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Russia’s Gazprombank sells its indirect stake in Venezuelan venture: source

FILE PHOTO: Logo of Gazprombank is pictured at company's stand during St. Petersburg International Economic Forum 2016 in St. Petersburg
FILE PHOTO: The logo of Gazprombank is pictured at the company's stand during the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum 2016 (SPIEF 2016) in St. Petersburg, Russia, June 17, 2016. REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin

March 14, 2019

By Tatiana Voronova

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Gazprombank, Russia’s third biggest lender by assets, has sold its indirect stake in the Petrozamora joint venture in Venezuela, a source at the bank said on Thursday.

Gazprombank, in a written reply to Reuters questions, confirmed it had quit the Petrozamora joint venture, but gave no further details. The venture’s majority owner, Venezuelan state oil firm PDVSA, is under U.S. sanctions. 

Gazprombank has a minority stake in a firm called GPB Global Resources which in turn owns 40 percent of Petrozamora, according to the GPB Global Resources website.

PDVSA owns the remaining 60 percent in Petrozamora, which was set up in 2012 initially to develop two Venezuelan oil fields, the website said. The number of fields has since increased.

“An indirect minority stake in Petrozamora JV was sold to a group of investors which have no connection to the Gazprombank group,” the source in the bank said. “As a result, Gazprombank now has no investment projects in Venezuela.”

The identity of the buyer was unknown. The source said that Gazprombank has sold its stake in GPB GR as well. GBP GR did not immediately reply to a Reuters request for a comment.

In November 2013, Gazprombank, GPB GR, Petrozamora and PDVSA signed an oil prepayment facility of up to $1 billion to finance the investment program and operational activity of Petrozamora JV. 

Russia is a major investor in Venezuela but this poses risks to Russian companies now that the United States has imposed sanctions on PDVSA and other entities linked to it. Some Russian firms are trying to reduce their exposure. 

Gazprombank decided to freeze the accounts of PDVSA and halted transactions with the firm, a Gazprombank source told Reuters last month.

Russia’s second biggest bank, VTB, has begun procedures to hand over its stake in a Russian-Venezuelan bank, Evrofinance Mosnarbank, to the Russian state property agency, sources familiar with the deal told Reuters this week.

The United States imposed tough, new financial sanctions on Jan. 28 aimed at blocking Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro’s access to the country’s oil revenue as its aimed to support Venezuelan opposition leader and self-proclaimed interim president Juan Guaido.

Russia’s Rosneft, the world’s top listed oil company by output which has lent billions of U.S. dollars to Venezuela in the past and has a number of upstream projects in the country, continues its operations and to receive oil from PDVSA.

According to lawyers and traders, the terms of the sanctions mean that Rosneft can continue its oil and oil product operations with PDVSA at least until April 28.

However, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo this week accused Rosneft of providing a financial lifeline to the administration of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who Washington says is no longer the legitimate head of state. 

(Reporting by Tatiana Voronova; Writing by Katya Golubkova; Editing by Alexandra Hudson)

Source: OANN

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Bernie faces voters in the heart of Trump country 


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On the roster: Bernie faces voters in the heart of Trump country - Welcome to the race Mayor Pete - Mueller report expected Thursday morning - Trump stays on attack mode with Omar - Either a solid prank or a lot of leftovers

BERNIE FACES VOTERS IN THE HEART OF TRUMP COUNTRY 
BETHLEHEM, Pa. – If there’s an argument to be made to skeptical mainstream Democrats for nominating Bernie Sanders, it starts right here in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley.

The 2016 election was a political earthquake in Bethlehem and nearby communities to the north like Wilkes-Barre and Scranton. Here in Northampton County, voters hadn’t gone for a Republican since George H.W. Bush in 1988 before it went for Donald Trump by 4 points. The shift was even more pronounced in Luzerne County (Wilkes-Barre) where the Republican share of the vote increased by 13 points from 2012 to 2016.

Without this region, Trump would have come up short instead of his 44,292-vote nail-biter win in Pennsylvania. And if he had missed with kindred voters in Wisconsin and Michigan, he wouldn’t be president today. 

Americans who aren’t familiar with these communities or ones like them stretching out into the industrial Midwest and Appalachia may be tempted to accept the version offered by the scores of journalists who have fanned out in the region over the past four years: Doped up, out of work, undereducated xenophobes who voted for Trump out of some malign impulse for revenge against the elites who had ruined their lives. 

Not only does that badly shortchange the people who live here it misses the real dynamics at work.

These counties were certainly up for grabs in 2016. This was rock-solid Obama country and, as the 2018 midterm results showed, the reversal to red was hardly permanent. But Democrats are very nervous that it might happen again. The fascination with former Vice President Joe Biden is related to his strong brand and famous name, yes, but also because he is a son of Scranton. Sheriff Joe, the human firewall.

Sanders, though, has a different argument to make. And it includes a subtle threat.

His campaign points to survey data that say 12 percent of Sanders’ 2016 primary voters ended up voting for Trump in November. That would be something like 1.5 million Democratic primary voters switching sides, and plenty of them were in post-industrial eastern Pennsylvania.

Sanders argues that without him, these voters will drift back to Trump. But he also makes the case that he is the candidate who can best undo the party’s long slide with white, middle class voters. These folks have radicalized and become populists who will only respond to a candidate who promises to attack the bipartisan establishment in Washington and Wall Street.

There’s another theory of the case, however. This holds that Hillary Clinton was the worst big-time politician of her era and certainly the worst Democratic nominee since at least Michael Dukakis. Sanders’ own success actually reinforces this thesis. There’s no way he would have had the stunning success he did in 2016 had it not been for the intense, visceral rejection of Clinton and Clintonism by so many Democrats.

Was Sanders, like Trump, the beneficiary of the black hole that has become the Clinton legacy? Or is he the vanguard of still churning populist revolt that will not be sated until massive change comes to the American way of life?

Tonight, Sanders gets to make his case to a local audience here on the grounds of the old Bethlehem Steel Plant. Will they adjudge him to be a re-run of a played-out drama or the leader of a revolution that has only just begun?

