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NBA notebook: Lakers F Ingram has arm surgery

NBA: Milwaukee Bucks at Los Angeles Lakers
Mar 1, 2019; Los Angeles, CA, USA; Los Angeles Lakers forward Brandon Ingram (14) dribbles the ball as Milwaukee Bucks guard Eric Bledsoe (6) defends during the first quarter at Staples Center. Mandatory Credit: Robert Hanashiro-USA TODAY Sports

March 17, 2019

Los Angeles Lakers forward Brandon Ingram had surgery on his right arm Saturday and is expected to be ready by the start of the 2019-20 season, the team announced.

Ingram underwent thoracic outlet decompression surgery, performed by Dr. Hugh Gelabert at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center.

Earlier this month, Ingram, 21, was diagnosed with deep venous thrombosis, which involved a blood clot that caused shoulder pain. After the diagnosis, the Lakers announced he would be out the rest of the season.

Ingram, in his third NBA season, averaged 18.3 points, 5.1 rebounds and 3.0 assists in 33.8 minutes per game in 52 contests.

–Golden State star Kevin Durant was held out of the lineup at Oklahoma City, missing his second straight game with an injured right ankle.

Coach Steve Kerr told ESPN that Durant “most likely” would return for Monday’s game at San Antonio.

Durant, 30, played nine seasons for Seattle/Oklahoma City before signing with the Warriors as a free agent in 2016. He is averaging 27.4 points, 6.7 rebounds and 5.7 assists per game this season.

–The top-seeded United States squad will open its defense of its FIBA World Cup championship this summer against the Czech Republic.

The draw for the 32-team tournament was held in Shenzhen, China. The United States will also face Turkey and Japan in Group E.

The FIBA World Cup will be held Aug. 31 to Sept. 15, with play in eight cities across China. The United States, coached this year by Gregg Popovich, is the two-time defending champion.

–Field Level Media

Source: OANN

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Vermont high school to raise Black Lives Matter flag

A Vermont public school board has voted to fly the Black Lives Matter flag at a high school.

The Rutland Herald reports that the Rutland City Public Schools Board of Commissioners reaffirmed the plan during a vote Tuesday.

Board member Kam Johnston says he moved to rescind the board's previous decision to raise the flag to allow for more student input and address concerns. Students at Rutland High School had initiated the effort to raise the flag and brought it to the board.

The Black Lives Matter flag will fly at the school for 400 days starting April 12 to mark 400 years since the British slave trade started in the Americas.

People opposed to flying the flag say the board shouldn't be taking a political stance and that the flag may be divisive.

___

Information from: Rutland Herald, http://www.rutlandherald.com/

Source: Fox News National

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Microsoft workers demand it drop $450 million U.S. Army contract

A Microsoft store is pictured in New York City
A Microsoft store is pictured in New York City, New York, U.S., August 21, 2018. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri/File Photo

February 22, 2019

By Paresh Dave

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Several Microsoft Corp employees on Friday demanded that the company cancel a $480 million hardware contract with the U.S. Army and stop developing “any and all weapons technologies.”

The organizing effort, described to Reuters by three Microsoft workers, offers the latest example in the last year of tech employees protesting cooperation with governments on emerging technologies.

Microsoft won a contract in November to supply the Army with at least 2,500 prototypes of augmented reality headsets, which digitally displays contextual information in front of a user’s eyes. The government has said the devices would be used on the battlefield and in training to improve soldiers “lethality, mobility and situational awareness.”

In a petition to Microsoft executives, posted on Twitter, workers said they “did not sign up to develop weapons, and we demand a say in how our work is used.” They called on the company to develop “a public-facing acceptable use policy” for its technology and an external review board to publicly enforce it.

Microsoft and the U.S. Army did not immediately respond to requests to comment. Company President Brad Smith said in an October blog post it remained committed to assisting the military.

“We’ll engage not only actively but proactively across the U.S. government to advocate for policies and laws that will ensure that AI and other new technologies are used responsibly and ethically,” Smith wrote.

Though many governments want to better draw upon the expertise of the biggest U.S. tech companies, fresh employee resistance has added a new challenge to already complicated relationships.

Worker pushback led Alphabet Inc last year to announce it would not renew a Pentagon contract in which its artificial intelligence technology is used to analyze drone imagery.

