Think of Japan’s famed yakuza gangs and you might think of heavily tattooed men getting into bloody fights – the stuff of action films and video games.

But last week four men were arrested in Tokyo for a more mundane crime – operating a yakuza office too close to a library.

The suspects, ages 55 to 77, “conspired” to operate an office from June 2024 to February 2025, “despite the fact that the area was within a 200 meter radius around a library,” said police in a statement. The city has strict rules on where yakuza offices can operate, as part of their campaign to eliminate organized crime.

The oldest man, 77, was a “member of an organization affiliated with the Sumiyoshi-kai organized crime syndicate,” one of Japan’s biggest yakuza groups, the statement added.

Known for their strict hierarchies and honor codes, the yakuza – also known as the boryokudan – engage in everything from extortion and money laundering to drugs and sex trafficking.

Far from being underground organizations, many are registered with the police and have an established presence across the country.

The National Police Agency (NPA) even lists the business addresses of some yakuza organizations on their website; for instance, the Sumiyoshi-kai’s main office is located in Tokyo’s upscale Akasaka district, not far from the parliament building.

During their heyday in the 1960s, the yakuza operated internationally and had more than 184,000 members, according to the NPA. But their numbers have declined steadily over recent decades after police crackdowns to curb their activities.

Though they are legally still allowed to exist, regulations made it harder for gangsters to survive as it became illegal to recruit yakuza, pay them off, or share profits with them. Even securing mobile phone contracts and renting out apartments became more difficult.

In 2024, the number of members of organized crime syndicates fell below 20,000 for the first time to a record low of 18,800, according to police data.

In Tokyo, yakuza offices cannot operate within 200 meters of schools, child welfare centers, community halls, museums, probation offices and family courts – as well as libraries.

Businesses cannot hire yakuza members as bouncers, offer them payoffs for services, or sign any contracts with yakuza that “encourage” their activities.

The result is shrinking yakuza groups that nowadays largely make headlines for disbanding, pursuing new law-abiding lives, or promising to behave.

Salvage crews have recovered the boom from the $40 million Bayesian luxury yacht, which sank off the coast of Sicily in August 2024, killing seven people, including British tech tycoon Mike Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah.

The boom, which was connected to the 72-meter (236-foot) mast — one of the tallest on any sailboat—is the first known piece of debris to be lifted from the water.

The 55.9 meter (184-foot) yacht, which still has 18,000 liters of fuel onboard, went down in a sudden storm on August 19 while moored near Porticello, Sicily near Palermo.

Fifteen people, including nine crew members, survived.

British investigators, who were on the scene days after the accident, published a “desktop” report last week in which they concluded that the ship sank due to structural problems with the vessel.

Italian investigators have publicly dismissed the findings and have told local reporters that until the vessel can be examined once out of the water, no conclusion into the cause of the sinking can be determined. The ship is lying on its starboard side on the seabed, meaning no images have been taken of that part of the vessel to determine its condition.

No one has been charged with any criminal culpability in the accident, but the ship’s captain James Cutfield and two other crew members are under investigation for their role in the deaths of the passengers, which included one crew member.

The timetable to lift the yacht from the 50-meter deep seabed originally stated that the mast and boom would be left on the seabed until after the hull of the luxury yacht is lifted. The boom was instead brought out first to aid in the investigation into the diver’s death. It is unclear when the mast, which is being cut from the vessel, will be pulled from the water.

The hull of the yacht is scheduled to be brought up between May 26 and May 28, weather permitting. Once emptied of water, the wreckage will be lifted by crane to the port of Termini Imerese where it will be sequestered and examined by officials. A full report is expected by the end of the summer.

Ukraine and Russia accused each other of launching attack drones on one another overnight, hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke by phone with his US counterpart Donald Trump – and again refused an immediate ceasefire.

Russia launched 108 Shahed drones and “various types of decoy drones,” Ukraine’s Air Force said on its Telegram channel Tuesday, adding air defenses had destroyed 93 of them in the east, center and north of the country.

The strikes come after Trump and Putin spoke for nearly two hours on Monday – Trump from the Oval Office and Putin phoning in from a visit to a music school in the city of Sochi.

Following the call Trump said Kyiv and Moscow would begin ceasefire negotiations ‘immediately.’

But Putin said the Kremlin was ready to work with Ukraine on a “possible ceasefire for a certain period of time, provided the corresponding agreements are reached.”

Neither Putin nor Trump discussed a timeframe for a possible truce, said Kremlin presidential aide Yury Ushakov.

Putin has previously ignored a proposal from Washington and Kyiv for a 30-day ceasefire and last week snubbed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s call to meet face-to-face for talks in Istanbul.

As the Turkey talks sputtered, Trump said he didn’t think there would be a significant breakthrough on peace talks until he spoke directly with Putin.

“Unfortunately, following the Trump–Putin phone call, the status quo has not changed,” said Mykhailo Podolyak, Adviser to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky

European leaders decided to increase pressure on Russia through sanctions after Trump briefed them on the call with Putin, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said in an X post late on Monday.

Trump said he would not join in any new sanctions on Russia “because there’s a chance” of progress.

“I think there’s a chance of getting something done, and if you do that, you could also make it much worse. But there could be a time where that’s going to happen,” Trump said.

Following the call Zelensky said discussions would take place about the future location of a further round of talks – which would be aimed first at achieving a ceasefire.

Russian state news agency TASS cited Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as telling reporters that “so far, no specific decisions have been made regarding the location for the continuation of possible future contacts” with Ukrainian officials.

“We are primarily interested in a prompt settlement by eliminating the root causes of this conflict,” Peskov said.

“He wants Ukraine to capitulate. He wants Ukraine to disarm… to be in a position where… the Ukrainians cannot defend themselves,” said Taylor.

“That’s what Putin means when he says ‘the root causes.’”