News Headlines - 12 September 2019

▽Trump delays China tariff increase by 2 weeks as 'gesture of goodwill' - CBS News

President Donald Trump says the United States will delay by two weeks a planned increase in tariffs on some Chinese imports. In a Wednesday tweet, Mr. Trump said the delay is "a gesture of good will."
The president said Chinese Vice Premier Liu He requested the delay "due to the fact that the People's Republic of China will be celebrating their 70th Anniversary ... on October 1st." The delay could signal a de-escalation of tensions ahead of trade negotiations that are slated to resume in Washington next month, although expectations are tempered, analysts said.

▽Johnson denies lying to Queen over Parliament suspension - BBC News

Boris Johnson has denied lying to the Queen over the advice he gave her over the five-week suspension of Parliament.
The prime minister was speaking after Scotland's highest civil court ruled on Wednesday the shutdown was unlawful.
Asked whether he had lied to the monarch about his reasons for the suspension, he replied: "Absolutely not."

▽Yahoo Japan clinches deal for majority stake in Zozo | The Japan Times

Yahoo Japan Corp. has agreed to turn big online fashion retailer Zozo Inc. into a subsidiary for as much as ￥400 billion, which is expected to help it compete more effectively with larger rivals, such as Amazon Inc. and Rakuten Inc.
The deal is also likely to bolster the e-commerce prospects of Yahoo Japan, whose biggest shareholder is SoftBank Corp., the domestic telecom business of Masayoshi Son’s SoftBank Group Corp. empire.
The company offered ￥2,620 per share, a 21 percent premium on Zozo’s closing price, sending its shares soaring Thursday.

▽Water found on a potentially life-friendly alien planet

In a first for astronomers studying worlds beyond our solar system, data from the Hubble Space Telescope have revealed water vapor in the atmosphere of an Earth-size planet. Although this exoplanet orbits a star that is smaller than our sun, it falls within what’s known as the star’s habitable zone, the range of orbital distances where it would be warm enough for liquid water to exist on a planet’s surface.
The discovery, announced this week in two independent studies, comes from years of observations of the exoplanet K2-18b, a super-Earth that’s about 111 light-years from our solar system. Discovered in 2015 by NASA’s Kepler spacecraft, K2-18b is very unlike our home world: It’s more than eight times the mass of Earth, which means it’s either an icy giant like Neptune or a rocky world with a thick, hydrogen-rich atmosphere.

▽Ohtani to have left knee surgery, season over

Angels designated hitter Shohei Ohtani will miss the rest of the season, as he’s set to undergo surgery to repair a bipartite patella in his left knee Friday in Los Angeles. The Angels announced that he's expected to need eight to 12 weeks for a full recovery.
A bipartite patella essentially means Ohtani was born with two kneecaps instead of one. Ohtani didn’t miss any time during the season with a knee injury prior to Thursday’s announcement, but it was something that bothered him at several points during the season, especially once he started ramping up the intensity of his bullpen sessions in recent weeks. The Angels were unaware of the condition until an MRI exam in February.