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Australian tennis great Fred Stolle, who won two Grand Slam titles in the 1960s and later enjoyed a lengthy career as a television commentator, has died at age 86, Tennis Australia said on Thursday. Stolle was part of a golden generation of Australian players who dominated the men’s game at the end of the amateur and start of the professional era along with Rod Laver, Roy Emerson, Ken Rosewall, John Newcombe and Tony Roche. A tall, athletic player, Stolle lost his first five Grand Slam finals — all but one to his close friend Emerson — before finally beating Roche to win the French Open in 1965. Source link

Seven & I, the Japanese owner of 7-Eleven, announced on Thursday a raft of measures to fend off a takeover by a Canadian rival, including a $13.2-billion share buyback and an initial public offering of its U.S. unit. The announcements are the latest twist in a saga that began last year when Seven & I rebuffed a takeover offer worth nearly $40 billion from Canada’s Alimentation Couche-Tard. Seven & I, which operates some 85,000 convenience stores worldwide, also named Stephen Hayes Dacus as its first foreign chief executive. Source link

The Supreme Court has upheld lower court rulings that acquitted two former executives of Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings over the 2011 nuclear crisis at its Fukushima No. 1 power plant. The top court’s Second Petty Bench on Wednesday supported the lower courts’ decisions that the accident was unpredictable and decided to dismiss an appeal by lawyers acting as prosecutors. The not-guilty verdict rejecting the plaintiffs’ call for the former executives to be held criminally responsible will be finalized 14 years after the country’s worst nuclear accident. The plant was damaged by the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and the subsequent tsunami. Former Executive Vice Presidents Ichiro Takekuro, 78, and Sakae Muto, 74, had been accused of business negligence resulting in death and injury. Source link

U.S. President Donald Trump is delaying 25% tariffs on cars from Mexico and Canada and might consider carve-outs for agricultural imports from those countries, signaling again that he is both flexible and unpredictable in his use of duties as a policy tool. Markets globally cheered the mood of compromise in Washington, while the moves were watched closely in Japan, where the cost of tariffs is being assessed, and countermeasures discussed and devised. Prior to Wednesday’s announcement, Trump had a meeting with the heads of General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis. They asked him directly for the tariffs on automobiles to be reconsidered. Source link

A coupler connecting the Hayabusa No. 21 and Komachi No. 21 trains on the Tohoku Shinkansen bullet train line in eastern and northeastern Japan came undone on Thursday, temporarily halting service. According to East Japan Railway (JR East) the incident occurred between Ueno Station in Tokyo and Omiya Station in Saitama Prefecture at around 11:30 a.m. after the Hayabusa-Komachi train left Tokyo Station. The double train made an emergency stop. All 450 passengers in the 10-car Hayabusa train, bound for Shin-Aomori Station in Aomori Prefecture, and 200 in the seven-car Komachi train, bound for Akita Station in Akita Prefecture, were unharmed, according to JR East. Following the incident, all operations on the Tohoku, Joetsu and Hokuriku Shinkansen lines were suspended before resuming around 2:30 p.m. Both the Hayabusa and Komachi trains were restarted, heading again for Omiya Station, about three hours after they detached. The Japan Transport Safety Board decided to send three railway accident investigators to look into the incident. A similar incident occurred in Miyagi Prefecture last September on the Tohoku Shinkansen line. JR East said that detachment was caused by a switch problem due to metal shavings. Source link

The weighted average of wage hikes demanded by 2,939 member unions of the Japanese Trade Union Confederation, or Rengo, in this year’s shuntō labor-management negotiations came to 6.09%, a Rengo survey showed Thursday. It is the first time in 32 years for the average wage hike request to exceed 6%, amid the soaring cost of living and labor shortages. As of Monday, the average was ¥19,244, up ¥1,638 from the previous year, with pay scale hikes requested by 2,454 labor unions averaging ¥14,283, or a 4.51% increase. Among the unions, those with fewer than 300 members asked for an average wage hike of 6.57%, exceeding the 6% target set by Rengo for small unions. “I felt the determination of the smaller labor unions in this shuntō,” Rengo President Tomoko Yoshino said at a news conference on Thursday. “I hope that the demands of each union will be fully met,” she said. On Wednesday, many large companies will announce their responses to their unions’ demands. Source link

