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New York Times CEO warns publishers ahead of Apple news launch

FILE PHOTO: Mark Thompson, president and CEO of the New York Times Company, poses for a portrait in New York
FILE PHOTO: Mark Thompson, president and CEO of the New York Times Company, poses for a portrait in New York, November 26, 2013. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson/File Photo

March 21, 2019

By Kenneth Li and Helen Coster

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Apple Inc is expected to launch an ambitious new entertainment and paid digital news service on Monday, as the iPhone maker pushes back against streaming video leader Netflix Inc. But it likely will not feature the New York Times Co.

Mark Thompson, chief executive of the biggest U.S. newspaper by subscribers, warned that relying on third-party distribution can be dangerous for publishers who risk losing control over their own product.

“We tend to be quite leery about the idea of almost habituating people to find our journalism somewhere else,” he told Reuters in an interview on Thursday. “We’re also generically worried about our journalism being scrambled in a kind of Magimix (blender) with everyone else’s journalism.”

Thompson, who took over as New York Times CEO in 2012 and has overseen a massive expansion in its online readership, warned publishers that they may suffer the same fate as television and film makers in the face of Netflix’s Hollywood insurgence.

“If I was an American broadcast network, I would have thought twice about giving all of my library to Netflix,” Thompson said in response to questions about any talks with Apple to participate in the iPhone maker’s new news service.

Thompson declined to comment on any conversations with Apple. But he used the tale of how Netflix made huge inroads into Hollywood to explain why the Times has avoided striking deals with digital platforms in which it had little control over relationships with customers or its content.

“Even if Netflix offered you quite a lot of money. … Does it really make sense to help Netflix build a gigantic base of subscribers to the point where they could actually spend $9 billion a year making their own content and will pay me less and less for my library?” he asked.

In 2007 the answer for Hollywood was yes. In exchange for billions of dollars, studios helped Netflix launch a fledgling streaming video service by licensing their libraries of shows and movies, but that decision may have sown the seeds of their own demise.

By 2016, Time Warner Inc was forced to sell itself to AT&T Inc and Rupert Murdoch sold his 21st Century Fox film and TV studios to Walt Disney Co.

Apple is the latest company to offer a direct-to-consumer streaming video, along with a news subscription service, by leveraging the power of its more than 1 billion devices.

Through its subscription news service, Apple will charge about $10 monthly for access to a variety of magazine and newspaper content, according to media reports. Apple is expected to take 50 percent of the revenue. The Wall Street Journal has agreed to join Apple’s service, according to a recent New York Times report. News Corp, owner of the Journal, was not immediately reachable for comment.

A monthly digital subscription to the New York Times costs $15, and Thompson said he has no plans to give that up to participate on other platforms such as Apple’s.

Last year, the Times generated over $700 million in digital revenue, close to the company’s target of $800 million in annual digital sales by 2020. Digital ad revenue surpassed print ad revenue for the first time in the fourth quarter of 2018. The Times has plowed investment back into its newsroom, which at 1,550 journalists is now at its largest ever.

Despite the company’s insistence on keeping readers on its own products and platforms, Thompson said it has experimented on other services, highlighting content the Times developed just for Snap Inc’s Snapchat app, which helped reach new, younger readers.

These new audiences, he said, will play a big role in helping the Times reach its new target of 10 million subscribers by 2025.

(Reporting by Kenneth Li; Editing by Bill Rigby)

Source: OANN

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Liberals now pushing impeachment as a scarlet letter

Despite his initial exultation as he declared victory in the Mueller investigation, President Trump looks to be pretty mad right now.

And the reason seems to be that he's watching a lot of TV.

While praising "Fox & Friends" yesterday as the best (and highest-rated) morning political show, the president went off on its competitors:

"Morning Psycho (Joe), who helped get me elected in 2016 by having me on (free) all the time, has nosedived, too," he tweeted. "Angry, Dumb and Sick. A really bad show with low ratings - and will only get worse. CNN has been a proven and long term ratings and beyond disaster. In fact, it rewarded Chris Cuomo with a now unsuccessful prime time slot, despite his massive failure in the morning. Only on CNN!"

