According to Chuosha, Shonen Gahosha's manga magazine Young King Ours+ will cease publication after June's issue (which was released on 4/18).

MangaCast translates the weekly Doujinshi ranking (04/21) in Japan according to Toranoana, and the weekly BL Doujinshi ranking (04/21) in Japan according to Toranoana's BL specialty store Princess Side.

A special one-hour manga introductory class called "Manga! Manga! Manga!" will be held on May 24th at the New York Public Library's Celeste Bartos Education Center. Two more sessions will be held on June 28th and July 19th:

Manga is the Japanese word for printed comics and cartoons. [...] Come and learn about the different types of manga and why manga has become such a popular medium of communication, education, and entertainment in Japanese culture.

Via: ANN

ANN reports that a special sales campaign called the "I Love Fujoshi Fair" will take place on Wednesday in over 3,000 bookstores across Japan. The campaign's purpose is to promote two fujoshi works: Tonari no 801 chan by Ajiko Kojima and Fujoshi Kanojo (novel) by Petanbu:

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Mediation will be launching a new manga magazine on May 12th. The new magazine, titled Hug, is a BL manga magazine aimed at the adult Otome (maiden).

The first issue of Moe???Star, a bi-monthly Moe comic-illustration magazine that serializes comics and novels, was released by Mirai Shounen on April 20th.

According to Dengeki Online, Alchemist will be starting a new web delivery light novel magazine titled Shounen Alchemist. Light novels will be serialized weekly on Shounen Alchemist's website and will be available to read free of charge. Shounen Alchemist is scheduled to start on May 1, 2007.

Alchemist originally announced Shounen Alchemist on April 1st, and the news was thought to be an April fools joke.

According to Japan Times, Foreign Minister Taro Aso is urging French Presidential Candidate Segolene Royal, who view manga as being violent and pornographic, to read manga:

As the French presidential election campaign enters its last days, Foreign Minister Taro Aso gave advice to one of the highest-profile candidates in the race: Read more Japanese comics.

Via: Precocious Curmudgeon

From Business Week comes an article titled "Forget Manga. Here's Manwha," which takes an in-depth look at Korean manhwa, and if it will be as successful in the U.S. as Japanese manga.

Manga Jouhou translates an article from IT Media titled "Should Copyrights be Changed for Industries, such as Rakugo, Doujinshi and Software?" that looks at the issue of how copyright should be handled differs depending on the type of the industry.