“Kicho,” that means an indication of excellent fortune, are conventional good-luck charms which are believed to carry family security and enterprise prosperity when displayed throughout Setsubun.

At the World Heritage-listed shrine in Shingu, shrine maidens and clergymen are busily attaching brightly coloured rice desserts, sea bream, koban-shaped cash and different symbolic objects to small willow branches collected from the shrine grounds.

Kumano Hayatama Taisha says a complete of round 1,200 kicho, in varied sizes, can be made by the point Setsubun arrives.

Source: YOMIURI

Cases like these have gotten extra widespread: a person who misplaced his job after his mom was discharged from hospital, and a lady juggling a number of jobs whereas caring for a mom with dementia, whilst some corporations start introducing assist methods to forestall workers from quitting. Behind these tales are the emotional conflicts caregivers face, gaps in public制度, and rising efforts to create locations the place individuals can assist each other.

Fumi Uchida, 64, lives in Osaka’s Higashinari Ward along with her 89-year-old mom, Teruko, and has been caring for her for the previous 4 years. After Teruko was hospitalized with COVID-19 and coronary heart rhythm issues, medical doctors informed the household she couldn’t be discharged until somebody was consistently current to look at over her. Uchida, who labored at a manufacturing unit on the time, requested her employer if she may regulate her hours, however when no response got here, she determined to give up, believing it might be unattainable to proceed working whereas offering care. Neither she nor the corporate was conscious of nationwide methods reminiscent of caregiving depart, leaving her with out choices.

Teruko now requires a level-three degree of care on Japan’s five-stage scale, making it troublesome for her to stroll or handle day by day duties alone. While coming into a care facility was attainable, she wished to stay at residence, and Uchida selected to honor that request. Although Uchida later visited Hello Work to search for a brand new job, the dearth of time made it troublesome, leaving her with lingering frustration. Still, she has resolved to proceed caring for her mom.

Nationwide, about 7.95 million individuals are at present offering household care, and yearly roughly 100,000 depart their jobs as a result of balancing work and caregiving turns into untenable.

In Hyogo Prefecture’s Kawanishi City, Ayako Kuno, 55, lives along with her 78-year-old mom, who has been recognized with dementia. Kuno is a working caregiver who runs her personal caregiving taxi and home-care providers enterprise whereas additionally taking over part-time work at a care facility and in distribution. As gross sales at her most important enterprise fluctuate, she has needed to juggle a number of jobs to make ends meet, all whereas consistently watching over her mom at residence, aiding her with outings, and accompanying her to month-to-month hospital visits.

Because Kuno is self-employed, work can are available in unexpectedly, and on some days she is away from residence for so long as 16 hours. After returning, she instantly begins getting ready dinner, usually retaining her personal meals easy. On notably demanding days, she grabs just a few hours of relaxation earlier than heading out for night time work. Like many caregivers, she generally turns to AI instruments as a method to manage data or replicate on her interactions, noting the guilt she feels when she realizes she speaks extra harshly to her personal mum or dad than she ever would to a shopper.

Under Japan’s Childcare and Family Care Leave Act, workers can take as much as a complete of 93 days of caregiving depart per eligible member of the family. However, the regulation applies solely to workers and to not the self-employed, who’re assumed to have flexibility over their schedules. In actuality, taking day without work for caregiving usually leads on to misplaced earnings, making relaxation troublesome to safe.

Asked what sort of assist she needs existed, Kuno mentioned she hopes for non permanent shelters or amenities the place household caregivers might be protected and supported, much like emergency lodging obtainable in instances of home violence, and for areas the place caregivers can collect and join.

Such areas are starting to emerge. Last month, a café in Kobe hosted an change assembly for working caregivers, nurses, and different professionals, the place contributors shared caregiving data and spoke overtly about their struggles. One lady caring at residence for her husband after a cerebral hemorrhage whereas working 4 days every week mentioned merely having somebody say it was okay to ask for assist made a profound distinction.

