Upcoming shows
Real News

NOW ON AIR
Now On Air

Alex Jones – Info Wars

12:00 pm 4:00 pm



Maga First News

Upcoming Shows

Join The MAGA Network on Discord

0 0

St Patrick’s suspect previously arrested at other cathedral

A college philosophy teacher arrested after entering St. Patrick's Cathedral carrying two cans of gasoline, lighter fluid and butane lighters had also been arrested at a New Jersey cathedral this week and had booked a Thursday flight to Rome, the New York Police Department said.

Marc Lamparello, 37, is facing charges including attempted arson and reckless endangerment after his arrest Wednesday night at the New York City landmark, said John Miller, the New York Police Department's deputy commissioner of intelligence and counterterrorism.

It happened just days after Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris was ravaged by a fire that investigators said Thursday was most likely electrical. Miller would not discuss anything Lamparello told investigators after his arrest but stressed that there "doesn't appear to be any connection to any terrorist group or any terrorist-related intent here."

Before going to St. Patrick's on Wednesday, Miller said, Lamparello booked a $2,800 ticket on a 5:20 p.m. Thursday flight to Italy. He didn't speculate on Lamparello's motivations for planning the trip.

Lamparello remained in police custody Thursday and had not been arraigned.

It wasn't immediately clear whether Lamparello had a lawyer who could speak for him. A man leaving his parents' house Thursday in Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey, close to New York City, had no comment for a reporter when asked about Lamparello.

Lamparello "wasn't weird," said a neighbor, Salvatore Altomare, adding that he "seemed like ... a nice guy, walked a straight line."

Altomare described the family as "very good people. ... They're real Americans — try to do the right thing."

Two nights before his arrest in New York, police in Newark arrested Lamparello after he wouldn't leave the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart at closing time after a late Mass. Essex County Sheriff Armando Fontoura said Thursday that Lamparello was calm and respectful to the officers but was adamant about not leaving.

"He said, 'This is a house of god, it should be open, I'm not leaving. You'll have to lock me up,'" Fontoura said.

After he was charged with three minor offenses including defiant trespass, emergency medical services personnel examined Lamparello and determined he wasn't a threat. Lamparello's mother arrived and the two drove back to Hasbrouck Heights in his van, according to Fontoura.

"There was no reason to check the van at that point," he said.

Lamparello is a philosophy instructor who has taught at New York City's Lehman and Brooklyn colleges and Seton Hall University in New Jersey. Lehman's website listed him as a Ph.D. candidate at the City University of New York's Graduate Center.

In a statement, Lehman College spokesperson Sarah Ramsey said, "We are aware that an individual was arrested last night after an incident at St. Patrick's Cathedral. The individual was hired at Lehman College during this academic year, and was a part-time, online instructor this semester. We are taking the appropriate steps to terminate the individual's employment with the college."

A page on Amazon.com describes Lamparello's 2016 book, "Reason and Counterpoint," as offering "ambitious and highly creative answers to some of the most vexing philosophical questions, while also using skepticism to question some of the most basic assumptions at the heart of philosophical method and inquiry."

Miller said surveillance camera footage showed Lamparello circling St. Patrick's several times in a minivan well over an hour before he parked outside the cathedral on Fifth Avenue, walked around the area, returned to his vehicle, and retrieved the gasoline and lighter fluid.

When he entered the church, he was confronted by a security officer, who notified counterterrorism officers standing outside. Lamparello told the officers his car was out of gas and headed in a direction away from where he was parked, Miller said.

Officers found his vehicle and determined it was not out of gas, Miller said.

___

David Porter reported from Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey. Associated Press researcher Rhonda Shafner and writer Deepti Hajela contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News National

0 0

Killed, orphaned, sold: Afghan war takes brutal toll on children

An Afghan girl practices a traditional dance at an Afghan Child Education and Care Organization center (AFCECO) in Kabul
An Afghan girl practices a traditional dance at an Afghan Child Education and Care Organization center (AFCECO) in Kabul, Afghanistan March 3, 2019. REUTERS/Mohammad Ismail

March 20, 2019

By Rod Nickel and Abdul Matin Sahak

KABUL/BALKH, Afghanistan (Reuters) – After fighting forced Mohammad Khan, a villager from the northern Afghanistan province of Sar-e Pul, to move his family to the more secure province of Balkh last year, they quickly fell on harder times.