Japanese workers are demanding the largest salary hike since 1993 in ongoing pay negotiations, as both central bank and government officials look for signals of sustainable wage growth that could help drive economic progress. The Japanese Trade Union Confederation, known as Rengo, said Thursday its member unions demanded an average wage increase of 6.09% this year, up from last year’s 5.85%. This is the first time in more than three decades that they are seeking more than 6%. Unions representing workers from smaller companies demanded a 6.57% raise, compared with 5.97% last year. Source link

Bangladesh – A lack of funds will force rations to be halved for around 1 million Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh from next month, the United Nations food agency has said. Huge numbers of the persecuted and stateless Rohingya community live in squalid relief camps in Bangladesh, most arriving after having fled from a 2017 military crackdown in neighboring Myanmar. Successive aid cuts have already caused severe hardship among Rohingya in the overcrowded settlements, who are reliant on aid and suffer from rampant malnutrition. The U.N. World Food Program said in a letter on Wednesday that “severe funding shortfalls” had forced a cut in monthly food vouchers from $12.50 to $6.00 per person. “Unfortunately, we have still not received sufficient funding, and cost-saving measures alone are not enough,” the letter said. Md. Shamsud Douza of Bangladesh’s refugee agency said that his office would hold a meeting with community leaders next week to discuss the implications of the cuts. Wednesday’s letter comes days before a visit by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who is slated to meet Rohingya refugees to mark the annual Muslim Ramadan fast. The 2017 crackdown in Myanmar — now the subject of a U.N. genocide investigation — sent around 750,000 Rohingya fleeing into Bangladesh with harrowing stories of murder, rape and arson. Bangladesh has struggled to support its immense refugee population and the prospects of a wholesale return to Myanmar or resettlement elsewhere are remote. Rohingya living in the camps around Cox’s Bazar are not allowed to seek employment and are almost entirely dependent on limited humanitarian aid to survive. Large numbers of refugees have attempted hazardous sea crossings in an effort to find a better life away from the camps, including more than 250 Rohingya who arrived in Indonesia in January. Source link

Racers shut away for a week incommunicado and airport-style metal detectors — powerboating in Japan deploys strict measures as one of only four sports in the country that can be legally bet on. Powerboat racing started more than 70 years ago under a special gambling law that classifies it alongside horse racing, speedway and cycling in Japan. The niche sport, which has seen 30 fatal accidents, has long been in the shadows because of its close association with betting. Source link

It doesn’t look like Tiger Woods will be playing in next week’s Players Championship, if his remarks at Tuesday’s TGL event are any indication. With the Masters looming five weeks away, it may prove challenging for the 15-time major champion to be ready for Augusta. Speaking at Tuesday’s stop on the tech-driven league he helped create, Woods cited the recent death of his mother, Kultida, and his work on the PGA Tour policy board as reasons why he hasn’t had the desire to work on his game. “This is the third time I’ve touched a club since my mom passed, so I haven’t really gotten into it,” Woods told Sports Illustrated. “My heart is really not into practicing right now. I’ve had so many other things to do with the Tour and trying to do other things. “Once I start probably feeling a little bit better and start getting into it, I’ll start looking at the schedule.” Next week’s Players Championship will be followed by the Valspar Championship. The last official tournament Woods played was a missed cut at the 2024 British Open last July. Woods, continuing to recover from a 2021 car crash, underwent a sixth back procedure in September, passed up the Hero World Challenge, then joined his son, Charlie, at the PNC Championship in December. Woods has to decide by Friday if he’s competing in the Players. Source link