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9-year-old Los Angeles area girl found in duffel bag ID'd

Investigators have identified a Los Angeles-area girl found dead in a duffel bag along a suburban equestrian trail, and two people have been detained in connection with the case.

The coroner's office determined that the girl was 9-year-old Trinity Love Jones and ruled her death a homicide, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said late Sunday.

The department has declined to say how the girl was killed but planned to release additional information later in the week.

The two people detained in Trinity's deaths are considered persons of interest and their names have not been released.

Trinity's body was found on March 5 partly protruding from the duffel bag at the bottom of an embankment in an unincorporated area of Hacienda Heights, southeast of Los Angeles.

Investigators believe her body was there less than 48 hours.

A sketch of Trinity released to help identify her showed her wearing a pink shirt that read, "Future Princess Hero."

A man who identified himself as Trinity's father told KTLA-TV that his daughter was full of life and joy and that he's in shock over her death.

"Words can't explain what I'm feeling right now," Antonio Jones said. "I just want answers. I just want justice."

He declined to discuss details about the case or Trinity's living situation.

Meanwhile a large memorial near where Trinity's body was found continued to grow Monday, with people stopping by to add Disney balloons, teddy bears, flowers and photos of the bright-eyed girl. Signs read, "Justice for Trinity," and "Rest in Heaven, Princess."

Source: Fox News National

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Xi says cooperation is mainstream in China-Europe ties

French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker welcome Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Elysee Palace in Paris
French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker welcome Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, March 26, 2019. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer

March 26, 2019

Source: OANN

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Gay Trump Supporter’s Message for Jussie Smollett

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Assad meets Khamenei in first Iran visit since Syrian war began

FILE PHOTO: Syria's President Bashar al-Assad speaks during a meeting with heads of local councils, in Damascus
FILE PHOTO: Syria's President Bashar al-Assad speaks during a meeting with heads of local councils, in Damascus, Syria in this handout released by SANA on February 17, 2019. SANA/Handout via REUTERS

February 25, 2019

By Suleiman Al-Khalidi

AMMAN (Reuters) – Syrian President Bashar al Assad made his first public visit to his closest regional ally Iran since the start of Syria’s war in 2011, meeting Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran on Monday and championing their alliance, state media reported.

Syrian and Iranian state television showed Assad and Khamenei smiling and embracing. Syrian television said the two leaders agreed “to continue cooperation at all levels for the interests of the two friendly nations”.

Khamenei was quoted as saying the two countries’ military victories in Syria had dealt “a harsh blow” to U.S plans in the region.

Assad regained the upper hand in Syria’s war with the help of Russian air power and Iranian and Lebanese Hezbollah forces, retaking all main cities from rebels and militants backed variously by Western powers and Gulf Arabs.

Sitting next to Assad was Major General Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s elite Quds Force – an overseas arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). He has appeared on frontlines across Syria, where his presence has infuriated Sunni-led insurgents who oppose what they view as Shi’ite Iran’s expansion in the region.

It was Assad’s first known foreign visit other than to Russia since the war began and his first to Tehran since 2010

Iranian-backed Shi’ite militias have expanded their control over mainly Sunni areas around Damascus, southern and eastern Syria that bore the brunt of the heaviest bombardment and led to mass displacement or emigration to neighboring countries.

Iran’s growing influence in Syria, where it has struck economic and trade deals, has also raised the prospect of a military confrontation with its arch-enemy Israel.

Israel, regarding Iran as its biggest threat, has repeatedly attacked Iranian targets in Syria and those of allied militia, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has threatened to escalate its fight against Iranian aligned forces in Syria after the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the country.

Assad was quoted by Syrian state television as saying that

any escalation by Western powers would not stop Iran and Syria from defending their own interests.

Iranian state media said Khamenei praised Assad as a hero who had strengthened the alliance between Iran, Syria and Hezbollah.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran sees helping Syria’s government and nation as support for the resistance movement (against Israel) and is deeply proud of doing it,” Khamenei said.

Assad was also briefed by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani about efforts by Russia, Iran and Turkey – supporters of the main sides in the Syrian civil war – to end the conflict.

Syria wants Turkey, which has backed Sunni rebels and carved a sphere of influence in the northwest of the country, to remove its troops from Syrian territory and end its support for rebels.

Efforts have so far failed to make progress toward a political settlement to end a war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced about half of Syria’s pre-war population of 22 million.

(Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi, Additional reporting by Parisa Hafezi.; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Source: OANN

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Court reinstates late Aaron Hernandez's murder conviction

Aaron Hernandez's murder conviction was reinstated Wednesday in a sweeping ruling from Massachusetts' highest court that does away with the legal principle that made the former NFL star innocent in the eyes of the law after he killed himself in prison.

