SAITAMA — High schools with less academic prestige are likely to attract more students from poor families and suffer a greater degree of dropouts unless educational and economic steps are taken to reverse the trend, according to research conducted by a former high school ...

, a professor emeritus at Fukushima University, poses in front of the school’s Matsukawa case archives. Below: Makoto Suzuki, a defendant in the case first sentenced to death and then acquitted, is interviewed in November. KYODO PHOTO On Aug. 17, 1949, a train came ...

The problems facing people suffering from fetal Minamata disease remain unresolved more than 50 years after the mercury-poisoning disorder was officially detected in 1956, a researcher of the disease said Sunday. “While sensory impairment is one of the criteria for official recognition as a ...

A record of the daily lives of Ainu living in the Tokyo metropolitan area has been published as a photo collection. Around 160 photos in “Ainu, at times Japanese” depict Ainu who are involved in traditional religious exercises, dancing and singing, and marriage ceremonies ...

Many Ainu lead underprivileged lives, with their income and university advancement rate remaining low, according to a survey by the Hokkaido University Center for Ainu & Indigenous Studies and the Ainu Association of Hokkaido. Their average annual household income stands at ¥3.56 million, around ...

The previously secret lives and unheard voices of people on death row have been published by a group opposed to capital punishment at a time when members of the public may soon be required to give the death penalty under the lay judge system. ...

The economic slump has severely hit single-mother households because many of these women work as nonregular employees, the Japan Federation of Bar Associations reported at a recent symposium. In another indication of the hardships such households face, a survey by a nonprofit organization that ...