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Trump's booming economy has 2020 Dems struggling to find negative spin

Multiple 2020 Democratic candidates are scrambling to put a negative spin on the state of the economy, with some resorting to incorrect or overblown suggestions that workers have to hold down two or three jobs to merely “survive” in the U.S.

Sens. Kamala Harris and Bernie Sanders and former Rep. Beto O’Rourke – all three leading Democrats running for the party’s presidential nomination -- have claimed in some form that the workers are struggling in the economy that has so far defied odds with a record-low unemployment rate.

HARRIS RISING IN 2020 POLL THAT SHOWS BIDEN AND SANDERS ON TOP

"Yeah, well, I’ve been traveling our country. People are working. They’re working two and three jobs to pay the bills. It’s not working for working people."

— Kamala Harris

“[They say] ‘the economy is great, it is doing great for everybody.’ And then you ask them, well, how is that? Well, they’ll point to the stock market. Well, that’s fine if you own stocks. Then you’ll ask them, what’s your other measure? And they’ll talk about well, the unemployment rate is down. That’s fine,” Harris reportedly said on the campaign trail multiple times.

“Yeah, well, I’ve been traveling our country. People are working. They’re working two and three jobs to pay the bills. It’s not working for working people,” she added.

But as the Washington Post’s fact checker notes, Harris’ much-repeated talking point appears not to be backed up by the data as the number of people working two or more jobs is particularly small and is decreasing.

Only 251,000 workers out of total 156 million people with jobs had two full-time jobs last month. This is a decline of nearly 100,000 such people compared to last year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In general, there are 7.8 million people who have more than one job.

WHY DEMOCRATS WANT TO ABOLISH ELECTORAL COLLEGE, PACK SUPREME COURT

Sanders, the leading Democrat in the polls so far, has also come under scrutiny after saying last week that “Millions of Americans are forced to work two or three jobs just to survive.”

While his claim is less inaccurate when compared to Harris, according to the Post, he misrepresents the data and omits that the millions people who indeed have more than one job are mostly working part-time rather than full-time.

In fact, merely 5 percent of the total American workforce holds more than one job, which isn’t the impression Sanders wanted to make by his comments.

“Millions of Americans are forced to work two or three jobs just to survive.”

— Bernie Sanders

At the same time, O’Rourke, the much-adored Democrat from El Paso, Texas, who’s been criticized for often shying away from policy specifics, made a blunder similar to those of Sanders and Harris.

“I have already shared with you that many are working second or third jobs — in fact in Texas, half of your colleagues are working a second or third job just to put food on the table,” he said in Iowa last week.

The fact checker points out that in this instance, O’Rourke and his team insisted that his claim was related to teachers rather than general workforce, yet even then the Democrat appears to use a dubious self-selected survey from Texas that found 39 percent of teachers expect to take extra jobs outside the classroom to meet family expenses.

At the same time, a U.S. Department of Education study that uses a representative random sample showed that 17 percent of teachers in the South, and 18 percent nationwide, had to boost their income with a job outside their schoolwork, the Post reported.

This is significantly lower than O’Rourke’s claim that “half” of the teachers are working second or third jobs just to get by.

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The Democrats’ negative spin on the economy in relation to people working more than one job was first tested by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez during an interview with PBS where she suggested the unemployment rate is low thanks to people holding several jobs.

“Unemployment is low because everyone has two jobs. Unemployment is low because people are working 60, 70, 80 hours a week and can barely feed their family,” she said.

The comments were called out by fact-checkers, with the Post awarding her Four Pinocchios.

Yet 2020 Democrats appear to have learned from the episode avoid directly linking people holding more than one job to the low unemployment rate.

