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Bernie Sanders announces top staffers in wake of shakeup

One month after Sen. Bernie Sanders launched his second straight bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, his campaign is announcing major staffing decisions.

The independent senator from Vermont on Tuesday formally announced a slate of national staffers. The move comes just four days after Sanders highlighted that his presidential campaign would be the first in history to unionize. And the announcements come three weeks after a major shakeup at the campaign, with several top advisers from Sanders’ 2016 White House bid heading for the exits.

SANDERS CAMPAIGN EXPERIENCES SHAKEUP ONE WEEK AFTER LAUNCH

Among the announcements on Tuesday was that Faiz Shakir is serving as campaign manager. Shakir – who’s been on the job managing the campaign for a couple of weeks – joined Sanders from the ACLU, where he served as national political director.

Shakir succeeds Jeff Weaver, who managed the senator’s 2016 White House bid. It was previously announced that Weaver would serve as senior adviser on the 2020 campaign.

Rene Spellman will serve as deputy campaign manager. Spellman – who joined Sanders from Creative Artists Agency (CAA) – is a veteran of Sanders 2016 run, where she worked as national director of traveling press and media logistics

Ari Rabin-Havt will serve as the campaign’s chief of staff, moving over from Sanders’ Senate office. He’s also a one-time senior adviser to former Vice President Al Gore and then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

STITCHES FOR SANDERS AFTER CUTTING HEAD ON SHOWER DOOR

Veteran labor and grassroots organizer Analilia Mejia will serve as national political director, with Progressive Change Campaign Committee veteran Sarah Badawi serving as deputy political director.

Also being formally announced are six 2016 campaign veterans: Claire Sandberg as national organizing director, Heather Gautney as senior policy adviser, Arianna Jones as communications director, Sarah Ford as deputy communications director, Tim Tagaris as senior adviser, and Robin Curran as digital fundraising director.

Josh Orton – a senior adviser in Sanders’ Senate office – was named policy director. Briahna Gray – a former attorney, columnist and senior politics editor at The Intercept – will serve as national press secretary. David Sirota – an investigative journalist – will serve as communications adviser and speechwriter. And Georgia Parke – who also worked in Sanders’ Senate office – will serve as social media strategist.

Late last month, just days after Sanders launched his campaign,  three of the top advisers who helped propel the senator's 2016 White House bid -- Tad Devine, Julian Mulvey and Mark Longabaugh – parted ways with the 2020 campaign.

Regardless of the shakeup, Sanders came out of the gate in strong position. He drew large crowds to his first two rallies in New York City and Chicago and along with former Vice President Joe Biden, who’s likely to announce his bid next month, is near the top of the public opinion polls.

The self-described democratic socialist also raised a whopping $5.9 million in his first 24 hours as a candidate. That was the largest fundraising haul by a 2020 Democratic presidential nomination candidate, until it was topped by former Rep. Beto O’Rourke of Texas, who last week hauled in $6.1 million on his first day as a White House contender.

Source: Fox News Politics

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Netanyahu, Ilhan Omar spar over role of AIPAC's political money: 'It’s not about the Benjamins'

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hit back Tuesday at Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., at the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) weeks after her remarks deemed anti-Semitic triggered controversy.

"Take it from this Benjamin: It’s not about the Benjamins!” Netanyahu said to the Washington conference via satellite in response to a tweet Omar posted in February.

Omar drew condemnation from members of both parties last month after she suggested in the tweet that AIPAC has been paying members of Congress to support Israel. She later apologized for the tweet —  and for other comments — but also insisted on what she called “the problematic role of lobbyists in our politics.”

TOP 2020 DEMS SNUB AIPAC CONFERENCE WITH LITTLE OR NO EXPLANATION, MARKING FAR-LEFT SHIFT ON ISRAEL

The Minnesota Democrat responded Tuesday to Netanyahu in a tweet: “This from a man facing indictments for bribery and other crimes in three separate public corruption affairs. Next!”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, clapped back hard at Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., with remarks via satellite Tuesday at the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in Washington. (Getty)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, clapped back hard at Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., with remarks via satellite Tuesday at the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in Washington. (Getty)

Weeks before elections in Israel, Netanyahu’s poll numbers have sagged since the announcement of a pending indictment on corruption charges.

