National

COLORADO SPRINGS — The U.S. sent five athletes to the top of the podium on Sept. 27 at the U.S. Open Championships, which were held at the U.S. Olympic Training Center.

Olympian Ryan Reser returned for his first competition since Beijing and had the opportunity to fight in the 73kg division in front of a hometown crowd filled with family and friends.

“I really just fought mainly because it was here in the Springs,” Reser said. “I’ve been training, but not really hard since the Olympics, so I just wanted to go out and have fun.”

WASHINGTON — Asian Pacific Islander American Vote (APIAVote) partners and affiliates have announced Oct. 4 as National Day of Action for Voter Registration.

Oct. 4 is the last Saturday before the Oct. 6 registration deadline in Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan, and the last day that Nevada voters are allowed to register without being present at the registrar’s office. In California, the deadline to register for the Nov. 4 election is Oct. 20.

SAIPAN (Kyodo) — Japanese businessman Kazuyoshi Miura's defense team withdrew a
habeas corpus request Sept. 29 and a judge at a U.S. district court consented to the move, paving the way for his extradition from Saipan to Los Angeles in connection with the fatal shooting of his wife there in 1981.

The development follows a Los Angeles county court's ruling on Sept. 26 that validated an arrest warrant for the 61-year-old suspect on a conspiracy charge in connection with the slaying.

TOKYO (Kyodo) — Tokyo stocks plunged Sept. 30, with the key Nikkei index dropping to its lowest level in more than three years, as investors were unnerved by a historic Wall Street sell-off overnight after Congress unexpectedly rejected the U.S. administration’s financial bail-out package intended to stabilize the financial sector.

The 225-issue Nikkei Stock Average lost 483.75 points, or 4.12 percent, from Sept. 29 to 11,259.86, its lowest closing level since June 2005.

Actor James Saito is a cast member of ABC’s hit series “Eli Stone,” which will have its season premiere on Tuesday, Oct. 14, at 10 p.m.

TOKYO (Kyodo) — Link Tochigi Brex of the Japan Basketball League has signed former Phoenix Suns point guard Yuta Tabuse to a two-year contract.

Tabuse, 27, the first Japanese player to play in the NBA, has a clause in his contract that allows him to move abroad if he receives offers from teams in the NBA or the world’s other top leagues.

“There are some people that may be surprised with this move, but I want to continue my challenge to play in the NBA and the world’s top leagues and this is part of that challenge,’’ Tabuse said on his official website.

MINNEAPOLIS — Coffee House Press has just released “Famous Suicides of the Japanese Empire,” the debut novel by author David Mura.

The protagonist is Ben Ohara, a struggling historian and the sole surviving member of his family.

SEATTLE (Kyodo) — Ichiro Suzuki went 2-for-4 to finish tied for the league lead with the Boston Red Sox’ Dustin Pedroia with 213 hits as the Seattle Mariners posted a season-ending 4-3 win over the Oakland Athletics on Sept. 28.

Suzuki topped the league for the third year in succession and fifth time overall but came up just two hits short of tying Isao Harimoto’s record of 3,085 career hits.

WASHINGTON — The House passed legislation on Sept. 23 to reward belatedly more than 18,000 Filipinos for their service with U.S. forces in the Philippines during World War II.

Amounts involved fall far short of what they and tens of thousands of their Filipino brothers-in-arms were promised for their service. Filipinos made a major contribution to the U.S. defense of its colony and its recovery from imperial Japanese forces as the U.S. military machine moved back toward Japan.

Hep B Free San Francisco, a campaign to stop hepatitis B in the Asian American community, held its “B a Hero” fundraising gala on Sept. 18 at the Chinese Culture Center in San Francisco’s Chinatown.

The campaign includes public education of all residents of the city and screening, vaccinating and treating all Asian Pacific Islander Americans, who are disproportionately affected by the disease.

San Francisco Hep B Free partners with health facilities to provide free or low-cost screenings and develop resources for a referral network that links HBV-infected patients to care.