Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on October 2013

Milestones

• Kanazawa native Reiko Douglas, who found fame in the US as a singer in the ‘60s and ‘70s, died last month in LA at age 77. An obituary noted that she “became a popular guest on American talk shows… even though she appeared to speak little English.”
• Engineers at JAXA launched an unmanned balloon that reached a record-high altitude of 53.7 kilometers.
• Officials at JR East marked the 40th anniversary of “silver seats” for the elderly, which debuted on Chuo line trains on Respect-for-the-Aged Day in 1973.
• Authorities at the NPA say they’ve noted a “record rise in child pornography cases via smartphones” in the first half of 2013.

OFFICIAL BUSINESS

• Police in Katsushika-ku discovered the skeleton of an 84-year-old woman at a housing complex for the elderly. The residential facility is staffed by “life support personnel,” who are supposed to make weekly rounds to check up on tenants.
• Officials at the National Cancer Center say they’ve punished 39 employees for misappropriating ¥38 million in government research funds.
• In an effort to offset the effects of a planned hike in the consumption tax, the government will make a one-time cash payment of ¥15,000 to low-income pensioners.
• Executives at the Japan-China Economic Association said they’ll send a 100-member delegation to China next month “to help improve the soured ties between the two countries.”

DISASTER DAYS

• A Canadian artist has announced plans to construct a memorial “composed of debris from the March 2011 tsunami now washing up on the shores of British Columbia.”
• Researchers at Hiroshima University have invented a “portable folding bridge” that can be used in areas hit by earthquakes or heavy rains.
• Officials at the Kyoto City Fire Department say dispatchers are now able to respond to emergency calls in six languages.
• Japanese farmers say they’re expecting “a smaller harvest of persimmons… and a poor crop of matsutake mushrooms” because of the scorching heat this past summer.

FUN & GAMES

• Former Paralympic wheelchair athlete Masaaki Chiba, who competed at the Barcelona, Atlanta and Sydney Games, claimed that “attitudes toward the disabled are behind the times in Japan.”
• Tokyo Governor Naoki Inose said the US military should allow commercial airliners to use the Yokota Air Base during the 2020 Olympics.
• Two teams of Japanese scientists have been “awarded” Ig Nobel Prizes by the US-based Annals of Improbable Research. One group studied “how opera music affects mice heart transplants” and the other conducted a “study on why cutting onions makes people cry.”
• A survey by the Japan Science and Technology Agency found that 73 percent of middle schools don’t have any extracurricular science clubs.

AND FINALLY…

• Literary scholars preparing to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of writer Sakunosuke Oda (1913-47) discovered three drafts of the novel Meoto Zenzai (“Hooray for Marriage”) in the home of Oda’s adopted daughter in Chiba.
• Researchers at Kobe University have found that people “who remember being taught not to lie in their childhood” earn about ¥500,000 more per year than those who can’t recall receiving that advice.
• Officials at the MPD have asked male police officers to create a “more accessible workplace” for female cops.
• Fast Retailing Co., the operator of the Uniqlo chain, donated one million dollars to help Syrian refugees.

Compiled from reports by AP, Japan Today, The Japan Times, Jiji, The Tokyo Reporter, The Mainichi, The Japan News, AFP, Reuters and Kyodo