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Thai police seek to prosecute leader of anti-junta party popular with young

Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, leader of the Future Forward Party, talks to media during a campaign rally in Bangkok
Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, leader of the Future Forward Party, talks to media during a campaign rally in Bangkok, Thailand, February 20, 2019. REUTERS/Soe Zeya Tun

February 20, 2019

By Patpicha Tanakasempipat

BANGKOK (Reuters) – Thai police said on Wednesday said they were seeking the prosecution of the leader of a new political party over a speech he made that was posted on Facebook criticizing the ruling junta, just over a month before a general election.

The legal action against Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, 40, and two senior colleagues in the Future Forward Party, which has attracted the support of young voters, will add to concern that the military is determined to retain a hold over politics, even after the return of civilian rule in the March 24 vote.

“We will send both the case for prosecution and the suspects to the attorney-general,” Police Lieutenant Colonel Krit Seneewong Na Ayutthaya, an investigator on the case from the police cyber crime division, told Reuters.

Thanathorn, an auto parts billionaire and newcomer to the political scene, and his two colleagues could be jailed for five years under the Computer Crime Act for “uploading false information” in a speech posted on Facebook in June last year.

Krit said the case would be referred next week to state prosecutors, who will decide whether to take it to court.

The Future Forward Party has denied the charge, saying the points made in the speech were public information.

“It’s obvious that as the election approaches, the case is being rushed ahead … We’re ready to face whatever challenge comes our way,” Thanathorn told reporters at a rally in Bangkok on Wednesday.

Hundreds of young people, many of them students, turned out for the rally. Most took pictures and videos of Thanathorn and some queued up to take selfies with him.

The hashtag “#SaveThanathorn” was trending on Thai Twitter.

Next month’s general election is the first since a 2014 military coup.

While the vote is being highly anticipated by political parties and voters, some grumble that a new constitution, drafted under military supervision, will ensure that the generals will retain a significant role in politics.

Thanathorn launched his party last year, promoting it as an alternative to Thailand’s polarized politics, which has for years pitted loyalists of ousted ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra against establishment parties supporting the military-royalist elite.

Thanathorn has been critical of military rule, recently pledging to prosecute coup-makers and amend the new constitution.

(Additional reporting by Panarat Thepgumpanat and Panu Wongcha-um; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Source: OANN

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Berners-Lee says World Wide Web, at 30, must emerge from ‘adolescence’

FILE PHOTO: World Wide Web Inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee speaks during the inauguration of Web Summit, Europe's biggest tech conference, in Lisbon
FILE PHOTO: World Wide Web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee speaks during the inauguration of Web Summit, Europe's biggest tech conference, in Lisbon, Portugal, Nov. 5, 2018. REUTERS/Pedro Nunes

March 11, 2019

By Tom Miles

GENEVA (Reuters) – The fraying World Wide Web needs to rediscover its strengths and grow into maturity, its designer Tim Berners-Lee said on Monday, marking the 30th anniversary of the collaborative software project his supervisor initially dubbed “vague but exciting”.

Speaking to reporters at CERN, the physics research center outside Geneva where he invented the web, Berners-Lee said users of the web had found it “not so pretty” recently.

“They are all stepping back, suddenly horrified after the Trump and Brexit elections, realizing that this web thing that they thought was that cool is actually not necessarily serving humanity very well,” he said.

“It seems we don’t finish reeling from one privacy disaster before moving onto the next one,” he added, citing concerns about whether social networks were supporting democracy.

People who had grown up taking the internet’s neutrality for granted now found that the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump had “rolled that back”.

There was also a threat of fragmentation of the Internet into regulatory blocs – in the United States, the European Union, China and elsewhere – which would be “massively damaging”.

In an open letter to mark the anniversary, Berners-Lee said many people now felt unsure about whether the web was a force for good, but it would be defeatist and unimaginative to assume that it could not change for the better in the next 30 years.

“If we give up on building a better web now, then the web will not have failed us. We will have failed the web”, he wrote.

“It’s our journey from digital adolescence to a more mature, responsible and inclusive future”.

But he was optimistic because of a strong resolve among governments to avoid balkanization of the Internet, and a strong resolve among people in social networks who had – surprisingly – been shocked at people trying to hack elections.

He said the editorial power of Facebook’s algorithm was “scary”, but Facebook was clearly thinking about such questions a great deal, and that it and other social media firms backed the principle of letting users extract and move their data.

