NEW YORK – The FBI says a New York City man planned to travel to Michigan and buy an ax to kill a professor he once assisted with research.
Frank Segui (seh-GEE') appeared in federal court this week on charges of stalking and sending threatening communications.
He was arrested last month before boarding a bus from New York City to Detroit. The FBI says Segui planned to kill a professor he blamed for his inability to find a job.
Court records say Segui worked as a research assistant for the professor before a falling-out.
Segui is accused of sending a threatening email to the professor saying he does "not deserve life."
Neither the professor nor the university was named in court papers.
An email was sent to Segui's attorney seeking comment.
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Yves Mersch, Member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank delivers a speech during Lamfalussy Lectures Conference in Budapest, Hungary, February 4, 2019. REUTERS/Bernadett Szabo
February 26, 2019
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Central Bank is “determined” to push forward an instant payment system it launched last year through regulatory moves if the service failed to spread through collaboration with the industry, ECB board member Yves Mersch said on Tuesday.
“We will do it either through our collaborative, cooperative efforts together with the industry or we will do it through our regulatory capacity,” Mersch told a fintech conference in Brussels.
The ECB’s TARGET Instant Payment Settlement (TIPS) system will let people and companies in Europe transfer euros to each other within seconds and regardless of the opening hours of their local bank.
This is seen as a direct challenge to U.S. firms like PayPal, Google, Facebook and Amazon, and China’s Alibaba and Tencent which currently dominate such services in Europe.
LINCOLN, Neb. – A Montana man dubbed the AK-47 bandit and accused of holding up banks in several states has pleaded guilty to robbing a bank in Nebraska.
Richard Gathercole could face up to 35 years in prison after admitting in federal court on Monday that he used an AK-47 while robbing a Nebraska City bank in 2014. The 40-year-old Gathercole also pleaded guilty to a 2017 carjacking that led to his arrest.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Lesley Woods says the plea deal stipulates that Gathercole won't be prosecuted by other jurisdictions for other violent crimes, including the shooting of a Kansas state trooper in 2017 and bank robberies in California, Idaho, Iowa and Washington state.
Some of the crimes had passed the five-year federal statute of limitations.
Embattled celebrity lawyer Michael Avenatti has been accused of embezzling almost $2 million after he struck a lucrative settlement for the former girlfriend of NBA player Hassan Whiteside.
Avenatti, as the attorney for Alexis Gardner, 27, negotiated a $3 million deal for the actress and barista, $2.75 million of which Miami Heat player Whiteside, 29, wired to a trust account set up by Avenatti in January 2017, according to bank records and an Apr. 10 indictment by a California-based grand jury.
Paul Bersebach/MediaNews Group/Orange County Register via Getty Images
Avenatti was entitled to $1 million in legal fees, but he did not tell Gardner about the payment and misrepresented the terms of her agreement with Whiteside, prosecutors allege in the indictment. Instead, he funneled $2.5 million into the bank account of a law firm owned by an associate so he could buy a share of a small private jet.
A woman talks to the media at the scene where a Catholic priest was stabbed as he was celebrating morning mass at the St. Joesph's Oratory in Montreal on Friday, March 22, 2019 (Paul Chiasson/The Canadian Press via AP)
A Catholic priest was stabbed several times while leading mass on Friday morning in Montreal.
Rev. Claude Grou, the rector at St. Joseph's Oratory, had just finished a reading around 8:40 am when a man rushed towards him with a knife and stabbed him in his upper body.
The attack at the landmark church was captured on a livestream and television, as the mass was being broadcast to the Catholic channel Salt + Light.
A suspect has already been taken into custody and will be questioned by investigators later today, according to CBC.
Father Grou suffered only superficial wounds and is expected to make a full recovery. The diocese of Montreal tweeted that he was in stable condition, and that "all of our prayers are with him."
Montreal's mayor, Valerie Plante, condemned the act of violence.
"I am relieved to learn that the life of Father Claude Grou, Rector of the [Oratory] is out of danger and that his condition is stable," she tweeted in French. "On behalf of all Montrealers, I wish him speedy recovery."
FILE PHOTO: City workers head to work during the morning rush hour in Southwark in central London April 16, 2014.REUTERS/Toby Melville
April 16, 2019
LONDON, April 16 (Reuters) – – British workers’ pay grew at its joint fastest pace in over a decade, fueled by further job creation, adding to suggestions that Brexit uncertainty is prompting firms to hire workers rather than make longer-term investment in equipment.
Total earnings, including bonuses, rose by an annual 3.5 percent in the three months to February, the Office for National Statistics said, matching the median forecast in a Reuters poll of economists.
That was the joint highest rate since mid-2008 although in February alone the pace of wage growth slowed.
Average weekly earnings, excluding bonuses, rose by 3.4 percent on the year, also in line with the Reuters poll.
