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Japan Times
BASEBALL / MLB
Jan 17, 2023

With this Japanese ace, the ghost stories are true

Fans, teammates and even opponents are excited to see new Mets ace Kodai Senga's trademark 'ghost fork' — if they can manage to track it.
Japan Times
WORLD / Crime & Legal / FOCUS
Jan 16, 2023

The drug mules carrying Europe's cocaine in their guts

More than a sixth of the cocaine consumed in France is smuggled inside the bodies of drug mules from its poverty-stricken South American region of Guiana.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jan 16, 2023

EU parliament chief to unveil reforms amid graft scandal

Many MEPs and observers believe the changes to be presented by Roberta Metsola don't go far enough to be able to restore credibility in the institution.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / Destination Restaurants
Jan 15, 2023

L’Atelier de Noto: Peninsular cuisine with a French accent

Located about two hours from tourist-heavy Kanazawa, this modern French restaurant tucked away in tranquil Wajima takes full advantage of the Noto Peninsula's bounty of land and sea.
Redevelopment plans for Kawayu Onsen have hit some snags — an example of how bringing tourists back to declining rural communities is far from easy work.
LIFE / Lifestyle
Sep 6, 2025

In rural Hokkaido, the stops and starts of tourism revival on full display

A new luxury resort might halt the decline of Kawayu, but only if locals and businesses can agree on how to move forward.
East Asia’s fertility plunge is driven not just by financial costs but by perfectionist cultural expectations that burden parents with intense educational and social demands.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Sep 5, 2025

‘Confugenics’ and East Asia's demographic crisis

The numbers are staggering when you dig into them. Parents in Japan covered half of higher education costs in 2024 — more than double the OECD average.
China’s massive parade in Beijing on Wednesday showcased military power, historical revisionism and calls for a new world order, signaling Xi Jinping’s ambition to elevate China’s global leadership.
EDITORIALS
Sep 5, 2025

China looks to the past to signal its future

At last weekend’s SCO summit, Xi urged members to oppose hegemonism and embrace true multilateralism.
At Syn, chef Naoto Ohno's playfulness is evident in the "Apple," a replica fruit filled with applejack-flavored foie gras and served on a plate decorated with a familiar logo.
LIFE / Food & Drink
Sep 5, 2025

With a global approach, Syn gives French cuisine plenty of latitude

Up-and-coming chef Naoto Ohno draws from his rich travel experiences to redefine cooking traditions at his restaurant in Fukuoka.
South Korean President Lee Jae Myung meets with U.S. President Donald Trump meets at the White House in Washington on Aug. 25.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Sep 6, 2025

South Korean president vows support to citizens arrested in U.S. immigration raid

Foreign Minister Cho Hyun said the government has set up a team to respond to Thursday's arrest of over 300 South Koreans at the facility in the southern state of Georgia.
Attendees stand as U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a dinner hosted in the newly renovated Rose Garden of the White House in Washington on Friday.
WORLD / Politics
Sep 7, 2025

Trump nests in a White House and city he’s remolding to fit him

A builder and a homebody, Trump has eschewed some of the regular routines of the presidency in favor of nesting at the White House.
A Homeland Security Investigations police officer watches over workers during a federal search warrant at a company in Ellabell, Georgia, on Thursday.
BUSINESS / Companies
Sep 8, 2025

U.S. migrant raid jolts South Korea and stirs investor anxiety

The raid came shortly after a White House summit between the presidents of both countries where Korean companies pledged to up U.S. investments.
The "blood moon" as behind the Tokyo Sky Tree in Tokyo on Sunday.
WORLD / Science & Health
Sep 8, 2025

Stargazers marvel as the 'blood moon' rises

The last total lunar eclipse was in March this year, while the one before that was in 2022.
The “Oh! Ed! Collaboration Campaign,” launched on Tokyo's Keio Line to celebrate the Friday release of Ed Sheeran’s latest album, “Play,” includes a eight-car train dedicated to the pop star's music and trivia related to his career
JAPAN / Society
Sep 8, 2025

Ed Sheeran teams up with Tokyo’s Oedo Line

The campaign title, “Oh! Ed!,” plays on the train line’s name and the katakana pronunciation of the global pop star’s first name.
Google has said that its AI Mode will soon be available in Japanese, Korean, Hindi, Indonesian and Brazilian Portuguese globally.
BUSINESS / Tech
Sep 9, 2025

Google’s AI Mode to offer Japanese language support

Along with Japanese, Google said it will also gradually be offered in Korean, Hindi, Indonesian and Brazilian Portuguese globally starting Tuesday.
The 3rd Multi-Domain Task Force conducts the first Typhon midrange missile system live-fire exercise outside of the continental United States on July 16, successfully sinking a maritime target during the Talisman Sabre exercises in Australia's Northern Territory.
JAPAN / ANALYSIS
Sep 10, 2025

