BERLIN – Police say they have rescued a 17-month-old boy three hours after he fell into a three-meter (nearly 10-foot) shaft in western Germany.
Rescue workers were called on Monday afternoon after the boy lifted a cover from the empty conduit while playing with his brother and fell inside the shaft.
German and U.S. military police helped oversee the operation in the village of Erzenhausen, which is near the United States' Ramstein Air Base.
Fire personnel used a small excavator to uncover the conduit as far as possible and then opened it up to free the toddler. The child was taken to a local hospital for observation and reported to be uninjured.
Social Security Administration (SSA) officials paid nearly $42 million to about 500 dead people in three states, according to Office of the Inspector General audits released in March.
Around 70 million people received more than $1 trillion of economic assistance through Social Security programs in fiscal year 2018. Payments end when the beneficiary dies, however.
The SSA identified 160 individuals who had possibly died, with 57 from Michigan from 1971 through 2010 and 103 from Maryland from 1979 through 2015. Around $16.9 million in payments were issued to 145 individuals who reportedly died in these states. The remaining 15 were alive.
There was an instance where a woman received payments for a person who died in 2000 and used it for personal benefit. She pleaded guilty for theft and was required to pay nearly $170,000 back to SSA. Another person also received Social Security benefits that was posted under the deceased person’s record since 1997. The beneficiary had died in 1974.
Pelosi and Schumer wouldn’t hear of any of it. Deceptively claiming it was President Trump and the Republicans that brought the government to a stalemate over the border wall debate. And even though the facts have been presented repeatedly. The left and its media lapdog choose to bend the truth.
A Texas audit found nearly $25 million in Social Security payments were given to 336 people and 18 representative payees who died in the state prior or during 2016.
Representative payees are generally family members or friends who manage Social Security payments for individuals who cannot handle it. Payees are required to be replaced once that individual dies, but that was not the case in Texas.
Nearly 43,000 Texas non-beneficiaries were also not listed in SSA’s death records as well.
SSA stopped handing out benefits to 95 of the 145 deceased beneficiaries in either Michigan or Maryland as of Jan. 9.
SSA conducted Michigan and Maryland’s audit in Baltimore between November 2017 and January while Texas’s report was done between February 2018 and January in Dallas.
HARARE, Zimbabwe – South Africa's president says he supports Zimbabwe's government, ignoring reports of human right abuses to crush persistent dissent in the neighboring country.
On a visit to Zimbabwe Tuesday, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa endorsed President Emmerson Mnangagwa, repeating calls for an end to Western sanctions and urging the international community to assist the once-prosperous country.
He described the sanctions against Mnangagwa and dozens of other top Zimbabwean officials as "unfair" and "unjust." He promised South Africa will assist Zimbabwe's economic recovery "within our means."
Ramaphosa's comments came as Human Rights Watch issued a report urging him and other southern African leaders to push Zimbabwe's president "to put an end to security force abuses."
A policeman stands in front of the Petrobras headquarters during a protest in Rio de Janeiro March 4, 2015. REUTERS/Sergio Moraes
March 19, 2019
RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) – The Brazilian government is likely to pay around $10 billion to state-run oil firm Petroleo Brasileiro SA to settle the so-called ‘transfer-of-rights’ dispute, newspaper Valor Economico reported on Tuesday, though the parties have not agreed on final terms.
The financial daily, citing a source with knowledge of the matter, said the payment was a reduction from a previous proposal of $14 billion. Valor in January had reported that the government had agreed on the higher figure, but the government subsequently denied the report.
The two sides are close to an agreement, the paper said, reiterating statements by public officials in recent weeks.
Petrobras, as the firm is widely known, did not respond to a request for comment. The economy ministry said that “the negotiations continue” and the final values “will be announced when they are agreed upon between parties.”
The transfer-of-rights dispute dates back to a 2010 deal between the government and Petrobras relating to a huge share offering that would have diluted the government’s stake.
