Upcoming shows
Real News

NOW ON AIR
Now On Air

Real News with David Knight

9:00 am 12:00 pm



Maga First News

Upcoming Shows

Join The MAGA Network on Discord

0 0

Study: Hearing Loss Means Higher Risk of Drug, Alcohol Issues

People under age 50 with hearing loss misuse prescription opioids at twice the rate of their hearing peers, and are also more likely to misuse alcohol and other drugs, a new national study finds.

This means that health care providers may need to take special care when treating pain and mental health conditions in deaf and hard-of-hearing young adults, the researchers say.

Writing in the April issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, a team from the University of Michigan and VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System describe their findings from data on 86,186 adults who took part in the National Survey on Drug Use and Health.

In all, adults under 50 with hearing loss were more likely than others in their age group to have a substance use disorder of any kind, while those over 50 with hearing loss did not differ from their peers in rates of substance issues.


Is the war on drugs “mutually assured destruction?”

Even after the researchers adjusted for differences in social, economic and mental health between the hearing and hard-of-hearing populations, the differences remained. Adults under age 35 with a hearing loss were two and a half times more likely to have a prescription opioid use disorder.

Those between age 35 and 49 who had hearing loss were nearly twice as likely as their hearing peers to have disorders related to both prescription opioids and alcohol.

Michael McKee, M.D., M.P.H., led the research effort after noticing that a disproportionate share of his younger patients with hearing loss were struggling with substance use disorders.

McKee runs the Deaf Health Clinic that provides primary care and mental health care to d/Deaf and hard-of-hearing patients of Michigan Medicine, U-M’s academic medical center.

“Hearing loss is connected with a variety of health problems, including mental and physical health, that may place these individuals at risk for pain disorders,” says McKee. “Also, the marginalizing effects of hearing loss, such as social isolation, may be creating higher rates of substance use disorders too.”

For those whose health care providers know of their hearing loss, McKee suspects that the higher rate of prescription opioid use disorder may stem from a higher rate of being placed on controlled substances to quickly address pain issues, perhaps because of communication barriers.

“It may be easier to write a prescription rather than engage in complex patient-provider communication between a hearing provider and non-hearing patient,” he says.

(Photo by Creative Commons Zero – CC0 / Max Pixel)

But the research suggests that part of the issue may be lack of awareness by health care providers of their younger patients’ degree of hearing loss.

In all, five percent of adults of all ages taking part in the survey said they had serious hearing loss or were deaf. The proportion ranged from 1.5 percent of those under age 35, to 2.2 percent of those between 35 and 49, to 9.4 percent of those over 50.

McKee, a U-M Department of Family Medicine physician who uses a cochlear implant to offset his own hearing loss, says health care providers may be more attuned to potential communication and prescription concerns with older patients. This would mean they would be more likely to avoid many of the prescription use disorders seen in the other two age categories.

“We need to first inquire and ensure effective and accessible communication with our patients. We need to be willing to engage in a dialogue to explore the root of their pain/mental health issues rather than just dispensing a prescription that may lead to dependency or addiction,” he says.

This means providers should use “universal communication precautions” – approaching each patient without assumptions about their communication abilities, assessing for hearing loss and other communication-related issues, and determining how to accommodate each patient.

McKee also notes that lack of access to addiction-related care for deaf and hard-of-hearing patients may play a role.


Now that Bayer has merged with Monsanto, they’re releasing a new version of the infamous product “Round-Up” called “Barricor.” Alex points out how this is a tactic used in the past to relaunch something horrible.

Source: InfoWars

0 0

Ex-NFL running back Wood charged in murder of 5-year-old

A Las Vegas judge expressed shock at the severity of injuries found on a 5-year-old girl whose death led to murder and child abuse charges against her mother and mother's former NFL player boyfriend.

Justice of the Peace Melanie Andress-Tobiasson denied bail Tuesday to Amy Taylor and former running back Cierre Wood pending a May 21 preliminary hearing.

Prosecutor Michelle Jobe said a grand jury is expected to hear evidence about the April 9 death of La'Ryah Davis.

The Clark County coroner determined she had a lacerated liver, broken ribs and died of multiple injuries. Her death was ruled a homicide.

Attorneys for both defendants declined comment outside court.

Wood played for Houston, New England, Buffalo, and in the Canadian Football League.

___

Information from: KLAS-TV, http://www.klas-tv.com

Source: Fox News National

0 0

Dems need an answer on the border


**Want FOX News Halftime Report in your inbox every day? Sign up here.**

On the roster: Dems need an answer on the border - Beto calls Bibi a racist - Buttigieg shares the struggle behind his coming out - Mulvaney: Voters will ‘never’ see Trump’s taxes  - ‘That's frickin’ sweet’

DEMS NEED AN ANSWER ON THE BORDER
There are a lot of reasons that President Trump probably wanted to ditch Kirstjen Nielsen as homeland security secretary. She’s a by-the-numbers holdover from former Chief of Staff John Kelly, and not a good fit for a corner-cutting showman of a president.

But the biggest reason is the most obvious: Trump has yet to deliver on his most important campaign promise of securing the southern border.

Trump’s political exposure on the subject is certainly mitigated by the fact that his supporters blame Democrats primarily for the worsening situation along our border with Mexico. In their minds, the fact that Democrats were willing to keep the government shut down for 35 days rather than give Trump a few billion dollars more for some wall/fence/steel slats is proof enough from Team MAGA.

But as it is with many things, Trump’s main advantage on this subject is that Democrats can’t seem to address it in a sensible way.

