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Trump goes nuclear on Kellyanne spouse George Conway: 'Husband from hell!'

President Trump turned up the heat Wednesday in his feud with George Conway, calling the spouse of adviser Kellyanne Conway a “stone cold LOSER & husband from hell!”

“George Conway, often referred to as Mr. Kellyanne Conway by those who know him, is VERY jealous of his wife’s success & angry that I, with her help, didn’t give him the job he so desperately wanted. I barely know him but just take a look, a stone cold LOSER & husband from hell!” Trump tweeted Wednesday morning.

In one of the more bizarre feuds of the Trump era, George Conway has repeatedly questioned the president’s mental health on social media, all while his wife continues to work at the White House.

KELLYANNE CONWAY'S HUSBAND RIPS TRUMP AGAIN, SAYS CONDITION GETTING WORSE

He fired back within seconds Wednesday, tweeting: "You seem determined to prove my point. Good for you! #NarcissisticPersonalityDisorder."

He added: "You. Are. Nuts."

Conway revived their dispute last week by blasting Trump for a claim that the sentencing of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort had exonerated the president from the Russian collusion piece of the probe.

“Have we ever seen this degree of brazen, pathological mendacity in American public life?” Conway tweeted. “One day he makes a harmless slip of the tongue, something any mentally balanced person would laugh off. But instead he lies about it. He denies what the world can see on videotape. Even his donors and supporters wonder, what is wrong with him? Why would he feel compelled to tell such an absurd lie?”

Trump 2020 campaign manager Brad Parscale initially responded by claiming he was just sour grapes.

“We all know that @realDonaldTrump turned down Mr. Kellyanne Conway for a job he desperately wanted. He barely worked @TheJusticeDept and was either fired/quit, didn’t want the scrutiny? Now he hurts his wife because he is jealous of her success. POTUS doesn’t even know him!” Parscale tweeted.

Later, Trump retweeted Parscale, adding: “A total loser!” in reference to Conway.

GEORGE CONWAY RAMPS UP TRUMP ATTACKS AS KELLYANNE DEFENDS BOSS

The Trump White House until now had kept its distance from Conway’s criticisms, rarely firing back, due to Kellyanne’s prominent role in both Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and the White House.

But in December, the president’s son, Eric, slammed Conway as disrespectful toward his wife.

“Of all the ugliness in politics, the utter disrespect George Conway shows toward his wife, her career, place of work, and everything she has fought SO hard to achieve, might top them all,” Eric Trump tweeted late last year. “@KellyannePolls is a great person and frankly his actions are horrible.”

Meanwhile, Kellyanne, in December, reportedly described her husband's comments as "disrespectful" to The Washington Post,  and “a violation of basic decency, certainly, if not marital vows.”

She then attempted to attribute the quote to “a person familiar with their relationship” -- a request that was denied by Post writer Ben Terris.

“Well, people do see it this way. People do see it that way, I don’t say I do, but people see it that way,” she added.

Fox News’ Liam Quinn and Adam Shaw contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News Politics

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Spanish prosecutor to investigate Catalonia leader for disobedience

FILE PHOTO: Catalan Regional President Quim Torra is seen ahead of a rally of Catalan separatist organisations, in Madrid
FILE PHOTO: Catalan Regional President Quim Torra is seen ahead of a rally of Catalan separatist organisations, in Madrid, Spain March 16, 2019. REUTERS/Juan Medina

March 27, 2019

MADRID (Reuters) – The prosecutor in the north eastern region of Catalonia said on Wednesday it will investigate the Catalonia leader Quim Torra for disobedience over his failure to remove pro-independence symbols on regional government buildings.

Spain’s electoral committee ordered Torra to remove the symbols – put up for regional politicians on trial for their part in a 2017 independence referendum – which it claims are political propaganda ahead of the April 28 election.

Torra could be removed from office for up to two years if found guilty of failing to obey the order to remove objects such as pro-independence flags and yellow ribbons from government buildings in the time frame stated by the committee.

