rebuilding the famed cathedral "even more beautifully" in five years. Since then, donations have been pouring in all over the world. It surpassed the $1 billion mark Wednesday,

NOTRE DAME CATHEDRAL DONATIONS SWELL PAST $700 MILLION MARK

“It is up to us to change this disaster into an opportunity to come together, having deeply reflected on what we have been and what we have to be and become better than we are. It is up to us to find the thread of our national project," Macron said in a televised address to the nation.

Macron added that Monday's fire "reminds us that our story never ends. And that we will always have challenges to overcome. What we believe to be indestructible can also be touched."

On Thursday, workers were seen securing the support structure above one of Notre Dame's famed rose windows with wooden planks.

A huge crane and renovation teams worked at the site even after authorities warned that some of the structure remains at risk. Firefighters walked on what the remains of the roof to inspect damage.

The island housing Notre Dame at the heart of the French capital remained largely empty and closed to everyone but residents. Businesses were shuttered and the usual tourist throngs were nowhere to be seen.

Passersby praised the French firefighters who helped save the overall structure of the cathedral.

Benedicte Contamin, who came to see the cathedral Thursday said she's sad but grateful it's still there. She said this is "a chance for France to bounce back, a chance to realize what unites us, because we have been too much divided over the past years."

WOMAN CLAIMS SHE COULD SEE 'SILHOUETTE OF JESUS' IN NOTRE DAME FIRE

Paris is also planning a day of tribute on Thursday to 400 heroic firefighters who rushed into the inferno to save the 12th-century cathedral from collapsing and rescued its irreplaceable treasures from the bright orange burning blaze.

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Macron will also host fire crews for a special gathering, while Paris City Hall will hold a separate ceremony in the fire brigade's honor that will feature a concert and readings from Victor Hugo's "The Hunchback of Notre Dame."

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Source: Fox News World

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Report: DHS Considers Classifying Fentanyl as WMD

The Department of Homeland Security is considering a proposal to label fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction, according to a new report.

Task & Purpose, a military news outlet, obtained a DHS memo circulated in February that outlined the idea to use the WMD terminology and guidelines to regulate the highly potent, synthetic opioid that has killed scores of people in recent years.

James F. McDonnell, the DHS assistant secretary for countering weapons of mass destruction, wrote a memo in February to then-Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen with the idea.

"Fentanyl's high toxicity and increasing availability are attractive to threat actors seeking nonconventional materials for a chemical weapons attack," McDonnell wrote.

"In July 2018, the FBI Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate assessed that '. . . fentanyl is very likely a viable option for a chemical weapon attack by extremists or criminals."

McDonnell added classifying fentanyl as a WMD could also help DHS's efforts at the border and other ports of entry to stop the flow of drugs entering the United States.

"[Counter-WMD] Office efforts will focus on quantities and configurations that could be used as mass casualty weapons," he wrote in the memo. "However, many activities, such as support to fentanyl interdiction and detection efforts, would tangentially benefit broader DHS and interagency counter-opioid efforts."

"Within the past couple years, there has been a reinvigorated interest in addressing fentanyl and its analogues as WMD materials due to the ongoing opioid crisis."

Close to 50,000 people in the U.S. died in 2017 of opioid overdoses, according to the Centers for Disease Control. More than 28,000 of those deaths were caused by synthetic opioids.

Much of the fentanyl in the U.S. comes from China, which recently classified all varieties of the drug as controlled substances.

Source: NewsMax America

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WTO to issue first ever ruling in ‘national security’ dispute on Friday

FILE PHOTO: The World Trade Organization (WTO) headquarters are pictured in Geneva
FILE PHOTO: The World Trade Organization (WTO) headquarters are pictured in Geneva, Switzerland, July 26, 2018. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse/File Photo

April 5, 2019

GENEVA (Reuters) – The World Trade Organization will publish its first ever ruling on a “national security” dispute later on Friday, it said in a statement emailed to journalists.

