Said May, it's time for members of Parliament to decide what will happen next.
"Do they want to leave the E.U. with a deal which delivers on the result of the [2016] referendum? Which takes back control of our money, borders and laws while protecting jobs and our national security?" May asked rhetorically during a brief address to the nation at 10 Downing Street. "Do they want to leave without a deal? Or do they not want to leave at all, causing potentially irreparable damage to public trust not just in this generation of politicians, but to our entire democratic process?"
May confirmed that she had asked European Council President Donald Tusk to postpone the scheduled date of Britain's departure from the E.U. to June 30 from March 29; she added that she isn't prepared "to delay Brexit any further."
E.U. leaders, who are exasperated by Britain's Brexit melodrama, will only grant the extension if May can win the U.K. Parliament's approval next week for her twice-rejected Brexit deal. In the letter to Tusk, May said she would set out her reasons to E.U. leaders at a summit in Brussels on Thursday.
Tusk has said he believes a short delay to Brexit "will be possible, but it would be conditional on a positive vote on the withdrawal agreement in the House of Commons."
"Even if the hope for a final success may seem frail, even illusory, and although Brexit fatigue is increasingly visible and justified, we cannot give up seeking until the very last moment a positive solution," Tusk said in Brussels.
May had planned to try again this week to get the agreement approved until the House of Commons Speaker John Bercow ruled that she can't ask Parliament to vote on the deal again unless it is substantially changed. The prime minister told Tusk that despite Bercow's ruling, "it remains my intention to bring the deal back to the House."
She's likely to do that next week -- within days or hours of Britain's scheduled departure -- by arguing that circumstances have changed, and that the speaker's bar on a third vote no longer applied.
In her address Wednesday night, the prime minister ruled out the possibility of a second referendum on leaving the E.U., which is supported by the opposition Labour Party.
"I don’t believe that’s what you want and it is not what I want," May told viewers. "We asked you the question already and you gave us your answer. Now, you want us to get on with it."
An added wrinkle to May's request is the scheduled May 23-26 election for the European Parliament. Britain's seats in that body have been allocated to other countries to fill.
Britain believes it won't have to participate if its scheduled exit date is pushed to June 30, because the newly elected European Parliament is not due to convene until July.
Some E.U. officials take a different view and want any extension to end by the first day of the European elections.
May poured cold water Wednesday night on asking Britons to vote in E.U. elections "nearly three years after our country decided to leave."
"What kind of message would that send?" she asked. "And just how bitter and divisive would that election campaign be at a time when the country desperately needs bringing back together?"
The New Zealand shooter’s manifesto reveals an ideology more in common with the left than mainstream propaganda may run with.
28-year-old Brenton Tarrant went on an anti-Muslim rampage, targeting two Mosques in the city of Christ Church, New Zealand.
What has been dubbed a terrorist attack by the authorities and described as such by the shooter’s manifesto, has so far claimed the lives of 49 and wounded roughly the same number.
Tarrant was arrested after targeting a second mosque.
Additionally, three other people were arrested in connection with the shooting, but the details of their involvement remain unclear.
Tarrant announced his intent to attack the mosque on 8chan and then live streamed the 17 minutes of terror on Facebook.
The footage quickly spread on Twitter, YouTube and Facebook.
Tarrant’s 74-page manifesto titled, “The Great Replacement,” rants on topics regarding mass immigration, low European fertility rates and Tarrant’s explanation for committing the attacks.
For the most part, Tarrant makes it clear that the attack intends on adding fuel to the fire of division in the United States, accelerating the left’s clampdown on Second Amendment rights.
Digging deeper, the manifesto reveals a self-avowed eco-fascist with communist leanings that have more in common with Norway mass shooter Anders Breivick and fascist Oswald Mosley, while referring to Charleston Church shooter Dylan Roof as an apparent means of continuing to troll the left into responding.
DETROIT – The mother of an 11-month-old girl who drowned in standing water and sewage after falling through a hole in an upstairs floor and into a basement of their Detroit home has been sentenced to a year in jail.
