Search - 2023

 
 
Created by a Hokkaido workshop, this Camembert represents the vanguard of Japanese cheeses no longer content with a reputation as low-quality, processed slices.
LIFE / Food & Drink
Feb 16, 2025

Fresh off awards, Japanese cheese seeks a taste ‘unique to this land’

A growing number of Japanese cheesemakers are gaining international recognition, and some are aiming for a new frontier of flavor.
Israeli-Argentinian hostage Yair Horn (center) stands next to Palestinian militants as others take pictures of him on stage during a handover to a Red Cross team in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on Saturday as part of the sixth hostage-prisoner exchange.
WORLD
Feb 16, 2025

Hamas and Israel complete sixth hostage-prisoner swap of Gaza truce

Palestinian militants released three Israeli hostages on Saturday in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian inmates freed by Israel.
The Dodgers' Shohei Ohtani pitches during a bullpen session at Camelback Ranch in Glendale, Arizona, on Saturday.
BASEBALL / MLB
Feb 16, 2025

Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani throws first bullpen session of spring

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts has said Ohtani could face live hitters in March and could be in the team's rotation sometime in May.
The National Police Agency has been warning people that gambling on online casinos is illegal in Japan even if they are operating legally overseas.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Feb 16, 2025

Police investigate comedians over alleged online casino gambling

Officials warn that online casinos are illegal in Japan even if they are operating legally overseas, but the number accused of using them continues to rise.
Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma and other prominent entrepreneurs met with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday, in a signal of Beijing’s support for the private sector after years of turmoil.
BUSINESS
Feb 17, 2025

Xi hosts summit with Jack Ma and other private sector leaders

The meeting signals Beijing’s support for the private sector after years of turmoil.
One-third of elementary school students in Japan do not like learning English, according to a 2021 poll, an 8% rise since 2013. The pressure of taking proficiency tests is eroding children's  engagement with studying English and its benefits.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Feb 17, 2025

Japan’s English-language education doesn’t pass the test

An excessive focus on testing students' English ability is turning language learning into a chore, depriving children of the joy and opportunities of intercultural communication.
Ryuji Kimura in the city of Wakayama in April 2023
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Feb 19, 2025

Kishida attacker sentenced to 10 years in prison for attempted murder

Kimura maintained through the trial that he did not intend to harm anyone, adding that he threw the explosive to draw attention to his 2022 lawsuit.
Israelis sit together in Tel Aviv on Thursday as the bodies of deceased hostages were handed over by Hamas under the terms of a ceasefire.
WORLD
Feb 22, 2025

Hamas releases new hostage body after misidentification of Shiri Bibas

The failure to hand over the correct body and the staged public handover on Thursday caused outrage and drew a threat of retaliation from Netanyahu.
U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Charles Q. Brown speaks during annual Memorial Day in Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia, in May 2024.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 22, 2025

Trump fires top U.S. general in unprecedented Pentagon shakeup

The decision sets off a period of upheaval at the Pentagon, which was already bracing for mass firings of civilian staff and other dramatic shifts.
A poster depicting a hostage Omer Wenkert, at the site of the Nova festival where party goers were killed and kidnapped during the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas gunmen from Gaza, in Reim, southern Israel, on Wednesday.
WORLD
Feb 22, 2025

Israel prepares to receive six more Gaza hostages as Bibas body identified

The fragile truce between Israel and Hamas militants had been threatened with derailment by the misidentification of a body released on Thursday.
Asian seabass are bred at the Songkhla Coastal Aquaculture Technology and Innovation Research and Development Center in southern Thailand.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability / OUR PLANET
Feb 23, 2025

Japan looks to save seafood and seaweed farming from warming oceans

Projects at home and in Thailand are seeking to address challenges stemming from climate change as well as sustainability concerns.
Shohei Ohtani hits during live batting practice in Glendale, Arizona, on Feb. 23.
BASEBALL / MLB
Feb 24, 2025

Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani faces live pitching for first time since surgery

According to multiple reports, Ohtani saw 32 pitches Sunday from Dodgers pitchers and put three in play. He did not hit any home runs.
In all, global investors plowed around $315 million into eFishery’s preferred shares over five funding rounds.
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 24, 2025

SoftBank among eFishery investors facing near wipeout

Investors in the startup, which deploys feeders to fish and shrimp farmers in Indonesia, are likely to get back less than 10 cents for every dollar they invested.
Kusatsu Onsen resort, a popular tourist destination in Gunma Prefecture, on Dec. 26, 2022
JAPAN / Society
Feb 25, 2025

Gunma ranks top among city dwellers eyeing countryside, survey shows

Respondents picked the prefecture for its child-friendly environment, rich natural surroundings and proximity to the Tokyo metropolitan area.
Girls take care of their baby brother before leaving for school in Seoul. South Korea just recorded its first rise in fertility rates in nearly a decade.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Feb 26, 2025

South Korea's policy push springs to life as world's lowest birth rate rises

That shift in societal norms could prove pivotal in a country that has seen its birth rate plummet to the lowest in the world.
The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Feb 26, 2025

