News On Japan

Japan's Hayabusa2 space probe, currently in the midst of a six-year mission, made its closest approach to the Earth on Thursday to perform a swingby to set it on course for its target asteroid 300 million kilometers away, the space agency said. (Kyodo)

A suspicious man captured on security cameras at Yasukuni Shrine left for South Korea after a blast sound was heard from a public restroom at the war-linked Shinto shrine in Tokyo last month, investigative sources said Thursday. (Jiji Press)

A long-established doll maker in Asakusa, Tokyo, unveiled on Thursday this year's "hagoita" wooden paddles depicting figures that made upbeat headlines this year, including Japanese rugby star Ayumu Goromaru. (Jiji Press)

A 31-year-old man was arrested Thursday after threatening a woman sitting next to him with a box-cutter knife on a train in the city of Yamaguchi, police said. (Japan Times)

Takamasa Sakurai, a leading evangelist of Japanese anime, fashion and music abroad, was fatally hit by a train early Friday after falling from a platform at Nishi-Nippori Station in Tokyo, police said. (Japan Times)

U.S. company Hyatt Hotels is hoping to start offering temple lodging services to visitors to Kyoto as early as next year. (Nikkei)

For those who can't put their smartphones down even in the bathroom or at the dinner table, a new model will soon hit the market that can be cleaned with soap and water. (Asahi)

West Japan Railway Co. will ease disciplinary measures for train crews to prevent them from covering up errors, company officials said Friday, in what is the first such attempt in the industry. (Japan Times)

Despite pressure to make the run in under four hours to compete with airlines, the fastest bullet train between Tokyo and Hokkaido will take four hours and two minutes, it was revealed Dec. 3. (Asahi)

Ruling bloc lawmakers plan to file a bid to hike the tobacco tax in a drive to improve public health ahead of the Olympics. (Japan Times)

Hundreds of thousands of spectators gathered for an annual night festival featuring traditional floats in Chichibu City, Saitama Prefecture, north of Tokyo. (NHK)

Osaka Prefectural Police on Friday raided the headquarters of an affiliate gang of the newly formed Kobe Yamaguchi-gumi on suspicion of illegal employment of minors, reports the Mainichi Broadcasting System (Dec. 4). (Tokyo Reporter)

Police on Friday referred to prosecutors the case of a suspected leak of restricted information in 2013 by a former Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force commander to a Russian intelligence officer formerly posted in Tokyo as a military attache. (Kyodo)

The average pay among workers in Japan in October grew 0.7 pct from a year before to 266,309 yen, up for the fourth consecutive month, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare said in a preliminary report Friday. (Jiji Press)

Japan's infrastructure ministry has found that more than 500 of the country's bridges have poorly welded supports. The devices are supposed to keep the bridges from collapsing during major earthquakes. (NHK)

The United States and Japan on Friday announced the upcoming return of two parcels of land from military bases in Okinawa to civilian use. The thin strips, currently part of U.S. bases, are to help widen roads and ease traffic jams. (Japan Times)

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's official website has been inaccessible since early Thursday morning. (NHK)

Tokyo police have launched a unit to catch suspicious airborne drones. New rules on drone use came into effect on Thursday. (NHK)

Struggling Toshiba Corp. decided it will pull out of the TV production business, a division that has been accumulating losses for many years, as part of its streamlining efforts, sources said. (Asahi)

Construction of a mammoth 7.7-kilometer tunnel cutting through the Southern Japan Alps will begin Dec. 18 as part of an ambitious project to link Tokyo to Nagoya with a maglev train line by 2027. (Asahi)

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