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Group of Seven leaders and officials look to the sky during a ceremony involving paratroopers at Borgo Egnazia Golf Club San Domenico in Savelletri, Italy, on Thursday.
JAPAN / Politics / First person
Jun 17, 2024

In perspective: a firsthand account of this year’s G7

In an increasingly multipolar world, the bloc's relevance comes into question, but any attempt to foster dialogue and ease tensions should be welcomed.
Atarashii Gakko! released its third album, “AG! Calling,” on June 7. The group is currently touring Asia with songs from the new release featured in its set
CULTURE / Music
Jun 21, 2024

Atarashii Gakko! schools crowds overseas on just how bananas J-pop can get

With appearances at major festivals, on U.S. television and new album "AG! Calling," this sailor-suited rapping four-piece is on quite a roll.
A tribute to Willie Mays behind home plate at Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Alabama, on Thursday.
BASEBALL / MLB
Jun 21, 2024

In Alabama, Willie Mays is the star of the show, one more time

Willie Mays' death added poignancy to MLB’s celebration of the Negro Leagues at Rickwood Field — the nation’s oldest professional ballpark.
Tourists in front of the restaurant and shopping area of Mount Fuji's 5th Station, which leads to the popular Yoshida trail for hikers climbing the mountain, in Narusawa, Yamanashi Prefecture, on June 19.
JAPAN / Society
Jun 30, 2024

Mount Fuji begins charging entrance fees as overtourism prevention measure

The measure, which also includes capping the number of daily climbers at 4,000, marks the first time that climbing one of Japan's most enduring symbols will cost money.
Politicians pay their respects to former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Monday in the city of Nagato, Yamaguchi Prefecture.
JAPAN / Politics / FOCUS
Jul 11, 2024

Two years after Abe’s death, LDP's conservatives still lack direction

The absence of a figure who is able to embody conservative ideals and marshal widespread consensus within the party has weighed heavily on conservatives.
Japan's Koki Kano (right) battles Yannick Borel of France in the gold-medal bout of the men's individual epee at the Paris Olympics on July 28.
OLYMPICS / Fencing
Aug 5, 2024

How a grassroots push helped Japan's fencers become world-beaters

Japan bagged five fencing medals in Paris to put it atop the medal table in the sport, the first time a non-European nation has done so.
Climbers converge in front of Mount Fuji's 5th Station, which leads to the popular Yoshida trail, in Narusawa, Yamanashi Prefecture, on Aug. 11.
JAPAN / Society / FOCUS
Aug 20, 2024

Mount Fuji’s new measures bear fruit in tackling dangerous 'bullet climbing'

Restrictions implemented on the popular Yoshida trail have significantly reduced the number of "bullet climbers" and reduced bad behavior associated with the practice.
A polygraph machine sits on a table in an office of AO Eurasian Bank in Almaty, Kazakhstan, in 2013.
BUSINESS / Tech
Sep 6, 2024

AI-powered lie detectors can help tell if you’re lying on a Zoom call

CyberQ is just one of a crop of new companies looking to build AI-powered lie detectors that could be used during work-related online meetings.
U.S. sprinter Noah Lyles mimics a "Kamehameha,” an energy-blast attack from the anime "Dragon Ball Z,” after winning the men's 100-meter final at the Paris Olympics on Aug. 4.
MORE SPORTS
Sep 10, 2024

Athletes go Super Saiyan for anime

Although outsiders often consider anime a niche interest, it is a touchstone for younger generations, including athletes.
The conduct and business of love in Japan’s Edo Period  (1603-1867) was rough, and nowhere was it rougher than in the pleasure quarters of the capital city.
JAPAN / History / The Living Past
Sep 29, 2024

Good or bad, both or neither: Edo Japan and the moral conscience

The era's warrior class and its martial virtues were redundant but lived on — overshadowed by the pursuit of pleasure.
U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has replaced his chief of staff and must now review key tax-raising plans that have been questioned over their viability.
WORLD / Politics
Oct 7, 2024

Starmer forced into messy reset less than 100 days in power

He has replaced his chief of staff, Sue Gray, and is reviewing key tax-raising plans amid questions over their viability.
Komeito leader Keiichi Ishii shakes hands with a voter in his district in Saitama Prefecture on Thursday.
JAPAN / Politics / FOCUS
Oct 21, 2024

Komeito's new leader faces trial by fire in general election

Once local allies, Komeito and Nippon Ishin no Kai are going head-to-head for the first time ever, adding to the challenge facing Keiichi Ishii.
A U.S. citizen living in Paris holds a voter registration and absentee ballot request form and an envelope which will contain an official absentee balloting material on Monday.
WORLD / Politics
Oct 23, 2024

With polls tight, U.S. election campaigns target overseas voters

Around 1.6 million voters abroad are eligible to vote in one of the seven so-called swing states that will likely determine the outcome of the election.
Flags of the Khalistan separatist movement are seen on Sept. 20, 2023 at the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara, where Hardeep Singh Nijjar was shot and killed in the parking lot three months earlier, in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Nov 4, 2024

Sikh activists see it as freedom. India calls it terrorism.