The ruling in a Russian-Ukrainian dispute over rail transit may have consequences for U.S. tariffs on steel, aluminum and autos, which U.S. President Donald Trump says are based on national security concerns, and therefore immune to a legal challenge.

Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia have also cited national security in a trade dispute against Qatar.

Friday’s ruling, which will be issued around 1330 GMT, can be appealed by Ukraine and Russia.

(Reporting by Tom Miles; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)

Source: OANN

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Shaquille O'Neal named a Broward County sheriff’s deputy in Florida

Former NBA star Shaquille O'Neal can now add "Florida sheriff’s deputy" to his resume.

The Broward County Sheriff’s Office announced Friday that O’Neal now works as an auxiliary deputy for the department. Details about his duties were not released.

“Basketball legend @SHAQ goes by many nicknames, and now added to that list is Deputy Shaq. The big man now works as an auxiliary deputy with the #BSO,” the agency said in a tweet. “Sheriff Tony sat down with Shaq and the two talked about the different ways law enforcement works to keep communities safe.”

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The tweet was accompanied with a photo showing the former Los Angeles Lakers big man towering over his colleagues. In 2016, O’Neal was previously sworn in as a sheriff’s deputy in Clayton County, Ga.

The addition of Shaq could help restore the image of the Broward sheriff's office, which has faced criticism over its response to deadly Parkland school shooting last year.

Source: Fox News National

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Fed’s Interest Rates Nothing But Crude Price Controls

When the Federal Reserve artificially manipulates interest rates, it’s messing with our minds by distorting important signals that prices provide in a free market. As investment guru Jim Grant put it in a recent article in Barron’s, central bank interest rates are nothing but crude price controls.

Like all price controls, the Fed’s interest rate mechanizations create some winners and some losers. But in the long run, the distortions caused by the central bank’s interventionist monetary policy makes us all losers.

Basic economic theory tells us price controls distort supply and demand curves. We see this in the housing shortages caused by government imposed rent controls. As Grant explains, Fed interest rate policies are nothing more than a mechanism to control the price of credit. And like all price controls, they create distortions.

“It’s a spotty form of control, granted—the bond market, where it’s allowed to function, still has a say in determining the price of credit. But central bankers’ thumbs press heavily on the scales.”

“So what?” you might say. Surely the central bankers know what they’re doing. But do they, really?


Mike Adams exposes the agenda of the private Fed as a war against the prosperity of Americans that simply want to make America great.

The biggest problem is that the constant tinkering with interest rates create massive distortions in the economy. And while they may help some people along the way, they hurt others. Grant points to the housing market. You’ll remember that distortions in the real estate market created low-interest rates coupled with government policy led to the 2007 crash and the ensuing Great Recession. Did the central bankers learn their lesson? Apparently not. In the wake of the financial crisis, the Federal Reserve pushed interest rates even lower and left them there for nearly a decade.

As Grant points out, this has certainly been a positive development for homeowners – the winners in this scenario. The price of houses has increased by 52% in the last decade. But there are losers as well.

“That has been a boon for homeowners, and even for home flippers (they’re back), but no boon at all for the 35% of Americans who rent. Since March 2009, consumer-price-index-calculated rents are up by 32% (as much as the rise in medical costs), against a 26% rise in nominal hourly wages. Then, too, outside New York, the apartment-dwelling portion of the population tends not to be the most affluent one. It’s the same population that derives no immediate benefit from corporate share repurchases conducted with proceeds of borrowed money at near record highs in equity valuations.”

And while creditors have benefited from the central bank’s manipulation, savers have suffered. According to a Wells Fargo analyst, American depositors have forfeited $500 billion to $600 billion in interest income over the past 10 years. That’s just assuming deposit rates would have been at least one percentage point higher in the absence of central bank control.


Gerald Celente break down what’s ahead as the Federal Reserve is crashing the debt & real estate bubble it created worldwide.