Amid the concern, Berners-Lee said the anniversary was something to celebrate, and warmly recalled how his boss ordered a computer model that CERN did not possess, a deliberate “plot” to enable his project under the guise of testing the interoperability of different computers.

The boss, Mike Sendell, had penciled in an assessment of his idea as “vague but exciting”.

“Thank goodness it wasn’t ‘Exciting but vague’,” Berners-Lee said.

(Reporting by Tom Miles, editing by G Crosse)

Source: OANN

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U.S. government weighs social-media snooping to detect Social Security fraud

FILE PHOTO: Sign is seen on the entrance to a Social Security office in New York
FILE PHOTO: A sign is seen on the entrance to a Social Security office in New York City, U.S., July 16, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo

March 29, 2019

By Mark Miller

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Getting followed on social media could soon gain a new meaning for workers applying for Social Security disability benefits. The Trump administration is working on a plan to let the Social Security Administration (SSA) check up on claimants on Facebook and Twitter in order to root out fraud and abuse in the disability program.

It is the latest move in a push by critics of Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) to crack down on alleged fraud and abuse. Conservatives have long argued that cheating is rampant in the program, and in recent years convinced Congress to fund expanded efforts by the SSA on anti-fraud efforts.

The idea of social media surveillance is getting a push from the conservative Heritage Foundation. Such monitoring already is done in some fraud and abuse investigations. For example, in 2014, the SSA’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) utilized social media reviews to help arrest more than 100 people who defrauded SSDI out of millions of dollars. Investigators found photos on the personal accounts of disability claimants riding on jet skis, performing physical stunts in karate studios and driving motorcycles.

The SSA now is looking at expanding social media monitoring capability to front-line agency staff who work with claimants in the initial stages, before any investigations have been initiated.

The idea already is drawing fire from disability advocates. They argue that social media profiles can offer misleading evidence, since dates when photos were shot are not always clear and because not all legitimate disabilities prevent participation in activities that might seem suspicious.

“The proposal to allow disability adjudicators to monitor or review social media of disability claimants is an unjustified invasion of privacy unlikely to uncover fraud,” said Lisa Ekman, director of government affairs at the National Organization of Social Security Claimants’ Representatives.

The prospect of such governmental surveillance is as disturbing as it is eyebrow-raising. Consider that workers and employers split a 1.8  percent payroll tax to fund SSDI. Now, in return, the SSA may be empowered to snoop around their Facebook profiles. And it is premised on a questionable assertion – namely, that SSDI really is plagued by rampant fraud and abuse.

For starters, let me stipulate that SSDI is not a perfect program. One of the biggest problems is the staggering backlog in appeals cases, with applicants often waiting more than 600 days for decisions on claims. That problem stems from a history of unwise slashing of the SSA budget by Congress in recent years that has left the program dramatically short-staffed.

Fraud and abuse do exist in the program, and it should be weeded out to protect taxpayers and legitimate claimants. But any program this large – public or private-sector – is sure to be a target for people bent on taking advantage, and critics often argue by highlighting sensational cases.

Mark Hinkle, acting press officer for the SSA, notes that the agency uses data analytics and predictive modeling to detect fraud, and has created new groups dedicated to detection and prevention. Asked to comment on plans for expanded use of social media to detect fraud, he confirmed that SSA investigative units already use social media, and that the agency  has “studied strategies of other agencies and private entities to determine how social media might be used to evaluate disability applications.”

He added, “Social Security does not currently pursue social media in disability determinations, and we don’t have other information to provide at this time.”

DISABILITY FRAUD IS RARE

Program statistics do not support the allegation that SSDI is riddled with fraud and abuse.

In the government’s fiscal-year 2018, the SSA’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) reported about $98 million in recoveries, fines, settlements/judgments, and restitution as a result of Social Security fraud investigations. The OIG states that most the recovered funds were from recipients of SSDI and Supplemental Security Income (SSI), a means-tested welfare program for low-income seniors, blind and disabled people.

That sounds like big money. But in fiscal 2018, the SSA paid out $197 billion to beneficiaries of SSDI and SSI. And keep in mind that the recovered $98 million was for benefits paid out over several years, not just in 2018.

SSA data shows that the rate of overpayments for all its programs was well under 1 percent of benefit payouts in each of the last three fiscal years – and not all improper payments are fraud. More often, overpayments occur due to administrative delays at the SSA in making adjustments to benefit amounts due to errors and paperwork snafus.

A federal government list of programs at highest risk for making improper payments compiled by the Office of Management and Budget does not even mention Social Security.

