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U.S. President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron look at each other during a press conference at the White House in Washington on Monday.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 25, 2025

Macron and Trump rekindle Le Bromance with a touch of tension

Strains over Trump's sudden pivot to Russia over the Ukraine war bubbled up to the surface, even if Macron softened the blow with yet another physical gesture.
U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer delivers a statement on defense spending on Tuesday.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 26, 2025

Trump’s threats push U.K.'s Starmer into a more global, military agenda

U.S. President Donald Trump's apparent refusal for the U.S. to be the final guarantor of security in Europe has prompted the prime minister to act.
Ukrainian servicemen play with dogs at their position on a front line in the nation's Zaporizhzhia region on Feb. 21.
WORLD / Politics
Mar 2, 2025

Europe's nightmare is here: They have to fight Putin without the U.S.

The European Union is aiming to follow up with an emergency package of €20 billion ($21 billion) in military aid for Ukraine at an emergency summit in Brussels.
The minaret of a mosque is pictured next to destroyed buildings in the Khalidiya district in Homs on Feb. 10, 2025.
WORLD / Politics
Mar 2, 2025

'Total panic' as USAID cuts jobs from Syria to Haiti

In 2023, USAID spent $42 billion to support programs across 157 countries — ranging from malaria and HIV prevention to fighting starvation and helping those displaced by war.
An event marking World Obesity Day in Brussels on March 6, 2024. Without a serious change, researchers estimate that 3.8 billion adults will be overweight or obese in 15 years — or around 60% of the global adult population in 2050.
WORLD / Science & Health
Mar 4, 2025

60% of adults will be overweight or obese by 2050, study says

Data from 204 countries paints a grim picture of a major health challenge facing the world.
Chinese teacher Shuaib Ma (right) gives a Mandarin language lesson at a school in Riyadh.
WORLD
Mar 7, 2025

Mandarin lessons in Saudi schools show growing ties with China

Mandarin's entry into public schools is the latest sign of growing ties between Saudi Arabia and China.
As the U.S. under Donald Trump reassesses its commitment to Ukraine, countries worldwide, particularly in Europe and Asia, are reconsidering their defense policies and alliances with America. 
EDITORIALS
Mar 7, 2025

Europe braces for a post-American world. Is Japan ready?

A diplomatic posture that makes demands only of Ukraine and not Russia suggests, however, that Washington has taken sides.
Switzerland's Marco Odermatt in action during the men's super-G World Cup event in Kvitfjell, Norway, on March 9.
MORE SPORTS / Alpine skiing
Mar 16, 2025

Alpine star Marco Odermatt clinches fourth straight overall World Cup title

Odermatt, 27, had already secured the super-G globe for the third year in a row and is the runaway favorite to also clinch the downhill title.
Ice is seen on the Pastoruri glacier in the Peruvian Andes, Peru, in May 2024.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Mar 21, 2025

World's glaciers are losing record ice as global temperatures climb, U.N. says

Glaciers are disappearing faster than ever, with the last three-year period seeing the largest glacial mass loss on record.
Firefighters douse the flames of a fire that broke out at a substation supplying power to Heathrow Airport in Hayes, England, on Friday.
WORLD
Mar 21, 2025

Heathrow closed after huge fire at power station, disrupting global flights

Travel experts say the disruption would extend far beyond Heathrow, the world's fifth-busiest airport.
Pieces of gum arabic, a natural emulsifier, displayed in a warehouse of an exporting company, in Port Sudan, Sudan.
WORLD / Politics
Mar 22, 2025

A genocidal militia in Sudan controls a key ingredient in Coke and Pepsi

Gum arabic acts as an organic emulsifier in consumer goods around the world — in candy, medicine, soda and cosmetics.
Yuma Kagiyama performs during the men's free skate at Finlandia Trophy in Helsinki in November.
MORE SPORTS / Figure skating
Mar 23, 2025

Top skaters prepare to do battle at worlds as 2026 Olympics loom

From Kaori Sakamoto to the "Quad God," here are five skaters to keep an eye on over the next week in Boston.
Italy's Federica Brignone celebrates her overall and downhill World Cup titles after the final event of the season in Sun Valley, Idaho, was canceled on Saturday.
MORE SPORTS / Alpine skiing
Mar 23, 2025

Canceled downhills give Brignone and Odermatt World Cup titles

Last season, Brignone finished second in the overall, slalom and giant slalom standings.
Alysa Liu competes in the women’s short program during the World Figure Skating Championships at TD Garden in Boston on Wednesday.
MORE SPORTS / Figure skating
Mar 27, 2025

Women's skating favorites falter as Liu leads at worlds

Three-time defending champion Kaori Sakamoto, trying to become the first woman in 65 years to capture four consecutive world crowns, was a disappointing fifth.
There is concern about a severe decline in democracy in Asia, with many former success stories now backsliding.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 27, 2025

