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Students visit the Atomic Bomb Dome in Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park in late April. Attitudes in Japan are shifting away from the traditional pacifist views that have held sway since the end of World War II.
JAPAN / FOCUS
Aug 20, 2025

Trump shock spurs Japan to think about the unthinkable: nuclear arms

There is a growing willingness to loosen the country’s decades-old pledge not to produce, possess or host nuclear weapons in its territory.
A building in Kawasaki housing Toshiba's new headquarters
BUSINESS
Aug 20, 2025

Japanese manufacturers moving headquarters out of central Tokyo

Toshiba, Fujitsu and other major manufacturers are moving elsewhere in response to the spread of remote work.
Muddied prospectors pan for gold in Manica province, Mozambique, near the Zimbabwe border, in 2010.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Aug 20, 2025

Mozambique's illegal miners reap risky rewards but land suffers

Rivers around mining sites are polluted, and mercury has seeped into the soil, creating a nightmare for farmers.
Texas State Rep. Nicole Collier has chosen to remain at the House until Wednesday, after Democratic lawmakers who had left the state to prevent Republicans from redrawing Texas’s 38 congressional districts returned to the Capitol in Austin, Texas, on Monday.
WORLD / Politics
Aug 20, 2025

Texas lawmaker prepares for second night of redistricting protest in state Capitol

Democratic state Rep. Nicole Collier is pushing back in a redistricting battle as President Donald Trump seeks to keep Republican control of Congress.
Seri Yanai and Daniel Wishes founded the shadow puppetry company Mochinosha in 2012 when they were students at the London School of Puppetry.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / 20 QUESTIONS
Aug 22, 2025

Seri Yanai: ‘We mix modern and analog to create something new’

The co-founder of Mochinosha, a shadow puppetry company based in Saitama Prefecture, talks about her journey to the stage and her artistic inspirations.
People take photos in front of a large portrait of Chinese President Xi Jinping during a government-organized tour at Potala Palace Square in Lhasa, Tibet Autonomous Region, China, on March 28.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Aug 21, 2025

Xi pushes for mega-dam and rail links to boost Tibet development

The Yarlung Tsangpo hydropower project is set to become one of the biggest infrastructure projects in history.
Six-year-old Pooja shows her indigenous face tattoos at the Jogi Colony in Umerkot, a Hindu-majority district of Pakistan.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Aug 21, 2025

City girls snub traditional Hindu face tattoos in Pakistan

The practice stretches back centuries in the Hindu villages that dot Pakistan's southern border with India.
A commuter uses a portable fan on an underground train at rush hour during a heat wave in the City of London financial district.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Aug 21, 2025

As temperatures soar in London, regulations, not costs, put cooling beyond reach

The British capital has seen a surge in demand for air-conditioning units in high-end homes as climate change raises summer temperatures.
Summer Sonic’s 2025 lineup demonstrated its strength, showcasing the latest in J-pop, including “new kawaii” act Fruits Zipper.
CULTURE / Music
Aug 22, 2025

Alicia Keys closed Summer Sonic, but J-pop owned it

Summer Sonic 2025 showcased Japan’s pop power: Mrs. Green Apple, Hikaru Utada and rising stars outshone the festival’s headliners.
A girl uses her smartphone as she walks her dog in Moscow on July 30.
WORLD / Politics
Aug 21, 2025

Online behavior under scrutiny as Russia hunts 'extremists'

Internet users who search for web pages, books, artwork or music albums that the authorities deem extremist will be fined under new legislation.
Vanitha Anand Bhat, 43, who works with her husband, Raya Anand Bhat, 48, pours coconut oil into a plastic bottle inside their small coconut mill in Kochi, India, on July 23.
BUSINESS / Markets
Aug 21, 2025

Humble coconut oil turns into a luxury on rising demand, shrinking output

Output across major producer nations, from India to Southeast Asia, has been disrupted by lower rainfall and extended heat, as well as pests and disease.
Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
JAPAN / History / Longform
Aug 22, 2025

From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past

One man’s experience traces the capital's arc from wartime devastation to modern megacity in a story of resilience and reinvention.
A military drill in Taiwan. Taipei has ramped up investment in military equipment and weapons over the past decade in response to intensifying pressure from China.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Aug 22, 2025

Taiwan president ups defense spending target to 5% of GDP

The move comes as China has ramped up military and political pressure over the past five years to assert its claims, which Taipei strongly rejects.
Members of the student club Neo at Shuri High School receive words of gratitude from Haebaru Junior High School students after their workshop on June 6. They are Mei Nakazato (far left), Nanoka Hirata (second left), Yuzuyu Oyakawa (center), Hinano Yagi (second right) and Honomi Taira.
JAPAN / Regional Voices: Okinawa
Aug 25, 2025

Okinawa high school students bring new approach to peace education

A high school group that held a workshop for junior high school students aims to bring a new approach to peace education by turning “passive learning” into something more personal.
Ann Burroughs, head of the Japanese American National Museum, called it "inconceivable" for the United States to be "building concentration camps, denying the lessons learned 80 years ago."
JAPAN
Aug 22, 2025

Japanese American museum blasts Trump's use of internment camp to detain people

The Trump administration set up an immigration detention center within the grounds of an army base that was used during World War II as an internment camp for Japanese Americans.
A London-based design pair has turned handhold straps on the Den-en-toshi Line into stylish table lamps.
LIFE / Style & Design
Aug 25, 2025