Japanese authorities raise alarm over rise in fake police phone scams

Tokyo police rearrested a man suspected of being involved in multiple scams and released a voice recording in hopes of raising awareness.
Both Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre have called for placing levies on the U.S. that are similar to those the U.S. places on Canada.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 26, 2025

Something is rotten in Canada

So while Trump is right to say Canada’s trade surplus with the U.S. has grown, he’s wrong about why it has expanded.
Yoshiaki Nakano (center), head of the Mebuki residents’ association, comprising residents of the Moniwa No. 2 municipal-run housing complex in Sendai’s Taihaku Ward, addresses a board meeting on Feb. 2.
JAPAN / Society / Regional Voices: Tohoku
Mar 10, 2025

Public housing residents' associations in Sendai struggle to find leaders

Those age 65 and older account for 43.9% of the residents in such housing, 18.7 percentage points higher than the ratio of elderly in the city.
Fuji TV President Kenji Shimizu speaks to reporters in Tokyo's Minato Ward on Thursday.
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 28, 2025

Longtime Fuji Media director Hieda resigns from advisory panel

The move follows a firestorm that engulfed Fuji Media and its core unit, Fuji Television Network, over the handling of a sex scandal involving former TV star Masahiro Nakai.
The peloton rides from Florence to Rimini, Italy, during the first stage of the 2024 Tour de France.
MORE SPORTS
Feb 28, 2025

For Tour de France, foreign starts make financial sense

The Barcelona start will be the 27th non-French starting location since the Tour first went on the road internationally in Amsterdam in 1954.
Taiwanese comic artist Rishiazao and interpreter Yun-wen Huang greet an attendee at the 2025 Angouleme International Comics Festival in France.
CULTURE / Books
Mar 1, 2025

Taiwan comics on the rise: Local storytellers, global aspirations

A supportive ecosystem and eager audiences — both domestic and global — are boosting the soft power of illustrated narratives from Taiwan.
The global electric vehicle boom has resulted in a lithium supply shortage since 2022 despite the 180% increase in production compared to 2017.
BUSINESS / Tech
Mar 1, 2025

Three novel approaches that can revolutionize batteries

The innovations aren’t yet available at a commercial scale, but they are part of an effort to prevent the global clean energy transition from stalling.
The logo of Deepseek is seen during the Global Developer Conference, organized by the Shanghai AI Industry Association on Feb. 21. A simple handshake between President Xi Jinping and once-shunned entrepreneur Jack Ma sent Chinese tech stocks booming in recent weeks as it was interpreted as the latest sign the sector is being brought in from the cold — though experts advise caution.
BUSINESS / Tech
Mar 2, 2025

China signals renewed tech sector support, but concerns linger

Analysts increasingly see signs that Beijing is warming to its tech sector again, as domestic economic woes and a trade war with the U.S. loom larger.
Pedestrians commute through Shibuya Station in central Tokyo, an area that is almost never devoid of people.
JAPAN / Society / Longform
Mar 3, 2025

As the rest of Japan shrinks, Tokyo grows

Women and young people are leading a migratory wave that the government is struggling to halt.
Xiaobaodang Coal Mine, in Shaanxi province, China, in 2023. China, which mines and burns half the world’s coal, is facing swelling inventories of the fuel.
BUSINESS / Markets
Mar 3, 2025

Coal’s four-year lows hide a coming global supply squeeze

Demand for the fuel continues to rise in India and China, outpacing breakneck rates of expansion in solar and wind.
The entrance to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, in the city of Hiroshima, on Feb. 22
JAPAN / Society
Mar 3, 2025

Annual visitors to Hiroshima museum top 2 million for the first time

The total number of visitors since the museum's opening is expected to surpass 80 million by the end of this month.
Spain's Carlos Alcaraz in action during his Qatar Open round of 16 match against Italy's Luca Nardi in Doha, Qatar, on Feb. 19
TENNIS
Mar 4, 2025

Alcaraz guns for Indian Wells three-peat as Sinner serves ban

Poland's Iga Swiatek, meanwhile, will look to become the only woman to win the tournament three times.
Houses and buildings lie in ruins in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on Jan. 19 following a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
WORLD / Politics
Mar 4, 2025

Egypt's alternative to Trump's 'Gaza Riviera' aims to sideline Hamas

Cairo's plan does not tackle issues such as who will foot the bill for Gaza's reconstruction or outline any specific details around how the strip would be governed.
A worker paints a robotic elephant model at a workshop in Thrissur, in India's Kerala state on Feb. 25.
WORLD / Society
Mar 4, 2025

Animal rights activists in India offer robot elephants to replace real ones

Accidents involving spooked elephants trampling crowds are common in India, leading some temples to switch to the robot versions.
The Auckland skyline at sunset in 2023. New Zealand's economy was the worst performing in the developed world last year, according to HSBC.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Mar 4, 2025

New Zealand's economic missteps hasten exodus to sunnier shores

A total of 128,700 people permanently left the Pacific nation of 5.3 million in 2024, provisionally the largest exodus on record.

Longform

Rock group The Yellow Monkey played K-Arena Yokohama in June as part of a nationwide tour. Concerts are increasingly popular in the age of social media as users value in-person experiences.
Inside Japan’s arena boom: Sports, sound and city-building