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The SKS Doyles crude oil tanker sails through the Suez Canal on Thursday.
WORLD
Dec 24, 2023

Iran dismisses U.S. intelligence tying it to Red Sea attacks

The White House said that Iran was "deeply involved” in the planning of the Houthi attacks and has supplied weapons, financial support and training.
Russian conscripts watch a tank demonstration in Moscow in August 2022. Despite its bravado in public, the Kremlin has indicated its interest in striking a deal to halt the war so long as it could still declare victory.
WORLD / Politics
Dec 24, 2023

Putin quietly signals he is open to a ceasefire in Ukraine

The repeated interest in cutting a deal exemplifies how opportunism and improvisation have defined his approach to the war behind closed doors.
Ukraine passed a law in July to move the celebration of Christmas to Dec. 25 — the day when most of the Christian world marks the birth of Jesus.
WORLD / Politics
Dec 24, 2023

Ukrainians defy Moscow with first Dec. 25 Christmas

The move to celebrate the birth of Jesus on the day most Christians do deviates from the Orthodox Church observance of Jan. 7, seen as Russian heritage.
A flare falls over Gaza, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, on Sunday.
WORLD / Politics
Dec 25, 2023

Palestinians feel 'no joy' as Israel bombs Gaza on Christmas

Festivities were effectively scrapped in the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem, with few worshippers or tourists on the usually packed streets.
Designated hitter and closer Shohei Ohtani (center) and catcher Yuhei Nakamura are mobbed by their Samurai Japan teammates after Ohtani struck out American slugger Mike Trout to clinch Japan’s third World Baseball Classic and first since 2009, at LoanDepot Park in Miami on March 21.
SPORTS
Dec 26, 2023

Images of 2023: Sports

For some, 2023 was a year of sweet victory, after many years of not making it to the summit. For Shohei Ohtani, it was yet another year of brilliance.
Jargal Lhagvasuren practicing an aerial routine at the Mongolian Circus School in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia on May 18. Contortionists and acrobats with celestial skills train in squalid conditions as the promise of a former sumo wrestler to restore the national circus to its past glory has gone mostly unfulfilled.
ASIA PACIFIC
Dec 26, 2023

Mongolians are circus stars all over the world, except at home

The promise to return state circus in Ulaanbaatar to its former glory remains unfulfilled, forcing trained performers abroad.
A group of 19 host club owners in Kabukicho who own most of the host clubs in the area have pledged to ban the pay-later system by April and prohibit entry to those under 20 years old from January.
JAPAN / Society
Dec 26, 2023

How Japan's host clubs trap young women under mountains of debt

False promises of love — and even marriage — lead to huge bills for some as young as 18, who are often then coaxed into sex work to make repayments.
A Ukrainian serviceman holds a anti-aircraft weapon as they scan for possible air targets, onboard a boat as it patrols the northwestern part of the Black Sea.
WORLD / Politics
Dec 27, 2023

Stalled on land, Ukraine scores 'victory' against Russia in Black Sea

Despite Russia's threats of strikes and its supposed naval superiority, Ukraine's efforts have managed to keep a maritime corridor for food exports open.
An image from Dec. 9 appears to show the Russian container ship Angara, sanctioned by the U.S., unloading cargo at Najin port while containers from North Korea await loading at an adjacent pier.
WORLD
Dec 27, 2023

Ghost ships at reawakened North Korea port put Ukraine in peril

The vessels are suspected to be delivering arms to Russia that eventually make their way to the frontlines of Vladimir Putin's invasion.
A Palestinian child cries next to his mother after they were rushed to a hospital following an Israeli strike in the southern Gaza Strip on Nov. 13. Fighting erupted after Hamas conducted a coordianated attack against Israel on Oct. 7 that killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians. More than 20,000 people in Gaza have died in the  conflict, according to the enclave’s health ministry.
WORLD
Dec 27, 2023

