China's most advanced dredging vessel — which it calls "a magic island-maker" — returned to a shipyard in Qidong, in eastern Jiangsu province on Tuesday after completing its first sea trial, state-run media said Wednesday. The vessel, the largest of its kind in Asia and ...

The Diet passes a package of amendments that — for the first time in 140 years — includes a measure lowering adulthood to 18 years old from the current 20.

The nuclear watchdog approves a plan to scrap a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in Ibaraki Prefecture over a 70-year period, with the cost projected at ¥1 trillion.

The Japan Association of National Universities (JANU) has adopted its new English proficiency benchmarks for entry into state-run universities, which now measure English speaking and writing skills, giving high school students a better grasp of the language before entering college. The new standard approved by ...

While same-sex marriage has not been legalized in Japan, some firms in the country's wedding jewelry industry have started taking steps to make their products and stores more LGBT-friendly. Primo Japan Inc. announced earlier this month that it has started to promote a "gender-free" concept ...

Although iTutorGroup has turned into one of the largest online marketplaces of learning in the world, earning itself a $1 billion valuation along the way, the company can trace its roots back to the pre-internet age, when English tutoring was restricted to face-to-face interaction. When ...

North Korea said Wednesday that U.S. President Donald Trump had told leader Kim Jong Un that he intended to halt joint U.S.-South Korea military exercises and ease crippling sanctions against Pyongyang, suggesting via state media that the American leader had explicitly acceded to two ...

Survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have welcomed North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's commitment for "complete denuclearization" of the Korean Peninsula, calling it a major step toward achieving a nuclear-free world. At their historic summit on Tuesday in Singapore, Kim and ...

Christophe Weber says growth and innovation are the metrics for success in Takeda Pharmaceutical Co.'s $62 billion purchase of Shire PLC. The first order of business is bringing global shareholders around to Japan's biggest-ever outbound takeover. The Takeda CEO is facing a 21 percent drop ...

Police detain four people in Kyoto and Kobe for allegedly allowing customers at their bars to play video games without the game-makers’ permission.

Two men have been detained in connection with the abandonment of a woman's body, which was confirmed Tuesday to be that of a nurse who went missing last month, police said. The men, one in his 20s and another in his 40s, were arrested on ...

British American Tobacco PLC said the rapid growth of tobacco-heating products in Japan has slowed, adding to doubts that the category can offset the decline in traditional cigarettes. Market share gains of BAT's Glo device have stalled over the last seven weeks, after the tobacco-heating ...

The Diet enacts a law to move national holidays to days linked to 2020 Olympic ceremonies, to alleviate traffic congestion in the Tokyo metropolitan area.

Toyota Motor Corp. will acquire a $1 billion stake in Grab in one of the largest investments by a carmaker in a ride-hailing provider, underscoring the push by the auto industry to move from manufacturing to services. The deal extends Toyota's cooperation with GrabTaxi Pte. ...

Malaysia's two most senior judges have resigned from their posts, as Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's government purges top officials seen as close to the previous administration. The list of top officials who have either been removed from or quit their posts has steadily grown over ...

In closing her testimony during court proceedings of a class-action lawsuit filed by relatives of leprosy patients, plaintiff Nobuko Harada told the Kumamoto District Court in a quivering voice, "All I want is an apology from the government while I am alive." Harada, 74, is ...

When U.S. President Donald Trump sat down to make the case for peace to North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un on Tuesday, he rolled out what amounted to a movie trailer starring the two leaders. Trump said he urged Kim and other North Korean officials ...

AT&T Inc. won approval from a U.S. court on Tuesday to buy Time Warner Inc. for $85 billion, allowing AT&T to compete with internet companies that dominate digital advertising and providing new sources of revenue. The planned deal is seen as a turning point for ...

Trump should stay committed to the goal of denuclearlizing North Korea, even if it means walking away from negotiations.

Tokyo needs to reassess its relations with the U.S. and its dependency on it for security.

"It's so warm in here!" exclaims Juliette Binoche. "You know in (Michael) Haneke's film, I have a scene where I kind of suffocate and I think that I'm going to die? It feels like that! Do you think you can open the window?" The grande ...

When a Japanese director wins the Palme d'Or — the highest award at the Cannes Film Festival, the film world's equivalent of soccer's World Cup — the response of the local media is to celebrate: Our side won. Making the victory sweeter for Hirokazu Kore-eda ...

Following in the noble tradition of "Sharknado," "Snakes on a Plane" and "Sex and the City 2," this elaborately executed nonsense is the kind of project where you just know that the title came first. "Batman Ninja" (or "Ninja Batman" as it's being called ...

Donald Trump on Tuesday hit back at Robert De Niro, calling him a "very low IQ individual," after the Oscar-winning actor's expletive-laden attack on the American president on live television. Two days after De Niro's outburst on the stage of the Tony Awards ceremony in ...

Catcher Tomoya Ichikawa belted a two-run home run off his first pro club, lifting the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks to a 4-2 interleague win over the Yomiuri Giants on Wednesday. The 33-year-old Ichikawa, acquired in an April trade from the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters, was the ...

The World Cup kicks off on Thursday (midnight Friday, Japan time) in Russia, marking the tournament's return to Europe for the first time since 2006. Thirty-two teams will compete over the next month for a place in the final at Moscow's Luzhniki Stadium on ...

Los Angeles Dodgers right-hander Kenta Maeda will be activated off the disabled list and make his next start Wednesday in the second game of an interleague series against the Texas Rangers, manager Dave Roberts announced Tuesday. Maeda was placed on the 10-day disabled list with ...

Tochinoshin's promotion to ozeki comes with many perks. Most are connected to his life as an active wrestler, such as a boost in salary and parking privileges. One that kicks in after retirement, though, is an automatic three-year grace period before he has to acquire ...

Tiger Woods gave the state of his game a tentative thumbs-up on Tuesday ahead of the U.S. Open, but slammed the door shut on questions about his private life as he prepared for Thursday's first round. Barely a year after being arrested asleep at the ...

The top U.S. counterintelligence official is advising Americans traveling to Russia for soccer's World Cup beginning this week that they should not take electronic devices because they are likely to be hacked by criminals or the Russian government. In a statement to Reuters on Tuesday, ...

Takashi Inui sent Japan into the World Cup on a bright note on Tuesday, scoring twice in a 4-2 win over Paraguay in the team's final warmup match. Inui made up for an ugly first-half miss to score a brace after the Samurai Blue came ...