Taro Kono's appointment as the new foreign minister is raising eyebrows. Though he hasn't shown any indication that he will buck Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's agenda, Kono is considered a leftish maverick within the Liberal Democratic Party, especially with regard to its nuclear energy ...

Family members of those who died in the worst single-plane accident ever gather on the mountain in Gunma where JAL Flight 123 crashed 32 years ago, killing 520.

Over a million performers and spectators will flock to Shikoku this weekend for one of Japan's largest dance festivals after organizers stepped up efforts to accommodate foreign visitors. The annual Awa Odori festival, which originates from the Buddhist custom of honoring the spirits of one's ...

An annual ninja test from Shiga Prefecture will be held at a Tokyo temple for the first time this October, putting the town of Koka, home to a famous clan of the shadowy feudal warriors, in the tourism spotlight. Zojoji Temple, the temple of the ...

The owner of an amateur-built submarine was arrested on suspicion of murder Friday after his vessel sank off Denmark's coast and a journalist who had joined him for what was supposed to be a short voyage was reported missing, Copenhagen police said. Police said in ...

Andrew Mitola had never heard of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. until he met recruiters for the bank during his junior year of college. Now the New Jersey native is among the first to join Japan's biggest lender under an overseas graduate hiring program it ...

A U.S. veteran who fought on Tarawa and Saipan visits Japan to return a Hinomaru flag to the family of the fallen soldier he took it from.

The U.S. Marine Corps orders a one-day grounding of all its aircraft worldwide following the fatal crash of an MV-22 Osprey off Australia earlier this month.

If an attack warning is issued, Guam residents should take cover quickly — in a concrete structure, preferably underground — and stay there until instructed otherwise, according to a fact sheet titled "Preparing for an Imminent Missile Threat." Guam's Office of Civil Defense began disseminating ...

Israeli Holocaust survivor Yisrael Kristal, certified last year by Guinness World Records as the world's oldest man, died Friday at the age of 113, Israeli media reported. Since he was an observant Jew, his family could not be reached Friday evening, the onset of the ...

U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday threatened military intervention in Venezuela, a surprise escalation of Washington's response to Venezuela's political crisis that Caracas disparaged as "craziness." Venezuela has appeared to slide toward a more volatile stage of unrest in recent days, with anti-government forces looting ...

President Uhuru Kenyatta was declared the winner Friday of Kenya's hard-fought presidential election, but opposition candidate Raila Odinga alleged the voting was rigged. In announcing the results of Tuesday's contest, the election commission said Kenyatta won a second term with 54 percent in balloting it ...

The nightmarish horrors of India's partition by the British 70 years ago on Aug. 15, 1947, cast a long shadow into the 21st century.

Consumers, retailers and businesses nationwide throw away millions of tons of food each year, with waste ultimately affecting profit levels and keeping officials up at night. Food loss can happen at any stage in the production process, whether it be harvesting, processing, retailing or consumption. It's ...

For Misaki Morino, Vienna lives up to both its names: The City of Music and The City of Dreams.

The Gion Matsuri came to a close at the end of July, but there's still time to enjoy one of the dishes most closely associated with that famous festival. Hamo, called dagger-tooth pike eel in English, has long been one of the Kansai region's ...

It all began with bread crusts — lots and lots of bread crusts. Tatsuya Sakamaki, owner of bread manufacturer Bongout in the Saitama city of Kawaguchi, was troubled by the bags of crusts that would accumulate from the 50 loaves of white sandwich bread he ...

Most visitors to Kyoto rarely venture west of the Katsura River. On the face of it, the western tract of the city of Kyoto pales in comparison to Higashiyama in the east, which feels as though it could crumble under the weight of world ...

Kissaten Nasu is three separate but conjoined entities: As the name of the restaurant implies, it's a kissaten, a traditional cafe. But it's also a curry shop and a jazz cafe, and the master might just be one of the most dapper and suave ...

Despite falling sales in Japan, sake is experiencing an increase in popularity in Britain. The popularity seems to be reflected not only in brisk local sales but also in talk in the media that the Japanese rice wine may finally be entering the mainstream. According ...

