Coffee
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Lawyer Michael Avenatti speaks to the media after he walks out of federal court in New York, New York, U.S., March 25, 2019. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri
March 26, 2019
By Dan Whitcomb
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Michael Avenatti on Tuesday again proclaimed his innocence on charges he tried to extort millions of dollars from Nike Inc, but in an interview with CBS, admitted he was concerned about doing prison time.
Avenatti, 48, was arrested on Monday following two separate indictments, handed down in federal courts in Los Angeles and New York, that charged him with the alleged Nike scheme as well as embezzlement and fraud over accusations he misused a client’s money.
CBS News on Tuesday released an excerpt of an interview it conducted with Avenatti in which he said he was worried about the possibility of going to prison for decades.
“Sure I’m nervous, I’m scared. I’m all those things. And if I wasn’t, it wouldn’t make a lot of sense,” Avenatti said in the brief clip released by CBS on Tuesday.
Avenatti, in a series of tweets earlier on Tuesday, lashed out at Nike and insisted he was innocent.
“I am anxious for people to see what really happened,” the flamboyant attorney known for representing adult film actress Stormy Daniels, said in one tweet. “We never attempted to extort Nike & when the evidence is disclosed, the public will learn the truth about Nike’s crime & cover-up.”
Nike said in a written statement the company “will not be extorted,” and that it had immediately alerted investigators to the plot.
According to the criminal complaint, Avenatti told Nike he would go public unless it paid his client $1.5 million and hired him and another lawyer to conduct an internal investigation of the company for between $15 million and $25 million.
The charges were announced on Monday shortly after Avenatti said on Twitter he would hold a news conference to reveal “a major high school/college basketball scandal” reaching “the highest levels of Nike.”
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.
He faces separate charges in a Los Angeles federal court on April 1, accusing the high-profile lawyer of misusing a client’s $1.6 million settlement to pay his own expenses as well as those for his coffee business. He was also charged with defrauding a Mississippi bank of $4.1 million.
Avenatti has gained international notoriety for representing Daniels, the 40-year-old porn star whom Trump is accused of paying off during the 2016 presidential campaign to keep quiet about an alleged affair.
Trump has denied having an affair with Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford.
(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb, editing by G Crosse)
Source: OANN
A view shows the new Galeries Lafayette flaghip store on the Champs Elysees avenue in Paris, France, March 26, 2019. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes
March 26, 2019
By Dominique Vidalon
PARIS (Reuters) – High-end French department store Galeries Lafayette will open a new outlet on Paris’s Champs Elysees this week, aiming to lure big-spending tourists and trendy Parisians back to the tree-lined avenue that was once a byword for style.
The opening comes as top-tier department stores are increasingly trying to pitch themselves as day-trip destinations to counter competition from online rivals such as Amazon and Net-a-Porter.com.
“The store is a retail laboratory where we will test new practices,” said Nicolas Houze, head of the family-owned Galeries Lafayette group, which also owns retailer BHV Marais.
“It is a symbol of our ongoing transformation into an omni-channel retail leader,” he said of the March 28 opening.
The four-story, 6,500-square-metre (70,000 square feet) store, in an Art Deco building once home to a Virgin megastore, will sell edgy fashion brands such as RouJe, Walk of Shame and Mira Mikati, as well as top-end labels from Gucci to Chanel.
The store, at 60 Champs Elysees, has recruited and trained 300 tech-savvy personal stylists to advise shoppers on the range of fashion, accessory, beauty and lifestyle brands on offer.
The opening comes at a difficult time, however, with the Champs Elysees repeatedly targeted by the “yellow vest” protest movement that has rocked France, with windows smashed, stores looted and buildings set on fire this month.
The historic avenue has also been battling for years to put itself back at the heart of the Paris fashion map – many locals avoid the Champs Elysees, seeing it as a tourist trap for its 300,000 daily visitors.
As well as the shopping, the new Galeries Lafayette will offer an upmarket food court, a coffee lounge, a restaurant and “smart hanger” technology, giving shoppers information about product availability and fitting rooms with natural light.
