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Prosecution expected to rest case vs. officer in teen death

Prosecutors are expected to wrap up their case Thursday against a white former police officer charged with homicide for fatally shooting an unarmed black teenager.

Former East Pittsburgh Police Officer Michael Rosfeld's trial continues into a third day in a Pittsburgh courtroom.

The first two days of testimony included compelling statements from witnesses and neighbors, one of whom said he heard Rosfeld panicking after the June 2018 shooting, repeatedly saying, "I don't know why I shot him. I don't know why I fired."

Rosfeld fired three bullets into 17-year-old Antwon Rose II in June after pulling over an unlicensed taxicab suspected to have been used in a drive-by shooting minutes earlier. Rose was a front-seat passenger in the cab and was shot as he fled.

John Leach, who lives close to the site of the shooting, said Wednesday he was on his front porch when Rosfeld fired three bullets into Rose.

Leach said he saw other officers consoling Rosfeld as he was bent over hyperventilating.

Rosfeld's attorney said the officer was justified in the shooting and did nothing wrong.

After the prosecution rests its case, the defense is expected to call an expert witness on use of deadly force.

In his opening statements earlier this week, defense attorney Patrick Thomassey described the area where the shooting happened as a high-crime area.

"You have to make, as a police officer, a split-second decision. You hesitate, you die," he told the jury. He said Rosfeld was "a policeman who did his duty."

Police have said Rosfeld changed his story about whether he saw or believed a gun was in Rose's hands. Authorities said two guns were found in the car, one with Rose's DNA on it, but it doesn't appear to have been fired. An empty magazine was found in Rose's pocket.

Witness Patrick Shattuck said Wednesday he was standing outside a senior center when Rosfeld pulled over the unlicensed cab in front of the building. About five minutes after the shooting, Shattuck said Rosfeld entered the building and said, "Why did he do that? Why did he do that? Why did he take that out of his pocket?"

East Pittsburgh Mayor Louis J. Payne, who was also there, said he, too, heard Rosfeld say, "Why did he do that?" but said he didn't hear the comment about the pocket.

The video of the shooting, recorded by a neighbor, was posted online, triggering protests in the Pittsburgh area last year.

A jury of six men and six women was selected and will be sequestered in a hotel for the duration of the trial, expected to take a week or more.

Additional video, where another police car approaching and the sound of gunshots is visible, was shown in court, taken by a college student who was in his car at a stop sign nearby.

Rose had been riding in the front seat of the unlicensed taxi when Zaijuan Hester, in the backseat, rolled down a window and shot at two men on the street.

Hester pleaded guilty Friday to aggravated assault and firearms violations for the shooting, which wounded a man in the abdomen. The 18-year-old told a judge that he, not Rose, did the shooting.

Source: Fox News National

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Trump Claims He Could Fix ‘Stupid Democrat Inspired Immigration Laws’ in Less Than an Hour

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Comic Zelenskiy wins Ukraine presidential vote in landslide

Results from nearly all polling stations show that TV star Volodymyr Zelenskiy has won the Ukrainian presidential runoff vote in a landslide.

The Central Election Commission says Monday that Zelenskiy has won 73% of the vote while the incumbent President Petro Poroshenko got just 24% support with more than 95% of the ballots counted.

Unlike in most of the elections in Ukraine's post-Soviet history, Zelenskiy appears to have won both in Ukraine's west and east, areas that have been traditionally polarized.

One of the campaign slogans of the popular television comedian who has no previous political experience was to unify Ukraine, which has been torn by bitter debates over its identity as well as the separatist conflict in the east that is fueled by neighboring Russia.

Source: Fox News World

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Israel’s election: first the vote, then the kingmaking

A man holds a Likud election campaign poster depicting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he stands behind a stall at Mahane Yehuda Market in Jerusalem
A man holds a Likud election campaign poster depicting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he stands behind a stall at Mahane Yehuda Market in Jerusalem April 8, 2019. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

April 8, 2019

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israelis vote in a parliamentary election on Tuesday, choosing among party lists of candidates to serve in the 120-seat Knesset.

No party has won a majority of seats since Israel’s first election in 1949. Following are questions and answers about the vote and what sort of coalition negotiations could emerge:

WHAT HAPPENS AFTER POLLS CLOSE?

