60692    On December 31, Ogaki Police Station of the Gifu Prefectural Police took into protective custody a boy in the first grade of junior high school, who had been missing since he left home in Yokohama on December 26, saying, "I'm going to Tokyo Station"; the Police also arrested Hidenori Nagasaka, of no fixed address and claiming to be a private school manager, who was found together with the boy in a hotel in Ogaki, on suspicion of kidnapping him, a minor.

60693    According to the investigation so far, the boy is the eldest son of a builder of Hodogaya, Yokohama of Kanagawa.

60694    On December 23, the suspect talked to the boy in the Transportation Museum in Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, and called him on the 26th to promise to meet at the Tokyo Station.

60695    As the boy did not come home after dark, his mother asked the Hodogaya Police Station of Kanagawa Prefectural Police to search for him.

60696    The boy is reported to be an SL train fan, and the Hodogaya Police Station is investigating Nagasaka for the details, including his motivation for the crime.

60697    Around 7:20 p.m., December 31, a karaoke house owner found smoke coming out of a post box on the street of Honmachi 1-chome, Kisshoji, Musashino of Tokyo, and police officers from a police box of Musashino Police Station, located at the east exit of Kisshoji Station, extinguished the fire with water in a bucket.

60698    About 2,000 New Year postcards and 1,000 items of ordinary mail in the post box were damaged from burning and soaking.

60699    A witness testified that there were about ten boys around 15 to 16 around the post box, and that one of them threw something burning into the box.

60700    The Musashino Police Station is searching for the boys on charges including property destruction.

60701    On December 31, there were two minor jolts in Hokkaido and part of Tohoku, considered to be after-shocks of the Far-off Sanriku Earthquake.

60702    According to the observation of the Sendai District Meteorological Observatory, the epicenter of the quake that occurred at around 10:50 p.m. in Hokkaido and part of Tohoku was off Iwate Prefecture, at a depth of approximately 20 kilometers.

60703    The one occurring at around 1:57 a.m. in Morioka, Iwate, had an intensity of one on the Richter scale.

60704    The epicenter was off Iwate, about 40 kilometers deep.

60705    "He always acts on the spur of the moment. He talks like he's going away for a little while, like it's no big deal."

60706    The wife of adventure rider Fukashi Kazama, Emiko, laughs as she says this.