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Netflix reality show “K-foodie meets J-foodie” follows South Korean YouTuber Sung Si-kyung and Japanese actor Yutaka Matsushige as they share meals in their respective countries.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming
Mar 6, 2025

Can a meal make you besties? ‘K-foodie meets J-foodie’ says yes.

The new Netflix show pairs a Korean crooner and a Japanese food icon for a cross-cultural food rally.
While you need to pass over cash for taxes, don't fall for scams that trick you into paying what you don't owe.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Mar 6, 2025

Scams, taxes and tariffs: It's that time of year.

Financial scams abound in Japan and a new one uses tax-related terminology.
An Israeli hostage who was released from captivity in Gaza arrives at a medical center in Tel Aviv on Feb. 22.
WORLD / Politics
Mar 6, 2025

Trump warns Hamas as U.S. holds unprecedented talks for Gaza hostages

The move broke with a decades-old policy against negotiating with groups that the U.S. brands as terrorist organizations.
Minister for Reconstruction Tadahiko Ito responding to a question at a group interview on Monday at the Reconstruction Agency
JAPAN
Mar 6, 2025

Reconstruction minister vows to address Fukushima soil reuse

"It's natural that Futaba residents are concerned," Tadahiko Ito said of the envisaged plan to first consider reusing the decontaminated soil in the town.
Former Executive Vice President Ichiro Takekuro enters the Tokyo High Court for the appellate court ruling in January 2023 in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Mar 6, 2025

Acquittal of two former Tepco executives to be finalized

The Supreme Court supported the lower courts' decisions that the accident was unpredictable and decided to dismiss an appeal by lawyers acting as prosecutors.
Yoko Suetsugu at Haco, her gallery in New York
JAPAN / Society / Regional Voices: Fukushima
Mar 17, 2025

Sculptor connects Fukushima to U.S. through New York gallery

Yoko Suetsugu is aiming to launch a program inviting U.S. artists to hot springs in the city of Fukushima for a creative retreat.
A monarch butterfly is seen at an enclosure at Boone Hall Plantation and Gardens in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, in August 2019.
ENVIRONMENT / Wildlife
Mar 7, 2025

Butterfly populations plummet by 22% in U.S. since turn of century

Studies in some other countries have documented declines at roughly the same rate as in the U.S. data.
Couche-Tard has made clear that it wants to learn from Seven & I Holdings to improve its North America operation, and has ruled out going hostile in takeover talks.
BUSINESS / Companies
Mar 7, 2025

Couche-Tard holds talks for sale of U.S. shops in Seven & I deal

The retailer last year proposed to purchase Seven & I Holdings for $18.19 per share, but so far hasn’t been able to enter negotiations with the firm.
“The Place of Shells” takes place mostly in Gottingen, Germany, where both the author and the book's narrator live, while also jumping both geographically and temporally to Sendai, Japan, through memories of the 3/11 disaster and its aftermath.
CULTURE / Books
Mar 10, 2025

Grief ebbs and flows between two tragedies in 'The Place of Shells'

Mai Ishizawa’s debut novel, which won one of the three Akutagawa Prizes awarded in 2021, is also her first to be released in English, translated by Polly Barton.
The illuminated advertising board of a host club in Tokyo's Kabukicho entertainment district. The bill approved by the government on Friday aims to ban hosts from emotionally manipulating customers into making excessive purchases — a common tactic in the industry.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Mar 7, 2025

Japan looks to crack down on host club exploitation with tighter regulations

Police received 2,776 consultations nationwide related to host clubs last year, with many involving women coerced into sex work to cover unpaid bills.
Ichiko Aoba’s latest full-length album, “Luminescent Creatures,” weaves in sounds mimicking whale songs and wind to express her fascination with the natural world and its interconnectedness.
CULTURE / Music
Mar 7, 2025

Ichiko Aoba’s intimate sonic fantasy born from dreams

The singer-songwriter turns her subconscious into songs about the natural world and its interconnectedness on “Luminescent Creatures.”
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba speaks during a meeting of the Budget Committee of the House of Councilors on Thursday.
JAPAN
Mar 7, 2025

Japan to invite stateless people born to Japanese in Philippines

The government will help people collect information so they can take Japanese nationality and will also arrange meetings for them with Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba.
Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan
BUSINESS / Companies
Mar 7, 2025

Bank of America CEO willing to hire in Japan amid revival

The bank, based in Charlotte, North Carolina, has about 800 employees in Japan.
Three workers died Friday in Oga, Akita Prefecture, after being found unconscious at a sewage construction site inside a manhole.
JAPAN
Mar 7, 2025

Three construction workers die inside manhole in Akita Prefecture

The three — all residents of the city of Akita — had been repairing sewer pipes since early that morning, according to the prefectural government.
SpaceX's next-generation Starship spacecraft atop it's super heavy booster is launched on its eighth test at the company's Boca Chica launch pad in Brownsville, Texas, on Thursday.
WORLD
Mar 9, 2025

SpaceX scrubs launch of two NASA satellite missions

One rocket’s chief passenger was SPHEREx, a space telescope that will take images of the entire sky in more than a 100 colors that are invisible to the human eye.
Seven & I Holdings says it has agreed to jointly explore store sell-offs with Alimentation Couche-Tard to address antitrust concerns ahead of a potential merger.
BUSINESS / Companies
Mar 10, 2025

