October 2019 ~ BACK TO BACK LATEST NEWS

Thursday, October 31, 2019

LATEST NEWS

By BY ERIC SCHMITT AND HELENE COOPER from NYT World https://ift.tt/331hmlz

By BY ALISSA J. RUBIN from NYT World https://ift.tt/2pqzoyQ

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Apple Inc.’s iPhone sales completed a year of declines in a Wednesday earnings report, but the drop may have been much worse if it were not for a seemingly booming trade-in program.

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In a contentious Rules Committee meeting on Wednesday, Democrats systematically rejected Republican attempts to alter the ground rules that lawmakers will use as they consider impeaching President Trump, even as Republicans argued that the proposed procedures are fundamentally unfair.

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LATEST STOCK MARKET NEWS

The dreaded “R” word keeps propping up in every financial conversation people have. There seems to be a general agreement that the economy is going to slow down sooner or later. If a recession actually does hit the economy, what are safe havens that investors can park their monies in?

You can buy shares of a company that’s the best in its sector like The North West Company Inc because people in rural North America still need to shop, or you can choose a utility company like Emera because North Americans and Caribbean residents still need their electricity.

You could also opt for Canada’s biggest discount retailer, Dollarama (TSX:DOL). If there’s a recession, people will go hunting for discounts and Dollarama, with its 18% market share in Canada is perfectly poised to reap the benefits.

The numbers for Dollarama

Dollarama’s 1,250 store locations are spread across metropolitan areas, mid-sized cities and small towns in Canada, and offer a broad assortment of consumable products, general merchandise, and seasonal items both in-store and online.

The company also owns a 50.1% interest in Dollarcity, a growing Latin American value retailer with 192 stores in Colombia, El Salvador and Guatemala.

The second quarter numbers for Dollarama have been good. Sales increased by 9.0% to $946.4 million, compared to $868.5 million in the corresponding period last year. Net earnings increased to $143.2 million compared to $140.3 million, and the company approved a quarterly dividend of $0.044 per share.

Dollarama’s balance sheet gives good comfort as well. It has a significant amount of debt at $1.87 billion, but its interest coverage ratio of 15.2 can tide over its payments.

The company has a market cap of over $14 billion, which means it can raise money easily if the need arises. Over the last three years, Dollarama’s cash flows have equalled almost 60% of its earnings before interest and taxes.

The verdict

These numbers will hold, if not rise during a recession. People cut costs wherever they can during a downturn, and Dollarama has some of the lowest-priced products in Canada across various product lines.

None of its products are priced higher than $4. Its regular customers will definitely continue to shop here and it will get a booster shot of customers who want to save, well, a dollar here and a dollar there.

Shares of the discount retailer are already up over 40% this year (DOL currently trades at $44.5 at writing) and analysts expect it to rise further. Nine out of 15 analysts advise a “buy” on the stock, two advise a “strong buy” and four advise a hold. They have an average target of $51 with a low estimate of $45 and a high estimate of $60.

I’ve stated before that the company’s forward price to earnings multiple is high at 21, especially after considering its five-year estimated annual earnings growth of 11.8% and a shockingly low dividend yield at 0.39%.

But if the economy does go south, customers will make a beeline outside Dollarama stores. It would do you well to hold some stock when that happens.

Investors can look to buy this stock at significant price dips, as it remains a solid long-term buy.

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This just in! Reviews for "The Morning Show," that is. The star-studded Apple TV+ series features Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon and Steve Carell.

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Satellites in space observed the Kincade Fire burning through dry vegetation. Infrared images show scorched land.