Court records say Dasiah Jordan was given her punishment Monday after earlier pleading guilty to second-degree child abuse and involuntary manslaughter. The 27-year-old also was ordered to serve four years of probation.
Ca'Mya Davis was unattended July 6 when she fell through the hole in her home's bedroom floor. Her death was ruled accidental.
Prosecutors say Jordan left her daughter with Tonya Peterson while she visited friends and that both women were aware of the hazard.
The 29-year-old Peterson is scheduled to be sentenced Tuesday after being convicted of involuntary manslaughter.
A longtime conservative operative is calling on the Trump administration to reform the country’s visa laws after he was falsely accused of a crime he said an illegal alien charged likely in order to score a visa.
A woman in late 2016 claimed Codias Brown harassed and exposed himself to her over a two-week period and said he was seeking her out in public places, according to an arrest affidavit. The accuser, Rosa Patino-Herrera, claimed she encountered Brown — someone she didn’t know personally — around eight different times and believed he was seeking her out around the city of Austin, where he also lived.
The forensic data proved to be a game-changer. Disclosure of Brown’s phone location data showed he was nowhere near any of the locations Patino-Herrera claimed the events took place, according to court documents reviewed by The Daily Caller News Foundation. The charges were ultimately dismissed — but not until April 2018.
During the court proceedings, Patino-Herrera admitted she was an illegal immigrant. Work from a private investigator also discovered she was actively seeking a U-visa. Brown’s legal team believes she accused him in order to obtain a U-visa.
Brown, now completely exonerated of the charges, is using his experience to push for reform. The Republican organizer is calling on President Donald Trump and lawmakers in Congress to block the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act until it’s changed to mandate a criminal conviction before the issuance of a U-visa. Such an amendment, he argues, would incorporate constitutional due process rights not currently embedded in the U-visa application process.
“I hope to work with the Trump administration and lawmakers to reform the laws and policies that made this ordeal possible,” Brown told The Daily Caller News Foundation.
Established in 2000, the U-visa program was intended to incentivize immigrants into helping law enforcement catch and prosecute criminals. Foreign nationals who are victims of a crime can apply for a U-visa, allowing them to remain in the country and assist police.
Interest in the U-visa program has exploded in popularity. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) received 10,937 petitions for U-visa status in the 2009 fiscal year. By the 2016 fiscal year, however, the number of petitions ballooned to 60,710, according to information compiled by Federation for Immigration Reform (FAIR).
Immigration experts said the U-visa program is inadvertently designed to attract fraud, and actually does little to help law enforcement.
“The program’s vague standards and lucrative perks, make it a prime target for abuse by well-meaning, but misguided law enforcement agencies — particularly those in so-called ‘sanctuary jurisdictions,’” said Matthew Tragesser, communication specialist for FAIR. “Though the program may offer some help to some aliens who have been exploited by criminals, there is little data suggesting that the program significantly improves the prosecution of crime in immigrant communities, or that it has had a measurable impact on human trafficking.”
Jessica Vaughan, a director with the Center for Immigration Studies, told TheDCNF the U-visa program has become a means for foreign nationals to “launder their status,” with many law enforcement agencies signing off on their applications without any due diligence.
“In the blink of an eye, an illegal alien — aided by social justice warriors parading as cops, prosecutors, and judges — nearly destroyed everything I worked for,” Brown told TheDCNF, describing the day he was arrested.
As Brown and his wife were walking from their Austin, Texas, home to a local grocery store Dec. 9, 2016, he said he was suddenly flanked by a police task force, arrested and sent to jail — where he remained for four days until he was able to be released on $75,000 bond. Even after he was let go from detention, Brown, who said he had no prior criminal history, said he was forced to wear an ankle monitor for several months.
The allegations came with serious consequences. If Brown were convicted, he faced the possibility of up to 10 years in prison. Furthermore, Patino-Herrera was granted a protective order against Brown.
However, Brown was unequivocal in his defense: Not only did he claim he never stalked Patino-Herrera, he said he had never met the woman in his life.