It was the first fall in that measure of pay growth since the middle of last year.
Britain’s labor market has defied the approach of Brexit, helping households whose spending drives the economy.
However, the surge in jobs could reflect nervousness among businesses who have cut investment, making them more likely to hire workers who can be sacked in the event of a downturn in the economy.
The ONS said employment grew by 179,000 in the three months to February, in line with the Reuters poll forecast.
“The jobs market remains robust, with the number of people in work continuing to grow,” ONS statistician Matt Hughes said. “The increase over the past year is all coming from full-timers, both employees and the self-employed.”
The strength of the labor market is pushing up the official measurement of wages more quickly than the Bank of England has forecast, leading some economists to think it might raise interest rates once the uncertainty about Brexit lifts.
The BoE forecast in February that wage growth would slow to 3.0 percent by the end of 2019 as the economy feels the drag of Brexit uncertainty and a global slowdown.
It also forecast that Britain’s economy will grow at its slowest rate in a decade this year, even if it avoids the shock of a no-deal Brexit.
The pace of wage rises remains slower than the 4 percent increases seen before the financial crisis.
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia – Cambodian authorities have ordered a one-hour reduction in the length of school days because of concerns that students and teachers may fall ill from a prolonged heat wave.
Education Minister Hang Chuon Naron said in an announcement seen Friday that the shortened hours will remain in effect until the rainy season starts, which usually occurs in May. The current heat wave, in which temperatures are regularly reaching as high as 41 Celsius (106 Fahrenheit), is one of the longest in memory.
Most schools in Cambodia lack air conditioning, prompting concern that temperatures inside classrooms could rise to unhealthy levels.
School authorities were instructed to watch for symptoms of heat stroke and urge pupils to drink more water.
The new hours cut 30 minutes off the beginning of the school day and 30 minutes off the end.
School authorities instituted a similar measure in 2016.
LONDON – Explosions have rocked Britain’s largest steel plant, injuring two people and shaking nearby homes.
South Wales Police say the incident at the Tata Steel plant in Port Talbot was reported at about 3:35 a.m. Friday (22:35 EDT Thursday). The explosions touched off small fires, which are under control. Two workers suffered minor injuries and all staff members have been accounted for.
Police say early indications are that the explosions were caused by a train used to carry molten metal into the plant. Tata Steel says its personnel are working with emergency services at the scene.
Local lawmaker Stephen Kinnock says the incident raises concerns about safety.
He tweeted: “It could have been a lot worse … @TataSteelEurope must conduct a full review, to improve safety.”
LinkSpace’s reusable rocket RLV-T5, also known as NewLine Baby, is carried to a vacant plot of land for a test launch in Longkou, Shandong province, China, April 19, 2019. REUTERS/Jason Lee
April 26, 2019
By Ryan Woo
LONGKOU, China (Reuters) – During initial tests of their 8.1-metre (27-foot) tall reusable rocket, Chinese engineers from LinkSpace, a start-up led by China’s youngest space entrepreneur, used a Kevlar tether to ensure its safe return. Just in case.
But when the Beijing-based company’s prototype, called NewLine Baby, successfully took off and landed last week for the second time in two months, no tether was needed.
The 1.5-tonne rocket hovered 40 meters above the ground before descending back to its concrete launch pad after 30 seconds, to the relief of 26-year-old chief executive Hu Zhenyu and his engineers – one of whom cartwheeled his way to the launch pad in delight.
LinkSpace, one of China’s 15-plus private rocket manufacturers, sees these short hops as the first steps towards a new business model: sending tiny, inexpensive satellites into orbit at affordable prices.
Demand for these so-called nanosatellites – which weigh less than 10 kilograms (22 pounds) and are in some cases as small as a shoebox – is expected to explode in the next few years. And China’s rocket entrepreneurs reckon there is no better place to develop inexpensive launch vehicles than their home country.
“For suborbital clients, their focus will be on scientific research and some commercial uses. After entering orbit, the near-term focus (of clients) will certainly be on satellites,” Hu said.
In the near term, China envisions massive constellations of commercial satellites that can offer services ranging from high-speed internet for aircraft to tracking coal shipments. Universities conducting experiments and companies looking to offer remote-sensing and communication services are among the potential domestic customers for nanosatellites.
A handful of U.S. small-rocket companies are also developing launchers ahead of the expected boom. One of the biggest, Rocket Lab, has already put 25 satellites in orbit.
No private company in China has done that yet. Since October, two – LandSpace and OneSpace – have tried but failed, illustrating the difficulties facing space start-ups everywhere.
The Chinese companies are approaching inexpensive launches in different ways. Some, like OneSpace, are designing cheap, disposable boosters. LinkSpace’s Hu aspires to build reusable rockets that return to Earth after delivering their payload, much like the Falcon 9 rockets of Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
“If you’re a small company and you can only build a very, very small rocket because that’s all you have money for, then your profit margins are going to be narrower,” said Macro Caceres, analyst at U.S. aerospace consultancy Teal Group.
