Free Republic

TOKYO — Japanese Emperor Akihito's oldest grandchild, Princess Mako, says she is getting married to her university classmate who won her heart with bright smiles and sincerity. Mako and her fiancé Kei Komuro told a joint news conference Sunday their relationship started when Mako sat behind him at a campus meeting five years ago at Tokyo's International Christian University, where they graduated from. Palace officials say their wedding is expected next year. Mako says she fell in love with his "smiles like the sun," sincerity and a big heart. Mako's 83-year-old grandfather, Emperor Akihito, is expected to abdicate in late...

But Egyptian officials in the Sinai peninsula yesterday disclosed that a shortfin mako shark captured last week had been forensically identified as the culprit behind last Wednesday's attack on two swimmers from Russia and Ukraine. "The bite on one of the victims has been matched with the teeth of the Mako," said Ahmed el-Edkawy, the deputy secretary general of South Sinai governorate. That one of the culprits responsible for the mysterious terror visited on Sharm el-Sheikh's beaches may have seemed like good news. But with witnesses saying that the latest attack, was carried out by a whitetip, scientists are being...

Tourism minister insists diving will continue because 'sharks will not attack divers'. Foreign Office warns Britons to avoid cheap dive tour operators . Egyptian officials have insisted it is safe for tourists to go back into the water despite a 70-year-old German woman being killed in Sharm el-Sheikh after another shark attack. The latest attack has echoes of the 1975 Steven Spielberg film Jaws, where hunters capture a shark they claim is behind a fatal attack only for the fish to strike again when officials said it was safe to go back into the water. Briton Ellen Barnes, 31, from...

A Scituate man reeled in a 624-pound mako shark Thursday, possibly breaking the record for the biggest male mako ever caught, a biologist said. “I’ve caught a million sharks before, but never anything this feisty,” said Taylor Sears, 20, a Massachusetts Maritime Academy junior who said he fishes every day of the summer. Greg Skomal, a shark specialist with the state Division of Marine Fisheries, said the 10-foot fish is the largest male mako shark ever to be recorded in the Atlantic Ocean, and appears to be the largest male ever caught. “We didn’t think they got this big, basically,”...

Capt. Cory Burlew and his friends had already had a good night of swordfishing when things got a lot more exciting and exhausting. Fishing 15 miles off Pompano Beach on Reaper, Burlew and his crew hooked a 10-foot, 755-pound mako shark at midnight Sunday. Four and-a-half hours later, Burlew, his fiancé, Sue Royal, neighbor Vic Sirbola and "Redneck" Mike Carne got the big shark to the boat.