In other cases, employee criticism has invited greater public scrutiny to deals, such as $10 billion cloud computing contract yet to be awarded and various contracts with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

One Microsoft worker, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it was unclear whether any of the lead petitioners’ work touches the Army contract because the company’s services are intertwined. Another said several organizers work in the company’s cloud computing division, which is competing with rivals Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services to gain more government work.

(Reporting by Paresh Dave; Editing by Richard Chang)

Source: OANN

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British rock, female artists dominate Rock Hall of Fame induction

Inductee Smith of The Cure performs during the 2019 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony in Brooklyn, New York
Inductee Robert Smith (R) of The Cure performs during the 2019 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony in Brooklyn, New York, U.S., March 29, 2019. REUTERS/Mike Segar

March 30, 2019

By Gina Cherelus

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Musicians and fans gathered in New York City on Friday for a night of British band nostalgia mixed with calls for more inclusion of women as Janet Jackson, Stevie Nicks and The Cure were inducted into the 34th Rock and Roll Hall of Fame class.

Nicks, who made history on Friday as the first woman inducted twice into the prestigious group, kicked off the night with a performance of some of her biggest hits, such as “Stand Back” and “Edge of Seventeen.” She was inducted in 1998 as a member of rock band Fleetwood Mac.

“She’s so wise and serene. She sees all the romance and drama in the world and she celebrates it,” said singer Harry Styles, who introduced Nicks on stage for her induction.

However, one of the standout moments of the evening was when Jackson, 52, took the stage and called on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame committee to induct more female artists during the annual ceremony. She also acknowledged her musical family for their impact on popular culture.

“Never in a million years did I expected to follow in their footsteps. Tonight your baby sister has made it,” said Jackson, who did not perform at the ceremony. “And Rock and Roll Hall of Fame please, in 2020, induct more women.”

Singer Janelle Monae dubbed Jackson the “the legendary queen of black girl magic” for hits such as “What Have You Done For Me Lately” and “Escapade” and said she was the blueprint for creating socially conscious music.

“We celebrate you for giving us memories that we wish we could bottle up and save for the next lifetime,” Monae said. “History is not complete without you, Janet.”

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, which is located in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, sends ballots to more than 1,000 artists, historians and members of the music industry to select inductees. Artists are eligible for induction 25 years after the release of their first recording.

The 2019 list of inductees was largely dominated by British artists, featuring bands such as The Zombies, Roxy Music, Def Leppard and Radiohead, who did not perform during the show.

The Cure performed hits such as “Just Like Heaven,” while Def Leppard ended the night with a rocked-out jam session that featured classics “Photograph” and “Pour Some Sugar On Me.”

Jackson declined to take questions from reporters and did not mention the “Leaving Neverland” documentary on cable channel HBO about her late brother, Michael Jackson.

The 2019 induction ceremony will be broadcast on HBO on April 27 at 8 p.m. EDT.

(Reporting by Gina Cherelus; Editing by Paul Tait)

Source: OANN

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Trump to host Egypt’s Sisi on April 9: White House

U.S. President Trump holds bilateral meeting with Egypt's President el-Sisi on the sidelines of the 73rd United Nations General Assembly in New York
FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump holds a bilateral meeting with Egypt's President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi on the sidelines of the 73rd United Nations General Assembly in New York, U.S., September 24, 2018. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

March 29, 2019

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump will host Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al Sisi at the White House on April 9 for talks on strengthening their strategic partnership and working on shared priorities in the Middle East, the White House said on Friday.

The White House said in a statement the two leaders would discuss “building on our robust military, economic, and counterterrorism cooperation” as well as regional economic integration and “Egypt’s longstanding role as a lynchpin of regional stability.”

(Reporting by David Alexander; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

Source: OANN

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Fireballs and lights: Senegal’s president promises a brighter future

A bus drives past a campaign poster for the upcoming presidential election in Dakar
A bus drives past a campaign poster for the upcoming presidential election, depicting Senegal's president Macky Sall and wording that reads "I vote Macky Sall because he brought about the TER", in Dakar, Senegal February 12, 2019. Picture taken February 12, 2019. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra

February 19, 2019

By Alessandra Prentice

DAKAR (Reuters) – In a campaign video featuring images of fireballs and flashing lights, Senegalese President Macky Sall is depicted in front of an express train, a motorway, a glass high-rise and then a sports arena.