Retired Tokyo trains live on as upcycled table lamps

Former railcars on the Den-en-toshi Line have been refashioned into table lamps available for purchase from Aug. 25.
Reigen, Germany's first sake brewery, makes a diverse, nontraditional range of sake that includes fruit-flavored sips and wine barrel-aged renditions.
LIFE / Food & Drink
Aug 22, 2025

Germany's first sakemaker offers a bold brew of ideas

Yellowish and high in acidity, German sake won't please the purists, but open-minded consumers, especially wine drinkers, may find something appealing.
South Korean President Lee Jae Myung and  Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba shake hands at joint press announcement after summit talks in Tokyo on Saturday.
JAPAN / Politics
Aug 24, 2025

At meeting rich in symbolism, Ishiba and South Korea's Lee agree to steadily build ties

In the two countries' first joint document in 17 years, the leaders agreed to work together "to advance future-oriented and mutually beneficial common interests."
Okinawa Shogaku High School players celebrate after clinching the National High School Baseball Championship on Saturday at Koshien Stadium in Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture.
BASEBALL
Aug 24, 2025

Naha celebrates as Okinawa Shogaku clinches first Summer Koshien title

Having already claimed the spring invitational tournament on two occasions, the victory was the first summer championship for a team representing Okinawa since 2010.
Begum, a 35-year-old mother of seven children, in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, on Aug. 18. Begum will marry off one of her daughters after a funding shortage shuttered thousands of schools in the refugee camps.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Aug 25, 2025

School closures push Rohingya refugee children into marriage and work

A funding crisis has led to the suspension of many Rohingya learning centers, leaving children to play in the mud or rain.
Agricultural workers harvest jasmine flowers at sunrise at a field in the village of Shubra Balula in Egypt's northern Nile delta province of Gharbiya on July 7.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Aug 25, 2025

Egyptian farmers behind world's perfumes face climate fight alone

Jasmine has sustained thousands of Egyptian farmers for generations, but rising temperatures, prolonged dry spells and climate-driven pests are putting that legacy at risk.
The previous award ceremony
ESG CONSORTIUM
Aug 25, 2025

Yamagata film festival to gather documentaries from around world

This year’s YIDFF International Competition received 1,318 entries from 129 countries. Fifteen of them will be screened during the festival, competing for five awards.
A July 24 U.N. report warns that the Islamic State group's ISKP affiliate, al-Qaida and related groups remain active in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, posing serious threats to regional and international security.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 25, 2025

Is the Taliban's Afghanistan a safe haven for terrorist organizations?

“The de facto authorities in Afghanistan continued to maintain a permissive environment for a range of terrorist groups," a U.N. report says
A measles alert sign is posted outside the entrance to the Cohen Children's Medical Center in New York in March.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 25, 2025

‘Alternative facts’ aren't a reason to skip vaccines

Donald Trump’s health officials have been endorsing alternative facts in science to impose policies that contradict modern medical knowledge.
To critics, the White House move to invest in chipmaker Intel threatens the U.S. business world's nimbleness.
BUSINESS / Markets
Aug 26, 2025

Trump wants more deals such as Intel's, worrying business community

The approach upends a decades-old view of the U.S. economy, in which the government only took corporate stakes in rare emergencies.
Despite coming from a difficult background that resulted in behavioral issues, Tosca has turned a new leaf with his new owners in Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / ADOPT ME!
Aug 28, 2025

Tosca turns a new leaf in a new home

A dog with a troubled past has finally found his way to a loving family.
Wind turbines in the town of Happo in Akita prefecture. Wind power is a key part of Japan's alternative energy drive.
BUSINESS / Economy / ANALYSIS
Aug 28, 2025

Mitsubishi’s wind-power retreat a blow to Japan's alternative-energy goals

Dramatic withdrawal by trading house from three projects comes amid similar moves globally.
U.S. military personnel stand guard in front of the New Grand Hotel where Gen. Douglas MacArthur stayed circa September 1945 in Yokohama.
JAPAN / History / Perspectives
Sep 1, 2025

How the Allied Occupation changed Japan: A love story

A wartime GI and a Japanese civilian fell in love during the Occupation, embodying the peace built after Japan’s surrender.
Mourners react during a funeral for Palestinians killed by Israeli fire at Shifa Hospital, in Gaza City, on Thursday. Israel has previously rejected accusations of genocide in Gaza, citing its right to self-defense.
WORLD
Aug 29, 2025

Hundreds of U.N. staff pressure rights chief to call Gaza a genocide, letter shows

The letter stated the staff consider the legal criteria for genocide in the war in the Gaza Strip have been met, citing the scale, scope and nature of violations documented there.
The Cowboys traded Micah Parsons to the Packers on Thursday.
MORE SPORTS / Football
Aug 29, 2025

Cowboys trade Micah Parsons to Packers in blockbuster deal

The Packers sent three-time Pro Bowl defensive tackle Kenny Clark and first-round draft picks in 2026 and 2027 to the Cowboys in the blockbuster trade.

Longform

Bear attacks have dominated Japanese news headlines in recent months, with 13 people so far having been killed by the animals.
Japan’s bears have been on their killing spree for more than 100 years