This is the essence of the business cycle. Artificially low-interest rates incentivize speculative borrowing and discourage savings. This is meant to “stimulate” the economy by driving up demand. It works – in the short run. But the lack of savings hinders capital formation and you can’t have a healthy economy over the long-term without capital investment. Eventually, the stimulus wears off and the bubbles burst.

The housing market isn’t the only place we see these economic distortions today. Speculative-grade corporate debt has “shockingly deteriorated.” In January 2007 – on the cusp of the Great Recession – 19.7% of subinvestment-grade borrowers were rated on the bottom rungs of Moody’s scales. Today, 43.6% of these borrowers are within that designation.

As Grant explains, artificially low interest rates are “disinhibitors.”

“They stir the blood, liberate the imagination, and quiet the still small voice of reason that can’t seem to get a word in edgewise. That voice would like to remind us that tiny yields forever lead to ‘impulsivity, disregard for financial norms, and faulty risk assessment.’ They cause sober investors to behave as if a jigger of scotch had been poured down their throats and into their empty stomachs.”

The thrust of Grant’s argument is that the Federal Reserve creates winners and losers. But in the long run, we all come out on the losing end of the bargain.

“Radical monetary policy, and the interest rates that go with it, advantage some, punish others. Speculators gain, savers lose. The rich do better than the poor. On balance, has the decade-long experiment in interest-rate suppression yielded the expected net benefit? The answer—no’—is best explained by the first economist who uttered the five wise words, ‘There ain’t no free lunch.’”


Alex Jones and a caller discuss how President Trump must now go on the offense.

Source: InfoWars

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The Latest: Visitors pay respects at Columbine memorial

The Latest on events commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Columbine school shooting (all times local):

1:05 p.m.

A steady stream of people are visiting a memorial to the 13 people killed at Columbine High School 20 years ago ahead of a remembrance ceremony in suburban Denver.

Visitors left dozens of single flowers along with cards and seed packets for columbines, the Colorado state flower, on the inner circle of the memorial Saturday.

Sheriff's deputies patrolled the area on foot and by bike on a warm day as little league games went on at nearby fields.

Saturday's events in the suburban area surrounding Columbine end a three-day slate of somber ceremonies honoring the victims and lending support to survivors, the school and victims' families.

This week brought a new burden as federal authorities led a manhunt for a Florida teen "infatuated" with the shooting. She was discovered dead in an apparent suicide Wednesday in the foothills west of Denver.

____

10:30 p.m.

A Colorado community is marking the 20th anniversary of the attack on Columbine High School that killed 13 people and injured 24 others with community service projects and a remembrance ceremony.

Saturday's events end several days of memorial events in the suburban community surrounding Columbine, remembering those killed and lending support to their families, survivors of the attack and the school's students and staff.

The days surrounding the anniversary remain emotionally fraught for survivors of the attack, including those without physical wounds.

This week brought a new burden as federal authorities led a manhunt for a Florida teen "infatuated" with the shooting. The young woman flew to Denver on Monday and purchased a shotgun.

She was discovered dead in an apparent suicide Wednesday in the foothills west of Denver.

Source: Fox News National

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Exclusive: Some lessors to end deals with Jet, prepare to fly planes out of India – sources

FILE PHOTO: A Jet Airways plane is parked as another moves to the runway at the Chhatrapati Shivaji International airport in Mumbai
FILE PHOTO: A Jet Airways plane is parked as another moves to the runway at the Chhatrapati Shivaji International airport in Mumbai, India, February 14, 2018. REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui/File Photo

March 15, 2019

By Aditi Shah and Anshuman Daga

NEW DELHI/SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Some lessors of India’s Jet Airways have begun terminating lease deals over unpaid dues and are preparing to move the leased planes abroad, escalating a crisis for the cash-strapped carrier, five sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.

Two lessors have applied to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), India’s aviation regulator, to deregister at least five planes leased to Jet, three of the sources said. Termination of lease agreements normally precedes applications made to the DGCA.

