Jul 23 (Life Where I'm From) - Ever since 1954, kyushoku (school lunch) has been an official part of the Japanese school curriculum.
Over the years, the laws and menu items have changed, from adding the role of a nutritionist to including rice. Get an inside look into how the Japanese school lunch is made and what food education looks like in one of Japan's public elementary schools.
A fire that scorched the exterior wall of a company operated by a Pakistani national was discovered in Ebetsu, Hokkaido, on March 1st, just one day after a mosque located about 400 meters away caught fire, prompting police to investigate the possibility that the two incidents may be connected.
Police plan to arrest a Japanese doctor in his 60s who lives in the United States and is suspected of spraying an oil-like liquid at Naritasan Shinshoji Temple in Chiba Prefecture in 2015, with the suspect expected to arrive in Japan as early as March 4th, investigators said.
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism has announced plans to draw up guidelines for the introduction of a so-called dual pricing system that differentiates between foreign visitors and local residents.
Kyoto City significantly raised its lodging tax from March 1st, increasing the maximum charge per person per night from 1,000 yen to as much as 10,000 yen, in a move aimed at tackling overtourism and funding the preservation of cultural assets, even as questions remain about its impact on visitors and the local economy.
A former emergency responder and foreign tourists worked together to rescue a woman in her 80s who was trapped inside an overturned light vehicle in Hakuba Village, Nagano Prefecture.
Five people have been arrested after repeatedly performing dangerous drift driving on a road in Tokyo’s Ota Ward, sending up clouds of white smoke in the middle of the night and drawing police scrutiny.
Large amounts of what appear to be illegally dumped garbage line the roadside at the Tokyo Metropolitan Kirigaoka Danchi in Kita Ward, where a decline in residents has left fewer eyes to monitor the sprawling public housing complex that first opened in the 1950s.
A former emergency responder and foreign tourists worked together to rescue a woman in her 80s who was trapped inside an overturned light vehicle in Hakuba Village, Nagano Prefecture.
A site supervisor at Fuji-Q Highland in Fujiyoshida, Yamanashi Prefecture, was referred to prosecutors on March 2nd over a fatal accident in February 2025 in which an employee died during maintenance work.
A 48-year-old woman who works as a lecturer at an Osaka prefectural high school was arrested on suspicion of assaulting a man in Osaka, with the man later confirmed dead at the hospital where he was taken.
The Konomiya Hadaka Festival, an unusual Shinto ritual dating back more than 1,250 years in which men wearing only loincloths collide violently with one another, was held on March 1st at Konomiya Shrine in Inazawa, Aichi Prefecture, drawing around 10,000 participants who surged toward a designated “sacred man” believed to absorb misfortune through physical contact.
An avalanche struck an advanced-level course at Madarao Kogen Ski Resort, which spans Niigata and Nagano prefectures, on February 28th, leaving four people injured, including two family members.
A man in his 50s died after falling while ice climbing in Gero, Gifu Prefecture, on March 2nd, after a report was made shortly after 9 a.m. from a person at the scene in Osakacho stating that he had fallen along with a sheet of ice and become trapped beneath the collapsed mass.