Khan’s wife grew gravely ill, he could not find work, and struggled to feed their seven children. So in January, Khan sold their baby, just 40 days old, to a neighbor.

“I sold him for 70,000 afghanis (£698) so that my other children would not die of hunger,” he said.

In a country where half the population is younger than 15, Afghanistan’s 17-year war has arguably hit children the hardest. Some 927 children were killed last year, the most since records have been kept, according to a U.N. report released in February.

Aid workers say they are seeing a growing number of children orphaned or forced to work in the streets.

“I think the hope that used to exist, doesn’t anymore,” said Adele Khodr, the representative for UNICEF, the United Nations’ children’s agency, in Afghanistan.

Aschiana, a charity that provides school half a day for children who beg and sell in Kabul’s streets, has seen the number of Afghan children at risk rise sharply in recent years as the Taliban seized more territory across the country.

It has been forced to reduce the number of children it helps, however, as its funding from donors declined, said Engineer Mohammad Yousef, Aschiana’s director.

“Children do not belong to political groups, for this reason they are ignored in Afghanistan,” he said, walking through dark hallways and classrooms where lights are turned off to save money. “They don’t have power.”

Zabiullah Mujahed, 12, is learning to draw at Aschiana and hopes to become a painter. He spends the balance of his day polishing shoes on Kabul’s streets to earn up to 100 Afghanis per day.

The money is critical to support himself, his mother and six siblings, after his father was killed in a Taliban suicide attack four years ago.

“I’m worried about when peace will come and what will happen to my future,” he said. “If I don’t work, my mother, brothers, and sisters will remain hungry.”

LONG ROAD

Girls were banned from attending school under the Taliban government’s five-year rule that ended when the Islamists were ousted by U.S.-backed forces in 2001. Enabling girls’ education has been a key goal of Afghanistan’s western-backed government and its foreign allies.

But some 3.7 million school-age children are still not in school, according to a first-of-its-kind UNICEF report in June 2018.

Worsening security, poverty and migration have all made educating children more difficult in recent years, Khodr said.

Sexual abuse and trafficking of boys, a practise that exploded during Afghanistan’s civil war in the 1990s, has also worsened, said Yasin Mohammadi, project manager for the non-governmental organization Youth Health and Development Organization (YHDO).

Boys from rural areas have flocked to cities such as Kabul and Herat to find work to support families, leaving them vulnerable to those employers who take them in and molest them before circulating them to other abusers, he said.

The practice of men sexually abusing boys, known by the Dari slang term “bacha bazi” for “boy play”, has been illegal in Afghanistan for only a year, and so far there are few known examples of perpetrators being sentenced.

The Afghanistan government’s director of children’s issues, Najib Akhlaqi, acknowledges that the situation for children is eroding. Progress is slow, but underway, he said, including drafting a national, long-term plan to help children.

“I am only one person. We can’t solve all these problems,” he told Reuters in an interview. “It takes a long time.”

PERILS OF PEACE

Aid groups welcome the prospect of peace, but worry that the inclusion of the Taliban in any post-settlement government could see a slide back toward the hardline Islamist rule it imposed between 1996 and 2001.

The Taliban’s possible role in any new Afghanistan government has not been defined as the latest round of talks with the United States wrapped up.

“The Taliban never supported children, never supported people. I think we would see a worse situation than today,” said Pashtana Rasol, executive director of the Afghan Child Education and Care Organization orphanage.

Rasol, who was orphaned herself at age eight after she says the Taliban killed her father, doubts that the orphanages she runs would remain open under a Taliban-led government.

“We are raising very powerful women here,” Rasol said in a Kabul orphanage where smiling girls practiced a dance routine, twirling in brightly colored dresses. “We want the girls to be improved, to be teachers, doctors, but of course the Taliban and the fundamentalist people do not want it.”

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the fault for the war’s devastating impact on Afghan children lies with “foreign invaders”, adding that it has an organization that helps orphans in areas that it controls.

If a peace accord is struck, the Taliban would encourage non-governmental organizations to continue their work in the country, but they would be under close scrutiny to ensure their activities adjust to cultural and religious values, he said.