As the consensus grows that the surge of refugees at the southern border constitutes a crisis, Democrats remain flat footed on the subject. It was fine to denounce Immigration and Customs Enforcement for the mistreatment of children and families and probably even politically useful to mock Trump’s fixation on a “big, beautiful wall,” that’s not going to be enough.

We don’t know what direction Trump will take now that Nielsen is out of the way, but it seems like a sure bet that he will not be vulnerable to accusations of minimizing the threat.

Democrats have succumbed to the temptation that believing since Trump is intemperate and xenophobic sounding in his remarks on immigration it is enough for them to simply denounce his bluster and condemn his policies as cruelty.

There is no sign of things getting any better at the border any time soon. That means that as Democrats are wrestling their way through their primaries, voters will be confronting more bad news and more alarming images from the border. Candidates will need to have an answer.

THE RULEBOOK: WHEN WILL WE LEARN?
“All violent policy, as it is contrary to the natural and experienced course of human affairs, defeats itself.” – Alexander HamiltonFederalist No. 25

TIME OUT: SMOKE GETS IN YOUR EYES 
Garden & Gun:Sam Edwards III will be the first to admit it—the past three years have been hard. On January 19, 2016, his family’s decades-old Edwards Virginia Smokehouse went up in flames, leaving the facility destroyed. ‘In my lifetime, I’d never heard of it happening—a fire wiping out an entire ham house,’ says Edwards, the third-generation cure master to run the business his grandfather founded in 1926. In the immediate aftermath, Harper’s Country Hams of Clinton, Kentucky, was one of the first to step in, offering to take over Edwards’ production until the company got back on its feet in their Surry, Virginia, home base. Almost exactly a year later, the unthinkable happened again: Harper’s plant caught fire, too, and both families’ inventories were lost. Even in the face of that kind of devastation, Edwards hasn’t wavered in his determination to restore his historic operation to its former glory.”

Flag on the play? - Email us at HALFTIMEREPORT@FOXNEWS.COM with your tips, comments or questions.

SCOREBOARD
Trump job performance 
Average approval: 
42.6 percent
Average disapproval: 52.8 percent
Net Score: -10.2 points
Change from one week ago: no change 
[Average includes: NBC/WSJ: 43% approve - 53% disapprove; Pew Research Center: 41% approve - 55% disapprove; NPR/PBS/Marist: 44% approve - 50% disapprove; Quinnipiac University: 39% approve - 55% disapprove; Fox News: 46% approve - 51% disapprove.]

BETO CALLS BIBI A RACIST 
WaPo: “Democratic presidential hopeful Beto O’Rourke on Sunday described Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a ‘racist’ whose outreach to far-right interests as he seeks to hang onto political power has seriously damaged the chances of peace in the Middle East. Speaking at a town hall here at the University of Iowa, the former Texas congressman denounced Netanyahu’s pledge Saturday that he would annex Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank if he wins another term in Tuesday’s Israeli general election. Netanyahu’s proposed annexation, O’Rourke said, ‘will make peace in the long term impossible.’ In response to a voter’s question about his policy toward Israel and Palestinian rights, O’Rourke reiterated his support for a two-state solution and accused Netanyahu of having ‘joined forces with far-right parties who are inherently racist in their speech and the way that they want to treat their fellow human beings in that part of the world.’”

Betomania subsides - Politico: “Yet by the time he left the state on Sunday, it was also clear that the euphoria that greeted [Beto] Rourke’s entry into the race three weeks earlier has started to subside. The inevitable slog of competing in a packed Democratic primary is underway, and O’Rourke has not yet drawn the wave of national adulation from the left that his Senate run against Ted Cruz last year received. ‘He’s going to have to do the work,’ said Scott Brennan, an Iowa Democratic National Committee member and a former state party chairman. ‘And it isn’t all breathless, 300-person crowds.’ … O’Rourke has seen little movement in polls since he announced. … And while O’Rourke sprinted from college campuses and coffee shops to house parties across Iowa, a more established contender, Bernie Sanders, was drawing even larger audiences here.

BUTTIGIEG SHARES THE STRUGGLE BEHIND HIS COMING OUT 
NBC News: “Pete Buttigieg may not become president or win the Democratic primary, but he's already broken a barrier by delving publicly and intimately into his struggle with his own sexuality in a way no other serious presidential candidate has. In a speech before an audience of LGBT rights supporters on Sunday, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, did not describe being gay as something he always believed was acceptable. Nor did he dismiss lingering questions about his viability as a presidential candidate in a country in which three in 10 adults still say they have some reservations or would be very uncomfortable with a gay candidate, according to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll in February. Instead, he described wrestling with his sexual orientation as ‘a kind of war’ — one he said he was only able to win when he came home from serving in Afghanistan.”

BERNIE WARMS TO THE FRONTRUNNER ROLE 
AP: “Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is quieting critics who questioned whether he could recapture the energy of his upstart 2016 campaign, surpassing his rivals in early fundraising and establishing himself as an indisputable front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination. Less than two months into his second White House bid, no other declared candidate in the crowded Democratic field currently has amassed so many advantages: a $28 million war chest, a loyal and enthusiastic voter base and a set of clearly defined policy objectives. That puts Sanders on markedly different footing than during his first White House run, creating new challenges for a candidate whose supporters relish his role as an underdog and an outsider. He now carries the weight of high expectations and will face heightened scrutiny over everything from the cost and feasibility of his government-funded policy proposals to his tax returns, which he has not yet released.”

