The Tokyo High Court has ordered the Japanese government to compensate people who evacuated from Fukushima Prefecture following the 2011 nuclear power plant accident.
The decision reverses a lower court ruling that ordered only the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company, to pay damages to the plaintiffs. The high court found both parties liable. The suit was filed by people who fled to Chiba Prefecture, near Tokyo.
Sources say the new Tokyo Games organizing committee chief plans to leave Japan's main ruling Liberal Democratic Party to demonstrate her political neutrality.
Hashimoto Seiko reportedly plans to submit her resignation as a party member on Friday.
A senior Japanese communications ministry official has admitted that he discussed the satellite broadcasting business during a dinner meeting paid for by a broadcasting-related company. A son of Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide works for the firm and was at the dinner.
Akimoto Yoshinori, who heads the ministry's information and communications bureau, was speaking at the Lower House budget committee on Friday.
The Tokyo Metropolitan Government has reported 353 new cases of coronavirus infection in the Japanese capital on Friday.
The daily tally is below 500 for a 13th straight day. But the figure is up from a week earlier for the second day in a row.
The Japanese government plans to revise the immigration law to allow some foreigners who have received deportation orders to stay with family members until they leave the country.
The government decided on a draft revision on Friday to deal with the increasing number of foreigners who are detained at government facilities after refusing deportation.
NHK has learned that a capsule used to bring back asteroid samples to Earth will be on display in March at a museum in Kanagawa Prefecture, south of Tokyo.
The Hayabusa2 capsule returned to Earth in December from the asteroid Ryugu after collecting earth samples there. The samples collected in the capsule are being analyzed at a laboratory of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.
Japan's Communications minister Takeda Ryota says that two senior ministry officials who were reportedly treated to meals by the son of Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide will be transferred to the minister's secretariat.
Takeda said on Friday that the transfers of Akimoto Yoshinori, who heads the ministry's information and communications bureau, and Yumoto Hironobu, a Deputy Director-General of the bureau, will be effective from Saturday.
The top diplomats from Japan, the United States, Australia, and India have held phone talks on promoting their shared vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific.
Japanese Foreign Minister Motegi Toshimitsu, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne, and Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar participated in Thursday's call.
Hashimoto Seiko has officially been chosen as the president of the Tokyo Games organizing committee. In order to maintain political neutrality, she stepped down from her cabinet position as Olympics Minister.
Hashimoto said, "The Tokyo Games are just five months away, and we have to secure safety for Japan and the world. The most important issue is coronavirus prevention."
Tokyo Metropolitan Government officials confirmed 445 new cases of the coronavirus in the capital on Thursday.
The daily tally has remained below 500 for 12 days in a row.
Olympics Minister Hashimoto Seiko has been officially chosen as the head of the Tokyo Games organizing committee. She succeeds Mori Yoshiro after controversial comments led to him resigning.
The Japanese government says 125 healthcare workers had received their first shot of a coronavirus vaccine by Wednesday evening. It says there have been no reports of severe allergic reactions so far.
Japan began vaccinating about 40,000 healthcare workers on Wednesday as the first of the priority groups in the country's inoculation program.
Sources have told NHK that Olympics minister Hashimoto Seiko has accepted an offer to become the next Tokyo Games chief.
The 56-year-old former Olympian will have the task of moving organizers beyond an international controversy sparked by sexist remarks made by her predecessor, Mori Yoshiro.
The Japanese government is considering plans to maintain the current state of emergency in order to ensure the smooth rollout of coronavirus vaccinations.
The number of new infections in Japan is on the decline and the medical care system is gradually improving. But the pace of decline has been slowing and the number of cases in which infection routes cannot be traced remains flat or slightly higher.