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TOKYO (AP) — Hours before Haruki Murakami’s new book was set to go on sale in Japan on Friday, dozens of fans gathered outside a major Tokyo bookstore for a special event to get their first copies as soon as the clock struck midnight.

“The Tale of KAHO” is the Japanese author’s first full-length novel featuring a lone woman protagonist, according to Shinchosha Publishing Co.

“Kaho, a picture book author, is just an average young woman. But truly bizarre things start happening around her,” Murakami said in a brief message posted on the publisher’s campaign website. “I wrote this novel as I put myself in her shoes.”

His statement surprised many fans, because most of Murakami’s protagonists are young or middle-aged men.

“I’m excited about finding out how the story evolves around a female character,” said Naoyuki Yamano, the first customer to buy the new Murakami novel.

Initially, the novel started as a short story titled “Kaho,” which Murakami rehearsed at a book reading event two years ago at Waseda University, his alma mater in Tokyo, with Mieko Kawakami, a renowned female author and fan of his work. The story was published in the June 2024 edition of the monthly Shincho magazine.

One day, 26-year-old Kaho goes on a blind date arranged by her book editor. Over dinner, her date tells her that, although he has dated a number of women, “I’ve never seen one as ugly as you.” Baffled rather than outraged, curious Kaho tries to uncover the meaning of his words. Soon, bizarre things begin happening to her.

Murakami has since released three subsequent “Kaho” stories in Shincho magazine, most recently in the March edition. He weaves the four stories into a 352-page new novel with four chapters: “Kaho and the Motorcycle Man,” “The Anteater of Musashi-sakai,” “Kaho and the Termite Queen” and “The Guardian Angel, Elephant Egg and Scarlett Johansson.”

The new book comes out three years after his previous novel, “The City and Its Uncertain Walls,” which follows a male protagonist navigating love, loss and the boundaries between real and subconscious worlds.

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Protests Sweep Israel as Nation Marks 1,000 Days Since Oct. 7 Massacre  

Protests were held across Israel on Thursday to mark 1,000 days since the Oct. 7 massacre, with demonstrators gathering outside the homes of coalition lawmakers, blocking major intersections and access roads to the Knesset, and calling for accountability over the government’s handling of the war and the hostages.  

Protesters assembled outside the home of Education Minister Yoav Kisch in Hod Hasharon and outside the residence of Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana. At Kisch’s home,   

Several dozen demonstrators gathered outside Ohana’s home, where they criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent interview on Channel 14. Many demonstrators characterized Netanyahu’s response that what had changed since Oct. 7 was that he had “lost a little weight,” as indicative of “zero management, zero accountability, zero leadership.”  

Clashes were also reported near the Knesset after protesters attempted to block access to the parliament building. Demonstrators alleged police had begun forcibly removing participants.  

Additional demonstrations were held at Karkur Junction on Route 65, where protesters unfurled a banner reading, “A thousand days of mourning, abandonment, whitewashing, failure,” while others blocked the intersection carrying yellow flags. Demonstrators were also documented at Ra’anana Junction.  

At a rally outside the Kirya military headquarters in Tel Aviv, Danny Elgart, whose brother Itzik Elgart was killed in Hamas captivity, said: “Those who came out alive – returned. Those who were abducted alive, abandoned in captivity, murdered and returned in a coffin – did not return.”  

Yoram Yehudai, whose son Ron Yehudai was murdered at the Nova music festival, said, “1,000 days of a bleeding heart. We find no time for healing, for recovery, because we have to fight for a state commission of inquiry.” Referring to Netanyahu’s remarks, he added: “This is humiliating. This is chutzpah. Disrespect for the families and the citizens of the state. Is this a joke? I haven’t laughed at jokes for a thousand days.”  

Elsewhere, a sand installation on a Tel Aviv beach displayed the message: “Their blood cries out from the ground. 7. 1000 days of failure, abandonment and bereavement.”  

