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MLB notebook: All-Star, HR Derby bonuses coming

FILE PHOTO: MLB: Spring Training-Cleveland Indians at Milwaukee Brewers
FILE PHOTO: Feb 27, 2019; Phoenix, AZ, USA; Milwaukee Brewers starting pitcher Jhoulys Chacin (45) pitches against the Cleveland Indians during the first inning at Maryvale Baseball Park. Mandatory Credit: Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports

March 15, 2019

The winner of the 2019 Home Run Derby will earn a $1 million bonus, and there is a boost coming for this year’s All-Star selections, MLB announced Thursday in a rules update for the upcoming season.

The proposed changes must be ratified by baseball’s 30 owners to become official.

The total prize pool for the 2019 Home Run Derby, which takes place the night before the All-Star Game scheduled for July 9 at Progressive Field in Cleveland, is up to $2.5 million. The winner will claim $1 million. Whether the increase is enough incentive to keep stars interested in the swing-a-thon is unclear.

For example, new Philadelphia Phillies slugger Bryce Harper took part in the event when it was held in his home park with the Nationals, but his new contract pays him the equivalent of $50,000 per plate appearance.

–The Milwaukee Brewers announced that 31-year-old right-hander Jhoulys Chacin will get the Opening Day start against the visiting St. Louis Cardinals on March 28.

“Jhoulys earned the honor from what he did last year,” Brewers manager Craig Counsell said. “He deserves it, for sure.”

Chacin, who compiled a 15-8 record with a 3.50 ERA in 35 starts last season, also started openers for the Colorado Rockies in 2013 (a no-decision vs. the Brewers) and the San Diego Padres in 2017 (allowing nine earned runs in 3 1/3 innings against the Los Angeles Dodgers).

–Los Angeles Angels left-hander Andrew Heaney looks to be out of the running to be the team’s Opening Day starter after he was shut down because of elbow inflammation, manager Brad Ausmus said.

Heaney had an MRI exam that did not reveal any structural damage, but his upcoming downtime could lead to him starting the season on the injured list, Ausmus said.

Heaney was scratched from his March 3 spring training start but resumed throwing last week. He recorded two outs against the Chicago White Sox on Friday but came out of that game when he felt more discomfort.

–The Seattle Mariners could be without third baseman Kyle Seager until early June after the eight-year veteran had hand surgery, general manager Jerry Dipoto revealed.

Seager, 31, had surgery Tuesday in Phoenix and recovery time is expected to be 8-10 weeks. Dipoto confirmed, however, that Seager won’t even be able to swing a bat for eight weeks, meaning that his return could be in the range of 10-12 weeks.

Seager, a Gold Glove Award winner in 2014, batted a career-low .221 last season with 22 home runs and 78 RBIs. It was his lowest home run total since 2013, the year before he made his lone All-Star Game appearance.

–The Toronto Blue Jays reassigned Vladimir Guerrero Jr., their top prospect, to their minor league camp, Sportsnet reported.

The third baseman has been sidelined since last weekend with a left oblique strain and will start the season with Triple-A Buffalo. Recovery time is expected to be about three weeks.

Guerrero, who will turn 20 on Saturday, spent time last season at Double-A New Hampshire and Triple-A Buffalo. The son of Hall of Fame member Vladimir Guerrero batted .402 with 14 home runs and 60 RBIs in 61 games in New Hampshire.

–Right-hander Michael Fulmer was shut down by the Detroit Tigers for an indefinite period of time, one day before his next scheduled spring outing.

“He took a step back to refine his lower-body mechanics,” manager Ron Gardenhire said, reading from a statement written on a legal pad, after the Tigers and Red Sox played to a 4-4 tie. “We have no timetable on when he’s going to get back on the mound.”

Asked follow-up questions by a reporter, Gardenhire said, “We’re not going to go any further than that. We have to let him do his thing and let the trainers do their thing.”

–Left-handed reliever Tony Sipp signed a one-year deal worth up to $1.25 million with the Washington Nationals.

Sipp’s deal includes a mutual option for 2020 and gives the Nationals a third left-hander in the bullpen to counter a division loaded with mashing lefties — Phillies outfielder Bryce Harper included.

Sipp posted a 1.86 ERA in 38 2/3 innings with the Houston Astros in 2018 and fills the bullpen vacancy created when the Nationals cut Sammy Solis, another lefty specialist, last week.

–Field Level Media

Source: OANN

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NZ's foreign minister arrives in Turkey for Muslim summit

New Zealand's deputy prime minister is attending an emergency session of an umbrella organization of Muslim nations in Turkey after a gunman killed 50 people in two mosques in the South Pacific nation.

