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Masanao Saito harvests his mikan tangerines with his grandson, Akihito Oyama, at his farm in Yamamoto, Miyagi Prefecture, on Dec. 8. Behind them are apple trees full of fruit.
JAPAN / Society / Regional Voices: Tohoku
Feb 5, 2024

How fruit farmers in Tohoku are coping with climate change

Last year, extreme heat dubbed the "boiling Earth" phenomenon hit the region’s agriculture, forestry and fisheries industries hard.
Zain Syed (left), a Pakistan-born Japanese citizen; Maurice, a U.S. citizen with permanent residency in Japan; and Matthew, a Pacific Islander with permanent residency, outside the Tokyo District Court in Tokyo on Monday
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Jan 29, 2024

Lawsuit filed in Tokyo over alleged racial profiling by police

The plaintiffs are seeking around ¥3 million in damages each from central and local governments in the case, which is the first of its kind.
JAPAN / Politics
Jan 29, 2024

Japan's opposition eyes united front on political funds reform

Lawmakers are targeting cross-party cooperation on a variety of issues including the revision of the Political Funds Control Act.
Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway is one of the largest shareholders in all five of Japan's biggest trading companies.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jan 30, 2024

Buffett reversal risk pushes Japan firms to diversify investors

Berkshire is one of the largest shareholders in all five of Japan’s biggest trading companies.
The unemployment rate fell to 2.4% in December, government data shows.
BUSINESS / Economy
Jan 30, 2024

Japan job market remains tight, keeping hopes for wage hikes

The Bank of Japan is watching the labor market closely as it seeks evidence of a virtuous cycle linking rising wages with demand-led price gains.
Noboru Ito (left) uses well water for a makeshift shower at his Real Hair Cutting You beauty salon in Nanao, Ishikawa Prefecture, on Jan. 24.
JAPAN / Society
Jan 30, 2024

Businesses in quake-hit Japanese city tap well water to reopen

Their return to operations helps restore a sense of normalcy among residents.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida delivers a policy speech during a plenary session of the Lower House in Tokyo on Tuesday.
JAPAN / Politics
Jan 30, 2024

Kishida comes full circle in policy speech with emphasis on 'power'

Amid low approval ratings and soul-searching for the ruling party, the prime minister made "power" a key theme in his policy speech.
JAPAN
Jan 30, 2024

Government to submit bill allowing joint custody after divorce

The draft outline calls for a new provision obliging both parents to respect each other, and for divorce negotiations to determine parental authority.
The Japanese figure skating team at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. The team's bronze medal is to be upgraded to silver after a Russian skater was disqualified over a doping scandal.
OLYMPICS / Figure skating
Jan 31, 2024

Japan's figure skating team medal from 2022 Games upgraded to silver

The news comes after Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva tested positive for a banned substance.
Industrial output in December rose a seasonally-adjusted 1.8% from the previous month, following a 0.9% decline in November, with the industry ministry maintaining its basic assessment that it is fluctuating indecisively.
BUSINESS / Economy
Jan 31, 2024

Japan’s factory output gains to support economy’s patchy rebound

The rebound may potentially remove a hurdle for the Bank of Japan as it mulls the timing of a likely interest rate hike.
JAPAN / Explainer
Jan 31, 2024

Quake-hit Noto faces a long road to recovery. Here's how you can help.

After initially asking people to refrain from coming as volunteers, municipalities in Ishikawa are now open to outside help.
Cars ready to be loaded onto a ship for export at the port in Yantai, in China's eastern Shandong province, on Jan. 2
BUSINESS / Economy
Jan 31, 2024

China seized Japan's crown for vehicle exports in 2023, data shows

The Chinese auto sector has boomed in recent years largely because of massive investments in electric cars, while Japanese firms have been more cautious.
JAPAN / Politics
Jan 31, 2024

Kishida faces heat from all sides over political funds scandal

The prime minister finds himself in hot water not only with the main opposition party, but also with his own ruling party.
Mitsuko Tottori (right), incoming president of Japan Airlines, and Yuji Akasaka, outgoing president, during a news conference in Tokyo on Jan. 17
BUSINESS / Companies
Jan 31, 2024

Japan opens door to more women directors, but managers still rare

Women account for only 13.4% of directors and executive officers at the 1,836 firms listed on the TSE's Prime market, and of these 13% are internal hires.
Takuro Adachi’s documentary “Sono Kodo ni Mimi wo Ateyo” follows doctors working in Aichi Prefecture’s busiest ER over nine months.
CULTURE / Film
Feb 1, 2024

