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Seller’s market seen aiding Illinois and Chicago bond issues

FILE PHOTO: An aerial view shows the skyline and lakefront of Chicago
FILE PHOTO: An aerial view shows the skyline and lakefront of Chicago, Illinois, U.S., August 14, 2014. REUTERS/Jim Young

March 25, 2019

By Karen Pierog

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Financial uncertainties swirling around Illinois and Chicago may not deter bond buyers when the two fiscally shaky governments sell more than $1.1 billion of debt this week.

Slim supply in the $3.8 trillion U.S. municipal market, yield-hungry investors, and the shelving of interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve for the remainder of 2019 have tipped the scale in favor of sellers, investment managers said.

“We believe that if (Chicago and Illinois are) going to pick a time to come to market, now is a pretty good time to be coming,” said Dan Heckman, national investment consultant at U.S. Bank.

Illinois, the lowest-rated U.S. state at a notch or two above junk due to its huge unfunded pension liability and chronic structural budget deficit, will offer $452 million of taxable and tax-exempt general obligation (GO) bonds in competitive bidding on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, underwriters led by Barclays are scheduled to price $700 million of GO bonds for Chicago, which is also struggling with pension funding and deficits, just days before the city elects a mayor to replace the retiring Rahm Emanuel, who served two terms.

“My gut tells me these deals are going to get done and done at a level that is pretty attractive for Illinois and the city of Chicago and over a longer period of time will likely prove unattractive for investors,” said Nicholos Venditti, a portfolio manager at Thornburg Investment Management.

Illinois’ deal comes just weeks after the new Democratic governor, J.B. Pritzker, unveiled a fiscal 2020 budget and a plan to rescue the state’s sagging finances by switching to graduated income tax rates via a constitutional amendment process.

Budget measures, including the use of one-time revenue and a more than $800 million reduction in contributions to the state’s woefully underfunded pensions, could push Illinois closer to a junk credit rating.

“That is a significant risk,” Venditti said, adding that the situation is even “scarier” in Chicago, which already has a junk rating with Moody’s Investors Service, along with ratings of BBB-plus with S&P Global Ratings and BBB-minus with Fitch Ratings.

The city’s two mayoral candidates – Toni Preckwinkle, who currently heads the Cook County Board of Commissioners, and attorney Lori Lightfoot – have not disclosed detailed plans for addressing a projected $252 million fiscal 2020 budget deficit and escalating pension payments that will top $2 billion in 2023.

“At the city level, I think investors are flying blind,” Venditti said.

Meanwhile, demand is strong with municipal bond funds, including high yield, reporting big weekly inflows of investor dollars since early January, according to Lipper.

Muni bond supply totaling $63.8 billion so far in 2019 is 12 percent below the average year-to-date volume in the previous five years, according to Refinitiv data.

Given the “very, very attractive” muni bond environment for issuers, Heckman said there will be appetite for debt from Illinois and Chicago if their deals are “priced appropriately.”

Investors have been demanding hefty yields for the governments’ GO debt, with Illinois paying the biggest penalty among states.

(Reporting by Karen Pierog in Chicago; Editing by Matthew Lewis)

Source: OANN

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More civilians leave Islamic State’s Syria enclave, delaying final assault

Boy looks out of a truck tarp near the village of Baghouz
A boy looks out of a truck tarp near the village of Baghouz, Deir Al Zor province, in Syria March 7, 2019. REUTERS/Rodi Said

March 9, 2019

By Rodi Said

BAGHOUZ, Syria (Reuters) – The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) paused military operations against Islamic State (IS) militants holed up in the group’s final enclave in eastern Syria, expecting more civilians to be evacuated from the area on Saturday, an SDF official said.

Thousands of people – many of them the wives of IS fighters and their children – have been streaming out of besieged enclave at Baghouz for weeks, forcing the SDF to delay the assault to wipe out the last vestige of the jihadists’ territorial rule.

The SDF has said it wants to make sure all civilians are out of the enclave before launching its final assault. Hundreds of IS fighters have also surrendered, but the SDF believes the most hardened foreign jihadists are still inside.

