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Prosecutor: Jussie Smollett Faces Up To 3 Years in Prison

Jussie Smollett faces up to three years in prison if allegations that he staged a hate crime against himself are true, according to former prosecutor Andrew Weisberg.

Smollett launched a media firestorm at the end of last month when he claimed he was assaulted by two individuals who shouted “this is MAGA country” and had a noose placed around his neck.

However, police are now seriously investigating evidence which suggests Smollett paid Nigerian brothers Olabinjo and Abimbola Osundairo to stage the incident.

Should Smollett be found guilty of filing a false police report having staged the attack himself, the Empire actor could face several years in prison.

“If it is determined that a person lied to police about a crime that was committed, they could be charged with a Class 4 Felony ‘Disorderly conduct,’” Weisberg told HollywoodLife.

“This is charged where a person reports to police that an offense took place when they knew at the time of the report that no crimes was actually committed,” he added, noting that the charge “carries a possibility of one to three years in prison,” in addition to a “fine up to $25,000.”

Federal prosecutors could also pursue a mail fraud charge against Smollett if it turns out that he had a role in creating a letter sent to the Empire studios that contained homophobic slurs and white powder that turned out to be aspirin.

Aside from jail time, the broad consensus is that Smollett’s career will be completely ruined should the allegations against him be proven accurate.

“The best thing that Jussie can do is pray and pray a lot,” said Ronn Torossian, founder of 5W Public Relations. “If he made it up, he has big problems in both the court of law and the court of public opinion.”

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Amid Bromance, Trump & Bolsonaro Forge Security Alliance

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President Trump hosted Jair Bolsonaro, the Brazilian president dubbed the “Trump of the Tropics,” at the White House on Tuesday, and most of Washington seemed transfixed by the two leaders’ budding nationalist bromance and effusive embrace of each other’s brash style and bravado.

Indeed, it was difficult not to be. During an Oval Office meeting and a joint press conference in the Rose Garden, the two gushed about their shared conservative values and endorsed each other’s confrontations with the mainstream media.

“I think Brazil’s relationship with the United States, because of our friendship is better than it’s ever been so far,” Trump said after the leaders held a lunch meeting. 

Bolsonaro, a former army captain who crafted his own anti-establishment campaign based on Trump’s 2016 run, pledged that the United States and Brazil would “stand side by side in their efforts to ensure liberties and respect to traditional family lifestyles, respect to God our creator against the gender ideology or the politically correct attitudes and against fake news.”

Trump, addressing the media in the Rose Garden, responded that he was “very proud to hear the president use the term ‘fake news.’”

Beyond all the colorful mutual admiration, the real magnitude of the historic meeting should not be lost, especially when it comes to advancing U.S. security interests, regional experts stress.

Brazilian political leaders have long held the U.S. at arm’s length, harboring deep anti-imperialist suspicions since a 1964 coup, supported by the U.S. government, overthrew then-President Joao Goulart. The suspicions remained even after the country’s shift to democracy in the mid-1980s.

But Bolsonaro eschewed that past, pledging a new “chapter of cooperation” and a grand new alliance between the two most populous nations and largest economies in the Western hemisphere. He and Trump promised to work together to improve trade, oppose socialism and other leftist movements, and specifically to confront the political crisis in Venezuela.

Trump and Bolsonaro also signed an agreement with U.S. companies on technical safeguards to allow commercial satellite launches in northern Brazil. Bolsonaro even stopped by CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., to discuss “international themes in the region,” according to his son, Eduardo, a Brazilian lawmaker accompanying the president on his first overseas trip.

Trump responded by designating Brazil a “major non-NATO ally” and said he would possibly go further by supporting a campaign to make Brazil “maybe a NATO ally.”

Becoming a major non-NATO ally gives a country the ability to purchase U.S. military equipment and technology. Trump also pledged to support Brazil’s efforts to join the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD, an international group that helps democratic countries foster economic growth and world trade.

“The U.S.-Brazil alliance has the capacity to really shake international relations up – you can’t overestimate the possibilities of the U.S. and Brazil getting together to pursue mutual interests,” said Jose Cardenas, an expert on Latin America who has served in several senior positions at the National Security Council, State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development.

