South Korea will no longer require masks for outdoor group activities, starting Monday. The government also plans to ease other antivirus measures down the road. The outdoor mask mandate ended May 2, but was kept for outdoor gatherings of 50 or more people. The rule remained due to concerns amid the recent resurgence of COVID-19. The government is expected to further ease the country’s antivirus measures for COVID-19. The government said it would soon introduce its future adjustments to

Calls for measures to counter sex crimes in the metaverse are rising with an increasing number of predators targeting teenagers. Huh Kyung-mi, a professor of police administration at Keimyung University, said that legal measures are essential to respond to sexual exploitation in the metaverse in a paper published on Sunday. According to Huh, 70 percent of metaverse service users are teenagers, and criminal attempts on the metaverse platform, especially those that target youthful avatars, has bee

South Korea's new COVID-19 cases remained below 30,000 for the third straight day Sunday in a sign that the virus wave is slowing down at a steady pace. The country reported 25,792 new COVID-19 infections, including 248 from overseas, bringing the total caseload to 24,620,128, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said. Newly reported virus cases have shown a steady downward trajectory as of late after the COVID-19 omicron variant surged again in early July and peaked above

Antibody survey shows 57 percent recently infected

The ban on free single-use cups will kick off in December, going on a test trial run in Sejong and on Jeju Island. A recent report by the Environment Ministry showed the use of disposable cups has soared during the pandemic. The number of single-use plastic and paper cups consumed at 14 cafes and four popular fast-food chains reached 1.02 billion last year, marking a huge surge from 770 million in 2019. After postponing the introduction of a ban on single-use cups at franchise stores due to opp

Prosecutors on Friday raided the Korea Communications Commission, the state media regulator, over suspicion of score manipulation in the process of its license renewal for some general programming cable TV channels two years ago. The Seoul Northern District Prosecutors Office sent prosecutors and investigators to the KCC building in Gwacheon, just south of Seoul, to secure documents related to the reapproval of cable TV channels in 2020. The raid came after the Board of Audit and Inspection rais

South Korea's new COVID-19 cases fell to the lowest Friday tally in 11 weeks in the latest sign of a downward trend ahead of the planned lifting of all outdoor mask mandates next week. The country reported 29,108 new COVID-19 infections, including 303 from overseas, bringing the total caseload to 24,565,021, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said. The new daily figure is the lowest of all Friday tallies since cases dropped to 19,295 on July 8. The daily caseload decreased from

TORONTO -- South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol met with June Huh, the Korean American mathematician who won this year's prestigious Fields Medal, in New York on Thursday, and discussed ways to foster talented people in science and technology, his office said. Yoon, who was in New York to attend the UN General Assembly, congratulated the 39-year-old professor of Princeton University once again on winning the Fields Medal, which is often dubbed the Nobel Prize in mathematics. He was awarded

The number of visitors to South Korea's southern resort island of Jeju has topped 10 million so far this year, recovering from a slump caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, data showed Thursday. The number of travelers, including those coming from overseas, to Jeju, one of the most favored travel destinations in South Korea, totaled 10,004,145 as of Monday, up 22.7 percent from a year ago, according to the data from the Jeju Tourism Association, Last year, the 10-million milestone was reached on

Digital chat rooms that share or sell deepfake pornography content remain prevalent despite a new provision to punish related crimes implemented two years ago. Deepfake content refers to digitally manipulated videos and images that are hard to distinguish from genuine content. Most pornographic deepfake content grafts a person’s face -- usually an acquaintance or celebrity -- onto sexually explicit videos. According to ReSET, a digital sex crime victim support group, one of the Telegram ch

The Ministry of Justice is set to push to expand the "medical treatment and custody" of child sex offenders, Thursday. Medical treatment and custody refers to detaining offenders with high risk of recidivism, such as pedophiles or drug addicts, at state facilities and providing them with psychiatric treatment. According to the current law, sex offenders with psychological disorders including pedophilia can be subject to the measure for up to 15 years if the prosecution requests. The pe

South Korea's new COVID-19 cases fell to the lowest number in nearly three months for a Thursday count, as the virus wave is slowing down at a steady pace. The country reported 33,009 new COVID-19 infections, including 255 from overseas, bringing the total caseload to 24,535,940, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said. The latest tally is down by more than 8,200 from the previous day and the lowest for a Thursday figure since 18,494 recorded on July 7. The virus wave,

Seoul court sides with plaintiff's claim for compensation for side effects from COVID-19 vaccine

The prosecutors' office is to launch a task force on the Sindang Station murder, with the suspect now in prosecution custody. The suspect, 31-year old former Seoul Metro employee Jeon Joo-hwan, was transferred to the prosecution Wednesday, accused of murdering a Seoul Metro employee on Sept. 14. Meeting the press at Seoul Namdaemun Police Station, Jeon repeated he was sorry for his actions. Jeon said “I did something truly crazy” when asked by reporters whether he has anything else

The bus drivers' union in Gyeonggi Province, under the Federation of Korean Trade Unions, appears set for a general strike later this month, with an overwhelming majority of members supporting the plan. The union on Tuesday voted on the plan to strike on Sept. 30 with 97.3 percent of approval rate. According to the union, 14,485 members participated in the vote, and 14,091 of them voted for the general strike. The province's bus drivers' union counts 15,234 members across 47 compa