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Back on trend? H&M makes AI, loyalty drive to ride fashion cycle

FILE PHOTO: Logo of H&M is seen in a display window of a store in Zurich, Switzerland
FILE PHOTO: The logo of H&M is seen in a display window of a store in Zurich, Switzerland January 7, 2019. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann/File Photo

April 17, 2019

By Emma Thomasson and Anna Ringstrom

BERLIN/STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – When H&M boosted its shares last month by reporting a rise in the sale of full-price garments, it wasn’t just a tribute to the fashion sense of its designers. It was a sign that backroom improvements are at last paying off.

The world’s second-largest fashion group is investing heavily in areas like artificial intelligence and customer loyalty as it looks to improve the way it spots trends and plans logistics, and ultimately reduce discounted sales and piles of unsold stock.

Arti Zeighami, H&M’s head of advanced analytics and artificial intelligence, told Reuters the strategy is starting to bear fruit as the company extends pilot projects that seek to use data to match supply and demand more closely.

“Allocating the right goods to the right stores in the right markets is one of the key projects we are working on,” Zeighami said. “For 2019 we have huge plans for growing that and hopefully, by the end of next year, covering globally.”

In the age of social media, fashion companies have less power to drive trends, which come and go much more quickly as influencers promote their “outfit of the day” on Instagram.

That poses a particular problem for H&M, which produces most of its garments in Asia, far from its major markets, making it less responsive than its rival Zara-owner Inditex which boasts it can get new designs to its stores within a week.

Sportswear brand Adidas admitted last month it had been caught flat-footed when its suppliers failed to keep up with strong U.S. demand for its mid-priced clothing ranges.

H&M had seen stocks of unsold goods pile up over the past three years.

IMPROVEMENTS IN BUYING

In the quarter through February, inventories grew to 40 billion crowns ($4.3 bln), or 18.6 percent of sales, but H&M said they consisted of a higher share of clothes that are newer, thus less likely to be sold at marked-down prices.

It has said this is a sign its overhaul is working, and it expects a better offering and improvements in buying and logistics to help it reduce inventories to between 12 and 14 percent of sales by the end of 2022.

“Companies like ours once dictated fashion in a certain way. Today fashion is growing organically: you have influencers, you have communities,” Zeighami said. “It is hard sometimes to quantify. Is it orange or pineapple, tassel earrings or choker?”

Danske Bank analyst Daniel Schmidt said a small increase in gross margin and management promises of smaller markdowns for a third straight quarter suggests H&M’s profits have finally hit bottom.

“Even though stocks are high, their quality is probably better than we can see,” Schmidt said.

H&M Chief Executive Karl-Johan Persson said last month investment in AI was already helping predict trends and allocate garments to stores: “Over time, this will mean a lot of improvements.”

Companies in a range of industries are touting AI as the answer to their most pressing business problems, but many experts caution it may not live up to the hype.

Zeighami said he prefers to call it “amplified intelligence” because he wants to mine data to help humans make better decisions.

He cited the example of a maths model which showed mass market demand peaks when an influencer trend is going down. One designer he showed it to said having such data would have helped her stand up to buyers who jumped on a trend too late.

CUSTOMER LOYALTY

“She had the gut feeling, so us amplifying that would help her to take the right decision and overrule the buyers,” he said.

At rival Zara, merchandising teams use data gleaned from stores, webpages and app to adapt their designs, in addition to insights from social media, returns and reviews, with the entire stock gradually refreshed every four to five weeks.

Unlike Zara, H&M also has a fast-growing customer loyalty scheme from which it is harvesting information, in addition to analyzing data from social media.

The club, which doubled membership to 30 million in 2018, is in 16 of the H&M brand’s 71 markets and will add seven more including the United States by the end of the year.

Samuel Holst, head of the H&M Club, said another eight markets would be added in 2020 and he expected to keep up the membership growth rate.

