TOKYO (AP) — Share prices have soared recently in Tokyo on hopes that conservative Japanese lawmaker Sanae Takaichi, who was chosen Tuesday to be Japan’s first female prime minister, will double down on market friendly policies, including hefty spending on defense and cheap credit.
The benchmark Nikkei 225 share index climbed close to the symbolically important 50,000 level, gaining 0.7% to 49,517.57. Takaichi, a motorbike and heavy metal enthusiast, prevailed in a lower house parliamentary ballot that gave her 237 votes, above the 233 votes required to win.
Here’s what might be expected from what has been dubbed “Sanaenomics:”
Increases in consumer prices have surpassed the Bank of Japan’s 2% target range at 2.5% to 3%. So the central bank is gradually raising rates from their longstanding level near or below zero. Wages remain near the level they were at 30 years ago, only topping the 1997 average level in 2024 for the first time. Meanwhile, low rates have helped to keep the Japanese yen weak against the dollar, amplifying inflation since much of what Japan consumes is imported.
“I want to focus first on dealing with rising consumer prices,” Takaichi told reporters after she was elected head of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party earlier this month, putting her in line to replace departing Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba.
Takaichi has indicated she opposes raising interest rates. The promise of continued cheap credit is one reason share prices have shot higher. But keeping rates low will hinder efforts to curb inflation and to strengthen the Japanese yen.
Echoing many of her predecessors’ promises, Takaichi also has vowed to deliver wage increases, without saying how she intends to do that.
Japan’s population has been shrinking and rapidly aging for years, leading to labor shortages and undermining the country’s potential economic growth.
Although she is an unabashed conservative on most social issues, Takaichi has said she favors giving tax incentives to companies that provide child care facilities to their employees and possible tax breaks for family spending on child care.
It’s unclear what more the government might do under any leader to counter the low birth rate, which partly reflects the financial difficulties of raising and educating children when wages fail to keep up with inflation. It also reflects a corporate culture that is not conducive to a family-friendly work-life balance.
Takaichi is expected to emulate the policies of her late mentor, former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. He stepped down in 2020 and was assassinated in 2022. His “Abenomics” approach included promises of cash handouts and boosting government spending, despite a national debt that is nearly triple the size of the economy.
Like Abe, she is hawkish on defense. Her political ascent has spurred heavy buying of shares in military-related companies such Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Yaskawa Electric and Japan Steel Works.
Takaichi is bound to seek cordial relations with U.S. President Donald Trump, just as Abe did, and to strengthen Japan’s security alliance with Washington. They are expected to meet later this month.
Initially Takaichi said Japan might want to rethink its pledge of $550 billion to the Trump administration, part of a deal that helped lower U.S. tariffs on imports from Japan. She later said she would honor the agreement, despite public disapproval over handing over Japanese taxpayers’ money to Washington.
Takaichi will be confronting problems that have confounded Japan’s leadership for decades. Any major reforms would face resistance from entrenched vested interests. The tenures of Japanese prime ministers tend to be short and vulnerable to feuding between party factions and the hereditary political fiefdoms that control most seats in parliament.
To win Tuesday’s parliamentary vote, the Liberal Democrats forged an alliance with the Japan Innovation Party, a libertarian opposition group based in Osaka.
But Takaichi likely will need support from lawmakers belonging to other parties in the fractious and splintered opposition to pass legislation. They span the spectrum from the Japan Communist Party on the far left to the Sanseito and others on the extreme right.
Takaya Suzuki, who runs a restaurant and real estate business, supports one of the smaller nationalist-leaning opposition parties called The Conservative Party of Japan, whose policies are similar to Takaichi’s. He admires Trump and says he’s rooting for Takaichi.
But, he added, “Even if she tries her best, it’s going to be tough.”
Yuri Kageyama is on Threads: https://www.threads.com/@yurikageyama
Newly elected Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi arrives at the prime minister's office in Tokyo, Japan, Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
FILE - Internal Affairs and Communications Minister Sanae Takaichi speaks during a press conference at the prime minister's official residence in Tokyo, Sept. 11, 2019. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, File)
FILE - Japan's Internal Affairs Minister Sanae Takaichi, center, arrives at the prime minister's official residence in Tokyo, Aug. 3, 2016. (AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi, File)
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Police in Rhode Island said early Sunday that they had a person of interest in custody after a shooting that rocked the Brown University campus during final exams, leaving two people dead and nine others wounded.
Col. Oscar Perez, chief of the Providence police, confirmed at a news conference that the detained person was in their 30s and that authorities are not currently searching for anyone else. He declined to say where the person was arrested and whether the person was connected to the university.
The shooting erupted Saturday afternoon in the engineering building of the Ivy League school in Providence, Rhode Island, during final exams. Hundreds of police officers had scoured the Brown University campus along with nearby neighborhoods and pored over video in pursuit of a shooter who opened fire in a classroom.
