CBS News
Charging bear attacks karate practitioner in Japan: “I thought I should make my move or else I will be killed”
A pair of bears picked the wrong person to mess with Thursday in Japan when they approached a 50-year-old karate practitioner only to be kicked away, police and media said, marking the latest in a spate of attacks in the country in recent months.
Masato Fukuda was lightly injured in his encounter with the bears on Thursday morning in Nayoro city, on the northern island of Hokkaido, police told AFP.
The man was visiting from Japan’s central Aichi region to see a waterfall in Nayoro’s mountainous area when he chanced upon the two brown bears poking their faces out of bushes, the Mainichi newspaper reported.
One of them came towards him — but unfortunately for the animal, Fukuda was experienced in the martial art of karate, according to media reports.
“I thought I should make my move or else I will be killed,” he told a local broadcaster.
Fukuda kicked it in the face — twice — and in the process twisted his leg, but his attack swiftly scared away the hapless duo, reports said.
Both animals looked to be about five feet tall, according to media. Brown bears can weigh 1,100 pounds and outrun a human.
The incident comes about eight years after a karate black belt fended off a charging brown bear while he was fishing in Japan, the Mainichi newspaper reported. That man suffered bite and claw marks on the right side of his upper body, head and arms.
There were a record 193 bear attacks in Japan last year, six of them fatal, marking the highest number since counting began in 2006.
In November, a bear attack was suspected after a college student was found dead on a mountain in northern Japan. Last May, police said at the time that they believed the man was mauled and decapitated by a brown bear after a human head was found in the northern part of the island.
Experts told CBS News that there are primarily two reasons for the surge in attacks. First, a dry summer left fewer acorns and beech nuts — their main food — so hunger has made them bold. Second, as Japan’s population shrinks, humans are leaving rural areas, and bears are moving in.
“Then that area recovered to the forest, so bears have a chance to expand their range,” biologist Koji Yamazaki, from Tokyo University of Agriculture, told CBS News.
Last August, hunters killed an elusive brown bear nicknamed “Ninja” in the northern part of Japan after it attacked at least 66 cows, the Associated Press reported. And, in early October, local Japanese officials and media outlets reported that three bears were euthanized after sneaking into a tatami mat factory in the northern part of the country.
CBS News
Pedro Pascal, Joseph Quinn, and Fred Hechinger on stepping into the world of “Gladiator II”
Watch CBS News
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
CBS News
Nancy Mace seeks to bar transgender women from using female bathrooms on Capitol Hill after first trans member elected to House
Washington — Republican Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina introduced legislation Monday to change House rules to prohibit transgender women from using women’s bathrooms and other facilities on Capitol Hill, a proposal that comes just before the House prepares to swear-in the first openly transgender member of Congress.
Mace’s two-page resolution would bar House members, officers and employees from using single-sex facilities in the Capitol or House office buildings that do not correspond with their biological sex. Her proposal claims that allowing biological males into women’s restrooms, locker rooms and changing rooms “jeopardizes the safety and dignity” of female lawmakers, officers and Capitol Hill employees.
The House sergeant-at-arms would be tasked with enforcing the measure, if approved.
The South Carolina Republican’s legislation appears to target Rep.-elect Sarah McBride of Delaware, who became the first openly transgender person elected to Congress when she won the race for the state’s only House seat two weeks ago.
McBride called Mace’s resolution a “blatant attempt from far right-wing extremists to distract from the fact that they have no real solutions to what Americans are facing. We should be focused on bringing down the cost of housing, health care, and child care, not manufacturing culture wars.”
“Every day Americans go to work with people who have life journeys different than their own and engage with them respectfully, I hope members of Congress can muster that same kindness,” she wrote on social media.
But Mace attacked the “radical left” and claimed they are “trying to erase women.”
“Sarah McBride doesn’t get a say in this,” she said. “This is a biological man trying to force himself into women’s spaces, and I’m not going to tolerate.”
CBS News
Hakeem Jeffries elected House Democratic leader as GOP is set to retain control of lower chamber
Washington — House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries was elected Tuesday to lead Democrats for another two years in the minority despite the party failing to flip control of the lower chamber in the 2024 election.
Democrats are holding their leadership elections on Tuesday as the party seeks to keep its leadership intact as it reels from the bruising losses in the 2024 elections.
Democratic caucus chair Rep. Pete Aguilar of California was reelected Tuesday morning, and House Minority Whip Katherine Clark of Massachusetts is also expected to continue in her role in the 119th Congress, beginning in January.
Still, one race was injected with some uncertainty, as Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas launched an eleventh-hour challenge against Rep. Debbie Dingell of Michigan for chair of Democratic Policy and Communications Committee. Dingell was still viewed as the favorite heading into Tuesday’s elections.
Jeffries made history in 2023 when he became the first Black lawmaker to lead a party in Congress, succeeding former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as the top Democrat in the lower chamber. He was set to again make history as the first Black speaker had Democrats gained control of the House.
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
Heading into Election Day, Democrats needed a net gain of four seats to win the majority. Though Democrats won more than a handful of Republican-held seats in this month’s election, they lost just as many. The party also suffered the loss of the Senate and the White House. As House Democrats conduct the leadership elections Tuesday, they’re still reeling from the results — and reckoning with the path forward.
Republicans are expected to have a narrow majority in the next Congress. President-elect Donald Trump’s selection of several House members to serve in his administration will also temporarily squeeze the majority even further until those seats are filled in special elections.
Jeffries, in an interview with NPR last week, said the narrow margins and divisions among House Republicans have effectively made Democrats the majority in several instances.
“Democrats, because of the closeness of the margins, have effectively governed in the majority, though we are in the minority. And the same dynamic will exist as we move forward,” Jeffries said, pointing to a number of votes to avoid government shutdowns over the past two years in which Democrats provided a majority of the votes.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, said last week that he has “begged and pleaded” with Trump to stop poaching House members for his administration.
Republicans held their leadership elections last week, backing Johnson for another term as speaker. Johnson expressed confidence that he will win the speakership in the first round of voting on the House floor in January.
Pedro Pascal, Joseph Quinn, and Fred Hechinger on stepping into the world of “Gladiator II”
Northfield residents worry about tax increases, project costs
Nancy Mace seeks to bar transgender women from using female bathrooms on Capitol Hill after first trans member elected to House
Pedro Pascal, Joseph Quinn, and Fred Hechinger on stepping into the world of “Gladiator II”
Northfield residents worry about tax increases, project costs