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Media mogul Jimmy Lai leaves Mong Kok police station after being released on bail in Hong Kong on Aug. 12, 2020.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Nov 20, 2024

After years in a Hong Kong jail, Jimmy Lai has his say in court

The media mogul said his now-shuttered newspaper, Apple Daily, represented the freedoms that people in the city valued.
Omar Nok arrived in Japan 250 days after leaving Egypt. He didn't use a plane for any part of his journey.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / 20 QUESTIONS
Nov 20, 2024

Omar Nok: 'There are good people everywhere'

Omar Nok says the hospitality he has received from locals at every stop on his journey from Egypt to Japan has been nothing short of inspirational.
Mika Abe (right) opened a restaurant committed to animal welfare in Sendai in November.
JAPAN / Society / Regional Voices: Tohoku
Dec 2, 2024

Restaurant committed to animal welfare opens in Sendai

Muku offers dishes including grilled pork from pasture-raised pigs and poached eggs from cage-free chickens, served as part of a salad bowl.
Spain's Rafael Nadal applauds during a tribute to his career at the end of the quarterfinal doubles match between the Netherlands and Spain during the Davis Cup Finals in Malaga, Spain, on Tuesday.
TENNIS
Nov 20, 2024

'I have left a legacy': Rafael Nadal retires from tennis

Nadal, a 22-time Grand Slam winner, has enjoyed a glittering and historic career over the past 23 years.
A 19th-century warrior gets struck by lightning and wakes to find himself in 21st-century Kyoto in Junichi Yasuda’s surprise hit “A Samurai in Time.”
CULTURE / Film
Nov 21, 2024

The slow-burn success of ‘A Samurai in Time’

Junichi Yasuda’s film about a time-traveling warrior is a loving tribute to the “jidaigeki” (period drama) genre and its practitioners.
In Ko Shinjo's "Tokyo Swindlers," a group of con artists manipulates real estate giants into falsified deals within the highly competitive, quick market.
CULTURE / Books
Nov 21, 2024

'Tokyo Swindlers': Get deep into the minds of real estate con artists

Ko Shinjo’s novel, a bold exploration of the twisted psyches of criminals, is best appreciated as a companion work to the recent Netflix series of the same title.
Police officers remove a protest banner outside the West Kowloon Court following a sentencing hearing for 45 pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong on Tuesday.
EDITORIALS
Nov 22, 2024

Paranoia and Beijing trump democracy in Hong Kong

Concerned nations must step up as China discards the promises it made when it regained control of Hong Kong. Anything less is a betrayal.
Red Bull's Max Verstappen celebrates his fourth consecutive Formula One world title after the Las Vegas Grand Prix on Saturday.
MORE SPORTS / Auto Racing
Nov 24, 2024

Verstappen wins fourth consecutive Formula One world title

With two rounds to spare, the 27-year-old Dutch driver took an unbeatable lead over McLaren's Lando Norris in the championship.
A woman carries firewood she bought at a marketplace in Harare, Zimbabwe, on Oct. 2. Telehealth — the use of technology to provide and access health care services remotely — has been growing around the world but is relatively new in Zimbabwe.
WORLD / Science & Health
Nov 27, 2024

In Zimbabwe, Starlink’s fast internet gives telehealth a boost

The satellite unit of Elon Musk's SpaceX received the green light in May to operate its internet services in Zimbabwe.
Keiichi Kaburagi (Ryusei Yokohama) goes on the run after being sentenced to death for a triple murder he insists he didn’t commit in Michihito Fujii’s “Faceless.”
CULTURE / Film
Nov 28, 2024

‘Faceless’: Fugitive thriller turns a blind eye to hard truths

Michihiro Fujii’s latest offers stylistic flourishes while treading the familiar terrain of the fugitive film.
According to a recent survey by Child Fund Japan, a nonprofit, one in eight minors in Japan have experienced online requests from strangers to meet or for sexual photos. Despite the potential harms of social media, strong regulations are lacking.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Nov 28, 2024

Japan doesn't need a social media ban, but it must protect children

Short of stopping minors from using social media, Japan needs to beef up its response to an evermore perilous online environment. One that adults often struggle to grasp.
Iga Swiatek hits a shot against Aryna Sabalenka during their match at the Cincinnati Open on Aug. 18.
TENNIS
Nov 29, 2024

Iga Swiatek accepts one-month suspension after failing doping test

Swiatek is not the first world No. 1 to fail a doping test this year.
Princess Aiko on Nov. 22 ahead of her 23rd birthday on Sunday at the Imperial Palace
JAPAN
Dec 1, 2024

Princess Aiko, only child of emperor, turns 23

This year, the princess graduated from Gakushuin University in Tokyo and began working at the Japanese Red Cross Society in April.
A year-old film on Netflix titled "12.12: The Day" saw a spike in viewers after the political turmoil that hit South Korea this week.
CULTURE / Entertainment news
Dec 6, 2024

Korean coup movie hits No. 1 on Netflix after martial law chaos

The film depicts the events surrounding a Dec. 12, 1979, coup in South Korea, a theme also tackled in Han Kang's novel "Human Acts."
Police officers reinvestigate a Tobu Tojo Line railroad crossing in Tokyo's Itabashi Ward on Dec. 27, 2023, after a man was fatally hit by a train weeks earlier.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Dec 9, 2024

Tokyo police arrest four men on suspicion of staging colleague’s suicide

They allegedly coerced the 56-year-old victim into standing on railway tracks where he went on to be fatally struck by a train.
A defaced mural of Sheikh Hasina, the ousted prime minister of Bangladesh, in Dhaka on Nov. 5. The new governor of Bangladesh’s central bank, Ahsan Mansur, calculates that about $17 billion was siphoned from the country’s financial system in the 15 years before Hasina's government collapsed in August.
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal
Dec 9, 2024

