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The U.S. Air Force said on Monday that the bodies of five crew members had been found alongside the wreckage of a CV-22 Osprey that went down during a routine training exercise last week in southern Japan. Two crew members remain unaccounted for, and the remains of one had been discovered on Wednesday, the day of the crash. Over the weekend, the Air Force identified that airman as Staff Sgt. The body of Sergeant Galliher, a young father who went by the first name Jake, had been found by the Japan Coast Guard. The U.S. Air Force said that a breakthrough in the five-day search came on Monday, when a combined Japanese and American team found the Osprey’s fuselage.

Persons: Jacob M, Sergeant Galliher, Jake, Minoru Kihara, Ricky Rupp Organizations: U.S . Air Force, Air Force, Japan Coast Guard, United States Forces Japan Locations: Japan, Yakushima

☆ Unusual Names Can Complicate Life in Japan. Now Parents Are Being Reined In.
▼ + stars: | 2023-12-01 | by ( Hikari Hida | More About Hikari Hida | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

A growing number of Japanese parents are choosing these unconventional names, often in hopes of making their children stand out in a country where pressure to conform is strong. Mr. Matsumoto’s parents were driven by that same desire for uniqueness, but to him, his name was a shackle. This spring, he went to family court and had it changed to a common one, Yuuki, written in a way anyone could read. Japan is far from the only country where unusual names are on the rise. But Japanese children with unconventional names face societal and practical challenges unique to their country and its written language.

Persons: Yuni Matsumoto, Matsumoto, kira, kira —, “, ” Locations: Japan

A U.S. military aircraft crashed near a small island off the coast of southern Japan on Wednesday with six people onboard. Japan’s Coast Guard said that at least one of those onboard had been confirmed dead. The aircraft, a CV-22 Osprey operated by the U.S. Air Force, crashed close to 3 p.m. near Yakushima, according to a spokesman for the Japanese Coast Guard, which is conducting a rescue operation. It was initially thought that eight people were aboard the craft. The crash came just three months after three U.S. Marines died in another Osprey accident during a training exercise in Australia.

Persons: Hiroyuki Miyazawa, Hiroki Shimano Organizations: U.S, Japan’s Coast Guard, U.S . Air Force, Japanese Coast Guard, Marines, Osprey Locations: Japan, Yakushima, Australia, Kagoshima

A man believed to have a gun was holed up in a post office in a Tokyo suburb on Tuesday and holding one hostage after releasing another, in an episode that was unsettling in Japan, where gun violence is extremely rare. An employee inside the post office, in Warabi city, called the police at around 2:15 p.m., saying there was a gunman inside, according to Taira Masuda, a spokesman for the police headquarters in Saitama Prefecture. Around 7:15 p.m., NHK, a public broadcaster, showed footage of the woman in her 20s walking out of the post office without injury. Another official, the mayor of Toda, said on social media that a man had fired a handgun at Toda Chuo General Hospital and fled on a motorcycle. In the broadcaster’s footage, it appeared that the woman who was released on Tuesday evening bowed as she left the post office.

Persons: Taira Masuda, Masuda, Toda Organizations: NHK, General Hospital Locations: Tokyo, Japan, Warabi, Saitama Prefecture, Toda city

Japan’s Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that requiring transgender people to undergo sterilization in order to legally change their gender identity is unconstitutional, a step forward for L.G.B.T.Q. rights in a nation that has been slow to recognize them. In practice, that means many transgender people will still be unable to make the legal change. The top court said it would send the case back to the High Court for further discussion of the transition surgery clause. “I’m very disappointed that my case still has to go on.”

Persons: ”, Kazuyuki Minami, “ I’m Organizations: High Court Locations: Japan’s

☆ Typhoon Lan Knocks Out Power for Thousands in Western Japan
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-15 | by ( Hikari Hida | More About Hikari Hida | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Typhoon Lan pummeled western Japan on Tuesday, prompting local officials to issue evacuation warnings, knocking out power to thousands of homes, canceling hundreds of flights and disrupting summer traditions like a nationwide baseball tournament. Moving in from the Pacific Ocean, the tropical storm had maximum sustained winds of 67 miles per hour, with gusts of 89 m.p.h. All commercial flights out of Kansai airport had been suspended for the day, with more than 800 canceled nationwide. Train and bus services in the region had also been suspended. Tornado warnings were issued for central Shizuoka Prefecture just before noon by the Japan Meteorological Agency, which warned of thunderstorms, wind gusts, and hail.

Persons: Lan Organizations: Japan Meteorological Agency Locations: Japan, Shionomisaki, Wakayama Prefecture, Akashi, Hyogo Prefecture, Kansai, Shizuoka Prefecture

A powerful tropical cyclone was approaching islands in southern Japan on Tuesday, days after another one slammed into mainland China and the Philippines and left dozens of people dead or injured across the region. The new storm, Typhoon Khanun, was less than 200 miles southeast of a major United States military base in southern Japan’s Okinawa Prefecture on Tuesday, according to the United States military’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center in Hawaii. (Tropical cyclones are called hurricanes in the Atlantic and typhoons in the northwestern Pacific.) Japan’s official forecast showed the storm heading northwest toward mainland China later in the week. But the meteorological authorities in China said that it might turn further north and head for Japan’s major islands instead.