"It’s because America and Israel share a love of freedom and democracy. It’s because we cherish individual rights and the rule of law," Netanyahu told AIPAC, as USA Today reported.

Netanyahu cut short a visit to the U.S. and rushed back to Israel on Tuesday to deal with the military response to Palestinian militants firing rockets at Israel this week.

Netanyahu on Monday visited the White House, where President Trump signed a proclamation recognizing Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which Israel occupied in 1967 and unilaterally annexed in 1981.

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The document reverses more than a half-century of U.S. policy.

Trump had previewed the move last week saying that it was time for the U.S. to take the step after 52 years of Israeli control of the strategic highlands on the border with Syria.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News Politics

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U.S. Republicans intensify counter-attack after Mueller probe

FILE PHOTO - U.S. President Trump meets with Fabiana Rosales, wife of Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido, at the White House in Washington
FILE PHOTO - U.S. President Donald Trump listens as he meets with Fabiana Rosales, wife of Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido, in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, U.S., March 27, 2019. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

March 27, 2019

By David Morgan and Steve Holland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A second U.S. Senate committee on Wednesday sought to examine the motives of federal agents and investigators who launched the Trump-Russia probe as a Republican effort gathered momentum to seek retribution on behalf of President Donald Trump.

Homeland Security Chairman Ron Johnson told Reuters he planned to join Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham, a fellow Republican, in a review of what motivated an investigation that led to U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s 22-month probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 election and possible collusion with the Trump campaign.

“How was this pushed by members of the FBI, Department of Justice and the intelligence community? We’re fully aware of the bias that existed in those agencies under the Obama administration,” Johnson said, referring to Democratic President Barack Obama, who preceded Trump.

“I’ve been talking to Senator Graham. I want to work hand-in-glove, our two committees, to try and get that information and make it public for the American people,” he told Reuters.

Trump, whose political stature has surged with the disclosure that Mueller did not find his campaign conspired with Russia to meddle in the election, has been calling for investigations into how the probe got started.

“He is on fire. Anybody who thinks this is going to go by the wayside does not understand the issue of retribution,” said a Trump confidant who speaks to the president regularly. “Hell hath no fury like a president scorned.”

Trump advisers predict Trump will make much of the matter at a rally for supporters in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Thursday, his first major appearance since the Mueller investigation concluded.

A Trump ally, Graham laid out plans for his own investigation this week and urged U.S. Attorney General William Barr to name a special counsel to look into the matter separately.

Trump still faces congressional investigations into his personal and business affairs. But Republicans are hoping Mueller’s findings will help Trump’s 2020 re-election prospects and rebound against his Democratic accusers.

A focus of Republican inquiries is a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant for former Trump adviser Carter Page, based in part on information in a dossier compiled by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer who co-founded a private intelligence firm.

Page, a foreign policy adviser during Trump’s campaign, drew scrutiny from the FBI, which said in legal filings in 2016 that it believed he had been “collaborating and conspiring” with the Kremlin. Page met with several Russian government officials during a trip to Moscow in July 2016. He was not charged.

Johnson also hopes to unearth facts about alleged discussions at the Justice Department both to surreptitiously record conversations with Trump and to approach Cabinet members about replacing him under the U.S. Constitution’s 25th amendment.

Johnson said federal law enforcement officials would have done better to approach Trump quietly about concerns they had involving members of his campaign.

Democrats have been calling for the release of Mueller’s full report, submitted on Friday to Barr, who issued a summary. Trump said he had been completely exonerated even though the report did not clear him on the question of obstructing justice.

During his investigation Mueller brought charges against 34 people, including Russian agents and former key Trump allies.

Asked about the Republican push to investigate the investigators, Democrat Jamie Raskin of the House Judiciary Committee said:

“There is a scramble to obscure the reality that nobody has seen the Mueller report yet. So, it was perfectly predictable that once they declared the president completely and totally exonerated by a report no one has read, they would turn in vindictive fashion to try to go after the people whoever raised questions about the president’s conduct.”

