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Video game giant Nintendo on Tuesday cut its annual net profit forecast after hardware and software sales for its Switch console fell in the first three quarters. The Switch, which is both a handheld and TV-compatible device, hit shelves in 2017 and became a must-have gadget among all age groups during COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns. Nintendo announced in January that it will release the console’s hotly anticipated successor — the Switch 2 — in 2025, but stopped short of revealing details such as pricing. Source link

Wakayama – A 25-year-old man accused of attempted murder and other charges for throwing an explosive at then-Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in April 2023 denied Tuesday any intent to kill him. Ryuji Kimura made the denial during the first hearing of his lay judge trial at the Wakayama District Court. The trial is expected to focus on the power of the explosive — apparently a homemade pipe bomb — as well as whether Kimura had murderous intent. His silence since his arrest has led to questions about his motive. Source link

Paris, France – When Neymar left Brazil at 21 in 2013, bound for Barcelona, he set off to establish himself as a soccer great, seemingly destined to be remembered as his country’s greatest player since Pele. Last week, 12 years on, he returned to first club Santos — Neymar the celebrity with unimaginable wealth, but a player whose fragile body has been badly diminished by injuries. Neymar has been one of the finest players in the world when at the top of his game, a forward with dazzling skill who “understands football as art,” as his former Barcelona coach Luis Enrique once said. Source link

Each year between mid-November and April, winter sports fans from around the world flock to Japan for the country’s renowned powder snow. Aussie snowboarders, in particular, have made Niseko in Hokkaido and Hakuba in Nagano their winter homes, escaping the hot summers Down Under. But over the years, these well-known ski resorts — Nagano’s Nozawa Onsen is another — have become more foreign than Japanese as the towns adopted a more international vibe to cater to the influx of tourists. One overlooked ski resort in Yamagata Prefecture, however, offers a more local experience, balancing its long history as an onsen town and sightseeing destination with some of the longest ski runs and best powder snow in Japan. Zao Onsen Ski Resort, located in the city of Yamagata, has long been known for the photogenic “snow monsters” that inhabit its mountains in winter. Called juhyō, these surreal, otherworldly shapes form when freezing winds from the Sea of Japan coat fir trees with layers of ice and snow. With the rise of social media, the number of tourists visiting Zao simply to take a snap of this unique landscape has surged. But what many of these day-trippers overlook is the area’s excellent skiing opportunities and the charm of its traditional onsen hospitality. The hot springs in Zao were discovered 1,900 years ago, and during the Edo Period, the waters became famous for their therapeutic benefits, thanks to their high sulfur content and natural acidity. Today, Zao Onsen is home to around 80 ryokan and hotels, many of which offer a classic onsen experience, with meals served in-room and private indoor or outdoor baths. Several public onsen are also available in town, including three unmanned bathhouses — two of which are on Takayu-dori street near the bus terminal. This pleasant shōtengai (shopping street) has faced hard times in recent years, with many elderly shop owners closing their businesses — a trend hastened by the lack of customers during the pandemic. Recently, however, the street has been revitalized as a new generation of shopkeepers move in, bringing fresh ideas while carefully preserving its quaint Japanese charm. At the lower end of Takayu-dori, you will find the newly established Manju Yunoka Cafe, which serves coffee and local specialties such as manjū (hot spring buns), and skewers of tama konnyaku (balls of konjac jelly simmered in soy sauce). In the evening the cafe transforms into a tachinomi (standing bar) for those looking for some apres-ski refreshments. Right next door is Zao Onsen Shokudo, a new venture by a chef from Tokyo that serves Japanese-style lunch sets (teishoku), with plans for fine dining at night in the near future. Further along the street, which is heated in winter to ensure it remains clear of snow, is Zao Onsen Yutabiya Takayudo, which sells a variety of onsen-themed souvenirs from around Japan, and Takayu Onsen Parlor, where you can participate in traditional onsen activities such as table tennis or pick up a soda to drink while soothing your feet in the mineral-rich footbath across the road. At the top of Takayu-dori are stairs leading to Sukawa Onsen Shrine, which are particularly beautiful in winter as steam from the hot springs adds a soft, misty atmosphere to the snow-covered scene — and gives a slightly eggy, but not unpleasant, aroma to the cold air. It is this traditional onsen-town feel that sets Zao apart from other ski resorts in Japan, but the skiing and snowboarding here are also exceptional. With 32 lifts scattered across 14 slopes and 12 courses — including one that stretches 10 kilometers — Zao is one of the largest ski resorts in Japan, catering to skiers and snowboarders of all levels. Zao Onsen is popular among locals and tourists for its ski slopes. | YAMAGATA To see the juhyō, ride the Sanrokusen and Sanchusen ropeways to the top of the mountain, or book a Nightcruiser snow tractor ride to view the illuminated trees at night. On clear days, queues for the ropeway can stretch up to two hours, so purchasing a priority ticket online is highly recommended. From the top, you can either ride the lift back down or ski along the resort’s longest course, which takes you up close to the snow monsters. For regular runs, the less crowded Chuo Ropeway is a great option, and the Sora Mado 1387 Cafe offers breathtaking views of Diamond Valley, along with croissants that are simply enormous. Another advantage Zao has over more remote ski resorts is its accessibility. After taking a shinkansen to Yamagata Station, it’s just a 30-minute drive to the resort, and buses are also available. This means staying at a hotel in the center of the city is a convenient option for travelers. While in Yamagata, a day trip to the village of Yamadera is highly recommended. About a 40-minute drive from Zao, or just 16 minutes on the Senzan Line from Yamagata Station, Yamadera (meaning “mountain temple”) is home to the historic Risshaku-ji Buddhist temple complex. Visiting here in winter is magical. The mountain forest is blanketed in snow, and the temple buildings perched atop the cliffs appear to float among the frosted trees. At the entrance to the temple grounds sits the impressive Konpon Chudo Hall, the oldest cedarwood building in Japan and a designated Important Cultural Property. Built in 1356, the hall houses several Buddha statues over 1,000 years old and 600 volumes of Edo Period sutras. Risshaku-ji’s head priest, Seiden Kiyohara, explains that the temple is also home to the Eternal Flame, brought from Kyoto’s Enryaku-ji Temple 1,100 years ago, which has been kept burning ever since. The grounds of Risshaku-ji once contained over 100 temple buildings, of which about 30 remain, including Okunoin Temple at the top of the 1,015 steps that wind their way up the mountain. It is said that as visitors ascend they are steadily released from their earthly desires, and it was along this path that the poet Matsuo Basho composed one of his