[Watch Fox: Hosts Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum will help local voters take Sanders’ measure tonight starting at 6:30 p.m. ET] 

THE RULEBOOK: EVERYONE’S A CRITIC
“Ambition, avarice, personal animosity, party opposition, and many other motives not more laudable than these, are apt to operate as well upon those who support as those who oppose the right side of a question.” – Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 1

TIME OUT: ‘YOU WATCH ME, I’LL GET IT DONE’
History: “On April 15, 1947, Jackie Robinson becomes the first African-American in the major leagues when he plays his first game with the Brooklyn Dodgers. … 28-year-old Jackie Robinson made his Major League Baseball debut with the Dodgers, against the Boston Braves, in front of more than 25,000 spectators at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, New York. Robinson played first base and went zero for three at the plate. During his first season in the majors, Robinson encountered racism from opposing teams and fans, as well as some of his own teammates. However, the abuse didn’t affect his performance on the baseball field. Robinson played in 151 games, hit .297, stole more bases than anyone else in the National League and was awarded the first-ever Rookie of the Year title. … In 1955, Robinson helped the Dodgers defeat the New York Yankees to win the World Series. He retired from baseball after playing his last game on October 10, 1956…”

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

SCOREBOARD
Trump job performance 
Average approval: 
43.2 percent
Average disapproval: 51.6 percent
Net Score: -8.4 points
Change from one week ago: up 1.8 points 
[Average includes: Gallup: 45% approve - 51% disapprove; GU Politics/Battleground: 43% approve - 52% disapprove; IBD: 41% approve - 52% disapprove; NPR/PBS/Marist: 44% approve - 50% disapprove; NBC/WSJ: 43% approve - 53% disapprove.]

WELCOME TO THE RACE MAYOR PETE
AP:Pete Buttigieg, the little-known Indiana mayor who has risen to prominence in the early stages of the 2020 Democratic presidential race, made his official campaign entrance Sunday by claiming the mantle of a youthful generation ready to reshape the country. … In the hours after his announcement, more than $1 million in donations poured in, said Lis Smith, speaking for the campaign. … Buttigieg will return this week to Iowa and New Hampshire … to campaign as a full-fledged candidate now being taken more seriously. Over the past few months, Buttigieg has appeared frequently on national TV news and talk shows and developed a strong social media following with his message that the country needs ‘a new generation of leadership.’ Buttigieg’s poll numbers have climbed. Some polls put him behind only Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who sought the party’s nomination in 2016, and former Vice President Joe Biden, who has not yet said he’s running.”

Gillibrand hits $3 million for first quarter fundraising - NYT: “Senator Kirsten Gillibrand’s presidential campaign raised $3 million in the first quarter of the year, a spokeswoman said on Sunday, a disappointing sum that ranked her last among the six senators currently running for president. Ms. Gillibrand, New York’s Democratic junior senator, has made running as a woman a central theme of her candidacy, and nearly two-thirds of the campaign’s donors were women, said the spokeswoman, Meredith Kelly. Ms. Kelly did not disclose how many donors the campaign had, but she said that 92 percent of contributions were under $200. Given her modest haul so far, Ms. Gillibrand will likely need to rely heavily upon the roughly $10 million in campaign funds she had left over after her Senate re-election bid last year. Only a few 2020 candidates had such a large cash stockpile to supplement their presidential fund-raising.”

Warren makes pledge to ban oil and gas drilling on federal lands - WashEx: “Sen. Elizabeth Warren said Monday that she would ban all drilling on federal lands and waters on her first day in office. ‘On my first day as president, I will sign an executive order that says no more drilling — a total moratorium on all new fossil fuel leases, including for drilling offshore and on public lands,’ the Massachusetts Democrat said in post on Medium outlining her public lands agenda. Warren also said she would reinstate an Obama-era Interior Department rule that the Trump administration has proposed rolling back limiting leaks of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, from oil and gas operations.”

Caucuses continue to dwindle - NYT: “In this cycle, caucuses are dwindling. Democratic National Committee rules now encourage states to use a government-run primary, where more people participate, and to increase participation in the caucuses that remain. … Already, the three largest caucus states — Washington, Minnesota and Colorado — have flipped to primaries. So have Utah, Idaho and Nebraska. Two more caucus states — Alaska and Hawaii — are using party-run, rather than government-run, primaries. This switch can increase participation and turnout to levels somewhat more like in a traditional primary, depending on how they are administered. That leaves just six caucus states: Iowa and Nevada — the two highest-turnout caucuses… and Kansas, North Dakota, Wyoming and Maine. … The overall effect seems as if it will be pretty modest. That might be something of a surprise. After all, the effect of having a caucus is substantial.”

MUELLER REPORT EXPECTED THURSDAY MORNING
Fox News: “Special Counsel Robert Mueller's much-anticipated Russia report is set to be released to the public and Congress on Thursday morning, the Justice Department announced. Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec told Fox News on Monday the report would be made available -- with redactions -- Thursday morning to lawmakers and to the public. The news comes despite mounting calls from Democrats to first release the report to Congress without redactions. Attorney General Bill Barr testified last Wednesday he planned to have the report available ‘within a week,’ maintaining his original vow to release Mueller's full report by mid-April. … Most congressional Democrats demanded Barr turn over the full report, without redactions, to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees for review, prior to releasing it to the public. … Barr maintained the DOJ is working ‘diligently to make as much information as possible available to Congress.’ Meanwhile … the DOJ defended Barr's rollout of Mueller's conclusions.”

Team Trump taking a relaxed approach to Mueller report - Axios: “Two of the president's top advisers who will be handling the response to Mueller’s report were watching the Masters when [Axios’ Jonathan Swan] called them about it this weekend. By all accounts, the president himself is also taking a fairly blasé approach. The subject has barely come up, if at all, in recent senior staff meetings, according to two sources with direct knowledge. … Rudy Giuliani, the president's lawyer, told [Swan] Trump hasn't seen the report. And senior White House aides have scant details about it, telling me they could only guess when exactly it will come out and how much of it will be redacted. Most expect Attorney General Bill Barr to release the report mid-week. … The president's outside legal team will not read the report alongside his White House lawyers. Rather, the two groups of attorneys plan to go through it separately. A senior Trump adviser said the two groups will write separate responses — with the outside response likely more aggressive than the White House's institutional response.”

