TOKYO — A Japanese court on Tuesday sentenced a man to death for killing and dismembering nine people, most of whom had posted suicidal thoughts on social media, in a case that shocked the country. The Tachikawa branch of the Tokyo District Court found Takahiro Shiraishi, known as the “Twitter...
Japan Uses High-Tech Experiments to Fill Baseball Stadium
YOKOHAMA, Japan — Officials in Japan are using some high-tech devices to see if they can fill sports stadiums closer to capacity during the COVID-19 pandemic. The baseball stadium in Yokohama will be used this weekend in an experiment to test if its 32,000 seats can be filled safely. Japanese...
Japan’s ‘Flying Car’ Gets off Ground, With a Person Aboard
TOKYO — The decades-old dream of zipping around in the sky as simply as driving on highways may be becoming less illusory. Japan’s SkyDrive Inc., among the myriads of “flying car” projects around the world, has carried out a successful though modest test flight with one person aboard. In a...
Japan PM Shinzo Abe Says He’s Resigning for Health Reasons
TOKYO — Japan's longest-serving prime minister, Shinzo Abe, said Friday he is stepping down because a chronic health problem has resurfaced. He told reporters that it was “gut wrenching” to leave many of his goals unfinished. Abe has had ulcerative colitis since he was a teenager and has said the...
Urgency to Bear Witness Grows for Last Hiroshima Victims
HIROSHIMA, Japan — For nearly 70 years, until he turned 85, Lee Jong-keun hid his past as an atomic bomb survivor, fearful of the widespread discrimination against blast victims that has long persisted in Japan. But Lee, 92, is now part of a fast-dwindling group of survivors, known as hibakusha,...
India Hits 1 Million Virus Cases, Nations Battle Flare-Ups
MITO, Japan — A return of stringent coronavirus restrictions in Israel, another daily record of reported cases in Japan's capital and outbreaks in remote areas such as China's Xinjiang region underscored Friday the ongoing battle to quash COVID-19 flare-ups as the world's latest hot spots pushed the confirmed global case...
Japan Battered by More Heavy Rain, Floods; 58 Dead
TOKYO — Pounding rain that already caused deadly floods in southern Japan was moving northeast Wednesday, battering large areas of Japan's main island, swelling more rivers, triggering mudslides, and destroying houses and roads. At least 58 people died in several days of flooding. Parts of Nagano and Gifu, including areas...
California Apologizes for Japanese American Internment
SACRAMENTO — California lawmakers on Thursday became the first political leaders in the nation's most populous state to apologize for discriminating against Japanese Americans and helping the U.S. government send them to internment camps after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor during World War II. The Assembly unanimously passed the resolution and...
California to Apologize for Internment of Japanese Americans
SACRAMENTO — Les Ouchida was born an American just outside California's capital city, but his citizenship mattered little after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor and the United States declared war. Based solely on their Japanese ancestry, the 5-year-old and his family were taken from their home in 1942 and imprisoned far...
More Businesses Reopen in China, but Many People Stay Home
BEIJING — More offices and stores in Beijing and other parts of China finally reopened Monday after the Lunar New Year break was extended to discourage travel and contain the new coronavirus, but many workers and shoppers appeared to stay home. Public health authorities are watching closely to see whether...