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Australian construction work digs a hole for the economy in fourth quarter

FILE PHOTO: An excavator is parked at the construction site of an apartment block in the suburb of Epping, Sydney
FILE PHOTO: An excavator is parked at the construction site of an apartment block in the suburb of Epping, Sydney, Australia February 1, 2019. REUTERS/Tom Westbrook/File Photo

February 27, 2019

By Wayne Cole

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Construction spending in Australia took a surprise spill last quarter as infrastructure came off the boil and home building hit a one-year low, a disappointing result that adds to signs of a struggling economy.

It was the second straight quarter of sharp falls and challenges the dogged optimism of the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) that growth will pick up this year.

The value of construction work done slid 3.1 percent in the December quarter, data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed. That badly missed forecasts of a 0.4 percent gain and followed a 3.6 percent drop in the previous quarter.

Total spending was an inflation adjusted A$51.1 billion ($36.69 billion), the lowest since early 2017 and, on paper at least, equal to around 0.3 percentage points off gross domestic product (GDP) in the quarter.

“It suggests some slight downside risk to our preliminary GDP forecast,” said Kaixin Owyong, an economist at NAB.

The GDP report for the December quarter is due on March 6 and NAB had already been tipping pedestrian growth of 0.4 percent in the quarter, giving 2.7 percent for the year.

Home building was a major drag as sliding house prices and tighter lending conditions put the screws on developers, particularly for apartments.

As a result residential construction sank 3.6 percent in the quarter and the outlook is for more pain as approvals for new building have tumbled in recent months.

“We expect the residential construction downturn will be much deeper than the RBA’s outlook,” said Owyong, who expects a decline of around 18 percent peak-to-trough.

“Today’s figures support this less optimistic view for building activity.”

The RBA acknowledged the faster downturn in building earlier this month when it cut forecasts for economic growth this year and next.

Yet its latest prediction of 3 percent growth in 2019 already looked in jeopardy, with spending on public works taking an unexpected nose dive.

Work done on infrastructure dropped 10 percent last quarter alone, a major surprise given state government have been splashing out on multi-year road and rail projects.

“Possibly bottlenecks are a constraint or it may have been weather disruptions,” said Westpac senior economist Andrew Hanlan.

“Given the sizeable amount of work yet to be done and with new projects being added to the investment pipeline, we still expect public works to add to activity in 2019.”

Westpac, however, was bearish on the overall economic outlook having recently predicted the RBA would be forced to cut interest rates twice this year, from an already record-low of 1.5 percent.

Investors are also leaning that way with futures markets implying around an 80 percent probability of an easing by year end.

(Reporting by Wayne Cole; Editing by Sam Holmes)

Source: OANN

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Protest and celebration in Brazil on Lula prison anniversary

Thousands of people chanting "Free Lula!" protested Sunday outside the jail where former President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva is being held on the anniversary of his incarceration, but other Brazilians staged rallies across the country to celebrate the crackdown on corruption that has put him and other politicians behind bars.

Da Silva is serving a 12-year sentence on a corruption and money laundering conviction. Prosecutors say he received a beachfront apartment from a construction company in exchange for a lucrative contract with the state-owned oil company Petrobras. He and his Worker's Party maintain he is innocent and say he was persecuted by the judiciary and political enemies to prevent him from running for president again.

His imprisonment is at the center of a deeply polarizing debate between Brazilians who see him as a political prisoner for championing the poor and others who believe justice is being served for a corrupt politician.

Fernando Haddad, who ran for president in da Silva's place and lost a November runoff election to far-right politician Jair Bolsonaro, spoke at the rally outside the federal police station that is holding da Silva, who is widely known to Brazilians as Lula.

The country's elites "wouldn't stop until they put possibly one of the worst Brazilians in the presidency and put one of the best Brazilians in prison," Haddad told protesters.

"Lula has been kidnapped by the bourgeoisie," said another speaker, João Pedro Stedile, a leader from the far-left Landless Workers Movement. "The ransom is for us to stop fighting. They want to bring the Brazilian people to their knees."

