Let's Do The News! (May 10, 2016)

- A group of international journalists has published the names of companies and individuals behind over 200,000 offshore accounts in the Panama Papers. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists uncovered a database with information on nearly 214,000 offshore entities. They were created in 21 countries and territories through Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca.

- The acting speaker of Brazil's lower house cancelled the key impeachment vote by the chamber against President Dilma Rousseff. The recent announcement threatens to plunge the South American nation further into political turmoil. Rousseff faces impeachment for allegedly manipulating government accounts. Acting lower house speaker Waldir Maranhao said the vote last month to proceed had problems and should be revised.

- The Japanese government has decided to issue an action plan at the G7 Summit later this month to combat corruption. The government decided to include the policies in the leaders' joint declaration as an attachment, as the Panama Papers on secret offshore accounts has garnered much global attention. The plan calls for tough measures against tax evasion, including the disclosure of owners of companies established for reducing tax payments.

- The quake-hit Kumamoto Prefecture in Japan is eligible for state-run reconstruction and repair, according to the Japanese government. This means the quake-hit area can ask the government to take charge of rebuilding roads, bridges and tunnels on its behalf. Government officials will plan and order the work, lessening the prefecture's burden of finding engineers who can handle bigger projects.

- France has restored to its rightful owners a drawing of Edgar Degas that was stolen by the Nazis from its Jewish owner in 1940. In a moving ceremony in Paris, Culture Minister Audrey Azoulay said that the late 19th-century charcoal sketch of three ballerinas called "Trois danseuses en buste" was found in 1951 in a cupboard in the Occupation-era German embassy. It had since remained unclaimed in the Louvre.

- Artist Megumi Igarashi (pen name Rokudenashiko) was found guilty of breaking Japan's obscenity laws in Tokyo court on Monday. The 44-year-old female actress was arrested two years ago for disturbing 3D printer data of her own under part of her body as part of a backer reward for her crowdfunding campaign to construct something. Igarashi always maintained that her work is not obscene.

- After months of auditions, reports told that a 26-year-old Alden Ehrenreich, as seen in the Hail, Caesar! film, is set to play as the young Han Solo in the upcoming Star Wars spinoff. Shooting will commence next month with the film slated for 2018 release.

- Buick to discontinue the Verano midsize saloon by 2017 despite strong sales, probably because of the rising crossover sales.

- Check out the latest Fast & Furious 8 behind the scenes clip where the gang shooting scenes at Cuba.

- "Abandon hope, all ye who enter". Tom Hanks returns as Robert Langdon in the upcoming movie adaptation of Dan Brown's Inferno, the third chapter of The Da Vinci Code saga. In the film, Langdon woke up in a hospital with no memories at all. With the help of a certain doctor, played by Felicity Jones, Langdon must recover his memory while trying to avert a global cataclysm broadly similar from the passages of Dante's Divine Comedy. It will hit US theaters on the 28th of October.



TTFN!!!