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U.S. President Donald Trump leaves after speaking to the media on board Air Force One on the way to Miami on Saturday.
WORLD / Politics
Apr 13, 2025

On Ukraine talks, Trump says there is a time 'to put up or shut up'

The U.S. president made the comments a day after he showed frustration with Russia and told it to "get moving" on reaching a deal.
Ukrainian law enforcement officers work at the site of a deadly missile attack in Sumy, northeastern Ukraine, on Sunday.
WORLD
Apr 14, 2025

Russian missile strike on Ukraine city kills 34 on Palm Sunday

European and U.S. leaders condemned the strike — one of the deadliest attacks in months — that also wounded 117, including 15 children.
U.S. President Donald Trump holds a chart next to Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick as Trump delivers remarks on tariffs in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington on April 2.
BUSINESS / Economy
Apr 14, 2025

Trump warns tariffs are coming for electronics after reprieve

The American president downplayed a weekend exemption as a procedural step in his overall push to remake U.S. trade.
U.S. President Donald Trump attends a bilateral meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping during the Group of 20 leaders summit in Osaka in June 2019.
BUSINESS / Economy / FOCUS
Apr 14, 2025

How China went from courting Trump to ‘never yield’ tariff defiance

Beijing has put civilian government officials on a "wartime footing” and ordered a diplomatic charm offensive aimed at encouraging other countries to push back.
Lo Kin-hei (center), chairman of the Democratic Party, attends a news conference after an extraordinary general meeting to seek members' views on the potential dissolution of the party in Hong Kong on Sunday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Apr 14, 2025

Hong Kong's last major opposition party moves toward disbanding

The head of the Democratic Party says 90% of its 110 members had voted for disbandment arrangements to begin, followed by a final vote in the coming months.
While U.S. President Donald Trump has imposed new tariffs on nearly every country in the world, China is clearly his primary target.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 14, 2025

How should Beijing respond to Trump’s tariffs?

Many are already comparing it to President Herbert Hoover’s 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, which slashed global trade by 66% in five years and deepened the Great Depression.
U.S. President Donald Trump and his “madman theory” won’t get Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei to scrap his nuclear program.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 14, 2025

Why should Iran believe anything the U.S. threatens or promises?

The Iranians — like the Russians — are notoriously shifty negotiators. But so are the Americans, now that they’re led by Trump.
Turkmenistan held its "national day" event to show its traditional dance performance at the Osaka Expo on Monday.
JAPAN
Apr 14, 2025

Turkmenistan first to mark Osaka Expo with national day

Turkmenistan held an event to show its traditional dance performance.
French soccer legend Zinedine Zidane holds the torch during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics on July 26, 2024.
OLYMPICS
Apr 14, 2025

Paris Olympic torches auctioned off along with other memorabilia

Money raised from the auction was handed over to three charities by the company in charge of the 2024 Olympics.
Ousted former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol gestures from a vehicle, as he returns to his private residence in Seoul on Friday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Apr 14, 2025

South Korea begins criminal insurrection trial of ousted leader

Yoon Suk Yeol, who the Constitutional Court removed from the presidency this month, argued that his martial law declaration in December was "not a coup d’etat."
Paige Bueckers led to UConn to the NCAA women's basketball national title this season.
BASKETBALL
Apr 14, 2025

Paige Bueckers: A basketball star Is born

Bueckers’ profile has risen amid a significant era for women’s basketball.
New Zealand's Mark Tele'a in action in October 2023
MORE SPORTS / Rugby
Apr 15, 2025

All Black wing Tele'a announces Japan switch

Media reports have suggested that the 28-year-old will join Toyota Verblitz.
A flag bearing a portrait of slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah displayed on Feb. 28 in the southern Lebanese border town of Aitaroun.
WORLD / Politics
Apr 15, 2025

Disarming Lebanon's Hezbollah possible under U.S. pressure, analysts say

Hezbollah was left badly weakened by more than a year of hostilities with Israel, and Lebanon has since elected a president and formed a government.
A Bank of Kyoto branch in the city of Kyoto. Kyoto Financial Group has been a symbol of Japan’s old guard holding out against selling the stakes, given its historic ties to exporters based in the city including Nintendo, Nidec and Kyocera.
BUSINESS / Companies
Apr 16, 2025

Kyoto bank shifts stance on mergers and cuts to cross-shareholdings

Kyoto Financial has been a symbol of Japan’s old guard holding out against selling the stakes, given its historic ties to exporters based in the city.
The trade war is ratcheting up tensions between Beijing and Washington. Taipei needs to be more prepared. 
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 15, 2025

Taiwan is under siege with or without tariffs

Taiwan must urgently strengthen defenses and unite politically to counter rising threats from China, despite Trump’s trade war.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the White House on Thursday in Washington.
JAPAN / Politics / ANALYSIS
Apr 16, 2025

Trump calls the U.S.-Japan alliance ‘one-sided.’ Tokyo says otherwise.

