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An employee organizes baby supplies at a store in Siheung, South Korea, on Tuesday. A lack of babies is speeding up the aging of South Korean society, generating concerns about the growing fiscal burden of public pensions and healthcare.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Feb 28, 2024

South Korea keeps shattering its own record for lowest fertility rate

The number of babies expected per woman in a lifetime fell to 0.72 last year from 0.78 in 2022.
Even if a solution for peace is found to end the conflict between Hamas and Israel, any transitional authority will need to reckon with the militant group's large footprint in Gaza.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 28, 2024

A total 'de-Hamasification' of Gaza may be a bad idea

A peace plan needs to reckon with many difficult questions: Who will rebuild Gaza; who will pay for reconstruction and who will adjudicate any war crimes.
Trucks are seen as Ukrainian hauliers take part in an round-the-clock counter-demonstration against the blockade of the border by Polish protesters on Feb. 20.
BUSINESS / Companies
Mar 1, 2024

Companies in Ukraine see problems pile up, but most tough it out

"The war has taught us to respond flexibly"
Haas' Ayao Komatsu is the first Japanese to be named team principal of a non-Japanese Formula One team.
MORE SPORTS / Auto Racing
Mar 1, 2024

Ayao Komatsu and a road less traveled to the top of a Formula One team

As the new boss at Haas, Komatsu is the first Japanese team principal for a non-Japanese F1 team.
Factions, cliques, caucuses — whatever they may be called, groupings in legislatures are not unusual in many countries.
COMMENTARY / Japan / Perspectives
Mar 2, 2024

Is the funding scandal unraveling the LDP?

The media is caught up in the money-politics scandal of the moment, framing factions as all good or all bad. Things are a lot more nuanced than that.
Migrant workers harvest and package vegetables in a greenhouse in Gasan-myeon, South Korea, in December.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Mar 3, 2024

South Korea needs foreign workers, but often fails to protect them

Though a shrinking population makes imported labor vital, migrant workers routinely face predatory employers, inhumane conditions and other abuse.
Broad indications are growing that Chinese President Xi Jinping is shifting away from four decades of market-oriented reforms and financial innovation. The most powerful Chinese leader since Mao Zedong has emphasized the Communist Party’s "centralized and unified leadership” of the sector, and pledged to build "a modern financial system with Chinese characteristics” that’s completely different from the West.
BUSINESS / Companies
Mar 5, 2024

China's bankers exit industry amid crackdown on ‘hedonistic’ lifestyles

Finance workers in China are rethinking their career as Chinese President Xi Jinping signals a shift away from market-oriented reform and innovation.
Randolph-Macon College students pose with a monument to Taylor Anderson in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, on Jan. 23.
JAPAN
Mar 10, 2024

Tsunami victim's dream of becoming Japan-U.S. bridge realized

Taylor Anderson was one of the 33 foreign nationals killed in the March 2011 disaster.
Floating solar panels at the Canoe Brook water treatment plant in Short Hills, New Jersey
ENVIRONMENT / Energy
Mar 6, 2024

Pressed for space, solar farms are getting creative

There are solar arrays on top of big-box stores, solar arrays on yachts and solar farms that float.
The rat with shortened primary cilia (left) had gained weight compared to a normal rat. According to recent research from Nagoya University, rats with artificially shortened primary cilia displayed lower metabolism and increased food intake, resulting in weight gain.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Mar 7, 2024

Nagoya University finds mechanism behind middle-age weight gain

Researchers found that a region of the brain that controls metabolism and food intake becomes shorter with age in rats.
Palestinians carry bags of flour they grabbed from an aid truck in mid February near an Israeli checkpoint as Gaza residents face crisis levels of hunger amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 7, 2024

Getting more aid to Gaza shouldn’t be this difficult

Adding avoidable deaths through hunger and disease in Gaza to an already high fatality toll is good for no one but extremists.
Research from the International Monetary Fund suggests that gains from fully closing the gender gap in labor markets could increase gross domestic product in developing economies by 23% on average.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 8, 2024

The economic power of gender equality

There is ample empirical research demonstrating that gender equality delivers better results for people, for the planet and for profits.
An image taken from video of a U.S. Navy F/A-18 jet crew’s encounter with an unexplained anomalous phenomena
WORLD / Politics
Mar 9, 2024

Pentagon review finds no evidence of alien cover-up

But the new report suggests that the public’s belief that the government is hiding what it knows will probably continue.
Climate protesters interrupt a campaign event for former U.S. President Donald Trump in Indianola, Iowa, on Jan. 14.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 10, 2024

What would a Trump win mean for the climate?

Even if Trump wins and tries to take a wrecking ball to climate policies, he ultimately can't derail the renewables revolution gaining momentum in the U.S.
Wakana Nukui has been described as having a knack for storytelling and vividly sharing her vision with those around her.
BUSINESS / WOMEN AT WORK
Mar 24, 2024

A social entrepreneur who is determined to lift Cambodian women's status

Wakana Nukui has fostered new talent in design while opening shops dedicated to local products.
Naomi Osaka in action during her first-round match at Indian Wells earlier this month.
TENNIS
Mar 15, 2024

Men's and women's tennis tours advance talks to merge commercial rights

The move would bring all the commercial ventures into one entity, with the aim of completing a merger in 2025, a source said.
Built for two artists, Ishii House is a simple, rectangular timber structure with a double-height window facing the veranda.
LIFE / Style & Design
Mar 16, 2024

Architecture of community won Riken Yamamoto the Pritzker Prize

Unlike many other laureates, Yamamoto is not a household name. But his work and approach have long been admired within the Japanese architectural scene.
Pickleball courts in New York's famed Central Park
MORE SPORTS
Mar 15, 2024

Amid boom overseas, when will pickleball land in Japan?