(Joe Scarborough, noting that his ratings keep rising, jabbed Trump with the banner "Morning Psycho Responds to Faithful Viewer," saying "he just can't quit us." Cuomo's prime-time show, while in third place, has settled in as the highest rated show on his network.)

TRUMP GOES ON TEAR AGAINST CRITICS OVER COVERAGE OF ECONOMY, RUSSIA CASE

Trump also unloaded on the "stupid" New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, calling him "obsessed with hatred," and saying the paper "will have to get down on their knees & beg for forgiveness-they are truly the Enemy of the People!"

(Krugman, whatever one thinks of his commentary, is a Nobel Prize winner in economics.)

Maybe this simply reflects how the president revels in staying on offense. He's happiest when attacking those he believes have treated him unfairly, especially in the media.

But he may well be reacting to the renewed impeachment chatter on the airwaves, especially MSNBC, and among Democrats like AOC who don't agree with Nancy Pelosi's decision to avoid such a move. The speaker's argument: the party can hold Trump accountable for "highly unethical and unscrupulous behavior" without wading into the impeachment bog.

Kamala Harris has now joined Elizabeth Warren in the pro-impeachment camp, but most of the other 2020 candidates are not ready to hop on the bandwagon.

What's striking is the unmistakable shift in tone among impeachment advocates in the days since the Mueller report was unveiled.

They know — and acknowledge — that it would dominate the news for many months and blot out any remnants of a Democratic agenda.

They know — and acknowledge — that it would fire up the Trumpian base.

They know — and acknowledge — that the Republican-controlled Senate would not even come close to convicting Trump.

SUBSCRIBE TO HOWIE'S MEDIA BUZZMETER PODCAST, A RIFF OF THE DAY'S HOTTEST STORIES

But they don't care.

They essentially echo what Rashida Tlaib, the leadoff guest on MSNBC's "All In" on Monday night, said after the election: Impeach the motherf---er anyway.

New York Times columnist Charles Blow makes the case:

"Obstruction of justice is a crime. If Trump committed that crime, he's a criminal. Are we simply going to allow a criminal to sit in the Oval Office and face no consequence? Are we simply going to let the next presidential election be the point at which Trump is punished or rewarded?

"It is maddening to think that we are at such a pass. But, my mind is made up: I say impeach him."

JARED KUSHNER: RUSSIA INVESTIGATION HAD 'HARSHER IMPACT' ON US THAN ELECTION MEDDLING

And here's the rationale: "I say that there is no such thing as a failed impeachment. Impeachment exists separately from removal ...

"So, an impeachment vote in the House has, to this point, been the strongest rebuke America is willing to give a president. I can think of no president who has earned this rebuke more than the current one. And, once a president is impeached, he is forever marked.

"So it's a big fat punishment, being branded with a scarlet 'I.'"

Another Times columnist, Michelle Goldberg, is just offended that he's president: "It's a national disgrace that Trump sleeps in the White House instead of a federal prison cell."

Mueller laid out an impeachment road map, she says, "and in a remotely functional country that's what it would be ...

HILLARY CLINTON: ANYONE OTHER THAN TRUMP WOULD HAVE BEEN INDICTED FOR OBSTRUCTION

"Whether or not this is politically wise, failing to impeach would be a grave abdication. If you want people to believe that the misdeeds enumerated in the Mueller report are serious, you have to act like it. To not even try to impeach Trump is to collaborate in the Trumpian fiction that he has done nothing impeachable."

So impeach or be complicit. This is the emerging "moral duty" argument of liberal adherents, who say it requires putting politics aside. In fact, the founders adopted impeachment as an explicitly political remedy for an unfit leader who had not necessarily committed crimes.

