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Bernie Sanders’ campaign sees major shakeup, just one week after launch

Bernie Sanders’ Democratic presidential campaign is experiencing a major shakeup, with several top advisers heading for the exits, just one week after the Vermont senator launched his second bid for the White House.

Three of the top advisers who helped propel the senator's 2016 White House bid -- Tad Devine, Julian Mulvey, and Mark Longabaugh -- are parting ways with Sanders, the campaign confirmed Tuesday.

EX-SANDERS SPOKESMAN CALLS HILLARY CLINTON TEAM CHOICE WORDS IN INTERVIEW

Sanders 2020 campaign manager Faiz Shakir said in a statement to Fox News that "the campaign appreciates all the good work DML has done and wishes them well." DML is the name of the political consulting firm headed up by Devine, Mulvey and Longabaugh.

"The entire firm has stepped away. We're leaving the campaign … We just didn't have a meeting of the minds,” Longabaugh told NBC News, which was first to report the departure of the senior strategists.

Devine, a veteran political strategist who was a top adviser to the presidential campaigns of then-Vice President Al Gore in 2000 and then-Sen. John Kerry in 2004, served as Sanders’ chief strategist and leading surrogate in 2016. Longabaugh steered the campaign’s game plan for winning delegates and negotiating with the Democratic National Committee. Mulvey played a large role in creating the campaign’s television and digital ads.

Sanders, once a longshot for the 2016 Democratic nomination, crushed Hillary Clinton by 22 percentage points in the New Hampshire Democratic primary, launching him into a marathon battle with the eventual nominee that didn’t end until after the primary and caucus calendar concluded.

BERNIE SANDERS BOASTS OF 'HISTORIC' MILESTONE, SAYS 1 MILLION VOLUNTEERS SIGNED UP FOR CAMPAIGN

But this time, Sanders is running in a crowded field with several other liberal Democrats, like Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and California Sen. Kamala Harris, with others expected to join the race.

On Monday, Sanders’ campaign sought to demonstrate the enthusiasm for his campaign by reporting that 1 million people had already signed up to volunteer. As of Monday, six days after his campaign launch, the senator also had raised an eye-popping $10 million from over 359,914 donors. Those numbers put him far ahead of his rivals for the nomination in the race for campaign cash.

But Sanders has also drawn fire from former aides to Clinton, who leaked details about Sanders' use of private jets in 2016 to attend campaign rallies on her behalf. That provoked Sanders’ 2016 campaign spokesman, Michael Briggs, to tell Politico that Clinton’s staff are the "biggest a--holes in American politics," adding that Clinton is “one of the most disliked politicians in America.”

Meanwhile, during a CNN town hall on Monday night, Sanders promised to release his taxes soon but downplayed the unveiling by saying “they’re very boring tax returns.”

Sanders faced some criticism for not releasing his taxes during his marathon 2016 primary battle with Hillary Clinton. He said Monday he would have done so had he beat Clinton.

“If we had won the nomination, we would have done it,” Sanders said.

Fox News’ Alex Pappas contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News Politics

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China producer inflation picks up for first time in nine months, eases deflation worries

Chinese banknotes are seen at a vendor's cash box at a market in Beijing
Chinese banknotes are seen at a vendor's cash box at a market in Beijing February 14, 2014. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon

April 11, 2019

BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s factory-gate inflation picked up for the first time in nine months in March, edging away from deflationary territory, in a fresh sign that government efforts to boost the economy may be starting to revitalize domestic demand.

Consumer inflation also quickened, jumping to the highest since October 2018 as pork prices soared due to a growing epidemic of swine fever, official data showed on Thursday.

The pick-up in producer inflation, while slight, will likely add to optimism that the world’s second-largest economy is slowly starting to turn the corner, after recent surveys showed factory activity expanded for the first time in months.

But analysts urge caution, saying it will take a few more months of data and more policy support from Beijing to see if a recovery can be sustained.

China’s producer price index (PPI) in March rose 0.4 percent from a year earlier, in line with analysts’ forecasts in a Reuters poll and advancing from a 0.1 percent increase in February, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said.

Most of the gain was in mining, with prices in extraction rising 4.2 percent on-year, up from 1.8 percent in February. Drops in raw material prices also moderated.

But improvements may have been due more to changes in commodity prices than stronger demand. Prices of consumer durables fell for a second month, pointing to lingering weakness.

