A man on trial for the theft of a large number of shoes has admitted he committed the crimes because he gets his sexual kicks from sniffing people's used footwear, police said Tuesday. Makoto Endo, 40, is suspected of stealing 70 pairs of shoes worth ...

Politicians and campaigners are urging Germany to use the lessons of its own reunification to help bring North and South Korea together, but Berlin is in no rush to take up the challenge. A second summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader ...

The Defense Ministry said Tuesday it decided to cancel a port call by a helicopter carrier in South Korea this spring as relations between the two countries have been strained over alleged provocative acts by each of their militaries. Several Maritime Self-Defense Force ships including ...

At immigration control, an officer told Tsuneoka that his passport had been invalidated and that he was ordered to relinquish it — in effect banning him from leaving.

If Xi does visit Japan twice this year, it will be the first time a Chinese president has done so since Hu Jintao, Xi’s predecessor, in 2008.

Environmental legislation dubbed a Green New Deal championed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has drawn widespread attention — despite the fact that no one really knows for sure what it is. Now, as Ocasio-Cortez prepares to release a blueprint, details are emerging. "Next week, we plan to ...

The United States and Japan need to maintain a strong security alliance to quickly respond to any threat in the Asia-Pacific region, the new commander of U.S. Forces Japan said Tuesday. "Because of the clear threats to peace and security in this region, we must ...

Three members of the government's advisory panel on city gas market deregulation repeatedly received donations from a gas industry organization, documents obtained by Kyodo News showed Monday. While the recipients, who are all public university professors, say the Japan Gas Association's donations, which totaled ¥39 ...

Donald Trump's desire to put "America First" has fostered new disputes between the United States and its allies. In Asia, old rivalries are also roaring back. Ties between Japan and South Korea — two of Washington's closest security partners — have arguably turned their most ...

Pharmacists will likely be allowed to hold online consultations with patients about their medication from April 2020, reflecting the rising demand for in-home medical care among the country's rapidly graying population, officials said Tuesday. The central government already allows doctors to conduct online consultations, and ...

The U.K. promised Nissan up to £80 million ($104 million) of support and offered Brexit-related assurances to help secure a major investment from the Japanese carmaker in 2016, according to a well-guarded letter released Monday. Nissan said in October 2016 that it would build the ...

One of Donald Trump's most persistent economic promises as president has been to rewrite the U.S. relationship with China. Yet as he approaches a potential deal, some of the very hawks who have cheered on his trade war already fear he may end up ...

While the girl was not extremely underweight, the autopsy revealed there was almost no food inside her stomach, indicating that she had not been fed sufficiently.

The island of Tasmania has long been renowned for producing some of Australia's tastiest seafood. But when warming seas allowed a foreign species of sea urchin to move farther south, devastating valuable fisheries, local businesses tried to innovate and ended up fostering a new industry ...

The government is promoting free vaccinations against rubella for men age 39 to 56, using characters from a manga series thought to resonate with that generation. The number of reported rubella cases in 2018 surged to the second-highest level since 2008, when the current survey ...

The U.S. special envoy for North Korea will meet with his North Korean counterpart on Wednesday in Pyongyang to prepare for a summit later this month between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, the U.S. State Department said Monday. U.S. envoy ...

The United States and South Korea have reached an agreement "in principle" on sharing the cost of stationing U.S. troops in the Asian country, the State Department said Monday, in a move likely to have implications for Japan. "The United States and the Republic of ...

North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile programs remain intact and the country is working to make sure those capabilities cannot be destroyed by any military strikes, according to a confidential report by U.N. sanctions monitors. The report to a 15-member U.N. Security Council sanctions committee, ...

Icy Arctic islands north of Norway are warming faster than almost anywhere on Earth and more avalanches, rain and mud may cause "devastating" changes by 2100, a Norwegian report said on Monday. The thaw on the remote Svalbard islands, home to 2,300 people and where ...

President Donald Trump's chief economist predicted wage growth in the U.S. will accelerate past 4 percent this year amid a strong labor market, more capital investment and rising productivity. "What we're seeing is basically a really strong economy with solid wage growth that I think ...

The thaw seems increasingly like the calm before the storm.

Pyongyang doesn't appear ready to engage with Tokyo. Whether that changes with the second U.S.-North Korea summit remains to be seen.

The defeat of British Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit deal means that all options are the table.

As I stand in the cramped wooden gangway at the side of the stage, going over my lines in a frantic whisper, I am reminded of something that American comedian Patrick Harlan had told me when we first met four months ago. "The importance of ...

Students and stage fans will see whether a hastily arranged series of performances of Bertolt Brecht's "The Threepenny Opera" this weekend can break a decades-long standoff over the closure of Japan's oldest student dormitory: the wooden Yoshida ryō (Yoshida Dormitory) at Kyoto University. The Japanese-style ...

Gentaro Komaki (1906-89), the son of a Kyoto Prefecture silk crepe wholesaler, lived a decadent youth of literature and philosophy, until seeing the work of Max Ernst and Yves Tanguy inspired to pursue surrealist art.

Feb. 9-April 7 Published in 1970, "Lineage of Eccentrics" by the art historian Nobuo Tsuji became a seminal work for its re-appraisal of the work of artists that were considered as "eccentric " during the Edo Period (1603-1868). Such artists were admired for their individual ...

Feb. 9-March 21 Three artists, all associated with the Shonan area of Kanagawa Prefecture, have been brought together for this exhibition focusing on the expressive potential of dots and lines in contemporary art. Minako Ishikawa's finely painted lines subtly change from one color to the next ...

Feb. 9-May 6 Conceptual artist Christian Boltanski was first recognized for short films he made in the late 1960s. He moved on to photography in the '70s, before working with light as a medium and creating installations during the '80s. Driven by an interest in cultural ...

Police have decided not seek an indictment against former coaches of Nihon University's American football team over accusations that they instructed a player to commit a dangerous tackle on an opponent, investigative sources said Tuesday. In documents sent to prosecutors the same day, the Tokyo ...

American Lindsey Vonn crashed heavily in the super-G at the Alpine Ski World Championships on Tuesday in what was the penultimate race of her glittering career. She appeared to lose control coming off a jump early in her run and careered into the safety netting ...

Vissel Kobe are set to wrap up a weather-interrupted preseason tour to southern California on Tuesday, which the J. League club hopes will jump-start its campaign for a title. The star-studded club embarked on the tour on Jan. 24 and will return home after its ...

With a significant pair of wins during the previous window of the Asian qualifiers in Toyama late last year, the Akatsuki Five got much closer to clinching a berth for this summer's FIBA World Cup finals in China. But Julio Lamas, the Japan men's national ...

The skating season gets back in full swing this week with the Four Continents Championships in Anaheim, California, starting on Thursday. Japan's women will be looking for their second straight sweep of the podium at the event. Japan is sending a strong team that includes ...