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WPG 2018 earnings in line with initial guidance. Fundamentals continue to improve despite recent bankruptcies. WPG's redevelopment program hits the ground ...
Investors will get a welcome health-check on the U.S. economy this week as markets fret it's looking increasingly recession-prone.
“We will continue to hit the streets,” Juan Guaido, head of the National Assembly recognized as interim president by some 50 nations, told protesters Saturday in San Antonio de Los Altos. Unlike other protests since January, Guaido did not call for huge rallies in the capital of Caracas but rather urged Venezuelans to protest at key locations or in their own neighborhoods. “My food is rotting and my appliances are going haywire,¨ said Yolanda Bellorin, a retired lawyer protesting among her neighbors in Caracas’ Colinas de la California neighborhood.
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AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones blamed the various claims he's made over the years, including that the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre was a hoax, on "psychosis," according to a deposition the "Infowars" host has given as part of a Texas lawsuit.
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British Prime Minister Theresa May should step down immediately after negotiating a temporary extension to Britain's European Union membership, the Daily Telegraph newspaper said in its Saturday edition. Lawmakers rejected May's Brexit plans for a third time on Friday, leaving Britain's withdrawal from the EU in turmoil on the very day it had been supposed to quit the bloc. "She must now see - or must be told - that while she can meet with the EU to negotiate an extension for Brexit, that is the natural end of the road.
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From Boeing to Monsanto and beyond: this week has revealed the tip of the iceberg of regulatory neglect ‘Trump and his appointees have unambiguously signaled to corporations they can now do as they please.’ Photograph: Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images Why didn’t Boeing do it right? Why isn’t Facebook protecting user passwords? Why is Phillip Morris allowed to promote vaping? Why hasn’t Wells Fargo reformed itself? Why hasn’t Monsanto (now owned by Bayer) recalled its Roundup weedkiller? Answer: corporate greed coupled with inept and corrupt regulators. These are just a few of the examples in the news these days of corporate harms inflicted on innocent people. To be sure, some began before the Trump administration. But Trump and his appointees have unambiguously signaled to corporations they can now do as they please. Boeing wanted to get its 737 Max 8 out quickly because airlines want to pack in more passengers at lower fuel costs (hence the “max”). But neither Boeing nor the airlines shelled out money to adequately train pilots on the new software made necessary by the new design. Nonetheless, Trump’s FAA certified the plane in March 2017. And after two subsequent deadly crashes, the US was slower to ground them than other countries. Last week Facebook admitted to storing hundreds of millions of Facebook users’ passwords in plain text that could be searched by more than 20,000 Facebook employees. The admission came just a year after the Cambridge Analytica scandal revealed that Facebook shared the personal data of as many as 87 million users with a political data firm. In reality, Facebook’s business model is based on giving personal data to advertisers so they can tailor their pitches precisely to potential customers. So despite repeated reassurances by Mark Zuckerberg, the firm will continue to do what it wants with personal information. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has the power to force Facebook to better guard users’ privacy. But so far Trump’s FTC has done nothing – not even to enforce a 2011 agreement in which Facebook promised to do just that. Altria (Phillip Morris) was losing ground on its sales of cigarettes, but the firm has recently found a future in vaping. Because inhaling nicotine in any form poses a health hazard, the FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb wanted to curb advertising of vaping products to teenagers. Gottlieb thought he had Altria’s agreement, but then the firm bought the vaping company Juul. Its stock has already gained 14% this year. What happened to Gottlieb? He’s out at the FDA, after barely a year on the job. Wells Fargo has publicly apologized for having deceived customers with fake bank accounts, unwarranted fees and unwanted products. Its top executives say they have eliminated the aggressive sales targets that were responsible for the fraud. But Wells Fargo employees told the New York Times recently that they’re still under heavy pressure to squeeze extra money out of customers. Some have witnessed colleagues bending or breaking internal rules to meet ambitious performance goals. What has Trump’s Consumer Financial Protection Agency done about this? Nothing. It’s been defanged. This week, a federal jury awarded $80m in damages to a California man who blamed Monsanto’s (now Bayer’s) Roundup weedkiller for his cancer, after finding that Roundup was defectively designed, that Monsanto failed to warn of the herbicide’s cancer risk, and that the company acted negligently. It was the second jury in eight months to reach the same conclusion about Roundup. Roundup contains glyphosate, a suspected carcinogen. Cases from more than 1,000 farmers and other agricultural workers stricken with non-Hodgkin lymphoma are already pending in federal and state courts. What has Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency done about glyphosate? In December 2017 its office of pesticide programs concluded that glyphosate wasn’t likely to cause cancer – although eight of the 15 experts on whom the agency relied expressed significant concerns about that conclusion, and three more expressed concerns about the data. These are just tips of a vast iceberg of regulatory neglect, frozen into place by Trump’s appointees, of which at least 187 were lobbyists before they joined the administration. This is trickle-down economics of a different sort than Trump’s corporate tax cuts. The major beneficiaries of this are the same big corporations, including their top executives and major investors. But these burdens are trickling down as unsafe products, fraudulent services, loss of privacy, even loss of life. Big money has had an inhibiting effect on regulators in several previous administrations. What’s unique under Trump is the blatancy of it all, and the shameless willingness of Trump appointees to turn a blind eye to corporate wrongdoing. Trump and his Republican enablers in Congress yell “socialism!” at proposals for better balancing private greed with the common good. Yet unless a better balance is achieved, capitalism as we know it is in deep trouble. Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. He is also a columnist for Guardian US
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A new analysis of the ringed planet's inner moons shines a light on their origins.
