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The number of passengers who used express services operated by Japan Railways Group companies during the 10-day period through Sunday was 2% higher than in fiscal 2018, surpassing the level seen before the COVID-19 pandemic for the first time.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jan 7, 2025

Number of passengers on JR express services during New Year rose 11%, firms say

The figure for the 10-day period through Sunday surpassed the level seen before the COVID-19 pandemic for the first time.
Kinoko no Yama wireless earbuds, which were released by Meiji in March and sold in limited quantities
BUSINESS
Jan 12, 2025

Snack makers try to keep long-selling products 'fresh'

Related products and fan events are being offered by companies in a bid to engage with consumers.
A subsidy for epidural childbirths was one of Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike's campaign promises when she ran for her position last year.
JAPAN / Society
Jan 7, 2025

Tokyo looks to ease the pain — both physical and financial — of childbirth

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government is looking to begin offering a subsidy for epidural childbirths in fiscal 2025.
Jean-Marie Le Pen gives a speech on Feb. 3, 1973
WORLD / Politics
Jan 7, 2025

French far-right figurehead Jean-Marie Le Pen dies

The far-right bogeyman of French politics, infamous for his dismissal of the Holocaust and anti-immigrant rhetoric, has died at age 96.
Firms in Japan are becoming more proactive to fend off global rivals and activist investors showing renewed interest in the country after decades of stagnant growth.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jan 9, 2025

Japan’s ¥36.4 trillion M&A boom expected to grow as activist investors circle

Firms are becoming more proactive to fend off global rivals and activist investors showing renewed interest in the country after decades of stagnant growth.
After meeting with Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, LDP Secretary-General Hiroshi Moriyama (center left) and his Komeito counterpart, Makoto Nishida (center right) answer questions from the media on Thursday at the Prime Minister's Office.
JAPAN / Politics
Jan 9, 2025

Ishiba expresses eagerness to visit China soon

A delegation from the Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito is set to visit China from Monday through Wednesday
Billionaire Elon Musk speaks during an election rally for then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Oct. 5.
WORLD / Politics
Jan 9, 2025

Musk takes slash-and-burn style to Europe after bolstering Trump

The billionaire has honed in on Germany and the U.K., criticizing their governments, questioning their laws and casting doubt on their economic competence.
“The Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic” centers on three teenage protagonists who are transported into a fantasy world where they must grapple with a foreign culture.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming
Jan 11, 2025

Isekai anime offers a key to understanding globalization

The fantastical genre wherein characters are dropped into unlikely worlds — and sometimes bodies — can be read as an allegory for the structure of the contemporary anime industry.
Mark Zuckerberg, then chief executive of Facebook, appears at a joint U.S. Senate Judiciary and Commerce Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington in April 2018.
WORLD / Politics
Jan 11, 2025

Inside Mark Zuckerberg’s sprint to remake Meta for the Trump era

The highly unusual overhaul of the firm's speech policies came after the Meta CEO visited U.S. President-elect Donald Trump in November.
Palm trees burned by the Palisades Fire along the shore in Malibu, California, at sunrise on Friday.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Jan 11, 2025

‘We’re in a new era’: How climate change is supercharging disasters

Extreme weather events — deadly heat waves, floods, fires and hurricanes — are the consequences of a warming planet, scientists say.
Yokohama F. Marinos coach Steve Holland holds a news conference in Yokohama on Saturday.
SOCCER / J. League
Jan 11, 2025

Steve Holland ready to step out of Gareth Southgate's shadow in Japan

The 54-year-old, who will coach Yokohama F. Marinos this season, was the right-hand man to Southgate during their eight years together with England.
American Lindsey Vonn celebrates after finishing sixth in the women's downhill World Cup race on Saturday in St. Anton, Austria.
MORE SPORTS / Alpine skiing
Jan 12, 2025

Lindsey Vonn sixth in downhill return as veteran Federica Brignone wins

Vonn, 0.58 seconds behind after starting 32nd of the 51 starters, raised her arms as if she had won after her exhilarating effort.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau delivers a statement after meeting with the National Association of Manufacturers President and CEO Jay Timmons in Washington on Thursday.
WORLD / Politics
Jan 13, 2025

Canada has counter-tariffs ready if Trump launches trade war, Trudeau says

Canada buys more U.S.-made goods than any other country, according to U.S. Commerce Department export data — about $320 billion in the first 11 months of last year.
Lantoko, a company operated by Taiwan native Ping-Fang Lan, offers drift ice walking tours and other exhilarating experiences in and around Shiretoko National Park.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Jan 13, 2025

Due north: Foreign-born guides introduce Hokkaido’s unique charms

With adventure tourism on the rise in Hokkaido, a new generation of foreign-born guides is eager to greet travelers.
People shop at a mall in the town of al-Dana, near Sarmada, in the northern Syrian province of Idlib on Dec. 13.
WORLD
Jan 13, 2025

'It was a mafia': Syrian businesses hope for revival after Assad

Syria's new caretaker government has told business leaders it will adopt a free-market model and integrate the country into the global economy.
Tyson Fury during a heavyweight world title fight against Oleksandr Usyk in Riyadh on Dec. 22
MORE SPORTS / Boxing
Jan 14, 2025

Is retirement really the end of the road for Tyson Fury?

