HGE NEWS

The Immigration Services Agency of Japan is looking to cooperate more closely with related ministries as part of its countermeasures against illegal foreign labor. Starting as early as October, agency officials will accompany inspectors from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism on patrols of demolition and construction sites under the ministry’s jurisdiction. The agency aims to gain an understanding of on-site conditions where unauthorized employment oc

A 72-year-old South Korean man has been arrested for allegedly overstaying his visa in Japan for more than 26 years after a tip was received in June, Shizuoka Prefectural Police said Thursday. The man came to Japan using his brother’s passport in September 1993 under a 15-day tourist visa, hoping to get a higher-paying job in the country, police said. He was arrested Wednesday. The suspect, who lives in the city of Yaizu, Shizuoka Prefecture, appears to have been staying in J

Cases involving child sexual abuse material made using deepfakes, or manipulated digital representations, more than doubled in number in Japan in the first half of 2026, the National Police Agency has said. Police handled 123 such cases in the six months, exceeding both the 60 recorded a year earlier and the 114 logged in all of 2025, the agency said Monday. The surge highlights the rapid spread of generative artificial intelligence and its increasingly sophisticated image-ed

OSAKA – Twenty-three people, mainly students, were injured after an unknown substance was sprayed at a municipal junior high school in the city of Kaizuka, Osaka Prefecture, on Friday morning. According to the city’s board of education, 15 students and eight school staff members that include teachers said they were experiencing sore throats and skin irritation after the incident. None of them were said to be seriously injured. Around 10:40 a.m., an emergency call to police wa

A Japanese court on Thursday sentenced a 50-year-old woman to two years and six months in prison for killing a pregnant woman in a car accident and leaving her then-unborn daughter with a severe disability in May last year. The Nagoya District Court’s Ichinomiya branch handed down the ruling on Naoko Chigono, charged for fatally striking Sayaka Togitani, then 31, while driving a car in Ichinomiya, Aichi Prefecture, on May 21, 2025. Togitani, who had been due to give birth one

Prosecutors on Thursday sought a life sentence for Toshiya Fujita, a senior member of a crime ring behind a series of robbery and fraud cases across the country. The lay-judge trial for 41-year-old Fujita at the Tokyo District Court, presided over by Judge Sakon Togari, concluded with the defense’s final arguments. The verdict is set to be handed down on Feb. 16. On Thursday, the prosecution stated in their closing arguments that Fujita was aware of the use of a crowbar in th

Tokyo police arrested a 40-year-old nursery school teacher on Wednesday on suspicion of indecent assault on an elementary school boy during an overnight field trip hosted by an after-school child care center. The suspect, Masaaki Kimura, who works at a nursery school in Tokyo's Shinjuku Ward, has denied the allegations, people familiar with the investigation by the Metropolitan Police Department said. Kimura is suspected of entering the room where the school boy was sleeping

One person died and eight were injured in an auto accident in Tokyo on Thursday involving an official vehicle of the Cabinet Office and five other cars. The government vehicle is believed to have plowed into an intersection in the Akasaka district of Tokyo’s Minato Ward at around 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, causing a multiple-car collision. Based on footage of the accident, the driver of the Cabinet Office car is thought to have ignored the red light and gone into the intersection

A 27-year-old man found dead in an apartment in Tokyo’s Nerima Ward on Monday is believed to have been in a relationship with a woman who died in an apparent murder-suicide three days earlier, according to investigative sources. The Metropolitan Police Department is investigating the death of Shintaro Nakakubo, a company employee, who was living in the apartment leased under the name of Yuka Nomura, 36. Nomura and her three sons — who were ages 9, 11 and 16 — were found uncon

No more free food, no more last-minute voting, after controversial law change The Government has locked in controversial election law changes, which will ban last-minute voter enrolment and free food near polling stations. Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith shepherded through his electoral law changes on Tuesday night, which passed Parliament’s final hurdle. The Government used urgency to speed up the process last week, and required MPs stay late into the night to consider the l