Tokyo opens new Olympic arena amid coronavirus fears

At this cafe in Tokyo, robots are intended to be more than a gimmick, offering job opportunities to people with disabilities unable to work outside their homes.

After two weeks of competition and a colorful closing ceremony, the Tokyo Paralympics have ended and the flag has been passed on to Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo ahead of the 2024 Summer Games.

A full moon hangs above the Tokyo skyline as Japan marks moon-viewing festival 'Tsukimi' on Tuesday. Japan celebrates Tsukimi on the fifteenth day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar every year, which falls between mid-September and early October.

Haruki Murakami fans can marvel at a vast collection of the Japanese author's novels, scrapbooks and vinyl at a cavernous new library unveiled Wednesday at his old university in Tokyo.

The skateboarding tricks that made Rayssa Leal the youngest Olympic medalist in Brazil's history push girls from early childhood to teenagers onto the country's slopes, where until recently they were the exception.

Tokyo residents react after Japan's ruling party elected former foreign minister Fumio Kishida its new leader, setting him on course to become the next prime minister of the world's third-largest economy. Kishida, 64, will be confirmed as the new premier in a vote in parliament on October 4 and will then lead the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) into general elections that must happen by November. The 64-year-old won the ruling party's leadership vote, beating popular vaccine chief Taro Kono to finally clinch a job he has long targeted.

With less than 1,000 days to go until Euro 2024 kicks off, the UEFA unveils the logo for the European Championship at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin. This is the first time that the Germany will host the European competition, which will take place from June 7 to July 7, 2024. Only West Germany hosted the competition in 1988.

The twin pandas born at Tokyo's Ueno zoo in June have been named Xiao Xiao for the male and Lei Lei for the female. There are an estimated 1,800 giant pandas left in the wild, mainly in bamboo forests in the mountains of China, according to environmental group WWF. Around 600 more live in zoos and breeding centres around the world.

A 24-year-old man dressed in Batman's Joker costume attacked passengers on a Tokyo train line on Sunday evening, injuring 17 people as many party-goers headed into the city center for Halloween gatherings, media reported.

American speed skater Erin Jackson's dream of chasing gold in her signature 500 meters event at next month's Beijing Olympics is back on after a selfless act from a good friend and teammate who gave up her own spot on Sunday.

Early visitors to the Main Press Centre at the Beijing Winter Olympics have been delighted to discover that ice cream is served to them by robots. To buy the ice cream, one must go to the cashier to pay first and get a receipt with a QR code, which you then scan on the machine and the robot will automatically kick into action.

The Olympic torch relay began its second day on Thursday (February 3) atop the Great Wall, with Hong Kong actor Jackie Chan and Chinese Olympic medallists among those taking turns carrying the flame along a route shortened to three days because of COVID-19. The relay for the torch that will open the Feb. 4-20 Winter Games is much more modest than the globe-spanning relay for Beijing's 2008 Summer Games, a tour that was disrupted by protests.