After spending his Friday morning shadowing a Lompoc High School student, Tyrick Takara said he quickly noticed some major differences between the Lompoc campus and the schools that he has attended back home in Okinawa Island, Japan.

Receiving the Outstanding Contribution to Photography award this year are Chinese-Japanese artist couple RongRong & inri, who are based between Beijing and Kyoto, straddling two dynamic contemporary photography scenes.

Other sports have created global appeal before. The NFL, for one, has been playing regular-season games before sold-out crowds in London since 2007. [...] But Ranadive envisions basketball as the world sport of the 21st century, calling his globalization plan “NBA 3.0."

The North Korean women’s soccer team arrived in Japan on Thursday for Olympic qualifying matches in what Tokyo called “an exception” to its entry ban imposed over Pyongyang’s fourth nuclear weapons test and a rocket launch.

The book fair, organized by New York nonprofit Printed Matter and held at the Museum of Contemporary Art's Geffen space in Little Tokyo, will feature more than 250 exhibitors, and is expected to draw upwards of 30,000 visitors. This will include art book purveyors from all over the U.S., as well as locations as far away as Norway, Japan, Guatemala and New Zealand.

Ami Matsuzawa is an inquisitive person. This is probably why First Lady Akie Abe wanted to meet her as part of an international group of young women that is helping Japan engage with the world.