The Latest Breaking News from The Japan News/Yomiuri

As the Russian invasion of Ukraine approaches a year since its start on Feb. 24, 2022, a free photo exhibition featuring the people of Ukraine opened Tuesday at The Yomiuri Shimbun Building in Tokyo.

A team of researchers has announced the first successful cultivation in Japan of truffles, an expensive ingredient in Western cooking that is said to be one of the world's top three luxury foods, along with foie gras and caviar.

Four more executives from advertising and event companies including Hakuhodo Inc. are suspected of involvement in bid rigging linked to the Tokyo Games, according to sources.

The government presented to the Diet Tuesday its nomination of economist Kazuo Ueda, 71, as the successor to Bank of Japan Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda, whose term ends on April 8.

A Chinese-linked company with an office in Tokyo purchased half the land on the uninhabited Okinawan island of Yanaha about two years ago, according to officials of the village of Izena, which administers the island.

The Nuclear Regulation Authority officially decided Monday on a new regulatory rule that will extend the life of nuclear power plants to "over 60 years," thus approving a bill to amend the relevant law that sets the current rule.

Yasuo Mori, former deputy executive director of the Tokyo Games organizing committee's Operations Bureau, showed a superior a list of prospective bids for pre-Games events around spring 2018 and changed the bidding format at his superior's behest, sources have said.

NARA -- The Nara prefectural police on Monday sent additional charges to prosecutors against Tetsuya Yamagami, the suspect in the fatal shooting of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, according to investigative sources. The latest move is expected to conclude the investigation into the high-profile shooting.

SHIMONOSEKI, Yamaguchi -- Kyodo Senpaku Kaisha Ltd., the only whaling operator in the world that uses the mother ship method, is building a new vessel in Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi Prefecture, to replace its aging mother ship.

CHITOSE, Hokkaido -- A government airplane for carrying medical resources and equipment departed from the Air Self-Defense Force's Chitose Air Base in Chitose, Hokkaido, on Monday morning as part of emergency international aid to Turkey, where a powerful earthquake struck last week.

HIROSHIMA -- Oysters from Hiroshima Prefecture have been exported to the European Union, marking Japan's first oyster exports to the region. The plane carrying the unshucked frozen mollusks took off from Haneda Airport in Tokyo on Thursday.