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Winston scores 26 as Michigan State survives Bradley scare

NCAA Basketball: NCAA Tournament-First Round-Bradley vs Michigan State
Mar 21, 2019; Des Moines, IA, United States; Michigan State Spartans forward Xavier Tillman (23) drives to the basket against Bradley Braves guard Nate Kennell (25) during the second half in the first round of the 2019 NCAA Tournament at Wells Fargo Arena. Mandatory Credit: Steven Branscombe-USA TODAY Sports

March 21, 2019

Cassius Winston scored 26 points to lead No. 2 Michigan State to a 76-65 victory over No. 15 Bradley in Thursday’s first round of the East Region of the NCAA Tournament in Des Moines, Iowa.

Winston made all eight of his free throws and the Spartans (29-6) finished 25-of-26 at the stripe. Xavier Tillman had 16 points and 11 rebounds and Matt McQuaid added 10 points.

Elijah Childs scored 19 to lead Bradley (20-15), the tournament champions from the Missouri Valley Conference who were back in the NCAA tourney for the first time in 13 years. Darrell Brown added 17 points, Dwayne Lautier-Ogunleye scored 14 and the Braves made nine 3-pointers to keep the game close.

It didn’t take Michigan State long to realize it was in a for a fight as Bradley jumped to a quick 10-4 lead, nailing a pair of 3-pointers. The Spartans responded with a 9-0 run to take a 13-10 lead, but the momentum would be short lived for Michigan State.

The Spartans could never pull away, going just 2 for 10 from 3-point range in the first half. Meanwhile, Bradley buried 6 of 9 from long range, its final two giving the Braves a 35-34 lead at halftime after Michigan State failed to get a shot off on its final possession.

After Childs scored the first four points of the second half, Michigan State went on a 10-0 run to take a 44-39 lead with 16:49 to play and pushed that advantage to 50-43, capping a 16-4 surge when Nick Ward hit a pair of free throws.

But two straight turnovers led to five Bradley points in a matter of seconds, followed by an offensive foul on Ward with 11:34 to play.

Brown then buried a deep 3-pointer to give Bradley a 51-50 lead that went back and forth over the next few possessions, with Tillman putting Michigan State ahead 54-53 on a layup with 7:43 left in the game.

Winston scored four straight to put Michigan State up 58-55 with just more than four minutes to play. McQuaid then hit a 3-pointer from the wing followed by a jumper in the lane from Aaron Henry to give the Spartans a 63-55 lead with 2:41 to play.

Bradley ran out of gas from there as Michigan State converted 11 of its last 12 free throws.

–Field Level Media

Source: OANN

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Spanish-language reporter detained by ICE seeks release

A detained Spanish-language reporter facing deportation after he was arrested while covering an immigration rally in Tennessee is seeking release from custody.

Lawyers for Manuel Duran said Thursday they filed a petition seeking his release from the Etowah County Detention Center in Alabama. He was transferred there after being held in Louisiana following his arrest one year ago.

Duran has been in custody since he was arrested while covering an April 3, 2018, rally protesting immigration policies in Memphis.

Charges related to the protest were dropped, but he was picked up by immigration agents after he was released from jail and detained. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has said Duran was taken into custody because he had a pending deportation order from 2007 after failing to appear for a court hearing.

Source: Fox News National

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Israeli soldiers kill Gaza teenager during border protest

Relative of a Palestinian who was killed at the Israeli-Gaza border fence during a protest, reacts in the northern Gaza Strip
A relative of a Palestinian who was killed at the Israeli-Gaza border fence during a protest, reacts in the northern Gaza Strip April 12, 2019. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem

April 12, 2019

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) – Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian teenager taking part in protests along the Gaza border on Friday, Palestinian health officials said, the first fatality since Gazans marked the one-year anniversary of the weekly demonstrations in March.

The Israeli military said about 7,400 Palestinians massed along the frontier, some throwing rocks, and that there were several attempts to approach the fence into Israel.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said a 15-year-old boy died after being shot by Israeli gunfire. An Israeli army spokesman said the troops were responding with riot dispersal means.

Tensions rose after a rocket fired from Gaza wounded seven Israelis north of Tel Aviv on March 25. Israel mounted a wave of air strikes following that attack on targets it said belonged to Hamas, the Islamist group which rules the coastal enclave.

The cross-border violence immediately played into Israel’s election campaign, which concluded earlier this week with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu heading toward a record fifth term in office.