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Fox NewsFox News host Tucker Carlson and his guest, conservative YouTube personality Dave Rubin, both insisted Tuesday night that the wildfires burning across California are due largely to progressive ideology, “woke” culture, and diversity in hiring.During Tuesday’s broadcast of Tucker Carlson Tonight, Carlson welcomed on Rubin, a political commentator and podcaster, to discuss the issues surrounding the large fires engulfing the state, including those related to the electrical grid and firefighting methods.“PG&E; strikes me as almost a metaphor for the destruction of the state,” Carlson said about the state’s power company. “Here’s the utility which doesn’t really know anything about its own infrastructure but knows everything about the race of its employees. How did we get there?”After noting that he lives near one of the fires in the Los Angeles area, Rubin immediately took aim at liberal politics as the main reason the wildfires have grown so large and dangerous.“The problem right now is that everything, EVERYTHING, from academia to public utilities to politics, everything that goes woke, that buys into this ridiculous progressive ideology that cares about what contractors are LGBT or how many black firemen we have or white this or Asian that, everything that goes that road eventually breaks down,” he declared.As Carlson nodded and said “that’s true,” Rubin continued, complaining that this isn’t how “freedom is supposed to operate.”“What is supposed to happen—imagine if your house was on fire,” he added. “Would you care what the public utility or what the fire company, what contractor they brought in, what gender or sexuality or any of those things he or she was? It’s just absolutely ridiculous.”The Fox News host continued to agree with Rubin, who went on to tie PG&E;’s preemptive blackouts to a lack of “libertarian or conservative-minded people in California to fight what the progressives are doing to the state.”“If you can’t keep the lights on and you can’t keep the place from burning down, you’ve reached the point where there is no kind of lying about it anymore,” Carlson concluded. “It’s falling apart. It’s a disaster. It’s not civilized anymore.”Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

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The US is believed to have carried out fresh raids on suspected senior Islamic State members in Syria overnight, as officials assessed a treasure trove of intelligence gathered from Isil leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s final hideout. Helicopters reported to be from the US-led coalition flew late on Monday night into al-Shuyukh village south of Jarablus, around three miles from a raid the previous day that killed Isil’s spokesman Abu Hassan al-Muhajir. Donald Trump, the US president, tweeted on Tuesday that Baghdadi's "number one replacement" had been killed. He did not name who that was, but it is thought he was referring to Muhajir. Analysts do not agree that Muhajir would have been Baghdadi's natural successor. Just confirmed that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s number one replacement has been terminated by American troops. Most likely would have taken the top spot - Now he is also Dead!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 29, 2019 A spokesman for the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which is believed to have jointly conducted the mission, said there had been a “successful raid targeting and arresting senior Isil members” on Monday night without elaborating. Local sources reported that the mission lasted no more than 20 minutes and no clashes were heard. “An Iraqi family had moved there in recent times,” Aghiad al-Kheder, co-founder of anti-Isil activist group Sound and Picture, told the Telegraph. “We think two men were taken away by the helicopters.” The men’s identity, or relationship to Baghdadi, was not immediately known. “We think it's related to the Baghdadi raid,” said Mr Kheder, whose group has sources on the ground in the area. ”For sure US found important documents and maybe in the next few days we will see many operations like this.” Pentagon officials told the Washington Post that the documents and other information gathered during the raid on the compound in Barisha in Idlib province close to the Turkish border would prove useful in hunting down remaining senior Isil figures. The officials said two men were also captured alive in the raid who they hoped could provide intelligence about the group. Evidence was growing that Isil had an established smuggling ring, taking senior members from Deir Ezzor in eastern Syria and Qaim in western Iraqi to Idlib. The last moments of Islamic State leader Kurdish spies cultivated a source inside Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s inner circle who was able to steal the Islamic State leader’s underwear for DNA sampling and provide a detailed layout of his compound ahead of the US raid, the SDF commander said. Mazloum Kobani Abdi, the head of the SDF, told NBC his intelligence officers had turned one of Baghdadi’s security advisors who was able to give critical information about the jihadist leader’s house and the tunnels beneath it. The source took a pair of Baghdadi’s underwear and a blood sample to help US forces confirm who was hiding in the compound. The source was at the site on the night of the raid and was whisked out by US commandos. Polat Can, a senior adviser to the SDF, revealed more detailed information about the group's role in finding Baghdadi. "Since 15 May, we have been working together with the CIA,” said Polat Can, a senior adviser to the SDF. He said their surveillance tracked the 48-year-old reclusive leader moving to the village of Barisha in northern Idlib from northern Deir Ezzor in April. Iraqi officials confirmed to the Telegraph that they had arrested members of Baghdadi’s inner circle who were part of the ring and gave up the leader’s location. It is thought fighters with the Islamist group Hurras al-Din, an al-Qaeda-aligned group which is usually hostile to Isil, were also facilitating senior Isil leaders’ movement through rebel-held Idlib. Baghdadi was discovered at the house of one Hurras al-Din commander, Abu Mohamed al-Halabi, who was killed in the raid. Mustafa Bali, SDF’s spokesman, said that Muhajir, described as Baghdadi’s right-hand man, was believed to have been in the area in order to facilitate Baghdadi’s movements in Idlib and possibly on to Turkey. Muhajir was targeted in the village of Ain al-Baydah near Turkish-administered Jarablus with the help of SDF intelligence. Local sources said Muhajir had been travelling in a convoy made up of an oil tanker and a car. The SDF has questioned how Ankara was not aware of the presence of Baghdadi and other senior leaders so close to areas in Syria under its control.

