Kei Komuro, the husband of Japanese former princess Mako Komuro, has passed his New York state bar examination on his third attempt, a source familiar with the matter said Friday. (Kyodo)

A Tokyo court on Thursday ordered ruling party lawmaker Mio Sugita to pay Shiori Ito, a journalist and symbol of Japan's #MeToo movement, 550,000 yen ($3,700) in damages for clicking "like" on several tweets she said defamed her. (Kyodo)

Police in Hidaka, Saitama Prefecture, have arrested a 37-year-old unemployed man on suspicion of assault and trespassing after he entered the grounds of a junior high school and injured three students with a bamboo sword. (Japan Today)

The yen's rapid and one-sided depreciation is "negative" for the Japanese economy, Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said Wednesday after the currency hit a fresh 32-year low versus the U.S. dollar. (Kyodo)

A cross-party group of around 90 Japanese lawmakers on Tuesday visited the war-linked Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo for its fall festival, a move expected to irritate some Asian neighbors who view it as a symbol of Japan's past militarism. (Kyodo)

Keita Nakagawa singled in the winning run in the ninth inning as the Pacific League champion Orix Buffaloes advanced to the Japan Series with a 3-2 walk-off win over the SoftBank Hawks on Saturday. (Kyodo)

A long-awaited theme park featuring beloved characters and scenes from Studio Ghibli’s hit animations is set to open Nov. 1 in central Japan’s Aichi Prefecture, treating fans to the wonders and secrets of Ghibli films such as “My Neighbor Totoro” and “Castle in the Sky.” (Kyodo)

An Israeli resident of Japan who was being held at a detention center near Tokyo after being charged in 2020 for smuggling drugs into the country has died, his lawyer said Tuesday. (Kyodo)

The Tokyo metropolitan government on Tuesday began accepting applications from sexual minorities to have their partnerships publicly recognized, ahead of the program's launch on Nov. 1. (Kyodo)

A 53-year-old man was arrested Monday on suspicion of abandoning the body of a female university student at his home in Sapporo, Hokkaido, over the weekend. (Kyodo)

The prefecture of Miyagi in northeastern Japan plans to grant government workers leave to take care of their grandchildren as part of efforts to help child-rearing parents. (Kyodo)

Japan's Megumi Horikawa won the women's 63-kilogram division at the judo world championships on Sunday in Tashkent for her first world title. (Kyodo)

A body found recently in a river in Chiba Prefecture, near Tokyo, has been confirmed as that of a 7-year-old girl who went missing in late September, investigative sources said Thursday. (Kyodo)

Japan's health ministry on Wednesday granted special fast-track approval to U.S. pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc.'s updated coronavirus vaccine tailored to protect against the now-prevalent BA.5 subvariant. (Kyodo)

North Korea fired two ballistic missiles early Thursday from near Pyongyang toward the Sea of Japan, the sixth round of launches since late September, after a U.S. aircraft carrier was redeployed to the waters, the Japanese government and the South Korean military said. (Kyodo)

The iPhone 14 launched by Apple Inc. in September was cheaper in Japan than 36 other major countries and regions in the world, a survey showed Wednesday. (Kyodo)

A court has granted a temporary injunction on an immigration agency decision to strip a Japanese language school of its certification over an incident in which a former staff member physically restrained a Vietnamese student last October, the agency said Wednesday. (Kyodo)

A Japanese court on Friday upheld the denial of a long-term residence visa to an American man who married his same-sex Japanese partner in the United States. (Kyodo)

The Japanese Air Self-Defense Force and the German Air Force conducted their first exercise around Japan on Wednesday, as Berlin increases its involvement in Indo-Pacific security. (NHK)

An exhibition will open at Stonehenge on Friday, showing the remarkable similarities between prehistoric cultures in Britain and Japan. (Kyodo)

Police on Monday continued searching for a 7-year-old girl who went missing after she left her home in an eastern Japan city to go to a nearby park four days ago. (Kyodo)

The former head of a nursery school and an employee of the school went on trial on Monday over the death of a 5-year-old boy left on a bus for hours in the summer of 2021. (Japan Today)

A typhoon lashed central Japan on Saturday with torrential rain and fierce winds, killing two and leaving tens of thousands of households without power, the Kyodo news agency reported. (New Straits Times)

Most young women in Japan who are hoping to get married want only one child or none at all, the first time in postwar history that the average number of desired births has fallen below two, according to a survey, adding to concern about the country's rapidly graying population. (Kyodo)

A former member of KAT-TUN, an all-male idol group, went on trial in Chiba Prefecture on Thursday, charged with violating the Stimulants Control Law. (Japan Today)