The Supreme Judicial Court unanimously found that the legal rule that erased Hernandez's conviction is "outdated and no longer consonant with the circumstances of contemporary life." It ordered that Hernandez's conviction be restored and that the practice be abolished for future cases. The ruling does not affect past cases.

Hernandez was convicted in 2015 of killing semi-professional football player Odin Lloyd. Two years later, the 27-year-old killed himself in his prison cell days after being acquitted of most charges in a separate double-murder case.

A judge threw out Hernandez's conviction that year, citing the legal principle that holds that a defendant convicted at trial who dies before an appeal is heard should no longer be considered guilty in the eyes of the law, thereby returning the case to its pretrial status. The prosecution then appealed, seeking to have the conviction reinstated.

Under the doctrine, rooted in centuries of English law, a conviction should not be considered final until an appeal can determine whether mistakes were made that deprived the defendant of a fair trial, legal experts say.

How states handle cases such as Hernandez's varies widely. Some, like Massachusetts, toss the convictions, while other states dismiss the defendant's appeal and the conviction stands. Others allow appellate courts to consider a dead defendant's case, prosecutors said.

The district attorney whose office prosecuted Hernandez's case applauded the court's decision.

"We are pleased justice is served in this case, the antiquated practice of vacating a valid conviction is being eliminated and the victim's family can get the closure they deserve," Bristol County District Attorney Thomas M. Quinn III said in a tweet.

Prosecutors argued that the legal doctrine is outdated and unfair to victims. Quinn told the court that the defendant's estate should be allowed to appeal the case, if they wish. Otherwise, the conviction should stand, he argued.

Under the new rule laid out by the court, the conviction will stand, but the court record will note the conviction was neither affirmed nor reversed because the defendant died while the appeal was pending.

Other high-profile Massachusetts criminals whose convictions have been erased after their deaths include John Salvi, who was convicted of killing two abortion clinic workers and wounding five other people during a shooting rampage in Brookline in 1994.

Roman Catholic priest John Geoghan, a key figure in the clergy sex abuse scandal that rocked the Boston archdiocese and spread across the globe, also had his child molestation conviction vacated after he was beaten to death in 2003 in his cell at the same Massachusetts maximum-security prison where Hernandez died.

Hernandez's attorney had previously argued the legal doctrine should remain intact, saying juries make mistakes. An email requesting comment on the court's decision was sent to his attorney Wednesday.

___

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Source: Fox News National

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Kraft Heinz’ problems shine light on controversial budget tool

FILE PHOTO: Heinz tomato Ketchup is show on display during a preview of a new Walmart Super Center prior to its opening in Compton, California
FILE PHOTO: Heinz tomato Ketchup is show on display during a preview of a new Walmart Super Center prior to its opening in Compton, California, U.S., January 10, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo

February 22, 2019

By Martinne Geller and Richa Naidu

LONDON/BOCA RATON, Fla. (Reuters) – Mounting troubles at Kraft Heinz, revealed late on Thursday with a triple-punch of bad news, call into question its reliance on cost-cutting as a way to generate profit growth.

Shares of Kraft Heinz fell 27 percent on Friday to their lowest level since the 2015 merger of the eponymous cheese and ketchup makers that formed the world’s fifth-largest food and drinks company.

Late on Thursday, it revealed a $15.4 billion write-down tied to its Kraft and Oscar Mayer brands, slashed its dividend by about a third and disclosed an SEC investigation of its procurement accounting practices.

The news validated investors’ concerns about the health of the company’s brands and its pricing power in an environment of rising commodity and transportation costs and more competition.

Half of the group’s market value vanished over the last two years even before Friday, dampening enthusiasm for its backers, private equity firm 3G Capital, and its notorious embrace of a tool called zero-based budgeting (ZBB), used to keep costs low and profit margins high.

“At some point, having best-in-class margins doesn’t matter if the sales growth doesn’t eventually come,” said Guggenheim analyst Laurent Grandet.

A Kraft Heinz spokesman said the company’s ZBB efforts continued to drive savings that can be invested in growing the business.

“In 2019, we will increase brand support, go-to-market with a more innovation than ever and invest in talent… and this will be partially funded by ZBB savings,” spokesman Michael Mullen said. 3G could not immediately be reached for comment.

ZBB FIT FOR EVERYONE?

Zero-based budgeting is an approach requiring corporate managers to justify each item of spending every year, or even build their budgets from scratch, rather than the more common process of using the prior year’s budget as a starting point.

