分类： society

Against a backdrop of plummeting birth rates and a rapidly aging population that has put Japan’s social and economic stability on high alert, an artificial intelligence-driven matchmaking initiative launched by the Tokyo metropolitan government has notched its first measurable success: 265 couples have tied the knot after meeting through the government-backed app.

Named TOKYO Enmusubi — a word rooted in Japanese tradition that refers to the fated connection between marriage partners — the platform went live in September 2024. The initiative was developed in response to pre-launch survey data that revealed a striking barrier to rising marriage rates: nearly 70% of single adults who expressed a desire to wed were not actively pursuing traditional matchmaking or dating opportunities.

To address widespread reluctance to engage with matchmaking and filter for users genuinely committed to marriage, the app implemented strict verification requirements for all new registrants. Applicants must provide official documentation proving they are legally single, complete a structured online interview, and meet additional eligibility criteria. This vetting process cut the initial pool of roughly 36,000 applicants down to 16,000 active registered members as of June 30, 2025, according to official government data released earlier this month. Beyond the 265 marriages already formalized, the data also shows 760 additional couples are currently in committed, serious relationships through the platform.

For many users, the app represented a final opportunity to find a partner after years of unsuccessful traditional dating. One user, who go by the pseudonym “Turtle”, explained she joined the platform as she approached her 40th birthday, having grown discouraged after a string of unproductive blind dates. “After going on several blind dates, I met my current husband at the end of August, and we started a serious relationship in mid-September,” she shared. “I accepted his proposal at the end of December.”

Another user, going by the name “Skytree”, highlighted the unique value the AI tool brings to hesitant daters. Unlike traditional dating apps that leave users to sort through matches on their own, the platform ranks compatibility between potential partners in three clear tiers. “The AI showed your compatibility with the people it introduces to you in three stages, so even if you are unsure whether to meet someone, a high compatibility rating will give you the encouragement you need,” he said. “My girlfriend’s AI compatibility rating was perfect,” he added.

The launch of this AI matchmaking scheme comes as Japan faces one of the most severe population crises in the world. Just last June, official government data confirmed that the number of live births to Japanese nationals hit a new all-time low of 671,236 in 2025, marking the 10th consecutive year that birth rates have fallen. Annual deaths outpaced births by more than double, hitting 1.6 million in 2025. While the total number of marriages rose slightly over the past year, the national fertility rate still edged down 0.01 percentage points to 1.14, far below the 2.1 replacement rate needed to sustain a stable population, according to figures from Japan’s Health, Labour and Welfare Ministry.

Sydney, Australia – Widespread fear of anti-Semitic bias and harm within Australian healthcare settings has driven many Jewish patients to take extraordinary steps to conceal their religious and cultural identities, a senior Jewish community leader has told a landmark royal commission.

The testimonial was delivered by Rabbi Mendel Kastel, CEO of Jewish House and a Rabbinical Fellow, during the sixth session of New South Wales’ Royal Commission into Anti-Semitism and Social Cohesion – an inquiry launched following the fatal 2024 Bondi terror attack that sparked national reckoning with rising hate crime targeting Jewish communities.

Kastel told the commission that many Jewish patients have explicitly requested hospitals remove their religion from official medical records to avoid potential mistreatment. Beyond formal documentation, he added, some patients with distinctive Jewish last names or recognizably Israeli accents have altered how they present themselves to clinical staff, opting to omit last names or avoid speaking at length to keep their identity hidden.

The tipping point for these growing fears, Kastel explained, came after a high-profile 2024 incident that made global headlines. Last February, two Sydney nurses – 27-year-old Sarah Abu Lebdeh and 28-year-old Ahmad Rashad Nadir – were caught on video allegedly making violent threats against Israeli patients at Bankstown Hospital in western Sydney. Both have pleaded not guilty to charges of using a digital carriage service to menace, harass, and offend, and their trial is scheduled to begin next month.