“There are a number of families … military operations are paused now for their evacuation,” Mustafa Bali, head of the SDF media office, told Reuters.

Trucks used for the evacuations went into Baghouz on Saturday and four have so far emerged carrying people, a Reuters witness said.

On Friday, Bali said the SDF would resume the assault if no more civilians had emerged by Saturday afternoon.

Those emerging from Baghouz are screened by the SDF and most are sent north to the al-Hol camp, already overcrowded with uprooted Syrians and Iraqis from years of war.

More than 62,000 people displaced by fighting around the IS enclave have flooded al-Hol camp, with 5,200 arriving between March 5-7 and thousands more expected, the United Nations said on Friday.

The weather is cold and rainy and there is a shortage of tents and supplies. Dozens of children have died on the way to the camp. The International Rescue Committee (IRC) on Friday said al-Hol was at “breaking point”.

“No one could have guessed that such a large number of women and children were still living in Baghouz,” IRC spokeswoman Misty Buswell said.

Those arriving in al-Hol are in “extremely poor health” with malnutrition, diarrhoea and skin diseases. Many of the women arriving at the camp are either heavily pregnant or have recently given birth, IRC said.

After suddenly seizing swathes of land straddling the Iraqi-Syrian border in 2014 and declaring it their caliphate, Islamic State was beaten back by numerous local and foreign forces in both countries, suffering major defeats in 2017.

However, the jihadists remain a threat. In Iraq they have gone to ground, staging waves of killings and kidnappings. In Syria, their comrades hold out in remote desert areas and have carried out bombings in areas controlled by the SDF.

Islamic State on Saturday said it had carried out a suicide car bomb attack near the Syrian town of Manbij to signal to foreign troops that they are not safe in the country. Manbij is controlled by a militia allied to the SDF.

“The crusaders on Syrian soil shall know they are being watched and will not be secure while our blood beats,” a statement published by the IS-affiliated Amaq news agency said.

In an email to Reuters, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition backing the SDF, Colonel Sean Ryan, denied Islamic State’s claim that the blast had killed three U.S. armed forces members and injured others.

(Reporting by Rodi Said in Syria; additional reporting by Hesham Hajali in Cairo; Writing by Lisa Barrington in Beirut; Editing by Tom Perry and Ros Russell)

Source: OANN

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Papadopoulos: FBI Wanted Me to Wear a Wire

A former Trump campaign aide central to the early days of the FBI's Russia investigation said the FBI wanted him to wear a wire to record conversations with a professor who had told him the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton.

George Papadopoulos, the first of five Trump aides to plead guilty and agree to cooperate in special counsel Robert Mueller's recently-concluded investigation, told House lawmakers and staff in a closed-door interview last October that he rejected the FBI request.

A transcript of that interview was released Tuesday by the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee as part of an ongoing effort to sow doubt about the origins of the FBI's investigation into possible coordination between Russia and President Donald Trump's campaign. Mueller ended his investigation last week without finding a criminal conspiracy between Russia and the Trump campaign to affect the 2016 presidential election, according to a Justice Department summary of his findings released Sunday.

Papadopoulos was a vital figure in the early days of the FBI's investigation. The revelation that Papadopoulos had learned in an April 2016 meeting in London that Russia had "dirt" on Democrat Hillary Clinton in the form of thousands of stolen emails helped kick start the FBI probe months later.

In his interview with lawmakers, Papadopoulos says an FBI agent asked him during a 2017 encounter to wear a wire to a record future conversations with the Maltese professor, Joseph Mifsud, who he has said told him about the "dirt."

"And he basically told me that Washington wants answers and you're at the center of this, something like that to make it seem like I was in some deep trouble if I wasn't going to wear a wire against this person," Papadopoulos said, describing his conversation with the agent. "I rejected it."

The FBI did not immediately return an email seeking comment.

Papadopoulos said he wasn't sure what to make of Mifsud's claim about Russia having dirt on Clinton since, at the time, "people were openly speculating about that."

"So yeah, it was an interesting piece of information, but you know, by that point you have to understand, he had failed to introduce me to anyone of substance in the Russian Government," Papadopoulos said. "So he failed to do that, but now all of a sudden he has the keys to the kingdom about a massive potential conspiracy that Russia is involved in.