Images of 2023: World

Images of 2023: From war in the Gaza Strip and in Ukraine to concerns in Asia over North Korea and China, conflict took center stage in 2023.
Iraqi security forces' stationed in Baghdad's Tahrir Square following U.S. air strikes on Tuesday
WORLD
Dec 27, 2023

Houthi attacks and U.S. strikes raise risk of wider Middle East war

The number of nonstate groups and the unpredictability of actions by Israel and Iran makes it difficult to forecast when incidents might escalate.
Relatives mourn a loved one killed during Israeli bombardment at Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis on the southern Gaza Strip on Wednesday.
WORLD
Dec 28, 2023

Gaza deaths soar in Israel-Hamas war as WHO warns of 'acute hunger'

Explosions lit up the sky over the Khan Yunis — a focus of heavy urban combat since the Israeli army said it had largely gained control over Gaza's north.
An Afghan woman holds her newborn child at a maternity hospital in Khost, Afghanistan. According to the latest World Health Organization figures, from 2017, 638 women die in Afghanistan for every 100,000 viable births, compared with 19 in the United States.
WORLD / Society
Dec 28, 2023

For women in Afghanistan, every birth carries heavy risks

Afghanistan is among the worst countries in the world for deaths in childbirth, "with one woman dying every two hours," according to the U.N.
A woman points at a Glock handgun during the annual National Rifle Association convention in Dallas in 2018.
WORLD / Society
Dec 28, 2023

Gaston Glock, inventor of cult guns, dies at 94

His gun, wielded by police and outlaws alike, certainly made its mark worldwide, matched by few other weapons.
Palestinian's mourn relatives killed in an Israeli strike at the Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis on the southern Gaza Strip on Thursday.
WORLD / Politics
Dec 29, 2023

Devastating Israel-Hamas war looks set to continue into 2024

The war has more U.S. military forces to the region and fears of spillover are high, with little hope of reviving peace moves as Washington had hoped.
Among the issues that defined 2023 were the U.S. economy's "soft landing," the war in Ukraine, Hamas's terrorist attack and explosive advances in AI.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 29, 2023

The most important developments of 2023

The year reminds us that the world is in desperate need of new leaders who are both competent and inspiring.
The Olympics Aquatics Centre under construction in Saint-Denis, near Paris, on Thursday
SPORTS
Dec 31, 2023

All roads lead to Paris in 2024 in world of sports

The first post-COVID Olympic Games loom large on the horizon, but the two-week extravaganza will merely be the centerpiece for another 12 months of compelling theater.
Containers of Danish shipping and logistics company Maersk are seen in Copenhagen in September.
WORLD / Politics
Jan 1, 2024

U.S. sinks three ships and kills 10 after Houthi Red Sea attack

The naval battle occurred Sunday as the attackers sought to board the Singapore-flagged Maersk Hangzhou, Maersk and U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said.
U.S. President Joe Biden is greeted by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he arrives in the country amid the Israel-Hamas war, on Oct. 18. No other episode in the past half-century has tested the relationship between the United States and Israel in such an intense and consequential way as the Israel-Hamas war of 2023.
WORLD / Politics
Jan 1, 2024

The U.S. and Israel: An embrace shows signs of strain after Oct. 7

No other episode in the past half-century has tested the relationship in such an intense and consequential way as the Israel-Hamas war of 2023.
Devotees of Afro-Brazilian religions carry offerings to the sea as part of an annual rite in Rio de Janeiro on Dec. 29, 2023.
WORLD / Society
Jan 2, 2024

How to start the new year? Keep the sea goddess happy.

