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Visitors stroll through a tunnel of autumn maple leaves at Mount Koya in Wakayama Prefecture on Nov. 4.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change / OUR PLANET
Nov 19, 2023

Fall is the new summer: Warming threatens Japan’s cultural calendar

Climate change is disrupting Japan’s autumn and seasonal experiences, and with it the rhythm of people’s lives.
Pedestrians walk past stores in the Koenji district in Tokyo on Oct. 29.
BUSINESS
Nov 23, 2023

Personal shopping services in Japan buoyed by weak yen

Shoppers who cannot physically be in Japan are outsourcing their hunt for bargains to remote shopping services.
A bed bug in Paris in September
JAPAN / Society
Nov 27, 2023

Bedbugs are spreading in South Korea and China. Is Japan next?

Experts caution that it may only be a matter of time, given the number of travelers now arriving in the country.
Singapore is again the world's most expensive city to live in, an honor it shares with Zurich this year.
BUSINESS / Economy
Nov 30, 2023

Singapore and Zurich are the world's most expensive cities

Tokyo fell to 60th place while Osaka dropped to 70th amid a weak Japanese yen.
An Israeli soldier fires from a window in the Gaza Strip on Monday. The United States has cautioned Israel to do more to avert civilian casualties as military operations shift to the south, where many Gaza residents are seeking refuge after fleeing the devastated north.
WORLD / Politics
Dec 5, 2023

Two civilian deaths for each Hamas fighter in Gaza, Israel admits

The Israeli military is hoping to reduce noncombatant deaths via high-tech mapping software amid the unfolding humanitarian crisis.
Sareee holds Konami by the limbs during a Sukeban event in Miami on Dec. 6. A unique form of Japanese wrestling that mixes fashion and theatrics has arrived in the United States.
MORE SPORTS
Dec 14, 2023

Can Sukeban make Japan-style female wrestling fashionable with Americans?

In Japanese women’s wrestling, athletes perform theatrical, hard-hitting punches and clever defenses while telling a story with their moves and costumes.
A story on the front page of The Japan Times on Jan. 4, 1924, focuses on a Tokyo attempting to recover from the Great Kanto Earthquake.
JAPAN / History / Japan Times Gone By
Jan 1, 2024

The Japan Times 1924: Tokyo greets 1924 in hope of better things

After a year in which the capital and its surroundings experienced a catastrophic earthquake, an article highlights the resolve of the people.
Voters in countries representing more than 40% of the world’s population, including India, Indonesia and the U.S., will go to the polls between now and the end of 2024.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 18, 2023

Democracy and climate politics are set to collide next year

Voters in countries representing more than 40% of the world’s population will go to the polls between now and the end of next year.
Lowell House on the Harvard University campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 4, 2024

What’s bad for Harvard is good for the rest of us

The elite degree and the signal it sends is neither as accurate nor as valuable as the Ivy League would like you to think.
Passengers walk past a sign directing them to specific lines for EU and non EU passports as they arrive at Dublin Airport in Ireland in September 2019.
WORLD / Society
Jan 11, 2024

These are the world’s most powerful passports in 2024

A decade ago, the two countries shared the top spot, but comparing this year’s list to the 2014 ranking reveals some other major shifts.
COMMUNITY / Voices / FOREIGN AGENDA
Jan 15, 2024

All ¥500 coins that glitter are not gold

Twenty years on and the ¥2,000 note can almost certainly still be described as a “novelty" — what if the new ¥500 coin is destined for the same fate?
Executives at the World Economic Forum say they are grappling with how to turn early demos featuring artificial intelligence into money-makers.
BUSINESS / Tech
Jan 18, 2024

AI buzzes Davos, but CEOs wrestle with how to make it pay

The arrival of OpenAI's viral ChatGPT in late 2022 triggered a frenzy of venture investment and an abrupt change of course inside the world's biggest technology companies.
Salmon farming can be a nasty business. Breeding involves removing eggs and sperm from anesthetized fish, and typically euthanizing males after extraction.
ENVIRONMENT / Energy
Jan 21, 2024

Scotland’s salmon farms navigate troubled waters for global industry

Despite pitching the red-fleshed fish as a more environmentally friendly alternative to beef, producers haven’t yet figured out how to scale sustainably.
Australian Tayler Paulsen and her Kiwi husband Neil managed to purchase a fully-equipped lodge in Myoko, Niigata Prefecture, for only AU$110,000 (about ¥10 million).
COMMUNITY / The Foreign Element
Jan 29, 2024

In Niigata, a winter (and real estate) wonderland

For Australians and New Zealanders facing expensive prices back home, Japan’s snow country is a hotbed for cheap real estate.
Elementary school students arrive at Wajima Senior High School in Ishikawa Prefecture as classes resume at vacant classrooms at the school on Tuesday.
JAPAN
Feb 6, 2024

Schools reopen in quake-hit Wajima

The schools — six elementary schools and one junior high school — resumed their classes by using vacant classrooms at Wajima Senior High School.
Shipments from China to the U.S. are increasingly making a pit stop in third countries such as Vietnam and Mexico.
BUSINESS
Feb 6, 2024

Biden wins U.S.-China trade war by Trump’s pet metric, but does it count?