Japanese trading house Mitsui could consider studying a project to liquefy natural gas in Alaska, but no decisions have been made yet, Chief Financial Officer Tetsuya Shigeta said on Tuesday. Japan is considering offering support for a $44-billion gas pipeline in Alaska as it seeks to court U.S. President Donald Trump and forestall potential trade friction, sources said last week. Shigeta said he hoped a meeting expected this week between Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and Trump would help enhance Japan’s presence in the United States, reaffirming its role as the latter’s largest source of investment. Source link

KYIV – After Russia’s 2022 invasion, Ukraine’s normally febrile political life was becalmed under martial law. But there have been growing signs of activity picking up, as the United States has set its sights on finishing the war with Russia quickly. In the past week, one Ukrainian political camp has accused President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s team of caring more about elections than the war, Kyiv’s mayor has said a presidential appointee is sabotaging his work and opposition figures have been traveling overseas. “It’s to do with Trump, the expectation that there will be negotiations. … The activity has increased, there’s clearly more domestic political nervousness,” said Volodymyr Fesenko, a Kyiv-based political analyst. Source link

Panasonic is considering an overhaul of personnel and trimming underperforming businesses to lower fixed costs, part of a shift into more lucrative areas such as powering AI data centers. The Osaka-based company, whose sprawling operations include hairdryers, PCs and lithium-ion batteries used by the likes of Tesla, will restructure or streamline businesses with low growth potential, according to a statement released on Tuesday. It said it will also make changes to its employment structure. One target may be the company’s long-standing TV operations. Source link

