The Ritz-Carlton, Osaka’s French restaurant La Baie and The Ritz-Carlton Kyoto’s Japanese restaurant Tempura Mizuki have both been awarded one Michelin star in the Michelin Guide to Kyoto and Osaka 2018. (Japan Today)

A car plunged into a crowd of spectators at a drift event in Saga Prefecture on Sunday, leaving four men injured, including one in critical condition, police said. (Japan Times)

Of all the things there are to see and do in a foreign city, it's fair to say a visit to the local garbage incinerator is not usually one of them. But a garbage facility in the Japanese city of Osaka has become a major tourist attraction --- for all the wrong reasons. (cairnspost.com.au)

The icebreaker Shirase, operated by the Maritime Self-Defense Force, left Tokyo’s Harumi pier for Antarctica on Sunday. (Japan Times)

The Fire and Disaster Management Agency plans to make the installation of hydrogen filling stations easier by revising ordinances related to the fire service law in fiscal 2018, in order to help promote the use of fuel cell vehicles, Jiji Press has learned. (the-japan-news.com)

The Kawasaki Heavy Industries C-2 is making its debut outside of Japan at the air show, as the country pushes for export sales of the military transport. (flightglobal.com)

Junior high school students in Japan are generally well-behaved, though occasionally a few naughty ones may slip through the disciplinary system and wreak juvenile havoc. (rocketnews24.com)

In a powerful display of military might, Japanese and South Korean warships separately trained with three U.S. aircraft carriers on Sunday as the allies presented a united front against nuclear-armed North Korea. (Japan Times)

Police in Sasebo, Nagasaki Prefecture, said Sunday they have arrested a 30-year-old man on suspicion of killing the former manager of an automobile sales and insurance company that had gone out of business. (Japan Today)

On Oct 31, Takahiro Shiraishi was arrested after nine bodies were discovered in his apartment in the town of Zama, Kanagawa Prefecture, where the 27-year-old had been living since August. The authorities also found a saw, which Shiraishi admits to using in dismembering the bodies after killing his victims in order to make their remains easier to dispose of. (Japan Today)

Proof of Stake consensus mechanism has recently received a lot of air time in the context of blockchain scalability issues. Without going into details about its advantages over Proof of Work, Proof of Stake eliminates the need to spend a huge amount of electric power to validate the blocks. Instead, blockchain participants with the most stake in it are selected by algorithm for the right to validate the blocks. The assumption behind Proof of Stake is the following: those who hold a stake in a network are incentivized to act in its interests. All else equal, the more stake one has, the higher should be his or her interest in preserving the system. (newsonjapan.com)

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Chinese President Xi Jinping have agreed to further their countries' relations. The 2 leaders met for about 50 minutes on Saturday in the southern Vietnamese city of Da Nang. This was their 6th meeting with the previous one held in Germany in July. (NHK)

Airports around the world have found an unconventional, eco-friendly way to take advantage of all the unused open space around their runways and buildings: hosting beehives. (Japan Times)

The average financial assets held by Japanese households with two or more members this year rose 6.8 percent from the previous year to ¥11.51 million, a survey showed Friday. (the-japan-news.com)

The northern Japanese prefecture of Hokkaido is being hit by strong, cold winds caused by a low pressure system. The storm has injured several people and damaged many buildings. (NHK)

Japan will be among the lowest-tier of teams in the draw for next June’s World Cup finals after Senegal claimed a berth in the tournament on Friday. (Japan Times)

A police probe into the attempted murder of an elderly bedridden woman has reportedly led to an unlikely suspect: a stray cat. (Japan Times)

Japan’s national debt hit a record ¥1,080,440.5 billion at the end of September, up ¥1,474.1 billion from three months before, the Finance Ministry said Friday. (the-japan-news.com)

Concluding a peace treaty between Russia and Japan would involve Moscow examining how it could be affected by Tokyo's security commitments to its allies, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday. (Japan Today)

The United States navy has begun a rarely performed drill in the Sea of Japan, mobilizing 3 aircraft carriers. The exercise is an apparent show of might against North Korea. (NHK)

Trade ministers from 11 Pacific Rim countries said they reached an agreement Saturday to proceed with the free-trade Trans-Pacific Partnership deal that was in doubt after U.S. President Donald Trump abandoned it. However, an immediate formal endorsement by the countries’ leaders meeting in Vietnam appeared unlikely. ()

Japan's Economic Revitalization Minister says all the 11 signatory nations of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal have reconfirmed their broad agreement to put the deal into effect without the United States. (NHK)

Japan's opposition party Hope, led by Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike, has elected Lower House lawmaker Yuichiro Tamaki as its co-leader. (NHK)

Oracles Network is an open, public, permissioned network based on Ethereum protocol with Proof of Authority (PoA) consensus, reached by independent pre-selected validators. By PoA we mean a modified Proof of Stake, with identity used as a form of stake, which incentivizes validators to act in the interest of the network. (newsonjapan.com)

An advisory council of Japan's education ministry has given the green light to a controversial plan to open a veterinary school in April of next year. (NHK)