Bernie wants felons to vote while still in prison - Fox News: “Sen. Bernie Sanders has long fought to restore voting rights for felons who’ve completed their prison sentences. Now the presidential candidate wants to go a big step further – arguing that those currently behind bars should be able to vote too. Asked on the campaign trail in Muscatine, Iowa on Saturday if those imprisoned should have the right to vote, the independent senator from Vermont who’s making his second straight bid for the Democratic nomination answered: ‘I think that is absolutely the direction we should go.’ ‘In my state, what we do is separate. You’re paying a price, you committed a crime, you’re in jail. That's bad,’ Sanders explained. ‘But you’re still living in American society and you have a right to vote. I believe in that, yes, I do.’”

BOOKER FUNDRAISING LAGS FRONTRUNNERS 
WaPo: “Sen. Cory Booker has raised more than $5 million in the two months since he announced his 2020 plans, the presidential candidate’s campaign said Sunday. Booker’s haul, while competitive, puts him behind other Democratic White House aspirants, including former Texas congressman Beto O’Rourke, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Sen. Kamala D. Harris (Calif.) and South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg. Booker’s campaign said 82 percent of the donors gave to the senator for the first time and the average online contribution was $34. The New Jersey Democrat, who was first elected to the Senate in a 2013 special election, raised $17.7 million to win a full term one year later.”

Bennet says nothing funny about Biden touchy contretemps - Politico: “Likely Democratic presidential contender Michael Bennet on Sunday criticized former Vice President Joe Biden for joking about the controversy swirling around his touchy, avuncular style that some women say made them uncomfortable. ‘I don't think anyone should make jokes about it,’ the Colorado senator told CNN's Jake Tapper on ‘State of the Union.’ ‘This is an important time in our country's history when women are coming forward and able to say when they've been made to feel uncomfortable, whether in a sexual way or a nonsexual way. People's voices should be heard on that.’ … On whether the controversy should disqualify Biden from another presidential bid, Bennet said that would be up to voters to decide.”

Elizabeth Weil: ‘Kamala Harris takes her shot’ - Atlantic: “She delivers her talking points while dressed, as she always is, in her uniform of dark suit, pearls, black heels. I know—you think I shouldn’t be writing about her clothes. But the clothes themselves are a smart, cautious play, one that Hillary Clinton, frankly, could have benefited from. If you wear the same outfit every single day, pretty soon the haters will run out of snarky things to say about your appearance and move on.”

MULVANEY: VOTERS WILL ‘NEVER’ SEE TRUMP’S TAXES 
Fox News: “Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney told ‘Fox News Sunday’ in an exclusive interview that Democrats will ‘never’ see President Trump's tax returns, days after a House Democrat committee chairman made the unprecedented demand that the IRS provide the documents. Mulvaney's comments marked an apparent escalation in the White House's rhetoric on the issue. On Wednesday, Trump responded with a dismissive taunt to Democrats' renewed push for his tax information, but suggested he might be willing to provide the information pending the conclusion of an audit. ‘Oh no, never -- nor should they,’ Mulvaney told Bill Hemmer, who is filling in for host Chris Wallace, when asked if Democrats will ever see the president's tax returns. ‘That’s an issue that was already litigated during the election. Voters knew the president could have given his tax returns. They knew that he didn’t and they elected him anyway.’”

Republicans ready to spend big on Jewish voters - Politico: “Republicans are planning a multimillion-dollar offensive aimed at fracturing the Democratic Party’s decades long stranglehold on the Jewish vote. Spearheading the push is the Republican Jewish Coalition, which receives substantial funding from casino mogul and GOP mega donor Sheldon Adelson. … The investment, people familiar with the early discussions said, will far surpass what the group spent in past presidential elections. With Democrats embroiled in a wrenching internal debate over anti-Semitism and support for Israel, Republicans are moving to capitalize with an aggressive campaign painting Trump — who has himself faced accusations of stoking anti-Semitism — as a fierce and unapologetic defender of the Jewish state.”

PLAY-BY-PLAY
House freshmen Dems raising big numbers already WashEx

GOP senators slated to tackle health care take a passPolitico

Barr to face questions this week from Hill committees on Muller release - Roll Call

House Dems look to resolve months long fight over disaster funds - Politico

AUDIBLE: DINGERS 
“I’m a sports fan.” – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi swatting away a question from USA Today about how her fellow House Democrats say the stack of San Francisco Giants baseball bats in her office symbolize her propensity for knocking heads.   

FROM THE BLEACHERS
“This is a suggestion for more research and commentary by Fox News. Running for President as an independent candidate without an existing formal structure and legal status of a political party is very difficult as best. Mass media exposure is one thing. However, every state has its own particular laws, regulations or requirements in order to obtain one's name on the ballot. Normally, political parties provide this service and coordinate with the state Secretary of State or other appropriate bureaucrat. Independents start from the beginning during the already very busy political campaign season. I had a friend who worked full time on Ross Perot's staff. He spent an enormous amount of time, energy, and money moving all over the country. He organized supporters, circulated petitions, and worked with the electoral officials. My friend was a hard working, able, experienced person. He was retired career military officer among other things. Put simply, it is my neutral, non-partisan opinion that Mr. Perot had a nearly impossible task. And, Mr. Schultz will do no better.” – Terry Simmons, Reno, Nev.

