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Steelers G Foster: Social media criticism must stop

FILE PHOTO: NFL: Pittsburgh Steelers at Oakland Raiders
FILE PHOTO: Dec 9, 2018; Oakland, CA, USA; Pittsburgh Steelers offensive guard Ramon Foster (73) before the start of the game against the Oakland Raiders at Oakland Coliseum. Mandatory Credit: Neville E. Guard-USA TODAY Sports

April 11, 2019

Pittsburgh Steelers guard Ramon Foster is asking his ex-teammates to stop the criticism of current Steelers players.

The Steelers went through a tumultuous 2018 season with the holdout of running back Le’Veon Bell and growing tensions between quarterback Ben Roethlisberger and All-Pro wideout Antonio Brown.

And even with Bell and Brown gone from Pittsburgh, dissension has continued, with Brown and other former players sharing their criticism of the team on social media. Roethlisberger and wideout Juju Smith-Schuster have been among the targets.

Foster, apparently, has had enough.

“Moving forward…any former player or affiliate of the Steelers who has an issue with anyone still in the locker room, please contact me or Maurkice Pouncey or anyone else you feel you can talk to,” Foster wrote on Twitter. “Whoever you have an issue with, we will get you their number so you can address them. I PROMISE. These media takes might give y’all good traffic on your social media outlets but the guys still in that locker room, who y’all still know personally have to answer for those comments. Call them what you want, but call them personally and tell THEM. Defend who you want to defend but you don’t have to mention the team at all.

“Whether you have a ring or played for one year…ENOUGH…CHILL. Most players at one point in their life want to take their kids back to the place where they once played, don’t burn too many bridges.”

Foster and Pouncey are longtime Steelers, with a combined 18 seasons on the offensive line in Pittsburgh.

–Field Level Media

Source: OANN

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Former Venezuelan general with ‘treasure trove’ of intelligence arrested for drug trafficking

FILE PHOTO: Venezuela's President Maduro embraces retired General Carvajal as they attend the Socialist party congress in Caracas
FILE PHOTO: Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro (R) embraces retired General Hugo Carvajal as they attend the Socialist party congress in Caracas in this picture provided by Miraflores Palace July 27, 2014. REUTERS/Miraflores Palace/Handout via Reuters/File Photo

April 12, 2019

By Silvio Castellanos, Miguel Gutierrez and Roberta Rampton

MADRID/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Spanish police on Friday arrested Hugo Carvajal, a former head of Venezuelan military intelligence, who Washington believes has a “treasure trove” of details he is willing to share about Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

Carvajal, a former general and close ally of the late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez, was arrested on drug trafficking charges on a warrant issued by the United States, a police spokeswoman said.

“He is, I would dare to say, the most knowledgeable person to now be outside of Venezuela and be willing and able to cooperate with … a treasure trove of information,” the U.S. administration official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“He will clearly be cooperating with us. He’s expressed that publicly,” the official said.

A court spokesman said Carvajal would appear before Spain’s High Court on Saturday. The court needs to decide within 24 hours of his arrest whether he will be jailed pending a decision on his extradition or if he will be set free.

The U.S. Justice Department said it had asked Spain to extradite Carvajal to face cocaine-smuggling charges that were filed in 2011 and unsealed in 2014.

Carvajal, head of military intelligence from 2004 to 2008, denounced Chavez’ successor Maduro in February and gave his support to Juan Guaido, who in January invoked the constitution to become Venezuela’s interim president.

Guaido was later recognized by the United States and dozens of governments, but Maduro remains in office with support of the military and has denounced Guaido as a U.S. puppet.

Guaido has offered amnesty to military leaders who took his side.

Carvajal recently said on Twitter that he would relay all the information he knows to the appropriate authorities, the senior U.S. administration official said.

“We look forward to receiving that information and to learning everything he knows … about how Maduro and his mafia operate,” the official said.

Washington expects to learn more about Maduro’s ties to Cuba, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, and Colombia’s National Liberation Army (ELN) and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the official said.

The arrest is “very bad news” for Maduro and will provide protection to Carvajal who “probably had a target on his head,” the senior U.S. administration official said.