Papadopoulos pleaded guilty last year to lying to the FBI about his conversations with Mifsud and was sentenced to 14 days in prison. Papadopoulos has been promoting a new book called "Deep State Target: How I Got Caught in the Crosshairs of the Plot to Bring Down President Trump."

The Papadopoulos transcript is the latest release over the last month from Rep. Doug Collins, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee. Other transcripts recently made public include those of Justice Department lawyer Bruce Ohr and ex-FBI employees Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, all steady targets of Trump's outrage.

Source: NewsMax Politics

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Persistence and Political Correctness at Amherst

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By Richard Bernstein, RealClearInvestigations
April 23, 2019
Sometimes in the culture wars, the identity-politics camp leans so far to a politically correct extreme that liberals and conservatives alike reject it. Or so it would seem. A recent episode at Amherst College is worth examining less as a defeat for political correctness than a tactical retreat illustrating that the cult of identity politics on campus shows little sign of weakening.

Withdrawn from circulation, but why?

What happened is this: Last month Amherst’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion sent all 1,850 or so students at the elite western Massachusetts school an attractively produced 36-page brochure called the Amherst Common Language Guide, with definitions of “key diversity and inclusion terms.” Its clear emphasis: “Marginalized groups” were being oppressed by what the document called the “cisheteropatriarchy” -- a system of domination by straight white men – through racism, sexism, oppression, hegemony, and exploitation.

Within hours of the guide’s release, a member of the Amherst College Republicans leaked the brochure to the conservative Daily Wire website, which pronounced it “something out of ‘1984.’ ” A crescendo of ridicule from conservative websites and blogs followed.

But it wasn't just the right piling on. Members of the predominantly liberal Amherst faculty, who were not consulted about the guide as it was being drafted, criticized it too.

At a post-release meeting of some 70 faculty members, “the people who departed most strenuously from the guide were on the left, including transgender faculty members,” said one of those present, Francis G. Couvares, the chairman of the Amherst History Department, speaking by phone.

Soon after, the language guide was withdrawn from circulation, erased from the college website, with college President Carolyn Martin proclaiming it “counter to the core academic values of freedom of thought and expression.” End of story.

Or was it? 

Conservative bloggers weren’t the only ones portraying the Amherst Common Language Guide not as an aberration quickly withdrawn but as part of a persistent effort that will continue.

The objection among Amherst faculty wasn't so much to the politics of the document but to what seemed an effort by a branch of the college administration to impose simple, one-sided views on topics that are very much open for discussion. In other words, it contravened the idea that the college is supposed to teach students how to think, not what to think.

Carolyn "Biddy" Martin, Amherst president: The language guide was “counter to the core academic values of freedom of thought and expression.”

Amherst College

Nevertheless, people at Amherst, including some who opposed the guide, mounted strong defenses of the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, saying that its intentions were honorable and that it, and others like it across the country, perform a vital, necessary function. 

“You can't blame colleges and universities or their faculties for a culture that's becoming more and more concerned with race, class, and gender,” Michaela Brangan, visiting assistant professor of law, jurisprudence, and social thought, said in a phone interview.  Brangan did not approve of the guide, which she said was “ill-conceived and ill-executed,” and she wishes faculty had known about and been involved in its making.

But she supports the ODI and its general mission, and disputes the notion that it is attempting to impose an ideology. Rather, she said, it is responding to a genuine need of an institution whose young members are often associating with people of different races or sexualities for the first time, or are themselves minorities on campus.  She feels that other language guides published at other universities have been successful, giving as an example one at the Virginia Commonwealth University. 

“The diversity mission—and the offices tasked with handling it—didn’t come out of any left-wing echo chamber,” she said in an email, referring to the phrase often used by conservatives and others to depict diversity programs as promoting a uniform point of view. “ 'Diversity' is from the  Supreme Court case UC Regents v Bakke in 1978, and was justified under First Amendment doctrine by the arch-conservative justice, Lewis Powell Jr, as the only 'compelling interest' of the state that allowed colleges to use race-conscious assessments, as part of a holistic admissions process.”

