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Police open fire as vehicle rams Ukraine embassy car in London; no injuries

Emergency responders are seen on Holland Park Road in London
Emergency responders are seen on Holland Park Road in London, Britain April 13, 2019 in this picture obtained from social media. RONI GREENFIELD/via REUTERS

April 13, 2019

LONDON (Reuters) – Police in London opened fire outside the Ukrainian embassy on Saturday after a man rammed his vehicle into the ambassador’s empty parked car at least twice before being arrested, officials said.

No one was hurt in the incident, which happened early on Saturday outside the embassy building in the affluent Holland Park area of west London, and it was not being treated as terrorism, police said in a statement.

The embassy said in a statement that the ambassador’s empty official vehicle had been deliberately rammed as it sat parked in front of the building.

“The police were called immediately, and the suspect’s vehicle was blocked up,” it added.

“Nevertheless, despite the police actions, the attacker hit the ambassador’s car again. In response, the police were forced to open fire on the perpetrator’s vehicle.”

TV footage later showed a silver car slewed across the cordoned-off road with its driver’s door open and window shattered.

Police said they had been called at around 9.50 am on Saturday to reports of a car having hit several vehicles in the road.

“On arrival at the scene, a vehicle was driven at police officers,” they added in a statement. “Police firearms and Taser were discharged, the vehicle was stopped and a man, aged in his 40s, was arrested.”

The man was taken to hospital as a precaution but was not injured, they added.

(Reporting by Stephen Addison; Editing by Angus MacSwan and Helen Popper)

Source: OANN

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Teen, 3 friends charged in beating, stabbing death of grandfather, 71, for $30G kept in safe, police say

Two teenage girls and two adult men are facing homicide and other charges in connection with the brutal beating and stabbing death of the 71-year-old grandfather of one of the girls, authorities said.

The girls, ages 16 and 17, and the men, ages 19 and 20, committed the crime so they could take $30,000 in cash that the elderly man kept in a safe in the basement of his Edwardsville, Pa., home, authorities said.

NORTH CAROLINA MAN STABBED WOMAN AT TACO BELL AFTER SHE TURNED DOWN DATE, COPS SAY

The girls and the 19-year-old man were arrested early Thursday at a hotel near Wilkes-Barre, while the 20-year-old was still at large, PennLive.com reported.

The grandfather was killed Monday but his body wasn’t found until Wednesday after other family members started searching for him, Scranton's WNEP-TV reported.

The body was found under a large dresser on the second floor of the home. Police said he had been beaten with a golf club and stabbed in the neck.

The names of the teens are being withheld by Fox News because of their ages. The men were identified as Christopher Brian Cortez, 19, and Devin Malik Cunningham, 20, both of Wilkes-Barre.

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After the elderly man was killed, the four suspects took showers in the home to wash off blood, the Citizens’ Voice reported.

“Over money. Your own family. It’s just a disgrace,” neighbor Ronald Briggs told WNEP.

Source: Fox News National

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Weak factories dent hopes for global economic recovery

A worker at German manufacturer of silos and liquid tankers, Feldbinder Special Vehicles, moves rolls of aluminium at the company's plant in Winsen
FILE PHOTO: A worker at German manufacturer of silos and liquid tankers, Feldbinder Special Vehicles, moves rolls of aluminium at the company's plant in Winsen, Germany, July 10, 2018. REUTERS/Fabian Bimmer

March 22, 2019

By Jonathan Cable and Stanley White

LONDON (Reuters) – Manufacturers in Europe, Japan and the United States suffered in March as surveys showed trade tensions had left their mark on factory output, a setback for hopes the global economy might be turning the corner on its slowdown.

Factory activity in the 19-country euro zone contracted at the fastest pace in nearly six years.

In Japan, manufacturing output shrank the most in almost three years, hurt by China’s economic slowdown.

And a measure of U.S. manufacturing was its weakest since June 2017 while forecasters at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia slashed their estimate for economic growth in early 2019.

German 10-year bond yields, which plunged on Thursday after the U.S. Federal Reserve signaled no more rate hikes this year, dived again to fall below zero.

European shares and the euro also fell on Friday.

In New York, the spread between the three-month U.S. Treasury bill yield and the 10-year note yield narrowed to a 12-year low — a sign of concern among investors about the growth outlook.

“No other factor shapes the euro zone business cycle more than the ups and downs of global trade,” economists at Berenberg, a bank said.

The United States and China are due to resume face-to-face talks next week, but it is unclear if the two sides can narrow their differences and end the trade war between the world’s two largest economies.

European officials are also worried about the risk of U.S. tariffs on car imports from Europe.

RISKS – US CHINA TENSIONS, BREXIT, ITALY

The drop in the euro zone’s manufacturing purchasing managers index to a 71-month low of 47.7 from 49.4 in February raised the risk trade flows could turn even more negative in the short term, the Berenberg economists said.

The manufacturing downturn was partly offset by stable — but relatively weak — growth in the euro zone’s dominant services industry.

But the surveys suggested the bloc’s economy had a poor start to 2019.

IHS Markit, which published the surveys, said the PMIs pointed to first-quarter economic growth of 0.2 percent in the euro zone, below the 0.3 percent predicted in a Reuters poll last week.

The euro zone grew 0.2 percent in the final three months of 2018, its slowest pace in four years.

Earlier this month, the European Central Bank changed tack by pushing out the timing of its next rate increase until 2020 at the earliest and said it would offer banks a new round of cheap loans to help revive the economy.

