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College notebook: Duke’s Williamson, Barrett headline All-America team

NCAA Basketball: NCAA Tournament-East Regional-Michigan State vs Duke
FILE PHOTO: Mar 31, 2019; Washington, DC, USA; Duke Blue Devils forward Zion Williamson (1) shoots the ball against Michigan State Spartans forward Kenny Goins (25) during the first half in the championship game of the east regional of the 2019 NCAA Tournament at Capital One Arena. Mandatory Credit: Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports

April 3, 2019

Freshmen Zion Williamson and RJ Barrett of Duke headline the 2019 college basketball All-America team announced Tuesday.

Murray State guard Ja Morant, Tennessee forward Grant Williams and Michigan State point guard Cassius Winston round out the team.

Williamson and Barrett are the first freshman teammates named to the first team since John Wall and DeMarcus Cousins of Kentucky in 2010.

Williamson was a unanimous selection by 64 Associated Press voters, averaging 22.6 points, 8.9 rebounds, 2.1 blocks and 1.8 blocks per game. Barrett averaged 22.6 points, 7.6 boards and 4.3 assists.

–Boston College standout guard Ky Bowman announced he is bypassing his senior season and declaring for the NBA draft.

“It has always been a lifelong dream of mine to play in the NBA,” Bowman wrote on an Instagram post. “After much thought and consideration with my family, I have decided to declare for the 2019 NBA Draft and take the next step toward achieving my dream.”

Bowman averaged 19.2 points, 7.6 rebounds and 4.0 assists this season while earning second-team All-Atlantic Coast Conference honors.

–Former coaches Lute Olson and Rick Majerus and former UNLV star Larry Johnson highlight the nine-member class selected for induction into the College Basketball Hall of Fame. Duke’s Shane Battier, Indiana’s Calbert Cheaney, Providence’s Ernie DiGregorio, Purdue’s Terry Dischinger, Stanford’s Todd Lichti and former Valparaiso coach Homer Drew also were selected.

Olson went 776-285 in 34 seasons at Long Beach State, Iowa and Arizona. He won the 1997 national title at Arizona as part of 23 consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances.

Majerus, who died in 2012, went 517-216 with stops at Marquette, Ball State, Utah and Saint Louis. His biggest accomplishment was leading the Utes to the 1998 national championship game, where they lost to Kentucky.

–North Carolina State recruit Jalen Lecque is weighing whether to enter the NBA draft or play for the Wolfpack next season. He has until April 21 to make the decision.

Lecque, a 6-foot-4 guard, is considered to be in his fifth year of high school after playing at Brewster Academy in New Hampshire this season. Since he turns 19 on June 13, and his original graduating class was 2018, he might be eligible for the draft. His family has filed paperwork with the NBA, according to multiple outlets.

ESPN reported that the NBA will review the transcripts of Lecque, a four-star recruit. The outlet said Lecque didn’t receive a diploma from the Christ School in Arden, N.C., where he was enrolled in 2017-18, setting up the unique scenario.

–Houston has offered coach Kelvin Sampson a six-year, $18 million extension, the Houston Chronicle reported.

Sampson, 63, guided the Cougars (33-4) to the American Athletic Conference regular-season title and their first Sweet 16 appearance since 1984.

The school made the offer last week and both sides are reviewing the details, the newspaper said. It would make Sampson one of the top 25 highest-paid coaches in the nation. He currently earns $1.4 million.

–Field Level Media

Source: OANN

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Boris Johnson says Britain will leave the EU on March 29 after last-minute deal

Former British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson speaks in Parliament in London
FILE PHOTO: Former British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson speaks in Parliament in London, Britain, March 12, 2019, in this screen grab taken from video. Reuters TV via REUTERS

March 13, 2019

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain will leave the European Union on March 29 after a deal is reached “at five minutes to midnight”, former British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said on Wednesday.

Johnson, one of Britain’s most prominent Brexit campaigners, told LBC radio that the parliamentary vote on Wednesday to rule out a no-deal exit would not take no-deal off the table.

“It’s quite possible that parliament will vote symbolically to say that it doesn’t want a no-deal … but what happens then is that under the law, the UK will leave the EU on March 29 because that is what the law provides,” Johnson told LBC.

(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Elisabeth O’Leary)

Source: OANN

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Iraq says it tried to stop US from blacklisting Iran corps

Iraq's prime minster says his government tried to stop the U.S. from labelling Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps as a "foreign terrorist organization," saying the designation could have negative consequences for Iraq and the Middle East.

