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The Sde Teiman base, which has become synonymous with the detention of Gazans, in the Negev desert of Israel.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Jun 14, 2024

Inside the base where Israel has detained thousands of Palestinians

Since the start of the Gaza war, the Sde Teiman military base has housed detainees who are blindfolded, handcuffed and held without charge or legal representation.
Opal Lee, the "Grandmother of Juneteenth," visited Japan last month shortly after receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Joe Biden.
COMMUNITY / Voices / Black Eye
Jun 14, 2024

U.S. civil rights icon Opal Lee brings her Juneteenth walk to Tokyo

Juneteenth, held on the 19th of the month, celebrates the end of slavery in the United States. Opal Lee sees it as more than an American holiday.
A health worker puts on an adhesive bandage after inoculating a man with a booster shot of the Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine in Manila in January 2022.
WORLD
Jun 14, 2024

U.S. ran secret anti-vaccine campaign to undermine China during pandemic

The clandestine operation aimed to sow doubt about the safety and efficacy of vaccines and other life-saving aid that was being supplied by China.
A person uses a tong with a camera and GPS system attached to pick up litter, part of an initiative to boost participation in collecting trash.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability / OUR PLANET
Jun 16, 2024

Japan’s gamified environment apps target a greener mindset

Government funding has helped drive a boom in environmental and social app development.
After just 1.3 degrees Celsius of warming above preindustrial levels, the countries with the most refugees, asylum-seekers, and displaced people are already among those hardest hit by climate change.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 16, 2024

It’s far cheaper to help migrants before they leave home

As global temperatures rise, so will the frequency of heat waves, droughts, floods, pandemics, natural disasters, food and water shortages and conflicts over resources.
Water is sprayed over the stage at a Taylor Swift concert in Rio de Janeiro in November 2023.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Jun 19, 2024

On a warming planet, outdoor concerts need a new safety playbook

Climate change is ushering in more extreme weather worldwide, and with it, greater risks for outdoor events.
A person walks among the giant columns supporting the Metropolitan Area Outer Underground Discharge Channel in Saitama Prefecture.
PODCAST / deep dive
Jun 20, 2024

Tokyo underground: The city beneath our feet

Join us this week on Deep Dive as we discuss with Alex K.T. Martin the expansive subterranean world of Tokyo’s ever-changing underground.
For hundreds of thousands of people around the world every year, heat is deadly. In the U.S., it takes more lives than hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes or floods.
COMMENTARY
Jun 20, 2024

Heat waves are deadlier than hurricanes. Make them ‘disasters.’

For hundreds of thousands of people around the world every year, heat is deadly. In the U.S., it takes more lives than hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes or floods.
The Cabinet Office's latest white paper on Japan's aging society predicts that the percentage of people age 65 and above will reach 38.7% of the country's population by 2070.
JAPAN / Society
Jun 21, 2024

More of Japan’s elderly are lonely and have fewer friends, white paper says

Less than half of respondents age 65 years and above polled in 2023 said they had at least an average number of friends, compared with 72.2% in 2018.
Labour Party leader Keir Starmer (center), shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves (left) and shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy in Paris in 2023
WORLD / Politics
Jun 24, 2024

Labour's Brexit red lines set to limit shift in U.K.'s ties with EU

Officials believe the party will struggle to deliver a significantly different trading relationship unless it U-turns on certain issues.
Palestinian woman Nisreen holds the hand of her son Majd Salem, a six-month-old malnourished Palestinian baby who weighed 3.5 kilograms when he was born and gained just 300 grams in six months, at Kamal Adwan hospital in the northern Gaza Strip on May 9.
WORLD / Society
Jun 25, 2024

Gaza faces the threat of famine: How children starve

More than 1 million of Gaza's inhabitants face the most extreme form of malnutrition — classified by the IPC as "Catastrophe or Famine."
An altar is decorated with a portrait of Aum Shinrikyo founder Chizuo Matsumoto at an Aleph facility in Tokyo this month.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal / FOCUS
Jun 27, 2024

Japan authorities remain on alert over Aum successor group

Aleph, which has most of the roughly 1,650 worshippers of Aum Shinrikyo's three successor groups, continues to worship the teachings of cult leader Chizuo Matsumoto.
Aichi Gov. Hideaki Omura explains irregularities found at welfare service provider Megumi during a news conference in Nagoya on Wednesday.
JAPAN
Jun 27, 2024

Japanese government punishes operator of group homes for overcharging

About 100 group homes for people with disabilities run by the Tokyo-based firm will be banned from having their service-provider designations renewed.
Fancl employees offer makeup lessons to those with blindness or low vision.
JAPAN / Society / Regional Voices: Tohoku
Jul 8, 2024

Cosmetics makers hold makeup lessons for those with visual impairments

Each company has established its own methods for applying makeup without the need to look in a mirror.
A Palestinian man carries a child following an Israeli strike near a U.N.-run school sheltering displaced people in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip on Wednesday.
WORLD
Jul 4, 2024

Nine in 10 Gaza residents displaced since war began, U.N. says

The head of the United Nations' OCHA agency in the Palestinian territories said that around 1.9 million people are thought to be displaced in Gaza.
You can often see generations of families enjoying performances together at Fuji Rock Festival.
PODCAST / deep dive
Jul 4, 2024