While the trade side of the equation has its pluses and minuses for American industry, on a national security front the alliance is a strategic boon for the U.S.  It not only hedges in the Maduro regime geographically between two major U.S. allies – Colombia and now Brazil – it also could provide the Trump administration more leverage in confronting the influences of China, Russia and Iran in all of Latin America.

National Security Adviser John Bolton last fall elevated Latin America as a national security priority and made no bones about where he stood. Bolton delivered a speech at Miami’s Freedom Tower to a group of Cuban and Venezuelan exiles, calling the leftist governments of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua the “troika of tyranny in this hemisphere” and a “triangle of terror” that has caused “immense human suffering.”

The administration has pledged to push back against the three countries’ leaders and other destabilizing anti-democratic activities in the region as well as their larger state sponsors – China, Russia and Iran.

The first two are an immediate source of administration irritation regarding Venezuela, where they continue to assist the cash-strapped Maduro government as the U.S. has ramped up sanctions on the embattled leader and his Russian sponsors.

As a candidate, Bolsonaro raised concern about China’s growing influence in Latin America and the significant investment Beijing had previously made in Brazilian state companies. He also angered China by visiting Taiwan, which Beijing considers part of its territory, not its own nation-state.

Still, China has strong economic ties to Brazil, which is its main supplier of wood and beef, and shifting that trade dynamic won’t happen overnight.

“Bolsonaro is breaking the historic mold, and if it can be actualized, it represents a true cultural shift – to identify so closely with Americans,” Cardenas told RealClearPolitics. “It’s almost like an aircraft carrier that takes a week to turn around – it’s not going to be immediate.”

Moreover, Bolsonaro can’t afford to kick out the Chinese and their strong investments without the U.S. stepping in to replace them. Trump on Tuesday expressed a willingness to accept more beef imports from Brazil but can’t go too far too soon or he risks angering the U.S. agricultural industry.

U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies can more quickly benefit from the new alliance and will likely use it to home in on narco-trafficking and its ties to Hezbollah, rather than the military intervention in Venezuela that Nicolas Maduro has so often predicted and railed against.

“It’s apparent around the comments about [Bolsonaro’s] visit to the CIA that he is very much prioritizing counter-terrorism,” said Fernando Cutz, a senior adviser at the Cohen Group who previously served as a top aide specializing in Western Hemisphere affairs at the National Security Council during the Trump and Obama administrations.  

Brazil and Colombia already have allowed the U.S. to position humanitarian aid intended for their beleaguered neighbor on its borders, but likely won’t serve as launching pads for any type of Washington-led military intervention.

While both Trump and Bolsonaro said they are leaving a military option against Venezuela on the table, they are signaling they won’t use it unless something extreme happens — if, say, Maduro-led forces start massacring people in the streets or provoke an armed conflict on the Colombian or Brazilian borders.

Instead, Trump administration officials have an opportunity to build on the new ties to further isolate Venezuela while cracking down on terrorist-related narco-trafficking in the region after the Obama administration shifted resources away from that activity.

In 2017, former U.S. officials charged the previous administration with systematically disbanding law enforcement investigative units across the federal government focused on disrupting Iranian, Syrian and Venezuelan terrorism financing out of concern that that the work could cause friction with Iranian officials and scuttle the nuclear deal with that nation.

Early last year, the Trump administration formed an interagency task force focused on Hezbollah’s financing and promotion of narco-terrorism, but it has yet to launch a coordinated assault against those finance networks in the Western Hemisphere. Most of the activity occurs in the tri-border area of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay, which has become a haven for narco-trafficking and illegal arms sales.

“Hezbollah is very strong in Brazil and it’s one of the challenges that Bolsonaro is facing,” Johan Obdola, who served as the counter-narcotics chief in Venezuela before leaving that post in 1997, told RealClearPolitics. “This narco-terrorism activity that we’ve seen growing really fast in the tri-border area … once it starts showing up and growing its capabilities, it’s very hard to stop.”

