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A woman stands under surveillance cameras on a riverside, during the National People's Congress in Shanghai on March 7.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Sep 3, 2023

China to its people: Spies are everywhere, help us catch them

China’s ruling Communist Party is enlisting ordinary people to guard against perceived threats to the country.
Aoi Suzuki and her two sons head back down to a barbecue after watching the sun set.
PODCAST / deep dive
Sep 28, 2023

Traveling Okinawa with a broken heart

Writer and photographer Lance Henderstein reads us his article on traveling Okinawa during the rainy season.
Billionaire Elon Musk, owner of the X social media platform, pauses during an event with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in London on Nov. 2.
BUSINESS / Tech
Nov 25, 2023

X may lose up to $75 million in revenue as advertisers pull out

Scores of brands have pulled their ads after owner Elon Musk’s endorsement of an antisemitic conspiracy theory.
An old growth forest near Fort St. James, British Columbia, Canada, in an area where pellet producer Drax is permitted to cut.
ENVIRONMENT / Energy / OUR PLANET
Jan 14, 2024

Japan's thirst for biomass is having a harmful impact on Canada's forests

Experts and activists say biomass is not the climate solution it might appear to be on the surface and is far from being sustainable.
NATO, which celebrates its 75th birthday this year, has been successful at keeping the peace — but American underpinning can’t be guaranteed in perpetuity, especially with the possible reelection of Donald Trump. 
COMMENTARY
Jan 25, 2024

Europe should arm against the barbarians at its gates

Donald Trump told Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, that "NATO is dead." It would be prudent to take him at his word.
As their popularity grow, Shein and Temu together send almost 600,000 packages to the U.S. every day.
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 22, 2024

Rise of fast-fashion Shein and Temu roils global air cargo industry

Their pursuit of limited air-cargo space to woo consumers with rapid transit times make off-peak seasons almost disappear and cause capacity shortages.
The U.S. military's secretive X-37B, a crewless space shuttle-like space plane, lifts off on its seventh mission to orbit, the vehicle's first launch atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket capable of lofting it far higher than ever before, from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, last December.
WORLD
May 18, 2024

New star wars plan: Pentagon rushes to counter threats in orbit

Citing rapid advances by China and Russia, the United States is building an extensive capacity to fight battles in space.
Zhang Yufei during the Asian Games in Hangzhou, China, in September of last year
OLYMPICS / Swimming
Jun 19, 2024

Eleven swimmers in doping scandal named to Chinese Olympic team

WADA's decision not to punish the swimmers has provoked intense criticism, particularly from the United States.
Outgoing NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg addresses a meeting in Brussels last month.
WORLD / Politics
Jul 7, 2024

NATO turns 75 with Ukraine and future on line

Leaders will meet in Washington in the shadow of setbacks in Ukraine and electoral headwinds on both sides of the Atlantic.
Former U.S. President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at Harrah's Cherokee Center in Asheville, North Carolina, on Wednesday.
WORLD / Politics / FOCUS
Aug 17, 2024

How Trump’s intimidation tactics have reshaped the Republican Party

Those seen as disloyal to Trump and his Make America Great Again agenda have been the target of threats by his most ardent supporters.
Dr. Rahul Gupta, director of the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy, in Philadelphia last year. World Anti-Doping Agency officials, furious at U.S. investigations into the handling of positive tests, have sought to exclude Gupta from its board meetings.
OLYMPICS
Sep 11, 2024

White House is drawn into dispute over Chinese doping

WADA has informed the White House that its officials were seeking to bar its representative from any deliberations about positive tests by Chinese athletes.
A Palestinian man rests with his son under the rubble of their destroyed house in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on Sept. 26.
WORLD
Oct 7, 2024

After a year of war, Gazans wonder how to deal with tons of rubble

The U.N. estimates there are over 42 million metric tons of debris, including shattered edifices and flattened buildings.
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk watch the launch of the sixth test flight of the SpaceX Starship rocket in Brownsville, Texas, on Nov. 19.
WORLD / Politics
Nov 27, 2024

Musk pushes his preferred political picks via X. Trump isn't always swayed.

Several high-profile cases show some early limits to the billionaire's influence even as he has emerged as one of the president-elect's most powerful allies.
Workers building a railway in front of Lusail Stadium in Doha in 2018
SOCCER
Nov 30, 2024

FIFA should pay workers injured building Qatar World Cup, internal report says

The report offered no specific dollar amount of compensation.
Peter Westbrook became the first African American and Asian American to win an Olympic medal in fencing at the 1984 Games in Los Angeles.
OLYMPICS / Fencing
Dec 2, 2024

Trailblazing Olympic fencer Peter Westbrook dies at 72

Westbrook was the first first African American and Asian American to win a medal in fencing at the Summer Games
Passersby hold umbrellas as they walk under strong sunlight as the Japanese government issued heat stroke alerts in 39 of the country's 47 prefectures in Tokyo on July 22.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Dec 12, 2024

Climate change forged a new reality in 2024: 'This is life now'

As the year draws to a close, the environmental conclusion is both blatant and bleak: 2024 was the hottest year since records began.
All Nippon Airways aircraft at Haneda Airport in Tokyo in August 2024. ANA has staked a lot on greener kinds of jet fuel, with 70% of the emissions reductions under its net-zero emissions plan coming from them.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability / OUR PLANET
Feb 16, 2025

