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NFL transactions notebook: Browns reportedly acquire Beckham

FILE PHOTO: 2017 Kids Choice Sport Awards – Show – Los Angeles
FILE PHOTO: 2017 Kids Choice Sport Awards – Show – Los Angeles, California, U.S., 13/07/2017 - NFL football player Odell Beckham Jr. accepts the Hands of Gold Award. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni

March 13, 2019

The New York Giants reportedly traded Odell Beckham Jr. to Cleveland on Tuesday night, giving Browns quarterback Baker Mayfield one of the best wide receivers in the league as his newest target.

According to multiple reports, the Giants will get in return the No. 17 overall pick in the 2019 draft, a 2019 third-round pick and safety Jabrill Peppers. The Giants now have picks No. 6 and 17 in the first round.

Beckham, 26, finished with 77 catches for 1,052 yards and six touchdowns in 2018, the first of a five-year, $95 million contract he signed last offseason.

The deal reunites Beckham with former LSU teammate and fellow wide receiver Jarvis Landry and gives Mayfield a potent 1-2 punch at receiver, to go along with a now-loaded backfield with Nick Chubb, Kareem Hunt and Duke Johnson.

Also, the Browns reportedly agreed to a three-year deal with defensive lineman Sheldon Richardson, who had 4.5 sacks in 16 games with Minnesota last season.

–According to multiple reports, the New York Jets agreed to a five-year, $85 million deal with former Baltimore Raven C.J. Mosley, making him the highest-paid linebacker in the league. But fellow Pro Bowl linebacker Anthony Barr, who appeared headed for the Jets, said he would remain in Minnesota and get $67.5 million over five years. Center Matt Paradis also spurned the Jets for a three-year, $27 million deal with the Carolina Panthers after playing in Denver his entire career.

–The Buffalo Bills reportedly are adding wide receivers John Brown and Cole Beasley, with Brown expected to sign for three years and $27 million, and Beasley reportedly getting $29 million over four years.

–The Chicago Bears reportedly agreed on a two-year, $10 million contract with returner/receiver Cordarrelle Patterson, who averaged 28.8 yards with one touchdown returning kicks for the New England Patriots last season. He also caught 21 passes for 247 yards and three touchdowns and rushed for 228 yards and one score on 42 carries.

–In addition to adding Paradis at center, the Panthers announced they are retaining backup quarterback Taylor Heinicke with a one-year contract. But linebacker Thomas Davis, who has played all 14 of his professional seasons in Carolina, tweeted that he will spend his 15th season in Los Angeles, with the Chargers.

–The agent for free agent lineman Ja’Wuan James says his client agreed to a four-year, $51 million deal with the Broncos, making James the highest-paid right tackle in the NFL.

–The Houston Texans reportedly agreed to terms with defensive backs Tashaun Gipson (safety) and Bradley Roby (cornerback).

–Linebacker Deone Bucannon is set to reunite with his former head coach Bruce Arians after reportedly agreeing to a one-year deal with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

–The Cardinals reportedly agreed to a four-year, $36 million contract with inside linebacker Jordan Hicks, who spent four seasons in Philadelphia.

–The Tennessee Titans intend to sign offensive guard Rodger Saffold to a four-year, $44 million contract, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter.

–The Giants, who let three-time Pro Bowl safety Landon Collins walk in free agency, will sign veteran safety Antoine Bethea to a reported two-year contract after spending last season in Arizona.

–Dolphins wide receiver DeVante Parker is staying in Miami after signing a new two-year deal that spares the team from paying his $9.3 million fifth-year option for 2019.

–Outside linebacker Za’Darius Smith, edge player Preston Smith and safety Adrian Amos all agreed to deals with the Green Bay Packers, according to NFL Network.

–According to multiple reports, rehabbing and suspended wide receiver Josh Gordon was given a second-round restricted free agent tender by the Patriots.

