Coffee
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Executives at Starbucks are preparing for a backlash against the coffee shop chain if former CEO Howard Schultz runs for president as an independent, which could take away some support for Democratic candidates in the race, according to a new report.
Fox Business Network’s Charlie Gasparino reported Friday that Starbucks has kept tabs on activist groups and believes there could be organized protests and even boycotts of the company if Schultz announces his candidacy.
Starbucks is watching the social media accounts of some groups and has been told to expect some form of backlash in response to a Schultz campaign.
As of Friday, Forbes estimated Schultz’s worth to be $3.8 billion. When he announced earlier this year that he was considering a White House run, the left mounted a strong pushback effort — to which Schultz was surprised.
A Democratic political operative told Gasparino, “Every activist I speak to talks about boycotting Starbucks if this guy goes through with his mid-life crisis and runs for something he can’t win. If he goes through with it, there will be a backlash against him and the company.”
Schultz, 65, was the Starbucks chairman and CEO from 1986-2000 and later from 2008-2017. He was the company’s executive chairman from 2017-2018.
Source: NewsMax Politics
FILE PHOTO: Lawyer Michael Avenatti in New York, New York, U.S., March 25, 2019. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri/File Photo
April 11, 2019
By Jonathan Allen
(Reuters) – Michael Avenatti, the high-profile lawyer known for his battles with U.S. President Donald Trump, was charged with 36 counts of fraud, tax evasion and other financial crimes in an indictment made public by federal prosecutors in Los Angeles on Thursday.
The indictment came about three weeks after Avenatti, who gained national fame for representing adult film star Stormy Daniels in her litigation against Trump, was arrested in New York on two separate criminal complaints filed by federal prosecutors in New York and California.
The indictment means the grand jury has found the California prosecutors have probable cause to pursue their charges.
Avenatti, 48, has said he planned to fight all the charges and plead not guilty.
“I look forward to the entire truth being known as opposed to a one-sided version meant to sideline me,” Avenatti, who is free on a $300,000 bond, wrote on Twitter on Thursday.
Prosecutors in the office of the U.S. Attorney for California’s Central District have charged Avenatti with 10 counts of wire fraud, accusing him of misusing more than $12 million he received on behalf of clients following settlements and other negotiations.
“Money generated from one set of crimes was used to further other crimes, typically in the form of payments designed to string along victims so as to prevent Mr. Avenatti’s financial house of cards from collapsing,” Nicola Hanna, the U.S. attorney for California’s Central District, said at a news conference on Thursday.
Avenatti became a prominent critic of Trump and a frequent guest on cable television news while representing Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford. She filed a lawsuit against the president over a nondisclosure agreement that in the weeks before the 2016 U.S. presidential election kept her from discussing her claims that they had an extramarital affair 10 years earlier.
Prosecutors say Avenatti misled clients and misused their funds to pay personal and legal expenses, to finance a coffee shop business he also ran and to pay for his share of a Honda private jet, according to the indictment. Federal authorities seized the jet on Wednesday, prosecutors said.
The indictment also accuses Avenatti of various tax crimes. He is accused of failing to file personal tax returns since 2010, and to pay $3.2 million in payroll taxes on his coffee business, even though he witheld some portion of this money from employee paychecks.
They also say he defrauded a Mississippi bank of $4.1 million in loans by submitting false tax returns for 2011 to 2013 that inflated his income.
Avenatti faces up to 333 years in federal prison if convicted on the California charges, prosecutors said. Federal sentencing guidelines typically call for defendants to serve less than the maximum time.
NIKE SCHEME
The New York prosecutors have separately accused Avenatti of trying to blackmail athletic wear maker Nike Inc for more than $20 million.
They said Avenatti and a co-conspirator, who they did not name, met with Nike’s attorneys on March 19 and told them they represented a former college basketball coach with information about Nike’s involvement in a scheme to bribe high school basketball players.
They threatened to go public unless Nike hired Avenatti to conduct an internal investigation for $15 million to $25 million, and paid an additional $1.5 million to the client, according to prosecutors. Avenatti also offered to accept a $22.5 million payment for his silence, prosecutors said.
The alleged co-conspirator is prominent Los Angeles attorney Mark Geragos, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity. Geragos, who has not been charged with a crime, has declined to comment on the case.