Holst hopes new functions such as members gaining bonus points for reviewing garments and, later this year, for sustainable actions such as recycling clothes, will help H&M understand shoppers.

“Knowing our customers – having this insight, knowing where, how and when they shop, knowing what they like – that is an important piece in how we will be able to predict trends,” Holst told Reuters.

“The better we know the customer the better we can do this,” Holst said. “That is the foundation for being able to have very good inventories with a healthy rotation of the garments.”

(Additional reporting by Sonya Dowsett in Madrid; Editing by David Holmes)

Source: OANN

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Thieves steal shipment of money from Mexico airport

Mexican authorities said Thursday a brazen gang of thieves tailed an armored truck, burst into an airport in central Mexico and made off with a shipment of cash that was about to be loaded on a plane.

The robbery took only three minutes and the amount taken is still being calculated, but the crime appeared to resemble the infamous Lufthansa heist at New York's John F. Kennedy Airport that netted $5.87 million in 1978.

Officials at Guanajuato's international airport said that the armored truck entered the airport Wednesday evening on what was apparently a pre-arranged cash transport run.

The gang of masked thieves broke through the terminal fencing in their own truck, and drove to the baggage handling area, though they didn't enter the landing strip, the airport administrators said in a statement.

The Guanajuato state government said the men threatened baggage handlers with guns and made off with an undetermined amount of cash, escaping by a different route. Local media reported the haul might have been around $1 million.

The airport is located between the cities of Silao and Leon.

A once-quiet agricultural and industrial state, Guanajuato has suffered an increasing wave of violent crime, in part because of organized gangs that steal fuel from government pipelines.

Source: Fox News World

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Argentina peso weakens to new record low on economic uncertainty

FILE PHOTO: A man shows Argentine pesos outside a bank in Buenos Aires' financial district
FILE PHOTO: A man shows Argentine pesos outside a bank in Buenos Aires' financial district, Argentina August 30, 2018. REUTERS/Marcos Brindicci/File Photo

April 5, 2019

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) – Argentina’s peso weakened 1.32 percent to touch a record low of 44.0 per U.S. dollar, traders said on Friday, as political and economic uncertainty to put pressure on the local currency.

The peso later regained some strength, but nonetheless ended the day at an all-time low close of 43.97 to the greenback.

The economy has been racked by recession and high inflation as President Mauricio Macri, a favorite among investors for his free-market policies, loses popularity ahead of his October re-election bid. Voters have been hit by public utility subsidy cuts and other austerity measures ordered by Macri as part of his effort at erasing the primary fiscal deficit.

(Reporting by Jorge Otaola and Walter Bianchi; Writing by Hugh Bronstein; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)

Source: OANN

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6 illegal immigrants linked to Mexican cartel arrested in NC for drug trafficking operation, officials say

Six illegal immigrants with ties to a Mexican drug cartel — a rival of the powerful Sinaloa cartel, whose notorious leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman was convicted last week — were arrested in an elaborate drug trafficking operation in North Carolina, according to reports.

The massive drug operation included transporting large amounts of cocaine and methamphetamine across state lines — for instance, from Texas to Georgia and North Carolina, WSOC reported.

The feds identified the suspects as Oscar Rangel-Gutierrez, Regulo Rangel-Gutierrez, Francisco Garcia-Martinez, Rodolfo Martinez, Raul Rangel-Gutierrez and Rigoberto Rangel-Gutierrez.

EL CHAPO LEGACY WILL LIVE ON

“Members of the investigative team believe — based on wire intercepts, surveillance and other facts discovered from the investigation — that Oscar and Regulo transport illicit proceeds, derived from the sales of narcotics, when they travel from Myrtle Beach to Charlotte,” according to federal court documents, as WMBF reported.

Misty Joyner, who reportedly lived near the home in Charlotte where investigators said Rangel-Gutierrez stored drug money, was in disbelief about her neighbors.

“Just devastating,” Joyner told WSOC. “They were good people.”

