President Donald Trump was widely criticized after he lashed out and called for retribution against the media following a Saturday Night Live episode in which he was spoofed, USA Today reported on Sunday.
"Nothing funny about tired 'Saturday Night Live' on Fake News NBC!" the president wrote on Twitter. "Question is, how do the Networks get away with these total Republican hit jobs without retribution? Likewise for many other shows? Very unfair and should be looked into. This is the real Collusion!"
A few minutes later Trump sent another tweet in which he said, "THE RIGGED AND CORRUPT MEDIA IS THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!"
California Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu wrote on Twitter that Trump “should read the Constitution, or get briefed on it,” because “one thing that makes America great is that the people can laugh at you without retribution. The First Amendment allows Saturday Night Live to make fun of you again, and again, and again.”
New York Times White House correspondent Peter Baker pointed out in a tweet that, even though these attacks by Trump have become commonplace, “it's worth remembering that no other president in decades publicly threatened ‘retribution’ against a television network because it satirized him."
Virginia Democratic Rep. Don Boyer mocked Trump and his declaration of a national emergency in order to build a border wall, writing on Twitter, “National Emergency Weekend: golfing, stopping by the omelet station, expressing contempt for the rule of law and the First Amendment. So... just like every other weekend.”
New York Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez reportedly hired a top Hollywood talent agency and explored a possibility of writing a book, though the deal appears to have gone nowhere.
Ocasio-Cortez, the self-described Democratic Socialist who got into Congress after defeating prominent Democrat Joe Crowley in her district in November, has come to symbolize the party’s leftward movement.
Ocasio-Cortez retained the talent agency Creative Artists Agency (CAA) and held meetings earlier this year about potentially writing a book, the Daily Beast reported.
The book deal in the end didn’t materialize, with reasons remaining unknown, the report said. It’s also unclear if the book deal will be resurrected at a later date or whether she continues working with the top Hollywood talent agency that reportedly represents the likes of George Clooney, Emma Watson, and Brad Pitt.
The congresswoman’s office neither confirmed nor denied the talks she had about the book deal, according to the outlet. Her office did not immediately respond to an email from Fox News.
Book deals signed by incoming members of Congress aren’t new, although few existing members ink such deals due to strict regulations that prohibit receiving an advance for the book.
Rep. Ilhan Omar, a freshman Democratic lawmaker from Minnesota who’s facing multiple controversies, entered a book deal worth up to $250,000, though the exact figure remains unclear, before officially becoming a congresswoman, Forbes reported.
The book by Omar, the first Somali American to serve in Congress, has the working title, “This Is What America Looks Like,” and will be published by Dey Street. It will touch upon Omar's upbringing in Somalia, her years as a refugee in Kenya and her subsequent arrival in the United States.
BIG LAKE, Minn. – Authorities say a man suspected of starting a house fire in Minnesota that killed two of his children has died.
The Sherburne County Sheriff's Office says in a release that 36-year-old Anthony Robert Parker died Saturday of injuries suffered in the Friday morning blaze in Big Lake, about 40 miles (65 kilometers) from Minneapolis.
The fire killed Parker's two toddlers, 1-year-old Spencer Parker and 2-year-old Landon Parker. His other children, who 7 and 9 years old, were injured. Their conditions have not been released.
The state fire marshal's office is investigating the cause of the blaze.
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – Although part of her job description is making sure elections are fair and square, Nueces County Clerk Kara Sands hadn’t given much thought to ballot fraud until a constable candidate from a nearby suburb visited her office in May 2016.
The ex-cop was familiar with how voter fraud worked, Sands said, and “he was afraid that people in Robstown were using the mail-in ballots illegally” in a Democratic primary runoff.
That galvanized the Republican official, and it wasn't long before her second-floor office became a repository of voter mischief: Cardboard boxes, ballot application envelopes, voter registration lists and other papers heaped on an aged beige couch, a round wooden table and the across the floor. Atop one stack of papers: a list of mail-in ballot applications all signed and witnessed by the same person, a clue to illegal ballot-harvesiting.
Because much of the fraud involves unwitting older voters and the homebound, Sands also visits local nursing homes and knocks on the doors of voters from whom she has received complaints.
