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Police in South Korea investigate suspect in killings of 5

South Korean police are investigating a 42-year-old man accused of setting his apartment on fire and stabbing neighbors trying to flee, killing five people and injuring 13 others.

The violence Wednesday in the city of Jinju shocked the nation. Prime Minister Lee Nak-yeon criticized police Thursday for what he saw as a failure to properly monitor a person known for past violence and clashes with neighbors.

City police say the suspect aggressively resisted arrest and has a history of mental illness. But they say he has not given a coherent statement on what happened Wednesday.

Source: Fox News World

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CSX quarterly profit tops view on price increases, cost cuts

File photo of a CSX freight train blasting through high snow at a crossing in Silver Spring
A CSX freight train blasts through high snow at a crossing in Silver Spring, Maryland, in a February 13, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/Gary Cameron/Files/File Photo

April 16, 2019

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – CSX Corp on Tuesday reported quarterly profit that topped Wall Street’s expectations, after the No. 3 U.S. railroad operator contained costs and pushed through price increases.

First-quarter net profit was $834 million, or $1.02 per share, up from $695 million, or 78 cents per share, a year earlier.

CSX’s operating ratio, a measure of operating expenses as a percentage of revenue and a closely watched gauge of railroad performance, was 59.5 percent versus 63.7 percent in the year-ago quarter. Railroads boost profit by lowering their operating ratio.

(Reporting by Lisa Baertlein in Los Angeles; Editing by Dan Grebler)

Source: OANN

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Trump says Islamic State no longer holds any territory in Syria

U.S. President Trump departs on travel to Florida from the White House in Washington
U.S. President Donald Trump talks to reporters as he departs the White House to depart on travel to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida from the White House in Washington, U.S., March 22, 2019. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

March 22, 2019

PALM SPRINGS, Fla. (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday that U.S.-backed forces had dislodged the Islamic State militant group from its last holdout in Syria.

“Here’s ISIS on Election Day. And here’s ISIS right now,” Trump said, using the acronym for the group, as he displayed a before-and-after map to reporters, with the “before” portion full of red dots and the after-map empty.

“You guys can have the map. Congratulations,” Trump said. “I think it’s about time.” The president has previously displayed a map illustrating the diminution of Islamic State.

Trump has said Islamic State no longer holds territory several times over the past few weeks. But U.S. officials told Reuters that fighting still continued late into Thursday between U.S.-backed forces and Islamic State militants in the last remaining territory it holds.

Earlier on Friday, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told reporters Islamic State no longer held any territory in Syria and that U.S. acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan had briefed the president on the milestone as he was traveling to Florida on Air Force One.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) battled Islamic State militants holed up in the Baghouz area overnight, supported by U.S.-led coalition air strikes, the SDF said, seeking to defeat the last pockets of jihadist resistance.

The SDF has been battling for weeks to defeat Islamic State in the Baghouz enclave in southeastern Syria at the Iraqi border, all that remained of the territory the militants ruled, which once spanned a third of Syria and Iraq.

While the U.S.-backed SDF has captured most of the area, Mustafa Bali, head of the SDF media office, told Reuters SDF fighters were clashing late on Thursday with IS militants in more than two positions where they were refusing to surrender.

(Reporting by Roberta Rampton and Idrees Ali; Writing by Mohammad Zargham; Editing by Mary Milliken and Jonathan Oatis)

Source: OANN

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‘He looked straight at me,’ Rep. Rashida Tlaib says after meeting with Obama

Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., an outspoken freshmen Democrat who has continued to push for the impeachment of President Trump, fondly recalled the praise Trump's predecessor, Barack Obama, bestowed on her when the former president met with new members of Congress last week.

Obama "met with us new members of Congress and we had a thoughtful discussion about serving our country,” Tlaib tweeted Thursday.

OBAMA WARNS DEM FRESHMEN ON COST OF THEIR PROPOSALS

Tlaib posted a photo of herself with Obama, writing: “The best part was when he looked straight at me and said, ‘I'm proud of you.’"

Obama, who has largely stayed out of the public eye since leaving office, reportedly used the event to warn the freshmen Democrats about the cost of their bold ideas, though he didn't call out specific proposals by name.

