Yubaru comments

Might as well tag the entire nation and all the food as an Intangible Cultural Heritage. Save time!

How about Awamori? Doesn't count?

Awamori is whiskey, hence not being included

US Steel is as important to the US as 7/11 is to Japan. Neither want a foreign takeover!

but conservatives in the governing party

Hold one, they dont control the government anymore and need a coalition to rule. This is the chance to change the archaic laws and let her not only stay, but succeed her father as the Empress of Japan!

Give him his chance. If he is able to work together with the opposition, for the betterment of everyone, more power to him.

The Abe led LDP was run by a dictator, and a "leader" in name only.

Ishiba seems like he has leadership skills, unlike his LDP predecessors.

The 33-year-old Kikuchi gets $21 million annually, which raises his Major League Baseball earnings to $142 million over nine seasons.

Odds are high that if he stayed in Japan he wouldnt have made 1/10 of what he is and will be making in MLB.

Hard to blame any professional athlete for going to where they can capitalize on their skills.

Japanese pro baseball will always be at best, 4A level, as long as they can only pay a fraction of what MLB can.

Well she already got the death penalty what else is there? Sadly though it will leave a mark on her and her family for generations.

Yusei Kajiwara is alleged to have stolen some 18 million yen in cash from an elderly couple after rendering the woman unconscious with a sleeping drug and then setting their house on fire on July 28, according to the indictment. The couple, who were Nomura customers, escaped unscathed, investigative sources said

And is this the suspect in the bank heist too? Otherwise why add this at the end?

ceding to a demand from an opposition party -- whose votes are needed for the ruling coalition, which lost its majority in last month's general election -- to pass the measures.

Get used to seeing this "reason" for spending more money, over the course of how ever long the LDP is "sharing" power.

According to police, the incident was discovered when the woman who had received an oil massage at the man's recommendation consulted the police, saying, "I was asked to change into a paper bra and paper shorts before the treatment, but I think I may have been secretly filmed,” 

Not wanting to assume anything here, did the guy actually give her the massage himself, or did he just film it?

IF he was the one who actually gave the massage, as well as filmed it could be sexual assault too!

But then the way this article is written, well.....

Every world leader is being put on hold with Trump 2.0, Ishiba is no different. Folks are nitpicky as hell about some things, that is the bigger picture mean nothing.

A great man and a great PM.

What specifically made him a "great man" and more importantly a "great PM?"

I am not an expert, but I agree with the view that this breed was bred for traits that make them inherently dangerous to humans.

Then by the same argument, these "traits" can be bred out of the dogs as well. If they are untrained, they will rely on instinct, same as any other dog.

There are plenty of "dangerous" dogs, but it's just about only the pit bull that people are openly frightened of because of bad media. I'd take a pit bull over a Rottweiler any day of the week!

The contrast between Abe's then victorious Liberal Democratic Party and the weak one under Shigeru Ishiba is striking. 

Apples and oranges! Give Ishiba a few years, at least, before making these comparisons.

Abe was a great talker, and leader in name only! His legacy is one of leaving a mess of missed "arrows" and BS promises and "urges" that never accounted for much.

If "talking" is the measure of greatness and "victory!" then Abe was a god. But as everyone knows he was a snake oil salesman.

I knew one family friend in Japan who had a pit bull. It was huge and they kept it locked in their tiny kitchen most days, going to the bathroom everywhere. Their otherwise nice newer house stank because of it, and you could tell the dog was extremely anxious and the mother of the family could not handle it were something to happen with it. Felt bad for the dog, but even worse because they had a little 4 year old girl who is also in harms way because they can't be responsible pet owners.

Perfect example of what NOT to do with a pit bull, or ANY other dog.

These "humans" are 100% irresponsible and have no business having a pet. It's the same as locking up a human in a tiny prison cell, for absolutely no reason.

 Pitbulls were bred for dog fighting, stressing strength, high pain tolerance, and most of all aggression.

You conveniently left out the part that they were bred to ONLY fight other dogs,

The pit bull was originally bred and trained to be a tenacious fighter and to display aggression only against other dogs. Some breeders, however, trained and mistreated their pit bulls in such a way as to induce a vicious temperament and aggression toward humans, which generated the dog's negative reputation.

And you expected something different? You get what you voted for.

