NAGANGO: Tourists revelled in wintry scenes across Japan on Wednesday, as much of the country was blanketed by snow in a cold snap that has killed at least one person and disrupted travel.
“These temperatures are some of the coldest we’ve seen in a decade,” Japan Meteorological Agency official Takafumi Umeda said.
Record lows were logged in several locations, including one area of southern Kumamoto, where the mercury hit -9 degrees Celsius, the coldest logged there since 1977 when that observation site began keeping track.
Top government spokesman Hirokazu Matsuno said one person had died in the cold snap, while meteorologists warned of blizzards, high waves and traffic snarl-ups due to icy roads.
Authorities were also investigating whether two other deaths were related to the freezing weather across much of the archipelago, Matsuno told reporters.
Hundreds of flights were canceled due to the snowstorm, while delays and cancelations disrupted both local trains and long-distance Shinkansen services. Vehicles on major roads in several locations were left stranded, local media said.
At the seventh-century Zenkoji Temple in the mountainous region of Nagano, north of Tokyo, a chilly calm descended with trees, old-fashioned lamp posts and the place of worship itself covered in layers of powdery snow.
Visitors included some who were there for skiing but had been forced off the slopes by blizzard conditions.
“I came to ski, but the snow was incredibly heavy so I cut my plan short and instead decided to do a bit of sightseeing,” 30-year-old Akiko Sotobori said.
“The blizzard (at the ski resort) was such that I couldn’t see anything three meters ahead.”
There were picturesque scenes in the former capital, tourist favorite Kyoto, where the shining walls of the famous Golden Pavilion contrasted with the temporary bright-white brilliance of its tiered roofs.
The country’s Sea of Japan coast was hit hardest by the overnight blizzard, with Tokyo and its surrounding regions spared the snow but seeing unseasonably low temperatures.
One dead as heavy snow and record cold hit Japan
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One dead as heavy snow and record cold hit Japan
Trump calls for one year cap on credit card interest rates at 10 percent
- Trump says Americans have been ‘ripped off’ by credit card companies
- Lawmakers from both parties have raised concerns about rates
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said on Friday he was calling for a one-year cap on credit card interest rates at 10 percent starting on January 20 but he did not provide details on how his plan will come to fruition or how he planned to make companies comply.
Trump also made the pledge during the campaign for the 2024 election that he won but analysts dismissed it at the time saying that such a step required congressional approval.
Lawmakers from both the Democratic and Republican Parties have raised concerns about high rates and have called for those to be addressed. Republicans currently hold a narrow majority in both the Senate and the House of Representatives.
There have been some legislative efforts in Congress to pursue such a proposal but they are yet to become law and in his post Trump did not offer explicit support to any specific bill.
Opposition lawmakers have criticized Trump, a Republican, for not having delivered on his campaign pledge.
“Effective January 20, 2026, I, as President of the United States, am calling for a one year cap on Credit Card Interest Rates of 10 percent,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, without providing more details.
“Please be informed that we will no longer let the American Public be ‘ripped off’ by Credit Card Companies,” Trump added.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on details of the call from Trump, but said on social media without elaborating that the president was capping the rates.
Some major US banks and credit card issuers like American Express, Capital One Financial Corp, JPMorgan , Citigroup and Bank of America did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
US Senator Bernie Sanders, a fierce Trump critic, and Senator Josh Hawley, who belongs to Trump’s Republican Party, have previously introduced bipartisan legislation aimed at capping credit card interest rates at 10 percent for five years. This bill explicitly directs credit card companies to limit rates as part of broader consumer relief legislation.
Democratic US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Republican Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna have also introduced a House of Representatives bill to cap credit card interest rates at 10 percent, reflecting cross-aisle interest in addressing high rates.
Billionaire fund manager Bill Ackman, who endorsed Trump in the last elections, said the US president’s call was a “mistake.”
“This is a mistake,” Ackman wrote on X.
“Without being able to charge rates adequate enough to cover losses and earn an adequate return on equity, credit card lenders will cancel cards for millions of consumers who will have to turn to loan sharks for credit at rates higher than and on terms inferior to what they previously paid.”
Last year, the Trump administration moved to scrap a credit card late fee rule from the era of former President Joe Biden.
The Trump administration had asked a federal court to throw out a regulation capping credit card late fees at $8, saying it agreed with business and banking groups that alleged the rule was illegal. A federal judge subsequently threw out the rule.
