The U.S. Marines in Okinawa said Wednesday that a piece of rubber protective tape attached to a wing blade of a U.S. military helicopter fell onto the grounds of a junior high school in Okinawa the previous day. It was the latest incident involving a ...

Toyota said U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposal to slap tariffs on Mexican-made goods could cost its major suppliers $1 billion, highlighting growing concern in the U.S. auto sector.

The prospect of legal action backed by France marks a new headache for the former Nissan CEO, with the country’s finance ministry identifying €11 million in questionable expenses.

The government plans to support the creation of 300,000 jobs over the next three years for people who have failed to secure permanent employment since the collapse of Japan's economic bubble in the early 1990s, a draft policy guideline showed Tuesday. The support will include ...

An elementary school whose students were attacked in a deadly knife rampage last week in Kawasaki reopened Wednesday, with teachers and security guards keeping a lookout for pupils as they traveled to and from the school. Following the May 28 attack on children waiting for ...

A resolution against opposition lawmaker Hodaka Maruyama came after the government verified remarks he made during a visa-free exchange program between Japan and Russia in May were problematic.

When Pakistan closed its airspace during a conflict with India in February, Malaysia Airlines was not one of the carriers left scrambling to reroute flights because it had already done so two weeks earlier, the carrier's chief executive said. Nearly five years after Malaysia Airlines ...

Australian police raided the headquarters of the Australian Broadcasting Corp., the country's public broadcaster, Wednesday in the second high-profile probe into news outlets in 24 hours, amid a crackdown on sensitive leaks. ABC executives said police searched the corporation's offices in Sydney, targeting three journalists ...

Boris Johnson, the front-runner to replace Theresa May as U.K. prime minister, warned Conservative Party colleagues that they face "extinction" if they didn't deliver Brexit by the current deadline of Oct. 31. "We are facing an existential crisis and will not be forgiven if we ...

East Japan Railway Co., or JR East, has announced a plan to test new electric-powered trains using hydrogen fuel cells from fiscal 2021. The railway operator will spend about ¥4 billion on the development of a two-car setup and test runs, aiming to commercialize such ...

The number of measles patients in Japan has been growing quickly since the beginning of this year, according to the latest data compiled by the National Institute of Infectious Diseases. The reported patient count came to 566 for the period between Jan. 1 and May ...

Police have arrested seven Chinese men on suspicion of possessing around a ton of stimulants seized at a beach in central Japan, investigative sources said Wednesday. The record seizure for a single bust in Japan occurred in Minamiizu, Shizuoka Prefecture, earlier this week. The quantity ...

The government decided Tuesday to take more steps to enable people to use national identification cards in place of health insurance certificates at almost all hospitals by March 2023. The government plans to release a road map, possibly in August, containing a set of new ...

Musician and actor Pierre Taki pleaded guilty on Wednesday to charges of using cocaine in violation of the narcotics control law. Taki, 52, whose real name is Masanori Taki, attended the opening session of his trial at Tokyo District Court. The prosecution sought an 18-month prison ...

Rakuten plans to invest ¥194.6 billion in the system and install around 16,000 base stations nationwide in a bid to attract users away from the country’s three major carriers.

Days after this year's "mass games" debuted before North Korea's top leadership, the huge pageant has been put on hold after leader Kim Jong Un expressed his dissatisfaction, foreign tour groups said on Wednesday. Kim and his wife were among the elite at the premiere ...

Central banks are resuming their first-responder role as the world economy runs into trouble, even as they lack the firepower they once had at their disposal. With Australia cutting interest rates Tuesday for the first time in three years and India likely to follow Thursday, ...

In a move to better compete with a rival train operator's famous "7-minute miracle" for cleaning a shinkansen between its arrival and departure, Central Japan Railway Co. will shave off two minutes from its own bullet train cleaning work, beginning next spring. JR Central plans ...

Atomic bombing survivor and peace advocate Setsuko Thurlow called for action for the good of society in a graduation speech at her alma mater in Canada on Tuesday. Thurlow, 87, who survived the 1945 U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima, told graduates at the University of ...

Upper House lawmaker Antonio Inoki plans to make a six-day trip to North Korea from June 21 to meet officials there, sources familiar with the plan said Tuesday. The envisioned trip by the wrestler-turned-lawmaker, who has developed close ties with North Korea through sports exchanges, ...

The World Bank on Tuesday revised growth forecasts downward for the world and Japan for this year as a tit-for-tat tariff war between the United States and China has led to slowing trade and investment. In its semiannual Global Economic Prospects report, the Washington-based institution ...

Professional shogi player Yoshiharu Habu earned his 1,434th win at a tournament in Tokyo on Tuesday, setting a record for victories in the traditional Japanese board game. The 48-year-old achieved the feat by beating Takuya Nagase, the 26-year-old Eio title holder, after last month matching ...