[Ed. note: On Feb. 20, 1992 during an appearance on Larry King’s television show – where else? – Perot issued a challenge to his supporters: If they could get his name on the ballot in all 50 states, he would run for president. This was also a challenge to the people working for him at his United We Stand group, which I assume includes your friend. They completed their work seven months later, a pretty impressive clip, especially at a time where ballot access was more restrictive and without the technology to organize that we have today. Unfortunately for them, Perot had already spectacularly, bizarrely dropped out of the race that summer before ever officially entering it. But when supporters delivered on the 50-state promise, Perot belatedly jumped in and still ended up with nearly 20 percent of the vote. I think that if Schultz were to put in the hundreds of millions of dollars he has discussed and make a decision on his current timetable of sometime this summer I would think he would have ample time to make the ballot in all 50 states. Whether there would be enough people who cared about that in order to make it consequential is another matter…]     

“Chris, When pollsters ask questions about income tax policy shouldn’t they restrict the questions to people who are actually paying taxes? It doesn’t make sense to ask someone who isn’t paying income taxes if the rich should pay more. Seems obvious how the majority of those people who don’t have skin in the game would respond to the question.” – Bob Steinen, Abingdon, Md.

[Ed. note: But they do vote, Mr. Steinen. That would be like asking only military members what they think of foreign policy or only women what the laws on abortion should be. And as Republicans deride an appetite for socialism and high taxation among Democratic candidates, conservatives would do well to remember that such things as those are actually quite popular, and not just among the nearly half of adults who don’t pay federal income taxes. It’s not enough to scoff.]   

Share your color commentary: Email us at HALFTIMEREPORT@FOXNEWS.COM and please make sure to include your name and hometown.

‘THAT'S FRICKIN’ SWEET’
KRIV: “A Visalia man has gotten pretty used to getting weird looks on the streets, as he drives around a jet ski on dry land. Nick Stemple says he put a jet ski's body right onto a scooter. He calls it ‘Scootski.’ ‘[My friend] built his, and I was just like, ‘That's frickin sweet' and I had to have one,’’ said Stemple. And now that Stemple has his own Scootski, he's never going back. ‘I love this thing! I've gotten rid of my other motorcycles. I ride this every single day,’ said Stemple. Stemple says he got a Honda Elite off Craig's List. His friend had the jet ski. And after about two months of work, he had Scootski. ‘The first question I always get it ‘Does that thing float on water?’ And I always say, ‘No, there's a huge hole at the bottom of it,’’ said Stemple. Scootski goes up to about 70 miles an hour, and get around 30 or 40 miles to the gallon. Stemple rides the thing anywhere and everywhere - even the highway.”

AND NOW, A WORD FROM CHARLES…
“[Ret. Gen. JohnKelly is exerting his authority. He's been given authority. I have to say, Scaramucci, we hardly knew. Though, I think he would be a better contestant on Dancing with the Stars than Spicey would. So I think it's an upgrade for them.” – Charles Krauthammer (1950-2018) speaking on “Special Report with Bret Baier” on July 31, 2017.

Chris Stirewalt is the politics editor for Fox News. Brianna McClelland contributed to this report. Want FOX News Halftime Report in your inbox every day? Sign up here.

Source: Fox News Politics

0 0

Japan finance minister says mergers are ‘one option’ for ailing regional banks

Japan's Finance Minister Taro Aso attends the G20 Finance and Central Bank Deputies Meeting in Tokyo
Japan's Finance Minister Taro Aso attends the G20 Finance and Central Bank Deputies Meeting in Tokyo, Japan January 17, 2019. REUTERS/Issei Kato

April 5, 2019

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso said on Friday mergers could be one option for the country’s regional banks – struggling with squeezed profits amid prolonged low interest rates – to improve financial services.

Aso, who also serves as minister overseeing the financial services watchdog, made the comment days after an advisory panel to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe discussed a plan to ease antitrust rules that would enable some regional banks to merge.

“We will review oversight guidelines to urge improvement in management at an early stage. Regional financial institutions are fit right now, but we need to consider the way to respond,” Aso told reporters after a cabinet meeting.

“To maintain financial services mergers could be an option.”

The current legislation focuses on what the market share of the combined entity would be to determine whether it would hurt competition.

To address this concern, the government is likely to ease merger rules on a temporary basis and strengthen the monitoring of newly merged banks to ensure they do not abuse their larger share of local lending.

Profitability at regional banks has taken a hit as the Bank of Japan’s super-loose monetary policy has triggered a collapse in spreads between lending rates and financing rates, which depresses bank margins.

BOJ’s ultra-easy monetary policy is making it tough for commercial banks to earn profits out of lending, a problem that cannot be fixed through bank mergers, the chairman of a major regional bank in southern Japan told Reuters last month.

In light of growing concern over the plight of regional banks, the Financial Services Agency on Wednesday proposed rules to expand its oversight of regional banks, including broad stress tests, with more focus on lenders’ future profitability.

(Reporting by Tetsushi Kajimoto; Editing by Sam Holmes)

Source: OANN

0 0

APNewsbreak: Police say immigrant suspect killed for drugs

A detective says a Salvadoran immigrant charged with four Nevada murders told police he robbed and killed his elderly victims during a 10-day rampage in January because he needed money to buy methamphetamine.

The detective told the grand jury, which indicted Wilber Ernesto Martinez-Guzman in Reno last week, the 20-year-old who is living in the U.S. illegally broke into tears and repeatedly called himself an "idiot" before confessing to the murders during an interrogation hours after his arrest in Carson City on Jan. 19.

According to the grand jury transcript obtained by The Associated Press, Washoe County Sheriff's Detective Stefanie Brady testified March 13 that Martinez-Guzman initially denied any wrongdoing and was smiling and giggling through part of the questioning.

But after she confronted him with several contradictions in his story during a nearly three-hour interrogation, he said through a Spanish interpreter he had "done something that's unforgiveable."

She says he told her he shot the victims "because of the drugs."

"He said he needed the money for the meth and it was the meth," Brady testified, according to the 268-page transcript filed late Tuesday in Washoe District Court.

