Top News

Nikkei dives 7%, ends below 14,500

Tokyo's Nikkei stock index falls more than 7 percent to end below 14,500 as selling triggered by weak Chinese data outpaced sharp gains made earlier.
8 hours ago

'Soldier' hacked on London street

Two men with butcher knives hack a man to death near a London military barracks, and one of them then goes on video, shouting political statements and waving a meat ...
8 hours ago

U.S. admits drones killed four Americans

The White House admits it killed four Americans in overseas counterterrorism operations since 2009, the first time it has publicly taken responsibility for the deaths.
8 hours ago

600 students lose loans for poor performance

by Tomohiro Osaki

About 600 university students are deemed no longer eligible for student loans because of their poor academic performance last year.
8 hours ago

National

Historians tour Takeshima, hit Japan

Three Japanese historians on Thursday visited the South Korean-controlled Takeshima islets claimed by Japan to carry out on-site research, a member of the group said. While dozens of people, including Japanese, are believed to ...
8 hours ago
World | Focus

Most buildings in 'Tornado Alley' lack shelters

Seventy-five percent of the world’s tornados occur in the U.S., yet few people who live in “Tornado Alley” bother with the trouble and expense of a proper shelter from the storms. Mel Evridge, 69, ...
8 hours ago
Food & Drink | EVERYMAN EATS

Chomp your way through spring

by Steve Trautlein

It’s no surprise that the Japanese get serious about eating and drinking come late spring, as yatai food carts roll out, a bevy of fresh vegetables appear on restaurant menus and the annual festival ...
8 hours ago

Latest News

Abe welcomes Thai leader, urges eased rules on food imports

Nissan to recall 841,000 cars over steering glitch

8 hours ago

Judo federation probes exec's alleged sexual misdeed against female athlete

8 hours ago

Life-saving 3-D airway printed for young boy

EU summit ends banking secrecy

8 hours ago

Damage from Oklahoma twister could exceed $2 billion

8 hours ago

LCCs revive female flight attendant aspirations

Bangladesh disaster probe blames owner

The head of an official inquiry into the deadly collapse of a Bangladesh factory complex said the building’s owner was the “main culprit” for the disaster because he violated construction codes. The cave-in of the eight-story Rana Plaza outside the capital last month killed ...

Sports

Baseball | SPORTS SCOPE

Fighters rookie Otani makes solid impression in mound debut

by Jason Coskrey

As far as debuts go, Shohei Otani's delivered. The celebrated rookie pitched fairly well on Thursday night, and though he finished outside the decision, he left the mound with the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters well within striking distance of the Tokyo Yakult Swallows.

Community

Issues | THE FOREIGN ELEMENT

Fear and incarceration, from Kampala to Nagoya

by Stephen Carr

“I was stopped by two men in a government-registered vehicle, blindfolded and dragged off the street. They took me away to a house in a place I did not know. I was forced into a room with blood all over the walls and floor, ...

Life

Food & Drink

Springtime beans aim for the sky

by Makiko Itoh

Throughout most of Japan, June is the rainy season. While all that rainfall is great for rice paddies so that we can have delicious new harvest rice in the fall, it makes it a rather dull month for seasonal produce: The summer’s bounty of ...

Culture

Stage

Shizuoka theater festival courts the avant-garde

by Nobuko Tanaka

Claude Regy says the team at the Shizuoka Performing Arts Center (SPAC) threw him the “best birthday party ever” when he arrived in Japan just days after the actual May 1 occasion. The 90-year-old French director is hoping for an even better birthday gift, ...

Opinion

Editorial

An overture to Pyongyang

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sent an aide, Mr. Isao Iijima — a former secretary to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi — to North Korea last week in an effort to make progress on unresolved bilateral issues, including the past abduction of Japanese nationals by North ...

Editorial

Mr. Murakami's tale of redemption

Mr. Haruki Murakami’s latest novel, “Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage,” his first since the publication of “1Q84″ about three years ago, sold a million copies in seven days after it hit the stands. The publisher, Bungei Shunju, printed 500,000 copies in ...

Walter Pincus

No heroes in AP news leak

Whoever provided the initial leak to the Associated Press in April 2012 not only broke the law but caused the abrupt end to a secret, joint U.S./Saudi/British operation in Yemen that offered valuable intelligence against al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. One goal was to ...

Lakshmi Puri

Global call to women standing on the sidelines

Hardly a day goes by without a news story on some violation of women’s rights. In recent months, appalling incidents of violence against women and girls — from Delhi to Johannesburg to Cleveland — have sparked public outrage and demands to tackle these horrific ...