Undefeated Japanese boxer Naoya Inoue announced his decision Friday to relinquish all four bantamweight belts and move up to the super bantamweight division. (Kyodo)

A Japan Coast Guard vessel is monitoring a whale in Osaka Bay, western Japan, for a second straight day. (Kyodo)

Japan-based users of popular language-learning app Duolingo spend the longest time studying a language on the platform, with English being studied the most followed by Korean and Chinese, a recent report by the U.S.-based developer showed. (Kyodo)

Beatles musician John Lennon and his peace activist wife Yoko Ono asked Japanese Prime Minister Eisaku Sato in 1969 to permit overseas release of an unedited film on the aftermath of the U.S. atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to prevent a similar "atrocity," the Japanese Foreign Ministry's archives show. (Japan Today)

Police in Osaka have arrested a 28-year-old unemployed man on suspicion of breaking into a 36-year-old woman’s home, stealing her underwear, then setting fire to her house two days later. (Japan Today)

Police in Toyonaka, Osaka Prefecture, have arrested a 50-year-old man who claimed he was stabbed by a stranger on Dec 20, but who actually stabbed himself to make it look like someone tried to kill him. (Japan Today)

Police in Nasushiobara, Tochigi Prefecture, have arrested a 46-year-old woman on suspicion of killing her 13-year-old son. (Japan Today)

Police sent a 40-year-old man to prosecutors on a murder charge Tuesday after three people were found dead with blunt trauma injuries in Saitama Prefecture, north of Tokyo. (Kyodo)

A couple in their 60s and their daughter were found dead at their home in Hanno, Saitama Prefecture, on Sunday morning. Part of the second floor of the house had also been destroyed by a fire. (Japan Today)

Japanese prosecutors have decided to indict the man suspected of shooting former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Kyodo news agency and other Japanese media reported on Saturday. (inquirer.net)

Japan's average temperature in 2022 was its highest ever for the fourth consecutive year, preliminary figures released by the country's weather agency showed Thursday. (Kyodo)

A 52-year-old woman and her one-year-old grandson died after the car she was driving plunged into the sea at a port in Kuji, Iwate Prefecture, on Monday. (Japan Today)

Aichi prefectural police have revealed that a 43-year-old unemployed man, who was being detained in a cell at a police station in Okazaki, died on Dec 4 after refusing to eat any food for three days. (Kyodo)

The J-League first division will feature 20 teams from the 2024 season, an increase from the current 18, as part of a plan to enhance its level and competitiveness, a source familiar with the matter said Wednesday. (Kyodo)

The Japanese government exercised Wednesday its "right to question" the Unification Church for the second time, as it continues investigating the controversial religious group with an eye on a court order to remove the organization's status as a religious corporation with tax benefits. (Kyodo)

A Japanese court on Wednesday sentenced a man who refused to wear a face mask aboard a Peach Aviation flight as a measure to prevent the spread of COVID-19 to two years in prison, suspended for four years, for causing the aircraft to make an unscheduled landing to remove the passenger. (Kyodo)

Ichiro Mizuki, a Japanese singer known for being the "king of anime songs," died of lung cancer last Tuesday at a Tokyo hospital, his talent agency said. He was 74. (Kyodo)

Japanese billionaire entrepreneur Yusaku Maezawa said Friday K-pop artist Top and American DJ Steve Aoki will be among the eight crew members who will join him on a private space trip to orbit the Moon in 2023. (Kyodo)

Police on Wednesday arrested five men with links to organized crime over a mass brawl that erupted as a group of around 100 were dining at a restaurant in a Tokyo skyscraper in October. (Kyodo)

Japan on Monday lifted its ban on automated drone flights over residential areas to allow aerial parcel deliveries and help address the country's labor shortages amid an aging population across the country, particularly in rural areas. (Kyodo)

Police searched the head office of a group claiming to be the Japanese arm of U.S. conspiracy cult QAnon in Shizuoka Prefecture on Monday after its members were arrested last week for forcing their way into a local mass coronavirus vaccination site earlier this year. (Kyodo)

Three men have been detained in Britain over their alleged involvement in a 2015 robbery that netted over 100 million yen ($742,000) worth of jewelry from a luxury shop in central Tokyo, an investigative source said Saturday. (Kyodo)

With Christmas only a few weeks away, Santa Claus has come to Japan for the first time in three years. He flew in from Finland on Friday. (NHK)

Police in Chiba city have arrested a 36-year-old high school teacher on suspicion of voyeurism and creating a public nuisance after he admitted placing a miniature camera inside a cubicle in the girls’ toilet at the school. (Japan Today)

A Japanese court on Wednesday awarded 970,000 yen ($7,000) in damages to a woman who left a Tokyo high school after being admonished by its principal to do so in 2019 for violating a school rule that banned dating by its students. (Kyodo)