The grand jury indicted Martinez-Guzman last week on four counts of murder with the use of a deadly weapon, three counts of burglary while in possession of a firearm and one count each of burglary, burglary while gaining possession of a firearm and possession of a stolen firearm.

A not guilty plea was entered on his behalf during an arraignment Tuesday. His trial isn't scheduled to begin until April 2020.

His public defense attorney, John Arrascada, did not immediately respond Wednesday to messages seeking comment.

Federal officials have said Martinez-Guzman is in the U.S. illegally but they don't know how or when he crossed the border.

The case has drawn the attention of President Donald Trump, who says it shows the need for a border wall.

District Attorneys Chris Hicks of Washoe County and Mark Jackson of Douglas County announced last week they are seeking the death penalty but that Martinez-Guzman's immigration status had nothing to do with that decision.

The four slaying victims include Gerald David, 81, and his 80-year-old wife, Sharon David, a prominent Reno Rodeo Association couple who had employed Martinez-Guzman as a landscaper last summer at their house where they were found dead Jan. 16.

Police say they were shot with a .22-caliber handgun that Martinez-Guzman stole from them earlier.

Court documents allege that Martinez-Guzman's DNA was found on the same gun that was also used to kill Connie Koontz and Sophia Renken in their homes in Gardnerville south of Carson City.

Detective Brady told the grand jury that Martinez-Guzman was "engaging" and made "lots of eye contact" during the early stages of the interrogation at the Carson City sheriff's office.

"He smiled, kind of giggled through some of the questions. But he was very engaged in the conversation," she said.

After she read him his Miranda rights, "he actually acknowledged that he was fine not having an attorney because he hadn't done anything wrong," she said.

He indicated he had buried "a bunch of stuff" that he found by a river in Carson City. But when she confronted him about several contradictions, his answers became slower, his body posture was more slumped and he started touching his face uncontrollably.

When she asked him about some fishing poles that had been stolen from the Davids, "there was a really long pause. And at that point, he had dropped his head and began to cry with long deep breaths."

"He talked about how he was an idiot. He repeated that several times," Brady testified. "He talked about how he had done something that's unforgiveable."

"He said ... something about if he tells me what he did, it's not going to bring back the people that he shot," she said, and then shortly after that blamed the killings on his need for money to buy drugs.

She said he initially denied he killed Renken, but ultimately acknowledged he shot her too.

Source: Fox News National

0 0

Soccer: Players don’t have faith in system to tackle racism – Southgate

Euro 2020 Qualifier - Group A - Montenegro v England
FILE PHOTO: Soccer Football - Euro 2020 Qualifier - Group A - Montenegro v England - Podgorica City Stadium, Podgorica, Montenegro - March 25, 2019 England manager Gareth Southgate before the match Action Images via Reuters/Carl Recine

March 27, 2019

(Reuters) – Some England players feel there is no point reporting racist abuse due to a lack of faith in the system, manager Gareth Southgate has said.

England’s 5-1 rout of Montenegro in Podgorica on Monday was soured by racist abuse directed at some of their players including Raheem Sterling and Danny Rose. UEFA are investigating the incidents.

“We spoke to them a lot before the summer and they were very clear they wanted to play their soccer,” Southgate told reporters when asked if he was willing to take his players off the pitch if they were racially abused.

“Some of them didn’t even want to report things because they don’t have faith that things will be dealt with appropriately or they would make a difference.”

Sterling was outspoken in his criticism of the incident and called for strict sanctions such as stadium closures to be imposed to “make them think twice” about racist abuse.

Southgate said he wanted an approach that focused on prevention by educating young people about racism.

“I can’t discuss sanctions,” Southgate added. “What is the right sanction? Is it a big fine? Is it the closing of sections of a stadium? What is honestly going to make any difference?

“The difference for me is educating people … Kids are born into the world and they don’t have a bone of malice in their body so it is what we impose on them as adults.

“We can criticize authorities for sanctions, but the problem is deeper than sanctions.”

(Reporting by Rohith Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Peter Rutherford)

Source: OANN

0 0

Inside SoftBank’s push to rule the road

FILE PHOTO: A journalist raises her hand to ask a question to Japan's SoftBank Group Corp Chief Executive Masayoshi Son during a news conference in Tokyo
FILE PHOTO: A journalist raises her hand to ask a question to Japan's SoftBank Group Corp Chief Executive Masayoshi Son during a news conference in Tokyo, Japan, November 5, 2018. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon

April 12, 2019

By Heather Somerville and Paul Lienert

(Reuters) – SoftBank Group Corp leader Masayoshi Son has much bigger ambitions for transportation than simply seeing his investment in Uber Technologies Inc turn into more than $13 billion when the company goes public next month.

The Japanese entrepreneur is placing a $60 billion bet in more than 40 companies in a bid to steer the $3 trillion global automotive industry now dominated by vehicles people own and drive to a spectrum of transportation services available at the touch of a smartphone app. Those services range from ride hailing and car sharing to delivery robots and self-driving vehicles.

The extent of those investments, based on a Reuters analysis of publicly available data and interviews with a dozen sources familiar with SoftBank’s investment strategy, has not previously been reported. They show how Son has emerged as one of the power players trying to influence how people and goods move about the world in the coming decades.

Graphic: Softbank’s future mobility investments, click https://tmsnrt.rs/2UQXn4F

Key partners in Son’s quest are Uber, the U.S. ride services leader, and Japan’s Toyota Motor Corp.

