Pope Francis passed away on Monday, April 21. He is known as Francisco in Japan. He was the head of the Catholic Church from 2013 until his death. People around the world loved him because he was very friendly and easy to talk to. He traveled around the world to celebrate mass with everyone, and he wanted everyone to work for peace and to help poor people and immigrants. People respected him because he didn’t live in a fancy apartment like the other popes. He lived like a normal person and even cooked his own meals. They are having special church services for him now in almost every country. I’m not a Catholic, but I think the world has lost a great man!   (123 words) You can send me a comment or your own story at jaremaga@gmail.com

Ohtani Shohei is a father! His wife gave birth to a baby girl on April 19 in Los Angeles, and he uploaded a photo of his daughter’s feet on his Instagram account. What small feet! But looking at the parents, I think that the baby will grow up to be a big girl. Ohtani took time off last Friday to be with his wife for the birth of the child. This is called paternity leave, or special time off for fathers. Paternity leave started in MLB in 2011, and now the Japan Professional Baseball Players Association would like to have the same system in Japan. I think it’s a great idea. There are some things in life that you can only experience once, and the birth of your first baby is one of them.   (134 words) You can send me a comment or your own story at jaremaga@gmail.com

Children in Japanese schools have to learn about 2,000 kanji characters. That is a lot, but people need to know that many to read and write modern Japanese. However, there are many characters that people don’t know. There was a TV quiz show yesterday, and the people on the show had to read characters for 10 different birds. I guessed the name of one bird correctly, and my wife got another two, but we didn’t know the other seven. Characters are great because you can guess that they are birds, but there are too many characters to learn the names of all the birds! I’m glad that most bird names are written in katakana now.   (115 words) Watch the video at https://youtu.be/vUVUzVlTGfg You can send me a comment or your own story at jaremaga@gmail.com

Yesterday was Easter. It is an important holiday in Christian countries. Christians believe that Jesus Christ died on Friday and went to Heaven on Sunday, so Easter is always on Sunday. Even before Christianity, however, there were spring celebrations at this time of year. The cold winter ends and life begins again. Eggs and rabbits are symbols of new life in the spring, and they became symbols of Easter, too. We tell children that the Easter Bunny brings them eggs. Parents do fun things with their children like painting eggs and having Easter egg hunts. Children love looking for eggs, especially if they are made of chocolate!   (107 words) You can send me a comment or your own story at jaremaga@gmail.com