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$1 billion raised to rebuild Paris’ Notre Dame after fire

Nearly $1 billion has already poured in from ordinary worshippers and high-powered magnates around the world to restore Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris after a massive fire.

Construction teams brought in a huge crane and a delivery of planks of wood to the site Wednesday morning.

French President Emmanuel Macron ratcheted up the pressure by setting a five-year deadline to restore the 12th-century landmark. Macron is holding a special Cabinet meeting Wednesday dedicated to the Notre Dame disaster.

Presidential cultural heritage envoy Stephane Bern told broadcaster France-Info on Wednesday that 880 million euros ($995 million) has been raised so far. Contributors include Apple and magnates who own L'Oreal, Chanel and Dior, as well as Catholics and others from around France and the world.

Authorities consider the fire an accident.

Source: Fox News World

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T Mobile, Sprint face new FCC questions on tie-up

FILE PHOTO: A sign for a T-Mobile store is seen in Manhattan, New York
FILE PHOTO: A sign for a T-Mobile store is seen in Manhattan, New York, U.S., April 30, 2018. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton

April 25, 2019

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – T-Mobile US Inc and Sprint Corp executives this week urged senior U.S. regulators to approve the proposed tie-up, saying the combined company would have the incentive to slash prices, according to a filing on Thursday.

At the meeting Wednesday, Federal Communications Commission officials questioned company executives about such issues as “submitted economic modeling, including how it is conservative in measuring benefits and pricing constraints,” according to a filing with the FCC from a lawyer for the companies.

“They also discussed their pricing commitments as well as the incentives for New T-Mobile to aggressively lower prices,” the letter said.

The carriers argued that customers with prepaid phone plans “would be among the biggest beneficiaries of the transaction.” They suggested that without the merger, T-Mobile and Sprint “will likely have to raise prices” because they “will lack the capacity to keep up with growing demand for wireless data.”

Congressional Democrats and consumer activists have objected to the $26 billion merger saying it will raise prices for wireless customers. Kathleen Ham, senior vice president for government affairs at T-Mobile, along with lawyers for both companies, met with FCC Chief of Staff Matthew Berry and other senior officials on Wednesday to answer questions about the deal.

If completed, the tie-up of the third- and fourth-largest U.S. wireless carriers would create a carrier with 127 million customers that would be a formidable competitor to the No. 1 wireless carrier Verizon Communications Inc and No. 2 AT&T Inc.

Last week, T-Mobile chief executive John Legere and Sprint executive chairman Marcelo Claure made the case for the deal to FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel.

In February, a group of eight Democratic senators and independent Senator Bernie Sanders urged the Justice Department and FCC to reject the deal, saying it could boost monthly bills as much as 10 percent.

Sources told Reuters last week that the Justice Department had concerns about the merger’s current structure. Legere met last week with the head of the Justice Department’s antitrust division, Makan Delrahim, as the government’s review nears a conclusion, Reuters reported. A decision is likely by early June, people briefed on the matter said.

In October, shareholders for both companies approved the deal, struck in April 2018. It has also received national security clearance, but still needs approval from the Justice Department and FCC. A number of state attorneys general are also reviewing it.

To win support, T-Mobile had said it would not increase prices for three years and will offer 5G services at no additional charge.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by David Gregorio)

Source: OANN

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25 MS-13 gang members deported from migrant caravan in Mexico, officials say

At least 25 gang members affiliated with the MS-13 gang were deported from Mexico after they were revealed to be concealed within the caravan of 1,600 Central American migrants just across the U.S. border, immigration officials said Tuesday.

The caravan first arrived in Piedras Negras, Mexico, two weeks ago across the border from Eagle Pass, Texas when officials from the Instituto Nacional de Migración identified 10 gang members from Mara Salvatrucha, also known as MS-13.

But after warehouse scuffles with police last week, officials discovered and deported 15 additional MS-13 "agitators," INM Media Deputy Director Aline Juarez told Fox News.

In addition to the gang members, a total of 70 central American migrants have been deported to their home countries, while about 1,500 have been granted humanitarian visas to move freely within Mexico.