On a monthly basis, producer prices increased for the first time in five months. The index inched up 0.1 percent, compared with a 0.1 percent decrease in February.

The world’s second-largest economy is growing at its weakest pace in almost three decades amid weaker domestic demand and a year-long trade war with the United States. Multi-year campaigns to curb debt risks and pollution have deterred fresh investment.

In response, Beijing plans more spending on roads, railways and ports, which is expected to push up demand for and prices of construction materials. Last month, the government announced nearly 2 trillion yuan ($297.27 billion) in additional tax cuts to ease the pressure on corporate balance sheets.

Cuts in value-added tax (VAT) that kicked in on April 1 have already led authorities to reduce prices for electricity and natural gas. Retail gasoline and diesel prices are to be reduced as well.

A growing number of companies ranging from Apple Inc to BMW have lowered prices for their products following the tax cuts.

SWINE FEVER DRIVING UP PORK PRICES

The consumer price index (CPI) in March rose 2.3 percent from a year earlier, a five-month high, largely due to higher pork prices as the spread of African swine fever prompts farmers to cull their herds.

That was more than a 1.5 percent increase in February but just below market expectations for a 2.4 percent rise.

Pork prices rose 5.1 percent in March from a year earlier, the first increase after a 25-month declining streak.

On a month-on-month basis, CPI rose 1.2 percent.

Some analysts forecast pig production in China, which eats about half of the world’s pork, will fall by around 30 percent in 2019, which would send meat prices soaring.

But economists say the central bank is unlikely to overreact to a food price spike if it appears temporary and core inflation, which strips out volatile energy and food prices, remains steady.

Non-food consumer inflation was up 1.8 percent on-year, just a touch more than February.

(Reporting by Stella Qiu and Se Young Lee; Editing by Kim Coghill)

Source: OANN

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Spectacle or substance? High stakes for Trump ex-lawyer’s testimony

Former Trump personal attorney Cohen departs after testifying before Senate Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington
Former Trump personal attorney Michael Cohen departs after testifying behind closed doors before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., February 26, 2019. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

February 27, 2019

By Nathan Layne

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former “fixer” and longtime lawyer, will try to turn the tables on his former boss in congressional testimony on Wednesday that promises to be a media spectacle with potentially high stakes for the Trump presidency.

Cohen, who served as Trump’s lawyer for a decade, will attempt to portray him as racist and a business cheat while providing evidence of criminal misconduct by Trump after he took office in January 2017, a person familiar with his testimony said.

Cohen also plans to offer “granular detail” about Trump allegedly directing hush-money payments to women in violation of campaign finance law, the person said. Cohen pleaded guilty to his role in arranging the payments, and prosecutors in New York said in a December court filing they believed the president ordered the payments to protect his campaign.

Trump has repeatedly denied ordering the payments.

Cohen, 52, who testified behind closed doors to the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday and has another non-public hearing before the House Intelligence Committee on Thursday, said he would use Wednesday’s hearing to make the case to the public why it should believe him rather than Trump.

The hearing before the House Committee on Oversight and Reform is scheduled to start just as Trump wraps up a dinner with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi, and TV networks may show both simultaneously on a split screen.

The White House again questioned Cohen’s credibility on Tuesday, with presidential spokeswoman Sarah Sanders calling him “a convicted liar.”

It is not clear whether the hearing will significantly alter the public’s perception of Trump’s business practices or put him in greater legal peril.

“It will be a spectacle. No question about that,” said Michael Zeldin, a former federal prosecutor. “But after the midday TV drama is over, we’ll see if there is anything that amounts to something from a legal perspective.”

While Cohen is expected to talk on Wednesday about Trump’s interest in a proposed skyscraper project in Moscow long after he secured the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, the bulk of his testimony will be about allegations of wrongdoing by Trump as a businessman and the hush payments, the source said.

According to a staff memo seen by Reuters, Democratic lawmakers will ask Cohen about evidence they believe shows Trump’s lawyers misled ethics officials about how Cohen was reimbursed for $130,000 paid to Stormy Daniels, an adult-film star who said she had sex with Trump in 2006.

CREDIBILITY AT ISSUE

The Republicans on the oversight panel, including ranking member Jim Jordan, are likely to question Cohen’s credibility, given his guilty plea for lying to Congress and other crimes.

