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The Latest: IS suspects in killing of 4 Americans captured

The Latest on developments in Syria (all times local):

2:40 p.m.

A spokesman for U.S.-backed forces fighting the Islamic State group in Syria says they have captured a group of suspects involved in a January bombing that killed four Americans in a town in northern Syria.

Mustafa Bali says the suspects were captured following technical surveillance by the group known as the Syrian Democratic Forces. He did not elaborate on the number of suspects or when they were captured.

The Americans were killed in a suicide bombing in January in the town of Manbij that was claimed by IS.

In a statement posted on Twitter on Tuesday, he said the outcome of the ongoing investigation will be shared at a later time.

Bali's statement came few hours after the SDF said it had captured an IS encampment in the eastern village of Baghouz after IS militants surrendered.

___

11:35 a.m.

A spokesman for U.S.-backed forces fighting the Islamic State group in Syria says his fighters are in control of an encampment in the village of Baghouz where IS militants have been besieged for months.

Mustafa Bali, of the Kurdish-led force known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, says clashes however are continuing elsewhere in the village in eastern Syria as IS militants continue to fight back.

Bali says on Twitter on Tuesday that controlling the encampment in Baghouz marks "significant progress" in the fight but that it's "not a victory announcement."

The area held by IS in Baghouz is the last pocket of territory in Syria controlled by the extremist group, which once held a vast area of Syria and Iraq, calling it an Islamic "caliphate."

Source: Fox News World

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France seeks answers after police failure to contain rioting

A top French security official is acknowledging that police failed to contain rioting in Paris during yellow vest protests and says the government is trying to avoid a repeat scenario.

Junior Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said Monday on RTL radio that police had prepared for an upsurge in violence but were "less reactive" Saturday than in previous demonstrations. He said they were notably more cautious about using rubber ball launchers because of numerous injuries they've caused.

Nunez and the interior minister are meeting Monday with President Emmanuel Macron.

Rioters set life-threatening fires, ransacked luxury stores and attacked police around the Champs-Elysees on Saturday. The sudden resurgence of violence came as the yellow vest movement demanding economic justice has been dwindling.

Calls are already circulating on social networks for new protests next Saturday.

Source: Fox News World

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Arizona deputies say 8-year-old twins found dead were killed by their grandmother

An Arizona woman is facing murder charges in the shooting deaths of two boys, 8-year-old twins, who were her grandchildren.

Dorothy Flood, 55, of Tucson, was arrested Friday, a day after the boys, Jordan and Jaden Webb, were found dead of gunshot wounds, deputies with the Pima County Sheriff’s Office said.

Paramedics were called to Flood’s home Thursday afternoon in response to a call for medical assistance, deputies said.

“Upon arrival, they discovered an unresponsive adult female inside the residence” who turned out to be Flood, they said.

LIMO OPERATOR INDICTED ON MANSLAUGHTER, NEGLIGENT HOMICIDE IN CRASH THAT KILLED 20

As the paramedics worked to revive Flood, they found the boys in separate bedrooms.

“The female had symptoms of an apparent overdose and was transported to a local hospital,” deputies said. She was later jailed without bail following her arrest.

Friends and family members have been left to wonder what happened, KOLD-TV reported.

CHIROPRACTOR WHO SERVED IN THE NAVY FACES CHARGES IN NORTH DAKOTA QUADRUPLE HOMICIDE

“Somewhere, something snapped,” Flood's friend Chandra McCord told the station.

Flood took custody of Jordan and Jaden after their mother killed herself a couple of years ago, the station reported.

“You could see the fear that she had of the future,” McCord said, according to the station. “She was afraid she wasn’t going to be able to handle it."

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Still, Flood loved the twins and gave "her whole heart" to them, the woman said.

Source: Fox News National

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Hawley suggests Trump admin strip Yale of federal funding if ‘targeting’ of religious students continues

Missouri GOP Sen. Josh Hawley sent a letter early Tuesday to Attorney General William Barr calling for the Justice Department to closely monitor Yale University -- and to cut off the institution's federal funding if its law school continues to "target religious students for special disfavor."

The fiery two-page missive, exclusively obtained by Fox News, comes days after Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz vowed to investigate whether Yale Law School sought to effectively "blacklist Christian organizations" by moving to block student funding for fellowships and summer programs deemed "discriminatory."

