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Person who claimed to be Timmothy Pitzen is not Timmothy Pitzen, FBI says, citing DNA test

A teen who claimed on Wednesday that he was Timmothy Pitzen — a 6-year-old boy from Illinois who went missing in 2011 — is not Pitzen, the FBI revealed on Thursday.

The teen told investigators that he had just escaped the grasp of two male kidnappers who had held him hostage for seven years. Officials ordered DNA testing to determine if the boy was who he claimed to be.

The results of the DNA testing "have been returned indicating the person in question is not Timmothy Pitzen," the FBI's Louisville field office tweeted.

"A local investigation continues into this person's true identity. To be clear, law enforcement has not and will not forget Timmothy, and we hope to one day reunite him with his family," officials continued. "Unfortunately, that day will not be today."

The identity of the person who claimed to be Pitzen was not immediately clear. Investigators said that the teen was located in Newport, Kentucky, early Wednesday by residents who spotted him in the neighborhood and suspected he might be looking to steal a neighbor's car. When neighbors approached him, they said they told him he was Pitzen.

The person, according to an incident report from Ohio's Sharonville Police Department, said that after he escaped, he "kept running across a bridge into Kentucky."

TEEN TELLS INVESTIGATORS HE'S TIMMOTHY PITZEN, CHILD WHO DISAPPEARED IN ILLINOIS IN 2011

Investigators have said that Pitzen disappeared after his mother, 43-year-old Amy Fry-Pitzen, picked him up from school in May 2011. It's believed she took the boy to the zoo and a water park in Wisconsin before apparently killing herself in a hotel room in Illinois.

Fry-Pitzen left a note saying her son was fine. Police investigating her death said she took steps that suggested she might have, as she said in her note, dropped her son off with a friend.

The FBI on Wednesday said it was working with several different law enforcement agencies on a missing child investigation.

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Aurora Police Sgt. Bill Rowley told The Associated Press that the boy "disappeared ten years ago and we've probably had thousands of tips of him popping up in different areas."

"We have no idea what we're driving down there for," he said. "It could be Pitzen. It could be a hoax."

Fox News' Katherine Lam and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News National

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Trump's Pick for Justice Department's No. 3 Job Withdraws

President Donald Trump's pick for the Justice Department's No. 3 position has withdrawn her name from consideration after encountering opposition on the Republican-led Senate Judiciary Committee, the department said Thursday.

Jessie Liu will instead stay on in her current position as the United States attorney for the District of Columbia.

A person familiar with the process said Liu's selection was jeopardized by her involvement more than a decade ago in a legal organization, the National Association of Women Lawyers, that filed legal briefs in support of abortion rights and that opposed the Supreme Court nomination of Samuel Alito, a conservative justice.

Though Liu was a senior official of the lawyers' group at the time of Alito's nomination, her name was not on the letter opposing Alito's nomination and she signed a separate Yale Law School alumni letter in support of him, according to the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the process. Liu said in interview with the National Journal published this month that she "was then and am now a huge admirer of Justice Alito" and that she resigned from the group because of its left-leaning positions.

Sen. Mike Lee, a Utah Republican, made clear his opposition, according to the person and the senator's office. Other Republicans on the committee opposed to abortion likely would have raised similar concerns.

"Jessie Liu is one of the finest, most impressive people serving in the Department of Justice," Attorney General William Barr said in a statement. "She has been an outstanding United States Attorney and would have made an outstanding Associate Attorney General. I have zero doubt she would have faithfully executed my priorities and advanced my rule-of-law agenda."

Barr also announced that Liu would serve as chairwoman of an advisory committee of U.S. attorneys.

As top federal prosecutor in the nation's capital, Liu will continue overseeing some of the matters referred to her office by special counsel Robert Mueller during his recently concluded investigation into possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. Those include a subpoena that was issued to an unidentified company owned by a foreign government.

Source: NewsMax America

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Krugman defends Bernie Sanders’ wealth, says he displays ‘civic virtue’

New York Times opinion columnis Paul Krugman-- who once called Sen. Bernie Sanders' economic policies “destructive self-indulgence”-- is now praising the leading 2020 candidate for “civic virtue” because he’s advocating his policies despite his riches.