“We highlight downside risks mainly stemming from the external side – e.g. trade tensions, a Chinese-led global slowdown,” Barclays economists Radu-Gabriel Cristea and Francois Cabau said about the euro zone.

“The protracted weakness in manufacturing remains a lingering risk, and overall growth concerns are likely to intensify should the industrial backdrop further deteriorate. At the same time, Italy and Brexit woes remain non-negligible, the uncertainty a further drag on sentiment.”

The headline Flash Markit/Nikkei Japan Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) was a seasonally adjusted 48.9, the same as February’s final reading.

The index was below the 50 threshold that separates contraction from expansion for the second consecutive month.

“Concern of weaker growth in China and prolonged global trade frictions kept business confidence well below its historical average in March,” Joe Hayes, an economist at IHS Markit, said.

The flash index for total new orders – domestic and foreign – fell to its lowest since June 2016, the survey showed.

Japan is exposed to the dispute between Washington and Beijing as it ships to China big volumes of electronics items and heavy machinery used to make finished goods destined for the United States.

(Writing by William Schomberg; Editing by Jon Boyle)

Source: OANN

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Brazil crime crackdown excites defense firms at arms expo as economy doubts linger

People look at guns at Taurus company's exhibition stand during LAAD, the biggest military industry expo in Latin America in Rio de Janeiro
People look at guns at Taurus company's exhibition stand during LAAD, the biggest military industry expo in Latin America in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil April 2, 2019. The advertising reads, "Self defense is your right." REUTERS/Ricardo Moraes

April 3, 2019

By Gabriel Stargardter

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) – Global defense and security firms gathered at Latin America’s biggest security expo in Rio de Janeiro this week hope Brazil’s crackdown on crime will bolster sales to the new right-wing government even as they fret about the weak economy and tough political climate.

Elected to tackle graft and rising violence, right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro has vowed wrongdoers no mercy. But his first weeks in office have been blighted by in-fighting, scraps with Congress and a sluggish economy that are hurting his poll numbers and prompting concerns he may fail to deliver.

“Concerns over public security have been big issues, whether in the presidential or state elections, and certainly, we hope that will bring good results for our company,” said Elton Borgonovo, country manager of Motorola Solutions, which was promoting its body camera technology.

Bolsonaro, who took office on Jan. 1, is struggling to get traction for his landmark pension reform, open up the country’s hidebound economy and accelerate the recovery from a long recession.

For companies that rely on state and federal government contracts, success is likely to depend on the state of Brazil’s public finances, said Jean-Luc Alfonsi, vice-president of Airbus SE subsidiary Helibras, a helicopter manufacturer.

As such, he added, the approval of pension reform was crucial, a necessary condition to give Brazilian governments and private customers financial stability to make major purchases.

“Public finances are a result of politics, so we’re waiting to see if the new administration and lawmakers will work together to clarify the country’s budgetary policy,” he said.

Marcos Fellipe, a sales representative for chemicals, defense and aerospace company IPI do Brasil, the local unit of U.S. firm Island Group Enterprises, said he was hopeful Bolsonaro would relax trade restrictions and attack bureaucracy.

“But so far, I haven’t seen any change,” he said, adding that after taking part in three LAAD fairs, he had not seen one so empty, which he attributed to Brazil’s economy.

Shortly after taking office, Bolsonaro signed a temporary decree making it easier for Brazilians to buy guns – a move that Fellipe thought would bolster his munitions business.

However, he said the move to loosen gun controls, which he called “timid,” had not had any noticeable affect on sales.

One of the immediate winners of Bolsonaro’s gun decree was Brazilian gun manufacturer Taurus Armas SA, whose shares rose ahead of the measure, but have since tumbled.

Speaking at LAAD on Tuesday, Taurus Chief Executive Salesio Nuhs praised Bolsonaro’s administration.

“I think Brazil is in a better phase, and we think this government will really bring growth for our country, and … things will improve,” he told Reuters.

Others, however, wanted to see Brazil open up more, with new tenders for international firms that have struggled across Latin America in recent years.

“I would like to see more business … and I hope Brazil will get out of the crisis to push these projects forward,” said Bernhard Brenner, Airbus Defence and Space’s executive vice president of marketing and sales.

He added that it was too soon to know whether Bolsonaro’s law-and-order focus would translate into better sales.

“Ask me in two years,” he said.

(Reporting by Gabriel Stargardter; Additional reporting by Sergio Queiroz; Editing by Brad Haynes and Susan Thomas)

Source: OANN

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Opposition accuses French interior minister over yellow vest violence

French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner attends a ceremony at the Police Prefecture in Paris
FILE PHOTO: French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner attends a ceremony at the Police Prefecture in Paris, France, December 20, 2018. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier

March 19, 2019

By Julie Carriat

PARIS (Reuters) – Opposition leaders accused French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner, an ally of President Emmanuel Macron, of incompetence after he said on Tuesday he was unaware of policing decisions made during rioting on the Champs Elysees.

After another flare-up of violence in Saturday’s yellow vest protest, which left the landmark Paris avenue looking like a battleground, calls for heads to roll have grown in France, despite its traditional tolerance for street protests. Rioters set fire to a bank and ransacked stores.

Prime Minister Edouard Philippe sacked Paris police chief Michel Delpuech on Monday and two other officials, his chief of staff Pierre Gaudin and Frederic Dupuch of the local police force, a police source said on Tuesday.

But politicians piled pressure on Castaner who has been in the job for five months. He was booed in parliament on Tuesday, before an expected grilling from lawmakers.

