Overview

• Tochigi’s board of education finished emergency inspections at 79 prefectural schools from Aug. 18–22, with teams checking changing rooms’ blind spots and a principals’ meeting set for Aug. 27 to reinforce safeguards.
• Hyogo police said elevator and entrance cameras show a man tailing 24-year-old Megumi Katayama into her auto‑locked building in Kobe; a knife found nearby carried her DNA and an autopsy put the cause of death as blood loss.
• Tokyo Metropolitan Police re‑arrested Kita Seiichi, 30, on suspicion of robbery‑murder in a Shinjuku case, alleging he killed a man and took about ¥1.8 million in cash and other items; he is remaining silent.
• Hiroshima prefectural police arrested 33-year-old Mochida Ken on suspicion of fatally stabbing his 61-year-old mother at their home, with investigators saying he has chosen to remain silent.
• Saitama investigators arrested assistant inspector Okada Hideyuki on charges including attempted extortion and unlawful access to police data after he allegedly used internal systems to obtain a classmate’s address and then sought payment.