Japan’s summer music festivals are feeling the heat in more ways than one

Summer music festivals are back, but for how long? Climate change is putting the heat on our favorite outdoor entertainment.
Tens of thousands of young people have fled Myanmar since the military junta introduced conscription, rights groups say, to shore up its depleted ranks.
ASIA PACIFIC
Jul 5, 2024

'No safe place': Women flee conscription risk and hardship in Myanmar

Following the military junta's conscription, some have risked their lives to trek through jungles and ford rivers to escape.
Several support networks have launched to help startup founders in Japan whose native language isn't Japanese.
BUSINESS / Companies / Longform
Jul 8, 2024

As Japan's startup ecosystem grows, so does a supportive community of entrepreneurs

Interest in startups is outpacing ecosystem capabilities, which has led more founders to turn to each other for guidance and support.
A news reporter interviews people in the village where preacher Suraj Pal Singh Jatav grew up, in Bahadurnagar, in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, India, on Thursday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Jul 8, 2024

'Miracles' and hope: Stampede spotlights India's craze for godmen

Gurus in India are often called godmen, and their patrons have included international celebrities like the Beatles.
A Palestinian casts his shadow on a damaged wall as he inspects the site of an Israeli strike outside a school sheltering displaced people in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on Wednesday.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Jul 11, 2024

Gaza airstrike hits gathering at school soccer match, witnesses say

The Israeli military said the strike, which Palestinian officials said killed at least 29 people, targeted a Hamas fighter who took part in the Oct. 7 raid on Israel.
Renderings of Saudi Arabia's Neom project in the window of a pop-up store
WORLD / Politics
Jul 12, 2024

Saudi prince’s trillion-dollar makeover faces funding cutbacks

Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, is close to completing a sweeping review of megaprojects.
Durian Lollobrigida and his co-hosts — actors Megumi and Chiaki Horan, singer Thelma Aoyama and former “Terrace House” panelist Yoshimi Tokui — offer in-studio commentary on the contestants’ footage in Netflix’s new reality dating show, “The Boyfriend.”
CULTURE / TV & Streaming
Jul 13, 2024

'The Boyfriend' host Durian Lollobrigida puts a face to queer joy

Involvement in Netflix's new reality dating show is just the latest success in the Japanese drag queen's rise.
Akiko Trush says her experience with the neurological disorder dystonia left her feeling like she wanted to chop her own hand off.
JAPAN / Science & Health / Longform
Jul 14, 2024

The neurological disorder that 'kills culture'

Great pianists aren't made overnight, it takes years of practice. It can all be undone in a matter of days, however, due to a medical condition called dystonia.
Goki Kusunoki, CEO and co-founder of Samansa, with the company's Loverse app in Tokyo on May 10. The app allows interaction only with generative artificial intelligence.
BUSINESS
Jul 21, 2024

Tiny Japanese startup is bringing AI dating to the masses

Loverse is the latest in a long line of digital solutions to Japan’s loneliness crisis.
A passerby holding a parasol wipes her face as she walks on the street amid a heatstroke alert in Tokyo and other prefectures, in Tokyo on July 9.
JAPAN / Science & Health / Boiling Point
Jul 19, 2024

How to prevent and respond to heatstroke in Japan this summer

Staying hydrated and controlling the rise in one's body temperature are the fundamental ways for preventing and alleviating heat-related illnesses.
U.S. President Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama attend a campaign fundraiser at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles on June 15.
WORLD / Politics
Jul 20, 2024

Secluded at beach house, Biden stews at allies’ pressure to drop out

He considers former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as the main instigator but is irritated at ex-President Barack Obama, seeing him as a puppet master behind the scenes.
As childish as Ryokan may have been, human suffering wrung his heart. A portrait of the monk and calligraphy by him are shown here. (Ink on paper; early 19th century; replica before 1970)
JAPAN / History / The Living Past
Jul 21, 2024

Ryokan and us: 'How wide! How boundless!'

The Edo Period monk could see the world through a child's eyes, maybe even those of a child from our modern era.
The misinterpretation of data on guns and self-defense in the United States highlights how studies may overstate the benefits while downplaying risks and unintended consequences.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 21, 2024

Guns aren’t as good for self-defense as America thinks

Like other public health crises, gun violence has been studied and scientists have data pointing to ways the carnage can be reduced.
One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
PODCAST / deep dive
Jul 22, 2024

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Homeless influencers, fantasy boyfriends and bubble-era bars — Kabukicho seems to have it all.
Bank of Japan officials are divided over whether to raise interest rates at a policy meeting next week, people familiar with the matter say.
BUSINESS / Economy
Jul 23, 2024

BOJ is said to see weak consumer spending complicating rate call

Weak consumer spending has prompted the government to cut its fiscal year growth forecast to 0.9%, with central bank likely lowering its projection to 0.5%.

Longform

Sumadori Bar on Shibuya Ward's main Center Gai street targets young customers who prefer low-alcohol drinks or abstain altogether.
Rethinking that second drink: Japan’s Gen Z gets ‘sober curious’