“Brown should never have been arrested because there was no evidence to corroborate these baseless accusations, the accuser made numerous inconsistent and illogical statements throughout the proceedings, and forensic data ultimately proved Brown was not even in the vicinity of the alleged incidents,” said Benjamin Lange, Brown’s attorney.
Numerous inconsistencies emerged as Brown fought for his innocence, according to his legal team. Patino-Herrera, for example, testified she had several conversations with Brown that lasted up to five minutes in length. However, her English was so limited she required an interpreter during court proceedings. Brown, on the other hand, does not speak Spanish.
That the case lingered for so long has been a point of contention for Brown’s legal team.
“The fact that these allegations made it past the investigative stage, let alone through a Texas grand jury is a travesty. What is particularly concerning is that, even after the forensic evidence proved Brown was not in the vicinity of the alleged incidents, the lead prosecutor in this case, Beverly Mathews, continued the prosecution for nearly a year,” Lange said.
TheDCNF reached out to Beverly Mathews, the assistant district attorney of Travis County, multiple times for comment on this story. However, a spokeswoman for her office eventually said Mathews declined to respond. The office of Detective Scott Donovan, who arrested Brown, did not respond to multiple requests for comment either.
Brown’s legal team raised other red flags while the case lingered on.
A private investigator discovered the social security number apparently being used by Patino-Herrera was issued several years before her listed birthday in court documents, a strong indication she was illegally using someone else’s. Questions over her legal status were confirmed when she voluntarily admitted during a civil protective order hearing she was an undocumented alien.
Another detail emerged that drew the attention of Brown’s team: Patino-Herrera admitted to a private investigator that she was actively seeking a U-visa. Brown’s team believed the issue to be relevant.
“Travis County law enforcement has been actively promoting U visa benefits to illegal aliens for years,” Lange said about the connection. “Shortly after Brown’s local counsel began inquiring into whether the accuser had applied for a U-visa, prosecutors dismissed the case. Later, the accuser admitted to a private investigator that she had been pursuing a U-visa.”
Notably, prosecutors dismissed the charge against him shortly after they asked the court if his accuser had filed for a U-visa. It was months after the dismissal when the investigator prompted Patino-Herrera to admit she was actively seeking a U-visa. Days later, Travis County prosecutors recommended an immediate expunction for Brown.
TheDCNF was not able to reach Patino-Herrera for comment on this article.
Whether she accused Brown in order to obtain a U-visa is unknown, but Brown said the connection is hard to ignore. If true, Brown would not be first person to have fallen victim from U-visa fraud. Other reports have detailed the stories of people facing spurious accusations from foreign nationals applying for the same visas.
U-visa abuse has also been promulgated by police officers themselves. Four law enforcement officers in March, for example, were charged with involvement in fraudulent U nonimmigrant visas. An indictment in that case alleges the officers took bribes in return for creating fraudulent incident reports.
Brown is no stranger to politics. For nearly 10 years, he managed Republican campaigns, working to put conservatives in elected office. Brown’s career as a political operative reached a milestone when, after being tapped by Rick Santorum’s 2012 presidential team, he led the former senator’s ground game in the Iowa caucuses and delivered an upset victory.
Brown gained notoriety more recently for his work in the tech world. The Texas Republican in September 2016 launched the eponymous online platform known as “Codias.” A social network geared solely for conservatives, Codias allows like-minded citizens, candidates and organizations to communicate and organize with each other without fear of censorship.
The emotional toll of the ordeal still runs deep for Brown and his family. Personally, he was forced to spend tens of thousands of dollars defending himself in court. Professionally, he said he was unable to raise capital or market his startup company, Codias, for a long time, dealing a devastating blow to his work.
However, the Republican operative said his faith and his loving family kept him going.
“I could not have endured this without a gracious God, a strong and loyal wife, and a faithful circle of family and friends. This experience has only served to strengthen my faith and family as we prepare for more profound battles that lie ahead,” he said.