Krugman, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, offered a defense of Sanders on Thursday following the revelations that the senator became part of America's one percent, thanks to his 2016 presidential campaign that propelled him to national stardom and wealth.

BERNIE SANDERS RELEASES 10 YEARS OF TAX RETURNS; DEMOCRATIC SOCIALIST MADE OVER $560G IN 2018

“A peculiar chapter in the 2020 presidential race ended Monday, when Bernie Sanders, after months of foot-dragging, finally released his tax returns,” Krugman wrote, calling the filings “perfectly innocuous.”

He said that while it seems that “Sanders got a lot of book royalties after the 2016 campaign, and was afraid that revealing this fact would produce headlines mocking him for now being part of the 1 Percent,” he shouldn’t actually hide his wealth.

“Politicians who support policies that would raise their own taxes and strengthen a social safety net they’re unlikely to need aren’t being hypocrites; if anything, they’re demonstrating their civic virtue,” Krugman wrote, calling such attacks “stupid.”

 “Politicians who support policies that would raise their own taxes and strengthen a social safety net they’re unlikely to need aren’t being hypocrites; if anything, they’re demonstrating their civic virtue.”

— Paul Krugman

The senator’s 2018 tax return revealed that he and his wife, Jane, earned over $550,000, including $133,000 in income from his Senate salary and $391,000 in sales of his book, “Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In.”

The filings showed that Sanders has been among the top 1 percent of earners in the U.S. According to the liberal-leaning Economic Policy Institute, families in the U.S. earning $421,926 or more a year are part of this group.

NY TIMES' PAUL KRUGMAN SAYS US PART OF 'NEW AXIS OF EVIL' WITH RUSSIA, SAUDI ARABIA

Krugman’s rare defense of Sanders comes after his relentless attacks on the Sanders campaign during the 2016 election.

In a January 2016 column, Krugman decried Sanders’ idealism, saying “it’s not a virtue unless it goes along with hardheaded realism,” which Sanders doesn’t have.

“Sorry, but there’s nothing noble about seeing your values defeated because you preferred happy dreams to hard thinking about means and ends. Don’t let idealism veer into destructive self-indulgence,” he wrote.

“Sorry, but there’s nothing noble about seeing your values defeated because you preferred happy dreams to hard thinking about means and ends. Don’t let idealism veer into destructive self-indulgence.”

— Paul Krugman on Bernie Sanders in 2016

In a blog post the same month, Krugman also declared Sanders’ positions on financial reform and healthcare were “disturbing.”

“And in both cases his positioning is disturbing — not just because it’s politically unrealistic to imagine that we can get the kind of radical overhaul he’s proposing, but also because he takes his own version of cheap shots,” he wrote.

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“Not at people — he really is a fundamentally decent guy — but by going for easy slogans and punting when the going gets tough.”

Source: Fox News Politics

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Georgia girl, 9, hit by speeding car while playing in yard as family demands answers

A 9-year-old girl from Georgia was hit by a speeding car while playing in her own front yard on Friday, and now her parents are looking for help identifying the driver.

LaDerihanna Holmes was captured on surveillance footage playing with her friend in the yard of her home in Lithonia, a city around 20 miles east of Atlanta, around 7 p.m., her parents said.

In the footage, which was released by Holmes' family, the two children were seen hanging out on the front sidewalk and lawn.

MURDERED SOUTH CAROLINA STUDENT'S CAUSE OF DEATH REVEALED

Suddenly, the car appeared to speed through a stop sign, crossing the street onto the property — and hitting Holmes, pushing her into the house.

Her mother, Charlette Bolton, told The Associated Press that when the car crashed into the house, it felt like an earthquake. She said she screamed for her daughter and ran outside, where she said she saw the girl on the ground, appearing lifeless.

This undated photo provided by attorney Chris Stewart shows LaDerihanna Holmes.

This undated photo provided by attorney Chris Stewart shows LaDerihanna Holmes. (Chris Stewart via AP)

Bolton's 12-year-old son and a man started performing CPR on LaDerihanna, and her mother felt a heartbeat. Holmes' father, Derryl, picked her up and drove her to the hospital.