Armed with a handgun, the shooter fired more than 40 9mm rounds, according to a law enforcement official. Authorities as of Sunday morning hadn’t recovered a gun but did recover two loaded 30-round magazines, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the investigation.
Providence leaders warned that residents will notice a heavier police presence on Sunday. Many local businesses announced they would remain closed and expressed shock and heartbreak as the community continued to process the news of the shooting.
“Everybody’s reeling, and we have a lot of recovery ahead of us,” Brown University President Christina Paxson said at the news conference. “Our community’s strong and we’ll get through it, but it’s devastating."
Surveillance video released by police showed a suspect, dressed in black, calmly walking away from the scene.
Earlier, Paxson said she was told 10 people who were shot were students. Another person was injured by fragments from the shooting but it was not clear if the victim was a student, she said.
The search for the shooter paralyzed the campus, the nearby neighborhoods filled with stately brick homes and the downtown in Rhode Island's capital city until a shelter-in-place order was lifted early Sunday. Streets normally bustling with activity on weekends were eerily quiet. Officers in tactical gear led students out of some campus buildings and into a fitness center where they waited. Others arrived at the shelter on buses without jackets or any belongings.
Investigators were not immediately sure how the shooter got inside the first-floor classroom. Outer doors of the building were unlocked but rooms being used for final exams required badge access, Providence Mayor Brett Smiley said.
Smiley was emotional as he discussed the city's efforts to prepare for a mass shooting.
“We all, intellectually, knew it could happen anywhere, including here, but that’s not the same as it happening in our community, and so this is an incredibly upsetting and emotional time for Providence, for Brown, for all of us," he said. “It's not something that we should have to train for, but we have.”
Nine people with gunshot wounds were taken to Rhode Island Hospital, where one was in critical condition. Six required intensive care but were not getting worse and two were stable, hospital spokesperson Kelly Brennan said.
Engineering design exams were underway when the shooting occurred in the Barus & Holley building, a seven-story complex that houses the School of Engineering and physics department. The building includes more than 100 laboratories, dozens of classrooms and offices, according to the university’s website.
Emma Ferraro, a chemical engineering student, was in the building’s lobby working on a final project when she heard loud pops coming from the east side. Once she realized they were gunshots, she darted for the door and ran to a nearby building where she sheltered for several hours.
Eva Erickson, a doctoral candidate who was the runner-up earlier this year on the CBS reality competition show “Survivor,” said she left her lab in the engineering building 15 minutes before shots rang out.
The engineering and thermal science student shared candid moments on “Survivor” as the show’s first openly autistic contestant. She was locked down in the campus gym following the shooting and shared on social media that the only other member of her lab who was present was safely evacuated.
Brown senior biochemistry student Alex Bruce was working on a final research project in his dorm directly across the street from the building when he heard sirens outside.
“I’m just in here shaking,” he said, watching through the window as armed officers surrounded his dorm.
Students in a nearby lab turned off the lights and hid under desks after receiving an alert about the shooting, said Chiangheng Chien, a doctoral student in engineering who was about a block away from the scene.
Mari Camara, 20, a junior from New York City, was coming out of the library and rushed inside a taqueria to seek shelter. She spent more than three hours there, texting friends while police searched the campus.
“Everyone is the same as me, shocked and terrified that something like this happened,” she said.
Brown, the seventh oldest higher education institution in the U.S., is one of the nation’s most prestigious colleges with roughly 7,300 undergraduates and more than 3,000 graduate students. Tuition, housing and other fees run to nearly $100,000 per year, according to the university.
Associated Press journalists Alanna Durkin Richer, Mike Balsamo and Seung Min Kim in Washington, Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City, Jack Dura in Bismarck, North Dakota, Martha Bellisle in Seattle and John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, contributed.
Police vehicles rest in intersections in a neighborhood near Brown University, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025, in Providence, R.I., following a shooting at the university Saturday, Dec. 13. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
A police vehicle rests at an intersection near crime scene tape at Brown University, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025, in Providence, R.I., following a Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025 shooting at the university. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
Mayor Brett Smiley speaks to reporters during a Brown University news conference, in Providence, R. I., Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Kimberlee Kruesi)
Law enforcement officials carry rifles while walking on a street in a neighborhood near Brown University in Providence, R.I., on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025 during the investigation of a shooting. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
Brown University President Christina H. Paxson attends a news conference addressing the investigation following a shooting on Brown University's campus Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025, in Providence, R.I. (Lily Speredelozzi/The Sun Chronicle via AP)
Students are escorted by law enforcement officers to a building at Brown University after a shooting, Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025, in Providence, R.I.. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
Law enforcement officials carrying weapons gather near Brown University in Providence, R.I., on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025, during the investigation of a shooting. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
A law enforcement official walks past articles of clothing on a sidewalk near an entrance to Brown University, Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025, in Providence, R.I., during the investigation of a shooting. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