Figures due Wednesday are set to show the U.S. deficit in goods trade with China in 2023 at its lowest annual level since 2010.
Women workers demand equal pay during a protest in Melbourne.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 7, 2024

Asia is fighting off the diversity backlash

Gender equality is at a crossroads amid a corporate backlash that is threatening progress in in workplace diversity.
Director of the Akan International Crane Center, Miyuki Kawase, says tourism is incredibly helpful for the birds, but the people who come to take pictures of the birds have to remember they are still wild animals.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / 20 QUESTIONS
Feb 24, 2024

Miyuki Kawase: ‘Experience, whether happy, sad or painful, makes you grow’

The director of the Akan International Crane Center in Hokkaido tells us how she found herself in a career centered around the symbolic white birds.
Zazen Boys (from left: So Yoshikane, Shutoku Mukai, Miya and Atsushi Matsushita) released “Rando,” its first original album in 12 years, last month. The 13-song collection features the sonic hallmarks of the band while also reflecting a new focus on the everyday, informed by frontman Mukai’s bike rides through Tokyo’s residential areas and sleepy side streets.
CULTURE / Music
Feb 23, 2024

Character studies of city folk reinvigorate Zazen Boys

Frontman Shutoku Mukai brings a newfound focus on ordinary life and youth to his rock project's first original album in 12 years.
Migrant workers harvest and package vegetables in a greenhouse in Gasan-myeon, South Korea, in December.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Mar 3, 2024

South Korea needs foreign workers, but often fails to protect them

Though a shrinking population makes imported labor vital, migrant workers routinely face predatory employers, inhumane conditions and other abuse.
Floating solar panels at the Canoe Brook water treatment plant in Short Hills, New Jersey
ENVIRONMENT / Energy
Mar 6, 2024

Pressed for space, solar farms are getting creative

There are solar arrays on top of big-box stores, solar arrays on yachts and solar farms that float.
A DITA howitzer-gun vehicle at an arms factory in Sternberk, Czech Republic
WORLD / Politics
Mar 7, 2024

As Russia advances, Europe extends reach to source ammunition for Ukraine

Supplies of ammunition to Ukraine have been interrupted by politics, with U.S. Congress holding up a $60 billion military aid package.
Korean Canadian director, playwright and screenwriter Celine Song walks on the stage to pose for photos after a screening of her film, "Past Lives" in Seoul last week.
CULTURE / Film
Mar 7, 2024

Oscar-nominated Korean diaspora film follows 'lives we leave behind'

"Past Lives," which marks Celine Song's debut as a director, is one of several recent films that address the Korean diaspora.
U.S. President Joe Biden speaks during a campaign event in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on Wednesday.
WORLD / Politics
Mar 15, 2024

Biden’s best shot against Trump lies in ‘blue wall’ states

In Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, his campaign sees signs for optimism.
The outdoor version of an "instant house," developed and set up by architect Keisuke Kitagawa in Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture
JAPAN
Mar 19, 2024

'Instant Houses' used widely in Noto quake-hit areas

The structure, which can be erected in an hour, is 4 meters tall with a floor area of 20 square meters.
As of December 2022, the village of Zamami, Okinawa Prefecture, had in its stockpile six of the nine items listed in a survey as necessary for women and 10 of the 11 items listed as necessary for babies and infants, doing much better than other municipalities in the prefecture.
JAPAN / Society / Regional Voices: Okinawa
Apr 1, 2024

Municipalities push gender-inclusive disaster risk management

Some areas in Okinawa involve more women in decision-making and make an effort at stockpiling relevant items.
Wildlife researcher Amelia Hiorns says Japan's bears feel the pressure of human presence and have learned that encountering us is not worth their time.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / 20 QUESTIONS
Mar 30, 2024

Amelia Hiorns: 'Guiding and introducing people to Japan's nature has been rewarding'

Wildlife researcher Amelia Hiorns shares how separate interests in Japan and in bears culminated in conservation work in the mountains of Nagano.
Beijing-based Chinese influencer Chang Feifei has taken on many jobs to promote travel destinations in Japan, including from Universal Studios Japan and the Hankyu and Hanshin department stores.
BUSINESS / FOCUS
Mar 28, 2024

Influencers — Japan’s secret weapon to promote niche tourism spots

Followers' trust in — and reliance on — social media for travel info, even when the content is sponsored, is a key factor.
Climate change, with its natural disasters, is putting nuclear facilities and weapons complexes at risk.
COMMENTARY
Apr 4, 2024

Climate change and nuclear waste are a toxic stew

Nuclear power could be a crucial part of a clean-energy transition, but not if it comes with a high risk of multiple Fukushima-like catastrophes.
If it's too hot to do much (and the costs for air conditioning continue to surge) during the day, it might be time to consider shifting the bulk of our activities to cooler nighttime hours.
LIFE / Lifestyle
Apr 6, 2024

A solution for scorching days: Do everything at night.

Working night shifts, however, comes with a host of health problems, increasing the risk of diabetes, heart disease and even cancer.

Longform

Professional cleaner Hirofumi Sakurai takes a moment to appreciate some photographs in a Gotanda apartment whose occupant died alone. 
The last cleanup: Life and death in a lonely Japan