On the other side, National Review Editor Rich Lowry says the post-Mueller Democrats are desperate and indulging in a "fantasy":

"If House Democrats impeach Trump ... they will be sorely disappointed. They will wake up the day afterward and, after all the drama and wall-to-wall coverage, he'll still be president of the United States, tweeting per usual.

"Impeachment would be a symbolic mark against Trump, but at what cost? Impeachment won't magnify the president's alleged offenses but will make them smaller as the argument devolves into a microscopic examination of his words and actions (and non-actions). It would be the most forlorn impeachment ever."

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If impeachment is viewed as a gussied-up censure vote, rather than a constitutional remedy, then the liberals who are pushing it don't care if it's forlorn or not. They just want to do something cathartic, regardless of the real-world consequences.

But the Democrats who fervently want Donald Trump out of office have a better option: Beat him at the ballot box next year.

Source: Fox News Politics

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The Birth of a Monster

The Federal Reserve’s doors have been open for “business” for one hundred years.

In explaining the creation of this money-making machine (pun intended — the Fed remits nearly $100 bn. in profits each year to Congress) most people fall into one of two camps.

Those inclined to view the Fed as a helpful institution, fostering financial stability in a world of error-prone capitalists, explain the creation of the Fed as a natural and healthy outgrowth of the troubled National Banking System. How helpful the Fed has been is questionable at best, and in a recent book edited by Joe Salerno and me — The Fed at One Hundred — various contributors outline many (though by no means all) of the Fed’s shortcomings over the past century.

Others, mostly those with a skeptical view of the Fed, treat its creation as an exercise in secretive government meddling (as in G. Edward Griffin’s The Creature from Jekyll Island) or crony capitalism run amok (as in Murray Rothbard’s The Case Against the Fed).

In my own chapter in The Fed at One Hundred I find sympathies with both groups (you can download the chapter pdf here). The actual creation of the Fed is a tragically beautiful case study in closed-door Congressional deals and big banking’s ultimate victory over the American public. Neither of these facts emerged from nowhere, however. The fateful events that transpired in 1910 on Jekyll Island were the evolutionary outcome of over fifty years of government meddling in money. As such, the Fed is a natural (though terribly unfortunate) outgrowth of an ever more flawed and repressive monetary system.

Before the Fed

Allow me to give a brief reverse biographical sketch of the events leading up to the creation of a monster in 1914.

Unlike many controversial laws and policies of the American government — such as the Affordable Care Act, the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or the War on Terror — the Federal Reserve Act passed with very little public outcry. Also strange for an industry effectively cartelized, the banking establishment welcomed the Fed with open arms. What gives?

By the early twentieth century, America’s banking system was in a shambles. Fractional-reserve banks faced with “runs” (which didn’t have to be runs with the pandemonium that usually accompanies them, but rather just banks having insufficient cash to meet daily withdrawal requests) frequently suspended cash redemptions or issued claims to “clearinghouse certificates.” These certificates were a money substitute making use of the whole banking system’s reserves held by large clearinghouses.

Both of these “solutions” to the common bank run were illegal as they allowed a bank to redefine the terms of the original deposit contract. This fact notwithstanding, the US government turned a blind eye as the alternative (widespread bank failures) was perceived to be far worse.

The creation of the Fed, the ensuing centralization of reserves, and the creation of a more elastic money supply was welcomed by the government as a way to eliminate those pesky and illegal (yet permitted) banking activities of redemption suspensions and the issuance of clearinghouse certificates. The Fed returned legitimacy to the laws of the land. That is, it addressed the government’s fear that non-enforcement of a law would raise broader questions about the general rule of law.

The Fed provided a quick fix to depositors by reducing cases of suspensions of their accounts. And the banking industry saw the Fed as a way to serve clients better without incurring a cost (fewer bank runs) and at the same time coordinate their activities to expand credit in unison and maximize their own profits.

In short, the Federal Reserve Act had a solution for everyone.