Kara Sands, county clerk: “People don’t even realize their votes are being stolen."
Neuces County
“People don’t even realize their votes are being stolen,” Sands said. “The harvesters come along at election time and bring food, they have these neighborhoods mapped out and they can go door to door and build relationships. Mostly elderly people are being victimized and they don’t even know it.”
Texas leads the nation in prosecutions of election fraud – since January 2018, 33 people have been convicted of election crimes in cases brought by the state attorney general’s office, and 13 more have cases pending.
Still, many election experts believe that only hints at the fraud actually taking place. Texas, then, may hold lessons as voter mischief, especially involving mail-in ballots, is receiving intense national scrutiny: Last November, legal third-party ballot harvesting in California may have helped Democrats score upsets in congressional races, while in North Carolina similar but illegal harvesting operations prompted officials to call a new election.
Texas is like every other state in that it does not have a well-financed bureaucracy responsible for safeguarding ballot integrity. Instead, this duty largely falls to – and is jealously guarded by -- local officials in each of the state’s 254 counties.
As a result, even in Texas, exposing election fraud relies on a disorganized, ad hoc group of aggrieved candidates and political partisans who suspect foul play. Even then, they must hope to find an official like Sands willing to take on the painstaking work required to identify and investigate potentially fraudulent ballots.
In policing vote fraud, "it’s mostly just people on the ground who report incidents.”
Andy Jacobsohn//Dallas Morning News
“Once in a while you see the secretary of state’s offices take the lead in these in some states, but it’s mostly just people on the ground who report incidents,” said Jason Snead, senior policy analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation, who maintains a national database that tracks voter fraud cases across the country.
These tipsters usually encounter a system geared to dismiss their claims, according to Dallas attorney (and former judge) Dan Wyde, who has represented several candidates who believe they lost because of mail-in ballot shenanigans. Wyde said local officials and courts often lack the will or the resources to handle these cases.
“The judges are under pressure not to grant a new election, and to affirm or bless the system,” said Wyde, who represented a justice of the peace candidate who unsuccessfully challenged a 2010 Democratic primary in Dallas County. Wyde put on 40 witnesses.
“This is the kind of thing where it has to be the candidate that is reporting it, and they have this vested interest, so it’s hard to find a neutral party to come in and look and say, ‘Hey, this isn’t how it’s supposed to go,’” Wyde said.
Fraud or Voter Suppression?
Local control of elections is often an obstacle to voter fraud investigations, both in Texas and around the country. Jonathan White, an assistant attorney general and the state’s top investigator of voting violations, was reminded of that in June 2017. That’s when he met with officials from the Dallas County district attorney’s office, including assistant DA Andy Chatham, to discuss a series of complaints from senior citizens on the west side of the city who said they had received mail-in ballots for the May municipal election that they had not requested, indicating their signatures on the application may have been forged.
Some said a man had knocked on their door, claimed he worked for the county and was there to collect their ballots.
Chatham dashed any notion of the state’s attorneys getting involved.
“This is a constitutional issue,” Chatham told White, pointing to statutes that allow for witnesses and assistants in the voting process. “We can handle it, but I can tell you, there is no vast voter fraud ring in Dallas.”
Ex-Attorney General and now Texas Governor Greg Abbott: He's accused of targeting Democrats and minorities with fraud enforcement.
Joel Martinez/The Monitor via AP
In this case he was right. The sleuthing in Dallas netted one suspect: Miguel Hernandez, a small-time drug offender, who pleaded guilty to filling in a single mail-in ballot. The unusual thing about this case was the sentence: Hernandez received 180 days in county jail for the misdemeanor, while the vast majority of election fraud convictions in Texas end in plea deals, probation and no jail time. Hernandez, though, was on probation for other crimes when he violated the election law.
White’s heard the objection before -- there’s no significant election fraud in the state. Chatham’s resistance was mild in comparison to the protests of others.
Civil rights groups and others who argue for ballot access also resist voter fraud investigations.
When then-Attorney General Greg Abbott announced in 2005 he was allocating $1.4 million of a federal crime-fighting grant to investigate alleged voter fraud, civil rights groups claimed the action targeted Democrats and minorities and newspapers ran editorials criticizing the move, insisting it would discourage voters.
