The following is the latest list of selected news summaries by Kyodo News.
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Golden Week holidays start amid post-COVID tourism boom, weak yen
TOKYO - Japan's Golden Week holidays started Saturday, with train stations and airports across the country crowded with tourists amid easing fears of COVID-19, while the yen's sharp fall against other currencies has made overseas travel more expensive.
"I'm going on a graduation trip that I couldn't make due to the coronavirus pandemic. I want to enjoy a night safari," Rika Uechi, 26, said at Tokyo's Haneda airport before leaving for Singapore with a friend from university.
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Yen sinks to 158 range vs. dollar, new 34-yr low
NEW YORK - The embattled Japanese yen continued weakening to the 158 range against the U.S. dollar in New York on Friday, falling to a fresh 34-year low, after the Bank of Japan kept intact its current monetary easing policy.
The Japanese currency was hovering in the upper 155 range before the BOJ announced its policy decision. But continued yen-selling and dollar-buying sent the Japanese currency to below the 158 line in New York, briefly hitting 158.44, a level that has not been seen since May 1990.
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Japan imperial couple to visit Britain as state guests in June
TOKYO - Japan's Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako will visit Britain as state guests in late June, the Imperial Household Agency said Saturday, marking the first state visit by a sitting emperor since his father Akihito's in 1998.
The trip, aimed at fostering goodwill and friendship, will be the second overseas one since their June 2023 official goodwill visit to Indonesia.
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M6.9 earthquake hits south of Tokyo, no tsunami threat
TOKYO - An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.9 struck near the Ogasawara Islands in the Pacific Ocean, south of Tokyo, on Saturday, but there was no threat of a tsunami, Japan's weather agency said.
The quake occurred at around 5:36 p.m. at a depth of around 540 kilometers and registered 3 on the Japanese seismic intensity scale of 7 in Hahajima Island, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency. There were no immediate reports of injuries or major damage.
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Nearly 30% of municipalities in Japan have no physical bookstores
TOKYO - Nearly 30 percent of municipalities in Japan have no physical bookstores due to the impact of population shrinkage and the prevalence of online stores, according to a survey by a publishing industry association.
Of the country's 1,741 municipalities, 482 cities, towns and villages, or 27.7 percent of the total, had no bookstores as of March, with the rate increasing from 26.2 percent in the previous survey in September 2022, according to data released by the Japan Publishing Industry Foundation for Culture.
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BMW, Mitsubishi Fuso to jointly tackle mechanic shortage in Japan
TOKYO - The Japanese unit of Germany's BMW AG and Mitsubishi Fuso Truck and Bus Corp. have launched a joint program in April aimed at training auto mechanics in Japan as part of efforts to address a "severe" labor shortage in the industry.
The program, led by the German Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Japan, seeks to provide a platform to train a new generation of mechanics in three years, shorter than the five years usually needed to acquire necessary skills.
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M6.1 quake jolts Taiwan, no immediate damage reported
TAIPEI - An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.1 jolted a wide area of Taiwan early Saturday, its meteorological authorities said, but there were no immediate reports of major damage or casualties.
The 2:21 a.m. temblor shook hard the island's eastern county of Hualien, where a quake on April 3 with a magnitude of 7.2 led to 17 deaths and damaged many buildings.
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Baseball: Hawks come from behind to beat Lions
FUKUOKA - Ukyo Shuto doubled and scored the winning run on Hikaru Kawase's one-out 10th-inning single as the Pacific League-leading SoftBank Hawks came from behind Saturday to beat the Seibu Lions 2-1.
The Hawks tied it at Mizuho PayPay Dome on Akira Nakamura's seventh-inning RBI pinch-hit single. In the 10th, Nakamura encouraged Kawase, who had entered as a pinch-runner and had yet to bat.
Video: Japanese rhythmic gymnasts perform at send-off event