Considering all that, I asked Rachel Greszler, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation who studies Social Security, to justify the foundation’s steady drumbeat of accusations that SSDI is plagued by fraud and abuse.

She readily acknowledged that fraud rates are low. “Outright fraud is actually a pretty small component of the program’s problems,” she said. “Most people perceive fraud as a big issue but what they might consider fraud – people receiving benefits when they have the ability to work – is often just abuse of the system by taking advantage of certain rules and structures that allow people who can perform some work to nevertheless receive benefits.”

What constitutes abuse of the rules? An example, she said, would be claiming SSDI and receiving unemployment benefits at the same time, or claiming based on the argument that a disability prevents a worker from performing certain types of jobs.

Greszler and other SSDI critics often point to the rise of SSDI applications and award grants coincident with the rise of unemployment during the Great Recession as evidence of abuse. Some academic research has been done suggesting a cause-and-effect related to the unemployment rates, but this is hardly a settled matter among experts on SSDI.

Heritage has a broader agenda for SSDI reform. This week, it released a paper outlining 16 reforms aimed at improving the program’s solvency and integrity. (https://herit.ag/2FEBLDF) It includes the plan to use social media surveillance in eligibility determinations, tighter eligibility definitions and replacement of SSDI’s progressive benefit formula with a “flat anti-poverty benefit.” It also urges greater use of private disability insurance, especially among higher-income workers.

This agenda draws its fuel from the fraud and abuse arguments. So any debate about reforms should also include rebalancing our perspective on where the problems are in SSDI – and where they are not.

(Reporting and writing by Mark Miller in Chicago; Editing by Matthew Lewis)

Source: OANN

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Fresh documents keep up pressure on Canada’s Trudeau over scandal

FILE PHOTO: Liberal MP and former Canadian justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould testifies before the House of Commons justice committee on Parliament Hill in Ottawa
FILE PHOTO: Liberal MP and former Canadian justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould testifies before the House of Commons justice committee on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, February 27, 2019. REUTERS/Chris Wattie/File Photo

March 29, 2019

By David Ljunggren

OTTAWA (Reuters) – A former cabinet member at the heart of a crisis that could cost Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau his job on Friday released documents to back up her case that she had been pressured to help a large corporation avoid a corruption trial.

Trudeau has been on the defensive since Feb. 7 over allegations that officials inappropriately leaned on former Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould last year to ensure construction company SNC-Lavalin Group Inc escaped a trial by paying a fine instead.

The crisis may well threaten Trudeau’s reelection chances in a vote this October. Polls show his center-left Liberals, who as recently as January looked certain to win, could lose to the official opposition Conservatives.

Wilson-Raybould made public around 40 pages of documents revealing more details of what she said were attempts by officials to force her change her mind even after she insisted they desist.

Wilson-Raybould, who was demoted to veterans affairs minister in January and resigned the following month, first made the allegations in almost four hours of testimony to the House of Commons justice committee last month.

Trudeau says officials were trying to make Wilson-Raybould understand that thousands of jobs would be at risk if SNC-Lavalin were found guilty of bribing Libyan officials. Trudeau insists he and his team did nothing wrong.

The affair has so far cost Trudeau two high-profile female cabinet ministers, his closest personal aide and the head of the federal bureaucracy, Michael Wernick.

Wilson-Raybould included a recording of a phone call with Wernick last December in which he told her he was worried about “a collision” between her and Trudeau “because he is pretty firm about this.”

Wilson-Raybould, who stressed she thought the call was inappropriate, told Wernick she was waiting “for the other shoe to drop” because she was under no illusion about how Trudeau “gets things that he wants.”

Opposition legislators said the documents reinforced their demand for a public inquiry into the matter, something Trudeau says is not necessary.

“She is actually trying to speak truth to power, trying to say, ‘You can’t do this,’ … and it keeps happening,” New Democratic Party parliamentarian Nathan Cullen told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.

Trudeau’s office was not immediately available for comment.

The crisis is opening rifts inside the Liberal Party and some legislators want Wilson-Raybould to be kicked out of the parliamentary caucus, a move Trudeau has so far resisted.

(Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Leslie Adler)

Source: OANN

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Police: Man wakes to stranger sleeping on his kitchen floor

Police say a Pennsylvania man awoke to find a stranger sleeping on his kitchen floor surrounded by torn-up sanitary napkins.

Altoona police say they arrested 60-year-old Brian Smith Thursday. The Altoona Mirror reports Smith was unconscious and surrounded by destroyed sanitary napkins.