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After hitting a dead end in efforts to defuse the crisis sweeping Lebanon, Saad al-Hariri informed a top Hezbollah official on Monday he had no choice but to quit as prime minister in defiance of the powerful Shi'ite group. The decision by the Sunni leader shocked Hussein al-Khalil, political advisor to Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, who advised him against giving in to protesters who wanted to see his coalition government toppled. The meeting described to Reuters by four senior sources from outside Hariri's Future Party captures a critical moment in the crisis that has swept Lebanon for the last two weeks as Hariri yielded to the massive street protests against the ruling elite.

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Frustration and anger mounted across Northern California as the state's biggest utility began another round of fire-prevention blackouts Tuesday that could leave millions of people without electricity, some for five days or longer. The shut-offs, aimed at keeping windblown electrical equipment from sparking wildfires, came as fire crews raced to contain two major blazes in Northern and Southern California before the winds picked up dangerously again. The fires have destroyed dozens of homes in Sonoma County wine country and in the hills of Los Angeles.

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Things aren't looking good for U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, a former special counsel argues.Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the top Ukraine expert on the National Security Council, will testify Tuesday about his concerns about the Trump administration's interactions with Kyiv. Vindman's opening statement contradicts Sondland's claims that he never discussed former Vice President Joe Biden or his son, Hunter, with any White House or State Department official and that he never encouraged Ukraine to investigate the Bidens over Hunter Biden's ties to Ukrainian gas company, Burisma.Vindman's statement, on the other hand, claims Sondland stressed the importance of investigating the Bidens, Burisma, and Ukraine's role in the 2016 U.S. presidential election in the presence of Vindman and former NSC official Fiona Hill. Vindman will also testify that both he and Hill told Sondland his statements were inappropriate, which has been corroborated by testimony from both Hill and former U.S. diplomat to Ukraine Bill Taylor.Ryan Goodman, who once served as special counsel to the general counsel of the Department of Defense, thinks that spells bad news for Sondland, who could be in "deep, deep legal trouble" following Vindman's testimony. Stay tuned. > Sondland is in deep, deep legal trouble. > > On the left: Lieutenant Colonel Vindman's opening statement (corroborated by Fiona Hill's and Bill Taylor's testimony). > > On the right: Sondland's opening statement. > > 18 USC 1001 pic.twitter.com/rLgqx8hXiW> > -- Ryan Goodman (@rgoodlaw) October 29, 2019

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Facebook announced on Wednesday that it had removed three Russian-backed influence networks from its platform that targeted several African countries including Cameroon, Mozambique, Libya, and Sudan.The networks posted information in Arabic critical of U.S. and French policies in Africa, while praising Russian initiatives in the region. Russian operatives worked with local citizens to set up Facebook accounts that appeared more authentic."They are trying to make it harder for us and civil society to try and detect their operations," Nathaniel Gleicher, head of Facebook’s cybersecurity policy, told the New York Times.Director of the Stanford Internet Observatory Alex Stamos, himself a former Facebook executive, said the Russian campaign in Africa will have implications for the 2020 presidential elections."We will see a model where American groups are used as proxies, where all the content is published under their accounts and their pages,” Stamos said.The Russian networks are linked to Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Russian oligarch who has been sanctioned by the U.S. for interfering in U.S. elections.When the State Department announced new sanctions on Prigozhin in September, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the U.S. will not tolerate any interference in the voting process.“We have been clear: We will not tolerate foreign interference in our elections,” said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a statement. “The United States will continue to push back against malign actors who seek to subvert our democratic processes and we will not hesitate to impose further costs on Russia for its destabilizing and unacceptable activities.”