“He said we [as Democrats] shouldn’t be afraid of big, bold ideas – but also need to think in the nitty-gritty about how those big, bold ideas will work and how you pay for them,” one person familiar with Obama’s remarks told the Washington Post.

While Obama’s visit thrilled some freshmen Democrats, not all new members of Congress have been swept up in the former president’s typically unifying voice.

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Freshman Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., has criticized the former president in recent weeks, reportedly suggesting in an interview his message of “hope and change” is a “mirage.”

Omar later claimed she was misquoted by Politico, tweeting that she is a fan of Obama. But the move immediately backfired as the recording of her interview confirmed the comments she made to the news outlet. She later deleted her tweet.

Fox News' Brooke Singman contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News Politics

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U.S. senators introduce social media bill to ban ‘dark patterns’ tricks

3D-printed Facebook and Twitter logos are seen in this picture illustration made in Zenica
3D-printed Facebook and Twitter logos are seen in this picture illustration made in Zenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina on January 26, 2016. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic

April 13, 2019

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Two U.S. senators introduced a bill on Tuesday to ban online social media companies like Facebook Inc and Twitter Inc from tricking consumers into giving up their personal data.

The bill from Mark Warner, a Democrat, and Deb Fischer, a Republican, would also ban online platforms with more than 100 million monthly active users from designing addicting games or other websites for children under age 13.

The bill takes aim at practices that online platforms use to mislead people into giving personal data to companies or otherwise trick them. The so-called “dark patterns” were developed using behavioral psychology.

“Misleading prompts to just click the ‘OK’ button can often transfer your contacts, messages, browsing activity, photos, or location information without you even realizing it,” Fischer said in a statement issued by both senators.

Restrictions on how social media companies collect information about users could hurt their ability to sell advertisements, a key source of profit.

A website aimed at tracking dark patterns identifies behavior, such as a website or app showing that a user has new notifications when they do not.

Warner said in an interview on CNBC that the legislation could be included in a federal privacy bill that lawmakers in the Senate Commerce Committee are drafting. Congress has been expected to take up privacy legislation after California passed a strict privacy law that goes into effect next year.

Warner noted that Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, Google and others have expressed support for privacy regulation.

“The platform companies are now going to have an opportunity to put their money where their mouth is, to see if they support this legislation and other approaches,” he said.

The bill would bar companies from choosing groups of people for behavioral experiments unless the companies get informed consent.

Under the terms of the bill, social media companies would create a professional standards body to create best practices to deal with the issue. The Federal Trade Commission, which investigates deceptive advertising, would work with the group.

Facebook, Google, Twitter and other free online services rely on advertising for revenue, and use data collected on users to more effectively target those ads.The story refiles to fix typographical error in last paragraph to make it “rely” instead of “relay”

(Reporting by Diane Bartz; Editing by Susan Thomas and Jonathan Oatis)

Source: OANN

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Biden finally confirms campaign launch plans


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On the roster: Biden finally confirms campaign launch plans - Trump 2020 heads to Pennsylvania - House requests block to Trump border wall funding - Trump’s actions could cause trouble post Mueller - What a waste of pasta

BIDEN FINALLY CONFIRMS CAMPAIGN LAUNCH PLANS
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: “After days of uncertainty about the former vice president's plans, Joe Biden plans to announce his candidacy for president on Thursday [via video], then visit Pittsburgh for an event on Monday. … Then, at the beginning of next week, he will appear at an event at the Teamsters Local 249 hall in Lawrenceville at 4 p.m., another source with direct knowledge of the booking told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Tuesday. Mr. Biden was rumored to have scheduled an event in Pittsburgh this week on the same day as an announcement, but his plans reportedly shifted late Monday. The former vice president's campaign appears to be capitalizing on the intrigue, sending an email to supporters Tuesday urging them to sign up to be the ‘first to know’ his plans. People with direct knowledge of Mr. Biden's campaign strategy told Politico this week that Mr. Biden is working to lock down the support of national labor unions.”