While Bolsonaro’s CIA visit is not playing well in the Brazilian media, which accuse him of being submissive to the U.S., Cutz said the Langley stop shows his commitment to a new security alliance.

“It’s an outward sign of his understanding of what needs his country has and what limitations his country has – and how we might work tougher,” Cutz said. “Brazil’s southern border that it shares with Argentina and Paraguay, it’s a dangerous place. I wouldn’t call it much of a terrorist threat, but a lot of the financing of Hezbollah comes from that region – and it’s a place where money-laundering in general takes place for a lot of bad actors around the world.”

Obdola, who founded the Canada-based Global Organization for Intelligence,  a consulting firm focused on transnational crime, also said Hezbollah’s foothold in Venezuela, established over several years, is giving the group safe haven to extend its illicit activities across Latin America.

As Iran and Venezuela have become increasingly isolated and sanctioned by the U.S and much of the international community, the two governments have forged closer bonds, with the help of Hezbollah.

In Venezuela, Hezbollah operatives are granted passports and allowed to operate freely on the east side of the country. In recent years, there also have been close military ties among Venezuela, Iran and Hezbollah.

Since 2012, Obdola said, Iran’s elite counter-terrorism unit, the Quds force, has held training camps across Latin America — using its Hezbollah operatives to train the Venezuelan military and Colombia’s FARC rebels.

The U.S.-Colombia security model, while imperfect, has worked to stabilize Colombia and prevent it from becoming a failed state. Under the “Plan Colombia” program, the U.S. provided roughly $10 billion in aid and military assistance to Bogota between 2000 and 2015 to fight leftist narco-terrorist insurgents and now provides $400 million annually.

The new relationship forged with Brazil provides a similar -- albeit more focused and likely less costly -- security opportunity.

“We can have deeper military-to-military relationships and intelligence sharing,” Cardenas said. “It’s extremely important to have these strategic allies for the purpose of regional security and our own security interests. If things are working right, we will detect threats a lot further away before they come to our border.”

Susan Crabtree is a veteran Washington reporter who has spent two decades covering the White House and Congress.

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Groom accused of assaulting wedding waitress to stand trial

A judge has ruled that a groom can go to trial on charges he forced himself on a teenage waitress at his wedding reception.

Matthew Aimers, of Willingboro, New Jersey, arrived at court Thursday in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, with his new wife at his side.

The judge upheld all charges, including indecent assault, indecent exposure, imprisonment of a minor and related offenses in the November conflict at the Northampton Valley Country Club in Richboro.

Aimers' attorney, Louis Busico, says his client "denies and rejects" the accusations by the waitress, who is now 18. He says Aimers' wife, Kayla, "150 percent supports him."

An affidavit says the waitress had spurned Aimers' advances during the reception. Police allege he followed her into a bathroom and sexually assaulted her. He was taken from the hall in handcuffs after a drunken brawl.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that the accuser testified Thursday and that spectators were removed from the courtroom.

Source: Fox News National

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Gregg Jarrett: Impeachment will be ‘poison’ for ‘hardcore Trump haters’

Fox News legal analyst and commentator Gregg Jarrett told “The Todd Starnes Show” Wednesday that Democrats should not try to impeach President Trump after the release of the Mueller report because "it is a poison for them."

ILHAN OMAR CLAIMS US FORCES KILLED 'THOUSANDS' OF SOMALIS DURING 'BLACK HAWK DOWN' MISSION, RESURFACED TWEET SHOWS

Portraying himself as unjustly persecuted by the special counsel’s probe, Trump said Wednesday that his administration would refuse to cooperate with any further congressional investigations.

“I thought after two years we’d be finished with it. No, now the House goes and starts subpoenaing,” Trump told reporters on the White House lawn, claiming the probes have been commissioned by Democrats solely for political advantage.

"Look, these aren't, like, impartial people," the president said. "The Democrats are trying to win 2020."

"The only way they can luck out is by constantly going after me on nonsense," Trump added. "But they should be really focused on legislation."

