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The Tokyo Metropolitan Government says it confirmed 446 new cases of the coronavirus on Saturday.

The figure was up 16 from a week earlier, and topped 400 for the fourth day in a row.

Japanese Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide and US President Joe Biden are expected to reaffirm cooperation toward a carbon-free Indo-Pacific region at an upcoming summit.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Kato Katsunobu announced on Friday that the talks will take place in Washington on April 16.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government says it confirmed 440 new cases of the coronavirus on Friday.

The figure was up 64 from a week earlier, and topped 400 for the third day in a row.

Japanese researchers have found a huge amount of plastic waste deep on the seabed off the Boso Peninsula coast, east of Tokyo.

Researchers at the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, or JAMSTEC, conducted a study on marine pollution caused by plastic waste in August and September, 2019.

Japanese Nobel laureate Akasaki Isamu died on Thursday at the age of 92. He was awarded the 2014 physics prize with two other Japanese scientists for inventing blue-light-emitting diodes.

He graduated from Kyoto University and worked at Matsushita Research Institute. He became a professor at Nagoya University in 1981 and also served as a tenured professor at Meijo University.

Japan's Diet has begun deliberations on approving a free trade agreement among Asia-Pacific economies. The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, or RCEP, will cover about 30 percent of the world's population and GDP when it takes effect.

At a full lower house session on Friday, Foreign Minister Motegi Toshimitsu rejected concerns that the agreement could become a China-led framework.

A city in central Japan has dropped a plan to only allow men to participate in a segment of the Tokyo Olympic torch relay next Tuesday.

Officials in Handa City, Aichi Prefecture, initially said that all the participants on a festival boat would have to be men, including the torchbearer, security officers and the media. The boat has traditionally been off-limits for women.

Foreign Minister Motegi Toshimitsu says Japan will urge Myanmar's military and opponents of the coup to engage in dialogue to resolve the ongoing turmoil.

Motegi told the Lower House Committee on Foreign Affairs on Friday that Japan would use sanctions if they lead to an immediate solution, but things aren't so easy.

Japan's health minister Tamura Norihisa says he will make all-out efforts to prevent a rebound of coronavirus infections in Tokyo.

Osaka, Hyogo and Miyagi prefectures have seen a resurgence of coronavirus cases. The government decided on Thursday to allow the three prefectures to take stronger anti-virus measures, without declaring a state of emergency. The measure will be implemented next Monday for one month.

Japan's transport minister Akaba Kazuyoshi says his ministry is sending officials to Egypt after a Japanese-owned ship blocked the Suez Canal for nearly a week.

The container vessel, owned by a firm based in the western Japanese prefecture of Ehime, became stranded in the canal last month, making it impossible for any ships to pass through.

The head of the Japanese government's advisory panel on the coronavirus response has said its top priority is preventing a rebound in new infections until around June, when local governments will likely have received enough vaccine doses for their elderly citizens.

Omi Shigeru spoke at a news conference on Thursday. The government decided earlier in the day to allow the prefectures of Osaka, Hyogo, and Miyagi to take stronger anti-virus measures without an emergency declaration.

Japan's central government has decided to allow Osaka and two other prefectures to take stronger measures without an emergency declaration.

Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide said, "This designation is designed to take intensive measures in limited areas for a limited period of time, in order to stop the spread of infection and prevent the situation from becoming so bad that we have to declare a state of emergency."

The Japanese government has decided to allow Osaka and two other prefectures to take stronger coronavirus measures without an emergency declaration.

The move is a first for Japan since the Diet revised an anti-virus law in February to allow for tougher enforcement.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government confirmed 475 new cases of the coronavirus on Thursday, for the highest daily count since a state of emergency ended in the capital on March 21.

The seven-day average of new cases in Tokyo as of Thursday stood at 372.3, up 16.4 percent from a week ago.