–The New Orleans Saints reportedly will sign running back Latavius Murray to a four-year, $14.4 million contract, meaning the Saints likely are moving on from free agent Mark Ingram. … Quarterback Teddy Bridgewater reportedly will re-sign with New Orleans and remain the backup to Drew Brees.

–Field Level Media

Source: OANN

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Indiana elementary school pilots program that packages unused food into take-home meals

An elementary school in South Bend, Indiana has reportedly partnered with a local non-profit organization, Cultivate, to package left-over cafeteria food into take-home meals for underprivileged students.

Elkhart School System's Woodland Elementary students are reportedly offered breakfast and lunch at school, but some may go hungry on weekends when they can’t visit the cafeteria. Cultivate will provide 20 select students with a backpack carrying eight individual frozen meals every Friday until summer break.

GEORGIA ELEMENTARY SCHOOL CELEBRATES JANITOR’S 80TH BIRTHDAY

Jim Conklin, the founder of Cultivate, explained how schools usually cook more food than is actually consumed each school day. Cultivate, therefore, repackages the left-over food to feed those who might otherwise miss a meal.

“Mostly, we rescue food that’s been made but never served by catering companies, large food service businesses, like the school system," Jim Conklin told WSBT. "We take well-prepared food, combine it with other food and make individual frozen meals out if it."

“At Elkhart Community Schools, we were wasting a lot of food," admitted Natalie Bickel, who works with student services. "There wasn't anything to do with the food. So they came to the school three times a week and rescued the food."

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The Chamber of Commerce’s Leadership Academy Commerce also reportedly played a role in bringing Cultivate to Woodland Elementary.

“It’s making a big impact,” Melissa Ramey, a member of the Chamber Leadership Academy, told WSBT. “I am proud of that. It was heartbreaking to hear that children go home on the weekends and that they don't have anything to eat.”

Elkhart School System is reportedly working to expand the repackaged food program to other schools to help children in need.

Source: Fox News National

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Hedge funds hunt for shipping debt in new market push

FILE PHOTO: A container ship crosses the Gulf of Suez towards the Red Sea before entering the Suez Canal
FILE PHOTO: A container ship crosses the Gulf of Suez towards the Red Sea before entering the Suez Canal, near Ismailia port city, northeast of Cairo, Egypt October 27, 2018. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh/File Photo

February 20, 2019

By Jonathan Saul and Maiya Keidan

LONDON (Reuters) – A growing number of hedge funds are moving into shipping debt, an asset class few have invested in before, looking to buy up loans and bonds as banks cut their exposure to the troubled sector.

World economy worries and cost pressures are dampening prospects for a proper recovery in many segments of the shipping

sector, which has struggled with tough markets for a decade.

Meanwhile European banks, particularly German lenders, are trying to offload distressed and performing loans to the industry which attracts high capital requirements.

The European Central Bank’s banking supervisor has flagged troubled non-performing loans in 2019 as “a concern for a significant number of euro area institutions”.

In one of the first deals to have been concluded in recent weeks, finance sources said hedge and private equity firm Avenue Capital together with asset manager King Street Capital Management bought at least $100 million of loans from investment groups Varde Partners and Oak Hill Advisors.

In June last year funds managed by Varde and Oak Hill purchased $1 billion worth of legacy shipping loans – which sources said included mainly performing but also some distressed assets – from Deutsche Bank.

Varde and Oak Hill declined to comment, while Avenue Capital and King Street did not respond to requests for comment.

Hedge funds clocked up hundreds of millions of dollars in losses from investments in mainly equities when the shipping industry first turned sour a decade ago – and have made limited forays for the most part since.

Last year some equity-focused funds bet on a recovery for the global shipping industry through the stock and futures markets but many are now retrenching after heavy losses in the fourth quarter.

Debt-focused funds are hoping for more luck.

“There is more hedge fund buying interest in shipping debt than in equity now. I don’t think anyone believes the (shipping) market will recover any time soon,” said Basil Karatzas of New York based shipping finance advisory firm Karatzas Marine Advisors & Co.