Adel Abdul-Mahdi says Iraq will continue to invest in its relationship with both the U.S. and Iran despite the White House designation Monday. The Iraqi premier says his government spoke to the U.S. administration about the label.

Speaking at his weekly news conference Tuesday, Abdul-Mahdi said that Iraq as Iran's neighbor to the west cannot afford to be the site of conflict between rival powers.

Some 5,200 U.S. troops are stationed in Iraq, after the Iraqi parliament invited Washington to deploy forces to fight the Islamic State group in 2014.

Source: Fox News World

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California church parishioners help tackle woman with gun who allegedly threatened attack

A mother in San Diego holding a 10-month-old baby while waving a gun was tackled at a church on Easter and ultimately arrested after she made threats to blow up the building, according to reports.

A service was ending at the non-denominational Tsidkenu Church in the Clairemont community of San Diego when "a lady came in with a gun and started talking delusional stuff," Ronald Farmer told Fox 5.

"After she started pointing the gun at the baby, one of the older gentlemen grabbed it from her, and then me and a couple of other men tackled her," said David Michael Miller, as KABC reported. "We got the baby away from her. A few minutes after that, the cops came in. She was trying to run away or something so a cop tackled her through a row of chairs. They arrested her and pulled another gun out of her bra."

A mother in San Diego holding a baby and waving a gun was arrested at the Tsidkenu Church in the Clairemont community of San Diego. (Tsidkenu Church San Diego)

A mother in San Diego holding a baby and waving a gun was arrested at the Tsidkenu Church in the Clairemont community of San Diego. (Tsidkenu Church San Diego)

The suspect was identified as Anna Conkey, 31.

No one, including Conkey, was injured. Police said the gun wasn't loaded.

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San Diego Police Department said she was booked into jail on charges of “making criminal threats and displaying a handgun in a threatening manner.”

"We knew who she was. She had been coming on and off for a little bit of time. And we had been praying for her because we wanted to see her set free," Ben Wisan, a church leader, said.

Click for more from Fox 5.

Source: Fox News National

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Pakistani official: Powerful rainstorm in northwest kills 6

A Pakistani government official says a powerful rainstorm with heavy winds across the country's northwest killed at least six people overnight.

Taimur Khan, a spokesman for the provincial Disaster Management Authority said on Wednesday that several people were also injured in the storm in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province that borders Afghanistan.

He says many houses were damaged and some of the areas in the province were without electricity for hours but the situation is now under control.

Seasonal dust storms and rains often damage houses in Pakistan, causing casualties.

The country's monsoon season begins in July and torrential rains trigger flash floods every year in Pakistan.

Source: Fox News World

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The battle for Citgo: How Venezuela opposition leaders seized control

FILE PHOTO: FILE PHOTO: The corporate logos of the state oil company PDVSA and Citgo Petroleum Corp are seen in Caracas
FILE PHOTO: The corporate logos of the state oil company PDVSA and Citgo Petroleum Corp are seen in Caracas, Venezuela April 30, 2018. REUTERS/Marco Bello/File Photo

February 22, 2019

By Marianna Parraga

(Reuters) – Asbrubal Chavez, chief executive of Houston-based Citgo Petroleum Corp, boarded the Venezuelan-owned firm’s corporate jet in Caracas on Jan. 30, after meeting with top officials of the embattled administration of socialist President Nicolas Maduro about the latest U.S. oil sanctions.

Upon landing in the Bahamas – where Chavez has worked for about a year after being denied a U.S. visa – he had received word from Houston that it would be his last trip on a company plane and that his Citgo email account had been shut off.

Day-to-day control of the company had passed to Citgo’s top U.S. executive, Rick Esser, who with the backing of Venezuela’s rising political opposition and the U.S. government would begin clearing the way for a new, anti-Maduro board of directors at Citgo. Esser oversaw the moves to isolate Chavez – a cousin of the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez – and would soon start ousting other Citgo executives close to the Maduro administration.

The house-cleaning at the prized U.S.-based subsidiary of Venezuela’s state-owned oil firm, Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), marked a crucial early victory for the country’s rising opposition government – led by self-declared president Juan Guaido – as it struggles to remove Maduro from office and break his grip on the OPEC nation’s oil assets. The account of the transition of power at Citgo is based on Reuters interviews with more than a dozen current and former Citgo and PDVSA executives, employees, and U.S. and Latin American advisors.

