TOKYO -- Japan's cherry blossom season is getting underway, with Tokyo expected to see the first blooms by Wednesday or Thursday, and trees likely to be in full bloom the following week, according to forecasts from weather information providers.

JAKARTA -- Sunday mornings in the early 1990s were a time when Indonesian children practiced a specific kind of patience. Their boxy analog TV sets would be tuned to TVRI, the state broadcaster. It was time for "Dash! Yonkuro," a Japanese anime show embracing brotherhood, persistence and palm-size racing machines that moved along plastic tracks -- and sometimes dirt roads -- at impossible speeds.

TOKYO -- Honda Motor's projected first full-year loss since listing on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in 1957 has highlighted issues that have led some major Japanese and U.S. funds to dump shares in the Japanese carmaker, along with many of its peers.

TOKYO -- U.S. pharmaceutical giant Bristol Myers Squibb will produce advanced cancer immunotherapies in Japan, partnering with a Nikon pharmaceutical subsidiary to manufacture treatments that make use of the body's immune cells.

TOKYO -- Japanese smartphone payment service PayPay's choice to go public in the U.S. rather than in Japan stems from the success of Arm, the U.K. chip designer that listed on Wall Street in 2023 and shares the same parent company, Japan's SoftBank Group.

STOCKHOLM -- As wars in the Middle East and Ukraine upend the global security environment, and new weapons technologies like artificial intelligence make rapid strides, countries must understand that military spending alone does not make them secure, said the director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

TOKYO -- Japan intends to increase government investment in science and technology to 60 trillion yen ($376 billion) over five years through fiscal 2030, with a focus on artificial intelligence, space and nuclear fusion.

TOKYO -- Netflix downloads in Japan have nearly quintupled since the World Baseball Classic started, thanks to the U.S. streaming platform landing the exclusive rights to broadcast the games there.

TOKYO -- Rising fuel and raw material costs stemming from high crude oil prices threaten to sap profits at a wide range of Japanese companies as the conflict in the Middle East continues.