Obama staying on the sidelines as Biden gets ready to launch - Fox News: “[When he announces] don’t expect his running mate for two election cycles – former President Barack Obama – to speak out in support of Biden’s 2020 bid. The 44th president plans to remain on the sidelines right now in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. Two sources familiar with Obama’s thinking say the former president has made clear he doesn’t plan on endorsing early in the primary process – if at all. They add that Obama prefers to let the candidates make their cases directly to the voters and that former first lady Michelle Obama feels the same way. ‘He’s not likely to endorse in the primary,’ a source who talks with the former president told Fox News. … While he’s remaining neutral, Obama has met over the past several months with a number of candidates in the large field of Democratic 2020 contenders – offering guidance from someone who’s gone through what they’re going through now.”

Silver: ‘Sanders-related panic is premature’ - FiveThirtyEight: “If there’s one thing the Democratic establishment is good at, it’s panicking. And the latest reason for panic among Democratic insiders is Bernie Sanders. … Should Democratic insiders really be worried that Sanders will be nominated and cost them an election against President Trump that they’d otherwise win? … Sanders-related panic is premature for at least three reasons: 1. While Sanders is one of perhaps a dozen candidates with a plausible shot at the nomination, the field is fairly wide open, and it’s too early to say how formidable he is. 2. It’s also too early to conclude very much about Sanders’s ‘electability’ against Trump, especially in comparison to other Democrats. 3. Finally, even if they wanted to stop Sanders, it’s too early for the party establishment to know how to go about doing that — without more input from rank-and-file voters, any move meant to hinder Sanders could backfire.”

Thomas Edsall: ‘Bernie Sanders Scares a Lot of People, and Quite a Few of Them Are Democrats’ - NYT: “In the most important election in the lifetime of many Democrats — with Trump poised for a second term — the electability of the Democratic nominee is the top concern. Sanders has never been tested in a general election. His only experience running against Republicans has been in Vermont, a state ranked third most liberal in the nation and second most Democratic, according to Gallup.”

Beto begins California campaign Saturday - LAT: “Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke of Texas will launch his 2020 California primary campaign Saturday with a four-day driving tour of the state. The former El Paso congressman will stop at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College downtown for an outdoor rally at 4 p.m. Saturday. On Sunday, O’Rourke is planning a town hall at the United Irish Cultural Center in San Francisco, followed by multiple stops in the Central Valley on Monday. He wraps up his visit Tuesday morning with a town hall in San Diego. Notably absent from O’Rourke’s itinerary are the private Hollywood and Silicon Valley fundraisers that presidential candidates typically hold during visits to California. Spokesman Chris Evans said O’Rourke has held no fundraising events and has not scheduled any.”

Inslee’s Super PAC uses Facebook for critical voter data - Daily Beast: “A super PAC supporting Gov. Jay Inslee (D-WA) has developed a way to share information and strategy with his presidential campaign in a manner that experts say is both novel and right at the end of the legal boundaries for permissible coordination. The super PAC, Act Now On Climate, is currently running advertisements with subtle, embedded signals that the campaign can mine for critical voter information and use to hone its own social media and advertising strategies. The tactic has drawn the attention of Democratic digital strategists and raised eyebrows among ethics watchdogs. But the campaign hasn’t asked for the help and says it isn’t mining the data. … The apparent key to the scheme is Act Now On Climate’s Facebook page, which it’s used to run hundreds of pro-Inslee ads since March. The vast majority of those ads … link directly to the Inslee campaign’s official website…”

Phish? - LAT: “…[A]lthough Buttigieg, 37, hasn’t told voters much thus far about how he’d govern a profoundly divided nation, we already know a fair amount about something almost as important: Mayor Pete’s eclectic taste in pop music. Buttigieg is an avowed Dave Matthews Band fan whose repertoire as a garage-band keyboardist includes ‘The Way We Get By,’ by Austin indie-rock lifers Spoon; last week he cited Everlast’s 1998 folk-rap lament ‘What It’s Like’ as an example of ‘the way we should come to politics.’ His official campaign-trail playlist — as tweeted out by Buttigieg’s husband, Chasten Buttigieg — features crowd-pumpers like Creedence Clearwater Revival’s ‘Up Around the Bend,’ Florence and the Machine’s ‘Dog Days Are Over’ and Curtis Mayfield’s Obama-approved ‘Move On Up,’ but also ‘Tweezer Reprise,’ the propulsive studio version of a live staple by the Vermont jam band Phish.”