FILE PHOTO: Detained Reuters journalist Kyaw Soe Oo and Wa Lone are escorted by police as they leave after a court hearing in Yangon, Myanmar, Aug. 20, 2018. REUTERS/Ann Wang/File Photo
April 24, 2019
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States criticized Myanmar on Wednesday after the Asian country’s high court upheld the sentencing of two Reuters journalists, expressing deep concern about freedom of expression and urging that the two be reunited with their families.
“Burma’s Supreme Court decision yesterday to uphold the sentencing of Pulitzer-prize winning journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, despite serious irregularities in the case against them, sends a profoundly negative signal about freedom of expression and the protection of journalists in Burma,” the State Department said in a statement, using the country’s former name.
(Reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by David Alexander and Richard Chang)
FILE PHOTO: Commuters cast their shadows as they arrive at the Central Business District during the morning rush hour in Sydney July 1, 2013. REUTERS/Daniel Munoz/File Photo
February 21, 2019
By Swati Pandey
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australia’s jobs growth surged past all expectations in January as firms took on more full-time staff while the jobless rate stayed at its lowest in seven years, barnstorming performance that will boost policymakers confidence in the economy.
A total 39,100 net new jobs were created in January, from a downwardly revised but still sturdy 16,900 in December and surpassing market forecasts for a 15,000 increase, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) report on Thursday.
The Australian dollar briefly jumped to a two-week top of $0.7208 and the futures market pared chances of a rate cut later this year.
The rally soon ended after Westpac Banking Corp became Australia’s first major lender to predict cuts in the official cash rate later this year, citing slowing economic growth and lukewarm inflation.
Westpac chief economist Bill Evans, however, did point to January’s strong labor market outcome as a risk to his rate outlook.
The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), which has held rates at a record low 1.50 percent for 2-1/2 years, is counting on labor market strength for a long-awaited pick up in wage growth and inflation in the face of a downturn in the property market.
In recent public comments, RBA Deputy Governor Guy Debelle underlined the importance of the labor market for the economy.
“The main thing is to not lose your job,” Debelle said. “I say that in all seriousness.”
“Our main job is to make sure that the economy continues at a reasonable pace, with a low level of unemployment,” he added. “That’s going to be the thing which allows most people out there, who’ve got a mortgage, to continue to handle that mortgage.”
So far, the labor market is sticking to the RBA’s script with annual employment growth of 2.2 percent faster than the 1.6 percent rise in population.
The unemployment rate is at a 7-1/2-year trough of 5.0 percent. The only factor preventing a further decline in January was a rise in the participation rate to 65.7 percent. This means unemployment was steady even with an increase in the number of people looking for work.
A Reuters poll this week showed a median of 28 economists predicted rates at 1.50 percent through early 2021, a view that would find some support in Thursday’s numbers.
“The latest data means that the Reserve Bank stays on the interest rate sidelines for an extended period,” CommSec chief economist Craig James said.
“A strong job market, combined with generational lows in interest rates, reduces the prospect of a broader economic slowdown caused by fall in Sydney and Melbourne home prices.”
Helping that confidence, leading indicators of labor demand continue to point to further employment growth in Australia in a positive sign for household spending.
An index of vacancies released by the department of jobs and small business last month showed there were 185,547 skilled job vacancies in December, the highest in 6-1/2 years.
(Reporting by Swati Pandey; Editing by Sam Holmes)
This photo shows an apartment where a U.S. serviceman and a Japanese woman were found dead in Okinawa, southwestern Japan, on Saturday. (Kyodo News via AP)
A U.S. serviceman fatally stabbed a Japanese woman and then killed himself in Okinawa on Saturday, Japan's Foreign Ministry said, amid growing resentment about American troops in southwestern Japan.
U.S. Forces Japan said the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) was working with local police to look into the deaths of a Navy sailor assigned to a Marine unit and an Okinawa resident. "This is an absolute tragedy and we are fully committed to supporting the investigation," it said in a statement, according to the reporting on the crime from The Associated Press.
AP said Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Takeo Akiba telephoned U.S. Ambassador William Hagerty, asking for cooperation with both the inquiry and efforts to prevent a recurrence.
Although Okinawa makes up less than 1 percent of Japan's land space, AP said, it hosts about half of the 54,000 American troops stationed in Japan, and is home to 64 percent of the land used by U.S. bases in the country.
