News Headlines - 18 February 2021

▽Japan's Hashimoto says she was selected as new Tokyo 2020 president | Reuters

Japan’s Seiko Hashimoto, a woman who has competed in seven Olympics, has been chosen as president of the Tokyo 2020 Organising committee, she said on Thursday, replacing a man who resigned over a furore about his sexist remarks.
Hashimoto had been Japan’s Olympics minister until she resigned on Thursday to take up her new role.

▽LDP lawmaker Tamayo Marukawa succeeds Hashimoto as Japan's Olympic minister - The Mainichi

Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker Tamayo Marukawa took office as the new Olympic minister on Thursday, replacing Seiko Hashimoto who took the helm of the organizing committee of this summer's Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics.

▽Lawmaker resigns from LDP over visit to luxurious nightlife venue | The Japan Times

Another ruling Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker quit the party Wednesday following a report that he visited a luxurious Tokyo nightlife venue despite government calls to avoid unnecessary outings under a state of emergency to contain the spread of the coronavirus.
Lower House member Takaki Shirasuka, 45, apologized at a news conference for his recent stay in the members-only lounge until late at night. The visit came after three fellow party members left the LDP earlier this month following public anger over their visits to Ginza hostess bars.

▽LAPD, police union outraged by report of Floyd 'Valentine'

A report that Los Angeles police officers circulated a photo of George Floyd with the words “you take my breath away” in a Valentine-like format has prompted an internal investigation and drawn blistering condemnation from Floyd’s family, the district attorney and the police union.

▽Scientists find unexpected animal life far beneath Antarctica’s floating ice shelves

Animal life was not what scientists were expecting to find in the pitch-black seawater beneath almost half a mile of floating Antarctic ice, but it seems to have found a way with the discovery of sea creatures living in the extreme environment.
Geologists taking sediment cores from the seafloor beneath the giant Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf on the southern edge of Antarctica’s Weddell Sea discovered what biologists believe are types of sponge. The finding was published Monday in Frontiers in Marine Science.