Both Galeries Lafayette and rival Printemps are trying to capitalise on a rebound in Paris’ tourism industry, which was hit hard by a wave of militant attacks in 2015. Both cater heavily to shoppers and tourists from Asia.
YELLOW VEST VIOLENCE
Galeries Lafayette’s move has been welcomed by France’s finance minister, who sees it as a vote of confidence in central Paris at a challenging time.
“The Champs Elysees are standing up again,” said Bruno Le Maire. “They are stronger than all of this violence, which is unacceptable and must stop as it hurts the attractiveness of our country.”
The store, designed by Danish architect Bjarke Ingels, is a tenth of the size of the group’s flagship one on Boulevard Haussmann, which draws 60,000 to 80,000 visitors a day, half of them foreign tourists, notably Chinese.
Houze sees the Champs Elysees store as a complement to the headquarters, whose revenue rose 2 percent to 2 billion euros ($2.3 billion) last year. The new store hopes to draw 10,000-15,000 visitors per day.
Founded in the late 1800s, Galeries Lafayette has 61 stores in France and abroad. It opened a second store in Shanghai last weekend and has plans to open 10 more across China in the coming three to four years, Houze said.
(Reporting by Dominique Vidalon; Editing by Luke Baker and Mark Potter)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: Pound Sterling notes and change are seen inside a cash resgister, Septem,ber 21, 2018. REUTERS/Phil Noble/File Photo
March 25, 2019
By Tommy Wilkes
LONDON (Reuters) – Sterling rose slightly on Monday after British lawmakers voted to wrest control of the Brexit process from Prime Minister Theresa May for a day, but the gains were muted with traders little wiser about when, how and even if Britain will exit the European Union.
Seizing control of the process from May means lawmakers should now vote on a range of Brexit options on Wednesday, giving Parliament a chance to indicate whether it can agree on a deal with closer ties to Brussels, which most investors would welcome.
But there is no guarantee the so-called indicative votes will bind the government. May, despite her authority being undermined, said it would not. Her government called for realism after the vote for Parliament to take control.
May admitted earlier on Monday she still lacked support to put her twice-rejected Brexit withdrawal deal to a third vote, keeping sterling under pressure in the previous European trading session.
British politics is at fever pitch, and investors are struggling to navigate the blizzard of headlines. A range of outcomes remain possible including a long Brexit postponement, a no-deal exit or no Brexit at all.
While volatility is high, the pound remains around the same levels it traded at in late January. Traders say although the market is betting that a chaotic no-deal Brexit will be avoided, it has little conviction on anything else.
“I’m more worried about no-deal Brexit than the market,” Thomas Costerg, economist at Pictet Wealth Management, told Reuters before the results of Monday’s voting. “The view that no-deal Brexit won’t happen because there is a majority in parliament against that is a bit of simplistic view … Accidents can happen.
“Options are narrowing and narrowing and narrowing,” he said, predicting sterling would drop to as low as $1.20 with a no-deal Brexit and rise to at least $1.35-$1.40 if May’s deal was passed.
Sterling rose 0.2 percent to $1.3224 at the start of the Asian session – when trading volumes tend to be very thin – after Parliament voted to take control for a day, before giving up some of those gains.
Against the euro, it strengthened 0.2 percent to 85.59 pence per euro..
Investors waiting for a eureka moment that brings clarity on Brexit could be disappointed, said Nomura analyst Jordan Rochester, adding that the indicative vote is “probably just another baby step towards it.”
SHORT OF SUPPORT
With the prime minister short of support – the Northern Irish party propping up her government still opposes her deal – it is not clear when May will bring her divorce agreement back to parliament.
The EU has said Britain can have a short delay to Brexit but May must first win parliamentary approval for her withdrawal deal from the bloc.
GRAPHIC: One month implied vols at 3-1/2 month high, click https://tmsnrt.rs/2WmPyEd
Currency derivative markets signal growing caution about the pound, with one-month risk reversals on sterling versus the euro and the dollar at multi-month highs.