People there have long complained about crime, noise and the destruction of the environment as a consequence of the military presence.
A plan to relocate a Marine Corps air station called Futenma to a less populated part of Okinawa has also been contentious, AP said, and Denny Tamaki, Okinawa's governor, is pushing to have the base moved off the island altogether.
Campaigning in Iowa hours after the former vice president officially announced his candidacy, Warren contrasted on Thursday her longtime record of taking on Wall Street with that of Biden.
“At a time when the biggest financial institutions in this country were trying to put the squeeze on millions of hard-working families who were in bankruptcy because of medical problems, job losses, divorce and death in the family, there was nobody to stand up for them,” said the populist senator who’s producing progressive policy proposal after another as she runs for the White House.
“I got in that fight because they just didn’t have anyone,” she said. “And Joe Biden was on the side of the credit card companies.”
The comments reignited a nearly two decades old fight between the two over the country’s bankruptcy laws.
Fox News reached out to the Biden campaign for reaction to Warren’s words but had yet to receive a response at the time this article was published.
It’s not just Warren. The head of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee – which has backed the senator from Massachusetts – also took aim at Biden, who enters the race as the front runner in most national polls and early primary and caucus voting state surveys, slightly atop of Sanders and well ahead of the rest of the large field of 20 contenders.
“With billionaires deciding not to run, progressive candidates have been in need of a foil. If Joe Biden positions himself as the political insider from yesteryear who says big ideas like universal child care, student debt relief, and a wealth tax on ultra-millionaires are not possible, he would be an easy foil, Adam Green, the co-founder of PCCC, told Fox News.
The former vice president spent Thursday evening raising campaign cash at the suburban Philadelphia home of David Cohen, a senior executive of the Comcast Corp. and a former Democratic operative.
In a fundraising email to supporters around the same time, Sanders’ campaign manager Faiz Shakir wrote that “it’s a big day in the Democratic primary and we’re hoping to end it strong. Not with a fundraiser in the home of a corporate lobbyist, but with an overwhelming number of individual donations in response to today’s news.”
Earlier in the day, a rising progressive group called Justice Democrats that has championed Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York called Biden “out of touch” and stressed that “we can’t let a so-called ‘centrist’ like Joe Biden divide the Democratic Party and turn it into the party of ‘No, we can’t.’”
Biden, of course, is considered to be more moderate than many of the current contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination, especially Warren and Sanders, who describes himself as a democratic socialist.
These kind of jabs from the candidates, their campaigns and outside groups could be foreshadow a building clash between the progressive and establishment sings of the party.
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.”
Former President Barack Obama, Biden’s boss for eight years, remains extremely popular with Democrats.
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/File Photo
April 26, 2019
NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. economic growth is running at a 1.1% pace in the second quarter as the gains in exports and inventories recorded in the first quarter are expected to reverse, Morgan Stanley economists said on Friday.
“Our preliminary expectations for growth in the second quarter sees large drags from net exports and inventories after their contributions in 1Q,” they wrote in a research note.
Gross domestic product increased at a 3.2% annualized rate in the first three months of the year, driven by a smaller trade deficit and the largest accumulation of unsold merchandise since 2015, the Commerce Department said earlier Friday.
FILE PHOTO: The Deutsche Bank headquarters are pictured in Frankfurt, Germany, April 25, 2019. REUTERS/Ralph Orlowski/File Photo
April 26, 2019
By Tom Sims
FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Within hours of the collapse of merger talks with Commerzbank, Christian Sewing scrambled to convince investors and employees that Deutsche Bank can stand on its own two feet.
The Deutsche Bank chief executive told staff, many of whom opposed a merger because of significant job losses, that while he had not been “skeptical” about the Commerzbank talks, he was cautious about the chances of success from the start.
And another top Deutsche Bank executive said on Friday that it had been Commerzbank that initiated the talks, suggesting there was no desperation on their part for a deal.
Commerzbank denied that version of events, ending the apparent truce between the normally highly competitive cross-town Frankfurt rivals over the past six weeks.