(Reporting by David Morgan; Additional reporting by Richard Cowan and Steve Holland; Editing by Howard Goller)

Source: OANN

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Guaido’s return to Venezuela to mark brazen defiance of Maduro

Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido speaks to the media in the area of a warehouse where humanitarian aid for Venezuela has been collected in Cucuta
FILE PHOTO: Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido, who many nations have recognized as the country's rightful interim ruler speaks to the media in the area of a warehouse where humanitarian aid for Venezuela has been collected in Cucuta, Colombia, February 23, 2019. REUTERS/Marco Bello

February 27, 2019

By Brian Ellsworth and Sarah Marsh

CARACAS (Reuters) – First he declared a rival presidency. Then he made a play for Citgo. Last weekend he flouted a court travel ban. Now, Juan Guaido says he is headed back home to Venezuela in another challenge to President Nicolas Maduro.

Guaido, recognized by most Western nations as the country’s legitimate leader, slipped into neighboring Colombia last week to lead an ultimately failed effort to bring humanitarian aid into the crisis-stricken country.

After meeting with regional leaders including U.S. Vice President Mike Pence in Bogota, Guaido is expected to come back through the porous border in the coming days and resume his political activities in open defiance of a Supreme Court order.

“I’m going to return to Caracas this week,” Guaido said in an interview with NTN24 broadcast on Tuesday. “My role and my duty is to be in Caracas despite the risks.”

He traveled last week from Caracas across the country in a caravan and then slipped into Colombia via back roads along the 2,200 km (1,367 miles) border, according to Colombian local media. Guaido said he received help from members of Venezuela’s armed forces.

Representatives for Guaido declined to disclose a timetable for his return or whether he will return the same way. To return via an official route would pose an even more brazen challenge to Maduro’s authority.

Maduro has faced regional condemnation this week for violently driving back the opposition’s attempts to bring in humanitarian aid. He denies there is a crisis despite overseeing a hyperinflationary economic meltdown that has spawned widespread food and medicine shortages.

Guaido’s return will force Maduro to decide whether to risk even greater international outrage by attempting to arrest the 35-year old congress chief or to allow him to openly disregard state institutions linked to the ruling Socialist Party.

“Trying to manage the Guaido situation has become a real problem for the government because (Guaido) has grown so much politically,” said Luis Salamanca, a political scientist and constitutional law professor at Venezuela’s Central University.

Guaido invoked articles of the constitution to assume an interim presidency in January, declaring Maduro a usurper following his 2018 re-election in a vote widely boycotted by the opposition.

State institutions including the chief prosecutor’s office, the Supreme Court, and the comptroller’s officer – all openly allied with Maduro – responded by opening investigations of Guaido.

But no state institution has sought his arrest or even formally accused him of a crime. So far authorities have only frozen his local bank accounts and prohibited foreign travel.

The ruling Socialist Party has in the past clipped the wings of opposition politicians, particularly charismatic challengers, by accusing them of irregularities in managing state funds.

Maduro said in an ABC News interview released on Tuesday that Guaido’s fate was up to the justice system: “He can’t just come and go. He will have to face justice, and justice prohibited him from leaving the country. I will respect the laws.”

Venezuela’s Information Ministry did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

Guaido said his team had a strategy should he be detained, without giving details on what that was.

“A prisoner doesn’t do anyone any good but neither does an exiled president so we are in uncharted waters here,” he said.

KEEPING UP MOMENTUM

Many Venezuelans credit Guaido, a fresh face, with capturing the international community’s attention through his bold move to swear himself in as interim president, galvanizing a once-fractured and weary opposition.

Maduro, who has described his rival as a U.S.-backed puppet, now faces severe international pressure including U.S. sanctions meant to cripple the OPEC nation’s vital oil industry.

“I hope he returns because he has shown himself to be a politician with strength, who has given us hope,” said Martha Sanchez, 65, a receptionist who has lost a third of her weight due to hyperinflation that has left her struggling to buy food on a minimum wage equivalent to less than $10 per month.

Guaido’s attempt to bring humanitarian aid into the country had in particular fueled her hope as she has been unable to find hypertension pills for sale over the past two months.

“No other candidate called for humanitarian aid before,” she said.

To be sure, Guaido’s team also faces a conundrum after that effort failed, allowing Maduro to declare victory even as the images of troops firing tear gas on convoys carrying aid sparked anger around the world.