"Even though Yale is not a state institution, it is still subject to statutory restrictions because it receives federal funds," Hawley, who graduated from Yale Law School, wrote to Barr. "And as a law school, Yale is obligated to foster respect for the law. That includes fostering respect for students, their constitutional rights, and their deeply held religious beliefs."

Tensions first flared in February, when members of the Yale Federalist Society invited a lawyer from the Christian legal organization Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) to speak on campus, a move that enraged Yale’s LGBT group “Outlaws," who characterized ADF as a "hate group."

The students called for Yale to stop providing stipends to students who worked over the summer in the ADF's popular Blackstone Legal Fellowship. In turn, Yale Law School Dean Heather Gerken thanked students for their "leadership," and announced that  "the Law School's nondiscrimination policy will extend to the Summer Public Interest Fellowship (SPIF), Career Options Assistance Program (COAP), and our post-graduate public interest fellowships."

TED CRUZ ANNOUNCES INVESTIGATION OF YALE OVER 'CHRISTIAN BLACKLIST' CONCERNS

Nondiscrimination "based on sexual orientation and gender identity and expression," Gerken wrote, "is a key component of the Law School's nondiscrimination policy."

FILE - IN this Jan 15, 2019 file photo, Senate Judiciary Committee committee member Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., questions Attorney General nominee William Barr during a Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)

FILE - IN this Jan 15, 2019 file photo, Senate Judiciary Committee committee member Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., questions Attorney General nominee William Barr during a Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)

That policy change, Hawley wrote to Barr on Tuesday, amounted to an effort to "block students who work for certain faith-based organizations from accessing resources available to all other students," and prohibit "prohibits students from receiving school resources if they work for an organization that takes religion into account when hiring."

Unlike federal law, Hawley wrote, "the policy fails to include an exception for religious organizations even though federal law recognizes that religious organizations often cannot fulfill their unique missions without considering religion while hiring."

Following a conservative backlash -- including a separate letter from Hawley and Cruz's announcement of an investigation -- the law school put out a new statement affirming that it does not discriminate based on religious beliefs.

"We recently decided that the Law School will require that any employment position it financially supports be open to all of our students," the statement read. "If an employer refuses to hire students because they are Christian, black, veterans, or gay, we will not fund that position."

The Yale statement continued: "We are in the process of putting this policy in place. It will solely concern hiring practices. It will not inquire about political goals, litigation strategies, or policy objectives of the organization. It will also include an accommodation for religious organizations and a ministerial exception, consistent with antidiscrimination principles."

But Hawley wrote to Barr on Tuesday that more details are necessary to confirm whether Yale's statement was actually meaningful.

Yale University should potentially lose federal funding if it continues to discriminate on the basis of religion, Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley wrote Tuesday to Attorney General William Barr.

Yale University should potentially lose federal funding if it continues to discriminate on the basis of religion, Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley wrote Tuesday to Attorney General William Barr. (iStock)

"Last Thursday, after receiving negative media attention for targeting religious students, Yale changed its tune and now says that it will craft a new policy that includes an exemption for 'religious organizations,'" Hawley told Barr. "But the circumstances surrounding Yale’s announcement suggest that whatever exception Yale does create may be inadequate. When Yale first announced its policy, it did not do so in a void; it did so in response to student protesters.

"Those protesters demanded that Yale strip funding from students who work for Alliance Defending Freedom, a religious organization," Hawley continued. "When announcing its policy, Yale praised those protesters for their 'leadership' in raising the issue. And in response to questions about the policy, Yale both declined to include a religious exemption and specifically identified students who work for Alliance Defending Freedom as students the policy targets."

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Citing the 2017 Supreme Court case Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer, Hawley wrote that, if a public school had adopted Yale's initial policy, it would have been struck down as unconstitutional because it “target[s] the religious for ‘special disabilities’ based on their ‘religious status.’”

As a recipient of federal funds, a similar prohibition applies to Yale.

"Given this background, there is a real risk that whatever definition of 'religious organization' Yale promulgates will be unreasonably narrow, giving the false impression that Yale is protecting religious students while it is in reality capitulating to the demands of student protesters who want to target certain religious classmates for special disfavor," Hawley wrote to Barr.

He concluded: "I request that your Department protect the rights of these students by monitoring closely the changes Yale is making to its policy and by taking all appropriate legal action to strip Yale of federal funding should it—as an institution that is supposed to be neutral about religion—target religious students for special disfavor. Thank you for your attention to this matter."

