Three pieces from Friday's Mainichi Shimbun

While other papers might have haughty stories about problems in the Sudan and the end of house building controls in Loudoun County, the Mainichi's Daily News English website always serves up a nice bowl of J crime and scandal. Written in a straightforward journalistic style (sometimes to such a degree to be almost deadpan) it makes for an interesting read. This is an example of the style- “A man poured kerosene oil over a junior high school student and set him alight, leaving the boy with burns to his leg, police said. A local resident in Koga alerted police shortly after 5 p.m. on Monday, saying, "A man poured kerosene oil on a junior high school student and set him alight." Officers raced to the scene to find the 14-year-old boy had suffered burns to his right leg that will require two weeks to heal. "An unknown man set me on fire," the boy said, prompting officers to launch a hunt for the culprit.”

Below are three stories from Friday's edition....

Woman tackles armed robber to stop theft of Louis Vuitton purse
A woman overpowered a male robber, sustaining minor injuries as she did so, because she could not bear the thought of having her Louis Vuitton purse stolen, police said Saturday.
"He was trying to run away with my handbag, which contained my precious Louis Vuitton purse," she said. "I wasn't letting him go anywhere."
http://mdn.mainichi.co.jp/news/archive/200503/05/20050305p2a00m0dm007000c.html


Sex-romp Satoya stripped again -- this time of World Cup team spot
Shamed Olympic gold medallist Tae Satoya, arrested after throwing a drunken tantrum because bouncers interrupted her while she was having sex in a Roppongi nightclub, has been dropped from the Japanese World Cup team, Ski Association of Japan officials said.
Shukan Bunshun reported that a screaming Satoya threw glasses, kicked tables and chairs, and ended up injuring a bouncer when he tried to stop her from having sex with a foreign man whose pants were down on the sofa in the VIP room.
http://mdn.mainichi.co.jp/news/archive/200503/05/20050305p2a00m0dm001001c.html
(edit)...it seems that much of this story is now in serious dispute and that the club's management may have provoked the entire episode and significant rumor mongering occurred afterwards
http://mdn.mainichi.co.jp/news/archive/200503/16/20050316p2a00m0dm006004c.html


Baby in bottle haunts dark side of Tokyo
…inside the jar was the fully formed fetus of an aborted human baby.
But cops are shocked by the mysterious nature of the find. At first glance, the baby's body appears to show little sign of contamination. The liquid in which it had been stored remains a mystery. And, perhaps most shockingly, the jar in which the fetus was found is of the sort typically used to store foodstuffs.
"It was one of the glass jars you can buy anywhere to keep things like jam or pickles in," a Metropolitan Police Department insider tells Asahi Geino. "It had a label for herbs on it."
http://mdn.mainichi.co.jp/waiwai/0503/04fetus.html

With stories like this, I can somehow understand how so many newspapers manage to exist in Japan.