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Louisiana Gov. says 2 dead in tornado in city of Ruston

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards says two people have been killed by a tornado that tore through the northern city of Ruston early Thursday.

The tornado caused severe damage to buildings, vehicles and power lines and forced a local university to cancel classes.

National Weather Service hydrologist C. S. Ross says it appears the tornado cut a track over 130 miles (209 kilometers) from eastern Texas to the Louisiana-Arkansas border.

Louisiana Tech University President Les Guice said on Twitter that classes were canceled Thursday. The university said no students were reported injured.

The tornado was part of a severe weather system that pounded Texas with rain Wednesday, killing a woman and two children caught in flash flood waters.

The storm moved into Mississippi on Thursday morning.

Source: Fox News National

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Patriots owner Kraft can avoid prosecution in Florida prostitution sting: prosecutors

FILE PHOTO: Super Bowl LIII - New England Patriots v Los Angeles Rams
FILE PHOTO: NFL Football - Super Bowl LIII - New England Patriots v Los Angeles Rams - Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. - February 3, 2019. New England Patriots' Julian Eddleman (R) and New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft celebrate with the Vince Lombardi trophy after winning the Super Bowl LIII. REUTERS/Mike Segar/File Photo

March 19, 2019

By Alex Dobuzinskis

(Reuters) – The owner of the Super Bowl champion New England Patriots could be spared prosecution on charges of soliciting prostitution in Florida if he agrees to community service and other obligations, a spokesman for prosecutors said on Tuesday.

Robert Kraft, the National Football League team owner, is receiving the same offer from the Office of the State Attorney for Palm Beach County as the other first-time misdemeanor offenders caught up in the case last month, said Mike Edmondson, a spokesman for the office. Edmondson declined to say if Kraft has agreed to the offer for avoiding prosecution.

Kraft, 77, a businessman who built the Patriots into the NFL’s most dominant franchise, was charged following a police sting targeting sex-trafficking in day spas and massage parlors. The operation has led to charges against hundreds of people.

An attorney for Kraft could not be reached for comment. A spokesman for the New England Patriots did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Prosecutors would defer prosecution of Kraft if he agrees to 100 hours of community service, receives education on the harms of prostitution, undergoes screening for sexually transmitted diseases and pays court costs, Edmondson said by phone.

Prosecutors also generally require defendants avoiding prosecution in such cases to admit guilt or acknowledge that prosecutors would prevail in the case at trial, he said.

Kraft is one of 25 people who were charged in Palm Beach County with soliciting prostitution, a charge with a maximum sentence one year in jail if a person is convicted.

The New England Patriots play just outside Boston. Kraft lives in Massachusetts but owns property in Florida’s wealthy Palm Beach, 80 miles (130 km) north of downtown Miami.

Kraft is accused of visiting Orchids of Asia Day Spa in the Palm Beach County community of Jupiter on two separate occasions to solicit sex and was charged with two counts of soliciting prostitution.

Kraft, a friend and supporter of President Donald Trump, could face discipline from the NFL under a policy that applies to team owners and prohibits “conduct detrimental to the integrity” of the NFL.

In 2004, Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay was suspended six games and fined $500,000 after he pleaded guilty to driving while on drugs.

Kraft’s wife of many decades, Myra Hiatt Kraft, died in 2011 of ovarian cancer. He has not remarried.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles; editing by Bill Tarrant and Grant McCool)

Source: OANN

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Macron vows to rebuild Notre Dame in 5 years as dramatic firefighter footage is released

French President Emmanuel Macron vowed Tuesday to rebuild the badly burned Notre Dame Cathedral in five years, as dramatic footage was released showing the heroism of firefighters who battled the blaze for hours.

“We will rebuild Notre Dame even more beautifully and I want it to be completed in five years," Macron said in a televised address to the nation. "We can do it."

NOTRE DAME CATHEDRAL DONATIONS SWELL PAST $700 MILLION MARK

“It is up to us to change this disaster into an opportunity to come together, having deeply reflected on what we have been and what we have to be and become better than we are. It is up to us to find the thread of our national project," he said.

Macron added that Monday's inferno "reminds us that our story never ends. And that we will always have challenges to overcome. What we believe to be indestructible can also be touched."

Macron's comments came one day after a fire raged through the cathedral for more than 12 hours, ultimately destroying its spire and roof but sparing its twin medieval bell towers. As the blaze roared, there was a frantic effort to rescue the monument's "most precious treasures," including the Crown of Thorns said to have been worn by Jesus.

NOTRE DAME'S GOLDEN ALTAR CROSS SEEN GLOWING AS IMAGES EMERGE FROM INSIDE SHOWING FIRE-RAVAGED CATHEDRAL

Also surviving was the Roman Catholic cathedral’s famous 18th century organ that boasts more than 8,000 pipes. Statues removed from the roof for restoration just days before were spared. The cathedral’s high altar was damaged by falling debris when the spire collapsed, an official said.