“So, if you buy equities the upside potential is limited. You can more easily make double-digit returns through credit risk investments.”

Deals expected to generate hedge fund interest include a portfolio of distressed shipping loans that Greece’s Piraeus Bank is seeking to sell, finance sources said.

A source close to the Piraeus Bank deal said the portfolio of shipping loans, called Nemo, was made up of non-performing and performing loans with a nominal value of 500 million to 600 million euros. The source said a sale was expected to close in the second quarter of 2019, declining to provide any details on potential bidders.

Other hedge funds looking at distressed loans include York Capital Management and Cross Ocean Partners, the sources said.

A spokesman for York Capital declined to comment, while Cross Ocean Partners did not respond to requests for comment.

Och-Ziff Capital Management was amongst the suitors for a 2.7 billion euro distressed portfolio of shipping loans that was sold this month by ailing German state bank NordLB, which sources said was bought by private equity firm Cerberus.

Och-Ziff did not respond to requests for comment.

NordLB plans to wind down its remaining non-performing shipping loan portfolio of nearly 4 billion euros almost completely by the end of the year, which sources said is still likely to involve some loan sell-offs and expected to generate hedge fund interest.

Germany’s No.2 lender DZ Bank is also trying to offload over one billion euros of toxic shipping loans from its troubled transport financing division DVB Bank, although there have been multiple delays with the sales process, finance sources said.

Others though have opted for other types of investments, viewing toxic debt as too risky now.

“Hedge funds need to step in to shipping but it’s a bit early for the distressed cycle. It’s a question of timing,” said Louis Gargour, chief investment officer at hedge fund firm LNG Capital, which has around 10 to 15 percent of its total exposure focused on bond issuances by shipping companies.

(Additional reporting by George Georgiopoulos in Athens; editing by David Evans)

Source: OANN

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O’Rourke Says Immigrants Strengthen US

Democratic presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke told 1,000-plus supporters near the Texas-Mexico border that immigrants make the country stronger.

Formally kicking off his campaign in his hometown of El Paso on Saturday, O'Rourke offered support for unapologetically liberal positions, including backing federal legalization of marijuana. He promised to strengthen unions nationwide, make it easier to register to vote and end U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The former congressman again vowed to work with Republicans, saying that a unified campaign will help him win his party's 2020 nomination and "defeat Donald Trump."

President Donald Trump has threatened to shutter the U.S.-Mexico border to combat a rise in the number of immigrants crossing.

Speaking mere blocks from the border, O'Rourke said, "We have learned not to fear our differences but to respect and embrace them."

O'Rourke is formally kicking off his presidential campaign with three rallies across his home state, where he came close enough to upsetting Sen. Ted Cruz to generate the national buzz now buoying his 2020 White House bid.

The Democratic ex-congressman was then set to travel to historically black Texas Southern University in Houston before an evening event in the shadow of Austin's state Capitol.

Texas is America's largest red state, but Democrats aren't writing it off in 2020. Another presidential candidate, California Sen. Kamala Harris, drew large crowds at Texas Southern last weekend.

Source: NewsMax Politics

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Japan March exports to shrink for fourth straight month, fuelling growth worries: Reuters poll

Workers load containers onto trucks from a cargo ship at a port in Tokyo
Workers load containers onto trucks from a cargo ship at a port in Tokyo, Japan, March 16, 2016. REUTERS/Toru Hanai

April 12, 2019

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s exports likely contracted for a fourth straight month in March, a Reuters poll predicted on Friday, underlining worries that weak external demand and trade frictions could stunt its economic recovery.

The nation’s consumer inflation is also expected to remain tepid in March, the poll also showed, leaving the Bank of Japan under pressure to meet its elusive 2 percent target.

Exports are forecast to have declined 2.7 percent in March from a year earlier, according to the median forecast in the poll of 17 economists, after a 1.2 percent fall in February.

