Japan famously has one of the highest life expectancies in the world but its birth rate is also at an all time low, leaving the future of the country uncertain. (CNA)

Many Japanese will be taking their summer holiday over the weekend amid the COVID-19 pandemic. (CNA)

People in Japan are remembering the victims of a catastrophic event during World War Two. Exactly 75 years ago, an American warplane dropped an atomic bomb on the southwestern city of Nagasaki ... just three days after one leveled Hiroshima. (NHK)

A high school girl from Saitama Prefecture who used a game console to alert police after a 44-year-old man confined her inside his residence had been there for one month, police have revealed, reports TV Asahi (Aug. 7). (tokyoreporter.com)

Tokyo Metropolitan Police have arrested popular manga author Tatsuya Matsuki over the alleged molestation of a middle school girl in Nakano Ward earlier this year, reports Sankei Sports (Aug. 8). (tokyoreporter.com)

Toyama Prefectural Police have arrested a 22-year-old man for allegedly setting fire to the corpse of his girlfriend at their residence in Takaoka City, reports Jiji Press (Aug. 9). (tokyoreporter.com)

Japan is Asia's first industrialised economy, yet it ranks 121, below Angola on the Gender Gap Index. (CNA)

Teachers and education officials are calling for students to pay special heed to the risk of heat exhaustion this summer as schools across Japan shorten their summer holidays and hold more classes than usual to make up for closures caused by the coronavirus pandemic. (Japan Times)

Japan confirmed a record 1,597 new coronavirus infections on Friday, as cases continue to mount throughout the country, particularly in urban areas like Tokyo and Osaka. (Kyodo)

Ayumi Sato is trying to be careful. But she's had enough. Lockdown fatigue is setting in for Sato, a 34-year-old stock trader who lives in Tokyo, and she's not alone. (CNN)

Tokyo Metropolitan Police have arrested a 35-year-old man who is suspected of swindling multiple women he met online, reports Fuji News Network (Aug. 7). (tokyoreporter.com)

In recent years, coral in the seas around Okinawa Prefecture has been turning black and dying off due to a particular variety of coral-killing sponge called Terpios hoshinota. (Japan Times)

Temperatures rose above 35 degrees Celsius in central Tokyo for the first time this summer as a sweltering heat wave continues in Japan. (NHK)

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government says 429 new cases of the coronavirus were confirmed as of 3 p.m. on Saturday. (NHK)

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government says that on Friday 462 people were confirmed to have been infected with the coronavirus. (NHK)

NHK has learned that Japan's first supply of an experimental coronavirus vaccine being developed by British pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca may be provided between next January and March. (NHK)

While Japan is widely considered to be a safe society to live in, the problem of “chikan” (gropers and perverts who engage in lewd behaviour like taking photos up women’s skirts) still persists in crowded spaces like trains and train stations. (soranews24.com)

Yokohama FC’s Kazuyoshi Miura, playing in his first game of the season, became the oldest player to take to the pitch in Japan’s league cup competition, the YBC Levain Cup, on Wednesday at the age of 53 years, 5 months and 10 days. (Japan Times)

Shizuoka Prefectural Police have arrested four persons, including an American English teacher, for allegedly carrying out a ruse known as “international romance fraud,” reports NHK (Aug. 4). (tokyoreporter.com)

Researchers in Japan say the death rate of hospitalized coronavirus patients was 7.5 percent in the country. This is about one third of the COVID-19 death rates reported in Britain. (NHK)

Chiba Prefectural Police have arrested four persons over the alleged cultivation of marijuana, an operation that is believed to have funded organized crime, reports the Asahi Shimbun (Aug. 6). (tokyoreporter.com)

Japan's powerful business lobby, the Keidanren, is dominated by energy-intensive sectors that represent less than 10 percent of the economy, resulting in national policies that favour coal and hindering attempts to combat climate change, a new study said. (aljazeera.com)

The Cabinet on Friday earmarked ¥1.13 trillion in reserve funds to continue measures to cushion the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. (Japan Times)

Less than 8 percent of people hospitalized in Japan due to the novel coronavirus have died, a rate much lower than in other countries, a study showed Thursday. (Kyodo)

Official figures indicate that Japanese households may be recovering from the economic impact of COVID-19. Spending was down in June, but by a much smaller margin than the month before. (NHK)