1. Police in western Japan have arrested a 43-year-old man in connection with the stabbings of two teenagers at a fast-food restaurant in Kitakyushu City on Saturday. A 15-year-old girl, Nakashima Saaya, died in the attack and a boy, also 15, was seriously injured. Police said on Thursday that they arrested local resident Hirabaru Masanori on suspicion of attempted murder of the boy. They said the suspect had admitted to the allegation. The two third-year junior high school students were stabbed at the restaurant around 8:30 p.m. on Saturday on their way home from a cram school.
2. Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun says the newspaper group’s top executive, Watanabe Tsuneo, has died. Watanabe was an influential figure in the country’s political circles and professional sports for decades. The Yomiuri Shimbun says the group’s representative director and editor-in-chief died of pneumonia at a Tokyo hospital early on Thursday. He was 98. Born in 1926 in Tokyo, Watanabe joined The Yomiuri Shimbun, one of Japan’s most widely circulated newspapers, in 1950.
3. Trekkers will have to pay a toll of 4,000 yen, or about 26 dollars, to climb Mount Fuji from the Yamanashi Prefecture side starting next summer. The current fee is 2,000 yen, or about 13 dollars. Yamanashi officials also plan to close the toll gate two hours earlier at 2 p.m. to discourage people from climbing Japan’s highest peak overnight.
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