Tag - death

 
 

DEATH

A sidewalk where a Japanese schoolboy was stabbed in Shenzhen, southern China, in September last year. China has executed a man, Zhong Changchun, over the fatal stabbing, it was learned Monday.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Apr 22, 2025
China executes man over fatal 2024 stabbing of Japanese boy in Shenzhen
The 10-year-old boy was stabbed as he was walking to a local Japanese school in September.
Justice Minister Keisuke Suzuki speaks during a news conference at the Diet on Friday.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Apr 18, 2025
Japan to start discussions on reviewing retrial system Monday
A government advisory panel will start discussions Monday to review the country's retrial system for criminal cases in which guilty verdicts have become final, Justice Minister Keisuke Suzuki said Friday.
Luigi Mangione, who is charged in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, arrives for his arraignment at the New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan on Dec. 23.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Apr 18, 2025
Luigi Mangione faces federal charges in health executive’s killing
Mangione has separately been charged by New York state prosecutors with Brian Thompson’s murder and awaits trial.
The bus stop in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, China, where a Japanese mother, her child, and a Chinese woman were attacked in June 2024
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Apr 17, 2025
China executes man over Japanese school bus stop murder
The Chinese Foreign Ministry informed the Japanese Embassy in China of the execution on Wednesday.
The Tokyo Detention Center in the capital's Katsushika Ward
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Apr 13, 2025
Death penalty under renewed scrutiny in Japan
The punishment has broad public support in Japan, despite international criticism over how it is carried out.
Luigi Mangione, the suspect in the killing of UnitedHealth Group chief executive Brian Thompson, appears in Manhattan Supreme Court on New York state murder and terrorism charges in New York City on Feb. 21.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Apr 12, 2025
Mangione lawyers ask judge to prevent U.S. prosecutors from seeking death penalty
Brian Thompson, the deceased CEO of UnitedHealth Group's insurance division, was shot dead on Dec. 4 outside a Midtown Manhattan hotel.
While AI-generated simulations of deceased loved ones may offer comfort, they raise ethical concerns about consent, reality distortion and the human experience of grief.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 9, 2025
AI resurrecting the dead threatens our grasp on reality
Experts warn that AI-driven digital immortality could distort reality and emotional well-being, requiring safeguards against unhealthy dependence.
A 37-year-old son of death-row inmate Masumi Hayashi, who goes by the pseudonym of Koji Hayashi, stands in front of the land of the family's previous house in January.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Apr 2, 2025
Family fights for death-row retrial under Japan's 'snail-paced' system
Japan's current retrial system is often labeled the "unopenable door" because the chances of being granted a legal do-over are so slim.
Professional cleaner Hirofumi Sakurai takes a moment to appreciate some photographs in a Gotanda apartment whose occupant died alone.
LIFE / Lifestyle / Longform
Mar 31, 2025
The last cleanup: Life and death in a lonely Japan
A growing industry quietly erases the final traces of those who die alone, exposing deep societal fractures.
Iwao Hakamata, a wrongfully convicted death-row inmate who was acquitted last year through a retrial, and his sister Hideko after a news conference in Tokyo in November 2019. Hakamata won compensation from Japan this week.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal / FOCUS
Mar 27, 2025
Ex-judge fights Japan's 'unopenable door' retrial system
Hiroaki Murayama wants Japan's outdated retrial system to be fixed so that there will "be no more (Iwao) Hakamatas."
A lawyer for ex-boxer Iwao Hakamata speaks at a news conference at the Shizuoka Prefectural Government office on Tuesday. The Shizuoka District Court has awarded Hakamata, who was acquitted of a 1966 murder case in a retrial last year, some ¥217 million ($1.44 million) in compensation for being unjustly detained for over 47 years.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Mar 25, 2025
Hakamata gets ¥217M in compensation after acquittal in 1966 murder case
The amount is the biggest such compensation granted in the country, according to the lawyers of ex-boxer Iwao Hakamata, who spent over 47 years in detention.
Melanie Joly, Canada's foreign minister, speaks during a news conference in Charlevoix, Quebec, Canada, last week.
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal
Mar 20, 2025
Canada condemns China’s execution of four Canadians on drug charges
The Chinese Embassy in Ottawa defended Beijing’s strict penalties on drug-related crimes.
Justice Minister Keisuke Suzuki speaks during an news conference on Friday at the National Diet.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Mar 14, 2025
Advisory panel to review Japan's retrial system
Retrial provisions in the Code of Criminal Procedure have not been revised since it was established in 1948.
A demonstrator holds a sign with a picture of death row inmate Brad Sigmon outside the South Carolina Department of Corrections following his execution by firing squad, at the Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia, South Carolina, on Friday.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Mar 8, 2025
South Carolina carries out first firing squad execution in U.S. in 15 years
The convicted murderer said he feared the alternatives of the electric chair or lethal injection would risk a slower and more torturous death.
Former death row inmate Iwao Hakamata (left) and his sister, Hideko, attend a gathering of his supporters after his acquittal in a retrial over a 1966 murder case was finalized in October last year.
JAPAN / Society
Feb 22, 2025
Over 80% of Japanese say death penalty system is 'unavoidable'
The Cabinet Office survey, which is conducted every five years, found that 16.5% of respondents believe the death penalty should be abolished.
Flower bouquets outside the Shenzhen Japanese School following the death of a 10-year-old child who was stabbed by an assailant on the way to the school, in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, China, on Sept.19, 2024
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Feb 20, 2025
Death sentence over murder of Japanese boy in China to be finalized
The sentence is expected to be finalized after it is examined by a high court in Guangdong and approved by China's Supreme Court.
Kodai Furutani, the assistant chief priest at Ryugasan Unmon Temple in Annaka, Gunma Prefecture, is working to become an interfaith chaplain.
JAPAN
Feb 18, 2025
Monk in chaplain training urges people to face death and live life
There is a deep-seated idea in Japan that a monk being seen at a hospital is a bad omen, as their presence reminds patients and medical staff of death.
A woman lays a bouquet of flowers outside Shenzhen Japanese School following the murder of a 10-year-old Japanese child who was on his way to the school, in Shenzhen in September.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Jan 24, 2025
Chinese court gives death penalty to man who killed Japanese boy
Friday’s sentence was pronounced on the same day the trial opened in an unusually quick decision.
Those who lived in Japan’s Nara Period, which lasted from the year 710 to 794, by and large knew themselves to be blessed. It wasn’t just those in power who felt it, either. From nobles to commoners, the poets seemed to have democratized joy itself.
JAPAN / History / The Living Past
Jan 17, 2025
From Genji to 'hikikomori,' how we make peace with disappearing
Japan’s reverence for impermanence reveals a profound connection between beauty and loss, from poetic musings to spiritual retreats, echoing in modern expressions of solitude.
DOPS Director Dr. Jim Tucker (back row, from left), David Acunzo, Marina Weiler, Philip Cozzolino (front row, from left) Marieta Pehlivanova and Elliot Gish, pose for a photo on the campus of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia, on July 15. Is reincarnation real? Is communication from the "beyond” possible? A small set of academics are trying to find out, case by case.
WORLD / Society
Jan 4, 2025
Do you believe in life after death? These scientists study it.
Is reincarnation real? Is communication from the “beyond” possible? A small set of academics are trying to find out, case by case.

Longform

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.
Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.