Persons: Khanun Organizations: United Locations: Japan, China, Philippines, United States, Japan’s Okinawa Prefecture, Hawaii, Atlantic, Pacific

“I respect you and believe you deserve to hear this directly from me,” he said, reading from a letter he had prepared. “For years, I struggled to accept a part of myself. But now, after all I have been through, I finally have the courage to open up to you about something. I am a gay man.”Such an announcement is extremely unusual in conservative Japan, the only G7 country that has not legalized same-sex unions. Earlier this summer, the Japanese Parliament passed an L.G.B.T.Q rights bill but it had been watered down by the political right, stating that there “should be no unfair discrimination” against gay and transgender people.

Persons: “, Shinjiro, ” Locations: Tokyo, Japan

The world’s advanced economies have committed to phasing out coal over the next seven years. But not Japan, which stands alone in insisting it can make coal less damaging to the planet. Nowhere is that more evident than at the nation’s largest coal-fired power plant in Hekinan, a small city in central Japan where 400,000 tons of jet-black piles are spread across a plot the size of 40 soccer fields. Starting next spring, Jera, the company that owns the site, wants to demonstrate that it can blend ammonia — which does not emit carbon dioxide when burned — with coal in its boilers. The use of this new technology is prompting a debate over whether it is better to find cleaner ways of using coal, or to scrap it as soon as possible in favor of renewable energy.

Locations: Japan, Hekinan

☆ Japan’s Native Ainu Fight to Restore a Last Vestige of Their Identity
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-02 | by ( Motoko Rich | Hikari Hida | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Masaki Sashima gazed through the fog one recent afternoon onto the gray waters of the Tokachi River in Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost island. From here, his Indigenous people, the Ainu, once used spears and nets to catch the salmon they regarded as gifts from the gods. Under Japanese law, river fishing for this salmon, an essential part of Ainu cuisine, trade and spiritual culture, has been off limits for more than a century. Mr. Sashima, 72, said it was time for his people to regain what they see as a natural right, and restore one of the last vestiges of a decimated Ainu identity. “In the past in our culture, the salmon were for everybody to enjoy within the community,” he said.

Persons: Masaki Sashima gazed, Sashima, ”, Mr Locations: Hokkaido, Japan’s

☆ She Said Her Professor Sexually Harassed Her. His Wife Won Damages.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-29 | by ( Motoko Rich | Hikari Hida | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

The prominent art history professor and his student had finished dinner and were strolling along the river in Kyoto, Japan’s picturesque former capital, when they stopped at a bar. For months, they had been spending a lot of time together, and the professor had already kissed her once in a park in Tokyo. Now, after drinks, he invited her to his hotel, where they had a sexual encounter that she said was against her will. From that conflicted beginning, they embarked on a clandestine, decade-long relationship that included furtive meetings, volleys of amorous notes and several trips overseas. Over time, the student came to believe that the professor had taken advantage of the power imbalance between them, and that she had never truly consented to any of it.

Russia’s claim of victory in Bakhmut suggests that the brutal urban combat that marked the deadliest battle of its war in Ukraine might be over. Those gains will allow Ukrainian troops to continue raining artillery on Russian forces trying to hold Bakhmut, according to Ukrainian officials. A battle on May 6 breached Russian lines south of the village of Ivanivske and forced Russian soldiers into a disorganized retreat. Image Ukrainian soldiers west of Bakhmut after rotating out of the city, this month. A Russian capture of Bakhmut “will mean nothing, actually,” predicted Colonel Serhiy Hrabsky, a commentator on the war for the Ukrainian news media.

At the beginning of the war in Ukraine, President Biden told the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, that he could not have American precision missile systems. Washington’s pattern of saying no before saying yes has repeated itself enough times over the past 15 months that Ukrainian officials say they now know to ignore the first answer and keep pressing. But White House officials say the shifting positions reflect not indecision, but changing circumstances — and changing assumptions about the risks involved. And after China’s leader, Xi Jinping, explicitly warned late last year against threatening the use of nuclear weapons, Mr. Putin has quieted down. Some experts warn that Mr. Putin hasn’t dropped his nuclear threats; just delayed them.

☆ The Religious Right’s Hidden Sway as Japan Trails Allies on Gay Rights
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-17 | by ( Motoko Rich | Hikari Hida | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

To millions of Japanese, the Shinto faith is not so much a spiritual practice as a cultural one. Few regard these rituals as being tethered to any fixed doctrine — Shintoism, an indigenous religion, has no official dogma or scripture. But unbeknown to most in largely secular Japan, a national Shinto association has tried to spread a conservative ideological message among lawmakers, including on gay and transgender rights. Polls show overwhelming support for same-sex marriage in Japan; one of the country’s most influential business leaders recently called it “embarrassing” that Japan has not sanctioned the unions. Lawmakers, under pressure from the Shinto group and other traditionalist forces, have lagged behind public opinion, struggling to agree on even limited expressions of support for the rights of gay and transgender people.

☆ Japan’s Prime Minister Safely Evacuated After Blast
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-14 | by ( Mike Ives | Hikari Hida | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan was safely evacuated on Saturday after an explosion was heard just before he was scheduled to give a speech, the country’s national broadcaster said. The episode took place late Saturday morning in the western Japanese city of Wakayama, the broadcaster, NHK, reported.

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