Fox News is told a similar letter is being sent to the Department of Education.

Fox News' Bradford Betz contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News Politics

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GM, Ford and Toyota join to advance self-driving testing, standards

FILE PHOTO: A self-driving GM Bolt EV is seen during a media event where Cruise, GM's autonomous car unit, showed off its self-driving cars in San Francisco
FILE PHOTO: A self-driving GM Bolt EV is seen during a media event where Cruise, GM's autonomous car unit, showed off its self-driving cars in San Francisco, California, U.S. November 28, 2017. REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage/File Photo

April 3, 2019

By David Shepardson

(Reuters) – Three major automakers said on Wednesday they were forming a consortium to help draw up safety standards for self-driving cars that could eventually help create regulations in the United States.

General Motors Co, Ford Motor Co and Toyota Motor Corp said in a statement they were joining forces with automotive engineering group SAE International to establish autonomous vehicle “safety guiding principles to help inform standards development.”

The group will also “work to safely advance testing, pre-competitive development and deployment,” they added.

Regulators in the United States have been grappling with how to regulate self-driving cars, with other countries watching closely to see how implementation of the emerging technology pans out.

Last year, U.S. lawmakers, unable to agree on a way forward, abandoned a bid to pass sweeping legislation to speed the introduction of vehicles without steering wheels and human controls onto roads, but may resurrect the effort later this year.

The new group, dubbed the Automated Vehicle Safety Consortium, will begin by deciding priorities, with a focus on data sharing, vehicle interaction with other road users and safe testing guidelines.

Randy Visintainer, chief technology officer at Ford’s Autonomous Vehicles unit, said the goal was to work with companies and government “to expedite development of standards that can lead to rule making.”

Last month, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration asked the public if robotic cars should be allowed on streets without steering wheels or brake pedals as they try to set the first legal boundaries for their design. NHTSA’s existing rules prohibit vehicles without human controls.

The regulator will for the first time compare a vehicle in which all driving decisions are made by a computer versus a human driver.

Concerns are mounting about automated piloting systems.

A fatal 2018 accident involving a self-driving vehicle operated by Uber Technologies Inc and two deadly plane crashes involving highly automated Boeing 737 MAX airliners have put a spotlight on the ability of regulators to assess the safety of advanced systems that substitute machine intelligence for human judgment.

The new consortium cited as a successful model a standards group that helped create a collection of some 4,500 aerospace standards covering airframe, engine and other aircraft parts.

(Reporting by David Shepardson, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)

Source: OANN

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Despite talk of returns, Turkey quietly works to integrate Syrian refugees

Jamal Sahlabji and his son Ahmed (R) stand in front of a private school in Gaziantep
Jamal Sahlabji and his son Ahmed (R) stand in front of a private school in Gaziantep, Turkey, March 6, 2019. Picture taken March 6, 2019. REUTERS/Umit Bektas

March 29, 2019

By Sarah Dadouch

GAZIANTEP, Turkey – When his rebel fighter son was killed and life in Syria became impossible for Jamal Sahlabji, he and his remaining family packed up and joined hundreds of thousands fleeing to neighboring countries.

Sahlabji settled in Gaziantep, a Turkish town close to the Syrian border that became a haven for opposition figures, rebels and refugees escaping fighting and bombardment.

Refugee camps were set up but Sahlabji, who arrived in 2012, steered clear of the tents. Now almost half of Turkey’s 22 government-run camps for Syrians have closed, and although some residents have returned to Syria, most have stayed and moved to permanent housing across the country.

Despite political rhetoric to the contrary, and with the support of international donors, Turkey is quietly paving the way to integrate many of its nearly 4 million Syrians – by far the biggest group of refugees who have spilled over Syria’s borders during the eight-year-old civil war.

Absorbing even a portion of such numbers into its society and workforce however poses a significant challenge, especially as the economy stutters and unemployment rises.

Sahlabji now works as a doorman in a private high school, where his son Ahmed is a janitor. His daughter is studying for university where she hopes to take architecture, while another son and his family has been granted Turkish citizenship.

Seven years after they fled the Syrian city of Aleppo, the Sahlabjis are not planning to return home, as originally envisioned, but are instead putting down new roots.