Uber’s planned initial public stock offering in May is expected to value the company at $90 billion to $100 billion, representing a potential windfall to SoftBank, which put $8 billion into Uber for a 15 percent stake in January 2018. The rising value of that investment will further supercharge Son’s growing clout in the sector, and eventually provide him with additional capital to invest in mobility.

Closer to home, Toyota approached Son more than a year ago about a partnership, and SoftBank in February 2018 signed a memorandum of understanding with the automaker to consider how they might jointly develop mobility services, according to sources familiar with the document. The agreement was followed by the launch of a joint venture dubbed Monet Technologies, designed to set up automated mobility services.

SoftBank and Toyota are also in talks to co-lead a $1 billion investment in Uber’s self-driving unit, Reuters reported in March. While the deal is close to being finalized, discussions remain ongoing around issues such as how much of the unit SoftBank would control, sources told Reuters.

Toyota declined to comment for this story.

In an interview with Reuters, SoftBank Group Chief Operating Officer Marcelo Claure said that the two Japanese companies “have a lot sessions in which we think and we try to redefine the future of mobility.”

Central to those sessions are discussions about how Toyota and SoftBank can collaborate to bring autonomous vehicles to Japan, he said.

Son has been working since 2014 to weave together a tapestry of diverse transportation bets. His deep portfolio of investments range literally from A to Z: From Arm, a British semiconductor maker that Son acquired in 2016 for $32 billion, to Zume Pizza, a Silicon Valley startup that aims to automate pizza delivery and raised $375 million last year from SoftBank.

A FAMILY AFFAIR

SoftBank has used at least five investment vehicles, including the $100 billion Vision Fund, from which to make its mobility investments, public records show. Its deep pockets, aggressive investing tactics and sweeping vision of the future of transportation give SoftBank and its leader Son an outsized influence in shaping the entire industry.

The Vision Fund has more than 30 investment professionals who work to promote cooperation and integration among the portfolio companies, which they refer to as a “family.”

“We can create this web where companies talk to each other and they help each other because they are part of the same family and they do joint ventures and they do joint investments,” Claure said.

SoftBank and its affiliates have focused some of their biggest investments on self-driving firm Cruise, a unit of GM, and four global ride-services giants — Uber, Didi Chuxing, Ola and Grab. SoftBank is the largest shareholder in the four ride-services companies and the largest outside shareholder in Cruise.

Son “is the true emperor of future mobility,” said Tom De Vleesschauwer, senior director of long-term planning and sustainability at IHS Automotive.

To help implement his vision, Son also allied with General Motors Co and Honda Motor Co, each of which is investing heavily in self-driving vehicles and ride services.

Son laid out his future of transportation vision in an October press conference alongside Toyota, where he talked about building a “cluster” of leading mobility companies in different sectors, which “can collaborate with each other.”

Toyota a year ago introduced e-Palette, an electric shuttle designed for self-driving ride and delivery services, and quickly signed up Uber and Didi as development partners. The e-Palette is also the centerpiece of Monet Technologies, which added Honda as a minority partner in March. All are tied back to SoftBank.

That collaboration is expected to enable some SoftBank companies to become “superapps,” or applications where customers go for a range of services, such as transportation, shopping and payments. Such companies can be much more lucrative than those that offer just one core business or service.

But the fact that many of SoftBank’s companies are rivals can complicate the investor’s ambitions. Uber and Ola, the Indian ride-hailing company, remain fierce competitors and are never in the same room when SoftBank discusses ride-hailing strategies, Claure said.

Traditionally in venture capital, funds do not invest in direct competitors.

“There are tremendous synergies, but on the other hand there is significant risk of tremendous conflicts of interest,” said Paul Asel, managing partner at NGP Capital and a longtime mobility investor.

There are limits to the investor’s influence, however. For example, SoftBank encouraged Cruise to acquire or take a stake in self-driving startup Nuro, but talks between the companies never led to a deal, according to two sources with knowledge of the matter.

So SoftBank made its own, $940 million investment in Nuro.

HUNTING BIG GAME

In his five-year transportation push, Son’s stakes in ride services startups now look like bargains. In late 2014, SoftBank joined Alibaba, China’s internet giant in which SoftBank also has a stake, in a $600 million funding round in Kuaidi Dache, the forerunner of China’s Didi.

That investment has grown to more than $11 billion in Didi, in which SoftBank now holds more than 20 percent.

SoftBank’s partnerships with major automakers are also proving to be a boon to transportation startups. Toyota invested in Uber in 2016, then boosted its stake seven months after SoftBank’s investment. Honda followed SoftBank with an investment into Grab, and last year committed $2.75 billion to Cruise’s self-driving project, aiding SoftBank’s ambitions.

But the SoftBank portfolio is not without risks, particularly for companies dependent on the Japanese firm to sustain them financially for years to come. SoftBank faces financial pressures, including an obligation to pay an annual 7 percent dividend on a portion of the invested capital and has burnt through the majority of the Vision Fund.

And it is compelled by a new U.S. law cracking down on foreign investment in technology to submit many of its mobility investments to a government regulatory agency for approval. Should that regulatory group block a deal, it could be catastrophic to a startup.

But there is some safety for Son given the size of his portfolio.

“He’s shooting for big game,” Roger Lanctot, global automotive practice director at Strategy Analytics, said of Son. “He only needs to bag one or two and he will do just fine.”

(Reporting by Paul Lienert in Detroit and Heather Somerville in San Francisco; editing by Edward Tobin)

Source: OANN

NOW ON AIR
Now On Air

Real News with David Knight

9:00 am 12:00 pm



President Trump on Friday blasted liberal billionaire activist Tom Steyer for his continued push to impeach Trump — with Trump claiming Steyer is “trying to remain relevant” and doesn’t have the “guts” to run for the White House himself.