California’s Highway One, stretching more than 650 miles along the U.S. Pacific Coast, is one of the most popular roadways because of its breathtaking views. Yet, since 2023, large chunks of it have been closed. That year, a series of atmospheric rivers pummeled the state with rain, triggering landslides and rockslides that the iconic thoroughfare wasn’t built to withstand. “When they engineered these roads, they made big assumptions that we weren’t going to have big changes in precipitation,” says Paul Chinowsky, professor emeritus of civil engineering at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Planners also didn’t anticipate severe erosion that’s become more common on a warmer planet. “We literally built the roads on the edge of land,” he says. Global warming is upending those climate assumptions. In California’s climate, research suggests that climate change is increasing the severity of rain brought by atmospheric rivers, making washouts like those that hit Highway One more likely. Increased rainfall also washed away a large chunk of Wyoming Highway 22 last summer, cutting off a vital corridor between Jackson, Wyoming, and Victor, Idaho. And road closures remain a persistent problem in Western North Carolina months after Hurricane Helene, which was supercharged by climate change. Worldwide warming temperatures are hammering roads that, like Highway One, were built for a different climate, ballooning repair budgets and sometimes cutting off entire communities from essential goods and services. The 2022 Pakistan floods destroyed 8,000 miles of roads, causing average travel time to market in some places to increase from 2.6 hours during a typical monsoon season to 13 hours. There are places across the world “where you’ve got one road that services a resort town or a coastal city, and there’s going to be a lot of rethinking because economically the lifeblood of these towns is that one road,” says Chinowsky. Chinowsky co-authored a study that looked at the impact of climate change on U.S. road budgets if global carbon emissions keep rising until 2040. It found that the cost of maintaining roads in just the U.S. will increase by $100 billion a year by 2050 (in $2018), or roughly half of what state and local governments spent on roads in 2021. Most roads are either made of concrete, which is costly and mainly relegated to highways, or asphalt which is lower cost and more common — and most at risk from climate change. While on the surface all asphalt roads appear similar, their composition can vary significantly depending on the region. This is why asphalt roads in Dubai don’t melt despite desert heat, but Tour de France organizers are finding that they have to water the asphalt roads to stop them from melting during France’s increasingly hot summers. Long periods of high heat can cause roads that aren’t built for those temperatures, like those in France, to melt and buckle, causing deep ruts that can be risky for drivers. Similarly, if a road receives more rain than it was designed for then that water can infiltrate below the surface into the base layer, eroding the road. When a car or truck then drives over it, it collapses into potholes. And, since water always moves to the lowest point, it can pool, eroding the road from below causing large segments to collapse in what’s known as a washout, which is what happened to segments of Highway One. In colder climates there’s another wrinkle: ice. When extreme rainfall is followed by frigid temperatures, the water that has seeped below the asphalt freezes and expands, creating cracks that can speed up road erosion. With climate change, winter temperatures are more variable, leading to more freeze-thaw cycles and bumpier streets in places like the Mid-Atlantic and New England. In many coastal areas, rising sea levels also cause groundwater to rise, which in turn gets into the natural soils underneath the pavement and base material. That weakens the whole road, causing more rutting, cracking and potholes. “Road repair and maintenance are required more frequently and it raises the cost for communities because they’re continuingly repairing the same sections of roads,” says Jayne Knott. Knott is the principal of JFK Environmental Services and she co-authored a study that looked at the impact of groundwater rise on roads in coastal New Hampshire. She found that not only were all of the roads in her study sample affected, but that the impact could extend further inland than one would expect from sea level rise alone. Roads perpendicular to the coast, like Route 286 in Seabrook, New Hampshire, are especially vulnerable. These roads, Knott notes, are often evacuation routes and relied on by emergency services to bring aid when disasters strike. “When they’re flooded from beneath … the roads become weaker and they can’t hold the heavy trucks and the heavy equipment that comes out to actually repair the road,” says Knott. There are steps that designers can take to make roads more resilient, such as using different additives in the asphalt, building thicker bases, using thicker layers of asphalt and repaving more frequently. But that involves working with engineers to look at how factors like temperature, precipitation and groundwater levels are changing to figure out what materials they should be shifting towards. Being proactive about climate change cuts costs. Chinowsky’s research found that by 2090, the price increase for annual U.S. road maintenance because of climate change would reach $182 billion. But if the country takes a preemptive approach, that would lead to an annual increase of just $4 billion a year. Taking a middle path where municipalities upgraded roads after a climate would lead to an annual increase of $17.8 billion a year. But roads that were built by the coast, or on cliffs or in canyons like California’s Highway One, would require more extensive rejiggering. “When you start getting heavy erosion events, there’s nowhere else to go,” says Chinowsky. “There’s no way else to save that road unless you move it or, very, very expensively, completely re-engineer what’s been done.” Source link

One of the biggest casualties of Donald Trump’s potential tariffs on Mexico and Canada is likely to be the Japanese automaker that can least afford the pain: Nissan. While it’s unclear whether the U.S. President will follow through with his promised 25% levies after agreeing to a 30-day pause on Monday, the blowback would be profound for Japan’s No.3 carmaker, which is struggling to turn itself around and is in talks to merge with Honda. The U.S. is the top market by vehicle sales for Nissan and bigger rivals Toyota and Honda. All three Japanese automakers make some of their most popular U.S. models in either Canada or Mexico. As such, the impact of the tariffs would be significant for all three, analysts and industry experts say. Source link

While U.S.-led export controls on Russia have primarily targeted weapons components and high-end chips, a less threatening product shows just how hard it will be for Donald Trump to squeeze Vladimir Putin’s economy: Japanese grand pianos. Along with many other U.S. allies, Japan barred the export of luxury goods to Russia a few months after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in early 2022. Grand pianos valued at more than around $1,300 were included on Tokyo’s list of banned goods. Official data show Japan’s piano exports to Russia plunging since the ban was introduced. But Japan’s exports to China rose 300% in 2023 from a year earlier, according to United Nations trade data — despite a slump in Chinese consumer demand caused by a deteriorating economy. Source link