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Kotoba Slam Japan runs regional competitions to select a representative for the annual World Poetry Slam Championship, which will take place in Mexico at the end of the month.
CULTURE / Stage
May 9, 2025

Japan’s slam poetry scene is all about raw vulnerability

Slam poetry is a rarity in Japan, but the scene is full of energy and potential that the poets have been bringing to the world slam poetry stage for 10 years now.
Bayer Leverkusen coach Xabi Alonso waves to fans before Sunday's match against Borussia Dortmund in Leverkusen, Germany, on Sunday.
SOCCER
May 12, 2025

Xabi Alonso says announcement about future 'not too far' away

Alonso is widely expected to join Real Madrid, where he won the Champions League and La Liga as a player.
Rory McIlroy plays a shot during the third round of the Truist Championship golf tournament in Philadelphia on Saturday.
MORE SPORTS / Golf
May 13, 2025

McIlroy looks to the future after post-Masters thrill ride

"I honestly could not be in a better place in my life professionally, personally, all of it," Rory McIlroy said.
Yi Liu (right), one of 10 directors involved in Taiwanese television series "Zero Day," works on post-production with colorist Liang Yu Fang in Taipei on March 5.
CULTURE / Film
May 13, 2025

Taiwanese war drama 'wake-up call' to Chinese invasion threat

The on-screen chaos of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan is the basis of a new Taiwanese television series called "Zero Day."
Ashikaga Takauji was a 14th-century warrior whose shifting alliances had a profound impact on the turbulent politics of his day. More than 500 years later, imperial loyalists were moved to channel their lingering fury at Takauji's betrayal of Emperor Go-Daigo.
JAPAN / History / The Living Past
May 17, 2025

The emperor and the shogun: A power struggle across the centuries

For imperial loyalists of the late Edo Period, the experiences of Emperor Go-Daigo from five centuries past were an inspiration — and a warning.
A model of the proposed Roshn Stadium inside a Saudi Arabia World Cup bid exhibition in Riyadh on Dec. 11
WORLD
May 14, 2025

Human Rights Watch warns of migrant worker deaths in Saudi Arabia

The NGO, which has studied nearly 50 cases of deaths in Saudi Arabia, said Saudi authorities had "failed to adequately protect workers from preventable deaths."
Farmers load a truck with vegetables in San Ignacio, El Salvador, in May 2020.
WORLD
May 15, 2025

World hunger monitor faces 'large gap' after U.S. aid cuts

USAID cuts have significantly affected humanitarian organizations around the world that were working on life-saving programs.
Starting in the early 1980s, shipping nuclear waste for storage on Orchid Island off the southeastern coast of Taiwan was standard practice.
ASIA PACIFIC / Science & Health
May 16, 2025

Final nuclear plant shutdown leaves Taiwan facing energy crunch

The shutdown takes place just as power demand is projected to rise 13% by the end of the decade, largely driven by data centers and chipmakers.
Unlike Silicon Valley, many Asian societies, due to their penchant for risk aversion, need more government support to boost early-stage deep-tech innovation.
COMMENTARY / World
May 18, 2025

Government capital is not just 'silly money'

Unlike Silicon Valley's predominantly private-sector-driven ecosystem, many Asian societies exhibit greater risk aversion, necessitating proactive government involvement.
Then-U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks at the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Washington on Jan. 17.
WORLD / Politics
May 19, 2025

Joe Biden diagnosed with aggressive prostate cancer

The former U.S. president has a form of prostate cancer that has spread to his bones, and is reviewing treatment options, his office said Sunday.
Police officers stand guard on May 7 outside Todaimae Station in Tokyo's Bunkyo Ward after a random stabbing that injured a University of Tokyo student.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal / FOCUS
May 19, 2025

Random stabbing cases in Japan raise fears: Could the next victim be me?

Experts say these incidents often reflect a deeper issue at the societal level.
Tomomi Bitoh, seen crossing the finish line in Antarctica, on the first stop of the World Marathon Challenge, is one of the very few Japanese athletes to speak publicly about her experience with egg freezing.
MORE SPORTS
May 19, 2025

The race for more time: Japanese runner decided to freeze eggs for her future

More women in Japan are expressing interest or following through with freezing their eggs in recent years, but only a few athletes in Japan have spoken about it publicly.
Teru Hasegawa, Esperanto name Verda Majo, wrote leftist political essays during WWII.
CULTURE / Books
May 20, 2025

A window into the mind of Esperantist and political activist Teru Hasegawa

During WWII, a young Japanese woman resisted her country's descent into fascism by writing leftist essays, now collected and translated in "Whispers of a Storm."
The cast and crew of Indian drama film "All We Imagine As Light" pose with their award for best film at the 18th Asian Film Awards in Hong Kong on March 16.
CULTURE / Film
May 21, 2025

Women fight for the spotlight in India's macho movie industry

Women filmmakers in India are reshaping cinema with authentic, female-led stories, challenging outdated stereotypes and finding box office success.
The U.S. debt crisis can’t be fixed without reforming entitlements, and that means Americans must retire later and pay more in taxes.
COMMENTARY / World
May 22, 2025

To fix the U.S. debt problem, Americans must retire later

The House’s proposed $3.7 trillion tax bill isn’t what sparked that Moody’s downgrade — it was the runaway growth of entitlement spending.
“Marion” provides a glimpse into the lives of bull dodgers, who perform a nonlethal version of bullfighting.
CULTURE / Film
May 23, 2025

