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Hoshoryu holds up the latest "banzuke" sumo ranking chart in Osaka on Tuesday.
SUMO / INSIDE SUMO
Feb 26, 2025

Latest sumo ranking sheet has plenty to catch the eye

The release of every new "banzuke," or ranking list, signals the imminent arrival of the next official tournament — and the latest has some striking changes.
Nuns pose for a photo in the rain in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican on Saturday, ahead of a prayer service as Pope Francis continues his hospitalization.
WORLD
Mar 2, 2025

Pope Francis remains stable, has not had new breathing crisis, Vatican says

The 88-year-old pontiff suffered a constriction of his respiratory airways on Friday, akin to an asthma attack, renewing concerns over his well-being.
Lithuania will become the first country in the EU to leave a multilateral arms regulation agreement when it withdraws on March 6.
WORLD / Politics
Mar 4, 2025

Lithuania to walk out on global disarmament treaty

Lithuania's controversial move comes at a time of heightened tensions in international relations over its neighbor Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Netflix reality show “K-foodie meets J-foodie” follows South Korean YouTuber Sung Si-kyung and Japanese actor Yutaka Matsushige as they share meals in their respective countries.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming
Mar 6, 2025

Can a meal make you besties? ‘K-foodie meets J-foodie’ says yes.

The new Netflix show pairs a Korean crooner and a Japanese food icon for a cross-cultural food rally.
While you need to pass over cash for taxes, don't fall for scams that trick you into paying what you don't owe.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Mar 6, 2025

Scams, taxes and tariffs: It's that time of year.

Financial scams abound in Japan and a new one uses tax-related terminology.
“May You Have Delicious Meals” focuses on a trio of young office workers at the same workplace who have mixed feelings for food and each other.
CULTURE / Books
Mar 8, 2025

‘May You Have Delicious Meals’: The ugly taste of office and gender politics

The English-language debut of Junko Takase’s Akutagawa Prize-winning novel serves complex prose in translation by Morgan Giles.
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.
Ai Narabayashi, a member of the editorial department of Iwanami Shoten, the publisher of dictionary "Kojien," speaks during an interview in Tokyo in February.  Narabayashi said the dictionary has the duty to record the Japanese language without hiding anything and accurately explain the meaning behind words and phrases.
JAPAN / Society
Mar 7, 2025

Why an iconic Japanese dictionary chooses to retain misogynistic words

Publisher Iwanami Shoten considers it a duty for its "Kojien" dictionary to record and accurately explain the meaning and background of words and phrases.
A heron flies over the bustling Ver-o-Peso market, in Belem, Para state, Brazil, near the site of the COP30 Summit, which will be held in November.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Mar 10, 2025

BRICS' climate leadership aims hang on healing deep divides

Diverging national interests among BRICS nations — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — may also prove sticking points.
Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer takes part in a television interview at the Capitol in Washington on Friday.
WORLD / Politics
Mar 15, 2025

Relief as U.S. Congress averts government shutdown

Lawmakers already reeling from President Donald Trump's radical federal spending cuts voted to keep the lights on through September.
AMKK’s latest exhibition, “X-Ray Flowers,” is the culmination of seven years of work aided by CT technologists, who help with the highly specialized imaging techniques.
CULTURE / Art
Mar 21, 2025

Avant-garde botanists AMKK illuminate the inner worlds of flowers

The punk florists' latest exhibition immerses visitors in darkness, bathed only in the glow of X-rays and CT scans of plants and flowers.
San Francisco-based OpenAI sees the new studies as a way to get a better sense of how people interact with, and are affected by, its popular chatbot.
BUSINESS / Tech
Mar 22, 2025

OpenAI study finds links between ChatGPT use and loneliness

Those who spent more time typing or speaking with ChatGPT each day tended to report higher levels of emotional dependence on the chatbot.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth walks to the West Wing of the White House on March 21. Hegseth disclosed war plans in an encrypted chat group that included a journalist two hours before U.S. troops launched attacks against the Houthi militia in Yemen, the White House said on Monday.
WORLD / Politics
Mar 25, 2025

White House mistakenly shares Yemen war plans with journalist

The plans were shared in a Signal messaging group that included a journalist from The Atlantic just before the U.S. attacked Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen.
Sachiyo Harada's latest cookbook is filled with simple recipes alongside step-by-step pictures that would make cooking a fuss-free affair for beginners.
LIFE / Food & Drink
Mar 30, 2025

Feast your eyes on 'The Complete Illustrated Guide to Japanese Cooking'

In “The Complete Illustrated Guide to Japanese Cooking,” Sachiyo Harada has put together an uncomplicated book that appeals to both home cooks and seasoned chefs.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks at a news conference in Kyiv on Friday.
WORLD / Politics
Mar 29, 2025

Zelenskyy cautious on dramatically expanded U.S. minerals deal

The U.S. proposal would require Kyiv to send Washington all profit from a fund controlling Ukrainian resources until Ukraine had repaid all U.S. wartime aid, plus interest.
Christian worshippers take part in a Good Friday procession as they carry a cross with a Jesus statue in the town of Klayaa, in southern Lebanon, on March 29, 2024.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 31, 2025

Can the Jesus of history support the Christ of faith?