“We’re hopeful we can create a future for our children,” Ahmed said. “We’ve put them in schools and we’re spending on them so that maybe they study and go to university and make something of themselves, God willing.”

“Here, the government works for the people,” the 31-year-old added. “Back home, it’s the opposite.”

Most Syrians in Turkey are still registered as refugees. A few are unregistered, and a small proportion – at least 55,000 – have been granted Turkish citizenship.

But behind the numbers, a broader shift is taking place in the support provided to Syrians, most of whom arrived with the few possessions they could carry across the border in an influx that European leaders feared would fuel a migration crisis.

The European Union, which has given billions of euros to help Turkey host refugees in return for stopping them crossing into Greece, is now concentrating support on longer-term projects such as preparing Syrians to compete in the job market and funding language courses and vocational training.

“There is now a slight shift from providing basic humanitarian assistance to more long-term assistance which also leads to better socio-economic integration of refugees, of people who want to stay in Turkey,” EU Ambassador Christian Berger told Reuters.

Some refugees are being gradually taken off a smart-card system, an emergency measure to deliver cash for rent or groceries, and recent projects focus more on helping Syrians mix into Turkish society.

“The idea is to drastically reduce the number who depend on humanitarian assistance,” Berger said. “This cannot go on forever.”

‘WE’RE NOT GOING BACK’

There is public resentment over the influx in some quarters. The government, and President Tayyip Erdogan’s, stance in the run-up to municipal elections this weekend has been to play up the prospects of the Syrians’ imminent return to their homeland.

However a senior Turkish government official told Reuters that, while Ankara would like to see the refugees return to Syria once stability was restored, it realistically accepted that some would want to stay in Turkey.

“There will be people who have established businesses, got married. We will not force them to return,” the official said. “The current efforts are conducted on the assumption that they will live here comfortably and for an extended period of time.”

Because most Syrians initially thought they would eventually return home, they at first placed their Arabic-speaking children in temporary education centers and afternoon schools, where classes were held mostly held in Arabic.

In 2016 the ministry of education and European Union started to phase out those temporary education centers, moving Syrian children into Turkey’s mainstream schools and offering intensive Turkish classes for non-speakers to help them settle in.

Supported by EU funds, Turkey is building hospitals in Hatay and Kilis, two southern provinces on the border with Syria, as well as 55 schools and community and training centers.

In its second 3-billion-euro package for Turkey, agreed last year, the European Union has allocated 500 million euros towards education projects and school infrastructure for the refugees.

Alongside those schemes, the Ankara government has made it easier for Syrians to get work permits – helping bring them into the formal labor market in Turkey, home to 82 million people.

In 2017 Turkey reduced the fees for work permits by two thirds, although by November last year, only 32,000 out of 3.6 million registered Syrian refugees had acquired permits, with many more working illegally.

“When you are giving access to the labor market, when you are trying to close temporary education centers and integrate Syrians into Turkish schools, when you are doing migrant health centers – this is integration,” said an aid worker in Turkey, who asked not be identified.

In a blue and yellow-painted secondary school in Ankara, refugee children are introduced to Turkish idiom through pictures: a torso with a chunk of meat instead of a head is “et kafali”, a Turkish expression that translates to “meat head” but means stupid.

Syrian students take turns reading out loud a book passage about touring Istanbul.

One schoolboy said learning Turkish was important to him because his family did not plan to return. He paused a second, eyes glancing down and then darting around in doubt, before repeating himself: “We’re not going back to Syria.”

ELECTION TALK, BITTER EXILE

Ahead of the elections on Sunday, Erdogan has stressed he is creating conditions in Syria for people to go back. “We aim to create safe zones in which the nearly 4 million Syrian refugees still living in our country can return to their own homes,” he said in January.

Former Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, campaigning to be mayor of Istanbul for Erdogan’s AK Party, said this week that Syrians could disrupt peace in the city.

“If they negatively impact normal life and order here, there will be repercussions. We cannot tolerate this and we will send them back,” he said.

Similar language emerged in presidential election rallies last year, and the government regularly declares that hundreds of thousands of Syrians have already returned to parts of north Syria where Turkey has carried out two military operations.

The interior minister said last month that nearly 312,000 had returned. The United Nations has not been able to corroborate that figure.

“Turkey’s view towards Syrians depends on the political environment,” the aid worker said. “But operationally speaking, Turkey has been doing a fantastic job in integration for the last eight years.”

