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Firefighters battle a wildfire in Ofunato, Iwate Prefecture, on Thursday.
JAPAN
Mar 6, 2025

Wildfire slows in Iwate as government announces relief support

The city saw 26.5 millimeters of rain on Wednesday, far exceeding the 2.5mm total for the entire month of February.
Former Executive Vice President Ichiro Takekuro enters the Tokyo High Court for the appellate court ruling in January 2023 in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Mar 6, 2025

Acquittal of two former Tepco executives to be finalized

The Supreme Court supported the lower courts' decisions that the accident was unpredictable and decided to dismiss an appeal by lawyers acting as prosecutors.
Wealthier women in the prewar era had been the targets of various media-related health campaigns that mistakenly encouraged them to avoid everything from riding bicycles to reading novels when their monthly cycles came around.
JAPAN / Science & Health / Longform
Mar 7, 2025

Menstruation in Japan: Breaking the silence, slowly

Despite longstanding taboos, evolving attitudes toward women's health highlight shifting cultural norms.
Nippon Ishin no Kai co-leader Seiji Maehara (left) greets Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba after the budget was passed at the Lower House — with the support of the opposition party — on Tuesday.
JAPAN / Politics
Mar 7, 2025

Is Nippon Ishin the ruling LDP-Komeito coalition's friend or foe?

The party is juggling between supporting the ruling coalition in return for some of its policies being realized, and opposing them to win votes.
Fenerbahce coach Jose Mourinho reacts during a Europa League match against Rangers in Istanbul on Thursday.
SOCCER
Mar 7, 2025

Fenerbahce coach Jose Mourinho denies racism allegations

Fenerbahce said Mourinho's comments were taken out of context.
Couche-Tard has made clear that it wants to learn from Seven & I Holdings to improve its North America operation, and has ruled out going hostile in takeover talks.
BUSINESS / Companies
Mar 7, 2025

Couche-Tard holds talks for sale of U.S. shops in Seven & I deal

The retailer last year proposed to purchase Seven & I Holdings for $18.19 per share, but so far hasn’t been able to enter negotiations with the firm.
Hiroko Nagano, a former member of the assembly of Tokyo's Toshima Ward, speaks during an interview in Tokyo in January.
JAPAN / Politics
Mar 7, 2025

Female assembly members with children seeing better work conditions

As of July 2024, there were 5,187 female municipal assembly members in the country, or only 17.9% of the total, however.
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.
“The Place of Shells” takes place mostly in Gottingen, Germany, where both the author and the book's narrator live, while also jumping both geographically and temporally to Sendai, Japan, through memories of the 3/11 disaster and its aftermath.
CULTURE / Books
Mar 10, 2025

Grief ebbs and flows between two tragedies in 'The Place of Shells'

Mai Ishizawa’s debut novel, which won one of the three Akutagawa Prizes awarded in 2021, is also her first to be released in English, translated by Polly Barton.
Supporters of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol hold placards showing a picture of Yoon during a rally near the Constitutional Court in Seoul on Feb. 25.
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal
Mar 7, 2025

South Korean court says Yoon can leave jail

The Seoul Central District Court accepted Yoon’s complaint against his arrest, it said Friday in a text message.
The illuminated advertising board of a host club in Tokyo's Kabukicho entertainment district. The bill approved by the government on Friday aims to ban hosts from emotionally manipulating customers into making excessive purchases — a common tactic in the industry.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Mar 7, 2025

Japan looks to crack down on host club exploitation with tighter regulations

Police received 2,776 consultations nationwide related to host clubs last year, with many involving women coerced into sex work to cover unpaid bills.
Joao Fonseca hits a shot during his first-round match against Jacob Fearnley at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, California, on Thursday.
TENNIS
Mar 7, 2025

Brazilian teenager Joao Fonseca delivers in Indian Wells debut

Fonseca, ranked 80th in the world, enjoyed the vocal support of the boisterous Brazilian fans on hand for the match at the ATP 1000 event.
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.
Ukraine has become a leader in drone warfare, particularly with its innovative use of first-person view drones. These drones have proven highly effective in targeting Russian military equipment and ammunition depots.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 6, 2025

Breaking down Ukraine’s true value

With the U.S. now increasingly acting in Russia’s interests, supporting Ukraine is not just a moral imperative for Europe, it is an existential one.
Actress Mana Ashida during a news conference in Tokyo on Thursday. The U.N. Development Program has picked Ashida as domestic goodwill ambassador for Japan.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Mar 7, 2025

Japan actress Mana Ashida named UNDP goodwill ambassador

Ashida will be in charge of promotional activities in Japan mainly related to the fight against climate change and other environmental challenges.
Students walk through the University of Pennsylvania campus. It has been reported that the U.S. State Department will use artificial intelligence to revoke the visas of foreign students who it perceives as supporters of Palestinian Hamas militants.
WORLD
Mar 7, 2025

