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This undated handout picture courtesy of Blue Origin shows the New Glenn rocket during a successful integrated vehicle hotfire at Launch Complex 36 (LC-36) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jan 6, 2025

Bezos' Blue Origin poised for first orbital launch

The NG-1 mission will carry a prototype of Blue Ring, a Department of Defense-funded spacecraft envisioned as a versatile satellite deployment platform.
U.S. Anti-Doping Agency CEO Travis Tygart testifies before U.S. Congress during an anti-doping hearing on June 24, 2024.
MORE SPORTS
Jan 9, 2025

U.S. withholds payment to WADA amid dispute over Chinese doping tests

The move to hold back 2024 WADA dues comes in the wake of WADA's controversial handling of positive doping tests by 23 Chinese swimmers who were later allowed to compete.
A meteorite from Mars found in Antarctica will be shown to the public for the first time at the Japan Pavilion during this year's World Exposition in the city of Osaka.
JAPAN
Jan 10, 2025

Japan pavilion to exhibit Mars meteorite at Osaka Expo

The meteorite, collected by an Antarctic research expedition in 2000, will be shown to the public for the first time at the expo.
The sun sets over the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes in Death Valley National Park, near Furnace Creek, during a heat wave impacting Southern California in July.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Jan 10, 2025

Record heat pushed 2024 above global warming threshold of 1.5 C

A clear acceleration in rising temperatures has puzzled scientists, even as the evidence of the fast-warming atmosphere became impossible to miss.
Rescue workers search a flooded area during the aftermath of Typhoon Hagibis, which caused severe floods at the Chikuma River, in the city of Nagano in October 2019.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change / OUR PLANET
Jan 12, 2025

Disaster-hardened Japan faces enormous costs from climate change

The total cost in climate damages for the country through 2050 could amount to ¥952 trillion if more ambitious action isn't taken.
A beachfront property destroyed by the Palisades Fire is seen in Malibu, California on Sunday.
OLYMPICS / Swimming
Jan 13, 2025

Olympic chiefs vow to replace U.S. swim star medals lost in LA fires

Hall said he fled taking only his dog, the insulin he uses to treat his diabetes, a painting of his grandfather and a religious artifact.
Kinki Taxi President Kiyoto Morisaki in Kobe on Dec. 16
JAPAN
Jan 15, 2025

Disaster area tour helping Kobe revival 30 years after 1995 quake

The tour program began in around 2000, and over 100 schools have taken part so far.
The Hollywood sign shrouded in smoke from an overnight blaze in the Hollywood Hills on Jan. 9
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 14, 2025

The Hollywood fires will cause harm long after they burn out

We’re not going to be able to turn the clock back on this creeping disaster. It will be many centuries before our atmosphere recovers from the damage.
Roxana Oshiro and her husband gather their belongings in front of their house in Furukawacho, in Kobe's Suma Ward, after the Great Hanshin Earthquake in 1995.
JAPAN / Society / FOCUS
Jan 17, 2025

The efforts to bridge the disaster information gap, 30 years on

Disaster information didn't reach many non-Japanese speakers after the Great Hanshin Earthquake struck. Thirty years later, has the situation improved?
Ichiro Suzuki had 1,278 hits and a .353 batting average in nine seasons with the BlueWave in NPB.
BASEBALL / MLB
Jan 16, 2025

Ichiro voted into Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame

Former players Hitoki Iwase and Masayuki Kakefu and former Central League umpire Hiroya Tomizawa were also voted into the Hall.
Atsuyoshi Koike, the president and CEO of Rapidus, says there is a “sense of urgency” when it comes to Japan’s efforts in manufacturing semiconductors. “We have to make sure we are successful,” he says.
BUSINESS / Companies / Longform
Jan 17, 2025

Atsuyoshi Koike’s big game: Fourth down and 2 nanometers to go

The CEO and president of Rapidus says the chip venture in Hokkaido is key to Japan's fortunes.
A training session for a new reporting system that the Japan Coast Guard began operating on Saturday
JAPAN
Jan 18, 2025

Japan Coast Guard launches emergency video reporting system

The coast guard hopes the new system will improve life-saving measures in the event of emergencies at sea.
A cartoon image of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump holding a Bitcoin token to mark the cryptocurrency reaching over $100,000 is displayed at a Coinhero store in Hong Kong on Dec. 5.
BUSINESS / Markets
Jan 20, 2025

Trump’s win sparked euphoria in markets — now comes the real test

A reversal was first apparent in the stock market, where the S&P 500 Index gave back a solid chunk of its "Trump bump.”
Ichiro Suzuki finished his career with 3,089 MLB hits and is one of 33 players in the 3,000-hit club.
BASEBALL / MLB
Jan 22, 2025

Iconic Japanese outfielder Ichiro Suzuki elected to Baseball Hall of Fame

Ichiro, who rose to global superstardom with the Mariners, was elected in his first year on the ballot, but fell one vote short of becoming the second player voted in unanimously.
In 2024, child mortality for children before the age of 5 reached a record low of 3.6%, down from over 25% in 1950. For most of history, about half of all newborns died as children.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 22, 2025