Trump maintains ‘no collusion, no obstruction’ - Fox News:President Trump on Monday said it was time to ‘investigate the investigators,’ doubling down on Attorney General Bill Barr’s summary of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s findings in the Russia investigation. ‘Mueller, and the A.G. based on Mueller findings (and great intelligence), have already ruled No Collusion, No Obstruction. These were crimes committed by Crooked Hillary, the DNC, Dirty Cops and others! INVESTIGATE THE INVESTIGATORS!’ Trump tweeted early Monday. The president’s tweet comes following a week of mounting scrutiny on the attorney general for his testimony that ‘spying did occur’ on the Trump campaign during the 2016 presidential election. Democrats blasted Barr, and accused him of ‘peddling conspiracy theories.’ But despite the backlash from Democrats over his use of the term, Barr's testimony appeared to refer to intelligence collection that already has been widely reported and confirmed.”

TRUMP STAYS ON ATTACK MODE WITH OMAR
USA Today: “Before taking off Monday for Minnesota, President Donald Trump again attacked Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Democrat from Minneapolis and one of the first two Muslim-American women to serve in the U.S. Congress. On Twitter, Trump also criticized House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., for defending Omar, saying she ‘should look at the anti-Semitic, anti-Israel and ungrateful U.S. HATE statements Omar has made. She is out of control, except for her control of Nancy!’ Omar, Pelosi and other Democrats said Trump's frequent attacks on the freshman congresswoman from Minnesota smack of being anti-Muslim, and are spiking death threats against Omar. Saying threats have escalated since Trump backers used her comments in a 2020 campaign video, Omar tweeted this weekend: ‘We are all Americans. This is endangering lives. It has to stop.’ Trump's latest attacks came hours before he left for Minnesota, where he is scheduled to hold an economic policy event related Monday's deadline for tax filings.”

Trump still likes idea to send immigrants to sanctuary cities - LAT: “President Trump still ‘likes’ the idea of transferring immigrants in the U.S. illegally to so-called sanctuary cities like San Francisco, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Sunday. But she portrayed the notion as a burden-sharing strategy that the Democrats should welcome rather than a plan designed to punish political adversaries like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco). Senior Democrats pushed back on the idea, previously rejected by administration lawyers in internal White House deliberations, as probably illegal and emblematic of the administration’s failure to conceive of a fair and coherent immigration policy. Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, described the administration’s policymaking on immigration as built around crises that the president had created.”

Dems think Miller’s to blame - WaPo: “House Democrats are sharpening their focus on White House immigration adviser Stephen Miller, with key lawmakers saying he should be brought before congressional committees to testify about his role in recent policy controversies. The talk of hauling Miller before lawmakers comes days after The Washington Post reported that he played a key role in a plan first discussed last year to release undocumented immigrants into ‘sanctuary cities’ represented by President Trump’s Democratic critics. While the plan never came to fruition because of objections from agency officials, Trump has since embraced the idea. With a spate of new vacancies at the Department of Homeland Security … Miller has emerged as a key target for Democrats who see him as an influential survivor in an administration that has otherwise churned through personnel.”

Graham to introduce immigration legislation - Fox Business: “Sen. Lindsey Graham said Sunday that he will draft legislation in an effort to fix immigration laws in the U.S. ‘I’ll be introducing a package, and hopefully with Democratic support, that will change our asylum laws,’ Graham, R-S.C., told ‘Sunday Morning Futures.’ Graham, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, said a large majority of people who apply for asylum are released, but never return for their hearing. … ‘It’s impossible to do a hearing in 20 days,’ Graham said, adding that he wants to modify the decision and asylum laws. ‘So we’re going to try to change the time you can hold an unaccompanied minor or a minor child beyond 20 days because if you come up with a family and you have minor kids in the family, we release the whole family in 20 days because you don’t want to separate families.’”

TWO YEARS LATER TRUMP TAX CUTS STILL UNPOPULAR
Politico: “President Donald Trump boasted in Michigan last month that he signed into law ‘massive tax cuts, the biggest in the history of our country.’ As Americans rush Monday to finish up their own taxes, their judgment on Trump’s beloved tax cut bill is pretty clear: Most really don’t like it. Multiple polls show a majority of Americans don’t think they got a tax cut at all — even though independent analyses show they did. And only around a third of the country approves of the legislation itself, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, passed by Congress at the end of 2017. So as Trump moves closer to full-time reelection mode later this year, he will have to battle a stark reality: While his personal rating on the economy remains high, his signature legislative achievement is widely viewed as a political dud, one that has drawn special anger in places with high state and local taxes and pricey housing markets where deductions were limited to reduce the overall cost of the tax plan.”

Sarah Sanders: Congress is not ‘smart enough’ for Trump’s taxes - WaPo: “White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Sunday that she doesn’t believe members of Congress are ‘smart enough’ to examine President Trump’s tax returns, pushing back against Democrats’ demands for information on the president’s finances. House Democrats have given the Trump administration a hard deadline of April 23 to turn over the president’s tax returns, arguing that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s concerns about the request ‘lack merit.’ In an interview with ‘Fox News Sunday’ host Chris Wallace, Sanders said that Democrats were treading a ‘dangerous road’ and that their request for Trump’s tax returns is ‘all about political partisanship.’ ‘Frankly, Chris, I don’t think Congress — particularly not this group of congressmen and women — are smart enough to look through the thousands of pages that I would assume that President Trump’s taxes will be,’ Sanders said.”

PLAY-BY-PLAY
Trump campaign raked in over $30M in first quarter - Fox News

Looking at Ohio swing voters, Obama is still candidate of choice - Axios

Pergram: ‘Black holes and Congress’ accomplishments at 100 days’ - Fox News

AUDIBLE: OH NOW…  
“Candidly, I don’t even know all the reasons why this is going so well.” – Pete Buttigieg in an interview with New York Magazine.

