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The “dogeza” position is used for the sincerest of apologies and it was deployed by the man who mistakenly ruined an attempt at a Guinness world record on live television.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Feb 9, 2024

The year so far has been marked by some good and bad apologies

A social norm seems to persist in Japan that one should apologize first and explain later. That goes for companies as well.
Runners fill the street in front of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building at the start of the 2023 Tokyo Marathon.
COMMUNITY / Voices / FOREIGN AGENDA
Mar 25, 2024

Medals, jewelry and veggies: Japan’s race prizes run the gamut

Japan's marathons try everything to offer runners experiences they can’t get elsewhere.
Taylor Swift's new album "The Tortured Poets Department" was released on Friday. The rush for immediate reviews in this digital age is undermining the listening experience.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 24, 2024

Taylor Swift is proof that how we critique music is broken

In the age of half-baked hot takes on online forums, anyone with a smartphone can word-vomit their thoughts into the ether.
French President Emmanuel Macron speaks during a press conference in Paris on Monday.
WORLD / Politics
May 3, 2024

Macron floats Ukraine troop deployment if front line breached

Macron described Russia under President Vladimir Putin as "a power of regional destabilization" and "a threat to Europeans' security."
Former President Donald Trump speaks to reporters alongside Todd Blanche, one of his attorneys, before the day's proceedings in his criminal trial in New York on May 9.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
May 15, 2024

Cohen on cross: 5 takeaways from Trump’s criminal trial

Prosecutors stated that Cohen would be their final witness, while the defense aims to conclude cross-examination by Thursday.
Singapore's new prime minister, Lawrence Wong (left), shakes hands with his predecessor, Lee Hsien Loong, during the swearing-in ceremony at the Istana in Singapore on Wednesday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
May 16, 2024

Singapore’s riches grew under its leader. So did discontent.

On Wednesday, the Southeast Asian country’s third prime minister, Lee Hsien Loong, handed the reins to his deputy, the first leadership change in nearly 20 years.
Ziya Us Salam (left), an associate editor of The Hindu, an English-language newspaper, prays at home with Shan Mohammad, a hafiz who teaches the Quran to one of his daughters, in Noida, India, just outside Delhi, on Aug. 27, 2023.
WORLD / Society
May 20, 2024

Strangers in their own land: Being Muslim in Modi’s India

The premier's rise to national power in 2014 swept a decades-old Hindu nationalist movement from the margins of Indian politics firmly to the center.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak inspects troops at a military base in North Yorkshire, Britain, on May 3. Sunak is making the question of protecting Britain and navigating dangerous geopolitical conditions central themes of his election campaign.
COMMENTARY / World
May 27, 2024

War is at the heart of the U.K.’s summer election

British Prime Minister Sunak is nevertheless right to inject defense into the heart of the election campaign.
People look at the election poster board at Kasai Rinkai Park in Tokyo. The board includes posters for each of the candidates running in that specific riding.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jun 28, 2024

Tokyo's election day is coming. Are you comfortable talking about politics in Japanese?

Even if you don't want to talk about politics, expressing your opinion on a particular topic is always a good skill to have in your daily life.
England's Jude Bellingham scores against Slovakia during their Euro 2024 match in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, on Sunday.
SOCCER
Jul 1, 2024

Jude Bellingham keeps England alive and silences critics with miracle goal at Euro 2024

Bellingham's effort took the match to extra time, with Harry Kane heading home for a 2-1 win.
The Tokyo Stock Exchange building in Tokyo
BUSINESS / Companies
Jul 4, 2024

Shareholder revolts in Japan put proxy advisory firms in the hot seat

Two proxy advisory firms are having a moment as thinking around corporate governance in Japan undergoes a gradual shift.
Don't let anyone tell you that when it comes to legitimate Mexican food, Tokyo is a culinary desert.
LIFE / Food & Drink / Top 5
Jul 14, 2024

Tokyo’s top tacos dispel the ‘no good Mexican food’ myth

Whether a casual bite from a counter restaurant or a more elegant affair, Tokyo’s tacos do not skimp on variety.
Seattle Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh hits a two-run home run against the Chicago White Sox at Guaranteed Rate Field in Chicago on July 28.
BASEBALL
Aug 20, 2024

A skill with a huge advantage is becoming taboo for young baseball players

Switch-hitters are a dying breed in the major leagues, particularly among Americans.
The icon for the Telegram messenger app. Toncoin, a digital asset from a blockchain project linked to Telegram Messenger LLP, has lost about $2.7 billion in market value, reflecting the uncertainty sparked by the detention of the messaging app's co-founder.
BUSINESS / Markets
Aug 29, 2024

Telegram ‘black swan event’ exposes risk in popular crypto deals

The detention of Telegram founder Pavel Durov is reverberating through the crypto venture capital sector.
A man holds a walkie-talkie device after he removed the battery during a funeral for those killed after hundreds of paging devices exploded in a deadly wave across Lebanon the previous day, in Beirut's southern suburbs on Wednesday.
WORLD
Sep 20, 2024

Exploding pagers attack shakes global trust in supply-chain security

While booby-trapped devices have been used in spycraft for years, the scale and violence of the attacks in Lebanon alarmed even some seasoned officials.
Kimberly Guilfoyle speaks at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on July 17. More than two decades ago, the future vice president Kamala Harris and the conservative firebrand Guilfoyle were rising legal stars in San Francisco when Guilfoyle accused Harris of trying to deny her a job.
WORLD / Politics
Sep 24, 2024