SECOND ARREST

This was the second time Carvajal has been arrested on the U.S. charges, which allege that he coordinated the transportation of 5,600 kg (1,235 pounds) of cocaine from Venezuela to Mexico in April 2006. That shipment was bound for the United States, according to charges filed in federal court in New York.

Carvajal was arrested on the Dutch Caribbean island of Aruba in 2014, but the Dutch government accepted Venezuela’s argument that he had diplomatic immunity because he had been nominated consul to Aruba.

Carvajal also was sanctioned by the U.S. government in 2008 for “materially assisting the narcotics trafficking activities” of Colombia’s FARC rebel group.

The U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said Carvajal’s assistance to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia included protecting drug shipments from seizure by Venezuelan anti-narcotics authorities and providing them with weapons.

Carvajal also provided FARC with official Venezuelan government identification documents that allowed its members to travel to and from Venezuela, OFAC said.

In an interview with the New York Times published in February, Carvajal said any dealings he had with drug traffickers resulted from his role investigating them as intelligence chief.

Carvajal said he had met with FARC members in 2001 to engage them as a government negotiator in the kidnapping of a Venezuelan businessman, a trip that had been approved by presidents in both Venezuela and Colombia.

(Reporting by Silvio Castellanos and Miguel Gutierrez in Madrid and Roberta Rampton and Andy Sullivan in Washington; writing by Angus Berwick; editing by Angus MacSwan and Bill Berkrot)

Source: OANN

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The Latest: Harvard can't yet comment on slave-photo lawsuit

The Latest on a lawsuit over images held by Harvard University of slaves (all times local):

12:20 p.m.

Harvard University says it is not in a position to comment on a lawsuit complaining it has profited from images of two 19th-century slaves.

Spokesman Jonathan Swain said Wednesday that the Ivy League university has not yet been served with the lawsuit.

Tamara Lanier says in her lawsuit that Harvard has ignored her request to turn over the photos. The woman from Norwich, Connecticut, says the slaves depicted in the photos are her ancestors.

Lanier's suit says the photos were commissioned by former Harvard biologist Louis Agassiz, whose ideas were used to support the enslavement of Africans.

The lawsuit says Harvard requires "hefty" licensing fees to reproduce the photos, and has used one image on the cover of a book.

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10 a.m.

A Connecticut woman says Harvard University has "shamelessly" turned a profit from images of two 19th-century slaves she says are her ancestors.

Tamara Lanier, of Norwich, says in a lawsuit filed Wednesday that Harvard has ignored her request to turn over the photos. Her lawsuit in Massachusetts state court asks Harvard to relinquish them and pay unspecified damages.

A message was left with Harvard seeking comment.

The images depict a South Carolina slave named Renty and his daughter, Delia. Lanier says she is a direct descendant.

Lanier's suit says the photos were commissioned by former Harvard biologist Louis Agassiz, whose ideas were used to support the enslavement of Africans.

The lawsuit says Harvard requires "hefty" licensing fees to reproduce the photos, and has used one image on the cover of a book.

Source: Fox News National

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English animal rescuers jump to rescue of ‘sick’ fox that’s actually taxidermied animal

Animal rescuers in England shifted into high gear on Monday in search of a possibly injured fox — only to learn the animal was not what it seemed.

Ellie Burt, an officer with the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA), said a resident in Devon, a city roughly 200 miles southwest of London, became worried about the fox, which had been hiding in a bush.

The RSPCA said the fox had been moved around the neighborhood by someone.

The RSPCA said the fox had been moved around the neighborhood by someone. (Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals)

The local said the fox was acting lethargic before it collapsed and hadn't moved in days, according to a news release from the animal organization obtained by Fox News.

Rescuers asked the Good Samaritan to attempt the "broom test" with the fox to see if it was still alive, and they "were told that it didn't move but tracked them with its eyes and seemed to be breathing well."

FLORIDA MAN THREATENED TO DESTROY TOWN WITH ARMY OF TURTLES: POLICE

Burt traveled to the fox, with the hope that it could be saved. When she got to the scene, she said she quickly learned "this wasn't a live fox — but a dead fox who'd been stuffed by a taxidermist."

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"He’d clearly been placed under a bush outside of the houses as a prank," Burt said. "After speaking to some of the neighbors, I soon discovered that someone had been moving it around the neighborhood.”