To maintain control of the company, the government sold Petrobras the rights to explore 5 billion barrels of oil in an area off Brazil’s coast for 74.8 billion reais at the time. With that money, it bought additional Petrobras shares.
Brazil’s oil regulator now estimates there are around 17 billion barrels of recoverable oil in the area, and the government is seeking to auction rights for the exploration of the excess oil. First, the two sides need to resolve the dispute over the area, which will result in a significant payment to Petrobras.
On Friday, Economy Minister Paulo Guedes said – without specifying the currency – that Petrobras and the government had started off 60 billion apart in their negotiating positions, but were now only 2 billion apart. The figures likely refer to dollars, as the two sides at one point each believed they were owed $30 billion.
(Reporting by Gram Slattery; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Chizu Nomiyama)
Sen. Ted Cruz's attempt at humor regarding this week's devastating fire at the Notre Dame Cathedral fell flat Wednesday, as indicated by the massive pushback his comment received on Twitter.
The Texas Republican tweeted this two days after the fire, which caused the structure's roof to collapse and destroyed the main spire:
"Wonderful! Will we see Disney princesses in the new stained glass?"
Cruz was responding to another tweet that reported Disney has pledged to donate $5 million to the fund that will help Paris rebuild the cathedral.
Judging by the responses Cruz got, however, the joke did not go over so well.
Another Twitter user told Cruz, "you are pure evil."
Another wrote, "This is the grossest tweet we’ve ever seen on this site."
Said another Twitter user, "imagine taking a genuinely good thing and then making the world's stupidest, most insensitive statement to commend it."
One Twitter user who claims to be a Parisian wrote,
"I am a born & bred Parisian who watched sobbing the fire of Notre Dame. Just wanted to let you know the stained glass was spared by the fire (as you can see from this picture taken after the disaster). But now that I am here, I realise that you would make a perfect gargoyle."
FILE PHOTO: Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) participates in a news conference outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S., April 10, 2019. REUTERS/Jim Bourg/File Photo
April 15, 2019
By Susan Cornwell
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump attacked Democratic U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar as an “out of control” purveyor of “hate” speech on Monday before leaving for a visit to the state the Muslim-American represents in Congress.
Writing on Twitter, Trump blasted both Omar and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for defending Omar after he tweeted a video on Friday suggesting Omar had been dismissive of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
“Before Nancy, who has lost all control of Congress and is getting nothing done, decides to defend her leader, Rep. Omar, she should look at the anti-Semitic, anti-Israel and ungrateful U.S. HATE statements Omar has made,” Trump said. “She is out of control, except for her control of Nancy!”
Omar’s and Pelosi’s offices had no comment on Monday.
The Minnesota congresswoman said on Sunday evening that she had experienced “an increase in direct threats on my life – many directly referencing or replying to the president’s video.”
“Violent rhetoric and all forms of hate speech have no place in our society, much less from our country’s Commander in Chief. We are all Americans. This is endangering lives. It has to stop,” Omar wrote in a tweeted statement.
Marc Lotter, an adviser to Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign, denied Trump was inciting violence.
“I don’t think it is the president who’s putting her in danger. I think it’s her ill-thought-out words that she used to describe the greatest terror attack on the history of United States soil,” Lotter told CNN on Monday.
The video tweeted by Trump spliced news footage of 9/11 with a clip from a speech Omar gave last month in which she said “some people did something” in reference to the attacks.
Lawmakers from Trump’s Republican Party have accused Omar of minimizing the Sept. 11 attacks, while critics of the president say he took Omar’s words out of context in order to stoke anti-Muslim sentiment.
Later on Monday, Trump plans to visit a trucking company in Burnsville, Minnesota, about 15 miles (24 km) outside Minneapolis. The venue is in the state’s second congressional district, which is south of and partially adjacent to the fifth congressional district represented by Omar.
The Minnesota branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Muslim civil rights and advocacy group, will hold a rally in support of Omar outside the company.
Omar was speaking at a CAIR banquet in California in March when she made her controversial remarks about 9/11. Omar also said Muslims had “lived with the discomfort of being a second-class citizen and, frankly, I’m tired of it, and every single Muslim in this country should be tired of it.”
