The following is the latest list of selected news summaries by Kyodo News.
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Typhoon Lan moves north over Sea of Japan, leaves 49 injured in wake
TOKYO - Typhoon Lan traveled northward over the Sea of Japan on Wednesday after bringing torrential rains mostly to western parts of Japan, leaving 49 injured and disrupting train services in the midst of the summer holiday season.
Direct bullet train services connecting the capital and Hakata in southwestern Japan were suspended on Wednesday due to heavy rain in central Japan, but resumed later in the day.
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July foreign entries to Japan at 2.3 million, 78% of pre-pandemic level
TOKYO - Japan saw an estimated 2,320,600 foreign visitors in July, the highest number since arrivals began to plummet due to the COVID-19 pandemic and about 78 percent of the level in July 2019 before the outbreak, government data showed Wednesday.
The figure was up 16-fold from a year before and topped 2 million people for the second straight month as schools across many countries entered the summer holidays and Japan's eased COVID-related border restrictions continued to attract travelers, the Japan National Tourism Organization said.
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Microsoft Japan to launch siloed ChatGPT to handle classified info
TOKYO - Microsoft Corp.'s Japan unit is launching a more secure version of the artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT that can handle classified information of government ministries and agencies as well as corporate entities.
Unlike the current ChatGPT, the new version of the generative artificial intelligence service will be considered suitable for the Japanese government to use as all information will be processed in data centers in Japan. Banks and other companies that handle sensitive data are also expected to benefit.
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Japan to give Hawaii $2 million in aid as wildfire death toll tops 100
TOKYO/KAHULUI, Hawaii - Japan's government said Wednesday it will extend $2 million as humanitarian aid to Hawaii to help with the damage caused by recent wildfires on the U.S. state's Maui Island, as the death toll from the disaster has topped 100.
The assistance, to be offered through organizations including American Red Cross, is intended for evacuation site safety, food delivery and psychological support for those affected by the fires that first broke out on Aug. 8, among other purposes.
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North Korean athletes arrive in Chinese border city, 1st time since COVID
DANDONG, China - Several dozen people believed to be North Korean athletes joining an international taekwondo event in Kazakhstan arrived Wednesday in China's border city of Dandong, marking the first time for Pyongyang to send a domestic sports team overseas since its 2020 COVID-19 border closure.
In a scene witnessed by Kyodo News, the athletes boarded two buses in the North Korean border city of Sinuiju and crossed the Yalu River, which divides the two Asian countries, before arriving in Dandong. They are expected to travel to Beijing by train before flying to Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan.
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Japanese climber presumed dead on Pakistan mountain after falling
TOKYO - A Japanese climber is presumed dead after falling while climbing a mountain in northern Pakistan last week, his Japanese climbing companion said Wednesday.
Takayasu Semba told Kyodo News that he and Shinji Tamura had been climbing a 5,800-meter-high mountain in the northern province of Gilgit-Baltistan last Friday, when Tamura fell about 60 meters after a rope latch they were using came away from the rock face.
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Japan's main bullet train services halted for hours over heavy rain
TOKYO - Japan's busiest bullet train services were suspended for hours Wednesday due to heavy rain, frustrating travelers already affected by public transport disruptions after Typhoon Lan cut across the archipelago the previous day amid the summer holiday season.
The direct shinkansen services between the Tokyo and Hakata terminals was halted, with the impact of the suspension in the central prefecture of Shizuoka at around 8:30 a.m. spreading to other areas soon, the operators said.
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North Korea says U.S. soldier who crossed border is seeking refuge
BEIJING - Pyongyang said Wednesday a U.S. soldier who crossed the heavily fortified border into North Korea last month is seeking refuge in the country or elsewhere, as state media referred to him for the first time.
The soldier, Travis King, a private second class in the U.S. Army, has admitted to illegally entering North Korea, saying he "harbored ill feeling against inhuman maltreatment and racial discrimination" in the army, the official Korean Central News Agency said.
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Video: Summer festival in Tottori
