Search - 2021

 
 
A research team led by the University of Tokyo’s Miyuki Harada has developed artificial intelligence models that can help deliver personalized infertility treatments by predicting the number and quality of eggs that a woman has.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Sep 3, 2025

Japan team develops AI models to help deliver personalized infertility treatment

The group study led by a University of Tokyo researcher found their models to be more accurate than the standard method of assessing ovarian function.
"Animator Skill Test Textbook” was written in concert with a test created and administered by the Nippon Anime & Film Culture Association since 2024. The test was designed to help set a baseline for those studying animation, and so that animation studios can get a better idea of applicants' current skill level.
CULTURE / Books
Sep 4, 2025

English textbook targets a skills gap in Japan’s growing anime industry

From "dōga" to “lip flap,” the Nippon Anime & Film Culture Association’s "Animator Skill Test Textbook" teaches aspiring animators how to talk like the pros.
Naomi Osaka celebrates after defeating Czech Republic's Karolina Muchova in the U.S. Open quarterfinals on Wednesday in New York.
TENNIS
Sep 4, 2025

Osaka surges into U.S. Open semifinals in straight sets

The Japanese 23rd seed, enjoying her deepest run in a Grand Slam since a 2021 victory at the Australian Open, advanced to the last four in just under two hours.
People walk along a hillside, in the aftermath of an earthquake, in the Nurgal district of Kunar province, Afghanistan, on Wednesday.
WORLD
Sep 4, 2025

Days after quake, survivors in Afghanistan still await aid

Fearful of near-constant aftershocks, people have huddled in the open or struggled to unearth those trapped under the heaps of flattened buildings.
Rengo is mulling over a third term for its president, Tomoko Yoshino.
JAPAN / Politics
Sep 4, 2025

Rengo considering third term for leader Tomoko Yoshino

Yoshino's second two-year term as president of the Japanese Trade Union Confederation is set to end in October.
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said, "It won’t stop with just this strike,” after the U.S. targeted a boat in the Caribbean Sea allegedly full of drugs from Venezuela.
WORLD / Politics
Sep 4, 2025

U.S. threatens more strikes on purported drug boats after attack in Caribbean

The move marked a major escalation in U.S. President Donald Trump’s crackdown on narcotics traffickers following deployment of U.S. Navy vessels off the Venezuelan coast.
Liberal Democratic Party Secretary-General Hiroshi Moriyama (left) and Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba attend a party executive meeting in Tokyo on Tuesday.
JAPAN / Politics / FOCUS
Sep 4, 2025

Seeking Upper House majority, LDP eyes support from independents

The 121-strong ruling coalition needs just three more seats for a majority in the chamber.
The No. 2 field at the Hanazono Rugby Stadium complex in Higashiosaka, Osaka Prefecture. The field is slated to be upgraded into a 5,000-seat stadium but has faced lengthy construction delays.
MORE SPORTS
Sep 4, 2025

Upgrades for Osaka's Hanazono Rugby Stadium still mired in delays

The planned upgrades, featuring the construction of a new stadium by FC Osaka, is a condition for the third-tier J. League club to use Hanazono as its home ground.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., U.S. secretary of Health and Human Services, during a Senate Finance Committee hearing in Washington on Thursday
WORLD / Science & Health
Sep 5, 2025

U.S. senators pit Kennedy against Trump on vaccine policy

Half a dozen heated exchanges during a combative three-hour Senate hearing focused on his decision to fire Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Susan Monarez.
The Pentagon, near Washington. U.S. President Donald Trump plans to sign an executive order to rename the Department of Defense the "Department of War."
WORLD / Politics
Sep 5, 2025

Trump to rename Department of Defense the 'Department of War,' official says

The name change will be costly and require updating signs and letterheads used around the world.
Palestinians displaced by the Israeli military offensive shelter in a UNRWA school, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on Aug. 19.
WORLD
Sep 5, 2025

Coffee and cash: How Hamas pays its civil servants in secret

The Hamas-run government in Gaza is still paying some salaries to employees, at least in part and with delays.
Umamusume: Pretty Derby is the latest overnight success to come from the world of Japanese video games — never mind it was originally released in 2021.
LIFE / Digital / ON: GAMES
Sep 6, 2025

Racehorses, anime girls and gambling: Umamusume’s recipe for success

The latest overnight hit from Japan’s gaming world relies on a quirky mix of elements from the worlds of pop culture and sports.
“Swallows” examines the intersections of class and reproductive issues with a focus on its protagonist who is talked into becoming a surrogate for a wealthy couple.
CULTURE / Books
Sep 5, 2025

‘Swallows' untangles the murky ethics of selling motherhood

“Swallows” examines the intersections of class and reproductive issues with a focus on its protagonist who is talked into becoming a surrogate for a wealthy couple.
Naomi Osaka (right) and Amanda Anisimova meet at the net following their semifinal match at the U.S. Open in New York on Thursday.
TENNIS
Sep 5, 2025

Naomi Osaka inspired by performance as U.S. Open run ends in semifinals

Two-time champion Osaka was playing in her first Grand Slam semifinal since 2021.
Itochu has raised ¥15.2 billion ($103 million) from a sale of Japan’s first so-called orange bonds to fund gender equality projects.
BASEBALL
Sep 5, 2025

Itochu sells Japan’s first orange bonds for gender equality

The Japanese trading house raised ¥15.2 billion ($103 million) from the debt sale, more than the initial plan for a ¥10 billion offering.
U.s. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore in June 2018. Trump approved a 2019 Navy SEAL operation to plant a listening device in North Korea, a mission that unraveled amid a series of mistakes and resulted in the SEALs killing North Korean civilians.
ASIA PACIFIC
Sep 6, 2025

How a top secret SEAL Team 6 mission into North Korea fell apart

The 2019 operation, greenlit by President Donald Trump, sought a strategic edge. It left unarmed North Koreans dead.
People receive aid distributed by the Aga Khan Development Network in the Dewa Gul Valley of Sawkay district in Kunar province, Afghanistan, on Friday.
WORLD
Sep 6, 2025

U.S. yet to approve any help following Afghanistan earthquake, sources say

The lack of response underscores how President Donald Trump has forfeited decades of U.S. leadership of global disaster relief.

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past