“But if you can take that small rocket and make it reusable, and you can launch it once a week, four times a month, 50 times a year, then with more volume, your profit increases,” Caceres added.
Eventually LinkSpace hopes to charge no more than 30 million yuan ($4.48 million) per launch, Hu told Reuters.
That is a fraction of the $25 million to $30 million needed for a launch on a Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems Pegasus, a commonly used small rocket. The Pegasus is launched from a high-flying aircraft and is not reusable.
(Click https://reut.rs/2UVBjKs to see a picture package of China’s rocket start-ups. Click https://tmsnrt.rs/2GIy9Bc for an interactive look at the nascent industry.)
NEED FOR CASH
LinkSpace plans to conduct suborbital launch tests using a bigger recoverable rocket in the first half of 2020, reaching altitudes of at least 100 kilometers, then an orbital launch in 2021, Hu told Reuters.
The company is in its third round of fundraising and wants to raise up to 100 million yuan, Hu said. It had secured tens of millions of yuan in previous rounds.
After a surge in fresh funding in 2018, firms like LinkSpace are pushing out prototypes, planning more tests and even proposing operational launches this year.
Last year, equity investment in China’s space start-ups reached 3.57 billion yuan ($533 million), a report by Beijing-based investor FutureAerospace shows, with a burst of financing in late 2018.
That accounted for about 18 percent of global space start-up investments in 2018, a historic high, according to Reuters calculations based on a global estimate by Space Angels. The New York-based venture capital firm said global space start-up investments totaled $2.97 billion last year.
“Costs for rocket companies are relatively high, but as to how much funding they need, be it in the hundreds of millions, or tens of millions, or even just a few million yuan, depends on the company’s stage of development,” said Niu Min, founder of FutureAerospace.
FutureAerospace has invested tens of millions of yuan in LandSpace, based in Beijing.
Like space-launch startups elsewhere in the world, the immediate challenge for Chinese entrepreneurs is developing a safe and reliable rocket.
Proven talent to develop such hardware can be found in China’s state research institutes or the military; the government directly supports private firms by allowing them to launch from military-controlled facilities.
But it’s still a high-risk business, and one unsuccessful launch might kill a company.
“The biggest problem facing all commercial space companies, especially early-stage entrepreneurs, is failure” of an attempted flight, Liang Jianjun, chief executive of rocket company Space Trek, told Reuters. That can affect financing, research, manufacturing and the team’s morale, he added.
Space Trek is planning its first suborbital launch by the end of June and an orbital launch next year, said Liang, who founded the company in late 2017 with three other former military technical officers.
Despite LandSpace’s failed Zhuque-1 orbital launch in October, the Beijing-based firm secured 300 million yuan in additional funding for the development of its Zhuque-2 rocket a month later.
In December, the company started operating China’s first private rocket production facility in Zhejiang province, in anticipation of large-scale manufacturing of its Zhuque-2, which it expects to unveil next year.
STATE COMPETITION
China’s state defense contractors are also trying to get into the low-cost market.
In December, the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp (CASIC) successfully launched a low-orbit communication satellite, the first of 156 that CASIC aims to deploy by 2022 to provide more stable broadband connectivity to rural China and eventually developing countries.
The satellite, Hongyun-1, was launched on a rocket supplied by the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp (CASC), the nation’s main space contractor.
In early April, the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALVT), a subsidiary of CASC, completed engine tests for its Dragon, China’s first rocket meant solely for commercial use, clearing the path for a maiden flight before July.
The Dragon, much bigger than the rockets being developed by private firms, is designed to carry multiple commercial satellites.
At least 35 private Chinese companies are working to produce more satellites.
Spacety, a satellite maker based in southern Hunan province, plans to put 20 satellites in orbit this year, including its first for a foreign client, chief executive Yang Feng told Reuters.
The company has only launched 12 on state-produced rockets since the company started operating in early 2016.
“When it comes to rocket launches, what we care about would be cost, reliability and time,” Yang said.
(Reporting by Ryan Woo; Additional reporting by Beijing newsroom; Editing by Gerry Doyle)
JOHANNESBURG – At least one person is reported dead and homes have been destroyed by a powerful cyclone that struck northern Mozambique and continues to dump rain on the region, with the United Nations warning of “massive flooding.”
Cyclone Kenneth arrived just six weeks after Cyclone Idai tore into central Mozambique, killing more than 600 people and displacing scores of thousands. The U.N. says this is the first time in known history that the southern African nation has been hit by two cyclones in one season.
Forecasters say the new cyclone made landfall Thursday night in a part of Mozambique that has not seen such a storm in at least 60 years.
Mozambique’s local emergency operations center says a woman in the city of Pemba was killed by a falling tree.
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)
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