Taking a central role in this story are the private clearinghouses which provided for many of the Fed’s roles before 1914. Indeed, America’s private clearinghouses were viewed as having as many powers as European central banks of the day, and the creation of the Fed was really just an effort to make the illegal practices of the clearinghouses legal by government institutionalization.

Why Did Clearinghouses Have So Much Power?

Throughout the late nineteenth century, clearinghouses used each new banking crisis to introduce a new type of policy, bringing them ever closer in appearance to a central bank. I wouldn’t go so far as to say these are examples of power grabs by the clearinghouses, but rather rational responses to fundamental problems in a troubled American banking system.

When bank runs occurred, the clearinghouse certificate came into use, first in 1857, but confined to the interbank market to economize on reserves. Transactions could be cleared in specie, but lacking sufficient reserves, a troubled bank could make use of the certificates. These certificates were jointly guaranteed by all banks in the clearinghouse system through their pooled reserves. This joint guarantee was welcomed by unstable banks with poor reserve positions, and imposed a cost on more prudently managed banks (as is the case today with deposit insurance). A prudent bank could complain, but if it wanted to use a clearinghouse’s services and reap the cost advantages it had to comply with the reserve-pooling policy.

As the magnitude of the banking crisis intensified, clearinghouses started permitting banks to issue the certificates directly to the public (starting with the Panic of 1873) to further stymie reserve drains. (These issues to the general public amounted to illegal money substitutes, though they were tolerated, as noted above.)

Fractional-Reserve Free Banking and Bust

The year 1857 is a somewhat strange one for these clearinghouse certificates to make their first appearance. It was, after all, a full twenty years into America’s experiment with fractional-reserve free banking. This banking system was able to function stably, especially compared to more regulated periods or central banking regimes. However, the dislocation between deposit and lending activities set in motion a credit-fueled boom that culminated in the Panic of 1857.

This boom and panic has all the makings of an Austrian business cycle. Banks overextended themselves to finance the booming industries during America’s westward advance, primarily the railways. Land speculation was rampant. As realized profits came in under expectations, investors got skittish and withdrew money from banks. Troubled banks turned to the recently established New York Clearing House to promote stability. Certain rights were voluntarily abrogated in return for a guarantee on their solvency.

The original sin of the free-banking period was its fractional-reserve foundation. Without the ability to fund lending activity with their deposit base, banks never would have financed the boom to the extent that it became a destabilizing factor. Westward expansion and investment would still have occurred, though it would have occurred in a sustainable way funded through equity investments and loans. (These types of financing were used, though as is the case today, this occurred less than would be the case given the fractional-reserve banking system’s essentially cost-free funding source: the deposit base.)

In conclusion, the Fed was not birthed from nothing in 1913. The monster was the natural outgrowth of an increasingly troubled banking system. In searching for the original problem that set in motion the events culminating in the creation of the Fed, one must draw attention to the Panic of 1857 as the spark that set in motion ever more destabilizing policies. The Panic itself is a textbook example of an Austrian business cycle, caused by the lending activities of fractional-reserve banks. This original sin of the banking system concluded with the birth of a monster in 1914: The Federal Reserve.



Stewart Rhodes and Alex Jones reveal to listeners how lawmakers in the Texas State Government are taking building the wall into their own hands.

Source: InfoWars

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Trump World ramps up campaign to turn tables in Russia case, target Dems who ‘colluded’

As Democratic leaders tentatively took impeachment proceedings off the docket this week, the White House put payback on the front burner -- calling for closer looks into everyone from the FBI officials who investigated the Russia case to allies of Hillary Clinton's campaign who solicited foreign help during the 2016 presidential campaign.

“All those things have to be explored and more,” Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani told "Fox & Friends" on Wednesday.

On social media and in televised interviews, President Trump, his attorneys, his campaign and senior members of his administration have in the wake of the Robert Mueller report seemingly adopted a strategy of highlighting lesser-known episodes of alleged misconduct by Democrats and investigators, as Democrats pursue obstruction of justice inquiries.