An indicator of how bearish or bullish investors are on the outlook of the currency, risk reversals signal that short-term negative bets on the pound are piling up rapidly despite the broader calm in the spot markets.
Yields on British government bonds have tumbled in recent days as investors seek safety, with the yield on the 10-year Gilt falling below 1 percent for the first time since 2017.
GRAPHIC: Gilt yields fall below 1 pct, click https://tmsnrt.rs/2CClcWR
(Additional reporting by Tom Finn, Josephine Mason and Sujata Rao; Editing by Janet Lawrence, Ed Osmond and Leslie Adler)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: A view inside the lobby of the Marriott Marquis hotel in Times Square in New York City, U.S., November 8, 2017. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo
March 25, 2019
By Beth Pinsker
NEW YORK(Reuters) – It sounds like it should have been impossible to miss, but it took more than a year for an industrial equipment company to discover $12,000 worth of doggie day spa charges on an employee’s expense reports.
Level upon level of corporate management also failed to detect that the same employee was running a scheme to sell more than $200,000 in company equipment on eBay.
Only a fraction of expense reports are closely examined, so it is no wonder that companies experience more than $7 billion in annual losses from fraud, according to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners.
By using robots, instead of relying on random spot checks, companies are catching fraud more than twice as fast and fraud losses are halved, said Andi McNeal, director of research for the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners.
That is what happened when the industrial equipment company put in place an artificial-intelligence program from Oversight Systems, which was able to quickly ferret out the culprit.
“It started out as a small infraction that led to an investigation that led to other things,” said Terrence McCrossan, chief executive of Atlanta-based Oversight Systems, which audits about $2 trillion worth of employee spending each year and works with employers like the U.S. Department of Defense, McDonald’s and General Electric.
The expense reporting universe is being overhauled to use artificial intelligence to get a 100 percent overview of employee submissions. In addition to monitoring fraud, companies are streamlining the way employees file expenses.
Soon, employees around the world will stop fussing with paper receipts and crying over hotel bills, then waiting weeks to get reimbursed while their paperwork travels through the corporate labyrinth. Managers will no longer be stuck in the middle of the process, policing spending, and companies will stop losing so much money to waste and fraud.
TEST CASES
Some changes have already occurred, ranging from corporate card charges that automatically attach to electronic expense reports to seamless experiences for business travelers who stay at approved hotels.
One of SAP Concur’s newest offerings is Concur Detect by AppZen, which does a 100 percent audit of incoming expense reports.
AppZen analyzes expenses by looking for risk. Only about 10 percent of expenses that flow through a company have a problem that needs to be addressed, said Anant Kale, CEO of AppZen, based in San Jose, California.
The algorithm can clear expense reports with no issues almost instantly, so that these employee outlays can be reimbursed as quickly as two days.
If a charge has a red flag, it goes to a human auditor. One Concur Detect customer, Portola Pharmaceuticals Inc, said it had reduced the number of expense reports that required review by one-third.
Kale has been surprised by the kind of problems that are popping up since AppZen’s 2016 launch.
“Employees are claiming the same expense multiple times. That happens more often than you can imagine,” Kale said. “It’s not fraud, but an honest mistake.”
AppZen also finds many expenses that are disallowed by corporate policy. Some of these are for strip clubs, in-room movies during business travel or charging gifts at a hotel shop.
Oversight Systems has identified questionable expenses like eyelash extensions, lost sunglasses and an employee who billed for a new shirt after he spilled coffee on himself on the way to a meeting.
There is also true fraud. Oversight Systems, for instance, found an employee who expensed for parking over and over using the same receipt each time. By the time the fraud was discovered, the parking lot no longer even existed.
What makes the difference between catching wrongdoers and companies’ losing money? Better compliance and making audits more efficient, said the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners’ McNeal.
As much as machines can learn and improve their performance, people are more complicated. AppZen, for instance, has yet to run a clean screen on a company where it catches no problems, no matter how much effort a company puts into employee education and catching disallowed expenses before they are filed.