“The ODI is there for those who feel that they need it,” she continued. “The staff that is there are those who want to be doing that work with students, who are figuring out how to navigate a hierarchical, assessment-heavy college system that wasn't really made with them in mind." Those who created the guide, she said, "believed that it was responding to a need for a specific resource.”

College Row at Amherst.

Wikipedia

It is hard to read the actual Amherst Common Language Guide without being struck by its saturation in the conventional assumptions of the identity-politics left.

There's the entry on the “Male Gaze,” which emerged from “feminist film theory,” whereby “the power of looking is centralized in the man who is the bearer of the look, and the patriarchal order is reified [while] women are objectified and consumed by men.”

Or there's the one on “Intersectionality,” a fashionable term now well established at practically every institution of higher learning:  “Intersectionality,” according to the CLG, is “a term...to name the intersections of multiple, mutually reinforcing systems of oppression [showing] how the individual experience is impacted by multiple axes of oppression and privilege.” (That's correct: “Mutually reinforcing system of oppression,” and “multiple axes of oppression” in a single sentence.)

Or “Mysogynoir”: A term “coined by black queer feminist scholar Moya Bailey to describe the particular racialist sexism that black women face.”

Pretty much nobody white is spared some sort of complicity in the oppression of others.  “White Feminism,” for example, is feminism that “is predicated on the erasure of women of color.” It is “feminism absent intersectionality.” You might think that “fragile masculinity” is a condition of nervous boys calling up girls for a date, but no.  It's “a state of requiring affirmation of one's masculinity and manhood in order to feel power and dominance.”   

The term that aroused perhaps the most pungently negative comment was the one on “Capitalism,” which, according to the CLG, is “an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by state.” So far so good. But the definition continues, as if stating a universally accepted truth: This system leads to “exploitative labor practices, which affect marginalized groups disproportionately.”

The diversity bureaucracy's own publication.

Journal of Diversity in Higher Education

According to some faculty members, these definitions were written over a two-year period by the members of the Amherst ODI, which is precisely why some dissenters from multiculturalist trends didn't find the college's withdrawal of the document a clear victory for free inquiry.  The Amherst ODI's definitions, after all, didn't come from nowhere.  They arose from what critics of it call the “diversity industry,” the burgeoning number of college ODIs that are now as commonly accepted, and taken for granted, on campus as the admissions office or the football team.

The conservative City Journal in a study last year found, for example, that the University of Michigan has 100 full-time diversity officers; UC-Berkeley, 175. 

Moreover, as some studies have shown, university administrators tend to be more ideologically uniform (that is to say, more “liberal” or “progressive”) even than faculties—by a ratio of roughly 12-to-1, liberals over conservatives.  There do not appear to be any surveys of ODIs alone, but they would seem to fit the pattern, and that's probably almost inevitable, given that people with conservative ideas, or evangelical Christians, or anti-abortion feminists, seem unlikely to want be college diversity officers 

The diversity bureaucracy has its own publication, The Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, which, its website says, “offers insights into theory and research that can help guide the efforts of institutions of higher education in the pursuit of inclusive excellence,” a term that critics say sounds unobjectionable, but actually means giving preference to women and minorities over white men in hiring, rather than simply hiring the best person for the job. 

There's also a professional association, The National Association of Diversity Officers, whose annual conference in March this year was devoted to the topic “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Imperatives of the 21st Century.”  Workshops were on subjects like “The Neuroscience of Social Justice” and “So You Want to be a Chief Diversity Officer?”

The website of Amherst's ODI lists 20 staff members, including Norm J. Jones, the chief diversity and inclusion officer, a “director of inclusive leadership” two “faculty diversity and inclusion members,” an “associate dean for diversity and inclusion,” the director of the Women's and Gender Center, the director of the Queer Resource Center, the director of the Multiculturalism Resource Center, a specialist for “race education and programs,” a “dialogue coordinator,” and a “dialogue facilitator,” this last person teaching a course called “Learning and Teaching With Feminism in Mind.”