“The Paris police chief is only a fall guy supposed to cover for Castaner’s blatant incompetence,” Jordan Bardella, far-right Marine Le Pen’s candidate for European elections said on Twitter.

Castaner faced criticism from opposition politicians after a video of him dancing in a trendy Paris nightclub on the night of the violence surfaced in French media.

Castaner told French radio a tougher police approach, decided after rioters looted shops on the Champs Elysees in early December, had not been applied on March 16 as he had ordered.

He said he was only made aware that senior police officials had instructed their teams on the ground to hold back on using flash-balls when he visited a police station near the Champs Elysees on Sunday.

France has long taken a tolerant approach to protests, farmers have poured manure in front of ministries and trade unions have held creative demonstrations.

But the violent, balaclava-clad protesters among the yellow vest demonstrators for such a sustained period has forced the government to introduce increasingly tough policing tactics.

This month, United Nations human rights chief Michelle Bachelet called for an investigation into the possible excessive use of force by police during the protests, adding to criticism from the European Parliament and national human rights bodies.

This criticism had contributed to “inhibiting” police ranks, Castaner suggested.

“There was a form of inhibition. Some officials in the hierarchy, some police officers have doubts. Such doubt is not acceptable when you’re faced with ultra-violent behavior,” Castaner said.

Macron’s office and Castaner denied French media reports that the president had threatened to fire his minister.

What began as a movement against a since-scrapped fuel tax hike and the high cost of living, the yellow vest protests have become a broader movement against Macron, his reforms and elitism.

Even before Saturday’s destruction, insurance companies had registered 170 million euros of damage since the start of the yellow vest weekly marches in mid-November.

(Additionnal reporting by Sarah White, Emmanuel Jarry, Marine Pennetier and Simon Carraud, Editing by Michel Rose and Janet Lawrence)

Source: OANN

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Think Tank: Trump Transgender Ban Good News for US Military

A leading advocate for a strong U.S. military expects morale and readiness to improve now that the Defense Department has unveiled a new policy restricting military service by transgender soldiers.

The Associated Press reported Tuesday the new policy will take effect April 12. It requires military personnel to serve in the gender of their birth, and they will not be allowed to serve while transitioning to another sex.

A 5-4 Supreme Court ruling in January freed the Trump administration to implement restrictions on prospective service members experiencing “gender dysphoria.”

Last week, a federal judge in Maryland decided to allow the Trump administration to move forward on the new policy, which reverses the Obama-era rule allowing transgender men and women to enlist and serve.

Elaine Donnelly, founder and president of the Center for Military Readiness, a nonpartisan think-tank that defends the morale and readiness of the U.S. Armed Services, tells Newsmax the new policies will lead to a stronger military.

“The Obama administration treated it primarily as a civil rights issue,” says Donnelly. “They mandated that everyone in the military endorse the idea that a person of transgender can transform themselves from one gender to the other. There was no room for dissent allowed.”

According to her data, 994 active duty service members were diagnosed with gender dysphoria during the Obama years.

“This small number of people, 994, less than a thousand, accounted for 30,000 mental health visits. And the medical costs for those service members increased nearly three times,’’ Donnelly tells Newsmax.

Donnelly hasn’t been the only one to criticize the decline of military readiness during the Obama years. The Heritage Foundation’s annual review of America’s armed forces has documented the decline, as well as the modest improvements in readiness that have occurred so far under the new administration.

The Foundation’s 2019 Index of U.S. Military Strength states: “Presidential budgets during the sequestration years of the Obama administration always proved aspirational, and … capability, capacity, and readiness failed to keep pace with the demands placed on the service. When the funding did arrive, it was through continuing resolutions well into the years of execution, which prevented any real form of strategic planning.”

The battle over transgender individuals serving in the military is far from over. Four lawsuits are pending that could eventually work their way back to the Supreme Court. The ACLU is challenging the new rules, as are House Democrats.

Rep. Joe Kennedy, D-Mass., introduced a resolution in the House last month challenging the Trump administration’s policy. It reportedly has over 100 cosponsors.

A 2016 study by Rand Corporation indicated that letting transgender people serve would have a minimal effect on medical costs and readiness. But Donnelly emphasizes “mission readiness and lethality" -- that is, defending the United States of America.

“You have to be ready to fight, worldwide on short notice,” she says. “That’s what the military is charged to do. It is not an equal opportunity employer. It’s different. It does have certain eligibility requirements.”

She tells Newsmax the administration is treating the transgender question as a medical issue -- gender dysphoria -- and she supports that approach.

Under Obama, she says, soldiers considering a gender transition could take up to a year off to receive the needed counseling before making their decision. Surgery or hormone treatments were often prescribed as well, she says.

“In fact the Department of Defense reported the cost involved with travel for special treatment was starting to cut into the budget for maintenance and other things," says Donnelly, "and there was also some reason to believe that when personnel are not deployable, either before or after their treatments, it affects everyone else.

The bottom line, she says: “Everything involved with having to buy into the transgender reality was problematic and the administration was correct to change it."

Source: NewsMax America

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Why civics education matters


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On the roster: Why civics education matters - House readies resolution to end national emergency - Harris calls for new election in NC House race - Biden considers his family ahead of 2020 decision - Girl scout of the year

WHY CIVICS EDUCATION MATTERS
You no doubt heard the news. Americans don’t know bupkis about our history and system of government.

The survey from the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation found appallingly low percentages of Americans were conversant even in the basic facts of our system and past.