THE RULEBOOK: IT KEEPS GETTING BETTER TOO!
“The improvements in the art of navigation have, as to the facility of communication, rendered distant nations, in a great measure, neighbors.” – Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 24

TIME OUT: ‘IN BOOKS LIES THE SOUL OF THE WHOLE PAST TIME’
History: “[On this day] President John Adams approves legislation to appropriate $5,000 to purchase ‘such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress,’ thus establishing the Library of Congress. The first books, ordered from London, arrived in 1801 and were stored in the U.S. Capitol, the library’s first home. The first library catalog, dated April 1802, listed 964 volumes and nine maps. Twelve years later, the British army invaded the city of Washington and burned the Capitol, including the then 3,000-volume Library of Congress. Former president Thomas Jefferson, who advocated the expansion of the library during his two terms in office, responded to the loss by selling his personal library, the largest and finest in the country, to Congress to ‘recommence’ the library. … Today, the collection, housed in three enormous buildings in Washington, contains more than 17 million books, as well as millions of maps, manuscripts, photographs, films, audio and video recordings, prints, and drawings.”

Flag on the play? - Email us at HALFTIMEREPORT@FOXNEWS.COM with your tips, comments or questions.

SCOREBOARD
Trump job performance 
Average approval:
 42.8 percent
Average disapproval: 52 percent
Net Score: -9.2 points
Change from one week ago: no change 
[Average includes: Fox News: 45% approve - 51% disapprove; Monmouth University: 40% approve - 54% disapprove; Gallup: 45% approve - 51% disapprove; GU Politics/Battleground: 43% approve - 52% disapprove; IBD: 41% approve - 52% disapprove.]

TRUMP 2020 HEADS TO PENNSYLVANIA
Politico: “Senior Trump 2020 advisers are headed to Harrisburg on Wednesday to meet with Pennsylvania GOP officials amid mounting concerns about the president’s prospects in the critical battleground state. Trump's campaign is moving to shore up the state after 2018 midterm elections that saw Republicans get blown out in races up and down the ballot. Compounding the situation is a state party organization riven by turmoil and infighting. The private meeting, confirmed by a half-dozen party officials, underscores the high stakes for the president in the state. Trump won Pennsylvania by less than 1 percentage point in 2016, and reelection aides view the state’s 20 electoral votes as crucial to his 2020 hopes. … The Trump contingent is expected to include political director Chris Carr, who is orchestrating the campaign’s national field deployment, as well as Bill Stepien and Justin Clark, who are overseeing outreach to delegates and state party organizations. Republican National Committee officials are also expected to attend.”

Former Sen. Bob Corker says GOP needs a ‘real primary’ - Time: “Former Sen. Bob Corker said it would be good for the country if President Donald Trump faced a strong Republican challenger in the 2020 presidential primaries. ‘Philosophically, you could look at it and say that it would be a good thing for our country should that occur,’ he said in an interview during the TIME 100 Summit in New York City on Tuesday afternoon. ‘If you had a real primary, where you had someone that was really being listened to, and of substance, things that we were talking about — and I could go through a list of them — they would actually be debated in a real way.’ … Corker, the former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he always intended to leave the Senate after two terms, which he did. But he made no promises that he wouldn’t run for office again, including against Trump for the Republican nomination.”

HOUSE REQUESTS BLOCK TO TRUMP BORDER WALL FUNDING
Politico: “The House of Representatives has asked a federal judge to block President Donald Trump’s plan to build a border wall using Defense Department funds. On Tuesday, House lawyers requested that U.S. District Court Judge Trevor McFadden issue a preliminary injunction against the Trump administration’s plan to spend about $6 billion from military construction and counter-drug accounts to build additional barriers along the U.S-Mexico border. … The House’s 56-page motion accuses Trump of trying to make an end-run around the Constitution by ignoring Congress’s power of the purse. House lawyers also seek to use Trump’s own words against him… However, the House motion seems to avoid a direct challenge to Trump’s emergency declaration. Instead, House lawyers argue that the planned spending doesn’t satisfy other legal requirements, like a need for use of the armed forces and a need to support those forces.”