The RSPCA said Burt discarded the fox "to avoid any further calls."

Fox News' Carlos Bedoya contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News World

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Trump says Dems have forsaken Mueller after treating him as ‘God-like’

President Trump blasted Democrats on Tuesday for shifting focus to a slew of other investigations into his administration now that the special counsel probe is over, saying the same lawmakers who treated Robert Mueller as “God-like” no longer “acknowledge his name.”

“Robert Mueller was a God-like figure to the Democrats, until he ruled No Collusion in the long awaited $30,000,000 Mueller Report. Now the Dems don’t even acknowledge his name, have become totally unhinged, and would like to go through the whole process again. It won’t happen!” Trump tweeted Tuesday morning.

HOUSE DEMS PREPARE FOR SUBPOENA BATTLE OVER MUELLER REPORT

Despite the president's comments, Democrats are still focused in part on the Mueller investigation -- namely, on getting access to the full report. Attorney General Bill Barr has said that he and the special counsel’s team are “well along in the process of identifying and redacting” sensitive material in the more than 300-page report and can likely have it to Congress by mid-April, “if not sooner.” But Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee are preparing to authorize subpoenas for the report this week, giving the panel the option to pursue that route if necessary.

At the same time, congressional Democrats are escalating their own probes.

The president on Tuesday also blasted two of those lawmakers -- House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-N.Y., while giving the latter a Trump-esque nickname.

“There is no amount of testimony or document production that can satisfy Jerry Nadler or Shifty Adam Schiff. It is now time to focus exclusively on properly running our great Country!” Trump tweeted.

Minutes later, Schiff fired back.

“The House voted 420-0 to release the full Mueller report to the public. The American people overwhelmingly support the same. What are you afraid of, Mr. President?” Schiff tweeted.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has also been vocal on calling for a full version of the Mueller report.

“The American people deserve and want the truth. Overwhelmingly you see that—whatever the truth—let the chips fall where they may—let’s show us the truth,” Pelosi said during a panel interview with Politico Tuesday. “There’s no reason why they couldn’t put some of this out…I know sources and methods, but that’s no excuse for hiding the truth from the American people.”

She added: “There will be a release of the Mueller report. “

The report was first transmitted to Barr at the Justice Department last month. Barr issued a four-page initial summary of Mueller’s findings to Congress and to the public just days after. Barr’s summary said that the special counsel found no evidence of collusion between members of the Trump campaign and the Russians during the 2016 presidential election.

Immediately, Democrats began demanding to view the full Mueller report and underlying evidence that brought the special counsel to its decision.

BARR TO RELEASE MUELLER REPORT TO CONGRESS BY 'MID-APRIL, IF NOT SOONER;' WILL NOT TRANSMIT TO WHITE HOUSE FOR PRIVILEGE REVIEW

Barr has indicated he does plan on sharing much of the report itself, noting that, with the help of the special counsel’s office, the Justice Department is reviewing material that “by law cannot be made public” -- covering “material the intelligence community identifies as potentially compromising sensitive sources and methods; material that could affect ongoing matters, including those that the Special Counsel has referred to other Department offices; and information that would unduly infringe on the personal privacy and reputational interests of peripheral third parties.”

Barr added that: “Although the President would have the right to assert privilege over certain parts of the report, he has stated publicly that he intends to defer to me and, accordingly, there are no plans to submit the report to the White House for privilege review."

DEMS WHO FUMED AT NUNES FOR JEOPARDIZING 'SOURCES AND METHODS' NOW DEMAND MUELLER REPORT IN FULL

The special counsel also reviewed whether the president had obstructed justice in any way, but ultimately did not come to a conclusion on that issue. Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, though, said the evidence was “not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense.”

Nadler’s committee, meanwhile, sent document requests to 81 individuals and entities associated with the president last month as part of his investigation into “alleged obstruction of justice, public corruption, and other abuses of power by President Trump."

Schiff’s panel is also investigating the president’s foreign business dealings and Russian election meddling, maintaining that there is evidence of collusion, despite Mueller’s findings.

