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The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Feb 26, 2025

Japanese authorities raise alarm over rise in fake police phone scams

Tokyo police rearrested a man suspected of being involved in multiple scams and released a voice recording in hopes of raising awareness.
Lawyers advising in a racial profiling case speak during a news conference on Wednesday in Tokyo.
JAPAN / Society
Feb 26, 2025

About 70% of foreign nationals questioned by police on the streets: survey

The survey was believed to be the first conducted comparing police questioning between foreign nationals and Japanese on the issue.
A 7-Eleven convenience store, operated by Seven & I Holdings, in Tokyo
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 26, 2025

Seven & I buyout talks stall over management control

The founding Ito family and Itochu have yet to reach consensus on the composition of the board of the post-buyout entity, sources said.
Noonoo, a chihuahua dressed in a T-shirt that reads "BRAT," takes part in the Halloween Dog Parade in New York last year.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Feb 28, 2025

Brats, rebels and rascals: Finding the right word for mischievous kids

Charli XCX’s idea of “brat” doesn’t translate neatly into Japanese, but there are other words for playful rebellion.
Kwek Leng Beng, chairman of City Developments Ltd., attends a news conference in Singapore in 2019.
BUSINESS
Feb 27, 2025

Father-son feud plunges Singapore’s richest clan into crisis

At stake in the feud is control of a major slice of an $18 billion family empire spanning property development to hospitality and finance.
U.S. President Donald Trump, flanked by Secretary of State Marco Rubio (left) and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, attends a Cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington on Wednesday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Feb 27, 2025

Trump declines to say if U.S. would protect Taiwan from Chinese invasion

Trump's refusal to comment stood in stark contrast to his predecessor, Joe Biden, who repeatedly hinted that Washington would come to Taipei’s aid.
Tech mogul Elon Musk speaks during U.S. President Donald Trump’s first Cabinet meeting in the White House in Washington on Wednesday.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 27, 2025

Musk’s Cabinet cameo: The elephant in the room wore black

The billionaire tech mogul spoke far more than anyone else, other than the U.S. president, attempting to manage both up and down at the same time.
The number of fatal bicycle accidents and those causing serious injury that were attributed to cyclists' mobile phone use totaled 28 in 2024, a record high. Similarly, the number of such accidents involving cars driven by drivers distracted by mobile phones rose to the highest on record, at 136 cases.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Feb 27, 2025

Accidents caused by distracted drivers hit record high in 2024

A total of 136 fatal car accidents and those resulting in serious injury due to mobile phone use were recorded last year, the highest since at least 2007.
A wildfire spreads in Ofunato, Iwate Prefecture, on Wednesday, prompting authorities to order more than 2,000 people to be evacuated.
JAPAN
Feb 27, 2025

At least one dead, 84 homes destroyed in Iwate Prefecture wildfire

This is the third wildfire in Iwate Prefecture in the past week, as dry weather continues.
Multinational victims of scam centers, who were trafficked into working in Myanmar and were sent to Thailand, queue for food at a shelter as they wait for their embassies to pick them up, in Tak province, Thailand, on Feb. 19.
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal
Feb 27, 2025

'Contemplated suicide': Ethiopians recount horror of Southeast Asia scam centers

The complexes have flourished across the region, often staffed by foreigners who are made to swindle people in what analysts say is a multibillion-dollar industry.
Victims of scam centers who were tricked or trafficked into working in Myanmar, are stuck in limbo at a compound in Myawaddy, Myanmar, on Wednesday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal / EXPLAINER
Feb 28, 2025

Southeast Asia's latest scam center crackdown

Here's a look at why the crackdown is happening now and the broader implications for relations between China, Thailand and Myanmar.
The computers and smartphones seized by the Metropolitan Police Department on Thursday in Tokyo's Bunkyo Ward
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Feb 28, 2025

Three teens arrested over fraudulent subscriptions to Rakuten Mobile

Police believe the suspects obtained at least about 2,500 subscriptions and sold them for a total of about ¥7.5 million in crypto assets.
An immigration detention center in Bangkok. A group of Uyghurs were sent to China in accordance with international standards, Thailand's defense minister said, in Thailand's first confirmation of the deportation.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Feb 28, 2025

Thailand sends 40 Uyghurs back to China after decade in detention

Rights experts warned that the Uyghurs were at risk of torture, ill-treatment and "irreparable harm" if returned.
Keio University in Tokyo's Minato Ward. The university's ethics committee has approved clinical research that would lead to the first uterine transplant procedure in Japan.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Feb 28, 2025

Keio University ethics panel OKs uterus transplant clinical trial

The university will consider whether to carry out the research, which would be the first uterine transplant procedure in Japan.
A screen shows news footage of plane debris at the site where a China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737-800 plane crashed in the Chinese city of Wuzhou, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, in March 2022.
WORLD / ANALYSIS
Feb 28, 2025

Air safety reporting under scrutiny as crashes lie unresolved

Almost half of 268 accidents involving fatalities or major damage between 2018 and the end of 2023 lack a final report.
The luxury Seven Stars in Kyushu train trades the hyper-efficiency of typical rail travel in Japan for a slower, more decadent version.
LIFE / Travel
Mar 1, 2025