Jarrett, who formerly worked as a defense attorney and adjunct law professor, agreed with the president, telling Starnes that what Democrats do next “remains to be seen. You know, there are a hardcore group of people, of Trump haters.”

Washington has spent a week sifting through the aftermath of Mueller’s report, which did not find a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia to help the president win the 2016 election but reached no conclusion on whether he obstructed justice. Attorney General William Barr later said that he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein determined that Mueller did not establish sufficient evidence that Trump committed obstruction.

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Trump has at times railed against Mueller’s report, even resorting to public profanity in dismissing it, but has also embraced it, claiming exoneration and painting any other attempt as partisan overreach.

Meanwhile, Democrats have debated whether to pursue impeachment, a course that Speaker Nancy Pelosi has counseled against. But her party’s lawmakers have already signaled they will vote to hold reluctant witnesses in contempt of Congress and are preparing to eventually go to court to force testimony and cooperation. Democrats also argue that by refusing to cooperate with Congress, Trump is obstructing additional investigations.

Jarrett said that hardcore liberal Trump haters aren’t that much of a threat.

“I'm not sure the numbers are there [for impeachment],” he said. “And look, Nancy Pelosi well knows the repercussions of bringing an impeachment proceeding against the president.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News Politics

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Rick Perry Draws Ire For $3.7 Billion Nuclear Energy Bailout

Jason Hopkins | Energy Investigator

A free market energy group is criticizing Energy Secretary Rick Perry after he announced nearly $4 billion in loan guarantees for a beleaguered nuclear construction project.

“We oppose federal loan guarantees for any energy source, period,” said Thomas Pyle, the president of the American Energy Alliance (AEA), in a Friday statement. “Nuclear power is an important part of our nation’s energy mix, but the federal government shouldn’t be in the business of providing loans for any energy source. Instead, it should stay out of energy markets and work to remove government subsidies and mandates to allow all energy sources to compete on a level playing field.”

The AEA’s statement comes after Perry visited Waynesboro, Georgia, on Friday and announced $3.7 billion in additional federal loans for the primary owners of a nuclear power project that has been beset with delays and cost overruns.

The Department of Energy is guaranteeing up to $1.67 billion in loans for Georgia Power, up to $1.6 billion for Oglethorpe Power, and up to $414.7 million for the Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia (MEAG Power). The three utilities are co-owners of the Vogtle Electric Generating Plant.

The loans are to help Vogtle’s construction of its two latest nuclear reactors: Units 3 and 4. The two units, which are the only nuclear reactors under construction in the entire country, were originally planned to be completed by 2017, but have been plagued with construction delays and ballooning costs. Unit 3 will not be ready to be loaded with fuel until 2020, and Unit 4 won’t go online until 2021.

Construction of the two units are expected to cost a total of $27 billion, and the announcement by Perry on Friday marks a total of $12 billion in federal loan guarantees to help keep the project afloat.

Vogtle’s struggles have been emblematic of the country’s nuclear industry.

The U.S. nuclear fleet is suffering under an unfriendly market. Competing against cheap natural gas and subsidy-backed renewables, numerous nuclear plants have been rendered unprofitable. Six nuclear plants closed in just the past six years. The horizon does not look much better for nuclear proponents, with nine other plants expected to shut down by 2025.

The Vogtle Unit 3 and 4 site, being constructed by primary contactor Westinghouse, is seen near Waynesboro

The Vogtle Unit 3, being constructed by primary contactor Westinghouse, a business unit of Toshiba, near Waynesboro, Georgia, U.S. is seen in an aerial photo taken March 2017. Georgia Power/Handout via REUTERS

However, the Trump administration, along with a growing number of climate activists, is raising concerns over the plight of the nuclear industry, realizing that the closure of these plants means the end of a major source of zero-carbon energy. Unlike solar or wind, nuclear can generate large amounts of electricity — and unlike fossil fuels, it can do so while releasing no carbon emissions. (RELATED: Why Are Record Amounts Of Cash Being Dumped Into Georgia’s Utility Commissioner Race?)