Protester Beth Dori, 65, called da Silva's arrest unjust. "They did this so they could do what they're doing now with social security and workers' rights laws," she said, referring to unpopular austerity measures taken on after the Worker's Party was no longer in power.

Meanwhile, on the boardwalk of Rio de Janeiro's Copacabana Beach, a rally supporting the attack on corruption cheered da Silva's continued incarceration.

"Today marks one whole year that Lula hasn't stolen!" a protester yelled from the top of a sound car while the crowd applauded.

"I'm very happy to see he's stayed in prison a whole year, and one year is nothing compared to what he's done to the Brazilian people," said Jose Elias, 67, a retired farm worker. "Lula and the Worker's Party ruined this country with their corrupt, leftist mess."

Da Silva is the most prominent figure jailed in an anti-corruption investigation called "Operation Car Wash" that has snared dozens of prominent politicians and business figures.

Anti-corruption demonstrators also demanded the continued take-down of "old politicians," calling for the arrest of other corrupt politicians and applauding the judiciary that is going after them.

"I'm here to call for the impeachment of the corrupt Supreme Court. As long as the court is corrupt, Lula and other corrupt politicians have a chance to be free," said Yasmin Albudane, a 24-year-old university student.

___

Freelance video journalist Fabio Tissot in Curitiba contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News World

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Trump administration backs Texas judge who ruled Obamacare illegal

FILE PHOTO - A sign on an insurance store advertises Obamacare in San Ysidro
FILE PHOTO - A sign on an insurance store advertises Obamacare in San Ysidro, San Diego, California, U.S., October 26, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake

March 26, 2019

(Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has stepped up its attack on the Obamacare health care law, telling a federal appeals court it agrees with a Texas judge’s ruling that the law is unconstitutional and should be struck down.

The Justice Department in a two-sentence letter to the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit filed on Monday said it backed the December ruling by U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor in Fort Worth that found the Affordable Care Act violated the U.S. Constitution because it required people to buy health insurance.

O’Connor ruled on a lawsuit brought by a coalition of 20 Republican-led states including Texas, Alabama and Florida, that said a Trump-backed change the U.S. tax code made the law unconstitutional.

The 2010 law, seen as the signature domestic achievement of Trump’s Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama, has been a flash point of American politics since it passed, with Republicans including Trump repeatedly attempting to overturn it.

Democrats made defending the law a powerful messaging tool in the run-up to the November elections, when polls showed that eight in 10 Americans wanted to defend the law’s most popular benefits including protections for insurance coverage for people with preexisting conditions. The strategy paid off and Democrats won a broad 38-seat majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.

“The Department of Justice has determined that the district court’s judgment should be affirmed,” Assistant U.S. Attorney General Joseph Hunt and other federal officials wrote in the Monday letter. They said they would file a more extensive legal briefing later.

Obamacare survived a 2012 legal challenge at the Supreme Court when a majority of justices ruled the individual mandate aspect of the program was a tax that Congress had the authority to impose.

In December, O’Connor ruled that after Trump signed a $1.5 trillion tax bill passed by Congress last year that eliminated the penalties, the individual mandate could no longer be considered constitutional.

A group of 17 mostly Democratic-led states including California and New York on Monday argued that the law was constitutional.

“The individual plaintiffs do not have standing to challenge the resulting law because they suffer no legal harm from the existence of a provision that offers them a lawful choice between buying insurance or doing nothing,” they wrote in court papers.

About 11.8 million consumers nationwide enrolled in 2018 Obamacare exchange plans, according to the U.S. government’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

(Reporting by Scott Malone in Boston; Editing by Bill Trott)

Source: OANN

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Woman crushed by large log on Oregon beach that was struck by 'sneaker wave'

A woman on an Oregon beach was seriously injured Saturday when the large log she was sitting on was struck by a devastating "sneaker wave," officials said.

Nehalem Bay Fire & Rescue wrote in a Facebook post that the woman was "crushed" after the large driftwood log was struck by the sudden wave on Manzanita Beach.

