French president Macron is expected in #Tokyo on Friday for a 36-hour visit during which he will attend the opening of the Summer Olympics and meet Japanese leaders. ( FRANCE 24 English)

The Blue Impulse aerobatic team from Japan's Air Self-Defense Force drew the five Olympic rings with colored smoke in the sky above an area near the new Japan National Stadium on early Friday afternoon, ahead of the official opening of the Tokyo Olympics later in the day. (Jiji)

Japanese corporate sponsors of the Tokyo Olympics have poured $3 billion into the Games, the largest-ever amount contributed by domestic companies. (fortune.com)

Tight Olympics restrictions are at odds with the rest of Tokyo, which remains a bustling place despite concerns about rising COVID-19 cases and a low vaccination rate. (CBC News: The National)

The Olympic flame has reached the Tokyo Metropolitan Government building after a 4-month journey across Japan. (NHK)

TOKYO -- Five years after its launch, Pokemon Go monsters still run amok in the world and are chased by a legion of fans. (Nikkei)

TOKYO - Japan's global superstar Naomi Osaka on Friday lit the Olympic cauldron to mark the start of Tokyo 2020, in an opening ceremony shorn of glitz and overshadowed by a pandemic but defined by hope, tradition and gestures of diversity. (gmanetwork.com)

The long-awaited Tokyo Olympics have officially kicked off. The Games were postponed by one year due to the coronavirus pandemic. (NHK)

The Olympics are now underway and this year’s Games will be especially different due to COVID-19. CBC’s Thomas Daigle answers your questions from Tokyo. (CBC News)

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government confirmed 1,359 new coronavirus infections in the capital on Friday. (NHK)

COVID-19 cases among Olympic delegates are on the rise and roughly 15 per cent of those staying on site are unvaccinated, prompting warnings from medical experts about potential ripple effects if the world's largest sporting event doesn't clamp down on virus transmission. (CBC)

Olympics Athletes to suffer alongside Tokyoites as Japan's heat soars (Reuters)

Japanese fighter pilots drew Olympic rings in the sky over Tokyo Wednesday (CBS Miami)

Tokyo Olympics organisers have fired the opening ceremony director on the eve of the event after reports emerged of a past joke he had made about the Holocaust, while media said former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, a strong advocate of the Games, would also not attend. (Reuters)

Six Polish swimmers were sent home from the Olympics because of an admin error - the federation had put down too many competitors. They found out in Tokyo their names weren't on the list. (INQUIRER.net)

Tokyo hit another six-month high in new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, one day before the Olympics begin, as worries grow of a worsening of infections during the Games. (taiwannews.com.tw)

Australia's softball side have opened the Tokyo Olympics with a crushing 8-1 loss to Japan in Fukushima, where the mercy rule was invoked. (ESPN)

A lack of parental knowledge about necessary paperwork is the main reason why children of foreign residents in Japan become stateless, a government survey showed Tuesday, amid an increase in such children without nationality. (Japan Times)

What began as a trickle of infections among athletes and staff has turned into a steady stream just days before the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Games, with COVID-19 threatening to derail the competition schedule and casting doubt on the ability of organizers to handle the situation if it continues to worsen. (Japan Times)

When Tokyo last hosted the Olympics, in 1964, the unveiling of a bullet train capable of the improbable speed of 210 kilometers an hour heralded the dawn of a high-tech era in Japan. (taipeitimes.com)

The Tokyo District Court has sentenced a 72-year-old man to nine years in prison for killing a 28-year-old female acquaintance by causing her to ingest lethal amounts of stimulant drugs. (Japan Today)

Tokyo’s delayed Olympics is flipping conventional wisdom on its head, with Japan’s stay-at-home stocks expected to emerge as winners rather than once-favored advertisers, real-estate firms and travel operators. (Japan Times)

Ozeki champion Terunofuji has been promoted to sumo's highest rank of yokozuna. (NHK)

Having to stay at home during the Covid pandemic has been tough on millions of people around the world. (BBC News)

Welcome to Jimbocho. This neighborhood has got a lot of history. It's also got a lot of cafes. (ONLY in JAPAN * GO)