The Texas Democratic Party and several other plaintiffs, including a city council member in Texarkana who had previously pleaded guilty to unlawfully assisting a mail-in voter, sued the Republican Abbott, who became state’s governor in 2015. They lost.
Another impediment to electoral fraud crackdowns has been the efforts, mostly led by Republicans, to pass voter ID laws to clamp down on fraudulent in-person voting. Because so little effort is spent investigating such cases, no one knows how many people vote multiple times, or how many convicted felons or illegal immigrants cast ballots. But the consensus is these are rare occurrences and the focus on this form of abuse has given ammunition to those who crusade for more liberal voting laws and dismiss allegations of voter fraud as political interference into voters’ rights.
This, in turn, reduces efforts to combat mail-in ballot fraud, an abuse that few dispute. For example, in a 2014 ruling on the constitutionality of a Texas voter ID, U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos noted, “[W]hile there is general agreement that voting fraud exists with respect to mail-in ballots, the same was not demonstrated to be a real concern with in-person voting.”
Lon Burnam, a Democrat who teamed with a Tea Party group: “Republicans claim a lot of crap around elections, but this was real.”
Nevertheless, election fraud cases often start with aggrieved parties and partisan political operatives rather than eagle-eyed state officials. That’s what happened in some mostly Democratic precincts of Tarrant County, which long been rumored to be a haven for mail-in ballot harvesting.
The investigation started with an unlikely alliance of former Democratic state Rep. Lon Burnam and Direct Action Texas, a Tea Party-backed operation that supports a particularly conservative wing of the state Republican Party.
Burnam was a nine-term incumbent when he was defeated in the Democratic primary in March 2014 by 111 votes. He filed a lawsuit challenging the election, but money issues forced him to drop it.
“I’ve always been in favor of vote-by-mail programs,” Burnam said. “There’s a line there that you cannot step over, and it is defined by legislation. But we need to enforce that law, and it turns out it’s very hard to find out when people do cross that line.”
A year later, when Burnam heard Direct Action was pulling ballot applications and poring over signatures, looking for forgeries and other inconsistencies in the May 2015 general election in Tarrant County, he called them. They were sympathetic and together these unlikely partners launched a crusade to gather mail-in ballot applications and ballot envelopes to determine just what was going on.
Burnam joined Aaron Harris, then executive director of Direct Action, and a couple of Democratic consultants and headed over the Tarrant County Elections Administration office.
The group inspected the applications for the mail-in ballots. Within an hour, Harris and Burnam realized that the applications were filled out in a machine-like fashion, each address and name of the requestor scrawled in identical handwriting on scores of ballots.
“Republicans claim a lot of crap around elections, but this was real,” Burnam said.
The Mechanics of Mischief
At least half of that comment was surely gratifying to one Republican, Christine Welborn. As director of election integrity for Direct Action, she spends many days at her desk in an aged bleached concrete office building in the suburbs of Fort Worth sifting through mail-in ballot applications. As she demonstrated in January, the work is simple, but laborious. Applications for a ballot by mail must be signed by the voter. Using voter registration applications, Welborn verifies the signatures of the applicant on each document. If they don’t match, it’s a sign of trouble and it needs to be investigated. A person other than the voter can sign as a witness, provided they indicate their relationship to the applicant, but they cannot forge that voter’s name, then send it in.
Welborn shows one such instance – the signatures clearly are mismatched, and yet the ballot application is signed by a witness, as required.
“You see this ballot application, you see this signature and you see this signature,” Welborn said, poring over a stack of copied papers. “Then you look at the original signature from the voter’s registration to vote. And it’s clear that someone other than the voter applied for a mail-in ballot.”
Direct Action has analyzed several elections around the state, from the urban areas to rural counties and heading to points south and east. In some cases, there’s nothing. When Welborn and her associates find potential issues, they send their findings to the state, which takes it from there. Tipsters rarely hear back from investigating agents. Sometimes, there is nothing to find, and dead-ends are part of the job.
Her work, though, has led to one confirmed case by the state.
