Tokyo has climbed to second place in the Global Power City Index, overtaking New York for the first time and ending a nine-year run in third place, according to the latest ranking released on December 17th. The index evaluates 48 major cities worldwide across six fields, including economy, cultural interaction, accessibility and livability, using a total of 72 indicators. Tokyo posted sharp gains in areas such as the number of foreign visitors and the richness of its nightlife under the cultural interaction category, while ranking first globally for the sheer number of restaurants in the livability category. (News On Japan)

Today, we explore Hiroshima, Japan. On 6th August, 1945, the US dropped an atomic bomb on this city, reducing it almost entirely to ash in a single second. Today, it stands as a modern metropolis like any other. (Oli Barrett Travel)

Ski areas across Japan are gradually opening for the winter season as fresh snow settles along mountain regions, with JR SKISKI releasing its weekly outlook that highlights changing weather patterns and early-season conditions. Snow was already falling in mountainous areas at the start of the week, and while the weather is expected to shift periodically in the days ahead, many resorts are reporting enough new snow for visitors to enjoy their first runs of the season. (News On Japan)

A rare winter spectacle known as Diamond Fuji, in which the sun rises directly from the summit of Mount Fuji, illuminated the skies over the Takashimo district of Fujikawa Town in Yamanashi Prefecture on the morning of December — a seasonal scene that can be viewed only for a short period through early January. (News On Japan)

Ueno Zoo’s panda will be returned to China in late January, according to an announcement made by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government on December 15th, prompting long lines at the zoo on the morning of December 16th as visitors gathered to catch a final glimpse and shared their sadness over the approaching farewell. (News On Japan)

Japanese nationals were detained by local authorities on December 11th in a facility believed to be a hub for special fraud schemes in the southern Cambodian city of Sihanoukville, according to information conveyed to the Japanese embassy in Phnom Penh. (News On Japan)

World Heritage–listed Himeji Castle is undergoing its traditional year-end clean-up as Self-Defense Forces personnel remove a year’s worth of dust and debris. The annual effort, known as the Himeji Castle Clean Operation, is carried out each year around this time by SDF personnel stationed in the city as part of their training, and roughly 350 members took part this year. (News On Japan)

Osaka City–based developers have unveiled a new model of their elderly care bathing device on display at an announcement event, presenting an upgraded version of the Future Human Washing Machine that drew attention at the Healthcare Pavilion of the Osaka–Kansai Expo. (News On Japan)

The Ministry of Justice announced that nationality reporting will become mandatory when registering real estate such as condominiums, reflecting growing calls to better understand ownership trends amid rising apartment prices and increased activity in the housing market. (News On Japan)

Record snowfall across eastern Hokkaido on December 15th continued to disrupt daily life on the 16th, with widespread school closures, suspended waste collection and transportation delays. In Kitami, where accumulated snow reached as much as 53 centimeters on December 15th, residents spent the morning clearing heavy, wet snow from their entrances and driveways. (News On Japan)

In mid-November, Their Majesties attended a ceremony marking the 60th anniversary of Japan’s Overseas Cooperation Volunteers, a program that has sent some 58,000 participants to 99 developing countries since its launch in 1965 to support economic and social development. The first assignments were in Laos, then part of Southeast Asia’s emerging development frontier, where five volunteers were selected for dispatch. (News On Japan)

The latest “Jalan Popular Hot Spring Destinations 2026” ranking, based on responses from more than 12,000 members of the travel site Jalan, has named Gunma Prefecture’s Kusatsu Onsen as the top hot spring area people most want to revisit, marking its third consecutive year at No. 1, with Hakone Onsen in Kanagawa coming in third and Beppu Onsenkyo in Oita second. (News On Japan)

The Japanese government is preparing to end support for new large-scale solar power projects starting in fiscal 2027, as policymakers move to revise the framework used to promote renewable energy in the years following the Fukushima Daiichi accident. (News On Japan)

A woman attending a live performance and a male event staff member for HKT48 were stabbed by a man wielding what appeared to be a knife at a commercial complex in Fukuoka City on the evening of December 14th, with police confirming that both victims sustained injuries that were not life-threatening as officers later began questioning a man in his thirties believed to have fled the scene immediately after the attack. (News On Japan)

Ikuno Ward in Osaka, long known as a community shaped by Korean residents, is undergoing a significant transformation as the number of foreign nationals rises and the origins of its population diversify across roughly 80 countries. Nearly one in five of the ward’s 130,000 residents now hold foreign nationality, with recent growth driven in particular by arrivals from Vietnam and Nepal. (News On Japan)

At Oi Racecourse, the Tokyo City Flea Market has emerged as an unlikely gathering spot for overseas visitors even though it is far from a standard sightseeing destination, with the walkways filled on recent weekends with a mix of languages that reflects how sharply foreign tourism patterns are shifting. (News On Japan)

Find, a company that provides AI-based lost-and-found management, announced on December 12th that it has launched a new service enabling users to search for misplaced items across multiple transport operators and commercial facilities, allowing individuals to conduct a single unified search even when they are unsure where they dropped their belongings. (News On Japan)

Eco bags became a daily necessity after Japan introduced mandatory charges for plastic shopping bags in July 2020, yet many consumers still found it surprisingly troublesome to fold them neatly, a frustration that helped propel the rise of a product that not only solves this inconvenience but has now captured the attention of both Japanese and overseas buyers, with sales of the series reaching 17 million units. (News On Japan)

A 24-year-old woman was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder after allegedly stabbing her younger sister in the back with a kitchen knife at their home in Kisarazu on the night of December 13th. (News On Japan)

Yamaguchi-gumi, Japan’s largest crime syndicate and a designated organized crime group under special anti-conflict measures in Hyogo Prefecture and other regions, convened a meeting in Shizuoka City’s Shimizu Ward on December 13th. (News On Japan)