Japan

An unmanned lunar spacecraft has captured and transmitted data analyzing lunar rocks, an achievement that could help provide clues about the origin of the moon, a Japan space agency official said

A Japanese moon explorer is up and running Monday after several tense days without the sunlight it needs to generate power.

A Japanese court sentenced a man to death after finding him guilty of murder for carrying out a shocking arson attack on an anime studio in Kyoto, Japan, that killed 36 people.

A Japanese space agency manager calls it "a breathless, numbing 20 minutes of terror!" The process includes ejecting a robot onto the lunar surface, to take photos of the moon lander.

Officials say 1,370 homes were completely or partially destroyed. Many of the houses in that western coastal region of the main island are aging and wooden. Some 30,000 people are in shelters.

All 379 occupants of the Japan Airlines plane escaped safely after colliding with a Japan coast guard aircraft carrying earthquake relief supplies. Five coast guard crew members died.

Aftershocks continued to shake Ishikawa prefecture and nearby areas on Tuesday, a day after a magnitude 7.6 temblor slammed the region on Monday afternoon.

Japan dropped its highest-level tsunami alert, issued following a series of major earthquakes, but told residents of coastal areas not to return to their homes as deadly waves could still come.