Yousef, director of Aschiana, worries that women may not be able to work in a society with greater Taliban influence, putting more children at risk.

“Peace is very important to children,” he said. “But we are looking for real peace.”

(Reporting by Rod Nickel in Kabul and Abdul Matin Sahak in Balkh; Additional reporting by Abdul Qadir Sediqi, Rupam Jain, Hameed Farzad and Orooj Hakimi in Kabul; Editing by Alex Richardson)

Source: OANN

0 0

Civil rights group drops lawsuit against Oklahoma gun range

A lawsuit filed on behalf of a Muslim U.S. Army reservist asked to leave a gun range in eastern Oklahoma was dropped on Tuesday, with both sides declaring victory in the case.

Court records show both sides agreed to the dismissal order filed in federal court in Muskogee.

The lawsuit was filed in 2016 on behalf of Raja'ee Fatihah, a Muslim man from Tulsa, against the owners of Save Yourself Survival and Tactical Gun Range in the town of Oktaha. The owners, Chad and Nicole Neal, had posted a sign on the business declaring the range a "Muslim-free" establishment.

"We are pleased that the defendants in this case decided to take down their anti-Muslim sign, and that they affirmed their commitment to complying with the law," said Heather Weaver, senior staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, which represented Fatihah in the case, along with attorneys for the Oklahoma chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

An attorney for the store's owners, Robert Muise of the American Freedom Law Center, said he and his clients were prepared to take the case to trial when they were notified of the ACLU's plan to drop the case. Muise has maintained the sign is political free speech and that Muslims were never banned from the business.

"They've made it clear that it was a political-protest sign," Muise said. "The only reason they even kept the sign up as long as they did is because (the Council on American Islamic Relations) sued them, and they refused to be gagged by CAIR."

Fatihah is a member of CAIR Oklahoma's board of directors.

Muise said his clients removed the sign in December. They have since replaced it with a new sign declaring the business is a "terrorist free establishment" and includes a ban on anyone with ties to CAIR and several other organizations.

Weaver, the ACLU attorney, said if the Neals put up a sign indicating Muslims are banned, she expects another lawsuit would be filed.

"If they put the sign back up and refuse to serve Muslims because of their Islamic faith, we will be there, ready to take whatever action necessary to defend the rights of many Muslims in Oklahoma," she said.

___

Follow Sean Murphy at www.twitter.com/apseanmurphy

Source: Fox News National

0 0

Finnish Social Democrat leader Rinne declares victory in election

Chairman of the Finnish Social Democratic Party Antti Rinne and his wife Heta Ravolainen-Rinne attend the election party in Helsinki
Chairman of the Finnish Social Democratic Party Antti Rinne and his wife Heta Ravolainen-Rinnes attend the election party in Helsinki, Finland April 14, 2019. Lehtikuva/Antti Aimo-Koivisto via REUTERS

April 14, 2019

HELSINKI (Reuters) – Finland’s leftist Social Democrat party (SDP) leader Antti Rinne has declared victory in Sunday’s general election, after partial results showed his party winning by a tight margin with 17.8 percent.

The nationalist Finns Party was in second place with 17.6 percent, after more than 97 percent of votes were counted.

“For the first time since 1999 we are the largest party in Finland … SDP is the prime minister party,” Rinne said.

(Reporting by Anne Kauranen and Tarmo Virki; editing by Justyna Pawlak)

Source: OANN

0 0

Big corporates back crypto ‘plumbing’ despite currency caution

FILE PHOTO: Bitcoin.com buttons are seen displayed on the floor of the Consensus 2018 blockchain technology conference in New York City
FILE PHOTO: Bitcoin.com buttons are seen displayed on the floor of the Consensus 2018 blockchain technology conference in New York City, New York, U.S., May 16, 2018. REUTERS/Mike Segar

April 18, 2019

By Tom Wilson

LONDON (Reuters) – Major finance and tech firms are pouring money into startups building technology to develop the crypto market, even though they’re steering clear of the volatile currencies themselves.

Venture capital investments in crypto and blockchain startups that included funds from corporates have raced to $850 million so far this year, data compiled by PitchBook for Reuters shows. The 13 deals put the flows on track for a second straight annual record.