The White House said Sunday that Trump did not wish any harm in his Twitter post about Omar.
The House of Representatives approved a broad resolution condemning bigotry last month after remarks by Omar that some members of both parties viewed as anti-Semitic.
(Reporting by Susan Cornwell; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Tom Brown)
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FILE PHOTO: The Huawei logo is pictured outside its Huawei’s factory campus in Dongguan, Guangdong province, China, March 25, 2019. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu/File Photo
April 26, 2019
By Ben Blanchard
BEIJING (Reuters) – Britain must get to the bottom of the leak of confidential discussions during a top-level security meeting about the role of China’s Huawei Technologies in 5G network supply chains, British finance minister Philip Hammond said on Friday.
News that Britain’s National Security Council, attended by senior ministers and spy chiefs, had agreed on Tuesday to bar Huawei from all core parts of the country’s 5G network and restrict its access to non-core elements was leaked to a national newspaper.
The leak of secret discussions has sparked anger in parliament and amongst Britain’s intelligence community. Britain’s most senior civil servant Mark Sedwill has launched an inquiry and written to ministers who were at the meeting.
“My understanding from London (is) that an investigation has been announced into apparent leaks from the NSC meeting earlier this week,” said Hammond, speaking on the sidelines of a summit on China’s Belt and Road initiative in Beijing.
“To my knowledge there has never been a leak from a National Security Council meeting before and therefore I think it is very important that we get to the bottom of what happened here,” he told Reuters in a pooled interview.
British culture minister Jeremy Wright said on Thursday he could not rule out a criminal investigation. The majority of the ministers at the NSC meeting have said they were not involved, according to media reports.
Hammond said he was unaware of any previous leak from a meeting of the NSC.
“It’s not about the substance of what was apparently leaked. It’s not earth-shattering information. But it is important that we protect the principle that nothing that goes on in national security council meetings must ever be repeated outside the room.”
Allowing Huawei a reduced role in building its 5G network puts Britain at odds with the United States which has told allies not to use its technology at all because of fears it could be a vehicle for Chinese spying. Huawei has categorically denied this.
There have been concerns that the NSC’s conclusion, which sources confirmed to Reuters, could upset other allies in the world’s leading intelligence-sharing network – the Five Eyes alliance of the United States, Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.
However, British ministers and intelligence officials have said any final decision on 5G would not put critical national infrastructure at risk. Ciaran Martin, head of the cyber center of Britain’s main eavesdropping agency, GCHQ, played down any threat of a rift in the Five Eyes alliance.
(Writing by Michael Holden; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
Park Yoo-chun, a K-pop idol singer, arrives at the Suwon district court in Suwon, South Korea, April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji
April 26, 2019
SEOUL (Reuters) – K-pop and drama star Park Yu-chun was arrested on Friday on charges of buying and using illegal drugs, a court said, the latest in a series of scandals to hit the South Korean entertainment business.
Suwon District Court approved the arrest warrant for Park, 32, due to concerns over possible destruction of evidence and flight risk, a court spokesman told Reuters.
Park is suspected of having bought about 1.5 grams of methamphetamine with his former girlfriend earlier this year and using the drug around five times, an official at the Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency said.
Park has denied wrongdoing, saying he had never taken drugs, and he again denied the charges in court, Yonhap news agency said.
Park’s contract with his management agency had been canceled and he would leave the entertainment industry, Park’s management agency, C-JeS Entertainment, said on Wednesday.
Park was a member of boyband TVXQ between 2003 and 2009 before leaving the group with two other members, forming the group JYJ.
A scandal involving sex tapes, prostitutes and secret chat about rape led at least four other K-pop stars to quit the industry earlier this year.
The cases sparked a nationwide drugs bust and investigations into tax evasion and police collusion at night clubs and other nightlife spots.
