After a price hike in October, a basic New Year's postcard costs 85 yen ($0.5), up from 63 yen for the previous year. Japan Post Co. set its initial issuance of the greeting cards to 1.07 billion ...

TOKYO — When millions of Japanese get their customary New Year's greeting cards Thursday, the sheep that's on the postage stamps will have finished knitting the scarf it began 12 years ago.

Marion McMurry did not grow up in Japan. Yet the Longview woman, a third-generation Japanese-American, has successfully maintained a New Years tradition of her ancestors for more than 30 years: ...