The Ulsan District Court has ordered a man in his 50s to serve a one-year jail term for obstructing police officers in the execution of duty, according to court officials Monday. The 54-year-old man was initially booked on the suspicion of injecting methamphetamine in Busan on Nov. 21, 2015. According to Busan Gangseo Police Station, the suspect faked a urine drug test by switching the sample with another person’s urine that was hidden inside a condom. 123RFHe was indicted on the obstruction cha

The number of people petitioning on the Blue House website for more severe punishment for child rapists and pornographers surpassed the 200,000 mark Thursday, which may force the presidential office to respond to the matter, reports said.　 Cheong Wa Dae has pledged to give a response to petitions that have gained more than 200,000 signatures in a month. The above petition was posted on April 15 and had garnered 202,467 supporters as of 3:10 p.m. Thursday. Titled “Help save our children who fall

A mother in her 20s is being probed under suspicion of abandoning the body of her infant boy in a shopping bag, Gyeonggi Hwaseong police said Thursday. The 26-year-old suspect, surnamed Kim, is accused of abandoning her baby boy inside a shopping bag, shortly after she gave birth to him, at her fifth floor studio apartment rooftop in Osan, Gyeonggi Province in mid-March. According to police, Kim showed detailed planning of the crime, citing the second time she returned to the site in order to wr

In South Korea, May is the month celebrated across the nation for families to show appreciation for one another. With Parents’ Day just around the corner, flower shops receive greater bundles of orders for flower gifts to be presented to parents. (Shot and edited by Park Ju-young / The Korea Herald)Taking on a fresh perspective on flowers, owner-artist Jung Jun-ho of “Peony Pepe” flower shop is one of a few up-and-coming male florists in the nation. Compared to other Western cultures where flori

An elementary school teacher in Gumi, North Gyeongsang Province, has come under fire for allegedly forcing two students to slap one another as part of a punishment, Gumi education authorities said Tuesday. According to the Gumi Office of Education, the physical education teacher is accused of telling two sixth-graders to play rock-paper-scissors and then making the winner slap the other person. The teacher had reportedly made the students do so whenever they lost a sports competition. Parents ha

A fire broke out late Monday night at a packaging printer factory in Yeoju, Gyeonggi Province and was finally extinguished after six hours, fire authorities said Tuesday. It is said the fire started at approximately 11:26 p.m. Monday and extinguished at 5:50 a.m. Tuesday. No casualties were reported. Yeoju authorities issued a one-phase warning, calling on some 80 firefighters and 37 firefighting vehicles to the site. The fire department of the city said that the fire burnt through ten buildings

A man in his 20s was given a suspended jail term and ordered to pay a fine for manufacturing more than a hundred bottles filled with fake hard liquor gathered from client’s leftovers, the Busan District Court said Monday. The 29-year-old bar employee in Daegu was sentenced to serve 10 months in prison suspended for two years and pay the collected penalty of 2.2 million won ($2,061). The defendant faced charges of violating the Food Sanitation Act and Trademark Act after police discovered that he

After the two Koreas agreed to push for measures aimed at ending hostilities and seeking denuclearization at the end of the inter-Korean summit on Friday, the Korean public is highly anticipating the possibility of a school-organized field trip to North Korea. A field trip to North Korea offers an opportunity for the two Koreas to make meaningful exchanges in the education sector, the Gwangju Office of Education said Monday.  Gwangju Office of EducationPrior to the inter-Korean summit that was h

Singer Heize showcased a strong new look via her photo shoot with fashion and culture magazine Dazed on Friday. In the photos released by Dazed, Heize appealed to the public with her unique fashion sense, wearing vivid red thigh-high boots and matching red-tinted eye makeup. Along with her thigh-high boots, she wore a mini white dress underneath a dark blue silk jacket.  Dazed DazedIn another photo, the singer appeared chic in a sleeveless blue dress, lined with yellow, matched with a white jack

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and his wife Ri Sol-ju appeared to be fascinated with the novel method of eating dessert served at the summit banquet, according to local media outlets. Mango mousse was the choice of dessert to be served to South Korean President Moon Jae-in, his wife Kim Jung-sook, Kim Jong-un and his wife Ri Sol-ju. Due to the hard exterior, the dessert could not be eaten with a fork or spoon.President Moon reportedly showed Kim Jong-un how to eat the seemingly complex dessert.

