Author: Admin

TOKYO: Toyota Motor said it is exploring the possibility of investing in a potential buyout of key parts supplier Toyota Industries – a buyout that reportedly could cost US$42 billion. “We are currently exploring various possibilities, including partial investment,” the automaker said in a filing with the Tokyo stock exchange on Saturday following reports about the possible buyout. Bloomberg News reported on Friday that Toyota Chairman Akio Toyoda and his founder family have proposed acquiring Toyota Industries in a possible 6 trillion yen (US$42 billion) deal. Toyota Industries, which has a market value of 4 trillion yen, said in a…

“Me love you long time,” a Vietnamese sex worker tells the U.S. troops, swiveling her hips as she hawks her services. “You party?” The first female character in Stanley Kubrick’s Vietnam War classic “Full Metal Jacket,” she appears for just a moment — and halfway through the film. Likewise, it’s an hour into Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now” when a helicopter suddenly deposits three women onto a stage. They’re scantily clad Playboy Bunnies, choppered in to rile up the troops. They, too, appear for just a few minutes.The Vietnam War produced some of the most unforgettable films of the late…

Usually, the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner features Hollywood stars, a zinger-filled comedy set and a public display of comity between the White House and the press corps that covers it.On Saturday, the dinner had no comedian and no president. Among the smattering of celebrities on hand was Michael Chiklis, whose best-known television role, in “The Shield,” concluded in 2008.“It’s just us,” Eugene Daniels, the association’s president and an MSNBC host, told his fellow journalists at the start of the night.The reporters who spoke from the dais emphasized the importance of the First Amendment, garnering repeated ovations from the black-tie…

Insulin, heart treatments and antibiotics have flowed freely across many borders for decades, exempt from tariffs in a bid to make medicine affordable. But that could soon change.For months, President Trump has been promising to impose higher tariffs on pharmaceuticals as part of his plan to reorder the global trading system and bring key manufacturing industries back to the United States. This month, he said pharmaceutical tariffs could come in the “not too distant future.”If they do, the move would have serious — and wildly uncertain — consequences for drugs made in the European Union.Pharmaceutical products and chemicals are the…

The 36-page official national strategy document bears the presidential seal and involves 10 agencies from across the federal government.It isn’t the government’s policy on tariffs or border security. It’s President Trump’s master plan to eradicate paper straws and bring back plastic.“My Administration is committed,” the document declares, to “ridding us of the pulpy, soggy mess that torments too many of our citizens whenever they drink through a paper straw.”It’s a shot in the culture wars, critics say, and another example of the haphazard policies of an administration guided by Mr. Trump’s whims and dislikes, whether for paper straws, wind turbines…

For those taking part in the Washington social whirl leading up to the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, it is helpful to know a few basic facts: There will be ample canapés and cocktails, and the occasional broken glass, at the parties before the big night; there will be plenty of television anchors, reporters and talking heads holding forth on current events; and, inevitably, you will run into Bill Nye, the science guy.Mr. Nye, a Georgetown resident and affable advocate for all things scientific, was a fixture at the festivities in advance of Saturday’s dinner, which has been buffeted…

A former employee of Walt Disney World who hacked into menus used by its restaurants and edited them — changing prices, adding profanity and altering listed allergens — was sentenced to three years in prison by a federal judge in Florida this week.None of the changes, including falsified information about food allergens that could have been harmful to visitors, ever appeared before the public, according to court records. The menu alterations were caught and court records show that none of the changes ever reached the printing stage.The former employee, Michael Scheuer of Winter Garden, Fla., was sentenced on Wednesday in…

Washington — Inside the kitchen at the Washington Hilton ahead of Saturday night’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner are frenetic dinner preparations for about 2,600 people.  “So, if it’s a three-course, you multiply that by three, we could walk away doing almost 10,000 plates in the kitchen as a whole,” Daniel Bennett, the hotel’s executive chef, tells CBS News. The correspondents’ dinner has been an annual tradition since 1921, bringing together presidential comedy and the press corps, and the Hilton has been its home for 57 years. The Washington Hilton is also known for one of the darkest moments in presidential…

A federal judge says a 2-year-old Louisiana girl and U.S. citizen may have been deported to Honduras this week with her mother and 11-year-old sister without due process, according to court documents obtained by CBS News. In an order Friday, Judge Terry Doughty, who sits on the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, wrote there was a “strong suspicion that the Government just deported a U.S. citizen with no meaningful process.” When Doughty, appointed to the bench by President Trump during his first term, sought Friday afternoon to arrange a phone call with the mother of the…

Farmers in Africa that produce some of the world’s most prized coffee are in a scramble to comply with new European Union environmental rules that require them to document the origin of every shipment of beans.The new measure, coming into force at the end of this year, is designed to prevent deforestation driven by agricultural expansion. To comply, farmers must provide geolocation data to show that their coffee was not grown on land where forests have recently been cut down.After Dec. 31, any producers that cannot will lose access to the vast European market.Europe consumes more coffee than any country…