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Visitors to the "Henri Matisse: The Path to Color" exhibition at Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum face tough decisions in the gift shop.
CULTURE / Art
Aug 5, 2023

Matisse gachapon, Hockney parfaits: Japan’s next-level art merch

A Tokyo art exhibit doesn’t feel complete without a room filled wall-to-wall with custom trinkets.
A policeman stands next to the crime scene where a mass stabbing occurred in Seongnam, South Korea, on Thursday.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Aug 6, 2023

Police arrest 7 over murder threats at Seoul subway stations

Online posts specifying times and locations for stabbing attacks in the South Korean capital were shared widely across social media.
Even as some countries have moved to legalize or decriminalize marijuana, Japan has maintained a zero tolerance policy on the drug, prohibiting its possession or sale.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal / EXPLAINER
Aug 7, 2023

Navigating Japan's maze of cannabis-related laws

Japan has maintained a zero tolerance policy on cannabis, but the legality of other products on the market, including ones sold as CBD, is murkier.
Members and supporters of the San Francisco Taxi Workers Alliance attend a rally outside the California Public Utilities Commission headquarters in San Francisco on Monday.
BUSINESS / Tech
Aug 8, 2023

Will AI be an economic blessing or curse? History offers clues

History shows the economic impact of technological advances is generally uncertain, unequal and sometimes outright malign.
Hiroyuki Nagai, president and chief executive officer of Rakuten Bank (left), attends the company's listing ceremony at the Tokyo Stock Exchange on April 21.
BUSINESS / Companies
Aug 8, 2023

Rakuten Bank sees edge over rivals once BOJ ends negative rates

Uncertainty remains over when the Bank of Japan will scrap the policy, which has squeezed banks’ lending margins since its introduction seven years ago.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping arrive for a signing ceremony at the Kremlin in Moscow on March 21.
WORLD
Aug 8, 2023

China’s rebuke of Russia over border tussle doesn't signal shift

The rare admonition took place Friday over an incident involving Chinese citizens denied entry from Kazakhstan into Russia at a border checkpoint.
BUSINESS
Aug 8, 2023

End of the line for snack carts on Tokyo-Osaka shinkansen

End of popular service comes amid a looming labor shortage and the trend of more people buying food before boarding.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Aug 8, 2023

Nihon University chairwoman apologizes for student drug scandal

Mariko Hayashi denied reports that she was kept in the dark about facts surrounding the case, which involves the university's American football team.
ESPN, the sports TV unit of Walt Disney, is licensing its brand to casino operator Penn Entertainment, further deepening the media giant’s ties to online gambling.
BUSINESS / Companies
Aug 9, 2023

ESPN inks long-term deal with casino operator Penn Entertainment

The move to license its brand for sports betting deepens the media giant’s ties to the growing online gambling business.
New Zealand's Football Ferns earned their first-ever Women's World Cup win in their Group A opener against Norway on July 20.
SOCCER / Women's World cup
Aug 9, 2023

Kiwi players hope World Cup leaves legacy in rugby-mad homeland

Half of the tournament's 32 teams were based in New Zealand, often sharing training facilities with local clubs.
Visitors at the Todaiji temple in Nara in June
JAPAN / Society
Aug 10, 2023

China lifts pandemic-era ban on group tours to Japan

The decision marks the first time since January 2020 that groups of Chinese tourists will be allowed to visit Japan.
Cypriot researcher and urbex enthusiast Christos Zoumides climbs a fence into an abandoned amusement park in Nicosia, Cyprus.
WORLD
Aug 9, 2023

Divided capital of Cyprus popular among ‘urban explorers'

Alarmed by the trend, U.N. peacekeeping forces labelled any excursions that come even close to military areas as "completely irresponsible."
The Gacha Pop playlist on Spotify offers a wonderfully scattered collection of J-pop chart-toppers, long-running favorites and next-generation names, reflecting the global ambitions of homegrown artists.
CULTURE / Music / Sound Off
Aug 11, 2023

The summer of Gacha Pop

Spotify’s curated playlist encapsulates J-pop’s diverse range, but more than that, it shows how Japanese music travels in the world today.
Paul Cezanne’s “Mont Saint-Victoire and Chateau Noir” (Artizon Museum, Ishibashi Foundation)
CULTURE / Art
Aug 10, 2023

Artizon Museum considers the diverse legacy of abstract art

The Artizon’s overview showcases the huge diversity that non-figurative painting can encompass while illustrating how divisive a genre it can be.
PODCAST / deep dive
Aug 10, 2023

Why is modernizing Japan so darn tough?

