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A young girl’s imaginary friend, Rudger (Kokoro Terada), is separated from his grieving “owner” in “The Imaginary.”
CULTURE / Film
Dec 21, 2023

‘The Imaginary’: Flight of fancy could have soared even higher

Animation studio Ponoc’s feature is a visual treat with some poignant moments, but it won’t be taking on the mantle from Studio Ghibli just yet.
Taiwan's vice president and the ruling Democratic Progressive Party's presidential candidate Lai Ching-te. China has rebuked Lai as a dangerous separatist.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Dec 21, 2023

To China, all candidates are separatists, says Taiwan front-runner

The Jan. 13 presidential and parliamentary elections will define Chinese-claimed Taiwan's ties with Beijing.
The Colorado Supreme Court building in downtown Denver on Tuesday. The Colorado Supreme Court, which barred former U.S. President Donald Trump from the state’s primary ballot, is composed of seven justices who were all appointed by Democratic governors.
WORLD / Politics
Dec 21, 2023

Colorado ballot case adds fuel to Trump's nomination drive

The Colorado Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that the former president was barred from its state ballot for engaging in "insurrection."
Attendees play the Fate/Samurai Remnant video game on PlayStation 5 video game consoles at the Tokyo Game Show in September.
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 21, 2023

Sony highlights PS5 momentum as hardware sales top 50 million

Sony is seeing strong momentum for its PlayStation 5 console, a senior games executive has said, with lifetime sales exceeding 50 million units and the company recording its best-ever Black Friday period sales for the device.
Shoppers at a market in Kyiv on Tuesday
WORLD / Politics
Dec 21, 2023

With Ukraine’s aid in doubt, companies say they’re the Plan B

Ukrainian companies making products are ensuring their survival while contributing to the war effort.
Inspectors analyze saliva collected with test kits at SalivaTech.
JAPAN / Science & Health / Regional Voices: Tohoku
Jan 8, 2024

Tohoku startup offers way to detect cancer early using saliva

SalivaTech's SalivaChecker is a test kit that provides high-precision analysis of around 10 types of salivary metabolites.
Displaced Palestinians gather in the yard of Gaza's Shifa hospital on Dec. 10.
WORLD / Society
Dec 22, 2023

No functional hospitals left in northern Gaza, WHO says

Of Gaza's original 36 hospitals, only nine are now partially functional, all of them in the south.
A young woman (Hana Sugisaki) slips through the cracks of Japan’s family register system in “Ichiko.”
CULTURE / Film
Dec 24, 2023

‘Ichiko’: Hana Sugisaki transfixes with career-high performance

Akihiro Toda’s impressive drama shows different sides of its slippery protagonist without passing judgment.
Takahito Tokita, chief executive officer at Fujitsu, speaks during an interview at the company's headquarters in Tokyo on Wednesday.
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 22, 2023

Fujitsu speeds aircon deal as it aims for ¥700 billion boost from AI

The urgency to close the deal rises amid growing geopolitical and economic uncertainty.
Competitors play "Warships" at Squid Game: The Trials, Netflixユs new attraction in Los Angeles on Nov. 28, 2023. For $30, fans can compete in some 70 minutes of play, with moral twists and six group activities, including nonlethal versions of the showユs challenges.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming
Dec 13, 2023

Netflix builds a ‘Squid Game’ universe as it awaits a second season

A reality show and a live experience are two ways of keeping the dystopian series in the public eye. Is the original’s bleak message being diluted?
Russian conscripts watch a tank demonstration in Moscow in August 2022. Despite its bravado in public, the Kremlin has indicated its interest in striking a deal to halt the war so long as it could still declare victory.
WORLD / Politics
Dec 24, 2023

Putin quietly signals he is open to a ceasefire in Ukraine

The repeated interest in cutting a deal exemplifies how opportunism and improvisation have defined his approach to the war behind closed doors.
Unlike his immediate predecessor, new Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi has chosen to speak in words of his own for some matters.
JAPAN / Politics
Dec 24, 2023

Hayashi maneuvers through his new Cabinet position carefully

Hayashi has served in many Cabinet posts in the past, including defense minister, agriculture minister and education minister.
A Rohingya refugee woman holds her child at a temporary camp, at a port on Sabang island in Indonesia's Aceh province.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Dec 25, 2023

Rohingya refugees in Indonesia face hostile welcome

Jakarta has called on neighboring countries to offer the Rohingya a permanent home.
Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James (23) moves the ball up court during the first half of a game against Boston Celtics in Los Angeles on Monday.
BASKETBALL / NBA
Dec 26, 2023

Celtics feast on Lakers' home court in classic NBA Christmas clash

The game between the teams that share the record for most NBA titles with 17 apiece was one of five on the Christmas Day slate.
Jargal Lhagvasuren practicing an aerial routine at the Mongolian Circus School in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia on May 18. Contortionists and acrobats with celestial skills train in squalid conditions as the promise of a former sumo wrestler to restore the national circus to its past glory has gone mostly unfulfilled.
ASIA PACIFIC
Dec 26, 2023

Mongolians are circus stars all over the world, except at home

The promise to return state circus in Ulaanbaatar to its former glory remains unfulfilled, forcing trained performers abroad.
Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson rushes during the first quarter of Baltimore's win over San Francisco on Monday in Santa Clara, California.
MORE SPORTS / Football
Dec 27, 2023

