Young activists in Japan have launched a petition urging the distributors of hit movies "Barbie" and "Oppenheimer" to disavow the "Barbenheimer" hashtag referring to both films online amid controversy over memes involving atomic bomb images. (Kyodo)
Police on Thursday searched the dormitory of Nihon University's American football team in Tokyo over an allegation a member possessed cannabis, investigative sources said. (Kyodo)
One of Japan's biggest summer festivals kicked off in the northeast city of Aomori on Wednesday. The annual event is being held without coronavirus restrictions for the first time in four years. (NHK)
A six-year-old boy ran to his neighbor’s house on Monday morning, saying his parents were lying on the floor at home and wouldn’t wake up, in Okayama City, Okayama Prefecture. (Japan Today)
A 26-year-old man was bitten by a dolphin while swimming at Takasu beach in Fukui Prefecture on Tuesday, the latest in a series of similar incidents at Fukui beaches this summer. (Japan Today)
Japan's Toyota Motor has unveiled its new Land Cruiser models, including the series' first hybrid type. The move reflects the global auto giant's carbon neutrality strategy to avoid solely focusing on electric vehicles. (NHK)
Police in Uji, Kyoto Prefecture, on Sunday arrested a 29-year-old man on suspicion of negligence resulting in death after his girlfriend’s three-year-old son drowned in a bathtub filled with hot water. (Japan Today)
Popular Japanese Kabuki actor Ichikawa Ennosuke was indicted Friday for allegedly assisting in his parents' taking of their own lives, prosecutors said, in what is believed to have been a family suicide pact. (Kyodo)
Japan's oldest nuclear power reactor went back online on Friday for the first time in 12 and half years. (NHK)
Roadside trees in front of numerous outlets of scandal-hit used car dealership chain Bigmotor Co. were found to have withered unnaturally, local authorities across Japan said Thursday as they began looking into the cases. (Kyodo)
The Taiwanese ex-husband of retired Japanese table tennis star Ai Fukuhara called on her Thursday to promptly comply with a Tokyo court order to hand over their son, after she took him to Japan from Taiwan around a year ago. (Kyodo)
Japanese police said they arrested a woman and her parents in a beheading case in a popular night entertainment district in Japan's northern city of Sapporo, where a headless man was found in a hotel room three weeks ago. (AP)
Japan's Crown Princess Kiko has tested positive for COVID-19 and will rest at her residence until the end of this week, the Imperial Household Agency said Tuesday. (Kyodo)
As part of US-led efforts to stop China from creating high-end semiconductors suitable for military applications, Japan's curbs on the export of advanced chip-making equipment went into effect on Sunday, Kyodo news reported. (devdiscourse.com)
The practice of imposing municipal accommodation taxes on hotel guests has been spreading across Japan as popular tourist areas look to generate funds to use in promoting themselves to travelers in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. (Kyodo)
Three schoolgirls drowned in a river in Fukuoka Prefecture, southwestern Japan, on Friday while swimming on the first day of their summer vacation, local authorities said. (Kyodo)
The average unit price of a new condominium in Tokyo's 23 central wards in the first six months of 2023 soared to a record high 129.6 million yen ($930,000) due largely to high material prices and construction costs, a research institute said Thursday. (Kyodo)
A 34-year-old mother in Osaka Prefecture has been served a fresh arrest warrant for allegedly swindling a cooperative out of mutual aid money by starving her child to the point of hospitalization for low blood sugar in January, according to police. (Kyodo)
Former Nissan Motor Co. Chairman Carlos Ghosn, who fled Japan while awaiting trial, said Tuesday he has filed a criminal lawsuit in Lebanon against the Japanese company, vowing to make it pay for "the damage that cannot be repaired." (Kyodo)
Japanese manga artists and creators are exploring the use of generative artificial intelligence, pinning their hopes on using the technology to offer suggestions for illustration drafts and story plots, as well as for making the creative process substantially more efficient. (Kyodo)
A man accused of attempted murder and arson while dressed in a Joker costume on a Tokyo train in 2021 said Tuesday that a similar incident a few months earlier inspired him to alter his original plan of going on a killing spree in Shibuya. (NHK)
A man who went on a stabbing rampage on a train in 2021 was sentenced to 19 years in prison by the Tokyo District Court on Friday. (Japan Today)
Osaka Prefectural Police revealed this week that they mistakenly arrested a man over a revenge porn case and detained him for 42 days. (Japan Today)
A working group of the U.N. Human Rights Council is planning to look into sexual abuse claims against the late founder of Japan's top male talent agency Johnny & Associates Inc., people familiar with the matter said Wednesday. (Kyodo)
Police in Osaka have arrested a 36-year-old unemployed man on suspicion of killing his 65-year-old father by pushing him off a bridge into a river early Monday morning. (Japan Today)