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JIJI – Prince Hisahito, the only son of Crown Prince Akishino and Crown Princess Kiko, will attend a Coming of Age ceremony on Sept. 6, his 19th birthday, the Imperial Household Agency said Thursday. The event will be the first Coming of Age ceremony for a male member of the Imperial Family since that of Crown Prince Akishino 40 years ago. Japan’s age of adulthood was lowered to 18 in a recent revision to the Civil Code, meaning that Prince Hisahito, second in line to the throne, became an adult when he turned 18 last September. But his ceremony was postponed as he focused on his studies before entering university. The prince, currently a third-year student at the University of Tsukuba’s Senior High School at Otsuka in Tokyo, is set to enter the national university in Ibaraki Prefecture in April. The coming-of-age ceremony schedule was decided “in consideration of Imperial Family event plans and his life after entering university,” Yasuhiko Nishimura, grand steward of the agency, told a news conference. The ceremony will be held during the prince’s summer break from school. According to the agency, the ceremony will be hosted by his parents. Following the precedents of Emperor Naruhito and Crown Prince Akishino, it will include a ritual for receiving a crown for an adult Imperial Family member, a crowning ritual and a ritual for greeting the Emperor and Empress Masako. It is customary for Imperial Family members to receive the Grand Cordon of the Supreme Order of the Chrysanthemum on the day of their Coming of Age ceremonies. After his ceremony, Prince Hisahito will attend palace events as an adult member of the Imperial Family. The prince is set to hold his first news conference Monday. Source link

Gene Hackman, the intense character actor who won two Oscars in a more than 60-year career, has died alongside his wife, pianist Betsy Arakawa, and their dog at home, the sheriff’s office in Santa Fe, New Mexico, said on Thursday. A statement from the sheriff said deputies had found the 95-year-old actor and Arakawa, 64, deceased on Wednesday afternoon at around 1:45 p.m. “Foul play is not suspected as a factor in those deaths at this time, however exact cause of death has not been determined. This is an active and ongoing investigation by the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office,” it said. Source link

Mizuho Bank officials said Thursday that the total amount of cash stolen by a former employee from clients’ safe deposit boxes was ¥66 million ($440,733). The former employee, who was in her 30s at the time, stole the money from the safe deposit boxes of two clients at the bank’s Hiroo branch in Tokyo between January 2016 and June 2019, according to the bank. She was arrested in 2021 for allegedly stealing some ¥52 million — under the guise of bank loans — from the branch, where she worked as a customer service staff member. Speaking to reporters Thursday, Mizuho Bank President Masahiko Kato said, “We’re sorry for causing concern to our clients.” This is the first time that a senior official of the bank has spoken to reporters and apologized over the scandal. The former employee bought clothes and went on trips using the money stolen from the safe deposit boxes. The bank has already compensated clients who were affected by her actions. Mizuho Bank found out that the former employee had been stealing from clients during a probe into the theft she committed at the Hiroo branch, which the bank discovered in June 2019. She was dismissed in October 2019. The bank said that it did not disclose the theft involving the safe deposit boxes at first because its clients had requested that the matter be kept private. The bank has taken disciplinary action against executives whose oversight allowed the crime to take place. Mizuho Bank has not found any other similar cases of theft. Last year, a string of thefts from safe deposit boxes were discovered at MUFG Bank. A former employee was arrested last month over the thefts. Source link

Toyota Motor’s year is off to a slow but promising start after stagnant sales abroad were offset by a rebound in Japan. Global sales, including that of subsidiaries Daihatsu Motor and Hino Motors, rose 2% from a year ago to 846,744 units, a record for the month of January, the company said Thursday. Production climbed 12% to 885,346 units. Despite unease in major markets — forthcoming tariffs in the United States, intense competition in China and a demand slump in Japan — and a dip in quarterly profit, Toyota raised its annual profit guidance for the fiscal year ending in March. Source link