Such bets, by companies including London Stock Exchange Group and Microsoft Corp, spiked over five-fold to a record $2.4 billion over 117 investments in 2018. This suggests large companies see promise in the nascent technology, even as it struggles for acceptance.

They have mostly given digital coins, including bitcoin, a wide berth, avoiding direct investment because of worries over tightening regulation, frequent security lapses and high volatility.

The lack of mainstream embrace has sown serious doubts over the potential of cryptocurrencies to evolve from speculative tokens to means of payment capable of rivaling fiat money.

Bitcoin slumped by three-quarters last year after nearing a record of $20,000 in its frenzied 2017 bubble. It’s still prone to wild price moves, underscored by a recent 20 percent jump that caused puzzlement among traders and analysts.

And though blockchain has found some use in sectors such as trade finance, its application has been relatively narrow.

Firms are looking at how, and if, blockchain and related technologies can be used in ways that could spark deeper change, said Richard Hay, UK head of fintech at law firm Linklaters.

“There are two dynamics at play,” he said. “We can get something up and running and achieve cost savings, and also look longer term at ways of deploying the technology in more transformative ways.”

Recent examples include a $20 million investment involving the London Stock Exchange and Banco Santander in a London startup whose platform can be used to issue debt on blockchain, the technology that underpins most digital coins. Graphic: Corporate bets on crypto and blockchain soar png, click https://tmsnrt.rs/2XcNzmw

“BASIC PLUMBING”

The investments span startups from makers of cryptocurrency mining gear and exchanges, the PitchBook data to April 8 shows.

One key driver is a growing expectation that the “tokenisation” of assets from stocks to oil – essentially digitizing them and allowing them to be traded on blockchain – will upend markets, lawyers and consultants working with fintech firms said.

“People are really enamored by tokenisation – the ability to produce coins or other forms of value – so that’s where we see all of the action at the moment,” said Anton Ruddenklau, global co-head of fintech at KPMG.

“They are investing as a technological hedge as much as anything.”

Bets involving corporate venture capital are usually small, the data shows. Deals this year had a median value of $6.5 million, a notch below the $8 million of last year.

Others are much bigger.

Bakkt, a cryptocurrency trading platform founded last year by New York Stock Exchange owner Intercontinental Exchange Inc, raised in December over $180 million from investors including M12, Microsoft’s venture capital arm.

The rush of corporate venture money comes as traditional venture capital (VC) investments also pour into the sector. Last year 617 deals totaled a record $5.6 billion worldwide, the data shows, as venture capitalists assess how the technologies will impact the online economy.

“There is a huge experimentation in effectively the basic plumbing for a native economic layer to the web,” said Jamie Burke, CEO of Outlier Ventures, a fund that has led investment in around eight blockchain-related projects.

But with that experimentation has come examples of failure.

In December, cryptocurrency project Basis said it would shut down and return funds to its backers including Google owner Alphabet’s venture arm GV and Bain Capital Ventures because of concerns over regulation.

Cryptocurrency miners and exchanges make up the four biggest VC-backed firms by valuation, according to the PitchBook data.

Some have struggled amid the slump in bitcoin prices. The $12 billion-valued Bitmain Technologies, for example, last month shelved a planned initial public offering in Hong Kong.

Others have fared better. San Francisco-based exchange Coinbase, valued at $8 billion, saw non-U.S. revenue grow 20 percent last year to 153 million euros ($173 million), a filing to Britain’s corporate registry last week showed.

The exchange’s UK arm, which books the firm’s non-U.S. revenue, accounts for almost a third of the firm’s overall revenue, said Coinbase UK chief executive Zeeshan Feroz.

That suggests, according to Reuters calculations, worldwide revenue of around $520 million last year – a rare glimpse into the financial health of a cryptocurrency exchange.

Coinbase declined to comment.

(Editing by Anna Willard)

Source: OANN

0 0

Washington State to Sue Over Trump's New Abortion Policy

Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson said Monday he will sue to challenge President Donald Trump's policy setting up new obstacles for women seeking abortions, calling it "a transparent attack on Planned Parenthood" that would severely impair access to many types of medical care, especially for low-income women in rural areas.

It's the first of several legal challenges expected to be announced by Democratic-led states. A national organization representing publicly funded family planning providers said Monday it would file a separate lawsuit over the policy.

