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MLB notebook: Orioles’ Cobb (groin) lands on IL

FILE PHOTO: MLB: Spring Training-Baltimore Orioles at Toronto Blue Jays
FILE PHOTO: Mar 16, 2019; Dunedin, FL, USA; Baltimore Orioles pitcher Alex Cobb (17) fields a ground ball from Toronto Blue Jays outfielder Jonathan Davis (not pictured) during the fifth inning at Dunedin Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Douglas DeFelice-USA TODAY Sports

March 26, 2019

The Baltimore Orioles placed scheduled Opening Day starter Alex Cobb on the 10-day injured list with a strained right groin, the club announced Monday.

Cobb departed his final spring training outing after one inning Saturday due to the injury.

Fellow right-hander Andrew Cashner likely will draw the season-opening assignment for Baltimore on Thursday against the host New York Yankees.

The Orioles hope Cobb will be healthy in time to start the team’s home opener against the Yankees on April 4.

–The Cleveland Indians can breathe a sigh of relief after All-Star third baseman Jose Ramirez was confirmed to have only a knee contusion after fouling a pitch off his left knee Sunday.

X-rays were negative for any fractures. Ramirez will stay in Goodyear, Ariz., for treatment while the Indians play their final exhibition games, then join the team in Minnesota for the season opener.

Indians manager Terry Francona said Ramirez is day-to-day.

–Los Angeles superstar outfielder Mike Trout admits that watching Manny Machado and Bryce Harper plod through free agency this offseason helped him decide to sign a mega-extension with the Angels, he told The Athletic.

“I kind of saw what Bryce and Manny went through and it drew a red flag for me,” Trout said. “I talked to Manny and Bryce. It was a tough couple months in the offseason. They put it (in) perspective in my mind. I obviously want to be an Angel for life. That was a big key.”

Trout, the two-time Most Valuable Player and seven-time All-Star, would have become a free agent after the 2020 season. Instead, he signed a 12-year, $426.5 million contract extension.

–In somewhat of a surprise move, the Miami Marlins released veteran starting pitcher Dan Straily just three days before the start of the regular season.

The 30-year-old right-hander was expected to be the most experienced member of the young Marlins’ rotation this season, and he had settled for a $5 million contract this season to avoid arbitration. But the team instead says it was impressed enough with the young arms this spring that it decided to go all-in with inexperienced but talented starters.

In seven big-league seasons, Straily is 42-36 with a 4.23 ERA in 142 appearances (132 starts), with a career-best season in 2016 with the Reds (14-8, 3.76 ERA).

–Right-handed relief pitcher Daniel Hudson, who appeared in 40 games for the Los Angeles Dodgers last season, signed a one-year contract with the Toronto Blue Jays, the team announced. The deal is for $1.5 million, according to multiple reports.

Hudson, 32, was released Friday by the Los Angeles Angels. He had a 6.75 ERA in 6 2/3 innings in spring training this season.

The Blue Jays moved second baseman Devon Travis (knee surgery) to the 60-day injured list to make room for Hudson on the 40-man roster.

–Two days after being released by the Blue Jays, relief pitcher John Axford was re-signed by the team after having his prior minor league contract reworked, according to reports.

Axford’s initial release came on the heels of the right-hander being diagnosed with a stress reaction in his pitching elbow on Thursday. Axford, who turns 36 on April 1, was with Toronto for part of last season but was traded to the Dodgers in July.

A 10-year veteran, Axford has pitched for eight teams and logged a 38-34 record with 144 saves and a 3.87 ERA.

–Field Level Media

Source: OANN

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Mueller report proves Trump couldn’t be prosecuted for obstruction: Sol Wisenberg

The report by Special Counsel Robert Mueller on the Russia meddling probe proves that President Donald Trump couldn't be prosecuted for obstruction of justice, a former independent counsel said Thursday.

Fox News contributor Sol Wisenberg said that while parts of Mueller’s report were “very, very embarrassing” for Trump, it does not support an obstruction of justice charge.

“Well, I’ve read maybe about 30 or 40 pages of the 400 to 500-page report… I went straight to the obstruction part,” he said on Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom.”

