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The rise of TikTok has drawn intense scrutiny, particularly over its links to China.
BUSINESS / Tech / FOCUS
Dec 22, 2024

One billion users, but controversies mount up for TikTok

In Washington, the platform has been accused of espionage, while the EU suspects it was used to sway Romania's presidential election in favor of a far-right candidate.
Visitors to Kyoto walk along a street near Kiyomizu Temple in April. A popular tourist spot, Kyoto has seen what locals feel to be an overwhelming amount of tourists in 2024.
LIFE / Travel / Longform
Dec 23, 2024

Is Japan ready for 60 million tourists?

Inbound tourism to Japan reached a record high in 2024, but managing the crowds and ensuring sustainability remain a challenge.
As the march of AI accelerates, a new requirement has become apparent: The next breakthroughs will consume colossal quantities of energy.
COMMENTARY / World / The Year Ahead
Jan 3, 2025

We need energy for AI, and AI for energy

AI guzzles electricity — a single ChatGPT query requires 10 times as much as a conventional web search.
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.
Doubts about the strength of the conclusions drawn from China’s research add to the mounting questions about how the positive tests were investigated and adjudicated by the World Anti-Doping Agency.
OLYMPICS
Dec 25, 2024

Questions emerge about data used by China to defend against doping allegations

The finding raises more questions about explanations from China and WADA as to why elite Chinese swimmers tested positive for a banned substance.
Google new quantum computing chip Willow. Though the technology isn’t yet ready for widespread use, the competition to build error-free quantum computers is heating up, promising significant breakthroughs in the near future.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 19, 2024

Google is pushing quantum computing closer to reality

The Willow chip should focus investor attention on an industry that has been quietly making great strides toward developing quantum machines with practical uses.
Education costs for children who attend private schools from kindergarten through high school have hit a record high of approximately ¥19.76 million, according to a survey released by the education ministry.
JAPAN / Society
Dec 26, 2024

Cost of private education through high school hits record high in Japan

Total education costs for children who attend private schools from kindergarten through high school, including tuition and cram school fees, are approximately ¥19.76 million.
Ukrainian soldiers carry the coffins of three comrades killed in recent fighting in eastern Ukraine during their funeral in the western city of Lviv on Dec. 20.
WORLD
Dec 28, 2024

Ukraine risks losing all Russian land it seized within months, U.S. says

With a more concerted effort by Moscow to push Ukrainian troops out of Kursk, possibly as soon as next month, Kyiv’s forces may only be able to hold the land until spring.
Former U.S. President Jimmy in 1996. Carter, who rose from Georgia farmland to become the 39th president of the United States on a promise of national healing after the wounds of Watergate and Vietnam, then lost the White House in a cauldron of economic turmoil at home and crisis in Iran, died on Sunday at his home in Plains, Georgia. He was 100.
WORLD / Politics
Dec 30, 2024

Jimmy Carter, president known as a peacemaker, is dead at 100

While Carter's presidency was remembered more for its failures than for its successes, his post-presidency was seen by many as a model for future chief executives.
Indonesia's plan to increase biodiesel mandates to 50% by 2028 could require clearing 5.3 million hectares of forest for palm oil plantations by 2042, an area larger than Denmark.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 30, 2024

The year’s worst climate news you haven’t heard about

Not enough floodwaters for dams, more coal burning and demand for Indonesian palm oil show efforts to slow global warming are flagging.
Hisamido set up a return box at its bookstore in Machida, Tokyo, to allow its customers to borrow and return books owned by municipal libraries.
JAPAN
Dec 30, 2024

Japanese bookstores collaborate with libraries for survival

A survey found that 493 municipalities had no bookstores as of November 2024.
​SSPP Forum #03
ESG CONSORTIUM
Dec 31, 2024

NTT’s SSPP Forum shares ideas on forming communities of future

NTT’s Sustainable Smart City Partner Program (SSPP) supports the development of communities of the future that maximize residents’ well-being. The SSPP Forum was launched in 2022 to provide an opportunity for sharing SSPP case studies on community formation, and its third session was held recently....
An undated photo of a poster in a window promoting shows at Lincoln Center by Shen Yun, which in its 2023-2024 season performed more than 800 times on five continents, in New York. Over the past decade, the dance group Shen Yun Performing Arts has made money at a staggering rate in large part by getting followers of the Falun Gong religious movement to work for free and pay its bills.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Dec 31, 2024

How Shen Yun tapped religious fervor to make $266 million

Shen Yun’s success flows in part from its ability to pack venues worldwide — while exploiting young, low-paid performers with little regard for their health or well-being.
Populist and far-right parties globally are gaining working-class support as center-left parties fail to address their economic concerns and cultural disconnects.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 10, 2024

The working class and the rise of populism

Talking about creating good jobs in the industries of the future is not the same as doing it. Workers want bold, effective leaders who will take concrete action.
An entrance sign for Nippon Steel's East Nippon Works Kashima Area facility is pictured in Kashima, Ibaraki Prefecture, last month.
BUSINESS / Companies / ANALYSIS
Jan 4, 2025

Nippon Steel rejection shows national security means whatever you want

Experts and former officials say the decision signals how sharply the U.S. has turned away from the principles of globalization.
A falconer during the Suwa Falconry Preservation Society's event in Tokyo on Friday. Falconry predates recorded history, originating, scholars believe, when nomadic herders observed birds of prey hunting and recognized their potential as partners.
MORE SPORTS
Jan 5, 2025

Tokyo falconers keep ancient traditions soaring

While a recent showcase was all about fun and education, like other sports involving animals, falconry is also serious business for competitors at the upper echelons of the sport.
U.S. President Joe Biden meets with President-elect Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House on Nov. 13. Trump’s presidency is expected to disrupt U.S. energy transition efforts through weakened policies and heightened trade tensions.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 6, 2025

Can Biden’s green boom survive Trump’s wrecking ball?