In order to pass a U.S. citizenship test, an applicant must get at least 60 percent of the questions on a civics and history test correct. You can take a sample test here but knowing you, dear readers, 60 percent will seem like a rock-bottom grade.

If you have been reading us for any length of time you will also know that civics and history education is something of a hobbyhorse for us, so we were certainly happy to see attention brought to the subject. What concerns us, however, is that very few people seem to be discussing why this is a problem.

Knowing civics and history isn’t something that is an abstract good like knowing how to play the clarinet, hit a one-handed backhand or tell the difference between Monet and Manet. It is a practical, vital knowledge the lack of which is creating a crisis for our country.

Civics education, where it still exists, is treated often as something obligatory. You make your bed, you shine your shoes for church, you say “please” and you know how many justices are on the Supreme Court.

If we expect students to care and schools to emphasize the subject, we had better make sure that everyone understands what’s at stake. Without a working knowledge of what this country is and how our system works, each generation becomes less able to operate this miracle that has proven to be a light into the world.

The most significant problems facing our government today aren’t really ideological, they’re systemic.

For example, there are good debates to be had about how the federal government should allocate the nearly $3.5 trillion in tax revue it collects each year. Where should it be spent and in what increments? How much more money should the government borrow?

But politicians have essentially destroyed the system that allowed those questions to be addressed for the previous two centuries. Most of the money that’s being spent is doled out on schedules and rates set decades ago. 

Less than a third of federal spending is actually appropriated by the current Congress. The other 70 percent goes to entitlement programs, pensions, pre-programed welfare systems and interest on the $22 trillion national debt. It’s that way because previous generations of lawmakers determined they and their successors were too irresponsible to allocate money anymore.  

While most federal outlays cruise on like a deep space probe zooming out past Pluto, what obviously will happen to the discussion over the ever-shrinking slice that Congress really does control? When there was plenty of money, the appropriations system allowed for an orderly, if greasy, means for allocating the money. Now, every time the bills come due at the end of the federal fiscal year, we start jumping off of fiscal cliffs.

We recently endured what was called the “Seinfeld shutdown,” the shutdown about nothing. Lawmakers and the president were at odds over a little flyspeck of spending – four hundredths of a percent of the deficit alone – and closed a substantial part of the government for more than a month only to come to what was an obvious compromise from the start.

However you feel about border barriers and “delayed action for childhood arrivals” and anything else about immigration, that’s not a sensible way to have discussions about spending priorities. That’s not liberal or conservative, Republican or Democratic but rather systemic. The way the U.S. government handles its money is a rotten, chaotic mess.

But there’s little political advantage to be had in addressing that. In fact, there’s substantial political disadvantage. 

Listen to the president and his potential general election opponents as they talk about money. They sound like 1970s pornographic actress and disco star Andrea True. “How do you like it? More, more, more.” More tax cuts, more infrastructure spending, more entitlements, more welfare programs. More, more, more.

Spending is just one example. We could say the same of our legal, educational, medical and national security apparatuses. Deep problems continue to churn, but politicians across the spectrum tend to offer painless pabulum. 
    
Now, we should rightly blame the politicians who pander and deceive. But as the scorpion told the frog, we know it is their nature. As comedian Chris Rock once joked about sexual fidelity, “Men are only as faithful as their options.” A dim, if not entirely undeserved view. For politicians, the maxim would hold that they are only about as honest as they have to be.

And voters are letting them get away with murder.

We will not reinvent human nature in such a way that a new generation of selfless politicians rises up to save us from ourselves. But that is what Americans look for each successive election. What do we want each cycle? Change. And each cycle they deliver the kind of surficial change that temporarily gratifies the bloody-minded partisanship of one side but leaves most people with a deeper-still feeling of unease. Something is wrong, but we just can’t say what. 

So what will we choose next time? Why change, of course.

The purpose of an educated electorate – the crucial aim of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and others – was as the ultimate guarantor of good government. If the people do not know what they have, they won’t know how to use it. They won’t know which demands are sensible to make. They will become easy prey for demagogues.

Welp.

The urgent work of educating the next generation in American history and civics isn’t just something that would be nice or to avoid national embarrassment. It is actually about rebuilding a bulwark against tyranny. As our government slips deeper and deeper into dysfunction and people come to have less and less faith in the American system, we become sitting ducks for the kind of authoritarianism that has ruled most of our species for most of our history. 

Civic classes are about nothing less than guaranteeing “the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.”       

THE RULEBOOK: HOLD YOUR GROUND  
“Whatever efficacy the union may have had in ordinary cases, it appears that the moment a cause of difference sprang up, capable of trying its strength, it failed.” – Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, Federalist No. 19

TIME OUT: THE PRICE OF COLLEGE SPORTS
Sports Illustrated: “UNC-Duke at Cameron Indoor Stadium is typically a showcase for everything that's great about sports… But the story was [Zion Williamson’s injury]. He's the presumptive No. 1 pick in the NBA draft, and one of the biggest names in sports at the moment. … What happens when the biggest game in America becomes dominated by the player who left after 30 seconds? For one, after 48 hours of news stories about Duke-UNC ticket prices, there were natural conclusions drawn about the injustice of Zion performing as an unpaid amateur and suffering an injury while almost everyone else in the college sports ecosystem was able to get rich off the game. That argument makes some sense. … And why does Zion Williamson have to be in college at all? … If players are talented enough to be drafted into the NBA after high school, many around the sport think they should be able to make that transition as soon as they graduate.”