Reported U.S. plan to use AI to revoke student visas sparks alarm

Axios reported that a "Catch and Revoke" effort will include AI-assisted reviews of tens of thousands of student visa holders' social media accounts.
US President Donald Trump listens to a reporter as he speaks from the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on Friday.
WORLD / Politics
Mar 8, 2025

Trump threatens Russia with sanctions until Ukraine peace reached

Trump's threat of banking curbs and tariffs followed a report Monday that the White House was preparing to give Russia possible sanctions relief as part of the push to end the war.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks to members of Iran's air force in Tehran in February.
WORLD / Politics
Mar 8, 2025

Trump says he sent Iran leader letter urging nuclear talks

Trump said that while he isn’t ruling out a military intervention, he would "rather negotiate a deal.”
A demonstrator holds a sign with a picture of death row inmate Brad Sigmon outside the South Carolina Department of Corrections following his execution by firing squad, at the Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia, South Carolina, on Friday.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Mar 8, 2025

South Carolina carries out first firing squad execution in U.S. in 15 years

The convicted murderer said he feared the alternatives of the electric chair or lethal injection would risk a slower and more torturous death.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba speaks to reporters in Tokyo on Friday about his decision to cancel plans to raise the ceiling on out-of-pocket expenses for high-cost medical care.
JAPAN / Politics
Mar 8, 2025

Ishiba cancels planned August medical expense cap hike

It is the third time the Ishiba administration has changed its policy on the high-cost medical care system.
U.S. President Donald Trump gestures as he walks to board Marine One, while departing the White House en route to Florida, in Washington, on Friday.
JAPAN
Mar 8, 2025

Majority in Japan expect stronger economic ties under Trump

Also in the survey, 81.5% said they strongly or somewhat agree that the security environment in East Asia is becoming more severe.
South Korean impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol reacts outside the Seoul detention center after his release, in Uiwang, South Korea, on Saturday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Mar 8, 2025

South Korea's impeached President Yoon released from detention

The suspended president walked out of the detention center smiling, before bowing deeply to a small crowd of cheering supporters.
Iran's Russian-built Bushehr nuclear power plant in the south of the country
WORLD
Mar 9, 2025

Trump administration ends Iraq's waiver to buy Iranian electricity

Trump restored "maximum pressure" on Iran in one of his first acts after returning to office in January.
Shigeru Ishiba, the prime minister and president of the Liberal Democratic Party, shakes hands with one of the party's candidates for the upcoming Upper House election during the party's annual convention in Tokyo on Sunday.
JAPAN / Politics
Mar 10, 2025

Ishiba vows all-out election fight at LDP convention

The triennial Upper House election comes after the LDP-Komeito ruling coalition lost its majority in the Lower House in last year's general election.
Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan leader Yoshihiko Noda attends a news conference on Friday.
JAPAN / Politics
Mar 9, 2025

CDP leadership faces growing internal frustration

Due to the CDP's lackluster performance, a party source said, "We can't compete in (this summer's) House of Councilors election if we don't do anything."
Cyclone Alfred weakened into a tropical depression Saturday as it neared the rain and wind-lashed eastern coast of Australia where hundreds of thousands of properties were without power.
ASIA PACIFIC
Mar 9, 2025

Wild weather leaves mass blackouts in Australia

Wild weather has blacked out more than 300,000 homes and businesses on Australia's east coast, officials said Sunday.
Personal items that were collected after the Great East Japan Earthquake in March 2011 are on display at a facility in the city of Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture.
JAPAN
Mar 9, 2025

Municipalities to end storage of personal items collected after 3/11

When asked what is needed to continue storing collected personal items, 16 municipalities cited the need for storage and display space, while 10 mentioned budget constraints.
Italian President Sergio Mattarella lays flowers on Saturday before the cenotaph for the victims of the 1945 atomic bombing at Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima.
JAPAN
Mar 9, 2025

Italian president lays flowers at Hiroshima Peace Park

The president observed a moment of silent in front of the cenotaph and then toured the park, accompanied by Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui.
The massive wildfire that broke out in Ofunato, Iwate Prefecture, on Feb. 26 has been contained, the city declared Sunday.
JAPAN
Mar 9, 2025

Massive Iwate wildfire, the nation's largest in half a century, is contained

The wildfire engulfed about 2,900 hectares — around half the size of Manhattan — making it Japan's largest in more than 50 years.
A soldier stands guard at a roundabout in Latakia, Syria, on Sunday. Syrian President Ahmed Sharaa called for national unity and peace after more than 1,000 people were reportedly killed in clashes in coastal regions of the country.
WORLD
Mar 9, 2025

Syria's new leader calls for peace as communal clashes continue

More than 1,000 people had been killed in the two days of fighting in the Mediterranean coastal region in some of the worst violence for years in a 13-year-old civil conflict.

Longform

A small shrine perched atop rocks braves the waves hitting the shoreline during a storm in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture. The area is under threat of a possible 31-meter-high tsunami if an earthquake strikes the nearby Nankai Trough.
If the 'Big One' hits, this city could face a 31-meter-high tsunami