Jet has delayed payments to its pilots, suppliers and lessors for months and defaulted on loans after racking up over $1 billion in debt. While it is now meeting some of its payments, it’s survival hinges on emergency funding from the country’s main state-backed banks.

Frustrated by the unpaid dues, Jet’s lessors, including many of the world’s biggest players such as GE Capital Aviation Services (GECAS), Aercap Holdings and BOC Aviation have already taken control of some their planes, sources said, leading to the grounding of nearly a third of its 119 aircraft fleet.

Once the planes are deregistered, they can be taken out of the country and leased to other airlines.

One of the sources with direct knowledge of the matter said that of the planes being deregistered, two are potentially being flown to China and one to Ireland.

Another industry source said GECAS and Aercap had filed an application to deregister a total of five planes.

Lease terminations could hit the already fragile confidence of business partners of Jet.

Jet did not respond to requests for comment. AerCap declined to comment and there was no immediate response from GECAS to a query sent outside normal business hours.

All the sources declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter.

Founder chairman Naresh Goyal, who transformed Jet to India’s biggest full-service carrier from its humble start 25 years ago, has said it is thrashing out a bailout plan, led by the state-run banks and Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Airways.

Before the groundings, Jet controlled over a sixth of the market, capitalizing on a boom in flying. But high fuel taxes, a weak rupee and ultra-low fares have hurt profitability.

Jet’s financial troubles have rekindled memories of Kingfisher Airlines’ collapse in 2012 that forced lessors to write off millions of dollars.

Last week, FLY Leasing Ltd said it had grounded three planes on lease to Jet and would take them back and reallocate them elsewhere if the airline failed to get approvals for its restructuring plan this month.

Jet has been forced to cancel hundreds of flights and irate passengers have turned to social media platforms to express their outrage.

REPOSSESSION STILL TOUGH

After Kingfisher Airlines’ disorderly collapse in 2012, India modified rules in line with the Cape Town convention, an international treaty that makes it easier for foreign lessors to repossess aircraft during payment defaults.

India said last year it was seeking to revise some local laws, which still conflicted with the full implementation of the convention making it a more complicated process in India than in some other countries.

In theory, lessors have the option of filing a complaint with the government, which in turn can cancel the registration of a plane within five working days, allowing lessors to repossess it subject to certain conditions, including unpaid dues. However, this is often a long process.

According to a government notice issued in November, after any application is filed, all airport operators and other private entities, within five days, need to inform the lessor and DGCA of pending dues related to that aircraft for three months preceding the date of deregistration.

Only after these are cleared, the lessor is allowed to fly the aircraft out of India.

On March 11, DGCA clarified that some of the entities included airports, fuel vendors, tax authorities and customs departments, a move that could further complicate reposessions.

Akshay Nagpal, partner at law firm L&L Partners, said that while this notice is aimed at asking the government and other agencies to be more vigilant in seeking their dues, “one cannot rule out lessors viewing this as a step back from their long-time demand of making repossession easier.”

(Reporting by Aditi Shah and Anshuman Daga; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

Source: OANN

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One of Joe Biden’s newly-hired senior advisers has seemingly had a very recent change of heart.

Symone Sanders, a prominent Democratic strategist and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., staffer in 2016, was announced as one of the big-name members of Team Biden on Thursday.

But Sanders, who has also served as a CNN contributor, is seen in resurfaced footage from November 2016 expressing her opposition to a white person leading her party after Donald Trump’s election.

“In my opinion, we don’t need white people leading the Democratic party right now,” Sanders told host Brianna Keilar during a discussion on Howard Dean potentially becoming DNC chairman.

BIDEN HIRES FORMER BERNIE SANDERS’ SPOKESPERSON AS SENIOR ADVISER

“The Democratic party is diverse, and it should be reflected as so in leadership and throughout the staff, at the highest levels. From the vice chairs to the secretaries all the way down to the people working in the offices at the DNC,” she said.