Guaido, head of the nation’s congress, announced he would seize the presidency on Jan. 23 because Maduro’s re-election last year was a sham, rendering the socialist leader illegitimate under Venezuela law. Guaido’s claim to interim leadership, until fair elections can be held, was quickly backed by the United States and dozens of other nations.

But Maduro remains in control of the nation’s military and PDVSA – making Citgo the obvious first target among national asset for Guaido’s opposition movement to claim, with the help of the U.S. government. The battle for Citgo could prove pivotal in the effort to unseat Maduro because full control of a major U.S. refiner would provide a crucial source of revenue to a post-Maduro administration.

Citgo, with more than $23 billion in annual sales and operations that supply about 4 percent of U.S. fuels, may be the last remaining asset owned by PDVSA with a healthy balance sheet. As PDVSA’s oil production and revenue have plummeted amid crippling debt, mismanagement and international political pressure, Citgo’s U.S. location and financial independence have shielded the firm from the worst of its parent company’s meltdown.

At the end of September, Citgo had net income of about $500 million, according to a creditor with access to financial statements that are not public. The company had almost $500 million in cash and an available credit line of $900 million.

(Graphic: An interactive look at Venezuela’s crude exports to the United States – https://tmsnrt.rs/2S4YIXB)

Inside Citgo’s Houston headquarters, many employees weary of operating under the control of a failing socialist state eagerly await an expected official announcement of the appointments of new company directors, who were chosen by Venezuela’s congress.

The new board met together for the first time in Houston on Thursday and named executives to replace those who were ousted, according to two Citgo employees with knowledge of the board actions, which the company has not publicly disclosed.

“We are not expecting any resistance” to the new board inside the company, said one manager who spoke on condition of anonymity. “On the contrary, we are waiting for directions to lay out the red carpet.”

Spokespeople for Citgo and Esser did not respond to requests for comment or declined comment. PDVSA did not respond to requests for comment. The White House did not immediately respond to a request Friday morning.

(graphic: Citgo’s Louisiana refinery was 2018’s top U.S. consumer of Venezuela’s crude – https://tmsnrt.rs/2t4ullS.)

SHIFTING ALLEGIANCES

As U.S. sanctions on Jan. 28 shifted the balance of power to Citgo’s anti-Maduro faction of executives, Maduro loyalists scrambled to find their place in the emerging corporate structure.

Two of four senior executives appointed by Chavez openly pledged support for the incoming board of directors in meetings with employees, said two sources who attended the meetings.

But all four – Frank Gygax, Nepmar Escalona, Simon Suarez and Eladio Perez – were escorted out of the building on Monday, according to four people with knowledge of their departures. Gygax declined to comment and the others did not respond to requests.

It’s unclear whether Chavez has yet been formally terminated, an action that can only be taken by company directors, but he has been effectively shut out of the firm, Citgo employees said. Chavez did not respond to a request for comment.

Esser has essentially run the company since Chavez’ ouster, in close consultation with U.S. government officials, according to three Citgo employees and two people close to the incoming company board.

A Jan. 30 meeting between White House National Security Advisor John Bolton and Citgo executives thrust the low-key Esser into the spotlight after Bolton tweeted a photo of the meeting, calling it “very productive.”

U.S. officials have voiced concern that Guaido and his supporters had been too slow in seizing control of Citgo and also have pushed for a say in choosing members of the refiner’s new board – a request Guaido’s team declined, according to two people familiar with the talks.

Since clearing Citgo’s upper ranks of Maduro allies, Esser has focused on securing alternatives to the Venezuelan oil that feeds its refineries. Recent U.S. sanctions prevent the firm from importing Venezuelan crude after April 28, which could cripple the company unless it can ensure it has the cash, credit and contracts for alternate supplies.

Advisors to the incoming Citgo board have separately urged U.S. officials to exempt Citgo from sanctions and protect its assets from creditors once it is officially controlled by Guaido’s team.

Esser saw this crisis coming two years ago and put together a group to find new suppliers and test their oils in the event Venezuelan crudes were restricted by sanctions, according to a person familiar with the effort. The firm’s efforts to sustain operations face a threat from creditors owed money by Venezuela and PDVSA, who could try to use that leverage to hamstring Citgo’s finances, said Carlos Jorda, a former Citgo chairman and now a Houston business consultant. The U.S. government could help the company hold off that threat, he said.