Her family said she suffered a fractured skull and her pelvic bone was broken in three places. The right valve of her heart was leaking blood, among other injuries, her family said.

"She's so tiny. She's only 45 to 50 pounds," Bolton said. "I just don't know how she made it."

An officer with the DeKalb County Police Department reportedly contacted the car's owner, who said her boyfriend had the vehicle while she was at work.

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Stewart Trial Attorneys, which has been working on behalf of the family, created a GoFundMe page for Holmes' medical bills which had raised more than $7,500 as of Monday evening. Lawyer Chris Stewart said police claimed they had leads in the case.

Bolton said her daughter — despite her injuries — has been talking and laughing, and was scheduled to start physical therapy on Monday. Speaking to the driver of the car, she said: "Y'all thought my baby was dead. Y'all didn't look down at my baby one time, and I want you to turn yourselves in."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News National

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UK property asking prices rise, Brexit delay could spur buyers: Rightmove

FILE PHOTO: Property sale signs are seen outside of a group of newly built houses in west London
FILE PHOTO: Property sale signs are seen outside of a group of newly built houses in west London, Britain, November 23, 2017. REUTERS/Toby Melville/File Photo

April 14, 2019

LONDON (Reuters) – Asking prices for British homes rose by the most in over a year in the four weeks to April 6, a survey showed, adding to other tentative signs that the housing market may have passed the worst of its slowdown ahead of Brexit.

The 1.1 percent monthly rise in asking prices was a bigger increase than usual at the start of the spring season and reduced the fall in prices in annual terms to 0.1 percent, property website Rightmove said.

Britain’s housing market has stumbled since the 2016 Brexit referendum with most measures of prices showing only minimal growth in recent months. But some data has suggested that the slowdown stabilized in early 2019.

Rightmove director Miles Shipside said last week’s delay of Britain’s exit from the European Union could spur hesitant home movers into action.

“We are not anticipating an activity surge, but maybe a wave of relief that releases some pent-up demand to take advantage of static property prices and cheap fixed-rate mortgages,” he said, noting visits to Rightmove’s website hit a record high in March.

Rightmove’s data is based on property advertisements on its website, which it says accounts for 90 percent of residential property on sale in the United Kingdom.

(Reporting by William Schomberg, editing by Andy Bruce)

Source: OANN

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Morocco looks to French as language of economic success

Students wearing mortar board hats wait to receive their degree diplomas, following a graduation ceremony for students at University of Rabat
Students wearing mortar board hats wait to receive their degree diplomas following a graduation ceremony for students at University of Rabat, Morocco, February 2, 2019. Picture taken February 2, 2019. REUTERS/Youssef Boudlal

February 18, 2019

By Ahmed Eljechtimi

RABAT (Reuters) – Morocco’s economy is getting lost in translation.

With so many students dropping out of university because they don’t speak French, the government has proposed reintroducing it as the language for teaching science, maths and technical subjects such as computer science in high schools.

It also wants children to start learning French when they start school.

The country’s official languages are Arabic and Amazigh, or Berber. Most people speak Moroccan Arabic – a mixture of Arabic and Amazigh infused with French and Spanish influences.

In school, children are taught through Arabic although they don’t use it outside the classroom. When they get to university, lessons switch to French, the language of the urban elite and the country’s former colonial masters. Confused? Many are.

Two out of three people fail to complete their studies at public universities in Morocco, mainly because they don’t speak French.

The linguistic morass has stymied economic growth and exacerbated inequalities in the North African country, where one in four young people are unemployed and the average annual income runs at approximately $3,440 per person, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) – less than a third of the world average.

The plans to broaden the teaching of French go to the heart of Morocco’s national identity.

They would overturn decades of Arabisation after independence from France in 1956 and have triggered a furor in parliament, where members of the Islamist PJD party, the senior partner in the coalition government, and the conservative Istiqlal party view them as a betrayal.

The disagreement has delayed a vote on the changes.

“Openness to the world should not be used as an excuse to impose the primacy of French,” said Hassan Adili, a PJD lawmaker.