Sanders wrapped up her remarks by saying: “I want to hear more from everybody. I want to hear from the millennials and the brown folks.”

Footage of the interview was resurfaced by RealClearPolitics.

After news of her hiring broke on Thursday, Sanders backed her new boss on Twitter.

TRUMP ASSESSES 2020 DEMS; TAKES SWIPES AT BIDEN, SANDERS; DISMISSES HARRIS, O’ROURKE; SAYS HE’S ROOTING FOR BUTTIGIEG

“@JoeBiden & @DrBiden are a class act. Over the course of this campaign, Vice President Biden is going to make his case to the American ppl. He won’t always be perfect, but I believe he will get it right,” she wrote.

The hiring of Sanders has been viewed as another indication of the expected tough fight that Biden and Sanders are in for as the two frontrunners battle a deep Democratic field.

While Sanders himself didn’t torch Biden as he jumped into the race, it’s clear that many of his progressive supporters view the former vice president as a threat.

Biden’s entry into the race – at least in the early going – sets up a battle between himself and Sanders, who thanks to his fierce fight with eventual nominee Hillary Clinton for the 2016 Democratic nomination, enjoys name ID on the level of the former vice president.

BIDEN VOWS THAT ‘AMERICA IS COMING BACK,’ SPARKING ‘MAGA’ COMPARISONS

Justice Democrats — who also called Biden “out-of-touch” – is an increasingly influential group among the left of the party. They’ve championed progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York as well as Sanders. The group was founded by members of Sanders 2016 presidential campaign.

Biden has pushed back against the perception that he’s a moderate in a party that’s increasingly moving to the left. Earlier this month he described himself as an “Obama-Biden Democrat.”

And Biden said he’d stack his record against “anybody who has run or who is running now or who will run.”

Former Democratic National Committee chair Donna Brazile – a Fox News contributor – highlighted that “Joe Biden can occupy his own lane in large part because he’s earned it. He’s earned the right to call himself whatever.”

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But she emphasized that “elections are not about the past, they’re about the future…I do believe he has the right ingredients. The question is can he find enough people to help him stir the pot.”

Fox News Andrew O’Reilly contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News Politics

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FILE PHOTO: Cases of Pepsi are shown for sale at a store in Carlsbad
FILE PHOTO: Cases of Pepsi are shown for sale at a store in Carlsbad, California, U.S., April 22, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By Amit Dave and Mayank Bhardwaj

AHMEDABAD/NEW DELHI (Reuters) – PepsiCo Inc has sued four Indian farmers for cultivating a potato variety that the snack food and drinks maker claims infringes its patent, the company and the growers said on Friday.

Pepsi has sued the farmers for cultivating the FC5 potato variety, exclusively grown for its popular Lay’s potato chips. The FC5 variety has a lower moisture content required to make snacks such as potato chips.

PepsiCo is seeking more than 10 million rupees ($142,840.82) each for alleged patent infringement.

The farmers grow potatoes in the western state of Gujarat, a leading producer of India’s most consumed vegetable.

“We have been growing potatoes for a long time and we didn’t face this problem ever, as we’ve mostly been using the seeds saved from one harvest to plant the next year’s crop,” said Bipin Patel, one of the four farmers sued by Pepsi.

Patel did not say how he came by the PepsiCo variety.

A court in Ahmedabad, the business hub of Gujarat, on Friday agreed to hear the case on June 12, said Anand Yagnik, the lawyer for the farmers.

“In this instance, we took judicial recourse against people who were illegally dealing in our registered variety,” A PepsiCo India spokesman said. “This was done to protect our rights and safeguard the larger interest of farmers that are engaged with us and who are using and benefiting from seeds of our registered variety.”

PepsiCo, which set up its first potato chips plant in India in 1989, supplies the FC5 potato variety to a group of farmers who in turn sell their produce to the company at a fixed price.

The All India Kisan Sabha, or All India Farmers’ Forum, has asked the Indian government to protect the farmers.