Four Tarrant County women were arrested in October for providing false signatures on mail-in ballot applications for the 2016 Democratic primary, based on the initial findings of Direct Action. Among those arrested was Leticia Sanchez, a veteran vote canvasser whose name has shown up as a paid employee of several local candidates over the years. The case is still pending.
“We’ve done this in mostly Democratic races,” Welborn said. “Whatever party, our goal is not to choose who wins and loses, our goal is to find the fraud. You know they don’t want election fraud any more than anyone else. Everyone, regardless of their politics, wants clean elections.”
Although Direct Action has filed complaints against some Republicans, its partisan bent makes it subject to attack, especially by critics who argue that its work, and its calls to reform mail-in ballots, are really aimed at suppressing minority votes.
Domingo Garcia, Hispanic leader: “They’re trying to rig it so people who are Latino and African-American don’t vote.”
domingogarcia.com
At a press event at a park on Fort Worth’s north side in the fall of 2016, shortly after Direct Action’s announced its findings that resulted in the October arrests, former Democratic state Rep. Domingo Garcia, a leader in the Dallas/Fort Worth Hispanic community, made it clear he felt Direct Action’s work was politically motivated, aimed at discouraging minority voters who tend to cast ballots for Democrats.
“We believe there’s a clear attack to rig the system,” Garcia said. “They’re trying to rig it so people who are Latino and African-American don’t vote.” But, he also noted that real instances of voter fraud should be pursued: “Any political thug who is doing it should be reported. “
The investigation in Tarrant County, part of the large Dallas-Fort Worth area, prompted the first reform of mail-in ballot laws in over a decade. State lawmakers passed Senate Bill 5 in 2017, creating heavier penalties for tampering with mail-in ballots and applications, including a provision that would hold a candidate or party responsible if any low-level ballot harvester can be traced to them.
The measure, like Abbott’s 2005 announcement of a crackdown on election fraud, drew criticism from some quarters although by now it was tempered, even timid.
“I’m kind of here to encourage the Senate to figure out not just criminal penalties,” Matt Simpson, legislative director of the ACLU of Texas, said during testimony on the state senate bill. “Are there civil penalties, are there administrative penalties, are there alternatives to turning to already-filled prisons and jails?”
“We have concerns on the criminal penalty enhancements,” added Yannis Banks, legislative liaison for the Texas NAACP. He worried that having political conversations, or even helping close friends, might end up in breaking the law if an encouragement to vote a specific way were made.
“It would be a shame if someone helping someone were punished,” Banks said.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said on Tuesday he would send back garbage that came to the Philippines from Canada and threatened to declare war against Ottawa.
“I give a warning to Canada, maybe next week, they better pull their thing up or I will set sail to Canada, I will pour their garbage there,” the president said as quoted by Rappler portal, adding that he would declare war against the North American state if it gave no response.
He also advised Canada to get ready to receive the garbage. The president also ordered the container vans to drop the garbage near the Canadian embassy in Makati. Duterte also threatened to fire the customs personnel who were responsible for letting Canadian trash into the country.
Recently, the Philippines has lashed out at Canada, saying that private importers have been smuggling tonnes of Canadian garbage into the Philippines for several years. Facing protests by environmentalists, Canada nevertheless has refused to have the trash back, justifying it by the authorities’ inability to compel the private shipper to return the garbage.
The garbage reportedly consisted of used adult diapers, newspapers, plastic bottles and bags. According to some experts, the garbage violated international law and went against multiple parts of the Basel Convention, a 30-year-old treaty that prevents countries from shipping hazardous waste to the developing world without government consent.
Alex Jones presents a video of Lou Dobbs during his Fox program where he warns his viewers that the French investigation into what exactly started the Notre Dame fire may be covering up the very realistic possibility of arson.
FILE PHOTO: Britain Golf - GolfSixes - Centurion Club, St Albans - 5/5/17 General view of the Shot clock during the pro-am Action Images via Reuters / Andrew Boyers Livepic
March 13, 2019
LONDON (Reuters) – Shot Clock will be used at every ATP Tour event in 2020, the men’s tennis organization confirmed on Wednesday.
The 25-second countdown, designed to speed up play, was first used at the Next Gen ATP Finals in Milan in 2017 and was adopted at the last two Grand Slams, last year’s U.S. Open and this year’s Australian Open.