“You’re never going to get all of them to comply – that’s just human nature,” McNeal said. “You’re just trying to let the fewest grains get through the sieve.”
(Editing by Lauren Young and by Leslie Adler)
Source: OANN
Mar 3, 2019; Las Vegas, NV, USA; Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series driver Joey Logano (22) celebrates after winning the Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Mandatory Credit: Adam Hagy-USA TODAY Sports
March 23, 2019
MARTINSVILLE, Va. — Joey Logano offers understanding, but no apologies.
After he applied the bumper to Martin Truex Jr.’s Toyota in the final corner of last year’s fall race at Martinsville Speedway, Logano edged past Truex for the race victory and a guaranteed berth in the Championship 4 event at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
In that season finale, Logano went on to win his first Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series title.
Logano understood why Truex was upset at being denied his first short-track win on the final lap. But Logano wasn’t sorry.
Given that the series is returning to Martinsville this weekend for the first time since last November’s memorable race, it was inevitable that the subject of the bump-and-run would come up.
“I mean, it’s in the past at this point,” Logano said. “But I think at that point Martin texted me and, like I told you guys, he was pretty clear that he was frustrated with the move. I understood, and I think he understood why I had to do it, and it kind of played out and worked out, but my move to him was that I didn’t wreck you. I gave the old bump-and-run.
“That happened 15 times a race here at Martinsville, and that one was just a little more popular. I think there’s a fine line. You don’t want to straight out bump somebody on purpose, but you also, when it comes down to the end of the race like that and there’s that much on the line, … that was our shot to win a championship.
“So I think every driver has a line that they are OK with and that you can go to sleep at the end of the night and say, ‘I did what I had to do and I’m all right with it,’ and if it happened to me, you have to be OK with that as well. I think that was the situation for me that I was trying to explain to him.”
COREY LAJOIE SUFFERS BRAKE FAILURE, HARD CRASH IN PRACTICE
Perhaps the most uncomfortable feeling at any race track comes from stabbing the brakes and feeling the pedal sink to the floorboard.
That’s what happened to Corey LaJoie, whose No. 32 GoFas Racing Ford crashed hard into the Turn 1 wall after his brakes failed in Saturday’s opening Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series practice at Martinsville Speedway.
The car suffered extensive front-end damage, leaving the right front tire barely rolling at a cockeyed angle as LaJoie nursed the car back to pit road.
“I’ll tell you, there is no coffee strong enough that will wake you up like losing brakes into Turn 1 at Martinsville,” LaJoie said after the crash. “It’s not a good feeling losing brakes. It had like a half-pedal, and then it felt like it blew through the seal or something.
“It’s unfortunate, because small teams like ours, we don’t really bring a backup (car) that’s fully ready to go, so my guys have a lot of work ahead of them. I’ll probably pitch in and help a little bit, but, obviously, our backup is not going to be as good as the car that we choose and bring as our primary.”
MARTINSVILLE CUP PRACTICES PRODUCE MIXED BAG OF LEADERS
With teams toggling back and forth between race trim and qualifying trim, Saturday’s two Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series practice sessions at Martinsville Speedway produced radically different groups of cars at the top of the leaderboard.
Clint Bowyer, defending race winner in Sunday’s STP 500 (2 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), paced the opening session with a lap at 97.674 mph. Daniel Suarez and Aric Almirola, Bowyer’s teammates at Stewart-Haas racing, were second and third fastest, respectively.
Happy Hour was a completely different story. With Chase Elliott leading the way at 97.542 mph, Hendrick Motorsports drivers claimed the top three spots on the leaderboard. Alex Bowman was second fastest, followed by nine-time Martinsville winner Jimmie Johnson, who is looking for a turnaround after four straight finishes of 12th or worse at the .526-mile short track.
Martin Truex Jr., the victim of a last-lap bump-and-run in last year’s Playoff race at Martinsville, figures to be a contender again Sunday, after leading consecutive-lap averages over runs of five, 10 and 20 laps.
Near the end of final practice, Cody Ware wheel-hopped into the outside wall. His No. 51 Chevrolet sustained heavy damage in the accident.