Daniels replaced Avenatti as her lawyer last month, and has said she was “saddened but not shocked” by his arrest.
Avenatti also involved himself in the investigation of sexual abuse charges against R&B singer R. Kelly by giving the Chicago state’s attorney’s office what he said was a tape of the performer having sex with an underage girl.
(Reporting by Jonathan Allen, Brendan Pierson, Gina Cherelus, Gabriella Borter and Daniel Wallis; editing by Frank McGurty, Jonathan Oatis)
Source: OANN
President Donald Trump on Monday urged Uganda to find the kidnappers of an American tourist who has been freed amid conflicting reports over whether a ransom was paid for her release.
Kim Endicott of Costa Mesa, California, was released by her abductors over the weekend and was to be turned over to the U.S. ambassador Monday, Ugandan police said.
Endicott and her Ugandan driver were both safe after the five-day ordeal. They were taken from Queen Elizabeth National Park across the border to Congo, according to Ugandan authorities.
Trump pressed Uganda’s government to capture the culprits Monday.
“Uganda must find the kidnappers of the American Tourist and guide before people will feel safe in going there. Bring them to justice openly and quickly!” he tweeted.
Over the weekend, Trump tweeted that he was pleased the tourist and guide had been released.
Ugandan police spokesman Fred Enanga said he did not believe a ransom had been paid.
“I have indicated to you that we don’t do ransom,” he said Monday at a news conference in the Ugandan capital of Kampala.
A Uganda-based tour official said, however, that a ransom was paid to secure Endicott’s freedom. The tourist was released, “not rescued,” after money was paid “otherwise she wouldn’t be back,” said the tourism professional with knowledge of Endicott’s trip.
He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.
Many officials, including from the U.S. Embassy, were involved in efforts to secure the release of the kidnapping victims, he said. He couldn’t say how much was paid or who paid.
Ugandan officials have said the kidnapping victims were rescued from armed kidnappers who are still at large.
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said on Twitter that the security forces “shall deal with these isolated pockets of criminals.”
The kidnappers had demanded a $500,000 ransom after grabbing Endicott and her driver from a group of tourists on an evening game drive on April 2, police said.
“It’s completely shocking,” Sandy Benton, a friend of Endicott’s in Southern California, said Monday. “I never thought anything like this would happen to her.”
Benton called Endicott an adventure seeker and world traveler, saying it wasn’t surprising that she would travel to Uganda on her own.
“I just prayed for her and hoped for safe return,” Benton said. “I’m glad to hear she’ll be on her way home soon. I can’t imagine how traumatic that was for her. She had to be terrified.”
Megan Barth, a longtime client and friend of Endicott’s who lives in Las Vegas, said Endicott is an animal lover who long dreamed of traveling to Africa to see gorillas in the wild.
“It was definitely on the bucket list for her,” Barth said. “She’s a wanderlust, and she’s always been a wanderlust. She always was wanting to travel and experience different cultures.”
Barth said she’s been overcome with worry since Endicott was kidnapped.
“Over the past week, I’ve just been praying — praying in the shower, praying while I’m driving, praying while having my cup of coffee,” she said. “My whole entire day was consumed by her because I knew she was in such an awful, traumatic place.”
Benton and Barth said they hope Endicott isn’t too scarred by the experience and is touched by those worldwide who have reached out to her family while she was held.
“Hopefully she just feels a lot of love,” Benton said.
Barth said if anyone can make it through such an experience, it’s Endicott.
“She’s such a lovely, warm-hearted, beautiful spirit,” she said. “She will somehow turn this traumatic experience into something that is not only a healing experience for her, but an experience she can use to help others.”
Endicott, who has a small skin care shop in Costa Mesa, is in her 50s and has a daughter and granddaughter, according to Phoenix resident Rich Endicott, who told The Associated Press that he hadn’t spoken with his cousin since a family reunion several years ago.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said last week at an event for families of U.S. citizens held captive overseas that he understands some people want to do anything to get their loved ones back but paying ransom would just lead to more kidnappings.
Queen Elizabeth National Park, which is near the porous border with Congo, is Uganda’s most popular safari destination. Its attractions include groups of tree-climbing lions.
