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Toshihiro Kinjo (center), a research support technician at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, inspects an audio recording device in Ginowan, Okinawa Prefecture, on April 3 as Masako Ogasawara, a research support specialist at OIST, looks on.
PODCAST / deep dive
May 23, 2024

What does climate change sound like in Okinawa?

This week, Japan Times climate editor Chris Russell joins us to discuss what researchers at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology are listening to.
Aliou Diack’s “Anastomosis” paintings were created at Yoshino Cedar House, Space Un’s residency in Yoshino, Nara Prefecture.
CULTURE / Art
May 24, 2024

Contemporary Afro-Japanese shows broaden Tokyo's art scene

Three ongoing exhibitions showcasing work by Theaster Gates, Aliou Diack and Serge Mouangue highlight commonality between Japanese, African American and African aesthetics.
Bill Walton, NBA Hall of Famer and broadcasting star, in New York in March 2011. Walton died on Monday at his home in San Diego at the age of 71.
BASKETBALL
May 28, 2024

Bill Walton, NBA Hall of Famer and free spirit, dies at 71

In the years following his NBA career, Walton turned to sports broadcasting.
This untitled work was completed and installed in 1994 by a prominent Nigerian artist named Sunday Jack Akpan.
COMMUNITY / Voices / Black Eye
Jun 3, 2024

How a cache of African art found a home in western Tokyo

When I first encountered these statues, I was just minding my business headed for Tachikawa Station. I was struck dumb, paralyzed damn near mid-step.
Yumi Kawai delivers an impressive lead performance as a young drug addict trying to get her life back on track in Yu Irie’s “A Girl Named Ann.”
CULTURE / Film
Jun 6, 2024

‘A Girl Named Ann’: A powerful drama loses its way

The lead actor sinks deep into her role, performing without a hint of vanity or the actorly tics.
Myo Kyaw Kyaw, 38, a member of Myanmar's persecuted Rohingya Muslim minority who is seeking refugee status in Japan, speaks during an interview on May 29.
JAPAN / Society
Jun 9, 2024

Japan's revised immigration law sparks deportation worries

The revised immigration law allows the deportation of individuals who have applied for refugee status three times even while their applications are being processed.
Michael Taylor, former U.S. Green Beret and architect of the 2019 Carlos Ghosn escape plot, said that other inmates deported from Fuchu Prison to a detention center in Los Angeles were so traumatized that they ended up with psychological problems.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Jun 18, 2024

Man who sprung Ghosn challenges depiction of Fuchu Prison

Michael Taylor, who served part of his sentence at the facility, said he felt the depiction had missed key elements of the "Fuchu experience."
Soldiers training at the Special Forces University in Gudermes, Chechen Republic, Russia, in December.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Jun 23, 2024

Russia is storing up a crime wave when its war in Ukraine ends

Crimes committed by servicemen that aren’t linked to the war increased by more than 20% last year, according to data from Russia’s Supreme Court.
Lakers second round draft pick Bronny James is introduced at a news conference in El Segundo, California, on Tuesday.
BASKETBALL
Jul 3, 2024

Bronny James ready for pressure after 'surreal' Lakers move

The 19-year-old former University of Southern California player was chosen by the Lakers last week with the 55th pick in the NBA draft.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine's president, during an interview in Kyiv on Wednesday
WORLD / Politics
Jul 4, 2024

Zelenskyy challenges Trump to reveal plans for ending war

Former U.S. President Donald Trump has boasted that if he wins the election, he’ll end the Ukraine-Russia war by the time he’s inaugurated in January.
American Gregorio Narvasa has gone from baking cookies in his spare to time to working with major Tokyo companies from his new Koenji shop.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Jul 7, 2024

Koenji gets a new cookie shop. Its owner gets a community.

After several years of sharing his creations at pop-up events scattered across Tokyo, Gregorio Narvasa opened a physical bake shop in Koenji on April 20 of this year.
Cubs pitcher Shota Imanaga warms up ahead of a game against the Giants at Oracle Park in San Francisco on June 27.
BASEBALL / MLB
Jul 16, 2024

'Shotamania' in Chicago: Cubs' Imanaga quickly becomes fan favorite

Imanaga, who has been one of the National League's top pitchers, has seamlessly inserted himself into the Chicago sports scene.
If the billions of people who will watch this summer's Paris Olympic Games were to take inspiration from history and call for cease-fires in today's wars, many lives could be saved.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 17, 2024

Restore the Olympic peace

International collaboration and moral leadership are essential for achieving peace, paralleling the ancient Olympic Games as symbols of halting hostilities.
Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump and Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance applaud on the second day of the Republican National Convention, at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on Tuesday.
WORLD / Politics
Jul 18, 2024

Trump's running mate J.D. Vance set to take spotlight in convention speech

The Republican campaign was dramatically altered four days ago when Trump narrowly survived an attempt on his life at a political rally in Pennsylvania.
TikTok has deployed Washington power brokers and $1,500-an-hour attorneys to fend off a new law barring the app unless its Beijing-based parent, ByteDance, divests.
BUSINESS / Tech / FOCUS
Jul 27, 2024