At the United Nations, Israel’s Ambassador Danny Danon marked 1,000 days since the massacre, telling the General Assembly: “A thousand days after the October 7 massacre, the world must listen to the victims of terror and to the country fighting terrorism day and night. No terrorist deserves a UN badge, a UN salary or a UN cover story. If we want to defeat terrorism, we must stand together against it and not grant it immunity.” 

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By Andreas Rinke and Miranda Murray

BERLIN, July 2 (Reuters) – German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s ruling coalition unveiled a package of reforms on Thursday, including €10 billion ($11 billion) in annual tax relief for lower income earners, changes to the pension system and building more affordable housing.

Trailing in opinion polls behind the far-right Alternative for Germany party, Merz has faced heavy pressure to pass reforms to revive Europe’s largest economy but has struggled to overcome internal coalition wrangling and gain momentum.

“We want to get Germany back on track,” Merz told reporters on Thursday.

The long list of measures aimed to tackle a variety of issues and cut red tape. They include an action plan against benefit fraud and abolishing workers’ ability to obtain sick notes by phone, as well as a goal to cut staffing by 8% in federal ministries through digitisation.

The tax relief will be mainly funded by raising the top rate of tax to 47% from 45% for the highest earners with an annual income of €280,000 or more.

($1 = 0.8777 euros)

(Reporting by Andreas Rinke, Miranda Murray, Friederike Heine and Matthias Williams; editing by Thomas Seythal)

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VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican responded aggressively Thursday to a traditionalist society that consecrated bishops without the pope’s consent, declaring the Society of St. Pius X in schism, excommunicating its bishops and priests and warning its faithful they too face the harshest sanctions in the Catholic Church.

The Vatican’s doctrine office went above and beyond the minimal sanctions foreseen by the church’s canon law to respond to the consecrations Wednesday of four new bishops at the society’s Econe, Switzerland, seminary.

The society, known by its acronym SSPX, celebrates the ancient Latin Mass and opposes the modernizing reforms of the Catholic Church, which it considers to be rife with heresies and errors and has accused of straying from the Catholic faith.

During a ritual-filled, five-hour Mass on Wednesday, attended by some 15,500 people and their children, the SSPX consecrated four new bishops in direct defiance of Pope Leo XIV, who had urged the SSPX to hold off for the sake of the church’s unity.

In a decree, the Vatican excommunicated the four new bishops and the two bishops who participated in the ceremony. It declared the consecrations a “schismatic act” and declared the society itself had created a schism, or intentional rupture with the Catholic Church.

The Vatican warned the faithful who go to the society’s Masses to stop, declaring “those who adhere formally” to the society are considered themselves schismatic and excommunicated. It declared SSPX priests to be schismatic, and therefore excommunicated, and invalidated the sacraments of confession and marriage that they administer.

The sanctions, especially those targeting the priests, the faithful and the sacraments they can receive, were particularly harsh and reversed concessions the Vatican had granted the SSPX in recent years as part of its outreach to bring the group back under Rome’s wing.

French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre founded the SSPX in 1970 in opposition to the modernizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council. Among other things, the 1960s meetings known as Vatican II revolutionized the church’s relations with other Christians, Jews and people of other faiths and allowed Mass to be celebrated in the vernacular rather than Latin.

Lefebvre consecrated four bishops without papal consent in 1988. The Vatican promptly excommunicated Lefebvre and the four bishops and declared the consecrations a “schismatic act.”

Pope Benedict XVI in 2009 lifted the excommunications as part of his yearslong outreach to the group, but the SSPX today has no legal standing in the church and with Thursday’s decree is declared to be in schism.

The consecrations had posed a crisis for Leo because the American pope has stressed the need for church unity. He has reached out especially to the conservative and traditionalist wing of the church that was in many ways alienated during the Pope Francis pontificate.

But the sanctions imposed Thursday suggest that after nearly five decades of trying to negotiate with the society, the Holy See has had enough.