The new rules announced last Friday by the Department of Health and Human Services would bar taxpayer-funded family planning clinics from making abortion referrals. They would also prohibit clinics that receive federal money from sharing office space with abortion providers — a rule that Ferguson said would force many to find new locations, undergo expensive remodels or shut down.

Clinics that receive money under Title X, the 1970 law designed to improve access to reproductive health care for communities around the nation, provide a wide array of services, including birth control and screening for diabetes, depression and cancer. Beyond interfering in a patient's relationship with her doctor, Ferguson said, the rules could leave vast areas without such care for low-income residents.

"Rural communities currently have a shortage of health care providers," Ferguson told reporters. "This rule will make the shortage even more acute."

Abortion is a legal medical procedure, but federal laws prohibit the use of taxpayer funds to pay for abortions except in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the woman. Religious conservatives and abortion opponents have long complained that Title X has been used to indirectly subsidize abortion providers.

Ferguson said he would file the lawsuit in federal court in Spokane, in eastern Washington, after the policy is made official with its publication in the federal register and that he would seek a court order blocking it from taking effect. Eastern Washington has 20 counties, 11 of which would be left without Title X providers, he said.

Across Washington state, 14,000 patients received federally funded services at 85 of the clinics in 2017.

Ferguson said Trump's policy violates the Affordable Care Act, which protects providers and patients from government interference in the health care relationship, and a federal law that requires doctors to provide information about abortion and prenatal care to patients in an unbiased manner.

It also violates the Administrative Procedures Act by contradicting Title X regulations without sufficient justification, and it violates doctors' right to free speech and women's right to an abortion under Roe v. Wade, he alleged.

Erin Berry, Washington state medical director of Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest and the Hawaiian Islands, was one of many advocates who joined Ferguson at his news conference.

"I cannot imagine withholding information from my patients. It's unethical," she said. "Politicians have no business telling me what I can talk to my patients about."

Source: NewsMax Politics

0 0

Huawei founder says Huawei CFO arrest was politically motivated: BBC

FILE PHOTO: Handout of Meng Wanzhou, Huawei Technologies Co Ltd's chief financial officer (CFO)
FILE PHOTO: Meng Wanzhou, Huawei Technologies Co Ltd's chief financial officer (CFO), is seen in this undated handout photo obtained by Reuters December 6, 2018. Huawei/Handout via REUTERS

February 19, 2019

(Reuters) – Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei said on Monday that the arrest of his daughter, Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou, was politically motivated.

“Firstly, I object to what the U.S. has done. This kind of politically motivated act is not acceptable,” Ren told the BBC in an interview.

Canada arrested Meng on Dec. 1 at the request of the United States. Meng was charged with bank and wire fraud to violate American sanctions against Iran.

The U.S. Justice Department denied the charges were politically motivated. “The Justice Department’s criminal case against Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou is based solely on the evidence and the law. The Department pursues cases free of any political interference and follows the evidence and rule of law in pursuing criminal charges,” spokeswoman Nicole Navas said in an email to Reuters.

Huawei, along with another Chinese network equipment company, ZTE Corp, has been accused by the United States of working at the behest of the Chinese government. The United States has said their equipment could be used to spy on Americans. Huawei has repeatedly denied the claims.

Commenting on the spying concerns, the Huawei founder reiterated that the company will “never undertake” any spying activities.

Huawei, the world’s biggest producer of telecoms equipment, faces intense scrutiny in the West over its relationship with the Chinese government and allegations of enabling state espionage, with the United States calling for its allies not to use its technology.

Ren said the company could downsize to weather such attempts by the United States.

“The world cannot leave us because we are more advanced. Even if they (U.S.) persuade more countries not to use us temporarily, we can always scale things down a bit”, he added.

In comments on a potential ban in the UK, Ren said it would not make the company withdraw its UK investments, adding that it will shift its investments to the UK from the United States if U.S. actions against Huawei continue.

“We will invest even more in the UK. Because if the U.S. doesn’t trust us, then we will shift our investment from the U.S. to the UK on an even bigger scale,” Ken told the BBC.

