News Headlines - 19 December 2020

▽Road operator: Tunnel likely caused Tokyo cave-in | NHK WORLD

A Japanese expressway operator says its work to dig an underground tunnel likely caused a cave-in in a residential area of western Tokyo.
East Nippon Expressway announced interim findings of its probe into the matter on Friday.
A hole suddenly appeared in Chofu City in October. Two underground cavities were later found nearby.

▽China fines Alibaba, Tencent’s e-book subsidiary over anti-trust violations | TechCrunch

The Chinese government is moving to curb the power of some of China’s most influential internet companies. The country’s top market regulator announced Monday that it is fining Alibaba and China Literature, Tencent’s e-book spinoff, for failing to report their past acquisition deals for clearance.

▽China worst offender in record year for jailing of journalists

As of December 1st, at least 247 journalists were behind bars in relation to their work, according to the CPJ survey. This figure does not include those who had been arrested and released, paroled, or assaulted in the course of performing their duties.
China jailed at least 47 journalists in 2020, 10 more than in Turkey, where journalists continue to be sent to prison despite a fall in numbers since the 2016 attempted coup.

▽Kangaroos can ask humans for help, study shows - CNN

Researchers found that kangaroos "intentionally" communicated with humans -- a behavior that was previously thought to be reserved for domesticated animals, like dogs, horses or goats.
Experts from London's University of Roehampton and the University of Sydney set up a task, known as "the unsolvable problem task," where they presented kangaroos with food trapped inside a plastic container.
After trying, and failing, to open the boxes, the kangaroos turned their gaze on a nearby human -- and sometimes even nudged or scratched them to ask for help, researchers said.

▽French 'Ice man' sets new world record in freezing glass cabin - France 24

Frenchman Romain Vandendorpe on Saturday set a world record for sitting immersed in ice cubes for the longest time, enduring the extreme challenge to raise money for childhood cancers.
The 34-year-old health worker remained buried up to his neck in ice in a plexiglass cabin for two hours, 35 minutes and 43 seconds, breaking the previous record by 40 minutes in the northern French town of Wattrelos.