The Vatican responded so aggressively in part because the group poses something of a threat by representing a parallel, ultra-Catholic, pre-Vatican II church that has grown in the decades since its original break from Rome.

The group now has six bishops, 751 priests, 264 seminarians training in five seminaries, 145 religious brothers, 88 oblates and 250 religious sisters representing 50 nationalities, according to SSPX statistics.

The SSPX has accused the church of being rife with errors, such as modernism and liberalism, and that only it is upholding the true faith of Christ. It has justified the consecrations, citing a “state of necessity” to minister to its faithful.

In his homily during the consecrations Wednesday, the Rev. Davide Pagliarani, the SSPX superior, also insisted the consecrations served Leo and the church.

“We are accused of not respecting the pope,” Pagliarani said. “But it is precisely because we love the pope as the vicar of Christ, as the head of the church, that we don’t want to see the pope humiliated anymore, on the side of false shepherds representing false religions.”

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By Joshua McElwee

VATICAN CITY, July 2 (Reuters) – The Vatican said on Thursday that priests and lay Catholics who are part of a breakaway right-wing Catholic group that ordained bishops without Pope Leo’s approval are in schism with the wider Church and now excommunicated.

In a strong decree, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, the top watchdog authority for the 1.4-billion-member Church, also warned Catholics globally that the Swiss-based Society ​of St. Pius X now celebrates the sacraments illicitly.

The ultra-traditionalist group, which denies key Church teachings, cannot officiate marriages or hear confessions validly, the decree said.

It is a strict teaching of the Church that only the pope can authorize the consecration of new ⁠bishops, in ​order to maintain the Church’s ties to Jesus’ 12 ​apostles, who are considered the first priests and bishops.

VATICAN DECREE GOES FURTHER THAN EXPECTED

The Church considers unauthorized ordination of bishops as so serious that it causes those taking part in the ceremony to be automatically excommunicated, or “out of communion” with the wider Church, and unable to receive sacraments until they repent and ask for forgiveness.

Thursday’s decree said the two bishops leading the unauthorized ordination, held in Switzerland on Wednesday, had been excommunicated, along with the four priests who had become new bishops, which was widely expected.

However, the Vatican went further than expected and said that all priests of the Society ​of St. Pius X and all Catholics who “adhere formally” to the group were now in schism and excommunicated.

A schism is a term to indicate a severe, formal rupture inside the Catholic community.

The Society of St. Pius X denies the central teachings of the Second Vatican Council, a landmark Vatican gathering of bishops in the 1960s that pursued a range of reforms for the global Church and sought to repair its relations with Jews and other Christian denominations.

The Council also allowed for the Mass, until then said only in Latin, to be celebrated in local languages. The society rejected that change, citing a desire for the Latin rite’s sense of mystery and formality.

The Society, whose followers are sometimes known as Lefebvrists after their founder Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, says it counts 733 priests worldwide. Its leadership, which has long had tense relations with the Vatican, says it needed to ordain new bishops to have enough prelates to lead the group.

(Reporting by Joshua McElwee; Editing by Crispian Balmer)

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BERLIN (AP) — Regional officials say a fire erupted in a hospital in northwestern Germany, killing two people, German news agency dpa reported Thursday.

The two who died were patients at the hospital in Ludwigslust, northwest of Berlin, the agency said, citing a spokeswoman for the Ludwigslust-Parchim district. Initial reports indicated the fire started in a patient’s room, the report said.

It was not immediately clear how many others were injured, but the dpa report said none of those injured sustained serious injuries. The roof reportedly caught fire before dawn, and patients and staff were evacuated, the report said.

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By Aigerim Turgunbaeva

BISHKEK, July 2 (Reuters) – Kyrgyzstan asked Kazakhstan, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan to help ensure stable fuel supplies late on Wednesday, amid concerns over potential shortages linked to Ukraine’s drone strikes against Russian oil refineries.