MIGRANTS BRAVE THE RIO GRANDE, LOOKING TOWARD EAGLE PASS, TEXAS

News of the deportations was first reported by Mexican state news agency Notimex. The news agency reported that deportations came after issues at a shelter in the border city of Piedras Negras.

On Saturday, officials said the shelter where hundreds of Central American migrants have been confined will close by Wednesday.

Coahuila State Public Safety Secretary Jose Luis Pliego told the Associated Press that authorities have taken some 400 migrants to neighboring states such as Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas to be incorporated into the workforce, while others may seek other options to try to cross into the United States.

Some migrants still at the shelter said they were not being allowed to come and go despite holding the permits, and they hope to leave as soon as possible for fear of possible deportation.

"I don't feel safe here," Donaldo, a Honduran migrant who declined to give his last name, told the AP.

Six-year-old Daniela Fernanda Portillo Burgos sits on the shoulders of her mother, Iris Jamilet, 39, as they look out through the fence of a immigrant shelter in Piedras Negras, Mexico, Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2019.

Six-year-old Daniela Fernanda Portillo Burgos sits on the shoulders of her mother, Iris Jamilet, 39, as they look out through the fence of a immigrant shelter in Piedras Negras, Mexico, Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2019. (Jerry Lara/The San Antonio Express-News via AP)

The migrants have wanted to appear at the U.S. border to apply for asylum, but only about a dozen per day have been allowed to do so.

BORDER AGENTS OVERWHELMED AS TEXAS BEGINS PROCESSING MIGRANT CARAVAN

Last month, border patrol sources told Fox News that authorities arrested more than 100 people believed to be El Salvadorian gang members in the Rio Grande Valley Border Patrol Sector in Texas.

The notorious MS-13 gang that originated in Los Angeles prisons before infiltrating the rest of the U.S. is mainly comprised of El Salvadorans.

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The Rio Grande Valley Sector is where President Trump visited in January amid the partial government shutdown to highlight what he called a crisis of crime and drugs along the southern border.

Agents in the sector patrol an area of over 17,000 square miles in 19 counties, which includes 320 river miles and 250 coastal miles, according to CBP.

Fox News' Griff Jenkins and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News World

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New Mexico led US pecan production after storm hit Georgia

New Mexico became the national leader in pecan production last year after Hurricane Michael struck down large swaths of Georgia's crop, new U.S. Department of Agriculture numbers show.

New Mexico produced about 90 million pounds of pecans in 2018 compared to Georgia's 56 million, the Carlsbad Current-Argus reports .

Georgia, traditionally the largest pecan-producing state, saw its crop crippled by the storm, cutting production by almost half from 107 million pounds.

Lenny Wells, associate professor of Horticulture with a focus on pecans at the University of Georgia, said 17 percent of the state's pecan acreage was lost to the storm.

Georgia lost about $100 million in pecan crops, $260 million in trees, and up to $200 million in future income, Wells said.

"We had some pretty severe devastation," Wells said.

The storm landed in the Florida panhandle on Oct. 10 and quickly moved into Georgia's southwest corner with winds up to 125 mph.

It proceeded into the state with winds sustained at about 100 mph.

Hurricane Michael was the first Category 3 storm to impact Georgia since the 1890s, the National Weather Service reported.

In 2017, about 97 percent of New Mexico's 90 million pounds of pecans were produced in five of its 33 counties, according to the most recent data from the USDA's New Mexico Annual Bulletin.

About 73 percent of the statewide crop came from Doña Ana County, with Eddy County producing about 11 percent.

Records show Texas and Arizona ranked third and fourth in production.

New Mexico reported a growth of almost 50 million pounds in the past decade from 43 million pounds in 2008.

___

Information from: Carlsbad Current-Argus, http://www.currentargus.com/

Source: Fox News National

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Is Assange Facing Arrest?