(Reporting by Joyce Lee; Additional reporting by Heekyong Yang; Editing by Nick Macfie)
FILE PHOTO: An American Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 flight from Los Angeles taxis after landing at Reagan National Airport shortly after an announcement was made by the FAA that the planes were being grounded by the United States over safety issues in Washington, U.S. March 13, 2019. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts/File Photo
April 26, 2019
(Reuters) – American Airlines Group Inc cut its 2019 profit forecast on Friday, saying it expected to take a $350 million hit from the grounding of Boeing’s 737 MAX planes after cancelling 1,200 flights in the first quarter.
The company said it now expects its 2019 adjusted profit to be between $4.00 per share and $6.00 per share.
Analysts on average had expected 2019 earnings of $5.63 per share, according to Refinitiv data.
The No. 1 U.S. airline by passenger traffic said net income rose to $185 million, or 41 cents per share, in the first quarter ended March 31, from $159 million, or 34 cents per share, a year earlier.
Total operating revenue rose 2 percent to $10.58 billion.
2020 Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg speaks at a campaign event in Des Moines, Iowa, U.S., April 16, 2019. REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage
April 26, 2019
By James Oliphant
MARSHALLTOWN, Iowa (Reuters) – Four years ago, Donald Trump campaigned in small towns like Marshalltown, Iowa, vowing to restore economic prosperity to the U.S. heartland.
In his bid to replace Trump in the White House, Pete Buttigieg is taking a similar tack. The difference, he says, is that he can point to a model of success: South Bend, Indiana, the revitalized city where he has been mayor since 2012.
The Democratic presidential contender has vaulted to the congested field’s top tier in recent weeks, drawing media and donor attention for his youth, history-making status as the first openly gay major presidential candidate and a resume that includes military service in Afghanistan.
But Buttigieg’s main argument for his candidacy is that he is a turnaround artist in the mold of Trump, although the Democrat does not expressly invoke the comparison with the Republican president.
“I’m not going around saying we’ve fixed every problem we’ve got,” Buttigieg, 37, said after a house party with voters in Marshalltown. “But I’m proud of what we have done together, and I think it’s a very powerful story.”
Critics argue improving the fortunes of a Midwestern city of 100,000 people does not qualify Buttigieg, who has never held national office, for the presidency of a country of 330 million. Others say South Bend still has pockets of despair and that minorities, in particular, have failed to benefit from its growth.
Buttigieg has told crowds in Iowa and elsewhere that his experience in reviving a struggling Rust Belt community allows him to make a case to voters that other Democratic candidates cannot. That may give him the means to win back some of the disaffected Democratic voters who turned their backs on Hillary Clinton in 2016 to vote for Trump.
Watching Buttigieg at a union hall in Des Moines last week, Rick Ryan, 45, a member of the United Steelworkers, lamented how many of his fellow union workers voted for Trump. The president turned in the best performance by a Republican among union households since Ronald Reagan in 1984.
Ryan said he hoped someone like Buttigieg could return them to the Democratic fold.
“He’s aware of the decline in the labor force in America, not just in Indiana or Des Moines or anywhere else,” Ryan said. “Jobs are going overseas. We need a find to way to bring that back.”
Randy Tucker, 56, of Pleasant Hill, Iowa, a member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, said Trump appealed to union members “desperate for somebody to reach out to them, to help them, to listen to their voice.”
Buttigieg could do the same, he said. “In my heart right now, he’s No. 1.”
PAST VS. FUTURE
Buttigieg stresses a key difference in his and Trump’s approaches.
Trump, he tells crowds, is mired in the past, promising to rebuild the 20th century industrial economy. Buttigieg argues the pledge is misleading and unrealistic.
Buttigieg says his focus is on the future, and he often talks about what the country might look like decades from now.
“The only way that we can cultivate what makes America great is to look to the future and not be afraid of it,” Buttigieg said in Marshalltown.
Buttigieg knows his sexual preference may be a barrier to winning some blue-collar voters. But he notes that after he came out as gay in 2015, he won a second term as mayor with 80 percent of the vote in conservative Indiana.