Japan and many other trade-reliant economies have been bruised in the past year by the Sino-U.S. tariff war, which has disrupted global supply chains in a blow to business investment and overall world demand.

Imports are expected to have risen 2.6 percent for the month, the first gain in three months, resulting in a trade balance of a surplus of 372.2 billion yen ($3.33 billion), the poll showed.

“The global economy and trades are slowing down. In addition, impacts from the trade conflict between the United States and China are appearing gradually since last fall,” said Takeshi Minami, chief economist at Norinchukin Research Institute.

“Exports to Asia such as China have been sluggish.”

Earlier on Thursday, Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda signaled the central bank will hold off on further stimulus at this month’s rate review. But in a nod to rising pressure on the economy, Kuroda also warned that risks to the global outlook remained, such as the fate of U.S.-China trade talks and lingering uncertainty on the path of Britain’s exit from the European Union.

The Finance Ministry will release trade data at 8:50 a.m. Japan time on Wednesday, April 17 (2350 GMT, April 16).

The poll also found Japan’s core consumer price index, which includes oil products but excludes volatile fresh food costs, rose 0.7 percent in March from year ago, the same rate of gain in February.

“Impacts from oil price falls in the past will become visible, so core CPI is expected to lack momentum,” said Yoshiki Shinke, chief economist at Dai-ichi Life Research Institute.

The Internal Affairs Ministry will release data on consumer prices at 8:30 a.m. Tokyo time on April 19 (2330 GMT on April 18).

(Reporting by Kaori Kaneko; Editing by Shri Navaratnam)

Source: OANN

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Reports: Rockies finalizing eight-year, $260 million contract with Arenado

MLB: Washington Nationals at Colorado Rockies
Sep 30, 2018; Denver, CO, USA; Colorado Rockies third baseman Nolan Arenado (28) celebrates after hitting a solo home run in the seventh inning against the Washington Nationals at Coors Field. Mandatory Credit: Ron Chenoy-USA TODAY Sports

February 26, 2019

The Colorado Rockies are finalizing an eight-year, $260 million contract with All-Star third baseman Nolan Arenado, according to multiple reports.

If consummated, the $32.5 million average annual salary would be the highest ever for a position player. The deal would kick in this season, overriding the one-year, $26 million contract the club and Arenado agreed to in January to avoid arbitration, which was the highest one-year salary for an arbitration-eligible player.

The new contract runs through 2026. However, the deal includes an opt-out after three years and a full no-trade clause, according to the reports. The opt-out ensures that Arenado, 27, could hit free-agency at the age of 30.

The eighth year and record-breaking average annual value got this deal done, ESPN reported.

Arenado is a four-time All-Star for the Rockies, who drafted him in the second round of the 2009 amateur draft out of high school.

Arenado has a career .291 batting average to go with 186 home runs and an .886 OPS over his six major league seasons. He’s coming off a .297 season in 2018 during which he slugged an NL-best 38 home runs and drove in 110 runs, good for second in the NL.

Arenado finished third in the MVP voting last season, fourth in 2017 and fifth in 2016.

He belted a career-high 42 home runs in 2015, drove in a career-high 133 runs in 2016 and hit a career-best .309 in 2017.

Over the past four seasons, all All-Star campaigns, he batted .297 with an average of 40 homers and 126 RBIs while playing 158 games per year.

He’s also a six-time gold glove award winner.

–Field Level Media

Source: OANN

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Trump discussed Iran, human rights with Saudi crown prince: White House

FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump reaches out to shake hands with Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington
FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump reaches out to shake hands with Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, U.S. March 20, 2018. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo

April 9, 2019

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump spoke with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, on the phone on Tuesday about Iran and “the importance of human rights issues,” the White House said.

A bipartisan chorus of U.S. lawmakers have called on the White House to harden its stance with ally Saudi Arabia after the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, but Trump has said its partnership with the Gulf country is important for the U.S. economy and maintaining stability in the Middle East.