READ THE ROBERT MUELLER REPORT

Wisenberg, who served as Deputy Independent Counsel during the Whitewater and Clinton-Lewinsky investigations, concluded that nothing he saw in the report “comes close to any case law that I know that would support an obstruction of justice charge.”

“Nothing, in my view, and I’ve been very consistent on this, that comes close to criminal obstruction of justice,” he said. “Whether or not Congress wants to look at it as part of a political impeachment, that’s something different.”

WATCH: AG BARR SPARS WITH A REPORTER DURING NEWS CONFERENCE AHEAD OF MUELLER REPORT RELEASE

Wisenberg went on to praise the “brilliant strategy” by Trump’s attorneys to not have the president interviewed by Mueller’s team. He reiterated that it would have been “suicidal” for the administration had Trump been allowed to be interviewed.

“Not necessarily that they were trying to frame him, but it’s always dangerous for a person in a white collar investigation, who is at minimum a subject, to go in for that kind of questioning when the prosecutors know the case, top to bottom, backward and forwards,” he said, adding that while he did not agree with all of the tactics of Trump’s lawyers throughout the investigation, this was a “brilliant and tactical decision.”

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Mueller’s report, which was released late Thursday morning, notes that the special counsel could not clear Trump on obstruction of justice. Attorney General William Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein decided that the information laid out in the report showed no prosecutable obstruction by the president or his administration.

Source: Fox News Politics

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Democratic Party Ruled By Globalists Must Be Investigated

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Source: InfoWars

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French ambassador blasts ‘big mouth’ Trump, says he reads ‘basically nothing’

Outgoing French ambassador Gerard Araud tore into President Trump in a series of exit interviews, calling the U.S. president a “big mouth” who reads “basically nothing or nearly nothing” -- and even comparing him to the "uninformed" French King Louis XIV.

Araud, in an interview with Foreign Policy, made a stark contrast between the presidencies of Barack Obama and the current White House occupant.

TRUMP SLAMS MACRON FOR LOW APPROVAL RATINGS, FRENCH SURRENDER TO THE NAZIS

“On one side, you had this ultimate bureaucrat, an introvert, basically a bit aloof, a restrained president. A bit arrogant also but basically somebody who every night was going to bed with 60-page briefings and the next day they were sent back annotated by the president,” he said, referring to Obama.

“And suddenly you have this president who is an extrovert, really a big mouth, who reads basically nothing or nearly nothing, with the interagency process totally broken and decisions taken from the hip basically.”

He told the magazine that often decisions or statements come from the White House, and even administration officials are surprised by them or don’t know what they mean.

In particular, he cited the Dec. 19 announcement of a U.S. withdrawal from Syria as well as the recent decision to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights -- where he said that “what I understand was the secretary of state [Mike Pompeo] was not informed.”

Still, his advice to the Elysee Palace for dealing with Trump when he went on the attack against President Emmanuel Macron was that officials do nothing

"He once criticized the French president [Emmanuel Macron], and people called me from Paris to say, 'What should we do?' My answer was clear: 'Nothing.' Do nothing because he will always outbid you. Because he can’t accept appearing to lose. You have restraint on your side, and he has no restraint on his side, so you lose. It is escalation dominance.”

HUNGARY'S TOP DIPLOMAT PRAISES TRUMP ON NATO PUSH, CONTRASTS AGAINST OBAMA-ERA 'LECTURING'

In another interview with The Guardian, Araud compared Trump to the French King Louis XIV, who reigned in France in the 17th and 18th centuries.

“It’s like [trying] to analyse the court of Louis XIV,” Araud said. “You have an old king, a bit whimsical, unpredictable, uninformed, but he wants to be the one deciding.”

Araud’s anti-Trump views are well known. On Election Night 2016, he tweeted, “A world is collapsing before our eyes. Vertigo,” before deleting it.

That bleak view of the post-2016 world continued in his interview with Foreign Policy where he struggled to find optimism about a Trump re-election, or the prospects for Britain’s departure from the European Union.