Republican U.S. Representative Matt Gaetz, another staunch Trump ally, who is not on the oversight committee, sparked controversy with a tweet on Tuesday suggesting there was compromising information about Cohen’s private life.

“I guess tomorrow we will find out if there is anyone who Michael Cohen hasn’t lied to,” Gaetz said on the House floor amid criticism that his tweet amounted to witness intimidation.

How Cohen handles the Republican assault could determine whether he is perceived as credible and if his congressional testimony ends up having a similar impact to that of John Dean, who helped bring down President Richard Nixon in the Watergate scandal of the 1970s.

Advocates for Cohen have likened his decision to come clean to federal prosecutors in Manhattan and U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign, to that of Dean.

But Dean himself said the significance of Cohen’s testimony would depend on what he had to say. He noted that Cohen did not fully cooperate with prosecutors in the Southern District of New York, which is the reason he is due to start a three-year prison sentence in May despite pleading guilty to financial crimes.

Dean, former White House counsel to Nixon, told Reuters that he expected the Republicans to hammer at why he did not cooperate fully with Manhattan prosecutors.

“It could be historic,” Dean, now a frequent commentator on TV, said of Cohen’s testimony. “But if he just gets beat up by the Republicans, it won’t be.”

(Reporting by Nathan Layne in Washington; Editing by Tomasz Janowski and Peter Cooney)

Source: OANN

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Scotland will prepare for an independence referendum before May 2021: Sturgeon

Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon speaks in the Scottish Parliament during continued Brexit uncertainty in Edinburgh
Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon speaks in the Scottish Parliament during continued Brexit uncertainty in Edinburgh, Scotland, Britain, April 24, 2019. REUTERS/Russell Cheyne

April 24, 2019

By Elisabeth O’Leary

EDINBURGH (Reuters) – Scotland should hold an independence referendum before the current Scottish parliamentary term ends in May 2021 and will prepare legislation for this to happen, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said on Wednesday.

“A choice between Brexit and a future for Scotland as an independent European nation should be offered in the lifetime of this parliament,” Sturgeon told Holyrood, Scotland’s devolved parliament.

She said a devolved parliament bill would be drawn up before the end of 2019.

The permission of Britain’s sovereign parliament at this stage was not needed, she said, but would be eventually be necessary “to put beyond doubt or challenge our ability to apply the bill to an independence referendum.”

Sturgeon is under pressure from her nationalist movement to provide a clear way forward in the quest for an independent Scotland.

But Britain is mired in political chaos due to Brexit and it is still unclear whether, when or even if Britain will leave the European Union.

Scotland, part of the United Kingdom for more than 300 years, rejected independence by 10 percentage points in a 2014 referendum.

Differences over Brexit have strained the United Kingdom. Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to stay in the EU in a 2016 referendum, while Wales and England vote to leave.

Those who want to maintain the United Kingdom argue that Brexit has made no difference to how Scots feel, and the secession vote should not be repeated.

But Sturgeon argued that leaving the world’s largest trading bloc endangers Britain and Scotland’s economic well-being.

“We face being forced to the margins, sidelined within a UK that is itself increasingly sidelined on the international stage. Independence by contrast would allow us to protect our place in Europe,” she said.

“We need a more solid foundation on which to build our future as a country.”

(Reporting by Elisabeth O’Leary; editing by Guy Faulconbridge)

Source: OANN

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Ex-cop: Saw woman at window, fired ‘to stop threat’

A former Minneapolis police officer on trial in the fatal shooting of an unarmed woman testified Thursday that he saw a woman in a pink shirt with blond hair at his partner's window, raising her right arm, before he fired his gun "to stop the threat."

Mohamed Noor refused to talk to investigators after the July 2017 shooting of Justine Ruszczyk Damond , a dual citizen of the U.S. and Australia, making his testimony his first public statements since her death.

Damond had called 911 minutes earlier to report a possible sexual assault behind her home, and was shot as she approached Noor's squad car as he and his partner slowly rolled down her alley looking for evidence of a woman in distress.

Noor testified that he fired to stop what he thought was a threat to him and his partner, Matthew Harrity, after he heard a loud bang on the driver's side of the squad car.

Noor said he saw fear in Harrity's eyes and saw that Harrity was trying to pull his gun but was having difficulty.

