News Headlines - 13 May 2019

▽Dow plunges 617 points after China retaliates with higher tariffs - CNN

China hiked tariffs on $60 billion of imports from the United States. It first imposed the tariffs last year.
Worries over the escalation of the trade spat with China just aren't going away.
US stocks ended the day sharply lower. The Dow closed down 617 points after falling as much as 719 points earlier in the day. The S&P 500 (SPX) fell 2.4% and the Nasdaq (COMP) dropped 3.4%.

▽Ghosn Didn't Receive Any Money Via Oman, Lawyer Tells TV Asahi - Bloomberg

Former Nissan Motor Co. Chairman Carlos Ghosn did not receive any money sent by the Japanese automaker through Oman to his personal accounts, his lawyer said on Sunday.
“He doesn’t have a company, he doesn’t control a company there, formally or effectively,” Junichiro Hironaka, the former global auto executive’s attorney, said in an interview on TV Asahi when asked about payments made though the Middle Eastern country. “Ghosn told me that is impossible.”

▽Noted scholar cut loose for plagiarism and making stuff up：The Asahi Shimbun

A private educational institution famed for instilling Christian values into its curriculum fired its own head for what was described as egregious fabrication of materials used in a book about Weimar Germany.
Tomoaki Fukai, who has published a number of well-regarded scholarly works on Protestant theology that have won awards, came under a cloud of suspicion when another scholar raised doubts last year about materials he used in a book published in 2012 about the relationship between German nationalism during the Weimar Republic and Protestantism.

▽More than 100 neglected lions found in a South African breeding facility

When NSPCA inspectors visited the facility, at Pienika Farm, they saw 27 lions afflicted with mange, a skin disease caused by parasitic mites. It was so severe that they’d lost almost all their fur. The inspectors reported that the animals were held in filthy, overcrowded enclosures, with more than 30 held in spaces meant for two. At least three cubs were suffering from a neurological condition called meningoencephalitis, an inflammation of the brain, that left them unable to walk. One was subsequently euthanized by a veterinarian at the facility.

▽Scores killed in Syria as bombs target last major rebel area - Channel 4 News

More than 100 people have now been killed in a bombing campaign by President Assad and his allies, targeting the last major rebel-held area.
Eight months ago, the Russians and Turks agreed a ceasefire in Idlib with their troops monitoring a buffer zone around the province. The Syrian government and jihadist rebels blame each other for breaking the truce.