“After that story broke, there was real fear across the community,” Kastel said in his evidence. “People are scared to go to hospital, scared to write that they are Jewish on their admission forms. Even people with Israeli accents hold back from speaking to nurses, because they don’t want their identity to be known.”

Kastel also shared that anti-Semitic targeting is not limited to patients: Jewish doctors and clinical staff have faced exclusion from professional group chats, and in one documented case, a Jewish doctor was verbally attacked by a patient who called them a “Zionist pig.”

In the wake of the Bankstown Hospital incident, Kastel noted he approached the facility himself to assess the climate of care, and was surprised by the warm welcome he received across all departments. “It didn’t matter what religion or culture someone was, everyone was welcoming,” he said.

That positive experience, however, has not erased systemic anxiety across the community. When NSW Health officials raised the idea of creating separate, alternative healthcare pathways for Jewish patients too afraid to access mainstream facilities, Kastel rejected the proposal outright.

“My answer was, absolutely not,” he said. “We don’t need separate care. We need to make sure every public hospital is safe, and every patient feels safe receiving care there. If people are allowed to push harmful agendas that change how a patient is treated, that is a line we cannot cross.”

Currently, the commission is developing new protocols, training frameworks, and reporting systems to address anti-Semitic conduct across three key sectors: healthcare, primary and secondary education, and the arts. The current session of public hearings is scheduled to conclude this Friday, with recommendations for systemic reform expected to be delivered later this year. A new confidential reporting system for patients and staff who experience anti-Semitism in healthcare settings is already in development, Kastel confirmed.

On a Tuesday morning in Melbourne, a verdict that capped off 14 days of dramatic courtroom testimony delivered a landmark outcome: a prominent Australian businessman was found guilty on two counts of rape and one count of sexual assault against a woman decades younger than him. As the jury foreperson read out guilty findings for all three charges, court observers witnessed the defendant lean back heavily in his chair, drop his head low, and leave his mouth agape, a visible display of emotion after weeks of proceedings.

Legal restrictions have shielded the businessman’s identity for more than three years, with a court suppression order barring media outlets from publishing key details including his full name, age, and specific industry of business. The order was scheduled to expire immediately following the conclusion of his trial, but in a last-minute procedural move, the man’s legal team applied for an extension of the publication ban. A follow-up hearing to address this request was scheduled for later the same Tuesday.

Court documents and prosecution arguments laid out the timeline of the 2023 incident that led to the charges. The pair first connected through LinkedIn, when the woman reached out to inquire about a job opening at the defendant’s company. Over the following months, the jury heard, the businessman made repeated unwanted sexual advances toward the woman, all of which she explicitly rejected. In one message, she told him plainly: “I don’t want that to be the role I play in your life, I’m not sexually attracted to you. I don’t want to have sex with you, the sooner you understand this the better.”

In early 2023, the defendant reached out to the woman with a new proposal: inviting her to his home to discuss assisting him with work on a book he was writing. The pair met at his residence, spent the afternoon and evening drinking alcohol and consuming cocaine, before later leaving to watch an Australian Football League match at a friend’s home, returning to the defendant’s apartment around 10:30 p.m. Back at the apartment, the pair continued using drugs and alcohol before the assaults began, according to the woman’s testimony.

Prosecutor Matthew Fisher told the court that after the woman repeatedly pushed the defendant away and explicitly said “I don’t want this”, the man continued his advances, responding that “You’re so sexy”, “I can’t stop” and “I need your help to sleep, help me”. He then raped the woman before she punched him in the face and escaped. Fisher acknowledged to the jury that there were minor inconsistencies and gaps in the woman’s recounting of the incident, but emphasized that she remained consistent and unwavering on the core facts of the assault. “You should accept her as an honest and genuine witness,” Fisher told jurors in closing arguments. “And accept my argument the accused man took complete advantage of her when she was alone and isolated in his house affected by alcohol and drugs.”