‘Sono Kodo ni Mimi o Ateyo’: An absorbing dive into pressures of the ER

Filmed at the height of the pandemic, Takuro Adachi’s documentary spotlights emergency room doctors who attend to patients from every strata of society.
Fujitsu apologized for its role in the wrongful conviction of more than 900 subpostmasters in the U.K. who used its accounting software.
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 1, 2024

Fujitsu promises better quality control after U.K. scandal

The Tokyo-based technology company is the subject of an inquiry into a glitch in its Horizon accounting software used by the U.K. Post Office.
Iran's Mehdi Taremi celebrates after scoring against Syria during their Asian Cup match in Doha on Wednesday.
SOCCER
Feb 1, 2024

Iran promises to be 'more united' against Japan in Asian Cup quarterfinals

Midfielder Saeid Ezatolahi said he saw Iran being dragged through extra time and penalties will make the team stronger for its match with Japan.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Feb 1, 2024

Wanted gang member Shigeyuki Kin held by Nagano police

The suspect in a 2020 attempted murder was alone at the time of the arrest and did not resist, admitting to the police that he was indeed the fugitive.
The Kissa Mitikusa cafe in front of JR Kagaonsen Station in Kaga, Ishikawa Prefecture, is facing a plunge in visitors.
JAPAN
Feb 1, 2024

Dining sector in quake-hit Ishikawa facing difficulties

The industry had just begun to overcome a slump brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump holds a campaign rally ahead of the Republican caucus in Las Vegas on Saturday.
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 1, 2024

Trump says he'd block Nippon-U.S. Steel deal, dubbing it 'terrible'

The former U.S. president aims to win over blue-collar union voters who could play a key role in states like Pennsylvania, where U.S. Steel is based.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Feb 1, 2024

Prosecutors seek 23 years for Japanese doctor in consensual killing case

They claim the accused had an "interest" in killing the elderly and people with disabilities under the false pretense of medical care.
JAPAN / Society
Feb 1, 2024

No injuries as wing tips of passenger jets touch at airport in Osaka

The incident is the latest in a series of recent aviation mishaps, which has included a deadly collision between a passenger jet and a coast guard plane.
The last scene of the moon taken by the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon with its navigation camera before dusk. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency released the image on Thursday.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Feb 1, 2024

Lunar night puts Japanese lander back to sleep

SLIM, dubbed the "Moon Sniper" for its precision landing technology, touched down within its target landing zone on Jan. 20.
It doesn't snow everywhere in Japan, but when it does, it falls in blankets that must be cleared away, sometimes through unexpected means.
COMMUNITY / Voices / FOREIGN AGENDA
Feb 4, 2024

Rural Japan’s snow removal solutions range from cute to curious

Outside of Tokyo, cities that get a significant volume of snow tend to have better ways of dealing with it than the capital.
The Aozora Bank headquarters in Tokyo. The bank surprised investors with losses tied to U.S. commercial property, sending shares down by the limit and heightening concern over global banks' exposure to souring real estate bets.
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 2, 2024

Gamble on U.S. commercial property blows up for Japan’s Aozora

Shares went down by the limit and heightened concern over global banks' exposure to souring real estate bets.
JAPAN / Society
Feb 2, 2024

Mental health care urgently needed for Noto quake evacuees

People ranging from children to the elderly have complained of being unable to sleep.
JAPAN
Feb 3, 2024

Noto quake exceeded projections of nuclear plant operator

The quake caused a transformer for the No. 1 reactor and another for the No. 2 reactor to stop functioning due to issues that included oil leakage.
U.S. singer-songwriter Taylor Swift performs onstage in Arlington, Texas, on March 31 last year.
CULTURE / Music
Feb 3, 2024

Taylor Swift will be on time for Super Bowl, Japan Embassy assures anxious public

Anxious fans have been speculating for days over how pop music icon Taylor Swift could perform in Tokyo and attend the Super Bowl to watch her beau play.
Japan's Mone Chiba celebrates after winning the women's competition at the Four Continents championships in Shanghai on Friday.
MORE SPORTS / Figure skating
Feb 3, 2024

Japan's Chiba fights off nerves to triumph in women's Four Continents

Chiba's compatriot Rinka Watanabe came second in the free skate, in which she landed a notoriously difficult triple axel.
Yuma Kagiyama competes in the men's free skate at the Four Continents figure skating championships in Shanghai on Saturday.
MORE SPORTS / Figure skating
Feb 4, 2024

Japan's Kagiyama smashes competition to take Four Continents title

Kagiyama made an error early in the free skating but his expressive, lightning-quick performance still earned him 200.76 points for a total of 307.58.

Longform

Bear attacks have dominated Japanese news headlines in recent months, with 13 people so far having been killed by the animals.
Japan’s bears have been on their killing spree for more than 100 years