The Central Asian country of 7 million people imports more than 90% of its gasoline from Russia, which is itself facing acute fuel shortages following Ukrainian strikes on energy infrastructure.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said last week that Moscow may ban diesel exports, acknowledging mounting domestic shortages.

“To ensure sustainable fuel supplies, official requests have been sent to the relevant government authorities of the Russian Federation, the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Republic of Belarus, the Republic of Azerbaijan, the Republic of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan”, Kyrgyzstan’s energy ministry said in a statement.

The ministry said fuel stocks remain sufficient and supplies are proceeding as planned. In June, Kyrgyz authorities introduced price controls on some retail fuel sales.

Separately, Kyrgyzstan’s oil traders’ association said some filling stations were experiencing shortages of AI-95 gasoline, although stocks of the more widely used AI-92 grade were sufficient for 30 to 45 days. Diesel fuel, critical for the harvest season, remains available.

Like other Central Asian countries, whose economies are closely intertwined with Russia’s, Kyrgyzstan has suffered periodic inflationary shocks since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, while also becoming a principal clearinghouse for trade with Russia redirected by Western sanctions.

(Reporting by Aigerim Turgunbaeva, Writing by Felix Light and Louise Heavens)

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By Julia Symmes Cobb and Vivian Sequera

LA GUAIRA, Venezuela, July 1 (Reuters) – The command center at a disused classroom in Venezuela is a hive of activity as radios crackle to life and medical staff check in for their day’s assigned duties.

Though this organization would not be out of place at a military barracks overseen by generals, the deployment is taking place at the local ‘Republic of Panama’ school in La Guaira, the state hardest hit by twin earthquakes last week, and the commanders are aged between 20 and 27.

Their task is the management of the makeshift shelter for victims of the magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 quakes that devastated the South American country less than a minute apart, killing more than 2,200, according to the latest tally, which is likely to rise.

The dozen or so staff – all volunteers and members of the youth wing of Venezuela’s socialist party – have designed software to register residents, most of whom have lost loved ones, their homes, or both in the disaster.

They are also largely homeless after the quakes, and rotate work shifts staffing the command center 24 hours a day. Like the shelter residents, they sleep on metal bunk beds delivered by the commerce ministry.

The group registers each of the more than 350 people staying at the shelter, where an average of three families sleep per classroom. The program records their previous addresses, injuries, and who has yet to grab lunch in the cafeteria.

“We’re like the Titanic. We go down with the ship,” said Daniel Rivas, 25, as his colleagues searched the registry for a missing person sought by a relative standing at the school gate.

Showers, a medical center, a laundromat and cafeteria are available to the residents, whose children play in stairwells and on the basketball court.

Each of the nine shelters in La Guaira is run by a different team, the staff at this school said.

‘FULL OF RAGE’

“People are 50% very sensitive and 50% full of rage, lost,” said Jose Mendez, who is also part of the team. “They are angry about not finding their family members, about losing everything. But we’re ready to help.”

All team members were born just before or in the years after La Guaira’s last major disaster – a 1999 landslide that killed up to 30,000 people.

Last week’s quakes have killed 2,295, according to government figures published on Wednesday. An unofficial but widely used list of the missing stands at 40,567. A United Nations envoy this week said it was procuring 10,000 body bags for Venezuela, an indicator of how large the death toll could ultimately be.

Residents have criticized the government of interim President Delcy Rodriguez for what they call a slow and inadequate response by the state, while NGO the International Rescue Committee on Tuesday said “the scale of the response does not meet the scale of humanitarian need.”

Rodriguez in a post on X said that authorities continue helping those affected, as well as supervising recovery efforts. “I know that many Venezuelans feel pain and frustration. I deeply share those feelings,” she said.

NEXT STEPS

The team here is waiting on two major next steps: Visits from the registration authority, to replace lost government identification cards, and from the housing ministry, to clarify what people who lost their homes should do to get aid.

