About one month after the Expo’s closing, a guerrilla live broadcast showed the site as seen from a helicopter. This footage has now been released as an archived video, offering a rare aerial look at the grounds one month after the event’s conclusion. (News On Japan)

A sightseeing hot air balloon offering aerial views of the World Heritage-listed Daisen Kofun in Sakai, Osaka Prefecture, has drawn more than 7,000 visitors within its first month of operation. (News On Japan)

SoftBank Group has reported a record-breaking net profit for the April–September period, marking the highest half-year earnings ever achieved by a Japanese company. (News On Japan)

Osaka Metro announced that its interim financial results reached a record high, driven by an increase in ridership linked to the Osaka-Kansai Expo. (News On Japan)

The government is moving to include the use of “okome-ken,” or rice vouchers, in its upcoming package of economic measures. The vouchers can be used to purchase rice and other food items and have already been distributed by several municipalities as part of local initiatives to offset rising living costs. (News On Japan)

NHK Party leader Takashi Tachibana was arrested in the early hours of November 9th on suspicion of defamation in connection with false statements he spread on social media regarding a former Hyogo prefectural assembly member. (News On Japan)

After a painful divorce that nearly tore his family apart, Kenji Kataoka quit his stable job and began a new life as a sweet potato farmer in Kōka, Shiga Prefecture. The single father has spent the past two years working the fields while caring for his teenage son, Sōshi, who stopped attending school in elementary years. As the family faces its second harvest season, small changes begin to appear in their lives. (News On Japan)

A boy believed to be an elementary school student died after falling from a high-rise apartment in Sendai City on November 11th. Police said that around 3:20 p.m., the boy, estimated to be in his early teens and living in the same building, was found unconscious in the courtyard of a 15-story apartment complex and later pronounced dead at a nearby hospital. (News On Japan)

Thai police have dispatched senior officers to Japan to coordinate with local authorities over the case of a 12-year-old Thai girl who was illegally employed at a massage parlor in Tokyo. (News On Japan)

Aerial images of Hokkaido showed a solitary round “hole” in the mountains near Mt. Yotei, leading a reporting team to Kyogoku Town where an unpaved forest road ended at a dam and, beyond a locked gate and warning signs, at a restricted facility on a ridge that turned out to be a perfectly circular reservoir built on the mountaintop. (News On Japan)

Princess Aiko, the only daughter of Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako, paid her respects at the mausoleum of Emperor Showa and other imperial tombs in Hachioji, Tokyo, ahead of her official visit to Laos later this month. (News On Japan)

Welcome to Japan's biggest slum, where survival is the only currency that matters. For the 20,000 people here in Kamagasaki, home is often the street. It's a strangely quiet slum, built on a brutal economic logic: a bowl of ramen might only cost 500 yen, but a tiny 3-tatami-mat room can cost $350 a month. (Andrew Fraser)

The Mekari Shrine near the Kanmon Strait, connecting Honshu and Kyushu, has overcome a financial crisis through an unconventional initiative: a marine ash scattering business. Drawing on local customs, the shrine began offering plans starting from 70,000 yen, allowing families to have ashes scattered at sea in a ceremony managed by the shrine itself. (News On Japan)

The Nikkei Average has surged past 50,000, yet many individual investors say their portfolios have barely moved, underscoring how narrowly led the rally has become as the NT ratio—Nikkei divided by TOPIX—climbs to a record, reflecting outsized strength in a handful of high-priced technology names while a broad swath of stocks lags behind, and even within the Nikkei 225 the gap between the strongest and weakest deciles over the past six months has widened to extreme levels, pushing the headline index higher while leaving many constituents flat. (News On Japan)

Global food shortages are worsening due to extreme weather linked to climate change, driving up vegetable prices even in Japan. Amid this crisis, Hakuo Kikuchi, CEO of Quantum Flowers & Foods, has developed a groundbreaking technology that drastically shortens the time required for crop and grain breeding. (News On Japan)

The outlook for rice prices over the next three months has declined sharply amid expectations that an increase in new rice harvests will ease supply and demand pressures. (News On Japan)

A series of bear attacks were reported across Japan on November 9th, injuring five people in total, including a man in his 50s who was attacked at around 4 a.m. while preparing for his restaurant’s opening in Sannohe, Aomori Prefecture. (News On Japan)

Hyogo Prefectural Police arrested NHK Party leader Tachibana Takashi on November 9th on suspicion of defamation, alleging that he repeatedly made false statements about a former Hyogo prefectural assembly member who has since passed away. (News On Japan)

Japan’s largest shogi tournament for children in elementary school and younger was held in Osaka on November 9th. (News On Japan)

A special train designed to resemble a park filled with greenery ran on Tokyu lines in Tokyo, transforming the interior of an ordinary carriage into a lush, nature-themed space. (News On Japan)