Israel’s major television stations and news websites issue exit polls when voting ends at 10 p.m. (1900 GMT) on Tuesday, estimating how many parliamentary seats each party has won, and then the coalition calculations begin.

WHO’S AHEAD IN OPINION POLLS?

Final polls in the campaign, on Friday, showed that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had fallen behind his main challenger, centrist Benny Gantz, but still has an easier path to form a government that would keep him in power for a record fifth term.

HOW DOES COALITION-BUILDING WORK?

Israel’s president, Reuven Rivlin, consults with the leaders of every party represented in parliament as to their preference for prime minister, and then chooses the legislator who he believes has the best chance of putting together a coalition. The nominee, who does not necessarily have to be the head of the party that won the most votes, has up to 42 days to form a government before the president asks another politician to try.

WHAT SORT OF COALITION COULD BE FORMED?

Netanyahu will likely seek a coalition, similar to his current government, with ultranationalist and Jewish Orthodox parties. Gantz, who heads the centrist Blue and White Party, will likely win the support of center-left and left-wing parties, but polls predict he will fall short of a governing majority in parliament.

WHAT ARE THE UNEXPECTED FACTORS TO WATCH?

A far-right politician, Moshe Feiglin, has been drawing unexpectedly strong support, opinion polls show, with a libertarian platform advocating the legalization of marijuana, free market policies and annexation of the occupied West Bank. He could be a kingmaker.

In Israeli politics, a “unity government” can never be ruled out if the path to a right- or center-left-led coalition proves difficult – even though Gantz has pledged not to serve with Netanyahu, citing corruption allegations against the Likud party leader, who has denied those accusations.

(Reporting by Jeffrey Heller; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

Source: OANN

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LORI LOUGHLIN COULD FACE PRISON TIME: Sanders to release tax records #MAGAFirstNews with @PeterBoykin

Barr forms 'team' to investigate the FBI's Russia investigators; Sanders to release tax records #MAGAFirstNews with @PeterBoykin BARR INVESTIGATING THE INVESTIGATORS: Attorney General William Barr has assembled a "team" to investigate the origins of the FBI's counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign, Fox News has learned ...Republicans repeatedly have called for a thorough investigation of the FBI's intelligence practices and the basis of the ... See More since-discredited Russian collusion narrative following the conclusion of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe. Meanwhile, Barr is expected to return to Capitol Hill Wednesday for the second of two days of hearings about the Justice Department's budget. However, like House lawmakers on Tuesday, members of the subpanel of the Senate Appropriations Committee are expected to focus on Barr's plan release a redacted version of the Mueller report. Barr said Tuesday a redacted version of the Mueller report would be made available "within a week." HOMELAND SECURITY SHAKEUP CONTINUES: President Trump's high-level overhaul of the Department of Homeland Security continued on Tuesday, with the announcement that DHS' acting deputy secretary is resigning amid a reported historic surge in illegal immigrants and asylum seekers at the border ... Claire Grady was technically the next in line to replace Kirstjen Nielsen, who resigned Sunday. But Trump chose Kevin McAleenan, the head of Customs and Border Protection, as acting secretary. Acting Defense Secretary Shanahan: China is America's biggest threat, and southern border situation an 'emergency' BERNIE SANDERS, SOCIALIST MILLIONAIRE: 2020 presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., has announced that he'll release 10 years of tax returns next Monday -- filings expected to show that the Democratic socialist made millions from book sales ... Sanders told the New York Times in an interview published on Tuesday that he hopes that his release will make President Trump more inclined to follow suit. LORI LOUGHLIN COULD FACE PRISON TIME: Actress Lori Loughlin and her fashion designer husband, Mossimo Giannulli, two of the 16 parents indicted on new fraud and money laundering charges in the college admissions cheating scandal, could face up to 40 years in prison—a maximum of 20 years for each of the charges, a report said ...  The "Fuller House" star and her husband, along with 14 other parents, are being charged with a "second superseding indictment with conspiring to commit fraud and money laundering," the Department of Justice revealed in a statement to Fox News on Tuesday. Last month, Loughlin and Giannulli were charged with conspiracy to commit mail fraud for allegedly paying $500,000 to get their daughters into the University of Southern California as crew recruits. (The young women did not play the sport.) NETANYAHU APPEARS HEADED TOWARD RE-ELECTION: Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to be headed toward a historic fifth term as Israel's prime minister on Wednesday, with close-to-complete unofficial election results giving his right-wing Likud and other nationalist and religious parties a solid majority in parliament ... The outcome affirmed Israel's continued tilt to the right and further dimmed hopes of a negotiated solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Re-election will also give Netanyahu an important boost as he braces for the likelihood of criminal charges in a series of corruption scandals. - The Associated Press