“I don’t know if it will be a disaster,” he said, asked about his thoughts on a Trump 2020 win. “I’m sure it won’t be a good thing. But at the same time it’s too easy to say Trump is responsible. Because on the European side, the crisis is on both sides of the Atlantic. You see the incredible soap opera [over Brexit] offered up by the British. Whatever the result, it’s a lose-lose situation for Europe. It’s a disaster that we are losing the British, all the capabilities they are bringing to us.”

CLICK HERE FOR THE FOX NEWS APP

Asked about his election night tweet by The Guardian, he said that in retrospect, he believed the tweet to be right.

“My world, our world of certainties, really was collapsing and we were facing a real, substantial, dangerous crisis, which could basically really overwhelm my own country,” he said. “I believe we are entering a new era. I just don’t know what this era will be.”

Source: Fox News Politics

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Mozambique says five cases of cholera confirmed after cyclone

A general view of houses seen from the air near Nhamatanda village following Cyclone Idai
A general view of houses seen from the air near Nhamatanda village, Beira, Mozambique, following Cyclone Idai, March 26, 2019. Picture taken March 26, 2019. REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko

March 27, 2019

BEIRA, Mozambique (Reuters) – There have been five confirmed cases of cholera in Mozambique in the wake of a powerful tropical cyclone, a senior Mozambican health official said on Wednesday, adding that the disease would spread.

Health officials were also battling 2,700 cases of acute watery diarrhea – which could be a symptom of cholera – the official, Ussein Isse, said.

“We did the lab tests and can confirm that these five people test positive for cholera,” he said. “It will spread. When you have one case, you have to expect more cases in the community.”

(Reporting by Emma Rumney; Writing by Alexander Winning; Editing by Louise Heavens)

Source: OANN

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Final Four: Virginia’s Guy comfortable shooting everywhere

NCAA Basketball: Final Four-Practice Day
Apr 5, 2019; Minneapolis, MN, USA; Virginia Cavaliers guard Kyle Guy (5) during a press conference before practice for the 2019 men's Final Four at US Bank Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Shanna Lockwood-USA TODAY Sports

April 5, 2019

MINNEAPOLIS – Virginia junior guard Kyle Guy is comfortable shooting in the driveway or the gym. He got up shots at Harlem’s Rucker Park and now can say he’s splashed a few in a football stadium, too.

“As a shooter, obviously, you have to be confident in yourself, and your teammates have to be confident in you, and with that confidence, it doesn’t matter where you’re shooting,” said Guy, who put up 25 points and made five huge 3-pointers to keep Virginia in the West Region final against Purdue. “You could be shooting at Rucker Park in Harlem, or you could be shooting in a football stadium. You just have to have confidence. Obviously, it’s very nice that we get to practice here twice, so we can kind of get a feel for it. But when the ball is tipped, it doesn’t matter what the backdrop is. It’s just we prepared for this, and we’re going to be ready.”

The Cavaliers, the only No. 1 seed to survive and reach Minneapolis, were the second team on the practice court Friday, following Auburn. Neither team looked to be bothered by the massive arena during open practice sessions at U.S. Bank Stadium.

Virginia took a team trip to Rucker Park — the famous outdoor court across from the old Polo Grounds at 155th Street and Frederick Douglass Boulevard in the Harlem neighborhood recently revisited in the Kyrie Irving flick “Uncle Drew” — while in New York last season. Guy, a 21-year-old from Indianapolis who picked Virginia over Cal and Indiana, is also preparing for another big day off the court. He and his bride to be became a topic of conversation Thursday, when Guy said he was told he couldn’t register for his upcoming wedding by the NCAA.

NCAA president Mark Emmert said the story was not accurate. On Friday, the NCAA further clarified that Guy can, in fact, have a wedding registry but fans are not allowed to send him gifts. Longtime girlfriend Alexa Jenkins and Guy will restore their registry after the Final Four.

To extend their trip to Monday night, the Cavaliers are counting on Guy to deliver big in the national semifinal matchup with Auburn.

“I’ve done a really good job this year of never hanging my head whenever I’m hitting or missing,” Guy said. “To see them go down was good.”

Head coach Tony Bennett said one of the keys for Virginia against Auburn will be defending the Tigers’ 3-point barrage. Virginia (28.7 percent) is among the best in the nation defending the 3, but Auburn averages 30.1 attempts per game.