–By Reid Spencer, NASCAR wire service. Special to Field Level Media.
Source: OANN
Stephanie Hamill | Video Columnist
WATCH:
It’s not unheard of for political candidates to try to prove to voters that they’re “just like us,” but some of the Democratic presidential candidates are going a little overboard with their efforts.
When presidential hopeful Beto O’Rourke isn’t posting strange videos online, he’s causing a scene at coffee shops. Apparently no counter top in this country is safe from O’Rourke’s dirty shoes.
Democratic New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand recently posted a video of herself pumping iron, and former Democratic Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper admitted to watching an X-rated movie with his mom. (RELATED: Hickenlooper Admits He Accidentally Took His Mom to See an X-Rated Movie)
I know I’m not alone when I say I think we all could have done without hearing and seeing all this.
——————————————————————
Source: The Daily Caller
DCNF Video Team | Contributor
What can be said about Kourtney Kardashian’s nude post on Instagram, Democratic New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker’s tweets about coffee and 2020 presidential hopeful Beto O’Rourke’s odd joke?
David Hookstead and Katrina Haydon, with special guest Guillaume Pierre-Louis, take on topics like these in this podcast episode.
Check out who had the best take.
In typical Hookstead fashion, David opens the conversation with comments on Women’s History Month competing with March Madness saying, “Women can find a different month or I guess 15-20 minutes to tell us what they’ve done.”
Haydon responds, “you mean like carrying the human race?” (RELATED: Bar Hopping With Liberals On Election Night)
Watch some of The Daily Caller News Foundation’s other videos and subscribe to our YouTube channel to make sure you never miss out.
Check out the most recent videos by TheDCNF:
Super Bowl Or See Michelle Obama Speak?
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Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
Source: The Daily Caller
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte (R) of the VVD Liberal party and Dutch far-right politician Geert Wilders of the PVV Party take part in a meeting at the Dutch Parliament after the general election in The Hague, Netherlands, March 16, 2017. REUTERS/Yves Herman
March 21, 2019
By Toby Sterling
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – An upstart populist party shocked the Dutch political establishment by winning the most votes in provincial elections after a preliminary count in the early hours of Thursday, boosted by a possible terrorist attack this week in the city of Utrecht.
The result shows the enduring strength of far-right populism in the Netherlands, coming nearly two decades after the assassination of populist Pim Fortuyn in 2002 led to a similar upset in parliamentary elections.
The most important short term impact is that Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s center-right coalition will be forced to seek outside support to win Senate approval for laws passed by parliament. Provincial votes determine the composition in the Senate, where Rutte’s government has lost its majority.
The big winner in the vote was the Forum for Democracy party, led by 36-year-old Thierry Baudet, which holds just two seats in parliament after entering politics in 2016. On current projections it will have an equal number of seats in the Senate as Rutte’s VVD.
In a speech to supporters peppered with literary allusions, Baudet said the arrogance of the elites had been punished.
“We are standing in the rubble of what was once the most beautiful civilization in the world,” he said.
Following the lead of U.S. President Donald Trump, Baudet opposes immigration and emphasizes “Dutch first” cultural and economic themes. He opposes the euro and thinks the Netherlands should leave the European Union.
Baudet had continued campaigning when other parties stopped after Monday’s attack in Utrecht, in which a gunman shot three people dead on a tram. Baudet blamed the incident on the government’s lax immigration policies.
A 37-year-old Turkish-born man has been arrested on suspicion of carrying out the shooting. Prosecutors have not determined a motive, though they say it may have been terrorism.
Pollsters had for weeks predicted Rutte’s center-right coalition would lose its Senate majority. But experts, including pollster Maurice de Hond, said the Utrecht attack boosted turnout most among opponents of immigration.
The Dutch economy has been one of Europe’s best performers under successive Rutte-led governments, but resentment over early 2010s austerity programs lingers. Recent debate has focused on funding the government’s plans to meet international goals on climate change.