Source: Fox News Politics

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Dems: Background Checks for US Citizens, But Don’t Tell ICE if Aliens Fail Gun Check

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Source: InfoWars

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Rattled by Vale disaster, mining CEOs move to change industry

Members of a rescue team search for victims of a collapsed tailings dam owned by Brazilian mining company Vale SA, in Brumadinho
FILE PHOTO: Members of a rescue team search for victims of a collapsed tailings dam owned by Brazilian mining company Vale SA, in Brumadinho, Brazil February 13, 2019. REUTERS/Washington Alves

February 26, 2019

By Ernest Scheyder

HOLLYWOOD, Fla. (Reuters) – After last month’s deadly tailings dam disaster at a Vale SA facility in Brazil, Freeport-McMoRan Inc Chief Executive Richard Adkerson sent a memo to his 29,000 employees telling them to immediately report any safety concerns about the scores of dams his company operates.

The disaster, which killed more than 300, has sparked a push to set global standards for the construction and inspection of tailings dams, which store the muddy detritus of the mining process, as well as emergency preparations. The move reflects a radical departure from the way the facilities have operated for more than a century.

Freeport, the world’s largest publicly traded copper producer, spends several hundred millions of dollars per year on tailings dams upkeep and has not had a tailings dam failure since it acquired Phelps Dodge in 2007. Adkerson’s directive underscored his desire not to blemish that record.

“I told my people, ‘If you know of a problem, don’t try to solve it yourself,'” Adkerson told Reuters. “Report it.”

On Tuesday, Adkerson and 26 other CEOs, including leaders from BHP Group Ltd, Vale SA and Glencore Plc, agreed as their first step since the Vale disaster to form a panel that will set international design and maintenance standards for dams and study ways to reduce the volume of water stored behind the dams in waste rock.

“We recognize our responsibility to offer more than just words,” said Donald Lindsey, CEO of Canadian miner Teck Resources Ltd and chair of the International Council on Mining and Metals, the industry trade group that set the standards.

“We owe it to the families impacted (by the Vale disaster) and to our stakeholders to take meaningful action,” he said.

In the weeks after the accident, Brazil’s government banned new upstream mining dams – the type of dam involved in the Vale disaster – and ordered the decommissioning of all such dams by 2021.

But Brazil and the broader mining industry have grappled with how best to codify uniform tailings dam standards, conscious of not only the safety implications but of growing public resentment over the use of tailings dams.

Right now for instance, there are no global mining industry standards defining what a tailings dam is, how to build one and how to care for it after it is decommissioned.

“I’m paranoid about tailings dams,” said Mark Bristow, CEO of Barrick Gold Corp, the world’s largest gold miner, which has assigned full-time engineers to each tailings dam.

In addition to setting global standards for the construction and inspection of tailings dams, the ICMM panel will also study ways to require so-called dry-stack tailings, where water is removed before tailings are stored, thus bolstering a dam’s safety. That likely can happen relatively soon, the ICMM said.

Longer term, ICMM said that in situ mining – in which an acid is pumped underground to leach out copper and other minerals – could become the industry standard, thus eliminating the need for tailings dams entirely.

“We absolutely agree that a fundamental change is required in the industry’s collective approach to safe tailings management,” said BHP CEO Andrew Mackenzie at the BMO Metals & Mining Conference in Florida, where the ICMM approved the panel’s formation.

The new standards to be set by ICMM will apply to all members, regardless of location. Past practices favored a more tailored approach.

The Vale disaster “led us to reconsider how we look at tailings dams and acknowledge we need a step-change,” said Tom Butler, ICMM’s CEO.

Tailings dams in wet locations, for instance, had been held to a higher standard because they were more prone to erosion. But the new standards will favor a uniform approach that industry CEOs hope will greatly reduce the potential for another disaster.

“We cannot have a sense of complacency about this,” Freeport’s Adkerson said.

(Reporting by Ernest Scheyder; Editing by Tom Brown)

Source: OANN

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Hire Achievement: Booming Manufacturing Needs Workers

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Economic commentators are catching on to the story manufacturers have been sharing for a while: In 2018, manufacturers were the stars of the U.S. economy. Our industry had the best year for job creation in more than two decades, adding an average of 22,000 jobs every month—bringing the total number of American manufacturing workers to more than 12.8 million.