Winston Peters was in Istanbul on Friday for the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation's executive committee meeting.

Australian Brenton Harrison Tarrant was arrested and charged with murder. Tarrant livestreamed the attack and released a manifesto describing his white supremacist views and how he planned the shootings.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who will also speak at the summit, has sparked outrage abroad by screening at campaign rallies excerpts of the Tarrant's video to denounce Islamophobia. New Zealand has been trying to prevent the use of the video and Peters is expected to take up the issue.

Source: Fox News World

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Exclusive: House panel seeks to depose Trump tax, ethics attorneys

FILE PHOTO: President Trump hosts discussion with U.S. governors at the White House in Washington
FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with U.S. governors at the White House in Washington, U.S., February 25, 2019. REUTERS/Jim Young

February 27, 2019

By Ginger Gibson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. House panel investigating President Donald Trump wants to depose Trump’s long-time tax lawyer Sheri Dillon, as well as Stefan Passantino, former deputy White House Counsel in charge of compliance and ethics, according to letters sent to both of them on Wednesday and seen by Reuters.

House of Representatives Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings, a Democrat, said in the letters that the panel wants to ask about Trump’s legally mandated financial ethics disclosures.

The panel, the letters said, also seeks information about payments made before the 2016 presidential election by former Trump personal attorney Michael Cohen to buy the silence of women who claimed they had affairs with the married Trump.

Neither Dillon nor Passantino responded immediately to requests for comment. The White House also did not immediately have a comment.

The letters, sent hours before Cohen was set to testify to the committee about his work for Trump, signals a widening of its investigation into Trump’s personal finances.

Dillon has a deep understanding of the president’s tax filings. Breaking with decades of presidential tradition, Trump has refused to make his tax returns public, leading other Democrats in Congress also to seek them. The letter did not indicate the committee would question Dillon about Trump’s tax returns.

The Cummings letters targets a 92-page ethics disclosure form that Trump filed in May 2018. It said he repaid Cohen in 2017 for a $130,000 payment made weeks before the November 2016 election to porn actress Stephanie Clifford, known as Stormy Daniels, to silence her over an alleged sexual encounter with Trump in 2006.

A June 2017 disclosure filed by Trump did not list a debt owed to Cohen. Some critics of the president have said this omission amounted to filing a false report, a federal crime.

In the letters to Dillon and Passantino, Cummings wrote that interviews with them “will address issues related to President Donald Trump’s financial disclosure reporting and the reimbursement of Michael Cohen for payments to silence women alleging affairs before the 2016 election.”

He added that, to accommodate committee Republicans’ concerns, Dillon and Passantino would be able to provide “a first-hand account of your interactions with the Office of Government Ethics.”

Passantino’s signature appeared on the 2018 disclosure filing, confirming that he concluded Trump was “in compliance with applicable laws and regulations.”

Passantino, summoned to appear on March 18, is now a legal adviser to the Trump Organization, the president’s business.

Dillon, summoned to appear on March 19, is a partner at the law firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius. She detailed Trump’s business investments at a press conference in 2016 shortly after he was elected and would likely have helped prepare the ethics disclosure, which provides an account of his business holdings.

(Reporting by Ginger Gibson; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Lisa Shumaker)

Source: OANN

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Liberal Think Tank Pushes For Release of Trump Taxes

A liberal think tank on Monday pushed Congress to request President Donald Trump’s tax returns “to understand his murky finances.”

Seth Hanlon, a senior fellow at The Center for American Progress, argued in a report that Congress “would be well within its legitimate investigative and oversight powers” to request the president’s tax returns.

The request is needed “to understand his murky finances; monitor potential conflicts of interest relevant to national security and other critical issues; and oversee the tax code and IRS,” the think tank wrote in its overview.

In 2016, Trump became the first major party nominee in decades to refuse to release his tax returns.

The Hill pointed out a provision in the federal tax code gives House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., the authority to request tax returns from the Treasury Department and review them in a closed session. The Ways and Means Committee could then vote to submit a report to the House, which could make public some or all of the tax returns.

Neal has said he’ll request the returns but hasn’t so far.

CAP's report maintains that Congress both has the authority to request Trump's tax returns as well as the "constitutional responsibility to do so given his secrecy and his domestic and foreign business entanglements, as well as the powers of the office."

