The mayor of a city in Shizuoka Prefecture, central Japan, has filed a complaint with police against the head of a nursery over his alleged cover-ups of suspected child abuse cases involving its workers.

The mayor of Susono City, Murata Harukaze, submitted the complaint on Monday against Sakurai Toshihiko, who heads Sakura Hoikuen -- a private nursery school authorized by the local administration.

Japan's top government spokesperson says the government will act swiftly on the child abuse cases revealed at a nursery.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Matsuno Hirokazu spoke to reporters on Monday about the cases at the Sakura Hoikuen nursery in Susono City, Shizuoka Prefecture, in central Japan.

Japan's Environment Ministry has decided to establish an expert panel early next year to discuss how to deal with possibly toxic compounds detected near US military bases in the country.

The panel, made up of experts in public health and other fields, is expected to decide domestic targets to keep concentrations of the organofluorine compounds PFOS and PFOA at low levels. The experts will also consider ways to monitor water quality.

Investigators probing alleged bid-rigging involving test events for last year's Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics have raided more targets, including two group companies of major Japanese advertising agencies.

Tokyo prosecutors and the Japan Fair Trade Commission on Tuesday searched the offices of ADK Marketing Solutions and Dentsu Live, and other locations.

Investigators have raided the offices of two major ad agencies, Hakuhodo and Tokyu Agency, over alleged bid-rigging involving test events for the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics.

Tokyo prosecutors and the Japan Fair Trade Commission also searched two other firms on Monday.

The University of Tokyo says it will hire more than 300 female professors and associate professors over the next six years.

The university aims to raise the percentage of women in its faculty to at least 25 percent by fiscal year 2027. But the number was hovering around 16 percent as of May this year.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency plans to reprimand officials over data tampering in an experiment on stress caused by living in space.

JAXA said on Friday that two researchers were involved in the misconduct during the experiment carried out in 2016 and 2017 and involving 40 participants.

The widow of a deceased Finance Ministry official said she is disappointed with a civil court ruling that failed to reveal any information about how her husband was pressured to falsify government documents.

Akagi Masako's husband, Toshio, committed suicide in 2018. The Osaka District Court on Friday dismissed her claims for damages from a former high-ranking Finance Ministry bureaucrat. Sagawa Nobuhisa had allegedly ordered the tampering of documents related to the sale of state-owned land to school operator Moritomo Gakuen.

Authorities have raided Dentsu, one of Japan's major ad agencies, over alleged bid-rigging involving test events for the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Tokyo prosecutors and the Japan Fair Trade Commission searched Dentsu's head office and an event-organizing firm, both in the capital, on Friday.

Soccer fans flocked around the famous scramble crossing near Tokyo's Shibuya Station after Japan beat Germany 2-1 in the World Cup in Qatar.

A university student said he watched the match at a nearby restaurant. The 20-year-old said he thought Japan might lose when Germany opened the scoring, and he was very happy the Samurai Blue prevailed.

Japan and South Korea remain divided over the issue of people referred to as wartime comfort women, five years after the countries agreed to settle the issue.

In December 2015, Tokyo and Seoul confirmed that the issue was resolved finally and irreversibly.

Shinto priests have replaced a sacred rope over the Nachi Falls in Wakayama Prefecture, western Japan, ahead of the New Year.

The falls are part of a UNESCO World Heritage site. A nearby shrine worships the falls as its deity.

Japanese authorities had reported 3,877 new cases of the coronavirus as of 8 p.m. on Saturday.

They reported 47 deaths, including 11 in Osaka, 10 in Tokyo, 8 in Hyogo and 6 in Aichi.

Japanese authorities have reported more than 3,200 new coronavirus cases so far on Wednesday -- the highest daily tally ever.

Nationwide, more than 200,000 people have tested positive. The total number of deaths is 3,058.