The ATP announced the decision while rolling out its calendar for 2020 — a year that will start with the inaugural ATP Cup, a team event that will launch the season.
Three Australian cities — Sydney, Brisbane, and one additional city yet to be announced — will host the 10-day event held in conjunction with Tennis Australia and featuring ranking points and $15 million in prize money.
To accommodate the new event, the ATP 250 tournament in Pune, India will be moved to after the Australian Open.
Adelaide will host an ATP tournament starting on Jan. 13 — the first time it has hosted one since 2008.
The ATP said there would also be an open application process for a 250 grasscourt event in Europe to take place the week before Wimbledon, currently held in Antalya, Turkey.
(Reporting by Martyn Herman; Editing by Toby Davis)
A T.J. Maxx store which is owned by TJX Cos Inc in Pasadena, California U.S., May 15, 2017. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni
February 27, 2019
(Reuters) – Off-price apparel retailer TJX Cos Inc reported better-than-expected quarterly same-store sales on Wednesday, as steep discounts drove more shoppers to its T.J. Maxx and Marshalls stores during the holiday season.
TJX reported a 6 percent rise in comparable-store sales, beating analysts’ average estimate of a 3.54 percent rise, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.
Net sales rose to $11.13 billion from $10.96 billion.
(Reporting by Soundarya J in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta)
Joe Biden’s brain surgeon said his former patient is “totally in the clear” as speculation over the candidate’s health — with Biden possibly becoming the oldest president in U.S. history — is likely to become a campaign issue.
The former vice president, who had been perceived by many as the strongest potential contender for the Democratic Party’s 2020 presidential nomination, formally announced his candidacy Thursday.
But Biden’s age – 76 – is expected to become a source of attacks from a younger generation of Democrats not because of obvious generational differences, but possibly for actual health concerns if Biden gets into office.
Biden himself agreed last year that “it’s totally legitimate” for people to ask questions about his health if he decides to run for president, given his medical history — which has included brain surgery in 1988.
“I think they’re gonna judge me on my vitality,” Biden told “CBS This Morning.” “Can I still run up the steps of Air Force Two? Am I still in good shape? Am I – do I have all my faculties? Am I energetic? I think it’s totally legitimate people ask those questions.”
“I think they’re gonna judge me on my vitality. … I think it’s totally legitimate [that] people ask those questions.”
— Joe Biden
But Dr. Neal Kassell, the neurosurgeon who operated on Biden for an aneurysm three decades ago, told the Washington Examiner that Biden appears to be “totally in the clear” — and even joked that the operation made Biden “better than how he was.”
“Joe Biden of all of the politicians in Washington is the only one that I’m certain has a brain, because I have seen it,” Kassell said. “That’s more than I can say about all the other candidates or the incumbents.”
“Joe Biden of all of the politicians in Washington is the only one that I’m certain has a brain, because I have seen it.”
At the same time, however, Biden hasn’t been forthcoming about his health at least since 2008 when he released his medical records as a vice presidential candidate. The disclosure that time revealed some fairly minor issues such as an irregular heartbeat in addition to detailing previous operations, including removing a benign polyp during a colonoscopy in 1996, the outlet reported.
It remains unclear if Biden had more aneurysms. Some medical experts say that people who have had an aneurysm can have another one.
An aneurysm, or a weakening of an artery wall, can lead to a rupture and internal bleeding, potentially placing a patient’s life in jeopardy.
Biden won’t be the only Democrat grappling with old age. Sen. Bernie Sanders, another 2020 frontrunner, is currently 77 years old and agreed with Biden last year that their ages will be an issue in the race.
“It’s part of a discussion, but it has to be part of an overall view of what somebody is and what somebody has accomplished,” Sanders told Politico.
“Look, you’ve got people who are 50 years of age who are not well, right? You’ve got people who are 90 years of age who are going to work every day, doing excellent work. And obviously, age is a factor. But it depends on the overall health and wellbeing of the individual.”
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia – Cambodian authorities have ordered a one-hour reduction in the length of school days because of concerns that students and teachers may fall ill from a prolonged heat wave.
