Source: CBS News
“Japanese Princess Yuriko, the wife of wartime Emperor Hirohito’s brother and the oldest member of the imperial family, has died after her health deteriorated recently, palace officials said. Yuriko died Friday at the age of 101 in a Tokyo hospital, the Imperial Household Agency said. It did not announce the cause of death. Born in 1923 as an aristocrat, Yuriko married at age 18 to Prince Mikasa, the younger brother of Hirohito and the great-uncle of current Emperor Naruhito, months before the start of World War II. … Her death reduces Japan’s rapidly dwindling imperial family to 16 people, including four men, as the country faces the dilemma of how to maintain the royal lineage as conservatives in the governing party insist on retaining male-only succession.” (11/15/24)