“The Vogtle project is critically important to supporting the Administration’s direction to revitalize and expand the U.S. nuclear industry,” Perry said Friday, calling the two reactors the “real” Green New Deal. “A strong nuclear industry supports a reliable and resilient grid, and strengthens our energy and national security.”

However, free market and consumer groups have continued to criticize the federal government’s assistance of Vogtle, with the AEA calling for the Trump administration to stay out of energy markets entirely.

The Department of Energy did not respond to a request for comment from The Daily Caller News Foundation in time for publication of this article.

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Source: The Daily Caller

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Coachella stagehand dies during setup, police say

A California man died Saturday while setting up one of the stages for next weekend’s Coachella Music Festival, police said.

Public Information Officer Benjamin Guitron with the Indio Police Department confirmed to Fox News that an unidentified male died Saturday in an “industrial accident” related to the setup of a stage arrangement for the famous music fest, which is set to take place over the weekends of April 12 and 19. The list of performers for this year's iteration of the fest includes Billie Eilish, Ariana Grande, Childish Gambino, Chvrches, Khalid, Gucci Gang, Zedd and Weezer, among many others.

KANYE WEST BRINGING HIS SUNDAY SERVICE TO COACHELLA ON EASTER

Police responded Saturday morning to a report that a stagehand at the Empire Polo Club in Riverside County, Calif., had gotten hurt while working on one of the stage setups. Medical personnel tended to the man on the scene, but he died as a result of his injuries.

Because of the circumstances of the man’s death, officials contacted the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) which has taken the lead in the investigation.

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Details surrounding the man’s death remained unknown as of Saturday evening, but a TMZ report cited sources who said the man fell some 60 feet while scaling some scaffolding. He was reportedly attached to a safety harness, the website said.

An autopsy report will be conducted by the Riverside County Sheriff-Coroner’s Office. A victim ID awaits family notifications.

Source: Fox News National

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Mueller Verdict Is In, But Dems Say They'll Keep Investigating

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After nearly two years of alternating White House angst and Democratic anticipation, Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation and final report set off a frenzy in Washington over the weekend but provided neither closure nor solace for a divided nation.

Indeed, it seemed to cement America’s dueling split-screen political realities in place for years to come.

In anticipation of the “big reveal,” Fox News’ Sean Hannity ran a banner headline Friday night: “Collusion Delusion.” Meanwhile, Neal Katyal, the acting solicitor general under President Obama, promised on MSNBC that Democrats would sink their teeth in further.

“Today what happened was the end of the beginning,” Katyal predicted.

He was one of the first in a long line of Democrats to vigorously denounce the findings as inconclusive and promise to use their House majority status to launch a long series of overlapping investigations to re-litigate the probe.

The report’s mixed messages – finding no actionable evidence of collusion but leaving the decision of pursuing obstruction of justice charges to the attorney general – left the door wide open for wildly divergent partisan interpretation.

“While this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him,” Mueller said in the report, according to a four-page summary released by Attorney General William Barr.

Rep. Jerry Nadler, the House Judiciary Committee chairman, on Sunday took issue with the report’s ambiguity regarding whether President Trump and his team worked to obstruct justice during the investigation.

Citing “very concerning discrepancies and final decision-making at the Justice Department,” Nadler announced on Twitter plans to haul Barr before Congress “in the near future” to look into every detail of Mueller’s investigation.

“There must be full transparency in what Special Counsel Mueller uncovered to not exonerate the President from wrongdoing,” he tweeted. “DOJ owed the public more than just a brief synopsis and decision not to go any further in their work.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told fellow Democrats on a conference call Saturday she wouldn’t accept a private, classified briefing on Mueller’s report. Instead, she said she would demand that Mueller and his team provide the information to Congress in a way that allows them to discuss all the details publicly.

Six Democratic committee chairs and senior members of the delegation also reiterated their push to force Mueller to release the full report and all the underlying documents used to reach his conclusions.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat and member of the Judiciary Committee, rejected the five-page summary from Barr, arguing that it didn’t reveal enough about Mueller’s deliberations. “The American people deserve the Mueller report, not just the Barr report. Indeed, this set of summary conclusions hardly constitutes a report,” he said.

