The current group of conservative public figures in the United States wants to return to an age when certain middle-class values were ascendant, without acknowledging that many of those values were realized because President Franklin Roosevelt implemented progressive social policies and trade unions had ...

The 22nd Busan International Film Festival, which opened Oct. 12 and ends Saturday, seemed to be in better shape this year. Last year, various South Korean film industry groups boycotted Asia's biggest film event, which for the past three years has been caught up in ...

Anyone interested in Japanese television is familiar with the term "yarase," which refers to on-air situations staged to look natural and spontaneous. When the content is news-oriented, charges of yarase will lead to in-house investigations and, if proved, apologies on the parts of senior executives. ...

On Sept. 8, the anti-hate speech group Tokyo No Hate demonstrated in front of the Tokyo offices of Twitter. The group wants the social networking service to police its users more diligently with regard to racist and other discriminatory tweets. Twitter forbids messages that denigrate ...

According to an article that appeared in the Asahi Shimbun last June, authorities are unsure of the title holders to 4.1 million hectares of land in Japan — in total, an area equivalent in size to the island of Kyushu. Though this problem has ...

Because of the election announced by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Monday, the new Cabinet he formed last summer to boost his falling support rate will do no work, since it was launched during the summer vacation and Abe dissolved the Diet as soon ...

In 1979, The New Yorker ran a very long article by Frances FitzGerald about American history textbooks and how they had changed over the years. She said that the framing of history depends on who is writing it and, more importantly, who is supporting ...

If you've got a Twitter account in Japan, you've probably seen the promoted tweets for Netflix featuring comedian Sanma Akashiya. In these video spots, Sanma compares working for a streaming service to working for a commercial broadcaster, but doesn't mention the context for his ...

For the past two weeks there have been projections about a spike in juvenile suicides as the new school term approached. Suicides among junior high and high school students rise around Sept. 1, and teachers and parents were urged to pay close attention to ...

Several weeks ago Mavis Wanczyk, a 53-year-old woman from Massachusetts, won $758 million in the Powerball lottery — the largest single winner jackpot in North American history. Wanczyk said at a news conference that she had already quit her job and plans to "hide ...