Education Minister Hang Chuon Naron said in an announcement seen Friday that the shortened hours will remain in effect until the rainy season starts, which usually occurs in May. The current heat wave, in which temperatures are regularly reaching as high as 41 Celsius (106 Fahrenheit), is one of the longest in memory.
Most schools in Cambodia lack air conditioning, prompting concern that temperatures inside classrooms could rise to unhealthy levels.
School authorities were instructed to watch for symptoms of heat stroke and urge pupils to drink more water.
The new hours cut 30 minutes off the beginning of the school day and 30 minutes off the end.
School authorities instituted a similar measure in 2016.
LONDON – Explosions have rocked Britain’s largest steel plant, injuring two people and shaking nearby homes.
South Wales Police say the incident at the Tata Steel plant in Port Talbot was reported at about 3:35 a.m. Friday (22:35 EDT Thursday). The explosions touched off small fires, which are under control. Two workers suffered minor injuries and all staff members have been accounted for.
Police say early indications are that the explosions were caused by a train used to carry molten metal into the plant. Tata Steel says its personnel are working with emergency services at the scene.
Local lawmaker Stephen Kinnock says the incident raises concerns about safety.
He tweeted: “It could have been a lot worse … @TataSteelEurope must conduct a full review, to improve safety.”
LinkSpace’s reusable rocket RLV-T5, also known as NewLine Baby, is carried to a vacant plot of land for a test launch in Longkou, Shandong province, China, April 19, 2019. REUTERS/Jason Lee
April 26, 2019
By Ryan Woo
LONGKOU, China (Reuters) – During initial tests of their 8.1-metre (27-foot) tall reusable rocket, Chinese engineers from LinkSpace, a start-up led by China’s youngest space entrepreneur, used a Kevlar tether to ensure its safe return. Just in case.
But when the Beijing-based company’s prototype, called NewLine Baby, successfully took off and landed last week for the second time in two months, no tether was needed.
The 1.5-tonne rocket hovered 40 meters above the ground before descending back to its concrete launch pad after 30 seconds, to the relief of 26-year-old chief executive Hu Zhenyu and his engineers – one of whom cartwheeled his way to the launch pad in delight.
LinkSpace, one of China’s 15-plus private rocket manufacturers, sees these short hops as the first steps towards a new business model: sending tiny, inexpensive satellites into orbit at affordable prices.
Demand for these so-called nanosatellites – which weigh less than 10 kilograms (22 pounds) and are in some cases as small as a shoebox – is expected to explode in the next few years. And China’s rocket entrepreneurs reckon there is no better place to develop inexpensive launch vehicles than their home country.
“For suborbital clients, their focus will be on scientific research and some commercial uses. After entering orbit, the near-term focus (of clients) will certainly be on satellites,” Hu said.
In the near term, China envisions massive constellations of commercial satellites that can offer services ranging from high-speed internet for aircraft to tracking coal shipments. Universities conducting experiments and companies looking to offer remote-sensing and communication services are among the potential domestic customers for nanosatellites.
A handful of U.S. small-rocket companies are also developing launchers ahead of the expected boom. One of the biggest, Rocket Lab, has already put 25 satellites in orbit.
No private company in China has done that yet. Since October, two – LandSpace and OneSpace – have tried but failed, illustrating the difficulties facing space start-ups everywhere.
The Chinese companies are approaching inexpensive launches in different ways. Some, like OneSpace, are designing cheap, disposable boosters. LinkSpace’s Hu aspires to build reusable rockets that return to Earth after delivering their payload, much like the Falcon 9 rockets of Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
“If you’re a small company and you can only build a very, very small rocket because that’s all you have money for, then your profit margins are going to be narrower,” said Macro Caceres, analyst at U.S. aerospace consultancy Teal Group.
“But if you can take that small rocket and make it reusable, and you can launch it once a week, four times a month, 50 times a year, then with more volume, your profit increases,” Caceres added.
Eventually LinkSpace hopes to charge no more than 30 million yuan ($4.48 million) per launch, Hu told Reuters.
That is a fraction of the $25 million to $30 million needed for a launch on a Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems Pegasus, a commonly used small rocket. The Pegasus is launched from a high-flying aircraft and is not reusable.