Fury has previously announced his exit on a number of occasions, most recently in April 2022.
People hold an anti-Japan rally in Seoul in July 2019 following Tokyo's decision to tighten controls on exports to South Korea.
JAPAN
Jan 14, 2025

North Korea incited anti-Japan sentiment in the South

North Korea aimed to fan the flames of anti-Japanese sentiment over issues like wartime labor and the release of treated radioactive water from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.
Hiroshi Moriyama, secretary-general of the Liberal Democratic Party (left), and Komeito Secretary-General Makoto Nishida (right) meet with Liu Jianchao, head of the International Department of China's Communist Party, in Beijing on Tuesday.
JAPAN / Politics
Jan 14, 2025

LDP executive urges China to resume fishery imports from Japan

Hiroshi Moriyama, secretary-general of the LDP, also requested Beijing to secure the safety of Japanese nationals in China.
Young Tibetan monks sit on a scooter as they arrive to take part in a protest march held to mark the 65th anniversary of the Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule, in the northern hill town of Dharamsala, India, on March 10, 2024.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Jan 14, 2025

How China is erasing Tibetan culture, one child at a time

Education, especially in minority areas, is a politically sensitive topic. Tibetans who oppose the boarding schools risk imprisonment if they protest.
Elon Musk, left, with Vivek Ramaswamy on Capitol Hill in Washington on Dec. 5.
BUSINESS / Tech
Jan 15, 2025

SEC accuses Elon Musk of bilking Twitter investors out of millions

The agency’s complaint accuses Musk of failing to promptly report that he had amassed more than 5% of the social media platform’s stock in early 2022.
Tourists visit Fushimi Inari Shrine in the city of Kyoto on Monday.
JAPAN / Society
Jan 15, 2025

Kyoto to raise accommodation tax to a maximum ¥10,000 per night

The collected money under the new plan would be used to improve infrastructure in the city, such as increasing public transportation.
The Hollywood sign shrouded in smoke from an overnight blaze in the Hollywood Hills on Jan. 9
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 14, 2025

The Hollywood fires will cause harm long after they burn out

We’re not going to be able to turn the clock back on this creeping disaster. It will be many centuries before our atmosphere recovers from the damage.
U.S. President Joe Biden meets with President-elect Donald Trump at the White House in Washington in November last year.
WORLD / Politics / ANALYSIS
Jan 16, 2025

Biden to hand unfinished agenda to Trump for a chaotic Middle East

Joe Biden's Middle East record is likely to be remembered not so much for how conflicts ended on his watch, but mainly for how they unfolded.
Self-Defense Forces members search for victims in Kobe's Nagata Ward on Jan. 28, 1995, in the wake of the Great Hanshin Earthquake.
JAPAN / Politics
Jan 16, 2025

Hanshin quake sparked changes to Japan's disaster response policies

Having outlined the Self-Defense Forces' active role and support for victims, the government now aims to set up a new central agency for disaster relief.
A helicopter drops water on the Palisades fire near the Sullivan Canyon area of Los Angeles on Saturday.
WORLD / Politics
Jan 16, 2025

Los Angeles wildfires test how Democrats aim to counter Trump

California's governor has undertaken a media blitz, accusing Donald Trump of spreading disinformation and daring him to visit the state.
Ichiro Suzuki had 1,278 hits and a .353 batting average in nine seasons with the BlueWave in NPB.
BASEBALL / MLB
Jan 16, 2025

Ichiro voted into Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame

Former players Hitoki Iwase and Masayuki Kakefu and former Central League umpire Hiroya Tomizawa were also voted into the Hall.
A map of the hypocentral region of an anticipated Nankai Trough earthquake
JAPAN / Science & Health
Jan 16, 2025

Possibility of Nankai Trough megaquake now 80%, government panel reports

Last year, the likelihood of an earthquake in the zone had been projected at “between 70% and 80%.”
The families of the victims of sexual violence and others hold a news conference in the city of Osaka on Dec. 4 after submitting a petition to the Osaka Prefectural Assembly calling for the continuation of the Sexual Assault Crisis Healing Intervention Center Osaka, a one-stop support center within a hospital.
JAPAN / Society / FOCUS
Jan 17, 2025

Osaka sexual violence support center faces existential threat

SACHICO, Japan's first one-stop support center within a hospital setting for women affected by sexual violence, has been asked to leave Hannan Chuo Hospital.
Bills quarterback Josh Allen is one of the leading candidates for the NFL MVP award this season.
MORE SPORTS / Football
Jan 17, 2025

Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson headline high-profile showdown in divisional round

Both players epitomize the modern preference for quarterbacks who can not only throw with pinpoint accuracy but can also be a threat running the ball.
Komeito Secretary-General Makoto Nishida (left) and Liberal Democratic Party Secretary-General Hiroshi Moriyama (center) hold talks with Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing on Tuesday.
EDITORIALS
Jan 17, 2025

A moment of opportunity for Japan-China relations

While the outcome of the Japan-China meeting is important, it must not compromise Japan's national interests.

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A small shrine perched atop rocks braves the waves hitting the shoreline during a storm in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture. The area is under threat of a possible 31-meter-high tsunami if an earthquake strikes the nearby Nankai Trough.
If the 'Big One' hits, this city could face a 31-meter-high tsunami