“I feel like I still have the earthquake within me,” said shelter resident Deisy Tapias, 36, who was in the shelter with two of her five children. “I wish I could go home.”

Her apartment further down the coast was nearly destroyed, though her 17-year-old son was able to rescue their identity cards and tank of cooking gas from the ruins.

Tapias said she was willing to move out of state if that is how she can replace her home.

Her mother, Deisy Bermudez, 55, has an intact home in a nearby settlement and arrived with clothing and food for her family.

“I can’t stand shelters,” said Bermudez, who lost her house in the 1999 disaster and said she missed out on government housing constructed afterward for victims.

As the women spoke with Reuters, an army transport truck pulled up outside, and soldiers helped eight new families carrying sparse bags of belongings into the shelter, where they were welcomed by the team.

Many of those arriving now have been living alongside the ruins, the team said, and searching for loved ones trapped under rubble.

(Reporting by Julia Symmes Cobb and Vivian Sequera; Writing by Julia Symmes Cobb and Oliver Griffin; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

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By Jonathan Allen and Maria Tsvetkova

NEW YORK, July 1 (Reuters) – A Russian couple of daredevil artists climbed to the top of the Empire State Building’s towering spire in New York City on Wednesday to unfurl a large banner urging world peace in what appeared to be an elaborate marriage proposal that ended in their arrests.

Dressed in sleeveless black outfits and documenting their time in the sky on social media, Angela Nikolau and Vanya Beerkus hung onto the landmark skyscraper’s antenna spire near the glowing red light at its tip some 1,454 feet (443 meters) above the sidewalks of midtown Manhattan.

They held a black banner with a message in all-capital white letters that flapped in the wind that said: “When the power of love beats the love of power the world knows peace.”

It was not clear how they got up there.

New York landmarks including the Empire State Building have heightened security since the World Trade Center attacks in 2001, and the city is currently bracing for the twin tsunamis of the expected wedding of pop phenomenon Taylor Swift and National Football League star Travis Kelce, as well as crowds for the July 4 celebration of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. 

A DIZZYING PROPOSAL

A little after 12:30 p.m., the pair could be seen on aerial video footage slowly climbing down to a slightly lower platform in the antenna structure, where they paused. Beerkus then appeared to propose to Nikolau, getting down on one knee, before the couple embraced and kissed.

Nikolau, wearing her trademark Catwoman-style headgear, could then be seen admiring her hand and taking photographs on her phone to share on Instagram. The couple were the subject of a 2024 documentary called “Skywalkers: A Love Story.”

The New York Police Department closed down streets around the building. At least one police officer could be seen at an observation deck, more than 200 feet (61 meters) below the towering spire’s pinnacle, and police later said they had taken the couple into custody “without incident” and expected to bring unspecified charges.

The Art Deco tower, the tallest building in the world until it was surpassed in the 1960s, sells tickets to tourists who want to ascend to an enclosed observation deck on its 102nd floor. The outside observation deck that is open to the public is on the building’s 86th floor.

(Reporting by Jonathan Allen and Maria Tsvetkova; Editing by Scott Malone and Bill Berkrot)

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WASHINGTON, July 1 (Reuters) – One U.S. service member was missing and three others were wounded but in stable condition after their MH-60S Seahawk helicopter made an emergency landing in the Arabian Sea on Wednesday, the U.S. military said, adding there was no indication the crash was caused by hostile action.

“U.S. Navy assets in the region are currently searching for other aircrewman still missing. The cause of incident is under investigation,” the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet said in a statement, adding that the helicopter was deployed to the region on the USS George H.W. Bush aircraft carrier.

Helicopter water landings can be dangerous, even for experienced pilots, given the propensity of top-heavy aircraft to flip upside-down during submersion. U.S. forces in the region are also on high alert amid periodic flare-ups in violence during the ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali in WashingtonEditing by Matthew Lewis)

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