But Egyptian mediators intervened to avoid further escalation by persuading Israel to lift restrictions on the movement of goods and people in and out of Gaza and expand the breadth of Mediterranean waters where Gazans can fish.

The protesters are demanding an end to a blockade imposed on Gaza by Israel and Egypt, and want Palestinians to have the right to return to land from which their families fled or were forced to flee during Israel’s founding in 1948.

Israel rejects any such return, saying it would eliminate its Jewish majority.

More than 200 Gazans have been killed by Israeli troops since the ‘Great March of Return’ started on March 30 last year, according to Gaza health officials. An Israeli soldier was also killed by a Palestinian sniper.

Last month’s anniversary rally was smaller than expected, despite concerns that the event, during which four Palestinians were killed, would see a major escalation.

Israel seized Gaza in the 1967 Middle East War and pulled out its troops and settlers in 2005. It says its blockade is necessary to stop weapons reaching Hamas, which has fought three wars with Israel and fired thousands of rockets at it in the past decade.

Israel’s use of lethal force at the border protests has drawn censure from the United Nations and human rights groups. U.N. investigators in February said Israeli forces might be guilty of war crimes for using excessive force.

Israel says its troops have no choice because they are trying to stop militants breaching the fence and attacking Israeli communities nearby. Palestinians have also launched incendiary balloons and kites into Israel.

(Writing by Nidal al-Mughrabi and Rami Ayyub; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Source: OANN

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Germany’s 5G spectrum auction resumes after bids slowed before Easter

FILE PHOTO: A journalist uses his mobile phone to take a picture of the 5G logo prior to the auction of spectrum for 5G services at the Bundesnetzagentur head quarters in Mainz
FILE PHOTO: A journalist uses his mobile phone to take a picture of the 5G logo prior to the auction of spectrum for 5G services at the Bundesnetzagentur head quarters in Mainz, Germany, March 19, 2019. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach/File Photo

April 23, 2019

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Germany’s auction of spectrum for 5G mobile services resumes on Tuesday after bidding slowed to a crawl last week before the Easter holiday, with the amount pledged by the four firms taking part currently around 5.4 billion euros ($6.1 billion).

More than a month in, the auction is shaping up to be one of the longest on record with 218 rounds completed so far – just shy of the 224 rounds in a similar auction in 2010.

But it’s far from being the most expensive – a 3G auction in 2000 raised 50 billion euros. Were things to wind up near current levels, auction proceeds would be broadly in line with amounts forecast by independent analysts.

The auction, being held in a former army barracks in the western city of Mainz, resumes at 1300 CET (1100 GMT) and will only end when no new bids are entered.

Industry bosses have expressed concern that the four-way battle would inflate costs and undermine their ability to invest the billions needed to build the 5G networks – as happened in a pricey spectrum auction in Italy last year.

(GRAPHIC: Germany’s 5G Auction – Total Raised – https://tmsnrt.rs/2HWVDEu)

Germany’s three existing operators — Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone and Telefonica Deutschland — and new entrant 1&1 Drillisch are vying for 41 blocks of spectrum in the 2 Gigahertz and 3.6 GHz bands.

These frequencies have a relatively short range and high data-carrying capacity, suiting them to use in running ‘connected’ factories – a German industrial policy priority.

Bidding has, however slowed to a crawl, with much of last week featuring contests in which just one block in the 3.6 GHz band changed hands at modest increments of 2 million euros, as the graphic below indicates.

(GRAPHIC: Germany’s 5G Auction – Incremental Bids – https://tmsnrt.rs/2VnFafE)

Market leader Deutsche Telekom leads in 13 of the blocks on offer, with Vodafone ahead in 12 and Telefonica Deutschland in 9, according to results https://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/DE/Sachgebiete/Telekommunikation/Unternehmen_Institutionen/Frequenzen/OeffentlicheNetze/Mobilfunknetze/mobilfunknetze-node.html published by the Federal Network Agency (BNetzA).

Drillisch, a ‘virtual’ mobile player controlled by United Internet, leads in 7 blocks, bringing billionaire CEO Ralf Dommermuth closer to his dream of becoming Germany’s fourth operator.

