News Headlines - 28 April 2019
▽Denso profit drops 23% on increased investment, market slowdown
Denso, the Toyota Group company that is Japan's biggest auto parts supplier, reported a 23 percent decline in operating profit for the latest fiscal year... CEO Koji Arima predicted that revenue and operating profit will increase in the current fiscal year ending March 31, 2020, thanks to rising sales of electrification and safety related products.
Denso announced separately April 26 that Akio Toyoda, president of Toyota Motor, will be appointed to its board, pending approval at Denso's annual shareholder meeting.
South Korea’s Moon Jae-in has staked his presidency on tackling two big challenges: North Korea and the economy. Both are proving to be stubborn foes.
The country’s gross domestic product contracted 0.3 percent in the first quarter - the biggest decline in a decade - the Bank of Korea said Thursday. The blow came just two days before the president was expected to mark the first anniversary of his historic summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un - with an event snubbed by the North Koreans.
Australia's federal government is once again in the spotlight for a years-old plan to cull 2 million feral cats by 2020, this time after details emerged about the reported use of poison-laced sausages to reduce the island's wild cat population.
Modern feral cats are the same species as domesticated house cats, but they hunt and survive in the wild without human contact. Scientists have linked the large cat population's predatory behaviors with the decline and, in some cases, the extinction of more than two dozen of Australia's native species.
▽Maria Butina sentenced to 18 months for trying to infiltrate US right and NRA The Guardian
A federal judge sentenced the Russian gun-rights activist Maria Butina to 18 months in prison on Friday, after she tried to infiltrate US conservative groups and the National Rifle Association to promote Russian political interests around the 2016 election.
After serving time in prison, Butina, 30, would be deported, a US district court judge said in a ruling the Russian embassy in Washington attacked as “political” and driven by “repressive US legislation”.
The judgment, which Butina can appeal, is a turning point in a high-profile case that came amid speculation over the extent of Russian interference in American politics.
▽NASA detects first 'Mars quake', and here's what it sounds like
The first "Mars quake" has been detected, NASA announced Tuesday... NASA said this is the first trembling that appears to have come from inside the planet, as opposed to being caused by forces above the surface, such as wind.
The sound was detected by NASA's Insight Lander, a robot spacecraft that's now sitting on the Martian surface. The sound was detected on April 6, 2019.