German hopes of creating a national banking champion able to challenge global competitors were finally dashed on Thursday when Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank ended their talks due to the risks of doing a deal, restructuring costs and capital demands.
For Sewing, the failure to clinch a deal has left the 49-year-old chief executive of Germany’s largest bank, who took over just over a year ago, with his back to the wall.
Credit ratings agency Standard & Poor’s, which downgraded Deutsche Bank last year, said on Friday that Deutsche Bank “will remain under strain”, adding that it “seems to have acknowledged the need to adjust its strategy”.
Under Sewing, a new leadership has tried to revive Deutsche Bank’s fortunes, but it has faced money laundering allegations and failed stress tests, as well as ratings downgrades.
At the heart of the debate over its future is whether it should focus its business on Germany and draw a line under its costly global ambitions to take on Wall Street’s big guns.
“MARKET PLAY”
Without a deal, Deutsche Bank now finds itself back at the mercy of equity and debt markets, with UBS analysts warning that in a “stress scenario” it could again “be forced into a ‘debt-driven capital increase’ even with solid capital ratios”.
“Deutsche remains a levered market play vulnerable to external events,” the UBS analysts said in a note.
Sewing, along with many analysts, believes Deutsche Bank can go it alone in the short-term, but will be counting on a turnaround in market conditions to do so in the long-run given its dependence on volatile investment bank earnings.
“To reach our return objective, we also need to see a revenue recovery in our more market-sensitive business,” Sewing said on Friday after reporting results.
“These revenues are available to us in better market conditions given our leading positions in many of these businesses, but we need to capture them,” he added.
Revenue at Deutsche Bank’s bond trading division fell 19 percent in the first quarter, it said on Friday, underscoring weakness at its investment bank.
If those earnings do not improve, Berlin’s desire to keep its biggest bank out of foreign hands may start to wane.
“Germany’s globally active companies need competitive financial institutions that can support them around the world,” German finance minister Olaf Scholz said on Thursday.
(Writing by Alexander Smith; Editing by Keith Weir)
Panama’s former president Ricardo Martinelli reacts to the media while arriving to the Electoral Court in Panama City, Panama April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Erick Marciscano
April 26, 2019
PANAMA CITY (Reuters) – Panama’s electoral tribunal has ruled that former President Ricardo Martinelli, who is awaiting trial on wiretapping charges, cannot take part in elections on May 5 in which he was running for mayor of Panama City and a seat in Congress, a spokesman for Martinelli said on Friday.
“The ruling of the electoral tribunal has disqualified him as candidate,” said the spokesman, Eduardo Camacho, calling the court’s ruling a “political decision.”
Officials at the tribunal did not immediately confirm the ruling, which also was reported in local media in Panama.
Martinelli, a supermarket tycoon who ran the Central American country from 2009 to 2014, was extradited to Panama last June from the United States and charged with spying on 150 people, including politicians, union leaders and journalists.
A judge had previously cleared Martinelli to run for mayor of the capital. His critics vowed to appeal that decision.
(Reporting by Elida Moreno and Stefanie Eschenbacher; Editing by Bill Trott)
PRISTINA, Kosovo – Kosovo’s parliament has called the country’s president into a hearing on the secret deportation of six Turkish men who Turkey claims were supporters of an alleged 2016 coup attempt.
President Hashim Thaci on Friday questioned the credibility of the parliamentary investigative committee for involving an international expert. He declined to answer questions before clarifying the expert’s legality.
In 2018, five Turkish teachers and a Turkish doctor in Kosovo were deported to Turkey. Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj dismissed his interior minister and intelligence chief for making the move without his permission.
Turkey accuses U.S-based cleric Fethullah Gulen of masterminding the 2016 failed coup. He denies the accusations. Those deported from Kosovo worked in schools and clinics supported by Gulen’s movement.
The deportations were criticized by rights groups in Kosovo and abroad.
Click below to consent to the use of the cookie technology provided by vi (video intelligence AG) to personalize content and advertising. For more info please access vi's website.