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Moody’s downgrade of the U.S. credit rating reflects growing concern over Washington’s unwillingness to confront rising debt, soaring deficits and interest costs — even as global investors keep piling into Treasuries.
COMMENTARY
May 19, 2025

Moody’s tells us what we already know about U.S. debt

Take the firm’s decision to strip the country of its top AAA credit rating seriously, not literally.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang gives a keynote speech at Computex in Taipei on Monday.
BUSINESS
May 19, 2025

Nvidia CEO unveils new technologies to protect AI chip lead

Huang introduced a new RTX Pro Server system, which he said offered four times better performance than Nvidia’s former flagship H100 AI system with DeepSeek workloads.
Trey Cabbage celebrates after hitting a home run at Tokyo Dome on May 1.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
May 19, 2025

Giants' Trey Cabbage not weighed down by pressure to replace Kazuma Okamoto

Cabbage has taken the majority of the at-bats in the cleanup spot since Okamoto suffered an elbow injury on May 6.
The Europe League trophy on display in Bilbao, Spain, on Saturday, ahead of the league final game between Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United on Wednesday
SOCCER
May 20, 2025

Europa League final offers financial savior for Man Utd and Spurs

Both clubs head to Bilbao for the final assailed by stinging criticism amid their worst seasons of the Premier League era.
Former inmates work as trainees in the forestry industry in Nara Prefecture under the prefecture's fully funded rehabilitation program.
JAPAN / Society
May 20, 2025

Nara initiative offers second chances to former prison inmates

Since 2020, nine people have participated in a first-of-its-kind reintegration program, with job training, housing and life skills classes.
Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer is among the key Democrats who have raised concerns about Middle East chip deals.
WORLD / Politics
May 20, 2025

Democrats warn Trump’s Middle East chip deals imperil U.S. security

Key U.S. Senate Democrats have urged the administration of President Donald Trump to revisit new artificial intelligence deals with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, saying that expanded sales of AI chips to the Middle Eastern countries risk exposing advanced technology to China and Russia,...
Kimihiro Matsuzaki prepares dishes at his half-century-old restaurant, Yanagi, in Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture.
BUSINESS / Companies / Regional Voices: Fukushima
Jun 2, 2025

Profitable Fukushima companies closing due to lack of successors

According to Teikoku Databank, more than a third of the companies that went out of business in the prefecture in 2024 were in the black.
The U.S. debt crisis can’t be fixed without reforming entitlements, and that means Americans must retire later and pay more in taxes.
COMMENTARY / World
May 22, 2025

To fix the U.S. debt problem, Americans must retire later

The House’s proposed $3.7 trillion tax bill isn’t what sparked that Moody’s downgrade — it was the runaway growth of entitlement spending.
Some 620,000 workers at 97 major companies affiliated with the Japan Business Federation saw average pay raises of 5.38%.
BUSINESS
May 22, 2025

Japan’s largest business lobby reports pay hikes exceeding 5%

Some 620,000 workers at 97 major companies affiliated with the Japan Business Federation saw average pay raises of 5.38%.
Compensation paid in the year that ended in March to Nomura Holdings' seven executive officers totaled ¥4.6 billion, up 3% from the previous year when there were eight such officers.
BUSINESS / Companies
May 23, 2025

Nomura raises top executives’ pay to highest in over a decade

Compensation paid in the year ended March to the company’s seven executive officers totaled ¥4.6 billion.
Paraguayan President Santiago Pena speaks during an interview with The Japan Times in Tokyo on Thursday.
JAPAN / Politics
May 23, 2025

As Taiwan looks to boost ‘unofficial ties,’ Paraguay’s leader offers facilitator role

Paraguayan President Santiago Pena stressed his government is “more than willing to support and be a strong ally” to Taiwan.
U.S. President Donald Trump arrives in Washington on Thursday.
BUSINESS / Companies
May 23, 2025

Trump re-escalates trade threats, aiming at Apple and European Union

The tech giant has become a frequent Trump target in his push to force companies to bring more manufacturing jobs to the U.S.
Mervat Hijazi washes clothes inside the tent they took shelter in after being displaced in Gaza City.
WORLD / Society
May 24, 2025

Diary of a Gazan family's descent toward starvation

The family's plight is a snapshot of the misery plaguing the Palestinian enclave of Gaza.
Students on the campus of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on Friday
WORLD / Politics
May 25, 2025

Trump's moves seen threatening key sources of U.S. 'soft power'

The U.S. president has attacked the media, cut foreign aid and canceled or seriously scaled back university research programs — raising fears of a brain drain in the country.
U.S. President Donald Trump says U.S. Steel will be "controlled by the United States, otherwise I wouldn’t make the deal” on what he called a "partnership" with Nippon Steel.
BUSINESS / Companies
May 26, 2025

Trump backing for Nippon Steel deal comes with big questions

The U.S. leader's unexpected announcement stopped short of explicitly endorsing Nippon Steel’s proposed takeover, instead asserting that U.S. Steel would "remain American.”
Jack Ma attends his company Alibaba Group's initial public offering at the New York Stock Exchange in September 2014. After a long absence from the public sphere, Ma recently attended a government-led private enterprises symposium in Beijing.
COMMENTARY / World / Geoeconomic Briefing
May 26, 2025

