Japanese disaster claim impacting tourism as deadline approaches
destroyed house caused by Noto Peninsula earthquake on New Year’s Day 2025/ Buddhika Weerasinghe/Getty Images)
(HONG KONG) — Some believe she foretold the devastating 2011 tsunami in Japan that killed more than 15,000 people and urban legend goes she also predicted the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, another premonition of a major disaster from manga artist Ryo Tatsuki is about to hit its alleged due date, spooking tourists in Asia and even causing some cancelled flights.
Social media is abuzz with Tatsuki’s prophecy of a catastrophic earthquake and tsunami wrecking her home country of Japan — a place prone to natural disasters but also a top destination for many in Asia — sometime between July 5 and 7.
In a 1999 Japanese comic book, also known as manga, Tatsuki wrote of a “great disaster” striking in March 2011. That same month, a 9.0 magnitude earthquake triggered a deadly tsunami, causing a meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear plant, leading to one of the biggest nuclear disasters in history.
Tatsuki updated her book, titled “The Future I Saw,” in 2021, claiming that “the real catastrophe” was due in July this year.
The predictions have irked local officials, with one local governor calling it a “serious issue” that “unscientific rumors are impacting tourism.”
Seismologists say there is no scientific basis for these predictions and, in a post on X last month, the Japanese Cabinet Office Disaster Prevention Division said that “with current scientific knowledge, it is difficult to predict an earthquake by specifying its date, time and location,” adding that “earthquakes can occur at any time.”
But with other psychics sharing warnings similar to Tatsuki’s foretelling, some travelers are getting cold feet, cancelling trips and prompting travel agencies to incentivize Japan-bound journeys by offering discounts.
Demand has plummeted so much that regional carrier Hong Kong Airlines cancelled all its flights to the southern Japanese prefectures of Kagoshima and Kumamoto in July and August.
However, statistics released by Japan’s National Tourism Organization in May showed that overall inbound tourism remains strong this year for the country.
(MOSCOW) — A failed Soviet-era spacecraft that became trapped in Earth’s orbit by mistake more than 50 years ago is expected to crash back down onto the planet in a matter of days, according to space experts.
Cosmos 482 was launched in 1972 as part of the Soviet Union’s Venera program, which intended to explore Venus, according to NASA.
The unmanned spacecraft experienced a successful initial launch on March 31, 1972, and temporarily orbited Earth.
However, it did not achieve sufficient velocity to launch into a Venus transfer trajectory, NASA said, and the payload — or the portion of the craft significantly related to the craft’s primary mission — was unable to exit Earth’s orbit.
Astronomers hypothesize that a malfunction on a timer caused the engine to burn prematurely, NASA said.
The spacecraft then broke into four pieces. Two of the pieces, which remained in low orbit, decayed within 48 hours. Orbital decay refers to an incremental decrease in altitude, gradually closing a craft’s distance to Earth, according to NASA.
The other two pieces — including the large lander probe — became stuck in Earth’s higher orbit. It has experienced orbital decay for decades, NASA said, and that decay has brought it close enough to reenter the planet’s atmosphere around May 10.
Because the probe was designed to withstand entry into Venus’ atmosphere — which is 90 times denser than Earth’s — it is possible that parts of it could survive reentry and continue onward to the planet’s surface, according to NASA.
The risk of Cosmos 482 striking people on the ground is low — but not impossible, Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, wrote on his website last month.
“No need for major concern, but you wouldn’t want it bashing you on the head,” McDowell wrote.
The lander probe is expected to reenter Earth’s atmosphere between Friday and Sunday, NASA said. The craft is about 3.2 feet across and weighs about 1,100 pounds.
As of Tuesday, the landing location was estimated to be anywhere between 52 N and 52 S latitude. This large swath contains the United States, as well as most of the continents on Earth.
The time and location of a return to Earth will likely be predicted more accurately as reentry nears, according to NASA.
Astronomers are increasingly monitoring space junk left near Earth during launches of satellites and other spacecraft. There are currently more than 1.2 million known pieces of space debris, 50,000 of which measure more than 4 inches across, according to a 2025 report by the European Space Agency.
“Even if we created no new space debris, it would not be enough to prevent a runaway series of collisions and fragmentations,” the ESA said in a statement.
(NEW YORK) — An alleged leader of violence during the Rwandan genocide in 1994 has been living in an exclusive enclave on Long Island as a beekeeper. He was arrested Thursday and accused of concealing his role in horrific violence and human rights violations by making false statements in his applications for a visa, green card and for U.S. citizenship, according to the Justice Department.
Faustin Nsabumukunzi is charged with visa fraud and attempted naturalization fraud for allegedly lying on his application for a green card and for U.S. citizenship.
Nsabumukunzi was arrested at his home in Bridgehampton and pleaded not guilty Thursday in Islip federal court. He was released on $250,000 bond with home detention and GPS monitoring and will be allowed to keep working as a gardener for a private equity entrepreneur on Long Island who signed his bond.
“As alleged, Nsabumukunzi repeatedly lied to conceal his involvement in the horrific Rwandan genocide while seeking to become a lawful permanent resident and citizen of the United States,” said United States Attorney John Durham. “For over two decades, he got away with those lies and lived in the United States with an undeserved clean slate, a luxury that his victims will never have, but thanks to the tenacious efforts of our investigators and prosecutors, the defendant finally will be held accountable for his brutal actions.”
According to officials, Nsabumukunzi served as a local leader with the title of “Sector Councilor” in Rwanda in 1994 when the genocide began. Between April 1994 and July 1994, members of the majority Hutu population persecuted the minority Tutsis, committing acts of violence, including murder, rape and sexual violence. During the three-month genocide, an estimated 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus died.