The video montage, describing Sall as an innovator, visionary and entrepreneur, draws attention to big-ticket construction projects in a $16.5-billion development program which he hopes will win him votes in a presidential election on Sunday.

“It is driving us at great speed into modernity,” Sall said at an inauguration ceremony for the TER high-speed train line which was hastily arranged for last month although the express will not run until at least mid-2019.

“We have chosen to make a technological leap, propelling us directly to the forefront of progress”.

Many Senegalese share that dream, but not all are convinced Sall’s plans will benefit most of them.

Sall, 57, is widely expected to be re-elected. Since he was elected president in 2012, Senegal’s economic growth rate has risen to more than 6 percent, one of Africa’s fastest, and electricity has been extended to thousands of villages in poor areas.

But the coastal West African country of 15 million people has an average income of less than $200 a month — its main exports are cement, fish and phosphates. Horse-drawn carts compete with cars for space on the rubbish-filled streets of the capital, Dakar.

Many of Sall’s showpiece building projects, including Diamniadio — a futuristic city being built from scratch on a patch of semi-desert along the Dakar peninsula — are half finished, with reinforcing bars poking out of concrete shells.

To pay for the projects, Senegal has borrowed on international markets, most recently with a $2.2 billion Eurobond in March last year, and from China.

Western countries, the World Bank and other lenders pledged around $14 billion in loans in Paris last December to fund Sall’s Emergent Senegal Plan.

The IMF has maintained a “low” risk rating on Senegalese debt, but urged it to keep a lid on borrowing. The fund said in January that trying to speed up projects before the election had strained public finances.

Asked whether Senegal had overspent, World Bank Senegal director, Louise Cord told Reuters: “it’s difficult to make these decisions. The biggest decision a government makes is how to allocate its resources,” but that “it’s also important for a country to have a vision of where they want to go.”

But many Senegalese question whether building projects such as a shiny new conference center will benefit the average citizen as much as it will benefit Senegal’s tiny elite.

“Sall has got his priorities all wrong,” opposition candidate Ousmane Sonko, who is popular with Senegal’s chronically under-employed youth, told a rally in December.

“He thinks that a priority for a country as poor as Senegal is to put up buildings at Diamniadio and an overpriced train.”

“A CERTAIN ELITE”

Laying the track for the $1.1-billion, 36-km (22-mile) rail link from Dakar to Diamniadio displaced thousands of people. Many say they have yet to receive promised compensation.

Thirty-four-year-old Cheikh Wane, whose hardware shop was bulldozed, said hundreds of people in his district of Mbao have been waiting for payouts since 2017.

“With this project we have lost jobs. A lot of young people lost out. They are against this project,” Wane said, walking on the tracks where his business once stood.

Diamniadio is meant to free up Dakar’s gridlocked roads by moving the nerve center of the capital, which is home to more than 3 million people, off the spindly peninsula at Africa’s western-most point. Some government buildings have already relocated there. Others will follow.

The government says the made-to-order city will help Senegal become a competitive business hub and predicts its industrial park will create about 50,000 jobs.

Diamniadio’s industrial park opened in December with six foreign companies and one Senegalese firm. Excited by the prospect, fashion entrepreneur Sophie Zinga, 32, applied to build a clothes factory and dressmaking school at the park.

She was turned down.

“It’s a project only for a certain elite, or companies that have a lot of money,” she said. “It’s not something that the Senegalese youth or small and medium businesses have access to.”

Other residents speak more enthusiastically of Sall’s plan.

“What I like best about this project is the sewage system,” said Ibrahima Diouf, 55, a security guard at Diamniadio, pointing at newly laid pipes in a trench. “In the suburbs, it’s a total nightmare … Here, in this new city, it’s like they’re saying ‘Welcome!’.”

(Additional reporting by Juliette Jabkhiro and Diadie Ba, Editing by Tim Cocks and Timothy Heritage)

Source: OANN

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Watches of Switzerland has further U.S. acquisitions in its sights

Rolex Datejust watches are displayed at the Baselworld Watch and Jewellery Show in Basel
FILE PHOTO: Rolex Datejust watches are displayed at the Baselworld Watch and Jewellery Show in Basel, Switzerland March 22, 2017. Picture taken March 22, 2017. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann

March 22, 2019

By Silke Koltrowitz

BASEL, Switzerland (Reuters) – Watches of Switzerland expects to make further acquisitions in the United States, which it first entered in 2017 with the purchase of jeweler Mayors, its chief executive told Reuters.