Rangel-Gutierrez is affiliated with the upstart Jalisco New Generation cartel, which has tried to stage incursions into Sinaloa territory, sparking bloody turf battles in places like Tijuana. The border city across from San Diego has become one of the world’s deadliest cities.

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Sinaloa’s leader, Guzman, was convicted last Tuesday in New York, likely meaning he will spend decades behind bars in the United States.

He gained infamy for twice pulling off brazen escapes from maximum-security prisons, earning him international notoriety perhaps rivaled only by the late Colombian drug kingpin Pablo Escobar.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Sri Lanka’s leader calls for officials’ firings as Easter suicide bombers revealed to be ‘well-educated people’ who studied abroad

Sri Lanka's president has called for the resignations of the country’s defense secretary and national police chief Wednesday after officials admitted to suffering a “major lapse” in communications in the lead-up to the Easter Sunday bombings, which have left more than 350 people dead.

The announcement comes as officials also revealed that the nine suicide bombers responsible for the attacks were “quite well-educated people” who are believed to have studied abroad and obtained degrees in places like the U.K. and Australia before returning to their homeland. Two of those bombers, they added, were a husband and wife duo.

"It was a major lapse in the sharing of information," deputy defense minister Ruwan Wijewardene told reporters Wednesday, according to AFP, just minutes before news broke that his boss may be on the way out. "The government has to take responsibility."

It wasn’t immediately clear who would replace the two key officials, but President Maithripala Sirisena said during a televised speech Tuesday that he planned to change the head of the defense forces within 24 hours.

CLERIC 'MASTERMIND' BEHIND SRI LANKA ATTACKS KNOWN FOR HATE-FILLED SERMONS, POSSIBLE ISIS LINKS

A priest conducts religious rituals during a mass burial for Easter Sunday bomb blast victims in Negombo, Sri Lanka, on Wednesday.

A priest conducts religious rituals during a mass burial for Easter Sunday bomb blast victims in Negombo, Sri Lanka, on Wednesday. (AP)

The looming shakeup in Sri Lanka’s leadership follows widespread criticism directed at its government for failing to act on warnings it received about the bombers in the days leading up to the attacks. The official death toll on Wednesday rose to 359 and ISIS – through propaganda videos and statements -- has claimed responsibility for the bombings, despite not providing any evidence of their connection.

“We believe that one of the suicide bombers studied in the U.K. and later did his postgraduate in Australia before coming back and settling in Sri Lanka,” the Guardian quoted Wijewardene as saying Wednesday.

“This group of suicide bombers, most of them are well-educated and come from middle or upper-middle class, so they are financially quite independent and their families are quite stable financially, that is a worrying factor in this,” he added. “Some of them have I think studied in various other countries, they hold degrees, LLMs [law degrees], they’re quite well-educated people.”

Investigators also told the AFP that two of the bombers were sons of a wealthy spice trader in Colombo – Sri Lanka’s capital and site of many of the attacks. Two others, according to police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekara, were a husband and wife duo.

That woman, two children and three policemen are said to have died in an explosion as authorities closed in on her late Sunday, hours after attacks were launched against three churches and three hotels.

A view of St. Sebastian's Church damaged in suicide blast in Negombo, north of Colombo, Sri Lanka.

A view of St. Sebastian's Church damaged in suicide blast in Negombo, north of Colombo, Sri Lanka. (AP)

OCASIO-CORTEZ CALLED OUT FOR SOCIAL MEDIA SILENCE IN WAKE OF SRI LANKA ATTACKS

Gunasekara said 60 people have been arrested so far, while U.S. Ambassador Alaina Teplitz confirmed that a team of FBI agents and U.S. military officials are helping in the investigation.

Teplitz told reporters Wednesday that "clearly there was some failure in the system," but said the U.S. had no prior knowledge of a threat before the attacks, the worst violence in the South Asian island nation since its civil war ended a decade ago. She described the breakdown in communication amongst Sri Lankan officials as "incredibly tragic."