(Reporting by Makini Brice)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: Sri Lankan Special Task Force soldiers stand guard in front of a mosque as a Muslim man walks past him during the Friday prayers at a mosque, days after a string of suicide bomb attacks on Easter Sunday, in Colombo
FILE PHOTO: Sri Lankan Special Task Force soldiers stand guard in front of a mosque as a Muslim man walks past him during the Friday prayers at a mosque, five days after a string of suicide bomb attacks on Catholic churches and luxury hotels across the island on Easter Sunday, in Colombo, Sri Lanka April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Dinuka Liyanawatte/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By Tom Lasseter and Shri Navaratnam

KATTANKUDY, Sri Lanka (Reuters) – Mohamed Hashim Mohamed Zahran was 12 years old when he began his studies at the Jamiathul Falah Arabic College. He was a nobody, with no claim to scholarship other than ambition.

Zahran and his four brothers and sisters squeezed into a two-room house with their parents in a small seaside town in eastern Sri Lanka; their father was a poor man who sold packets of food on the street and had a reputation for being a petty thief.

“His father didn’t do much,” recalled the school’s vice principal, S.M. Aliyar, laughing out loud.

The boy surprised the school with his sharp mind. For three years, Zahran practiced memorizing the Koran. Next came his studies in Islamic law. But the more he learned, the more Zahran argued that his teachers were too liberal in their reading of the holy book.

“He was against our teaching and the way we interpreted the Koran – he wanted his radical Islam,” said Aliyar. “So we kicked him out.”

Aliyar, now 73 with a long white beard, remembers the day Zahran left in 2005. “His father came and asked, ‘Where can he go?’.”

The school would hear again of Mohamed Zahran. And the world now knows his name. The Sri Lankan government has identified him as the ringleader of a group that carried out a series of Easter Sunday suicide bombings in the country on April 21.

The blasts killed more than 250 people in churches and luxury hotels, one of the deadliest-ever such attacks in South Asia. There were nine suicide bombers who blew apart men, women and children as they sat to pray or ate breakfast.

Most of the attackers were well-educated and from wealthy families, with some having been abroad to study, according to Sri Lankan officials.

That description does not, however, fit their alleged leader, a man said to be in his early 30s, who authorities say died in the slaughter. Zahran was different.

INTELLIGENCE FAILINGS

Sri Lanka’s national leadership has come under heavy criticism for failing to heed warnings from Indian intelligence services – at least three in April alone – that an attack was pending. But Zahran’s path from provincial troublemaker to alleged jihadist mastermind was marked by years of missed or ignored signals that the man with a thick beard and paunch was dangerous.

His increasingly militant brand of Islam was allowed to grow inside a marginalized minority community – barely 10 percent of the country’s roughly 20 million people are Muslim – against a backdrop of a dysfunctional developing nation.

The top official at the nation’s defense ministry resigned on Thursday, saying that some institutions under his charge had failed.

For much of his adult life, Zahran, 33, courted controversy inside the Muslim community itself.

In the internet age, that problem did not stay local. Zahran released online videos calling for jihad and threatening bloodshed.

After the blasts, Islamic State claimed credit and posted a video of Zahran, clutching an assault rifle, standing before the group’s black flag and pledging allegiance to its leader.

The precise relationship between Zahran and Islamic State is not yet known. An official with India’s security services, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that during a raid on a suspected Islamic State cell by the National Investigation Agency earlier this year officers found copies of Zahran’s videos. The operation was in the state of Tamil Nadu, just across a thin strait of ocean from Sri Lanka.

“LIKE A SPOILED CHILD”

Back in 2005, Zahran was looking to make his way in the world. His hometown of Kattankudy is some seven hours’ drive from Colombo on the other side of the island nation, past the countless palm trees, roadside Buddha statues, cashew hawkers and an occasional lumbering elephant in the bush. It is a town of about 40,000 people, a dot on the eastern coast with no clear future for an impoverished young man who’d just been expelled.