Sky not the only limit for JAL and ANA’s climate goals

The airlines' similar but different carbon neutrality plans highlight the difficulty of decarbonization, especially as the sector is now growing again.
U.S. President Donald Trump in the Oval Office with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, at the White House in Washington on Friday.
WORLD / Politics
Mar 22, 2025

Trump rejects idea that Musk should have access to top-secret China war plans

The U.S. president also denied a report that such a briefing had been planned to be held at the Pentagon on Friday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has reportedly offered to halt Russia's invasion of Ukraine at the current front lines.
WORLD / Politics
Apr 23, 2025

Ukraine presses for ceasefire as Russia reported to offer concession

Both sides are trying to demonstrate progress toward ending the war after U.S. President Donald Trump said he could walk away from peace talks if there is no breakthrough.
U.S. President Joe Biden has seen Republican Donald Trump take a lead of six points, according to two prominent national polls, intensifying pressure on the beleaguered Democratic incumbent to drop out of the presidential race.
WORLD / Politics
Jul 4, 2024

Biden struggles to contain mounting pressure to drop out of race

Numerous Democratic lawmakers are contemplating signing a letter urging Biden to withdraw from the race, according to a senior party official.
A supermarket in Narita, Chiba Prefecture, operated by Aeon. Shares of Aeon have extended their gains to 25% this year and reached a record high this week.
BUSINESS / Companies
Sep 13, 2024

Seven & I proposal fuels rally in Japanese retailers like Aeon

An increase in Japan’s consumer spending, which accounts for more than half of Asia’s second-biggest gross economy, is also supporting retailers.
A Nepali paramilitary police force office in the village Hilsa, Nepal, on Oct. 12, 2023
ASIA PACIFIC
Oct 14, 2024

China’s ‘new Great Wall’ casts a shadow on Nepal

The fortification building spree is placing intense pressure on China’s poorer, weaker neighbors.
A farmer salvages some of the harvest from a flooded rice field near Hanoi on Sept. 24
ENVIRONMENT
Oct 16, 2024

AI enhances flood warnings but cannot fully erase risk of disaster

One issue is that the effectiveness of an artificial intelligence model is only as good as the information it is fed.
Dodgers designated hitter Shohei Ohtani runs to first after hitting a single in the first inning against the Mets during Game 6 of the NLCS in the MLB playoffs in Los Angeles on Sunday.
BASEBALL / MLB / Sac Bunts
Oct 22, 2024

Shohei Ohtani closer than ever on World Series mission

The star stands four wins away from capping off a storybook first season with the Dodgers by achieving his dream of winning the World Series.
Suchir Balaji, a former OpenAI employee, in San Francisco on Oct. 3. Balaji helped gather and organize the enormous amounts of internet data used to train the startup’s ChatGPT chatbot.
BUSINESS / Tech
Oct 24, 2024

Former OpenAI researcher says the company broke copyright law

Suchi Balaji is among the first employees to leave a major AI company and speak out against the way these companies use copyrighted data to create their technologies.
Japanese comedian and Shohei Ohtani impersonator Aki Teriyaki has been to every MLB game Ohtani's teams have played since 2022.
BASEBALL / MLB
Oct 28, 2024

Meet the tiny, but mighty, Shohei Ohtani impersonator who went to 500 MLB games

Japanese comedian and Shohei Ohtani impersonator Aki Teriyaki has been to every MLB game Ohtani's teams have played since 2022.
Evacuated people rest at a green house converted into an evacuation center in the aftermath of an earthquake in Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, on Jan. 2. Japan is preparing to create a disaster management agency, with Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba particularly keen to improve the conditions of emergency shelters for disaster evacuees.
JAPAN / Politics
Dec 30, 2024

Japan preparing to create disaster management agency

Disaster-related deaths exceeded 220 in the 2016 quake disaster in Kumamoto Prefecture and topped 240 in the Noto Peninsula temblor.
Filmmaker David Lynch at his Hollywood Hills home in Los Angeles in 2002. The painter turned avant-garde film artist, whose fame, influence and distinctively skewed worldview extended far beyond the movie screen, died on Thursday at 78.
CULTURE / Film
Jan 17, 2025

David Lynch, maker of florid and unnerving films, dies at 78

A painter turned artist whose films included “Eraserhead,” “Blue Velvet” and “Mulholland Drive,” Lynch also brought his visionary view to the small screen with “Twin Peaks.”
Lawyers advising in a racial profiling case speak during a news conference on Wednesday in Tokyo.
JAPAN / Society
Feb 26, 2025

About 70% of foreign nationals questioned by police on the streets: survey

The survey was believed to be the first conducted comparing police questioning between foreign nationals and Japanese on the issue.
Brian Harman poses with the Claret Jug after winning the British Open in Hoylake, England, on Sunday.
MORE SPORTS / Golf
Jul 24, 2023

Unflappable Brian Harman wins British Open

Brian Harman, an avid hunter back home in Georgia, simply refused to allow himself to fall prey to the world's leading golfers as he showed nerves of steel to win the British Open on Sunday.

Longform

A small shrine perched atop rocks braves the waves hitting the shoreline during a storm in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture. The area is under threat of a possible 31-meter-high tsunami if an earthquake strikes the nearby Nankai Trough.
If the 'Big One' hits, this city could face a 31-meter-high tsunami