White House adviser Kellyanne Conway led the charge on Monday, openly wondering on Twitter why former FBI Director James Comey focused so heavily on the lurid and salacious claims in a largely discredited anti-Trump dossier.

"Comey, then-FBI Director, waited 2 months after @realDonaldTrump was elected to pay a visit & brief the President-elect," Conway wrote. "While there, he wasted his time on this golden-shower-nonsense-concocted-dossier. Could have been honest about Obama ignoring Russian interference instead."

COMEY'S PAPER TRAIL: WHY DID FBI DIRECTOR KEEP HIGHLY CLASSIFIED INFORMATION IN HIS PERSONAL MEMOS?

"Tables are finally turning on the Witch Hunt!" Trump also tweeted.

The FBI is currently being sued by conservative group Judicial Watch, after the bureau failed to respond to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request concerning contacts in late 2016 between the then-FBI general counsel and a top Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer, as well as contacts between the FBI and the author of the dossier.

Comey briefed Trump on the salacious contents of the dossier in January 2017, ostensibly to make him aware of potential blackmail threats, Comey later testified. That confidential meeting later leaked, and CNN cited the fact that intelligence officials had briefed Trump on the dossier as a justification for airing the story, even though the dossier's claims were unverified.

Comey told lawmakers that then-National Intelligence Director James Clapper, an Obama appointee, came up with the idea to brief Trump on the dossier's contents.

Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper had the idea to brief Trump on the Steele dossier in January 2017, former FBI Director James Comey has testified.

Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper had the idea to brief Trump on the Steele dossier in January 2017, former FBI Director James Comey has testified. (Reuters)

Separately this week, Giuliani revived Republican-led calls to look into whether, and to what extent, a Democratic Party consultant worked with Ukrainian officials to dig up dirt on the Trump campaign.

"Keep your eye on Ukraine," he said Wednesday.

A 2017 investigation by Politico found that Ukrainian officials not only publicly sought to undermine Trump by questioning his fitness for office, but also worked behind the scenes to secure a Clinton victory.

ANTI-TRUMP AGENT STRZOK'S PHONE FROM DAYS ON MUELLER TEAM TOTALLY WIPED; FBI BLAMES SOFTWARE GLITCH FOR OTHER MISSING TEXTS

Among other initiatives, Politico found, the Ukrainian government worked with a DNC consultant to conduct opposition research against Trump, including going after former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort for Russian ties, helping lead to his resignation.

Last month, Ukraine Prosecutor General Yurii Lutsenko opened a probe into the so-called black ledger files that led to Manafort's departure, after a leaked tape recording apparently showed a senior Ukrainian anticorruption official admitting to disclosing Manafort's information to help the Clinton campaign. A Ukrainian court later ruled that the move amounted to illegal interference in the U.S. election.

"Now Ukraine is investigating Hillary campaign and DNC conspiracy with foreign operatives including Ukrainian and others to affect 2016 election," Giuliani tweeted Tuesday. "And there’s no Comey to fix the result."

On Sunday, Giuliani hammered the same theme. "Is it a crime for an American campaign to consider information from a foreign source or to obtain it?" he asked, responding to claims that the Trump team acted improperly by meeting with Russian-affiliated individuals who promised damaging information on Clinton.

"If so the allegation that the DNC [Democratic National Committee] colluded with Ukrainian officials to generate information to hurt the Trump campaign and help the Clinton campaign must be investigated," Giuliani added.

Buoyed by Special Counsel Mueller's findings that no member of the Trump team illegally conspired with Russia, Republicans have additionally turned to a separate known episode of apparent collaboration between a 2016 presidential campaign and a foreign national -- specifically, the decision by Hillary Clinton's campaign and the DNC to hire Fusion GPS. The firm, in turn, funded the infamous dossier, drafted by British ex-spy Christopher Steele, which contained numerous assertions that fueled an anti-Trump media frenzy -- but that Mueller's investigators were unable to substantiate.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller walks to his car after attending services at St. John's Episcopal Church, across from the White House, in Washington, on Sunday.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller walks to his car after attending services at St. John's Episcopal Church, across from the White House, in Washington, on Sunday. (AP)

Nonetheless, the FBI relied heavily on the dossier to obtain a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to monitor former Trump aide Carter Page, and the bureau did not clearly disclose to the FISA court that Steele was working for a firm funded by Clinton and the DNC. Rather, the FBI told the court the materials were prepared in connection with a campaign for president. (Only partial versions of the FBI's FISA application has been released; Trump has told Fox News he will eventually declassify and release all relevant information from the FISA application.)