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Fox NewsFox News host Laura Ingraham and two of her guests Monday night suggested that White House national security official Alexander Vindman, who is set to testify before Congress that he heard President Trump press his Ukrainian counterpart to investigate his political opponents, is guilty of “espionage” and could be a Ukrainian double agent.During a panel discussion on The Ingraham Angle, Ingraham turned to law professor Alan Dershowitz and former Justice Department official John Yoo—author of the so-called “Torture Memos”—to weigh in on reports that Vindman will tell House impeachment investigators that he twice voiced objections to his superiors about Trump’s actions toward Ukraine.According to Ingraham, however, the really interesting part of the New York Times report on Vindman wasn’t that he raised concerns over Trump attempting to pressure a foreign government to investigate American citizens but rather that Vindman is a Ukrainian-American immigrant.“He’s a decorated colonel, by the way, in the Iraq War,” she said. “But because Colonel Vindman emigrated from Ukraine along with his family when he was a child and is fluent in Ukrainian and Russian, Ukrainian officials sought advice from him about how to deal with Mr. Giuliani, though they typically communicated in English.”“Now, wait a second, John,” Ingraham continued, addressing Yoo. “Here we have a U.S. national security official who is advising Ukraine, while working inside the White House, apparently against the president’s interest, and usually, they spoke in English. Isn’t that kind of an interesting angle on this story?!”Yoo replied that he found it “astounding” before offering his own bit of astounding speculation.“You know, some people might call that espionage,” the former Bush administration official suggested.After floating the possibility that Vindman—an Iraq War veteran with a Purple Heart—was a Ukrainian spy, Yoo said he thought Vindman’s upcoming testimony wasn’t “breaking news” because it didn’t add “any new facts” since we can “all make our judgment” on Trump’s July 25 call with the Ukrainian president.“I think that is something the American people should decide rather than just the House,” he added. “And that is the next election.”Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

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An article on 5 February last year reported on an interview that the former Arsenal forward Emmanuel Eboue gave to French TV in which he spoke about his 'personal struggles'.

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The England squad gave a warm thank you to Genki Okoshi, the Japanese player who was parachuted in to help with training.

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DOMINIC KING AT ANFIELD: Jurgen Klopp has voiced his concern over Liverpool's Christmas fixture pile-up after they made it through to the quarter-finals of the Carabao Cup.

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Ole Gunnar Solsjkaer believes Wednesday night's Carabao Cup win over Chelsea proves Manchester United are finally heading in the right direction.

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He had a hand in three of the goals but his display felt like a false positive after the former Germany international was withdrawn after 65 minutes just after Liverpool had got it back to 4-4.

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Jamie Redknapp has labelled Marcus Rashford's brilliant match-winning free-kick against Chelsea on Wednesday night the stuff of greatness.

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Jamie Carragher (right) believes Mesut Ozil (left) deserves a place in Arsenal's starting XI after the German was lauded by pundits and fans alike for his performance against Liverpool.

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Tommy Doyle's mum cried with joy in the stands as he followed in the footsteps of grandfathers Mike Doyle and Glyn Pardoe at Manchester City.

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LATEST TECHNOLOGY NEWS

AT&T and WarnerMedia just announced the pricing of its HBO Max streaming service, along sharing more details about the timing and content lineup.

The service will cost $14.99 per month — the same price as HBO Now. WarnerMedia also says it will be free for HBO Now subscribers and for viewers who subscribe to HBO via AT&T. And it will launch in May of next year.

At the event, HBO’s Casey Bloys also announced that HBO has greenlit a Game of Thrones spinoff called House of the Dragon, based on George R.R. Martin’s book of Westerosi history, Fire and Blood (perhaps explaining why a previously announced spin-off that was recently canceled).

The company also revealed that HBO Max will be the exclusive streaming home of South Park. Plus, Elizabeth Banks, Issa Rae and Mindy Kaling are all developing new shows for the service — and Arrow and Riverdale producer Greg Berlanti announced that he’s working on the new DC Comics-related titles Green Lantern and Strange Adventures.

Today’s presentation for media and investors began with lots of commentary about all the corporate synergies between AT&T, WarnerMedia (which AT&T acquired last year) and the service’s namesake HBO.

WarnerMedia’s entertainment and direct-to-consumer chairman Bob Greenblatt said HBO Max will have 10,000 hours of content at launch, including the HBO library, films from Warner Bros. and original content “appealing to all the younger demos.” Ten thousand hours sounds like a lot, but Greenblatt acknowledge it’s less than some competitors (presumably Netflix): “We actually think our value proposition improves when we narrow some of the options.”

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HBO Max Chief Content Officer Kevin Reilly made a similar point, noting that on average, half of the usage on subscription streaming services comes from the top 100 titles, so “quality over quantity” is important. To illustrate that quality, he pointed to titles like Sesame Street, as well as the Lord of the Rings movies, The Hobbit movies, The Matrix trilogy and The Conjuring films, plus every Superman and Batman movie from the past 40 years.

