Japan is closely watching currency movements and is ready to take all necessary steps, Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki says, amid market caution about intervention to slow the yen's fall to 34-year lows against the U.S. dollar.
News aggregator app SmartNews had a tough 2023, beginning with widespread layoffs in January and wrapping up with a leadership change that saw co-founder Kaisei Hamamoto assume the role of CEO after the abrupt departure of former CEO Ken Suzuki last month. Founded in 2012 in Japan, the company arrived in the U.S. in 2014 and expanded its local news footprint in early 2020 to cover thousands of U.S. cities. At a time when big mobile platforms like Apple and Google were both squaring up to provide their own virtual newsstands for their mobile and tablet users, and social media platforms were making big plays to become news providers themselves to take on some of the advertising and traffic that traditionally was the domain of publishers, SmartNews entered the fray with its own take on the medium: It would source news by partnering with publishers; build algorithms aimed at tailoring more personalized feeds for users; deliver the news in a zippy, AMP-style streamlined format;
A transgender man in central Japan obtained a copy of a new family register that now lists him as male, after a landmark ruling this year approved for his gender to be changed without sterilization surgery.