An Asian democracy collapse amid the new world order

By the monitoring organization Freedom House's calculations, for 19 years, democracy has eroded around the world.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s actions are rekindling long-simmering discussions about whether overseas governments will accelerate efforts to rely less on the dollar.
BUSINESS / Economy / FOCUS
Mar 29, 2025

Trump is eroding the dollar’s dominance in world markets

The U.S. president's escalating fusillade of tariffs and bid to roll back decades of globalization is shaking confidence in the U.S. currency.
Containers are loaded onto a ship at the Port of Baltimore, Maryland, on Wednesday ahead of U.S. President Donald Trump's announcement of new tariffs.
BUSINESS / Economy
Apr 3, 2025

Trump tariffs pile stress on ailing world economy

They will sap yet more vigor from a world economy barely recovered from the post-pandemic inflation surge.
U.S. President Donald Trump signs an executive order after delivering remarks on reciprocal tariffs during an event titled "Make America Wealthy Again" at the White House in Washington on Wednesday.
EDITORIALS
Apr 4, 2025

‘Liberation Day’ will weigh heavily on the world

While some nations will fight U.S. tariffs, Japan is among those more likely to make a deal.
Containers stacked up at the Phnom Penh Autonomous Port in Phnom Penh on Thursday. Southeast Asian countries with a significant trade surplus with the U.S. came in for harsh treatment from Trump's stinging tariffs.
BUSINESS / Economy
Apr 4, 2025

Trump tariffs are a ‘disaster’ for world’s poorest countries

Poor nations' labor-intensive export industries face new risk in trade war.
Wall Street banks, under political pressure and tempted by short-term gains, are abandoning climate commitments and pouring billions into fossil fuels, risking both environmental catastrophe and massive future economic losses.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 7, 2025

Wall Street will regret helping the world burn

For an industry in the business of money, it sure has a funny way of ensuring its destruction. 
Rohingya refugees wait at the World Food Program (WFP) distribution center to purchase grocery items at the refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, on March 15.
WORLD / Politics
Apr 8, 2025

Trump administration food aid cuts put millions at risk, aid sources say

The U.N. World Food Programme warned that the termination of U.S. funding for emergency food assistance "could amount to a death sentence" for millions.
Masatoshi Asari is one of Japan’s foremost living authorities on cherry trees and their blossoms.
JAPAN
Apr 9, 2025

The man who sent Japan's cherry blossoms out to the world

Masatoshi Asari's trees — symbols of peace and reconciliation — blossom in the U.K., U.S., Poland and China.
Cargo ships are loaded with containers at the port of Bangkok on April 3.
WORLD / Politics
Apr 10, 2025

U.S. exits carbon talks on shipping and urges others to follow

A State Department spokesperson confirmed that Washington would not be "engaging in negotiations" at the U.N.'s International Maritime Organization.
Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.
JAPAN / Society / Longform
Apr 11, 2025

Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.

On a man-made island in Osaka Bay, Japan stages a grand vision of the future — and a quiet test of relevance.
The flags of participating countries are displayed near the entrance during a media preview day for the 2025 Osaka Expo on Wednesday.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Apr 11, 2025

Japan’s second city is hosting a $66 billion coming-out party

First held in London in 1851, world expos have been promoted as venues to bring nations together and foster global coordination.
In the dystopian society of Sayaka Murata's latest book to come out in English, sex between married couples is considered incest and therefore taboo.
CULTURE / Books
Apr 14, 2025

'Vanishing World': Sayaka Murata’s vision of a sex-hating society

In Sayaka Murata’s latest book to come out in English, sex between married couples is considered taboo, and humans reproduce predominantly via IVF.  
The opening ceremony for the Osaka Expo on Saturday.
JAPAN
Apr 12, 2025

Ishiba warns of divided world at futuristic Osaka Expo opening ceremony

"Having overcome the COVID-19 pandemic, the world now faces the crisis over many different divisions," Ishiba told the opening ceremony.
The member states of the World Health Organization reached "an agreement in principle" on Saturday on a text designed to better protect the world from future pandemics, after more than three years of discussions, the co-chair of the negotiating body said.
WORLD / Science & Health
Apr 13, 2025

Accord reached 'in principle' over tackling future pandemics

Delegates will meet on Tuesday to put the finishing touches to a landmark text on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response.
Ilia Malinin skates during an exhibition in Boston on March 30.
MORE SPORTS
Apr 16, 2025

Skating 'Quad God' Malinin ready for Olympic favorite tag

The American, known as the "Quad God," for his dazzling arsenal of quadruple jumps, will be competing in Tokyo this week for the World Team Trophy.
A handout artist's impression released on Thursday by N. Madhusudhan/University of Cambridge shows the K2-18b super-Earth, a hycean world, in which astronomers say they have found the strongest yet “hints” of life outside our solar system.
WORLD
Apr 17, 2025

Scientists find strongest evidence yet of life on an alien planet

The scientists stressed they are not announcing the discovery of actual living organisms and that the findings should be viewed cautiously.

Longform

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