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Navy: 1 hurt in domestic shooting at base, shooter killed

Navy officials say a male sailor shot and wounded a female sailor assigned to the same squadron before security personnel at a Virginia base fatally shot him.

Naval Air Station Oceana's commanding officer, Capt. Chad Vincelette, said in a statement that the domestic shooting took place early Friday in a parking lot outside a hangar at Strike Fighter Squadron 37.

Vincelette says the woman was shot several times and is hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries.

Vincelette says both sailors were assigned to the squadron, but their identities won't be immediately released. He says officials will investigate how the sailor got a weapon onto the base, which has a no-weapons policy, and the motive behind the shooting.

The station is the Navy's master jet base for fighters on the East Coast.

Source: Fox News National

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U.S. tractor maker AGCO rolls out Fendt line for Brazil farmers

Employees work at a harvest machine assembly line at the AGCO Agricultural Machinery Plant in Ribeirao Preto
FILE PHOTO: Employees work at a harvest machine assembly line at the AGCO Agricultural Machinery Plant in Ribeirao Preto, northeastern region of the state of Sao Paulo, Brazil, September 15, 2016. REUTERS/Nacho Doce

April 23, 2019

By Marcelo Teixeira

SAO PAULO (Reuters) – U.S. agricultural machine maker AGCO Corp said on Tuesday it would launch its flagship Fendt line of equipment in Brazil later this year, targeting large soybean farmers in the vast center-west region.

AGCO will first bring the German-made line of Fendt Vario high-power tractors to Brazil’s grain heartland, the company’s South America chief Luís Felli said at a presentation in Sao Paulo.

Next year AGCO plans to launch sales of Fendt’s biggest-yet planters and harvesters that will be produced in two plants in Brazil, looking to lure the largest-scale farming groups, he said.

Felli said most items were designed in Brazil specifically for the needs of grain producers in the center-west states such as Mato Grosso and Goiás, where much of the country’s soybean and corn is produced.

“Everybody nowadays wants to produce two crops per year in Brazil. The windows for harvesting and planting are small. You need to gain speed, and these equipment will give you speed,” he said.

Fendt South America division will be headquartered in Sorriso, right along at the key BR-163 grain-shipping road, in the northern part of Mato Grosso state. It will sell 40-line planters that carry seeds and fertilizer and can be folded to be transported to other areas.

“The largest planters of that kind until today had 17 lines, so this could make a big difference in a large farm,” Felli said.

According to him, if conditions are right, precision planters could go as fast as 12 kilometers per hour (km/h) in the field, compared to 5 km/h for a conventional planter.

AGCO will also sell Fendt harvesters with up to 50-feet long platforms and internal storage for as much as 220 60-kg bags of soybeans (485 bushels).

Felli says Brazil has at least 10,000 farmers with 5,000 hectares or more each, a large scale farming not seen anywhere else, boosting sales potential for large, powerful machinery.

The company has invested 150 million reais ($38.30 million) so far to bring the Fendt line to South America.

(Reporting by Marcelo Teixeira; Editing by Richard Chang)

Source: OANN

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Hundreds of Cuban migrants are reported to be on the run Friday in Mexico after a crowd of more than 1,000 burst out of a troubled immigration detention center on its southern border.

Mexico’s National Immigration Institute said the mass escape Thursday in Tapachula – which the Associated Press called the largest in recent memory — involved around 1,300 Cuban migrants, although 700 of them have since returned voluntarily.

The migrants reportedly streamed out of the compound without any resistance, as the institute said its agents weren’t armed and “there was no confrontation.”

