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Cameron Lew, the 27-year-old behind the California-based music project Ginger Root, crafted a detailed city-pop-inspired universe with a 1980s idol storyline for last year’s “Nisemono” album.
CULTURE / Music
Jul 28, 2023

Ginger Root's modern spin on Showa nostalgia

The California-based project is set to bring its distinct interpretation of city pop to Fuji Rock Festival this weekend.
Demonstrators march against the Israeli government's judicial reform plan in Tel Aviv on Monday.
EDITORIALS
Jul 28, 2023

When democracy stumbles, we all will suffer

The erosion of democratic norms and principles in one country undermines the value of those norms in others.
JAPAN / Politics
Jul 28, 2023

Kishida seeks reset as My Number woes hit approval ratings

The prime minister has embarked on a nationwide tour to listen to the concerns of local communities in an effort to expand his political reach and prop up his popular support.
Yevgeny Prigozhin
WORLD
Jul 29, 2023

Wagner chief’s exile is anything but as he visits St. Petersburg

As Vladimir Putin was welcoming African heads of state to a summit in St. Petersburg, renegade warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin stole the limelight in the president’s home city.
A woman walks on the bottom of a dried pond on a hot day in Mauharia, India, in May 2022.
ENVIRONMENT
Jul 29, 2023

Warming world 'brutalizes' women as heat waves deepen gender divide

The impacts of rising heat are disproportionately dangerous and costly to women — be it at home or on the job — according to a new report.
U.S. President Joe Biden and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, in July 2022
WORLD / Politics
Jul 30, 2023

Biden presses ahead with effort to broker Israeli-Saudi rapprochement

The fact that U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan returned to Jeddah so soon after his last visit suggests prospects for an accord.
As artificial intelligence grows more sophisticated, transparency has taken a back seat and could harm its quality and safety.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 30, 2023

Secretive chatbot developers are making a big mistake

Before we can ponder existential threats of the new technology, Silicon Valley must be forced to disclose more about how their tools are created.
Many of the entrepreneurs who’ve become superwealthy are now seeking to manage and transfer riches to their descendants in Asia. That’s resulting in a surge in family office demand.
ASIA PACIFIC
Jul 31, 2023

Asia’s richest families fuel race for lucrative finance jobs

Many of Asia's superwealthy are now seeking help managing their estates just as old-money families in the West have done for decades.
Wall Street in New York. While survey participants are likely riding the AI-fueled market melt-up thanks to their broad equity exposure, they aren’t going all-in on the technology just yet.
BUSINESS / Tech
Jul 31, 2023

Investors are happy to pay premium for tech, but not for AI

Even as AI floods the workplace, many still doubt that it will dramatically affect their job within the next three years.
Pedestrians outside a Seibu department store in Tokyo's Ikebukuro district in April
BUSINESS / Companies
Jul 31, 2023

Seven & I struggles to sell slumping Sogo & Seibu department stores

The holdup is centered around the flagship Seibu department store in Tokyo's Ikebukuro district, with the local government expressing rare opposition.
Then-Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang attends a news conference in Beijing on May 23.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics / ANALYSIS
Aug 1, 2023

China's ex-foreign minister is gone but wait for explanation goes on

A Foreign Ministry spokeswoman on Thursday said Beijing will release information in a timely matter regarding Qin Gang and opposes "malicious hype."
Former U.S. President Donald Trump makes his way inside the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse in New York on April 4. Trump was indicted on Monday over his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election — the most serious legal threat yet to the former president as he campaigns to return to the White House.
WORLD / Politics
Aug 2, 2023

Trump charged with conspiracy for efforts to overturn 2020 election

The indictment alleges Trump knowingly spread lies about the election in order to undermine public faith in the vote and remain in power.
Chikako Utsumi holds bottles of Rose Mind at Tenpoichi sake brewer in Fukuyama, Hiroshima Prefecture.
JAPAN / Regional Voices: Hiroshima
Aug 7, 2023

Local Hiroshima sake and beef grow in popularity due to G7

Popular sake Rose Mind has seen its popularity surge since it was served during the Group of Seven summit in Hiroshima.
Vivian Tung eats her first meal since the egg retrieval surgery. Tung is one of a rising number of women in Taiwan opting to freeze their eggs to give them the option to have a child later in life.
ASIA PACIFIC / Science & Health
Aug 2, 2023

A rising number of women in Taiwan are freezing their eggs

Demand for egg freezing has surged, with the number of women opting for the technology up 86% over the past three years.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Aug 2, 2023

Football players at Japan university allegedly caught with cannabis

Club activities for the team have been suspended and the college has conducted interviews with coaches, club members and former club members.
Boston Celtics guard Jaylen Brown takes a shot against the Miami Heat in the third quarter during Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Finals in Miami on May 23.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 30, 2023

Could Saudi money be coming to the NBA, too?