(GRAPHIC: Ralph Dommermuth Sets His Sights On 5G – https://tmsnrt.rs/2AYOsWX)

(Reporting by Douglas Busvine; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)

Source: OANN

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128,000 people in makeshift camps after Mozambique cyclone: minister

Aid workers offload maize meal for victims of Cyclone Idai at Siverstream Estates in Chipinge
Aid workers offload maize meal for victims of Cyclone Idai at Siverstream Estates in Chipinge, Zimbabwe, March 24, 2019. REUTERS/Philimon Bulawayo

March 25, 2019

BEIRA, Mozambique (Reuters) – The number of people in makeshift camps after a powerful cyclone in Mozambique has risen by 18,000 to 128,000 but the death toll remains roughly unchanged at 447, Land and Environment Minister Celso Correia said on Monday.

“The loss of lives remains the same as yesterday,” Correia said. “The number of people saved in INGC (National Institute of Disaster Management) camps has increased to 128,000,” Correia told reporters at a briefing.

Cyclone Idai lashed the Mozambican port city of Beira with winds of up to 170 kph (105 mph), then moved inland to Zimbabwe and Malawi, flattening buildings and killing at least 656 people across the three countries.

(Reporting by Emma Rumney; Writing by Alexander Winning; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

Source: OANN

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NASA’s Twins Study Sees No Red Flags for Human Space Travel

From his eyes to his immune system, astronaut Scott Kelly's body sometimes reacted strangely to nearly a year in orbit, at least compared to his Earth-bound identical twin — but newly published research shows nothing that would cancel even longer space treks, like to Mars.

The good news: Kelly largely bounced back after returning home, say scientists who released final results from NASA's "twins study," a never-before opportunity to track the biological consequences of spaceflight in genetic doubles.

It marks "the dawn of human genomics in space," said Dr. Andrew Feinberg of Johns Hopkins University. He led one of 10 teams of researchers that scrutinized the twins' health down to the molecular level before, during and after Kelly's 340-day stay at the International Space Station.

More importantly, the study "represents more than one small step for mankind" by pointing out potential risks of longer-duration spaceflight that need study in more astronauts, said Markus Lobrich of Germany's Darmstadt University and Penny Jeggo of the University of Sussex, who weren't involved in the work.

The findings were published in Friday's edition of the journal Science, on some notable space anniversaries — when Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person in space in 1961, and the first launch of the space shuttle in 1981.

KEY FINDINGS

NASA already knew some of the toll of space travel, such as bone loss that requires exercise to counter. This time, NASA-funded scientists looked for a gamut of physiologic and genomic changes that Scott Kelly experienced in space, comparing them to his DNA double on the ground, former astronaut Mark Kelly. Some results had been reported in February.

Possibly the weirdest finding had to do with something called telomeres, the protective ends of chromosomes. Those tips gradually shorten as we get older, and are thought to be linked to age-related diseases including some cancers.

But in space, Scott Kelly's telomeres got longer. "We were surprised," said Colorado State University telomere expert Susan Bailey. She can't explain it although it doesn't mean Kelly got younger. Back on Earth, his telomeres mostly returned to preflight average although he did have more short telomeres than before.

Next, Kelly's DNA wasn't mutated in space but the activity of many of his genes — how they switch on and off — did change, especially in the last half of the voyage, which ended in March 2016.

Immune system genes especially were affected, putting it "almost on high alert as a way to try and understand this new environment," said study co-author Christopher Mason, a Weill Cornell Medicine geneticist in New York.

Again, most gene expression returned to normal back home, but some of the immune-related genes were hyperactive six months later.

Other findings:

—Some changes in the structure of Kelly's eye and thickening of his retina suggested that, like about 40% of astronauts, he experienced symptoms of "spaceflight-associated neuro-ocular syndrome." It may be caused by fluids shifting in the absence of gravity.

—He experienced some chromosomal instability that might reflect radiation exposure in space.

—A flu shot given in space worked as well as one on Earth.

—Kelly aced cognitive tests in space but slowed down after his return, maybe as more things competed for his attention.

ULTRA LONG-DISTANCE TESTING

Researchers needed months' worth of blood, urine and fecal samples, along with cognitive and physical tests and ultrasound scans. That meant getting creative: Some blood samples required analysis so rapidly that Kelly would time collection so the blood could travel on Russian Soyuz capsules carrying other astronauts back to Earth.

That wouldn't be an option on a three-year trip to Mars. One of the study's technological advances: Portable DNA-sequencing equipment that will let astronauts run some of their own genomic analyses on future missions, said Weill Cornell's Mason.

WHAT'S NEXT?

