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Pope Francis’ fascination with the devil took on remarkable new twists Tuesday, with a well-known exorcist insisting Francis helped “liberate” a Mexican man possessed by four different demons despite the Vatican’s insistence that no such papal exorcism took place. The case concerns a 43-year-old ...
Kazuhiro Shiraishi, 66, is a guest-house manager in the Izu-kogen Highlands, a famous resort area on the Izu Peninsula of Shizuoka Prefecture. Looking out onto the Pacific Ocean, and just 90 minutes by train from Tokyo, Izu has a warm climate all year round ...
“I was stopped by two men in a government-registered vehicle, blindfolded and dragged off the street. They took me away to a house in a place I did not know. I was forced into a room with blood all over the walls and floor, ...
Guitarist Dustin Wong hesitates for a split second. It’s a pause that would go unnoticed during most other sets, but Wong has spent the last 40 minutes seemingly in a trance while playing guitar and looping the notes via an array of pedals in ...
Tim Duncan saves the day as the Spurs hold off the Grizzlies in overtime
Two weeks ago, the Lower House passed a law to increase the consumption tax to 10 percent by 2015, something Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has been pushing with blinkered, self-sacrificial dedication. Eventual final passage seems inevitable at this point, and so the only aspect ...
Japanese people love their evening bath, but tubs in private residences are a relatively recent development. By 1963, only 60 percent of Japanese homes had them. The small amount of living space necessitated by economic reality, not to mention the paucity of indoor plumbing, ...
Several weeks ago, U.S. President Barack Obama said that he wants to allow younger undocumented immigrants who came to America as children to stay, and last week the Supreme Court struck down some provisions of Arizona’s controversial law requiring police to check individuals they ...
One of the interesting factoids accompanying the escaped-penguin story that delighted the media for the last three months is that Japan has more penguins in captivity than any other country. Tokyo Sea Life Park, the facility from which the male Humboldt penguin in question ...
Osaka mayor Toru Hashimoto has been compared to Adolf Hitler in the media for his authoritarian governing style, but on a realistic level he seems more like an overbearing boss. The famous tattoo controversy comes down to the notion that, as mayor, he employs ...
Public acts of contrition don’t get any more dramatic than comedian Junichi Komoto’s May 25 press conference, where he apologized for allowing his mother to collect government welfare payments even though he’s made good money himself as a TV personality. Josei Seven, the women’s ...
Ask any Japanese person what they think of British food, and the common reply will be, “I’ve heard it’s terrible.” This universal disdain for British cooking is a result of the usual media prejudice, exacerbated by a confidence among Japanese in their native ability ...
The house we were inspecting in Shiroi, Chiba Prefecture, looked better and larger in the photos that the realtor had posted on its website. Those pictures had been taken with a wide angle lens at the eastern side of the house, which bordered a ...
On the May 12 edition of the TBS current affairs variety show “Newscaster” comedian “Beat” Takeshi Kitano made a joke about homosexual unions during a discussion of U.S. President Barack Obama’s recent comment in support of same-sex marriage. Kitano’s mission as the program’s resident ...
In February, Foreign Minister Koichiro Genba assured the mayor of Iwakuni City and the governor of Yamaguchi Prefecture that Japan would not ask the people they serve to take on “any additional burden” from U.S. forces. Iwakuni already has a Marine Corps air station, ...
Last week, Japan’s fifth largest discount electronics retailer, Bic Camera, announced it would soon obtain a 50 percent share of Japan’s sixth-largest discount electronics retailer, Kojima, thus making the combined companies Japan’s second-largest electronics retailer. Bic operates 34 stores in large cities while Kojima ...
The media likes to report on victims of accidents, disasters and crimes, and while it’s natural to feel sympathy for unfortunate individuals, the only imaginable benefit this sort of coverage provides to viewers and readers is catharsis, which is better served by the popular ...