Federal police with riot shields later rushed in to control the situation, as a crowd of angry Cubans whose relatives were being held at the facility gathered outside. The Cubans claimed their relatives reported overcrowding and unsanitary conditions at the facility.

A Federal Police officer stands guard outside an immigration detention center in Tapachula, Chiapas state, Mexico, late Thursday, following a breakout.

A Federal Police officer stands guard outside an immigration detention center in Tapachula, Chiapas state, Mexico, late Thursday, following a breakout. (AP)

BORDER PATROL UNION CHIEF BLASTS CONGRESS OVER MIGRANT CARAVANS: ‘WHAT ARE YOU DOING ABOUT IT’?

“My wife and child have been in there for 27 days in bad conditions,” said Usmoni Velazquez Vallejo, as he waited outside for news. “There is overcrowding, insufficient food and there isn’t even medicine for them.”

Another Cuban detainee told the AFP: “We have many there… we are very tight, we sleep on the floor.”

It’s the third time since October that migrants at the facility staged an uprising, according to the news agency.

The center’s holding capacity is officially listed at less than 1,000 people, but the escape of 1,300 meant it was probably at least at double its capacity, since not everyone being held there escaped. Residents in the area said that sometimes the facility has held as many as 3,000 people, and a Mexican newspaper cited by Reuters said Haitians and Central Americans also are among the large group who still have not been tracked down.

Migrants wait for their transfer from an immigration detention center in Tapachula, Chiapas state, Mexico, on Thursday.

Migrants wait for their transfer from an immigration detention center in Tapachula, Chiapas state, Mexico, on Thursday. (AP)

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Earlier in the day, Mexico’s top human rights official toured the facility.

Elsewhere in the country, a new caravan estimated to contain up to 10,000 migrants is making its way to the U.S.-Mexico border.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News World

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Logo of the Exxon Mobil Corp is seen at the Rio Oil and Gas Expo and Conference in Rio de Janeiro
FILE PHOTO: A logo of the Exxon Mobil Corp is seen at the Rio Oil and Gas Expo and Conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil September 24, 2018. REUTERS/Sergio Moraes

April 26, 2019

(Reuters) – Exxon Mobil Corp on Friday reported first-quarter profit fell sharply on lower oil and gas prices and weakness in its refining and chemicals businesses that offset modest production gains.

The largest U.S. oil producer’s first quarter earnings fell to $2.35 billion, or 55 cents a share, from $4.65 billion, or $1.09 a share, a year ago.

Analysts had expected Exxon to earn 70 cents per share, according to Refinitiv Eikon estimates.

Shares were trading down about 2.7 percent in premarket trading on Friday.

Exxon’s oil equivalent production rose 2 percent to 4 million barrels per day, up from 3.9 million bpd in the same period the year prior. The company said its output in the Permian Basin, the largest U.S. shale basin, rose 140 percent over a year ago.

(Reporting by Jennifer Hiller; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

Source: OANN

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The Washington Post’s media critic went into meltdown after White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders held a mock press briefing for the children of White House journalists and employees on Take Your Daughters and Sons to Work Day.

Erik Wemple, the newspaper’s chief media critic, slammed Sanders and the White House for organizing a fun day on Thursday for junior would-be journalists, while not holding an actual press conference for the record number of days.

WHITE HOUSE STAFF TO SKIP CORRESPONDENTS’ DINNER AFTER LAST YEAR’S CONTROVERSY

Wemple wrote that Sanders gave to children an important lesson of “the centrality of nonaccountability mechanisms in the affairs of state” after she announced that the mock press briefing was “off the record.”

“When the children head home tonight, perhaps they can pull up archival footage to see how their questions stack up against ye olde press briefings,” he added.

“Accordingly, Sanders was doing more than just providing a fun interlude for the kids; she was headlining a reenactment, anchoring a bona fide historical site.”

— Erik Wemple

“Tuesday, after all, marked a record for number of days without a White House press briefing. Accordingly, Sanders was doing more than just providing a fun interlude for the kids; she was headlining a reenactment, anchoring a bona fide historical site.”

While some correspondents praised the White House for doing “a lot of work to welcome the children and provide “them an excellent experience,” other journalists echoed Wemple’s criticism and pointed out that Sanders hasn’t held a press briefing in over 40 days.

