A magnitude 7.1 earthquake shakes part of southern Japan and a tsunami advisory is issued

TOKYO (AP) — An earthquake registering a preliminary magnitude of 7.1 shook Kumamoto on Japan’s southern main island of Kyushu late Tuesday afternoon and a tsunami advisory was issued, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.

The agency said the tsunami advisory was for the nearby Ariake Bay on the western coasts of Kumamoto, about 900 kilometers (560 miles) southwest of Tokyo.

Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, in a message posted on X, urged residents to avoid the coastline where a tsunami of up to 1 meter (3 feet) was predicted. She said her government has set up a task force to gather information, assess possible damage and prepare for rescue operations if needed.

“We are putting people’s lives as the top priority,” Takaichi said, urging residents in the strongly-shaken areas to use caution in light of possible strong aftershocks.

Shinji Kiyomoto, JMA’s Earthquake and Tsunami Countermeasures planning officer, told a news conference that the shallow earthquake was triggering active seismic activity in the area, urging residents to especially be cautious over the next two to three days for another big quake. He said, however, that so far no tsunami has been observed from the inland quake and that the agency plans to lift the advisory relatively soon.

Japan’s Fire and Disaster Management Agency said there were no reports of damage to major public facilities and infrastructure in the region, though authorities were still assessing the extent of damage from the quake.

Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority said no abnormalities were found at three nearby nuclear power plants from the temblor.

Shinkansen bullet trains and local trains in Kyushu have been suspended temporarily for safety checks, while the runway at the Aso Kumamoto Airport was closed following the earthquake, with “no prospect of resuming operations” according to a notice on the airport's website.

The Japanese Defense Ministry said it dispatched aircraft to the area to assess the situation.

The U.S. Geological Survey initially said the earthquake had a magnitude of 7.1, later revising it to 6.8.

Kumamoto was hit with a deadly quake in 2016 that left more than 50 people dead, 1,800 injured and tens of thousands of homes damaged or destroyed.

Japan's Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi speaks during a news conference in Tokyo, Tuesday, July 28, 2026, following an earthquake in Kumamoto in the Kyushu island, southern Japan. (Keisuke Hosojima/Kyodo News via AP)

An official at the Japan Meteorological Agency speaks during a news conference in Tokyo, Tuesday, July 28, 2026, following an earthquake in Kumamoto in the Kyushu island, southern Japan. (Masanori Kumagai/Kyodo News via AP)

A store sign of a restaurant is seen fallen on the ground after an earthquake in Kumamoto in the Kyushu island, southern Japan, Tuesday, July 28, 2026. (Kyodo News via AP)

Aso Kumamoto airport is seen in Mashiki, Kumamoto prefecture, western Japan, on Feb. 20, 2024. (Kyodo News via AP)

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Florida is set to become the first state in nearly a decade to carry out two executions in a single day, planning lethal injections Tuesday for an ex-police officer convicted of a young girl's murder and an octogenarian who would be the second-oldest inmate put to death in modern U.S. history.

The planned injections come 18 months after Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis began stepping up executions at a rate unseen in modern times in Florida. DeSantis hasn't said why he scheduled two executions six hours apart, and Florida prison officials haven't said whether the timing creates any logistical challenges for staff.

James Aren Duckett, 68, is scheduled to die by lethal injection at noon at Florida State Prison near Starke, followed later that day by 80-year-old Dominick Anthony Occhicone, who also would become the oldest prisoner executed in Florida's modern history.

Duckett was convicted of raping and drowning an 11-year-old girl while working as a police officer in a small central Florida city in 1987, and Occhicone was convicted of the 1986 killings of his ex-girlfriend’s parents.

Duckett and Occhicone would become Florida’s 11th and 12th inmates to be executed this year if their sentences are carried out.

The Florida Supreme Court denied appeals for both men last week. Duckett’s attorneys had asked for another stay, claiming that Duckett is innocent and that the state’s handling of the DNA evidence is the reason for the inconclusive results. Occhicone’s attorneys argued that several age-related ailments, including kidney and prostate problems, could make his execution especially painful, constituting cruel and unusual punishment.

Both men still had appeals pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.

DeSantis, who leaves office in January, oversaw a record 19 executions in 2025, more in a single year than any other Florida governor since the death penalty was reinstated in the U.S. in 1976. The previous high was eight executions set in 2014.

If Tuesday’s executions proceed, that would bring the total for DeSantis’ final two years in office up to 31 overall, compared to just nine executions during the first six years of his administration. With another execution already set for August, 2026 could also be a record-breaking year.

DeSantis initially signed a death warrant for Duckett in February, setting a March 31 execution date. But the Florida Supreme Court issued a stay just days ahead of that date to allow for DNA testing of old evidence that couldn’t be performed at the time of the original trial because of technological limitations. The results came back inconclusive, meaning they did not exonerate Duckett or definitively connect him to the crime. Judges have allowed the jury verdict to stand.

When Occhicone's death warrant was signed late last month, his was the only execution scheduled for Tuesday. But after the Florida Supreme Court removed Duckett's stay on July 8, DeSantis signed a new death warrant soon after and added Duckett to Occhicone’s execution date, which hadn't been done in Florida in more than 60 years. Florida Department of Corrections records show multiple executions on a single day were more common in the past, with the last being on May 12, 1964.

Nationwide, it's not uncommon for two different states to hold executions on the same date, but it's less common for a single state to perform two. Before Florida, the most recent U.S. state to execute two inmates on the same day was Arkansas in April 2017. And Texas executed two convicted killers on the same day in 2000, the year it put to death 40 prisoners.

Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty has urged DeSantis to halt both executions.

“July 28 represents an unprecedented escalation of Florida’s use of the death penalty,” the group’s executive director, Grace Hanna, said in a statement. “These are two profoundly different cases, but they point to the same troubling reality: Florida continues to expand the use of capital punishment, despite mounting evidence that it is not what Floridians want.”

The governor's office has rarely commented on executions over the past 18 months. DeSantis has previously said his goal is to bring justice to victims’ families who have waited decades for death sentences to be carried out.

“Some of these crimes were committed in the ’80s,” the governor said at a November 2025 news conference. “Justice delayed is justice denied. I felt I owed it to them to make sure this ran very smoothly. If I honestly thought someone was innocent, I would not pull the trigger.”

Occhicone would become Florida's oldest inmate to be executed, just weeks after two 74-year-old men briefly held that spot, the second man just a week older than the first at his time of death. Recent executions have highlighted the nation's aging death-row population and renewed questions about the humanity of administering capital punishment to inmates who might die soon from natural causes.

Occhicone also would become the second-oldest prisoner known to be executed in modern U.S. history after 83-year-old Walter Moody Jr. in Alabama in 2018. Moody was condemned for a wave of mail bombs in 1989 that killed a federal judge and wounded a Black civil rights attorney.

Florida executions are all by injection of a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart, according to the Department of Corrections.

FILE - Clouds hover over the entrance of the Florida State Prison in Starke, Fla., Aug. 3, 2023. (AP Photo/Curt Anderson, file)