Nevertheless, Turkey’s stumbling economy and rising unemployment has fueled some resentment against Syrians.

Last month an altercation between Syrians and Turks in Istanbul’s Esenyurt, a major refugee district, left four people injured, the state-owned Anadolu Agency reported.

Turks rushed to the street afterwards, vandalizing Syrian stores and chanting: “This is Turkey.”

Clashes like that remain an exception for now, and Sahlabji says he can’t see how he can return to a country still in turmoil and where he worries about being arrested because of his son’s days fighting with the rebels.

He says no one in Turkey bothers his family, and he dismisses Erdogan’s claims that all Syrians will leave.

“That’s election talk,” he smiled. “When elections are over, it’s over.”

But he choked up when talking about living in exile.

“Truthfully, it’s not that it’s hard – it’s bitter.”

(Additional reporting by Orhan Coskun; Editing by Dominic Evans and Pravin Char)

Source: OANN

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Cop shot, injured while responding to Kalamazoo shooting

Authorities say a police officer has been shot while responding to a shooting at a plasma donation center in southwestern Michigan.

Kalamazoo police say the officer's injuries aren't life-threatening. Lisa Walterhouse, an employee at the downtown plasma center, tells the Kalamazoo Gazette that police responded Tuesday after a former employee entered the building and fired shots.

Walterhouse says the gunman told people to call 911. She says, "Then we ran."

Police say there's "no active threat" to the public. The statement didn't mention anything about the gunman. A late afternoon news conference is planned.

Source: Fox News National

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Joe Biden’s brain surgeon said his former patient is “totally in the clear” as speculation over the candidate’s health — with Biden possibly becoming the oldest president in U.S. history — is likely to become a campaign issue.

The former vice president, who had been perceived by many as the strongest potential contender for the Democratic Party’s 2020 presidential nomination, formally announced his candidacy Thursday.

But Biden’s age – 76 – is expected to become a source of attacks from a younger generation of Democrats not because of obvious generational differences, but possibly for actual health concerns if Biden gets into office.

WHY THE MEDIA ARE CONVINCED JOE BIDEN WILL IMPLODE

Biden himself agreed last year that “it’s totally legitimate” for people to ask questions about his health if he decides to run for president, given his medical history — which has included brain surgery in 1988.

“I think they’re gonna judge me on my vitality,” Biden told “CBS This Morning.” “Can I still run up the steps of Air Force Two? Am I still in good shape? Am I – do I have all my faculties? Am I energetic? I think it’s totally legitimate people ask those questions.”

“I think they’re gonna judge me on my vitality. …  I think it’s totally legitimate [that] people ask those questions.”

— Joe Biden

But Dr. Neal Kassell, the neurosurgeon who operated on Biden for an aneurysm three decades ago, told the Washington Examiner that Biden appears to be “totally in the clear” — and even joked that the operation made Biden “better than how he was.”

“Joe Biden of all of the politicians in Washington is the only one that I’m certain has a brain, because I have seen it,” Kassell said. “That’s more than I can say about all the other candidates or the incumbents.”

“Joe Biden of all of the politicians in Washington is the only one that I’m certain has a brain, because I have seen it.”

— Dr. Neal Kassell

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

At the same time, however, Biden hasn’t been forthcoming about his health at least since 2008 when he released his medical records as a vice presidential candidate. The disclosure that time revealed some fairly minor issues such as an irregular heartbeat in addition to detailing previous operations, including removing a benign polyp during a colonoscopy in 1996, the outlet reported.

It remains unclear if Biden had more aneurysms. Some medical experts say that people who have had an aneurysm can have another one.

An aneurysm, or a weakening of an artery wall, can lead to a rupture and internal bleeding, potentially placing a patient’s life in jeopardy.

Biden won’t be the only Democrat grappling with old age. Sen. Bernie Sanders, another 2020 frontrunner, is currently 77 years old and agreed with Biden last year that their ages will be an issue in the race.

“It’s part of a discussion, but it has to be part of an overall view of what somebody is and what somebody has accomplished,” Sanders told Politico.

“Look, you’ve got people who are 50 years of age who are not well, right? You’ve got people who are 90 years of age who are going to work every day, doing excellent work. And obviously, age is a factor. But it depends on the overall health and wellbeing of the individual.”