The long, strange saga of Kamala Harris and Kimberly Guilfoyle

More than two decades ago, the future vice president Harris and the conservative firebrand Guilfoyle were rising legal stars in San Francisco.
Rizwan Gondal, the head police officer in Rahim Yar Khan distric, says that his detectives have a dossier proving the "heinous criminal activities" of Pakistani gangster Shahid Lund Baloch, who broadcasts on TikTok, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram defiant messages delivered gun-in-hand, romanticizing his rural lifestyle and cultivating a reputation as a champion of the people.
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal
Nov 6, 2024

TikTok bandits terrorize and transfix Pakistan riverlands

In riverine terrain in central Punjab that has long offered them refuge, bandits use the internet to enthrall citizens even as they prey on them.
The Australian team has connected with the residents of Fuchu during their time in the city.
BASEBALL
Nov 8, 2024

Fuchu becomes home away from home for Australia before Premier12

The Australians have been coming to the Western Tokyo city since 2018.
People scramble to receive sacks of flour at a United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) aid distribution center in Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on Nov. 3.
WORLD
Nov 13, 2024

'We will die from hunger': Gazans decry Israel's UNRWA ban

UNRWA employs 13,000 people in Gaza, running the enclave's schools, healthcare clinics and other social services, as well as distributing aid.
Members of the Indigenous People Association stage a protest to demand action on climate change, holding cutouts of U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping on the waters of Botafogo Bay, ahead of the Group of 20 summit in Rio de Janeiro on Saturday.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Nov 17, 2024

Biden weighs fossil fuel finance curbs that could outlast Trump

Landing the deal is seen as essential to deliver on a promise Biden made during his first year in the White House.
Liberty Oilfield Services CEO Chris Wright rings a ceremonial bell to celebrate the company's IPO on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in January 2018.
WORLD / Politics
Nov 17, 2024

Trump nominates fracking magnate and climate skeptic as energy secretary

A vocal proponent of oil and gas, Chris Wright says the threat of global warming is exaggerated and fossil fuels are crucial for spreading prosperity.
Rams receiver Puka Nacua runs with the ball during his team's win over the Bills in Inglewood, California, on Sunday.
MORE SPORTS / Football
Dec 9, 2024

Rams overcome heroic performance by Bills QB Josh Allen in thriller

Allen became the first player in history to rush for three touchdowns and throw for three more in the same game.
Luigi Mangione, 26, a suspect in the New York City killing of UnitedHealth executive Brian Thompson, is escorted after an extradition hearing at Blair County Court House in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Dec 12, 2024

Luigi Mangione was charged with murder — then donations started pouring in

The photogenic, Ivy League-educated 26-year-old's support has seemingly only intensified since his arrest on Monday.
Here we go again, a Christmas marked by legal battles, evolving traditions, commercial influence, and debates over greetings.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 23, 2024

There is no war on Christmas. There are many.

As usual, our holiday cornucopia overfloweth with litigation.
Italy's Jannik Sinner in action during the Davis Cup Finals on Nov. 24. Sinner was cleared of wrongdoing in a doping case this year, but an appeal by the World Anti-Doping Agency means a potential ban of up to two years is still hanging over his head.
TENNIS
Dec 24, 2024

Players on edge after Sinner and Swiatek doping cases

Time out of the game to serve or fight a doping ban means a loss of income for players.
U.S. Army soldiers with the NATO multinational battle group on the territory of Bulgaria stand in formation with a U.S. flag and an armored vehicle during a visit by NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte at the Novo Selo military ground near Mokren, Bulgaria, on Dec. 19.
WORLD / Politics / ANALYSIS
Jan 11, 2025

NATO won't back Trump's new defense spending target but will raise its sights

A new target is likely to be agreed at a NATO summit in June, but the key questions are what that new target will be and whether it will be enough to satisfy Trump.
Smoke from the Pacific Palisades fire blankets the area in Los Angeles on Tuesday. Researchers see a growing health danger from the vast plumes of pollution spawned by wildfires like the ones devastating Los Angeles.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Jan 12, 2025

Far from the Los Angeles fires, the deadly risks of smoke are intensifying

By some estimates, wildfire smoke causes as many as 675,000 premature deaths a year worldwide, as well as a range of serious health problems.
The panic over Nvidia’s stock drop following China's DeepSeek AI breakthrough has subsided. Nvidia’s stock has rebounded, fueled by Elon Musk’s xAI and its latest chatbot, Grok-3, which benefits from an enormous Nvidia GPU stockpile.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 19, 2025

Nvidia revival marks the end of the great DeepSeek AI panic

Despite competition from other chipmakers and concerns over U.S. export restrictions, Nvidia remains central to AI development due to its CUDA software platform.
A supporter of former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte holds a placard during a prayer rally in Manila on Saturday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Mar 18, 2025

'Bring him home': Philippines migrant workers grapple with Duterte fallout

Despite ICC charges of a systemic attack on civilians in his war on drugs, the ex-Philippine president "understood the everyday life of overseas Filipinos," experts say.
A television station broadcasts U.S. President Donald Trump speaking during a Rose Garden event, on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in New York on Wednesday.
BUSINESS / Markets / FOCUS
Apr 8, 2025

Frustrated world leaders wonder if Trump even wants a deal

U.S. President Donald Trump has set a high bar, telling reporters that any agreements would need to eliminate bilateral trade deficits.

Longform

Mount Fuji is considered one of Japan's most iconic symbols and is a major draw for tourists. It's still a mountain, though, and potential hikers need to properly prepare for any climb.
What it takes to save lives on Mount Fuji