The cause to carve out a land called Khalistan from Punjab fizzled out decades ago, but the Indian government still frames the movement as a national security threat.
For some Americans, physical distance between them and their country in the immediate post-election period is the best thing they can do for their mental health.
LIFE / Lifestyle
Nov 9, 2024

Americans are traveling abroad as a post-election salve

One woman who temporarily relocated to Mexico City wishes she had traveled even further to a place like Japan for even more distance from domestic politcal news.
Chinese President Xi Jinping arrives for a bilateral meeting Peruvian President Dina Boluarte at the Government Palace in Lima on Nov. 14.
WORLD / Politics
Nov 20, 2024

Xi’s push for stable world of low tariffs undone by Trump and Putin

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump is threatening to put 60% tariffs on Chinese goods while China walks a tightrope regarding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Japan Times
CULTURE
Nov 30, 2024

Anime-loving cartoonist from Sweden shares joys of Tokyo life

Her five-volume manga series humorously depicts the unique aspects of Japan that stand out to foreigners from a young foreign woman's perspective.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba addresses a meeting at the Liberal Democratic Party headquarters on Thursday to discuss political reform.
JAPAN / Politics
Nov 25, 2024

Corporate donations remain sticky point in political reform talks

The opposition wants such donations banned but the ruling coalition maintains that a ban would curtail the political freedom of the private sector.
Members of a Lebanese NGO clear debris from their office that was damaged in an Israeli strike on a nearby building, in Beirut's southern suburbs on Monday.
WORLD / Society
Dec 4, 2024

In Lebanon, people with disabilities isolated and abandoned by war

More than 900,000 people in Lebanon are classified as living with disabilities, according to the United Nations Development Program.
As the march of AI accelerates, a new requirement has become apparent: The next breakthroughs will consume colossal quantities of energy.
COMMENTARY / World / The Year Ahead
Jan 3, 2025

We need energy for AI, and AI for energy

AI guzzles electricity — a single ChatGPT query requires 10 times as much as a conventional web search.
A voter casts a ballot at a polling station in Tokyo on Oct. 27. Last year, incumbents in every major country that held a national election lost that vote, the first time that has happened in almost 120 years.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 31, 2024

The world is ever more angry. That is not good.

Hostility toward existing leadership stems from the belief that lives aren't improving and future generations will have fewer opportunities than previous ones.
Combat aircrafts from NATO countries roll on a landing strip during a fighter plane maneuver exercise at the American military's Ramstein Air Base, near Ramstein-Miesenbach, Germany, June 6, 2024. REUTERS/Thilo Schmuelgen
WORLD
Jan 5, 2025

Drones, exploding parcels and sabotage: How hybrid tactics target the West

Increasingly brazen “gray zone” attacks against Europe and the U.S. have left defense officials with a dilemma: How to respond?
A Tesla showroom in Beijing in January 2024. In today's world, the car isn’t the biggest moneymaker for automakers; instead, it is the services attached to the connected vehicle.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 7, 2025

China’s EVs may change the world in unimaginable ways

China has about 100 EV brands and they claim about 80% of the new electric vehicle market.
Alberto "Beto" Carrasco" (center) and his compatriots in Namnam Space
COMMUNITY / Issues / The Foreign Element
Jan 20, 2025

Namnam reborn: A queer, anarchist space resettles in Tokyo's Koenji

After previous incarnations in Shinjuku Ni-chome and Kawasaki, Namnam is bringing art, music and camaraderie to a new neighborhood.
Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes is pressured by Bills defensive end Greg Rousseau during a game between the two rival teams earlier this season in Orchard Park, New York.
MORE SPORTS / Football
Jan 24, 2025

Rivals Bills and Chiefs clash again with Super Bowl on the line

The rivalry between the Chiefs and the Bills may not have the long history of the great divisional clashes, but its intensity is fueled by the high stakes in their recent meetings.
Underneath the praise, Washington, Wall Street and Silicon Valley are aligned in their view of DeepSeek as a key competitor to Meta’s Llama.
BUSINESS / Tech
Jan 29, 2025

DeepSeek tests Meta’s ambition for U.S. open-source AI dominance

Mark Zuckerberg has long championed Meta’s open-source approach to artificial intelligence software as key to ensuring U.S. dominance over China in AI.
After multiple failed attempts, Emperor Go-Daigo (1288-1339) and his loyalists overthrew the Kamakura shogunate and restored imperial power — for a time.
JAPAN / History / The Living Past
Mar 15, 2025

Divine authority and mortal desires in the turbulent 14th century

The literary monk Kenko yearned for an “uncontaminated world,” even during the tumultuous rule of Emperor Go-Daigo, who toppled the shogunate and consolidated imperial power.
Women's March Tokyo, a demonstration march against sexual violence and discrimination against women, is held on International Women's Day in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward on March 8.
JAPAN
Mar 20, 2025

Women remain underrepresented in Japan's news industry

Correcting the gender gap is an urgent issue in the industry, with such a change expected to bring women's perspectives to newsrooms.
“The Wakey Show” is NHK’s first new daily children’s program in three years, and it carries on the station’s storied past in youth-centric educational entertainment.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming
Mar 27, 2025

Rise and shine with ‘The Wakey Show’

Broadcaster NHK's first new daily children’s show in years puts puppets and positivity up front.

Longform

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.
Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.