(7 Feb 2026) RESTRICTION SUMMARY: ASSOCIATED PRESS Tokyo - 7 February 2026 1. Various of first voters as polling station opens STORYLINE: Polls opened Sunday in Japanese parliamentary elections that Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi hopes will give her struggling governing party a big enough win to be able to push forward an ambitious conservative political agenda. Takaichi is hugely popular, but the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, which has governed Japan for most of the last seven decades, is