Democrats, too, heavily pushed the Steele dossier. At a 2017 hearing, House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff, D-Calif., confidently described Steele as "a former British intelligence officer who is reportedly held in high regard by U.S. intelligence" and repeatedly cited "Steele's Russian sources" as he described a purported Trump-Russia conspiracy.

But in an article last week, The New York Times joined a chorus of publications that have long cast doubt on the dossier's veracity, writing that the document "financed by Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee" was "likely to face new, possibly harsh scrutiny from multiple inquiries."

The article noted that Steele relied in part on Russian sources and that, ironically, the document could have been part of a "Russian disinformation" effort to smear Trump even as Moscow was going after Clinton.

The article suggested that dossier skepticism, once panned as denialism, has entered the mainstream, as Mueller's report found "some of the most sensational claims in the dossier appeared to be false, and others were impossible to prove."

Internal FBI text messages obtained by Fox News last month showed that a senior Justice Department official warned of "bias" in a source key to a FISA application. The DOJ Inspector General is investigating whether the FBI violated its procedures or Page's constitutional rights by withholding exculpatory information from the FISA court.

"The Office of the Inspector General has a pending investigation of the FISA process in the Russian investigation, and I expect that that will be complete probably in May or June, I am told," Attorney General William Barr testified earlier this month.

House Intelligence Committee ranking member Devin Nunes, R-Calif., has already sent several criminal referrals to the Justice Department related to alleged crimes committed during the Russia probe, and Fox News is told as many as "two dozen" individuals could be implicated. It was unclear exactly whom had been referred.

"The American people have only seen the pieces that have been declassified so far," Nunes told Fox News earlier this month. "There's still more information."

The Trump team's pushback comes as top Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have clamped down on calls to impeach the president. In a private Democrat conference call on Monday, two sources told Fox News, Pelosi said impeachment would be premature, and even anti-Trump firebrand Maxine Waters declined to call on her colleagues to begin impeachment proceedings.

FOX NEWS EXCLUSIVE: INSIDE MONDAY'S DEM CONFERENCE CALL ON IMPEACHMENT PLANS

However, Fox News is told Democrats emphasized on the conference call that more investigations and fact-finding are necessary before any final decision can be made.

Schiff, for his part, has already referred to a June 2016 Trump Tower meeting as "direct evidence" of collusion in plain sight. Schiff has only doubled down since Mueller's report was published, calling for closer looks into Trump's finances and contacts with Russians.

Donald Trump Jr., his brother-in-law Jared Kushner, and Manafort were known to have attended the meeting with Kremlin-linked attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya, and the Trump team gave shifting explanations for the role of the president in drafting media responses to inquiries about the episode.

But Mueller found that the meeting was not a criminal campaign finance violation, in part because there was insufficient evidence that the involved parties knew they were breaking the law -- a high standard that applies only to certain crimes. Additionally, prosecutors said, it was unclear whether an exchange of information not available on the public marketplace could constitute a "campaign contribution" by a foreign national in the first place.

Still, Schiff told Fox News that episodes like that meeting raised grave concerns, and indicated impeachment would be a "difficult" issue that would be addressed in a matter of weeks.

In the dueling messaging wars, though, the Trump team has been nothing if not confident in recent days.

Giuliani told "Fox News Sunday," for example, that "so far we don’t think we need to" release a planned counter-report to Mueller's findings, because "we think the public debate is playing out about as well as it can -- why confuse it?"