The House Financial Serves Committee, led by Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., is also probing the president, coordinating with Schiff’s committee on money-laundering inquiries. The House Foreign Affairs Committee, chaired by Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., is also involved.

Source: Fox News Politics

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UN urged to declare Venezuela a humanitarian emergency

Human Rights Watch and public health researchers from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine are urging the United Nations to declare the situation in Venezuela "a complex humanitarian emergency that poses a serious risk to the region."

They appealed to the Security Council ahead of its meeting Wednesday on Venezuela's humanitarian crisis to ask Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to make a declaration because their research shows severe medicine and food shortages in Venezuela, and disease spreading across its borders.

Dr. Kathleen Page of Johns Hopkins says Guterres "should ring the alarm bell and demonstrate leadership by ensuring that the U.N.'s vast resources can be mobilized for the Venezuelan people in a way that is neutral, independent, and impartial."

Source: Fox News World

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Farm real estate prices holding up, but USDA worried about a fall

Workers plant crops in the Central Valley near Fresno
Workers plant crops in the Central Valley near Fresno, California, United States May 6, 2015. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson/File Photo

February 22, 2019

By Humeyra Pamuk and Julie Ingwersen

ARLINGTON, Va. (Reuters) – The U.S. Department of Agriculture is concerned about a potential decline in farmland real estate prices, but has seen no sign of that happening so far, USDA chief economist Robert Johansson said on Thursday.

Farmland prices are a key pillar of equity for the U.S. agricultural heartland, which has been suffering from lingering weakness in commodity prices and loss of key export markets such as China due to President Donald Trump’s trade disputes.

A potential significant price-drop in farmland is something “we are concerned that may happen,” Johansson told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of the USDA’s annual forum. “But land has been consistently able to withstand some of these pressures on farm income over the past five years for sure,” he said.

A key constituency for Trump, U.S. farmers have borne the brunt of his bitter trade disputes.

Exports to China have fallen more than 90 percent in the 2018-2019 crop year, according to USDA data, and China has dropped to the fifth biggest market for U.S. farm exports from being the top in 2017.

That has fueled an increase in farm bankruptcies, but not a corresponding drop in land prices so far.

“You still see high-quality farmland selling for higher prices … Just like the farm bankruptcies, (the) farmland price story is similar: Some states have seen an increase, some see a decrease,” Johansson said.   

While the federal government does not track large-scale farm bankruptcies, USDA does track a special category of bankruptcies for smaller to mid-sized farms – Chapter 12 filings.

According to federal data, Chapter 12 filings have hit the highest level in a decade in parts of the U.S. Midwest and Great Plains states, where commodity grains, oilseeds and livestock producers have been adversely affected by trade conflicts.

Still, the USDA said the number of these filings remained well below levels seen during the farm crisis of the 1980s, when thousands of farm operations financially collapsed after producers fell behind on high-interest land and equipment loans. This time, farmers’ debt-to-asset ratios have largely held up thanks to land prices withstanding the fall.

Farm incomes and agrarian credit conditions continued to erode in the second half of 2018 and for bankers, one key concern has been the amount of farmland that could come up for sale in the coming months and whether that could trigger an across-the-board fall for land prices.

Although farmland values remained stable – or improved slightly in some areas – increasing stress in the farm sector could put downward pressure on farm real estate values moving forward, according to bankers.

“What if land values fall? Sure that’s going to cause problems, but we just haven’t seen evidence of it,” Johansson said.

Top U.S. and Chinese trade negotiators were haggling on Thursday over the details of a set of agreements aimed at ending their trade war.

(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk and Julie Ingwersen; Additional reporting by P.J. Huffstutter in Chicago; Editing by Tom Brown and Lisa Shumaker)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: Cases of Pepsi are shown for sale at a store in Carlsbad
FILE PHOTO: Cases of Pepsi are shown for sale at a store in Carlsbad, California, U.S., April 22, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By Amit Dave and Mayank Bhardwaj

AHMEDABAD/NEW DELHI (Reuters) – PepsiCo Inc has sued four Indian farmers for cultivating a potato variety that the snack food and drinks maker claims infringes its patent, the company and the growers said on Friday.

Pepsi has sued the farmers for cultivating the FC5 potato variety, exclusively grown for its popular Lay’s potato chips. The FC5 variety has a lower moisture content required to make snacks such as potato chips.

