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While Japan's luxury goods market remains strong, its seconhand resale market is proving just as much a draw for tourists searching for great bargains — as long as they can manage to get their hands on the real deal.
LIFE / Style & Design
Mar 1, 2025

Not even Japan is safe from counterfeit luxury goods

Despite a reliable reputation, Japan’s secondhand luxury market is still vulnerable to fakes and counterfeits.
The global electric vehicle boom has resulted in a lithium supply shortage since 2022 despite the 180% increase in production compared to 2017.
BUSINESS / Tech
Mar 1, 2025

Three novel approaches that can revolutionize batteries

The innovations aren’t yet available at a commercial scale, but they are part of an effort to prevent the global clean energy transition from stalling.
Some 230 million people globally thought to be affected by long COVID. The effects range from mild to disabling, and there are no proven diagnostic tests or treatments.
ASIA PACIFIC / Science & Health
Mar 1, 2025

'Going mad': Lack of data plagues Asia's long COVID patients

Some 230 million people are thought to be affected by long COVID — defined as symptoms persisting for three months or more after the initial infection.
Destroyed homes after the Palisades Fire near Los Angeles on Jan. 30
WORLD / Society
Mar 3, 2025

Fire danger in LA is all around, but signals to residents are mixed

There is a disparity between what data on the issue is freely available and the fuller data that private companies can pay to access.
Prince Hisahito attends his first news conference at Akasaka Estate in Tokyo on Monday.
JAPAN
Mar 4, 2025

At first news conference, Prince Hisahito pledges to fulfill royal duties

The prince, who is second in line to the throne, underlined the importance of thinking of the people as a member of the imperial family.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe meets with Russia's President Vladimir Putin after the Group of 20 Summit in Osaka in June 2019. Putin managed to pocket every concession made by Abe over the years and demanded more.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 4, 2025

Abe’s Russia outreach flopped — Trump should take note

Supporters of Trump’s policy argue that China is the bigger threat and the U.S. should steer Moscow away from Beijing.
Poles and members of the Ukrainian diaspora take part in a rally in front of the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw on Monday to protest after U.S. President Doland Trump clashed with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during their meeting in the Oval Office.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 5, 2025

The Oval Office blowup: What went wrong and how to fix it

The world may have underestimated this incident's significance due to media spin and partisan bias by those more focused on political allegiances.
Elementary and junior high school students study online at Free School Mirai in the city of Nagano.
JAPAN / Regional voices: Chubu
Mar 17, 2025

Schools face challenges in evaluating students not attending classes

There is concern that assessing students through grades may run counter to supporting those who cannot attend school.
Wealthier women in the prewar era had been the targets of various media-related health campaigns that mistakenly encouraged them to avoid everything from riding bicycles to reading novels when their monthly cycles came around.
JAPAN / Science & Health / Longform
Mar 7, 2025

Menstruation in Japan: Breaking the silence, slowly

Despite longstanding taboos, evolving attitudes toward women's health highlight shifting cultural norms.
“May You Have Delicious Meals” focuses on a trio of young office workers at the same workplace who have mixed feelings for food and each other.
CULTURE / Books
Mar 8, 2025

‘May You Have Delicious Meals’: The ugly taste of office and gender politics

The English-language debut of Junko Takase’s Akutagawa Prize-winning novel serves complex prose in translation by Morgan Giles.
“The Place of Shells” takes place mostly in Gottingen, Germany, where both the author and the book's narrator live, while also jumping both geographically and temporally to Sendai, Japan, through memories of the 3/11 disaster and its aftermath.
CULTURE / Books
Mar 10, 2025

Grief ebbs and flows between two tragedies in 'The Place of Shells'

Mai Ishizawa’s debut novel, which won one of the three Akutagawa Prizes awarded in 2021, is also her first to be released in English, translated by Polly Barton.
Excavators to be used by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to remove debris from homes destroyed by the Eaton Fire in Altadena, California
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change / FOCUS
Mar 10, 2025

Cascading extreme weather events unleash billions in damages globally

Compound weather, when two or more concurrent events that collectively yield a result worse than if each had occurred on its own, are occurring more frequently.
The Ukedo Elementary School Ruins in Namie, Fukushima Prefecture, in January. The Fukushima Prefectural Government offers training sessions for new prefectural government recruits to visit the school, the prefecture's sole preserved disaster-hit structure.
JAPAN
Mar 10, 2025

14 years on, prefectural governments work to pass on lessons to new hires

Many prefectural officials who were involved in front-line operations in the immediate aftermath of the massive earthquake and tsunami are retiring.
Every year, there is heightened interest in commemorating the 3/11 disaster around the time of the anniversary. But memorial facilities and operators are increasingly struggling to keep their activities going all year round and as time passes.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 10, 2025

Preserving the memory of 3/11 is becoming more difficult

Despite a peak in interest around the 3/11 anniversary, disaster memorial facilities and operators are facing mounting challenges in keeping their activities going as time passes.
Concept art for the renewed National Museum of Territory and Sovereignty
JAPAN
Mar 10, 2025