Harajuku has gone gaga over food designed for Instagram. Walk down Takeshita Street and you'll probably see people snapping shots of giant, rainbow-colored cotton candy and the like. The latest entrant into this realm is Coisof, an ice cream store located on a side street ...

"Mother, when are you ever going to die?" Inheritance From Mother, by Minae Mizumura.447 pages OTHER PRESS, Fiction. The question is shocking indeed. But Mitsuki Hirayama, a teacher and translator of French and the heroine of Minae Mizumura's new novel, "Inheritance from Mother," dreams of the day ...

Japan's passion for the modern coexists with aesthetic proclivities that favor antiquity and refinement. Wabi Sabi: The Art of Impermanence, by Andrew Juniper.176 pages TUTTLE, Nonfiction. One expression of the appreciation for age and beauty is the much-cherished effect known as wabi-sabi, the subject of Andrew Juniper's ...

Pop star Taylor Swift on Friday won an important ruling in the trial stemming from her allegation that she was groped by a Colorado disc jockey, with the judge dismissing the DJ's rival claim accusing the singer of wrongfully getting him fired. The ruling by ...

Japan won its second game of the FIBA Asia Cup Saturday, beating Hong Kong 92-59 to secure a place in a quarterfinal qualifier by finishing second in its group. Never troubled by a Hong Kong team that ended the preliminary phase with an 0-3 record ...

Kodai Senga went seven innings to win a pitchers' duel with Naoyuki Uwasawa as the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks beat the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters 1-0 to remain on top of the Pacific League on Saturday. Senga (10-2) struck out nine, walked two and surrendered five ...

Usain Bolt set the stage for his grand farewell, powering down the finishing straight Saturday to qualify Jamaica for the 4x100-meter relay final at the world championships. Fittingly, he will face Justin Gatlin and the United States in the final chapter of his unparalleled career ...

Sara Takanashi and Yuki Ito finished second and third, respectively, at the first summer Grand Prix competition of the season on Friday. Takanashi started off with a jump of 89.0 meters and tried to make up for it with a 90.0 for a score of ...

The Hanshin Tigers' pitchers need to step up. The past several days have been hard on the Tigers, with the team watching its top two pitchers go down with injuries in a span of five days. Now it's up to the rest of the rotation ...

American Brittney Reese claimed her fourth world long jump title on Friday after a tense, tight contest in which only 6 cm separated the top four competitors. Darya Klishina, competing as a neutral athlete after the Russian federation was banned over state-sponsored doping, took silver ...

The NFL suspended star Dallas Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott for six games Friday, concluding after a yearlong investigation that the league's leading rusher injured his former girlfriend in three separate incidents last summer. According to the letter Elliott received informing him of the suspension, ...

Swiss star Roger Federer outclassed Roberto Bautista Agut as he inched closer to his sixth title of the season with a 6-4, 6-4 win in the quarterfinals of the Montreal Masters on Friday. Federer hammered five aces, made just two double faults and won 81 ...

The Premier League made a thrilling return, and Arsenal finally had something to celebrate on the opening weekend. It took the arrival of Aaron Ramsey and Olivier Giroud from the bench in the second half to turn it around against Leicester and give Arsenal only ...

Two of the game's best players reached impressive statistical marks on Friday. Giancarlo Stanton hit his MLB-leading 40th home run as the Miami Marlins beat Nolan Arenado and the Colorado Rockies 6-3 on Friday night. "When he's making contact, he's got a good shot to continue ...

Duke University men's basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski's "fist" analogy to describe how a team gets stronger when it plays as a group is well-known. Antonio Lang, who played for Coach K at Duke, certainly knows the analogy is correct as he and his fellow Blue ...

Most meaningful of all the text messages Hideki Matsuyama received last week was the one from Jason Day congratulating the star for his 61 in the final round at Firestone to win his second World Golf Championship. It read: "Congrats, mate. Unreal playing. See you ...