Only Acura knows why its flagship RLX sedan is still on sale; every year that we had occasion to remember the RLX — which wasn't every year — seemed like a good year to let the car die peacefully. Automotive News reports the deed is finally done, or rather, will be at the end of 2020, when Acura discontinues the model that started with the RL in 1996. Honda told U.S. dealers yesterday that in other markets like Japan, the four-door will continue to sell as the Honda Legend. Honda's comment to AN included, "With SUVs leading the luxury market, the highly successful RDX and MDX now serve as volume leaders of the Acura brand," and, "We will further strengthen our sports sedans, consistent with the performance-focused direction we have been taking Acura over the past four years."

Speaking of the devil, the RL and RLX — and Acura as a brand — never got out from under the weight of the Legend sedan, that ancestor being the second of Acura's three albatrosses after the original NSX and the Integra. The RL never equaled the Legend's worst year of U.S. sales. The RLX, a combination of arousing performance under anodyne styling costing premium German money, might have performed the same feat viz the RL, but the RL sold less than 5,000 units here for the last five years of its life. The RLX has only exceeded 5,000 sales once, in 2013. Last year, 1,019 units found buyers. 

Train and bus companies in the Tokyo area say they are operating as usual on Wednesday despite a state of emergency declaration.

Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo made the declaration on Tuesday for Tokyo, Osaka and five other prefectures, saying it will be effective through May 6.

National and other public universities in Japan have begun staging their entrance exams, with precautions taken against the new coronavirus.

The education ministry says nearly 440,000 people have applied for the exams, down about 30,000 from last year.

Japan's health ministry says it has to retest 23 passengers who were allowed to leave a new coronavirus-stricken cruise ship in Yokohama port, as the initial testing procedure was incomplete.

All the passengers and crew onboard the Diamond Princess were tested at the start of a 14-day quarantine period around February 5.

NHK has learned that a large number of health ministry officials who boarded the cruise ship quarantined near Tokyo were allowed to return to their workplace without being tested for the new coronavirus.

As of Friday, 634 passengers and crewmembers on the Diamond Princess had tested positive.

As it turns out, those rumors are wrong yet again. This is according to Nintendo’s CEO and President Shuntaro Furukawa who said that the company has no plans to launch a new Switch model in 2020. While Furukawa acknowledges that the Switch is in the halfway through its hardware lifecycle, he believes that they can still get more out of the current model instead of releasing a new one.

According to Furukawa, “According to the conventional wisdom for dedicated video game platforms, Nintendo Switch should be entering the midway phase of the hardware lifecycle. But we believe we have built a foundation on which we can pursue further growth opportunities for Nintendo Switch.”