Fox News' Adam Shaw and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News Politics

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Predators’ Watson returning from 27-game suspension

FILE PHOTO: NHL: Florida Panthers at Nashville Predators
FILE PHOTO: Jan 19, 2019; Nashville, TN, USA; Nashville Predators left wing Austin Watson (51) celebrate after a goal during the third period against the Florida Panthers at Bridgestone Arena. Mandatory Credit: Christopher Hanewinckel-USA TODAY Sports

April 2, 2019

Nashville forward Austin Watson will make his return from a suspension of more than two months for alcohol abuse when the Predators visit the Buffalo Sabres on Tuesday.

Predators coach Peter Laviolette told reporters after Tuesday’s morning skate that Watson will play against the Sabres.

“He played really well down in Milwaukee,” Laviolette said of a minor league stint in which Watson scored four goals in two games. “He came back (from the suspension) in good shape. Just looking at him practicing, you could tell he was in great shape.”

Watson is looking forward to getting back on the ice. He missed Nashville’s past 27 games due to the suspension.

“I’m definitely excited,” Watson said in a video on the team website. “It’s been a little while. I was fortunate to get a couple games under my belt in Milwaukee and just try to come in here and play my game.”

Watson had 13 points (seven goals, six assists) in 34 games when he was suspended on Jan. 29.

Watson was admitted into Stage 2 of the NHL’s substance abuse and behavioral health program, according to the NHL and NHL Players’ Association.

It was Watson’s second suspension of the season. He missed the first 18 games after pleading no contest to a domestic assault charge in July. Watson was initially suspended for 27 games by the NHL, but an arbitrator reduced it to 18.

In a mid-January Instagram post, Watson acknowledged personal battles with alcoholism, depression and anxiety, saying he had been sober for nearly two years before drinking again in May of 2017.

He received probation for the June 16 incident in which officers found him and girlfriend Jenn Guardino in a parked car near a gas station in Franklin, Tenn., just south of Nashville.

Watson acknowledged pushing Guardino during an argument. When officers noticed red marks on her chest, Guardino said Watson caused them, and he was arrested.

In October, Guardino took the blame for the incident, saying in her statement, “Austin Watson has never, and would never hit or abuse me. My behavior and state of intoxication led to the police being involved that day.”

–Field Level Media

Source: OANN

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Australia announces disability inquiry as election looms

FILE PHOTO: Prime Minister Morrison speaks to the media during a press conference at Parliament House in Canberra
FILE PHOTO: Prime Minister Scott Morrison speaks to the media during a press conference at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, March 20, 2019. AAP Image/Andrew Taylor/via REUTERS

April 4, 2019

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison, in one of the government’s last moves before an imminent election, said on Friday a powerful public inquiry into the country’s disability care would run for three years and address abuse, neglect and exploitation problems in the sector.

The inquiry, known as a Royal Commission, will cost A$528 million ($375 million) and follows reports of poor treatment, as well as pressure from disability advocates after a similar inquiry was launched into the aged care sector.

It is expected to be similar to a probe that exposed widespread wrongdoing in Australia’s financial sector last year and the aged care inquiry which has uncovered neglect, abuse and mistreatment of patients.

Both inquiries have hurt share prices in the respective sectors, although by contrast, the roughly A$15.5 billion disability sector is highly fragmented, dominated by non-profit operators and mostly government-funded.

“We have to establish a culture of respect for people living with disabilities and the families who support, love and care for them,” Morrison told reporters in Canberra.

“The Royal Commission will inquire into all forms of violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation,” he said, becoming emotional when speaking about his brother-in-law, Gary Warren, who suffers from multiple sclerosis.

“To all those Australians with a disability, their families, to Gary, this is for you,” he said. It will publish an interim report by the end of October 2020 and a final report by April 2022.

The announcement of the details of the inquiry comes with a federal election due within weeks, making the move likely the last substantive decision from Morrison’s center-right coalition – which is trailing heavily in opinion polls – before the vote.