It then gives six reasons why Congress should then obtain the president’s tax returns: to figure out if U.S. national security could be compromised by any financial conflicts of interest; to see if Trump has any conflicts of interests concerning his trade policies; to determine if Trump is violating the emoluments clause of the U.S. Constitution; to determine if Trump is benefiting from his own tax policies; to determine whether the IRS is sufficiently auditing Trump; and, to inform Congress's consideration of the legislation the House passed last month to require presidents to disclose 10 years of tax returns.

Source: NewsMax Politics

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Mueller report could ward off would-be Trump primary challengers

CONCORD, NH -- The findings of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation report could make primary challenges to President Donald Trump even more difficult.

“There’s no question it’s a huge victory for the president and it undermines a core argument about Russian collusion,” said a longtime GOP strategist who’s a veteran of numerous White House campaigns.

ROBERT MUELLER'S INVESTIGATION BY THE NUMBERS

"I do think it’s going to make it more difficult to draw a contrast in a primary,” said the operative, who asked to remain anonymous to speak more freely.

Mueller’s nearly two-year-long investigation did not establish that members of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government to interfere in the election in favor of Trump and at the expense of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

Mueller’s long-awaited findings also did not take a clear position on whether Trump obstructed justice, with no conclusions that the president committed a crime but also not exonerating Trump.

Attorney General William Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein on Sunday concluded, though, that Mueller’s report did not contain sufficient evidence to establish that Trump committed obstruction of justice.

The news doesn’t appear to do any favors for anyone mulling a primary challenge against a president who remains extremely popular among Republicans.

2020 DEMOCRATS DEMAND TO SEE THE 'WHOLE DAMN REPORT'

But former two-term Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld wasn’t dissuaded.

Weld, who’s moving closer to taking on Trump in next year’s GOP primaries, said Barr’s Sunday announcement is “kind of neutral to my effort.”

Speaking with Fox News while campaigning Monday in the first-in-the-nation primary state of New Hampshire, Weld explained that he “wasn’t really counting on the president getting caught in the soup for having said ‘I hope the Russians find more emails’ during the heat of the campaign. That never grabbed me as an indictable or impeachable offense, frankly.”

Asked if the news makes his longshot bid even longer, Weld quickly answered “no.”

And Weld – who set up a presidential exploratory committee in February - stressed that allegations of Russian collusion were “only one of the many, many questions that's been raised about the President.”

WELD TAKES FIRST STEP TOWARDS PRIMARY CHALLENGING TRUMP

The former governor - who returned to the Republican Party after running as the Libertarian Party’s vice presidential nominee in 2016 – said he’ll pull the trigger on deciding on a primary challenge in April.

“I doubt there would be anything to prevent me doing this,” he added. “I’m feeling more comfortable with this all the time.”

He also said he could raise the money needed to launch a primary challenge.

“I’m looking for old school money, my rolodex of years past,” he said. “I have reason to believe we will be adequately funded.”

A top adviser to former two-term Gov. John Kasich of Ohio also downplayed the significance of the findings.

“At the end of the day, I don’t think this, a month from now, will have made much difference.  And we haven’t seen the Mueller report. We’ve only seen the Barr memo,” John Weaver told Fox News. “And as usual, the White House and Trump world have gotten way over their skis, because I suspect the narrative written by Bob Mueller is a little bit different than the narrative written by the Attorney General.”

Kasich, a longtime vocal critic of the president who finished second to Trump in the 2016 New Hampshire Republican presidential primary, is mulling a 2020 primary challenge.

Weaver suggested that Barr’s Sunday announcement is “not going to impact the governor’s thinking one way or another because we weren’t hinging our decision on any one thing like this.”

UPCOMING HOGAN TRIP TO NH STOKES PRIMARY CHALLENGE SPECULATION

The other possible primary challenger to Trump is two-term Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, who’s heading to New Hampshire in April to speak at ‘Politics and Eggs,’ a must stop for White House hopefuls. Fox News reached out to a top Hogan political adviser but received no response.

A veteran New Hampshire-based GOP operative wasn’t as optimistic as Weld or Weaver.

Michael Dennehy – who served as a top adviser on Sen. John McCain’s 2000 and 2008 presidential campaigns – said that the summary findings from the Mueller report and the announcement by Barr would make a primary challenge more difficult.

“Of those Republicans who are unhappy with the president, this removes arguably the biggest obstacle for the president in any potential primary campaign,” Dennehy said.

Coli Reed agreed that “trying to primary President Trump was always going to be an uphill climb.”

But the veteran GOP strategist added, “I doubt the events of the weekend are going to move the needle much in either direction. Trump’s numbers with Republicans have always been rock solid, even during some of the more tumultuous points of his presidency.”