Owned by U.S.-based private equity firm Apollo Global Management, Watches of Switzerland has since opened several stores, including in Las Vegas and New York.

“Could we add other businesses? Very easily,” Brian Duffy said in an interview at this week’s Baselworld watch fair.

The Watches of Switzerland Group, which sells brands such as Rolex, Richemont’s Cartier and Swatch Group’s Omega and has more than 130 showrooms, is the biggest watch retailer in Britain and a candidate for a stock market listing.

Luxury watch distribution is undergoing major changes, with many small, family-owned businesses unable to keep up with the challenges of e-commerce, while watch brands are shutting down shops which do not meet their standards.

“If it’s a quality business, the right location of stores and support from the brands, it would be obvious that we’d be open to it. Probably over the couple of years ahead, we’ll do some deals in the area,” Duffy said of his U.S. plans.

Watches of Switzerland, which spans its eponymous stores as well as Mappin & Webb, Goldsmiths, Mayors, Watchshop and Watch Lab competes with rivals such as Lucerne-based Bucherer, which last year bought U.S. jeweler Tourneau.

Last year the company, which has been under Apollo’s control for more than six years, flagged that its owners were working with advisers on strategic options, including a potential initial public offering (IPO).

Duffy said that an IPO, if it happened, would most likely be on the London Stock Exchange.

“It would be good for our group with its size and scale to have public ownership, reduced leverage and great governance and accountability, sources of capital if that’s ever necessary,” he said, without giving further detail.

Apollo declined to comment.

The group’s revenue grew 21 percent to 685 million pounds ($902 million) in 2017/2018, and its operating profit rose by more than a third to 37 million pounds, about twice the levels when Apollo bought it in 2013.

(Reporting by Silke Koltrowitz; Editing by Alexander Smith)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: Sri Lankan Special Task Force soldiers stand guard in front of a mosque as a Muslim man walks past him during the Friday prayers at a mosque, days after a string of suicide bomb attacks on Easter Sunday, in Colombo
FILE PHOTO: Sri Lankan Special Task Force soldiers stand guard in front of a mosque as a Muslim man walks past him during the Friday prayers at a mosque, five days after a string of suicide bomb attacks on Catholic churches and luxury hotels across the island on Easter Sunday, in Colombo, Sri Lanka April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Dinuka Liyanawatte/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By Tom Lasseter and Shri Navaratnam

KATTANKUDY, Sri Lanka (Reuters) – Mohamed Hashim Mohamed Zahran was 12 years old when he began his studies at the Jamiathul Falah Arabic College. He was a nobody, with no claim to scholarship other than ambition.

Zahran and his four brothers and sisters squeezed into a two-room house with their parents in a small seaside town in eastern Sri Lanka; their father was a poor man who sold packets of food on the street and had a reputation for being a petty thief.

“His father didn’t do much,” recalled the school’s vice principal, S.M. Aliyar, laughing out loud.

The boy surprised the school with his sharp mind. For three years, Zahran practiced memorizing the Koran. Next came his studies in Islamic law. But the more he learned, the more Zahran argued that his teachers were too liberal in their reading of the holy book.

“He was against our teaching and the way we interpreted the Koran – he wanted his radical Islam,” said Aliyar. “So we kicked him out.”

Aliyar, now 73 with a long white beard, remembers the day Zahran left in 2005. “His father came and asked, ‘Where can he go?’.”

The school would hear again of Mohamed Zahran. And the world now knows his name. The Sri Lankan government has identified him as the ringleader of a group that carried out a series of Easter Sunday suicide bombings in the country on April 21.

The blasts killed more than 250 people in churches and luxury hotels, one of the deadliest-ever such attacks in South Asia. There were nine suicide bombers who blew apart men, women and children as they sat to pray or ate breakfast.

Most of the attackers were well-educated and from wealthy families, with some having been abroad to study, according to Sri Lankan officials.

That description does not, however, fit their alleged leader, a man said to be in his early 30s, who authorities say died in the slaughter. Zahran was different.

INTELLIGENCE FAILINGS

Sri Lanka’s national leadership has come under heavy criticism for failing to heed warnings from Indian intelligence services – at least three in April alone – that an attack was pending. But Zahran’s path from provincial troublemaker to alleged jihadist mastermind was marked by years of missed or ignored signals that the man with a thick beard and paunch was dangerous.