The incoming administration of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump promises to undo at least some of the progress made on decarbonization under President Joe Biden.
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk watch a fight during UFC 309 at Madison Square Garden in New York on Nov. 16, 2024.
WORLD / Politics
Jan 6, 2025

MAGA's infighting sparks fears of a chaotic Trump White House

The furor over whether to welcome skilled foreign workers has exposed deep fault lines between Trump's supporters.
A patch of the Islamic State group is seen on a fighter's uniform in Damascus on Dec. 27, 2024.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Jan 6, 2025

The quiet financier: Islamic State group's elusive strongman

Abdul Qadir Mumin may already be running the group's general directorate of provinces from Somalia, even if he lacks an official title.
Cancer patient Anne Maldzinski was given an experimental therapy developed by French biotech MaaT Pharma through an early access program. The effect was dramatic.
WORLD / Science & Health
Jan 9, 2025

Drug from bowel bacteria helps blood cancer patients facing deadly complication

A burgeoning field of therapies is harnessing the power of the microbiome to treat and potentially prevent diseases.
Hobonichi's 'techō' notebooks come in both set and customizable formats, and a thriving community of enthusiasts means there are even extensive guides on how to make the journal even more unique to your individual approach to journaling.
LIFE / Style & Design
Jan 10, 2025

American stationery nerds are fueling a Japanese notebook boom

A Japanese-made paper planner from the 1980s has reblossomed in the post-COVID era.
Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike said the Tokyo Metropolitan Government will launch a program to support the repayment of student loans for those who will start working as teachers or technical civil servants in the capital.
JAPAN
Jan 13, 2025

Tokyo to help teachers repay student loans

The metropolitan government also plans to start providing financial assistance to students who study abroad.
Commuters inside Zurich's main railway station
BUSINESS / Companies
Jan 13, 2025

Widening pay gap for women on boards is ‘red flag’ for Europe

Women were paid 36% less than men on average in 2023 on the boards of banks, insurers and asset managers, an analysis shows.
Marriage boosts men’s health, but women’s outcomes depend on having an egalitarian partner, with caregiving gaps revealing ongoing gender inequalities.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 13, 2025

Equitable marriages could save lives (and love)

Husbands live longer than single men. For wives, the calculation is more complex.
A research team from Nagoya University and other institutions hopes that further testing on humans involving the antioxidant luteolin will lead to the development of a drug for preventing or reducing gray hair.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Jan 14, 2025

Antioxidant found in broccoli, celery suppresses gray hair in mice

Researchers hope that further testing on humans could lead to the development of a drug that would prevent or reduce gray hair.
The Hollywood sign shrouded in smoke from an overnight blaze in the Hollywood Hills on Jan. 9
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 14, 2025

The Hollywood fires will cause harm long after they burn out

We’re not going to be able to turn the clock back on this creeping disaster. It will be many centuries before our atmosphere recovers from the damage.
Roxana Oshiro and her husband gather their belongings in front of their house in Furukawacho, in Kobe's Suma Ward, after the Great Hanshin Earthquake in 1995.
JAPAN / Society / FOCUS
Jan 17, 2025

The efforts to bridge the disaster information gap, 30 years on

Disaster information didn't reach many non-Japanese speakers after the Great Hanshin Earthquake struck. Thirty years later, has the situation improved?
It's taken Takuma Watanabe little time to establish himself as one of New York's hottest bartenders.
LIFE / Food & Drink
Jan 16, 2025

From Tokyo to Manhattan, Takuma Watanabe stirs up a stiff drink

Tokyo native Takuma Watanabe offers a formidable addition to New York’s pantheon of cocktail bars.
Hyogo Gov. Motohiko Saito in November in Kobe. Hideaki Takeuchi, a former Hyogo assemblyman who had taken part in investigations over workplace bullying allegations against Saito last year, died Saturday in an apparent suicide.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Jan 20, 2025

Former Hyogo assemblyman found dead in apparent suicide

Hideaki Takeuchi, 50, had taken part in investigations over workplace bullying allegations made against Gov. Motohiko Saito last year.
Curtis Sparrer, founder of the public relations agency Bospar, sits at his desk in his apartment in San Francisco on Jan. 9.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jan 20, 2025

In the U.S., remote workers don't want to head back to the office

The question of remote work or working in an office has become increasingly political.

Longform

After pandemic-era border regulations eased, Indian migrants began returning to Japan. Their population now stands at more than 50,000 across the country.
How remote work is rewriting the migrant experience in Japan