Lamar Jackson leaps to top of the MVP race with win over Brock Purdy's 49ers

With the win the Ravens moved one win away from clinching the AFC's top seed and will get their first shot at doing so when they host Miami on Sunday.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida gives a speech in Tokyo on Tuesday.
JAPAN / Politics
Dec 27, 2023

Kishida vows to improve political funds transparency

As president of the LDP, Kishida has unveiled a plan to establish a new intraparty organization early next year to discuss political and party reforms.
The iconic structure with its shell-shaped roof at Bennelong Point in Sydney is a source of immense pride for many Australians.
CULTURE / Art
Dec 27, 2023

Yuzo Mikami: The unsung hero behind the Sydney Opera House

On the building's 50th anniversary, those with memories and knowledge of the Japanese architect say recognition of his achievements is long-overdue.
When Chinese President Xi Jinping came to power, he inherited a China that was enjoying prosperity, but also succumbing to gilded-age excesses.
COMMENTARY / The Year Ahead
Dec 29, 2023

The moral of the China story

Even if China is no longer “winning,” it would be short-sighted to dismiss its recent experience as irrelevant.
Supporters hoist a giant Taiwan national flag during a campaign rally for Kuomintang ahead of Taiwan's presidential election, in Taipei on Saturday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Dec 27, 2023

Whisky and a coal 'shack': Taiwan election is not only about China

The candidates are exchanging blows over everything from property disputes to whether drinking whiskey is out of touch.
An Afghan woman holds her newborn child at a maternity hospital in Khost, Afghanistan. According to the latest World Health Organization figures, from 2017, 638 women die in Afghanistan for every 100,000 viable births, compared with 19 in the United States.
WORLD / Society
Dec 28, 2023

For women in Afghanistan, every birth carries heavy risks

Afghanistan is among the worst countries in the world for deaths in childbirth, "with one woman dying every two hours," according to the U.N.
Veteran politician Alan Leong in the now-empty headquarters of the Civic Party, once the city's second largest opposition party, in Hong Kong. Six lapel pins bearing the Civic Party's founding date are all Hong Kong veteran politician Alan Leong kept when the once-prominent opposition group cleared its headquarters and shuttered its doors days before the new year.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Dec 28, 2023

Hong Kong's former second-largest opposition party shuts down

Since China imposed its security law, the Civic Party has seen members jailed, elected politicians unseated and a former lawmaker listed as a fugitive.
Masimo's headquarters in Irvine, California. The U.S. International Trade Commission ruled earlier this year that the Apple Watch violates two Masimo patents related to blood-oxygen sensing and imposed an import ban on the Ultra 2 and Series 9 models.
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 28, 2023

The email to Tim Cook that set the Apple watch saga in motion

Masimo, based in Irvine, California, is the rare company to wound Apple in a patent dispute.
FC Barcelona's Martina Fernandez scores during a Women's Champions League group match against FC Rosengard in Barcelona on Dec. 21. A share of 83% of respondents from a recent corporate survey said they planned to increase their investment in women's sports in 2024.
SPORTS
Dec 29, 2023

After landmark World Cup, more sponsors keen on women's sports

A share of 83% of respondents from a recent corporate survey said they planned to increase their investment in women's sports in 2024.
Ukrainian third-grader Arina Herasymova gets ready for a walk after an online reading class in Sloviansk, Ukraine, on Dec. 20.
WORLD / Society
Dec 29, 2023

Ukraine's front-line children yearn for return to classroom

The war has deprived younger students, especially, of the opportunity to start off their schooling like most of their peers elsewhere.
Tottenham Hotspur's Son Heung-min celebrates a goal during a match in January. The Premier League standout will be among the stars on South Korea's squad for the upcoming Asian Cup.
SOCCER
Dec 29, 2023

Son Heung-min to lead South Korea squad 'ready' to win Asian Cup

Son will captain a squad that also includes Bayern Munich defender Kim Min-jae and 22-year-old Paris Saint-Germain attacking midfielder Lee Kang-in.
Vishnu Dabad, a Gau Rakshak, or cow protector, and a politician with the regional political party Jannayak Janta Party (JJP), in Chamdhera village, Haryana, India.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Dec 29, 2023

India's far-right cow vigilantes mobilize before high-stakes elections

Some say cow vigilantism has become a way for young men to use popularity built through taking on alleged cattle smugglers to catapult into politics.
Global Indian International School (GIIS) Tokyo opened in 2006 with 60 students and has now grown to over 1,300, the majority of whom are Japanese.
JAPAN / Society
Dec 28, 2023

How Japan's international school landscape is evolving

With lower tuition than legacy international schools, new affordable facilities are catering to the growing communities of non-Japanese Asian communities.
After being whipsawed by false starts calling for the end of the Fed’s rate hiking regime, a Bloomberg gauge of the greenback is down nearly 3% since January in the steepest annual drop for the U.S. currency since 2020.
BUSINESS / Economy
Dec 29, 2023

U.S. dollar is set for worst year since 2020

The dollar’s fall stands in contrast to the pound, which is set for its best year since 2017.
The Ground Self-Defense Force's Amphibious Rapid Deployment Brigade takes part in a marine landing drill on Tokunoshima island, Kagoshima Prefecture, on Nov. 19.
JAPAN / Politics
Dec 29, 2023

Kishida’s military build-up plans face bumpy road ahead

One year on, questions remain as to whether the embattled leader, whose support rate recently dipped to new lows, can follow through on his pledges.

Longform

Ichiro Suzuki, one of the most iconic players in NPB and MLB history, was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame with 99.7% of the vote.
With Hall of Fame induction, Ichiro makes himself heard loud and clear