There are 3 attacks over the span of 2 years cited here. How exactly is that a "spate"?

Don't let a little thing like facts get in the way! There was an article here in 2019 about a golden retriever that killed a young child, and yet no one cried for goldens to be eliminated.

https://japantoday.com/category/crime/couple-indicted-over-death-of-granddaughter-bitten-by-their-dog

Point is that pit bulls are totally misunderstood, because of the image they have been given by media. Any breed of dog can be instinctively dangerous. Smaller breeds tend to be combative by nature, and bite and nip people more often than large breeds like pit bulls.

People are afraid of them, because of their size, and anyone who doesnt know how to handle a large breed dog like a pit bull are negligent and should be held equally accountable, just like the grandparents were with the golden.

That breed must only be accepted in the countryside, I've never seen one in Tokyo.

Let's keep in mind that there are literally hundreds of more municipalities in Japan besides Tokyo that are not considered "countryside".

Too many folks on JT are Tokyo-centric, that is for sure!

the property is ultimately owned by the Japanese (not Okinawan) government. 

It's not so simple. Shuri Castle was once private property, became the property of Ryukyu University, and when the University was "nationalized" after the reversion, the land was given to the national government, free of charge, to be made into a national park, and then control was eventually given back to the prefectural government, and now in control of the Churashima Foundation.

It is obvious to me from the replies and what not here that people are totally ignorant about training and keeping any dog, let alone a breed like a pit bull.

Pitbulls, like any other breed, can and are trained to be gentle loving dogs, but it takes a lot of dedication, patience and constant attention. If you can't handle it, dont own one. Plain and simple.

Dont blame the dog for acting on instinct, blame the owner for being an idiot!

There are bad dogs and bad owners. They usually go together. If the dog attacks and causes serious injury it should be put down and the owner fined for assault and banned from keeping a dog for life.

Wrong, 100% wrong! The people who own a pit bull or any other breed for that matter, are 100% responsible for the actions of their dogs.

It's 100% one the owners to train them properly! If they don't train them, then the dogs attack someone, it's by their instinct, and not any fault of their own.

Put the owner down with the dog! The dog acts instinctively if not trained properly and that is on the owner!

You have never owned a dog, that much is obvious!

There is no such thing as a bad dog, only bad owners

Fairly certain that the one that was shelled during WWII wasn't the original either.

100% correct, even states it in the 2nd paragraph of the article!

Bet a foreigner bought it!

The fire severely hit tourism in Okinawa, a situation worsened by the coronavirus pandemic which followed soon after.

Hardly! Facts prove otherwise. Tourism was hit hardest because of the pandemic, when it fell to zero for foreign tourists, and below miniscule for domestic.

The fire severely hit the numbers of tourists visiting Shuri castle, that is without a doubt accurate, but NOT the tire prefecture. Shuri is just one on many "tourist" spots on island.

The number of visitors to Shuri Castle Park, including those to free-to-access zones, totaled 2.8 million in fiscal 2018 before the fire, according to the Japanese central government's Okinawa General Bureau of the Cabinet Office. After the blaze, the number plunged to 330,000 in fiscal 2020 and remained low in fiscal 2021 and 2022 amid the pandemic.

True it dropped HERE, but not for all of Okinawa

Are you seriously unaware of the growing presence of US junk food products in India? 

Are you seriously unaware that there are plenty of other problems here in Japan that concern us here.

This forum is JAPAN today, not India today.

There could a rare positive from this RFK /Trump union. If Trump lets him off the leash to target the one group who benefits from obesity - drug cartels.

In your post you quoted the following

NBC News reported last week Kennedy could head an initiative sources described as “Operation Warp Speed for childhood chronic disease,” speculating Kennedy may target obesity and diabetes in children.

So how do drug cartels manage to be the blame for obesity and diabetes in CHILDREN!

A correlation of this to the degree that American factory produced junk food has been replacing traditional food in the various societies would be interesting. The study seems to have forgotten that aspect.

And just how does blaming the US diet correlate to the more than 100 million people in India having the disease?

Some haters are just gonna hate!

this is about bribing of electorate before next elections.

FYI, the "elections" are already over by a couple of weeks now. The next one could be years away, and this long forgotten.

In effect, this proposed handout has ZERO to do with elections.