GOING GREEN
Left-leaning voters feel not enough is being done and supported the pro-environment Green Left party, which also booked big gains nationwide on Wednesday, including taking nearly a quarter of the vote in Amsterdam.
Rutte is expected to look to the Green Left or Labour parties for outside support once the new Senate is seated in May, though there are other possibilities in the increasingly fragmented political landscape, which include religious parties and a party focused on voters older than 50.
Rutte said he would be looking for support from “constructive” parties on either the left or the right. Baudet ruled out any cooperation.
“This means drinking a lot of coffee and making even more phone calls” Rutte told supporters.
“So I’m counting on it that the country will remain well manageable with this result.”
Parliamentary elections are due by March 2021.
(Reporting by Toby Sterling; Editing by Kim Coghill)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: A Starbucks logo hangs outside of one of the 8,000 Starbucks-owned American stores that will close around 2 p.m. local time on Tuesday as a first step in training 175,000 employees on racial tolerance in the Brooklyn borough of New York, U.S., May 29, 2018. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson
March 20, 2019
(Reuters) – Starbucks Corp is investing $100 million in a newly created fund that will be managed by Tesla Inc investor Valor Equity Partners to promote companies developing new technologies and products for the food and retail industry.
The fund, Valor Siren Ventures Fund, will later seek to raise an additional $300 million, the world’s largest coffee chain said on Wednesday, ahead of its annual shareholder meeting.
“We are inspired by, and want to support the creative, entrepreneurial businesses of tomorrow with whom we may explore commercial relationships down the road,” Starbucks Chief Executive Officer Kevin Johnson said in a statement.
Starbucks is the latest U.S. food company to invest in startups. The largest U.S. meat producer, Tyson Foods, started a fund called “Tyson Ventures” in 2016 to invest in businesses that focus on developing plant-based protein, while a clutch of other food and drink brands including Kraft Heinz and PepsiCo Inc have also set up similar funds.
Starbucks reaffirmed its longer-term revenue and profit targets and said it would buy back $2 billion in shares, as part of a commitment to return $25 billion to shareholders through 2020.
The annual shareholder meeting comes as the coffee chain counters sluggish performance in its U.S. business through a revamp of its stores and introduction of fresher food and cold brews that has driven market-beating same-store sales in the past two quarters.
The company’s shares are up about 11 percent since the beginning of the year, compared with a 13 percent gain in the S&P 500 Index.
Valor Equity is an early stage investor in Tesla and its portfolio includes investments in Chicago-based Roti Modern Mediterranean and Wow Bao.
(Reporting by Aishwarya Venugopal in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)
Source: OANN
A Target logo is seen during the going-out-of-business sale at Target Canada in Toronto, February 5, 2015. REUTERS/Mark Blinch
March 20, 2019
By Ayenat Mersie
NEW YORK (Reuters) – All of Target Corp’s flagship coffee brand Archer Farms will be certified fair trade by 2022, the company and Fair Trade USA told Reuters on Wednesday, a victory for that movement, which seeks to make sure producers are adequately compensated for their labor.
Coffee futures are currently trading near 13-year lows, weighed down by a record-large Brazilian crop. Prices are below the cost of production in most countries, forcing some farmers out of business and prompting concern from the industry on its long-term ability to source good coffee.
Archer Farms, Target’s flagship-owned coffee brand, sells about six million pounds of coffee each year. Currently, about 20 percent of Archer Farms coffee is fair trade certified.
The United States imported about 3.5 billion pounds of coffee in the 2018/2019 season, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data.
Fair Trade USA, the leading certifier of such products in North America, works to institute a floor price for farmers; for coffee, that minimum price is $1.40 per pound and farmers receive an additional 20 cents per pound sold.
“The current market is nothing short of a disaster for coffee farmers,” said Paul Rice, founder and CEO of Fair Trade USA.
The most active coffee futures contract fell last week to 94.65 cents per pound, the lowest since 2005. Farmers have been searching for ways to find pricing alternatives, including separate pricing mechanisms for high-grade specialty beans.
(Reporting by Ayenat Mersie; Editing by Alistair Bell)
Source: OANN
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