Harnessing China’s tech giants: The case of Jack Ma

Alibaba founder Jack Ma's rehabilitation into public life signals China's intention to steer its tech entrepreneurs to do business with broader national interests in mind.
Takahiro Mori, executive vice president of Japan's biggest steelmaker Nippon Steel, speaks about its strategy in its headquarters in Tokyo on Nov. 28, 2023.
BUSINESS / Companies / FOCUS
May 26, 2025

Garage meets and sleepless flights: How Nippon Steel's negotiator stuck at U.S. merger

With Biden's incoming successor Donald Trump also voicing opposition to the planned purchase, the outlook was bleak.
Osaka Prefectural Police have arrested two men for allegedly stealing a safe containing roughly ¥100 million ($702,500) from the home of a company president last year.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
May 27, 2025

Osaka police arrest two men in ¥100 million home burglary

Investigators believe the suspects may have had advance knowledge of both the cash and the location of a spare key inside the home for the safe they stole.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba speaks at a meeting of the government's advisory Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy on Monday at the Prime Minister's Office in Tokyo.
BUSINESS / Economy
May 27, 2025

Japan private sector backs 1% real wage growth per year over next five years

The plan was first mentioned by the government’s "new capitalism" panel earlier this month.
A view of the construction site of BYD's electric vehicle factory at the Industrial Complex in the city of Camacari, in the state of Bahia, Brazil, on Jan. 9
BUSINESS / Companies
May 28, 2025

Brazil sues EV giant BYD over ‘slavery’ conditions at plant

Prosecutors said 220 Chinese workers were found in December in conditions "analogous to slavery” and described them as victims of human trafficking.
Workers assemble a Nissan Juke at the production line at Nissan's factory in Sunderland, England, in November 2023.
BUSINESS / Companies
May 28, 2025

Nissan seeks to raise $7 billion with backing from U.K. government

The struggling automaker plans to issue debt and sell assets to raise funds for keeping its operations on track, according to internal documents.
Shipping containers from China at the Port of Los Angeles, in San Pedro, California.
BUSINESS / Economy / ANALYSIS
May 30, 2025

Trump's tariff tally: $34 billion and counting, global companies say

Many companies said the erratic nature of U.S. President Donald Trump's trade policies has made it impossible to accurately estimate costs.
Tokyo’s consumer price index that serves as a leading indicator for national inflation trends posted in May the biggest year-on-year rise since January 2023.
BUSINESS / Economy
May 30, 2025

Tokyo prices rising most in two years keeps BOJ on hike path

The food price gains are a worrisome sign for Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba ahead of a summer election expected to be held by July.
Software engineer and former Department of Government Efficiency staff member Sahil Lavingia
WORLD
May 30, 2025

DOGE likely to fizzle out without Musk, says ex-staffer

Software engineer Sahil Lavingia, who spent almost two months working for the group of pro-Musk technologists, said he expects DOGE to quickly "die a whimper.”
Anime director Shunsuke Nakashige accepts the anime of the year award for “Solo Leveling” at the Crunchyroll Anime Awards.
CULTURE / Film
May 30, 2025

Anime's big night out is getting bigger — and more surreal

The soft-power spectacle at Crunchyroll's awards ceremony in Tokyo underscores anime's expanding global influence.
Nippon Steel’s pursuit of U.S. Steel may succeed thanks to a U.S. veto-wielding golden share, but the high costs, political concessions and strategic risks suggest the deal could end up being a costly misstep.
COMMENTARY / Japan
May 30, 2025

Stop the steel! Japan’s giving too much away in this deal.

Nippon Steel risks handcuffing itself giving Trump a golden share.
Members of the Japan Self-Defense Forces prepare to load boxes of medical relief supplies onto a helicopter in Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, in September last year.
JAPAN / FOCUS
May 31, 2025

SDF ramps up campus outreach amid recruitment slump

Officials say the initiative is an effective way to foster a stronger connection between the public and the SDF.
A screen shows the Muchu College metaverse school, with avatars and the face of Hiroaki Tsujita, CEO of operator Wowfull.
JAPAN / Regional Voices: Kyushu
Jun 16, 2025

Metaverse and local subsidies help children in alternative learning

Municipalities are subsidizing the use of alternative educational institutions to help families with children who are not attending regular schools.
Japan has enforced tougher rules on companies to protect workers from heat after 30 workplace deaths and roughly 1,200 injuries were reported last year that were associated with high temperatures.
JAPAN
Jun 2, 2025

Protect workers from heat waves or face fines, Japan tells firms

The revised legislation is a rare global example of a national-level policy on heat safety for employees.
Save the Children Japan in May 2022 began its Hello! Baby Box initiative to provide essential items for newborns, with the aim of reducing the burden of child care costs for women in dire situations.
JAPAN
Jun 3, 2025

Most expecting and new mothers in poverty lack funds for basic necessities: survey

State support is often diverted to cover essential day-to-day costs and consumables needed for child-rearing, a survey found.

Longform

Ichiro Suzuki, one of the most iconic players in NPB and MLB history, was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame with 99.7% of the vote.
With Hall of Fame induction, Ichiro makes himself heard loud and clear