Source: NewsMax Politics
FILE PHOTO: A Walmart sign is pictured at one of their stores in Mexico City, Mexico March 28, 2019. REUTERS/Edgard Garrido/File Photo
April 8, 2019
By Daina Beth Solomon
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Walmart’s Mexico unit has penalized food companies supplying groceries to rival Amazon, pressure that has forced some to pull their products from the world’s largest online retailer, four people familiar with the matter said.
The tough tactics come as the two giants battle for supremacy in one of their most important foreign markets, one that Walmart currently dominates.
Walmart last year demanded discounts from food businesses whose products it found priced lower on the Mexican website of Amazon.com Inc, the people said, even though suppliers had no say in the Seattle retailer’s decision to undercut Walmart on price.
Two suppliers told Reuters they moved swiftly to pull their brands from Amazon, wary of jeopardizing their relationship with Walmart de Mexico. The companies, both of which sell common pantry goods, said Walmart accounts for more than half their supermarket sales in Mexico.
Walmart would not discuss its competition with Amazon in Mexico or the allegations made by suppliers. It told Reuters it does not dictate with whom vendors can do business. But it acknowledged it always presses for the lowest prices, particularly if competitors are giving shoppers a better deal.
“We could never tell anybody that they can’t sell to someone else,” Ignacio Caride, Walmart Mexico’s e-commerce head, told Reuters.
“If we think there’s an opportunity to lower our prices, because we see better prices at other retailers, we’re going to negotiate for that access,” he said.
The company said in a statement that it aims to offer the lowest possible prices to benefit consumers, and doesn’t subsidize losses for some products with revenues from others.
Amazon declined to comment.
Walmart is Mexico’s largest retailer, commanding nearly 60 percent of the country’s supermarket sales through more than 2,400 Walmart, Superama, Sam’s Club and Bodega Aurrera stores. Its online business in Mexico is growing fast, but it represented just 1.4 percent of revenue last year.
Graphic – Walmart, giant of Mexican supermarkets: https://tmsnrt.rs/2I7GyA7
Amazon launched its Mexican website in 2015 and is now one of the country’s biggest online retailers. It began selling groceries here in August.
Supermarket analyst Bill Bishop said Walmart wants to avoid a repeat of its experience in the United States, where Amazon quickly took the lead in online grocery sales. Walmart Inc’s Mexico unit is its second-largest overseas market by sales after the United Kingdom, on par with Canada.
Graphic – Walmart’s top 10 foreign markets: https://tmsnrt.rs/2HZqhgp
“They’re worried that Amazon will grow in Mexico,” said Bishop, co-founder of retail advisory firm Brick Meets Click in Barrington, Illinois.
“They’re saying: Be aware of the fact that we’re not going to make it easy for you to grow here,” he said.
The two Mexican suppliers who spoke to Reuters said they were caught in the crossfire. They said their wholesale prices were the same for both retailers, but that Amazon chose to sell their products to consumers more cheaply than Walmart did.
Instead of lowering its retail prices to match those of Amazon, Walmart took it out on them, the vendors said. Walmart docked their payments by the retail price difference, multiplied by the amount of stock in its inventory, a move that cost them tens of thousands of dollars collectively, the people said.
Both said they entered into talks with Amazon shortly afterward to drop their products. They said they could not afford continued financial clawbacks from Walmart. Nor could they risk losing their biggest customer, despite the huge sales potential offered by Amazon’s platform.
“It’s a threat, and it’s coercion,” one of the people said of Walmart’s strategy.
Emails between Amazon and one of the food companies, seen by Reuters, support the version of events described by suppliers. Two other people familiar with the matter who have expertise in e-commerce in Mexico gave similar accounts.
A cellphone message sent by another supplier to one of the e-commerce professionals discussing its woes with Walmart, reviewed by Reuters, likewise confirmed the situation.
PLAYING HARDBALL
Experts say Walmart’s pressure on its suppliers in Mexico is unlikely to have legal repercussions. Miguel Flores, a former member of Mexico’s competition commission, said a government investigation into abuse of dominant market power would be complex, lengthy and hard to prove.
Mexico’s competition regulator declined to comment.
Walmart, the world’s largest bricks-and-mortar retailer, and Amazon, the No. 1 online seller, are vying for consumer loyalty worldwide.