Followers of Afro-Brazilian religions have been displaced by New Year’s revelers. But they still find ways to make their offerings to the ocean.
Queen Margrethe II of Denmark waves to onlookers on Sept. 1, 2023. Europe's longest-serving monarch said on Sunday that she would abdicate on Jan. 14 and pass the baton to her son Crown Prince Frederik.
WORLD / Politics
Jan 2, 2024

From Edward VIII to Emperor Akihito: Famous abdications

From love to failing health, people have relinquished the throne for a variety of reasons.
From left: British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, U.S. President Joe Biden and Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida walk to a flower wreath laying ceremony at the Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima in May during the G7 Summit.
JAPAN
Jan 2, 2024

World leaders show readiness to support Japan after massive quake

Leaders of several countries, including the U.S., U.K., Canada and France, have expressed solidarity with Japan and are ready to offer assistance if needed.
Yuki Kondo-Shah beside the U.S. Embassy where she works in London on Dec. 22. As U.S.-China tensions rise, national security employees with ties to Asia say U.S. counterintelligence officers wrongly regard them as potential spies and unfairly ban them from jobs.
WORLD / Politics
Jan 2, 2024

Asian American officials cite unfair treatment in China tensions

Federal employees say they are being blocked from jobs for security reasons because of their ties to Asia, even distant ones.
People gather at the site of an explosion in what security sources say is an Israeli drone strike in the Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh, Lebanon, on Tuesday.
WORLD / Politics
Jan 3, 2024

Gaza war spreads to Beirut with killing of Hamas deputy leader

Lebanese and Palestinian security sources said Israel was behind the drone strike that killed Saleh al-Arouri.
The guided-missile destroyer USS Mason steams through the Atlantic Ocean. Tehran's dispatch of a warship to the Red Sea takes the projection of Iranian power in the region to another level but it is unlikely to want direct confrontation — its old frigate is no match for the U.S.-led maritime task force patrolling the waters off Yemen.
WORLD / Politics
Jan 3, 2024

Iran’s Red Sea power play raises fears of trade disruption

Tehran's dispatch of a warship to the region emboldens Yemen's Houthis, who are attacking vessels headed to or owned by firms in Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends the weekly cabinet meeting at the the Kirya military base in Tel Aviv on Sunday.
WORLD / Politics
Jan 3, 2024

Netanyahu boxed in by fierce pressure over war, politics and budget

Whether his government will survive 2024 is a renewed topic of debate that will now play out against the backdrop of war.
Protesters rally to denounce the Israeli government's judicial overhaul in Jerusalem on March 27. The Jan. 1 decision by the Israeli Supreme Court to reject legislative control over the judiciary displayed anew the cultural war at the heart of Israeli politics.
WORLD / Politics
Jan 3, 2024

The twin fronts in the battle over Israel’s identity

Protests over the efforts to diminish the courts deeply divided Israel, but the subsequent war united it.
People gather near a body lying on the ground at the scene of explosions during a ceremony held to mark the death of Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani, in Kerman, Iran, on Wednesday.
WORLD / Politics
Jan 4, 2024

Iran vows revenge after blasts kill nearly 100 at commander's memorial

No one has claimed responsibility for the explosions at the cemetery where Qassem Soleimani, a former head of the Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force, is buried.
Claudine Gay, former president of Harvard University
WORLD / Politics
Jan 4, 2024

Harvard chief’s abrupt exit exposes decade-spanning rifts

The school’s first Black leader resigned after just six months due to plagiarism allegations and anger over her handling of antisemitism on campus.
Yemenis chant slogans and wave Palestinian flags during a march in solidarity with the people of Gaza, in Yemen's Houthi-controlled capital Sanaa on Dec.15, 2023. The Houthis have been firing on ships allegedly linked to Israel in the Red Sea in avowed solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
WORLD / Politics
Jan 4, 2024

U.S., allies warn Houthis of 'consequences' of ship attacks

Warning comes as freight rates spike due to re-routing of vessels around Africa to avoid the Red Sea, where the Iran-backed militant group is active.

Longform

Rock group The Yellow Monkey played K-Arena Yokohama in June as part of a nationwide tour. Concerts are increasingly popular in the age of social media as users value in-person experiences.
Inside Japan’s arena boom: Sports, sound and city-building