English news for Friday, September 18, 2026

Bullet trains^*1 in the south of Japan will run again on Friday, September 18. The trains stopped after a big earthquake^*2 on July 28.

JR Kyushu, a train company on Kyushu, an island in the south of Japan, announced the news on August 27. The company runs the Kyushu Shinkansen. This is a fast train line. It goes from Hakata Station to Kagoshima-Chuo Station.

The earthquake hit Kumamoto, an area on Kyushu. After the earthquake, trains between Kumamoto Station and Shin-Minamata Station could not run. On September 18, they will start again with the first train of the day.

Trains between Hakata Station and Kumamoto Station will run at the same times as before. But between Kumamoto Station and Kagoshima-Chuo Station, the trains will go more slowly near Shin-Yatsushiro Station. So trains going south will arrive at Kagoshima-Chuo Station up to about 8 minutes late. Trains going north will leave Kagoshima-Chuo Station up to about 9 minutes earlier than before.

Some trains go from Kagoshima-Chuo Station straight to Honshu, the main island of Japan. About 90 percent^*3 of these trains will run, compared with the time before the earthquake.

A slower local line^*4 is also still closed. This is the Kagoshima Main Line between Uto Station and Yatsushiro Station. JR Kyushu hopes to open it again around the middle of October.

1. *1 Bullet trains: very fast trains that go between big cities
2. *2 earthquake: when the ground shakes very hard and can break roads and buildings
3. *3 percent: a part of 100; 90 percent means 90 out of every 100
4. *4 local line: a normal, slower train line that stops at many small stations

Tokyo, the capital of Japan, wants cleaner streets. On August 25, 2026, the governor^*1 of Tokyo, Yuriko Koike, asked a group of experts to study the problem of litter^*2 in the city. The group is called the Tokyo Metropolitan Waste Management Council^*3. It gives advice to the Tokyo government about trash.

The governor asked the council two questions. First, what should Tokyo do about litter to make the city cleaner? Second, how can Tokyo build a system to make these plans happen? The council will think about the years up to around 2030. A Tokyo law on waste says the governor can ask the council for advice in this way.

Tokyo says there is more litter now in busy shopping areas, in places that many tourists visit, and on the land next to rivers. In some areas, this has become a serious problem for everyone. Tokyo gives two reasons. People changed the way they live during the COVID-19 pandemic^*4. Also, more tourists are coming to Tokyo, and many of them do not know the local rules about trash.

Tokyo has worked on this problem before. It has given advice and money to the local governments^*5 inside Tokyo, and it has held meetings with them to talk about litter. But life and business in Tokyo have changed, so the government says it needs to look at the problem again.

In March 2026, Tokyo made a new long-term plan for recycling^*6 and waste. The council will use this plan as a guide for its work.

1. *1 governor: the leader of the government of a big area, like Tokyo
2. *2 litter: trash that people drop on the ground in public places
3. *3 council: a group of people who meet to give advice or make decisions
4. *4 pandemic: a time when a sickness spreads to many countries around the world
5. *5 local governments: the offices that run each town or part of a city
6. *6 recycling: using old things again to make new things instead of throwing them away

A scientist in Japan has found a new kind of small sea animal. It lives on the tail fins^*1 of fish. He has named it after his grandmother.

The scientist is Ryota Kawanishi. He is an associate professor^*2 at Hokkaido University of Education, a university in the north of Japan. He works at its campus in the city of Kushiro. He announced the discovery^*3 on September 4, 2026. His paper was published online one day earlier in Species^*4 Diversity. This is an English-language journal^*5 of the Japanese Society of Systematic Zoology.

The animal is a crustacean^*6, like a crab or a shrimp, but it is small and flat. It belongs to a family of crustaceans that live on fish. More than 380 species of this family are known around the world, in 46 groups. More than 40 of them live in Japan.

Kawanishi found the new species on two kinds of fish, the white croaker^*7 and the Japanese whiting^*8. The fish were caught in the eastern part of the Seto Inland Sea, a sea between the main islands of Japan. They came from the water near Awaji Island, from Osaka Bay, and from the water off Tokushima.

The new species looks like a known species in the same group, but there are differences. It has three light brown lines on its back. Also, the inside part of its tail leg has an edge like a saw.

Its scientific name is Nerocila domotoae. The second word comes from Chiyoko Domoto, Kawanishi's grandmother. She told him that this animal is often seen on white croakers near the coast of Osaka. Its Japanese name is Chiyokoban. "Chiyo" is from her first name, and "koban^*9" is from the Japanese name of the group.

Domoto and Kawanishi promised to go and collect the animals together. But she died before they could do it. Now the little animal carries her name.

1. *1 fins: the thin parts on a fish's body that it uses to swim
2. *2 associate professor: a teacher and researcher at a university
3. *3 discovery: finding something that nobody knew about before
4. *4 species: one kind of animal or plant
5. *5 journal: a magazine where scientists publish their research
6. *6 crustacean: an animal with a hard shell and many legs, like a crab or a shrimp
7. *7 white croaker: a kind of sea fish that lives near Japan
8. *8 Japanese whiting: a kind of small sea fish that lives near Japan
9. *9 koban: a small gold coin used in old Japan