Shareholder pushes Seven & I to engage with Couche-Tard

The operator of 7-Eleven stores says that it is doing so, and has rebuffed Artisan Partners Asset Management’s assertions of conflicts of interest within the board.
A demonstration against the Trump administration’s cessation of military aid to Ukraine, attended by Ukrainians and American ex-pats, outside the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv on Saturday
WORLD
Mar 10, 2025

With drones and North Korean troops, Russia pushes back Ukraine’s offensive

Russia has retaken about two-thirds of the territory Ukraine seized last summer in the Kursk region of Russia, but at a fearful cost in lives.
Norway's Marius Lindvik in action during the men's large hill first round at the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships on March 8
MORE SPORTS / Winter Sports
Mar 10, 2025

Norwegians admit to cheating at World Ski Championships

Race director Sandro Pertile said afterwards that they had received information prior to the event about possible manipulations of the Norwegian's ski suits.
Artificial intelligence is set to disrupt white-collar jobs, making it crucial for knowledge workers to embrace AI, develop backup plans and adapt to an evolving job market.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 10, 2025

How to hedge against AI stealing your job

"Knowledge workers" need a back-up plan as artificial intelligence keeps getting better.
Every year, there is heightened interest in commemorating the 3/11 disaster around the time of the anniversary. But memorial facilities and operators are increasingly struggling to keep their activities going all year round and as time passes.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 10, 2025

Preserving the memory of 3/11 is becoming more difficult

Despite a peak in interest around the 3/11 anniversary, disaster memorial facilities and operators are facing mounting challenges in keeping their activities going as time passes.
Junko Yagi, a professor at Iwate Medical University, speaks during an interview on Jan. 10 in the town of Yahaba, Iwate Prefecture.
JAPAN
Mar 11, 2025

Experts urge ongoing mental health care for families in 3/11 disaster areas

"Parents and children alike are carrying heavy emotional burdens," one expert said.
Many in Japan are increasingly concerned that under the Trump administration's shifting policies, the U.S. may no longer be a reliable ally, raising fears of a weakened security partnership amid rising threats from China and Russia.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 11, 2025

Japan reels from — and steels for — U.S. policy shifts

“What Japan has learned from the Ukraine war is that the era where we could rely entirely on the U.S. is over.”
Investigators from the Tokyo Metropolitan Police examine the scene where a woman in her 20s was stabbed on Tuesday morning in Tokyo's Shinjuku Ward.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Mar 11, 2025

Man arrested after fatal stabbing of woman in Shinjuku Ward

The suspect is said to have approached the woman in her 20s near Takadanobaba Station and stabbed her without warning as she walked, apparently livestreaming, investigators said.
After living a sheltered life with her previous owner, Crispin is just now getting used to being out in the world.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / ADOPT ME!
Mar 12, 2025

A shy Shiba mix is ready to bloom

Seven-year-old Crispin is learning to explore the world and receive affection after a sheltered upbringing.
The Susukino district in Sapporo in 2020. The father of a woman suspected of killing and beheading a man in the entertainment district in 2023 was sentenced on Wednesday to one year and 4 months in prison, suspended for four years, for helping her move the body to their home.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Mar 12, 2025

Father of woman accused of 2023 Sapporo murder given suspended sentence

The key issue of the trial was whether he was aware of his daughter's plan to murder the victim in advance.
The 通勤経路 (tsūkin keiro, commuting route) is a big part of most working Tokyoites’ daily routines.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Mar 14, 2025

From 'commuting' to 'passing through,' meet the kanji that's always on the move

The character 通 is also used to denote avenues and forms of communication.
An injured train passenger is being transported following an operation against armed militants who ambushed the train in the remote mountainous area in Mach, southwestern Balochistan province in Pakistan on Wednesday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal
Mar 13, 2025

Pakistan train hijacking ends with more than 50 people killed

The outlawed Balochistan Liberation Army took responsibility for the attack. 
Kenichi Takano leaves a police station in Tokyo on Thursday to be sent over to prosecutors.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Mar 13, 2025

Man arrested in Tokyo stabbing tracked victim through livestream

Police turned over Kenichi Takano to prosecutors on suspicion of murder, believing he used the livestream to track the victim's location.
Both priest and participant bow in recognition and readiness for the practice of zazen.
LIFE / Lifestyle
Mar 25, 2025

The art of taking a pause: Discover the 1,000-year-old meditation technique of zazen in Tokyo's temples

Thousands of years later, in Japan the practice continues under the name "zazen."
Some 40% of online casino users are unaware that gambling via the casinos is illegal, a survey by the National Police Agency shows.
JAPAN
Mar 13, 2025

3.37 million in Japan use overseas online casinos, police survey suggests

Around 40% of respondents in the survey said they were unaware using paid services offered by such sites was illegal, according to the National Police Agency.

Longform

Mount Fuji is considered one of Japan's most iconic symbols and is a major draw for tourists. It's still a mountain, though, and potential hikers need to properly prepare for any climb.
What it takes to save lives on Mount Fuji