Aboard Japan’s most luxurious train, the journey is the destination

For those with yen to burn, the Seven Stars in Kyushu is one of the most luxurious ways to experience some of southern Japan’s best hidden gems.
The site of a sinkhole in Yashio City, Saitama Prefecture, on Tuesday as recovery work continues.
JAPAN
Feb 28, 2025

A month on, still no timeline for Saitama sinkhole restoration work

With efforts to find a driver who fell in expected to take about three months, there is no concrete timeline in place on when such work can begin.
The peloton rides from Florence to Rimini, Italy, during the first stage of the 2024 Tour de France.
MORE SPORTS
Feb 28, 2025

For Tour de France, foreign starts make financial sense

The Barcelona start will be the 27th non-French starting location since the Tour first went on the road internationally in Amsterdam in 1954.
A screenshot from a video posted by the Fire and Disaster Management Agency on X on Friday shows firefighters trying to put out the fire in Ofunato, Iwate Prefecture.
JAPAN
Feb 28, 2025

Wildfire in Iwate rages on as unusually dry weather continues

The size of the affected area has doubled in less than two days.
The government adopted a bill to help prevent cases of human rights abuses and other malicious activities related to the use of artificial intelligence but without hindering businesses' willingness to develop the technology.
JAPAN
Feb 28, 2025

New bill lets government publicize names of firms who maliciously use AI

The bill doesn't include "excessive regulations" that could impede technological innovation, the science and technology policy minister said.
China's recent naval exercises near Australia and New Zealand, though legal, highlight Beijing’s growing reach and willingness to test other nations' responses.
EDITORIALS
Feb 28, 2025

China pushes the military envelope with power projections

This week, Chinese ships conducted military exercises, including live-fire drills, in waters near Australia and New Zealand. While legal, the moves expose its hypocrisy.
People take photos of the Shinjuku Alta building on Friday evening.
JAPAN / Society
Feb 28, 2025

Shinjuku Alta closes its doors after 45 years

The shopping complex near the JR Shinjuku Station served as a de facto meeting point for many in one of Tokyo’s busiest entertainment districts.
A sign directs people to a measles testing center in Gaines County, Texas, on Tuesday. A measles outbreak in West Texas and New Mexico is sparking fears of worsening public health crisis in the United States. 
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 27, 2025

Texas measles outbreak was entirely avoidable

"It’s more contagious than COVID, more contagious than the flu, more contagious than Ebola,” says Paul Offit, of Philadelphia's Vaccine Education Center.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown, Jr. by his side, speaks with the media during his first official arrival at the Pentagon to take his new post on Jan. 27.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 28, 2025

Firing top generals makes the U.S. less secure

How should we think about this rare purge at the very top of the uniformed military? Is it unprecedented?
U.S. President Donald Trump meets with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House in Washington on Friday.
WORLD / Politics
Mar 1, 2025

Trump kicks Zelenskyy out of White House after Oval Office meltdown

The ugly clash in the Oval Office saw Trump and Vice President JD Vance berate the Ukraine leader for not being "thankful" for U.S. help in the three-year war against Russia.
U.S. President Donald Trump meets with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy as Vice President JD Vance looks on in the Oval Office of the White House on Friday in Washington.
WORLD / Politics / FOCUS
Mar 1, 2025

How Trump and Zelenskyy’s Oval Office skirmish broke a deal

An account of a remarkable and heated Oval Office exchange that seems certain to color the course of world history for decades to come.
Disaster was the word European officials used as Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s long-sought meeting with Donald Trump descended into a livestream of raised voices and angry bickering.
WORLD / Politics
Mar 1, 2025

Zelenskyy-Trump blowup leaves U.S. allies facing disaster

Kyiv’s European allies, who’ve spent weeks trying to talk Trump out of rushing into a quick deal to end the war on Putin’s terms, were aghast.
Tsuyoshi Mizukoshi, owner of a pub in Nishiogi’s commercial area, is a community organizer who is rallying local residents against the road development plan.
COMMUNITY / Issues
Mar 3, 2025

Redevelopment and resistance in historic Nishiogikubo

Stakeholders in Suginami Ward have been fighting against a road development plan for some years — but economic forces are already transforming the neighborhood.
A photo released by the Australia Defense Force showed an Australian Navy ship in the foreground and two Chinese navy ships in the Tasman Sea in February.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Mar 1, 2025

China’s military puts Pacific on notice as U.S. priorities shift

While Washington is consumed with other matters, from Ukraine and the Middle East to budget cuts at the Pentagon, China keeps pressing.
Shoppers walk through a shopping area in Shanghai. China's household spending is less than 40% of annual economic output, some 20 percentage points below the global average.
BUSINESS / Economy / ANALYSIS
Mar 1, 2025

China urged to think big, go hard on reviving battered consumption

With China's consumer support focusing on subsidies rather than reforms, pressure is growing on Beijing for policies with a longer-term impact.

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