Although authorities consider the fire an accident, possibly as a result of restoration work at the global architectural treasure that survived almost 900 years of French history, Paris prosecutor Remy Heitz said the inquiry into what caused the fire would be “long and complex.”

Fifty investigators were working on it and are expected to interview workers from five companies hired for the renovations to the cathedral’s roof, where the flames first broke out.

Among those will likely be Julien Le Bras.

The young construction boss bragged about his company's ability to protect historic sites when he landed the lucrative $5.6 million deal to repair the famed cathedral's spire.

Bras, 32, owns the company Le Bras Freres. He has boasted in the past that "our first thought is to protect the values of historical buildings" and that "it's in our DNA."

The Daily Mail reported Tuesday that workers from his company are being questioned by investigators.

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As the probe into what happened continues, the Paris Fire Brigade shared dramatic footage of the roof of the cathedral engulfed in flames and billowing clouds of smoke. The incredible video also shows firemen and women racing into the burning building to save it from destruction.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Source: Fox News World

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Australia says Sri Lankan allegations should be investigated

Australia says its armed forces have no qualms about working with Sri Lankan security forces accused of grave human rights violations during the country's civil war, but those allegations must be taken seriously and investigated.

Acting Ambassador John Philp said Friday that Australia wants to look to the future following the end of the war 10 years ago.

Government forces and Tamil Tiger rebels were both accused of grave violations during the war.

Philp was speaking abroad the HMAS Canberra, one of four Royal Australian Navy ships visiting Sri Lanka as part of defense corporation between the two countries.

Air Commodore Richard Owen said the two sides are exploring ways of combating common threats in the region. He said Australian defense industry representatives also made a presentation on their products.

Source: Fox News World

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Gambino crime boss' suspected killer once attempted citizen's arrest of NYC Mayor de Blasio: report

The man accused in the brazen murder of the Gambino crime family's alleged boss reportedly once attempted to make a citizen’s arrest of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio.

Anthony Comello, 24, was arrested Saturday in New Jersey in the death of Francesco Cali, who was shot dead earlier this month in front of his Staten Island home. Cali was believed by authorities to be leading one of the country’s most powerful crime organizations in the country.

REPUTED GAMBINO CRIME BOSS' SUSPECTED KILLER FLASHES 'MAGA,' OTHER SLOGANS ON HAND

Comello reportedly told investigators he was high on marijuana during the shooting and claimed he shot the mob boss – 10 times, according to the police – because he feared for his life, though other reports suggest Comello's alleged motive may have had something to do with the mafia boss barring his niece from dating Comello.

But just a few months ago, Comello wasn't being accused of shooting alleged bad guys, instead, he was trying to arrest the top authority in New York City -- Mayor de Blasio.

Comello showed up outside city halls to protest the de Blasio’s reign and tried to make a citizen’s arrest of him, the New York Post reported, citing police sources.

Police told the newspaper that the incident was just one example of Comello’s odd behavior and stunts he took part in.

NYPD SAYS SUSPECT TAKEN INTO CUSTODY IN KILLING OF REPUTED GAMBINO CRIME BOSS

During a court appearance on Monday, the suspect wrote a string of slogans on his hand, including “MAGA Forever,” an abbreviation of President Trump’s campaign slogan “Make America Great Again.” He also had “United We Stand MAGA” written on his hand.

Cali ascended to the top spot in the Gambino family sometime around 2015, though he was never charged with a crime while leading the group.

Officials haven’t said the Gambino crime family has posted a bounty on Comello, but “the general feeling is that there’s an ‘X’ on this guy’s back,” one source told the New York Post.

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“He’s going to have some issues in jail,” a high-ranking NYPD official told the Post. “Maybe there’s some guys who are wiseguys in jail who will show their allegiance to the Gambinos and say, ‘We’ll take care of this guy.’”

Fox News’ Frank Miles and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News National

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EU official backs key role for Kabul in talks with Taliban

The European Union's top diplomat has expressed support for U.S.-led efforts to resolve Afghanistan's 17-year war but stressed that the Afghan government should have a leading role in the process.

The remarks by EU's foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini reflect the bloc's displeasure that the peace talks with the Taliban have so far sidelined the government in Kabul. The Taliban have refused to talk directly with the government, considering it a U.S. puppet.

Mogherini says the EU has "always been on the side of Afghan people with no other agenda" than peace, security and prosperity for Afghanistan.

She says that EU supports "an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace process."

Mogherini spoke after meetings in Kabul on Tuesday with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and the country's chief executive, Abdullah Abdullah.