Through his lead barrister Dermot Dann KC, the defendant forcefully denied all allegations, arguing the sexual contact never occurred. The defense leaned heavily on the claim that the woman had a financial incentive to fabricate the claims, pointing to evidence that she had retained legal counsel to file a parallel civil lawsuit against the businessman, and had told associates she “was going to take this man for all that he’s worth.”

Following the guilty verdict, the defendant was immediately placed into remand custody. He is scheduled to return to court at a later date for sentencing proceedings, with the identity suppression hearing looming the same day as the verdict.

The high-profile sexual assault trial of British rapper and social media influencer Yung Filly, real name Andres Felipe Valencia Barrientos, has reached its closing stages, with prosecutors and the defense laying out starkly conflicting accounts of the 2024 alleged incident at a luxury Perth hotel. Prosecutors have painted the entertainer as a fame-entitled figure who acted with brutal disregard for the boundaries of a 20-year-old fan he is accused of violently raping following a performance in Western Australia.

Leading the prosecution, barrister Danielle Clarke delivered her final address to the WA District Court, arguing that Barrientos showed no concern for the young woman he is alleged to have attacked inside Perth’s Intercontinental Hotel. Clarke emphasized the limited interaction the rapper had with the accuser before the alleged assault – just a brief encounter in a nightclub VIP area and a walk through the hotel lobby – to highlight his alleged indifference to her autonomy. “When you consider the very little time Mr Barrientos spent with her in the VIP section and walking with her in the (hotel) lobby before biting and strangling her, not only did (he) spend no time with her, he simply did not care,” Clarke told the court.

Clarke pushed back against any narrative that frames the incident as a consensual sexual encounter gone misunderstood, stressing that the accuser never agreed to violent, non-consensual acts. “He is here because what could have been and should have been consensual sex quickly escalated into sexual violence and a nightmare for (the woman),” she said. “Everyone has the right to say no … she certainly did not want to engage in sexual acts with him that involved violence and brutality.”

Barrientos, who boasts more than 2.4 million followers across his social media platforms including YouTube, has pleaded not guilty to a total of 10 charges covering sexual assault, common assault, and choking. The rapper took the stand in his own defense earlier in the trial, telling the court that all sexual activity between him and the accuser was fully consensual, and that she never communicated any desire for him to stop.

Barrientos told the court he was attracted to the young woman when they met at Perth’s Bar1 Nightclub at Hillary’s Boat Harbour, and extended an invitation for her to return to his hotel, clarifying that his intention was to pursue sex but that he would not have forced the encounter if she declined. When pressed by Clarke on whether he had assumed her attention as a fan meant she would automatically agree to sex, Barrientos replied: “No, I would never assume that. I invited her to my (hotel), that invite was just an invite. Like I said, my intention was to have sex.” He also denied prosecutors’ claims that he sexually touched the accuser in the VIP area, including allegations that he placed his hands down her pants and touched her breasts during their 10-minute conversation.

The rapper acknowledged he never discussed sexual boundaries or limitations with the accuser before they became intimate, but framed that as a mutual omission, noting “she didn’t ask me either.” Barrientos added that during the encounter, the woman gave every indication of enjoying the activity, saying: “She was kissing, she made sexual noises, grunting and moaning in a good way.” He confirmed he left “love bites” on her body, admitting some of the marks were more intense than others, and pushed back against the prosecution’s claims of violent assault, noting that any rough activity was consensual. Responding to the accuser’s claim that his bodyguard confiscated her phone during the trip to the hotel, Barrientos explained the action was a standard privacy measure for him during public appearances.

The accuser, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told the court she believed she was heading to a group after-party with Barrientos and his team when she left the nightclub, only to end up alone with the rapper in his hotel room. She testified that what began as consensual sexual activity quickly turned violent, alleging Barrientos bit, struck, and strangled her during the attack. Following the incident, the woman sought treatment at a hospital emergency department, where she received a tetanus shot for multiple injuries including widespread bruising, swelling, bite marks, and open wounds to her face, neck, and breasts.