Some corporations are additionally taking motion. One agency now permits workers to carry common one-on-one consultations with licensed social staff, an initiative that has diminished caregiving-related resignations to zero. Executives say changing even one departing worker carries vital prices, particularly as labor shortages make recruitment more and more troublesome.

Although the caregiving depart regulation was revised in April final 12 months to require corporations to tell workers about caregiving assist methods, consultants say consciousness stays restricted, notably amongst small and midsize companies. With few penalties for noncompliance, specialists argue that corporations should proceed sending clear messages that caregiving is one thing anybody might face and that balancing work and care needs to be supported.

Uchida, who has dedicated to persevering with her mom’s care, now paints her mom’s nails as soon as each two weeks, hoping she will be able to all the time really feel like herself. By 2030, working caregivers are anticipated to make up about 40 % of all caregivers in Japan. As many battle below the sense that caring for folks is an unquestioned accountability, increasing entry to correct data and creating dependable locations of assist is turning into more and more pressing.

Behind the RZ600e’s improvement is Yoshihide Muroya, the pilot who grew to become the inaugural champion of AIR RACE X, an aerial motorsport during which opponents push plane to their limits at speeds of as much as 400 kilometers per hour and below gravitational forces reaching 12G, the place split-second precision determines victory.

Lexus shaped a racing crew with Muroya in 2021, embarking on joint improvement of plane elements with a world-class racer and refining expertise below the intense circumstances of AIR RACE X, a testing floor far faraway from typical automotive proving tracks.

Yusuke Nakae of Lexus International stated the collaboration has created an surroundings during which concepts that might not usually emerge in automobile improvement usually tend to take form.

By making use of aeronautical applied sciences cultivated within the skies to vehicles on the highway, Lexus is opening a brand new chapter within the evolution of autos.

Muroya’s base of operations in Fukushima City serves as a analysis and improvement hub the place experience from air and land converges, bringing collectively specialists from completely different fields with the shared purpose of reaching the highest of the world.

In 2025, Lexus launched a particular version of its LC500, the PINNACLE, whose distinctive rear wing incorporates aerodynamic rules derived from aviation.

Nakae defined that the wing’s form resembles an plane wing flipped the other way up, creating managed vortices that information airflow easily alongside the physique of the automobile, an method designed to boost dealing with stability.

At the ideas of plane wings are units referred to as winglets, which cut back air resistance by minimizing spiral vortices generated on the wing’s edges, and Lexus engineers additional refined this idea, creating a brand new winglet that was deployed in precise AIR RACE X competitors in 2025.

The ultimate kind was the results of in depth knowledge assortment and repeated take a look at flights, representing what each pilots and engineers described as a shared reply reached by means of trial and error.

Nakae famous that in air racing, variations of simply one-tenth of a second can translate into gaps of a number of dozen meters between plane, however knowledge confirmed that switching to the brand new winglet shaved fractions of a second off lap instances, including that, to their data, this design exists solely inside their crew.

Insights gained from aerodynamics have since been utilized to bettering car dealing with stability, whereas different classes accrued from aviation proceed to be mirrored in new automotive applied sciences.

According to Nakae, even analysis into how drivers ought to sit to maximise human efficiency has been knowledgeable by research carried out at air racing venues.

Conversely, Lexus has fed automotive experience again into aviation, incorporating its steering ideas into plane management sticks, demonstrating a two-way change of information.

This mutual switch of concepts has raised the technical baseline on either side.

Perhaps essentially the most vital final result of the partnership with Muroya, nonetheless, has been its affect on folks, with engineers present process a noticeable shift in mindset.

Muroya stated that in a continuously evolving surroundings like air racing, the competitors turns into about who can take the following step ahead, and as everybody retains advancing, vehicles enhance, engineers develop, and the method turns into more and more participating.