“The U.S. Treasury could say, ‘Hold your horses, you’ll get paid – but not paid by Citgo, but by Venezuela – when the Maduro regime exits,'” Jorda said.

Esser and Citgo finance executive Curtis Rowe traveled to Washington this week to meet with U.S. government officials for at least the second time in three weeks, according to two Citgo employees.

‘FROGS AND SNAKES’

Opposition leaders had difficulty recruiting candidates willing to join the new Citgo board, according to three people familiar with the recruitments.

“There are many risks,” one of the people said, “and if these people have family members in Venezuela, they could be putting them at risk, too.”

In late 2017, six Citgo executives were called to Caracas and jailed amid a graft probe over a failed debt refinancing. Their detention led to Chavez’s appointment as CEO and the arrival of several Maduro loyalists at Citgo’s Houston headquarters.

New Citgo Chairwoman Luisa Palacios – appointed by the Venezuelan congress last week – has been huddling with newly appointed directors and legal advisers to guard against the threat of a potential U.S. court challenge by PDVSA to the new board’s legitimacy, according to two sources close to her team.

Palacios and other board members, which include former Citgo and PDVSA executives living in the United States, did not respond to requests for comment.

One of their priorities will be to audit the finances of a refinery project in Aruba, said the two people close to Palacios. PDVSA and Citgo agreed to a $685 million overhaul of the idled facility in 2016, causing some Citgo executives to resign in protest, arguing the deal made no business sense.

On Monday, Citgo Aruba Refining officially put the money-losing venture on hold and laid off workers, citing the impact of U.S. sanctions on PDVSA. The project has been clouded by corruption allegations, according to four former and current Citgo employees and two people close to the new Citgo board.

“There is also worry about the audits to come. We are expecting ‘frogs and snakes’ to come from there,” said a Citgo employee, using a Venezuelan figure of speech similar in meaning to the opening of a Pandora’s box.

REDECORATING

Since Esser took over Citgo operations, the company has sent clear signals of a return to its century-old American roots.

“We the people of Citgo have a story to tell you” read an advertisement in Tuesday’s Washington Post, borrowing language from the U.S. constitution. The text emphasized the firm’s 6,000 U.S. workers, fiscal strength and U.S. charity work.

Workers at the company’s Houston headquarters also have purged the company website and marketing materials of references to PDVSA and stripped the building of the symbols of Venezuela’s socialist government.

For years, the hallways have been decorated with renderings of a controversial painting of Latin American independence leader Simon Bolivar that had been commissioned by former president Hugo Chavez – and looked more like Chavez than any historical Bolivar painting.

The portraits began to disappear, Citgo employees said, soon after Venezuela’s congress appointed the company’s new board of directors.

(Graphic: Venezuela in 2017 was the world’s second-largest producer of heavy crude – https://tinyurl.com/y2dzohtq)

(Reporting by Marianna Parraga; additional reporting by Gary McWilliams, Matt Spetalnick and Luc Cohen; writing by Gary McWilliams; editing by Brian Thevenot)

Source: OANN

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Correction: Little Rock-Triple Homicide story

In a Dec. 6, 2017, story about the death of a mother and her two children, The Associated Press misspelled one of the children's names. Her name was A'Layliah Fisher, not Alayah Fisher.

A corrected version of the story is below:

Police: Mother, 2 children aged 3 and 5, slain in Arkansas

Little Rock police say two children, aged 3 and 5, and their 24-year-old mother were killed in their apartment and that the children's father has been arrested on unrelated charges

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Two young children and their 24-year-old mother were slain in their apartment and their father has been arrested on unrelated charges, Little Rock police said Wednesday.

Officer Steve Moore said in a news release that officers called to a reported suicide found the bodies of 5-year-old A'Layliah Fisher, 3-year-old Elijah Fisher and their mother, Mariah Cunningham, on Tuesday afternoon. Moore said investigators have determined that the three are homicide victims. The bodies have been sent to the State Crime Lab to determine the cause of death.

Police say they were called by a relative who found the bodies after being notified that the children had not arrived at school and was unable to contact Cunningham. Police initially said one of the victims was 4.

Police haven't said how the victims died or provide a motive. Moore said he didn't know when the killings happened.