Both companies have been pressuring suppliers for the lowest prices on goods from t-shirts to bicycles. And Walmart has spent big to build up its shopping website, delivery network and cloud computing infrastructure to compete with Amazon online.
Still, Amazon has raced ahead in online food shopping. It notched $3.4 billion in U.S. grocery sales last year compared with Walmart’s $2 billion in U.S. online food sales, according to Boston-based research firm Edge by Ascential.
Amazon’s grocery selection in Mexico currently is limited to non-perishables, such as coffee, beer, pasta and canned vegetables. Walmart offers a wider selection, including fresh foods such as lettuce and chicken.
Walmart brought its concerns about Amazon’s lower prices to a number of food suppliers in Mexico, including multinational firms, around the time that Amazon launched its food and drinks web page, said two of the people in Mexico’s e-commerce industry who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of business relationships.
They said some of the biggest firms figured out ways to appease Walmart, such as packaging their products for Amazon in sizes different from those sold at Walmart, they said.
But many of the smaller companies lacked the know-how to negotiate, they said.
Bishop, the supermarket analyst, said Mexican suppliers feel enormous pressure to stick with Walmart, at least for now.
“The dilemma is that Amazon is a very rapidly growing channel,” he said.
(Reporting by Daina Beth Solomon in Mexico City; Additional Reporting by Nandita Bose in Washington; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel and Marla Dickerson)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: The robusta coffee fruits are seen in Sao Gabriel da Palha, Espirito Santo state, Brazil May 2, 2018. REUTERS/Jose Roberto Gomes
April 4, 2019
By Marcelo Teixeira
SAO PAULO (Reuters) – The Brazilian government is considering offering put options to coffee producers as a way to shore up prices at a 13-year low and assure a minimum income for struggling farmers, two people with knowledge of the talks told Reuters on Thursday.
The program, if approved, would give producers the right to sell their crops to the government at a fixed price, setting a floor for coffee prices in the world’s largest coffee producer and exporter. That would likely force buyers to pay more for Brazilian coffee and encourage other coffee-growing countries to follow suit.
Producers have been pressuring Brasilia to offer put options and rebuild government bean inventories that had been sold off earlier this decade.
“We have talked to the government and they liked the idea,” a director at a Brazilian coffee cooperative told Reuters.
“It would be a win-win program. Farmers can be guaranteed better prices, and the government can later profit from the sales of that coffee when prices recover,” he said.
Another industry source said he had also heard about the talks from producers that he advises. That source said that many details still needed to be worked out, such as the program’s size and the level of the price floor.
The sources asked for anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the issue.
Brazil’s Agriculture Ministry did not respond to a request for comment.
Coffee prices in New York hit a fresh 13-year low this week as output surpasses demand in the global market. Arabica prices were trading at 95.20 cents per pound on Thursday, down 0.16 percent.
The Brazilian government has been active in the coffee market in the past, intervening with policies to help farmers when market prices were at or below production costs.
Brazil last used options in 2013, when it offered contracts for farmers to sell up to 3 million bags to the government at a fixed price. The put options required coffee producers to pay a small fee for the right to sell their coffee to the government.
If market prices are below the fixed price set for the options when they expire, the producer normally exercises the option and delivers the product to government warehouses.
The Brazilian government sold off the beans acquired in the 2013 program when prices recovered and by 2017 had eliminated its coffee inventories.
One obstacle for the program would be the potential cost to the government of billions of reais at a moment when President Jair Bolsonaro has pledged to rein in public spending and reduce a large budget deficit.
Even if the Agriculture Ministry agrees to the idea, it would have to pass muster with Economy Minister Paulo Guedes, who has vowed to cut industry-specific subsidies, before getting Bolsonaro’s signature.
The first source said the idea would be to launch the program in 2020, when Brazil is expected to produce a larger crop, based on its biennial coffee production cycle.
2019 is an off-year for Brazil’s coffee fields, and the government expects production to fall to between 50.5 million and 54.5 million 60-kg bags from the record of 61.6 million bags produced in 2018.
(Reporting by Marcelo Teixeira; Editing by Brad Brooks, Brad Haynes, Phil Berlowitz)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: General view of an empty street in front of the port of Santos where trucks are prevented from accessing due to a trucks strike against high diesel prices, in Santos, Brazil May 23, 2018. REUTERS/Paulo Whitaker
April 2, 2019
By Ana Mano
SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Brazilian port operators including units of global grain traders Cargill Ltd and Bunge Ltd will unveil a proposal this week to lower Panama Canal tariffs and cut their costs in shipping agricultural commodities to their main market China.
