Japan's economy has been "getting worse rapidly" in April due to the global coronavirus pandemic, the government said Thursday, downgrading its key assessment for the second straight month. It is the first time since May 2009, in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, that ...

Koike also stressed the need to partner with supermarket industry bodies to plan ways to reduce overcrowding.

Garbage collectors operating amid the coronavirus crisis are risking infection and struggling to keep operations running smoothly, leading them to call for the distribution of more protective items. While municipalities are ramping up countermeasures against infection clusters, some operators have already ceased their activities and ...

Two constant threads that have run through the history of North Korea: Rule by the Kim dynasty and speculation about the health of its secretive leaders. The latest incident took place this week when U.S. officials said Monday they were unsure of Kim Jong Un’s ...

Japan’s biggest power producer, Jera Co., holds executive and other important meetings on the internet and, except for power plant personnel, about 1,300 of the 1,700 employees at its headquarters and branch offices worked from home last week in response to the government’s call ...

Government's 'two masks for every household' policy faces renewed criticism as social media spreads stories of poor quality control.

Japan has so far conducted PCR tests on more than 130,000 people for the pneumonia-causing virus, a much lower number than in many other countries.

The ousted director of a key U.S. agency charged with developing drugs to fight the COVID-19 pandemic said Wednesday he was dismissed because he called for careful vetting of a treatment frequently touted by President Donald Trump. Rick Bright said in a statement that he ...

The United States wants to curb its reliance on China for specialized minerals used to make weapons and high-tech equipment, but it faces a Catch-22. It only has one rare earths mine — and government scientists have been told not to work with it because ...

Medical experts warn the drug, also known as favipiravir, may cause birth defects and it cannot be administered to expecting mothers or those who may become pregnant.

Four associations in Japan involved in mountain activities have released a joint statement asking people to refrain from climbing until the threat of COVID-19 subsides. They issued the appeal to climbers in a statement dated April 20, ahead of the Golden Week holidays that begin ...

As pachinko parlors continue to operate, disregarding appeals to shutter amid the coronavirus pandemic, local governments look to shame them into cooperation.

Some experts say the country's customs and social habits, such as wearing face masks during seasonal flu outbreaks, might play some role in hindering transmission of the virus.

The COVID-19 pandemic is fueling a surge in currency trading by retail investors, who are discovering that working from home means they can moonlight in the market during the daytime. Trading volume in margin accounts held by individuals more than doubled last month, just as ...

Fourteen more coronavirus infections have been confirmed on the Italian cruise ship Costa Atlantica docked for repairs in Nagasaki, a local official said on Thursday, bringing the total to at least 48. Half of them were cooks and the other half staff in charge of ...

The lights still scream for attention, but on this night Times Square has the feel of an abandoned Hollywood film set. Gone are the hordes of tourists shooting selfies with Elmo and Wonder Woman. Instead, a lone SUV glides by and a passenger's phone ...

Small bands of protesters have staged demonstrations over the government-ordered lockdowns in the otherwise empty streets of a number of Democratic-led U.S. states, driven by the social-media tactics of a coalition of gun-rights activists and far-right groups. Mostly in states with Democratic governors and sometimes ...

Some leisure spots near Tokyo have seen crowds of visitors recently despite government instructions to stay home amid the novel coronavirus pandemic, prompting local residents and municipalities to voice concerns about further potential spread of the virus. Although it was a weekday, a beach near ...

Japan is facing its "most critical time" if the state of emergency imposed over the coronavirus epidemic is to be lifted as soon as possible, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said late Wednesday as he called for a further reduction in person-to-person contact. Abe stressed the ...

Researchers trying to save the Great Barrier Reef are attempting to cool the unusually warm sea temperatures using ‘cloud brightening,’ a geoengineering technique designed to reflect more of the sun’s rays away from the Earth. The researchers are spraying microscopic sea water droplets into ...

Apple Inc. plans to release a patch after the cybersecurity company ZecOps Inc. found vulnerabilities that may have allowed hackers to exploit iPhones, devices used by hundreds of millions of people. San Francisco-based ZecOps discovered two "exploitable vulnerabilities” in Apple’s mail app and alerted the ...

U.S. Navy ships will shoot Iranian gunboats that get too close "out of the water," President Donald Trump said on Wednesday, after 11 vessels from Iran's elite fighting force came dangerously close to American ships in the Gulf. "We're not going to stand for it. ...

Officials worry that travel during holiday could create clusters in rural areas where the health care system is relatively fragile.

Politics are still politics even in the COVID-19 pandemic, and they will still go on, albeit with a new calendar in Japan.

The COVID-19 crisis is testing how well Japan protects the people and businesses in an emergency. The government need to sustain its assistance as steadily as possible while making sure the most needy are not left behind.

The collapse of production and investment in the oil industry is hard on the millions of people who make their livings from it, but the writing has been on the wall for some time.

In Japan, people with mental illnesses have long been stigmatized, marginalized and isolated from broader society. In 2009, documentary filmmaker Kazuhiro Soda released “Mental,” a film about Masatomo Yamamoto, an elderly psychiatrist in Okayama Prefecture who respected his patients as individuals and built close ...

In stressful times, it’s natural to seek comfort in the familiar. But even for people still inclined to hunt for new music, some genres can feel more welcoming than others. Thankfully, the current vogue for ambient, drone and music on the new age spectrum ...

Japanese jazz trombonist Haruka Kikuchi is coping with COVID-19 restrictions by streaming live performances from her home in New Orleans.

The Japanese Derby and other high-profile races will be run behind closed doors due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic

The cancellations caused by the coronavirus will likely have an adverse effect on the sumo world.

NPB and J. League officials are consulting with medical experts as they try to get their teams back on the field of play