Japan News

The Legoland Japan theme park in the central Japanese city of Nagoya will lower its admission fee for children, its operator said Wednesday, following complaints about high ticket prices. (Kyodo)

Japanese temples are offering their facilities as tourist accommodation, an initiative aimed at wooing foreigners to rural Japan. (Nikkei)

Japan's nuclear watchdog on Wednesday granted its first approval for a plan to reuse nuclear fuel taken out of decommissioned reactors in operational ones. (Japan Today)

Japanese footballer Keisuke Honda is swapping football for finance, after launching a venture capital fund with Hollywood star Will Smith to invest in startups addressing social problems, the striker's agent said Wednesday. (Japan Today)

The main stadium for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics, now under construction, has been shown to media 2 years ahead of the games' opening. (NHK)

The Diet, Japan's parliament, on Wednesday passed into law a bill to strengthen restrictions on smoking in public places in the fight against secondhand smoke. (Jiji)

Japan's Diet has enacted legislation to reform the electoral system, including the addition of six seats to the 242-seat Upper House. (NHK)

The number of foreign tourists who visited Japan in the first half of this year hit a record high for the period. (NHK)

The schedule for the Tokyo Olympics has been broadly determined. Starting times of the marathon and other races along roads were moved forward in view of the hot summer weather. (NHK)

The International Olympic Committee and organizing committee for the Tokyo Games failed to agree on what time the swimming finals will be held. (NHK)

The head of the International Monetary Fund says economic growth has started slowing in Japan and the euro zone. (NHK)

Temperatures rose further across Japan excluding northern regions on Wednesday, exceeding 40 degrees Celsius for the first time in five years, the Japan Meteorological Agency said. (Jiji)

Prominent Japanese stage director Keita Asari died of malignant lymphoma in a Tokyo hospital on Friday. He was 85. (Jiji)

A 36-year-old Filipino man arrested last year admitted Tuesday to raping and murdering a female university student in eastern Japan in January 2004. (Japan Today)

Japan's Mitsubishi Aircraft has debuted its long-delayed passenger jet at an airshow in Britain. (NHK)

Yomiuri Giants owner Shoichi Oikawa has resigned to take responsibility for a series of scandals involving players at the Japanese professional baseball team, the Giants said Tuesday. (Jiji)

In Japan's ancient capital Kyoto, spectators braved sweltering heat to watch a series of colorfully decorated floats at the annual Gion festival on Tuesday. (NHK)

Many retailers and consumers in Japan are welcoming the free trade pact with the European Union. They are expecting it to lower prices for a range of gourmet products and provide a boost to the economy. (NHK)

Japan and the European Union have signed a free trade deal in Tokyo after years of negotiations. The economic partnership agreement covers about 40 percent of the world's trade and 30 percent of its gross domestic product. The EPA calls for Japan and the EU to remove tariffs on most of each other's goods in phases. (NHK)

A Japanese Air Self-Defense Force aircraft blocked a runway at Naha Airport in the southwestern prefecture of Okinawa on Tuesday, causing it to be closed temporarily. (NHK)