Reuters reported earlier on Monday that British security officials do not support a full ban of Huawei from national telecoms networks despite U.S. allegations against the Chinese firm.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Dan Grebler)

Source: OANN

NOW ON AIR
Now On Air

Alex Jones – Info Wars

12:00 pm 4:00 pm



FILE PHOTO: Naqvi Founder and Group Chief Executive of Abraaj Group attends the annual meeting of the WEF in Davos
FILE PHOTO: Arif Naqvi, Founder and Group Chief Executive of Abraaj Group attends the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, January 17, 2017. REUTERS/Ruben Sprich/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By Tom Arnold

LONDON (Reuters) – A London court case to extradite Arif Naqvi, founder of collapsed private equity firm Abraaj Group, to the United States on fraud charges was adjourned until May 24, a court official said on Friday.

Naqvi was remanded in custody until that date, the official said. A former managing partner of Dubai-based Abraaj, Sev Vettivetpillai, was released on conditional bail to appear again at Westminster Magistrates Court on June 12, the official said.

Under the U.S. charges, both men are accused of defrauding U.S. investors by inflating positions held by Abraaj in order to attract greater funds from them, causing them financial loss, the official said.

Vettivetpillai could not be reached for a comment.

Naqvi, in a statement released through a PR firm, has pleaded innocent.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission alleges that Naqvi and his firm raised money for the Abraaj Growth Markets Health Fund, collecting more than $100 million over three years from U.S.-based charitable organizations and other U.S. investors.

Naqvi and Vettivetpillai were arrested in Britain earlier this month. Another executive, Mustafa Abdel-Wadood was arrested at a New York hotel, Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrea Griswold said at a hearing in Manhattan federal court on April 11.

Abdel-Wadood appeared at the Manhattan hearing and pleaded not guilty to securities fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy charges.

(Editing by Jane Merriman)

Source: OANN

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!
Former Vice President Joe Biden announces his 2020 candidacy
Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden announces his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination in this still image taken from a video released April 25, 2019. BIDEN CAMPAIGN HANDOUT via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS – THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVES

April 26, 2019

By James Oliphant

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, in his first interview as a Democratic presidential candidate, said on Friday that he does not believe he treated law professor Anita Hill badly during the 1991 confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Biden had joined the burgeoning 2020 Democratic field a day earlier.

Biden’s conduct during those hearings, when he was chairman of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, became a renewed subject of controversy after the New York Times reported that Biden had called Hill earlier this month in the run-up to his presidential bid and that Hill was dissatisfied with Biden’s expression of regret.

Appearing on ABC’s “The View,” Biden largely defended his actions as a senator almost 30 years ago, saying he believed Hill’s allegations of sexual harassment levied at Thomas and tried to derail his confirmation.

Activists have long been unhappy that Hill was questioned in graphic detail by the all-white, all-male committee chaired by Biden.

“I’m sorry she was treated the way she was treated,” Biden said, but later, he asserted, “I don’t think I treated her badly. … How do you stop people from asking inflammatory questions?”

“There were a lot of mistakes made across the board and for those I apologize,” he said.

Biden praised Hill as “remarkable” and said she is “one of the reasons we have the #MeToo movement.”

Asked why he had not reached out to Hill earlier, Biden said he had previously publicly stated he had regrets about her treatment and that he “didn’t want to quote invade her space.”

That seemed to be a reference to another controversy that looms over Biden’s presidential run: allegations by several women that he made them uncomfortable by touching them at political events.

Biden also addressed that criticism, saying he was now more “cognizant” about a woman’s “private space.” But he maintained that he had been “trying to bring solace.”

He suggested he was still trying to sort out the guidelines for his conduct going forward.

“I should be able to read better,” he said. “I have to be more careful.”

Pressed by the show’s panel for an apology to his accusers, Biden would not entirely capitulate.

“So, I invaded your space,” he replied. “I mean, I’m sorry this happened. But I’m not sorry in a sense that I think I did anything that was intentionally designed to do anything wrong or be inappropriate.”

Biden, 76, served as former President Barack Obama’s vice president for two terms. He is competing with 19 others for the Democratic presidential nomination and the chance to likely face President Donald Trump next year in the general election.

His first public event as a presidential candidate is scheduled for Monday in Pittsburgh.