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

SCOREBOARD
Trump job performance 
Average approval:
 41.8 percent
Average disapproval: 54.4 percent
Net Score: -12.6 points
Change from one week ago: no change  
[Average includes: Fox News: 46% approve - 52% disapprove; Gallup: 44% approve - 52% unapproved; CNN: 42% approve - 54% disapproval; IBD: 39% approve - 57% disapprove; Quinnipiac University: 38% approve - 57% disapprove.]

HOUSE READIES RESOLUTION TO END NATIONAL EMERGENCY
WaPo: “Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday night that the House will vote in the coming days on a resolution rejecting President Trump’s national emergency declaration, encouraging fellow Democrats to support the effort as they try to stop Trump’s push to expand efforts to build a barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border. In a ‘Dear Colleague’ letter, the California Democrat said Trump’s declaration ‘undermines the separation of powers and Congress’s power of the purse, a power exclusively reserved by the text of the Constitution to the first branch of government, the Legislative branch, a branch co-equal to the Executive.’ By invoking a national emergency, Trump is claiming authority to shift federal funds appropriated by Congress for other purposes to be spent instead on his border wall. Pelosi announced that the House would move ‘swiftly’ to pass a disapproval resolution authored by Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Tex.), although she did not specify an exact date and indicated it would move through a House committee before coming to the floor.”

Sen. Collins backs lawsuit against national emergency - Portland Press Herald: “Republican Sen. Susan Collins said Wednesday that she supports the lawsuit filed by 16 states – including Maine – challenging President Trump’s declaration of a national emergency to build a southern border wall. But Collins also signaled support for a straightforward congressional disapproval of an emergency declaration that she views as having ‘dubious constitutionality’ and setting a dangerous precedent. ‘It may be that the courts will stop what I believe to be a very unwise action, or it may come about through Congress,’ Collins said Wednesday. ‘If the House passes a resolution of disapproval and it is a clean resolution, I will support that.’ … The three other members of Maine’s congressional delegation – independent Sen. Angus King and Democratic Reps. Chellie Pingree and Jared Golden – also have strongly criticized the president’s emergency declaration.”

The Judge’s Ruling: Trump's brazen overreach - This week Fox News Senior Judicial Analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano explains how the president’s national emergency is unconstitutional: “When the president acts pursuant to authority granted to him by the Congress in an area of government delegated to him by the Constitution, his authority is at its peak, and he is free to exercise it as he sees fit. When he acts in an area as to which the Congress has been silent, he acts in a twilight zone and can succeed only if the area of his behavior is delegated to him under the Constitution and if he enjoys broad public support. But when the president acts in an area that the Constitution gives exclusively to Congress -- such as spending money -- and when he acts in defiance of Congress, his acts are unconstitutional and are to be enjoined.” More here.

HARRIS CALLS FOR NEW ELECTION IN NC HOUSE RACE
Raleigh News & Observer: “In a startling statement, Republican candidate Mark Harris Thursday called for a new election in the 9th Congressional District ‘to restore the confidence of voters.’ Harris’ statement came after a break in a hearing after he had testified about his dealings with Bladen County operative McCrae Dowless. On the stand, Harris said he suffered two strokes in January while hospitalized for a severe infection and was ‘struggling’ to get through the hearing. After hearing the evidence of absentee ballot fraud, Harris said, ‘I believe a new election should be called.’ A member of North Carolina’s State Board of Elections had pressed Harris on why he didn’t heed warnings from his son about hiring Dowless to run an absentee ballot operation in his 2018 campaign for Congress. … ‘He raised concerns (about Dowless). I did not consider John’s (emails) to be a warning. I thought he was overreacting,’ [Harris said].”

BIDEN CONSIDERS HIS FAMILY AHEAD OF 2020 DECISION 
NBC News:Joe Biden wants to be president. And each day, he’s closer to being ready to run for the office. But even as he weighs a campaign to unseat President Donald Trump, Biden is carefully considering a key question — what happens when the president or his top allies try to make his family an issue? Conversations with aides to the former vice president and others who’ve spoken with him in recent weeks present the idea of a Biden candidacy as not if but when. … But Biden knows and expects the president to fight as hard to stay in the White House as he did to win it in the first place — and he’s already shown nothing is off limits. … No line of attack would be more reprehensible to the former vice president than one directed at his family, and he and his team have been forced to consider that even as they also weigh the political dynamics.”

Harris swipes at far-left Dems over open borders - Fox News: “Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris said ‘We can't have open borders’ as she continues to disassociate from her party’s calls for unrestricted immigration and tearing down existing barriers at the U.S.-Mexico border. The U.S. senator from California, a leading 2020 hopeful for the White House on the Democratic side, has recently been overshadowed by the entry of Senate colleague Bernie Sanders -- the progressives’ likely first choice -- into the race, and the potential candidacy of Beto O’Rourke the former congressman from Texas who’s been making inroads and positioning himself as the anti-Trump candidate. This prompted Harris to come out against O’Rourke’s call to tear down the existing 700 miles of fencing on the U.S.-Mexico border during a Wednesday night appearance on Comedy Central's ‘The Daily Show.’”

Family matters: Kamala’s dad isn’t happy over her comments on weed - Fox News: “The father of Sen. Kamala Harris is trying to distance himself from the 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful after she said her pot smoking in college stemmed from her Jamaican heritage. … Harris' father, Donald, disapproved of the comments, which he told the Jamaica Global Online constituted ‘identity politics.’ ‘My dear departed grandmothers ... as well as my deceased parents, must be turning in their grave right now to see their family’s name, reputation and proud Jamaican identity being connected, in any way, jokingly or not with the fraudulent stereotype of a pot-smoking joy seeker and in the pursuit of identity politics,’ he said. Donald Harris continued: ‘Speaking for myself and my immediate Jamaican family, we wish to categorically dissociate ourselves from this travesty.’”