“We’re all-in with DC and the associated brand-love that DC generates,” Reilly said.

He also noted the service will also stream the 90’s classic Friends, as well as The Big Bang Theory, for which it reportedly paid over $1 billion.

As for originals, Reilly said the company plans to launch 31 Max Originals series (combined with HBO series, that makes for 69 original shows on HBO Max in its first year). Half of them, apparently, will be targeted at a young adult audience, and with most of the episodes released on a weekly basis — Reilly argued that this allows for more cultural impact, “rather than fading quickly after a binge and burn.”

In terms of the product itself, WarnerMedia’s Executive Vice President Andy Forssell argued that “despite a decade of SVOD evolution, it’s still too hard to find something to watch,” and said HBO Max will “blend the smart use of data with real human touch, and present them via novel product experiences.”

He then showed off how the service will include curated highlights sections focusing on things like Friends episodes with high-profile guest stars. Forssell acknowledged that this might not seem revolutionary, but he argued that it offers a “significant deviation from how SVOD services have used screen real estate.”

It will also expand HBO’s Recommended by Humans feature, where celebrities and other real people can recommend their favorite movies and TV shows. And there will be kids’ profiles and shared profiles — so that the watching you do with others won’t interfere with the progress and recommendations from your own solo viewing.

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In July, AT&T first announced its plans for HBO Max, but the details around launch and pricing weren’t yet known. Instead, the attention so far has been on HBO Max’s content lineup.

The service aims to capitalize on HBO’s reputation for premium fare to attract consumers — many of whom already pay $15 per month for HBO Now. But it will pad that HBO library with a combination of programming from other WarnerMedia properties like Cinemax, New Line, DC Entertainment, Warner Bros., The CW, CNN, TNT, TBS, TruTV, Turner Classic Movies, Crunchyroll, Adult Swim, Cartoon Network, Rooster Teeth, Looney Tunes, and others.

We now know HBO Max will be home to Game of Thrones and its upcoming spin-offs, plus favorite HBO series like The Sopranos, Sex and the City, Deadwood, Westworld, and others.

It’s also bringing back Gossip Girl, rebooting Grease, making a Dune TV show, and streaming all 21 Studio Ghibli films.

Other HBO Max shows will include a Riverdale spin-off Katy Keene; Search Party; Batwoman; Adventure Time; Stephen King’s The Outsider; Jordan Peele and J.J. Abrams’ horror series Lovecraft Country; Joss Whedon’s The Nevers; Julian Fellowes’ (Downton Abbey) The Gilded Age; David E. Kelley’s The Undoing; Rules of Magic, a prequel to Alice Hoffman’s Practical Magic; The Boondocks; and Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai; plus back catalog content like Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Pretty Little Liars, Doctor Who (2005 and onward), The West Wing, Top Gear, The Office (original version), and others.

Upcoming literary adaptions include Tokyo Vice, The Flight Attendant, Circe, Made for Love, Station Eleven, and Anna K: A Love Story.

More recently, HBO Max has announced a new documentary on Anthony Bourdain, an overall deal with Lisa Ling, a documentary about Amy Schumer, a Melissa McCarthy comedy film, a documentary with Monica Lewinsky, and a new deal with J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot (the deal allows Bad Robot to make TV under the WarnerMedia umbrella and then sell it to other streaming services).

Abrams was part of today’s event. He said it’s too early to announce any specific programming under the new deal — Bad Robot already works with HBO on titles like Westworld, and Abrams has a new show in the works called Demimonde — but he declared, “There’s no company that values storytelling more than WarnerMedia.”

And for classic movie lovers who mourn the loss of FilmStruck, Warner Bros. CEO Ann Sarnoff, said the service will offer a rich library of films from the Warner Bros. and MGM library, curated titles from Turner Classic Movies, as well as “decades and decades of more great titles from The Criterion Collection.”

AT&T said on Monday it plans to spend about $2 billion on the service over the next two years and aims to sign up some 50 million subscribers by 2025.

The service will arrive at a time when competition in the streaming market is heating up. Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime Video’s successes have paved the way for new entrants like Apple TV+, which launches Friday, and Disney+, which arrives mid-November. NBCU is also joining next year with its streaming service Peacock, which will offer The Office and other classic shows, alongside new originals, like a Battlestar Galactica reboot.