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

EITHER A SOLID PRANK OR A LOT OF LEFTOVERS
WJTV: “Mystery mashed potatoes are popping up on front porches in the Belhaven (Miss.) community. … Who leaves mashed potatoes on someone's front porch? … ‘This neighborhood does a lot of quirky things, we decorate road signs we put Christmas trees in our potholes, so it's not surprising at all, that's why I love this neighborhood, because they do so many strange things, but it's definitely one of the weirdest things I've seen since living in Jackson,’ Jordan Lewis said she found mashed potatoes left on her car. After posting to Facebook, Jordan Lewis found she wasn't alone, several others said they also found a bowl of potatoes on their property. ‘They've found it on their mailboxes, on their cars... So we don't know if someone is just playing a prank or if someone just had a lot of leftovers,’ Lewis joked.”

AND NOW, A WORD FROM CHARLES…
“While retrospective judgment tends to make us feel superior to our ancestors, it should really evoke humility. Surely some contemporary practices will be deemed equally abominable by succeeding generations. The only question is: Which ones?”  – Charles Krauthammer (1950-2018) writing in the National Review on May 8, 2015.

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

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AP FACT CHECK: Trump misrepresents a migrant child’s death

President Donald Trump is misrepresenting the circumstances of a 7-year-old migrant girl's death as he seeks to steer any potential blame for it away from his administration.

Trump, after mockingly painting asylum seekers as a "con job" in a rally the previous night, asserted on Friday that Jakelin Caal Maquin was given no water by her father during their trek to a remote border area and that the dad acknowledged blame for his daughter's death on Dec. 8. Those assertions are not supported by the record.

TRUMP: "I think that it's been very well stated that we've done a fantastic job. The father gave the child no water for a long period of time - he actually admitted blame." — to reporters Friday.

THE FACTS: An autopsy report released Friday found that Guatemalan girl died of a bacterial infection just more than a day after being apprehended by the U.S. Border Patrol. The El Paso County Medical Examiner's office said traces of streptococcus bacteria were found in Jakelin's lungs, adrenal gland, liver, and spleen, and she experienced a "rapidly progressive infection" that led to the failure of multiple organs.

Neither the autopsy report, nor accounts at the time by Customs and Border Protection , spoke of dehydration. And through family lawyers, Nery Gilberto Caal Cuz said after his girl's death that he made sure she had food and water as they traveled through Mexico.

Moreover, the Border Protection timeline on her case said she was checked for medical problems upon her apprehension and: "The initial screening revealed no evidence of health issues."

The girl and her father were caught at 9:15 p.m. on Dec. 6 in a group of more than 100 people trying to cross the border, less than a mile or kilometer from the Antelope Wells entry port in New Mexico. The father claimed upon their apprehension that she was in good health. In any event, no health problems were observed.

Her first distress was reported at 5 a.m. the next day, when her father said she was vomiting on a bus waiting to take them to a Border Patrol station at Lordsburg, New Mexico. When the bus arrived close to 6:30 a.m., the father said Jakelin was not breathing. A Border Patrol emergency technician revived her twice. She had a temperature of 105.7 degrees. At 7:45 a.m., a helicopter flew her to the nearest trauma center, in El Paso, Texas, where she went into cardiac arrest late that morning and was revived once more.

By then breathing by machine, with brain swelling and liver failure, she died on Dec. 8 at 12:35 a.m., her father with her.

Afterward, Trump insisted in tweets that the girl and another Guatemalan child who died in custody, Felipe Gomez Alonzo , were "were very sick before they were given over to Border Patrol."

But the boy also did not arouse any concern in initial screenings. He was in U.S. custody for five days before suddenly falling ill.

In his Michigan rally Thursday night, Trump entertained his supporters with an apocryphal story of a "heavyweight champion of the world" pleading a hardship case while seeking asylum. "It's a big fat con job, folks. It's a big fat con job."

He said "you have people coming up here" who are coached by lawyers to "say the following phrase: 'I am very afraid for my life. I am afraid for my life.' OK."

On Friday, he said of the children's deaths when asked about them: "It's a horrible situation. But Mexico could stop it."

___

Associated Press writer Nomaan Merchant in Houston contributed to this report.

___

Find AP Fact Checks at http://apne.ws/2kbx8bd

Follow @APFactCheck on Twitter: https://twitter.com/APFactCheck

Source: Fox News National

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The Mueller interview that wasn’t: how Trump’s legal strategy paid off

FILE PHOTO - U.S. President Trump departs a closed Senate Republican policy lunch on Capitol Hill in Washington
FILE PHOTO - U.S. President Donald Trump talks to reporters down the hall as the president departs a closed Senate Republican policy lunch on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., March 26, 2019. REUTERS/Leah Millis

March 27, 2019

By Karen Freifeld

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – When Attorney General William Barr sent lawmakers a summary of the key findings in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, members of President Donald Trump’s legal team were gathered in an office near the U.S. Capitol.

They soon had reason to celebrate on Sunday, perhaps helped by a pivotal strategic decision. Mueller had spent 22 months investigating whether Trump or his aides conspired with Russia during the 2016 election, interviewing 500 witnesses. The Republican president’s lawyers made sure he was not among them.

The strategy paid off, insulating Trump from the legal jeopardy presented by a sit-down interview with the special counsel’s team – an interview that Trump had said publicly he wanted to do. There was even a tentative date for the interview – Jan. 27, 2018 – though one of Trump’s lawyers told Reuters he never intended to make the president available to Mueller. And Mueller never issued a subpoena demanding testimony.

On Sunday, Trump’s lead attorneys – Jay Sekulow, Rudy Giuliani and husband-and-wife team Jane and Martin Raskin – were huddled at a conference table with their computers open, awaiting Barr’s summary. When it finally popped up online, they were jubilant.

Mueller had found no evidence of conspiracy with Russia, Barr said. The attorney general also concluded there was insufficient evidence that Trump had committed obstruction of justice by trying to impede the inquiry – an issue the special counsel had left unresolved.

The findings provided Trump a big political victory after an investigation that had cast a long shadow over his presidency.