Source: Fox News World

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VW has no plan to produce electric vehicles in Brazil in next few years

Worker makes final checks on a VW e-Golf electric car in Dresden
A worker makes final checks on an e-Golf electric car at the new production line of the Transparent Factory of German carmaker Volkswagen in Dresden, Germany March 30, 2017. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch

March 26, 2019

SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Volkswagen AG does not plan to produce electric or hybrid vehicles in Brazil in the next few years, although it will begin importing them this year, its top executive for South America Pablo Di Si told reporters on Tuesday.

Brazil was one of the world’s largest auto markets until a recent economic downturn and remains a significant base for many automakers. The Brazilian market relies heavily on ethanol, a biofuel that receives incentives from the government and which has been embraced by the local auto industry.

(Reporting by Marcelo Rochabrun; Editing by Susan Thomas)

Source: OANN

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Maria Butina, the Russian woman who was accused of being a secret agent for the Russian government, was sentenced to 18 months in prison Friday by a federal judge in Washington after pleading guilty last year to a conspiracy charge.

Butina, who has already served nine months behind bars, will get credit for time served and can possibly get credit for good behavior, the judge said. She will be removed from the U.S. promptly on completion of her time, the judge added, and returned to Russia.

MARIA BUTINA, ACCUSED RUSSIAN SPY, PLEADS GUILTY TO CONSPIRACY

An emotional and apologetic Butina said in court Friday she is “truly sorry” and regrets not registering as a foreign agent.

“I feel ashamed and embarrassed,” she said, adding that her “reputation is ruined.”

Butina has been jailed since her arrest in July 2018. She entered the court Friday wearing a dark green prison jumpsuit and spoke in clear English, with a slight Russian accent.

“Please accept my apologies,” Butina said.

Butina’s lawyer, Robert Driscoll, said after the sentencing they had hoped for a “better outcome,” but expressed a desire for Butina to be released to her family by the fall.

Prosecutors had claimed Butina used her contacts with the National Rifle Association and the National Prayer Breakfast to develop relationships with U.S. politicians and gather information for Russia.

Prosecutors also have said that Butina’s boyfriend, conservative political operative Paul Erickson, identified in court papers as “U.S. Person 1,” helped her establish ties with the NRA.

WHO IS MARIA BUTINA, THE RUSSIAN WOMAN ACCUSED OF SPYING ON US?

In their filings, prosecutors claim federal agents found Butina had contact information for people suspected of being employed by Russia’s Federal Security Services, or FSB, the successor intelligence agency to the KGB. Inside her home, they found notes referring to a potential job offer from the FSB, according to the documents.

Investigators recovered several emails and Twitter direct message conversations in which Butina referred to the need to keep her work secret and, in one instance, said it should be “incognito.” Prosecutors said Butina had contact with Russian intelligence officials and that the FBI photographed her dining with a diplomat suspected of being a Russian intelligence agent.

Fox News’ Jason Donner, Bill Mears, Greg Norman and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News Politics

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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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Joe Biden may have just stepped into the 2020 ring, but he’s wasted no time in throwing punches at President Trump.

Former Vice President Biden appeared on “The View” Friday in his first interview since officially announcing he is running for the White House on Thursday.

After batting away a softball opening question from host Joy Behar about why he took so long to enter the race, the ex-VP delivered what is likely to be his campaign’s major message.

Asked about the comment in his announcement that a battle is underway for “the soul of this nation,” Biden replied: “What I mean by that is we are not — this is not who we are the way we’re treating people. It’s not who we are as a nation when we’re talking about things like the reason for your problem is the other.

JOE BIDEN’S SENIOR ADVISER IN 2016: ‘WE DON’T NEED WHITE PEOPLE LEADING THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY RIGHT NOW’

“It really is what I said and I really mean it and I wrote an article at the time in “The Atlantic” magazine when Charlottesville happened. This is not who we are. It’s about decency, honor, including everyone. The idea to compare these racists and not condemn them. Neo-Nazis — I don’t ever remember that happening in an administration in well over 100 years.

“I found myself thinking — by the way I travel around the world a lot as vice president and since then I have as well. The rest of the world — I mean, they look at us like my god — what happened to America?”

Behar then asked Biden how he plans to win over “blue-collar voters, a group that Trump won.”

“By making the case that we have to restore dignity to work. Think about this. The way we treat ordinary hard-working Americans who are middle class and working class people fighting to get in the middle class is we treat them like they’re a means to an end as opposed to an ends to themselves,” Biden said.

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

“Go out. When’s the last time we went out and thanked the guy who kept the sewer from overflowing into your basement. What about the woman up on a bucket reconnecting a connection?