Acting DHS chief states family separations isn’t an option - NBC News: “Acting Homeland Security chief Kevin McAleenan said separating migrant families at the U.S. southern border is ‘not on the table,’ and the policy was ‘not worth it’ from an enforcement perspective. In his first network interview as acting DHS secretary to broadcast, McAleenan told NBC News' Lester Holt on Tuesday, ‘We're not pursuing that approach.’ McAleenan's predecessor, Kirstjen Nielsen, was forced out of the job earlier this month, in part because she'd refused to reinstate the policy of separating children from their families at the border, U.S. officials have told NBC News. Nielsen had implemented the policy last year, but it was blocked by the courts. … Of the children separated from their families at the border, McAleenan claimed ‘they were always intended to be reunited,’ which is a ‘part of this story that I think had been lost.’ … McAleenan insisted the family separation policy wasn't coming back.”

Scoop on Kushner’s immigration plan - Axios: “In his private briefings on his yet-to-be-released immigration plan, Jared Kushner has told people his plan will be ‘neutral’ on immigration numbers, multiple administration and Hill sources familiar with the proposal tell Axios. Why it matters: By neutral, Kushner says he means it will neither raise nor lower the overall number of legal immigrants coming into the U.S. Kushner has told Axios' sources, which includes a handful of Republican lawmakers, that he wants the plan to increase the numbers of high-skilled immigrants entering the U.S. and to decrease the number of immigrants coming based on their family ties. Kushner plans to turn his proposal into legislation and he told TIME’s Brian Bennett on Tuesday that he would present the plan to President Trump in the coming days.”

TRUMP’S ACTIONS COULD CAUSE TROUBLE POST MUELLER
Politico: “Special counsel Robert Mueller may be done, but President Donald Trump and his team are still adding to an already hefty record of evidence that could fuel impeachment proceedings or future criminal indictments. Team Trump’s bellicose tweets and public statements in the last few days are potentially exposing Trump to fresh charges of witness intimidation, obstruction of justice and impeding a congressional investigation — not to mention giving lawmakers more fodder for their presidential probes — according to Democrats and legal experts. Already, a fusillade of verbal assaults aimed at former White House counsel Don McGahn, a star witness in the Mueller report, have sparked questions about obstruction and witness intimidation as Democrats fight the Trump White House to get McGahn’s documents and testimony. ‘This is risky,’ said William Jeffress, a prominent Washington defense attorney who represented President Richard Nixon after he left the White House. … It’s a lesson some thought Trump would have learned during the Mueller investigation.”

Team Trump openly opposes Congress requests for WH aides to testify - WaPo: “President Trump on Tuesday said he is opposed to current and former White House aides providing testimony to congressional panels in the wake of the special counsel report, intensifying a power struggle between his administration and House Democrats. In an interview with The Washington Post, Trump said that complying with congressional requests was unnecessary after the White House cooperated with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s probe of Russian interference and the president’s own conduct in office. ‘There is no reason to go any further, and especially in Congress where it’s very partisan — obviously very partisan,’ Trump said. Trump’s comments came as the White House made it clear that it plans to broadly defy requests for information from Capitol Hill, moving the two branches of government closer to a constitutional collision.”

PLAY-BY-PLAY
Mnuchin shows no signs of handing over Trump tax returns - Politico

President Trump, first lady to speak on opioids at summit in Atlanta - Fox News

Pelosi, Schumer will meet with Trump next week to discuss infrastructure - Politico

Trump held private meeting with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey Tuesday - WaPo

Pew survey finds women to be the most ‘prolific people’ on Twitter - CNBC

AUDIBLE: OH…?
“When I have to step down to the floor of the House of Representatives, and look up at those 400-and-some accusers — you know we just passed through Easter and Christ's passion — and I have better insight into what He went through for us, partly because of that experience.” – Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, said during a town hall at Western Iowa Tech Community College Tuesday.

Share your color commentary: Email us at HALFTIMEREPORT@FOXNEWS.COM and please make sure to include your name and hometown.

WHAT A WASTE OF PASTA
KNON2: “What started off as a joke, turned into a cool invention. Youtuber Laplanet Arts, also known as Micah LaPlante, built a computer entirely out of pasta. He did it after joking with his wife about the idea. LaPlante used the inside parts of an old computer, and created a case using lasagna, rigatoni, hot glue, electric tape and paint. Lasagna PC version one, has direct computer functions in the front. He said he had issues getting Windows going, but eventually got the system fired up and working. But it struggled to stay up, especially when he tried to play video games. In the end, the old computer adage applied. It was then boiled, mock-eaten, then pitched in the trash.”