Jaylen Brown just signed the richest contract in the league’s history, but there’ll probably be an ever bigger deal before long.
Australian Ambassador to Japan Justin Hayhurst (center) walks beside Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (right) during the Group of Seven summit in Hiroshima in May.
JAPAN
Aug 3, 2023

Tokyo-Canberra ties key to Indo-Pacific’s future: Australian envoy

"We’ve never been more important to each other," says Justin Hayhurst, Australia’s new Ambassador to Japan.
The protagonist of Yu Miri’s “The End of August” is a fictionalized version of the author’s maternal grandfather, a long-distance runner who lived in Japanese-occupied Korea.
CULTURE / Books
Aug 6, 2023

Yu Miri’s new book is a bleak, dizzying epic in colonized Korea

In “The End of August,” the Akutagawa Prize-winning author excavates her own family history and traces multiple generations living under Japanese rule.
Hiroshi Mikitani, co-chief executive officer of Rakuten Medical, speaks at the American Society of Clinical Oncology's meeting in Yokohama on Thursday.
BUSINESS
Aug 7, 2023

Rakuten’s Mikitani spends a fifth of his time on biotech startup

Rakuten Medical, based in San Diego, employs about 200 people and specializes in a therapy that uses light and immunotherapy drugs to fight cancer.
SOCCER / Women's World cup
Aug 7, 2023

Surprising Japan emerges as team to beat at Women's World Cup

Wins over Costa Rica and Zambia were expected, but it was the 4-0 thrashing of Spain that made the rest of the tournament sit up and take notice.
Members of a military council that staged a coup attend a rally at a stadium in Niamey, Niger, on Sunday.
WORLD / Politics
Aug 8, 2023

West African leaders to meet on Niger after junta defies deadline

The European Union and United States have welcomed the move, saying it allows more time for mediation.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russia's Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu visit an exhibition of military equipment on July 27.
ASIA PACIFIC
Aug 8, 2023

North Korean hackers breached top Russian missile-maker

Experts say the incident shows how the isolated country will even target its allies in a bid to acquire critical technologies.
France players celebrate midfielder Kenza Dali's (right) goal against Morocco in the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup round of 16 in Adelaide, Australia, on Tuesday.
SOCCER / Women's World cup
Aug 9, 2023

Rampant France sets up Australia clash; Colombia also into quarters

A rampant France scored three times in eight minutes to bring Morocco's fairytale run to a brutal end.
A bulk carrier transits through Cocoli Locks at the Panama Canal, on the outskirts of Panama City, Panama, on April 19.
BUSINESS / Economy
Aug 11, 2023

Drought-hit Panama Canal lets more unbooked ships pass

Around 70% of canal traffic comes from or goes to the U.S., where retailers like Walmart, Amazon and Target prep for winter holiday sales.
EDITORIALS
Aug 11, 2023

Nuclear threats grow stronger and more immediate

In this world, unilateral disarmament and the hope that setting an example will inspire other nations to follow suit is fantasy.
Technical trainees from Vietnam work at a knitwear factory in the city of Mitsuke, Niigata Prefecture, in February 2019.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 6, 2023

Japan is bringing in more foreign nationals than you think

Japan isn’t an outlier when it comes to low fertility rates, merely a front-runner.
A Taiwan Air Force Mirage 2000 jet fighter landing at Hsinchu Air Base in Hsinchu, Taiwan, in April.
ASIA PACIFIC
Aug 12, 2023

China’s military, ‘chasing the dream,’ probes Taiwan’s defenses

Day by day, the People’s Liberation Army is turning up the pressure, deploying an ever-wider array of planes and ships.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida meets with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, last month.
JAPAN
Aug 12, 2023

Saudi Arabia seeks to join fighter jet project involving Japan

Riyadh’s push to partner in the program is creating strains within the alliance, as the U.K. and Italy are open to the prospect while Japan is resistant.
Annette and Peter O’Malley, joined by their daughter Katherine, welcome NPB great Shigeo Nagashima to their Los Angeles home on Dec. 1, 1974.
BASEBALL / MLB
Aug 13, 2023

Annette O'Malley helped forge connection between Dodgers and Japan

She traveled with her husband, former Dodgers president Peter O'Malley, to help grow the game internationally, including making over 25 visits to Japan.
Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump campaigns at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines, Iowa, on Saturday.
WORLD / Politics / ANALYSIS
Aug 14, 2023

Trump heading for Republican 'coronation' as 2024 rivals struggle

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the rest of the field have so far been at a loss over how to narrow the gap.

Longform

Figure skater Akiko Suzuki was once told her ideal weight should be 47 kilograms, a number she now admits she “naively believed.” This led to her have a relationship with food that resulted in her suffering from anorexia.
The silent battle Japanese athletes fight with weight