As the trial moves forward, both sides have wrapped their core arguments, and the court is set to proceed to the next phase of the proceedings.

A disgraced British funeral director is facing a lengthy prison sentence after admitting to more than a decade of systematic fraud and neglect that left dozens of uncremated bodies decomposing in unregulated storage and forced bereaved families to grieve over incorrect ashes. The shocking case, which has already triggered widespread public outrage and renewed demands for sweeping industry regulation, opened its five-day sentencing hearing at Hull Crown Court in northeast England this week.

Forty-eight-year-old Robert Bush, who operated Legacy Independent Funeral Directors in Hull, has already pleaded guilty to 67 criminal offences committed between 2012 and 2024, affecting hundreds of grieving families across the region. The charges against him include fraud, theft, preventing lawful burial, and deception involving the remains of stillborn infants. When authorities launched a raid on his premises following an anonymous tip from a former staff member in March 2024, investigators made a grim discovery: 31 bodies that should have been cremated months or even years earlier, stored uncovered on metal racks in a cold storage room in varying stages of decomposition. Among the remains was a stillborn baby, who had been left uncremated for almost two full years. Officers also uncovered more than 100 unclaimed sets of ashes stored on site.

Prosecutor Chris Paxton described the conditions inside Bush’s funeral parlour as a “horror scene” in his opening remarks to the court, noting that the scope of the abuse was unprecedented. “There were bodies stored on the racks on both sides of the room,” Paxton told the court. “The vast majority were uncovered and in varying states of decomposition.”

In his initial police interview, Bush attempted to blame his actions on crippling cash flow issues, claiming that unpaid client bills left him with roughly £90,000 ($114,000) in debt and unable to keep up with lease payments. But prosecutors have completely rejected this explanation, pointing to financial records showing more than £3 million ($3.9 million) in revenue flowed into Bush’s business between March 2017 and April 2024, with a single cremation costing just £500 to complete. Paxton argued that Bush deliberately chose to neglect the remains entrusted to him to fund a lavish personal lifestyle. “Mr Bush chose not to deal with those bodies entrusted to him but to operate as he chose and spend the money on himself and others,” Paxton said, adding that Bush engaged in repeated “profligate personal spending” with client funds.

When Bush arrived at court this week to begin the sentencing hearing, he covered his face with a baseball cap and scarf to avoid press attention. For the families affected by his actions, the revelations about the conditions at his parlour have compounded the grief of losing their loved ones. Jasmine Beverley, whose stillborn son Sunny was left uncremated for nearly two years after Bush told her the baby had been cremated, said she had trusted Bush completely after he presented himself as a kind, respectful professional. “It was a shock to learn what had actually been going on behind the closed doors,” Beverley told BBC radio. “I discovered that he was still in there almost two years after we’d had the funeral. It’s unbelievably distressing.” Beverley eventually found Sunny’s remains stored in a brown envelope left on the floor of Bush’s storage facility.

Byron Lill, whose 61-year-old mother Muriel Winning died in 2023, broke down multiple times as he delivered his victim impact statement to the court. Lill works near the former Legacy Independent Funeral Directors premises and drives past it every day. “Knowing now that mum was lying inside for almost eight months destroys me,” he said. “Why? There will never be a good enough answer.”

The sentencing hearing is expected to hear statements from more than 100 affected victims over the course of five days. Four of the fraud charges against Bush relate to incidents where he gave grieving women false ashes, claiming they were the remains of their unborn children.

The case has sparked urgent calls for major regulatory reform of the funeral industry in England and Wales, where currently any person can legally work as a funeral director without holding an official operating license. Unlike Scotland, which introduced a statutory mandatory code of practice for funeral directors in March 2023, no similar regulation exists for the rest of the UK. Beverley, her husband, and dozens of other affected families are now leading a campaign to change the rules, backed by multiple members of UK Parliament. Paxton told the court that Bush’s betrayal of trust took place on an “almost industrial scale”, saying the funeral director had exploited the vulnerability of bereaved families who placed their full faith in his services.