Proponents say the changes reflect the reality that French reigns supreme in business, government and higher education, giving those who can afford to be privately schooled through French a huge advantage over the majority of the country’s students.

“In the Moroccan job market, mastery of French is indispensable. Those who do not have command of French are considered illiterate,” said Hamid El Otmani, head of talent and training at the Confederation of Moroccan Employers.

Even before parliament votes on the changes, Education Minister Said Amzazi has okayed the roll-out of French in some schools, declaring its use in teaching scientific subjects as an “irreversible choice”.

Like many Moroccan politicians, his children received a private education.

“When decision-makers start sending their children to public schools, only then can we say that we have a successful education system,” said Jamal Karimi Benchekroun of the co-ruling socialist PPS party.

Amzazi did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Frustration over jobs and poverty has fueled periodic protests in Morocco, but the country has avoided the sort of instability suffered by other North African states, where pent-up anger has triggered uprisings and provided fertile ground for Islamist extremism.

King Mohammed VI, the ultimate power in Morocco, has proven adept at introducing limited reforms in response to popular protest. He has spoken publicly about the need to teach foreign languages to students to reduce unemployment and has made the economy a top priority.

Last year, he sacked the minister for finance after calling on the government to do more to boost investment.

C’EST LA VIE

Problems with language are not unique to Morocco. In neighboring Algeria, another former French colony, students are also schooled in Arabic only to be greeted “en francais” in university and the workplace.

French’s pre-eminence reflects Paris’ continuing influence in the region. France is the biggest foreign direct investor in Morocco and large companies such as carmakers Renault and Peugeot employ tens of thousands of people.

Privately-run universities such as the International University of Rabat (UIR) have courses geared toward high-growth industries such as aerospace and renewable energy and offer tuition in French and English.

But a year at UIR can cost up to $10,000 in fees, way beyond the budget of most Moroccans. They go instead to non-fee paying public universities, where the abrupt transition to studying in French is frequently a burden for students and their lecturers.

“Sometimes we find ourselves giving French language courses during economy classes,” said Amine Dafir, economy professor at Hassan II University, a public institution in Mohamedia, near Casablanca.

Hamid Farricha, 37, dropped out of his applied physics and computer science degree at Hassan II University during the first year. He dreamed of becoming an engineer but the language barrier meant he struggled to keep up.

Trying to find Arabic translations for French scientific words was a drain on his time.

He switched instead to studying mechanics at a vocational school. He still had to master French to get hired.

“The biggest challenge after earning my diploma was writing a CV and sitting for job interviews in French,” Farricha told Reuters.

He got a job as a technician at a plant repairing car frames, paid below Morocco’s minimum monthly salary of 2570 dirhams, or $270.

Farricha was one of the lucky ones. Morocco’s economy cannot absorb all the young people looking for work. Around 280,000 graduates entered the labor force last year but only 112,000 jobs were created.

The unemployment rate for graduates is 17 percent, above the national rate of 9.8 percent, according to data from Morocco’s planning agency.

Morocco’s reliance on small and medium-sized companies which do not typically employ graduates, and austerity drives which have cut public sector jobs are part of the reason for the high rate of graduate unemployment.

The education system is also failing to prepare students for work.

In addition to high dropout rates, Moroccan students score badly compared to peers on international tests, and at university level, students oversubscribe to social science fields at the expense of technical subjects, according to an IMF report in late 2017. That means many don’t have the skills employers are looking for when they graduate.

Even for roles not requiring a degree, French is a must. On the French website of Morocco’s job promotion agency, almost all employers were looking for French speakers, including for jobs as guards, waiters, cooks and drivers.

Determined to get ahead, Farricha worked on his French while employed at the plant. He read newspapers and books in his spare time and gave himself a daily list of new expressions and vocabulary to learn.

He went back to university in 2014 for a degree in French law and is studying for a masters in diplomacy and international arbitration.

To meet his living costs, he teaches French to other students.