Niigata – Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings said Thursday that it has abandoned a plan to complete by the October 2025 deadline an antiterrorism facility for the No. 7 reactor at its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant in Niigata Prefecture. Takeyuki Inagaki, head of the plant, told a press conference that the completion date will be pushed back significantly to August 2029 from the previous target of March 2025. “The screening process has been prolonged as it took time to review detailed designs,” Inagaki said. He also cited a shortage of labor. While Tepco aims to restart both the No. 6 and No. 7 reactors at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant, Inagaki said, “We haven’t changed our hope to restart the No. 7 unit first.” For restarting the No. 7 reactor, Tepco has completed preparations and is awaiting the consent of local governments. But the reactor is now expected to remain offline for a prolonged period, weighing further on the company’s management. Tepco also postponed the completion of an antiterrorism facility at the No. 6 reactor from September 2026 to September 2031. Japan’s new safety standards require nuclear reactors to have antiterrorism facilities. If power plant operators fail to complete the construction of such facilities within five years of the approval of construction plans for nuclear plants, the Nuclear Regulation Authority could prohibit the use of the plants. In addition to the need to take safety measures for its nuclear plants, Tepco has to secure funds to decommission its crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, as well as funds to provide compensation to people affected by the March 2011 meltdown accident at the plant. The company has estimated that restarting one of the reactors at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant would help improve its annual earnings by ¥100 billion ($669 million). Source link

Toko Koga scored the go-ahead goal in the 50th minute to help Nadeshiko Japan defeat the United States women’s national team 2-1 in San Diego on Wednesday to end the host nation’s five-year reign as SheBelieves Cup champion. Japan won the title for the first time. Yuka Momiki gave the Japanese the lead in the second minute before Ally Sentnor tied it in the 14th. Source link

Title favorite Lando Norris was the fastest for Formula One champion McLaren after a power outage disrupted the first day of preseason testing in Bahrain on Wednesday. The session was extended by an hour into the evening after the outage, caused by a substation failure, plunged garages into darkness with engineers using torches as mechanics connected backup generators. “I came to the pits and said ‘it’s dark out here. I need to change my visor’. Then I realized there are no floodlights around,” Mercedes’ George Russell told Sky Sports. Source link

Paris – The top appeals court in France on Wednesday ordered a retrial over the alleged murder of a Japanese university student who went missing while studying in the European nation in 2016, local media have reported. According to the French media, the Court of Cassation decided to quash a lower court ruling sentencing Chilean national Nicolas Zepeda Contreras, 34, to 28 years in prison for murdering his former girlfriend, Narumi Kurosaki, a then 21-year-old student of the University of Tsukuba. A French newspaper said that this extremely rare decision was due to a procedural error during an appeal trial for the case that violated the criminal procedure law. Zepeda will not be released, with his retrial expected to take place in a court in the city of Lyon in the coming months. During the appeal trial held in 2023 at a court in Vesoul, eastern France, a police officer who investigated the case testified using new evidence that was not submitted at the initial trial. Zepeda’s side insisted on the unfairness of the testimony, but the presiding judge continued the proceedings. After the ruling, the defense argued that this constituted a criminal procedure law violation and filed an appeal. According to prosecutors, Zepeda visited Kurosaki in the eastern city of Besancon, where she was studying, in December 2016 and killed her in her dormitory room. While her body was likely abandoned somewhere remote, police have not been able to locate it. Source link

U.S. President Donald Trump declined comment Wednesday when asked whether it was the policy of his administration to prevent China from using force to take control of Taiwan — remarks that came just a day after the Chinese military held what Taipei said was unannounced “shooting training” off the self-ruled island’s southwestern coast “I never comment on that,” Trump said Wednesday when asked by a reporter during a Cabinet meeting at the White House. “I don’t comment … because I don’t want to ever put myself in that position. And if I said it, I certainly wouldn’t say it to you. I’d be saying it to other people, maybe people around this table,” he said, as his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and defense chief, Pete Hegseth, sat beside him. Source link

INDIANAPOLIS – Green Bay Packers General Manager Brian Gutekunst supports the bid to end the tush push, the rugby-style QB sneak made popular by the Philadelphia Eagles. The Packers were outed as the team that submitted the proposed rule change for consideration by the NFL’s Competition Committee. “We’re not very successful against it, I know that,” Gutekunst said Tuesday at the NFL scouting combine. “To be honest with you, I haven’t put much thought into it. It’s been around for a while, we’ve used it in different fashions with our tight end, so again, I think there will be a lot of discussions about it. I’ve got to look at some of the information as far as injury rates, things like that, to see. But we’ll see.” Source link