“Kids of WH Press Corps members are getting ready for a briefing with  @PressSec. Their parents have not had one in 45 days,” tweeted CBS News’ White House Correspondent Weijia Jiang.

REPORTER SHOUTS AT SARAH SANDERS AFTER BRIEFING: ‘DO YOUR JOB, SARAH!’

“The irony of it is that they’re pretending that the White House press briefing is a thing, and they’re pretending that this is how the White House operates, but this is not at all how the White House operates … It’s a relic of an earlier time,” another correspondent quoted by the Post said.

“The irony of it is that they’re pretending that the White House press briefing is a thing, and they’re pretending that this is how the White House operates, but this is not at all how the White House operates … It’s a relic of an earlier time.”

— a White HOuse Correspondent

The Post struck a different tune in a column earlier this year, which declared that despite the administration’s criticism of the media, President Trump was “extremely accessible.”

Wemple quoted Martha Joynt Kumar, director of the White House Transition Project, who said that Trump held 338 “short question-and-answer” sessions over his time in office, significantly more than 75 such sessions by former President Barack Obama during his first full two years in office.

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In terms of total instances of access to the media, which include interviews, short sessions, and news conferences, Trump was accessible least 577 times in his first two years in office.

Source: Fox News Politics

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A Baha’i advocacy group has expressed concerns over the fate of minority Baha’is at the hands of Yemen’s Houthi rebels ahead of the appeals hearing for one of the community leaders sentenced to death.

The Baha’i International Community said in a statement Friday that the hearing for Hamed bin Haydara, detained in 2013 and sentenced to death last year on espionage and apostasy charges, is due on Tuesday.

The statement quotes Bani Dugal, the Baha’i community representative at the United Nations, as saying the prosecution hasn’t addressed Haydara’s appeal but is instead making “absurd, wide-ranging accusations.”

International rights groups have decried the prosecution of Yemeni Baha’is by the Iran-backed Houthis.

Iran has banned the Baha’i religion, which was founded in 1844 by a Persian nobleman considered a prophet by followers.

Source: Fox News World

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Afghan President Ashraf Ghani speaks during the inauguration of the newly-elected parliament in Kabul
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani speaks during the inauguration of the newly-elected parliament in Kabul, Afghanistan April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Omar Sobhani

April 26, 2019

By Rupam Jain and Hameed Farzad

KABUL (Reuters) – Afghan President Ashraf Ghani encouraged newly-elected lawmakers to participate in the peace process with the Taliban as he opened on Friday the first session of parliament since a controversial election.

Ghani has invited thousands of politicians, religious scholars and rights activists to an assembly known as a loya jirga next week to discuss ways to end the 17-year war.

Several opposition leaders have said they will boycott the four-day assembly in Kabul, saying it was pulled together without their input and is being used by Ghani as he seeks a second term in a September presidential election.

“We have presented the peace plan on a regular basis and we are committed to it,” Ghani said in the first session since parliamentary elections marred by technical problems, militant attacks and accusations of voting fraud last year.

“Based on this plan, there will be no peace deal and negotiation that does not have the green card of the parliament,” he added.

Officials from the United States and the Taliban have held several rounds of talks to end the Afghan war.

U.S. negotiator, Zalmay Khalilzad, has reported some progress toward an accord on a U.S. troop withdrawal and on how the Taliban would prevent extremists from using Afghanistan to launch attacks as al Qaeda did on Sept. 11, 2001.

The insurgents have so far rejected U.S. demands for a ceasefire and talks on the country’s political future that would include Afghan government officials.

The loya jirga, a centuries-old institution used to build consensus among competing tribes, factions and ethnic groups, is an attempt by Ghani to influence the peace talks and cement his position for a second term, Afghan politicians and Western diplomats say.

Amid growing political divisions in Kabul, opposition politicians have demanded that Ghani step down when his mandate ends next month, and give way to an interim government to oversee peace talks with the Taliban. Ghani has ruled that out.

The country’s top court said last week Ghani can stay in office until the presidential election in September.

(Reporting by Hameed Farzad, Rupam Jain, Editing by Darren Schuettler)

Source: OANN

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