Sources close to the investigation told The Guardian that up to nine people linked to the bombings could still be at large. Among those arrested so far are six Pakistani refugees, including two women and two children. A police official says security footage and telephone records indicated that the refugees may have been in contact with one of the alleged church bombers, it added.

Over the past three years, radical Islamic cleric Zahran Hashim, alternately known as Mohammed Zahran, amassed an online following of thousands for hate-filled online sermons – sometimes delivered before a banner depicting the enkindled Twin Towers – and composed of impassioned calls for “all non-Muslims be eliminated.” 

Over the past three years, radical Islamic cleric Zahran Hashim, alternately known as Mohammed Zahran, amassed an online following of thousands for hate-filled online sermons – sometimes delivered before a banner depicting the enkindled Twin Towers – and composed of impassioned calls for “all non-Muslims be eliminated.”  (YouTube)

Sri Lankan authorities had earlier blamed a local extremist group, National Towheed Jamaar, whose leader, alternately named Mohammed Zahran or Zahran Hashmi, became known to Muslim leaders three years ago for his incendiary online speeches. On Wednesday, Wijewardene said the attackers had broken away from National Towheed Jamaar and another group, which he identified only as "JMI."

Teplitz declined to discuss whether U.S. officials knew about National Towheed Jamaar or its leader before the attack. "If we had heard something, we would have tried to do something about this," Teplitz said.

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Wijewardene also edged away from comments he made Tuesday that the bombings were retaliation for the March 15 mosque shootings by a white supremacist in Christchurch, New Zealand, that killed 50 people. He told reporters Wednesday that the mosque attack may have been a motivation for the bombings, but that there was no direct evidence of that.

New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Wednesday she hasn't received any official advice from Sri Lanka or seen any intelligence reports to corroborate the claims.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News World

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Controversial Comic Book Starring Jesus to Debut in July

A controversial comic book starring Jesus Christ has found a new publisher and will roll out starting this summer.

The New York Times reported Second Coming partnered with AHOY Comics after DC Comics dropped it from its lineup. DC Comics received heavy pushback from the Christian community and decided to part ways with the comic in February.

Writer Mark Russell and artist Richard Pace are now working with AHOY to launch the new series. The first run will include at least six issues and will debut July 10.

The comic features Jesus living on Earth with a superhero named Sunstar. The cover of the first issue shows Jesus and Sunstar each holding a villain character armed with a handgun. Sunstar appears to be punching his villain in the face, while Jesus is holding a loaf of bread in the mouth of his.

"It's not as respectful as to what [Christians] actually do. It's not a satire of Christ so much as it is a satire on how his followers of the last 2,000 years have turned his message of forgiveness and empathy into one of power and domination, which is as un-Christlike as one can possibly imagine," Russell told the Times.

Pace said that of all the characters in the comic, Jesus comes out looking the best.

"No one has read the book other than the people who are working on it," he said. "I know full well that the only person coming out of it looking good is Jesus."

In a press release, AHOY Comics editor-in-chief Tom Peyer admitted Second Coming will not be for everyone.

"There are going to be people who don't want to read Second Coming, and that's fine. It's not for everyone," he said. "But I don't think it should be controversial to maintain that the rest of us have every right to enjoy it."

Source: NewsMax America

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Canada expands sanctions, adds 43 people close to Maduro: statement

FILE PHOTO: Canada's Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland attends a news conference on media freedom as part of the G7 Foreign Ministers' meeting in Dinard
FILE PHOTO: Canada's Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland attends a news conference on media freedom as part of the G7 Foreign Ministers' meeting in Dinard, France, April 5, 2019. REUTERS/Stephane Mahe/File Photo

April 15, 2019

OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canada expanded sanctions against the Venezuelan government of President Nicolas Maduro on Monday, according to a statement from Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland, targeting an additional 43 people close to the disputed leader.

While the statement did not give names, it said they were “high ranking officials of the Maduro regime, regional governors and/or directly implicated in activities undermining democratic institutions”.