Zahran joined a mosque in 2006, the Dharul Athar, and gained a place on its management committee. But within three years they’d had a falling out.

“He wanted to speak more independently, without taking advice from elders,” said the mosque’s imam, or spiritual leader, M.T.M. Fawaz.

Also, the young man was more conservative, Fawaz said, objecting, for instance, to women wearing bangles or earrings.

“The rest of us come together as community leaders but Zahran wanted to speak for himself,” said Fawaz, a man with broad shoulders lounging with a group of friends in a back office of the mosque after evening prayers. “He was a black sheep who broke free.”

Mohamed Yusuf Mohamed Thaufeek, a friend who met Zahran at school and later became an adherent of his, said the problems revolved around Zahran’s habit of misquoting Islamic scriptures.

The mosque’s committee banned him from preaching for three months in 2009. Zahran stormed off.

“We treated him like a spoiled child, a very narrow-minded person who was always causing some trouble,” said the head of the committee, Mohamed Ismail Mohamed Naushad, a timber supplier who shook his head at the memory.

Now on his own, Zahran began to collect a group of followers who met in what Fawaz described as “a hut”.

At about that time, Zahran, then 23, married a young girl from a small town outside the capital of Colombo and brought his bride back to Kattankudy, according to his sister, Mathaniya.

“I didn’t have much of a connection with her – she was 14,” she said.

Despite being “a bit rough-edged”, Zahran was a skilled speaker and others his age were drawn to his speeches and Koranic lessons, said Thaufeek. He traveled the countryside at times, giving his version of religious instruction as he went.

Also, Zahran had found a popular target: the town’s Sufi population, who practice a form of Islam often described a mystical, but which to conservatives is heresy.

Tensions in the area went back some years. In 2004, there was a grenade attack on a Sufi mosque and in 2006 several homes of Sufis were set afire. Announcements boomed from surrounding mosques at the time calling for a Sufi spiritual leader to be killed, said Sahlan Khalil Rahman, secretary of a trust that oversees a group of Sufi mosques.

He blamed followers of the fundamentalist Wahhabi strain of Islam that some locals say became more popular after funding from Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Wahhabism, flowed to mosques in Kattankudy.

It was, Rahman said, an effort “to convert Sufis into Wahhabis through this terrorism”. Rahman handed over a photograph album showing charred homes, bullet holes sprayed across an office wall and a shrine’s casket upended.

ONLINE RADICAL

It was an ideal backdrop for Zahran’s bellicose delivery and apparent sense of religious destiny.

He began holding rallies, bellowing insults through loudspeakers that reverberated inside the Sufis’ house of worship as they tried to pray.

In 2012, Zahran started a mosque of his own. The Sufis were alarmed and, Rahman said, passed on complaints to both local law enforcement and eventually national government offices. No action was taken.

The then-officer in charge of Kattankudy police, Ariyabandhu Wedagedara, said in a telephone interview that he couldn’t arrest people simply because of theological differences.

     “The problem at the time was between followers of different Islamic sects – Zahran was not a major troublemaker, but he and followers of other sects, including the Sufis, were at loggerheads,” Wedagedara said.

Zahran found another megaphone: the internet. His Facebook page was taken down after the bombings, but Muslims in the area said his video clips had previously achieved notoriety.

His speeches went from denouncing Sufis to “kafirs”, or non-believers, in general. Zahran’s sister, Mathaniya, said in an interview that she thought “his ideas became more radical from listening to Islamic State views on the Internet”.

In one undated video, Zahran, in a white tunic and standing in front of an image of flames, boomed in a loud voice: “You will not have time to pick up the remains of blown-up bodies. We’ll keep sending those insulting Allah to hell.”

“HARD TO TAKE”

Zahran spoke in Tamil, making his words available to young Muslims clicking on their cellphones in Kattankudy and other towns like it during a period when, in both 2014 and 2018, reports and images spread of Sinhalese Buddhists rioting against Muslims in Sri Lanka.