The farmers’ forum has also called for a boycott of PepsiCo’s Lay’s chips and the company’s other products.

The Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

PepsiCo is the second major U.S. company in India to face issues over patent infringement.

Stung by a long-standing intellectual property dispute, seed maker Monsanto, which is now owned by German drugmaker Bayer AG, withdrew from some businesses in India over a cotton-seed dispute with farmers, Reuters reported in 2017. (reut.rs/2ncBknn)

(Reporting by Amit Dave in AHMEDABAD and Mayank Bhardwaj in NEW DELHI; Editing by Martin Howell and Louise Heavens)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: The Archer Daniels Midland Co (ADM) logo is displayed on a screen on the floor of the NYSE in New York
FILE PHOTO: The Archer Daniels Midland Co (ADM) logo is displayed on a screen on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., May 3, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By P.J. Huffstutter and Shradha Singh

CHICAGO/BENGALURU (Reuters) – Archer Daniels Midland Co said on Friday it was considering spinning off its ethanol business after slim biofuel margins and Midwestern floods slammed the U.S. grains merchant’s profit, which tumbled 41 percent in the first quarter.

ADM said it was creating an ethanol subsidiary, which will include dry mills in Columbus, Nebraska; Cedar Rapids, Iowa; and Peoria, Illinois.

The ethanol subsidiary will report as an independent segment, the company said, allowing options “which may include, but are not limited to, a potential spin-off of the business to existing ADM shareholders.”

Results were hit by the “bomb cyclone” blizzards that devastated the Midwest and Great Plains this year, causing massive flooding across Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri, washing out rail lines and wreaking havoc in the moving and processing of corn, soybeans and wheat. One-sixth of U.S. ethanol production was halted.

In March, ADM warned Wall Street that flooding and severe winter weather in the U.S. Midwest would reduce its first-quarter operating profit by $50 million to $60 million.

“The first quarter proved more challenging than initially expected,” said Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Juan Luciano, with earnings down in its starches, sweeteners and bioproducts unit. Luciano said impacts of the severe weather ultimately “were on the high side of our initial estimates”.

Ongoing problems in the ethanol industry added to the problems and “limited margins and opportunities” for ADM, Luciano said.

The ethanol industry has been in the midst of a historic downswing due to the U.S.-China trade war, excess domestic supply and weak margins.

ADM, which had been an ethanol pioneer, signaled to Wall Street in 2016 that it was hunting for options and considering sales of its U.S. dry ethanol mills. Luciano told Reuters this year that offers ADM had received for the mills were too low.

In addition, ADM said it planned to repurpose its corn wet mill in Marshall, Minnesota, to produce higher volumes of food and industrial-grade starches.

Other major traders are alsy trying to distance themselves from struggling ethanol businesses. Louis Dreyfus Company BV spun off its Brazilian sugar and ethanol business Biosev in 2013. Rival Bunge sold its sugar book and has sought a buyer for its Brazilian mills since 2013.

ADM, which makes money trading, processing and transporting crops, such as corn, soybeans and wheat, has been looking to strengthen its core business. Last month it said it would seek voluntary early retirements of some North American employees and cut jobs as part of a restructuring effort.

The company expects to lower 2019 capital spending by 10 percent to between $800 million and $900 million.

Net earnings attributable to the company fell to $233 million, or 41 cents per share, in the three months ended March 31, from $393 million, or 70 cents per share, a year earlier.

Revenue fell to $15.30 billion from $15.53 billion. On an adjusted basis, the company earned 46 cents per share, while analysts on average had estimated 60 cents, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

(Reporting by Shradha Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta, Chizu Nomiyama and David Gregorio)

Source: OANN

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The Slack app logo is seen on a smartphone in this illustration
FILE PHOTO: The Slack app logo is seen on a smartphone in this picture illustration taken September 15, 2017. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

April 26, 2019

(Reuters) – Slack Technologies Inc, operator of the popular workplace instant-messaging app, reported a loss of $140.7 million in the fiscal year ended Jan. 31, 2019, the company said on Friday in a regulatory filing ahead of its planned public market debut.

