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JAPAN / Politics / EXPLAINER
Nov 29, 2020

Cherry blossom scandal returns to haunt Abe and Suga

Allegations that the former prime minister's office illegally paid out over u00a59 million to make up the costs of parties at Tokyo hotels are now being investigated by prosecutors.
Japan Times
BASEBALL / MLB
Nov 24, 2020

'Man of mystery': How Yu Darvish evolved into a powerhouse on the mound

The Cubs ace re-established his bona fides as one of MLB's best pitchers in his ninth big-league season.
Grizzlies guard Yuki Kawamura during a game on April 13
BASKETBALL / NBA
Jul 20, 2025

Bulls sign Japanese guard Yuki Kawamura

Last season, Kawamura averaged 1.6 points and 0.9 assists over 22 games off the bench for the Memphis Grizzlies.
A coral reef in Okinawa in July 2022. Some jurisdictions around the world have moved to ban certain sunscreens in a bid to protect coral reefs, but some say the impact on reefs is far from clear.
ENVIRONMENT / Wildlife / OUR PLANET
Jul 20, 2025

Japan’s top brands get tied up in the great sunscreen debate

The debate over the damage sunscreens cause to the marine environment is heating up as some regions ban certain chemical ingredients.
Ayaka Ohira (center) celebrates the launch of “Shinsei Galverse” with interpreter Himari Lala Shimizu and executive producer Jack Baldwin.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / 20 QUESTIONS
Jul 24, 2025

Ayaka Ohira: ‘Being outside of the traditional path gave me more freedom’

Anime director Ayaka Ohira talks about her newly launched ‘Shinsei Galverse’ series and how she navigates the industry as a self-taught female artist.
The number of scrambles by Japanese fighter jets against Chinese aircraft rose by 17 in the April-June period from a year before to 122, according to the Defense Ministry.
JAPAN
Jul 25, 2025

Japanese fighter jets scramble 157 times in April-June period

The scrambles were mostly in response to Chinese and Russian aircraft.
Spain players celebrate after the Women's Euro 2025 semifinal against Germany at Stadion Letzigrund, Zurich, Switzerland on Wednesday.
SOCCER
Jul 25, 2025

Spain sets sights on England to chase elusive European crown

The reigning world and Nations League champions will be looking for a repeat of its defeat of England in the 2023 World Cup final
China's government will offer subsidies to parents to the tune of $500 per child under the age of three per year, Beijing's state media said on Monday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Jul 29, 2025

China rolls out childcare subsidy to boost birth rate

The assistance is meant as an incentive for young couples wary of rising costs of child-rearing.
Cubs Hall of Famer Ryne Sandberg throws out a ceremonial first pitch before the game between the Cubs and the Mets at Wrigley Field on June 23, 2024.
BASEBALL / MLB
Jul 29, 2025

Legendary Cubs second baseman Ryne Sandberg dies at 65

Longtime Cubs teammate Mark Grace said "When you examine the offense and defense, you'll find some years where he was the best player you've ever seen in your life."
The Tomari nuclear power plant in Tomari, Hokkaido, in March 2024
JAPAN
Jul 30, 2025

Hokkaido's Tomari nuclear reactor passes safety screening

The reactor at Hokkaido Electric Power's plant is the 18th to gain approval from the Nuclear Regulation Authority since the current safety standards were adopted.
Canadian-born Jesse Cunningham came to Japan to teach in the JET Programme, and later found opportunities to learn traditional blacksmithing in Kochi Prefecture.
COMMUNITY / Issues / The Foreign Element
Aug 4, 2025

The international artists supporting Japan’s craft legacy

From Kochi to Kamakura, non-Japanese craftspeople are training with local artisans and carving out a niche for themselves.
A pair of Japanese soldiers (Shinichi Tsutsumi, left, and Yuki Yamada, right) stay up a tree rather than standing down after the end of World War II in “Army on the Tree.”
CULTURE / Film
Jul 31, 2025

'Army on the Tree': World War II film leans into absurdist theater

Among the films that commemorate the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II this year, Kazuhiro Taira’s film adapted from a play stands out for its lack of iffy politics.
Hun Sen speaks at a press conference at the National Assembly after a vote to confirm his son, Hun Manet, as Cambodia's prime minister in Phnom Penh on August 22, 2023.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Jul 31, 2025

Cambodia's Hun Sen at the helm in border conflict with Thailand

The former leader played an outsized role in events leading up to the deadliest fighting between Thailand and Cambodia in over a decade.
Naomi Osaka pumps her first after winning a point against Jelena Ostapenko in their third round of the WTA Canadian Open in Montreal on Friday.
TENNIS
Aug 2, 2025

Sevastova topples Pegula as Osaka advances to fourth round in Montreal

Osaka is one match away from her first quarterfinal run at either a Grand Slam or WTA 1000 event since she returned from maternity leave at the start of 2024.
The Puma logo at its flagship store in New York on July 16
BUSINESS / Companies
Aug 4, 2025

Puma’s new boss takes helm trailing Adidas and a recovering Nike

For more than two years, Puma’s top brass spoke of "elevating” the German brand and making its sneakers and apparel more aspirational. Since arriving last month, Chief Executive Officer Arthur Hoeld has delivered a fairly blunt verdict: Puma, if anything, is now perceived as cheap.
The ESPN logo at the Super Bowl LIX media center at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans on Feb. 5.
SPORTS / Football
Aug 6, 2025

ESPN, leaping to streaming, holds hands with the NFL

ESPN will receive the NFL Network and other assets in exchange for a 10% equity stake.
A street in Tokyo's Shinjuku district on Wednesday
JAPAN / Society
Aug 7, 2025