His increasingly militant brand of Islam was allowed to grow inside a marginalized minority community – barely 10 percent of the country’s roughly 20 million people are Muslim – against a backdrop of a dysfunctional developing nation.

The top official at the nation’s defense ministry resigned on Thursday, saying that some institutions under his charge had failed.

For much of his adult life, Zahran, 33, courted controversy inside the Muslim community itself.

In the internet age, that problem did not stay local. Zahran released online videos calling for jihad and threatening bloodshed.

After the blasts, Islamic State claimed credit and posted a video of Zahran, clutching an assault rifle, standing before the group’s black flag and pledging allegiance to its leader.

The precise relationship between Zahran and Islamic State is not yet known. An official with India’s security services, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that during a raid on a suspected Islamic State cell by the National Investigation Agency earlier this year officers found copies of Zahran’s videos. The operation was in the state of Tamil Nadu, just across a thin strait of ocean from Sri Lanka.

“LIKE A SPOILED CHILD”

Back in 2005, Zahran was looking to make his way in the world. His hometown of Kattankudy is some seven hours’ drive from Colombo on the other side of the island nation, past the countless palm trees, roadside Buddha statues, cashew hawkers and an occasional lumbering elephant in the bush. It is a town of about 40,000 people, a dot on the eastern coast with no clear future for an impoverished young man who’d just been expelled.

Zahran joined a mosque in 2006, the Dharul Athar, and gained a place on its management committee. But within three years they’d had a falling out.

“He wanted to speak more independently, without taking advice from elders,” said the mosque’s imam, or spiritual leader, M.T.M. Fawaz.

Also, the young man was more conservative, Fawaz said, objecting, for instance, to women wearing bangles or earrings.

“The rest of us come together as community leaders but Zahran wanted to speak for himself,” said Fawaz, a man with broad shoulders lounging with a group of friends in a back office of the mosque after evening prayers. “He was a black sheep who broke free.”

Mohamed Yusuf Mohamed Thaufeek, a friend who met Zahran at school and later became an adherent of his, said the problems revolved around Zahran’s habit of misquoting Islamic scriptures.

The mosque’s committee banned him from preaching for three months in 2009. Zahran stormed off.

“We treated him like a spoiled child, a very narrow-minded person who was always causing some trouble,” said the head of the committee, Mohamed Ismail Mohamed Naushad, a timber supplier who shook his head at the memory.

Now on his own, Zahran began to collect a group of followers who met in what Fawaz described as “a hut”.

At about that time, Zahran, then 23, married a young girl from a small town outside the capital of Colombo and brought his bride back to Kattankudy, according to his sister, Mathaniya.

“I didn’t have much of a connection with her – she was 14,” she said.

Despite being “a bit rough-edged”, Zahran was a skilled speaker and others his age were drawn to his speeches and Koranic lessons, said Thaufeek. He traveled the countryside at times, giving his version of religious instruction as he went.

Also, Zahran had found a popular target: the town’s Sufi population, who practice a form of Islam often described a mystical, but which to conservatives is heresy.

Tensions in the area went back some years. In 2004, there was a grenade attack on a Sufi mosque and in 2006 several homes of Sufis were set afire. Announcements boomed from surrounding mosques at the time calling for a Sufi spiritual leader to be killed, said Sahlan Khalil Rahman, secretary of a trust that oversees a group of Sufi mosques.

He blamed followers of the fundamentalist Wahhabi strain of Islam that some locals say became more popular after funding from Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Wahhabism, flowed to mosques in Kattankudy.

It was, Rahman said, an effort “to convert Sufis into Wahhabis through this terrorism”. Rahman handed over a photograph album showing charred homes, bullet holes sprayed across an office wall and a shrine’s casket upended.

ONLINE RADICAL

It was an ideal backdrop for Zahran’s bellicose delivery and apparent sense of religious destiny.

He began holding rallies, bellowing insults through loudspeakers that reverberated inside the Sufis’ house of worship as they tried to pray.

In 2012, Zahran started a mosque of his own. The Sufis were alarmed and, Rahman said, passed on complaints to both local law enforcement and eventually national government offices. No action was taken.

The then-officer in charge of Kattankudy police, Ariyabandhu Wedagedara, said in a telephone interview that he couldn’t arrest people simply because of theological differences.

