Japanese troops recently removed and neutralized three World War II-era U.S. artillery shells uncovered at construction sites across southern Okinawa and detonated another offshore, according to local officials.

U.S. Navy surveillance drones are returning to Okinawa six months after their last deployment to the island in response to heightening tensions with China, according to Japan’s Ministry of Defense.

An updated plan by the Japanese government details how and where it will move 120,000 people from the country’s long chain of westernmost islands in the event of a military attack or other emergency.

Two Marine Corps aircraft on routine training flights made separate precautionary landings in Japan on Tuesday in response to cockpit warning indicators: An F-35B Lightning II fighter on Shikoku and an MV-22B Osprey west of Tokyo.

The Chinese coast guard on Monday set a record for the longest continuous presence inside territorial waters claimed by Japan around the Senkaku Islands.

Japan is considering deploying an upgraded version of its Type-12 surface-to-ship missiles there at the end of the next fiscal year, Kyodo News reported Sunday, citing unnamed government sources. Japan’s fiscal year runs April 1 to March 31.

A soroban “allows students to see and manipulate a physical representation of abstract numbers,” according to The Japan Society website. Japanese third- and fourth-graders are required to practice soroban in math class, according to the education ministry’s website.

Hikers planning to summit Mount Fuji — Japan’s highest mountain and a popular bucket-list destination — will pay more to access its most-used trails this year as prefectural governments raise fees.

Japan’s Ministry of Defense plans to expand a two-year-old army base on Ishigaki Island, near Taiwan, as part of efforts to bolster defenses in the Nansei Island chain, a city official said Wednesday.

A construction vessel spilled fuel oil at the site of a future Marine Corps airfield in northern Okinawa on Thursday, marking the third such incident this year, according to Japan’s coast guard.