Sunday marks 50 years since unrest which occurred after a car driven by US military personnel hit a local resident near a US base in Okinawa.
The unrest took place on December 20, 1970, two years before reversion of the southern prefecture from the United States to Japan.
Japanese authorities reported 2,991 new coronavirus cases as of 11:30 p.m. on Saturday.
Thirty-eight people died, including 10 in Hokkaido, nine in Osaka, five in Tokyo, two each in Chiba, Iwate and Kanagawa, and one each in Nara, Miyazaki, Gifu, Ehime, Aichi, Tochigi, Gunma and Shizuoka.
An event has been held to promote the rice harvest in a coastal area of the town of Namie, Fukushima Prefecture. This year's harvest was the first since the area was hit by the 2011 tsunami and the nearby nuclear accident.
An evacuation order for the town's coastal area was lifted 3 years ago, but the restoration of farm land took longer.
A support group consisting of a labor union and NPOs has provided consultations in central Tokyo to people who have lost their jobs or part of their income because of the pandemic.
Scores of people showed up at the event in Hibiya Park in the capital's business district.
Japanese authorities had reported 2,984 new coronavirus cases as of 9 p.m. on Saturday.
They reported 37 deaths, including ten in Hokkaido, nine in Osaka and five in Tokyo.
Weather officials in Japan warn of more heavy snow this weekend across many mountainous areas and the side of the country facing the Japan Sea.
The Meteorological Agency says a strong cold air mass and an atmospheric pressure pattern typical for the season have brought heavy snow to regions from Chugoku through to Hokkaido.
The Tokyo Metropolitan Government reported 736 new coronavirus cases in the Japanese capital on Saturday. It's the second highest figure after Thursday's record of 822.
The daily tally has topped 600 for four days in a row.
Weather officials in Japan warn of more heavy snow this weekend, mainly in mountainous areas of the Hokuriku and Kanto-Koshin regions.
A strong cold air mass brought record snowfall this week to mountainous areas in Niigata and neighboring Gunma prefectures. Blizzards left more than 2,000 vehicles stranded for many hours on an expressway.
The coronavirus hasn't stopped a street in the city of Sendai, northeastern Japan, from becoming a dazzling winter wonderland.
The annual Sendai Pageant of Starlight began at 7 p.m. on Friday, when hundreds of thousands of LED lights attached to the street's zelkova trees were switched on.
Six railway operators in the Tokyo metropolitan area say they will not run services late into the night on New Year's Eve and early on New Year's Day due to the coronavirus outbreak.
The companies include East Japan Railway and Tokyo Metro.
The cumulative total of coronavirus cases in Tokyo has now surpassed 50,000. With the New Year fast approaching, many are concerned pressure on the health care system will only grow.
Tokyo reported 664 new coronavirus cases on Friday --- after seeing record-breaking numbers the day before.
Former Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo has expressed his intention to give an explanation in the Diet about alleged political funding violations involving his support group.
The support group allegedly paid some of the costs of parties held on the eve of the annual government-funded cherry blossom viewing events. The group is suspected of failing to report the revenue and expenses in violation of the political funds control law.
A toll road operator in Japan says it hopes to fully reopen a section of an expressway where hundreds of vehicles remain stranded in heavy snow.
East Nippon Expressway President Obata Toru held a news conference on Friday about the trouble on the Kan-etsu Expressway in Niigata Prefecture on the Sea of Japan coast.
Japanese health minister Tamura Norihisa says top priority will be given to quickly screening a COVID-19 vaccine co-developed by US pharmaceutical firm Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech.
The comment indicates the screening will proceed based on a fast-track system that requires much simpler steps than conventional screening.