KYUSHU A 57-year-old man died after being bitten on the throat by a Tosa dog he had kept at his home in Mizumaki, Fukuoka Prefecture, police said. (1) [MAINICHI]

KYUSHU The Nagasaki District Court on Monday ordered the government to scrap its decision not to recognize 20 people as sufferers of atomic bomb-related diseases, accepting their claims in a lawsuit against the government. [MAINICHI]

KYUSHU The Okinawa Meteorological Observatory said Tuesday that this year’s rainy season in the Okinawa area appears to have ended, about six days earlier than usual and four days earlier than last year. [KYODO]

KYUSHU A 22-year-old man with Asperger syndrome who stabbed a high school student to death and seriously injured another student in Nobeoka, Miyazaki Prefecture was sentenced to 26 years behind bars on Friday. (1) [MAINICHI]

KYUSHU Prosecutors on Wednesday demanded the death sentence for gangster Tetsuya Shiroo who is accused of fatally shooting Nagasaki Mayor Itcho Ito during his election campaign last April. [KYOTO]

KYUSHU The Fukuoka District Court handed a senior police officer a suspended 10-month prison term for forcing a suspect into confessing during questioning by having him step on documents bearing the names of his relatives. [THE JAPAN TIMES]

KYUSHU The Fukuoka District Court on Tuesday gave a suspended prison term to a former senior police officer accused of using the “fumiji” technique, in which a suspect is forced to step on documents in an effort to extract a confession, during investigations into election violations connected to the 2003 Kagoshima prefectural assembly election. [KYODO]

KYUSHU Police arrested a U.S. Air Force serviceman Sunday on suspicion of trespassing in a private office in Okinawa Prefecture, despite a curfew imposed on all U.S. military and civilian personnel in the prefecture since Feb. 20 following the alleged rape of a junior high school girl by a U.S. Marine. [KYODO]

KYUSHU A Fukuoka-bound All Nippon Airways (ANA) jetliner was diverted to Osaka Airport on Monday evening after its main landing gear developed trouble, airline officials said. [MAINICHI]

KYUSHU The Kumamoto District Court has rejected a lawsuit by a farmer who claimed the prefectural government acted illegally by abandoning an application for his late mother to be recognized as a Minamata disease patient, and then dismissing the application 21 years later. [MAINICHI]

KYUSHU A Fukuoka District Court ruling handed down Tuesday to a former Fukuoka city employee for drunk driving that resulted in an accident killing three children in 2006 reveals the difficulty in securing conviction with the more serious charge of dangerous driving resulting in injury or death. (1) [YOMIURI]

KYUSHU A driver who caused the death of three young children in a car accident on a bridge here in August 2006 was handed a 7 1/2 year prison sentence on Tuesday after a court threw out a charge bearing a heavier penalty. [MAINICHI]

KYUSHU The man held responsible for a deadly shooting rampage at a gym here on Dec. 14 told a 26-year-old swimming instructor murdered in the attack that he liked her, investigators have learned. [MAINICHI]

KYUSHU The suspect in a shooting rampage that left two people dead at a sports club here had repeatedly visited murder-related Web sites, police have revealed. [MAINICHI]

KYUSHU The boyfriend of Mai Kuramoto, who was killed by a gunman in a shooting rampage last Friday in Sasebo, Nagasaki Prefecture, was persistently questioned by the man three days before the incident, police said Tuesday. [KYODO]

KYUSHU Masayoshi Magome, the gunman whose rampage in a Sasebo gym killed two and sent shockwaves through Japan, had long stalked one of his victims and had planned to kill more, police said. [MAINICHI]

KYUSHU A 61-year-old gang member has admitted murdering a male patient at a hospital in Takeo, Saga Prefecture, in a case of apparent mistaken identity, according to police. [YOMIURI]

KYUSHU Police officers at a local police substation reported that possession of guns by the suspect in a deadly shooting rampage Friday in Sasebo, Nagasaki Prefecture, posed no problem seven times over a period of about five years. [KYODO]

KYUSHU Police have confiscated a total of about 2,700 shotgun shells from the minivan, vest pockets and house of a man who allegedly shot dead two people and wounded six others at a sports club in Sasebo, Nagasaki Prefecture, on Friday, before himself being found dead the next day, sources said. [YOMIURI]

KYUSHU Senior officers at the National Police Agency have been puzzling over how a man who randomly shot two people dead at a sports gym in Sasebo, Nagasaki Prefecture, on Friday evening, was able to obtain a permit to own a hunting gun. [YOMIURI]