Nakae described Muroya’s perspective as basically completely different from that of automotive engineers, including that encountering such a viewpoint is each thrilling and a possibility to see issues in a brand new means, from which recent concepts proceed to emerge.

Through the fusion of air and land, the mindset of engineers is being reshaped, and the brand new insights gained throughout disciplines at the moment are starting to rewrite the traditional knowledge of the automotive world.

Source: FNN

At the middle of this effort is an unprecedented plan to extract uncommon earth-rich mud from the seabed at a depth of 6,000 meters, an initiative defined by Kyodo News financial desk editor Satoshi Matsuo.

Japan’s uncommon earth technique is attracting consideration not merely due to the scale of potential reserves, however as a result of it might basically alter the construction of worldwide dependence on China. While China is commonly stated to dominate uncommon earths on account of its huge reserves, together with main mines in Inner Mongolia, Matsuo notes that useful resource abundance alone doesn’t clarify Beijing’s overwhelming benefit.

The manufacturing of uncommon earths requires giant portions of chemical brokers and includes the dealing with of radioactive waste, processes that carry important environmental dangers. In Europe and the United States, stricter environmental rules because the Nineteen Eighties pushed up prices and eroded competitiveness, main many mines to shut or droop operations. China, in contrast, accepted these environmental burdens, whereas additionally benefiting from decrease labor prices and steadily bettering processing applied sciences, in the end permitting it to seize the worldwide market.

As a consequence, the world’s dependence on China for uncommon earths has successfully outsourced environmental and human rights dangers, a dynamic that mirrors patterns seen in industries equivalent to attire manufacturing. Rare earths stay indispensable, nevertheless, usually in comparison with “vitamins for high-tech industries,” supporting electrical car motors, smartphone parts, semiconductors, protection gear, and different applied sciences that underpin trendy society.

Because provide chains are closely concentrated in China, uncommon earths have develop into a important useful resource by way of financial safety, prompting Japan and different nations to speed up efforts to safe various provides. For Japan, 2026 has been positioned as the place to begin of a home uncommon earth period.

Around Minamitorishima, Japan’s easternmost island, researchers have confirmed the presence of seabed mud containing uncommon earths at excessive concentrations. To make use of this useful resource, the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology will conduct operational exams on web site. The exploration vessel Chikyu, designed for deep-earth analysis, is scheduled to increase gear to the seafloor at a depth of roughly 6,000 meters and try and suction up the mud, a world-first endeavor.

If the trial succeeds, Japan plans to hold out a full-scale extraction take a look at in February 2027. The undertaking has drawn intense consideration as a result of seabed uncommon earth mud is predicted to contain fewer issues associated to radioactive waste in contrast with standard mining on land, doubtlessly providing a cleaner and extra sustainable provide supply.

Success would mark a significant step towards lowering China dependence, with some analysts predicting a pointy decline in Japan’s reliance on Chinese uncommon earths if business extraction turns into viable.

Rare earths have develop into particularly delicate as a result of China has repeatedly used them as a diplomatic bargaining chip. Since a fishing boat collision incident close to Japan in 2010, uncommon earths have more and more been handled as a strategic “card” in bilateral relations. More just lately, remarks by Japan’s prime minister associated to Taiwan prompted robust reactions from Beijing, and experiences recommend that uncommon earth transactions are already affecting Japanese firms.

According to Kyodo News, Chinese state-owned enterprises have knowledgeable some Japanese corporations that they won’t enter into new contracts for shipments to Japan. It stays unclear whether or not these selections mirror direct authorities directions or preemptive strikes by firms searching for to align with Beijing’s intentions, however the sense of pressure surrounding uncommon earth provides is unmistakable.

Japan has confronted a sequence of provide shocks in recent times, from semiconductor shortages to rising issues over uncommon earth availability. Because uncommon earths are important parts in semiconductors, provide disruptions can have widespread financial penalties.

