Organizers of the Tokyo Marathon are planning to cancel entries from the general public for the event to be held on March 1 due to the coronavirus outbreak.
About 170 male and female runners invited from Japan and abroad are expected to take part in the race.
Japanese prosecutors have demanded the death sentence for a 30-year-old man charged with killing 19 people with intellectual disabilities at a care home in Sagamihara City, near Tokyo.
The prosecutors told the Yokohama District Court on Monday that Satoshi Uematsu, a former worker at the Tsukui Yamayuri-en home, was fit to be held criminally responsible at the time of the attack.
Organizers of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games have revealed the motto for the games: "United by Emotion."
Each Olympic event has featured a motto since the 1988 Summer Games in Seoul.
Unusually warm weather in parts of Japan has resulted in an earlier start of the pollen season.
Private weather forecaster Weather News says cedar pollen became prevalent in Tokyo last week. It says the high season for cedar pollen in the area arrived 10 days earlier than average.
The Japanese health ministry says seven people have been taken to hospital after arriving in Japan from China on the fifth flight chartered by the Japanese government.
The flight from Wuhan, the center of the new coronavirus outbreak, landed at Tokyo's Haneda Airport on Monday morning. It was carrying 36 Japanese nationals and 29 Chinese, many of whom are spouses.
Japan's health ministry on Monday announced criteria for medical consultations or treatment for people who may have contracted the coronavirus.
People, including children, with no specific health issues are advised to contact local consultation centers if they have had common cold symptoms or a temperature above 37.5 degrees Celsius for at least four days.
Authorities in Kanagawa Prefecture, near Tokyo, say a nurse at a hospital in Sagamihara City has the new coronavirus.
They say Sagamihara Chuo Hospital is where a woman in her 80s, who was confirmed to have the virus after her death last week, was being treated earlier this month.
Sources say two people have been rushed to hospital after arriving in Japan from China on the fifth flight chartered by the Japanese government.
The flight from Wuhan, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, landed at Tokyo's Haneda Airport on Monday morning. It was carrying 36 Japanese nationals and 29 Chinese, many of whom are spouses.
Weather officials are forecasting heavy snow in western Japan, and warn that traffic may be disrupted.
Japan has been having a mild winter, but a cold air mass is bringing snow to some areas of western Japan.
Japan's health ministry says another one of its officials who had been working on the quarantined cruise ship docked in Yokohama, near Tokyo, is confirmed to have the new coronavirus.
The man in his 50s had been gathering information on the virus-stricken Diamond Princess to relay to the ministry between Tuesday and Saturday.
A hospital in Sagamihara City near Tokyo says one member of staff is confirmed to have the new coronavirus.
The hospital said on its website that the worker had been treating a resident of Kanagawa Prefecture who died last week.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has apologized for jeering an opposition lawmaker last week.
Abe heckled Kiyomi Tsujimoto of Constitutional Democratic Party during a Lower House budget committee session last Wednesday, calling her question "meaningless," which drew sharp reaction from the opposition camp.
Two chartered aircraft sent by the US government to evacuate American citizens from a quarantined cruise ship have arrived in Japan.
The planes touched down at Tokyo's Haneda airport at around 10:30 p.m. on Sunday. Workers in protective clothing were seen loading luggage onto the aircraft.
The Tokyo metropolitan government confirmed five more cases of the new coronavirus in the capital on Sunday.
They include a doctor in his 60s, who works at a hospital in Tokyo's Ota Ward. He had contact with a nurse who has already been confirmed to have the coronavirus.