A person who paid two teenagers to vandalize the walls of Gyeongbokgung had also ordered another teen to graffiti subway stations in Daegu, a police investigation found Wednesday. The individual identified as "team leader Lee," thought to have paid a 17-year-old male surnamed Im and 16-year-old female to graffiti the palace walls with the web addresses to illegal video streaming platforms, is also believed to have contacted another teen in Daegu on Dec. 18 for a similar request. Lee to

South Korea is being plagued by illegal ticket sales ranging from music and other forms of performing arts to reservations for hotels, restaurants and popular services all throughout the country. An online post on Joonggonara, a website for secondhand sales, offered a reservation for a meal for two at a high-end sushi restaurant in Gangnam's Cheongdam-dong, an affluent region in southern Seoul, for 540,000 won ($410) -- 100,000 won more than the original price. A separate post on the simila

South Korean police confirmed that Lee Sun-kyun had been found dead Wednesday morning at Waryong Park in northern Jongno-gu in Seoul. He had been under investigation for alleged drug use. Police confirmed his identity after earlier reports said the body of a man suspected to be the well-known actor had been found at the park. Lee was found unconscious inside of his car at around 10:30 a.m., having inhaled smoke from charcoal briquette. Emergency workers said he was already dead at the time of

Earlier this month, online communities across South Korea were abuzz with a story of a group of high school students who fled from a local eatery without paying. On the back of a bill, they wrote "I'm sorry but you didn't check our IDs. If we report you, you'll get shut down. We'll just go. We'll come back later after we're adults." Legal minors reporting themselves after consuming alcohol, or threatening to do so, is quickly becoming a social issue. South

The number of 40-somethings with employment as surveyed in the month of November dropped to the lowest point since 2003, data showed Tuesday. According to Statistics Korea, 6.25 million people in their 40s in Korea were employed, down 62,000 from the same month last year. The figure has been on a downward trend after peaking at 6.94 million in 2014. The drop in working South Koreans in their 40s is in direct correlation with the decrease in the general population in the age group. South Koreans

A Suwon district court recently handed down a jail term to a man in his 20s for evading his military duties. The man had reportedly vowed to to fulfill his duties when first accused but later claimed to be a conscientious objector based on his sexuality, according to local media reports, Tuesday. The defendant was sentenced to one year and six months behind bars by the appellate division of the Suwon court, which upheld an earlier ruling that punished him for violating the Military Service A

Gyeonggi Province fire authorities said Friday that veteran rescue dog A-rong is retiring after a six-year stint, and is seeking a new family. A-rong, a male Labrador retriever weighing 32 kilograms, was born in 2014 and participated in 312 rescue operations and aided the rescue of nine individuals, according to the Gyeonggi Fire and Disaster Headquarters. A member of the Gyeonggi-do Northern Special Response Unit since December of 2017, he has had special training for rescue operations in the m

With the country's record-low birth rate expected to fall even further next year, regional governments across the country have been implementing policies to motivate South Korean families to have more children. A December report by Statistics Korea projected that the country's total fertility rate -- the number of children a woman is expected to have in her lifetime -- will be 0.68 in 2024 and 0.65 in 2025. South Korea already recorded the lowest figure in the world with 0.78 in 2022,

A Korea Railroad Corp. employee who was fired for looking up personal information related to BTS' RM has recently been reinstated, a report obtained by a lawmaker showed Friday. The National Labor Relations Commission last Thursday ordered the state-run railway operator to give back the female staffer's job, along with reimbursement for wages that the staff would have made if she had not been fired in April, according to the Democratic Party of Korea's Rep. Kim Doo-kwan, who got a

A Seoul resident would have to not spend a single dime of their income for 15.2 years to buy a home in South Korea's capital, a state-issued report showed Friday. The Price Income Ratio for Seoul for 2022 was 15.2, according to the latest report by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport. The yearly PIR increased from 14.1 in 2021, and has been on the upward trend since marking 9.6 in 2018. The PRI refers to the median home price of a certain region divided by the median yearly h

