Japan News

Kanagawa Prefectural Police suspect that a 24-year-old man committed suicide at a dam in the village of Kiyokawa in 2003 after murdering a woman at the restaurant where she worked, reports the Yomiuri Shimbun (tokyoreporter.com)

Japan's Justice Ministry is considering a plan to utilize the Global Positioning System to monitor inmates serving sentences in so-called prisons without walls, amid a prolonged manhunt for a fugitive. (Jiji)

Education minister Yoshimasa Hayashi has used an official ministry car to visit a "sexy yoga" studio in Tokyo, a weekly magazine said Tuesday, in another apparent scandal to hit the government. (Japan Today)

Convenience store and retail chain Seven-Eleven Japan Co in a joint project with travel agency JTB Corp will launch an automated service for minpaku (private temporary rented lodging) that allows guests to check in, collect and leave room keys 24 hours a day at 7-Eleven convenience stores. (Japan Today)

A Japanese court dismissed on Tuesday a damages suit filed by a man accused in a fraud case, after cash confiscated from him and kept in a police safe was stolen. (Japan Today)

Tsuburaya Productions Co.., the producer of the television series featuring Japanese superhero Ultraman, said Tuesday a California court has ruled that an alleged contract on the use rights of Ultraman outside Japan is not authentic. (Jiji)

A 74-year-old woman who was arrested over a fatal hit-and-run incident has told police that she thought her vehicle had hit a cardboard box. (Japan Today)

Japan's cabinet on Tuesday approved the resignation of Vice Minister of Finance Junichi Fukuda, 58, who last week offered to quit over his alleged sexually harassing remarks. (Jiji)

Orders for Japanese machine tools hit a record high for the first time in a decade in fiscal 2017, backed by strong demand from smartphone makers and others in China, industry data showed Tuesday. (Jiji)

Former Japanese professional baseball slugger Sachio Kinugasa of the Hiroshima Carp has died. He was 71. (NHK)

King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden has expressed his hope to maintain good relations with Emperor Akihito and the rest of the Japanese Imperial family after the Emperor abdicates. (NHK)

South Korean President Moon Jae-in told Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Tuesday that he plans to take up the issue of Pyongyang's abductions of Japanese nationals decades ago at his upcoming meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. (Jiji)

With sakura season done in the Tokyo area, it’s time to switch from pink to blue and the 4.5 million Nemophila flowers of this amazing park. (soranews24.com)

Robots that can weld, lift and bolt are being developed to help bridge labor shortages at domestic construction sites, though their use will be limited to night shifts when no human workers will be nearby due to safety and regulatory concerns. (Japan Times)

A 43-year-old man and his 34-year-old wife have been arrested at Tokyo’s Haneda airport on suspicion of smuggling methamphetamine with an approximate street value of ¥1.8 billion ($16.7 million), police and customs officials said Monday. (Japan Times)

Japan's Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera has revealed that another batch of activity logs from Japan's Self-Defense Force mission in Iraq years ago has been found. (NHK)

The organizer of the 2019 Rugby World Cup in Japan has started recruiting about 10,000 volunteers. (NHK)

Japan's Emperor and Empress have joined Sweden's King and Queen in visiting an exhibition on the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus in Tokyo. (NHK)

NHK has learned that prosecutors have questioned a former senior Finance Ministry official about a document-tampering scandal in connection with the discounted sale of state-owned land. (NHK)

Up to 53 million yen will be paid in retirement allowance to Vice Minister of Finance Junichi Fukuda, who tendered his resignation last week following a media report accusing him of sexual harassment, it was learned Monday. (Jiji)