News Headlines - 09 July 2019

▽Japan gov't to pay damages to kin over leprosy isolation

Japan’s prime minister said Tuesday that the government will abide by a court ruling ordering it to compensate former leprosy patients’ families over a lengthy segregation policy that severed family ties and caused long-lasting prejudice.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the government will not appeal the Kumamoto District Court’s decision in June awarding compensation to more than 500 plaintiffs for financial and psychological suffering due to discrimination in education, jobs and marriage.

▽Japanese man wanted for running illegal manga site detained in Philippines | The Japan Times

A man wanted in Japan for allegedly infringing copyrights by running an illegal manga website has been detained in Manila, authorities said Tuesday.
The man identified by the Philippines’ Bureau of Immigration as Romi Hoshino, 27, is suspected of operating Manga-Mura, which allowed visitors to read pirated comics. He is expected to be deported to Japan.

▽Japanese entertainment mogul Johnny Kitagawa dies at age 87 - The Mainichi

Japanese music mogul Johnny Kitagawa, who shaped Japan's boy band landscape for more than half a century, died of a stroke on Tuesday at a hospital in Tokyo, his office said. He was 87.
Kitagawa, who founded Japan's top male talent agency and production company Johnny & Associates Inc. in 1962, had been in hospital since June 18 due to a subarachnoid hemorrhage, a type of stroke.
He propelled one pop group after another to fame. His most successful acts -- such as SMAP, Arashi, KAT-TUN and Hey! Say! JUMP -- are household names across the country.

▽Hong Kong's Carrie Lam says extradition Bill is 'dead' - CNA

Hong Kong's chief executive Carrie Lam announced on Tuesday (Jul 9) that a widely-loathed proposal to allow extraditions to the Chinese mainland "is dead", but she stopped short of protester demands to immediately withdraw the Bill.

▽Trump's Twitter blocking violates Constitution, appeals court rules - CNNPolitics

An appeals court said Tuesday that President Donald Trump violated the First Amendment by blocking users on Twitter.
The 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a New York judge's ruling and found that Trump "engaged in unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination by utilizing Twitter's 'blocking' function to limit certain users' access to his social media account, which is otherwise open to the public at large, because he disagrees with their speech."