Police Lt. Michael Ford said the children's father, Gregory Fisher, 29, has been arrested on unrelated charges but that he is not a suspect in the slayings "at this time."

Pulaski County jail records show Fisher is being held for another county and on charges of failure to appear and bond revocation.

The city had been on pace for a record-high homicide rate not seen since the gang wars of the early 1990s, but the violence tapered in August when additional patrols were introduced. That month, two children died in what police said was a double murder-suicide.

Moore said earlier that the three Tuesday deaths push the city's total for 2017 to 55.

Justice Department records show Little Rock had 68 deaths in 1993 attributed to murder or manslaughter.

Source: Fox News National

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A worker walks on the roof of a new home under construction in Carlsbad
FILE PHOTO: A worker walks on the roof of a new home under construction in Carlsbad, California September 22, 2014. REUTERS/Mike Blake

April 26, 2019

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The U.S. economy is growing at a 2.08% annualized pace in the second quarter based on upbeat data on durable goods orders and new home sales in March, the New York Federal Reserve’s Nowcast model showed on Friday.

This was faster than the 1.92% growth rate calculated by the N.Y. Fed model the week before.

(Reporting by Richard Leong; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

Source: OANN

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Extraordinary European Union leaders summit in Brussels
FILE PHOTO: Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte arrives at an extraordinary European Union leaders summit to discuss Brexit, in Brussels, Belgium April 10, 2019. REUTERS/Yves Herman

April 26, 2019

(Reuters) – Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said on Friday he had assured China’s Huawei Technologies that it would not face discrimination in the rollout of Italy’s 5G telecoms network.

Conte was speaking on a visit to China where he said he met Huawei’s chief executive, Ren Zhengfei. The prime minister’s comments were carried in Italy by TV broadcaster Sky Italia.

“I told him that we have adopted some precautions, some measures to protect our interests that demand very high levels of security … not only from Huawei but any company entering into the 5G arena,” he said.

Huawei, the world’s biggest producer of telecoms equipment, is under intense scrutiny after the United States told allies not to use its technology because of fears it could be a vehicle for Chinese spying. Huawei has categorically denied this.

(Writing by by Mark Bendeich; Editing by Angelo Amante)

Source: OANN

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U.S. President Trump departs for travel to Indianapolis from the White House in Washington
U.S. President Donald Trump talks to reporters as he departs for travel to Indianapolis, Indiana from the White House in Washington, U.S., April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

April 26, 2019

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump on Friday was expected to announce his intention to revoke the United States’ status as a signatory of the Arms Trade Treaty, which was signed in 2013 by then-President Barack Obama but never ratified by Congress, two U.S. officials said.

Trump was expected to announce the decision in a speech in Indianapolis, to the National Rifle Association, the officials said. The NRA, a powerful gun lobby group, has long been opposed to the treaty, which was negotiated at the United Nations.

(Reporting By Steve Holland; Editing by Bill Trott)

Source: OANN

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A remote controlled robot for the 'Isotopium: Chernobyl' game is seen at the game's location in Brovary
A remote controlled robot for the ‘Isotopium: Chernobyl’ game is seen at the game’s location in Brovary, Ukraine April 25, 2019. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko

April 26, 2019

By Margaryta Chornokondratenko

KIEV (Reuters) – A Ukrainian computer game that brings to life a town abandoned after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster may not sound like everyone’s idea of fun but has attracted 60,000 people globally since its launch in October.

Players of “Isotopium: Chernobyl” drive tanks around the ghost town of Prypyat near Chernobyl, knocking out competitors as they search for an energy source called isotopium and collecting points every time they find some.

While the game takes its theme from the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl in northern Ukraine, which marked its 33rd anniversary on Friday, it was also inspired by the 2009 science fiction film “Avatar”.

Newcomers to the game think they have entered a virtual world when in fact they are controlling a real robot, equipped with a camera and computer, which makes its way around a model of the town rendered down to the tiniest detail.

“When playing our game, for the first 5-10 minutes many players don’t understand that it is not fictional,” said the game’s co-founder Sergey Beskrestnov. “They message us saying: ‘You have cool texture, you have good graphics, your designer is good, well done. You have a cool operating system.’

“People then reply: ‘It is not an operating system, it is real,’ and the player can’t believe it is real,” said Beskrestnov, speaking mid-game from Prypyat city square as he towers over surrounding five-storey buildings.

