News Headlines - 02 February 2021

▽Japan to extend coronavirus emergency to March 7 as hospitals strained - The Mainichi

The Japanese government is set Tuesday to extend the state of emergency for Tokyo and other regions struggling to contain the novel coronavirus by one month to March 7, as hospitals remain under pressure from a surge in patients in serious condition.

▽Dubious petition signatures invalidate Aichi governor recall : The Asahi Shimbun

Prefectural election authorities said most of the hundreds of thousands of signatures collected in a petition drive to recall Aichi Governor Hidekai Omura will not count because they show similar penmanship.
The Aichi prefectural election administration commission announced on Feb. 1 that it found 83 percent of the 435,000 signatures submitted are invalid because they were written by a limited number of people.

▽Startup bluShift Aerospace launches its 1st commercial biofuel rocket from Maine | Space

A small rocket billed as the world's first commercial booster powered by biofuel has launched from Maine.
The Brunswick-based startup bluShift Aerospace launched its first rocket prototype, called Stardust 1.0, on Sunday (Jan. 31), despite freezing temperatures and two false starts. The rocket didn't reach space (or even a mile up), but marked a major milestone for a company aiming to launch bespoke missions tailored for tiny satellites.

▽Jeff Bezos to step down as Amazon CEO, Andy Jassy to take over in Q3

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos will leave his post later this year, turning the helm over to the company’s top cloud executive, Andy Jassy, according to an announcement Tuesday. Bezos will transition to executive chairman of Amazon’s board.
Bezos, 57, founded Amazon in 1994 and has since morphed the one-time online bookstore into a mega-retailer with global reach in a slew of different categories from gadgets to groceries to streaming. Amazon surpassed a $1 trillion market cap under Bezos’ leadership in January of last year - it’s now worth more than $1.6 trillion.

▽'Their goal is to destroy everyone': Uighur camp detainees allege systematic rape - BBC News

Women in China's "re-education" camps for Uighurs have been systematically raped, sexually abused, and tortured, according to detailed new accounts obtained by the BBC.