They will argue that at current tariffs, shipping grains from Brazil’s northern ports via the Cape of Good Hope is almost $206,000 cheaper on a per-ship basis than using the Canal, despite the shorter distance.
In a study to be presented at a conference in Panama City on Thursday, the private port operators association ATP will propose using the idle capacity of the old Panama Canal instead of the congested large new locks opened in 2016 for Panamax ships.
This could potentially cut shipping costs and shorten journey times by 4-5 days between Brazil, the world’s leading soybean supplier, and the Chinese and other Asian markets, according ATP, of which Cargill, Bunge, Brazil’s grain trader Amaggi and pulp and paper producer Suzano Papel e Celulose SA are members.
The operators hope their proposal will open the way for talks between Brazil and Panama to find a way to slash tariffs.
“It is good for both sides, because today Panama no longer receives a significant number of Brazilian grain ships bound for China due to the inexistence of a tariff agreement,” Luciana Guerise, ATP executive director, said in a statement sent to Reuters.
ATP said the tariff proposal has to be made by the Brazil’s agriculture ministry to the country’s foreign affairs ministry, which would be responsible for negotiating the terms with Panamanian authorities.
Neither of the ministries had an immediate comment.
The initiative marks a new step in the development of new trading routes for Brazil, the world’s largest exporter of agricultural commodities including soybeans, sugar, coffee, tobacco, orange juice, pulp, beef and chicken.
An initial step in that direction was taken in March last year when Aprosoja, an association of grain growers in Mato Grosso state, signed a cooperation agreement with the Panama Canal Authority.
“We believe we can capture part of the grains that leave Mato Grosso and reach the north of Brazil,” Jorge Quijano, the Canal’s chief executive, said then. “The Panama Canal would be an option for the product to reach Asia, especially China.”
(Reporting by Ana Mano; Editing by Marguerita Choy)
Source: OANN
Autonomous aerial vehicle company EHang delivers coffee with its Falcon drone to the delegation on a government-organised tour to the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, China February 28,2019. REUTERS/Yuyang Wang
April 1, 2019
By Julie Zhu and Julia Fioretti
HONG KONG (Reuters) – Chinese drone maker EHang has delayed plans for a U.S. initial public offering (IPO) and is instead looking to raise up to $200 million in a private fundraising, two people with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters.
EHang had been seeking between $400 million and $500 million from a U.S. IPO this year, sources told Reuters previously. Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley have been working on the offering.
The five-year old company has decided to put off those plans as it is not ready to go public, the sources said. It drew lukewarm investor interest, added one of them.
EHang did not respond to a request for comment. Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley declined to comment.
Founded in 2014 and headquartered in Guangzhou province, EHang first made headlines in 2016 when it unveiled a passenger drone concept which it said would retail at up to $300,000.
Early last year it said it had completed tests for the vehicle which is capable of carrying one person at speeds of up to 130 kph.
In May EHang broke the Guinness World Record for most drones flown simultaneously in a 13-minute flight that involved 1,374 drones spread over a kilometer.
China has championed rapid development in its tech sector in a bid to build world-leading firms and reduce dependence on foreign products including semiconductors, robots and drones.
EHang specializes in aerial landscaping. In consumer drones it is dwarfed by fellow Chinese drone maker SZ DJI Technology Co Ltd, which is the world’s largest maker of non-military drones and plans to list in either Hong Kong or mainland China, people familiar with the matter told Reuters last year.
The global market for drones was expected to reach $9 billion last year and is forecast by research firm IDC to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 30 percent in the next five years. IDC also estimates that more than half of that spending will be on drones for commercial use.
(Reporting by Julie Zhu and Julia Fioretti; Editing by Jennifer Hughes and Muralikumar Anantharaman)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: Lawyer Michael Avenatti walks out of federal court in New York, New York, March 25, 2019. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri/File Photo
April 1, 2019
(Reuters) – Attorney Michael Avenatti, who represented adult film star Stormy Daniels in her legal battles with U.S. President Donald Trump, is set to appear in the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on Monday to face embezzlement and fraud charges.