Kiev-born Beskrestnov was just 12 years old when on April 26, 1986 a botched test at the nuclear plant in the then Soviet Union sent clouds of smoldering nuclear material across large swathes of Europe, forced over 50,000 people, including Beskrestnov’s family, to evacuate and poisoned unknown numbers of workers involved in its clean-up.

Beskrestnov and his partner Alexey Fateyev used Google maps and hundreds of pictures from the Chernobyl area to recreate Prypyat landmarks, including residential buildings, a hotel, concert hall, amusement park and a stadium.

The game’s real-scale model occupies a 180 square meter (1,938 sq. ft) basement of a residential building in the Ukraine city of Brovary, just 150 km (93 miles) from the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone and 30 km east of Kiev.

Miniature radioactivity warning signs, graffiti on the walls of abandoned buildings and tables and chairs left scattered inside a small cafe all add to the creepy atmosphere of a once lively town.

“It’s a really neat concept …,” Shaun Prescott wrote in a review of the game published by PC Gamer magazine in January. “Controlling the tanks is kinda cumbersome, but they are tanks, after all.”

An attentive player will notice at least one inaccuracy – the real Chernobyl nuclear power plant is not located in town as it is in the game.

It costs $9 to immerse in the atmosphere of a post-apocalyptic town for an hour but only 20 people at a time can play simultaneously. Beskrestnov’s company, Remote Games, said 62,615 people around the world have registered to play the game, including around 15,000 in France and 10,000 in the United States.

A camera fixed on top of a moving tank broadcasts high quality signal in real time, allowing players from as far apart as Australia and Canada enjoy the game without facing any time delay in delivering video signals.

Its creators next ambition is to devise a game featuring the colonization of Mars in which 1,000 people will be able to simultaneously control robots on different missions involved in the operation.

“Many people advise us to contact Elon Musk directly because it resonates his dreams and ideas,” Beskrestnov jokes.    

(Editing by Susan Fenton)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: A Starbucks sign is show on one of the companies stores in Los Angeles, California
FILE PHOTO: A Starbucks sign is show on one of the companies stores in Los Angeles, California, U.S. October 19,2018. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo

April 26, 2019

(Reuters) – Initial optimism over first-quarter results from Starbucks Corp was waning fast on Wall Street on Friday, as analysts questioned the longer-term prospects of its new sales push given subdued overall customer traffic numbers especially in China.

The company on Thursday beat brokerage estimates for quarterly same-store sales on the back of demand for its new Cloud Macchiato, Matcha tea and cold brews in the United States.

However, BTIG’s Peter Saleh was one of a number of sector analysts who said while customers forking out for higher-priced new drinks had helped drive growth in same-store sales, “anemic” traffic at cafes remained a concern.

He and others pointed to a 1 percent decline in footfall at cafes in the Chinese market, viewed as crucial to the chain’s growth for the foreseeable future.

More broadly, transaction numbers, the substitute analysts use for customer traffic, were unchanged in all three of the company’s global regions.

Shares in the company, which hit a record high after the results on Thursday, fell 1 percent in morning trade.

“We remain cautious given near-term headwinds surrounding China, including cannibalization, increasing competition (and) a slowing economy,” Wedbush analyst Nick Setyan said.

Starbucks has also poured money into beefing up its delivery network in China as it battles with local startup Luckin Coffee, whose speedy growth led it to file for an IPO in the United States earlier this week.

New menu items and partnerships with delivery services, the heart of the company’s strategy to win back customers lost to artisanal coffee shops and cheaper fast-food rivals, did help Starbucks’ sales in its home market.

However, analysts said growth in China may continue to be subdued.

Wells Fargo analyst Bonnie Herzog said she expects store expansion in China to take priority over comparable sales growth.

She downgraded her rating on Starbucks’ to “market perform” from “outperform”, arguing that the company facing tough sales comparisons later on in 2019 from last year and the current rich valuation of shares meant the stock had limited room to rise.

“Investors will be hesitant to invest new money in a stock with a topline that, while still strong, is unlikely to meaningfully accelerate,” Herzog said.

Still, the company’s solid same-store growth in the United States, improving profit margins and a lower tax rate for the rest of the year led at least 6 Wall Street brokerages to raise their price targets on the stock to as high as $81.

11 of 29 brokerages rate Starbucks “buy” or higher, 17 “hold” and 1 “sell” or lower. Their median price target is $75.

(Reporting by Uday Sampath in Bengaluru)

Source: OANN

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