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, went even further, calling the summary from Barr “crib notes” that desperately need fleshing out.

“We don’t want to see simply crib notes, we don’t want to see an outline, we don’t want to see an executive summary,” he told CBS’s “Face the Nation” before the Sunday afternoon release of the Barr summary. “We need to see everything so that the American people can draw conclusions on their own.”

Trump was clearly relieved and reinvigorated after Barr concluded that the special counsel’s evidence of obstruction of justice was “not sufficient” to pursue charges against the president or any current or former members of his team.

Speaking to reporters in Florida, he labeled the report “a total exoneration.”

“There was no collusion with Russia. There was no obstruction,” he said.

When returning to the White House later Sunday, Trump was even more ebullient. “I just want to tell you, America is the greatest place on earth – the greatest place on earth,” he told reporters before proceeding into the White House’s South Portico without taking questions.

Fellow Republicans backed him up, blasting Democrats’ plans to pore over every detail of the probe in open hearings. GOP leaders argued that two years of investigations hanging over Trump’s presidency was enough, and that it’s time to move on. They pointed to the probe’s 2,800 subpoenas, 500 search warrants, nearly 50 wiretaps and 500 interviews.

“Now that this investigation is over, Democrats need to finally end their baseless investigations and political crusade against President Trump for the good of the country,” Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said in a statement.

Still, it was clear that Republicans, too, weren’t ready to let the issue go and miss the opportunity to investigate the investigators.

Top Republicans promised to resurrect the probe into Hillary Clinton’s emails and launch their own aggressive investigations into allegations that the FBI and Obama Justice Department colluded to change the narrative and take down Trump.

Former FBI Director James Comey reacted to the Mueller report Sunday evening by tersely tweeting, “So many questions.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham, the Judiciary Committee chairman and Trump’s most powerful ally in the Senate, fired back: “I could not agree with you more. See you soon.”

On Friday night, one of the most pivotal moments for Trump as he awaited the results of the Mueller probe, Graham was at Mar-a-Lago for a Florida GOP fundraiser. He vowed to fully investigate the alleged anti-Trump biases of Comey and other Justice Department officials and whether they concocted a plot to force him from office.

The earlier news of no indictments was enough to buoy Trump supporters. During remarks to the crowd, Graham called for an investigation into Hillary Clinton and the origins of the infamous dossier that served as the basis for the FBI’s Russia collusion investigation.

“Lock her up!” the Trump supporters chanted cheerfully, as Trump looked on from a side table in the ballroom. That echo of the 2016 campaign seemed to underscore the “Groundhog Day” nature of national politics, a permanent state in which acrimony and distrust circle back in an endless feedback loop.

Susan Crabtree is a veteran Washington reporter who has spent two decades covering the White House and Congress.

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Venezuela's Foreign Affairs Minister Jorge Arreaza talks to the media during a news conference in Caracas
Venezuela’s Foreign Affairs Minister Jorge Arreaza talks to the media during a news conference in Caracas, Venezuela April 8, 2019. REUTERS/Manaure Quintero

April 26, 2019

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Treasury Department on Friday imposed sanctions on Venezuela’s foreign minister and a Venezuelan judge, according to a statement on the department’s website.

Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza and a judge, Carol Padilla, were targeted over the ongoing crisis in Venezuela, the Treasury Department said, the latest in a list of officials blacklisted by U.S. authorities for their role in President Nicolas Maduro’s government.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey, Makini Brice and Lesley Wroughton; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

Source: OANN

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Avengers fans gather at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood to attend the opening screening of
Avengers fans gather at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood to attend the opening screening of “Avengers: Endgame” in Los Angeles, California, U.S., April 25, 2019. REUTERS/Mike Blake

April 26, 2019

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Marvel Studios superhero spectacle “Avengers: Endgame” hauled in a record $60 million at U.S. and Canadian box offices during its Thursday night debut, distributor Walt Disney Co said.

Global ticket sales for the film about Iron Man, Hulk and other popular characters reached $305 million for the first two days, Disney said.