Japan’s push to make the most of uncommon earth-rich seabed mud has subsequently develop into a focus of nationwide and worldwide consideration. After the 2010 incident, Japan started steadily lowering its dependence on China, with China accounting for about 85% of Japan’s uncommon earth imports in 2009, falling to roughly 58% by 2020. The newest initiative is seen as a very daring step in that long-term technique.

If profitable, Japan’s deep-sea uncommon earth undertaking might reshape world provide chains and weaken China’s leverage over a useful resource that has lengthy been handled as a strategic trump card. For many observers, the hope is easy: that Japan’s gamble beneath 6,000 meters of ocean will lastly repay.

Source: Kyodo

While the chilly wave just isn’t anticipated to be as intense as final week’s, warning is required as snow accumulation is prone to enhance additional.

Meteorologists say Japan Sea–facet areas are anticipated to be affected once more by robust chilly air within the latter a part of the week. Upper-air forecasts at round 5,500 meters present temperatures dropping to minus 36 levels Celsius or decrease round January 29, indicating a really robust inflow of chilly air spreading so far as the Hokuriku area. At decrease altitudes of round 1,500 meters, temperatures are anticipated to fall to minus 9 levels Celsius, with some areas in Hokuriku seeing even colder air of round minus 12 levels, circumstances favorable for persistent snowfall.

Forecasts additionally present the JPCZ forming from the night time of January 28 and remaining in place for an prolonged interval from the early hours of January 29 by late on January 30. As lengthy as this convergence zone stays, atmospheric circumstances round it are anticipated to remain unstable, making it simpler for snow clouds to repeatedly develop and transfer ashore.

Looking on the anticipated snowfall over the 48-hour interval from January 29 to January 30, a lot of the Japan Sea facet is forecast to see widespread accumulation, with elements of Hokkaido additionally prone to obtain snow. In specific, mountainous areas of Hokuriku might see round 1 meter of latest snow, whereas even low-lying areas of Ishikawa Prefecture might even see a further 30 to 50 centimeters over the 2 days.

With vital snowfall anticipated, disruptions to site visitors and each day life are doable, and residents are urged to test the newest climate and snowfall info intently.

Source: ウェザーニュース

The Metropolitan Police Department stated Obata’s seize introduced a swift finish to a five-day nationwide manhunt launched after authorities made him a needed fugitive on January twenty first, following his disappearance forward of a deliberate raid in January 2025, with investigators believing he repeatedly modified places whereas disguised.

“Natural,” led by Obata, is believed to have had round 1,500 members and to have generated greater than 4.4 billion yen in unlawful earnings by introducing ladies to grownup leisure institutions and gathering referral charges referred to as “scout backs,” a follow that led police to categorise the group as an nameless, fluid crime group referred to as “tokuryu.”

Obata is suspected of getting paid 600,000 yen in safety cash to a yakuza member in July 2023 to conduct scouting actions in leisure districts, and when police tried to conduct obligatory searches associated to the group in January 2025, he fled simply beforehand.

Police stated that through the 5 days following the general public launch of his needed discover, about 30 suggestions had been obtained, with reported sightings in Saitama Prefecture, the Kansai area, and Kyushu, earlier than an nameless report on January twenty third steered an individual resembling Obata was within the Amami space.

Ten investigators had been dispatched to Amami Oshima the identical day, and on the evening of January twenty sixth they positioned and arrested Obata after recognizing him getting into a comfort retailer, the place he was sporting black-framed glasses, had grown his hair by about three centimeters, and sported a beard, disguising his look from official pictures.

Police imagine Obata used aliases corresponding to “Kiyama” and “Nishida” whereas on the run, and confirmed {that a} resort on Amami Oshima had a reservation underneath his identify from January twenty first by means of February third.

Obata departed Amami Airport for Tokyo with investigators on the afternoon of January twenty seventh, and in response to police, he instructed investigators, “I will not say anything about this matter right now,” denying the allegations, because the Metropolitan Police Department continues efforts to dismantle the group and uncover the total scope of its operations.

Source: FNN