Police responded to a record 2,444 Internet crime cases nationwide in the first half of this year, a National Police Agency survey showed Thursday. The number, up 586 or 31.5 percent from a year earlier, represented a new high since the NPA started gathering statistics for Internet crimes, defined as crimes which use a computer network, on a half-year basis in 2004. Of the total, the number of fraud cases, such as swindling money from a successful bidder by posting false information in an online auction, climbed 22.8 percent to 867 cases. (AP)

It's kind of hard to ignore a 36-point headline emblazoned with the words "Men's Nipples." Why has Sunday Mainichi (Sept. 12) chosen to raise this heretofore largely ignored topic? "Many women," it writes, "take an interest in men's nipples that protrude through their linen shirts or polo shirts. Rather than men's backs, we're in an era when men's nipples are discussed." "I was in a beer garden the other day. The nipples of the man at my table were poking through his polo shirt, and I couldn't get my mind off them!" pants Mika Naito, a 39-year-old author of erotic fiction. Naito says she is particularly turned on by the "fresh" nipples of young acting hunk Haruma Miura, age 20. (Tokyo Reporter)

Police turned over to prosecutors Wednesday their case against a 21-year-old man who walked naked on a street in Yokohama last month and a 22-year-old woman who ordered him to do so, alleging they committed acts of public indecency. The woman and the man had been living together since January. She was angry with him for not paying rent and was quoted as telling him to, "Take off your clothes" and "follow my bicycle." (Japan Times)

Animal rights activist Ric O'Barry, who starred in the Oscar-winning documentary "The Cove," stressed Wednesday in Tokyo he will use peaceful methods to press Taiji, Wakayama Prefecture, to stop its annual dolphin slaughter. The port's annual hunt started the same day. In an event organized by Earth Island Institute, a nonprofit organization, O'Barry said he has heard of calls for a boycott, but he wants to "antiboycott Japan." (Japan Times)

A mother has reportedly admitted to police she killed her 11-year-old son after the boy was found dead in her apartment in Kasukabe, Saitama Prefecture, on Sept. 1. A male acquaintance of the mother found the boy, Riku Yamamoto, a 5th-grade student at Hoshubana Elementary School, lying dead on the floor and called police. Based on evidence indicating the boy was strangled, police questioned the 29-year-old mother. Police say that when they arrived at the residence, they found the boy lying face up on a mattress in the living room, completely covered with a blanket. (Mainichi)