The 65-year-old owner of a small Japanese restaurant in Miyazaki city was stabbed to death on Saturday, police said. (Japan Today)

A tour bus caught fire and burned up Saturday on the Shin-Tomei Expressway in Aichi Prefecture, but the driver and his 40 passengers escaped without injury. (Japan Times)

The National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) has released a video of auroras that are believed to have appeared due to a solar flare - an explosion on the sun's surface - that occurred on Wednesday. (the-japan-news.com)

The opportunity to see wild brown bears in their natural environment has made a national park in Hokkaido a popular hiking destination. (Japan Times)

The Japanese foreign minister has asked ministers in Qatar to slash the number of North Korean nationals working in that Middle Eastern nation. (NHK)

The Japan Tourism Agency is considering asking municipalities to designate periods during which minpaku (private lodging services) must be shut in their regions. (Japan Times)

Yoshihide Kiryu has become the first Japanese to break the 10-second barrier in the men's 100 meter sprint. (NHK)

A 24-year-old male professional dancer was arrested after stealing a taxi in Tokyo and injuring the 41-year-old male driver, police said Saturday. (Japan Today)

A worker dismantling tanks at Japan's wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant was found to have been exposed to a small amount of radiation during a routine safety check on Friday, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) said. (Japan Today)

Tokyo Metropolitan Police have busted a mail order service based in a Nerima Ward that sold about 1 million illegal pornographic DVDs each year since 2012. The operation is believed to have funded organized crime, reports TV Asahi. (tokyoreporter.com)

Walk into any Japanese convenience store, and you'll find a row of magazine racks, usually just inside the windows that run along the front of the store. (Japan Today)

Hakuho on Friday pulled out of the Autumn Grand Sumo Tournament getting underway Sunday due to pain in his left knee, becoming the third yokozuna to withdraw from the meet after Kisenosato and Kakuryu. (Japan Times)

Scientists say the disruptions in the Earth's magnetic field caused by charged particles from the sun have passed their peak. But they are calling for continued caution for few more days as there could be more explosions on the surface of the sun. (NHK)

strong earthquake has struck Akita Prefecture in northern Japan. Japan's Meteorological Agency says a quake with an estimated magnitude of 5.2 occurred around 10:23 PM Japan Time on Friday. It says there is no risk of a tsunami. (NHK)

The nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan left Yokosuka naval base on Friday for a surveillance mission amid growing tensions over North Korea. (the-japan-news.com)

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe says he and Russian President Vladimir Putin have agreed that North Korea's nuclear tests pose a grave threat to peace and stability in the region. (NHK)

On the night of June 26, 2016, a 23-year-old Japanese woman was sitting on a train travelling from Aichi Prefecture's Chitahanda Station to Kanayama Station, in the prefectural capital of Nagoya. At some point, the 44-year-old man sitting next to her, a Brazilian national living in Nagoya, introduced himself. (rocketnews24.com)

Democratic Party lawmaker Shiori Yamao, a prominent adversary of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Diet debates, tendered her resignation from the party Thursday evening amid allegations of an extramarital affair, dealing a heavy blow to the nascent leadership of the struggling opposition. (Japan Times)

North Korea has issued a fresh statement threatening Japan and the United States for seeking a new UN Security Council sanctions resolution against Pyongyang for its latest nuclear test. (NHK)

A survey by a French institute shows that up to 70 percent of coral reefs in Japan's southwestern prefecture of Okinawa are dead due to warm temperatures. (NHK)

With North Korea making progress in its nuclear and ballistic missile development, the government is considering developing a new system for ballistic missile defense, it has been learned. (the-japan-news.com)

McDonald's Japan is turning to stay-at-home wives as the restaurant industry struggles with a severe labor crunch. (NHK)

Engineers at Nissan Motor have redesigned their electric car. It's the first update of the Leaf in 7 years. The revamp comes as markets around the world move increasingly toward electric vehicles. (NHK)

Three Asian universities made the top 30 for the first time in an influential ranking of the world's top 1,000 institutions released Tuesday. (Japan Times)

Japan's first private-sector effort to build rocket-launching facilities is underway as new aerospace legislation paves the way for meeting growth in demand for small observation satellites. (Nikkei)