(Editing by Ulf Laessing and Carmel Crimmins)

Source: OANN

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Dems postpone deadline for Trump financial records pending lawsuit, in win for White House

House Democrats have agreed to postpone their imminent deadline for President Trump to turn over years of financial documents pending a court ruling on his lawsuit to block such a release, handing a major victory to the White House and, for now, vindicating Trump's decision to take the matter to court.

Trump's lawyers on Monday sued to block a subpoena issued by members of Congress to the accounting firm Mazars USA LLC for an array of Trump's financial information, including annual statements, periodic financial reports and independent auditors reports.

Mazars produced, among other documents, “statements of financial condition” for Trump before he became president, outlining his net worth in ways Democrats have charged may have been intentionally misleading.

Trump's suit named Rep. Elijah Cummings, the Democratic chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, and Peter Kenny, the chief investigative counsel of the House committee, as its plaintiffs. The complaint, filed in a Washington federal court, argued that the subpoena "has no legitimate legislative purpose"and is simply intended to harass the president.

MUELLER REPORT DEBUNKS RUSSIA 'BOMBSHELLS' LEFT AND RIGHT 

A hearing in the case has been set for May 14, and Democrats have agreed to delay the response date on their subpoena until seven days after the court issues a ruling.

House Oversight and Reform Committee Chair Elijah Cummings, D-Md., speaks to reporters about issuing subpoenas as part of his investigation of people in President Donald Trump's administration who were granted security clearances despite "disqualifying issues" in their backgrounds, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, April 2, 2019. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

House Oversight and Reform Committee Chair Elijah Cummings, D-Md., speaks to reporters about issuing subpoenas as part of his investigation of people in President Donald Trump's administration who were granted security clearances despite "disqualifying issues" in their backgrounds, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, April 2, 2019. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Separately, the administration defied a demand from Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., to turn over six years of Trump's tax returns by the close of business on Tuesday.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a letter to Neal on Tuesday that he was waiting for a Justice Department opinion on whether it is permissible to turn over the president's returns to Congress without his consent, and that a final decision is expected by May 6.

Mnuchin made clear in no uncertain terms, though, that the Democrats' request was "unprecedented," and that ordinary requests from Congress for taxpayer information were efforts to inform tax law drafting -- not to expose the private information of a particular taxpayer.

Mnuchin also argued that while Democrats claim they are acting in their oversight capacity, there has been an ongoing effort for several years, by various actors, to expose Trump's returns "for the sake of exposure" and politicial gain.

Mnuchin wrote that the Treasury Department does not share Democrats' "confidence that there is no limit to the willingness of the courts to accept obviously pretextual legislative justifications for information demands -- particularly when private tax information is at risk."

While Mnuchin noted that IRS provisions grant Congress the authority in some cases to obtain tax information, he pointed out that "the law does not allow Congress to set a deadline for the response for this request of a person’s tax returns.”

WATCH TRUMP'S SARCASTIC RESPONSE TO DEMS' NEW TAX RETURN REQUEST

The Trump administration generally has signaled that Democrats' efforts to obtain the tax returns will be fruitless. Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney had told "Fox News Sunday" earlier this month that Democrats would "never" see the returns.

Mnuchin got into a fiery viral exchange with U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, the Financial Services Committee chair, just weeks ago at a televised hearing that touched on the issue.

Neal hasn't announced next steps after sending two letters to IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig demanding Trump's taxes. But he could opt next to issue a subpoena to enforce his demand, sent under a 1924 law that requires the Treasury secretary to furnish any tax return requested by a handful of lawmakers with responsibility over the IRS.

In another parallel congressional probe, Cummings, D-Md., has said the White House is in "open defiance" of his panel after lawyers advised a former official to ignore a separate subpoena related to the committee's investigation of White House security clearances.

Cummings said Tuesday in a statement that "it appears that the president believes that the Constitution does not apply to his White House, that he may order officials at will to violate their legal obligations, and that he may obstruct attempts by Congress to conduct oversight."

He added the White House "has refused to produce a single piece of paper or a single witness" in any of the panel's investigations this year. Democrats took control of the House in January.

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Cummings said he is consulting with other lawmakers and staff about scheduling a vote to hold former White House personnel security director Carl Kline in contempt of Congress after Kline did not show up on Tuesday for a scheduled deposition.

