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The Dodgers' Shohei Ohtani was the most popular player during MLB's Tokyo Series.
BASEBALL / MLB
Mar 21, 2025

Tokyo Series generates company-record $40 million in sales for Fanatics

According to the company, over 200,000 fans shopped at the official MLB stores operated by Fanatics
Orix Buffaloes pitcher Taisuke Yamaoka speaks to reporters in the city of Osaka on Friday for the first time since he was reported to have participated in a poker tournament run by a foreign casino website.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Mar 21, 2025

Cabinet approves strategy to battle illegal online casinos

A National Policy Agency survey released earlier this month showed that nearly 3.37 million Japanese are estimated to have used overseas online casinos to illegally gamble.
Marui Group's Museum Epos Cards — where donations are made to art museums based on the amount spent on the card — sit on display in Tokyo's Taito Ward on Friday.
BUSINESS / Companies
Mar 23, 2025

Marui launches museum-supporting credit card

The company has partnered with the National Museum of Art, the National Institutes for Cultural Heritage and the National Museum of Nature and Science.
Associate professor Soko Aoki (right) and her sociology students at Tohoku University have helped compile documents in the recently published “50th Year of Menstrual Products” book.
JAPAN / Society / Regional Voices: Tohoku
Mar 31, 2025

Menstruation and gender equality: Student movement revisited 50 years on

As "period poverty" has become a social issue, former members of the group have self-published a reference book about their activities.
Students attend a job fair at Makuhari Messe in the city of Chiba on March 1.
BUSINESS / Companies
Mar 26, 2025

About 30% of major Japanese companies using AI for recruiting, poll says

The results show that companies are looking to AI to increase the efficiency of recruitment efforts as competition for human resources heats up.
“The Wakey Show” is NHK’s first new daily children’s program in three years, and it carries on the station’s storied past in youth-centric educational entertainment.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming
Mar 27, 2025

Rise and shine with ‘The Wakey Show’

Broadcaster NHK's first new daily children’s show in years puts puppets and positivity up front.
Scenes like this snow-covered bridge leading to the village of Shirakawa-go are what make the Three-Star Road worth traveling — its name notwithstanding.
LIFE / Travel
Mar 29, 2025

Traveling the Three-Star Road, the tourist route made from thin air

Linking mountainous Matsumoto and coastal Kanazawa, this clunkily named route includes nonetheless fantastic sites.
The Tokyo National Museum’s garden is open to the public in springtime, when 10 different varieties of cherry trees are blooming.
CULTURE / Art
Mar 28, 2025

Cherry blossom-themed art to see this weekend in Tokyo

With the cherry blossoms’ ephemeral beauty immortalized in art and literature for centuries, there's plenty of artworks to gaze upon on rainy days.
Tsuyoshi Domoto in Tokyo's Shinjuku Ward on March 28. As an entrepreneur, Domoto experienced plenty of setbacks but maintains a positive attitude and continues to pursue his dreams.
BUSINESS / Tech
Mar 30, 2025

Tokyo tech failures lean into misfortune, mistakes and missteps

At a Tokyo Fail Club gathering, speakers share candid talks about ventures gone wrong, bankruptcy and depression, touting a message of persistence in the face of adversity.
U.S. President Donald Trump walks toward Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on Friday.
BUSINESS / Companies
Mar 31, 2025

U.S. orders French companies to comply with Trump's DEI ban

The order will spark concerns in European boardrooms that the Trump administration is widening its fight against DEI policies overseas.
Federica Brignone, seen on the podium at the FIS Alpine World Cup Finals on March 27, suffered a broken leg in the giant slalom at the Italian Championships on Thursday.
MORE SPORTS / Alpine skiing
Apr 4, 2025

Italian star Federica Brignone breaks leg with home Olympics on horizon

The 34-year-old is one of Italy's strongest medal contenders in the blue-ribbon sport of Alpine skiing for next year's home Olympics.
After getting her career started in Japan, Courney Kaplan has become one of Los Angeles' leading sake evangelists from her base at Ototo.
LIFE / Food & Drink / Kanpai Culture
Apr 6, 2025

In Los Angeles, Courtney Kaplan says sake is having a moment

Los Angeles has no shortage of Japanese restaurants, but Ototo makes the country's national drink an easy sip.
Nattanit Yiamthaisong (right), a Ph.D. student, Thongyod Chiangkanta, a technician from the Forest Restoration Research Unit at Chiang Mai University (center) and a forest guide walk through areas damaged by wildfires in Thailand's Umphang Wildlife Sanctuary on March 22.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Apr 5, 2025

'It's gone': conservation science in Thailand's burning forest

Scientists are confronting the toll that human activity and climate change are already having on forests that are supposed to be pristine and protected.
ETC lanes are closed at a toll booth on the Chuo Expressway in the city of Mitaka in Tokyo on Sunday.
JAPAN
Apr 6, 2025

Malfunctioning tollbooths snarl traffic around Honshu

The Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) system was unusable at over 90 tollbooths in seven prefectures — Tokyo, Kanagawa, Shizuoka, Yamanashi, Aichi, Gifu, and Mie.
Paris Saint-Germain's players throw coach Luis Enrique into the air as they celebrate winning the French league title in Paris on Saturday.
SOCCER
Apr 7, 2025

