By YURI KAGEYAMA

TOKYO (AP) — Tsukudani, a sweet, Japanese side dish often served with hot rice, originated in the samurai era in a tiny neighborhood called Tsukuda in the old part of Tokyo. Adding “ni” at the end of a word in Japanese means that’s where it’s cooked.

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Professional tsukudani is sold packaged at some Asian food stores and, of course, in modern-day Tsukuda.

A Tokyo correspondent for The Associated Press is sharing her basic tsukudani recipe.

Tsukudani involves simmering bite-sized bits of meat or vegetables in a dark, sweet sauce in a pot over low heat. The ideal flavor emerges after about an hour, enough time for all the juice to infuse the food. And be sure to keep watching your pot.

Serve tsukudani with hot rice or sake, or use it as filling for rice balls.

Easy tsukudani, from AP’s Yuri Kageyama

Start to finish: One hour

Servings: 5

Ingredients:

½ cup of clams, tuna, seaweed, shrimp, meat or other food item to make into tsukudani

¼ cup sliced ginger

2 tablespoons sugar

½ teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon mirin, or sweet rice wine

2 tablespoons soy sauce

1 teaspoon sake, or rice wine

2 teaspoons roasted sesame seeds

Directions:

Chop the clams, tuna, seaweed, shrimp or meat into small pieces about the size of a pea. Slice the ginger into thin pieces. Pour the ingredients into a large pot and cook over low heat for about an hour until the juice disappears. Sprinkle with sesame seeds.

Fast-rising floods in Central Texas have killed at least 115 people, and more than 160 remain missing after a slow-moving storm dropped 12 inches of rain in the early morning hours of Friday, July 4.

Numerous organizations have sprung into action to help the victims and survivors of the catastrophic flood, and many are in need of cash donations to aid in their efforts. Here’s how you can help:

The local Salvation Army in Kerrville, Texas, is accepting online donations in its efforts to help victims and survivors.

The American Red Cross for Central and South Texas is on the ground and accepting donations.

The Austin Disaster Relief Network is accepting cash donations and has an Amazon wish list of cleaning supplies.

Ark of Highland Lakes is accepting donations to support their efforts to house those displaced by the floods in Burnet County  in local hotels.

The Central Texas Community Foundation is supporting flood victims via Wilco Cares – Support July 2025 Flood Victims.

The Kerr County, Community Foundation of the Texas Hill Country is soliciting donations to help relief and rebuilding efforts after the floods.

The Texas Children’s Central Texas Hope Fund, administered by Texas Children’s Hospital in North Austin, is asking for cash donations to support parents and children impacted by the disaster.

The nonprofit group Austin Pets Alive!> is raising money for pet transports and other pet-related needs following the floods.

GoFundMe’s Texas Flooding Relief Hub offers a list of GoFundMe accounts for individuals and groups that have been verified by the fundraising platform’s trust and safety team.

The Community Foundation of the Texas Hill Country has created the Kerr County Flood Relief Fund to help support vetted local response, relief and recovery efforts.

Southern Oaks Church in Kerrville, is accepting online donations.

The Austin-based nonprofit emergency response group TEXSAR, which has deployed swiftwater rescue teams, with boats, drones and search dogs to aid in the search for the missing, is aiming to raise $100,000 to support the work it is doing in the flood zone.

Texans on Mission a North Texas-based group dedicated to helping people recover from natural disasters is soliciting donations as it heads into the flood zone in Central Texas.

Mercy Chefs, a faith-based, nonprofit disaster and humanitarian relief organization is offering free hot meals in the flood zone to families, first responders and volunteers.

The International Medical Corps is donating medical supplies to health-care facilities in and around Kerrville, Texas, so they can continue to help patients. The organization is also ready to send in medical and mental health volunteers if they are requested.

Kerrville Pets Alive is asking for donations to support its efforts to reunite pets and families impacted by the floods.

Links for this story were sourced from the Austin American Statesmen, CBS News and ABC News.

With no small amount of pride, property managers associated with Madison Equities led tours of the Degree of Honor building in 2021, showing off the former office building’s full-scale conversion into 78 housing units.

Built in the 1960s by an insurance company and women’s organization, the 10-story, granite-exterior “skyscraper” was the first building in downtown St. Paul to boast of its own air conditioning, among other highlights of its era.

The three years after its grand reopening as residences were not kind to the Degree of Honor building, leading some unhappy tenants last August to attend community meetings related to another ailing Madison Equities property in the same general corner of downtown — the troubled Lowry Apartments — which have since been condemned and boarded up by the city.

The death of Madison Equities principal Jim Crockarell in January 2024 appears to have sped the decline for the Degree of Honor, the Lowry Apartments and the company’s many other downtown properties, nine of which were put up for sale together weeks after his death.

Minnwest Bank acquired the Degree of Honor building last December for $9.58 million in a deed-in-lieu-of-foreclosure sale, but it didn’t hold onto the property for long. The building has been sold again.

In late June, Altitude Capital Partners, a Chicago firm, purchased the Degree of Honor building from Minnwest Bank for $11.1 million, under the name 325 Cedar Acquisition, LLC, according to state sales records. The transaction, involving a new mortgage and limited warranty deed, included a $1.67 million downpayment.

The Degree of Honor building held an estimated market value of $15 million in 2022 and $12.57 million in 2025, according to Ramsey County property records.

For Altitude Capital Partners, this is at least the third recent residential purchase in downtown St. Paul.

The same company this year previously acquired The Jax, a 48-unit apartment building at 253 Fourth St. E. in Lowertown for $8 million, and last December paid $9 million for R7 Lofts, a boutique 48-unit apartment building at 133 E. Seventh St. in Lowertown, according to Finance and Commerce.

A call to Altitude Capital Partners was not immediately returned on Thursday morning.

Other Madison Equities properties that were put up for sale in April 2024 include the First National Bank building, the Alliance Center, 375 Jackson Square, the U.S. Bank Center, Empire Building/Endicott Arcade and Park Square Court. Some properties, like the U.S. Bank Center and Park Square Court building, are now under court-ordered receivership.

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By ALEX VEIGA, AP Business Writer

MCCLEAN, Va. (AP) — The average rate on a 30-year U.S. mortgage edged up this week, ending a five-week decline in borrowing costs for homebuyers.

The long-term rate ticked up to 6.72% from 6.67% last week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday. A year ago, the rate averaged 6.89%.

Borrowing costs on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages, popular with homeowners refinancing their home loans, also rose. The average rate increased to 5.86% from 5.80% last week. A year ago, it was 6.17%, Freddie Mac said.

High mortgage rates can add hundreds of dollars a month in costs for borrowers and reduce their purchasing power. That’s helped keep the U.S. housing market in a sales slump that dates back to 2022, when mortgage rates began to climb from the rock-bottom lows they reached during the pandemic.

Last year, sales of previously occupied U.S. homes sank to their lowest level in nearly 30 years. They’ve remained sluggish so far this year, as many prospective homebuyers have been discouraged by elevated mortgage rates and home prices that have continued to climb, albeit more slowly.

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