The committee subpoenaed Kline after one of his former subordinates told the panel that dozens of people in Trump's administration were granted security clearances despite "disqualifying issues" in their backgrounds.

Fox News' Bill Mears, Alex Pappas, Lawrence Edward, Mike Emanuel and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News Politics

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FILE PHOTO: The Huawei logo is pictured outside its Huawei's factory campus in Dongguan, Guangdong province
FILE PHOTO: The Huawei logo is pictured outside its Huawei’s factory campus in Dongguan, Guangdong province, China, March 25, 2019. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By Ben Blanchard

BEIJING (Reuters) – Britain must get to the bottom of the leak of confidential discussions during a top-level security meeting about the role of China’s Huawei Technologies in 5G network supply chains, British finance minister Philip Hammond said on Friday.

News that Britain’s National Security Council, attended by senior ministers and spy chiefs, had agreed on Tuesday to bar Huawei from all core parts of the country’s 5G network and restrict its access to non-core elements was leaked to a national newspaper.

The leak of secret discussions has sparked anger in parliament and amongst Britain’s intelligence community. Britain’s most senior civil servant Mark Sedwill has launched an inquiry and written to ministers who were at the meeting.

“My understanding from London (is) that an investigation has been announced into apparent leaks from the NSC meeting earlier this week,” said Hammond, speaking on the sidelines of a summit on China’s Belt and Road initiative in Beijing.

“To my knowledge there has never been a leak from a National Security Council meeting before and therefore I think it is very important that we get to the bottom of what happened here,” he told Reuters in a pooled interview.

British culture minister Jeremy Wright said on Thursday he could not rule out a criminal investigation. The majority of the ministers at the NSC meeting have said they were not involved, according to media reports.

Hammond said he was unaware of any previous leak from a meeting of the NSC.

“It’s not about the substance of what was apparently leaked. It’s not earth-shattering information. But it is important that we protect the principle that nothing that goes on in national security council meetings must ever be repeated outside the room.”

Allowing Huawei a reduced role in building its 5G network puts Britain at odds with the United States which has told allies not to use its technology at all because of fears it could be a vehicle for Chinese spying. Huawei has categorically denied this.

There have been concerns that the NSC’s conclusion, which sources confirmed to Reuters, could upset other allies in the world’s leading intelligence-sharing network – the Five Eyes alliance of the United States, Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.

However, British ministers and intelligence officials have said any final decision on 5G would not put critical national infrastructure at risk. Ciaran Martin, head of the cyber center of Britain’s main eavesdropping agency, GCHQ, played down any threat of a rift in the Five Eyes alliance.

(Writing by Michael Holden; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Source: OANN

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Park Yoo-chun, a K-pop idol singer, arrives at the Suwon district court in Suwon
Park Yoo-chun, a K-pop idol singer, arrives at the Suwon district court in Suwon, South Korea, April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji

April 26, 2019

SEOUL (Reuters) – K-pop and drama star Park Yu-chun was arrested on Friday on charges of buying and using illegal drugs, a court said, the latest in a series of scandals to hit the South Korean entertainment business.

Suwon District Court approved the arrest warrant for Park, 32, due to concerns over possible destruction of evidence and flight risk, a court spokesman told Reuters.

Park is suspected of having bought about 1.5 grams of methamphetamine with his former girlfriend earlier this year and using the drug around five times, an official at the Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency said.

Park has denied wrongdoing, saying he had never taken drugs, and he again denied the charges in court, Yonhap news agency said.

Park’s contract with his management agency had been canceled and he would leave the entertainment industry, Park’s management agency, C-JeS Entertainment, said on Wednesday.

Park was a member of boyband TVXQ between 2003 and 2009 before leaving the group with two other members, forming the group JYJ.

A scandal involving sex tapes, prostitutes and secret chat about rape led at least four other K-pop stars to quit the industry earlier this year.

The cases sparked a nationwide drugs bust and investigations into tax evasion and police collusion at night clubs and other nightlife spots.