According to the indictment, Nsabumukunzi used his leadership position as Sector Councilor to oversee the violence and killings of Tutsis in his local sector of Kibirizi and directed groups of armed Hutus to kill Tutsis. He set up roadblocks during the genocide to detain and kill Tutsis and participated in killings and violence, according to court documents.
Nsabumukunzi allegedly ordered a group of armed Hutus to locations where Tutsis were sheltering, and the Hutus killed them. Nsabumukunzi also allegedly facilitated the rape of Tutsi women by verbally encouraging Hutu men to do so. According to court filings, Nsabumukunzi has been convicted of genocide in absentia by a Rwandan court.
The suspect applied for refugee resettlement in the United States in August 2003 and then applied for and received a green card in November 2007. He later applied for naturalization in 2009 and 2015. Nsabumukunzi allegedly lied to United States immigration officials to gain admission to the United States as a refugee, by falsely denying in the applications under penalty of perjury that he ever engaged in genocide, federal prosecutors said.
He allegedly repeated those lies in his subsequent applications for a green card and for naturalization. Nsabumukunzi has lived and worked in the United States since 2003.
If convicted, Nsabumukunzi faces a maximum of 30 years in prison.
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump said Sunday he wants a deal to end the Russia-Ukraine war in “two weeks or less,” but later said a little more time might be acceptable.
Trump’s deadline comes a day after he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Vatican City while they were in Rome for Pope Francis’ funeral.
“I think the meeting went well, we’ll see what happens over the next few days. We’ll probably learn a lot,” Trump told reporters on the tarmac at Morristown Municipal Airport in New Jersey before returning to Washington.
Trump said he was “very disappointed” that Russia continued to carry out missile and drone strikes in Ukraine days after he had implored Russian President Vladimir Putin to stop the attacks while negotiations continued.
When asked what he and Zelenskyy talked about, Trump said Zelenskyy emphasized their need for more weapons.
“He told me that he needs more weapons and we’re going to see what happens — I want to see what, with respect to Russia — with Russia I’ve been surprised and disappointed when they did the bombing,” Trump said.
When asked what he wants from Putin, Trump replied, “I want him to stop shooting, sit down and sign a deal. We have the confines of a deal I believe and I want him to sign it and be done with it and just go back to life.”
Trump also said that Ukraine reclaiming its territory in Crimea that Russia occupied in 2014 would be complicated while blaming former President Barack Obama for allowing Russia to take the region. Asked whether he thought Ukraine would give up Crimea, Trump said “I think so.”
Earlier Sunday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that Russia and Ukraine are closer to a deal after Trump’s meeting with Zelenskyy, but a deal is still not there.
He said the U.S. will now need to weigh if it’s time for the U.S. to step in to mediate talks.
“Well, I think they’re closer in general than they’ve been any time in the last three years, but it’s still not there,” Rubio told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“We cannot continue, as I said, to dedicate time and resources to this effort if it’s not going to come to fruition. So the last week has really been about figuring out how close are these sides really and are they close enough that this merits a continued investment of our time as a mediator in this regard.”
Trump and Zelenskyy met in Vatican City on Saturday while both were in Rome for the funeral of Pope Francis. White House Communications Director Steven Cheung said the two had a “very productive session.” Zelenskyy described the meeting as “good” in a post on X and said, “Hoping for results on everything we covered. Protecting lives of our people. Full and unconditional ceasefire. Reliable and lasting peace that will prevent another war from breaking out. Very symbolic meeting that has potential to become historic, if we achieve joint results.”
After their meeting, Trump blasted Russian President Vladimir Putin over Moscow’s continued bombardments of Ukrainian cities, which continued overnight into Sunday morning with more drone attacks on six Ukrainian regions. Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces downed eight Ukrainian drones overnight into Sunday morning.
Rubio was asked why the U.S. trusts that Putin won’t invade Ukraine again or another European country as he has never acknowledged Ukraine’s right to exist.
“Well, I don’t think peace deals are built on trust. I think peace deals have to be built on verification. Have to be built on facts, have to be built on action, have to be built on realities,” Rubio said. “So this is not an issue of, well, of trust. It’s an issue of building in these sorts of things, verification, security, guarantees, things that have been discussed in the past,” Rubio said.
Rubio said the U.S. has made “real progess, but those last couple steps of this journey were always going to be the hardest ones, and it needs to happen soon.”
Rubio wouldn’t elaborate on a timeline of a deal but instead stressed this is a “critical week” for the U.S.
“This week is going to be a really important week in which we have to make a determination about whether this is an endeavor that we want to continue to be involved in, or if it’s time to sort of focus on some other issues that are equally, if not more important, in some cases, but we want to see it happen, there are reasons to be optimistic, but there are reasons to be realistic, of course, as well,” he said. “We’re close, but we’re not close enough.”
Asked if he supported negotiations, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told CNN’s “State of the Union that he fears Trump will cave in to Putin and “sell out” Zelenskyy.
“Well, look, my great fear, Dana, is that Trump will just cave in to Putin,” Schumer told CNN’s Dana Bash. “That’s been the overall indications all along. And, of course, the bottom line is very simple, that if we cave to Putin, if Trump caves in to Putin, it’s three — it’s bad in three very bad ways:” abandoning Ukraine would be a “moral tragedy, he said, and would “tear asunder” alliances with European allies.
“But, third, and maybe worst of all, it’s a sign that the United States is weak. It sends a signal to every dictator in China, in North Korea, in Iran that, if you stand up and bully Trump, you’re going to get your way,” he said.
National Security Adviser Mike Waltz told Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” that more sanctions against Russia could be coming as the U.S. tries to force it to make a deal.
“[Trump] talked about potential action on banking, potential action on the oil and gas sector. But he’s determined to use both carrots and sticks to get both sides to the table,” he said.