(Reporting by James Oliphant; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Source: OANN

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!
FILE PHOTO: The logo of Tesla is seen in Taipei
FILE PHOTO: The logo of Tesla is seen in Taipei, Taiwan August 11, 2017. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By Noel Randewich

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Tesla Inc’s stock slumped over 4% on Friday to its lowest price in two years, rounding out a rough week that included worse-than-expected quarterly results and a pitch by Chief Executive Elon Musk on autonomous cars that failed to win over investors.

With investors betting Tesla will soon raise capital, the stock has fallen 13% for the week to its lowest level since January 2017, before the launch of the Model 3 sedan aimed at making the electric car maker profitable.

One positive development for Tesla: a U.S. District Court judge on Friday granted a request by Musk and the Securities and Exchange Commission for a second extension to resolve a dispute over Musk’s use of Twitter.

On Wednesday, Tesla posted a worse-than-expected loss of $702 million for the March quarter. Musk said Tesla would return to profit in the third quarter and that there was “some merit” to raising capital.

Musk is still battling to convince investors that demand for the Model 3, the company’s first car aimed at the mass consumer market, is “insanely” high, and that it can be delivered efficiently to customers around the world.

Tesla ended its first quarter with $2.2 billion, down from $3.7 billion in the prior quarter, and the company is planning expansions including a Shanghai factory, an upcoming Model Y SUV, and other projects.

(GRAPHIC: Tesla’s cash – https://tmsnrt.rs/2DyJjX6)

On Monday, Musk hosted a self-driving event, where he predicted Tesla would have over a million autonomous vehicles by next year. Some analysts perceived the presentation as a way to deflect attention from questions about demand, margin pressure, increasing competition and even Musk’s ongoing battle with U.S. regulators.

Tesla’s stock has now fallen 29 percent in 2019 and the company’s market capitalization has declined to $41 billion from $63 billion in mid-December.

(GRAPHIC: Tesla’s declining market cap – https://tmsnrt.rs/2Dwd62r)

Analysts now expect Tesla’s revenue to expand 19% in 2019, compared with 83% growth in 2018 and 68% growth in 2017, according to Refinitiv.

Following Tesla’s quarterly report, 12 analysts recommend selling the stock, while 11 recommend buying and eight are neutral. The median analyst price target is $275, up 16% from the stock’s current price of $236. Berenberg analyst Alexander Haissl has the most optimistic price target, at $500, while Cowen and Company’s Jeffrey Osborne has the lowest, at $160, according to Refinitiv.

(Reporting by Noel Randewich; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Source: OANN

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee said Friday that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s rare public criticism of the Obama administration was a “soft” way of accusing the previous administration of covering up Russia’s attempts at hacking the 2016 presidential election.

While speaking Thursday in New York at the Public Servants Dinner of the Armenian Bar Association, Rosenstein said that the Obama administration “chose not to publicize the full story about Russian computer hackers and social media trolls and how they relate to Russia’s broader strategy to undermine America.”

During an appearance on “America’s Newsroom” Friday morning, Huckabee called the comments an “unusually candid moment for Rosenstein.”

“I thought it was a soft way of him saying there was a cover-up,” Huckabee said. “They knew the Russians were attempting to influence the election and attempting to hack the election but they didn’t fully disclose that to the American people and certainly didn’t disclose it to the Trump campaign.

SWALWELL NOT CERTAIN TRUMP ISN’T A ‘RUSSIAN ASSET’

“Instead they tried to set a trap for them. It failed. The Trump team did not take the bait. And that’s the one conclusion that we can certainly come away with from the $35 million worth of investigation,” Huckabee continued.

Next week, Attorney General William Barr will testify before Congress and is expected to answer questions about Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of President Trump, which found that there was not adequate evidence to conclude that President Trump and his administration colluded with Russia, though the president could not be exonerated in terms of the possibility that he obstructed justice.

Barr will testify to the Senate Judiciary Committee next Wednesday and to the House Judiciary Committee the following day.