He described putting his left arm over Harrity's chest, and seeing a woman in a pink shirt with blond hair outside Harrity's driver's side window raising her right arm.

"I fired one shot," Noor said. "My intent was to stop the threat."

When he realized he had shot an innocent woman, Noor said, "I felt like my whole world came crashing down."

"I couldn't breathe," Noor said. "I felt great pain."

Prosecutor Amy Sweasy attacked Noor in cross-examination, noting that Noor didn't see Damond's hands or a weapon.

"You meant to shoot the woman to stop the threat?" she asked. "You knew you were shooting a person?"

"Yes ma'am," he answered.

Earlier Thursday, Noor described the unorthodox path he took to becoming an officer — he was working as a pharmaceutical analyst before deciding to switch careers — and then detailed his 29-week cadet training in 2015.

Noor was fired from the force soon after being charged. His attorneys have said he was spooked by a noise on his squad car right before the shooting and feared an ambush.

Noor described "counter-ambush" training that included scenarios such as two officers in a squad car, doing routine tasks, and an instructor yelling "Threat!" The officers had to make a quick decision about whether to shoot, Noor said.

"Action is better than reaction," Noor said. "If you're reacting, that means it's too late ... to protect yourself ... you die."

Noor described another training exercise where he was sent to a location, heard gunshots and instead of assessing the threat, he ran toward it. An instructor shot him with a paintball gun, he said.

"So the point is if you don't do your job correctly, you'll get killed," defense attorney Thomas Plunkett said.

"Yes sir," Noor answered.

The death of Damond, a 40-year-old life coach who was engaged to be married a month after her death, sparked anger and disbelief in both the U.S. and Australia, cost the city's police chief her job and contributed to the mayor's electoral defeat a few months later.

Prosecutors have questioned the supposed noise, presumably from Damond slapping the car as she approached, by noting that investigators didn't find forensic evidence of Damond's fingerprints on the car. They also questioned the timing of Harrity's first mention of the thump — not the night of the shooting, but a few days later, as he was being interviewed by state investigators.

Neither officer had their body cameras running when Damond was shot, something Harrity blamed on what he called a vague policy that didn't require it. The department toughened the policy after Damond's death to require that the cameras be turned on when responding to a call.

Damond was white. Noor, 33, is a Somali American whose hiring two years before the shooting was celebrated by Minneapolis leaders as a sign of a diversifying police force in a city with a large population of Somali immigrants.

Noor testified earlier Thursday about immigrating from Somalia to the U.S., where he became a citizen in 1999. He lived first in Chicago, then moved to Minneapolis, where he said he fell in love with the city.

He said he became a police officer because he "wanted to serve."

___

Follow Amy Forliti on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/amyforliti

___

Check out the AP's complete coverage of Mohamed Noor's trial: https://apnews.com/MohamedNoortrial

Source: Fox News National

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Lawmakers Quit UK Labour Party Citing Takeover By Radical Left

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Defense rests in trial of white cop who killed black teen

The defense rested its case Friday in the homicide trial of a white police officer charged with shooting and killing an unarmed black teenager near Pittsburgh, signaling the jury will soon get the case.

Former East Pittsburgh Police Officer Michael Rosfeld is charged with gunning down 17-year-old Antwon Rose II last summer. Video showed Rosfeld shooting Rose in the back, arm and side of the face as he fled. The former officer told a jury he thought Rose or another suspect had pointed a gun at him.

The jury will hear closing arguments Friday afternoon and then begin deliberating.

A defense expert, retired Pennsylvania State Police Trooper Clifford W. Jobe Jr., testified Rosfeld followed proper procedure when he shot and killed Rose.

"I can't fault Officer Rosfeld," Jobe told jurors on Thursday, calling the officer's actions "textbook."

As Jobe returned to the stand Friday for cross-examination, the judge lifted a gag order he imposed on parties in the case at the request of the defense. Defense attorney Patrick Thomassey said while he and prosecutors have abided by the judge's order, the attorney for Rose's family has not. On Wednesday, S. Lee Merritt released a letter to the media that Rose's mother wrote to prosecutors urging them to show what a "kind, loving and funny" person her son was.

Rosfeld, 30, fired three bullets into Rose after pulling over an unlicensed taxi that had been used in a drive-by shooting. Prosecutors charged Rosfeld with an open count of homicide, meaning the jury can convict him of murder or manslaughter.