These streamers are gaining at the expense of traditional TV, which has impacted other parts of AT&T’s business.

In the third quarter, it lost another 1.2 million satellite and fiber-optic-TV customers as well as 195,000 AT&T TV Now (previously DirecTV Now) subscribers. AT&T’s profit was down 22% year-over-year to $3.7 billion and revenue had fallen 2.5% to $44.6 billion.

Eventually, AT&T’s plan is to merge its AT&T TV Now live TV service into HBO Max and add on a discounted ad-supported tier to HBO Max to make it more affordable.

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MX Player, a popular video app that offers both local playback and streaming services, said on Wednesday that it has raised $110.8 million in a new financing round led by Chinese internet giant Tencent as the video app looks to expand its business in India and other international markets.

Times Internet, which acquired a majority stake in MX Player in late 2017 for $140 million, also participated in the Series A financing round. The post-money valuation of MX Player was $500 million, a person familiar with the matter told TechCrunch.

The addition of Tencent — which has invested in a handful of Indian startups including Times Internet-owned Gaana, ride-hailing giant Ola, ed tech startup Byju’s, B2B e-commerce startup Udaan and a bookkeeping service for merchants, Khatabook — “is a great sign of confidence,” said Satyan Gajwani, vice chairman of Times Internet. “Tencent is a leading global force in music and video, and there’s a lot for us to learn and leverage from their capabilities,” he added.

Karan Bedi, CEO of MX Player, said in an interview that the video app will use the fresh capital to double down on producing original TV shows and broadening its catalog of licensed content. The firm, which has so far added 15 original shows to its platform, has already commissioned production of another 20 by year-end, he said.

The Singapore-headquartered firm’s push into original shows and licensed content underscores one of the strangest evolution for a video app. MX Player originated in Korea as an app that could run video files in a wide-range of formats locally stored on a phone.

The app did all of this while consuming little resources, an ability that helped it win tens of millions of users with low-cost Android smartphones in emerging markets such as India. In fact, India is MX Player’s largest market, with 175 million monthly active users, Bedi said. Globally, the app has amassed more than 280 million users.

MX Player is ad-supported and does not charge users any monthly subscription fee. The service, which introduced movies and shows streaming in mid-2018, today also offers access to about 200 TV channels, their current and back catalog of shows, and a music streaming feature through an integration with Gaana.

mxplayer tc

Bedi said the company has tied up with all-web show producers such as HoiChoi in India and three of the top five TV local cable networks, including Sony and Sun. Missing from the list is Star India, the largest TV network in the country.

Thanks to the acquisition of 21st Century Fox, Disney now owns Star India. Star India has emerged as one of the gems in Disney’s new portfolio. The firm, which runs dozens of TV channels in India, operates Hotstar, the market-leading video streaming service.

Hotstar reported 300 million monthly active users and 100 million daily active users during the ICC Cricket World Cup tournament. The service has cashed in on the popularity of cricket to boost its numbers.

Bedi said MX Player is working on building new entertainment experiences, but sports content is not something it is exploring. The reason is simple: Cricket drives most of the sports streaming in India and Star India has secured rights to most of such content. (Facebook recently grabbed a slice of it, too.)

But cricket alone can’t help a streaming service win and sustain customers. Even Hotstar’s monthly user base plummets below 60 million in the months following the cricketing season, people familiar with Hotstar’s internal figures have told TechCrunch.

Figuring out what exactly resonates with the users in India, the world’s second largest internet market, is the billion-dollar question. The video streaming market in India is on track to be worth $1.7 billion in the next four years, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Bedi, who spearheaded Eros Now’s India business before joining MX Player, said users are increasingly enjoying the original shows. Most of the shows that MX Player has produced so far, such as “Hey Prabhu,” “Thinkistan” and “Immature,” are largely targeted at college students and those who have just joined the work force. But the company is slowly populating the platform with shows such as “Queen” that appeal “universally,” he said.

MX Player today competes with more than three dozen local and international players, nearly all of which offer their services at dirt-cheap prices in India. Even Netflix, which launched in India with a $8 plan in 2016, this year introduced a $2.8 monthly tier. In recent months, several more firms including e-commerce giant Flipkart and food delivery startup Zomato have launched their video streaming services in the country.

Tencent-rival Alibaba announced earlier this year that it would invest $100 million to expand social video app Vmate in India.