(Reporting by Lisa Richwine; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

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Funeral of journalist Lyra McKee in Belfast
Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn attends the funeral service for murdered journalist Lyra McKee at St Anne’s Cathedral in Belfast, Northern Ireland April 24, 2019. Brian Lawless/Pool via REUTERS

April 26, 2019

LONDON (Reuters) – The leader of Britain’s opposition Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, said on Friday he had turned down an invitation to a state dinner which will be part of U.S. President Donald Trump’s visit to Britain in June.

“Theresa May should not be rolling out the red carpet for a state visit to honor a president who rips up vital international treaties, backs climate change denial and uses racist and misogynist rhetoric,” Corbyn said in a statement.

He said maintaining the relationship with the United States did not require “the pomp and ceremony of a state visit” and he said he would welcome a meeting with Trump “to discuss all matters of interest.”

(Reporting by Andy Bruce; Writing by William Schomberg)

Source: OANN

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A bedridden 67-year-old woman and more than a dozen animals were rescued Thursday after a welfare check found that they were living in a home filled with trash, urine, and feces, Florida police said.

Pinellas County sheriff’s deputies said when they arrived at the home in Dunedin around 7:20 p.m. Thursday, they could smell the odor of rotting trash and animal feces as they walked up to the driveway.

“Inside the residence, the odor of feces and urine was so overwhelming that deputies had to don masks,” the sheriff’s department said in a statement.

FLORIDA SHERIFF ON BORDER CRISIS AFTER MAJOR DRUG BUST: ‘IT MAKES ME ABSOLUTELY CRAZY’

Walking throughout the residence, the deputies found 10 emaciated dogs and puppies living in bins filled with their own feces, five large Macaw birds flying freely, rats, bugs and overall squalor.

Puppies discovered living in their own feces inside a Florida home that was filled with trash, urine, and feces.

Puppies discovered living in their own feces inside a Florida home that was filled with trash, urine, and feces. (Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office)

Deputies said due to the large amounts of trash in the home, they had to clear a path to reach the victim’s bedroom.

“None of the home’s toilets were working and all were found to be overflowing with feces,” deputies said. “The only working sink was located on the opposite end of the house from the victim’s bedroom.”

They said there was no food or water for the victim or the animals.

FLORIDA MAN IN EASTER BUNNY COSTUME CAUGHT IN VIRAL BRAWL IS WANTED IN NEW JERSEY, HAS HISTORY OF ARRESTS

The victim was transported to a local hospital for injuries that were non-life threatening, while the animals were transported to shelters.

The woman’s caretaker, Richard Lawrence Goodwin, 65, was arrested and charged with abuse and neglect of an elderly person, disabled person, and cruelty to animals.

Richard Goodwin, 69, was arrested for abuse and neglect of an elderly and disabled person after deputies found she was living in deplorable conditions.

Richard Goodwin, 69, was arrested for abuse and neglect of an elderly and disabled person after deputies found she was living in deplorable conditions. (Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office)

The sheriff’s department said this was Goodwin’s second arrest for abuse and neglect of the same victim. He was previously arrested in May 2018.

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Neighbor Victoria Muenzerbeer told FOX 13 that Goodwin and the victim were hoarders and the conditions inside the home were horrible years ago when she visited once.

“I went in and it was absolutely, a human being couldn’t live there,” she said. “The kitchen wasn’t usable and part of the wall was falling in.”

Source: Fox News National

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Libyan Minister of Economy Ali Abdulaziz Issawi speaks during an interview with Reuters in Tripoli
Libyan Minister of Economy Ali Abdulaziz Issawi speaks during an interview with Reuters in Tripoli, Libya April 25, 2019. REUTERS/Hani Amara

April 26, 2019

By Ulf Laessing

TRIPOLI (Reuters) – Libya’s U.N.-recognized government has budgeted up to 2 billion dinars ($1.43 billion) to cover costs of a three-week-old war for control of the capital, such as treatment for the wounded, to be funded without new borrowing, the economy minister said.