Giuliani threw his arm around Sekulow, Sekulow told Reuters on Tuesday. Sekulow said he told the others, “This is absolutely fantastic.” Giuliani told Reuters minutes after Barr issued the findings: “It’s better than I expected.”

Trump’s legal team successfully rebuffed Mueller’s repeated efforts to get a sit-down interview with Trump and avoided the president being subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury. They agreed instead to have Trump provide written responses, which he did in November.

The stakes were high. Some of the lawyers had worried that if Trump had submitted to the interview, it could expose him to claims that he lied to the FBI, or made “false statements,” in legal terms. Giuliani publicly called an interview a “perjury trap,” especially if Mueller went beyond asking Trump about collusion and strayed into other matters.

Trump is frequently called out for misstating facts or simply making things up.

For the past year, Trump’s lawyers pursued a two-pronged approach that relied on public attacks by Giuliani on Mueller’s “witch hunt” on cable TV news alongside backroom negotiations with Mueller’s team led by the Raskins, according to two sources familiar with the strategy who spoke on condition of anonymity.

A spokesman for Mueller declined to comment for this story.

‘WE WEREN’T GOING THERE’

When Mueller began his work in May 2017, Trump’s legal team initially decided that cooperation was the quickest way to end the probe, according to Ty Cobb, the White House lawyer who handled the inquiry for the presidency at the time. More than 20 White House staff members were made available for special counsel interviews, and the administration handed over more than 20,000 documents.

A burning question was whether Trump himself would agree to be interviewed. Despite the tentative date being set, Trump’s legal advisers were split. Attorney John Dowd, who at the time represented Trump personally in the inquiry, worried that an interview would be too risky.

“We’re not going to go in there and make a mistake,” said Dowd, a pugnacious ex-Marine, recalling how he pushed back against Trump being interviewed even though the president had expressed willingness.

Dowd said he talked to Mueller’s team “about what they had done to Flynn and Papadopoulos.” Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, and a former Trump campaign aide, George Papadopoulos, both ended up pleading guilty to lying to the FBI after submitting to special counsel interviews.

“We weren’t going there,” Dowd said in an interview.

Dowd said Mueller told him he wanted to discuss 16 areas in the interview, a scope viewed as too expansive. In agreeing to the tentative interview date, Trump’s lawyers had been seeking to draw out Mueller to find out what he already knew, Dowd said.

“We wanted to know what was really on their mind. They played it close to the vest. Our purpose was: the more meetings we had, the more we learned. That was the purpose of keeping the talking going,” Dowd said, adding that he never intended to make Trump available for an interview.

PROTECTING THE PRESIDENT

After the interview was canceled, it was apparent, according to Cobb, that the process would drag on.

“Once there was a decision by the president’s lawyers in January 2018 not to proceed with an interview at that time – but to keep the possibility open – it was clear this would take some time,” Cobb said.

The lawyers also faced the daily prospect of a subpoena from Mueller to force Trump to testify. If it came, their plan was to ask a judge to quash the subpoena, expecting the legal fight to reach the Supreme Court. It never came.

“We were prepared from the outset in the event of a subpoena to challenge it,” Sekulow said. “We felt confident the law was clearly on our side.”

Although not all experts agree, the legal team’s view was that a president cannot be compelled to testify unless the information could not be obtained from other sources and the circumstances were extraordinary.

By the spring of 2018, it appeared Trump had two options: either sit for an interview or be subpoenaed.

By that point, Trump’s team had been reshuffled. Dowd resigned in March. The Raskins and Giuliani came on board in April. Cobb was replaced in the White House by Emmet Flood in May. Sekulow was the only key member remaining throughout.

The new legal team pressed Mueller to show them that the investigation had reached a stage that would justify sitting down with the president, a source familiar with the negotiations said.

“Are you in a position where you have evidence of a crime?” the source said the team asked Mueller.

The team stuck to that position through the autumn of 2018 while negotiating the deal in which Trump would answer written questions only on a limited subject – potential collusion with Russia before the 2016 election – not open-ended queries that potentially could have spilled into his businesses, finances or other matters.

CRITICAL MOMENT

Mueller’s agreement to submit a list of questions was a critical moment. The special counsel never stopped asking for the interview, the source said, but when Mueller acquiesced to answers in writing, it was a game-changer.

“It went from being constantly, ‘Are they going to decide to issue a subpoena?’ to, ‘We’re doing some written questions,'” the source said.

Trump’s lawyers would not entertain questions on the issue of whether Trump had tried to obstruct justice when he fired former FBI director James Comey, then overseeing the Russia probe, and frequently assailed Attorney General Jeff Sessions publicly for not ending the inquiry.

The legal team did not think a president could be found guilty of obstruction of justice for firing someone whom he had appointed in the first place to work for the administration.

“That was off the table,” and negotiations with Mueller continued on answering questions on Russia’s interference in the election, the source familiar with the matter said.

“At the end of the day, the strategy worked. No interview. No grand jury subpoena,” the source added.

Trump signed his answers to Mueller on Nov. 20 before leaving Washington to celebrate the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

“We answered every question they asked that was legitimately pre-election and focused on Russia,” Giuliani told Reuters at the time. “Nothing post-election.”

Mueller’s team had pressed during the negotiations for an opportunity to pose follow-up questions to Trump, possibly in person, Giuliani said. But ultimately the special counsel agreed to accept just the written answers with no conditions and no follow-ups, Giuliani added.

By the end of last year, Trump’s lawyers had little interaction with Mueller’s team.

Asked about the team’s strategy, Sekulow said, “I guess it worked. The plane landed successfully.”

(Reporting by Karen Freifeld; Editing by Ross Colvin and Will Dunham)

Source: OANN

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Wife of ex-Interpol president dismisses allegations

The wife of the detained former Interpol president expelled this week from China's ruling Communist Party is reiterating calls for proof that he is still alive.

In her first comments about his expulsion, Meng Hongwei's wife said corruption allegations leveled by Chinese officials in stripping her husband of his party membership were "vague" and "uncorroborated."

Meng's four-year mandate as Interpol president was cut short when he was detained last October during a visit to China from the police agency's headquarters in France.

At the time, Meng was also one of China's vice ministers of public security.