(Reporting by Joyce Lee; Additional reporting by Heekyong Yang; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: An American Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 flight taxis after landing at Reagan National Airport in Washington
FILE PHOTO: An American Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 flight from Los Angeles taxis after landing at Reagan National Airport shortly after an announcement was made by the FAA that the planes were being grounded by the United States over safety issues in Washington, U.S. March 13, 2019. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts/File Photo

April 26, 2019

(Reuters) – American Airlines Group Inc cut its 2019 profit forecast on Friday, saying it expected to take a $350 million hit from the grounding of Boeing’s 737 MAX planes after cancelling 1,200 flights in the first quarter.

The company said it now expects its 2019 adjusted profit to be between $4.00 per share and $6.00 per share.

Analysts on average had expected 2019 earnings of $5.63 per share, according to Refinitiv data.

The No. 1 U.S. airline by passenger traffic said net income rose to $185 million, or 41 cents per share, in the first quarter ended March 31, from $159 million, or 34 cents per share, a year earlier.

Total operating revenue rose 2 percent to $10.58 billion.

(Reporting by Sanjana Shivdas in Bengaluru)

Source: OANN

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2020 Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg speaks at a campaign event in Des Moines, Iowa
2020 Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg speaks at a campaign event in Des Moines, Iowa, U.S., April 16, 2019. REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage

April 26, 2019

By James Oliphant

MARSHALLTOWN, Iowa (Reuters) – Four years ago, Donald Trump campaigned in small towns like Marshalltown, Iowa, vowing to restore economic prosperity to the U.S. heartland.

In his bid to replace Trump in the White House, Pete Buttigieg is taking a similar tack. The difference, he says, is that he can point to a model of success: South Bend, Indiana, the revitalized city where he has been mayor since 2012.

The Democratic presidential contender has vaulted to the congested field’s top tier in recent weeks, drawing media and donor attention for his youth, history-making status as the first openly gay major presidential candidate and a resume that includes military service in Afghanistan.

But Buttigieg’s main argument for his candidacy is that he is a turnaround artist in the mold of Trump, although the Democrat does not expressly invoke the comparison with the Republican president.

“I’m not going around saying we’ve fixed every problem we’ve got,” Buttigieg, 37, said after a house party with voters in Marshalltown. “But I’m proud of what we have done together, and I think it’s a very powerful story.”

Critics argue improving the fortunes of a Midwestern city of 100,000 people does not qualify Buttigieg, who has never held national office, for the presidency of a country of 330 million. Others say South Bend still has pockets of despair and that minorities, in particular, have failed to benefit from its growth.

Buttigieg has told crowds in Iowa and elsewhere that his experience in reviving a struggling Rust Belt community allows him to make a case to voters that other Democratic candidates cannot. That may give him the means to win back some of the disaffected Democratic voters who turned their backs on Hillary Clinton in 2016 to vote for Trump.

Watching Buttigieg at a union hall in Des Moines last week, Rick Ryan, 45, a member of the United Steelworkers, lamented how many of his fellow union workers voted for Trump. The president turned in the best performance by a Republican among union households since Ronald Reagan in 1984.

Ryan said he hoped someone like Buttigieg could return them to the Democratic fold.

“He’s aware of the decline in the labor force in America, not just in Indiana or Des Moines or anywhere else,” Ryan said. “Jobs are going overseas. We need a find to way to bring that back.”

Randy Tucker, 56, of Pleasant Hill, Iowa, a member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, said Trump appealed to union members “desperate for somebody to reach out to them, to help them, to listen to their voice.”

Buttigieg could do the same, he said. “In my heart right now, he’s No. 1.”

PAST VS. FUTURE

Buttigieg stresses a key difference in his and Trump’s approaches.

Trump, he tells crowds, is mired in the past, promising to rebuild the 20th century industrial economy. Buttigieg argues the pledge is misleading and unrealistic.

Buttigieg says his focus is on the future, and he often talks about what the country might look like decades from now.

“The only way that we can cultivate what makes America great is to look to the future and not be afraid of it,” Buttigieg said in Marshalltown.

Buttigieg knows his sexual preference may be a barrier to winning some blue-collar voters. But he notes that after he came out as gay in 2015, he won a second term as mayor with 80 percent of the vote in conservative Indiana.

