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Akira Otsuka (left) and Miki Tamaki formed the performing arts troupe DamaDamTal in 2016. They have performed in every edition of the Nakanojo Biennale in Gunma Prefecture since 2017 and credit the festival as a source of inspiration for new productions.
CULTURE / Stage
Oct 4, 2023

DamaDamTal turns abstract dreams into visual art

The Japanese performing arts troupe led by Miki Tamaki and Akira Otsuka gets creative in the mountains of rural Gunma Prefecture at Nakanojo Biennale.
The Justice Ministry is considering revising the law that requires wills to be handwritten so that people can write them on computers and smartphones.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Oct 4, 2023

Japan considers law revision to allow computer-written wills

The Justice Ministry hopes that not requiring wills to be handwritten will both ease the burden of creating the documents and promote their use.
JAPAN / Politics
Oct 4, 2023

Children's agency chief Ayuko Kato vows to tackle falling birthrate

One of the aims of the agency is to help implement the Children's Future Strategy, a plan that was announced as a way to reverse the declining birthrate.
The Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara temple where Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar was killed in June in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada
WORLD / Politics / FOCUS
Oct 4, 2023

India's spies infiltrated West long before Canada's murder claim

Canada's recent allegations have thrust India's secretive Research and Analysis Wing into the global spotlight.
Marine ecologist Salvador Jorgensen and his research assistant Dylan Moran observe a shark basking off a beach in central California.
ENVIRONMENT / Wildlife
Oct 4, 2023

Climate change draws great white sharks north, threatening ecosystem

The main risk from these predators is not to swimmers and surfers, but to otters.
An office lobby floor inside the new high-rise building Station Tower at Toranomon Hills
BUSINESS / Companies
Oct 4, 2023

Toranomon area continues to rise as Tokyo’s business hub

The massive Toranomon Hills project has helped the area become one of Tokyo's major business centers.
A prescription injector for Ozempic, a weight loss drug
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 4, 2023

Ozempic cuts alcohol cravings. Liquor companies aren’t ready.

A survey conducted by Morgan Stanley’s AlphaWise research unit found that people consumed 62% less alcohol while taking weight loss drugs.
A new study defines some critical differences in certain biomarkers of people with long COVID.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 4, 2023

Long COVID is real. Now the evidence is piling up.

In what the researchers believe is a first, they did a detailed study of the differences between people with long COVID and those who are healthy.
Sake master Daisuke Suzuki (right) and a staff member sort rice at his brewery in Namie, Fukushima Prefecture, on Sept. 1.
LIFE / Food & Drink
Oct 8, 2023

Fukushima sake brewer warms shattered fishing community

A local sake maker has returned to Namie, Fukushima Prefecture, years after disaster wiped out its brewery there.
A woman walks past a market in the southern Lebanese city of Sidon. Lebanon is one of nine Arab nations using an algorithm-powered poverty assessment formula funded by the World Bank that ranks welfare applicants according to dozens of different data points.
WORLD / Society
Oct 5, 2023

In Middle East, poor excluded from welfare by 'faulty' algorithms

Around the world, 40 countries use an algorithm-powered poverty assessment formula funded by the World Bank to rank welfare applicants.
Rows of sequins affixed to Faig Ahmed’s “Door to Yourself” gives the work its sparkle.
CULTURE / Art
Oct 6, 2023

Oku-Noto Triennale brings art into stark relief against rocks and sea

Taking place in the remote city of Suzu, Ishikawa Prefecture, the contemporary art event's pretty program aims to instill pride in the local community.
Police officers work to control a crowd gathering to celebrate Halloween in the Shibuya district of Tokyo on Oct. 31, 2022.
JAPAN / Society
Oct 5, 2023

Shibuya mayor vows to keep things civil as Halloween nears

The mayor made headlines last month when he told would-be partiers to stay away from the Tokyo ward this year for the occasion, citing safety concerns.
Volunteers work at a Salvation Army mobile health clinic in Montreal on Sept. 22. Canada, despite being a wealthy nation, is gripped by a surge in homelessness that has seen thousands of people living in the streets after being priced out of real estate and rental markets.
WORLD / Society
Oct 5, 2023

Homelessness explodes in Canada as rents and housing prices soar

Researchers warn government data is vastly underestimating the number of homeless across the country.
Taiwan has become a hot spot that is capable of precipitating a military conflict between China and the United States, and possibly even a nuclear war.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 5, 2023

Applying Chinese wisdom to resolve the Taiwan issue

Some 70 years after the Chinese Civil war ended, do the winners of that war still think that violence is the way to achieve unification with Taiwan?
French President Emmanuel Macron arrives to greets Finland's Prime Minister at the Elysee Palace in Paris on Wednesday.
WORLD / Politics
Oct 5, 2023

With subtler engagement, Macron refashions himself as EU linchpin

In areas ranging from defense to industrial policy, officials familiar with Europe's inner workings say Macron is calling the shots as rarely before.
Buildings in Xiamen, China, seen from Kinmen, Taiwan
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Oct 6, 2023