“Weirdo Tom Steyer, who didn’t have the ‘guts’ or money to run for President, is still trying to remain relevant by putting himself on ads begging for impeachment,” the president tweeted. “He doesn’t mention the fact that mine is perhaps the most successful first 2 year presidency in history & NO C OR O! [Collusion or Obstruction]”

TRUMP IMPEACHMENT BACKERS NOT GIVING UP AFTER MUELLER REPORT

Trump and his allies have pointed to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia report’s conclusions that there was no evidence of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign and its decision not to make a conclusion on obstruction of justice as a vindication for the president.

But some Democrats and left-wing activists have pointed to the instances of possible obstruction of justice that the investigation looked into as proof of the need for more investigations or even impeachment proceedings.

ELIZABETH WARREN DOUBLES DOWN ON TRUMP IMPEACHMENT PUSH, SAYS IT’S ‘BIGGER THAN POLITICS’

Steyer has been one of the leaders backing a push to impeach Trump and founded “Need to Impeach” and has kept up that push since the report’s release. He announced on Thursday that he was calling on Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to support impeachment proceedings.

On Friday he responded to Trump’s tweet, calling him “angry and scared.”

“I know you want it all to go away. But for the sake of the country you must face your transgressions. Rage away, but that anger doesn’t matter,” he said in a tweet. The truth and the people will prevail.”

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Impeachment hearings have been backed by a number of House Democrats, as well as 2020 presidential hopefuls Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Kamala Harris, D-Calif. However, Pelosi has long been skeptical of impeachment proceedings against Trump.

“I’m not for impeachment,” Pelosi told The Washington Post in an interview last month. “Impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there’s something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don’t think we should go down that path, because it divides the country. And he’s just not worth it.”

Source: Fox News Politics

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!

A Florida measure that would ban sanctuary cities is set for a vote Friday in the state’s Senate after clearing its first hurdle earlier this week.

The bill would effectively make it against the law for Florida’s police departments to refuse to cooperate with federal immigration officials.

“The Governor may initiate judicial proceedings in the name of the state against such officers to enforce compliance,” a draft version of the Senate bill reads.

A House version of the bill, which passed by a 69-47 vote Wednesday, adds that non-complying officials could be suspended or removed from office and face fines of up to $5,000 per day. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis is expected to sign off on the measure, although it’s not clear which version.

FLORIDA MAY SEND A BIG MESSAGE TO SANCTUARY CITIES

Florida Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith (D-Orlando), during a press conference at the Florida Capitol in Tallahassee, speaks out against bills in the House and Senate that would ban sanctuary cities in the state.

Florida Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith (D-Orlando), during a press conference at the Florida Capitol in Tallahassee, speaks out against bills in the House and Senate that would ban sanctuary cities in the state. (AP)

LAWRENCE JONES: NEEDLES, DRUG USE AND HUMAN WASTE ARE THE NEW NORMAL IN SAN FRANCISCO

Florida is home to 775,000 illegal immigrants out of 10.7 million present in the United States, ranking the state third among all states.

Nine states — Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Iowa, North Carolina, Mississippi, Missouri, Tennessee and Texas — already have enacted state laws requiring law enforcement to comply with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Florida doesn’t have sanctuary cities like the ones in California and other states. But Republican lawmakers say a handful of their municipalities — including Orlando and West Palm Beach – are acting as “pseudo-sanctuary” cities, because they prevent law enforcement officials from asking about immigration status when they make arrests.

“There are still people here in the state of Florida, police chiefs that are just refusing to contact ICE, refusing to detain somebody that they know is here illegally,” Florida Republican Rep. Blaise Ingoglia said earlier this month. “So while the actual county municipality doesn’t have an actual adopted policy, they still have people in power within their sheriff’s department or police department that refuse to do it anyway.”

Florida’s Democratic Party has blasted the anti-Sanctuary measures, while the Miami-Dade Police Department says it should be up to federal authorities to handle immigration-related matters.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

“House Republicans today sold out their communities to Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis by passing this xenophobic and discriminatory bill,” the state’s Democratic Party said Wednesday after the House passed their version of the bill. “It’s abhorrent that Republican members who represent immigrant communities are now turning their backs on their constituents and jeopardizing their safety.

“Florida has long stood as a beacon for immigrant communities — and today Republicans did the best they could to destroy that reputation,” they added.

Fox News’ Elina Shirazi contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News National

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!
FILE PHOTO: Supporters of the Spain's far-right party VOX wave Spanish flags as they attend an electoral rally ahead of general elections in the Andalusian capital of Seville
FILE PHOTO: Supporters of the Spain’s far-right party VOX wave Spanish flags as they attend an electoral rally ahead of general elections in the Andalusian capital of Seville, Spain April 24, 2019. REUTERS/Marcelo del Pozo/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By John Stonestreet and Belén Carreño

MADRID (Reuters) – Spain’s Vox party, aligned to a broader far-right movement emerging across Europe, has become the focus of speculation about last minute shifts in voting intentions since official polling for Sunday’s national election ended four days ago.

No single party is anywhere near securing a majority, and chances of a deadlocked parliament and a second election are high.

Leaders of the five parties vying for a role in government get final chances to pitch for power at rallies on Friday evening, before a campaign characterized by appeals to voters’ hearts rather than wallets ends at midnight.

By tradition, the final day before a Spanish election is politics-free.

Two main prizes are still up for grabs in the home straight. One concerns which of the two rival left and right multi-party blocs gets more votes.

