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Engineering elections? U.S. top court examines electoral map manipulation

Students walk between classes at North Carolina A&T University just to the west of the line that divides Congressional Districts 13 and 6 on campus in Greensboro
FILE PHOTO: Students walk between classes at North Carolina A&T University just to the west of the line that divides Congressional Districts 13 and 6 on campus in Greensboro, North Carolina, U.S. March 14, 2019. REUTERS/Charles Mostoller

March 22, 2019

By Marti Maguire

GREENSBORO, N.C. (Reuters) – Before the Republican-led state legislature divided their city and even their college campus into two different districts in a bid to boost the party’s election chances, students like recent graduate Vashti Smith could vote for the Democratic U.S. congressional candidate and know that person could win.

Thanks to partisan gerrymandering – a practice the Supreme Court will examine on Tuesday in two cases that could impact American politics for decades – that is no longer the case. A U.S. House of Representatives district that once covered heavily Democratic Greensboro was reconfigured in 2016, with the voters in the city of 290,000 people inserted into two other districts spanning rural areas with reliable Republican majorities.

In adopting the electoral map, the legislature partitioned the campus of North Carolina A&T State University, the nation’s largest historically black public college, into two separate districts.

“We had one person representing us who shared our beliefs. Now we have two people who don’t really represent us,” said Smith, 24, a 2017 graduate who works with voting-rights group Common Cause, which is among the plaintiffs challenging the new districts.

After decades of electing Democrats to the state’s 12th U.S. House district by wide margins, Greensboro now has been represented by two Republicans, in the redrawn 6th and 13th district seats, since 2016.

Republicans and Democrats over the years have engaged in gerrymandering, manipulating electoral boundaries to entrench one party in power. Critics have said the practice has now become far more effective and insidious due to computer technology and precise voter data, warping democracy.

The reworked districts that helped President Donald Trump’s party gain House seats in North Carolina are part of the historic U.S. Supreme Court fight, along with a single Democratic-drawn House district in Maryland that resulted in a Republican seat flipping to a Democrat.

In separate lawsuits, federal courts in Greensboro and Baltimore last year sided with the challengers in North Carolina and Maryland, ruling that the contested districts violated the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under the law, the right to free speech and association, or constitutional provisions governing elections.

The Supreme Court’s ruling, due by the end of June, could profoundly impact American elections by either letting courts curb partisan gerrymandering or not allowing them to stop it.

‘THE SYSTEM WE HAVE’

Some Republicans and conservative advocacy groups have rallied behind the North Carolina legislators, arguing there is no constitutional right for a political party’s seat count to be proportional to its percentage of the statewide vote.

“That isn’t the system we have,” said Edward Greim, an attorney specializing in election law who filed a Supreme Court brief on behalf of a national Republican organization.

Centrist Republicans including former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and current Maryland Governor Larry Hogan are gerrymandering critics, filing a brief to show how the practice “amplifies the voices of partisans and drowns out the voices of moderates.”

In creating the 2016 map, North Carolina’s Republican leaders were open about maintaining a House delegation of 10 Republicans, joking that they would have preferred to make it 11 Republicans if possible in the state’s 13 districts. “I think electing Republicans is better than electing Democrats,” state House Representative David Lewis said at the time.

Using those words as evidence, more than two dozen Democratic voters, the North Carolina Democratic Party and two groups that advocate for fair elections sued.

For Smith, the new line dividing her campus along Laurel Street meant that each time she walked from her apartment to the library she entered a new district. It also meant, she said, that her vote was drowned out by her new district neighbors.

North Carolina A&T political science professor Derick Smith, whose window looks across the district line, said the boundaries were designed to disrupt a community known for its progressive politics, dating back even before the Greensboro sit-ins that were a key moment in the civil rights movement.

“They’re breaking up a community of common interest to create a partisan advantage for the party drawing the maps,” Smith said.

The Supreme Court last year failed to issue decisive rulings on partisan gerrymandering in cases from Wisconsin and Maryland.

Liberal and conservative justices alike have criticized gerrymandering as a form of partisan skullduggery. But for decades the Supreme Court has been uncertain about federal courts’ authority to curb this inherently political act.

North Carolina’s Republican legislators have said judges are not equipped to determine how much politics is too much in line-drawing. The plaintiffs said closing courthouse doors would embolden map-makers to be even more ruthlessly partisan.

PACKING AND CRACKING

Legislative districts across the country are redrawn to reflect population changes determined by the federal census each decade. In most states, redistricting is done by the party in power, though some assign the task to independent commissions in the interest of fairness.