(Reporting by Jose Elias Rodriguez; Writing by Paul Day)

Source: OANN

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Watch Live: 850 Years, Two World Wars, But “Some People Did Something”

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Source: InfoWars

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Drug Addiction Expert: Beto’s A ‘Tweaker’

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Trump administration backs Texas judge who ruled Obamacare illegal

FILE PHOTO - A sign on an insurance store advertises Obamacare in San Ysidro
FILE PHOTO - A sign on an insurance store advertises Obamacare in San Ysidro, San Diego, California, U.S., October 26, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake

March 26, 2019

(Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has stepped up its attack on the Obamacare health care law, telling a federal appeals court it agrees with a Texas judge’s ruling that the law is unconstitutional and should be struck down.

The Justice Department in a two-sentence letter to the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit filed on Monday said it backed the December ruling by U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor in Fort Worth that found the Affordable Care Act violated the U.S. Constitution because it required people to buy health insurance.

O’Connor ruled on a lawsuit brought by a coalition of 20 Republican-led states including Texas, Alabama and Florida, that said a Trump-backed change the U.S. tax code made the law unconstitutional.

The 2010 law, seen as the signature domestic achievement of Trump’s Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama, has been a flash point of American politics since it passed, with Republicans including Trump repeatedly attempting to overturn it.

Democrats made defending the law a powerful messaging tool in the run-up to the November elections, when polls showed that eight in 10 Americans wanted to defend the law’s most popular benefits including protections for insurance coverage for people with preexisting conditions. The strategy paid off and Democrats won a broad 38-seat majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.

“The Department of Justice has determined that the district court’s judgment should be affirmed,” Assistant U.S. Attorney General Joseph Hunt and other federal officials wrote in the Monday letter. They said they would file a more extensive legal briefing later.

Obamacare survived a 2012 legal challenge at the Supreme Court when a majority of justices ruled the individual mandate aspect of the program was a tax that Congress had the authority to impose.

In December, O’Connor ruled that after Trump signed a $1.5 trillion tax bill passed by Congress last year that eliminated the penalties, the individual mandate could no longer be considered constitutional.

A group of 17 mostly Democratic-led states including California and New York on Monday argued that the law was constitutional.

“The individual plaintiffs do not have standing to challenge the resulting law because they suffer no legal harm from the existence of a provision that offers them a lawful choice between buying insurance or doing nothing,” they wrote in court papers.

About 11.8 million consumers nationwide enrolled in 2018 Obamacare exchange plans, according to the U.S. government’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

(Reporting by Scott Malone in Boston; Editing by Bill Trott)

Source: OANN

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Germany defends plans for more interventionist industrial policy

FILE PHOTO: German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier presents the national industry strategy for 2030 during a news conference in Berlin
FILE PHOTO: German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier presents the national industry strategy for 2030 during a news conference in Berlin, Germany, February 5, 2019. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch/File Photo

March 27, 2019

By Michael Nienaber

BERLIN (Reuters) – German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier has rebuffed increasing criticism of his shift towards a more interventionist industrial policy, saying it will lead to improved global competition “by adapting rules to reality”.

Some senior economists have suggested Altmaier’s new approach to industrial policy, presented last month, imitates China’s state-driven development strategy and is misguided.

The new policy envisages the state supporting and protecting “national champions” in Germany and the European Union so they can better compete with rivals from China and the United States.

In a marked shift from Germany’s traditionally hands-off approach to business, the government plans to pass legislation by the end of 2019 to create a state-owned fund that could foil takeovers of key companies by Chinese and other foreign firms, senior government officials have told Reuters.

“My strategy has fueled a constructive debate,” Altmaier tweeted late on Tuesday in a short defense of his plans.

Altmaier, a confidant of Chancellor Angela Merkel, said Germany would continue to advocate “fair and open” markets while eyeing better framework conditions within the EU to support new technologies in areas such as artificial intelligence.

Germany and France have earmarked 1.7 billions euros to support the local development and production of battery cells for electric vehicles to break the dependence of EU carmakers on Asian suppliers.

Altmaier has also floated the idea of creating a pan-European artificial intelligence company that could be backed by governments through minority stakes, as Germany and France did with their political support for planemaker Airbus.

“MOSTLY MISGUIDED”

Gabriel Felbermayr from the IfW Kiel Institute for the World Economy urged Altmaier to maintain the EU’s “well-functioning” competition policy.

The German government should continue to push for a level playing field in relations with Beijing that means “opening up China rather than imitating it”, Felbermayr said.