Once cautious about each megabyte they spent consuming internet services, Indians are now spending about 10GB of data on their smartphones each month as data prices crash in the country, according to an Ericsson report. Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani disrupted the local telecom market in 2016 when he launched Reliance Jio. The 4G-only carrier undercut the market by first offering bulk of mobile data at no cost, and then charging very little fee.

An analyst TechCrunch spoke with said it’s only a matter of time before India’s video market begins to see some consolidation and pull back. “You have to offer something appealing that none of your rivals have,” he said, requesting anonymity as he advises many of these businesses.

For MX Player, its odd evolution story may be its biggest advantage. The app’s local video playback feature continues to draw many to it, and keeps the app among the top rated in Google’s Play Store. Bedi said the startup, which today employs about 300 people, maintains a large team that continues to improve the tech stacks to improve video playback support.

Moving forward, MX Player will also look into expanding to some international markets. It recently started beta testing the video streaming service in the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Eventually, the startup hopes to make original shows for these markets that are relevant to the local audience there.

MX Player maintains a premium app on Google Play Store that strips ads for $5. But the app continues to mostly rely on revenue it generates from ads. Times Internet’s Gajwani said that at some point in the future, the video service will expand monetization beyond pure advertising. “That said, MX is consumed daily as much as the leading TV channel in India, so there’s significant headroom to capture larger advertising spends as well,” he added.

Paytm, a leading financial services firm in India, was also in talks with MX Player to invest in this financial round. It may invest in the video streaming services app at a later stage, a person familiar with the talks said.

India’s Times Internet isn’t ceding ground to US rivals Facebook and Google

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The UK economy will be 3.5% smaller than if it had stayed in the EU, claims a new study.

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The airport operator is experimenting with new sequences to get passengers on planes quicker.

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BBC 5 live listeners explain how fertility treatment affected them in their jobs.

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After a year of being able to purchase cannabis legally from age 18, Quebecers will now have to wait until they turn 21. The provincial government has passed a bill changing the legal age to use marijuana, a move critics say will only drive the black market.

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Martin shared the news by posting a photo with the little one on Instagram on Tuesday.

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The rapper talks to ET about the possibility of reuniting with J.Lo to perform 'I'm Real' at the NFL championship game in February.

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The reality star appears to have returned to being a brunette in the stunning photos, which were released on Tuesday.

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By BY ELISABETH VINCENTELLI from NYT Theater https://ift.tt/2MVLF7q

HBO has ordered a Game of Thrones spinoff series, House of the Dragons, straight to series.

The new prequel is written by Ryan Condal (Colony), with George R.R. Martin set to co-executive produce. The project is based on Martin’s 2019 book Fire and Blood, and is a history of House Targaryen (the ancestors of Daenerys) as they fight through a civil war. The series is set 300 years before the events of Game of Thrones.

HBO executive Casey Bloys made the announcement at an event for HBO Max, AT&T’s streaming service coming May 2020. The news comes just hours after news broke that HBO canceled a previously announced Game of Thrones spinoff series.

Developing...

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HBO Max, AT&T’s big foray into streaming, will launch in May 2020 for per $14.99 a month, the company announced at a special event held for investors. An ad-supported tier will reportedl launch in 2021.

The pricing tier makes it one of the most expensive in the shifting streaming landscape. Apple TV Plus is only $4.99 a month, while Disney+ is sitting at $6.99 a month. AT&T is in a tricky spot. HBO Now, its other HBO-branded streaming service, is $15 a month. That’s about the same cost as the channel via cable packages.

AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson teased the importance of today’s event, which took place at the iconic Warner Bros. lot in Burbank, California, during a call with investors yesterday. Stephenson called the streaming service “very different from anything else that you’ve seen in the market so far,” adding that, “This is not Netflix. This is not Disney. This is HBO Max.”

Today’s showcasing of HBO Max was also designed to put investors at ease. AT&T has drawn ire from investors who chastised the decision to spend more than $85 billion on acquiring Time Warner (now WarnerMedia) just a few years after spending $67 billion to buy DirecTV, a service that is now hemorrhaging customers. Investment firm Elliott issued a letter to the company calling for AT&T to divest itself of unnecessary business arms. The investment firm noted that AT&T’s acquisition of WarnerMedia didn’t seem to make any sense.

While HBO Max enters an increasingly crowded market, Stephenson said the HBO name brand already distinguishes the service from its competitors. Stephenson added that at the tier of the market where the company “intends to play, it is not that crowded.”