Paris Saint-Germain becomes stronger amid Luis Enrique's starless revolution

Having just clinched the Ligue 1 title, PSG moves on to a Champions League quarterfinal against Aston Villa in a buoyant mood.
A Fuchu expressway entrance in western Tokyo is closed Sunday due to a glitch in the Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) system.
JAPAN
Apr 7, 2025

Tollbooths now operational after ETC malfunction causes mass confusion

It was the first time such a large-scale problem involving the ETC system has occurred since Japanese expressways were privatized in 2005.
Masatoshi Asari is one of Japan’s foremost living authorities on cherry trees and their blossoms.
JAPAN
Apr 9, 2025

The man who sent Japan's cherry blossoms out to the world

Masatoshi Asari's trees — symbols of peace and reconciliation — blossom in the U.K., U.S., Poland and China.
Cherry blossoms in full bloom at Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo on March 30
JAPAN / Science & Health
Apr 10, 2025

AI app helps monitor cherry tree health and keep hanami tradition blooming

As Japan celebrates cherry blossom season, aging trees pose safety risks — and a new AI app is helping track their condition.
Margot Magniere and Theo Poyer returned to Japan after pandemic-era restrictions were lifted and decided to stay for a while.
CULTURE / Music
Apr 11, 2025

The band that turned a pandemic lockdown into a Tokyo dream

On “Grand Voyage,” French pop act Tapeworms tap into Japanese cultural nostalgia and picopop.
The Four Seasons Hotel Osaka opened in 2024, just one of many new luxury accommodations the city boasts ahead of the 2025 World Expo.
LIFE / Travel
Apr 12, 2025

Osaka Expo-bound? Take your pick of the city’s new luxury hotels.

Increased capacity makes lodging a buyer’s market, as intense competition keeps prices down and encourages hotels to differentiate themselves from the pack.
Government-stockpiled rice stacked in a warehouse in Feb. 18 in Saitama Prefecture
JAPAN
Apr 16, 2025

Japan to hold third auction of stockpiled rice next week

In total, 100,000 tons of reserved 2023 rice will be auctioned.
On the 28th floor of the Waldorf Astoria Osaka, the Peacock Lounge exemplifies the art deco decadence the brand has become synonymous with.
LIFE / Travel
Apr 19, 2025

Japan’s first Waldorf Astoria brings art deco luxury to Osaka

Stays at the Waldorf Astoria Osaka start at ¥150,000 per night, but this is no hotel to be pinching pennies.
The Supreme Court ruled that the man's conduct could undermine public trust in the system and the sound operation of the bus service.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Apr 18, 2025

Japan bus driver steals $7, loses $84,000 pension

The city of Kyoto sacked the man after he was filmed by a bus security camera taking ¥1,000 in 2022.
The Tokyo version of the globe-trotting exhibition features a Ministry of Magic set, which includes an imposing replica of the Magic Is Might monument representing magical fascism.
LIFE / Lifestyle
Apr 18, 2025

Calling all Potterheads: ‘The Goblet of Fire’ comes to Tokyo

The grand scale and attention to detail is likely to impress — just make sure to withdraw some galleons at Gringotts before coming.
A portrait of the late Pope Francis is placed in front of the altar during a mass at the Buenos Aires Cathedral on Monday, following his death in the Vatican.
WORLD / Society
Apr 22, 2025

'One isn't born a saint': School nuns remember Pope Francis as a boy

A boisterous child, then-Jorge Bergoglio played football with his friends in the courtyard, and sprinted up and down the marble stairs.
China Coast Guard officers unfurl a national flag on Sandy Cay reef, near the Philippine-held Thitu Island, in disputed waters of the South China Sea this month in this screen shot taken from Chinese state broadcaster CCTV.
ASIA PACIFIC
Apr 27, 2025

China seizes disputed reef near key Philippine military outpost

Beijing's focus on claiming sovereignty over Sandy Cay reef in the South China Sea adds to fears over a clash with Manila.
A manhole card and a manhole cover featuring characters from "Sailor Moon," on Feb. 10. The cards were handed out by Tokyo's Minato Ward, where the series is set.
JAPAN
May 4, 2025

Manhole cover designs recognized as tourism assets in Japan

The initiative to create specially designed manhole covers began as a public relations campaign to improve the image of the sewage industry.
A Fuchu expressway entrance in western Tokyo is closed on April 6 due to a glitch in the Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) system.
JAPAN
May 2, 2025

Central Nippon Expressway won't collect tolls after ETC glitch

About 960,000 vehicles are estimated to have been affected by the problem, which lasted some 38 hours.
A seamstress at Kineya Tabi sews together split-toe "tabi" socks, once a major industry for the town of Gyoda, Saitama Prefecture.
LIFE / Style & Design
May 3, 2025

Japan’s ‘tabi’ sock mecca runs on thread and memories

At their peak in the early-20th century, Gyoda’s artisans churned out more than 84 million pairs of socks each year.
People watch as Berkshire Hathaway chairman Warren Buffett is seen on a screen speaking at the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholders' meeting, in Omaha, Nebraska, on Saturday.
BUSINESS / Companies
May 5, 2025

Warren Buffett successor inherits giant cash pile and many questions

Buffett, the 94-year-old architect and face of Berkshire Hathaway, built the firm from humble beginnings into one of the world’s most valuable enterprises.

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