President Barack Obama seizes one last diplomatic chance to avoid military strikes on Syria but explains why the U.S. must retaliate for the alleged use of chemical weapons.

Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroshige Seko, a key aide to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and politician Kumiko Hayashi of the Democratic Party of Japan recently got married, secretaries to the lawmakers said Wednesday. It is rare for a senior official in the prime minister’s ...

NTT DoCoMo Inc. has agreed to start selling Apple Inc.’s latest iPhones in an effort to halt the erosion of its market share by its smaller rivals. The two new models for DoCoMo’s network — a cheaper version in bright colors and an updated ...

Nissan Motor Co., seeking a boost for its second-best-selling U.S. model, has revamped the Rogue small sport utility vehicle to get a bigger share of the growing crossover segment from Honda Motor Co. and Ford Motor Co. The 2014 Rogue, longer and wider than ...

Scandal-tainted Olympus Corp. has no immediate plan to renew lineups of conventional single-lens reflex cameras, President Hiroyuki Sasa said Tuesday. “For the time being, we have no intention” to introduce new models, Sasa said at a press conference in Tokyo, suggesting that the company ...

Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Visa Inc. and Nike Inc. will be added to the Dow Jones Industrial Average, replacing Bank of America Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co. and Alcoa Inc. in the biggest reshuffling since April 2004.

As diplomats wrangled over competing plans for securing Syria’s chemical weapons, arms-control experts warned Tuesday of the formidable challenges involved in carrying out such a complex and risky operation in the midst of a raging civil war. U.N. teams dispatched to Syria for the ...

The famous No. 28 tram, winding its way through the narrow streets of Lisbon, is packed. Foreign tourists are flocking to Lisbon, as well as the southern coastal Algarve region — and that’s just the shot in the arm that the crisis-hit country needs. ...

As the population shrinks and competition from overseas stiffens, even the most popular local theater troupes are finding it increasingly difficult to attract new fans at home. So now they’re taking their shows abroad. For example, in April, the all-female Takarazuka Revue Company performed ...

A new library that opened in Funabashi, Chiba Prefecture, in April is not an ivory tower of books, but an innovative attempt to boost liquor sales and interest in libraries themselves. Sake.come Maehara Library was built in a liquor store. The microlibrary consists of ...

“We are now living in a super, hyper-extended information society,” says curator Masafumi Fukugawa, “and that idea was the starting point for our new exhibition.” Fukagawa is one of five curators of “Being-in-the-Wired-World,” a group exhibition at Kawasaki City Museum that features eight emerging ...

There’s nothing like a comeback story. This summer, Japan saw a return to the stage by Seiji Ozawa, one of the country’s most celebrated musicians. On Aug. 23, the 78-year-old maestro took up his baton at the Saito Kinen Festival Matsumoto, the event he ...

In Wim Wenders’ 1984 film “Paris, Texas,” Walt (Dean Stockwell) picks up his younger brother Travis (Harry Dean Stanton), who had disappeared in the desert four years earlier, to drive him back to Los Angeles. As Walt drives, Travis shows him a weathered picture ...

Saul Landau, an Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker whose work gave an unprecedented glimpse into Fidel Castro’s Cuba, and who co-wrote a riveting account of a Washington assassination linked to Chilean strongman Augusto Pinochet, died Sept. 9 at his home in Alameda, California. He was ...

Before facing the Hiroshima Carp, Wladimir Balentien and teammate Ryoji Aikawa decided they were going to go with a high-sock look, or as Balentien put it, “old-school, Sadaharu Oh-style.” He really resembled the Yomiuri Giants legend when he stroked a history-making home run into ...

Japan’s Ryo Miyazaki narrowly beat Mexican challenger Jesus Silvestre on points to retain the World Boxing Association minimumweight title in Osaka on Wednesday. The 25-year-old champion had his left eyelid cut when the two banged heads accidentally in the second round and the corner ...

Japan forward Keisuke Honda insists he remains as focused as ever despite missing out on a transfer to AC Milan last week, and denies a January switch to the Italian powerhouse is a foregone conclusion. Honda, who scored Japan’s third goal in a 3-1 ...