Rosfeld testified Thursday he thought Rose or another passenger in the car had pointed a weapon at him, and he fired in self-defense. But it turned out that neither teen had a gun at the time.

"It happened very quickly," Rosfeld said. "My intent was to end the threat that was made against me."

Prosecutors say Rosfeld gave inconsistent statements about the shooting, including whether he thought Rose had a gun.

A prosecution witness has said that after the shooting, he heard Rosfeld say repeatedly, "I don't know why I shot him. I don't know why I fired." Another prosecution witness said he heard the officer ask, "Why did he do that? Why did he take that out of his pocket?"

Rose had been riding in the front seat of the cab when another occupant, Zaijuan Hester, in the backseat, rolled down a window and shot at two men on the street, hitting one in the abdomen. A few minutes later, Rosfeld spotted their car, which had its rear windshield shot out, and pulled it over.

Hester, 18, pleaded guilty last week to aggravated assault and firearms violations. Hester told a judge that he, not Rose, did the shooting.

Source: Fox News National

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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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President Trump on Friday said “no money” was paid to North Korea for Otto Warmbier, after reports that the U.S. received a $2 million hospital bill from Pyongyang for the late American prisoner’s care.

“No money was paid to North Korea for Otto Warmbier, not two Million Dollars, not anything else. This is not the Obama Administration that paid 1.8 Billion Dollars for four hostages, or gave five terroist[sic] hostages plus, who soon went back to battle, for traitor Sgt. Bergdahl!” Trump tweeted Friday.

NORTH KOREA GAVE US $2M HOSPITAL BILL OVER CARE OF AMERICAN OTTO WARMBIER, SOURCES SAY

The Washington Post first reported that North Korean authorities insisted the U.S. envoy sent to retrieve Warmbier, 21, who was a student of the University of Virginia, sign a pledge to pay the bill before allowing Warmbier’s comatose body to return to the United States. Sources confirmed the bill and the amount to Fox News on Thursday.

Sources told the post that the envoy signed an agreement to pay the medical bill on instructions from the president, but a source told Fox News that the U.S. did not ever pay money to North Korea.

The White House declined to comment when asked on the bill, with Press Secretary Sarah Sanders saying in a statement that: “We do not comment on hostage negotiations, which is why they have been so successful during this administration.”

Meanwhile, the president added: “’President[sic] Donald J. Trump is the greatest hostage negotiator that I know of in the history of the United States. 20 hostages, many in impossible circumstances, have been released in last two years. No money was paid.’ Cheif[sic] Hostage Negotiator, USA!”

Warmbier was on tour in North Korea when he allegedly stole a propaganda sign from a hotel. He was arrested in January 2016 and sentenced to 15 years in prison with hard labor in March 2016. Warmbier, for unknown reasons, fell into a coma while in custody and was held in that condition for an additional 17 months.

North Korean officials did not tell American officials until June 2017 that Warmbier had been unconscious the entire time. He died less than a week after he returned to the U.S. North Korean officials, though, have repeatedly denied accusations that Warmbier was tortured, instead claiming that he had suffered from botulism and then slipped into a coma after taking a sleeping pill.

AMERICAN PRISONERS HELD IN NORTH KOREA ON THEIR WAY HOME AFTER POMPEO VISIT, TRUMP SAYS

Fred and Cindy Warmbier sued North Korea over their son’s death and in December were awarded $501 million in damages – money that the Hermit Kingdom will probably never pay.

While the Warmbiers blamed North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Trump has said he believes Kim’s claims that he did not know about the student’s treatment.

Trump and Kim have met in two separate summits. The most recent, held in February, ended without an agreement on denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, told Fox News: “Otto Warmbier was mistreated by North Korea in so many ways, including his wrongful conviction and harsh sentence, and the fact that for 16 months they refused to tell his family or our country about his dire condition they caused.  No, the United States owes them nothing. They owe the Warmbier family everything.”

Last year, the Trump administration was also able to save three American prisoners held by North Korea. Kim Dong Chul, Tony Kim, and Kim Hak Song were all detained in North Korea. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo brought the three Americans home last May, and said they were all in “good health.”

Fox News’ John Roberts, Rich Edson, Nicholas Kalman, and Mike Emanuel contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News Politics

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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)

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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)

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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)

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