Ali Abdulaziz Issawi suggested the government hoped for business to continue more or less as usual despite the assault on Tripoli, in the country’s northwest, by forces tied to a parallel administration based in the eastern city of Benghazi.

Once Africa’s third largest producer of oil, Libya has been riven by factional conflict since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, with the country now broadly split between eastern-based forces under Khalifa Haftar and the U.N.-backed government in Tripoli, in the west, under Prime Minister Fayez al-Serraj.

Still, with Haftar’s Libyan National Army forces unable so far to pierce defenses in Tripoli’s southern suburbs, normal life and business activities continue in much of the capital and western coastal towns.

Issawi, in an interview with Reuters in his Tripoli office, also said Libya’s commercial ports and wheat imports were still functioning normally, although some roads have been blocked.

He said the Serraj government estimates it will spend up to 2 billion dinars extra on medical treatment for wounded, aid for displaced people and other “emergency” war costs.

He said this was not military spending but analysts believe that the sum will also cover expenditures such as pay for allied armed groups or food for fighters.

“We could actually spend less,” he added, in comments that gave the first insight into the economic impact of the fighting.

Issawi said the Tripoli government, which controls little territory beyond the greater capital region, would not incur new debt to fund the war costs, sticking to a plan to post a 2019 budget without a deficit.

Tripoli derives revenue largely from oil and natural gas production, interest-free loans from local banks to the central bank, and a 183 percent surcharge on foreign exchange transactions conducted at official rates.

But with centralized tax collection greatly diminished, public debt has piled up – to 68 billion dinars in the west, including unpaid state obligations such as social insurance.

Some analysts expect Serraj’s government will be forced to raise new debt if the war for control of Tripoli drags on.

With much of Libya dominated by armed factions that also act as security forces, the public wage bill for both the western and eastern administrations has soared as fighters have been made public employees in efforts to buy their loyalty.

The east has sold bonds worth 35 billion dinars outside the official financial system as the Tripoli central bank does not fund the parallel government apart from some wages.

Despite its limited reach, the Tripoli government still runs an annual budget of around 46.8 billion dinars, mainly for public salaries and fuel subsidies.

“This year we cannot finance via debt…we will not borrow (by agreement with the central bank),” Issawi said.

According to International Monetary Fund data, Libya’s central government debt-to-GDP ratio is 143 percent, making it one of the most heavily indebted in the world on that measure.

Issawi declined to say what parts of the budget would be trimmed to support the extra outlay for war costs.

However, with some 70 percent of the budget allocated to public wages, fuel subsidies and other welfare benefits, a portion devoted to infrastructure is most likely to be axed.

Widespread lawlessness has meant there have been no major infrastructural projects since 2011, when a NATO-backed uprising overthrew dictator Muammar Gaddafi, leaving schools, hospitals and roads in acute need of restoration.

FOREX SURCHARGE

Issawi said the government planned to raise as much as 30 billion dinars by the end of 2019 from hard currency deals after imposing in September a 183 percent surcharge on commercial and private transactions done on the official rate of 1.4 to the U.S. dollar. That fee has effectively devalued the official rate to 3.9, much closer to the black market equivalent.

Some 17 billion dinars have been raised since then, with hard currency allocated for import credit letters now issued without delays, Issawi said. The forex fee has helped the government forecast a budget in the black for 2019.

Despite the narrowing spread between the two rates, the black market continues to thrive. Dozens of traders remained at their favorite spot behind the central bank headquarters in Tripoli when Reuters reporters visited it last week.

But traders said it could take time for the Serraj government to register the extra forex receipts as official banking channels were taking up to six months to approve import financing, keeping the black market in play for dealers.

Issawi said authorities planned to lower the forex fee from 183 percent, without saying when. The black market rate has dropped from 6 to around 4.1 since September but it has hardly moved of late as demand for black market cash remains high.

The Tripoli government has stopped subsidizing food and bread, which used to be cheaper than drinking water in Libya. Wheat imports are now being arranged by private traders and there are surplus stocks of flour at the moment, Issawi said.

(Reporting by Ulf Laessing in Tripoli with additional reporting by Karin Strohecker in London; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Source: OANN

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