"NEVER turn your back on the ocean!" the rescue agency said.

CALIFORNIA DRIVER KILLED AFTER VEHICLE GOES OFF CLIFF, PLUNGES 500 FEET, OFFICIALS SAY

Sneaker waves -- large waves that strike without warning -- sometimes claim lives of the unwary along the coast of the Pacific Northwest due to their unpredictability.

The woman who was "crushed" by the log was later flown to a Portland hospital after sustaining serious injuries.

The woman who was "crushed" by the log was later flown to a Portland hospital after sustaining serious injuries. (Nehalem Bay Fire & Rescue)

All major sneaker wave incidents since 1990 have taken place between October and April, according to a tally by The Oregonian. The incidents have peaked in November and March, killing at least 21 people.

MIDWEST, SOUTH FACE 'POTENTIALLY UNPRECEDENTED' FLOODING THROUGH MAY, NOAA SAYS

The woman involved in Saturday's incident sustained serious injuries to her chest and back, FOX12 reported.

CLICK HERE FOR THE FOX NEWS APP

She was later flown to Portland for treatment and is expected to recover, according to the officials.

Source: Fox News National

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Iran puts death toll from flooding at 62

Iranian media are reporting that the number of dead from recent flooding has risen to 62, up from 57 the day before.

A Wednesday report by the semi-official Fars news agency quotes Ahmad Shojaei, head of the country's forensic medicine department, as saying the casualties were in various provinces that experienced flooding over the past two weeks.

Also on Wednesday, Iran President Hassan Rouhani called U.S. sanctions that have allegedly blocked international relief assistance to needy people in flood-stricken areas an "unprecedented crime."

Iran has been facing major flooding that has struck hundreds of villages, towns and cities in the western half of the country, where authorities declared an emergency in some places.

Source: Fox News World

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Germany in talks for joint arms exports agreement with France

FILE PHOTO - The flags of Germany and France are seen in front of the the Chancellery, before the meeting between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron in Berlin
FILE PHOTO - The flags of Germany and France are seen in front of the the Chancellery, before the meeting between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron in Berlin, Germany May 15, 2017. REUTERS/Pawel Kopczynski

February 18, 2019

BERLIN (Reuters) – Berlin and Paris are in talks on common defense exports licensing procedures, a German government spokesman said on Monday.

German magazine Der Spiegel on Friday reported that Germany and France had signed a defense agreement in January which aims for regulation of arms exports to third countries.

“It’s true that Germany and France are in talks on the question of arms exports,” government spokesman Steffen Seibert told journalists during a regular news conference.

He said Berlin and Paris were in talks to reach a formal agreement on the issue.

(Reporting by Riham Alkousaa and Thomas Escritt, Editing by Tassilo Hummel)

Source: OANN

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Golf: Jutanugarn sisters caddie in par-three competition

Sisters caddie for Kiradech Aphibarnrat of Thailand during the 2019 Masters golf tournament's par 3 contest at the Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Georgia, U.S.
Sisters Ariya (L) and Moriya (C) Jutanugarn caddie for Kiradech Aphibarnrat (R) of Thailand during the 2019 Masters golf tournament's par 3 contest at the Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Georgia, U.S., April 10, 2019. REUTERS/Mike Segar

April 10, 2019

(Reuters) – After missing the proverbial boat for the inaugural Augusta National Women’s Amateur, the Jutanugarn sisters Ariya and Moriya instead made do with a chance to caddie in the par 3 competition at the Masters on Wednesday.

They shared the bag toting duties for fellow Thai Kiradech Aphibarnrat, even teeing it up on one hole, where all three swung simultaneously.

Ariya and Moriya turned professional in 2012, seven years before women finally got a chance to stride Augusta National’s famous fairways in competition, albeit sans professionals.

“We want to play it,” said world number three Ariya of the course as she and Moriya stood in their white caddie overalls outside the clubhouse on a warm and cloudless afternoon.

A visit last year allowed Ariya to admire the beauty of Augusta.