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Will a redacted report satisfy congressional Democrats? Reaction from Fox News contributor Trey Gowdy, former Republican congressman from South Carolina.
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Here's a breakdown of everything we know so far about the Viking Sky cruise.
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It seems that “13 hardened Democrats” or “angry Democrats” did not deliver a politically motivated, illegitimate hit job after all. Based on what we know so far, the special counsel’s office reported that it did not find evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. This is a fabulous vindication of the integrity of the system.No one is noticing that. Instead, the Trump team is gorging on schadenfreude, and the anti-Trump team is choking on bile.It’s fair to say that those who spent hour upon cable-TV hour lovingly anticipating that President Trump would be frog-marched from the White House in handcuffs after the delivery of this report have egg on their faces. It isn’t clear which hurts more, the disappointment about being wrong or the worry about drooping ratings.But there’s plenty of egg to go around. Team Trump spent nearly two years denouncing the Mueller investigation as a “rigged witch hunt.” By one count, the president used the term “witch hunt” more than 1,100 times. He mercilessly eviscerated his own attorney general, Jeff Sessions, for the sin of following Justice Department guidelines instead of corruptly abusing his office to shield Mr. Trump from scrutiny. At various times, the president has also suggested that the inquiry was a sinister plot of the “deep state”; a ploy by supporters of “crooked” Hillary Clinton to extract revenge (while also suggesting that the real collusion was between Democrats and the Russians); and an “illegal hoax” perpetrated by the “fake news” media. President Trump claimed that the Mueller probe was staffed by “very bad and conflicted people” and that the investigation was a “disgrace to our nation.”The battle space was thus prepared for a Mueller report that would be devastating to the president. His supporters would disbelieve anything that reflected badly on Trump because the investigation itself, along with the law-enforcement bodies tasked with carrying out their responsibilities in an impartial fashion, had been discredited.Yet, when it turned out that the investigators did not invent or plant evidence, did not default to process crimes such as lying to investigators, did not spring a perjury trap, and, above all, did not permit their own feelings or political preferences to taint the administration of justice, there has been no embarrassment from Team Trump. On a dime, they have reversed themselves completely. A totally corrupt witch hunt has become a total vindication. (It wasn’t that. Even Attorney General William Barr’s letter acknowledged that the report did not “exonerate” the president on the charge of obstruction of justice.) But even if it had been a clean bill of health, how can they trust the Mueller people? Weren’t they thoroughly corrupt? A disgrace?President Trump has a long history of impugning anyone or anything he perceives as a threat to his own interests and flattering anyone he thinks can help him. When he feared he would lose an election, he denounced the voting as “rigged.” Judge Curiel became a “Mexican” judge when Trump feared he might rule against him in the Trump University case. Gold-star parents, deceased heroic senators, Charles Krauthammer, S. E. Cupp, Jeff Bezos, and an endless list of others have joined the ranks of the slighted. On the other hand, if you repent and join the Trump fan club -- as pretty much the entire invertebrate Republican party has done -- then you are swiftly forgiven and elevated. Lindsey Graham went from “nasty” and “dumb mouthpiece” to favorite golfing buddy in a trice.This transparently solipsistic approach to the world would be of little interest if it were just a quirk of a New York businessman. But when Trump employs the tactic to undermine confidence in institutions such as the justice system, he does lasting damage.The “witch hunt” was nothing of the kind. Honorable people did the right thing. Politics did not taint a criminal investigation. But that reality is buried under an avalanche of bad faith.© 2019 Creators.com
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The failure of May’s last-ditch effort to get her deal through Parliament leaves the U.K. with the choice between crashing out of the European Union without a deal in two weeks and seeking a long extension of its departure date. The British parliament will vote Monday on various alternatives to May’s agreement. Implied volatility on two-week pound-dollar options, which cover the current April 12 deadline for the U.K.’s exit, have surged to the highest level since the immediate aftermath of the 2016 Brexit referendum amid increased anxiety about a no-deal outcome.