Canada had already sanctioned 70 others.

(Reporting by Steve Scherer; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

Source: OANN

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Logo of the Exxon Mobil Corp is seen at the Rio Oil and Gas Expo and Conference in Rio de Janeiro
FILE PHOTO: A logo of the Exxon Mobil Corp is seen at the Rio Oil and Gas Expo and Conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil September 24, 2018. REUTERS/Sergio Moraes

April 26, 2019

(Reuters) – Exxon Mobil Corp on Friday reported first-quarter profit fell sharply on lower oil and gas prices and weakness in its refining and chemicals businesses that offset modest production gains.

The largest U.S. oil producer’s first quarter earnings fell to $2.35 billion, or 55 cents a share, from $4.65 billion, or $1.09 a share, a year ago.

Analysts had expected Exxon to earn 70 cents per share, according to Refinitiv Eikon estimates.

Shares were trading down about 2.7 percent in premarket trading on Friday.

Exxon’s oil equivalent production rose 2 percent to 4 million barrels per day, up from 3.9 million bpd in the same period the year prior. The company said its output in the Permian Basin, the largest U.S. shale basin, rose 140 percent over a year ago.

(Reporting by Jennifer Hiller; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

Source: OANN

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A Baha’i advocacy group has expressed concerns over the fate of minority Baha’is at the hands of Yemen’s Houthi rebels ahead of the appeals hearing for one of the community leaders sentenced to death.

The Baha’i International Community said in a statement Friday that the hearing for Hamed bin Haydara, detained in 2013 and sentenced to death last year on espionage and apostasy charges, is due on Tuesday.

The statement quotes Bani Dugal, the Baha’i community representative at the United Nations, as saying the prosecution hasn’t addressed Haydara’s appeal but is instead making “absurd, wide-ranging accusations.”

International rights groups have decried the prosecution of Yemeni Baha’is by the Iran-backed Houthis.

Iran has banned the Baha’i religion, which was founded in 1844 by a Persian nobleman considered a prophet by followers.

Source: Fox News World

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Afghan President Ashraf Ghani speaks during the inauguration of the newly-elected parliament in Kabul
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani speaks during the inauguration of the newly-elected parliament in Kabul, Afghanistan April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Omar Sobhani

April 26, 2019

By Rupam Jain and Hameed Farzad

KABUL (Reuters) – Afghan President Ashraf Ghani encouraged newly-elected lawmakers to participate in the peace process with the Taliban as he opened on Friday the first session of parliament since a controversial election.

Ghani has invited thousands of politicians, religious scholars and rights activists to an assembly known as a loya jirga next week to discuss ways to end the 17-year war.

Several opposition leaders have said they will boycott the four-day assembly in Kabul, saying it was pulled together without their input and is being used by Ghani as he seeks a second term in a September presidential election.

“We have presented the peace plan on a regular basis and we are committed to it,” Ghani said in the first session since parliamentary elections marred by technical problems, militant attacks and accusations of voting fraud last year.

“Based on this plan, there will be no peace deal and negotiation that does not have the green card of the parliament,” he added.

Officials from the United States and the Taliban have held several rounds of talks to end the Afghan war.

U.S. negotiator, Zalmay Khalilzad, has reported some progress toward an accord on a U.S. troop withdrawal and on how the Taliban would prevent extremists from using Afghanistan to launch attacks as al Qaeda did on Sept. 11, 2001.

The insurgents have so far rejected U.S. demands for a ceasefire and talks on the country’s political future that would include Afghan government officials.

The loya jirga, a centuries-old institution used to build consensus among competing tribes, factions and ethnic groups, is an attempt by Ghani to influence the peace talks and cement his position for a second term, Afghan politicians and Western diplomats say.

Amid growing political divisions in Kabul, opposition politicians have demanded that Ghani step down when his mandate ends next month, and give way to an interim government to oversee peace talks with the Taliban. Ghani has ruled that out.