Williamson: ‘One last grift for Bernie Sanders’ - National Review: “Right-wing populists and left-wing populists may disagree about such world-changing issues as whether the phrase ‘a man with ovaries’ actually means anything, but on the fundamental policy questions they come down strikingly close to one another. That is because the enemy of populism isn’t the right wing or the left wing — the enemy of populism is liberalism, understood here not in the demented sense we use it in U.S. politics (where liberals are the people opposed to liberalism) but in its proper sense, meaning the classical-liberal regime of property rights, free enterprise, free trade, individual rights, and a worldview based on well-ordered liberty emphasizing cooperation within and between nations.”

Disinformation cyber campaign begins against Dems - Politico: “A wide-ranging disinformation campaign aimed at Democratic 2020 candidates is already underway on social media, with signs that foreign state actors are driving at least some of the activity. The main targets appear to be Sens. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas), four of the most prominent announced or prospective candidates for president. A POLITICO review of recent data extracted from Twitter and from other platforms … suggests that the goal of the coordinated barrage appears to be undermining the nascent candidacies through the dissemination of memes, hashtags, misinformation and distortions of their positions. But the divisive nature of many of the posts also hints at a broader effort to sow discord and chaos within the Democratic presidential primary. The cyber propaganda … is being pushed across a variety of platforms…”

POMPEO RULES OUT ON KANSAS SENATE RUN
Politico: “Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Thursday that he has ruled out running for a soon-to-be-vacant Senate seat in his home state of Kansas next year in favor of remaining the nation's top diplomat. The former Kansas congressman and CIA director had dodged questions about whether he planned on running in 2020 to claim the seat held by retiring GOP Sen. Pat Roberts, fueling speculation that he might by attending certain events and meeting with GOP operatives in the state. But on NBC's ‘Today’ show on Thursday, the secretary of state threw cold water on the prospect, telling anchor Craig Melvin ‘it’s ruled out.’ ‘I love Kansas. I'm going to be the secretary of State as long as President Trump gives me the opportunity to serve as America’s senior diplomat,” Pompeo said. ‘I love doing what I'm doing and I have 75,000 great warriors out and around the world trying to deliver for the American people.’”

Poll: Joni Ernst's approval rating soars ahead of 2020 re-election - Des Moines Register: “U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst’s approval rating has hit its highest point ever as she prepares for a 2020 re-election campaign, a new Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll shows. Fifty-seven percent of Iowans say they approve of the job she’s doing — a 10 percentage-point increase since September. She earns approval from a majority of Iowans in each of the state’s four congressional districts. That includes a high of 65 percent in the Republican-heavy 4th District, in northwest and north central Iowa, and a low of 51 percent in the Democratic-leaning 2nd District, in southeast Iowa. … Ernst, a military veteran from Red Oak, became the first woman in Iowa elected to either chamber of Congress in 2014. … She announced in December that she intends to seek re-election.”

Alabama Rep. Bradley Byrne announces 2020 Senate run - AL.com: “U.S. Rep. Bradley Byrne became the first official Republican entrant into the 2020 U.S. Senate race announcing his intention to run in a race that could become one of the most expensive political contests in Alabama history. … Democratic U.S. Senator Doug Jones, who narrowly defeated Republican Roy Moore in that election, raised more than $24 million. … Byrne said he anticipates, similar to the 2017 special election, national attention paid to the Alabama Senate contest next year. The race is considered one of the few 2020 Senate contests in which a Democratic officeholder is seeking re-election against a Republican inside a state that has long been dominated by GOP leadership.”

PLAY-BY-PLAY
Neal Kaytal: What to expect from the Mueller report NYT

Poll shows Virginians aren’t demanding Ralph Northam’s resignation - Sabato’s Crystal Ball

AUDIBLE: NO ONE KNOWS
“I have read it and I have reread it and I asked Ed Markey… what in the heck is this?” – Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., discussing his struggle to understand the Green New Deal on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Wednesday.

FROM THE BLEACHERS
“It's midnight. And I'm listening to ITYW podcast and you mentioned a Pawpaw. I hope this finds you because 50 years ago in the movie Jungle Book a Pawpaw is mentioned in the lyrics of Bare Necessities. I sang it all the time and never knew what I was singing about. Now I do. And I love ice cream. So I'll have to [check] that out. Please share my note with Dana.” – Brian Keill, Pearl River, N.Y.

[Ed. note: The 1967 animated version was one of my favorites as a little boy. It’s scary enough to give you some bad dreams — that snake! — but funny enough and tender enough to make it beloved. But I hadn’t remembered that paw paws made an appearance. Makes it even *ahem* sweeter.]

“Yet another polling question, although I understand the ones you use and the methodologies behind them. What does confuse me is that some days you have a certain set of polls, other days you have a different set of polls. The average can go up or down significantly based solely on one poll being included and another one being removed. Any chance you could enlighten us on that piece?” – Mike Schlender, Minneapolis

[Ed. note: As they would say in the business world, Mr. Schlemder, “FIFO” or first in, first out. We cycle out the oldest polls when new one comes in.]