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Source: InfoWars

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Children of Stalin’s victims and jailers bury ghosts of past in Siberian village

Local resident Vera Lazareva and her grandson show photos of their late relatives in a Siberian settlement founded as a logging camp and part of the Soviet Union's Gulag prison labour system, Tugach
Local resident Vera Lazareva, 66, resident of a Siberian settlement founded as a logging camp and part of the Soviet Union's Gulag prison labour system, and her grandson Grigory, 13, show photographs of their late relatives while posing for a picture at a house in Tugach southeast of Krasnoyarsk, Russia October 29, 2018. The photographs show guard of Kraslag prison camp Pavel Yarg (R) and inmate Fyodor Chuchko. Picture taken October 29, 2018. REUTERS/Ilya Naymushin

April 5, 2019

By Ilya Naymushin

TUGACH, Russia (Reuters) – More than half a century after Josef Stalin’s prison camps closed, descendants of inmates and guards of one have found peace with each other by confronting their village’s dark past.

Founded as a labor camp in 1937 during Stalin’s Great Terror, in which hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens were executed and many more locked up, the village of Tugach is home to the descendents of those forced to toil there and those who ran the facility.

Undernourished prisoners, frostbitten in winter and feasted on by flies in summer as they felled wood, died at a rate of up to 8 percent at camps in the area from disease, dysentery and other problems stemming from their bad conditions.

Tugach, a logging camp and part of the Soviet Union’s sprawling Gulag prison labor system, was closed in 1957 after Stalin’s death, but some people saw no choice but to remain as they had little money, had lost contact with family and friends, and bore the stigma of being a former inmate.

In the decades after its closure, unmarked graves where prisoners had been buried at night were left untouched.

Relations were tense between the descendants of the prisoners, who saw the camp as a place of horrific political retribution, and those of the jailers who viewed it as a legitimate facility that administered genuine justice.

The situation began to change a decade ago when some of Tugach’s 600 residents set about creating a museum to chronicle its past, a cathartic process that sparked discussion and transformed the mood.

“I personally feel a great moral weight has been lifted,” said Lidia Slepets, 66, whose father, Gerasim Bersenyov, was exiled from Kazakhstan. Exonerated after Stalin’s death and freed, he married the widow of a prison guard killed in World War Two.

Slepets’ father wept whenever the camps came up in conversation, his daughter said.

The museum, set up in a wooden barracks where prisoners were once held, includes camp artifacts and a viewing point at an old river jetty.

“The work on the museum reconciled and united almost everyone,” Slepets said.

Historians say the grassroots initiative to memorialize the victims of Stalin’s repressions is rare for Russia where the authorities emphasize the Soviet leader’s role in the country’s World War Two victory.

“The situation in Tugach is so unusual that I can’t remember a single other situation or similar project where the people themselves, without an outside initiative, undertook the commemoration of those illegally repressed,” Alexei Babiy, local chairman of the Memorial history and civil rights group, said.

(Writing by Tom Balmforth; Editing by Andrew Osborn and Robin Pomeroy)

Source: OANN

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Ford CFO Bob Shanks to retire

FILE PHOTO: Ford logo is seen at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Michigan
FILE PHOTO: The Ford logo is seen at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Michigan, U.S., January 15, 2019. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo

March 21, 2019

(Reuters) – Ford Motor Co said on Thursday its Chief Financial Officer Bob Shanks would retire at the end of 2019.

Shanks, 66, will be succeeded by Tim Stone, who served 20 years at Amazon, and was the former CFO of Snap Inc.

Stone will join Ford on April 15 as a company officer and assume the role of chief financial officer on June 1, Ford said.

(Reporting by Sanjana Shivdas in Bengaluru; Editing by James Emmanuel)

Source: OANN

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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.

WHY THE MEDIA ARE CONVINCED JOE BIDEN WILL IMPLODE

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.”

— Dr. Neal Kassell

BIDEN’S CLAIM HE DIDN’T WANT OBAMA TO ENDORSE TRIGGERS MOCKERY

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.”

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Sanders released his medical records in 2016, with a Senate physician saying in a letter that the senator was “in overall very good health.”

Source: Fox News Politics

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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.

Source: Fox News World

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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.”

Source: Fox News World

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The Wider Image: China's start-ups go small in age of 'shoebox' satellites
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)

Source: OANN

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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.

Source: Fox News World

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