Expulsion from the party is usually the last step before trial.

His wife, Grace Meng, has remained in France with their two boys.

Source: Fox News World

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Ghosn’s lawyers appeal to Japan Supreme Court over detention

The lawyers for Nissan's former Chairman Carlos Ghosn, who was sent back to detention while out on bail, have filed a protest with the Japanese Supreme Court.

The appeal was filed Wednesday.

Lawyer Junichiro Hironaka told reporters that Ghosn's fourth and latest arrest is unfair.

Ghosn was arrested in November, released on bail last month but re-arrested last week.

Multiple arrests and long detentions are routine in Japan, but arresting a suspect who cleared bail is unusual.

Ghosn's detention has been extended through Sunday but may be prolonged. He is charged with falsifying financial documents and breach of trust. He says he is innocent.

The latest arrest is over suspicion Nissan money paid to a dealership that was diverted to a company effectively controlled by Ghosn.

Source: Fox News World

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Russian TV Lists Nuclear Targets in US

Russian TV has broadcasted US military facilities that Russia would target with nuclear strikes, and has even claimed that Moscow is developing a hypersonic missile that can hit the targets in under five minutes.

The targets include the Pentagon and the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland, according to Reuters.

“In the Sunday evening broadcast, Dmitry Kiselyov, presenter of Russia’s main weekly TV news show ‘Vesti Nedeli’, showed a map of the United States and identified several targets he said Moscow would want to hit in the event of a nuclear war,” the outlet reported.

Russia published the list in response to reports that the Pentagon may consider the deployment of intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe amid the US withdraw from the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.

“The US claims Moscow breached the agreement that bans the production, testing and deployment of cruise and ballistic missiles with a range of 310 to 3,410 miles in Europe,” reported the New York Post. “In his annual state-of-the-nation speech earlier Wednesday, Putin vowed to keep in step with the US on new weapon development so that Russia would be prepared to respond to any threats.”

Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin also said Moscow is prepared for a new ‘Cuban Missile’-style crisis if tensions between the two counties escalate.

The US has since dismissed the comments as boasting and stated that it has no immediate plans to deploy missiles to Europe.

“Some analysts have seen his approach as a tactic to try to re-engage the United States in talks about the strategic balance between the two powers, something Moscow has long pushed for, with mixed results,” reported Reuters.



A recent poll reveals the #1 priority for Texans is illegal immigration, but the legislature is focusing on education instead.

Source: InfoWars

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One of Joe Biden’s newly-hired senior advisers has seemingly had a very recent change of heart.

Symone Sanders, a prominent Democratic strategist and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., staffer in 2016, was announced as one of the big-name members of Team Biden on Thursday.

But Sanders, who has also served as a CNN contributor, is seen in resurfaced footage from November 2016 expressing her opposition to a white person leading her party after Donald Trump’s election.

“In my opinion, we don’t need white people leading the Democratic party right now,” Sanders told host Brianna Keilar during a discussion on Howard Dean potentially becoming DNC chairman.

BIDEN HIRES FORMER BERNIE SANDERS’ SPOKESPERSON AS SENIOR ADVISER

“The Democratic party is diverse, and it should be reflected as so in leadership and throughout the staff, at the highest levels. From the vice chairs to the secretaries all the way down to the people working in the offices at the DNC,” she said.

Sanders wrapped up her remarks by saying: “I want to hear more from everybody. I want to hear from the millennials and the brown folks.”

Footage of the interview was resurfaced by RealClearPolitics.

After news of her hiring broke on Thursday, Sanders backed her new boss on Twitter.

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

“@JoeBiden & @DrBiden are a class act. Over the course of this campaign, Vice President Biden is going to make his case to the American ppl. He won’t always be perfect, but I believe he will get it right,” she wrote.

The hiring of Sanders has been viewed as another indication of the expected tough fight that Biden and Sanders are in for as the two frontrunners battle a deep Democratic field.

While Sanders himself didn’t torch Biden as he jumped into the race, it’s clear that many of his progressive supporters view the former vice president as a threat.

Biden’s entry into the race – at least in the early going – sets up a battle between himself and Sanders, who thanks to his fierce fight with eventual nominee Hillary Clinton for the 2016 Democratic nomination, enjoys name ID on the level of the former vice president.

BIDEN VOWS THAT ‘AMERICA IS COMING BACK,’ SPARKING ‘MAGA’ COMPARISONS

Justice Democrats — who also called Biden “out-of-touch” – is an increasingly influential group among the left of the party. They’ve championed progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York as well as Sanders. The group was founded by members of Sanders 2016 presidential campaign.

Biden has pushed back against the perception that he’s a moderate in a party that’s increasingly moving to the left. Earlier this month he described himself as an “Obama-Biden Democrat.”

And Biden said he’d stack his record against “anybody who has run or who is running now or who will run.”

Former Democratic National Committee chair Donna Brazile – a Fox News contributor – highlighted that “Joe Biden can occupy his own lane in large part because he’s earned it. He’s earned the right to call himself whatever.”

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But she emphasized that “elections are not about the past, they’re about the future…I do believe he has the right ingredients. The question is can he find enough people to help him stir the pot.”

Fox News Andrew O’Reilly contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News Politics

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Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh, who is facing increased calls for her immediate resignation, remains in poor health and is not “lucid” enough to decide whether to step down, her attorney told reporters late Thursday.

Steve Silverman, speaking outside one of Pugh’s residences which was raided by the FBI and IRS earlier in the day, said the embattled city leader could make a decision as early as next week.

“She is leaning toward making the best decision in the best interest in the citizens of Baltimore City,” he said, adding that Pugh has “several options” to consider.

“She just needs to be physically and mentally sound and lucid enough to make appropriate decisions.”

BALTIMORE MAYOR CATHERINE PUGH, ON LEAVE AMID BOOK PROBE, HAS HOMES AND CITY HALL OFFICE RAIDED BY FEDS

Silverman said Pugh met with a doctor at home Thursday and plans to do so again Friday, the Baltimore Sun reported.