($1 = 1.4065 Australian dollars)

(Reporting by Tom Westbrook, editing by G Crosse)

Source: OANN

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Spain: FBI was offered stolen data from NKorea embassy raid

A Spanish court on Tuesday accused an American, Mexican and South Korean of being part of a 10-member group that led a mysterious attack on the North Korean Embassy in February, saying the assailants then offered the FBI stolen data from the raid.

National Court judge Jose de la Mata on Tuesday lifted a secrecy order in the case, announcing it had found evidence of various crimes, including trespassing, injuries, threats and burglary committed by "a criminal organization" at the embassy in Madrid.

No formal charges have been brought at this point in the investigation.

The judge released documents in the case and said in a written ruling that the assailants, who failed to convince the embassy's only diplomat to defect, identified themselves as "members of an association or movement of human rights for the liberation of North Korea."

The Feb. 22 attack, including a bold escape from the heavily-secured embassy with the assailants carrying away computers and data after having shackled and gagged the delegation's staff, has been claimed in online posts by the Cheolima Civil Defense — a shadowy group that has the self-declared mission of helping defectors of the North Korean regime. The group also goes by the name Free Jonseon.

On Tuesday, the Spanish judge released documents that named the suspects, including Adrian Hong Chang, a Mexican national and resident in the U.S. De La Mata described Hong Chang as the leader of the gang responsible for the attack.

Hong Chang escaped from Spain and went to Lisbon before flying to the U.S. on Feb. 23, court documents said. The suspect then got in touch with the FBI in New York four days later and offered to share material and videos with federal investigators, the documents said. The Spanish investigation didn't say whether the FBI accepted the material.

Others identified as part of the assailants' group were Sam Ryu, from the U.S., and Woo Ran Lee, a South Korean citizen. The suspects' whereabouts and their hometowns weren't immediately known.

North Korean authorities haven't officially reported the incident to authorities. Spanish police first found out about it because the wife of one of the embassy's workers managed to escape by jumping from a window.

According to the Spanish judge's account, Hong Chang was the man who opened the embassy's door to Spanish police officers who were checking on the woman's claim that something was going on at the embassy.

The assailant, posing as an embassy official, told the police that everything was normal there, paving the way for the group's escape.

The attack's timing, barely a week before a high-stakes U.S.-North Korea summit on denuclearization derailed in Hanoi, had led many to link it to the North's former ambassador to Spain.

Kim Hyok Chol, who was expelled from Spain in September 2017 following Pyongyang's sixth round of nuclear tests and missile launches over neighboring Japan, has become the North's top nuclear negotiator.

Source: Fox News World

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FILE PHOTO - A worker sits on a ship carrying containers at Mundra Port in the western Indian state of Gujarat
FILE PHOTO: A worker sits on a ship carrying containers at Mundra Port in the western Indian state of Gujarat April 1, 2014. REUTERS/Amit Dave/File Photo

April 26, 2019

(Reuters) – India has once again delayed the implementation of higher tariffs on some goods imported from the United States to May 15, a government official said on Friday.

The new tariff structure was to come into force from May 2, the spokeswoman said without citing reasons for the delay.

Angered by Washington’s refusal to exempt it from new steel and aluminum tariffs, New Delhi decided in June last year to raise the import tax from Aug. 4 on some U.S. products including almonds, walnuts and apples.

But since then, New Delhi has repeatedly delayed the implementation of the new tariff.

Trade friction between India and the U.S. has escalated after U.S. President Donald Trump announced plans earlier this year to end preferential trade treatment for India that allows duty-free entry for up to $5.6 billion worth of its exports to the United States.

In a further blow, U.S. on Monday demanded buyers of Iranian oil stop purchases by May or face sanctions, ending six months of waivers which allowed Iran’s eight biggest buyers including India to continue importing limited volumes.

(Reporting by Manoj Kumar in New Delhi and Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D’Silva and Raissa Kasolowsky)

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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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