A bus ran over passengers at Suwon Station in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, on Friday, killing one and injuring at least 11. The incident occurred at around 1:27 p.m., when the bus rammed into passengers who were crossing the street to the transfer center on the upper level of the station, subsequently moving to the sidewalk where it hit more people. The site of the accident draws high foot traffic, including to adjacent shopping centers. A woman in her 70s was killed, despite being carried to a h

The district office of Seocho-gu in southern Seoul has removed all utility poles across Gangnamdaero, officials said Friday. Gangnamdaero is a 7.2-kilometer, 10-lane main road connecting the northern and southern part of the district, and is among the busiest roads in South Korea. It is adjacent to the commercial district of the affluent Gangnam region, along with Gangnam Station and Yangjae Station, among the most populated subway stations here. The district office said it just completed the th

Singer-actor IU recently launched a civil lawsuit seeking compensation from an individual who raised plagiarism allegations against her, as local media outlets on Thursday reported that South Korean police have submitted the information related to the individual to court. The 31-year-old singer has been engaged in a legal battle seeking compensation for what her representatives claimed was defamation via groundless acts of slander. After investigators cleared her of plagiarism allegations in Sep

A man who left his three children on the streets temporarily to look for their mother has been cleared of child abandonment charges, after the court decided that he did not intend to actually leave his children. "(The defendant) left his children on the streets so they could meet their mother. It does not appear that his actions were to an extent detrimental to the children's mental health," the appellate division of the Gwangju District Court said in its ruling Wednesday. The 44-

An average worker living in Seoul and its surrounding regions spends an average of 83.2 minutes a day going back and forth from home to work, a state report showed Thursday. The Statistics Korea announced a report on commute time for workers across the country, specifically for who use the mobile services of SK Telecom, one of the country's top three mobile carriers. The agency compared data it had of workers' home addresses and jobs with data compiled by SK's mobile tracking syst

A South Korean doctor accused of providing narcotics to actor Lee Sun-kyun, currently under investigation for drug use, has been arrested by police late Wednesday. Incheon District Court issued an arrest warrant for the 42-year-old suspect, on request of the drug unit of the Incheon Metropolitan Police Agency, saying that there is a risk that he may flee or destroy evidence. The unnamed suspect, a plastic surgeon at a hospital in Gangnam-gu, southern Seoul, is believed to have provided drugs to

A teachers’ union on Wednesday criticized a right-leaning civic group for making complaints against a Seoul high school principal for organizing an outing to watch "12.12: The Day," a film about military dictator Chun Doo-hwan's rise to power through the 1979 coup. The civic group, called the Freedom Korea National Defense Corps, has accused the principal of abusing his authority, which is stipulated via Article 123 of the Criminal Act, according to the Korean Teachers and E

Gyeongsang National University said Thursday that a computer error during its admissions process resulted in two students being rejected despite having the necessary credentials for acceptance. The university belatedly notified the two students that they have actually been accepted. According to school officials, its college of pharmacology announced last week the three students who were accepted through its early admissions process. But the computer did not take into account the college entranc

South Korean police on Wednesday said it has apprehended 1,183 members of organized crime rings across the country, detaining 189 of them on arrest warrants, the majority of whom are younger than 30 and focus more on non-traditional gang activities. The arrests were made after a special crackdown by the National Police Agency during the second half of this year, conducted between Aug. 7 and Dec. 16. The government had apprehended 1,589 gang members after a four-month investigation took place dur

South Korean police on Tuesday said they arrested two teenagers suspected to have recently vandalized the walls of Gyeongbokgung Palace in Jongno-gu, central Seoul. According to Jongno Police Station, the 17-year-old male suspect was taken in by officers at around 7:08 p.m. near his home in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province. The other suspect, a 16-year-old girl, was also apprehended at her home which was nearby. The pair is accused of spray-painting promotional messages of an illegal video-downloading w