May 14, 2021
The government intends to expand the current state of emergency to include Hokkaido, Okayama and Hiroshima prefectures from Sunday amid a surge in novel coronavirus cases in those areas. The government presented a proposal to expand the emergency declaration to a COVID-19 subcommittee meeting on ...
OTARU, Hokkaido — Few people were seen at a popular tourist spot in Hokkaido on Friday, as the government prepared to declare a state of emergency in the prefecture amid a surge in coronavirus cases. According to Ato Sakaguchi of the Otaru Sakaimachi Dori Shopping Street, the number of visitors...
The novel coronavirus is spreading rapidly to regional cities outside the Tokyo metropolitan and Kansai areas, with the number of new cases in 12 prefectures exceeding 1.5 times that of the previous week. Observers predict that figure is likely to double in the near future in Hokkaido and Ishikawa...
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. restaurants and stores are rapidly raising pay in an urgent effort to attract more applicants and keep up with a flood of customers as the pandemic eases. McDonald’s, She...
Cultural Affairs Agency Commissioner Shunichi Tokura on Thursday criticized the Tokyo metropolitan government for creating contradictions over the extension of shutdown requests applying to national ...
At least seven prefectures will set up their own large-scale COVID-19 vaccination sites, capable of administering up to 2,000 doses per day, from late May or later, The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned thr...
Governors of prefectures near Tokyo have refused to secure hospital beds exclusively for the use of Olympic and Paralympic athletes or other participants if they become infected with the novel corona...
Cases continue to arise in which mainly the elderly suffer harm in earthquakes and floods. Disaster prevention capabilities of local communities must be heightened through the formulating of evacuatio...
Jaye Sanford, a 52-year-old mother of two, was driving home in suburban Atlanta on Nov. 21 when a man in a Dodge Challenger muscle car who was allegedly street racing crashed into her head-on, killin...
A cyber-attack temporarily disrupted the operation of one of the largest oil pipelines in the United States. To what extent can a government build a protection system against attacks on private compan...
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Need a break from the headlines? Here’s your daily dose of humor, curated by The Japan News. New comics are available every day, so ’toon in to both our print and web editions for a satirical l...
Bangkok (Jiji Press)—Freelance Japanese journalist Yuki Kitazumi, who has been jailed in Myanmar after being indicted on charges including spreading fake news, is set to be released, the Southeast ...
As COVID-19 vaccines need to be used within six hours of being thawed and diluted, municipalities are taking steps not to waste doses that are left over for various reasons — compiling waiting lists...
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel on Thursday said it was massing troops along the Gaza frontier and calling up 9,000 reservists ahead of a possible ground invasion of the Hamas-ruled territory, as the two b...
Have you ever heard of jirai meiku (land mine makeup)? It is a makeup style that makes your eyes look red and swollen as if you had been crying, and your skin look white or almost translucent. The Yom...
In April, I convened an online gathering of the Kanreki Matsuri, the second time the event was held on the small screen amid the pandemic. One of my longstanding talk event series, the Kanreki Matsu...
Patients infected with coronavirus variants that have the N501Y mutation account for more than 70% of newly confirmed cases nationwide, the health ministry has announced. A random sampling survey wa...
Following the recent enactment of legislation related to digital reforms, the government will accelerate its efforts in this field, including preparations to establish a digital agency in September. ...
Residents of Tokyo, Chiba, Saitama, Kanagawa, Osaka, Kyoto and Hyogo prefectures aged 65 or over will be eligible to receive COVID-19 vaccines at mass inoculation sites in Tokyo and Osaka Prefecture,...
An additional 20 people were found to have died after receiving COVID-19 vaccinations by May 7, bringing the total of such deaths to 39, the health ministry said Thursday. The 20 people ranged in ag...
The Chiba prefectural government announced on Wednesday that the U.S. track and field team for the Tokyo Olympics has decided to cancel its planned training camp in the prefecture due to concerns ove...
SoftBank Group Corp. Chairman and CEO Masayoshi Son refuses to be satisfied even after the tech conglomerate set a record in fiscal 2020 for the highest net profit by a Japanese company. “We haven...
Keep track of the coronavirus epidemic as it unfolds in Japan. Relevant stories and graphics appear below covering events up to and including the current state of emergency and the future outlook. ...
The following charts give a visual representation of the spread of the novel coronavirus in Japan and around the world. The first shows the extensiveness of cases in relation to a nation’s populatio...
Need a break from the headlines? Here’s your daily dose of humor, curated by The Japan News. New comics are available every day, so ’toon in to both our print and web editions for a satirical l...
The Diet enacted Wednesday a package of six bills for digital reform, focusing on the creation of a government body to deal with digitization. The bills cleared a plenary session of the House of Cou...
A record 55 people died in Osaka Prefecture on Tuesday from the novel coronavirus, according to the prefectural government. Osaka Prefecture also confirmed 974 new infections on the day. Tokyo ha...
An additional 20 people were found to have died after receiving COVID-19 vaccinations by May 7, bringing the total of such deaths to 39, the health ministry said Thursday. The 20 people ranged in ag...
As the spread of the novel coronavirus continues unabated, there are calls for the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games to be canceled. However, it is unreasonable to pressure athletes to withdraw fro...
A failure in a cloud computing system provided by U.S.-based IT company Salesforce.com Inc. paralyzed COVID-19 vaccination reservation systems operated by local governments across Japan on Wednesday. ...
Patients infected with coronavirus variants that have the N501Y mutation account for more than 70% of newly confirmed cases nationwide, the health ministry has announced. A random sampling survey wa...
The government has extended its current state of emergency, declared due to the spread of the novel coronavirus, from Wednesday through the end of this month, with Aichi and Fukuoka prefectures added ...
The Japan News has partnered with media startup inkl, a news service that curates articles from the world’s leading publishers for users to read on mobile devices. A selection of articles from The Japan News and The Yomiuri Shimbun is now available to read on inkl, which hosts titles from about 20 countries. 
Celine Chan Hui Juan shares her experiences as participant of the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Programme, which is administered through the collaboration of Japan’s local and national governmen...
Gwendolen Jones shares her experiences as participant of the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Programme, which is administered through the collaboration of Japan’s local and national government aut...
Jenny Nash shares her experiences as participant of the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Programme, which is administered through the collaboration of Japan’s local and national government authorit...
KUMAMOTO — Restoration work continues to forge ahead on Kumamoto Castle, which was severely damaged by a pair of powerful earthquakes that hit the southern city over three days in April 2016. With t...
Life is full of humble delights, and they’re particularly enjoyable when they strike unexpectedly. The very best are those that continue to come to mind, bringing pleasure or amusement long after th...
Gold leaf artwork adorning sliding doors in the former estate of the Shimazu clan, now the Sengan-en gardens in Kagoshima, has been restored to its original luster and put on public display. Five d...