PepsiCo is seeking more than 10 million rupees ($142,840.82) each for alleged patent infringement.

The farmers grow potatoes in the western state of Gujarat, a leading producer of India’s most consumed vegetable.

“We have been growing potatoes for a long time and we didn’t face this problem ever, as we’ve mostly been using the seeds saved from one harvest to plant the next year’s crop,” said Bipin Patel, one of the four farmers sued by Pepsi.

Patel did not say how he came by the PepsiCo variety.

A court in Ahmedabad, the business hub of Gujarat, on Friday agreed to hear the case on June 12, said Anand Yagnik, the lawyer for the farmers.

“In this instance, we took judicial recourse against people who were illegally dealing in our registered variety,” A PepsiCo India spokesman said. “This was done to protect our rights and safeguard the larger interest of farmers that are engaged with us and who are using and benefiting from seeds of our registered variety.”

PepsiCo, which set up its first potato chips plant in India in 1989, supplies the FC5 potato variety to a group of farmers who in turn sell their produce to the company at a fixed price.

The All India Kisan Sabha, or All India Farmers’ Forum, has asked the Indian government to protect the farmers.

The farmers’ forum has also called for a boycott of PepsiCo’s Lay’s chips and the company’s other products.

The Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

PepsiCo is the second major U.S. company in India to face issues over patent infringement.

Stung by a long-standing intellectual property dispute, seed maker Monsanto, which is now owned by German drugmaker Bayer AG, withdrew from some businesses in India over a cotton-seed dispute with farmers, Reuters reported in 2017. (reut.rs/2ncBknn)

(Reporting by Amit Dave in AHMEDABAD and Mayank Bhardwaj in NEW DELHI; Editing by Martin Howell and Louise Heavens)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: The Archer Daniels Midland Co (ADM) logo is displayed on a screen on the floor of the NYSE in New York
FILE PHOTO: The Archer Daniels Midland Co (ADM) logo is displayed on a screen on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., May 3, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By P.J. Huffstutter and Shradha Singh

CHICAGO/BENGALURU (Reuters) – Archer Daniels Midland Co said on Friday it was considering spinning off its ethanol business after slim biofuel margins and Midwestern floods slammed the U.S. grains merchant’s profit, which tumbled 41 percent in the first quarter.

ADM said it was creating an ethanol subsidiary, which will include dry mills in Columbus, Nebraska; Cedar Rapids, Iowa; and Peoria, Illinois.

The ethanol subsidiary will report as an independent segment, the company said, allowing options “which may include, but are not limited to, a potential spin-off of the business to existing ADM shareholders.”

Results were hit by the “bomb cyclone” blizzards that devastated the Midwest and Great Plains this year, causing massive flooding across Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri, washing out rail lines and wreaking havoc in the moving and processing of corn, soybeans and wheat. One-sixth of U.S. ethanol production was halted.

In March, ADM warned Wall Street that flooding and severe winter weather in the U.S. Midwest would reduce its first-quarter operating profit by $50 million to $60 million.

“The first quarter proved more challenging than initially expected,” said Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Juan Luciano, with earnings down in its starches, sweeteners and bioproducts unit. Luciano said impacts of the severe weather ultimately “were on the high side of our initial estimates”.

Ongoing problems in the ethanol industry added to the problems and “limited margins and opportunities” for ADM, Luciano said.

The ethanol industry has been in the midst of a historic downswing due to the U.S.-China trade war, excess domestic supply and weak margins.

ADM, which had been an ethanol pioneer, signaled to Wall Street in 2016 that it was hunting for options and considering sales of its U.S. dry ethanol mills. Luciano told Reuters this year that offers ADM had received for the mills were too low.

In addition, ADM said it planned to repurpose its corn wet mill in Marshall, Minnesota, to produce higher volumes of food and industrial-grade starches.

Other major traders are alsy trying to distance themselves from struggling ethanol businesses. Louis Dreyfus Company BV spun off its Brazilian sugar and ethanol business Biosev in 2013. Rival Bunge sold its sugar book and has sought a buyer for its Brazilian mills since 2013.