The other is whether Vox could challenge the mainstream conservative PP for leadership of the latter bloc, which media outlets with access to unofficial soundings taken since Monday suggest could be starting to happen.

The right’s loose three-party alliance is led by the PP, the traditional conservative party that has alternated in office with outgoing Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s Socialists since Spain’s return to democracy in the 1970s.

The PP stands at around 20 percent, with center-right Ciudadanos near 14 percent and Vox around 11 percent, according to a final poll of polls in daily El Pais published on Monday.

Since then, however, interest in Vox – which will become the first far-right party to sit in parliament since 1982 – has snowballed.

It was founded in 2013, part of a broader anti-establishment, far-right movement that has also spread across – among others – Italy, France and Germany.

While it is careful to distance itself from the ideology of late dictator Francisco Franco, Vox’s signature policies include repealing laws banning Franco-era symbols and on gender-based violence, and shifting power away from Spain’s regional governments.

TRENDING

According to a Google trends graphic, Vox has generated more than three times more search inquiries than any other Spanish political party in the past week.

Reasons could include a groundswell of vocal activist support at Vox rallies in Madrid and Valencia, and its exclusion from two televised debates between the main party leaders, on the grounds of it having no deputies yet in parliament.

Conservative daily La Vanguardia called its enforced absence from Monday’s and Tuesday’s debates “a gift from heaven”, while left-wing Eldiario.es suggested the PP was haemorrhaging votes to Vox in rural areas.

Ignacio Jurado, politics lecturer at the University of York, agreed the main source of additional Vox votes would be disaffected PP supporters, and called the debate ban – whose impact he said was unclear – wrong.

“This is a party polling over 10 percent and there are people interested in what it says. So we lose more than we win in not having them (in the debates),” he said

For Jose Fernandez-Albertos, political scientist at Spanish National Research Council CSIC, Vox is enjoying the novelty effect that propelled then new, left-wing arrival Podemos to 20 percent of the vote in 2015.

“While it’s unclear how to interpret the (Google) data, what we do know is that it’s better to be popular and to be a newcomer, and that Vox will benefit in some form,” he said.

For now, the chances of Vox taking a major role in government remain slim, however.

The El Pais survey put the Socialists on around 30 percent, making them the frontrunners and likely to form a leftist bloc with Podemos, back down at around 14 percent.

The unofficial soundings suggest little change in the two parties’ combined vote, or the total vote of the rightist bloc.

That makes it unlikely that either bloc will win a majority on Sunday, triggering horse-trading with smaller parties favoring Catalan independence – the single most polarizing issues during campaigning – that could easily collapse into fresh elections.

(Election graphic: https://tmsnrt.rs/2ENugtw)

(Reporting by John Stonestreet and Belen Carreno, Editing by William Maclean)

Source: OANN

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!

The Amish population in Pennsylvania’s Lancaster County is continuing to grow each year, despite the encroachment of urban sprawl on their communities.

The U.S. Census Bureau says the county added about 2,500 people in 2018. LNP reports that about 1,000 of them were Amish.

Elizabethtown College researchers say Lancaster County’s Amish population reached 33,143 in 2018, up 3.2% from the previous year.

The Amish accounted for about 41% of the county’s overall population growth last year.

Some experts are concerned that a planned 75-acre (30-hectare) housing and commercial project will make it more difficult for the county to accommodate the Amish.

Donald Kraybill, an authority on Amish culture, told Manheim Township commissioners this week that some in the community are worried about the development and the increased traffic it would bring.

___

Information from: LNP, http://lancasteronline.com

Source: Fox News National

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!

Fox News correspondent Geraldo Rivera has warned that if Democratic 2020 presidential candidates don’t take the crisis at the border seriously, they’ll do so at their own risk.

Speaking with “Fox & Friends” hosts on Friday morning, Rivera discussed the influx of candidates entering the race, including former Vice President Joe Biden, and gave an update on the newest developments at the border.

“If [Democrats] don’t take it seriously they ignore it at their peril,” Rivera said.

He went on to discuss the fact that Mexico is experiencing the same problems dealing with volumes of people at the border as the United States is. Processing facilities, as many have argued, are understaffed and underresourced, resulting in conditions that have been controversial.

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

FOX NEWS EXCLUSIVE: INTERNAL FBI TEXT MESSAGES REVEAL DOJ CONCERNS OVER ‘BIAS’ IN KEY WARRANT TO SURVEIL TRUMP AIDE

“It is very, very difficult when hundreds and hundreds become thousands and thousands ultimately become tens of it is very difficult to have an orderly system,” he said.

Rivera asserted his opinion that the United States could lessen the influx of migrants coming into the country by investing in the development of Central American countries, where many are fleeing from violence and economic instability.

“I believe, as I have said before on this program, that we have to stop the source of the migrant explosion, by a comprehensive system of political and economic reform in Central America where people have the incentive to stay home,” Rivera said.

“I think we have help Mexico with its infrastructure. Mexico has a moral burden, as the president made very clear, not to let unchecked herds of desperate people flow through 2,000 miles of Mexican territory to get our southern border.”

Rivera also brought up President Trump’s controversial comments about Mexican immigrants during his campaign in 2016.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

The Fox News correspondent said that having been so excited about Trump’s campaign, the comments made him feel “deflated” as a Hispanic American.

However, as the crisis at the border has accelerated over the last few years, Rivera argued that ultimately, the president’s comments weren’t incorrect.

“He is now in a position where he can justly say I was right, that the that the anarchy at the border doesn’t serve anybody,” Rivera said. “Maybe he said it in a language I felt was a little rough and insensitive, but there is no doubt.”

Source: Fox News Politics

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!
Current track

Title

Artist