The office is the main response of Amherst to the increased presence of non-traditional students and the demand of some of them to create tolerant and supportive environments.  The college, according to available statistics, says that its student body is now 38 percent people of color, presumably including a significant number of ethnic Asians. Nearly 30 percent of students receive Pell Grants, federal subsidies given to low-income students. There are, of course, gay, lesbian, and transgender students, who in the past might have kept their sexual identities secret, but who are no longer willing to do so and feel that they are subject to discrimination and prejudice.

The irony is that the Amherst ODI, in pressing its agenda to the point of what many called self-parody, may have harmed its ability to help these students.  “Part of the problem was that they didn't get out of the bubble of the diversity community,” Couvares said, referring to the authors of the language guide.  “Even my colleagues of transgender history said, 'This is ridiculous.'” 

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Bond yield curveball stalls global stocks rally

The German share price index DAX graph at the stock exchange in Frankfurt
The German share price index DAX graph is pictured at the stock exchange in Frankfurt, Germany, March 29, 2019. REUTERS/Staff/File Photo

March 31, 2019

By Josephine Mason

LONDON (Reuters) – This year’s roaring rally in world equities ran into sand by the end of the quarter, with warning signs from bond markets, U-turns from central banks and persistent trade worries scattering consensus about what happens over the rest of 2019.

The pan-European STOXX 600 index has climbed 12.2 percent in the first three months of the year, its best quarter in four years, while the S&P 500 is on track for its biggest quarterly gain in nearly a decade.

A bounceback was expected after the historic rout in late 2018, but few investors predicted the size of the rebound or the scale of the about-turn by European and U.S. central banks on interest rates that helped fuel it.

The majority of the gains were logged in January – between 6 and 8 percent – as dovish comments from the Federal Reserve, economic stimulus in China and easing trade tensions between Beijing and Washington soothed worries about slowing economic growth.

In March, however, the pace slowed to 1 percent as euphoria over slower rate hikes turned to worries about what the uber-dovish Fed and ECB stance said about the world economy amid tepid U.S. and euro-zone growth.

Now few are taking a strong view.

“People are wondering if they’ve missed the rally and then they think it doesn’t make sense to invest when the curve is inverted and the economy is slowing,” said Willem Sels, chief market strategist at HSBC Private Banking.

He reckons global stocks have the potential to rise another 5 to 7 percent, with the inversion of the bond yield curve overdone.

“The next few weeks will be more volatile, people are going to be concerned until they see the data improve and Q1 earnings might not be very good so we’re in a zone of higher volatility,” he said.

A poll of investors across the globe in February revealed the wide dispersion of views about how equities will fare over the next 12 months, illustrating the lack of consensus across the market.

Take the estimates for the S&P 500: The highest called for the index to rise 25 percent, while the most bearish pegged the market falling by around 10 percent by mid-2020.

Europe displayed a similar disparity, with estimates ranging between a 15 percent rise and a plus-20 percent increase for the STOXX 600.

In the end, the median forecast for the pan-European STOXX 600 and FTSE 100 were level with the current markets, suggesting that gains across stocks have run their course.

(Graphic: Stocks poll forecasts – https://tmsnrt.rs/2Wp4txY)

(Graphic: Stocks poll forecasts 2 – https://tmsnrt.rs/2Wpouoa)

For an interactive version of these charts, click here:

https://tmsnrt.rs/2Wgtc7w

https://tmsnrt.rs/2WmcQu3

Implied volatility in European and U.S. stock markets, often viewed as a gauge of fear, also plunged in the first quarter. The Wall Street fear gauge has more than halved to 13 points from the December peaks, while the same measure in Europe dropped to a third of its late-2018 highs.

(Graphic: The VIX volatility gauge falls by half in Q1 2019 – https://tmsnrt.rs/2V4QE7o)

(Graphic: Global market asset performance 2019 – https://tmsnrt.rs/2HMUijc)

For an interactive version of these charts, click here:

https://tmsnrt.rs/2V2WLsT

https://tmsnrt.rs/2HN0aJE

YIELD CURVEBALL

Capping off a wild quarter were big gyrations in U.S. bond yields last week, which plunged investors deeper into confusion.

With 10-year U.S. bond yields below 3-month T-bill rates for the first time in more than a decade, recession fears were swirling.

But the 2- to 10-year yield curve steepened, offering conflicting signals that there was no cause for alarm.

