A strong earthquake hit southwestern Japan late Monday, the Japan Meteorological Agency said. (Japan Times)

Struggling Japanese electronics maker Toshiba says that it picked a government-led multinational consortium as the preferred bidder for the sale of its memory chip unit. (NHK)

The nation's youngest professional shogi player, 14-year-old Sota Fujii, won his 28th straight match on Wednesday to equal the all-time winning streak in official matches of the traditional chess-like game. (Japan Times)

The Imperial Household Agency said Monday it will officially announce the engagement of Princess Mako, the first granddaughter of Emperor Akihito, to a university classmate of hers on July 8. (Japan Today)

The population of once extinct storks living in the wild in Japan has reached 100, an official at a specialist conservation facility said Monday. (Japan Today)

The nation's hotel operators and real estate firms are ramping up their hiring of foreign workers to capitalize on booming in-bound tourism and increasing property investment from wealthy overseas buyers. (Japan Times)

Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike announced Tuesday that the metropolitan government will relocate the famous Tsukiji fish market as planned but redevelop the original site in the future. (Japan Times)

Prosecutors in western Japan have begun raiding the premises of school operator Moritomo Gakuen on suspicion it unlawfully claimed subsidies from the state and the Osaka prefectural government. (NHK)

Japan has become world-famous for its incredibly polished customer service, which isn’t something you’ll find only at premium-priced hotels and leisure resorts. Just about any shop or restaurant you go to in Japan, right down to convenience stores and fast food joints, will be staffed by courteous clerks and servers. (rocketnews24.com)

Top Japanese parcel delivery firm Yamato Transport is scaling back some services to give its overworked drivers a break. (NHK)

Support for Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government has dropped below 50% for the first time in more than a year as respondents expressed dissatisfaction with his response to allegations of preferential treatment toward a conservative educator. (Nikkei)

On the last day of the U.S. Open, Hideki Matsuyama was better than everyone else. Better than Brian Harman, Rickie Fowler, Justin Thomas and the rest of the congested leaderboard. (washingtonpost.com)

A Japanese film has won the top prize in the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in southeastern France. (NHK)

A petition drive by a small Kyoto-based political group requesting that Emperor Akihito move to Kyoto upon his abdication had drawn over 10,000 signatures as of Friday. (Japan Times)

Japan's transport ministry is considering whether to allow low-cost carriers to cancel flights when only a small number of seats are sold. (NHK)

A 31-year-old man in Koga, Ibaraki Prefecture, has been arrested on suspicion of violating the Road Traffic Law after he let a young boy take hold of the steering wheel of car he was driving. (Japan Today)

Officials in the western Japanese port city of Kobe say about 100 more fire ants have been found in a container storage space. (NHK)

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, or MHI, will exhibit its jet plane at the International Paris Air Show, one of the world's major aviation events. (NHK)

A zoo in Toyama City, central Japan, has succeeded in hatching eggs of the endangered snow grouse under a government-backed breeding program. (NHK)

Goro Inagaki, Tsuyoshi Kusanagi and Shingo Katori, three former members of the ultrapopular boy band SMAP, will leave their management company, Johnny & Associates, in September, the agency said. (Japan Times)

The US Navy has identified all seven sailors killed after their destroyer was partially flooded following a collision with a container ship off Japan's coast at the weekend, confirming their deaths for the first time. (SBS)

The US Navy says it has found several bodies on the USS Fitzgerald destroyer. They are believed to be crew members missing after the ship collided with a Philippine-flagged container vessel off eastern Japan. (NHK)

With their nonalcoholic beers gaining popularity and sales of the real stuff declining, Japan's Kirin Brewery and Suntory Beer are switching gears. (Nikkei)

Now that Japan's parliament has cleared the way for Emperor Akihito to step down, the government is starting to dig into the details of the process. (Nikkei)

Hundreds of dolls, from Hello Kitty to Disney favourites, are packed to the ceiling at a funeral home near Tokyo. (thejournal.ie)