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

GIRL SCOUT OF THE YEAR
WISN: “As if any of us needed any more of an incentive to buy even more boxes of Girl Scout cookies, a fifth-grade marketing genius just reinvented her Samoas packaging in the best way possible. The Colorado-based ‘Cookie CEO’ Charlotte Holmberg — who earned the title after selling more than 2,000 boxes in 2018 — is upping her game in a major way in the new year. Turning her Samoas into Momoas, the elementary schooler redesigned her packaging to include a shirtless Jason Momoa, and unsurprisingly, they're flying off the figurative shelves. Holmberg happened to have a marketing professional already on her sales team — her mom — and after spotting a few Momoa Samoa memes, she thought up the rebranding. The pair printed a shot of the ‘Aquaman’ star on the classic purple packaging, and suddenly, everyone was eager for a box.”

AND NOW, A WORD FROM CHARLES…
“Say it and sign it. To get, you have to give. That’s the art of the deal, is it not?” – Charles Krauthammer (1950-2018) writing in the Washington Post on Sept. 1, 2016.

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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FILE PHOTO - Otto Frederick Warmbier is taken to North Korea's top court in Pyongyang North Korea
FILE PHOTO – Otto Frederick Warmbier (C), a University of Virginia student who was detained in North Korea since early January, is taken to North Korea’s top court in Pyongyang, North Korea, in this photo released by Kyodo March 16, 2016. Mandatory credit REUTERS/Kyodo/File Photo

April 26, 2019

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday said the United States did not pay any money to North Korea as it sought the release of comatose American student Otto Warmbier.

The Washington Post reported on Thursday that Trump had approved payment of a $2 million bill from North Korea to cover its care of the college student, who died shortly after he was returned to the United States after 17 months in a North Korean prison.

(Reporting by Makini Brice and Susan Heavey)

Source: OANN

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Al-Qaida in Yemen is vowing to avenge beheadings carried out by Saudi Arabia this week — an indication that some of the 37 Saudis executed on terrorism-related charges were members of the Sunni militant group.

Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, as the branch is called, posted a statement on militant-linked websites on Friday, accusing the kingdom of offering the blood of the “noble children of the nation just to appease America.”

The statement says al-Qaida will “never forget about their blood and we will avenge them.”

U.S. ally Saudi Arabia on Tuesday executed 37 suspects convicted on terrorism-related charges. Most were believed to be Shiites but at least one was believed to be a Sunni militant.

His body was pinned to a pole in public as a warning to others.

Source: Fox News World

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Members of The Cranberries, bassist Mike Hogan, drummer Fergal Lawler and guitarist Noel Hogan speak to Reuters during an interview in London
Members of The Cranberries, bassist Mike Hogan, drummer Fergal Lawler and guitarist Noel Hogan speak to Reuters during an interview in London, Britain, April 24, 2019. REUTERS/Gerhard Mey

April 26, 2019

By Hanna Rantala

LONDON (Reuters) – Irish rockers The Cranberries are saying goodbye with their final album released on Friday, a poignant tribute to lead singer Dolores O’Riordan who died last year.

“In the End” is the eighth studio album from the band that rose to fame in the early 1990s with hits likes “Zombie” and “Linger”, and includes the final recordings by O’Riordan, who drowned in a London hotel bath in January 2018 due to alcohol intoxication.

Work on the album began during a 2017 tour and by that winter, O’Riordan and guitarist Neil Hogan had penned and demoed 11 tracks.

With O’Riordan’s vocals recorded, Hogan, bassist Mike Hogan and drummer Fergal Lawler completed the album in tribute to her.

“When we realized how strong the songs were, that was the deciding factor really… There was no point… trying to ruin the legacy of the band,” Noel Hogan said in an interview.

“It was obvious that Dolores wanted this album done because when you hear the album, you hear the songs and how strong they are, and she was very, very excited to get in and record this.”

The Cranberries formed in Limerick in 1989 with another singer. O’Riordan replaced him a year later and the group went on to become Ireland’s best-selling rock band after U2, selling more than 40 million records.

O’Riordan, known for her strong distinctive voice singing about relationships or political violence, was 46 when she died.

“She was actually in quite a good place mentally. She was feeling quite content and strong and looking forward to a new phase of her life,” Lawler said.

“A lot of the lyrics in this album are about things ending… people might read into it differently but it was a phase of her personal life that she was talking about.”

The group previously announced their intention to split after the release of “In The End”.

“We are absolutely gutted we can’t play (the songs) live because that’s something that’s been a massive part of this band from day one,” Noel Hogan said.

“A few people have said to us about maybe even doing a one off where you have different vocalists… as kind of guests of ours. A year ago that’s definitely something we weren’t going to entertain but I don’t know, I think it’s something we need to go away and take time off for the summer and have a think about.”

Critics have generally given positive reviews of the album; NME described it as “(seeing) the band’s career go full-circle” while the Irish Times called it “an unexpected late career high and a remarkable swan song for O’Riordan”.

Their early songs still play on the radio. This week, “Dreams” was performed at the funeral of journalist Lyra McKee, who was shot dead in Londonderry last week as she watched Irish nationalist youths attack police following a raid.

“We wrote them as kids, as a hobby and 30 years later they are on radio and on TV, like all the time… That’s far more than any of us ever thought we would have,” Noel Hogan said.

“That would make Dolores really happy because she was very precious about those songs. Her babies, she called them and to have that hopefully long after we’re gone… that’s all any band can wish for.”