How the Bangladesh economy was siphoned dry

Some economists guess that the true value looted during Sheikh Hasina’s rule before she fled the country could exceed $30 billion, but no one can say for sure.
Rupert Murdoch arrives for a probate court hearing in Reno, Nevada on Sept. 16.
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 10, 2024

Murdoch loses 'Succession' battle for son's control of media empire

The media mogul sought to make Lachlan, his eldest son who is understood to share his worldview, as the controlling player in the family empire after his death.
Manabu Sasaki, who runs a painting company, is one of four suspects arrested on suspicion of murdering 56-year-old Osamu Takano.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Dec 10, 2024

Victim of alleged staged suicide was subjected to years of abuse

Tokyo police arrested four men on Sunday on suspicion of murdering a colleague by staging a "suicide" on a railway crossing.
Sumiteru Taniguchi, a former co-chair of Nihon Hidankyo (right), explains about hibakusha to then U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in August 2010 in front of a photo of himself suffering from severe burns as a child in Nagasaki.
JAPAN
Dec 10, 2024

Hidankyo carries on hopes of late hibakusha in Nobel win

Now-deceased hibakusha spearheaded antinuclear activities while grappling with severe injuries, illnesses and the loss of their families.
Manchester City's Phil Foden, Josko Gvardiol, Mateo Kovacic, Jack Grealish and Kyle Walker during training in Manchester on Tuesday
SOCCER
Dec 11, 2024

City's Foden and Kovacic not expected to face Juventus, says Guardiola

Guardiola's struggling team have three games left to clinch a top-eight spot that would earn a last-16 place and avoid a playoff.
Luigi Mangione, 26, a suspect in the New York City killing of UnitedHealth executive Brian Thompson, is escorted after an extradition hearing at Blair County Court House in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Dec 12, 2024

Luigi Mangione was charged with murder — then donations started pouring in

The photogenic, Ivy League-educated 26-year-old's support has seemingly only intensified since his arrest on Monday.
Teruko Yokoyama (second from left), a senior member of Nihon Hidankyo, shares her experiences with students from Kuben Upper Secondary School in Oslo on Wednesday.
JAPAN
Dec 12, 2024

Hibakusha share experiences with Oslo high school students

Some 200 students learning sociology and other subjects were called on to think about peace.
"Butter," Asako Yuzuki’s thrilling novel inspired by a real-life femme fatale, was named the Waterstones Book of the Year in 2024.
CULTURE / Books / 2024 in Review
Dec 15, 2024

Women are writing a new chapter in Japanese literature in the 2020s

From the deadly serious and deeply weird to the fluffiest of diversions, a bounty of Japanese fiction in translation has delighted readers and critics this decade so far.
Jon Walsh, an urban farmer and the owner of Business Grow, has been teaching the residents of Tokyo how to grow their own food for over a decade.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Dec 31, 2024

Great things can grow in small places

This is a sponsored story, created and edited exclusively by Tokyo Metropolitan Government’s Tokyo Updates website.
One problem with assessments of China’s economic health is that they tend to treat China like a “normal” modern economy, and assume that policy tools familiar to Western economies are similarly useful.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 26, 2024

China’s economy has not peaked

What happens to the world economy and global geopolitics in 2025 will depend significantly on China. But prevailing assessments of its economic health are deeply flawed.
The Dubai skyline on Dec. 15, 2023. For years, Dubai has been an ideal rear base for trafficking and money laundering, with little risk of being extradited for lack of satisfactory judicial cooperation, according to European investigators and magistrates.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Dec 19, 2024

End of the Dubai dream for Europe's drug lords?

The Gulf emirate has been a haven for some of Europe's biggest drug traffickers, but the tide may be turning.
Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s “Evil Does Not Exist,” released in Japanese theaters in April, sharply dramatizes the clash between rural and urban values. The film won five awards at the 2023 Venice Film Festival, including the second-place Silver Lion prize.
CULTURE / Film / 2024 in Review
Dec 20, 2024

A year of Oscar wins and a quiet push for diversity

International collaborations and indie risk-takers steered the film industry in a fresh direction in 2024.
Consumer prices excluding fresh food rose 2.7% in November from a year earlier driven by higher energy costs.
BUSINESS / Economy
Dec 20, 2024

Japan’s inflation accelerates on energy as BOJ seeks more data

Consumer prices excluding fresh food rose 2.7% in November from a year earlier driven by higher energy costs.
Dodgers designated hitter Shohei Ohtani reacts to a standing ovation from fans after hitting his 50th home run of the season, against the Marlins in Miami on Sept. 19.
BASEBALL / MLB
Dec 23, 2024

For baseball fans, 2024 brought The Summer of Shohei Ohtani

The superstar was the center of attention for almost a full calendar year during a season straight out of a Hollywood movie.
Migrants seeking asylum gather near the border wall between the United States and Mexico after crossing a razor wire fence deployed to inhibit their crossing, as a member of the Texas National Guard escorts them on Dec. 19.
WORLD / Society
Dec 23, 2024

'Bless Donald Trump': Human smugglers cash in

"Coyotes," as they are known, are banking on a pickup in trade due to the president-elect's campaign promise to crack down on migrants once he takes office.

Longform

A sinkhole in Yashio, which emerged in January, was triggered by a ruptured, aging sewer pipe. Authorities worry that similar sections of infrastructure across the country are also at risk of corrosion.
That sinking feeling: Japan’s aging sewers are an infrastructure time bomb