After all, the world economy is actually chugging along at a decent clip, company earnings are still growing, albeit more slowly, and leading central banks are increasingly dovish.

While it might take months before the markets settle – and it’s dependent on decent macroeconomic data – Wouter Sturkenboom, chief investment strategist for EMEA and APAC at Northern Trust, reckons the bond moves have been overplayed.

“We believe government bonds are overdoing it right now. That’s a vote of no confidence in the Fed and its communication strategy. That’s why we are not de-

(Graphic: U.S. yield curve inverts for first time since 2007 – https://tmsnrt.rs/2UNVc1P)

To break stocks out of their lethargy, investors need some decent macroeconomic data and first-quarter earnings to restore battered confidence.

“We’ve gone a long way now toward pricing in the central banks, and for risk assets to push on into Q2 we are going to need growth to pick up the baton,” said Paul O’Connor, head of Janus Henderson’s UK-based multi-asset team.

“The way risk assets have begun to react to the yield curve is further confirmation that risk assets have probably extracted as much positivity as they can from lower yields.”

But analysts have slashed their 2019 earnings forecasts to their lowest in three years, and most expect the coming earnings season to be weak.

Companies listed on the S&P 500 index are expected to report a 1.9 percent contraction in earnings in the first quarter, down from almost 17 percent growth in the fourth quarter and the worst performance in years, according to I/B/E/S Refinitiv.

European STOXX 600-listed companies are expected to deliver 2.1-percent year-on-year earnings growth, the slowest since the third quarter of 2017.

After such a breathtaking run-up, Justin Onuekwusi, fund manager at Legal & General Investment Management, said he’s not overly concerned that stocks are now taking a breather.

“We have had such a strong bounceback, but markets don’t go in a straight line. It is inevitable you will get some kind of respite,” he said.

(Graphic: Earnings growth global March 29 – https://tmsnrt.rs/2CKYuMj)

(Reporting by Josephine Mason; Additional reporting by Helen Reid and Sujata Rao; Graphics by Ritvik Carvalho; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

Source: OANN

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New Zealand PM Ardern says she will meet President Xi in China

New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern leaves after the Friday prayers at Hagley Park outside Al-Noor mosque in Christchurch
FILE PHOTO: New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern leaves after the Friday prayers at Hagley Park outside Al-Noor mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand March 22, 2019. REUTERS/Jorge Silva

March 25, 2019

WELLINGTON (Reuters) – New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Monday she will travel to China at the end of the week for a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Ardern said she would travel to Beijing on Sunday.

She first announced her plans to visit China last year but no final dates had yet been announced.

(Reporting by Charlotte Greenfield; Writing by Praveen Menon; Editing by Paul Tait)

Source: OANN

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Texas Tech topples Michigan State to reach first title game

NCAA Basketball: Final Four-Semifinals-Michigan State vs Texas Tech
Apr 6, 2019; Minneapolis, MN, USA; Texas Tech Red Raiders guard Matt Mooney (13) shoots the ball against Michigan State Spartans guard Cassius Winston (5) during the first half in the semifinals of the 2019 men's Final Four at US Bank Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports

April 7, 2019

MINNEAPOLIS – Texas Tech extended its first-ever trip to the Final Four with a 61-51 victory over Michigan State on Saturday in a national semifinal game at U.S. Bank Stadium.

The Red Raiders advance to the final game of the NCAA Tournament, Monday’s national championship game against Virginia.

On the back of fifth-year senior graduate transfer guard Matt Mooney’s 22 points, Texas Tech came out firing in the second half and held off a Spartans’ rally.

Cassius Winston led Michigan State with 16 points but shot just 4 of 16 from the floor while being tracked most of the game by Mooney, who made 8 of 16 shots and 4 of 8 from 3-point range.

Texas Tech’s Jarrett Culver, the Big 12 Player of the Year, was quiet until a raindrop right-handed runner gave Texas Tech its first field goal in five minutes and a 54-51 edge with 2:28 left.

He finished with 10 points.