Avenatti also faces separate charges in New York in what prosecutors called a bid to “shake down” Nike Inc for more than $20 million.
Avenatti, 48, was arrested on March 25 after two separate indictments by federal courts in Los Angeles and New York that charged him with the Nike scheme as well as embezzlement and fraud over accusations he misused a client’s money.
Avenatti has repeatedly proclaimed his innocence of all charges.
In the Los Angeles case, prosecutors have accused Avenatti of misusing a client’s $1.6 million settlement to pay for his own expenses and also expenses related to his coffee business.
He is also accused of defrauding a Mississippi bank of $4.1 million in loans by submitting false tax returns inflating his income for 2011 to 2013.
In New York, prosecutors said Avenatti and a co-conspirator, whom they did not name, met Nike’s attorneys on March 19 and told them they represented a former college basketball coach with information about Nike’s involvement in a scheme to bribe high school basketball players.
They threatened to go public unless Nike hired Avenatti to conduct an internal investigation for $15 million to $25 million, and paid an additional $1.5 million to the client, according to prosecutors.
Avenatti also offered to accept a $22.5 million payment for his silence, prosecutors said.
Avenatti faces up to 30 years in prison on the most serious charge in California and up to 20 years for the top charge in New York.
(Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
Source: OANN
A left-leaning news editor claims he was bullied to hold off on publishing a story, regarding the upcoming Democrat debates, by MSNBC’s politics editor working “on behalf of the DNC.”
In a lengthy thread published on Twitter Friday, New York Magazine and Huffington Post contributor Yashar Ali called out Dafna Linzer, NBC News & MSNBC politics managing editor, over a threatening phone call in which she insisted he not publish a story in order to give the DNC more time to prepare.
Ali says Linzer called after he had phoned the DNC to fact check the story before publishing it in his personal newsletter. During the call the DNC also requested he delay the story for about an hour, to which he refused because the news could leak during that time leaving him without a scoop.
“After exchanging pleasantries, Dafna told me that she received a call from the DNC and was told I had a story,” Ali documented in several tweets. “Now it’s not strange that the DNC called her, they were coordinating an announcement. What was strange was that she was calling me and taking a menacing tone.”
“She asked if I could hold the story and I said I couldn’t. She was agitated, ‘why not?’ I said I’m not going to lose a scoop. Then she got angrier and said ‘Why not? It’s not a big deal, let them make a few phone calls.’”
Ali says he still can’t figure out why Linzer would stick her neck on the line for what he considered a “stupid scoop,” but that he felt compelled to expose Linzer’s “bad behavior” publicly after speaking with colleagues and feeling she “advocated for me to not do something on behalf of a political party.”
2. Dafna, who oversees the political coverage for NBC and MSNBC, was calling to bully me into delaying the publication of an innocuous scoop and at no point did she advocate for her network, it was only about the DNC.
Here’s how this all started…
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) March 29, 2019
4. At first I thought it was just a fun tidbit that I could tweet out. But after I called several presidential campaign staffers I learn that all the Dem campaigns were desperate to learn what the dates were going to be. I decided to post the scoop as an item in my newsletter.
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) March 29, 2019
6. So I won’t share most of what was said but can tell you it’s pretty run-of-the mill stuff. I asked the DNC if my tip was accurate and they asked if they could call me back in 10 minutes. A few minutes later they called back and asked if I could delay posting my scoop
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) March 29, 2019
8. I’ve never spoken to Dafna by phone. A couple years ago she reached out to me to see if I wanted to have coffee and talk about working at NBC News but I declined as I was actively investigating NBC matters and thought it would be strange if I discussed a job.
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) March 29, 2019
10. After exchanging pleasantries, Dafna told me that she received a call from the DNC and was told I had a story. Now it’s not strange that the DNC called her, they were coordinating an announcement. What was strange was that she was calling me and taking a menacing tone
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) March 29, 2019
12. I realized that @DafnaLinzer, the head of all political coverage for NBC News and MSNBC wasn’t calling to advocate for her network, she was calling to advocate the DNC’s position. She wanted me to wait so they could call state party leaders.
