Multiple terrorist attacks have taken place in Mumbai, killing at least 100 people. Two Japanese businessmen who were about to check-in to a hotel were caught in one of the attacks and wounded by gunfire. Although they managed to get out of the building, one of them did not survive:
Hisashi Tsuda, 38, [...]

If you’re looking for a new way to explore Tokyo, why not walk through the streets of Tokyo with Edo period maps as your guide? Mainichi has translated an article about a boom in historical map guidebooks: Check it out!
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Don’t worry girls, from now on only authorized individuals will be able to record video of you walking to and from school:

Crime prevention associations and a local security equipment company donated five security cameras to a girls’ high school in the Yamate district, following a spate of incidents involving groping and secret filming of students [...]

Back in June, a zoo in Hokkaido put a male polar bear named Tsuyoshi into an enclosure with a female polar bear named Kurumi. Months passed, and the bears showed no signs of mating, so they carried out an examination and found that Tsuyoshi was actually a female:

The pair started living together in [...]

Remember the above-pictured Subway advertisement that was subject to a lawsuit and eventual settlement over the unauthorized use of Godzilla’s image? It seems that was just one of many examples of how far Toho will go to protect its intellectual property.
Wired’s Threat Level blog has an article about Toho’s lawyers, who have won numerous [...]

Narita Airport officially declared yesterday that Tomiko Nonomura, a resident of Shizuoka Prefecture returning to Japan from a trip to Paris with her husband, was the airport’s 700 millionth traveler. Here’s a video clip that shows the airport honoring her with a small ceremony:

Meanwhile, the Japan Times reports that the world economic situation is [...]

An update about Zenkoji temple, which was mentioned in a couple Japan Probe posts earlier this year about the Olympic torch relay in Nagano:

A priest at Nagano’s Zenkoji temple displays a gift from the Dalai Lama–presented by the Tibetan spiritual leader at a Nov. 6 meeting in Tokyo–to acknowledge the temple’s support prior to the [...]

Mainichi reports that a Senegalese exchange student lied about his age so he could play for a high school basketball team that ended up winning two national championships:
Diagne Thierno Seydou Nouro was over 22 when he played on the school’s 2004 All Japan Inter-High School Championship and 2005 All Japan High School Basketball Tournament-winning teams. [...]

The Japan Times on the discovery of some wooden dentures that date back to the 18th century:
The quality compares favorably with similar wooden teeth discovered elsewhere, demonstrating that the Japanese dental artisans’ wooden teeth were among the best in the world, experts say.
Haruhisa Yamaguchi, a dentist and former head of a museum of teeth in [...]

If you’re around Kyoto, it looks like this is the week to partake in viewing of autumn foliage. The Kyoto Shimbun’s autumn leaf tracking page lists almost all local areas as having reached the peak viewing time. Meanwhile other sites report that the trees at parks in central Tokyo will reach their peak [...]

Some video from Fuji TV showing off Twendy One, a nurse robot developed by researchers at Waseda University in Tokyo:

Some of the impressive tasks Twendy One can perform include:

Picking up small items such as straws
Helping people get out of bed and into a wheel chair
Giving audio instructions to patients and responding to some requests
Delivering food [...]

CNN reports on JAL CEO Haruka Nishimatsu, who responded to times of trouble by cutting his own salary and benefits:

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