(Click https://reut.rs/2UVBjKs to see a picture package of China’s rocket start-ups. Click https://tmsnrt.rs/2GIy9Bc for an interactive look at the nascent industry.)
NEED FOR CASH
LinkSpace plans to conduct suborbital launch tests using a bigger recoverable rocket in the first half of 2020, reaching altitudes of at least 100 kilometers, then an orbital launch in 2021, Hu told Reuters.
The company is in its third round of fundraising and wants to raise up to 100 million yuan, Hu said. It had secured tens of millions of yuan in previous rounds.
After a surge in fresh funding in 2018, firms like LinkSpace are pushing out prototypes, planning more tests and even proposing operational launches this year.
Last year, equity investment in China’s space start-ups reached 3.57 billion yuan ($533 million), a report by Beijing-based investor FutureAerospace shows, with a burst of financing in late 2018.
That accounted for about 18 percent of global space start-up investments in 2018, a historic high, according to Reuters calculations based on a global estimate by Space Angels. The New York-based venture capital firm said global space start-up investments totaled $2.97 billion last year.
“Costs for rocket companies are relatively high, but as to how much funding they need, be it in the hundreds of millions, or tens of millions, or even just a few million yuan, depends on the company’s stage of development,” said Niu Min, founder of FutureAerospace.
FutureAerospace has invested tens of millions of yuan in LandSpace, based in Beijing.
Like space-launch startups elsewhere in the world, the immediate challenge for Chinese entrepreneurs is developing a safe and reliable rocket.
Proven talent to develop such hardware can be found in China’s state research institutes or the military; the government directly supports private firms by allowing them to launch from military-controlled facilities.
But it’s still a high-risk business, and one unsuccessful launch might kill a company.
“The biggest problem facing all commercial space companies, especially early-stage entrepreneurs, is failure” of an attempted flight, Liang Jianjun, chief executive of rocket company Space Trek, told Reuters. That can affect financing, research, manufacturing and the team’s morale, he added.
Space Trek is planning its first suborbital launch by the end of June and an orbital launch next year, said Liang, who founded the company in late 2017 with three other former military technical officers.
Despite LandSpace’s failed Zhuque-1 orbital launch in October, the Beijing-based firm secured 300 million yuan in additional funding for the development of its Zhuque-2 rocket a month later.
In December, the company started operating China’s first private rocket production facility in Zhejiang province, in anticipation of large-scale manufacturing of its Zhuque-2, which it expects to unveil next year.
STATE COMPETITION
China’s state defense contractors are also trying to get into the low-cost market.
In December, the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp (CASIC) successfully launched a low-orbit communication satellite, the first of 156 that CASIC aims to deploy by 2022 to provide more stable broadband connectivity to rural China and eventually developing countries.
The satellite, Hongyun-1, was launched on a rocket supplied by the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp (CASC), the nation’s main space contractor.
In early April, the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALVT), a subsidiary of CASC, completed engine tests for its Dragon, China’s first rocket meant solely for commercial use, clearing the path for a maiden flight before July.
The Dragon, much bigger than the rockets being developed by private firms, is designed to carry multiple commercial satellites.
At least 35 private Chinese companies are working to produce more satellites.
Spacety, a satellite maker based in southern Hunan province, plans to put 20 satellites in orbit this year, including its first for a foreign client, chief executive Yang Feng told Reuters.
The company has only launched 12 on state-produced rockets since the company started operating in early 2016.
“When it comes to rocket launches, what we care about would be cost, reliability and time,” Yang said.
(Reporting by Ryan Woo; Additional reporting by Beijing newsroom; Editing by Gerry Doyle)
JOHANNESBURG – At least one person is reported dead and homes have been destroyed by a powerful cyclone that struck northern Mozambique and continues to dump rain on the region, with the United Nations warning of “massive flooding.”
Cyclone Kenneth arrived just six weeks after Cyclone Idai tore into central Mozambique, killing more than 600 people and displacing scores of thousands. The U.N. says this is the first time in known history that the southern African nation has been hit by two cyclones in one season.
Forecasters say the new cyclone made landfall Thursday night in a part of Mozambique that has not seen such a storm in at least 60 years.
Mozambique’s local emergency operations center says a woman in the city of Pemba was killed by a falling tree.
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