Earlier this month, he announced his presidential bid at the hulking plant in South Bend that stopped making Studebaker autos more than 50 years ago. After lying dormant for decades, the building is being transformed into a high-tech hub after Buttigieg and other city leaders realized it would never again attract a large-scale industrial company.
“That building sat as a powerful reminder. We hoped we would get back that major employer that would fix our economy,” said Jeff Rea, president of the regional Chamber of Commerce.
Buttigieg is praised locally for spurring more than $100 million in downtown investment. During his two terms, unemployment has fallen to 4.1 percent from 11.8 percent.
But a study released in 2017 by the nonprofit group Prosperity Now said not all of the city’s residents had shared in its rebound. The median income for African-Americans remained half that of whites, while the unemployment rate for blacks was double.
Regina Williams-Preston, a city councilor running to replace Buttigieg as mayor, credits him for the revitalized downtown. But she said he had a “blind spot” when it came to focusing on troubled neighborhoods like the one she represents and only grew more engaged after community pressure.
“He understands it now,” she said. “The next step is figuring out how to open the doors of opportunity for everyone.”
‘ONE OF US’
Trump touts the fact that the United States added almost 300,000 manufacturing jobs last year as evidence he made good on his promise to restore the industrial sector. But that growth still left the country with fewer manufacturing jobs than in 2008.
The robust U.S. economy is likely the president’s greatest asset in his re-election bid, particularly in states he carried in 2016 such as Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. He won Buttigieg’s home state by 19 points over Clinton in 2016.
Sean Bagniewski, chairman of the Democratic Party in Polk County, Iowa, said Buttigieg would be well positioned to compete with Trump in the Midwest.
“People love the fact that he’s a mayor,” said Bagniewski, who has not endorsed a candidate in the nominating contest. “If you can talk about a positive future, and if you actually have experience that can do it, that’s a compelling vision in Iowa.”
Nan Whaley, the mayor of Dayton, Ohio, which faces many of the same challenges as South Bend, agreed.
“He’s one of us,” Whaley said. “That helps.”
(Reporting by James Oliphant; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Peter Cooney)
A man looks out at a flooded residential area in Gatineau, Quebec, Canada, April 24, 2019. REUTERS/Chris Wattie
April 26, 2019
MONTREAL/OTTAWA (Reuters) – Rising waters were prompting further evacuations in central Canada on Thursday, with the mayor of the country’s capital, Ottawa, declaring a state of emergency and Quebec authorities warning that a hydroelectric dam was at risk of breaking.
Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson declared the emergency in response to rising water levels along the Ottawa River and weather forecasts that called for significant rainfall on Friday.
In a statement on Twitter, Watson asked for help from the Ontario provincial government and the country’s military.
He warned that “flood levels are currently forecasted to exceed the levels that caused significant damage to numerous properties in the city of Ottawa in 2017.”
Spring flooding had killed one person and forced more than 900 people from their homes in Canada’s Quebec province as of 1 p.m. on Thursday, according to a government website.
Ottawa has received 80 requests for service related to potential flooding such as sandbagging, a city spokeswoman said.
The prospect of more rain over the next 24 to 48 hours triggered concerns on Thursday that the hydroelectric dam at Bell Falls in the western part of Quebec could be at risk of failing because of rising water levels.
Quebec’s provincial police said 250 people were protectively removed from homes in the area as of late afternoon in case the dam on the Rouge River breaks.
The dam is now at its full flow capacity of 980 cubic meters per second of water, said Francis Labbé, a spokesman for the province’s state-owned utility, Hydro Quebec. He said Hydro Quebec expected the flow could rise to 1,200 cubic meters per second of water over the next two days.
“We have to take the worst-case scenario into consideration, since we`re already at the maximum capacity,” Labbé said by phone.
The dam is part of a power station that no longer produces electricity, but is regularly inspected by Hydro Quebec, he said.
(Reporting by Allison Lampert in Montreal and David Ljunggren and Julie Gordon in Ottawa; Editing by James Dalgleish and Peter Cooney)
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