HBO Max is poised to launch with an impressive number of titles for customers. Unlike HBO Now, there will also be a substantial focus on children’s programming and less prestigious but still incredibly popular series. Friends and The Big Bang Theory will both stream exclusively on HBO Max, as will new episodes of Sesame Street (moving from HBO’s traditional broadcast channel), although those episodes will eventually make their way to PBS. The entire Studio Ghibli library will live exclusively on HBO Max, too. Not to mention, the streaming service will play home to show reboots like Gossip Girl, which originally aired on the CW — a network co-owned by WarnerMedia. That doesn’t account for older WarnerMedia series that the company has streaming rights to and will add for customers.

Unlike HBO Now or Disney+, HBO Max is a more general entertainment player — even if Stephenson reportedly balks at the term “general” in anything to do with HBO. The new streaming service is designed for everyone, which isn’t necessarily true for HBO Now (mostly adults) or Disney+ (mostly children, and Marvel or Star Wars fans). HBO Max needs to appeal to a broader audience in order to scale at the speed AT&T is looking for. Stephenson told investors on yesterday’s earnings call that HBO Max is forecasted to hit 50 million subscribers in the US by 2024.

All of which means that HBO Max is going to introduce a ton of content as quickly as possible. AT&T is investing heavily into HBO, increasing the number of shows and films it produces by 50 percent. The company doesn’t have a full launch list just yet — Disney+ will come with nearly 1,000 titles when it’s released on November 12th — but expect more information closer to HBO Max’s official launch.

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After two hours of listing content for the new HBO Max service and showing how its apps work, execs revealed the price when it launches in May next year will be $14.99 per month.

Developing...

Before we declare an end to this epic day, here are the details you've all been waiting for: pic.twitter.com/BUW6RTd6Fy
— HBO Max (@hbomax) October 29, 2019

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The former US first lady says race and lack of understanding of migrants still divides the US and world.

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Protests are planned for the Twitter-banned speaker's talk in Toronto and police will be present.

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Additional tests found no asbestos in J&J Baby Powder Seeking Alpha
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J&J says latest Baby Powder FDA test found no asbestos Fox Business
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Nets come to Kyrie Irving's defense, dismiss report that his mood swings are a problem to the team CBS Sports
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Opinion: Why did the Nets start firestorm over Kyrie Irving's behavior? USA TODAY
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England are fined a four-figure sum for crossing the halfway line as they lined up in a V formation to face the haka before their Rugby World Cup semi-final match against New Zealand.

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DANIEL MATTHEWS AT COLES PARK: Loizou saw his team dumped out of the FA Cup by Yeovil - 10 days after he took his players from the field following reported attacks on two of his players.

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Getty Fire Creeps Onto Edges of Getty Center, but the Art Is Safe, Museum Says KTLA Los AngelesView full coverage on Google News

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Even after Microsoft wins, JEDI saga could drag on TechCrunch
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Astros vs. Nationals: Ranking top 10 World Series MVP candidates with two Houston hit machines topping list CBS Sports
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LSU edges past Alabama to become college football's new No. 1 Axios
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Firefighters across the state are racing to control flames exacerbated by extreme winds. Is this normal?

Thousands of firefighters are battling wind-fueled wildfires across California, as warm temperatures, strong winds and low humidity turned the state into a “tinderbox”.

Gavin Newsom, the California governor, declared a state of emergency on 27 October, as crews worked to control several large blazes, including the Tick fire in the Santa Clarita Valley and a brush fire near the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. The largest of the fires, the Kincade Fire in Sonoma county, forced almost 200,000 people to evacuate.

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Organisers have brought goods to the UK early to avoid any difficulties with the UK's exit from the EU.

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How Tara Bosch set up and grew low-sugar sweets company Smart Sweets.

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The battle with protesters is splitting the police force between those seeking power and others protecting freedoms

Larry Yeung* cuts a lonely figure in the police force these days.

He joined more than 20 years ago because it appealed to his sense of justice. Proudly showing off his graduation tie, he reminisces about his desire as a young recruit to serve society and help the disadvantaged.

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The United States will repel any attempt to take Syria's oil fields away from U.S.-backed Syrian militia with "overwhelming force," whether the opponent is Islamic State or even forces backed by Russia or Syria, the Pentagon said on Monday.

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Thursday, October 31, 2019

The numbers for Dollarama

The verdict

Wednesday, October 30, 2019

Tuesday, October 29, 2019

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