Biggest drop in Japanese nationals seen alongside record high in foreign residents

The number of Japanese nationals on Jan. 1 was 120.7 million, while the number of foreign residents had risen 10.65% in a year to 3.68 million.
Giants quarterback Russell Wilson looks to pass during training camp in East Rutherford, New Jersey, on Monday.
MORE SPORTS / Football
Aug 7, 2025

New Giants QB Russell Wilson praises coach Brian Daboll’s 'beautiful mind'

Wilson has also expressed his eagerness to play alongside talented second-year receiver Malik Nabers.
At Himawari Shokudo 2, chef Hozumi Tanaka serves Italian-inspired fare with a focus on Toyama produce, such as this appetizer of lightly blanched "hotaru ika" (firefly squid) served atop mixed wild plants and a crepe prepared from "yamato-imo" yam.
LIFE / Food & Drink / Destination Restaurants
Aug 8, 2025

At Himawari Shokudo 2, Italian food with a Japanese soul

Punching above its own weight, the intimate restaurant is one of the growing number of quality establishments that are helping to cement Toyama's status as a dining destination.
Fukagawa Distillery's bar offers a view of the distillation still behind its walls.
LIFE / Food & Drink / Kanpai Culture
Aug 10, 2025

In a coffee-mad neighborhood, a gin distillery is a clear alternative

Located in Kiyosumi-Shirakawa, Fukagawa Distillery wants residents to “think of gin as their local drink."
Ahmad Habibi and his younger brother Mahmood Habibi pose for the camera in Canada in 2014.
WORLD / Politics
Aug 11, 2025

How a CIA hit on al-Qaida ensnared a U.S. citizen in Afghanistan

Interviews reveal that the Taliban likely detained Mahmood Habibi because the CIA had penetrated the company where he worked.
Justin Rose looks over his putt on the 18th green during the first playoff hole during the final round of the FedEx St. Jude Championship in Memphis, Tennessee, on Sunday.
MORE SPORTS
Aug 11, 2025

Rose tops Spaun in playoff to win PGA St. Jude as Fleetwood falters again

Rose, the 2013 U.S. Open champion, had six birdies over his last eight holes.
Shinto priests holding traditional umbrellas walk to the main shrine for a ritual to cleanse themselves during the annual Spring Festival at Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo in April 2016.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 13, 2025

Dispelling the myth of Yasukuni Shrine

The shrine has been a lightning rod — especially as it has been used by some of Japan's neighbors as a convenient means to shift attention away from their domestic issues.
Modeled on a real-life World World II figure, Yutaka Takenouchi plays the captain of a “lucky” Imperial Japanese Navy destroyer in “Yukikaze.”
CULTURE / Film
Aug 14, 2025

‘Yukikaze’ turns fabled warship into floating snoozefest

The story of a “lucky” Imperial Japanese Navy destroyer that survived World War II is given a lightly fictionalized treatment in Toshihisa Yamada's first feature.
U.S. President Donald Trump meets with Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba at the White House in Washington on Feb. 7.
JAPAN / Politics
Aug 14, 2025

After serving as bulwark for 80 years, Japan's U.S. ties continue to evolve

Under the U.S. security alliance, Japan has contained potential expansion of the Soviet communist bloc and China's hegemonic ambitions since the end of World War II.
A U.S. Marine Corps MV-22 Osprey aircraft flies over the island of Okinawa in March 2018.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 14, 2025

Precautionary Osprey landings signal safety, not alarm

Two precautionary V-22 Osprey landings in northern Honshu demonstrated the aircraft’s safety and its role in enhancing Japan’s rapid-deployment and island-defense capabilities.
A miner holds a sack of ore as it comes out a the mine shaft at the Rubaya coltan mine, near the town of Rubaya, which is controlled by M23 rebels, in eastern Congo on March 24.
WORLD
Aug 14, 2025

Inside the mine that feeds the tech world — and funds Congo’s rebels

The Congolese town of Rubaya produces around 15% of the world’s coltan, which is shipped thousands of kilometers away to Asia where it’s processed into tantalum.
Kosuzu Harada (right), a Nagasaki resident and the granddaughter of a double hibakusha, and Ari Beser, the grandson of a radar operator who flew aboard the U.S. B-29 bombers, in the city of Nagasaki in September 2024
JAPAN
Aug 15, 2025

Beyond A-bombs, grandchildren unite for nuclear-free world

A Japanese woman and an American man whose grandfathers experienced the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki from opposite sides have forged an unlikely collaboration.
Members of the nonprofit group Japan Youth Memorial Association search for the remains of dead soldiers in a cave in Okinawa Prefecture in February.
JAPAN / History / Longform
Aug 15, 2025

The long search for Japan’s lost soldiers

An decades-long effort to recover the remains of those who died during World War II, most of them abroad, may be entering its final phase.
Lawmakers from both chambers of Japan's parliament who are members of a league of parliamentarians promoting Yasukuni Shrine visits walk inside the shrine in Tokyo on Friday.
JAPAN
Aug 15, 2025

Cabinet ministers Koizumi and Kato visit Yasukuni Shrine

The visits marked the sixth consecutive year a Cabinet minister has visited the war-related shrine on the anniversary.

Longform

Mamoru Iwai, stationmaster of Keisei Ueno Station, says that, other than earthquake-proofing, the former Hakubutsukan-Dobutsuen (Museum-Zoo) Station has remained untouched.
Inside Tokyo's 'phantom' stations — and the stories they tell