     “The problem at the time was between followers of different Islamic sects – Zahran was not a major troublemaker, but he and followers of other sects, including the Sufis, were at loggerheads,” Wedagedara said.

Zahran found another megaphone: the internet. His Facebook page was taken down after the bombings, but Muslims in the area said his video clips had previously achieved notoriety.

His speeches went from denouncing Sufis to “kafirs”, or non-believers, in general. Zahran’s sister, Mathaniya, said in an interview that she thought “his ideas became more radical from listening to Islamic State views on the Internet”.

In one undated video, Zahran, in a white tunic and standing in front of an image of flames, boomed in a loud voice: “You will not have time to pick up the remains of blown-up bodies. We’ll keep sending those insulting Allah to hell.”

“HARD TO TAKE”

Zahran spoke in Tamil, making his words available to young Muslims clicking on their cellphones in Kattankudy and other towns like it during a period when, in both 2014 and 2018, reports and images spread of Sinhalese Buddhists rioting against Muslims in Sri Lanka.

In 2017, Zahran’s confrontations boiled over. At a rally near a Sufi community, his followers came wielding swords. At least one man was hacked and hospitalized. The police arrested several people connected to Zahran, including his father and one of his brothers. Zahran slipped away from public view.

That December, the mosque Zahran founded released a public notice disowning him. Thaufeek, his friend from school, is now the head. He counted the places that Zahran had been driven away from – his school, the Dharul Athar mosque and then, “we ourselves kicked him out, which would have been hard for him to take”.

The next year, a group of Buddha statues was vandalized in the town of Mawanella, about five hours drive from Kattankudy. There, in the lush mountains of Sri Lanka’s interior, Zahran had taken up temporary residence.

“He was preaching to kill people,” said A.G.M. Anees, who has served as an imam at a small mosque in the area for a decade. “This is not Islam, this is violence.”

Zahran went into hiding once more.

On the Thursday morning before the Easter Sunday bombings, Zahran’s sister-in-law knocked on the door of a neighbor who did seamstress work near Kattankudy. She handed over a parcel of fabric and asked for it to be sewn into a tunic by the end of the day.

“She said she was going on a family trip,” said the neighbor, M.H. Sithi Nazlya.

Zahran’s sister says that her parents turned off their cellphones on the Friday. On Sunday, when she visited their home, they were gone.

She does not know if Zahran arranged for them to be taken somewhere safe. Or why he would have carried out the bombing.

But now in Kattankudy, and in many other places, people are talking about Mohamed Hashim Mohamed Zahran.

(Reporting by Tom Lasseter and Shri Navaratnam; Additional reporting by Sanjeev Miglani, Shihar Aneez and Alasdair Pal; Editing by John Chalmers and Alex Richardson)

Source: OANN

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A Wells Fargo logo is seen in New York City
FILE PHOTO: A Wells Fargo logo is seen in New York City, U.S. January 10, 2017. REUTERS/Stephanie Keith

April 26, 2019

By Jessica DiNapoli and Imani Moise

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Wells Fargo & Co’s board has retained executive search firm Spencer Stuart to hunt for a new chief executive, ideally a woman who can tackle its regulatory and public perception issues, two people familiar with the matter said.

Wells Fargo’s ambition to become the only major U.S. bank with a female CEO underscores the need to restore its image with a wide range of constituents, including customers, shareholders, regulators and politicians, after it became mired in a scandal in 2016 for opening potentially millions of unauthorized accounts.

Former CEO Tim Sloan left abruptly last month, becoming the second CEO to leave the bank in the scandal’s fallout.

The board plans to approach Citigroup Inc’s Latin America chief Jane Fraser, one of the sources said. During Fraser’s 15-year tenure at Citigroup, she has gained experience running consumer and commercial businesses as well as its private bank.

Fraser could not be immediately reached for comment.

The board also discussed approaching JPMorgan Chase & Co’s Marianne Lake, but after the bank named her to run JPMorgan’s consumer lending business last week, that option became less viable, the source added. The board wants someone who can convince regulators, employees, investors and customers that the bank has fixed problems underpinning the sales scandal, the sources said.

The bank’s board feels that choosing a woman might please lawmakers in Washington who have been critical not only of Wells Fargo’s misbehavior, but of the broader banking industry for a lack of diversity and gender equality, said the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

It also believes that such a move could bolster Wells Fargo’s image with the households of customers where women play a leading role in managing finances, one of the sources added.