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

Source: Fox News Politics

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Cambodian authorities have ordered a one-hour reduction in the length of school days because of concerns that students and teachers may fall ill from a prolonged heat wave.

Education Minister Hang Chuon Naron said in an announcement seen Friday that the shortened hours will remain in effect until the rainy season starts, which usually occurs in May. The current heat wave, in which temperatures are regularly reaching as high as 41 Celsius (106 Fahrenheit), is one of the longest in memory.

Most schools in Cambodia lack air conditioning, prompting concern that temperatures inside classrooms could rise to unhealthy levels.

School authorities were instructed to watch for symptoms of heat stroke and urge pupils to drink more water.

The new hours cut 30 minutes off the beginning of the school day and 30 minutes off the end.

School authorities instituted a similar measure in 2016.

Source: Fox News World

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Explosions have rocked Britain’s largest steel plant, injuring two people and shaking nearby homes.

South Wales Police say the incident at the Tata Steel plant in Port Talbot was reported at about 3:35 a.m. Friday (22:35 EDT Thursday). The explosions touched off small fires, which are under control. Two workers suffered minor injuries and all staff members have been accounted for.

Police say early indications are that the explosions were caused by a train used to carry molten metal into the plant. Tata Steel says its personnel are working with emergency services at the scene.

Local lawmaker Stephen Kinnock says the incident raises concerns about safety.

He tweeted: “It could have been a lot worse … @TataSteelEurope must conduct a full review, to improve safety.”

Source: Fox News World

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The Wider Image: China's start-ups go small in age of 'shoebox' satellites
LinkSpace’s reusable rocket RLV-T5, also known as NewLine Baby, is carried to a vacant plot of land for a test launch in Longkou, Shandong province, China, April 19, 2019. REUTERS/Jason Lee

April 26, 2019

By Ryan Woo

LONGKOU, China (Reuters) – During initial tests of their 8.1-metre (27-foot) tall reusable rocket, Chinese engineers from LinkSpace, a start-up led by China’s youngest space entrepreneur, used a Kevlar tether to ensure its safe return. Just in case.

But when the Beijing-based company’s prototype, called NewLine Baby, successfully took off and landed last week for the second time in two months, no tether was needed.

The 1.5-tonne rocket hovered 40 meters above the ground before descending back to its concrete launch pad after 30 seconds, to the relief of 26-year-old chief executive Hu Zhenyu and his engineers – one of whom cartwheeled his way to the launch pad in delight.

LinkSpace, one of China’s 15-plus private rocket manufacturers, sees these short hops as the first steps towards a new business model: sending tiny, inexpensive satellites into orbit at affordable prices.

Demand for these so-called nanosatellites – which weigh less than 10 kilograms (22 pounds) and are in some cases as small as a shoebox – is expected to explode in the next few years. And China’s rocket entrepreneurs reckon there is no better place to develop inexpensive launch vehicles than their home country.

“For suborbital clients, their focus will be on scientific research and some commercial uses. After entering orbit, the near-term focus (of clients) will certainly be on satellites,” Hu said.

In the near term, China envisions massive constellations of commercial satellites that can offer services ranging from high-speed internet for aircraft to tracking coal shipments. Universities conducting experiments and companies looking to offer remote-sensing and communication services are among the potential domestic customers for nanosatellites.

A handful of U.S. small-rocket companies are also developing launchers ahead of the expected boom. One of the biggest, Rocket Lab, has already put 25 satellites in orbit.

No private company in China has done that yet. Since October, two – LandSpace and OneSpace – have tried but failed, illustrating the difficulties facing space start-ups everywhere.

The Chinese companies are approaching inexpensive launches in different ways. Some, like OneSpace, are designing cheap, disposable boosters. LinkSpace’s Hu aspires to build reusable rockets that return to Earth after delivering their payload, much like the Falcon 9 rockets of Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

“If you’re a small company and you can only build a very, very small rocket because that’s all you have money for, then your profit margins are going to be narrower,” said Macro Caceres, analyst at U.S. aerospace consultancy Teal Group.

“But if you can take that small rocket and make it reusable, and you can launch it once a week, four times a month, 50 times a year, then with more volume, your profit increases,” Caceres added.

Eventually LinkSpace hopes to charge no more than 30 million yuan ($4.48 million) per launch, Hu told Reuters.

That is a fraction of the $25 million to $30 million needed for a launch on a Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems Pegasus, a commonly used small rocket. The Pegasus is launched from a high-flying aircraft and is not reusable.