Gerrymandering is carried out by cramming as many like-minded voters as possible into a small number of districts – called “packing” – and spreading the rest in other districts too thinly to form a majority – called “cracking.”

Greensboro has been at the center of several high profile lawsuits since Republicans won control of the state legislature in 2010, ending nearly a century of Democratic-led redistricting that often riled Republicans.

Republicans adopted a new map in 2011 and won nine or 10 of the state’s 13 House seats in every election since, unreflective of an electorate closely divided between the two parties. Seats were more evenly distributed in the past. In 2010, Democrats captured seven seats to six for the Republicans.

Last year, even though Democrats won roughly half the statewide vote, they won only three of the 13 House seats. Officials ordered a new election for one seat after allegations of ballot fraud favoring the Republican candidate.

The North Carolina case focuses on a 2016 map adopted after a court found that Republican legislators unlawfully used race as a factor when redrawing certain U.S. House districts after the 2010 census.

(Reporting by Marti Maguire; Writing by Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham)

Source: OANN

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Brookfield buys most of Oaktree to build juggernaut to rival Blackstone

People walk to Brookfield Place off Bay Street on the day of the AGM for Brookfield Asset Management shareholders in Toronto
FILE PHOTO: People walk to Brookfield Place off Bay Street on the day of the annual general meeting for Brookfield Asset Management shareholders in Toronto, May 7, 2014. REUTERS/Mark Blinch

March 13, 2019

By Joshua Franklin and Debroop Roy

(Reuters) – Brookfield Asset Management Inc said on Wednesday it will buy most of Oaktree Capital Group LLC in a roughly $4.8 billion deal, creating an alternative-asset manager that would rival industry leader Blackstone Group in size.

The decision by Oaktree, led by distressed debt investor Howard Marks, to sell a majority stake of itself comes after a sustained period in which its stock has underperformed the broader market.

Oaktree’s stock is down around 13 percent in the last five years, even after a price bump on Wednesday following the deal’s announcement. By comparison, the S&P 500 Index is up more than 50 percent over the same time and Blackstone’s share price is up 4 percent.

Brookfield approached Oaktree about the deal sometime during the fall season, a person familiar with the matter said.

The deal is also a bet by Brookfield, which currently focuses on private equity, real estate, infrastructure and renewable power, on the prospects for investing in debt, which makes up around 70 percent of Oaktree’s assets under management.

“This transaction enables us to broaden our product offering to include one of the finest credit platforms in the world, which has a value-driven, contrarian investment style, consistent with ours,” Brookfield Chief Executive Bruce Flatt said in a statement.

The combined businesses will have about $475 billion of assets under management, Brookfield said in a statement.

Industry leader Blackstone had $472 billion in assets under management at the end of 2018.

Oaktree shareholders can exchange each of their shares for either $49 in cash or 1.0770 Class A shares of Brookfield. However, Brookfield said the total amount will be paid in 50 percent stock and rest in cash.

The offer represents an 11.8 percent premium to Oaktree’s Tuesday closing price. The stock was up 11.8 percent in mid-day trading.

Both companies will continue to operate as independent businesses, while Marks, Oaktree’s co-chairman, would join Brookfield’s board of directors.

Oaktree shareholders, consisting primarily of its founders, certain members of management and employees, will own the remaining 38 percent of the company.

Starting from 2022, Oaktree’s founders, senior management as well as current and former employee shareholders will be able to sell their remaining Oaktree units to Brookfield over time.

(Reporting by Joshua Franklin in New York and Debroop Roy in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur and Shinjini Ganguli)

Source: OANN

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Woman gets life sentence for sitting on, smothering girl

A Florida woman has been sentenced to life in prison for killing her 9-year-old cousin sitting on her as a form of punishment.

The Pensacola News Journal reports that 66-year-old Veronica Green Posey was sentenced Friday after jurors convicted her of first-degree felony murder.

Prosecutors say Dericka Lindsay had suffered horrific beatings from Posey, and Lindsay's adoptive parents, James and Grace Smith. Officials say Posey sat on Dericka for more than five minutes in October 2017, causing the girl to die from lack of oxygen.

Posey's attorney said the 320-pound (145-kilogram) woman was trying to help the Smiths and didn't intend to hurt Dericka.

James Smith was previously sentenced to 10 years for his role in Dericka's death. Grace Smith still faces charges but is currently mentally and physically unfit to stand trial.

___

Information from: Pensacola (Fla.) News Journal, http://www.pensacolanewsjournal.com

Source: Fox News National

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Rolling Stone slammed over highlighting quote that called Notre Dame fire feels like an ‘act of liberation’

Rolling Stone Magazine is facing criticism on Tuesday over a quote used on social media to highlight a piece on the rebuilding of the Notre Dame Cathedral after the devastating fire.

