News Headlines - 06 February 2020

▽Mitt Romney speech: senator explains vote in Trump impeachment trial

Sen. Mitt Romney split with his party Wednesday when he voted to convict President Donald Trump on abuse of power in the Senate impeachment trial.
Romney was the only Republican to vote to convict Trump, who was acquitted on both articles of impeachment. Since then, he's drawn praise from Democrats and the ire of Republicans.
In explaining his vote in a speech on the Senate floor Wednesday, Romney appeared emotional, choking up when he explained how his faith informed his vote.

▽Nissan Leaf breaks UK record for longest self-driving car journey | The Guardian

A self-navigating car has successfully driven itself for 230 miles, the longest and most complex journey undertaken so far on UK roads by an autonomous vehicle.
The Nissan Leaf, fitted with GPS, radar, Lidar laser measurement technology and cameras, travelled from Nissan’s technical centre in Cranfield, Bedfordshire, to the carmaker’s manufacturing plant in Sunderland, where the model is made.

▽Hokusai: World's most powerful passport now features Japanese ukiyo-e art | CNN Travel

Japan is issuing passports featuring art by ukiyo-e master Katsushika Hokusai to Japanese citizens who applied after February 4.
"Ukiyo-e" is a genre of mass-produced Japanese woodblock prints that display everything from theater announcements and landscapes to sumo wrestlers and even salacious erotica... The new passports will feature the "Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji" series created by Hokusai in the 19th century, which features one of Japan's best-known ukiyo-e prints, "The Great Wave off Kanagawa."

▽Two injured after fire traps 130 workers in Swedish mine - The Local

Around 130 people were trapped in a mine in central Sweden after a fire broke out 850 metres below the surface.
By Thursday afternoon, the fire had been extinguished and two people reported injured in the incident.
The fire broke out around 2pm at the Garpenberg mine in Dalarna. Shortly before 4pm the company running the mine, Boliden, said that all 130 people had been taken out of the mine.

▽Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums - BBC News

Finland's new government has announced plans to give all parents the same parental leave, in a push to get fathers to spend more time with their children.
Paid allowance will increase to a combined 14 months, which works out as 164 days per parent.
Neighbouring Sweden has Europe's most generous system of parental leave with 240 days each after a baby's birth.