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Japan’s Hideki Matsuyama shot an 11-under-par 62 to maintain the lead through three rounds of The Sentry in what turned into a shootout with Collin Morikawa on Saturday. Matsuyama, who was the second-round leader, couldn’t shake Morikawa, who also shot 62 in the PGA Tour season opener at The Plantation Course in Kapalua, Hawaii. Matsuyama, at 27-under going into Sunday’s final round, and Morikawa were tied at the turn. Matsuyama had birdies on four of the last five holes. Belgium’s Thomas Detry is in third at 22-under after his 65. A 62 for South Korea’s Sunjae Im moved him into fourth at 21-under. His round included an eagle on the par-5 fifth hole. England’s Harry Hall (66) sits in fifth place at 20-under par. Max Greyserman made a big move by shooting 63 to move to 19-under for the tournament. He played a bogey-free round and is tied for sixth place with Will Zalatoris (65) and first-round leader Tom Hoge (68). Source link

WASHINGTON – An award-winning political cartoonist for The Washington Post has announced her resignation after a cartoon depicting the newspaper’s billionaire owner groveling before Donald Trump was rejected. Ann Telnaes posted on Substack late Friday that this was the first time she “had a cartoon killed because of who or what I chose to aim my pen at.” The cartoon — which she included in her post — depicts Amazon founder and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos, as well as Facebook and Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg and other media and tech moguls, kneeling and holding up bags of money before a massive Trump. Source link

A bluefin tuna from Oma, Aomori Prefecture, fetched a staggering ¥207 million — the second-highest price on record — in the first auction of the year at Toyosu Fish Market in Tokyo on Sunday. The bid was around 1.8 times higher than last year’s, and second only in price to 2019’s top catch, which sold for ¥333.6 million. The tuna auction began at 5:10 a.m., with the largest bluefin from Oma, weighing 276 kilograms, attracting the most attention. It was auctioned off at ¥750,000 per kilogram. The winning bid came from Yamayuki, a wholesale intermediary at Toyosu market, marking their fifth consecutive year securing the highest-priced tuna. President Yukitaka Yamaguchi highlighted the fish’s exceptional quality, saying that its “unmatched freshness stood out.” The prized bluefin tuna will be served at sushi restaurants operated by the Onodera Group, including the Ginza Onodera outlet. Aside from tuna, about 350 grams of Hokkaido sea urchin fetched a record-breaking ¥7 million, adding excitement to the market. Translated by The Japan Times Source link

Seoul – Thousands of South Korean protesters braved a snowstorm Sunday over suspended President Yoon Suk Yeol, who was still resisting arrest over a failed martial law bid less than 48 hours before the warrant expires. Yoon plunged the country into political chaos last month with the bungled martial law declaration and has since holed up in the presidential residence, surrounded by hundreds of loyal security officers resisting arrest efforts. On Saturday, thousands descended on his residence and major roads in Seoul a day after a failed arrest attempt — with one camp demanding Yoon’s arrest while the other calling for his impeachment to be declared invalid. Source link

The government will begin a program this year to strengthen law enforcement efforts by the Ukrainian government to eradicate corruption. It also plans to help Ukraine take judicial system reform measures so that the war-torn country can shed its reputation as a country with rampant graft and join the European Union. Last month, Liudmyla Suhak, Ukraine’s deputy justice minister, told Japanese government officials in Tokyo that her country has serious problems in the area of combating corruption. Source link

Disposal of used solar panels is expected to be a big problem in Japan in the coming decade after solar power generation spread rapidly following the March 2011 Fukushima nuclear crisis. Many panels have been installed across the country since the triple-meltdown at Tokyo Electric Power Co. Holdings’ Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. These panels, which typically last 20 to 30 years, will begin to reach the end of their service life in the next decade. The annual amount of solar panels discarded as waste is seen peaking at some 500,000 tons in the early 2040s, putting a major strain on industrial waste treatment facilities. Source link

SEOUL – Every day​ for the past week, Kim Kwon-seop, 72, has joined thousands of others gathered near the home of South Korea’s impeached president, Yoon Suk Yeol​. They were determined to shield Yoon from prosecutors who wanted to detain him on insurrection charges stemming from his short-lived declaration of martial law last month. To them, it was the opposition that had committed insurrection, abusing its majority power at the National Assembly​ to repeatedly block Yoon​’s political initiatives. To them, the opposition’s parliamentary majority ​was invalid because the election last April was rigged. And to them, protecting Yoon was synonymous with protecting South Korea from “North Korea followers” who have taken root in every corner of their society, from the judiciary to schools to the news media. ​South Koreans commonly dismiss such conspiracy theories as little more than online demagoguery spread by right-wing YouTubers with the help of social media algorithms. But amid the country’s entrenched political polarization, they have fueled the turmoil over Yoon’s situation, driving zealous believers like Kim to take to the streets in large numbers, calling for the president’s return to office. Source link

WEST PALM BEACH, Florida – Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni flew to Florida to meet with President-elect Donald Trump on Saturday, as the key European leader sought to buttress ties with Trump before his inauguration on Jan. 20. Members of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort welcomed Meloni with applause after an introduction by the president-elect, according to videos shared on social media by reporters and others. Her trip comes days before she is to meet U.S. President Joe Biden during a visit to Rome from Thursday to Jan. 12. Trump defeated Biden in the November election and preparing his return to the White House. Source link

Kyoto – A Japanese research group has developed a new method to break down PFAS, a group of organic fluorine compounds often called “forever chemicals” for their persistence in the environment. The group of Ritsumeikan University researchers succeeded in completely breaking down perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS), a type of PFAS, within hours by using nanometer-scale semiconductor crystals as catalysts and applying light from a purple light-emitting diode. A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter. PFAS, or perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, have been used in a wide range of products, such as fire extinguishing agents and coated nonstick cookware, because they have strong water and oil repellent properties. Source link

Japanese authorities began culling some 50,000 chickens Sunday after a bird flu outbreak at a farm in the northern Iwate Prefecture region. It is the 19th bird flu outbreak of the season in Japan, the agriculture ministry said. The latest farm reported increasing deaths of fowl, and test results confirmed Sunday that bird flu was the cause, the ministry added. It prompted the culling of 50,000 chickens there, the regional Iwate government said. Iwate also banned the movements of 170,000 birds kept at two other farms within a three-kilometer (1.86-mile) radius. Some 3.8 million birds kept within 10 kilometers of the infected farm are to stay inside the zone for now. On Thursday, another farm in Iwate and a firm in the central Aichi region were hit by the virus and began killing their 120,000 and 147,000 birds respectively. On December 29, an outbreak was confirmed at a farm in eastern Ibaraki, resulting in the killing of 1.08 million birds there. Source link