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ATLANTA (AP) — A police standoff brought traffic to a standstill Friday on an Atlanta-area freeway as officers confronted a motorist who they believed was armed and matched the description of a robbery suspect.
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Palestinians in Gaza are expected to gather in huge numbers along the barrier separating them from Israel on Saturday, testing a fragile ceasefire only days after a major flareup. The demonstrations mark the first anniversary of deadly protests on the border with Israel. Days of negotiations have raised hopes that the bloodshed seen in previous mass protests, particularly those against the transfer of the US embassy to Jerusalem last May, can be avoided.
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Although the city state within Rome is tiny, and very few children live there, the sweeping legal changes reflect a desire to show that the Catholic Church is finally acting against clerical child abuse after decades of scandals around the world. It is the first time a unified and detailed policy for the protection of children has been compiled for the Vatican and its embassies and universities outside the city state. The law sets up procedures for reporting suspected abuse, imposes more screening of prospective employees, and sets strict guidelines for adult interaction with children and the use of social media.
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A man has shot and killed his pet zebra after it escaped from his ranch in Callahan, a town in Florida.The animal, reportedly named Shadow, broke free from Cottonwood Ranch and ran down a main road, chased by several vehicles.Witnesses said the zebra was eventually cornered in a cul-de-sac around two miles from the ranch, where the owner shot and killed it.Bill Leeper, the local sheriff, said he understood that Shadow was injured during the escape and that the owner chose to euthanise the zebra while police officers were at the scene.Witnesses told WJXT-TV that the animal did not appear injured but the decision was made to kill it so that it could not hurt anyone.“I had to stop and think a minute,” Jenee Watkins told the news outlet.“It’s not every day you see a zebra trotting through your neighbourhood.”Officials have confirmed that the owner did not have a valid license to keep a zebra on his ranch.A state permit is required to own and keep a zebra in Florida.It is unclear whether he will face charges over the lack of permit.Officials said the investigation into the animal’s escape and death was ongoing.
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The product was supposed to charge multiple devices at once — wirelessly
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Attorney General William Barr told Congress on Friday he plans to release special counsel Robert Mueller's report on Russia and the Trump campaign.
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A US court ordered Monsanto to pay $80m in damages because it hid cancer risks. That’s a small consolation for victims ‘And while Bayer may dole out a few billion dollars in damages, who is really being made to pay?’ Photograph: Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty Images The chickens are coming home to roost, as they say in farm country. For the second time in less than eight months a US jury has found that decades of scientific evidence demonstrates a clear cancer connection to Monsanto’s line of top-selling Roundup herbicides, which are used widely by consumers and farmers. Twice now jurors have additionally determined that the company’s own internal records show Monsanto has intentionally manipulated the public record to hide the cancer risks. Both juries found punitive damages were warranted because the company’s cover-up of cancer risks was so egregious. The juries saw evidence that Monsanto has ghost-written scientific papers, tried to silence scientists, scuttled independent government testing and cozied up to regulators for favorable safety reviews of glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup. Even the US district judge Vince Chhabria, who oversaw the San Francisco trial that concluded Wednesday with an $80.2m damage award, had harsh words for Monsanto. Chhabria said there were “large swaths of evidence” showing that the company’s herbicides could cause cancer. He also said there was “a great deal of evidence that Monsanto has not taken a responsible, objective approach to the safety of its product … and does not particularly care whether its product is in fact giving people cancer, focusing instead on manipulating public opinion and undermining anyone who raises genuine and legitimate concerns about the issue.” Monsanto’s new owner, the German pharmaceutical company Bayer, asserts that the juries and judges are wrong; the evidence of a cancer risk is invalid; the evidence of bad corporate conduct is misunderstood and out of context; and that the company will ultimately prevail. Meanwhile, Monsanto critics are celebrating the wins and counting on more as a third trial got underway this week and 11,000 additional plaintiffs await their turn. As well, a growing number of communities and businesses are backing away from use of Monsanto’s herbicides. And investors are punishing Bayer, pushing share prices to a seven-year low on Thursday. Susquehanna Financial Group analyst Tom Claps has warned shareholders to brace for a global settlement of between $2.5bn and $4.5bn. “We don’t believe [Monsanto] will lose every single trial, but we do believe that they could lose a significant majority,” he told the Guardian. Following the recent courtroom victories, some have cheered the notion that Monsanto is finally being made to pay for alleged wrongdoing. But by selling to Bayer last summer for $63bn just before the Roundup cancer lawsuits started going to trial, Monsanto executives were able to walk away from the