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter wanted to apply it to federal spending, but it never took off and was abandoned.

It came back into fashion among corporations over the last decade, after 3G Capital used it to great margin effect at brewing giant Anheuser-Busch InBev, whose creation it orchestrated, and then at Kraft Heinz.

Both clocked industry-leading profit margins, and that led more consumer companies to adopt it in recent years as investors’ focus shifted to profits from sales, which were slowing amid a slowdown in once-hot emerging markets, new competition from independent challenger brands and weak pricing power due to e-commerce and discounters like Aldi and Lidl.

At the same time, high-profile activist investors set their sights on the sector, prompting many CEOs to squeeze out costs.

“The cuts can be impressive, and that’s a big win,” said consultants BCG in a report from 2017. They noted, however, that faster growth was not a guaranteed result. “When it’s applied clumsily, ZBB can have a demoralizing impact that distracts the organization from growth and value creation.”

Kraft on Thursday missed fourth-quarter earnings estimates and forecast a decline in operating earnings for 2019.

“KHC’s EBITDA has not grown over the last five years, its revenue has declined, and its balance sheet has ballooned,” said analysts at JP Morgan. “This is not an ideal progression of financial metrics.”

Unilever, Mondelez International, Diageo and Kellogg are among companies that have used ZBB, though none has seen as bad results as Kraft’s.

“I think it’s a black eye for Kraft Heinz management for not implementing it in as a sophisticated way as might be necessary, or maybe they just implemented it too hard, too fast,” Investec analyst Eddy Hargreaves said. “I don’t think ZBB per se is the problem.”

Others said it was not just cost-cuts that led to the write-down of the Kraft and Oscar Mayer brands.

“Are these the kinds of things people are buying these days? Are they fresh? Novel? Healthy? They don’t tick any of the boxes,” said Liberum analyst Robert Waldschmidt.

The head of investment at a European consulting firm said ZBB was not the answer for problems ailing Kraft and its packaged food peers, which are suffering as consumers eschew traditional staples like macaroni-and-cheese and bologna for fresher, less-processed or healthier options.

“To catch up with the shift of consumer demand for better-for-you and sustainable food, you have to innovate. And to innovate you simply can’t use ZBB,” he said.

(Additional reporting by Melissa Fares in New York and Siddarth Cavale in Bengaluru; Editing by Dan Grebler)

Source: OANN

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Louisiana man beats woman to death with hammer during dispute, police say

A Louisiana man confessed to beating a woman to death with a hammer after they had a dispute while smoking crack cocaine Monday, police said.

Willie Joseph III, 63, is facing a second-degree murder charge after confessing to killing an unidentified victim, according to WAFB.

Joseph -- who recently served 26 years in prison for rape -- admitted to smoking crack cocaine with the woman before they began to argue and she threatened him with a hammer, WAFB reported.

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Joseph reportedly told police that, after wrestling the tool away, he “lost it” and struck her at least three times on the head, according to an arrest report. He then covered her face with a plastic bag to “finish off,” officials said.

Police found the woman, who Joseph was reportedly dating, wrapped in a bedspread in a neighboring trailer.

After killing the woman, Joseph continued to smoke before turning himself in, according to WAFB.

Fox News' Michael Sinkewicz contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News National

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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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A remote controlled robot for the 'Isotopium: Chernobyl' game is seen at the game's location in Brovary
A remote controlled robot for the ‘Isotopium: Chernobyl’ game is seen at the game’s location in Brovary, Ukraine April 25, 2019. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko

April 26, 2019

By Margaryta Chornokondratenko

KIEV (Reuters) – A Ukrainian computer game that brings to life a town abandoned after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster may not sound like everyone’s idea of fun but has attracted 60,000 people globally since its launch in October.

Players of “Isotopium: Chernobyl” drive tanks around the ghost town of Prypyat near Chernobyl, knocking out competitors as they search for an energy source called isotopium and collecting points every time they find some.

While the game takes its theme from the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl in northern Ukraine, which marked its 33rd anniversary on Friday, it was also inspired by the 2009 science fiction film “Avatar”.

Newcomers to the game think they have entered a virtual world when in fact they are controlling a real robot, equipped with a camera and computer, which makes its way around a model of the town rendered down to the tiniest detail.

“When playing our game, for the first 5-10 minutes many players don’t understand that it is not fictional,” said the game’s co-founder Sergey Beskrestnov. “They message us saying: ‘You have cool texture, you have good graphics, your designer is good, well done. You have a cool operating system.’

