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The Upper House passes a revised budget bill for fiscal 2025 on Monday, before sending it back to the Lower House for approval.
JAPAN / Politics
Mar 31, 2025

Japan's fiscal 2025 budget enacted just in time

The budget bill, which calls for general account spending of ¥115 trillion, was enacted in time for the start of the next fiscal year on Tuesday.
High school student Soa Ono, 17, assists an elderly woman during a recreational activity at a nursing care facility in Nagoya in late February.
JAPAN / Society / Regional voices: Chubu
Apr 7, 2025

Caregiver apprenticeship for high school students expanding in Aichi

The program allows apprentices to earn an income while acquiring knowledge and skills through hands-on experience.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi says Japan has sent officials to Myanmar to coordinate on the planned dispatch of an emergency relief team.
JAPAN
Mar 31, 2025

Japan sends coordinating officials to Myanmar after earthquake

The officials are to arrange for the planned dispatch of an emergency relief team to the Southeast Asian nation hit by a magnitude-7.7 earthquake.
The headquarters of Fuji Media Holdings, Fuji TV's parent, in Tokyo's Minato Ward
JAPAN / Media
Mar 31, 2025

Fuji TV bears heavy responsibility over Nakai's 'sexual violence': panel

A third party panel's probe on a series of scandals involving the broadcaster and the TV star acknowledged the nature of his "trouble" with a woman for the first time.
Marine Le Pen, head of France's far-right National Rally party, poses prior to an interview during an evening news broadcast in Boulogne-Billancourt, outside Paris, on Monday.
WORLD / Politics
Apr 1, 2025

France's Le Pen seeks to keep presidency hopes alive after election ban

In a TV interview, Le Pen remained defiant, insisting that there could still be time for an appeals court to overturn the verdict.
A man stands near the remains of a building destroyed in a strong earthquake, in Amarapura, Myanmar, on Monday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Apr 1, 2025

U.S. aid response in Myanmar faces hurdles after staff cuts

Response hobbled by the huge fund cuts, contractor terminations and plans to fire nearly all USAID staff, source says.
People fleeing Rafah arrive in Khan Younis city following new Israeli evacuation orders, in the southern Gaza Strip on Monday.
WORLD
Apr 1, 2025

Israel tells Gazans to leave south before ‘intense fight’

The notification on Monday covered Rafah, a city near the border with Egypt, as well as surrounding areas.
Meiji bottled milk lined up in a fridge at Kosugiyu, a bathhouse in Tokyo. The sticker urges patrons to enjoy the milk one last time before it’s gone.
JAPAN / Society
Apr 1, 2025

Meiji says sayonara to bottled milk, a staple of Japan's bathhouses

The company is switching to paper cartons as a result of declining demand, environmental concerns and supply issues after its glass bottle supplier shut down.
Myanmar's military chief, Min Aung Hlaing (center), arrives to meet earthquake survivors gathered on the compound of a hospital in Naypyitaw on Friday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics / FOCUS
Apr 1, 2025

Deadly quake gives junta a chance to tighten hold over Myanmar

Even as the damage of Friday’s quake was still being assessed, pro-democracy rebel groups reported fresh airstrikes in areas close to the epicenter.
Lt. Col. Suguru Ejiri, the head of Air Self-Defense Force's Blue Impulse aerobatics team, at the ASDF base in Higashimatsushima, Miyagi Prefecture, in March. Ejiri has revealed little about the upcoming Osaka Expo performance apart from it being based on the event's theme.
JAPAN
Apr 1, 2025

ASDF's Blue Impulse set for Osaka Expo performance

The aerobatics team flew for the 1970 World Expo in Osaka Prefecture as well, during which the team drew "EXPO 70" in the sky.
SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket is launched at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Monday.
BUSINESS / Tech
Apr 1, 2025

SpaceX eyes Starlink hub with multiple ground stations in Vietnam, sources say

The move would herald its launch in the country and would help authorities police internet traffic.
A drone view shows a coffee plantation in Guaxupe, Brazil, on Feb. 17.
BUSINESS / Markets
Apr 1, 2025

Brazil's coffee farmers turn to costly irrigation to quench global demand for the brew

Most farms in the western part of Bahia — a new frontier for coffee growing in Brazil — are now irrigated.
A fire caused by a gas pipeline leak rages in Puchong, Selangor on Tuesday.
ASIA PACIFIC
Apr 2, 2025

Scores hospitalized after huge fire at gas pipeline in Malaysia

Authorities said the blaze in the town of Puchong, on the outskirts of the capital Kuala Lumpur, had been extinguished by midafternoon.
U.S. Health and Human Services employee Julie Siegel stands outside the Mary E. Switzer Memorial Building on Tuesday as she is denied access and her badge taken away as U.S. President Donald Trump's administration reportedly begins mass layoffs of 10,000 staffers at U.S. health agencies.
WORLD / Politics
Apr 2, 2025

Trump begins mass layoffs at FDA, CDC and other U.S. health agencies

The job cuts are part of a broad plan by the U.S. president and billionaire ally Elon Musk to shrink the federal government and slash spending.
A F-18 jet lands on the runway of the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier during military exercises in 2024.
WORLD
Apr 2, 2025