The company said its daily active users exceeded 10 million in the three months ended Jan. 31, 2019.

Slack expects to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “SK”, it said.

The San Francisco-based company is seeking to go public via a direct listing, making it the second big technology company after Spotify Technology SA to bypass the traditional route of listing shares through an initial public offering.

A direct listing is a cheaper way of becoming a public company as the process requires fewer investment banks and therefore lower fees.

In a direct listing, however, a company does not sell any new shares to raise money. Instead, it gives existing shareholders the opportunity to cash out.

Slack is the latest in a string of high-profile technology companies looking to go public this year. Lyft Inc, Pinterest and Zoom Video Communications have completed IPOs so far in 2019.

The company is hoping for a valuation of more than $10 billion in the listing, Reuters had previously reported. Some early investors and employees have been selling the stock at around $28, valuing the company close to $17 billion, Kelly Rodriques, CEO of Forge, a brokerage company, told CNBC on Thursday.

Slack set a placeholder amount of $100 million to indicate the size of the IPO. The amount of money a company says it plans to raise in its first IPO filings is used to calculate registration fees. The final size of the IPO could be different.

Its competitors include Microsoft Teams, a free chat add-on for Microsoft’s Office365 users.

(Reporting By Aparajita Saxena and Joshua Franklin in New York; Editing by Leslie Adler and Anil D’Silva)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: Candidate Zelenskiy reacts following the announcement of an exit poll in Ukraine's presidential election in Kiev
FILE PHOTO: Ukrainian presidential candidate Volodymyr Zelenskiy reacts following the announcement of the first exit poll in a presidential election at his campaign headquarters in Kiev, Ukraine April 21, 2019. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By Matthias Williams

KIEV (Reuters) – Russia’s decision to make it easier for residents of rebel-controlled eastern Ukraine to obtain a Russian passport is meant to test Ukraine’s new leader and the West should not recognize the documents, Lithuania’s foreign minister said on Friday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the order on facilitating passports on Wednesday, three days after comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy, a political novice, won a landslide victory in Ukraine’s presidential election.

Linas Linkevicius, whose own country also has strained relations with Moscow, told Reuters in an interview that the West should consider imposing new sanctions on Russia.

“This is a blatant violation of international law. And basically also a kind of test to the new (Ukrainian) leadership, which is also a usual game,” Linkevicius said.

“The least we can do (is) we shouldn’t recognize these passports. How to do that technically, it’s another issue to discuss. Also (we need) to look at additional sanctions,” said Linkevicius, whose small Baltic nation is a member of NATO and the European Union.

Western nations imposed sanctions on Russia over its 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region and its support for armed separatists battling Kiev’s forces in eastern Ukraine. Some 13,000 people have been killed in that conflict despite a notional ceasefire signed in Minsk in 2015.

Linkevicius, who in Kiev on Friday became the first minister of an EU country since Ukraine’s election to meet President-elect Zelenskiy, said they had discussed the passport issue.

Zelenskiy also raised the possibility of resetting the Minsk ceasefire agreement without giving any concessions to Russia, Linkevicius said.

“DANGEROUS CANCER” OF GRAFT

The minister urged Zelenskiy to deliver on his electoral promise of tackling corruption, which he described as the “most dangerous cancer” facing Ukraine, which hopes one day to join the EU.

Last month, Lithuania’s own relations with Russia came under renewed strain after a Vilnius court found former Soviet defense minister Dmitry Yazov, in absentia, guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in a 1991 crackdown against Lithuania’s pro-independence movement.

Russia branded the verdict “extremely unfriendly and essentially provocative” and opened a probe into the judges involved.

Linkevicius accused Russia of seeking to politicize the judicial process by trying to take revenge on the judges, adding: “This is lamentable.”

(Editing by Gareth Jones)

Source: OANN

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