Society

(Japan Times)

Brad Pitt, however, has a sexy secret, and it has nothing to do with Angelina Jolie or Jennifer Aniston. (sys-con.com)

(Kyodo)

(Yomiuri)

(Kyodo)

Central Tokyo received the season's first snow Friday, seven days later than average and seven days earlier than last year, the Japan Meteorological Agency said. (Kyodo)

A rice cake, baked annually according to tradition, on Wednesday portended serious bad luck for 2009. Mandala Mochi Uranai (Mandala rice cake fortune-telling) dates back to the Muromachi Period (1338-1573) and is held in this city's Kodaki district each January. (Asahi)

A 17-year-old correspondence course high school student was arrested for allegedly killing his 54-year-old father at their house in Ichikawa, Chiba Prefecture, early Thursday, police said. (Yomiuri)

A-60-year-old man was arrested Thursday on suspicion of assaulting and injuring a lawyer by stabbing him with an eyeleteer--a device for making holes in cloth--at the Kobe District Court in Chuo Ward, Kobe, police said. (Yomiuri)

(dailyrecord.com)

Could it be? Was I really listening to the pleasant song of birds? I looked around the hospital and saw finches in cages affixed to the walls every twenty feet or so. Well, that's different. So began my first visit to a Japanese hospital. Over the years I would visit general practitioners, optometrists, dentists, obstetricians and pharmacists in public, private and church-run facilities. (Global Politician)

Here's the good news: Stiffer penalties have helped drive down alcohol-related traffic accidents. Now the bad news: Habitual drunken drivers still have no qualms about getting behind the wheel. Police are determined to crack down on this core group of offenders, following a string of fatal accidents. (Asahi)

Unwanted and often unseen male sleaziness has led to the latest women-only facility--photo sticker machines. A growing number of arcade operators are banning men from areas around these machines--popularly known as purikura--to protect customers, such as high school students, from men trying to sneak camera shots, steal their belongings or even pick them up. (Asahi)

Japan's hotline for people considering killing themselves is stretched to its limit, with the economic crisis feared to be worsening the country's suicide problem, its director said Wednesday. More than 30,000 people kill themselves every year in Japan, giving the country one of the world's highest suicide rates. (AFP)

(Yomiuri)

(Yomiuri)

(Yomiuri)

Hisao Shinagawa says he has written 1,700 songs - "more songs than Bob Dylan." Some, in fact, have dubbed him as the Japanese Bob Dylan, writing and singing about social injustice with an antique guitar given to him 28 years ago by the late country folk singer-songwriter Townes Van Zandt. But the last few weeks have been difficult for the 62-year-old street musician. As Shinagawa was setting up at the Hollywood Farmers' Market three weeks ago, a vendor accidentally drove over his prized 1954 Martin 00-18 acoustic guitar. (Mercury News)

Japan: For those who just can’t get enough of US president-elect Barack Obama, a Japanese mask-maker is giving thousands of people the chance to be his spitting image. (Gulf Times)

Japan's hotline for people considering killing themselves is stretched to its limit, with the economic crisis feared to be worsening the country's suicide problem, its director said on Wednesday. More than 30,000 people kill themselves every year in Japan, giving the country one of the world's highest suicide rates. (Straits Times)