Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Tuesday he will consider creating a permanent law to dispatch Japan's armed troops overseas, after Tokyo reinterpreted the pacifist Constitution to expand their role. (Kyodo)

Japan has been a late adopter when it comes to smartphones, but it's catching up quickly - already more than half the population owns one. But Tokyo is a crowded city, and warnings are being issued about the risk of mass collisions among phone-using pedestrians at one busy crossing. (BBC)

Catherine Fisher was once just another foreign resident of Tokyo, living out her life in a middle-class neighborhood with her children. But in April 2002, the Australian native made the fateful decision to arrange a meeting with her boyfriend, Jerry, near the U.S. military base in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture. (Japan Times)

The Japanese government has put off plans to lift the evacuation order for a village near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, after strong opposition from residents who say the area is still not safe. (NHK)

The Japanese government has put off plans to lift the evacuation order for a village near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, after strong opposition from residents who say the area is still not safe. (NHK)

A professor of Georgetown University in Washington has been selected for his study of nationalism in modern Japan as the first recipient of a private award established to promote research on Japan by foreign scholars. (The Japan News)

The environmental bureau of the State of Rio de Janeiro recently gave a certificate of commendation to Japanese Consul General Yasushi Takase in Rio de Janeiro, recognizing the Japanese supporters who collected litter at stadiums after World Cup matches in which the Japanese team played. (The Japan News)

Police in Sapporo said Monday they have arrested a 31-year-old woman for slashing two people at random on the street. (Japan Today)

Radioactive materials dispersed during work to remove rubble at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant may have polluted rice more than 20 kilometers from the plant last year, it was learned on Monday. (Jiji Press)

Japan can send troops to the Middle East for minesweeping without a cease-fire, as a reinterpretation of the Constitution will expand their overseas role in a major security policy shift, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Monday. (Kyodo)

It is almost an annual ritual for Japanese policymakers to vow to unravel the nation's thick web of economic regulations. This year, too, the government has pledged to carry out serious regulatory reform as part of its growth strategy. But many industries, including the tourist sector, remain burdened by regulations that seem to defy rationale. (Nikkei)

Takeshi Kaneko searched for nine years to find someone to take over the dried-food store his parents opened after they fled the rubble of Japan-occupied China at the end of World War II. (Bloomberg)

In celebrity-obsessed Japan with its conveyor belt of 15-minute stars, fashion icon Rola is blazing a meteoric trail at the forefront of a galaxy of mixed-race stars changing the DNA of Japanese pop culture. (gmanetwork.com)

Companies in Japan are among the world's most vulnerable to cyber attacks, and threats against state entities have more than doubled since 2010. (nzherald.co.nz)

Reindeer farms and grazing Holstein cows dot a vast stretch of rolling green pasture here on Japan's northern tip. Underground it's a different story. (ndtv.com)

Move over guns. Add 3D-printed vaginas to the things that will get you arrested in Japan. (kotaku.com)

When it comes to achieving gender equality, Japan still has a very long way to go, at least according to the 2013 Global Gender Gap Report, which ranked the country 105th in the world by that measure. (The Diplomat)

When Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe came to power in late 2012, he hoped a weaker yen would give exporters a much-needed boost as well as spur the inflation needed to revive the world's third biggest economy. (cnbc.com)

A Japanese zoo has taken the catwalk to a wild new level, using some of its fiercest inhabitants to rip and claw jeans to a fashionably distressed look. (sbs.com.au)

Nearly two months after the Tokyo metropolitan government designated a particular manga publication as "unhealthy" for its explicit sexual content and required bookstores to shelve it in sections for adult magazines to protect children, similar publications are being widely displayed by bookstores in their sections for ordinary magazines. (straitstimes.com)