Senior Matt McQuaid’s bid to tie with a long 3-point attempt at the other end rattled in and out, and Culver made the first of two free throws. Texas Tech got the ball back with its fourth steal of the game on Michigan State’s next possession, and Culver hit an uncontested trey from the top of the key, putting the Red Raiders up 58-51.

Senior Norense Odiase made two free throws to seal it with 39.7 seconds left after the Spartans’ Kenny Goins clanked a 3-point try.

The Spartans stayed in the game at the free-throw line. Sophomore Xavier Tillman rattled in two after Winston connected on four consecutive shots from the stripe, and Michigan State whittled a 12-point deficit to five (52-47) with 5:38 remaining.

The Spartans cut it to three with just over three minutes to play on freshman Aaron Henry’s two makes, then made it 52-51 when Henry’s slashing layup went in with 2:44 left.

Texas Tech roared out of the halftime locker room with buckets on four of five possessions and took an eight-point lead — 39-31 — on a three-point play by freshman Kyler Edwards. Edwards drove hard from the left baseline and moved the ball from his right to left hand, putting it off the glass as he was fouled.

On the next possession, Mooney connected on a 3-ball from the wing and after a Michigan State turnover, the senior transfer drilled another to stake Texas Tech to a 45-33 advantage, prompting a red-faced Tom Izzo to call timeout.

Most of the damage was done while Culver watched from the bench with three fouls.

Suffocating defense won the first half on either end and neither team could find its legs. Only 15 of 49 field-goal attempts went through, and Texas Tech led 23-21 at the break.

–By Jeff Reynolds, Field Level Media

Source: OANN

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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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German drug and crop chemical maker Bayer holds annual general meeting
Werner Baumann, CEO of German pharmaceutical and chemical maker Bayer AG, attends the annual general shareholders meeting in Bonn, Germany, April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay

April 26, 2019

By Patricia Weiss and Ludwig Burger

BONN (Reuters) – Bayer shareholders vented their anger over its stock price slump on Friday as litigation risks mount from the German drugmaker’s $63 billion takeover of seed maker Monsanto.

Several large investors said they will not support aspirin investor Bayer’s management in a key vote scheduled for the end of its annual general meeting.

Bayer’s management, led by chief executive Werner Baumann, could see an embarrassing plunge in approval ratings, down from 97 percent at last year’s AGM, which was held shortly before the Monsanto takeover closed in June.

A vote to ratify the board’s actions features prominently at every German AGM. Although it has no bearing on management’s liability, it is seen as a key gauge of shareholder sentiment.

“Due to the continued negative development at Bayer, high legal risks and a massive share price slump, we refuse to ratify the management board and supervisory board’s actions during the business year,” Janne Werning, representing Germany’s Union Investment, a top-20 shareholder, said in prepared remarks.

About 30 billion euros ($34 billion) have been wiped off Bayer’s market value since August, when a U.S. jury found the pesticide and drugs group liable because Monsanto had not warned of alleged cancer risks linked to its weedkiller Roundup.

Bayer suffered a similar defeat last month and more than 13,000 plaintiffs are claiming damages.

Bayer is appealing or plans to appeal the verdicts.

Deutsche Bank’s asset managing arm DWS said shareholders should have been consulted before the takeover, which was agreed in 2016 and closed in June last year.

“You are pointing out that the lawsuits have not been lost yet. We and our customers, however, have already lost something – money and trust,” Nicolas Huber, head of corporate governance at DWS, said in prepared remarks for the AGM.

He said DWS would abstain from the shareholder vote of confidence in the executive and non-executive boards.

Two people familiar with the situation told Reuters this week that Bayer’s largest shareholder, BlackRock, plans to either abstain from or vote against ratifying the management board’s actions.

Asset management firm Deka, among Bayer’s largest German investors, has also said it would cast a no vote.

Baumann said Bayer’s true value was not reflected in the current share price.

“There’s no way to make this look good. The lawsuits and the first verdicts weigh heavily on our company and it’s a concern for many people,” he said, adding it was the right decision to buy Monsanto and that Bayer was vigorously defending itself.

This month, shareholder advisory firms Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) and Glass Lewis recommended investors not to give the executive board their seal of approval.

