Entertainment & Culture

NEW YORK (Kyodo)--Two Japanese high schools won awards Saturday for their performances at the Global Classrooms International Model UN Conference for 2013, which gathered nearly 2,500 high schoolers from 23 countries to discuss global issues in a simulation of real U.N. sessions, the organizer said.

IZUMO (Kyodo)--A special ceremony was held at Izumo Taisha, one of Japan's most important and well-known Shinto shrines, for the first time in 60 years on Friday to mark the completion of renovations to the shrine and return its deity to main hall.

TOKYO (Nikkei)--"Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage," a new novel by Haruki Murakami, is drawing the attention of the music industry due to the story and title's references to Franz Liszt's "Years of Pilgrimage."