The article, titled, “How Should France Rebuild Notre Dame?” asks several experts and historians about the first steps in repairing the damage. Harvard University architecture historian Patricio del Real offered a new take on the meaning behind the fire.

“The building was so overburdened with meaning that its burning feels like an act of liberation,” Patricio del Real told Rolling Stone.

The magazine chose the quote to highlight the post on social media, which drew fierce backlash and was “ratio’d” on Twitter, meaning it had more replies than likes and retweets.

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Erick Erickson, a conservative blogger, tweeted the comment and wrote, "Never hire an architect who studied under Patricio del Real.

Fox News emailed del Real and did not get an immediate response.

Source: Fox News World

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Woman killed by rock dropped from Central Texas overpass

A Central Texas woman has died after someone dropped a rock from a railroad overpass through the windshield of the car in which she was riding.

Temple police are asking for the public's help in identifying a suspect in the Saturday night incident on Interstate 35 that fatally injured Keila Ruby Flores. The 33-year-old Waco woman died Sunday morning at a Temple hospital.

Police say the 33-year-old Waco woman was in the front passenger seat of the car driven by boyfriend Christopher Rodriguez. Rodriguez told police that they were returning to Waco from Austin with Flores' three children in the back seat when a rock the size of a football smashed through the windshield.

No one else in the car was injured.

Source: Fox News National

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Warren set to release $70B-per-year plan for universal child care, will tap wealth tax

Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic senator from Massachusetts, is expected to announce a plan Tuesday that would fund universal child care by tapping into revenue from her wealth tax proposal, reports said.

The broad strokes of the plan-- which would cover 12 million children-- would mean no family would have to spend more than seven percent of its total household income, according to The Huffington Post, which first reported on the announcement. The report said the number is based off a Department of Health and Human Services figure on what qualifies as affordable child care.

The plan is still being worked on, but sources told the news outlet that they expect it to cost about $700 billion in new funding over 10 years, or four times what the federal government pays on these programs.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the average family pays $7,200 a year on child care.

The Massachusetts Democrat, a 2020 presidential candidate, would use part of the revenue from her proposed tax on the ultra-wealthy to fund the plan. Her plan calls for a two percent tax on household wealth above $50 million and an additional one percent on those above $1 billion.

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Warren’s plan would set up a federal program to guarantee child care from birth until children’s entry into school. Families with income less than 200 percent of the poverty line would get free access.

Her plan would guarantee compensation for child care program workers at rates comparable to public school teachers in their areas.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

Source: Fox News Politics

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Dershowitz: Barr Won’t Be Pressured on Mueller Report

Attorney General William Barr "very much" wants to bring the Department of Justice back to its origins as a nonpartisan law enforcement agency, and he wants to produce special counsel Robert Mueller's report according to the law, Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz said Wednesday.

"He's not going to be pressured by the president or the Democrats, not going to be pressured by the Republicans," Dershowitz told Fox News' "America's Newsroom." "He's going to do it the right way. That's the projected image that he wants to convey. He is the right guy to do it."

It is also likely Barr had some advance knowledge about what was coming in Mueller's report before it had been turned over to him, as he had time to think about what his statement would be about it, Dershowitz said, adding it is also up to Barr, as attorney general, to decide what would be released.

"It is the attorney general who has the authority to indict, prosecute, or not prosecute," Dershowitz said. "I think he is doing exactly the right thing."

He added he does not know why Mueller declined to review the four-page document Barr released about his report, except for wanting to have deniability.

Meanwhile, Dershowitz said he expects the report will be critical when it comes to whether President Donald Trump committed obstruction.

"One key issue that nobody raised, will we know the names of the people on each side" of the obstruction issue, Dershowitz said. "Will we know the individual names of the prosecutors on the team so we the public can assess whether it's a partisan political decision or a neutral prosecutorial decision?"

Source: NewsMax America

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FILE PHOTO: The Huawei logo is pictured outside its Huawei's factory campus in Dongguan, Guangdong province
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)

Source: OANN

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Park Yoo-chun, a K-pop idol singer, arrives at the Suwon district court in Suwon
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)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: An American Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 flight taxis after landing at Reagan National Airport in Washington
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.

(Reporting by Sanjana Shivdas in Bengaluru)

Source: OANN

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2020 Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg speaks at a campaign event in Des Moines, Iowa
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)

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A man looks out at a flooded residential area in Gatineau
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)

Source: OANN

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