Japan’s Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that laws requiring married couples to have the same family name does not violate the Constitution, dismissing a challenge by three couples who wanted to keep their original names.

A driver of a bullet train temporarily left the cockpit to use the bathroom on Sunday while the train was running with about 160 passengers on board. He asked a conductor, who didn’t have a driver’s license, to man the train in his absence.

Tennis star Naomi Osaka expressed her rage over the recent racial attacks against Asian-Americans in the United States. They have become the targets of hate crimes since the start of the pandemic last year.

The Economist’s latest “glass-ceiling” index shows that Japan ranks second from the bottom among the world’s industrialized countries. As usual, Nordic countries including Sweden and Iceland take the top four spots.

Nearly half of all high schools in Tokyo ask students with hair that is wavy or not black to submit a document confirming that their hair is natural, according to the information the Japanese Communist Party obtained from the metropolitan board of education.

A recent survey showed that most Japanese companies plan to skip their year-end parties due to the spread of COVID-19. Annual dinners to look back on a passing year have long been a custom in Japan’s corporate culture.

US Open champion Naomi Osaka made the Time list of the 100 most influential people for the second straight year.  She walked to her matches in New York with seven different masks bearing the names of black victims of police violence in America.

Urban Dictionary has coined the trending term COVIDIOT to describe idiots who hoard groceries, don’t follow social distancing, and ignore public health advice during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Tokyo District Court ordered on Wednesday a former television reporter to pay 3.3 million yen in damages for raping journalist Shiori Ito, who has become a symbol of the #MeToo movement in Japan.

The body of a prominent Japanese doctor, who devoted his life to Afghanistan, arrived in Japan on Sunday. Tetsu Nakamura was gunned down last week along with five Afghan colleagues when an armed group ambushed their car.

Hundreds of thousands of homes in Chiba Prefecture near Tokyo remain without electricity a week after a typhoon hit the area. Tokyo Electric Power Company said it is expected to take another two weeks to restore power.