ADM, which makes money trading, processing and transporting crops, such as corn, soybeans and wheat, has been looking to strengthen its core business. Last month it said it would seek voluntary early retirements of some North American employees and cut jobs as part of a restructuring effort.

The company expects to lower 2019 capital spending by 10 percent to between $800 million and $900 million.

Net earnings attributable to the company fell to $233 million, or 41 cents per share, in the three months ended March 31, from $393 million, or 70 cents per share, a year earlier.

Revenue fell to $15.30 billion from $15.53 billion. On an adjusted basis, the company earned 46 cents per share, while analysts on average had estimated 60 cents, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

(Reporting by Shradha Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta, Chizu Nomiyama and David Gregorio)

Source: OANN

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The Slack app logo is seen on a smartphone in this illustration
FILE PHOTO: The Slack app logo is seen on a smartphone in this picture illustration taken September 15, 2017. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

April 26, 2019

(Reuters) – Slack Technologies Inc, operator of the popular workplace instant-messaging app, reported a loss of $140.7 million in the fiscal year ended Jan. 31, 2019, the company said on Friday in a regulatory filing ahead of its planned public market debut.

The company said its daily active users exceeded 10 million in the three months ended Jan. 31, 2019.

Slack expects to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “SK”, it said.

The San Francisco-based company is seeking to go public via a direct listing, making it the second big technology company after Spotify Technology SA to bypass the traditional route of listing shares through an initial public offering.

A direct listing is a cheaper way of becoming a public company as the process requires fewer investment banks and therefore lower fees.

In a direct listing, however, a company does not sell any new shares to raise money. Instead, it gives existing shareholders the opportunity to cash out.

Slack is the latest in a string of high-profile technology companies looking to go public this year. Lyft Inc, Pinterest and Zoom Video Communications have completed IPOs so far in 2019.

The company is hoping for a valuation of more than $10 billion in the listing, Reuters had previously reported. Some early investors and employees have been selling the stock at around $28, valuing the company close to $17 billion, Kelly Rodriques, CEO of Forge, a brokerage company, told CNBC on Thursday.

Slack set a placeholder amount of $100 million to indicate the size of the IPO. The amount of money a company says it plans to raise in its first IPO filings is used to calculate registration fees. The final size of the IPO could be different.

Its competitors include Microsoft Teams, a free chat add-on for Microsoft’s Office365 users.

(Reporting By Aparajita Saxena and Joshua Franklin in New York; Editing by Leslie Adler and Anil D’Silva)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: Candidate Zelenskiy reacts following the announcement of an exit poll in Ukraine's presidential election in Kiev
FILE PHOTO: Ukrainian presidential candidate Volodymyr Zelenskiy reacts following the announcement of the first exit poll in a presidential election at his campaign headquarters in Kiev, Ukraine April 21, 2019. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By Matthias Williams

KIEV (Reuters) – Russia’s decision to make it easier for residents of rebel-controlled eastern Ukraine to obtain a Russian passport is meant to test Ukraine’s new leader and the West should not recognize the documents, Lithuania’s foreign minister said on Friday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the order on facilitating passports on Wednesday, three days after comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy, a political novice, won a landslide victory in Ukraine’s presidential election.

Linas Linkevicius, whose own country also has strained relations with Moscow, told Reuters in an interview that the West should consider imposing new sanctions on Russia.

“This is a blatant violation of international law. And basically also a kind of test to the new (Ukrainian) leadership, which is also a usual game,” Linkevicius said.

“The least we can do (is) we shouldn’t recognize these passports. How to do that technically, it’s another issue to discuss. Also (we need) to look at additional sanctions,” said Linkevicius, whose small Baltic nation is a member of NATO and the European Union.

Western nations imposed sanctions on Russia over its 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region and its support for armed separatists battling Kiev’s forces in eastern Ukraine. Some 13,000 people have been killed in that conflict despite a notional ceasefire signed in Minsk in 2015.

Linkevicius, who in Kiev on Friday became the first minister of an EU country since Ukraine’s election to meet President-elect Zelenskiy, said they had discussed the passport issue.

Zelenskiy also raised the possibility of resetting the Minsk ceasefire agreement without giving any concessions to Russia, Linkevicius said.