Ri Sol-ju, the wife of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, upheld an overwhelming presence on the carpet leading to the Peace House in the South’s side of the truce village of Panmunjeom on Friday.Friday’s historic summit between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean counterpart Kim marked not only the first time the two leaders met, but also the first meeting for the two first ladies.Ri arrived at the Peace House in Panmunjeom on Friday for the banquet in an apricot two-piece dress w

A woman believed to be in her 30s jumped in front of an incoming train at Oryu-dong Station at approximately 12:41 p.m. Thursday, in an apparent suicide. An engineer on the Seoul Metro Line No. 1 train involved in the accident reported to have hit the emergency brakes after seeing “someone jump into the subway tracks,” but could not avoid the fatal accident due to the short distance. Oryu-dong Station (Yonhap)Korail authorities said the accident caused approximately 20-minute delays to subway se

A man in his 50s was arrested Wednesday after allegedly causing serious injury to a woman he had tried to sexually assault, Jeonju Police said.The 59-year-old man, surnamed Park, is accused of stabbing the dental hygienist in the chest at a dental clinic in Hyoja-dong in Jeonju, North Jeolla Province, at 4:03 p.m. Saturday.  (Yonhap)The woman said she was attacked while trying to fight off Park during an attempted rape and he fled the scene immediately after the knife attack. The victim reported

A man in his 30s was found dead after being sucked into an automated vacuum collection system while during a routine check, Namyangju Fire Department said Tuesday. The 38-year-old man, surnamed Cho, fell into the pipe that leads to the underground AVAC system in a residential area of Byulnae, Gyeonggi Province, at 3:25 p.m. Tuesday. Despite a neighbor’s immediate call for help, dispatched fire authorities reportedly found Cho’s body 100 meters from the entrance of the pipe after a two-hour searc

Rapper Jeong Sang-su, a former participant of Mnet’s music survival program “Show Me the Money,” is being investigated by police on suspicion of sexually assaulting a woman, Ilsan Seobu Police Station said Wednesday. The 34-year-old rapper is accused of allegedly raping a woman, who was “too drunk to consent” at the victim’s house at dawn Sunday. The victim claimed to be too heavily intoxicated at the time to realize she had been sexually assaulted. Ilsan Seobu Police Station sent the case over

Embattled Korean Air Lines Chairman Cho Yang-ho is now under fire for ordering what some have viewed as “excessive” disciplinary action against cabin crew over a customer’s complaint. The complaint involving a chicken curry dish served during a flight follows Chairman Cho’s public apology for the latest “water rage” scandal involving one of his daughters Sunday, as he fired his two daughters Cho Hyun-ah and Cho Hyun-min from their senior executive posts for causing public uproar. Cho Hyun-ah was

A lawmaker’s aide is being probed on suspicion of drinking and driving a van with the unidentified legislator in the back seat, Bangbae police said Tuesday. According to the police, the 39-year-old aide, surnamed Shin, was pulled over by cops conducting a roadside sobriety test near Bangbae Elementary School in Seocho-gu, southern Seoul at 10:30 a.m. Sunday. Police said that Shin was heavily intoxicated and had a blood alcohol content of 0.116 percent, which is subject to license cancellation. 

The Seoul Administrative Court on Monday ruled in favor of a Pakistani father in a case concerning the right to an extended visa for foreign national parents with Korean-born children, even if the child lives in a foreign country. The Central Administrative Appeals Committee said Monday that it withdrew Seoul Immigration Office’s decision not to extend the man’s visa. It is said the man first arrived in Korea in 1996 and got married to a Korean woman as an undocumented foreign worker. In 2006, h

Following the vandalism of a “Black Panther” sculpture at Gwangbok-ro in March, another statue of the Black Panther superhero in Busan near Gwangalli Beach was found toppled over with its head damaged. The Walt Disney Co. had initially sent a pair of Black Panther sculptures to be displayed in Busan, one in Gwangbok-ro and one along Gwangalli Beach, to commemorate the first time for Marvel Studios to shoot at the southern coastal city of Korea. A “Black Panther” statue is seen vandalized at Gwan

A man in his 20s was booked without detention on charges of child neglect and physical abuse, Incheon Seobu Police said Monday. The 26-year-old father is accused of leaving his 1-year-old son out on a balcony barefoot and hitting him on the head multiple times at approximately 9 p.m. on April 8. The child was allegedly left out on the balcony in only undergarments and without shoes for approximately two minutes. The man’s wife reportedly reached out for help to her sister-in-law, who then called