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) March 29, 2019
14. I would lose a scoop. Dafna reminded me she was a nat sec reporter at WAPO for ten years and they would hold stuff all the time (note: so people wouldn’t get killed). “Why can’t you just wait, let them make their calls, then you’ll be the first to put it into print,” she said
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) March 29, 2019
16. I kept telling Dafna no, that I wasn’t waiting. And she kept getting more frustrated. She was exasperated…she didn’t understand why I couldn’t wait for the DNC to make their state notification calls.
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) March 29, 2019
18. 2/3 of the way into the conversation Dafna started a sentence with “this is off the record.” She hadn’t said it at the beginning of our conversation and most important at no point did I agree when she said “off record” to keep it off record.
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) March 29, 2019
20. She said “off record” one more time later in the call and again I just let her keep talking, I did not agree to anything. I then told her I had to go talk to my editor and she got even more frustrated and said “No. I want to talk to you about this.”
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) March 29, 2019
22. After the call with Dafna I published the stupid scoop. Then I did a gut check and over the next two hours I called 10 experienced prominent reporters and told them the story. They were all stunned by what Dafna did and encouraged me to share it publicly.
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) March 29, 2019
24. There are plenty of times reporters will introduce people in politics to other reporters or TV people. I have done it many times, that is advocating for more coverage, not less. Dafna was advocating for me to not do something on behalf of a political party.
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) March 29, 2019
25. What I can’t figure out is (and no one else I spoke to could understand), why open yourself up to this for a stupid story? How was this worth it?
END
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) March 29, 2019
Zero Hedge notes Ali’s story suggests “how closely the MSM and DNC will be ‘coordinating’ efforts going into 2020.”
Source: InfoWars
FILE PHOTO: Pound Sterling notes and change are seen inside a cash resgister, Septem,ber 21, 2018. REUTERS/Phil Noble/File Photo
March 27, 2019
By Tom Finn and Saikat Chatterjee
LONDON (Reuters) – The pound inched up on Wednesday after British Prime Minister Theresa May said she would step down if lawmakers vote in favor of her twice-defeated EU divorce deal.
May’s last-ditch attempt to persuade rebels in her Conservative Party to back her lifted the pound slightly but uncertainty about how, or even if, Brexit will proceed kept investors wary.
Britain’s parliament are trying to find an alternative to May’s Brexit deal and at 1900 GMT lawmakers will take part in a series of indicative votes on how to break the impasse.
Eight options range from leaving abruptly with no deal to revoking the divorce papers or holding a new referendum.
With British politics at fever pitch traders are struggling to navigate the blizzard of headlines. The pound is volatile but remains around the same levels it traded at in late January.
Sterling on Wednesday traded in a narrow range reflecting suspicion in the market about the parliamentary votes yielding a decisive conclusion.
There is no guarantee the so-called indicative votes will bind the government.
May has admitted she lacks support to put her Brexit withdrawal deal to a third vote and that has kept sterling under pressure.
But with May telling lawmakers on Friday that she would quit before the next phase of Brexit negotiations as the price for getting her deal ratified, some of the most influential Brexit-supporting rebels, such as Jacob Rees-Mogg, could back her deal.
“I think chances of May’s deal passing are higher than the market is expecting at the moment,” said Justin Onuekwusi, a portfolio manager at Legal and General Investment Management based in London.
The pound rose 0.25 percent to a day’s high of $1.3245 in a broadly quiet session. Against the euro, it strengthened 0.3 percent to 85 pence.
As the United Kingdom’s three-year Brexit crisis spins towards its finale, it is still uncertain how, when or even if it will leave the European Union, though May hopes to bring her deal back to parliament later this week.
“The possibility of no outstandingly well-supported option, however, remains, and would potentially obfuscate things still further,” Paul Markham, a portfolio manager at Newton Asset Management wrote in a blog post.
Still, on a weekly basis, the British currency was slightly firmer indicating that the recent events in the Brexit process have been welcomed with some cautious optimism though the risks of more political uncertainty have capped gains.
In a sign of how nervous the currency markets have become, expectations of how much the currency would move in the coming weeks have climbed faster than bets on how volatile the pound will be over a year.
One-month implied volatility in the pound has climbed by a quarter to nearly 13 vol and the spread between the one-month and one-year maturities has widened to its highest level since the British referendum vote in June 2016.
(Editing by Alison Williams)
Source: OANN
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