The government advised citizens on Wednesday to refrain from all nonessential overseas travel as the coronavirus continues to spread. The Foreign Ministry raised its travel advisory for the rest of the world to Level 2 on its scale of four, the broadest warning it has ...

Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike on Wednesday requested that people refrain from going outside this weekend for nonessential reasons, due to concerns over a sharp rise in the number of coronavirus infections in the Japanese capital. The governor also asked people to work at home as ...

The coronavirus pandemic could plunge Japan into deep economic stagnation, the country's central bankers warned at last week's emergency monetary policy meeting, with one seeing room for more stimulus, a summary of their discussion showed Wednesday. The Bank of Japan expanded monetary stimulus in an ...

Unidentified gunmen and suicide bombers raided a Sikh religious complex in the Afghan capital of Kabul on Wednesday, killing 25 people before security forces killed all of the attackers, the government said. Sikhs have been the target of attack by Islamist militants before in South ...

Finance ministers and central bankers from the world’s 20 largest economies agreed Monday to develop an action plan to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, which the IMF now expects to trigger a global recession, but disclosed no specifics. The G20 secretariat issued the statement after ...

Close aides to former Justice Minister Katsuyuki Kawai and his wife, Anri Kawai, both ruling party lawmakers, were indicted Tuesday over unlawful rewards paid to Anri Kawai's campaign staff during the Upper House election last summer, raising the possibility she will lose her parliamentary ...

The one-year deferral announcement for the quadrennial sporting event amid the COVID-19 pandemic marks the beginning of a fresh chapter in what had already seemed an uphill battle for Japan.

The SDF report is believed to be one of the largest analyses of symptoms caused by the new virus to be compiled in Japan, according to the Defense Ministry.

The education ministry said Tuesday it had completed its first screening of new textbooks under revised teaching guidelines that are planned to be fully implemented from April 2021, approving 106 textbooks in 10 subjects. The average number of pages for a batch of textbooks approved ...

Veteran comedian Ken Shimura has tested positive for the new coronavirus that causes COVID-19, his agent said Wednesday, making him the first Japanese entertainment figure to announce their infection publicly. The 70-year-old Shimura, known for performing as popular characters including Baka Tonosama, meaning stupid lord, ...

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party is considering supporting the re-election of Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike in the July 5 gubernatorial poll, sources familiar with the matter said Tuesday. LDP Secretary-General Toshihiro Nikai, who sees Koike as "a candidate who can win," apparently overrode the wish ...

Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. said Tuesday it may spend up to 20 to 30 years releasing contaminated water into the surrounding environment from its disaster-crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. The possible time span was mentioned in draft plans Tepco drew up ...

The Osaka High Court has rejected a retrial petition by an inmate who was sentenced to death for murdering four and sickening over 60 others in 1998, by poisoning curry served at a festival in Wakayama Prefecture. Lawyers for Masumi Hayashi, 58, plan to appeal ...

Why did Mika Nishiyama, a former assistant nurse who served 12 years in prison for murdering a male patient in 2003, falsely confess to killing him?

Japan Post Holdings Co. has received a proposal by a group company to cut 10,000 jobs, as the scandal-hit company seeks to offset deteriorating earnings in the financial business by slashing labor costs, a source close to the matter said Monday. Japan Post Bank Co., ...

U.S. President Donald Trump told Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during phone talks Wednesday that a roughly one-year postponement of the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics was a "wise and great" decision, Japan's top government spokesman has said. A day after the International Olympic Committee board endorsed ...

Passersby in front of Tokyo Station gathered around a popular Olympics countdown clock to take pictures Wednesday as it stopped displaying the number of days until the games after the event was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic. The Tokyo 2020 Olympics had been scheduled ...

Doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo's sarin gas attack on Tokyo subway trains shocked Japan and the world, raising concerns over nonstate organizations obtaining weapons of mass destruction.

The coronavirus pandemic has made it clear that Japan lags far behind other countries in putting new digital technologies to actual use.

By postponing the games, Abe has put Japan — and himself — at the center of the post-pandemic recovery effort.

Lee Ufan’s new paintings look very different depending on where you are standing. From a distance, when you can take in several of the large canvases at the same time, abstract shapes seem to emphatically announce themselves as existing; however, they are also pointedly ...

This year’s edition of the Japan Nite event at the South by Southwest Music Conference and Festival (SXSW) was going to be special. It would have marked the event’s 25th anniversary of showcasing Japanese artists to fans in Austin, Texas, with a North American ...

While people on social media have largely been preoccupied with the pandemic, the most buzzed-about happening online in Japan involves a crocodile — don’t roll your eyes just yet — which, at some point, transformed into a commentary on the follies of capitalism and ...

The J. League plans to resume first-division matches on May 9 after a hiatus of more than two months due to the ongoing coronavirus outbreak, chairman Mitsuru Murai said Wednesday. The league held an extraordinary session of its executive committee Tuesday and decided to abandon ...

Sekiwake Asanoyama was officially promoted to sumo's second-highest rank of ozeki by the Japan Sumo Association board of directors on Wednesday. The news provided a bright spot amid the coronavirus bleakness with Asanoyama saying in his kojo stage speech he is ready for the added ...

Some of Japan’s top athletes have expressed mixed feelings following Tuesday’s announcement that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the International Olympic Committee had agreed to postpone the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics for “about a year” amid the COVID-19 outbreak. Veteran female sport climber Akiyo ...

The Japan leg of the Tokyo Olympic torch relay, scheduled to begin Thursday, has been canceled due to the coronavirus outbreak, Yoshiro Mori, president of the Tokyo 2020 organizing committee, said Tuesday. The move comes after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and International Olympic Committee President ...