Even this year is the best time ever to be alive

Another way of looking at it: Every day over the past couple of years, roughly 30,000 people moved out of extreme poverty worldwide.
People walk in front of billboards in a subway station in Shanghai on Jan. 16.
BUSINESS / Economy
Jan 22, 2025

China's frugal young adults accelerate saving, raising economic risks

Some economists warn entrenched saving could hollow out demand just as policymakers are counting on domestic consumption to bolster China's GDP.
The day care room for younger children at a multipurpose facility on Tonaki Island, Okinawa Prefecture, has never been used since its establishment in 2019.
JAPAN / Society / Regional Voices: Okinawa
Feb 3, 2025

The harsh reality of migration outflow on Okinawa’s least populated island

Since Tonaki Island established its only day care center in 2019, not a single child has set foot inside.
Japanese Communist Party leader Tomoko Tamura speaks at a Lower House session in Tokyo in December 2024.
JAPAN / Politics
Jan 23, 2025

Japanese Communist Party's Tomoko Tamura faces leadership questions ahead of polls

Tamura is aiming for 6.5 million proportional representation votes, but experts say that's unrealistic.
Schoolchildren in El Bosque, Mexico. Education is one of the services most frequently disrupted by climate hazards, UNICEF's executive director Catherine Russell said.
WORLD / Society
Jan 24, 2025

Climate shocks in 2024 disrupted 242 million children's schooling: UNICEF

Heat waves had the biggest impact, with at least 171 million children affected by them last year.
Rodgers (right) was a longtime managing editor of Kyoto Journal and, alongside colleagues like Susan Pavloska (left) and John Einarsen (center), helped make it one of Japan’s leading English-language publications.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Jan 27, 2025

Ken Rodgers, a fixture of the Kyoto literary scene, dies at 72

Hailing from Australia, Rodgers made a home and community for himself in Japan’s ancient capital across more than four decades.
A U.S. district judge did little to hide that he was highly skeptical of Donald Trump's executive order limiting birthright citizenship.
WORLD / Politics
Jan 27, 2025

Judge scoffs at legality of Trump’s bid to limit birthright citizenship

"This is a blatantly unconstitutional order,” the judge said of Donald Trump's executive order.
People line up to use an ATM  in the separatist-controlled city of Donetsk, Ukraine, days after Russian President Vladimir Putin authorized the full-scale invasion of the country in February 2022. Western financial sanctions have weighed on the Russian ruble, which has sunk from 34 to the dollar in 2013 to around 100 today.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 27, 2025

Putin’s war is fueling Russian stagflation

For a normal country, a budget deficit of 2% of GDP would be of no concern. But Russia is not a normal country.
Former U.S. figure skaters Dick Button and Tenley Albright are introduced during an exhibition event after the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Boston in January 2014.
MORE SPORTS / Figure skating
Jan 31, 2025

U.S. figure skating great Dick Button dies at 95

Long before he became known for his on-air observations, Button dominated the figure skating world with his athleticism.
The front page of The Japan Times on Feb. 21, 1925, carried news of clashes in the streets over the debate of extending voting rights to Japanese males over the age of 25.
JAPAN / History / Japan Times Gone By
Feb 1, 2025

Japan Times 1925: Tokyo factions ready to fight over manhood suffrage bill in Diet

Objections from the country's 1% came as Japan debated extending voting rights to all men over the age of 25.
German President Horst Koehler makes a speech at an event in Leipzig on Oct. 9, 2009.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 1, 2025

Horst Koehler, former German president and IMF chief, dies at 81

Despite being a largely unknown figure before assuming the presidency, Koehler quickly proved himself in opinion polls to be one of Germany's most popular political figures.
Vehicles parked at a General Motors complex in Silao, Guanajuato state, Mexico
BUSINESS / Economy
Feb 3, 2025

Car prices face $3,000 increase in U.S. as tariffs hit auto sector

The tariffs are set to take effect at 12:01 a.m. on Tuesday, giving manufacturers less than 48 hours to figure out what to do.
Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte speaks during a news conference at her office in Manila in December.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Feb 6, 2025

Philippine lower house impeaches Vice President Sara Duterte

The impeachment stemmed from a number of allegations, with Duterte having repeatedly denied wrongdoing.
Ditching the U.S.' normal trade relations designation for China could lead to an automatic jump in levies, at rates that could far exceed what Trump has so far slapped on China.
BUSINESS / Economy / ANALYSIS
Feb 6, 2025

Trump's China focus increases odds of end to special trading status

The Permanent Normal Trade Relations designation was was extended to China in 2000.
Russian Communist Party supporters carry a flag after a ceremony in Moscow to mark the 150th anniversary of Vladimir Lenin's birth in 2020.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 10, 2025

Russia’s nostalgia machine works for strongman Putin

If Russians are gripped by a yearning for an imaginary past, they will not fight for a better future.
North Koreans on a bus hold the hands of their South Korean relatives as they bid farewell at the end of a three-day family reunion event at North Korea's Mount Kumgang resort in August 2018.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Feb 13, 2025

North Korea demolishing family reunion center, Seoul says

The meetings had been subject to the vagaries of inter-Korea politics and often used as a negotiating tool by Pyongyang.

Longform

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.
Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.