AND NOW, A WORD FROM CHARLES…
“I have a horror of the blank page. I simply cannot write on a blank page or screen. Because once I do, I start to fix it, and I never get past the first sentence.” – Charles Krauthammer (1950-2018) said in an interview with Timothy Carney, published on Oct. 24, 2013.

Chris Stirewalt is the politics editor for Fox News. Brianna McClelland contributed to this report. Want FOX News Halftime Report in your inbox every day? Sign up here.

Source: Fox News Politics

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Former UAW official pleads guilty in U.S. corruption case

FILE PHOTO: UAW Vice President Norwood Jewell addresses their Special Bargaining Convention held at COBO Hall in Detroit
FILE PHOTO: UAW Vice President Norwood Jewell addresses their Special Bargaining Convention held at COBO Hall in Detroit, Michigan March 25, 2015. REUTERS/Jeff Kowalsky/File Photo

April 2, 2019

By Nick Carey

DETROIT (Reuters) – A former top United Auto Workers official in charge of the union’s relations with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV (FCA) pleaded guilty on Tuesday in a U.S. federal court in Detroit to misusing the automaker’s funds for lavish spending on UAW officials.

As part of a plea agreement, Norwood Jewell, who headed the UAW’s FCA department from 2014 until his retirement in January 2018, pleaded guilty to a single charge of conspiring to violate the Labor Relations Management Act, which carries a maximum prison sentence of five years and a fine of up to $250,000.

Jewell is the highest-ranking former UAW official charged so far in a wide-ranging investigation into illegal payoffs to UAW officials by FCA. To date, seven people linked to the union and the automaker have been sentenced in the government’s corruption investigation.

Jewell’s court appearance comes at a sensitive time for the UAW, which faces contract talks later this year with FCA, General Motors Co and Ford Motor Co.

Prosecutors say FCA officials conspired to divert to UAW officials more than $4.5 million in training center funds intended to pay for training for union members.

Both the UAW and FCA have repeatedly said that only a few individuals were involved and that this did not affect contract talks between the two in 2015.

Dressed in a black suit, charcoal gray shirt and a black-and-blue striped tie, Jewell told the court he failed to properly apportion funds between his two roles at the UAW and the National Training Center funded by the FCA to train workers.

“I own up to what I did and I am taking responsibility for my actions,” Jewell said.

Prosecutors have recommended a sentence of 12 months to 18 months.

According to court documents, Jewell used the FCA’s National Training Center credit card and approved the use of the credit cards by other UAW officials to make more than $40,000 worth of charges for items such as travel and meals.

Defense attorney Michael Manley told reporters the corrupt practices preceded Jewell’s appointment in 2014, that he had worked to halt those practices and “that he did not take anything for personal gain.”

“My hope is that he will not go to jail,” Manley said.

(Reporting By Nick Carey; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)

Source: OANN

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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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FILE PHOTO: Amazon boxes are seen stacked for delivery in the Manhattan borough of New York City
FILE PHOTO: Amazon boxes are seen stacked for delivery in the Manhattan borough of New York City, January 29, 2016. REUTERS/Mike Segar/File Photo

April 26, 2019

(Reuters) – Shares of Walmart, Target and other U.S. retailers fell on Friday as Amazon.com Inc unveiled a one-day delivery plan for its Prime members in a move to further disrupt the fiercely competitive retail landscape.

The e-commerce giant’s announcement on Thursday could cause other brands, manufacturers, retailers, and logistics companies to have to invest more aggressively to compete with Amazon and its delivery, analysts said.

Retailers in recent years have poured billions into ecommerce and faster shipping options and are trying to close the gap with Amazon.

“This is about making it more expensive to catch up and affirms our world view that only the largest and smartest will survive,” Bernstein analyst Brandon Fletcher said.

The move is expected to heighten consumer expectations on e-commerce delivery just like Amazon did with its two-day shipping option for members of its loyalty club Prime, noted analysts.

“The faster you ship, the more people buy,” RBC Capital Markets analyst Mark Mahaney said.

The challenge for non-Amazon players was that very few of the existing logistics and parcel delivery players now have the ability to do nationwide one-day delivery, Morgan Stanley analyst Brian Nowak said.