“Last year when I walked with Kiradech all 18 (holes) twice, I thought this course is amazing,” she said.

“I thought one time in my life I would really like to play here. I’m really jealous.”

Ariya and Moriya have earned between them $11 in career prize-money on the LPGA Tour.

But that does not stop them from wishing they had enjoyed a chance to compete at Augusta National.

“We don’t have that chance when it is our time,” said Moriya, before adding “hopefully one day.”

(Reporting by Andrew Both; Editing by Christian Radnedge)

Source: OANN

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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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A Cook County judge recently called out embattled State Attorney Kim Foxx for upholding a double standard by prosecuting a woman for filing a false police report — but dropping similar charges against embattled “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett.

Foxx has faced intense criticism over her office’s decision to drop a 16-count indictment against Smollett, just weeks after bringing the charges against the high-profile TV star. Foxx’s deal with Smollett, which did not require him to admit guilt, drew ire from the public, the city’s top cop and the former mayor who called it a “whitewash of justice.”

JUSSIE SMOLLETT CHICAGO PROSECUTOR KIM FOXX CHIDED BY NATIONAL ATTORNEYS GROUPS AFTER JUSSIE SMOLLETT CHARGES DROPPED 

Cook County Judge Marc Martin, who was presiding over an unrelated case, chastised Foxx and her office for creating a situation where anyone charged with filing a false report would expect the same leniency her office afforded Smollett.

Candace Clark, 21, is facing one felony count of making a false report. Prosecutors accused her of giving a friend access to her bank account and then telling authorities the money had been stolen. She denies the charges and claims she’s the victim of Foxx’s double standard — something the judge weighed in on.

“Well, Ms. Clark is not a movie star, she doesn’t have a high-price lawyer, although, her lawyer’s very good. And this smells, big time,” Martin said to prosecutors during a recent hearing, Fox 32 reported. “I didn’t create this mess, your office created this mess. And your explanation is unsatisfactory to this court. She’s being treated differently.”

The judge continued, “There’s no publicity on this case. She doesn’t have Mark Geragos as her lawyer or Ron Safer or Judge Brown. It’s not right. And (if) I proceed in this matter, you’re just digging yourselves further in a hole. (If the) press gets a hold of this, it’ll be in a newspaper. Why is Ms. Clark being treated differently than Mr. Smollett?”

Foxx recused herself from the Smollett case in February but continued to oversee the investigation through text messages with her assistant Joseph Magats.

The text messages revealed Foxx called Smollett a “washed up celeb who lied to cops.” They also show she cautioned Magats about throwing the book at Smollett.

“Sooo……I’m recused, but when people accuse us of overcharging cases…16 counts on a class 4 becomes exhibit A,” Foxx wrote to Magats on March 8.

“Pedophile with 4 victims 10 counts. Washed up celeb who lied to cops, 16. On a case eligible for deferred prosecution I think it’s indicative of something we should be looking at generally. Just because we can charge something doesn’t mean we should,” she added, referring to the case of R&B singer R. Kelly, who was indicted on 10 counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse in connection with four women, three of whom were underage.

KIM FOXX’S CHIEF ETHICS OFFICER RESIGNS FOLLOWING SMOLLETT CONTROVERSY

President Trump said last month he asked for a federal review of Foxx’s decision to drop the charges against Smollett. He also called the actor “an absolute embarrassment to our country.”

The Smollett case garnered national attention and threatened to tear Chicago apart. It pit the police department and mayor against prosecutors and underscored the idea that wealthy people are somehow above the law.

Smollett told police he was attacked on Jan. 29 around 2 a.m. as he was returning home from a sandwich shop in Chicago. He said two masked men shouted racial and anti-gay slurs, poured bleach on him, beat him and tied a rope around his neck. He claimed they shouted, “This is MAGA country” — a reference to President Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign slogan.

CLICK HERE FOF THE FOX NEWS APP

After an intense investigation, police said Smollett staged the entire incident to drum up publicity for his career.

Smollett has strongly denied the accusations.

Source: Fox News National

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