The new CEO will also have to resolve litigation and regulatory matters. There are 14 outstanding consent orders with government entities, as well as probes by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the Department of Labor and the Department of Justice.

To be sure, Spencer Stuart will approach and consider several male candidates for the CEO job as well, one of the sources said. The top priority is to find an external candidate who can navigate the bank’s regulatory issues, the source added.

Finding an outsider who meets all those qualifications and wants the job will be difficult, the sources said. There are few people with the necessary experience, even fewer of those who are women, and it is not clear if any of the obvious candidates would be open to taking the role.

The sources asked not to be identified because Wells Fargo’s board deliberations are confidential.

Spokespeople for Wells Fargo and Spencer Stuart declined to comment.

Wells Fargo’s board has not made any public statements about its requirements for a new CEO, beyond Chair Betsy Duke saying the job should attract the “top talent in banking.”

The board wants to complete the search within the next three to six months, one of the sources said.

STALLED SHARES

After Sloan’s ouster, Wells Fargo’s board appointed Allen Parker, who had been general counsel, as interim CEO. The board has said it is looking for an external candidate as a permanent replacement. It is not clear whether Parker will stay at the bank.

Others whose names have been mentioned by analysts, recruiters and industry sources as perspective CEO candidates include Alphabet Inc finance chief Ruth Porat and Bank of America Corp’s chief technology officer Cathy Bessant.

Wells Fargo shares have stalled since Sloan’s departure on March 29th, while the KBW Bank index has rallied more than 7 percent.

Wells Fargo would be “the best stock on earth to buy” if it had the right CEO, said Greg Donaldson, chairman of Donaldson Capital Management in Indiana.

Donaldson held about 50,000 Wells Fargo shares, but sold the stake last year as problems mounted. The CEO change could convince him to re-invest, depending on who it is, he told Reuters.

“It would be very smart for them to get a woman,” he said.

(Reporting by Jessica DiNapoli and Imani Moise in New York; Editing by Lauren Tara LaCapra, Greg Roumeliotis and Susan Thomas)

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A worker walks on the roof of a new home under construction in Carlsbad
FILE PHOTO: A worker walks on the roof of a new home under construction in Carlsbad, California September 22, 2014. REUTERS/Mike Blake

April 26, 2019

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The U.S. economy is growing at a 2.08% annualized pace in the second quarter based on upbeat data on durable goods orders and new home sales in March, the New York Federal Reserve’s Nowcast model showed on Friday.

This was faster than the 1.92% growth rate calculated by the N.Y. Fed model the week before.

(Reporting by Richard Leong; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

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Extraordinary European Union leaders summit in Brussels
FILE PHOTO: Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte arrives at an extraordinary European Union leaders summit to discuss Brexit, in Brussels, Belgium April 10, 2019. REUTERS/Yves Herman

April 26, 2019

(Reuters) – Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said on Friday he had assured China’s Huawei Technologies that it would not face discrimination in the rollout of Italy’s 5G telecoms network.

Conte was speaking on a visit to China where he said he met Huawei’s chief executive, Ren Zhengfei. The prime minister’s comments were carried in Italy by TV broadcaster Sky Italia.

“I told him that we have adopted some precautions, some measures to protect our interests that demand very high levels of security … not only from Huawei but any company entering into the 5G arena,” he said.

Huawei, the world’s biggest producer of telecoms equipment, is under intense scrutiny after the United States told allies not to use its technology because of fears it could be a vehicle for Chinese spying. Huawei has categorically denied this.

(Writing by by Mark Bendeich; Editing by Angelo Amante)

Source: OANN

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U.S. President Trump departs for travel to Indianapolis from the White House in Washington
U.S. President Donald Trump talks to reporters as he departs for travel to Indianapolis, Indiana from the White House in Washington, U.S., April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

April 26, 2019

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump on Friday was expected to announce his intention to revoke the United States’ status as a signatory of the Arms Trade Treaty, which was signed in 2013 by then-President Barack Obama but never ratified by Congress, two U.S. officials said.

Trump was expected to announce the decision in a speech in Indianapolis, to the National Rifle Association, the officials said. The NRA, a powerful gun lobby group, has long been opposed to the treaty, which was negotiated at the United Nations.

(Reporting By Steve Holland; Editing by Bill Trott)

Source: OANN

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