In the latest image-tarnishing scandal for struggling Baltimore, the first-term Democratic mayor faces accusations that she used children’s book deals to cover up kickbacks for favorable treatment as a state lawmaker and city leader that earned her roughly $800,000 over several years.

BALTIMORE’S ACTING MAYOR SAYS HE ‘WOULD HATE TO SEE’ EMBATTLED MAYOR RETURN AFTER BOOK SCANDALS

As a state senator, 69-year-old Pugh sold $500,000 worth of her self-published “Healthy Holly” illustrated paperbacks to the University of Maryland Medical System, a major state employer whose board she sat on for nearly 20 years.

Baltimore police officers stand outside the house of Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh in Baltimore, MD., Thursday, April 25, 2019. Agents with the FBI and IRS are gathering evidence inside the two homes of Pugh and also in City Hall. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Baltimore police officers stand outside the house of Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh in Baltimore, MD., Thursday, April 25, 2019. Agents with the FBI and IRS are gathering evidence inside the two homes of Pugh and also in City Hall. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

UMMS reportedly paid Pugh for 100,000 copies of her books between 2011 and 2018 with the stated intention of distributing the books to schools and day care centers. But some 50,000 copies remain unaccounted for and officials are probing if they were even printed.

Pugh also made $300,000 in bulk sales to other customers including health carriers that did business with the city of Baltimore.

BALTIMORE CITY COUNCIL CALLS ON EMBATTLED MAYOR CATHERINE PUGH TO RESIGN IMMEDIATELY

The politically isolated Pugh slipped out of sight on April 1 after a hastily organized press conference where she called her no-contract book deals a “regrettable mistake.” That same day, Maryland’s governor called on the state prosecutor to investigate allegations of “self-dealing.”

Pugh took an indefinite leave of absence, citing her health deteriorating intensely after a bout with pneumonia.

Federal agents arrive at the Maryland Center for Adult Training in Baltimore. MD, Thursday, April 25, 2019. Agents with the FBI and IRS are gathering evidence inside the two homes of Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh and in City Hall, as well as the office of her lawyer and the home of a top aide.

Federal agents arrive at the Maryland Center for Adult Training in Baltimore. MD, Thursday, April 25, 2019. Agents with the FBI and IRS are gathering evidence inside the two homes of Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh and in City Hall, as well as the office of her lawyer and the home of a top aide. (Loyd Fox/Baltimore Sun via AP)

On Thursday morning, agents with the FBI and IRS searched her two Baltimore homes, her City Hall offices, and a nonprofit organization she once led. The home of at least one of Pugh’s aides was also scoured.

Silverman said federal agents also served a subpoena at his law firm, retrieving Pugh’s original financial records. They did not seek any attorney-client privileged communications, he said.

Pugh’s attorney said she was “emotionally extremely distraught” following the searches by FBI and IRS agents.

“There was nothing incriminating that came out of her home,” Silverman said.

UMMS spokesman Michael Schwartzberg told reporters that the medical system received a grand jury witness subpoena seeking documents and information related to Pugh.

Other probes against Pugh include a review by the city ethics board and the Maryland Insurance Administration.

BALTIMORE MAYOR’S $500G DEAL FOR ‘HEALTHY HOLLY’ CHILDREN’S BOOKS DRAWS SCRUTINY

In recent weeks, the calls for Pugh’s resignation have intensified with the strongest voice coming from Republican Gov. Larry Hogan, who did not mince words after Thursday’s early morning raids.

“Now more than ever, Baltimore City needs strong and responsible leadership. Mayor Pugh has lost the public trust,” he said. “She is clearly not fit to lead. For the good of the city, Mayor Pugh must resign.”

Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Internal Revenue Service agents search the home of Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh in Baltimore, MD., Thursday, April 25, 2019. Agents with the FBI and IRS are gathering evidence inside the two homes of Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh and in City Hall.

Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Internal Revenue Service agents search the home of Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh in Baltimore, MD., Thursday, April 25, 2019. Agents with the FBI and IRS are gathering evidence inside the two homes of Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh and in City Hall. (Jerry Jackson/Baltimore Sun via AP)

Many of her fellow Democrats, including those on Baltimore’s demoralized City Council and state lawmakers, are also insisting that Pugh put the citizens’ interests above any attempt to preserve her political career.

City Council member Brandon Scott called the Thursday raids “an embarrassment to the city.”

However, only a conviction can trigger a mayor’s removal from office, according to the city solicitor. Baltimore’s mayor-friendly City Charter currently provides no options for ousting its executive.

Six of Pugh’s staffers joined her on paid leave earlier this month; three of them were fired this week by the acting mayor.

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Pugh came to office in late 2016 after edging out ex-Mayor Sheila Dixon, who had spent much of her tenure fighting corruption charges before being forced to depart office in 2010 as part of a plea deal connected to the misappropriation of about $500 in gift cards meant for needy families.

She would certainly face a bruising 2020 Democratic primary if she were to return and run for reelection. Veteran City Council leader Bernard “Jack” Young, who is serving as acting mayor, said as she went on leave that he would merely be a placeholder. But this week, before the raids, he said “it could be devastating for her” if she tried to return.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News National

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FILE PHOTO: Cases of Pepsi are shown for sale at a store in Carlsbad
FILE PHOTO: Cases of Pepsi are shown for sale at a store in Carlsbad, California, U.S., April 22, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By Amit Dave and Mayank Bhardwaj

AHMEDABAD/NEW DELHI (Reuters) – PepsiCo Inc has sued four Indian farmers for cultivating a potato variety that the snack food and drinks maker claims infringes its patent, the company and the growers said on Friday.

Pepsi has sued the farmers for cultivating the FC5 potato variety, exclusively grown for its popular Lay’s potato chips. The FC5 variety has a lower moisture content required to make snacks such as potato chips.

PepsiCo is seeking more than 10 million rupees ($142,840.82) each for alleged patent infringement.

The farmers grow potatoes in the western state of Gujarat, a leading producer of India’s most consumed vegetable.

“We have been growing potatoes for a long time and we didn’t face this problem ever, as we’ve mostly been using the seeds saved from one harvest to plant the next year’s crop,” said Bipin Patel, one of the four farmers sued by Pepsi.

