Japanese Princess Yuriko, wartime Emperor Hirohito’s sister-in-law, dies at 101

Associated Press

TOKYO (AP) — 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. She was 101. Japan’s Imperial Household Agency says she died Friday at a Tokyo hospital. It did not announce the cause of death, but Japanese media say she died of pneumonia. 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 family while conservatives in the governing party insist on retaining male-only succession.