High-tech U.S. missile systems come to Japan amid policy shifts and China concerns

Long wary of such a move, Tokyo’s acquiescence — and its own planned missile deployments — highlights a gradual but monumental shift in defense policy.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents execute an enforcement operation at a Hyundai-LG electric vehicle battery plant in Ellabell, Georgia on Sept. 4.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 10, 2025

The ICE raid on the Georgia Hyundai plant makes no sense

The raid antagonized U.S. ally South Korea, a country that had signed a $350 billion trade pact with U.S. President Donald Trump just weeks earlier.
A stay at Mandapa, a Ritz-Carlton Reserve, is one of Bali's priciest choices — but also one of its most uncompromisingly luxurious.
LIFE / Travel
Sep 13, 2025

In Bali, the Ritz-Carlton’s ultraluxury Mandapa hotel marks 10 years

One of just nine “Reserve” properties around the world, Mandapa offers a delightfully unsanitized take on a rainforest retreat.
Forbes and Unforgettable Travel Company have ranked Shirakawago in Gifu Prefecture as Asia's most beautiful village.
JAPAN
Sep 12, 2025

‘Fairytale’ Shirakawago ranked one of the world’s most beautiful villages

A UNESCO World Heritage Site, Shirakawago is famed for its verdant landscape and gasshō-zukuri farmhouses, which are hundreds of years old.
Juan Ansotegui walks on his property in Villalibado, a hamlet in the Odra-Pisuerga comarca of Burgos, Castile, Spain.
WORLD / Society
Sep 12, 2025

Spain wants to save rural areas — and it's finding creative ways to do it

Public and private actors are experimenting with ways to reverse demographic decline and save the centuries-old histories, traditions and cultures of Spain's rural communities.
Shinji Ohmaki’s “Tokinokage” exhibited at Fuji Textile Week 2021 shows the use of fabric as art.
CULTURE / Art
Sep 13, 2025

Japan's major art events converge this fall

Dozens of biennials, triennials, art festivals and fairs are taking place between September and December.
"Real Japanese Cooking: The Only Japanese Cookbook You Will Ever Need" pays homage to home-cooking favorites, such as classic tempura dishes.
LIFE / Food & Drink
Sep 16, 2025

From tofu to teriyaki: Japanese essentials for the home cook

Packed with more than 600 recipes, Makiko Itoh's “Real Japanese Cooking: The Only Japanese Cookbook You Will Ever Need" is an encyclopedic effort that lives up to its name.
Agriculture minister Shinjiro Koizumi
JAPAN / Politics
Sep 15, 2025

Koizumi and Takaichi seen running ahead in race for LDP member votes

In last year's LDP leadership election, Takaichi secured the highest number of party member votes at 109.
King Charles III (left) hosts U.S. President Donald Trump in Britain this week — a rare privilege made at the invitation of the monarch.
WORLD / Politics
Sep 15, 2025

Trump and King Charles: Heads of state with opposing personalities

They may be similar in age, status and even their love for Scotland, but there the similarities appear to end.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio hold a joint news conference in Jerusalem on Monday.
WORLD / Politics
Sep 16, 2025

Rubio backs Israel in goal to eradicate Hamas as diplomacy falters

The top U.S. diplomat's support for Israel's new offensive on Gaza City has cast doubt on whether diplomacy would work to end nearly two years of war.
Japan’s high-tech toilets, from bidets to innovative public lavatories, offer a unique lens through which to explore the country’s culture, technology and even soft power.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Sep 16, 2025

‘Perfect Days’ spent pondering the Japanese potty

The Japanese toilet is an engineering and technological marvel that transforms daily ablutions.
Chinese migrants intent on reaching the United States walking in the jungle of Panama’s Darien Gap on March 3, 2023.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Sep 16, 2025

He risked everything to leave China for the U.S. Then he was sent back.

Tao was not a Chinese dissident, just an ordinary worker who wanted freedom. Deportation did not stop him from trying again.
Ahn Hak-sop sits in front of his foster daughter’s paper-craft art-pieces in a small church in the Civilian Controlled Zone, near the border with North Korea, in Gimpo, South Korea.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Sep 16, 2025

The communist warrior stranded for decades in an ‘American colony’

Ahn Hak-sop was captured during the Korean War by the South and imprisoned for more than 40 years. Now 95, he wants to return to the North to die.

Longform

Sumadori Bar on Shibuya Ward's main Center Gai street targets young customers who prefer low-alcohol drinks or abstain altogether.
Rethinking that second drink: Japan’s Gen Z gets ‘sober curious’