Entertainment
How the bullet train transformed Japan
Sixty years after the world’s first high-speed train launched, rail enthusiast Paul Carter rides the bullet train along what’s been dubbed the “New Golden Route”.
Standing on platform 19 at Tokyo Station, a bustling cathedral to modern rail travel, it’s hard to believe that it was 60 years ago this year that the first Shinkansen train departed from here, bound for the port city of Osaka.
Instantly recognisable for its striking, sloping nose and sweeping aerodynamic curves, the Shinkansen was the world’s first high-speed train and quickly became known around the world by its English-language moniker: the bullet train.
That high-speed line between Tokyo and Osaka – the Tokaido Shinkansen – became known by travellers as “The Golden Route”, whisking passengers between two of Japan’s great cities as it passed by the splendour of Mount Fuji and the ancient capital of Kyoto in less than two and a half hours.
Amidst the crowds of people boarding and alighting Shinkansen trains (which are known for their to-the-minute precision), I met with Naoyuki Ueno, a former Shinkansen driver who is now a senior executive at Central Japan Railway Company. He told me that since the train’s introduction, it has carried a staggering 6.8 billion passengers across Japan.
“I’m proud of the Shinkansen,” he said. “As a Japanese citizen I’m proud of that.”
Christina Welch still remembers what the sky looked like the day a wildfire came within 2 miles (3.2 km) of her Santa Rosa, California, home.
It was the Tubbs fire of 2017, the most destructive in California history at the time. Ms Welch’s neighbour woke her in the morning, and told her to grab her belongings and get out. When Ms Welch opened the door, ashes were falling from the sky and smoke filled the air.
Then, in 2019, the Kincade wildfire forced her parents to evacuate for five days.
It was the final push for Ms Welch. After advice from a friend, she packed her belongings and drove across the country to her new hometown: Duluth, Minnesota.
“It was just the culmination of all of it,” the 42-year-old said. “There’s only so many times that I was going to go through every fall of worrying about what is going to set on fire, if I was going to lose a house.”
Ms Welch is one of several people who has left California in recent years because of the frequency of extreme weather, even before the most destructive wildfires in Los Angeles history killed 28 people this month.
Climate change has made the grasses and shrubs that are fuelling the Los Angeles fires more vulnerable to burning, scientists say.
Climate’s ‘whiplash’ linked to raging LA fires
California is naturally prone to fires, but scientists believe that a warming world is increasing the conditions conducive to longer fire seasons and larger burned areas in the western US.
Just this week, a new, fast-moving wildfire broke out in Los Angeles County, north-west of the city, forcing tens of thousands of people to evacuate a region already reeling from destruction. Trump plans to visit Southern California on Friday to witness the devastation from the blazes.
The latest series of The Traitors is coming to an end, after weeks of wild accusations, wilder betrayals and Claudia Winkleman’s devious looks-to-camera.
Many of us like to think we could handle the pressures and skullduggery of being a traitor in the remote Scottish castle. But could you really make it to the end undetected?
Work through our scenarios – from sitting at the roundtable with Claudia to rowing across an icy loch – to find out if you’ve got what it takes to be a treacherous mastermind, or whether you are far too faithful for that.
Quiz compiled by: Steven McIntosh, Helen Bushby, Yasmin Rufo, Rosemary McCabe, Jonathan Holmes
Netflix musical Emilia Pérez leads this year’s Oscars nominations, with Wicked also among the top contenders.
Emilia Pérez, about a Mexican drug lord who changes gender, has 13 nominations in total – although one of its stars, Selena Gomez, missed out.
Wicked received 10 nominations – including nods for British actress Cynthia Erivo and her co-star Ariana Grande.
Three-and-a-half-hour epic The Brutalist, starring Adrien Brody, also has 10 nominations, while Demi Moore has the first Oscar nomination of her career
Even before the LA fires, Californians fled for ‘climate havens’
Would you make a good Traitor? Take our quiz
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