The homeowner told police it also appeared someone had eaten some of his Krave cereal. He told police all his doors and windows were locked when he went to sleep, but he noticed one of the doors was wide open the next morning.

Police say Smith told them he used methamphetamine within the last two days, and was unable to explain how or why he entered the house.

He's been charged with burglary and trespass. There was no attorney listed for him in court documents.

A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Wednesday.

Source: Fox News National

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California fire department reminds you not to park in front of hydrants

Fire officials in California reminded drivers on Tuesday that vehicles parked front of a fire hydrant during an emergency are likely to feel a permanent breeze.

The Anaheim Fire & Rescue Department had responded to a residential fire when they found a vehicle parked too close to a hydrant. The department later tweeted photos of a hose running through the smashed-out back passenger windows of the car, which was parked along a curb painted a stark red.

“Ever wonder what happens when a car is parked in front of a fire hydrant and a fire breaks out?” the tweet reads. “Is a closer parking spot worth the broken windows and the citation and towing fees to @AnaheimPD?”

The Anaheim police department, who also responded to the fire, tweeted that they had to run the hose line through the vehicle’s rear windows in order to battle the blaze.

As to why firefighters couldn’t run the hose under or over the car, the department tweeted, “It doesn’t fit underneath and the damage caused by throwing it on top is likely more than the cost of two windows.”

Source: Fox News National

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Lawsuit from Alabama ISIS bride seeking to return to US expedited by judge

A hearing date was reportedly set on Tuesday concerning the lawsuit from the family of the Alabama woman who wants to come back to the U.S. after having joined ISIS.

Federal Judge Reggie Walton scheduled the court date for Monday after Hoda Muthana’s family requested that the case be hastened, considering her current placement at a refugee camp in Syria, according to The Associated Press.

POMPEO REJECTS LEGAL CLAIM BY ISIS WIFE: ‘SHE’S A NON-CITIZEN TERRORIST – SHE’S NOT COMING BACK’

Muthana’s family waged the legal battle against President Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Attorney General William Barr after the administration said she was not an American citizen and would be prohibited from coming into the country with her young son.

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Trump tweeted on the matter last week, saying that he’d told Pompeo “not to allow Hoda Muthana back into the Country!”

Attorneys from the Constitutional Law Center for Muslims in America filed a lawsuit on behalf of Ahmed Ali Muthana arguing that his daughter and grandson should be allowed to return to America, and her citizenship be recognized.

Fox News’ Greg Norman and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News National

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The headquarters of Wirecard AG is seen in Aschheim near Munich
FILE PHOTO: The headquarters of Wirecard AG, an independent provider of outsourcing and white label solutions for electronic payment transactions is seen in Aschheim near Munich, Germany April 25, 2019. REUTERS/Michael Dalder

April 26, 2019

BERLIN (Reuters) – Wulf Matthias will not stand for a second term as Wirecard’s chairman in 2020, German daily Handelsblatt said on Friday, citing sources in the financial industry.

For age reasons alone this would not be an option for Matthias, aged 75, Handelsblatt added.

Matthias will keep his mandate until it ends in 2020, the paper quoted a company spokeswoman as saying.

Wirecard was not immediately available for comment when contacted by Reuters.

(Reporting by Tassilo Hummel; Editing by Thomas Seythal)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: The Credit Suisse logo is pictured on a bank in Geneva
FILE PHOTO: The Credit Suisse logo is pictured on a bank in Geneva, Switzerland, October 17, 2017. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse/File Photo

April 26, 2019

ZURICH (Reuters) – Shareholders approved Credit Suisse’s 2018 compensation report with an 82 percent majority on Friday, overriding frustrations expressed at its annual general meeting over jumps in executive pay during a year its share price plummeted.

Three shareholder advisers had recommended investors vote against Switzerland’s second-biggest bank’s remuneration report, while a fourth backed the report but expressed reservations about whether management pay matched performance.

The approval marked a slight increase over the 80.8 percent support garnered for the bank’s 2017 compensation report.

(Reporting by Brenna Hughes Neghaiwi; Editing by Michael Shields)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: Traders work on the trading floor of Barclays Bank at Canary Wharf in London
FILE PHOTO: Traders work on the trading floor of Barclays Bank at Canary Wharf in London, Britain December 7, 2018. REUTERS/Simon Dawson/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By Simon Jessop and Sinead Cruise

LONDON (Reuters) – Activist investor Edward Bramson is likely to fail in his attempt to get a board seat at Barclays’ annual meeting next week, even though shareholders are dissatisfied with performance of the group’s investment bank.