“We just have to get to the shooters,” Virginia sophomore De’Andre Hunter said. “We practice it every day. We have to get to them quick, possibly run them off their line and make them make plays. It’s going to be a collective defensive effort.”

–By Jeff Reynolds, Field Level Media

Source: OANN

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Indonesians flock to final presidential campaign rallies

Tens of thousands of Indonesians have flocked to presidential campaign rallies ahead of a final debate between the two candidates.

Supporters of President Joko Widodo filled a stadium in central Jakarta on Saturday, while the campaign of his challenger, Prabowo Subianto, held a rally in a satellite city.

Widodo and Subianto appear in the final of five televised debates between the presidential and vice presidential candidates on Saturday evening.

About 193 million Indonesians are eligible to vote Wednesday in presidential and legislative elections.

Polls show Widodo with a big lead, but some analysts say the race is tighter than it appears.

Subianto supporter Akhirudin Konsi said he wants a "president who will fight for our rights and stand behind people, who will lower prices, especially education, fuel and basic needs."

Source: Fox News World

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A man accused of fatally beating a 4-month-old boy after finding out the infant wasn’t his son had been previously deported from the United States five times, most recently in late 2016, immigration officials said.

Carlos Zuniga-Aviles, a 33-year-old Honduran national, has used multiple aliases, including the fake name of Jose Agurcia-Avila he gave police in Memphis, Tennessee, following his arrest in the boy’s death earlier this month, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials told WMC-TV.

ICE officials have since filed an immigration detainer against Zuniga-Aviles, who was initially deported back to Honduras in February 2010. He was also returned to the Central American country in 2011, 2012, 2015 and 2016.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE NEW YORK POST

“ICE will seek to take him into custody to reinstate his removal order following the resolution of the criminal charges he currently faces,” the statement reads. “Mr. Zuniga-Aviles has been removed from the US five prior times: his most recent removal by ICE to Honduras took place in December 2016.”

ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT WITH CRIMINAL HISTORY ARRESTED IN CALIFORNIA WOMAN’S MURDER

Zuniga-Aviles later returned to the U.S. following his removal, a felony under federal law, immigration officials said. It’s unclear exactly when he returned, but he was living with his girlfriend and the woman’s 4-month-old son in Memphis at the time of his arrest, WREG reports.

DAD OF MAN KILLED BY ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT BLASTS CALIFORNIA GOV. NEWSOM’S TRIP TO CENTRAL AMERICA: ‘IT’S DISGUSTING’

The infant, Alexander Lizondro-Chacon, was pronounced dead at a hospital from blunt force trauma to the head after his mother, Mercy Lizondro-Chacon, called police on April 12 to report that the boy was having trouble breathing, according to an affidavit of complaint obtained by the Commercial Appeal.

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This article originally appeared in the New York Post. For more from the Post, click here.

Source: Fox News National

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Democratic presidential candidates Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bernie Sanders of Vermont are taking aim at latest entry into the 2020 nomination race – Joe Biden.

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.

JOE BIDEN OFFCIALLY LAUNCHES LONG AWAITED 2020 BID

“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.

WARREN NOT WORRIED ABOUT POLLS: ‘IT’S EARLY.. I’M RUNNING THE CAMPAIGN ITHAT I WANT TO RUN’

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.

BIDEN LAUNCH SETS UP 2020 NOMINATION FIGHT WITH FELLOW FRONT-RUNNER SANDERS

Sanders’ campaign also jabbed at Biden.

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.

BIDEN SAYS HE ASKED OBAMA NOT TO ENDORSE HIM

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

Highlighting his early public push for same-sex marriage, he said, “I’m not sure when everybody else came out and said they’re for gay marriage.”

Source: Fox News Politics

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FILE PHOTO: An aerial photo looking north shows shipping containers at the Port of Seattle and the Elliott Bay waterfront in Seattle
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.

(Reporting by Richard Leong)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: The Deutsche Bank headquarters are pictured in Frankfurt
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)

Source: OANN

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Panama's former president Ricardo Martinelli yells to the media while arriving to the Electoral Court in Panama City
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)

Source: OANN

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