Studying one pair of twins can't prove risks of spaceflight, researchers cautioned. And longer missions, to the moon or Mars, will mean greater stress and radiation exposure.

Colorado State's Bailey plans to study 10 additional astronauts on year-long missions, using the twin findings as a road map.

"We need to get outside of low-Earth orbit and we need for the astronauts to spend longer periods of time to really evaluate some of these health effects," she said.

Source: NewsMax America

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Unrealistic Promises to Rust Belt May Haunt Trump

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WASHINGTON -- When General Motors idled its auto plant in Lordstown, Ohio, this month, President Trump adopted a familiar strategy: He issued a nasty string of tweets blaming other people and promised, in effect, that he would restore the past.

Trump's angry, backward-looking approach may still appeal to some Rust Belt voters. But in the Ohio and Pennsylvania towns that helped win the presidency for Trump in 2016, his vow to turn back the clock hasn't worked out very well, and there are signs the Rust Belt may be corroding for him politically.

Lordstown's struggles, like those of other nearby mill towns, illustrate the harsh fact that manufacturing is a dynamic process. Old jobs are disappearing because of changes in technology or consumer preferences; trying to resist change is usually a fool's game. Rust Belt communities that are succeeding are the ones that have adapted by embracing new technologies and innovation.

Presidential leadership in this period of technological transition should focus on the future, rather than the past. But Trump seems almost a technophobe. Axios reported this week that he thinks driverless cars are "crazy." He tweeted March 12, after the crash of a high-tech Boeing jetliner: "Airplanes are becoming far too complex to fly ... I see it all the time in many products. Always seeking to go one unnecessary step further, when often old and simpler is far better."

Trump's response to Lordstown was to attack David Green, the UAW local president, implying that he was at fault along with GM, and demanding that he "get his act together and produce." Green had sent letters to Trump in July 2018 and February 2019 warning about threats to the plant. Trump didn't respond.

After Trump's Twitter tirade, Rep. Tim Ryan, the Ohio Democrat who represents the Lordstown area, fired back: "The President's tweet ... is offensive and does nothing to help bring back the manufacturing jobs he promised to my district."

Ryan argued that "the best thing is to help" GM renovate Lordstown and perhaps build electric vehicles there. Local residents said much the same thing to the Youngstown Vindicator this month: GM or a new owner should focus on new technology and making products people want to buy, rather than restore production of the low-selling Chevrolet Cruze.

Trump is vulnerable in the Rust Belt because he made such extravagant promises when he successfully wooed voters in 2016. "He won this area -- a largely Democratic area -- and he has not said a word yet, and that's just pathetic," warned Jim Graham a former UAW leader at Lordstown, in an interview with the Vindicator back in November, when GM said it planned to halt Cruze production there.

Local residents remember Trump's proclamation at a July 2017 rally in nearby Youngstown: "Those jobs [that] have left Ohio, they're all coming back ... Don't sell your house." Tommy Wolikow, a Lordstown worker, told the Vindicator: "I kind of turned into a Trump supporter at that time. I believed what he said. ... Almost two years later, I'm seeing nothing but job losses."

Homeowners in Youngstown certainly haven't seen a boom. According to Zillow, the online realty broker, the median price for a house in Youngstown is $39,900. The national median price of homes currently listed is $279,000. Browse the real estate ads for mill towns across Ohio and Pennsylvania and you'll see just how tough it is to be a Rust Belt resident, trapped in a downward cycle.

What's the right answer for Rust Belt towns where the old manufacturing base has disappeared? An interesting example is Erie, Pennsylvania. Most big factories there have closed in recent years, but the city is rebuilding itself around its local universities and a big insurance company. Profits from a big gambling casino in Erie County are funneled partly to "innovation spaces" at four local campuses.

Erie may have lost manufacturing jobs, but it's above the state average in advanced industries, says Ben Speggen, a local journalist who helps run a think tank in Erie called the Jefferson Educational Society. "There has been a real shift in understanding that our Rust Belt economy is not solely tied to manufacturing," he says.

Another key to success is welcoming foreigners. About 10 percent of Erie's population is refugees, according to James and Deborah Fallows in their recent book, "Our Towns." One of the 10 characteristics they found in successful local communities adapting to change is that "they make themselves open."

One more lesson from Erie County, in the heart of the Rust Belt: Trump won there in the 2016 presidential election, but in the 2018 midterm congressional election, the county voted Democratic.

(c) 2019, Washington Post Writers Group

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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)

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