Powered by tax reform and regulatory certainty, manufacturers spent the year keeping our promise to secure those tools and invest in our people. In addition to hiring new workers, manufacturers also raised wages and benefits and invested in new operations and new equipment. Reflecting the historic nature of 2018, the National Association of Manufacturers’ Outlook Survey, which has tracked manufacturers’ sentiment for 20 years, hit a new record of optimism. 

Manufacturers entered 2019 with strong momentum, and now we expect the growth and hiring to continue. We have challenges, to be sure, and know there will always be bumps along the way—but the skeptics and naysayers have it wrong when they question the strength of modern manufacturing in America. In reality, manufacturers wish we could hire skilled workers even faster. There just are not enough of them.

Today, manufacturers need to fill 428,000 jobs. And according to Deloitte and The Manufacturing Institute, the workforce and education partner of the NAM, manufacturers will need to fill 4.6 million jobs over the next decade. But under current conditions, not enough Americans are pursuing these careers, even though they pay on average $84,832 a year in wages and benefits, or $32,000 more than jobs in other fields. Of those 4.6 million jobs that will be open between now and 2028, as many as 2.4 million could go unfilled. 

We need skilled workers—and we need them now. In addition to men and women who create things with their hands, this includes coders, programmers, technicians, designers and other jobs that require some degree of specialized training. We don’t think of these as blue-collar or white-collar jobs but “new-collar” jobs, the jobs that put the “modern” in “modern manufacturing.”

As we deploy new technology—from artificial intelligence and augmented reality to advanced robotics and 3-D printing—manufacturers will require more skilled workers in this next frontier. Across America, manufacturers of all types are saying, “Creators wanted.”

That is the message the NAM is sharing with the country right now on the NAM State of Manufacturing Tour, which this year is taking us to Colorado, Texas, Ohio, Iowa, North Carolina, Minnesota, California and Arizona.

Across America, manufacturers have taken the initiative to be the solution to this workforce crisis, partnering with local schools and offering training, re-training and up-skilling of their own. We have created our own recruiting campaign at CreatorsWanted.org. The Manufacturing Institute, through its Heroes MAKE America program, is training servicemembers for careers in manufacturing after they leave the military—in addition to other initiatives to bring underrepresented groups into the industry.

A strong manufacturing industry should be a priority for all Americans because it is vital to the overall health of the American economy, to our ability to lead in the world and to our security at home. It puts the American Dream in reach for more people, while delivering the products and technology that improve daily life for everyone.

That is why parents, educators and local leaders should be champions for manufacturing careers. It is why leaders in Washington should listen to manufacturers in their home states who are calling on them to invest in our infrastructure, fix our broken immigration system and give us the chance to sell more products around the world through the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement and a new trade agreement to hold China accountable.

Manufacturers are not the type to worry about the future—we build it. That has been our role throughout the history of this country. If more Americans join us in this mission, and if lawmakers in Washington do their part, we can build a future that defies expectations and breaks new records.

Jay Timmons is president and CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers, the largest manufacturing trade association in the United States.

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Nun to Vatican abuse summit: “This storm will not pass by”

A prominent Nigerian nun has blasted the culture of silence in the Catholic Church that has long sought to hide clergy sexual abuse, telling a Vatican summit that transparency and an admission of mistakes is needed to restore trust.

In a powerful speech Saturday, Sister Veronica Openibo told Pope Francis' gathering of the Catholic hierarchy that African and Asian church leaders must no longer justify their silence about sexual violence by claiming that poverty and conflict are more serious issues for the church.

Openibo warned: "This storm will not pass by."

She called for discussion on a host of controversial issues to address the scandal, including lay participation in the selection of bishops, whether seminaries for young boys are really healthy and why abusers aren't dismissed from the clergy.

Source: Fox News World

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Police searching for man wanted for murder of his second wife, reinvestigating death of first wife

Authorities are on the hunt for a man who is wanted for murder after his wife was found dead 30 miles from the couple's North Carolina home.