Japan's territory museum to reopen in April following renovations

The museum in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward is designed to publicize Japan's position on disputed territories.
A woman visits a grave in Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture, on Tuesday on the 14th anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake. Populations in the hardest hit prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima are sharply falling.
JAPAN
Mar 11, 2025

Post-disaster Tohoku struggles with population decline

The number of people aged 20 to 39 in Iwate, Miyagi, and Fukushima prefectures fell by about 20% to 30% between 2010 and 2024.
People hold a Ukrainian flag and a Taiwan flag during a protest to mark the third anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, in Taipei on Feb. 23.
ASIA PACIFIC / FOCUS
Mar 11, 2025

‘We are not Ukraine’: Top Taiwan officials temper comparisons after U.S. U-turn

Top Taiwanese officials believe the U.S. will stay invested in the island's security as Washington remains united on the need to counter China.
An electronic dictionary section at a mass retailer in Tokyo's Shinjuku Ward in 2005
BUSINESS / Companies
Mar 13, 2025

Electronic dictionary market shrinking in Japan

Sales of electric dictionaries are falling in Japan amid declining birthrates and widespread use of smartphone apps.
Microchips are a major source of "forever chemicals” that are linked to cancer and other health problems.
BUSINESS / Tech
Mar 14, 2025

As chips race spews ‘forever chemicals,’ startups emerge to destroy them

A wave of companies are offering potential solutions that won’t cut the chemicals out of the supply chain but destroy them.
Chelsea Shubert stops traffic for pedestrians to cross the road during her shift as a school crossing patrol outside a school in Chatham, Britain, on Thursday.
WORLD / Society
Mar 17, 2025

U.K. faces hard choices over soaring disability costs

Annual spending on incapacity and disability benefits already exceeds the country's defense budget.
Japan, despite facing multiple territorial disputes, lacks a dedicated university program on the issue, unlike Western countries, and would benefit from an interdisciplinary academic initiative to foster expertise.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 17, 2025

Japan needs academic programs focused on territorial issues

While many countries have territorial disputes with their neighbors — in fact, there are at least 150 active disputes worldwide — Japan faces issues with nearly all its neighbors.
Emergency medical workers treat victims of the sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway system at a makeshift shelter before they are transported to hospitals on March 20, 1995.
JAPAN
Mar 18, 2025

Japan to preserve medical records from 1995 sarin attack

The health ministry will also interview medical professionals who treated the victims and compile oral records.
Okayama goalkeeper Svend Brodersen reaches for the ball against Urawa's Thiago Santana (front) at Saitama Stadium on March 8.
SOCCER / J. League
Mar 18, 2025

Manga-loving German goalkeeper finds peace, and himself, in Japan

Svend Brodersen moved to Japan in 2021 and now plays for top-tier J. League side Fagiano Okayama, but he admits that initially he felt like he was "on another planet."
The Voice of America building in Washington on Sunday, a day after more than 1,300 of the employees of the media broadcaster, which operates in almost 50 languages, were placed on leave
WORLD / Politics
Mar 18, 2025

China and Russia eager to fill void as Trump axes U.S.-funded media

Trumps moves come after years of efforts by Beijing and Moscow to promote their own worldview on the global media landscape.
Prince Hisahito arrives at the University of Tsukuba's Senior High School at Otsuka in Tokyo on Tuesday morning for the school's graduation ceremony.
JAPAN
Mar 18, 2025

Prince Hisahito graduates from high school

The 18-year-old prince, nephew of Emperor Naruhito and second in line to the throne, is scheduled to enter the University of Tsukuba in Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture, next month.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un meet in Pyongyang in June 2024. Moscow has ditched its historic hostility to North Korea's nuclear program, a clear sign of Russia's scramble for allies amid its international isolation.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 18, 2025

It’s time to flip Russia’s script on North Korean nukes

Countries who want deterrence and stability must stop Russia from influencing perceptions of North Korea's nuclear program — one that, in an about-face, Moscow now supports.
A man rides past a graffiti that reads "Patino FARC EP" on a road near El Plateado, Cauca department, Colombia, on March 9. The Micay Canyon mountains have been transformed into a micro-state, ruled by guerrillas fighting each other and the army.
WORLD / Politics
Mar 19, 2025

USAID suspension shutters Colombia programs, endangering FARC peace deal

In recent years, Colombia had received as much as $440 million annually in USAID assistance for more than 80 programs.
A flooded road in the Philippines following heavy rain in July 2024
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Mar 19, 2025

Extreme weather in 2024 forced most people to flee in 16 years

The climate damages also exacerbated a food crisis in more than a dozen countries, according to a report.
Protesters demonstrate against the Dakota Access Pipeline near Cannon Ball, North Dakota, in 2016.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Mar 20, 2025

Jury finds Greenpeace liable for more than $660 million in damages

The verdict was a major blow to the environmental organization.
Women's March Tokyo, a demonstration march against sexual violence and discrimination against women, is held on International Women's Day in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward on March 8.
JAPAN
Mar 20, 2025

Women remain underrepresented in Japan's news industry

Correcting the gender gap is an urgent issue in the industry, with such a change expected to bring women's perspectives to newsrooms.

Longform

Japan's growing ranks of centenarians are redefining what it means to live in a super-aging society.
What comes after 100?