TRUMP ASSESSES 2020 DEMS; TAKES SWIPES AT BIDEN, SANDERS; DISMISSES HARRIS, O’ROURKE; SAYS HE’S ROOTING FOR BUTTIGIEG 

“It is going to be a theater, an absolute show,” Huckabee said of the hearings. “Just like the Kavanaugh hearings were and like everything else is in Congress. We ought to close the curtain on them and can’t come back until after the election. They aren’t doing their job anyway. We aren’t paying them because they’re doing a wonderful service to the country and spare us the hypocrisy of thinking they’re interested in getting to the bottom of the facts,” he continued.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Ultimately, Huckabee argued, if Americans “took their partisan hats off,” they would see that President Trump was exonerated by the investigation.

Source: Fox News Politics

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!
Sri Lanka's former defense secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa greets his supporters after his return from the United States, in Katunayake
Sri Lanka’s former defense secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa greets his supporters after his return from the United States, in Katunayake, Sri Lanka April 12, 2019. REUTERS/Dinuka Liyanawatte

April 26, 2019

By Sanjeev Miglani and Shihar Aneez

COLOMBO (Reuters) – Sri Lanka’s former wartime defense chief, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, said on Friday he would run for president in elections this year and would stop the spread of Islamist extremism by rebuilding the intelligence service and surveilling citizens.

Gotabaya, as he is popularly known, is the younger brother of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa and the two led the country to a crushing defeat of separatist Tamil rebels a decade ago after a 26-year civil war.

More than 250 people were killed in bomb attacks on hotels and churches on Easter Sunday that the government has blamed on Islamist militants and that Islamic State has claimed responsibility for.

Gotabaya said the attacks could have been prevented if the island’s current government had not dismantled the intelligence network and extensive surveillance capabilities that he built up during the war and later on.

“Because the government was not prepared, that’s why you see a panic situation,” he said in an interview with Reuters.

Gotabaya said he would be a candidate “100 percent”, firming up months of speculation that he plans to run in the elections, which are due by December.

He was critical of the government’s response to the bombings. Since the attacks, the government has struggled to provide clear information about how they were staged, who was behind them and how serious the threat is from Islamic State to the country.

“Various people are blaming various people, not giving exactly the details as to what happened, even people expect the names, what organization did this, and how they came up to this level, that explanation was not given,” he said.

On Friday, President Maithripala Sirisena said the government led by premier Ranil Wickremesinghe should take responsibility for the attacks and that prior information warning of attacks was not shared with him.

Wickremesinghe said earlier he was not advised about warnings that came from India’s spy service either, presenting a picture of a government still in disarray since the two leaders fell out last October.

Gotabaya is facing lawsuits in the United States, where he is a dual citizen, over his role in the war and afterwards.

The South Africa-based International Truth and Justice Project, in partnership with U.S. law firm Hausfeld, filed a civil case in California this month against Gotabaya on behalf of a Tamil torture survivor.

In a separate case, Ahimsa Wickrematunga, the daughter of murdered investigative editor Lasantha Wickrematunga, filed a complaint for damages in the same U.S. District Court in California for allegedly instigating and authorizing the extrajudicial killing of her father.

Gotabaya said the cases were baseless and only a “little distraction” as he prepared for the election campaign. He said he had asked U.S. authorities to renounce his citizenship and that process was nearly done, clearing the way for his candidature.

‘DISMANTLE THE NETWORKS’

He said that if he won, his immediate focus would to be tackle the threat from radical Islam and to rebuild the security set-up.

“It’s a serious problem, you have to go deep into the groups, dismantle the networks,” he said, adding he would give the military a mandate to collect intelligence from the ground and to mount surveillance of groups turning to extremism.

Gotabaya said that a military intelligence cell he had set up in 2011 of 5,000 people, some of them with Arabic language skills and that was tracking the bent towards extremist ideology some of the Islamist groups were taking in eastern Sri Lanka was disbanded by the current government.

“They did not give priority to national security, there was a mix-up. They were talking about ethnic reconciliation, then they were talking about human rights issues, they were talking about individual freedoms,” he said.

President Sirisena’s government sought to forge reconciliation with minority Tamils and close the wounds of the war and launched investigations into allegations of rights abuse and torture against military officers.

Officials said many of these secret intelligence cells were disbanded because they faced allegations of abuse, including torture and extra judicial killings.

Muslims make up nearly 10 percent of Sri Lanka’s population of 22 million, which is predominantly Buddhist.

(Reporting by Sanjeev Miglani; Editing by Frances Kerry)

Source: OANN

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!
Current track

Title

Artist