Earlier this month, he announced his presidential bid at the hulking plant in South Bend that stopped making Studebaker autos more than 50 years ago. After lying dormant for decades, the building is being transformed into a high-tech hub after Buttigieg and other city leaders realized it would never again attract a large-scale industrial company.

“That building sat as a powerful reminder. We hoped we would get back that major employer that would fix our economy,” said Jeff Rea, president of the regional Chamber of Commerce.

Buttigieg is praised locally for spurring more than $100 million in downtown investment. During his two terms, unemployment has fallen to 4.1 percent from 11.8 percent.

But a study released in 2017 by the nonprofit group Prosperity Now said not all of the city’s residents had shared in its rebound. The median income for African-Americans remained half that of whites, while the unemployment rate for blacks was double.

Regina Williams-Preston, a city councilor running to replace Buttigieg as mayor, credits him for the revitalized downtown. But she said he had a “blind spot” when it came to focusing on troubled neighborhoods like the one she represents and only grew more engaged after community pressure.

“He understands it now,” she said. “The next step is figuring out how to open the doors of opportunity for everyone.”

‘ONE OF US’

Trump touts the fact that the United States added almost 300,000 manufacturing jobs last year as evidence he made good on his promise to restore the industrial sector. But that growth still left the country with fewer manufacturing jobs than in 2008.

The robust U.S. economy is likely the president’s greatest asset in his re-election bid, particularly in states he carried in 2016 such as Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. He won Buttigieg’s home state by 19 points over Clinton in 2016.

Sean Bagniewski, chairman of the Democratic Party in Polk County, Iowa, said Buttigieg would be well positioned to compete with Trump in the Midwest.

“People love the fact that he’s a mayor,” said Bagniewski, who has not endorsed a candidate in the nominating contest. “If you can talk about a positive future, and if you actually have experience that can do it, that’s a compelling vision in Iowa.”

Nan Whaley, the mayor of Dayton, Ohio, which faces many of the same challenges as South Bend, agreed.

“He’s one of us,” Whaley said. “That helps.”

(Reporting by James Oliphant; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Peter Cooney)

Source: OANN

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A man looks out at a flooded residential area in Gatineau
A man looks out at a flooded residential area in Gatineau, Quebec, Canada, April 24, 2019. REUTERS/Chris Wattie

April 26, 2019

MONTREAL/OTTAWA (Reuters) – Rising waters were prompting further evacuations in central Canada on Thursday, with the mayor of the country’s capital, Ottawa, declaring a state of emergency and Quebec authorities warning that a hydroelectric dam was at risk of breaking.

Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson declared the emergency in response to rising water levels along the Ottawa River and weather forecasts that called for significant rainfall on Friday.

In a statement on Twitter, Watson asked for help from the Ontario provincial government and the country’s military.

He warned that “flood levels are currently forecasted to exceed the levels that caused significant damage to numerous properties in the city of Ottawa in 2017.”

Spring flooding had killed one person and forced more than 900 people from their homes in Canada’s Quebec province as of 1 p.m. on Thursday, according to a government website.

Ottawa has received 80 requests for service related to potential flooding such as sandbagging, a city spokeswoman said.

The prospect of more rain over the next 24 to 48 hours triggered concerns on Thursday that the hydroelectric dam at Bell Falls in the western part of Quebec could be at risk of failing because of rising water levels.

Quebec’s provincial police said 250 people were protectively removed from homes in the area as of late afternoon in case the dam on the Rouge River breaks.

The dam is now at its full flow capacity of 980 cubic meters per second of water, said Francis Labbé, a spokesman for the province’s state-owned utility, Hydro Quebec. He said Hydro Quebec expected the flow could rise to 1,200 cubic meters per second of water over the next two days.

“We have to take the worst-case scenario into consideration, since we`re already at the maximum capacity,” Labbé said by phone.

The dam is part of a power station that no longer produces electricity, but is regularly inspected by Hydro Quebec, he said.

(Reporting by Allison Lampert in Montreal and David Ljunggren and Julie Gordon in Ottawa; Editing by James Dalgleish and Peter Cooney)

Source: OANN

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