Tag - children

 
 

CHILDREN

A childhood snapshot of Shohei Ohtani and his mother, Kayoko, posted on MLB’s account on social media website X.
BASEBALL
Mar 7, 2024
'Sporting geniuses are made, not born': How to be an all-star sports parent
If you want your child to be a top 1% athlete like Shohei Ohtani, a good place to start is to take a look at what his parents did.
On the amateur circuit, domestic tournaments such as the Dream Girls Cup, which took place in Tokyo last month, have generated significant publicity for youth sumo.
SUMO / INSIDE SUMO
Mar 6, 2024
Sumo's popularity is booming. The recruitment of new pros is not.
Sumo is not immune to the labor shortages plaguing the rest of aging Japan.
Palestinian children wait to receive food cooked by a charity kitchen amid shortages of supplies in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, on Tuesday.
WORLD / Society
Mar 6, 2024
Gaza's hungry await aid despite convoy deaths amid dispute over supplies
Only a fraction of the food needed is getting in and very little reaching the northern areas where children are said to have started dying of malnutrition.
Ayuko Kato, minister in charge of policies related to children, speaks during a Lower House budget committee session on Monday.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Feb 28, 2024
Japan outlines bill for sex crime record checks by schools
Sex crime records would be checked for people applying to work and also for those who are already working.
School lunch served to children of an elementary school in Miyama, Fukuoka Prefecture, on Monday. A 7-year-old boy died after choking on what is believed to have been a boiled quail egg while having lunch at his school.
JAPAN / Society
Feb 28, 2024
Japan issues urgent notice to schools after boy chokes to death
The first grader in the city of Miyama, Fukuoka Prefecture, is believed to have choked on a boiled quail egg contained in a stew served for school lunch.
The number of babies born in Japan in 2023 fell to a record low, government data shows.
JAPAN / Society
Feb 27, 2024
Japan births hit record low and population down by largest margin in 2023
The 2023 figure declined by 5.1% from the previous year's preliminary total of 799,728, the largest ever margin of decline.
Hiroki Matsubara (right) and Yamato, who has Down syndrome, are pictured in Nara in November. Matsubara founded Migiwa, which aims to protect unwanted babies and help place them with new families through plenary adoption.
JAPAN / Society
Feb 27, 2024
New families sought for children with disabilities via adoption
The majority of the approximately 50 cases nonprofit Migiwa takes on each year involve children with disabilities.
The ratio of men who took paternity leave stood at 17.1% in a survey for the fiscal year from April 2022, far below the government's 2025 target of 50%.
BUSINESS
Feb 26, 2024
Japan plans to make firms set and disclose paternity leave targets
Under a planned bill, companies with over 100 employees would have to set and disclose the targets from April 2025.
The European Union plans to investigate TikTok, the video-sharing app owned by China's ByteDance, regarding its possible negative impacts on young people.
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 20, 2024
EU launches probe into TikTok over alleged failure to protect children
Brussels is concerned the video-sharing app may not be doing enough to address negative impacts on young people including from algorithmically fed content.
The government plans to establish a system that allows any child to enroll in day care establishments regardless of whether their parents work or not.
JAPAN
Feb 16, 2024
Japan's Cabinet OKs bill on measures to tackle falling birthrate
The bill includes plans to expand child benefits and establish a system allowing any child to enroll in day care establishments.
Pedestrians in Piazza Cordusio in Milan. Europe's fertility rate has been stuck around 1.5 births per woman for the past decade.
WORLD / Society / ANALYSIS
Feb 16, 2024
How Europe can dodge a birth rate hard landing
Europe's fertility rate has been stuck around 1.5 births per woman for the past decade, far short of the 2.1 needed to maintain population levels.
Under a proposed joint custody system, if parents cannot reach an agreement, a family court would make a decision based on the interests of the child and family relations.
JAPAN
Feb 15, 2024
Government panel proposes allowing joint child custody
Based on the report from the Legislative Council, the government plans to submit a related bill during the ongoing ordinary session of parliament.
Children play at a park during the COVID-19 pandemic in Hong Kong, in 2022.
WORLD / Science & Health
Feb 14, 2024
New research raises concerns about long COVID in children
The new review suggested that 10% to 20% of children in the United States who had COVID-19 developed long COVID.
Shiki Nakayama at a snow-covered baseball field in Asahikawa, Hokkaido, last month. Nakayama grew up watching her older brother’s exploits on the diamond and first picked up a bat and ball in elementary school.
BASEBALL
Feb 9, 2024
Meet the Gen Zer in Japan who is forging a path for girls in baseball
For 16-year-old Shiki Nakayama, it's no big deal that she's the only girl on her high school baseball team.
The hippocampus is a part of the brain that controls memory, learning and emotions. Stressful life events such as disasters and terrorist attacks are known to lead to post-traumatic stress disorder and result in its shrinkage.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Feb 9, 2024
Tokyo teens were less stressed during first COVID emergency: study
Increases in the volume of the hippocampus in their brains suggest reduced stress, according to research conducted by the University of Tokyo.
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, attends a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in Washington on Wednesday.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 5, 2024
Zuckerberg’s apology isn’t enough to stop children being harmed
META's CEO apologized to the families of children abused via social media, but real regulation is needed for such harm to be avoided in the first place.
Many young people who feel neglected at home flock to the Toyoko area to find a community where they can fit in.
JAPAN / Society / FOCUS
Feb 5, 2024
Toyoko Kids: The lonely street children of Tokyo
Bound together by shared neglect and marginalization, the group have formed a distinct, social media-linked youth subculture on the streets of Shinjuku.
People sort relief supplies, including sanitary napkins, diapers and baby formula, in Suzu, Ishikawa Prefecture, on Sunday, over a month after a New Year's Day quake hit the area.
JAPAN / Society
Feb 5, 2024
Emergency maternity and baby supplies lacking in parts of Japan
The study showed that while 82.5% of municipalities stocked sanitary napkins, only 11.9% kept underwear for women.
The number of teachers who took leave due to mental illness had fluctuated at around 5,000 in recent years, but it surged by more than 1,300 in two years since fiscal 2020.
JAPAN
Feb 3, 2024
Number of teachers on leave for mental illness in Japan hits record high
The figure for the year to last March was up 642 from the previous year, marking the second straight annual increase.
Jason Citron, Evan Spiegel, Shou Zi Chew, Linda Yaccarino and Mark Zuckerberg are sworn in as they testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee in Washington on Wednesday.
BUSINESS / Tech
Feb 1, 2024
Senators slam social media CEOs on child online safety
"These companies must be reined in, or the worst is yet to come”

Longform

Traditional folk rituals like Mizudome-no-mai (dance to stop the rain) provide a sense of agency to a population that feels largely powerless in the face of the climate crisis.
As climate extremes intensify, Japan embraces ancient weather rituals