“Think about what we don’t do guys. It’s all been about dividing. There’s a real opportunity, incredible opportunity if we just treat each other with more decency.

“My dad had an expression. He said, ‘Joey, a job is about more than a paycheck. It’s about your dignity, it’s about your place in the community, it’s about your place in society and your self-worth. It’s about being able to look your kid in the eye and say it’s going to be okay and mean it.’

“Think about how many people can’t do that today. This president has done nothing to help that group.”

BIDEN VOWS THAT ‘AMERICA IS COMING BACK,’ SPARKING ‘MAGA’ COMPARISONS

Biden’s appearance came after President Trump took a swipe at him in an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Thursday night.

“I think we are calling him ‘Sleepy Joe’ ’cause I’ve known him for a while. Is he a pretty sleepy guy? He won’t be able to deal with [Chinese] President Xi, I will tell you. That’s a different level of energy and, frankly, intelligence. So I sort refer to him as ‘Sleepy Joe.’ A lot of people wanted me to change the word ‘sleepy’ to something else that rhymes with it,” Trump told host Sean Hannity. “I thought it was too nasty.

“He’s not going to be able to do the job.”

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Biden officially announced his candidacy in a video Thursday morning, going directly after Trump.

“If we give Donald Trump eight years in the White House, he will forever and fundamentally alter the character of this nation, who we are, and I cannot stand by and watch that happen,” Biden said in the video.

Source: Fox News Politics

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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)

Source: OANN

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President Trump on Friday said he “let everybody testify” in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, amid a heated battle this week between the White House and congressional Democrats over subpoenas for testimony from former and current administration officials.

The president, departing the White House on Friday for Indianapolis, touted his administration’s transparency throughout the nearly two-year-long Russia investigation led by Mueller and his team. The president said his administration gave “1.4 million” documents as part of the probe.

TRUMP CLAIMS HE ‘NEVER’ TOLD MCGAHN TO FIRE MUELLER, SAYS HE ‘COULD HAVE DONE IT’ HIMSELF

“I let White House Counsel Don McGahn testify—I let everybody testify. I think McGahn did for 30 hours. I said I want everybody to testify,” Trump told reporters.

“I let everybody testify. There’s never ever been transparency like this,” he continued. “So we got a great ruling, we got the ruling which I knew we were going to get because I have nothing to do with Russia nor the campaign.”

The president underscored the findings in Mueller’s nearly 500-page report, which was released to the public and Congress in a redacted format last week. The report revealed that the special counsel did not find evidence of collusion between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia—a conclusion Trump has touted and repeated for days.

“With all of this transparency, we finish. No collusion, no obstruction,” Trump said Friday. “But then I get out, the first day, they say, ‘let’s do it again.’ I say, that’s enough, we have to run a country. We have a very great country to run.”

Trump was referring to the sweeping Trump-focused investigations in the House of Representatives. This week, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., subpoenaed McGahn to testify before his panel. The White House blocked McGahn’s testimony, and the president vowed to fight “all” congressionally-issued subpoenas.

“Go through it with the House, the Senate, no collusion, no collusion; no obstruction, no obstruction—again? We have to go through it?” Trump said. “This is a pure political witch hunt. The only thing I did is make this country stronger.”

The president added: “So if I’m guilty of anything, it’s that I’ve been a great president and the Democrats don’t like it.”

But despite his comments, Mueller did not come to a conclusion on the matter of whether the president obstructed justice—rather, the report revealed an array of controversial actions and requests made by the president that were examined as part of Mueller’s obstruction inquiry.

“On June 17, 2017, the president called [White House Counsel Don] McGahn at home and directed him to call the Acting Attorney General and say that the Special Counsel had conflicts of interest and must be removed. McGahn did not carry out the direction, however, deciding that he would resign rather than trigger what he regarded as a potential Saturday Night Massacre,” the report stated, referencing the Watergate scandal.

TRUMP VOWS TO FIGHT ‘ALL’ SUBPOENAS AGAINST ADMINISTRATION, CALLS DEMAND FOR MCGAHN TESTIMONY ‘RIDICULOUS’ 

The report also revealed that when the media reported on the president’s request for McGahn to have Mueller removed, the president directed White House officials “to tell McGahn to dispute the story and create a record stating he had not been ordered to have the special counsel removed.”

“McGahn refused to back away from what he remembered happening,” the report said.

The report went on to say that two days after the initial request to McGahn, the president made another attempt to “affect the course of the Russia investigation.”

McGahn’s interview with investigators factored prominently into this section, including a claim that McGahn disobeyed Trump’s call to have him seek Mueller’s removal.

This week, the president said he “never” told McGahn to fire Mueller, and that if he wanted to remove the special counsel, he “could have done it” himself.

Source: Fox News Politics

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