(Reporting by Hanna Rantala; additoinal reporting by Marie-Louise Gumuchian; Writing by Marie-Louise Gumuchian; Editing by Susan Fenton)

Source: OANN

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2020 Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren participates in the She the People Presidential Forum in Houston
2020 Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren participates in the She the People Presidential Forum in Houston, Texas, U.S. April 24, 2019. REUTERS/Loren Elliott

April 26, 2019

By Joshua Schneyer and M.B. Pell

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Senator Elizabeth Warren will introduce a bill Friday that offers new protections for U.S. military families facing unsafe housing, following a series of Reuters reports revealing squalid conditions in privately managed base homes.

The Reuters reports and later Congressional hearings detailed widespread hazards including lead paint exposure, vermin infestations, collapsing ceilings, mold and maintenance lapses in privatized base housing communities that serve some 700,000 U.S. military family members.

(View Warren’s military housing bill here. https://tmsnrt.rs/2Dy5aht)

(Read Reuters’ Ambushed at Home series on military housing here. https://www.reuters.com/investigates/section/usa-military)

The Massachusetts Democrat’s bill would mandate both regular and unannounced spot inspections of base homes by certified, independent inspectors, holding landlords accountable for quickly fixing hazards. The military’s privatization program for years allowed real estate firms to operate base housing with scant oversight, Reuters found, leaving some tenants in unsafe homes with little recourse against landlords.

The bill would also require the Department of Defense and its private housing operators to publish reports annually detailing housing conditions, tenant complaints, maintenance response times and the financial incentives companies receive at each base. The provisions aim to enhance transparency of housing deals whose finances and operations the military had allowed to remain largely confidential under a privatization program since the late 1990s.

The measure would also require private landlords to cover moving costs for at-risk families, and healthcare costs for people with medical conditions resulting from unsafe base housing, ensuring they receive continuing coverage even after they leave the homes or the military.

“This bill will eliminate the kind of corner-cutting and neglect the Defense Department should never have let these private housing partners get away with in the first place,” Warren said in a statement Friday.

The proposed legislation comes after February Senate hearings where Warren, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee who is seeking the Democratic nomination for the 2020 U.S. presidential election, slammed private real estate firms for endangering service families, and sought answers about why military branches weren’t providing more oversight.

Her legislation would direct the Defense Department to allow local housing code enforcers onto federal bases, following concerns they were sometimes denied access. Warren’s office said a companion bill in the House of Representatives would be introduced by Rep. Deb Haaland, Democrat of New Mexico.

In response to the housing crisis, military branches are developing a tenant bill of rights and hiring hundreds of new housing staff. The branches recently dispatched commanders to survey base housing worldwide for safety hazards, resulting in thousands of work orders and hundreds of tenants being moved. The Defense Department has pledged to renegotiate its 50-year contracts with private real estate firms.

Congress has been quick to take its own measures. Earlier legislation proposed by senators Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris of California, along with Mark Warner and Tim Kaine of Virginia, would compel base commanders to withhold rent payments and incentive fees from the private ventures if they allow home hazards to persist.

(Editing by Ronnie Greene)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: Offices of Deloitte are seen in London
FILE PHOTO: Offices of Deloitte are seen in London, Britain, September 25, 2017. REUTERS/Hannah McKay/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By Noor Zainab Hussain and Tanishaa Nadkar

(Reuters) – Deloitte quit as Ferrexpo’s auditor on Friday, knocking its shares by more than 20 percent, days after saying it was unable to conclude whether the iron ore miner’s CEO controlled a charity being investigated over its use of company donations.

Blooming Land, which coordinates Ferrexpo’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) program, came under scrutiny after auditors found holes in the charity’s statements.

Ferrexpo on Tuesday said findings of an ongoing independent investigation launched in February indicated some Blooming Land funds could have been “misappropriated”. It did not provide any details or publish its findings.

Shares in Ferrexpo, the third largest exporter of pellets to the global steel industry, were 23.4 percent lower at 206.1 pence at 1022 GMT following news of Deloitte’s resignation.

“Ferrexpo’s shares are deeply discounted vs peers … following the resignation of Deloitte, we expect downside risks to dominate Ferrexpo’s shares near term.” JP Morgan analyst Dominic O’Kane said in a note on Friday.

Swiss-headquartered Ferrexpo did not provide a reason for the resignation of Deloitte, which declined to comment, while Blooming Land did not respond to a request for comment.

Funding for Blooming Land’s CSR activities is provided by one of Ferrexpo’s units in Ukraine and Khimreaktiv LLC, an entity ultimately controlled by Ferrexpo’s CEO and majority owner Kostyantin Zhevago, Ferrexpo said on Tuesday.

Ferrexpo’s board has found that Zhevago did not have significant influence or control over the charity, but Deloitte said it was unable reach a conclusion on this.

Reuters was not immediately able to contact Zhevago.

In a qualified opinion, a statement addressing an incomplete audit, Deloitte said it had been unable to conclude whether $33.5 million of CSR donations to Blooming Land between 2017 and 2018 was used for “legitimate business payments for charitable purposes”.

Deloitte said on Tuesday that total CSR payments made to Blooming Land by Ferrexpo since 2013 total about $110 million.

Ferrexpo, whose major mines are in Ukraine, has said that the investigation was ongoing and new evidence pointed to potential discrepancies.

Zhevago, 45, who ranked 1,511 on Forbes magazine’s list of billionaires for 2019 with a net worth of $1.4 billion, owns the FC Vorskla soccer club and has been a member of Ukraine’s parliament since 1998.

(Reporting by Noor Zainab Hussain and Tanishaa Nadkar in Bengaluru and additional reporting by Pavel Polityuk in Kiev; editing by Gopakumar Warrier, Bernard Orr)

Source: OANN

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