NHK has learned that a joint venture company is planning to build a huge plant in eastern Japan to produce lithium ion batteries for electric vehicles.
9 CAMP ZAMA, Japan (Apr. 29, 2021) – More than 20 Soldiers and staff from U.S. Army Medical Department Activities – Japan volunteered April 22 to clean up Zama Yatoyama Park, located near Camp Zama, in celebration of Earth Day.
Capt. Mathew Schmidt, assigned to MEDDAC-J, who was in charge of the event as the chairperson for the MEDDAC-J Sustainability Committee, said he and his team partnered with park management and Zama City to hold the park cleanup project.
“I thought it would be a great activity for Earth Day and a nice service for the community,” Schmidt said.
Schmidt said he initially envisioned the event would entail picking up trash, but because the park is kept so clean, park management came up with the idea of having the MEDDAC-J team remove weeds at the front of the park to provide a more attractive entrance for visitors.
Kanagawa: Man, 34, started fires ‘due to daily stress’
By Tokyo Reporter Staff on April 12, 2021
KANAGAWA (TR) – Kanagawa Prefectural Police have arrested a 34-year-ol man who is suspected of starting several fires in Zama City, reports Nippon News Network (April 9).
At around 3:10 a.m. on February 23, Hironori Fukuda, a part-time employee, allegedly used a lighter to set fire to the office of an NPO.
The entire two-floor structure burned to the ground, but there were no injuries, the Zama Police Station said.
Hironori Fukuda
Upon his arrest on suspicion of arson on April 8, Fukuda admitted to the allegations. “I started the fire after feeling frustrated due to daily stress,” the suspect told police.
Takahiro Shiraishi will not appeal death sentence
By Tokyo Reporter Staff on December 23, 2020
The Tachikawa branch of the Tokyo District Court on December 15 sentenced Takahiro Shiraishi to death.
Three days later, his defense team appealed the ruling. The court had set a deadline of January 4, 2021 for an appeal.
However, the court said on Wednesday that the defense team had withdrawn the appeal.
According to the indictment, Shiraishi used Twitter to lure the eight women and one man to the apartment in 2017. He strangled each of them with a rope and carved up their bodies.
Shiraishi also stole money from the victims and sexually assaulted all eight women.
Debts preceded double suicide by elderly woman and her daughter
By Kenji Nakano on December 17, 2020
Weekly tabloid
Shukan Shincho (Dec. 17) looks into the lives of the women and unearths a tale of debt and poverty.
The woman, 87, and her daughter 52, lived together in a first-floor apartment in a building in Zama City, Kanagawa Prefecture located about a 15-minute walk from Odakyu Sagamihara Station.
“They moved in about 6 years ago,” the tenant of another unit says. “Neither of them seemed to work.”
The tenant goes on to say that the daughter could be seen regularly drinking beer outside in the mornings. “There’s a pachinko parlor near the station that she’d regularly visit,” the source continues.