“DANGEROUS CANCER” OF GRAFT

The minister urged Zelenskiy to deliver on his electoral promise of tackling corruption, which he described as the “most dangerous cancer” facing Ukraine, which hopes one day to join the EU.

Last month, Lithuania’s own relations with Russia came under renewed strain after a Vilnius court found former Soviet defense minister Dmitry Yazov, in absentia, guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in a 1991 crackdown against Lithuania’s pro-independence movement.

Russia branded the verdict “extremely unfriendly and essentially provocative” and opened a probe into the judges involved.

Linkevicius accused Russia of seeking to politicize the judicial process by trying to take revenge on the judges, adding: “This is lamentable.”

(Editing by Gareth Jones)

Source: OANN

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A Cook County judge recently called out embattled State Attorney Kim Foxx for upholding a double standard by prosecuting a woman for filing a false police report — but dropping similar charges against embattled “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett.

Foxx has faced intense criticism over her office’s decision to drop a 16-count indictment against Smollett, just weeks after bringing the charges against the high-profile TV star. Foxx’s deal with Smollett, which did not require him to admit guilt, drew ire from the public, the city’s top cop and the former mayor who called it a “whitewash of justice.”

JUSSIE SMOLLETT CHICAGO PROSECUTOR KIM FOXX CHIDED BY NATIONAL ATTORNEYS GROUPS AFTER JUSSIE SMOLLETT CHARGES DROPPED 

Cook County Judge Marc Martin, who was presiding over an unrelated case, chastised Foxx and her office for creating a situation where anyone charged with filing a false report would expect the same leniency her office afforded Smollett.

Candace Clark, 21, is facing one felony count of making a false report. Prosecutors accused her of giving a friend access to her bank account and then telling authorities the money had been stolen. She denies the charges and claims she’s the victim of Foxx’s double standard — something the judge weighed in on.

“Well, Ms. Clark is not a movie star, she doesn’t have a high-price lawyer, although, her lawyer’s very good. And this smells, big time,” Martin said to prosecutors during a recent hearing, Fox 32 reported. “I didn’t create this mess, your office created this mess. And your explanation is unsatisfactory to this court. She’s being treated differently.”

The judge continued, “There’s no publicity on this case. She doesn’t have Mark Geragos as her lawyer or Ron Safer or Judge Brown. It’s not right. And (if) I proceed in this matter, you’re just digging yourselves further in a hole. (If the) press gets a hold of this, it’ll be in a newspaper. Why is Ms. Clark being treated differently than Mr. Smollett?”

Foxx recused herself from the Smollett case in February but continued to oversee the investigation through text messages with her assistant Joseph Magats.

The text messages revealed Foxx called Smollett a “washed up celeb who lied to cops.” They also show she cautioned Magats about throwing the book at Smollett.

“Sooo……I’m recused, but when people accuse us of overcharging cases…16 counts on a class 4 becomes exhibit A,” Foxx wrote to Magats on March 8.

“Pedophile with 4 victims 10 counts. Washed up celeb who lied to cops, 16. On a case eligible for deferred prosecution I think it’s indicative of something we should be looking at generally. Just because we can charge something doesn’t mean we should,” she added, referring to the case of R&B singer R. Kelly, who was indicted on 10 counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse in connection with four women, three of whom were underage.

KIM FOXX’S CHIEF ETHICS OFFICER RESIGNS FOLLOWING SMOLLETT CONTROVERSY

President Trump said last month he asked for a federal review of Foxx’s decision to drop the charges against Smollett. He also called the actor “an absolute embarrassment to our country.”

The Smollett case garnered national attention and threatened to tear Chicago apart. It pit the police department and mayor against prosecutors and underscored the idea that wealthy people are somehow above the law.

Smollett told police he was attacked on Jan. 29 around 2 a.m. as he was returning home from a sandwich shop in Chicago. He said two masked men shouted racial and anti-gay slurs, poured bleach on him, beat him and tied a rope around his neck. He claimed they shouted, “This is MAGA country” — a reference to President Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign slogan.

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After an intense investigation, police said Smollett staged the entire incident to drum up publicity for his career.

Smollett has strongly denied the accusations.

Source: Fox News National

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