Even China's closest supporters in Taiwan are turning wary

The shifting attitudes reflect a generational change, with younger people wanting to protect freedom and democracy.
U.K. Prime Minster Rishi Sunak, left, and his wife Akshata Murty, on the closing day of the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester on Wednesday
WORLD / Politics
Oct 6, 2023

Seeking everyman image, U.K. PM Rishi Sunak taps Indian heritage

Sunak’s rise to power in a country that until 1947 ruled India as a colony has seen little of the fanfare that accompanied the first Black U.S. president.
The Feels, a new kind of dating event for New York singles, fast-tracks intimacy by fusing mindfulness practices like meditation, unnaturally long eye contact and even feeling each other’s heartbeats.
LIFE / Lifestyle
Oct 7, 2023

Out with speed dating, in with speed intimacy

The event, known as the Feels, fast-tracks intimacy through meditation, unnaturally long eye contact and even feeling each other’s heartbeats.
A mother sits next to her daughter while she receives treatment for dengue fever in Dhaka on Tuesday. More than 1,000 people in Bangladesh have died of dengue fever this year, the country's worst recorded outbreak of the mosquito-borne disease.
ASIA PACIFIC / Science & Health
Oct 6, 2023

Bangladesh swamped by record deaths from dengue fever

More than 1,000 people have died this year in the nation's worst recorded spate of the mosquito-borne disease, with climate change playing a role.
Rahm Emanuel, U.S. ambassador to Japan, and Ann Burroughs, president and CEO of the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, discuss the importance of preserving the history of interned Japanese Americans.
CULTURE / Art
Oct 6, 2023

U.S. ambassador honors artworks by interned Japanese Americans

“This is not a great moment for America, and we have to own it,” Rahm Emanuel said at a reception in Tokyo.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman
BUSINESS / Companies
Oct 6, 2023

ChatGPT-owner OpenAI is exploring making its own AI chips: sources

Obstacles include a shortage of the advanced processors and the 'eye-watering' costs associated with running the hardware.
South Korean writer Eun Seo-ran
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Oct 6, 2023

Adopt a friend: South Korean writer's unusual route to family

Single-person households now account for 41% of all households, official figures show — with that set to grow in coming decades.
Boxes of Ozempic, a semaglutide injection drug made by Novo Nordisk
WORLD / Science & Health
Oct 6, 2023

Popular weight loss drugs linked to higher risk of certain serious gastrointestinal problems

The drug type was associated with significantly higher risks of stomach paralysis, pancreatitis and bowel obstruction.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump in a courtroom during proceedings for his civil fraud trial in New York on Wednesday.
WORLD
Oct 7, 2023

The key nuclear secrets Trump allegedly leaked

Trump gave key details on the U.S. Navy’s elite submarine fleet to an Australian billionaire, according to reports.
Bianca Vara, a Democrat and grandmother of five, at the flea market where she runs a stall in Chamblee, Georgia, on Thursday. American voters’ broad discontent with the disarray in Washington transcends political parties, race, age and geography. "Disgust isn’t a strong enough word,” said Vara.
WORLD
Oct 7, 2023

Americans are too turned off by Washington to even complain

Griping about politics is a time-honored American pastime — but lately, the country’s political mood has plunged to some of the worst levels on record.
In principle, children can be admitted to children's homes if they are at least 1 year old and can stay in the facilities until the end of the fiscal year in which they turn 22 years old.
JAPAN / Society
Oct 10, 2023

Japan to scrap upper age limit for use of children's homes

Currently, residents are required to move out of the facilities by the end of the fiscal year in which they turn 22 years old.
A man carrying shovels walks along an area affected by a flood near the bank of the Teesta River in Singtam, Sikkim, India, on Thursday.
ASIA PACIFIC
Oct 7, 2023

A calamitous flood shows the dangers lurking in melting glaciers

At least 26 people were killed in the tiny state of Sikkim. But as much as the disaster was a shock, it was hardly a surprise.
Smoke rises in the aftermath of rocket barrages that were launched from Gaza, in Ashkelon, Israel, on Saturday.
WORLD / Politics
Oct 7, 2023

Israel 'at war' as Hamas launches surprise attack from Gaza

The Islamist group's attack — which saw gunmen crossing the border and a barrage of rockets — was the biggest in years against Israel.
British Labour Party leader Keir Starmer speaks to reporters in Wakefield, England, in 2022.
WORLD / Politics
Oct 7, 2023

Britain's Keir Starmer plots painstaking path to power

Taking lessons from center-left parties in Australia and Germany, Starmer has imbued Labour with a cautious and methodical approach.
People standing on a rooftop watch as a ball of fire and smoke rises above a building in Gaza City, Gaza Strip, on Saturday during an Israeli airstrike.
WORLD / Politics
Oct 8, 2023

Israel battles Hamas as PM warns of 'long and difficult war'

Israel said tens of thousands of soldiers were deployed to fight militants and rescue hostages, and then evacuate the entire region within 24 hours.

Longform

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