The company that makes and distributes Heineken beer in Japan said Tuesday it is eyeing a year-on-year sales rise of about 70 percent between September and November, when the country will be hosting the Rugby World Cup. Heineken Kirin K.K., an affiliate of Kirin Holdings ...

Around 100,000 Czechs filled Prague's Wenceslas Square on Tuesday to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Andrej Babis in the biggest demonstration the country has seen in decades. The 64-year-old billionaire was charged last year in connection with a €2 million ($2.25 million) EU subsidy ...

The Trump administration granted two authorizations to U.S. companies to share sensitive nuclear power information with Saudi Arabia shortly after the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in October, a U.S. senator who saw the approvals said on Tuesday. The timing of the approvals is likely ...

An elderly driver and his wife died after their speeding car entered an intersection and hit a vehicle attempting to turn in the city of Fukuoka on Tuesday night, spurring an accident that involved at least four other vehicles, police said. A total of nine ...

In the latest in a spate of increasingly threatening warnings by North Korea, the country's Foreign Ministry has urged the U.S. to "change its current method of calculation" in nuclear negotiations or risk turning last year's Singapore joint declaration into a "mere blank sheet ...

Leaders of big tech companies will be asked to testify as part of an investigation into whether the companies misuse their massive market power, the head of the U.S. House Judiciary subcommittee leading the probe said on Tuesday. The comments came a day after sources ...

U.S. President Donald Trump backtracked on comments that Britain's public health service should be on the table in future post-Brexit trade talks between the two countries, after Prime Minister Theresa May said some areas might be off-limits. The National Health Service (NHS) is a cherished ...

Deforestation of the Amazon rain forest in Brazil sped up in May to the fastest rate in a decade, according to data from an early-warning satellite system, as experts pointed to activity by illegal loggers encouraged by the easing of environmental protections under President ...

Identity politics is reshaping electoral contests as cultural nationalists push back against the perceived excesses of social progressives.

As Japan moves toward Society 5.0, there is a need for a much more transparent accounting of the possible downsides surrounding this transition, and further consideration of how some of the risks can be minimized.

Whatever intriguing cultural differences we may have as human beings, it would appear that there are certain fundamentals that remain the same wherever you go — eating, sleeping and walking, for example. Yet, if you think about it, even these fundamentals vary radically from place ...

Why are thespians the world over so drawn to "Waiting for Godot," that for many older actors playing one of its leads is as much a matter of professional pride as playing Hamlet is for younger ones? And why, in a poll by the U.K.'s ...

Con artists in movies are typically likeable rogues who prey on the deserving. The title character of Yuichi Hibi's "Erica 38," who is neither "Erica" nor "38," is closer to the unlikable reality: A woman who dupes others with no discernible guilt or remorse, ...

"Children of the Sea" has achieved the impossible. The new animated film from Studio 4°C adapts the manga of the same name by Daisuke Igarashi — whose idiosyncratic, wispy illustrations, with their huge numbers of flowing lines, always seemed impractical, if not downright impossible to ...

Warning: The following interview contains spoilers for Haruki Murakami's latest novel, "Killing Commendatore." The second installment of a two-part interview with novelist Haruki Murakami In "Killing Commendatore," the knife pierces the Commendatore's thin body until it comes out through his back. His white clothes and the ...

Following the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, that claimed 17 lives in early 2018, Japanese filmmaker Emily Taguchi and her team spent months with members of the grieving community, documenting their recovery and activism in the wake of ...

Warning: The following interview contains spoilers for Haruki Murakami's latest novel, "Killing Commendatore." Best-selling Japanese author Haruki Murakami sat down for an interview with Kyodo News in April on the 40th anniversary of his debut novel "Hear the Wind Sing." Here he speaks about his ...

The Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks made the most of having former ace Tsuyoshi Wada on the mound for the first time since 2017 in a 5-2 interleague win over the Chunichi Dragons on Wednesday. Wada, who has not pitched since the 2017 Japan Series due to ...

Japan showed plenty of attacking energy but was foiled by Trinidad and Tobago 'keeper Marvin Phillip in Wednesday's scoreless draw. Although fans at Toyota Stadium were denied a national team debut from 18-year-old wunderkind Takefusa Kubo, who was left off the bench, Japan, ranked 26th ...

Surfers and students participated in a trash-picking event at the surfing venue of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics on Wednesday in a bid to raise awareness about ocean plastic pollution in the buildup to the games. Teen surfer Minori Kawai, who is hoping to qualify for ...

Asanoyama is sumo's latest champion. The Takasago stable wrestler's victory in the May tournament makes him the fourth rikishi to win a debut championship in the past six meets — something that hasn't happened in 19 years. Asanoyama is also one of four former amateur sumo ...

I last wrote about FC Tokyo midfielder Takefusa Kubo in this column a little over three months ago, reflecting on his impressive performance against reigning champion Kawasaki Frontale on the J. League's opening day. He's only gotten better, netting four goals and making an additional ...