Guaido’s team has won control over crucial offshore assets including U.S.-based refiner Citgo, but still does not control the ports or central bank, or, most crucially, the armed forces.

“If he doesn’t keep up momentum, he will end up being another failed leader of the opposition,” said Jesus Barreto, a 21-year old student. “He needs to keep challenging the government.”

Maduro’s government has largely allowed him to carry out political activities including rallies and press conferences, and appears unwilling to imprison him – even now that he has openly flouted a legal restriction placed upon him.

“I think they will hold off because it is much more sustainable over time to make your opponent seem ineffective than making yourself appear more like a dictator, especially when there is so much focus on you,” said Raul Gallegos, an analyst with the consultancy Control Risks.

(Reporting by Brian Ellsworth and Sarah Marsh; Additional reporting by Corina Pons and Vivian Sequera; Editing by Christian Plumb and Phil Berlowitz)

Source: OANN

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Texas to require elementary school students to learn how to write in cursive as part of new statewide curriculum

Texas will reintroduce cursive writing to the state curriculum for elementary students beginning in the 2019-2020 school year.

Second graders will learn how to write cursive letters, and third graders will be expected to "write complete words, thoughts, and answers legibly in cursive writing leaving appropriate spaces between words," according to the updated Texas Education Code. By the time they reach the fourth grade, students will be required to write legibly and complete assignments in cursive.

BARCELONA SCHOOLS REMOVE CLASSIC FAIRYTALES ‘LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD,’ ‘SLEEPING BEAUTY’ FOR BEING SEXIST

The State Board of Education modified the "English Language Arts and Reading" section of Texas’ standard education requirements, known as Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills or TEKS in 2017, reported WCNC. The list of updated curriculum requirements, including the instruction of cursive writing, will be implemented in Texas schools beginning in September 2019.

Diane Schallert, a professor in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, compared learning cursive to learning a new language. Schallert, who studies how language and learning coincide, told WCNC that requiring students to learn cursive can help children grow their comprehension skills.

"With language comprehension, there's this reciprocity between producing and comprehending," Schallert said. "By seeing the letter being formed slowly at your control, you're considering its sound-symbol correspondence."

While the psychology professor sees the value in learning cursive at a young age, admitting that she herself began to write in cursive as a first grader, Schallert added that adjusting a statewide curriculum can be challenging. If teachers are required to teach cursive, there is less time available to instruct students on other subjects.

"There's only so much time in the day," Schallert said. "Whatever you decide to put into the curriculum, you're deciding to take something out. It's a big decision to decide to exclude it or include it. That's hard."

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The majority of school districts in the state currently do not teach students how to write in cursive. Beginning in the 2019-2020 school year, elementary school students in every Texas school district will be instructed in cursive writing.

Source: Fox News National

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Macron’s Great Debate shows need to cut taxes faster, says French PM

French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe leaves after his speech during the presentation of the
French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe leaves after his speech during the presentation of the "Great National Debate" findings, called to quell the anger of French "yellow vests" movement, at the Grand Palais in Paris, France, April 8, 2019. REUTERS/Charles Platiau

April 8, 2019

By Jean-Baptiste Vey

PARIS (Reuters) – French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said that after three months of public debate it was that clear tax cuts must be speeded up to quell the widespread anger over high living costs that has fueled anti-government protests.

In an act of political theater on Monday, Philippe was presenting the findings from two million online contributions and 10,000 hours of town hall debates that President Emmanuel Macron must now digest and respond to with policy moves.

Four broad needs emerged, the prime minister said: renewing ties between Paris and the regions, making the political process more relevant for citizens, responding better to climate change, and easing the tax burden.

“The debate clearly shows us in which direction we need to go: we need to lower taxes and lower them faster,” Philippe said in a speech in the Grand Palace in Paris.

Planned increases to a fuel tax prompted five months of “yellow vest” protests nationwide and the worst rioting Paris has witnessed since the 1968 student uprising, though the discontent swiftly turned into a broader backlash against inequality and an aloof political elite.

More violence in mid-March reminded Macron that putting his reform agenda back on track would not be easy and the unrest could damage his party’s European election campaign.

The “yellow vests” remain an amorphous group with varied demands, including higher salaries, better public services, and more power for voters on policy decisions.