(Reporting by Patricia Weiss and Ludwig Burger; Editing by Alexander Smith)

Source: OANN

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Sudan’s military, which ousted President Omar al-Bashir after months of protests against his 30-year rule, says it intends to keep the upper hand during the country’s transitional period to civilian rule.

The announcement is expected to raise tensions with the protesters, who demand immediate handover of power.

The Sudanese Professionals Association, which is spearheading the protests, said Friday the crowds will stay in the streets until all their demands are met.

Shams al-Deen al-Kabashi, the spokesman for the military council, said late Thursday that the military will “maintain sovereign powers” while the Cabinet would be in the hands of civilians.

The protesters insist the country should be led by a “civilian sovereign” council with “limited military representation” during the transitional period.

The army toppled and arrested al-Bashir on April 11.

Source: Fox News World

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FILE PHOTO: Small toy figures are seen in front of a displayed Huawei and 5G network logo in this illustration picture
FILE PHOTO: Small toy figures are seen in front of a displayed Huawei and 5G network logo in this illustration picture, March 30, 2019. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic

April 26, 2019

By Charlotte Greenfield

WELLINGTON (Reuters) – China’s Huawei Technologies said Britain’s decision to allow the firm a restricted role in building parts of its next-generation telecoms network was the kind of solution it was hoping for in New Zealand, where it has been blocked from 5G plans.

Britain will ban Huawei from all core parts of 5G network but give it some access to non-core parts, sources have told Reuters, as it seeks a middle way in a bitter U.S.-China dispute stemming from American allegations that Huawei’s equipment could be used by Beijing for espionage.

Washington has also urged its allies to ban Huawei from building 5G networks, even as the Chinese company, the world’s top producer of telecoms equipment, has repeatedly said the spying concerns are unfounded.

In New Zealand, a member of the Five Eyes intelligence sharing network that includes the United States, the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) in November turned down an initial request from local telecommunication firm Spark to include Huawei equipment in its 5G network, but later gave the operator options to mitigate national security concerns.

“The proposed solution in the UK to restrict Huawei from bidding for the core is exactly the type of solution we have been looking at in New Zealand,” Andrew Bowater, deputy CEO of Huawei’s New Zealand arm, said in an emailed statement.

Spark said it has noted the developments in Britain and would raise it with the GCSB.

The reports “suggest the UK is following other European jurisdictions in taking a considered and balanced approach to managing supplier-related security risks in 5G”, Andrew Pirie, Spark’s corporate relations lead, said in an email.

“Our discussions with the GCSB are ongoing and we expect that the UK developments will be a further item of discussion between us,” Pirie added.

New Zealand’s minister for intelligence services, Andrew Little, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

British culture minister Jeremy Wright said on Thursday that he would report to parliament the conclusions of a government review of the 5G supply chain once they had been taken.

He added that the disclosure of confidential discussions on the role of Huawei was “unacceptable” and that he could not rule out a criminal investigation into the leak.

The decisions by Britain and Germany to use Huawei gear in non-core parts of 5G network makes it harder to prove Huawei should be kept out of New Zealand telecommunication networks, said Syed Faraz Hasan, an expert in communication engineering and networks at New Zealand’s Massey University

He pointed out Huawei gear was already part of the non-core 4G networks that 5G infrastructure would be built on.

“Unless there is a convincing argument against the Huawei devices … it is difficult to keep them away,” Hasan said.

(Reporting by Charlotte Greenfield; Editing by Himani Sarkar)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: The logo commodities trader Glencore is pictured in Baar
FILE PHOTO: The logo of commodities trader Glencore is pictured in front of the company’s headquarters in Baar, Switzerland, July 18, 2017. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann

April 26, 2019

(Reuters) – Glencore shares plunged the most in nearly four months on Friday after news overnight that U.S. regulators were investigating whether the miner broke some rules through “corrupt practices”.

Shares of the FTSE 100 company fell as much as 4.2 percent in early deals, and were down 3.5 percent at 310.25 pence by 0728 GMT.

On Thursday, Glencore said the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission is investigating whether the company and its units have violated some provisions of the Commodity ExchangeAct and/or CFTC Regulations.

(Reporting by Muvija M in Bengaluru)

Source: OANN

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