In 2017, Zahran’s confrontations boiled over. At a rally near a Sufi community, his followers came wielding swords. At least one man was hacked and hospitalized. The police arrested several people connected to Zahran, including his father and one of his brothers. Zahran slipped away from public view.

That December, the mosque Zahran founded released a public notice disowning him. Thaufeek, his friend from school, is now the head. He counted the places that Zahran had been driven away from – his school, the Dharul Athar mosque and then, “we ourselves kicked him out, which would have been hard for him to take”.

The next year, a group of Buddha statues was vandalized in the town of Mawanella, about five hours drive from Kattankudy. There, in the lush mountains of Sri Lanka’s interior, Zahran had taken up temporary residence.

“He was preaching to kill people,” said A.G.M. Anees, who has served as an imam at a small mosque in the area for a decade. “This is not Islam, this is violence.”

Zahran went into hiding once more.

On the Thursday morning before the Easter Sunday bombings, Zahran’s sister-in-law knocked on the door of a neighbor who did seamstress work near Kattankudy. She handed over a parcel of fabric and asked for it to be sewn into a tunic by the end of the day.

“She said she was going on a family trip,” said the neighbor, M.H. Sithi Nazlya.

Zahran’s sister says that her parents turned off their cellphones on the Friday. On Sunday, when she visited their home, they were gone.

She does not know if Zahran arranged for them to be taken somewhere safe. Or why he would have carried out the bombing.

But now in Kattankudy, and in many other places, people are talking about Mohamed Hashim Mohamed Zahran.

(Reporting by Tom Lasseter and Shri Navaratnam; Additional reporting by Sanjeev Miglani, Shihar Aneez and Alasdair Pal; Editing by John Chalmers and Alex Richardson)

Source: OANN

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A Wells Fargo logo is seen in New York City
FILE PHOTO: A Wells Fargo logo is seen in New York City, U.S. January 10, 2017. REUTERS/Stephanie Keith

April 26, 2019

By Jessica DiNapoli and Imani Moise

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Wells Fargo & Co’s board has retained executive search firm Spencer Stuart to hunt for a new chief executive, ideally a woman who can tackle its regulatory and public perception issues, two people familiar with the matter said.

Wells Fargo’s ambition to become the only major U.S. bank with a female CEO underscores the need to restore its image with a wide range of constituents, including customers, shareholders, regulators and politicians, after it became mired in a scandal in 2016 for opening potentially millions of unauthorized accounts.

Former CEO Tim Sloan left abruptly last month, becoming the second CEO to leave the bank in the scandal’s fallout.

The board plans to approach Citigroup Inc’s Latin America chief Jane Fraser, one of the sources said. During Fraser’s 15-year tenure at Citigroup, she has gained experience running consumer and commercial businesses as well as its private bank.

Fraser could not be immediately reached for comment.

The board also discussed approaching JPMorgan Chase & Co’s Marianne Lake, but after the bank named her to run JPMorgan’s consumer lending business last week, that option became less viable, the source added. The board wants someone who can convince regulators, employees, investors and customers that the bank has fixed problems underpinning the sales scandal, the sources said.

The bank’s board feels that choosing a woman might please lawmakers in Washington who have been critical not only of Wells Fargo’s misbehavior, but of the broader banking industry for a lack of diversity and gender equality, said the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

It also believes that such a move could bolster Wells Fargo’s image with the households of customers where women play a leading role in managing finances, one of the sources added.

The new CEO will also have to resolve litigation and regulatory matters. There are 14 outstanding consent orders with government entities, as well as probes by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the Department of Labor and the Department of Justice.

To be sure, Spencer Stuart will approach and consider several male candidates for the CEO job as well, one of the sources said. The top priority is to find an external candidate who can navigate the bank’s regulatory issues, the source added.

