Author: Reporter

Some K-12 public schools are racing to improve protection against the threat of online attacks, but lax cybersecurity means thousands of others are vulnerable to ransomware gangs that can steal confidential data and disrupt operations. Since a White House conference in August on ransomware threats, dozens of school districts have signed up for free cybersecurity services, and federal officials have hosted exercises with schools to help them learn how to better secure their networks, said Anne Neuberger, the Biden’s administration’s deputy national security advisor for cyber and emerging technology. Neuberger said more districts need to take advantage of programs...

Kai Koerber was a junior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School when a gunman murdered 14 students and three staff members there on Valentine’s Day in 2018. Seeing his peers also struggle with returning to normal, he wanted to do something to help people manage their emotions on their own terms. While some of his classmates at the Parkland, Florida, school have worked on advocating for gun control, entered politics, or simply took a step back to heal and focus on their studies, Koerber’s background in technology — he had originally wanted to be a rocket scientist — led...

Almost weekly Momo Nomura makes time to visit Shinto shrines. She performs the prescribed rituals, cleansing her hands, ringing a bell, bowing, and clapping. But her main purpose is getting a Goshuin, a stamp with elegant calligraphy that shrines provide for a fee to certify the visit. She loves the stamps, which she began collecting during the pandemic. One with blue hydrangeas got her started. “Because of the Goshuin, shrines have become closer to me, but I don’t consider this a religious activity,” Nomura said after getting her stamp and taking selfies at Sakura Jingu, a western Tokyo shrine...

The women work hard, sleeping only a few hours a night, as they juggle the demands of caring for their children and doing housework, all while suffering from poverty. The award-winning independent documentary film “The Ones Left Behind,” released last year, tells the story of such single mothers in Japan, weaving together interviews with the women and experts, and showing the other side of a culture whose ideal is for women to get married and become stay-at-home housewives and mothers. “This is a topic that no one wants to really touch. In Japan, it’s very taboo,” Australian filmmaker Rionne...

Crowned Miss Japan this week, Ukrainian-born Carolina Shiino cried with joy, thankful for the recognition of her identity as Japanese. But her Caucasian look rekindled an old question in a country where many people value homogeneity and conformity: What does it mean to be Japanese? Shiino has lived in Japan since moving here at age 5 and became a naturalized citizen in 2022. Now 26, she works as a model and says she has as strong a sense of Japanese identity as anyone else, despite her non-Japanese look. “It really is like a dream,” Shiino said in fluent Japanese...