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The current focus on autonomous vehicles has obscured something else: AI has already de-skilled driving as a profession.
COMMENTARY / World / The Year Ahead
Jan 2, 2025

Our AI near-future

We can look forward to many years of instability as AI technology continues to make rapid progress.
Kawasaki Heavy Industries' Tokyo head office
JAPAN
Dec 23, 2024

Kawasaki Heavy's spending on SDF personnel found taxable

SDF submarine crew members have been wined, dined and given gift certificates by Kawasaki Heavy's Kobe Works, with the expenses reported as tax-deductible.
Small businesses in Ino, a town in Kochi Prefecture known for its paper industry, show how a labor shortage is a growing threat to smaller companies that provide seven out of every 10 jobs in Japan.
BUSINESS / Economy
Dec 24, 2024

Small businesses with low wages struggle to tackle labor shortages

A worker shortage is threatening firms that are otherwise robust, including those that have invested in automation and creative hiring.
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet speaks during the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Sept. 22, 2023.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Dec 24, 2024

Under Cambodia’s new leader, room for dissent narrows

While Prime Minister Hun Manet has often spoken of the need for independent media and civil society in Cambodia, his government has moved in the opposite direction.
Rescuers work at a site of a residential building heavily damaged by a Russian missile strike in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, in October 2022.
WORLD
Dec 24, 2024

How one man became a Ukrainian traitor and Russian spy

Before the full-scale invasion, Ukrainian nationals were mainly recruited during trips to Russia, but approaches are more often made online now using social networks.
David Nemecek
BUSINESS
Dec 25, 2024

The star dealmakers remaking the rules of corporate debt

The world of liability management is a small, aggressive and, thus far, male-dominated corner of corporate finance.
Casual Japanese usage increasingly sees the "i" at the end of exclamations like "yabai" (dangerous) replaced by a small "tsu."
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Dec 26, 2024

Small letter, big impact: A little 'tsu' makes all the difference

When reading the small "tsu," shorten the preceding vowel slightly and then start with the sound of the subsequent consonant.
People use their smartphones as they sit on motorbikes in Ho Chi Minh City on Monday.
ASIA PACIFIC
Dec 26, 2024

Sweeping Vietnam internet law comes into force

Under a new law, all tech giants operating in Vietnam must verify users' accounts via their phone numbers or Vietnamese identification numbers.
Smoke rises after Israeli strikes near Sanaa airport, in Sanaa, Yemen, on Thursday.
WORLD / Politics
Dec 27, 2024

Israel hits Houthis in Yemen in response to slow escalation

Among targets hit Thursday included military infrastructure at the Sanaa International Airport and in the Hezyaz and Ras Kanatib power stations.
Members of the Wajima City Morning Market Association pose for a group photograph on the site where the market once stood.
JAPAN / Society / Longform
Dec 30, 2024

In the wake of disaster, the revival of Wajima's market brings hope

Wajima's morning market on the Noto Peninsula was devastated a year ago. Now, led by women vendors and bold ideas, it is rising as a symbol of resilience.
Climate demonstrators protest against investments in fossil fuels during the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Washington on Oct. 21.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Dec 30, 2024

After a year of hard climate talks, ‘minilateralism’ is an alternative

Global environmental agreements have never been simple, but a variety of factors, such as political polarization, make countries less willing to compromise.
U.S. President Jimmy Carter and Prime Minister Masayoshi Ohira share a laugh ahead of talks in Tokyo in June 1979.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Dec 30, 2024

Jimmy Carter's surprising connection to Japan: his Christian faith

The former U.S. president, who died Sunday, bonded with his counterpart, Prime Minister Masayoshi Ohira, over their shared faith.
Midori Kato has been voice acting the character Sazae Fuguta in the TV animation series "Sazae-san" since it started in 1969.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming
Dec 30, 2024

Still sounding young at 85, Midori Kato is the voice of old Japan

The voice actor is the last original member of the cast of “Sazae-san,” a cartoon series that premiered in 1969 and never quite joined the modern world.
OnlyFans CEO Keily Blair gestures during the Axios BFD event in New York on Oct. 12, 2023.
BUSINESS / Tech
Dec 30, 2024

How OnlyFans turned into a global empire bent on redefining porn

For all its ambition and influence, the inner workings of OnlyFans remain opaque.
Bank of Japan Gov. Kazuo Ueda speaks at a news conference after a policy meeting in Tokyo on Dec. 19.
BUSINESS / Economy
Jan 1, 2025

After historic year, the Bank of Japan ambles into 2025

Two or three rate hikes expected this year could take the central bank's benchmark to 1% for the first time in three decades.
A Dior store front in Rome. Despite passing audits, Dior's contractors in Italy have been accused of labor abuses.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jan 2, 2025

Inside luxury goods' broken audit system

Revelations of worker exploitation in Dior's Italian production chain have exposed flaws in supply chain audits and triggered judicial action.
Tonoike Sake Brewery has been gearing their brewery toward tourism since the late 1980s, attempting to lure tourists to the town of Mashiko.
LIFE / Travel
Jan 3, 2025

