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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

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