Kayakers surveying Washington state's most remote beaches for debris from last year's Japanese tsunami say they believe they have found part of a house, along with parts of a washing machine, laundry hamper and child's toilet bowl.
Three kayakers with the Ikkatsu Project wrote in a report this week that they found the remnants on June 12 as they worked their way up a beach near the northwestern tip of the Olympic Peninsula, about 120 miles west of Seattle.
They also found a lumber pile mixed in with driftwood and seaweed. The lumber's dimensions were metric, and some of it was stamped with a serial number they traced to a mill in Osaka - the Diawa Pallet Housou Co., the kayakers wrote.
A 24-year-old woman was in a serious condition Friday after being stabbed by a man whom she reported to police for stalking her in Kurashiki, Okayama Prefecture. (Japan Today )
China's television regulator has ordered a crackdown on dramas about the country's battles with Japan during and before World War Two and demanded they be more serious, state media said on Friday, following viewer complaints about ludicrous storylines. (Reuters )
Police said Friday they have found four dead bodies in an apartment in Kashiwa, Chiba Prefecture, in what is believed to have been a family murder-suicide. (Japan Today )
Shukan Post (May 24) conveys the difficulties experienced by other parts of the adult-entertainment biz in servicing customers from the communist nation.
A deri heru (“delivery health”) call-girl tells the tabloid that she is often requested to arrive at major hotels in the Shinjuku and Ikebukuro entertainment areas of Tokyo by Chinese visitors. (Tokyo Reporter)
Six sailors were found dead after a fire on a foreign freighter docked at a port in Hokkaido, northern Japan.
The sailors are presumed to be Russians. (NHK )