The imperial family is relatively small and will shrink further in the coming years. Only one of Emperor Akihito's four grandchildren is male and able to ascend to the throne. The three princesses are also likely lose their imperial status, since they are required to ...

A journalist close to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has defended her view that Korean women who were sent to Japanese wartime military brothels were not sex slaves, and accused a liberal-leaning newspaper of fabrication. One of the newspaper's reporters said a day earlier that the ...

Tepco says much of the radioactive water stored at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant isn’t clean enough and needs further treatment before it is released into the ocean.

Japan's ultramodern conveniences, its bullet trains, automated ticketing systems and smart homes work just fine — until the power goes out. The blackout across the entire northern island of Hokkaido after a powerful earthquake struck early Thursday showed the weak link in all that technology. The ...

A survey of women working for Japanese newspapers and TV networks has found 156 cases of alleged sexual misconduct reported by 35 women, about one-third of which involved lawmakers, government officials and law enforcers, according to a researcher at Osaka International University. Professor Mayumi Taniguchi, ...

Tokyo used its famous 1964 Olympics to show off a miraculous recovery from defeat in World War II. Japan was back after just 19 years with high-speed trains, geeky gadgets and dazzling efficiency. Tokyo's back again with the 2020 Summer Olympics, this time with something ...

The mother of a U.S. Navy sailor who survived a direct hit to his sleeping berth during a collision at sea said her son kept diving to try to save his shipmates until the flooded berth began running out of air pockets, while others ...

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who will visit Pearl Harbor with U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday, wasn't even born when then-Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida went there just six years after Japan's surrender, by himself and feeling awkward. Yoshida is best remembered for signing the San ...

Seventy-five years after a Japanese admiral led the attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, the mayor of his hometown joined his Honolulu counterpart to mark the anniversary — as friends. Nagaoka Mayor Tatsunobu Isoda lay flowers at the main memorial event Wednesday ...

Coping with the vast amounts of groundwater flowing into the broken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant — which then becomes irradiated and seeps back out — has become such a problem that the country is building a ¥35 billion "ice wall" into the ground ...