(Click https://reut.rs/2UVBjKs to see a picture package of China’s rocket start-ups. Click https://tmsnrt.rs/2GIy9Bc for an interactive look at the nascent industry.)

NEED FOR CASH

LinkSpace plans to conduct suborbital launch tests using a bigger recoverable rocket in the first half of 2020, reaching altitudes of at least 100 kilometers, then an orbital launch in 2021, Hu told Reuters.

The company is in its third round of fundraising and wants to raise up to 100 million yuan, Hu said. It had secured tens of millions of yuan in previous rounds.

After a surge in fresh funding in 2018, firms like LinkSpace are pushing out prototypes, planning more tests and even proposing operational launches this year.

Last year, equity investment in China’s space start-ups reached 3.57 billion yuan ($533 million), a report by Beijing-based investor FutureAerospace shows, with a burst of financing in late 2018.

That accounted for about 18 percent of global space start-up investments in 2018, a historic high, according to Reuters calculations based on a global estimate by Space Angels. The New York-based venture capital firm said global space start-up investments totaled $2.97 billion last year.

“Costs for rocket companies are relatively high, but as to how much funding they need, be it in the hundreds of millions, or tens of millions, or even just a few million yuan, depends on the company’s stage of development,” said Niu Min, founder of FutureAerospace.

FutureAerospace has invested tens of millions of yuan in LandSpace, based in Beijing.

Like space-launch startups elsewhere in the world, the immediate challenge for Chinese entrepreneurs is developing a safe and reliable rocket.

Proven talent to develop such hardware can be found in China’s state research institutes or the military; the government directly supports private firms by allowing them to launch from military-controlled facilities.

But it’s still a high-risk business, and one unsuccessful launch might kill a company.

“The biggest problem facing all commercial space companies, especially early-stage entrepreneurs, is failure” of an attempted flight, Liang Jianjun, chief executive of rocket company Space Trek, told Reuters. That can affect financing, research, manufacturing and the team’s morale, he added.

Space Trek is planning its first suborbital launch by the end of June and an orbital launch next year, said Liang, who founded the company in late 2017 with three other former military technical officers.

Despite LandSpace’s failed Zhuque-1 orbital launch in October, the Beijing-based firm secured 300 million yuan in additional funding for the development of its Zhuque-2 rocket a month later.

In December, the company started operating China’s first private rocket production facility in Zhejiang province, in anticipation of large-scale manufacturing of its Zhuque-2, which it expects to unveil next year.

STATE COMPETITION

China’s state defense contractors are also trying to get into the low-cost market.

In December, the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp (CASIC) successfully launched a low-orbit communication satellite, the first of 156 that CASIC aims to deploy by 2022 to provide more stable broadband connectivity to rural China and eventually developing countries.

The satellite, Hongyun-1, was launched on a rocket supplied by the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp (CASC), the nation’s main space contractor.

In early April, the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALVT), a subsidiary of CASC, completed engine tests for its Dragon, China’s first rocket meant solely for commercial use, clearing the path for a maiden flight before July.

The Dragon, much bigger than the rockets being developed by private firms, is designed to carry multiple commercial satellites.

At least 35 private Chinese companies are working to produce more satellites.

Spacety, a satellite maker based in southern Hunan province, plans to put 20 satellites in orbit this year, including its first for a foreign client, chief executive Yang Feng told Reuters.

The company has only launched 12 on state-produced rockets since the company started operating in early 2016.

“When it comes to rocket launches, what we care about would be cost, reliability and time,” Yang said.

(Reporting by Ryan Woo; Additional reporting by Beijing newsroom; Editing by Gerry Doyle)

Source: OANN

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At least one person is reported dead and homes have been destroyed by a powerful cyclone that struck northern Mozambique and continues to dump rain on the region, with the United Nations warning of “massive flooding.”

Cyclone Kenneth arrived just six weeks after Cyclone Idai tore into central Mozambique, killing more than 600 people and displacing scores of thousands. The U.N. says this is the first time in known history that the southern African nation has been hit by two cyclones in one season.

Forecasters say the new cyclone made landfall Thursday night in a part of Mozambique that has not seen such a storm in at least 60 years.

Mozambique’s local emergency operations center says a woman in the city of Pemba was killed by a falling tree.

Source: Fox News World

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