I would not expect a non-Christian writer to simply embrace the thesis that events in the New Testament did mostly happen as related.
A ship fires missiles at an undisclosed location, after U.S. President Donald Trump launched military strikes against Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis on Saturday over the group's attacks against Red Sea shipping, in this screenshot of a handout video released on March 15.
WORLD / Politics
Apr 1, 2025

White House says strikes killed Houthi missile expert, but questions linger

The U.S. military has so far declined to confirm the death, and the identity of the Houthi commander in question remains unclear.
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.
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.
Associated Press photographer Alex Brandon is denied access to the White House "press pool" as journalists move to U.S. President Donald Trump's motorcade at the White House in Washington on Tuesday.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Apr 9, 2025

Judge lifts Trump White House restrictions on AP while lawsuit proceeds

The White House imposed restrictions on the Associated Press over the news agency’s decision to continue to refer to the Gulf of Mexico in its coverage.
The Japan Coast Guard has introduced Starlink, a high-speed satellite internet service, on some of its patrol vessels.
JAPAN
Apr 9, 2025

Starlink brings internet to Japan Coast Guard ships in bid for new blood

The JCG hopes the upgrade will help appeal to younger generations amid growing concerns over rising retirement numbers and declining recruitment.
A U.S. security report cites DeepSeek’s ties to Chinese government interests as "significant.”
WORLD / Politics
Apr 17, 2025

DeepSeek poses ‘profound’ security threat, U.S. house panel claims

The committee urged Nvidia to hand over information on sales of chips that the Chinese startup may have used to develop its breakthrough chatbot model.
On the 28th floor of the Waldorf Astoria Osaka, the Peacock Lounge exemplifies the art deco decadence the brand has become synonymous with.
LIFE / Travel
Apr 19, 2025

Japan’s first Waldorf Astoria brings art deco luxury to Osaka

Stays at the Waldorf Astoria Osaka start at ¥150,000 per night, but this is no hotel to be pinching pennies.
Pope Francis addresses the crowd from the main balcony of St. Peter's basilica during the Urbi et Orbi message as part of Easter celebrations on Sunday.
WORLD
Apr 20, 2025

Pope wishes 'Happy Easter' to faithful in appearance at St Peter's Square

The Pope's address, read out, condemned "worrisome" anti-Semitism, and the "deplorable" situation in Gaza.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney speaks during a campaign rally in Laval, Quebec, Canada, on Tuesday. Carney was the subject of at least 16 books published in March and listed on Amazon, according to a review of the site on April 16.
BUSINESS / Companies
Apr 23, 2025

AI floods Amazon with strange political books before Canadian election

The development adds to concerns about how new technologies are affecting the information voters receive during the election campaign.
Cardinals stand, on the day of the translation of Pope Francis' body, in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, on Wednesday.
WORLD
Apr 24, 2025

Who will be the next pope? Some hints to watch for

The process to choose a new pope is long and secretive, with most of the world's 252 cardinals coming to Rome to take part.
The United Nations General Assembly Building in New York in 2015. An internal U.N. document shows the U.S. is opposing draft reforms of the world's financial system intended to help developing countries.
WORLD / Politics
May 6, 2025

U.N. document shows U.S. seeks to weaken global development finance efforts

It opposes draft reforms of the world's financial system intended to help developing countries, including around taxation, credit ratings and fossil fuel subsidies.
Polls show Generation Z men, influenced by economic and social crises like the Great Recession and the COVID-19 pandemic, have shifted right, favoring Republicans while Generation Z women have remained more liberal, supporting Democrats.
COMMENTARY / World
May 1, 2025

Gen Z is politically old before its time

For many years, both younger men and women have leaned decidedly left. No longer.
A gold miner holds up a piece of gold along the Madre de Dios River near Puerto Maldonado, Peru.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
May 6, 2025

Mining murders show Peru’s struggles with illegal gold rush

Skyrocketing gold prices are creating a further incentive for illegal mining activities in the country.
Lee Jae-myung, of South Korea's Democratic Party, celebrates after winning the final race to choose the party's candidate for the upcoming presidential election during a national convention in Goyang, South Korea, on April 27.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
May 7, 2025

South Korea court to hear top presidential candidate's case after election

The high court delayed its first hearing on leading presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung’s election violation case until June 18, two weeks after the poll.

Longform

Rock group The Yellow Monkey played K-Arena Yokohama in June as part of a nationwide tour. Concerts are increasingly popular in the age of social media as users value in-person experiences.
Inside Japan’s arena boom: Sports, sound and city-building