The country’s top court said last week Ghani can stay in office until the presidential election in September.

(Reporting by Hameed Farzad, Rupam Jain, Editing by Darren Schuettler)

Source: OANN

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Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein Thursday defended special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation while slamming former President Barack Obama’s administration for being slow to take action on Russian interference in U.S. elections and ex-FBI Director James Comey for telling Congress the agency was investigating collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

“Our nation is safer, elections are more secure, and citizens are better informed about covert foreign influence schemes,” Rosenstein said in a speech to the Armenian Bar Association, marking his first public remarks after the Mueller report was released, reports CBS News.

He also pointed out that the investigation revealed a pattern of computer hacking and the use of social media to undermine elections as “only the tip of the iceberg of a comprehensive Russian strategy to influence elections, promote social discord, and undermine America, just like they do in many other countries,” reports The Wall Street Journal.

The Obama administration also made “critical decisions,” including choosing not to publicize the full story about Russian hackers and social media trolling, “and how they relate to a broader strategy to undermine America,” said Rosenstein.

He noted that the Mueller probe began after Comey disclosed during a hearing before Congress that President Donald Trump “pressured him to close the investigation and the president denied that the conversation occurred.”

Rosenstein said two years ago, when he was confirmed, he was told by a Republican senator that he would be in charge of the probe and that he’d report the results to the American people.

However, he said he didn’t promise to do that, because it is “not our job to render conclusive factual findings. We just decide whether it is appropriate to file criminal charges.”

Source: NewsMax Politics

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FILE PHOTO: The Huawei logo is pictured outside its Huawei's factory campus in Dongguan, Guangdong province
FILE PHOTO: The Huawei logo is pictured outside its Huawei’s factory campus in Dongguan, Guangdong province, China, March 25, 2019. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By Ben Blanchard

BEIJING (Reuters) – Britain must get to the bottom of the leak of confidential discussions during a top-level security meeting about the role of China’s Huawei Technologies in 5G network supply chains, British finance minister Philip Hammond said on Friday.

News that Britain’s National Security Council, attended by senior ministers and spy chiefs, had agreed on Tuesday to bar Huawei from all core parts of the country’s 5G network and restrict its access to non-core elements was leaked to a national newspaper.

The leak of secret discussions has sparked anger in parliament and amongst Britain’s intelligence community. Britain’s most senior civil servant Mark Sedwill has launched an inquiry and written to ministers who were at the meeting.

“My understanding from London (is) that an investigation has been announced into apparent leaks from the NSC meeting earlier this week,” said Hammond, speaking on the sidelines of a summit on China’s Belt and Road initiative in Beijing.

“To my knowledge there has never been a leak from a National Security Council meeting before and therefore I think it is very important that we get to the bottom of what happened here,” he told Reuters in a pooled interview.

British culture minister Jeremy Wright said on Thursday he could not rule out a criminal investigation. The majority of the ministers at the NSC meeting have said they were not involved, according to media reports.

Hammond said he was unaware of any previous leak from a meeting of the NSC.

“It’s not about the substance of what was apparently leaked. It’s not earth-shattering information. But it is important that we protect the principle that nothing that goes on in national security council meetings must ever be repeated outside the room.”

Allowing Huawei a reduced role in building its 5G network puts Britain at odds with the United States which has told allies not to use its technology at all because of fears it could be a vehicle for Chinese spying. Huawei has categorically denied this.

There have been concerns that the NSC’s conclusion, which sources confirmed to Reuters, could upset other allies in the world’s leading intelligence-sharing network – the Five Eyes alliance of the United States, Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.

However, British ministers and intelligence officials have said any final decision on 5G would not put critical national infrastructure at risk. Ciaran Martin, head of the cyber center of Britain’s main eavesdropping agency, GCHQ, played down any threat of a rift in the Five Eyes alliance.

(Writing by Michael Holden; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Source: OANN

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