Some observers believe the U.S. president’s worldview is stuck in the 1980s, a time when trade deficits with Japan captured the attention of U.S. policymakers.
Arsenal's Gabriel Martinelli celebrates after scoring against Real Madrid during the second leg of their Champions League quarterfinal in Madrid on Wednesday.
SOCCER
Apr 17, 2025

Arsenal dethrones Real Madrid to reach Champions League semifinals

Inter Milan advanced from the night's other quarterfinal, earning a 4-3 aggregate win over Bayern Munich after an enthralling 2-2 draw in the second leg.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks as Vice President JD Vance looks on during a meeting with President Donald Trump and President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador in the White House in Washington on April 14. Rubio and his aides shut down a State Department office on Wednesday that tracks and counters global disinformation from foreign actors, including the governments of China, Russia and Iran, U.S. officials said.
WORLD / Politics
Apr 17, 2025

U.S. State Department closing office targeting foreign disinformation

The GEC had come under intense criticism from some Republicans who said it was straying from its mission, accusing it of disfavoring opinions by conservative media in particular.
Tourists look at skulls of victims of the Khmer Rouge regime in a stupa at the Choeung Ek Killing Fields Memorial in Phnom Penh on Thursday.
ASIA PACIFIC
Apr 18, 2025

Khmer Rouge anniversary marked, but without public prayers

The 50th anniversary of the Khmer Rouge’s march into Phnom Penh passed without survivor-led ceremonies.
A vegetable stand displays prices at a supermarket in Tokyo in 2023. Some lawmakers are proposing lowering the consumption tax on food to 0%, which is expected to result in a loss of up to ¥5 trillion in tax revenue annually.
JAPAN / Politics
Apr 18, 2025

LDP and CDP lawmaker groups propose 0% consumption tax on food

Reducing the tax to 0% is expected to result in a loss of up to ¥5 trillion in tax revenue annually.
A revised child welfare bill passed the Upper House plenary session on Friday as cases of child abuse rise.
JAPAN / Society
Apr 18, 2025

New bill blocks visitations for parents suspected of child abuse

The revision to the child welfare law is intended to protect children in cases where contact with their parents could cause emotional or physical harm.
The Tokyo version of the globe-trotting exhibition features a Ministry of Magic set, which includes an imposing replica of the Magic Is Might monument representing magical fascism.
LIFE / Lifestyle
Apr 18, 2025

Calling all Potterheads: ‘The Goblet of Fire’ comes to Tokyo

The grand scale and attention to detail is likely to impress — just make sure to withdraw some galleons at Gringotts before coming.
The proposal reportedly calls for a legal framework that would obligate telecom operators to store communication records for a fixed period.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Apr 18, 2025

LDP proposal would require telecom companies to store usage records

The proposal calls for a legal framework that would obligate telecom operators to store metadata and usage records for a fixed period.
U.S. Ambassador to Japan George Glass speaks to reporters on Friday in Tokyo just after he arrived at Haneda Airport.
JAPAN / Politics
Apr 18, 2025

New U.S. envoy arrives in Japan with focus on trade, defense and reining in China

Ambassador George Glass said Washington will aim to deepen cooperation with Tokyo on pushing back against China's economic and military moves.
Defense Minister Gen Nakatani speaks to reporters in Tokyo on April 11.
JAPAN / Politics
Apr 18, 2025

Japan defense chief says 'no reason' to change current U.S. troop deal

Gen Nakatani said that spending “is appropriately shared between the Japanese and U.S. governments based on mutual agreement, with a set time frame.”
Palestinians mourn medics, who came under Israeli fire while on a rescue mission, after their bodies were recovered, according to the Red Crescent, at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on March 31.
WORLD / Politics
Apr 21, 2025

Israel's military finds 'professional failures' in killings of Gaza medics

Fifteen paramedics and other rescue workers were shot dead on March 23 in three separate shootings at the same location near Rafah.
Rescue personnel search for survivors trapped in the rubble of a collapsed building in Bangkok on April 2, five days after an earthquake struck central Myanmar and Thailand. Thai authorities say they have arrested a Chinese executive at a company that was building the skyscraper.
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal
Apr 21, 2025

Exec linked to Bangkok building collapse arrested

The skyscraper was the only major building in the capital to fall in the catastrophic March 28 earthquake.
A draft executive order circulating among U.S. diplomats proposes a radical reduction to and restructuring of the U.S. State Department, which, if implemented, would be one of the biggest reorganizations of the department since its founding.
WORLD / Politics
Apr 21, 2025

Trump draft proposes radical reshaping of U.S. State Department

The order would eliminate dozens of positions and departments, including those dealing with climate, refugees, democracy and Africa.
Thunder guard Cason Wallace dunks against the Grizzlies during the second quarter in Game 1 of their playoff series in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, on Sunday.
BASKETBALL / NBA
Apr 21, 2025

Thunder open playoff campaign with record victory

The Thunder's 51-point margin of victory was even more remarkable given that Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander had his statistically worst performance of the season.
Takaaki Nezu, executive director of Maruto Group Holdings, says it is the company’s social responsibility to help tackle the falling birth rate.
JAPAN / Regional Voices: Fukushima
May 5, 2025

Fukushima firms seek ways to encourage marriages

One supermarket chain has said such moves reflect a corporate responsibility to tackle the nation’s chronically low birth rate.

Longform

In 2020, 38% of all households were single-person. That figure is projected to rise to 44.3% by 2050.
The rise of AI companionship in a lonely Japan