Source: Fox News Politics

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Afghan officials: Taliban attacks target police, killing 17

Afghan officials say the latest Taliban attacks have killed 17 policemen across the country.

Nik Mohammad Nazari, spokesman in northern Badakhshan province, says three policemen were killed on Friday in the district of Arghanj Khowa, where fighting is still underway.

Provincial police chief Ghulam Daoud Tarakhil says the Taliban launched massive attacks in eastern Ghazni province, targeting two checkpoints on Thursday and killing nine policemen. Tarakhil says the Taliban were "defeated with heavy causalities" after hours of gunbattles.

Deputy provincial council chief Asadullah Kakar says five policemen were killed in southeastern Zabul province's district of Shinkay on Thursday.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for all three attacks.

Separately, governor spokesman Asadullah Dawlatzai says a mortar struck a house in eastern Laghman province on Thursday, killing two, including a child.

Source: Fox News World

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Dem leaders reject immediate impeachment proceedings in urgent conference call

House Democrat leaders backed off the idea of immediately launching impeachment proceedings against President Trump in an urgent conference call Monday evening, amid a growing rift among the party's rank-and-file members, presidential contenders and committee chairs on the contentious issue.

Fox News is told by two senior sources on the conference call that even House Financial Services Committee Chair Maxine Waters, an anti-Trump firebrand, told fellow Democrats that while she personally favored going forward with impeachment proceedings, she was not pushing for other members to join her.

Waters' hesitation signaled clearly that, for the time being, any impeachment effort would struggle to gain steam. Just last week, Waters, D-Calif., took a far more aggressive tone, charging that "Congress’ failure to impeach is complacency in the face of the erosion of our democracy and constitutional norms."

Waters also has called Attorney General Bill Barr a "lackey," saying he was not being "respectful" to Congress. Barr held a news conference presenting Special Counsel Robert Mueller's conclusions and has referred bluntly to the FBI surveillance of the Trump campaign as "spying," rankling Democrats even as he said the important issue was whether the spying was properly predicated.

On the call Monday night, Waters took a more muted tone and said she was simply saying what she personally thought -- not demanding impeachment proceedings.

Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., said while she personally favored impeachment proceedings, she was not pushing for other lawmakers to join her. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., said while she personally favored impeachment proceedings, she was not pushing for other lawmakers to join her. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., reportedly told colleagues on the call that while the findings from Mueller's investigation merited further review, taking the president to trial would be premature. Congress is currently on a two-week recess, and representatives are scattered across the country.

The brewing fractures in the Democrat Party were evident on the Sunday talk show circuit, as House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif, told "Fox News Sunday" that the impeachment question presented a "very difficult decision" that would take "the next couple of weeks" to determine.

TOP DEM DISMISSES POSSIBILITY OF COLLUSION FATIGUE: 'THE RUSSIANS AREN'T GETTING TIRED'

“I'm not there yet, but I can foresee that possibly coming,” House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings, D-Md., said on CBS News’ “Face the Nation.” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said Democrats would be wise to instead focus on the upcoming presidential election.

“Obstruction of justice, if proven, would be impeachable,” New York Rep. Jerry Nadler, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said on NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” adding his committee would “see where the facts lead us.” Nadler issued a subpoena on Monday for documents and testimony from former White House Counsel Donald McGahn, who resisted Trump's calls to fire Mueller, according to the special counsel's findings.

Meanwhile, prominent progressive firebrand Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat running for president in 2020, wholeheartedly embraced the impeachment push.

Pelosi recognized the intra-party split in a letter to Democrats on Monday, ahead of the conference call.

“While our views range from proceeding to investigate the findings of the Mueller report or proceeding directly to impeachment, we all firmly agree that we should proceed down a path of finding the truth,” Pelosi wrote. “It is also important to know that the facts regarding holding the president accountable can be gained outside of impeachment hearings.”

Pelosi added: “Whether currently indictable or not, it is clear that the president has, at a minimum, engaged in highly unethical and unscrupulous behavior which does not bring honor to the office he holds."

Mueller's 18-month-long probe found no evidence the Trump team conspired illegally with Russians, and debunked numerous conspiracy theories that mainstream media outlets had advanced on the topic. Democrats quickly pivoted to focus on whether the president had illegally obstructed the Russia investigation -- a question Mueller chose to allow Barr, the Justice Department, and Congress to address.

Fox News' Alex Pappas, Chad Pergram, Mike Emanuel and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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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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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