TRAVEL

Sanae Takaichi, policy chief of Japan's governing Liberal Democratic Party, has come under fire from both the ruling and opposition camps over remarks she made about the March 2011 severe nuclear accident. (Jiji Press)

West Japan Railway Company (JR West) said Thursday that it will launch free Wi-Fi service for tourists on July 1 at 11 stations on its shinkansen (bullet train) lines, including for the first time Shin-Kobe, Okayama, Hiroshima, Ogura, Hakata, as well as stations where it is already available-Kyoto, Shin-Osaka, Osaka, Tenoji, Kansai Airport and Sannomiya. (Japan Today)

"Love hotels" have long been a fixture of Japanese society. Yet not so many people are aware of about how these establishments -- catering to the romantic rendezvous or tawdry affair -- have evolved over time. (nippon.com)

Japanese Kobe Steel Ltd said on Wednesday it would shut a blast furnace and other upstream equipment at its Kobe Works plant in western Japan in the year starting April 2017 to turn around its loss-making iron and steel business. (Reuters)

Photos published in a tabloid magazine this week show AKB48′s Tomomi Kasai staying overnight with the president of AKS, the management agency of the popular all-girl group. (Tokyo Reporter)

Hyogo Prefectural Police on Tuesday busted a specialty gambling parlor operating illegally in Kobe’s Sannomiya entertainment area. (Tokyo Reporter)

A strong magnitude-6.3 earthquake has hit western Japan, injuring at least 24 people and destroying some houses, but there is no risk of a tsunami. (abc.net.au)

Students from Kobe University have been repeatedly causing trouble at Universal Studios Japan (USJ) in Osaka since last year, including capsizing a boat on purpose, Fuji News Network reported. (News On Japan)

In the 1990s, one of the most popular foreign movie stars in Japan was an Indian actor named Rajinikanth, who appeared in films made for India's Tamil-speaking southern region. (Japan Times)

The arrest earlier this month of a 38-year-old male for filming the activities inside an erotic bathhouse in the Fukuhara entertainment area of Kobe, Hyogo Prefecture has the denizens of the district on edge. (Tokyo Reporter)

Lawyers designated to serve as prosecutors demanded Wednesday that three former presidents of West Japan Railway Co., or JR West, be sentenced to three years in prison over a train crash that killed 106 passengers in western Japan in April 2005. (Jiji Press)

Applications unique to Japan are blossoming here thanks to Apple's (AAPL) iPad. In the absence of a popular home-grown alternative, domestic app makers have come up with some unusual -- sometimes inspiring -- approaches. (Fortune)

Like tens of thousands of people who lost everything in the tsunami that pulverized Japan's northeastern coast two years ago, 83-year-old Hide Sato is living in one-room temporary housing, and longing for a home of her own. (miamiherald.com)

The Kobe District Court on Wednesday dismissed a case in which a former deputy police chief was indicted on suspicion of failing to prevent a fatal crush on a pedestrian overpass in Akashi, Hyogo Prefecture, in July 2001, because the statute of limitations had run out. (Yomiuri)

A sea turtle that lost her front legs to a shark attack has donned the latest in artificial flipper technology. (Daily Telegraph)

Police in Kobe on Thursday arrested ex-Yamaguchi-gumi gang member Toshiyuki Fukai, 54, and two accomplices for allegedly defrauding a construction company of cash in the wake of the Tohoku earthquake. (Japan Today)

Manchester United midfielder Shinji Kagawa was one of 15 Europe-based players named in Japan's squad for next week's friendly against Latvia. (timescolonist.com)

Hyogo Prefecture marked the 18th anniversary Thursday of a massive earthquake that left 6,434 people dead and 43,792 injured. (Yomiuri)

Yoshinori Watanabe, former boss of the major yakuza crime syndicate Yamaguchi-gumi, has died, according to the Hyogo prefectural police. He was 71. (Yomiuri)

The fifth chairman of the Yamaguchi-gumi, Yoshinori Watanabe, passed away on December 1 at the age of 71. After serving in an affiliate gang, Watanabe ascended to the top post of the Yamaguchi-gumi in 1989 and retired in 2005 - a period that proved to be one of the most important reigns in the gang's 97-year history. (Tokyo Reporter)

Osaka police arrested a senior member of the major underworld syndicate Yamaguchi-gumi as well as a mob-connected former world champion boxer on suspicion of fraud for allegedly playing golf by concealing their gangland status in violation of ordinances. (Japan Times)

Michelin awarded three stars to 12 restaurants in western Japan, dropping from 15 last year, when the Asian nation amassed a total of 32 top-rated establishments. Another 51 venues garnered two stars, with 24 in Kyoto, 14 in Osaka, 10 in Kobe and three in Nara, plus one ryokan, or inn, in Kyoto. (Bloomberg)

These days the price of a standard civilian hit-job can run as high as $2 million. That's not the price to get the job done -- that's the price if one of your underlings gets caught. The whole inflationary spiral started with one dumb yakuza stiffing McDonald's on the price of a cheeseburger in Kyoto a few years ago. (japansubculture.com)

The body of a baby girl was discovered in a residential trash heap early Thursday morning in Arinonaka town, Kobe. (News On Japan)

Three people died early Monday after their car plunged into the sea at Kobe harbor. Police said that tire skid marks indicate the car was drift racing, TBS reported. (Japan Today)