Over the past few years, pickleball has emerged as the fastest-growing sport in the U.S., but it has yet to take off in Japan.
Women attend a protest in 2018 against the rape of three girls, an 8-year-old, an 11-year-old and a teenager, in different parts of India. The country experiences alarming rates of sexual violence against women.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 15, 2024

Why is India failing to protect its women?

India is plagued by sexual violence, with many horrific cases in the spotlight over the years. Despite reforms, cultural norms are hindering progress.
Members of the African American Tobacco Control Leadership Council stage a "menthol funeral" to draw attention to the annual toll of smoking-related deaths outside the White House in Washington on Jan. 18.
WORLD / Politics / FOCUS
Mar 16, 2024

Smokes and votes: Could menthol cigarette ban sway U.S. election?

A proposed ban from President Joe Biden's administration on the mint-flavored smokes has miffed some Black Americans, a key Democratic Party base.
A container ship passes at Keelung port in northern Taiwan in July 2010.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Mar 18, 2024

Pressure builds for charge on shipping sector's CO2 emissions

At an International Maritime Organization meeting, 47 countries are supporting the imposition of a fee on each ton of greenhouse gas the industry produces.
Artisan Suzanne Ross says Japanese lacquerware is a "treasure that belongs to the world."
JAPAN / Society
Mar 20, 2024

Wajima artisan’s livelihood, four decades in the making, upended by disaster

Lacquerware artist Suzanne Ross' life was upended by a massive earthquake. Now, she's determined to keep her craft alive.
Afghan schoolgirls in 2022. Boys and men will return to classes when the Afghan new year starts in late March, but girls and women will be left behind again by a Taliban government education blockade that is part of a raft of restrictions the United Nations has labelled "gender apartheid."
WORLD / Society
Mar 21, 2024

Afghan girls and women cling to glitchy, lonesome online learning

Schools in Afghanistan have opened for the new academic year, but girls have been banned from joining classes for the third year in a row.
According to one of the researchers, Sune Lehmann, the algorithm can be used predict health outcomes such as fertility or obesity, who will or will not get cancer, and even whether one is going to make a lot of money.
WORLD / Science & Health
Mar 22, 2024

How long you got? Danish AI algorithm aims to predict life, and death

It analyses variables such as birth, education, social benefits or even work schedules to predict a wide range of health or social "life events."
Globally, the area covered by mines has doubled over the past three years, driven by demand for critical minerals, according to a 2023 study.
BUSINESS / Markets
Mar 25, 2024

For mineral-rich Philippines, green metals rush is a balancing act

The county has the world's fourth-largest copper reserves, fifth-biggest nickel deposits and is also rich in cobalt — which are important for clean energy.
High school students visit seawalls in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, on Thursday during a weeklong tour of areas hit by the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami in the prefecture.
JAPAN / Society
Mar 26, 2024

Students from wildfire-struck Hawaii learn about disaster recovery in Miyagi

The students visited four municipalities in Miyagi Prefecture to study their efforts to rebuild following the 2011 Great East Japan earthquake and tsunami.
Jim Rauh, founder of Families Against Fentanyl, holds a photograph of his son Thomas in Akron, Ohio, on March 4. How Trump and Biden address a lethal chapter of the U.S. drug-overdose epidemic will be pivotal in swing states that are likely to decide the election.
WORLD / Politics
Mar 27, 2024

270,000 overdose deaths thrust fentanyl into heart of U.S. presidential race

More than 4 in 10 Americans personally know someone who has died from a drug overdose.
Jacky Im, Elizabeth Chan and Kate Maco are the founders of Neptune Robotics, a firm building robots that remove debris from the hulls of ships to improve fuel efficiency and reduce emissions.
BUSINESS / Tech
Mar 27, 2024

Underwater robots offering practical route to greener shipping

Technology that removes the algae, barnacles and debris that accumulate on ships' hulls can reduce drag and improve fuel efficiency.
Tesla Model 3 assembly line at Tesla's factory in Fremont, California, in 2018. Before the Shanghai plant opened, Fremont was Tesla’s principal factory.
BUSINESS / Companies
Mar 27, 2024

A pivot to China saved Elon Musk. It also binds him to Beijing.

Musk is now treading a fine line, sounding the alarm about Chinese rivals, even as he remains reliant on the Chinese market.
An online army of Chinese nationalists have taken it upon themselves to punish perceived insults to the country — including from some of China’s leading business figures.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Mar 27, 2024

Why are China’s nationalists attacking the country’s heroes?

Many of the grievances seem to be fueled by discontent over China’s economic malaise, potentially making it harder for authorities to quell public anger.

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