Tight public finances mean Macron has limited wriggle room.

“The French have understood … that we cannot lower taxes if we don’t lower public spending,” Philippe said.

The debates reinvigorated Macron, who rolled up his sleeves and held forth for up to seven hours at a time with high-school students, mayors and working mothers, as well as intellectuals and philosophers.

Polls showed only a tentative recovery in Macron’s weak popularity, so the stakes are high for him and his prime minister.

New policy measures are yet to be decided and could be put to a plebiscite. The option of a referendum – which has the advantage of responding to the yellow vests’ demand for more people’s votes – remains on the table.

Nonetheless, Ingrid Levavasseur, who pulled out of leading a “yellow vest” list for the European elections because of internal divisions within the movement, doubted the debates would produce meaningful reform.

“I count myself among the skeptics,” she told Reuters

(Additional reporting and writing by Richard Lough; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Source: OANN

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What stood out in the February U.S. jobs report

A job seeker fills out an application at a job fair at the Denver Workforce Center in Denver
FILE PHOTO: A job seeker fills out an application at a job fair at the Denver Workforce Center in Denver, Colorado, U.S. February 15, 2017. REUTERS/Rick Wilking

March 8, 2019

By Dan Burns

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Headline U.S. job growth hit the brakes in February, registering the smallest gain since September 2017 and the third-smallest during the unprecedented run of 101 consecutive months of payrolls gains.

Here are five factors that stood out in the Labor Department’s report.

A ONE-OFF OR START OF A WEAKENING TREND?

The big question on the minds of economists and investors is whether February was an anomaly or the start of cyclical weakening in the U.S. job market.

Since the uninterrupted employment expansion began in October 2010, the only two weaker months than February’s 20,000 increase were in May 2016 at 15,000 and September 2017 at 18,000. In both cases, job growth snapped back the next month, rising by more than 250,000 in both cases.

Graphic: U.S. job gains stall – will they bounce back – https://tmsnrt.rs/2Un9XbP

PRIME-AGE WORKFORCE IS GROWING … AND CHANGING

The workforce participation rate among prime working-age adults between 25 and 54 years old is around the highest since 2010 at 82.5 percent, much higher than the overall participation rate of 63.2 percent.

Moreover, its slow recovery has been led by prime-age women more so than men, reflecting a long-running change in the makeup of the American workforce. The female participation rate is 75.9 percent, up 2.6 percentage points from its low in 2015, but the male rate has risen by just 1.5 points from its trough in 2014.

That recently drove the workforce gender gap to a record low, and February’s reading is only just off that.

Graphic: U.S. workforce participation – https://tmsnrt.rs/2CaJ03X

WAGE GAINS ARE ACCELERATING

The yearly increase in average hourly earnings was the biggest since 2009 at 3.4 percent, but that reflects a wide range of pay rise rates across different business sectors.

Manufacturing pay growth was the weakest at just 2.63 percent, while wages in the tech sector grew near the fastest in decades at around 6 percent.

Graphic: U.S. wage growth – https://tmsnrt.rs/2NPj8iR

LEAVING THE EMPLOYMENT SIDELINES

As the headline unemployment rate dropped to 3.8 percent, near a five-decade low, a wider measure of people who are marginally attached to the workforce – the so-called U6 rate – fell by the most since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began tracking it in 1994.

February’s reading of 7.3 percent was the lowest since 2001.

Some economists believe that the recent pickup in wage growth has motivated these individuals to check back into the labor force after a prolonged absence.

Graphic: Back in the workforce – https://tmsnrt.rs/2UnbMFH

Graphic: The draw of better pay? https://tmsnrt.rs/2NRzvvd

NORTHERN EXPOSURE?

February’s big miss on U.S. payroll growth – job gains had been estimated at 180,000 – was not replicated by America’s neighbor to the north.

Canada created nearly 56,000 jobs last month when no gains had been forecast.

Moreover, it was the first time since 2012 that Canadian payrolls growth topped U.S. gains. The margin of 25,900 was the largest since 2010.

Graphic: Whoah Canada! – https://tmsnrt.rs/2CbRNml

(Reporting by Dan Burns; Editing by Andrea Ricci)

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)

Source: OANN

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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)

Source: OANN

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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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