TikTok’s survival is at stake in all-out fight against U.S. ban

TikTok has deployed Washington power brokers and $1,500-an-hour attorneys to fend off a new law barring the app unless ByteDance divests.
Stilt houses at the village of the Bajau sea nomads in Pulau Papan in Sulawesi, Indonesia
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Jul 29, 2024

Indonesia's sea nomads forced into finding jobs on land

For many Bajau people living in Pulau Papan in Indonesia, their ancestors' way of life at sea has all but died out.
Takashi Yuki (left) directs and stars in “Dito” as an aging boxer living in Manila who is reunited with his 17-year-old daughter (Momoko Tanabe, right).
CULTURE / Film
Aug 1, 2024

‘Dito’ aims for authenticity rather than originality

Takashi Yuki’s Philippines-set boxing drama can be corny and it tends to telegraph its punches, but there’s also no denying its charms.
Commuters take a subway home at Sungsu station in Seoul on July 15.
BUSINESS / Companies
Aug 6, 2024

Declaring ‘crisis,’ South Korean firms tell managers to work more

In South Korea, the five-day workweek is only a generation old, introduced by labor laws in 2004.
A woman checks her phone as she stands amid the rubble of a building destroyed during Israeli bombardment in Gaza City's Sheikh Radwan neighborhood on Sunday.
WORLD
Aug 12, 2024

In Gaza, keeping the internet on can cost lives but also save them

Preserving the war-torn territory's internet connection comes at a price and the risks can be deadly for desperate users.
For centuries, Japanese people have been scaring themselves with horror stories as a way of cooling down during the stifling summer months.
CULTURE / Books
Aug 16, 2024

New tales in translation to give you chills and thrills this summer

Recent fright-filled releases with supernatural creatures, shrewd sleuths and creepy killers provide welcome relief from the sweltering heat.
An artist's impression of a large asteroid impacting at Chicxulub on the Mexican coastline, which caused the end-Cretaceous mass extinction, 66 million years ago, with the planet Mars and asteroid bodies in the background.
WORLD / Science & Health
Aug 16, 2024

Asteroid that doomed the dinosaurs originated beyond Jupiter

After migrating inward to become part of the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, the asteroid was somehow sent hurtling in the direction of Earth.
Only two other class of persons were treated with anything like the merciless ferocity meted out to lovers: subversives and Christians.
JAPAN / History / The Living Past
Aug 17, 2024

Love was a most subversive affair in Edo Japan

As the shogunate required order in society, love was seen as a threat to rational thinking — something that you might die for.
South Africa's 49-year-old skateboarding Olympian, Dallas Oberholzer, competes in the men's prelims during the Paris Games on Aug. 7.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 16, 2024

The oldest Olympians might hold the key to slowing down aging

As we age, the number of mitochondria in our cells declines, but that happens much more slowly in people who continue to do strenuous exercise.
Masako Egawa forged a successful career in business and academia in the United States and Japan.
BUSINESS / WOMEN AT WORK
Sep 1, 2024

A quiet triumph of excellence in the worlds of banking and academia

Masako Egawa navigated a changing business world with her arms open to any opportunities that came along.
A wall mural depicting Nintendo's Super Mario characters in an underground walkway in Kyoto. The company will open the Nintendo Museum in October.
BUSINESS / Companies
Aug 20, 2024

Nintendo to open museum showcasing video game history this fall

The museum in Uji, Kyoto Prefecture, will feature vintage video games and an interactive shoot-em-up with Super Mario characters.
A satellite image shows Typhoon Shanshan south of Kyushu on Wednesday afternoon
JAPAN
Aug 28, 2024

Typhoon Shanshan batters Kyushu ahead of likely landfall

Shanshan could make landfall later Thursday while still a very strong storm, and its slow movement means it will deliver dangerous impacts over a prolonged period.
Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks as he attends a town hall event in La Crosse, Wisconsin, on Thursday.
WORLD / Politics
Aug 30, 2024

Trump's high-wire act on abortion angers conservatives

The Republican nominee, who often brags about his role in overturning the constitutional right to abortion in the U.S., now claims to promote "reproductive rights."
Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump dances during a campaign rally at the Cambria County War Memorial Arena in Johnstown, Pennsylvania,  on Friday.
WORLD / Politics
Aug 31, 2024

Trump moves to contain fallout of abortion and IVF rows

The ex-president has been under fire from conservatives over an announcement that in a second term he would ensure free in vitro fertilization.
Britain's Lucy Shuker says there is more work to be done to make things easier for people with disabilities.
PARALYMPICS / Tennis
Sep 1, 2024

Paralympic great Lucy Shuker says more can be done to aid people with disabilities

The 44-year-old is trying to earn her fourth Paralympic medal.
Jannik Sinner celebrates after defeating Taylor Fritz in the U.S. Open final in New York on Sunday.
TENNIS
Sep 9, 2024

Jannik Sinner rolls past Taylor Fritz in U.S. Open final

For 23-year-old Sinner, it was his 55th match win of the season and sixth title.

Longform

Totopa in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward was picked by consultants TTNE as the best sauna of the year.
Japan’s sauna movement: Relax, refresh, repeat