Six short films that capture our world in mere minutes

The Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia proves that less time doesn't have to mean a lack of substance.
Members of the group Misaskim clean blood off the ground where two Israeli embassy staff were shot dead near the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington on Thursday.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
May 23, 2025

Israeli embassy staff shooting suspect charged with murder

If convicted, Elias Rodriguez, 31, faces the possibility of the death penalty or life in prison.
Seicho Matsumoto’s “Suspicion” is based on a true story known as “the Beppu 300 million yen insurance murder,” swapping the real-life husband with a former Tokyo hostess.
CULTURE / Books
May 25, 2025

Truth is slippery in ‘Suspicion,’ a detective story based on a true crime

Seicho Matsumoto’s mystery novella is based on 1974’s “Beppu 300 million yen insurance murder.”
A worker sorts plastic waste for recycling at Minato Resource Recycle Center in Tokyo in 2019. Japan has been criticized by environmental groups for its strategy on plastics, which is heavily reliant on recycling instead of reduction.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability / OUR PLANET
May 25, 2025

Are microplastics hurting our fertility?

While a lot remains unknown about how microplastics affect our health, scientists in Japan and around the world broadly agree there's an urgent need to reduce plastic production.
Alex Palou celebrates after winning the Indianapolis 500 in Indianapolis, Indiana, on Sunday.
MORE SPORTS / Auto Racing
May 26, 2025

Alex Palou holds off Marcus Ericsson to take checkered flag at Indy 500

Palou, who has won five of this year's first six IndyCar races, took the checkered flag under caution.
AI hallucinations — when generative models fabricate information — are becoming more frequent, harder to detect and increasingly dangerous as we embed the technology deeper into society.
COMMENTARY / World
May 28, 2025

AI hallucinations? What could go wrong?

The notion that we can’t ensure that AI will produce accurate information is, uh, “disturbing” if we intend to integrate that product so deeply into our daily lives.
After the asset-price bubble crash of the early 1990s, employment at a Japanese company was no longer necessarily for life. As a result, a new generation is less willing to endure a toxic work culture —life’s too short, after all.
JAPAN / Society / Longform
Jun 2, 2025

How Japan's youth are slowly changing the country's work ethic

Labor shortages and shifting mindsets are driving younger Japanese workers to challenge the country’s traditional office culture.
A woman attends the World AI Conference in Shanghai in July 2023. Although AI models are showing more deceptive and self-protective behavior, some governments are scaling back safety efforts just as oversight is becoming most critical.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 2, 2025

AI sometimes deceives to survive. But is there anybody who cares?

AI is showing some bright red flags: behavior described by researchers as self-preserving and deceptive.
The year so far is only proving that Mrs. Green Apple is the biggest band in Japan. Their success also seems to be hinting at a change in the musical landscape more broadly.
CULTURE / Music
Jun 5, 2025

Six months into 2025, J-pop is having a full-on identity crisis (and a great time)

Halfway through 2025, J-pop is in flux — swinging between AI absurdity, idol nostalgia and viral sugar highs.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander shoots during practice in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, on Wednesday.
BASKETBALL / NBA
Jun 5, 2025

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander focused on capping historic season with NBA title

Gilgeous-Alexander delivered a spectacular regular season that saw him supplant Nuggets star Nikola Jokic as the NBA MVP.
Kenji Yanobe’s spacesuited cats are the main characters of “Ship’s Cat Island,” the inaugural exhibition at Hyper Museum Hanno in Saitama Prefecture.
CULTURE / Art
Jun 7, 2025

What can Kenji Yanobe’s cosmic cats teach us about humanity?

The spacesuited felines will be familiar to those who have visited the Nakanoshima Museum of Art in Osaka or Tokyo’s Ginza Six shopping complex last year.
Lee Jae-myung’s election as South Korea’s president marks a dramatic political turn after Yoon Suk Yeol’s ouster, putting a seasoned progressive in charge as the country faces economic strain, tense U.S. ties and the challenge of improving relations with Japan.
EDITORIALS
Jun 6, 2025

A return to normalcy in South Korea, but hard work lies ahead

Lee's victory in a ballot to replace Yoon Suk Yeol, impeached after trying to launch a coup, caps an extraordinary life that took him from the slums to the nation’s highest office.
Vice president of events and exhibitions for Studio Ghibli, Kenichi Yoda (right), and director and Ghibli Park creative development manager, Goro Miyazaki (left), pose at the 77th edition of the Cannes Film Festival before receiving an Honorary Palme d'Or.
CULTURE / Film
Jun 6, 2025

Studio Ghibli marks 40 years, but future looks uncertain

A look into the legacy of the beloved anime studio.
Lee Sang-il’s "Kokuho" stars Ryo Yoshizawa as an orphan from a yakuza clan who rises through the world of kabuki to become a star performer.
CULTURE / Film
Jun 8, 2025

‘Kokuho’ finds riveting drama on and off the kabuki stage

Ryo Yoshizawa and Ryusei Yokohama deliver stage performances that are both convincing as kabuki and arresting as drama in Lee Sang-il’s ambitious film.
A woman walks past campaign posters calling to vote in a referendum in downtown Rome on Thursday.
WORLD / Politics
Jun 9, 2025

Italy holds referendum on citizenship and workers' rights

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and her coalition partners encouraged voters to boycott the referendum.

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