legal mess with riches. The Monsanto chairman Hugh Grant’s exit package allowed him to pocket $32m, for instance. Amid the uproar of the courtroom scuffles, a larger issue looms: Monsanto’s push to make use of glyphosate herbicides so pervasive that traces are commonly found in our food and even our bodily fluids, is just one example of how several corporate giants are creating lasting human health and environmental woes around the world. Monsanto and its brethren have targeted farmers in particular as a critical market for their herbicides, fungicides and insecticides, and now many farmers around the world believe they cannot farm without them. Studies show that along with promoting illness and disease in people, these pesticides pushed by Bayer and Monsanto, DowDuPont and other corporate players, are endangering wildlife, soil health, water quality and the long-term sustainability of food production. Yet regulators have allowed these corporations to combine forces, making them ever more powerful and more able to direct public policies that favor their interests. The Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren this week called for taking back some of that power. She announced on Wednesday a plan to break up big agribusinesses and work against the type of corporate capture of Washington we have seen in recent years. It’s a solid step in the right direction. But it cannot undo the suffering of cancer victims, nor easily transform a deeply contaminated landscape to create a healthier future and unleash us from the chains of a pesticide-dependent agricultural system. And while Bayer may dole out a few billion dollars in damages, who is really being made to pay? We all are. Carey Gillam is a journalist and author, and a public interest researcher for US Right to Know, a not-for-profit food industry research group
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PHOENIX (AP) — An Arizona woman who had a popular YouTube channel featuring children pleaded not guilty Friday to charges she abused some of her seven adopted children by pepper-spraying them, striking them with a clothes hanger and making them take ice baths.
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Electricity has slowly been restored following a blackout on Monday that left most of Venezuela's 24 states without power. President Nicolas Maduro has said the situation was caused by "terrorist attacks" on the Guri hydroelectric dam that powers much of the country. Critics including opposition leader Juan Guaido, who is recognized by most Western nations as Venezuela's legitimate head of state, blame the electricity problems on corruption and mismanagement.
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Australia pledged Saturday to introduce new laws that could see social media executives jailed and tech giants fined billions for failing to remove extremist material from their platforms. The tough new legislation will be brought to parliament next week as Canberra pushes for social media companies to prevent their platforms from being "weaponised" by terrorists in the wake of the Christchurch mosque attacks. Facebook said it "quickly" removed a staggering 1.5 million videos of the white supremacist massacre livestreamed on the social media platform.
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Infamous conspiracy theorist Alex Jones was expected to have his Instagram account shut down, or at least have a recently posted photo deleted, after he recently posted an image of an art piece called “False Profits” on his Instagram story.The image depicts six white men with hooked noses playing monopoly on the backs of other humans, surrounded by gold, skulls, money, medicine, and a globe. In the background appears to be the city of Manhattan in nuclear fall-out, and the men sit in front of the pyramid of the Great Seal of the United States.The pyramid with the all-seeing eye has been co-opted by conspiracy theorists as evidence of an evil “new world order”. The globe on the table also may potentially represent “globalists”, two heavily used anti-semitic tropes.Despite this, Instagram claims that the post did not violate their community standards.There seems to be disagreement at parent-company Facebook among high level executives, if Jones is a hate figure or not, as seen in leaked emails.The post has since been removed, although not by Instagram.This is not the first time Jones has been criticised for posting controversial conspiracy material. Jones is known for claiming that the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting was a false flag hoax and for his claims that in fluoride treated water turns frogs gay.
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Thousands of angry Brexit supporters gathered outside UK parliament on Friday after lawmakers rejected Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit deal for a third time, sounding its probable death knell and leaving Britain's withdrawal from the European Union in turmoil on the very day it was supposed to quit the bloc. Rough cut (no reporter narration)
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President Donald Trump called for the Pulitzer Board to revoke the prizes awarded to the New York Times and Washington Post.
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Boeing's MCAS anti-stall system, which was implicated in the October crash of a 737 MAX 8 in Indonesia, was also activated shortly before a recent accident in Ethiopia, a source with knowledge of the investigation said Friday. The information is part of preliminary findings from the analysis of black boxes from Ethiopian Airlines flight 302, which crashed southeast of Addis Ababa killing 157 people on March 10, the source told AFP on condition of anonymity. The information was presented Thursday to US authorities, including the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the source said.
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