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Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako wave to wellwishers on the balcony of the Imperial Palace in Tokyo in February.
JAPAN
Jun 22, 2024

Japan imperial couple's U.K. visit highlights history of exchanges

The eight-day state visit to Britain by Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako from Saturday highlights some 150 years of exchanges.
Pedestrians cross a road in Pudong's Lujiazui Financial District in Shanghai. China has long touted itself as the world’s safest nation, making rare outbursts of public violence stand out.
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal
Jun 22, 2024

China’s spate of violence prompts outburst of economic anxiety

The reaction of Chinese social media users to a spate of recent violent attacks has exposed widespread discontent about the nation’s downturn.
England's George Martin is tackled by Japan's Atsushi Sakate (right) and Tomoki Osada during England's win over Japan on Saturday in Tokyo.
MORE SPORTS / Rugby
Jun 22, 2024

Marcus Smith stars as England thrashes Japan 52-17 in Tokyo

Late scores for Koga Nezuka and Takuya Yamasawa gave the scoreline a more respectable look for Japan
Japan head coach Eddie Jones said he saw promising signs on Saturday as he tries to instill a high-tempo playing style in his new team.
MORE SPORTS / Rugby
Jun 23, 2024

Japan's Jones positive despite England defeat

An inexperienced Japan side featuring four debutants in the starting lineup conceded eight tries but scored two of its own in a stirring finish to the game.
Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako arrive at their hotel in London on Saturday.
JAPAN / Politics
Jun 23, 2024

Imperial couple arrive for three-day state visit to U.K.

The highlight will be a state banquet that may include an appearance by Prince William's wife Kate, who is undergoing cancer treatment.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Vietnam President To Lam during a reception in Hanoi on Thursday
ASIA PACIFIC
Jun 23, 2024

Putin came to Asia to disrupt, and he succeeded

After stops in Pyongyang, North Korea, and Hanoi, Vietnam, last week that were draped in communist red, Putin left behind a redrawn map of risk in Asia.
Caeleb Dressel dives into the pool during the U.S. Olympic swimming trials in Indianapolis, Indiana, on Thursday.
OLYMPICS / Swimming
Jun 23, 2024

Resurgent Caeleb Dressel has new take on young swimming rivals

Dressel's five golds at the pandemic-delayed Tokyo Games included individual triumphs in the 50 and 100 free and the 100 butterfly.
Families of those killed in Boeing 737 Max 8 plane crashes hold up pictures of their deceased loved ones as the planemaker's CEO Dave Calhoun testifies before a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Investigations Subcommittee hearing on the safety culture at Boeing, on Capitol Hill in Washington on June 18.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 24, 2024

U.S. prosecutors recommend DOJ criminally charge Boeing as deadline looms

They concluded the planemaker had violated a settlement related to two fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019 involving its 737 MAX jet, source say.
A feminist demonstration against the far-right party in Toulouse, France, on Sunday
WORLD / Politics
Jun 24, 2024

French feminists protest Marine Le Pen even as she pulls in women

Protesters have had to reckon with a difficult reality: The National Rally leader has made progress in casting her party as a defender of women’s rights.
Narendra Modi, India's prime minister, greets supporters at the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) headquarters during election night in New Delhi, India on June 4.
ASIA PACIFIC
Jun 24, 2024

Some of Modi’s agenda could disappear in India’s fractured Parliament

A new Parliament taking office in India may give some hint of whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s domestic policies are now in doubt.
Muslim pilgrims pray as sprinklers cool them down amid extremely hot weather during the annual Hajj pilgrimage in Mina, Saudi Arabia, on June 16.
WORLD
Jun 24, 2024

Saudi Arabia says 1,301 deaths during Hajj were mostly unregistered pilgrims

Temperatures in Mecca this year climbed as high as 51.8 degrees Celsius, according to Saudi Arabia's national meteorological center.
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.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is seen in this screen shot taken from video in London on Monday.
WORLD
Jun 25, 2024

WikiLeaks' Julian Assange to be freed after pleading guilty to U.S. Espionage Act charge

Assange, 52, has agreed to plead guilty to a single criminal count of conspiring to obtain and disclose classified U.S. national defense documents.
Katie Ledecky competes in the women's 400 freestyle swim during preliminaries for the Olympic Swimming Trials in Indianapolis, Indiana, on June 15.
OLYMPICS
Jun 25, 2024

Dressel and Ledecky lead U.S. Olympic swim team with eyes on Australia

The intense nine days of the U.S. trials concluded Sunday and produced a team of 46 swimmers.
People holds a banner saying "Protect children from joint custody after divorce" during a rally outside the parliament building in Tokyo in March.
JAPAN / Society / FOCUS
Jun 25, 2024

Gender gap fuels disputes as Japan gets joint custody

The change has proved polarizing in a country where campaigners say sole custody acts as a bulwark against forms of domestic abuse.
The investigation into the Chinese telcos is the latest effort by Washington to prevent Beijing from exploiting Chinese firms' access to U.S. data to harm U.S. companies, Americans or its national security as part of a deepening tech war between the geopolitical rivals.
BUSINESS / Tech
Jun 25, 2024