The whereabouts of Rexford Lynn Keel Jr., 57, are currently unknown and a warrant has been issued for his arrest for first-degree murder. His wife, 38-year-old Diana Alejandra Keel, was reported missing by her daughter on March 9 after learning she had not showed up for her job as an emergency room nurse for several days. Her body was discovered three days later by Department of Transportation employees who were working along a remote road about 30 minutes away from Nashville, N.C.

Police say they are now reinvestigating the death of Keel's first wife, Elizabeth Edward Keel, who died in 2006 at the same house Keel lives in today. Her death was ruled as an accident and thought to be the result of a fall on the corner of the concrete steps in front of the house.

It is not yet known how Diana Keel died, but an autopsy was conducted on Wednesday and her death was ruled as a homicide.

NORTH CAROLINA MAN CHARGED IN QUADRUPLE COLD CASE MURDERS FROM 2008

The body of Diana Alejandra Keel, 38, was discovered 30 miles from her home three days after she was reported missing 

The body of Diana Alejandra Keel, 38, was discovered 30 miles from her home three days after she was reported missing  (Nash County Sheriff’s Office)

NORTH CAROLINA WOMAN KILLED IN MYSTERIOUS ANIMAL ATTACK, POLICE SAY

Keel was questioned on Tuesday in connection with the discovery of his wife's body. He said that he had not seen her since Friday and that it wasn't uncommon for her to leave their home for long periods of time. He was released without charge.

As authorities continue to search for Keel, they have advised that he is driving a gold 1998 Chevy pickup truck with the North Carolina license plate BBM-9232.

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“The most difficult aspect of this case is a 10-year-old son and an 18-year-old daughter are without their mother,” Sheriff Keith Stone said during a press conference on Wednesday.

Detectives are reportedly working with the FBI to find Keel and find out the truth about what happened to his wives.

Fox News' Elizabeth Zwirz contributed to the reporting of this story.

Source: Fox News National

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Report: Buccaneers expected to sign QB Gabbert

FILE PHOTO: Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Blaine Gabbert examines his arm after being sacked by Houston Texans safety Danieal Manning in Houston
FILE PHOTO: Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Blaine Gabbert examines his arm after being sacked by Houston Texans safety Danieal Manning forcing a turnover during their NFL football game in Houston November 18, 2012. Gabbert was injured on the play and was taken out of the game. REUTERS/Richard Carson

March 25, 2019

After being cut by the Tennessee Titans 10 days ago, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are expected to sign quarterback Blaine Gabbert, according to a report Monday.

According to The Athletic, Gabbert’s experience with new Tampa Bay head coach Bruce Arians while both were with the Arizona Cardinals in the 2017 season is a key factor in the mutual decision.

Gabbert, 29, was the Titans backup quarterback to Marcus Mariota last season and played eight games for the oft-injured starter, going 2-1 in three starts. For the season Gabbert completed 60.4 percent of his passes for 626 yards, four touchdown passes and four interceptions.

The Titans moved on from Gabbert as a backup when they traded for former Miami Dolphins quarterback Ryan Tannehill on March 15, releasing Gabbert the same day.

His final start last season came in a winner-take-all season finale against the Titans’ AFC South rivals, the Indianapolis Colts. Tennessee lost 33-17 to miss the postseason. In that game Gabbert went 18-for-29 for 165 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions.

Originally selected 10th overall in the 2011 NFL Draft by the Jacksonville Jaguars, Gabbert has played for four teams in his eight seasons — the Jaguars (2011-13), the San Francisco 49ers (2014-16), plus the Cardinals (2017) and Titans last season.

Gabbert owns a career 13-35 record as an NFL starter, working mostly as a backup since 2013. For his career he has played in 56 games (48 starts), throwing for 9,063 yards with 48 TDs, 47 interceptions and a 71.7 passer rating.

–Field Level Media

Source: OANN

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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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