Patel did not say how he came by the PepsiCo variety.

A court in Ahmedabad, the business hub of Gujarat, on Friday agreed to hear the case on June 12, said Anand Yagnik, the lawyer for the farmers.

“In this instance, we took judicial recourse against people who were illegally dealing in our registered variety,” A PepsiCo India spokesman said. “This was done to protect our rights and safeguard the larger interest of farmers that are engaged with us and who are using and benefiting from seeds of our registered variety.”

PepsiCo, which set up its first potato chips plant in India in 1989, supplies the FC5 potato variety to a group of farmers who in turn sell their produce to the company at a fixed price.

The All India Kisan Sabha, or All India Farmers’ Forum, has asked the Indian government to protect the farmers.

The farmers’ forum has also called for a boycott of PepsiCo’s Lay’s chips and the company’s other products.

The Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

PepsiCo is the second major U.S. company in India to face issues over patent infringement.

Stung by a long-standing intellectual property dispute, seed maker Monsanto, which is now owned by German drugmaker Bayer AG, withdrew from some businesses in India over a cotton-seed dispute with farmers, Reuters reported in 2017. (reut.rs/2ncBknn)

(Reporting by Amit Dave in AHMEDABAD and Mayank Bhardwaj in NEW DELHI; Editing by Martin Howell and Louise Heavens)

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FILE PHOTO: The Archer Daniels Midland Co (ADM) logo is displayed on a screen on the floor of the NYSE in New York
FILE PHOTO: The Archer Daniels Midland Co (ADM) logo is displayed on a screen on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., May 3, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By P.J. Huffstutter and Shradha Singh

CHICAGO/BENGALURU (Reuters) – Archer Daniels Midland Co said on Friday it was considering spinning off its ethanol business after slim biofuel margins and Midwestern floods slammed the U.S. grains merchant’s profit, which tumbled 41 percent in the first quarter.

ADM said it was creating an ethanol subsidiary, which will include dry mills in Columbus, Nebraska; Cedar Rapids, Iowa; and Peoria, Illinois.

The ethanol subsidiary will report as an independent segment, the company said, allowing options “which may include, but are not limited to, a potential spin-off of the business to existing ADM shareholders.”

Results were hit by the “bomb cyclone” blizzards that devastated the Midwest and Great Plains this year, causing massive flooding across Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri, washing out rail lines and wreaking havoc in the moving and processing of corn, soybeans and wheat. One-sixth of U.S. ethanol production was halted.

In March, ADM warned Wall Street that flooding and severe winter weather in the U.S. Midwest would reduce its first-quarter operating profit by $50 million to $60 million.

“The first quarter proved more challenging than initially expected,” said Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Juan Luciano, with earnings down in its starches, sweeteners and bioproducts unit. Luciano said impacts of the severe weather ultimately “were on the high side of our initial estimates”.

Ongoing problems in the ethanol industry added to the problems and “limited margins and opportunities” for ADM, Luciano said.

The ethanol industry has been in the midst of a historic downswing due to the U.S.-China trade war, excess domestic supply and weak margins.

ADM, which had been an ethanol pioneer, signaled to Wall Street in 2016 that it was hunting for options and considering sales of its U.S. dry ethanol mills. Luciano told Reuters this year that offers ADM had received for the mills were too low.

In addition, ADM said it planned to repurpose its corn wet mill in Marshall, Minnesota, to produce higher volumes of food and industrial-grade starches.

Other major traders are alsy trying to distance themselves from struggling ethanol businesses. Louis Dreyfus Company BV spun off its Brazilian sugar and ethanol business Biosev in 2013. Rival Bunge sold its sugar book and has sought a buyer for its Brazilian mills since 2013.

ADM, which makes money trading, processing and transporting crops, such as corn, soybeans and wheat, has been looking to strengthen its core business. Last month it said it would seek voluntary early retirements of some North American employees and cut jobs as part of a restructuring effort.

The company expects to lower 2019 capital spending by 10 percent to between $800 million and $900 million.

Net earnings attributable to the company fell to $233 million, or 41 cents per share, in the three months ended March 31, from $393 million, or 70 cents per share, a year earlier.

Revenue fell to $15.30 billion from $15.53 billion. On an adjusted basis, the company earned 46 cents per share, while analysts on average had estimated 60 cents, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

(Reporting by Shradha Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta, Chizu Nomiyama and David Gregorio)

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The Slack app logo is seen on a smartphone in this illustration
FILE PHOTO: The Slack app logo is seen on a smartphone in this picture illustration taken September 15, 2017. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

April 26, 2019

(Reuters) – Slack Technologies Inc, operator of the popular workplace instant-messaging app, reported a loss of $140.7 million in the fiscal year ended Jan. 31, 2019, the company said on Friday in a regulatory filing ahead of its planned public market debut.

The company said its daily active users exceeded 10 million in the three months ended Jan. 31, 2019.

Slack expects to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “SK”, it said.

The San Francisco-based company is seeking to go public via a direct listing, making it the second big technology company after Spotify Technology SA to bypass the traditional route of listing shares through an initial public offering.

A direct listing is a cheaper way of becoming a public company as the process requires fewer investment banks and therefore lower fees.

In a direct listing, however, a company does not sell any new shares to raise money. Instead, it gives existing shareholders the opportunity to cash out.

Slack is the latest in a string of high-profile technology companies looking to go public this year. Lyft Inc, Pinterest and Zoom Video Communications have completed IPOs so far in 2019.

The company is hoping for a valuation of more than $10 billion in the listing, Reuters had previously reported. Some early investors and employees have been selling the stock at around $28, valuing the company close to $17 billion, Kelly Rodriques, CEO of Forge, a brokerage company, told CNBC on Thursday.

Slack set a placeholder amount of $100 million to indicate the size of the IPO. The amount of money a company says it plans to raise in its first IPO filings is used to calculate registration fees. The final size of the IPO could be different.

Its competitors include Microsoft Teams, a free chat add-on for Microsoft’s Office365 users.

(Reporting By Aparajita Saxena and Joshua Franklin in New York; Editing by Leslie Adler and Anil D’Silva)

Source: OANN

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