Pentagon sends second aircraft carrier to Mideast as Iran tensions rise

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered additional forces to the Middle East, including the USS Carl Vinson carrier strike group and aircraft.
The logo of Xiaomi is seen on a tire wheel of the SU7, the company's first electric vehicle, on display at a showroom in Beijing on March 25.
BUSINESS / Tech
Apr 2, 2025

Three reported dead after Xiaomi car with driver assistance crashes

The incident is likely to spark scrutiny over the smart driving software deployed in many of today’s cars.
The bus stop sign for the Ghibli Museum at Mitaka Station. The viral trend of AI-generated Ghibli-style images reflects both a longing for comfort in uncertain times and the ongoing debate over AI’s impact on art.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Apr 2, 2025

For a brief moment, everything was Ghibli

ChatGPT will make almost anything Ghibli-ish, but it won’t draw Totoro.
People line up for food aid in Sagaing, Myanmar, on Wednesday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Apr 3, 2025

Myanmar quake toll tops 3,000 as weather poses threat for rescuers

Rains will add to the challenges faced by aid and rescue groups, which have called for access to all affected areas despite the strife of civil war.
The words "This site has been hacked by RENEG4DE.COM" are displayed on the archived site of a rival video game cheating website on Tuesday.
WORLD / Politics
Apr 3, 2025

DOGE official at DOJ bragged about hacking and distributing pirated software

National security professionals were largely split on how seriously to take 33-year-old Christopher Stanley's past.
Sumitomo Mitsui Banking is in talks to provide corporate client data to Fujitsu to run through the IT company’s multimodal machine learning tools to make business forecasts.
BUSINESS / Companies
Apr 3, 2025

SMBC and Fujitsu to partner on AI-driven forecasting services

The move would be a rare instance of a Japanese bank allowing another company access to sensitive customer data.
People visit the graves of relatives as is customary on the first day of Eid al-Fitr marking the end of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, at the damaged cemetery of the Yarmuk camp for Palestinian refugees in Damascus on Monday.
WORLD
Apr 3, 2025

Syria says deadly Israeli strikes a 'blatant violation'

Syrian state media said the strikes hit close to a defense research center in Damascus, among other sites, while a war monitor reported four dead.
Michael Johnson (center) believes Grand Slam Track will be a landmark moment for track and field.
MORE SPORTS / Athletics
Apr 3, 2025

Michael Johnson's ambitious Grand Slam Track series prepares for first event

The circuit gets under way in Kingston on Friday.
Teruki Hara (left) and Kazuyasu Takahashi in the city of Soma, Fukushima Prefecture, on Jan. 27
JAPAN
Apr 3, 2025

14 years on: Teen from Tokyo begins fishing career in Fukushima

Teruki Hara remains initially discovered his love for fishing in the prefecture as a child.
Rescue teams from China and Belarus coordinate at the site of a collapsed building in Mandalay, Myanmar, on Wednesday.
ASIA PACIFIC
Apr 3, 2025

With U.S. absent, China steps in for earthquake-hit Myanmar

The American absence shows how U.S. President Donald Trump's moves to slash the size of the government has hobbled its ability to act during disasters.
Among those arrested, 1,011 were ringleaders or individuals who gave instructions. About 90% were perpetrators, including people who received defrauded money, and around 40% became involved in the crimes through recruitment via social media.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Apr 3, 2025

New ‘tokuryū’ crime groups outpace yakuza in arrests

The term was coined by the National Police Agency to describe a new form of criminal group that has emerged as an alternative to traditional yakuza organizations.
People enjoy running and yoga on Tokyo Expressway’s KK Line, a 2-kilometer elevated expressway cutting through the capital’s commercial Ginza district, when it was opened as a pedestrian space in May last year.
JAPAN
Apr 3, 2025

Tokyo’s KK Line to close for decadelong overhaul as public greenway

The line will become a pedestrian-focused green space called Tokyo Sky Corridor, with sections opening in phases before its full relaunch in 2035.
Anti-Yoon protesters react after the Constitutional Court's verdict on the impeachment of South Korea President Yoon Suk Yeol in Seoul on Friday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Apr 4, 2025

South Korea upholds Yoon impeachment, prompting snap election within 60 days

The move, while deepening a divide in South Korea between conservative and progressive voters, could also have broad implications for relations with neighboring Japan.
A child welfare center in Naha in May 1966
JAPAN / Regional Voices: Okinawa
Apr 14, 2025

In Okinawa, war trauma carried by orphans still lingers

“War orphans were pushed to the margins of society after the war," says one academic.
A man places a sign outside a Tesla dealership during a protest against its CEO Elon Musk, in Los Angeles, California, last month.
BUSINESS / Companies / ANALYSIS
Apr 4, 2025

Tesla investors brace for further sales decline as Musk backlash grows

Protests in many countries against Musk's involvement in the Trump administration and far-right politics in Europe have tarnished the image of the once-leading EV brand.
Pix (left), the mascot of the U.K. Pavilion at the 2025 World Expo in Osaka, is seen alongside the event's official mascot, Myaku-Myaku, on Jan. 16 in the city of Himeji, Hyogo Prefecture
JAPAN / Society
Apr 4, 2025

Countries' mascots beat drum for Osaka Expo

Participating nations are taking on Japan's love of mascots by coming up with characters of their own, some of which incorporate the culture of the host country.

Longform

In 2020, 38% of all households were single-person. That figure is projected to rise to 44.3% by 2050.
The rise of AI companionship in a lonely Japan