New York-based Bramson’s Sherborne Investors and the board of the British bank have been sparring for months over Barclays’ strategy.

Bramson wants to scale back Barclays’ investment bank to reduce risk and boost shareholder returns. Barclays Chief Executive Jes Staley remains staunchly committed to growing the business out of trouble.

After failing to persuade Staley to change course since he began building a 5.5 percent stake in the bank in March last year, Bramson hopes a board seat will rachet up the pressure.

Both sides have written to shareholders pitching their case and Bramson has courted investors in one-on-one meetings, although none have publicly backed him yet.

Interviews by Reuters with five institutional investors in Barclays suggest Bramson has failed to persuade them.

Sherborne declined to comment.

Mirza Baig, head of investment stewardship at top-40 shareholder Aviva Investors, said Bramson was welcome on the bank’s register but the boardroom was a step too far.

“He has created a lot of value at other businesses, but, generally, when he has come in as executive chair and taken full control. This would be a different case where he would just be one lone voice on the board,” he said.

A second Barclays shareholder said he backed Bramson’s goal of improving returns but via an “evolutionary” approach.

“If you look at banks that have tried to restructure their operations in investment banking – you look at Natwest Markets, Deutsche Bank – I struggle to think of an example where a roughshod restructuring has been accretive to shareholder value.”

A third, top-30 investor said he had been impressed by incoming Chairman Nigel Higgins’ grasp of the challenge in hand, and felt investors would give him time.

“Management know they have to execute and deliver improved returns… [Higgins] will continue to re-shape the board but obviously he didn’t feel that having someone with a diametrically opposed view on it would be helpful.”

A fourth, top-30 investor agreed: “We voted for the chairman to come in and it would be crazy to allow an activist to join the board (at this time).”

Jupiter Fund Management, the 24th largest investor, said it also planned to vote against Bramson.

Barclays has nearly 500 institutional shareholders, Refinitiv data showed.

Since Staley joined Barclays in 2015, the investment bank returns relative to capital invested have increased but are still underperforming the overall business.

Barclays’ first-quarter figures showed the investment bank posted a 6 percent drop in income from its markets business and a 17 percent fall in banking advisory fees.

Returns in the investment bank fell to 9.5 percent from 13.2 percent a year ago.

Famed for successful campaigns against smaller British companies in sectors from chemicals to advertising, Bramson’s board seat pitch has been rebuffed by shareholder advisory firms.

Institutional Shareholder Services, the world’s biggest, said Bramson’s proposal “falls short of what can reasonably be expected from a shareholder trying to address issues at a 28 billion pounds, systemically important bank”.

Glass Lewis also flagged concern about Bramson’s lack of banking experience and “questionable” shareholding structure, referring to Sherborne’s use of derivative contracts to hedge losses should its strategy fail.

Critics said the arrangement meant his interests are not truly aligned with those of other long-term shareholders.

British advisory firm Pirc, however, said it recommended that investors abstain in the vote on Bramson’s proposal as a challenge to the board to do better in the year ahead – or face a similar contest in 2020.

(Editing by Jane Merriman)

Source: OANN

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https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2019/04/918/516/02_2.jpg?ve=1&tl=1

After an over 15-month pregnancy, “Akuti,” a 7-year-old Greater One Horned Indian Rhinoceros, gave birth as a result of induced ovulation and artificial insemination at Zoo Miami, April 23, 2019.

Ron Magill/Zoo Miami

https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2019/04/918/516/02_2.jpg?ve=1&tl=1

Source: Fox News World

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FILE PHOTO: File photo of a Chevron gas station sign in Del Mar, California
FILE PHOTO: A Chevron gas station sign is seen in Del Mar, California, in this April 25, 2013 file photo. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo

April 26, 2019

(Reuters) – U.S. oil and natural gas producer Chevron Corp reported a 27 percent fall in quarterly earnings on Friday, hit by lower crude prices and weaker margins in its refining and chemicals businesses.

Net income attributable to the company fell to $2.65 billion, or $1.39 per share, for the first quarter ended March 31, from $3.64 billion, or $1.90 per share, a year earlier.

Earlier in the day, larger rival Exxon Mobil Corp reported earnings well below analysts’ estimates, as margins in its refining business were hurt by higher Canadian prices and heavy scheduled maintenance.

(Reporting by Arathy S Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)

Source: OANN

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