News Headlines - 22 April 2021

▽Biden Will Seek Tax Increase on Rich to Fund Child Care and Education - The New York Times

President Biden will seek new taxes on the rich, including a near doubling of the capital gains tax for people earning more than $1 million a year, to pay for the next phase in his $4 trillion plan to reshape the American economy.
Mr. Biden will also propose raising the top marginal income tax rate to 39.6 percent from 37 percent, the level it was cut to by President Donald J. Trump’s tax overhaul in 2017. The proposals are in line with Mr. Biden’s campaign promises to raise taxes on the wealthy but not on households earning less than $400,000.

▽NASA Pays Elon Musk's SpaceX $2.9 Billion To Ferry Astronauts To Moon Surface : NPR

NASA will pay Elon Musk's SpaceX $2.9 billion to build a lunar landing system to ferry astronauts to the surface of the moon.
SpaceX was one of three companies chosen last year to develop technology for NASA's Human Landing System program. On Friday NASA announced SpaceX's "Starship" design had beat out the other two companies for the contract.
It's the first time the space agency has used a human lander built by a private company, and it marks an important milestone for an agency that has in recent years depended on commercial partnerships for its most important missions.

▽Tokyo Motor Show in fall canceled over pandemic

The Tokyo Motor Show scheduled for this fall will be canceled due to a resurgence of coronavirus infections, Akio Toyoda, chairman of its organizer the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association, said Thursday.
The biennial auto show is a major event attracting people and companies from automotive and various other fields, with the last round in 2019 drawing around 1.3 million people. It will be the first cancellation of the event, which was first held in 1954.

▽Pakistan car bomb at Chinese ambassador's hotel kills 5 - Nikkei Asia

On Wednesday, the ambassador and Li Bijian, China's consul general for Sindh and Balochistan provinces, were on an official visit to Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province. During the visit, Nong met the governor and chief minister of the province and later donated 1,700 food packets to needy families in a food distribution ceremony.
The Chinese delegation was staying at the Serena Hotel, which is the only four-star hotel in Quetta, and Pakistani authorities had cleared the visit by the foreign dignitaries.
A white sedan packed with explosives exploded in the parking area at around 10:30 p.m. The blast killed five people, including a police officer and a hotel security guard. Two assistant commissioners from the regional government of Balochistan were among the dozen wounded.

▽Indonesia looking for submarine that may be too deep to help

Indonesian navy ships searched Thursday for a submarine that likely sank too deep to retrieve, making survival chances for the 53 people on board slim. Authorities said oxygen in the submarine would run out by early Saturday.
The diesel-powered KRI Nanggala 402 was participating in a training exercise Wednesday when it missed a scheduled reporting call. Officials reported an oil slick and the smell of diesel fuel near the starting position of its last dive, about 96 kilometers (60 miles) north of the resort island of Bali, though there was no conclusive evidence that they were linked to the submarine.