U.S. probing Chinese telcos over internet and cloud risks

Their cloud services and routing of wholesale U.S. internet traffic raise concerns that they could exploit access to American data by providing it to Beijing.
Runners get started in the Tokyo Marathon 2024 in March.
MORE SPORTS
Jun 25, 2024

Nonbinary checkbox to be added to application for Tokyo Marathon

"We aim to create a more inclusive society through Tokyo Marathon 2025," race organizers said.
Seibu's Ginjiro Sumitani (back left) meets with participants in a program to inspire seriously ill children, at the Belluna Dome in Tokorozawa, Saitama Prefecture, on May 26.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Jun 25, 2024

Lions catcher Sumitani remains committed to inspiring ill children

The sight of happy children "reminds me that I should do my best," says Ginjiro Sumitani.
Travelers in front of a Suntory duty-free shop at Kansai International Airport in December
BUSINESS
Jun 25, 2024

Duty-free sales at Japan's department stores tripled in May

Record sales were achieved with the help of a significant influx of Chinese tourists and the yen’s weakness.
Kentaro Kitagawa
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Jun 26, 2024

Former top Osaka prosecutor arrested for alleged sex crime

The high prosecutor's office did not reveal whether Kitagawa admitted to the allegation.
Internal affairs minister Takeaki Matsumoto
JAPAN
Jun 26, 2024

Point websites to be barred from Japan's hometown tax donation system

Donations collected via the sites will no longer be tax deductible under the hometown tax system.
Akira Otani's "The Night of Baba Yaga” explores the boundaries of finding one's place in society as it questions ideas of violence, love, family and honor.
CULTURE / Books
Jun 27, 2024

‘The Night of Baba Yaga’ weaves a yakuza thriller into a meditation on queerness

Translator Sam Bett gravitated to the Akira Otani novel for its refusal to adhere to established genre conventions.
Izumi (Hana Sugisaki, left) tries to get to the bottom of a murder case that ends up going all the way to the top of Japan’s national intelligence agency.
CULTURE / Film
Jun 27, 2024

‘Sakura’: Secret agents, a murder mystery and one very determined young sleuth

Hana Sugisaki’s performance as a lowly employee in a prefectural police department stands out from typical portrayals in a domestic whodunit.
An image of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange released on social media on Tuesday. Assange pleaded guilty to a single charge of disseminating classified documents in a plea bargain that leaves him a free man.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 26, 2024

Julian Assange’s saga will forever exist in a legal gray area

WikiLeaks founder Assange’s case lies on the boundary between espionage and protected speech. Its outcome has done nothing to shed light on this gray zone.
An Aeon store in Yokohama in 2022. Aeon currently employs about 1,500 specified skilled workers group-wide.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 26, 2024

Aeon to ramp up hiring of foreign workers under specified skills visa framework

The retail giant is planning to employ 4,000 foreign workers with specified skilled worker visas by 2030 amid a labor shortage.
Former Bolivian Gen. Juan Jose Zuniga is presented following his arrest by the authorities for a coup attempt in La Paz, Bolivia, on Wednesday.
WORLD
Jun 27, 2024

Bolivian general is arrested after apparent coup attempt

In all, an attempted afternoon incursion into the presidential palace lasted just three hours. As time wore on, it became clear that the plan had little support.
U.S. journalist Evan Gershkovich, who has been accused of espionage, looks out from inside a glass defendants' cage prior to a hearing in Yekaterinburg's Sverdlovsk Regional Court on Wednesday.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Jun 27, 2024

Russia opens secret trial of U.S. reporter accused of espionage

The Wall Street Journal's Evan Gershkovich, 32, faces up to 20 years in prison on an espionage charge that he, his employer and the U.S. State Department vehemently deny.
A campaign event of reformist candidate Masoud Pezeshkian less than a week ahead of a presidential election called after Ebrahim Raisi’s death
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 27, 2024

Iran’s election could bring lasting peace

The upcoming election in Iran is more consequential than it's being given credit for. A triumph of the only reformist candidate, Masoud Pezeshkian, would be momentous.
Rakuten CEO Hiroshi Mikitani said that the mobile company now has more than 7 million subscribers, and is seeking to hit 10 million subscribers next.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 27, 2024

Money-losing Rakuten Mobile rolls out new 700 MHz service

The new offering, which is being introduced incrementally, will improve connectivity, including in densely populated areas, it says.
Health minister Keizo Takemi speaks to reporters in Tokyo in March.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Jun 27, 2024

Panel sets out investment vision for Japan's health care startups

Since 2019, the number of health care startups established each year in Japan has declined to around 50.

Longform

Mount Fuji is considered one of Japan's most iconic symbols and is a major draw for tourists. It's still a mountain, though, and potential hikers need to properly prepare for any climb.
What it takes to save lives on Mount Fuji