Reporter Gabriele Ninivaggi joins us to break down how Japan’s digitalization hiccups risk exposing how backward things are.
Seattle Kraken center Alex Wennberg recently spoke out about "vile comments" he and his wife were receiving from fans on social media.
MORE SPORTS
Aug 11, 2023

Tensions build after collision of hockey, TikTok and romance novels

BookTok has brought new fans to hockey, but some wonder if fans are crossing the line with explicit comments.
Lionel Messi has been a major draw for Inter Miami and MLS during his short time with the team.
SOCCER
Aug 11, 2023

Lionel Messi poised to take Major League Soccer to 'new level'

With the seven-time Ballon d'Or winner as the new face of its top league, soccer in the U.S. is heading for new heights.
U.S. President Joe Biden recent comments about China are some of his most direct criticisms yet about the U.S.’s top geopolitical and economic rival.
ASIA PACIFIC
Aug 12, 2023

Biden fears Chinese economy is ‘ticking time bomb’

Biden's comments included several major inaccuracies about the world’s second-largest economy.
An office of OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, in San Francisco. The firm recently assured corporate partners that their data would not be used to train the chatbot further.
BUSINESS
Aug 12, 2023

ChatGPT fever spreads to U.S. workplace, sounding alarm for some

Some 28% of respondents to an online poll on artificial intelligence said they regularly use ChatGPT at work.
Prachi Gupta (left) after the birth of her first child in 2018
JAPAN / Society / FOCUS
Aug 14, 2023

For foreign expecting mothers in Japan, a struggle over maternity norms

Different expectations over things like natural births and weight gain can cause anxieties for non-Japanese.
England goalkeeper Mary Earp has criticized team outfitter Nike over failing to produce replicas of her uniform for sale.
SOCCER / Women's World cup
Aug 15, 2023

Adidas and Nike navigate bumps in retail demand as WWC breaks records

As the market for women's soccer grows, marketers have to juggle the fan base's ever-changing demands.
Thousands of Afghan women run microenterprises from their homes.
WORLD / Society
Aug 15, 2023

Afghan women set up secret businesses to escape Taliban bans

The administration has banned women from most jobs, barred girls from secondary and higher education, and restricted their movement.
Chinese national flags fly over Tiananmen Square along with other red flags ahead of the fifth plenary session of the First Session of the 14th National People's Congress (NPC) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on March 12.
ASIA PACIFIC
Aug 16, 2023

China is hiding more and more data from the rest of the world

China’s abrupt decision to pause releasing data on its soaring youth jobless rate this week was the latest sign the Asian giant is increasingly restricting sensitive information - especially when it’s unflattering to the nation’s faltering economy.
U.S. President Joe Biden, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean leader Yoon Suk-yeol attend a photo op on the day of trilateral engagement during the Group of Seven summit at the Grand Prince Hotel in Hiroshima on May 21.
JAPAN / Politics / FOCUS
Aug 16, 2023

Biden, Kishida and Yoon look to ‘institutionalize’ trilateral ties

The leaders will agree to hold three-way summits at least once a year, in addition to conducting more joint drills and boosting intelligence-sharing.
Residential buildings under construction at Tahoe Group's Cathay Courtyard development in Shanghai
BUSINESS / Economy
Aug 17, 2023

China’s housing slump is much worse than official data shows

Industry insiders and economists say China’s official home-price indexes are likely understating the depth of the downturn.
The government plans to make it mandatory for staff candidates at children's facilities, including those for children with disabilities, to submit a certificate of no sex crime record.
JAPAN
Aug 17, 2023

Japan considers mandatory sex crime record checks by schools

The government plans to include the requirements in a bill it expects to submit to parliament as early as this fall.
An ayurvedic doctor performs a traditional therapy at SGVP Holistic hospital in Ahmedabad, India, on Tuesday.
WORLD / Science & Health
Aug 17, 2023

WHO holds first traditional medicine summit

The global health body has come under fire from online critics who accused it of providing scientific validation to pseudoscience.
If you've come to the realization that divorce is the only way forward, there are a host of details about the Japanese marriage system to confirm before you're finally ready to cut ties.
COMMUNITY / How-tos
Aug 21, 2023

Navigating the notorious gauntlet of divorce in Japan

Everyone wishes for “happily ever after” no matter where you’re from, but Japan recorded 1,671 bicultural divorces in 2021.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off with a payload of 21 Starlink satellites from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Feb. 27.
BUSINESS / Tech
Aug 18, 2023

Starlink lifts off in Asia as satellite internet race heats up

Elon Musk's company has carved out a niche and an opportunity through the region's natural disasters and the vast sweep of its archipelagoes and islands.
A women-only passenger train in Tokyo
JAPAN / Explainer
Aug 18, 2023

DJ Soda incident spotlights prevalence of groping in Japan

The groping of the South Korean DJ at a festival spurred online conversations about the issue, with a term translating as "groping country" trending on X.

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