CHUGOKU The Hiroshima Municipal Government will launch an ordinance on July 1 requiring retailers in the city to introduce filtering for cell phones to prevent people under the age of 18 from viewing harmful information on the Internet, it has been learned. (1) [MAINICHI]

CHUGOKU The family and colleagues of a man killed by a train after being pushed off a platform at JR Okayama Station on Tuesday were further pained to learn the suspect’s irrational motive. [YOMIURI]

CHUGOKU Police are questioning an 18-year-old boy over the death of a stranger who was pushed in front of an approaching train at JR Okayama Station late Tuesday night. (4) [ASAHI]

CHUGOKU Hiroshima City Asa Hospital admitted Monday that a medical error may have lead to the death of a 16-year-old boy from Hiraocho, Yamaguchi Prefecture, who died after a central nervous system depressant to control cramps was mistakenly injected into a vein instead of a muscle. [YOMIURI]

CHUGOKU Prosecutors broke the law when they refused to allow a lawyer to interview his Peruvian client standing trial for murdering a 7-year-old schoolgirl, a court ruled on Thursday. [MAINICHI]

CHUGOKU Four US Marines will face court-martial in Japan over allegations they gang-raped a Hiroshima woman, the US military said, even though Japanese prosecutors dropped the case. [AFP]

CHUGOKU Four U.S. Marines have been charged with gang raping a Japanese woman last October in violation of the U.S. Uniform Code of Military Justice, the U.S. Marine Corps’ Iwakuni Air Station in Yamaguchi Prefecture said Thursday. [KYODO]

CHUGOKU Four workers were seriously injured after scaffolding under an elevated railway bridge in Hiroshima collapsed in the early hours of Friday. [MAINICHI]

CHUGOKU Rescue workers have abandoned the search for a university student who went missing while exploring an underground lake in a limestone cave in Niimi, Okayama Prefecture. [MAINICHI]

CHUGOKU Cracks were found in a control rod that had been used at a Hiroshima nuclear power plant, its operator has announced. [MAINICHI]

CHUGOKU An accident at a lime factory in Okayama Monday morning killed one man and left another three injured after they were struck by falling bricks. [MAINICHI]

CHUGOKU A yakuza gang boss who demanded construction workers give him a “greeting payment” for doing a job on his turf has fled and been placed on a nationwide wanted list, police said. [MAINICHI]

CHUGOKU A commemorative museum has been opened in Izumo, Shimane Prefecture, in tribute to Isao Hirano, a native of the city known for his work sketching festival scenes in many parts of Japan. [YOMIURI]

CHUGOKU Hiroshima prosecutors dropped the charges against four U.S. Marines who stood accused of gang raping a 19-year old Japanese woman in October, an official said Thursday. (1)

CHUGOKU About 270,000 people in Hiroshima would either be killed or injured if an atomic bomb similar to the one that destroyed the city on Aug. 6, 1945, was dropped on it again, according to a draft report by the municipal civilian protection council. [THE JAPAN TIMES]

CHUGOKU Japanese police are investigating four US soldiers on allegations of gang-raping a woman in Hiroshima, officials said Friday. (1) [AFP]

CHUGOKU A 14-year-old boy under arrest for setting fire to his school told investigators that he thought summer vacation would be prolonged if the school was burned down, investigators said. [MSN MAINICHI]

CHUGOKU A monument commemorating Japanese-South Korean ties in Kotoura, Tottori Prefecture, will be given a new inscription that excludes a previous reference to the “East Sea,” the term South Korea prefers to use when referring to the body of water between the Korean Peninsula and Japan, town officials said Thursday. [THE JAPAN TIMES]

CHUGOKU Members of a student group who engraved a huge four-letter word on the Tottori sand dunes in Tottori Prefecture are being investigated by government environment officials. [MSN MAINICHI]

CHUGOKU A 72-year-old man at a special welfare home for the elderly died on Tuesday, apparently after a part-time doctor accidentally inserted a nutritional intake tube into his lungs. [MSN MAINICHI]