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December 22, 2024
 

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Adam Minter
Retired pro-boxer Mike Tyson and YouTuber/boxer Jake Paul fight during the heavyweight boxing bout in Arlington, Texas, on Nov. 15. The fight highlights the need for a national boxing commission to enforce uniform safety standards and prevent exploitative matchups.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 22, 2024
Mike Tyson and Jake Paul's fight should have been illegal
Among major American sports, boxing is unique for its decentralized structure. There’s no annual schedule, season, commissioner or mandatory rulemaking body.
To preserve the integrity of the game in the legalized gambling era, Major League Baseball must double down and maintain its now posthumous ban on Pete Rose.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Oct 4, 2024
Pete Rose fans are wrong: He's not worthy of the Hall of Fame
Backing down would undermine the league’s zero-tolerance stance and signal that "permanently ineligible" isn't always permanent.
Olympic rings are displayed on Charles de Gaulle Airport near Paris ahead of the city hosting the 2024 Olympic Games. One way of reducing the carbon emissions of mega sporting events is to limit the attendance of spectators traveling by air.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 10, 2024
Only locals should be allowed to attend the Olympics
The single best way of reducing the carbon emissions of an Olympics? Limiting ticket sales to locals. Evidence from the Tokyo Games shows how far-reaching the impact is.
Japan’s Coco Yoshizawa participates in a Paris 2024 Olympic qualifier. This summer’s Olympics will be the first in which half of athletes are female.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 28, 2024
Paris Olympics’ gender equality boast has an asterisk
Paris 2024 will be the first Olympics where half of all athletes are female. But the gender gap remains wide among the ranks of coaches and needs to be tackled.
Indian cricket is struggling against climate change-induced heat and rain and the last thing it needs is oil-rich Saudi Arabia buying into the league.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 16, 2023
The last thing cricket needs is Saudi money
Indian cricket is struggling against climate change-induced heat and rain. A partnership with oil-rich Saudi Arabia would lead to a certain defeat.
Gamers play during the first day of Europe's leading digital games fair, Gamescom, in Cologne, Germany, in August 2019
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 2, 2023
Video game competitions should be in the Olympics
Esports is already among the world’s most popular competitive activities. Last year, the global audience totaled more than 500 million people.
NASA and the Department of Defense are collaborating with Lockheed Martin to build and test a nuclear rocket engine by 2027.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 21, 2023
NASA’s $500 million rocket gamble is worth it
Nuclear rockets are worth pursuing, but only with careful safeguards and international cooperation.
Surging populations of plant-eating insects are disrupting farms and the food supply chain, causing problems far more serious than sticky windshields from bug excrement.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 20, 2023
The insect apocalypse is coming to your neighborhood
Polar bears and sea turtles get most of the attention as victims of climate change, but when the bugs invade we're all going to feel it personally.
Japan Times
MORE SPORTS
Jul 20, 2023
Women's sports experiencing steady growth in popularity and value
Women's sports are growing in popularity and value. Better yet, that growth is no longer dependent upon quadrennial events like the Olympics or World Cups.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 12, 2023
Will AI in baseball become the next 'Moneyball'?
Artificial intelligence could complicate the business of baseball, making the game homogenized and less dynamic.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 29, 2023
Saving the Hubble telescope is worth spending the money
NASA’s plan to recruit unpaid volunteers to rescue the Hubble telescope fails to appreciate the ongoing value of this scientific treasure.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 30, 2023
The world’s space junk problem just got an affordable solution
We’re getting better at spotting and dodging debris in orbit — a much more cost-effective option than spending billions on cosmic robot cleaners.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 17, 2023
Satellite-saving robots can turn killer, too
Orbiting machines used to repair other spacecraft can just as easily be used to destroy them and will require new international rules to keep the peace.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 7, 2022
NASA’s Artemis rocket is a gigantic waste of money
NASA's lunar mission is already years late and billions over budget. Meanwhile, private companies have been pushing boundaries in space travel for more than a decade.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 27, 2022
The space race the world needs is finally starting
Elon Musk wants SpaceX to become the first private company to complete a mission to Mars, but he has competition and that's good for everybody.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
May 17, 2022
A mission to Uranus would be expensive, and worth it
The U.S. Congress should embrace a proposed $4 billion-plus Uranus mission for the discoveries it will make possible and to inspire a new generation of world-leading space scientists.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 12, 2022
America’s hunger pandemic is getting worse
When COVID-19 and its economic disruptions hit, already vulnerable demographics found themselves in particular need.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 24, 2021
Is NASA’s new telescope worth the risks?
For decades, America has been at the forefront of astronomy and astrophysics. It'd be a mistake to cede that leadership thanks to needless cost overruns and delays.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 20, 2021
Musk soars while Bezos sues in the new space race
As Jeff Bezos's companies fall behind Elon Musk's SpaceX in the race to return to the moon and launch satellites, they're increasingly resorting to politics and legal filings to get ahead.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 3, 2021
Space junk, long feared, is now an imminent threat
Although the vast majority of space junk is the size of a grain of sand or smaller, at least 26,000 pieces are big enough to destroy a satellite.
Record 78% of people in Japan feel anxious, government survey finds
The public opinion survey on people's lives, conducted by the Cabinet Office, found that 28.1% of respondents think that their standard of living is at a lower-middle level among the general public — the highest percentage to give that response in 35 years.
Police raided suspect's home to arrest him after fatal Kitakyushu stabbing
Broken window glass is seen at Masanori Hirabaru's house in Kitakyushu's Kokuraminami Ward.
Taiwan lawmakers brawl over bills that would 'damage democracy'
Lawmakers from the Democratic Progressive Party and opposition party Kuomintang brawl in parliament in Taipei on Friday.
Ride-hailing restrictions to be eased during 2025 Osaka Expo
A venue for the 2025 Osaka Expo in the city of Osaka
Foxconn's interest in Nissan said to be on hold amid Honda merger talks
Foxconn’s pause in its pursuit of Nissan is the latest development in the unexpected emergence of two suitors for the ailing Japanese carmaker.
Japanese officials inspect Yokota Air Base over PFAS concerns
The Yokota Air Base in western Tokyo in September 2019. An inspection of the base by Japanese government officials on Friday came amid public pressure to investigate suspected links between the use of PFAS-containing firefighting foam by the U.S. base and contamination of soil and groundwater in western Tokyo.
Crime numbers rise in Japan for second straight year
A police officer stands in front of the residence of a man alleged to have stabbed two junior high school students in Kitakyushu.
A year of Oscar wins and a quiet push for diversity
Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s “Evil Does Not Exist,” released in Japanese theaters in April, sharply dramatizes the clash between rural and urban values. The film won five awards at the 2023 Venice Film Festival, including the second-place Silver Lion prize.
Curiosity didn’t kill the meme: Why cats still rule Japanese YouTube
A screen shot from YouTube user @lagelda shows the simplicity of going viral in Japan in 2024: A cat dancing to EDM in front of a green screen.
With rare Asia carrier deployment, France seeks greater interoperability
The flight deck of the French Navy's Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier during a stop at Changi Naval Base in Singapore in May 2019

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Yasuyuki Yoshida stirs a brew in a fermentation tank at his brewery in Hakusan.
The quake that shook Noto's sake brewing tradition
By Alex K.T. Martin

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