Jeromin Zettelmeyer from the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington DC echoed such criticism.

“While the questions and concerns motivating the document are valid, the proposals are mostly misguided,” said Zettelmeyer who worked as chief economic adviser at Germany’s economy ministry from 2014 to 2016.

He criticized plans to raise the German share of manufacturing, to restrict non-EU imports of intermediate goods and to promote national champions in Germany and the EU.

Proposals to prevent some foreign takeovers and to ramp up state support for certain technologies were easier to justify, given either market failures or the risk of technological dependence on foreign companies susceptible to state interference, Zettelmeyer added.

“But even in these areas, the specific policies proposed may well do more harm than good.”

(Reporting by Michael Nienaber; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Source: OANN

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Wit and grit: Algeria’s sizeable youth lead fight for change

They're on the peaceful front line of the protest movement that toppled Algeria's longtime ruler, facing down water cannons with attitude, memes — and fearless calls for shampoo.

Oil-rich Algeria is one of the most youthful countries in the world with two-thirds of the population under 30.

They are politically engaged, educated, on social media and funny. And they initiated nationwide protests in mid-February that toppled the only leader they've ever known — former President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, in power since 1999.

"Only Chanel does No. 5," read the placard of a young Algerian protesting against Bouteflika's failed bid for a fifth term. "Love the Way You Lie," read another, referencing Rihanna's hit song. Yet another, featuring the "Ghostbusters" movie poster, was a humorous rebuke to the infirm 82-year-old who's rarely been seen since a 2013 stroke. And when police unfurl the water cannons, they start to sing in rhyming Arabic: "Bring me some shampoo and I'll feel good!"

A quarter of these under-30s are out of work, creating a deep well of frustration against the North African country's veteran rulers and the policies that have left them behind.

"I came to protest against this power structure because we, the young people, we are the main victims," said Belkacem Canna, who just turned 30, and works for the local water company on what he described as a miserable salary. "We get diplomas but can't get jobs."

For two decades, Algeria has been ruled by Bouteflika and other survivors of the 1954-1962 War of Independence against colonial power France.

"Algeria's leaders have one foot in the War of Independence and the other foot in the post-colonial period. This is a generational problem. Algeria is a gerontocracy that can't represent the country's majority," said Rachid Tlemcani, political scientist at Algiers University.

Bouteflika had for years used Algeria's oil and gas wealth to fund affordable homes and handouts. The country escaped the Arab Spring uprisings that began in Tunisia in 2010. But tensions began simmering after oil prices slumped in 2014, exposing a country blighted by youth unemployment where more than one person in four aged under 30 doesn't have a job.

Over a decade ago, Bouteflika's government made a half-baked attempt at helping the country's youth by creating a funding initiative for young entrepreneurs. However, it only stoked further anger amid perceptions it was a handout scheme, after borrowers who didn't repay debts faced no consequences.

"Mentalities have to change," said Imad Touji, a 22-year-old geology student at Bab Ezzouar University. "It's not just about going out and shouting. We really need to change things in a concrete way."

In February, it was clear that many Algerians were aghast at their plight.

Many trapped at home with their parents and with seemingly little to lose, took to the streets some ten days after Bouteflika announced he would seek a fifth term. Students and professionals such as doctors, lawyers and magistrates all joined in.

Bouteflika's replacement, the 77-year-old Abdelkader Bensalah, is yet another veteran of the War of Independence. It's an open question if fresh presidential elections announced for July 4, will appease the vociferous movement.

"We are raising awareness, all the youth is," said Sofiane Smain, a 23-year-old computing student. "We are trying to make all the Algerian people follow us so we can be unified to make a better Algeria, God willing."

Social media instructions told protesters to come equipped only with "love, faith, Algerian flags and roses," and to remove trash. In a poignant detail, many of them were observed cleaning up.

"Algeria's youth are an example to the world of what a smiling and peaceful protest movement can achieve," Tlemcani said.

Though the protests have been largely judged to have been peaceful, they have claimed their first casualty. On Friday, an unemployed 19-year-old from a town south of Algiers was buried. Police say he died after falling from a truck, while his friends say he was beaten by police with truncheons.

___

Adamson reported from Paris.

Source: Fox News World

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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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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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