Traveling for sake's sake: The emergence of brewery tourism in Japan

While sake consumption has declined in Japan, breweries across the nation are taking advantage of a rise in overseas interest to promote themselves as tourist destinations.
Scheduled to welcome its first guests in early 2025, the Waldorf Astoria Osaka is just one of many luxury hotel openings Japan has seen in recent months.
LIFE / Travel
Jan 4, 2025

Japan’s ‘quiet revolution’ of luxury travel nears fruition

“The Japanese luxury travel scene has undergone quite the metamorphosis over the past decade,” says one industry insider.
A man pushes a cart along Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles
WORLD / Society
Jan 4, 2025

Ahead of Trump term, U.S. cities grapple with homelessness

The crisis worsened with the end of pandemic-related aid, and are driven by a lack of affordable housing, as well as inflation and low wages.
DOPS Director Dr. Jim Tucker (back row, from left), David Acunzo, Marina Weiler, Philip Cozzolino (front row, from left) Marieta Pehlivanova and Elliot Gish, pose for a photo on the campus of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia, on July 15. Is reincarnation real? Is communication from the "beyond” possible? A small set of academics are trying to find out, case by case.
WORLD / Society
Jan 4, 2025

Do you believe in life after death? These scientists study it.

Is reincarnation real? Is communication from the “beyond” possible? A small set of academics are trying to find out, case by case.
Many Japanese dating apps have ways to detail specific interests that can be as narrow as one particular TV show, game or an artist.
JAPAN / Society
Jan 7, 2025

Swiping in Japan: How Gen Z is changing the dating app game

The once-stigmatized apps are flourishing as a new normal for dating among Gen Z in Japan, albeit with a different approach to before.
Demonstrators inside the U.S. Capitol after breaching barricades on Jan. 6, 2021
WORLD / Society
Jan 8, 2025

Violent extremism lingers online with U.S. flagging less content

Donald Trump’s return to the White House promises to cement the hands-off approach toward online behavior.
Social media giant Meta slashed its content moderation policies on Tuesday, including ending its U.S. fact-checking program, in a major shift that conforms with the priorities of incoming president Donald Trump.
BUSINESS / Tech
Jan 8, 2025

Big Tech rolls out the red carpet for Trump ahead of his inauguration

Since the November election, a stream of senior moguls have traveled to meet with Trump at his Florida estate.
Five years since COVID-19 started upending the world, the virus is still infecting and killing people across the globe — though at far lower levels than during the height of the pandemic.
WORLD / Science & Health
Jan 8, 2025

Is the world ready for the next pandemic?

While the U.N. health agency considers the world more prepared than it was when Covid hit, it warns we are still not nearly ready enough.
Tottenham's Lucas Bergvall celebrates after the club's win over Liverpool on Wednesday.
SOCCER
Jan 9, 2025

Tottenham's faith in young players pays off in surprise win over Liverpool

While Tottenham's season has been chronically inconsistent there are signs that, given time, it can flourish under Australian coach Ange Postecoglou.
A Syrian fighter with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham patrols the gate as men wait outside a reconciliation center in Damascus on Dec. 30.
WORLD
Jan 11, 2025

Western powers warn Syria over foreign jihadis in army

HTS and allied groups have hundreds of foreign fighters in their ranks, many of them followers of hard-line interpretations of Islam.
Smoke from the Pacific Palisades fire blankets the area in Los Angeles on Tuesday. Researchers see a growing health danger from the vast plumes of pollution spawned by wildfires like the ones devastating Los Angeles.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Jan 12, 2025

Far from the Los Angeles fires, the deadly risks of smoke are intensifying

By some estimates, wildfire smoke causes as many as 675,000 premature deaths a year worldwide, as well as a range of serious health problems.
Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance plans to raise its starting monthly salary for university graduates joining the nonlife insurer in April 2026 to as much as ¥410,000.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jan 12, 2025

Tokio Marine to raise starting pay to up to ¥410,000

The insurance firm aims to secure and retain human resources amid continuing labor shortages in Japan.
The "madman theory" in foreign policy, which some apply to Donald Trump, relies on perceived irrationality to intimidate adversaries and generally fails to achieve its goals, leading to dangerous miscalculations.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 15, 2025

There is no place for ‘madmen’ in international diplomacy

Historians root the madman theory in Machiavelli, who wrote that “at times it is a very wise thing to simulate madness.”
Akutagawa Prize winners (from left) Jose Ando, author of "Dtopia" and Yui Suzuki, author of "Goethe wa Subete o Itta," and Naoki Prize winner Shin Iyohara, author of "Ai o Tsugu Umi."
CULTURE / Books
Jan 15, 2025

Japan's most prestigious literary awards go to a trio of contemporary voices

Jose Ando and Yui Suzuki take home Akutagawa honors, while Shin Iyohara nabs the Naoki Prize.

Longform

A sinkhole in Yashio, which emerged in January, was triggered by a ruptured, aging sewer pipe. Authorities worry that similar sections of infrastructure across the country are also at risk of corrosion.
That sinking feeling: Japan’s aging sewers are an infrastructure time bomb