Finding an outsider who meets all those qualifications and wants the job will be difficult, the sources said. There are few people with the necessary experience, even fewer of those who are women, and it is not clear if any of the obvious candidates would be open to taking the role.

The sources asked not to be identified because Wells Fargo’s board deliberations are confidential.

Spokespeople for Wells Fargo and Spencer Stuart declined to comment.

Wells Fargo’s board has not made any public statements about its requirements for a new CEO, beyond Chair Betsy Duke saying the job should attract the “top talent in banking.”

The board wants to complete the search within the next three to six months, one of the sources said.

STALLED SHARES

After Sloan’s ouster, Wells Fargo’s board appointed Allen Parker, who had been general counsel, as interim CEO. The board has said it is looking for an external candidate as a permanent replacement. It is not clear whether Parker will stay at the bank.

Others whose names have been mentioned by analysts, recruiters and industry sources as perspective CEO candidates include Alphabet Inc finance chief Ruth Porat and Bank of America Corp’s chief technology officer Cathy Bessant.

Wells Fargo shares have stalled since Sloan’s departure on March 29th, while the KBW Bank index has rallied more than 7 percent.

Wells Fargo would be “the best stock on earth to buy” if it had the right CEO, said Greg Donaldson, chairman of Donaldson Capital Management in Indiana.

Donaldson held about 50,000 Wells Fargo shares, but sold the stake last year as problems mounted. The CEO change could convince him to re-invest, depending on who it is, he told Reuters.

“It would be very smart for them to get a woman,” he said.

(Reporting by Jessica DiNapoli and Imani Moise in New York; Editing by Lauren Tara LaCapra, Greg Roumeliotis and Susan Thomas)

Source: OANN

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A worker walks on the roof of a new home under construction in Carlsbad
FILE PHOTO: A worker walks on the roof of a new home under construction in Carlsbad, California September 22, 2014. REUTERS/Mike Blake

April 26, 2019

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The U.S. economy is growing at a 2.08% annualized pace in the second quarter based on upbeat data on durable goods orders and new home sales in March, the New York Federal Reserve’s Nowcast model showed on Friday.

This was faster than the 1.92% growth rate calculated by the N.Y. Fed model the week before.

(Reporting by Richard Leong; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

Source: OANN

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Extraordinary European Union leaders summit in Brussels
FILE PHOTO: Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte arrives at an extraordinary European Union leaders summit to discuss Brexit, in Brussels, Belgium April 10, 2019. REUTERS/Yves Herman

April 26, 2019

(Reuters) – Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said on Friday he had assured China’s Huawei Technologies that it would not face discrimination in the rollout of Italy’s 5G telecoms network.

Conte was speaking on a visit to China where he said he met Huawei’s chief executive, Ren Zhengfei. The prime minister’s comments were carried in Italy by TV broadcaster Sky Italia.

“I told him that we have adopted some precautions, some measures to protect our interests that demand very high levels of security … not only from Huawei but any company entering into the 5G arena,” he said.

Huawei, the world’s biggest producer of telecoms equipment, is under intense scrutiny after the United States told allies not to use its technology because of fears it could be a vehicle for Chinese spying. Huawei has categorically denied this.

(Writing by by Mark Bendeich; Editing by Angelo Amante)

Source: OANN

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U.S. President Trump departs for travel to Indianapolis from the White House in Washington
U.S. President Donald Trump talks to reporters as he departs for travel to Indianapolis, Indiana from the White House in Washington, U.S., April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

April 26, 2019

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump on Friday was expected to announce his intention to revoke the United States’ status as a signatory of the Arms Trade Treaty, which was signed in 2013 by then-President Barack Obama but never ratified by Congress, two U.S. officials said.

Trump was expected to announce the decision in a speech in Indianapolis, to the National Rifle Association, the officials said. The NRA, a powerful gun lobby group, has long been opposed to the treaty, which was negotiated at the United Nations.

(Reporting By Steve Holland; Editing by Bill Trott)

Source: OANN

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