“People then reply: ‘It is not an operating system, it is real,’ and the player can’t believe it is real,” said Beskrestnov, speaking mid-game from Prypyat city square as he towers over surrounding five-storey buildings.

Kiev-born Beskrestnov was just 12 years old when on April 26, 1986 a botched test at the nuclear plant in the then Soviet Union sent clouds of smoldering nuclear material across large swathes of Europe, forced over 50,000 people, including Beskrestnov’s family, to evacuate and poisoned unknown numbers of workers involved in its clean-up.

Beskrestnov and his partner Alexey Fateyev used Google maps and hundreds of pictures from the Chernobyl area to recreate Prypyat landmarks, including residential buildings, a hotel, concert hall, amusement park and a stadium.

The game’s real-scale model occupies a 180 square meter (1,938 sq. ft) basement of a residential building in the Ukraine city of Brovary, just 150 km (93 miles) from the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone and 30 km east of Kiev.

Miniature radioactivity warning signs, graffiti on the walls of abandoned buildings and tables and chairs left scattered inside a small cafe all add to the creepy atmosphere of a once lively town.

“It’s a really neat concept …,” Shaun Prescott wrote in a review of the game published by PC Gamer magazine in January. “Controlling the tanks is kinda cumbersome, but they are tanks, after all.”

An attentive player will notice at least one inaccuracy – the real Chernobyl nuclear power plant is not located in town as it is in the game.

It costs $9 to immerse in the atmosphere of a post-apocalyptic town for an hour but only 20 people at a time can play simultaneously. Beskrestnov’s company, Remote Games, said 62,615 people around the world have registered to play the game, including around 15,000 in France and 10,000 in the United States.

A camera fixed on top of a moving tank broadcasts high quality signal in real time, allowing players from as far apart as Australia and Canada enjoy the game without facing any time delay in delivering video signals.

Its creators next ambition is to devise a game featuring the colonization of Mars in which 1,000 people will be able to simultaneously control robots on different missions involved in the operation.

“Many people advise us to contact Elon Musk directly because it resonates his dreams and ideas,” Beskrestnov jokes.    

(Editing by Susan Fenton)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: A Starbucks sign is show on one of the companies stores in Los Angeles, California
FILE PHOTO: A Starbucks sign is show on one of the companies stores in Los Angeles, California, U.S. October 19,2018. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo

April 26, 2019

(Reuters) – Initial optimism over first-quarter results from Starbucks Corp was waning fast on Wall Street on Friday, as analysts questioned the longer-term prospects of its new sales push given subdued overall customer traffic numbers especially in China.

The company on Thursday beat brokerage estimates for quarterly same-store sales on the back of demand for its new Cloud Macchiato, Matcha tea and cold brews in the United States.

However, BTIG’s Peter Saleh was one of a number of sector analysts who said while customers forking out for higher-priced new drinks had helped drive growth in same-store sales, “anemic” traffic at cafes remained a concern.

He and others pointed to a 1 percent decline in footfall at cafes in the Chinese market, viewed as crucial to the chain’s growth for the foreseeable future.

More broadly, transaction numbers, the substitute analysts use for customer traffic, were unchanged in all three of the company’s global regions.

Shares in the company, which hit a record high after the results on Thursday, fell 1 percent in morning trade.

“We remain cautious given near-term headwinds surrounding China, including cannibalization, increasing competition (and) a slowing economy,” Wedbush analyst Nick Setyan said.

Starbucks has also poured money into beefing up its delivery network in China as it battles with local startup Luckin Coffee, whose speedy growth led it to file for an IPO in the United States earlier this week.

New menu items and partnerships with delivery services, the heart of the company’s strategy to win back customers lost to artisanal coffee shops and cheaper fast-food rivals, did help Starbucks’ sales in its home market.

However, analysts said growth in China may continue to be subdued.

Wells Fargo analyst Bonnie Herzog said she expects store expansion in China to take priority over comparable sales growth.

She downgraded her rating on Starbucks’ to “market perform” from “outperform”, arguing that the company facing tough sales comparisons later on in 2019 from last year and the current rich valuation of shares meant the stock had limited room to rise.

“Investors will be hesitant to invest new money in a stock with a topline that, while still strong, is unlikely to meaningfully accelerate,” Herzog said.

Still, the company’s solid same-store growth in the United States, improving profit margins and a lower tax rate for the rest of the year led at least 6 Wall Street brokerages to raise their price targets on the stock to as high as $81.

11 of 29 brokerages rate Starbucks “buy” or higher, 17 “hold” and 1 “sell” or lower. Their median price target is $75.

(Reporting by Uday Sampath in Bengaluru)

Source: OANN

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