“And even fewer can do it at the vast scale and reasonable cost that AMZN would need for Prime delivery,” Nowak said in a note.

Walmart Inc’s shares fell about 3 percent, while Target Corp dropped about 5 percent in morning trade.

Shares of Kohl’s Corp, Macy’s Inc and Nordstrom Inc fell about 1 percent. Grocer Kroger Co was nearly 3 percent lower, while consumer electronics retailer Best Buy Inc dropped 2.1 percent.

(Reporting by Soundarya J and Akanksha Rana in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)

Source: OANN

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A Chinese woman adjusts a Chinese national flag next to U.S. national flags before a Strategic Dialogue expanded meeting, part of the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED) in Beijing
A Chinese woman adjusts a Chinese national flag next to U.S. national flags before a Strategic Dialogue expanded meeting, part of the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED) held at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, July 10, 2014. REUTERS/Ng Han Guan/Pool (CHINA – Tags: POLITICS BUSINESS)

April 26, 2019

By April Joyner

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Even as the lift from optimism over prospects for U.S.-China trade detente shows signs of wearing off for the wider U.S. stock market, upbeat sentiment around China’s economy could bolster shares of materials companies.

Shares of S&P 500 industrial and technology companies, which were buffeted by last year’s tit-for-tat tariffs as well as slowing global demand, have been very responsive to progress in U.S.-China trade relations and a strengthening Chinese economy. This year, those sectors have outpaced the ascent in the S&P 500, which reached a record closing high on Tuesday.

Materials stocks have not been as sensitive, however, even though they also stand to benefit as a stronger Chinese economy lifts global consumption and industrial output. As China has taken measures to stimulate its economy, its economic data have turned more upbeat. That in turn could aid global growth, which has flagged as a result of China’s cooldown.

“What we’re seeing is China spending more on stimulus: fiscal stimulus and monetary stimulus,” said Kristina Hooper, chief global market strategist at Invesco in New York. “That’s likely to be a positive for materials.”

The People’s Bank of China has cut banks’ reserve requirement ratio five times over the past year and is widely expected to ease policy further to spur lending and reduce borrowing costs. The stimulus appears to have boosted Chinese economic data, with factory activity growing in March for the first time in four months.

Yet so far in 2019, the S&P 500 materials index has underperformed the S&P 500 at large, rising just 11.9% compared with 16.7% for the benchmark index. Moreover, it is among the biggest decliners in the period since the S&P’s previous record closing level on Sept. 20. The materials index has fallen 7% over those seven months, versus a 5.2% gain for technology and a 3% loss for industrials. Only the energy index has dropped more over that period.

A trade agreement could serve as a catalyst for a bump in materials shares as a drag on China’s economy is lifted, some market strategists say. Some commodity prices, including those for copper and oil, have ascended this year as the prospects for the global economy have somewhat brightened.

“It all goes back to the global growth outlook,” said Andrea DiCenso, portfolio manager for alpha strategies at Loomis Sayles in Boston. “With the front run in hard data, we’re beginning to see a pretty significant rally.”

Additionally, a trade agreement is expected to include commitments from China to purchase higher quantities of U.S. products such as soybeans, which could benefit companies that make agricultural chemicals, including DowDuPont Inc and CF Industries Holdings Inc.

CF Industries is scheduled to report quarterly results after the bell on Wednesday, and DowDuPont is scheduled to report before the market open on Thursday.

To be sure, even with a trade agreement, some materials companies could face price pressures. Shares of Freeport-McMoRan Inc fell 10.1% on Thursday after the copper mining company posted a lower-than-expected profit as its production slipped and its costs rose.

A rollback of tariffs on Chinese imports, particularly aluminum and steel, would likely prompt a fall in some commodity prices, which could hurt prospects for certain materials companies, said Gene Goldman, chief investment officer at Cetera Investment Management in El Segundo, California.

Even so, those drawbacks may be outweighed by the support for global demand fostered by a U.S.-China trade agreement.

“You could see a number of companies with lowered expectations bring them back up as they talk favorably about the impact that a trade deal would have on them,” said Tim Ghriskey, chief investment strategist at Inverness Counsel in New York.

(Reporting by April Joyner; additional reporting by Sinéad Carew; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Source: OANN

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