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Urgent diplomacy and restraint are needed to prevent further escalation between India and Pakistan, as both sides risk being pulled into a dangerous conflict with potential global consequences.
COMMENTARY / World
May 8, 2025

Can India and Pakistan step back from the brink?

India and Pakistan on many occasions have been on the brink of major conflict, yet have successfully climbed down.
U.S. President Donald Trump shakes hands with Britain's ambassador to the United States, Peter Mandelson, after announcing a trade deal with the U.K., in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington on Thursday.
BUSINESS / Economy
May 9, 2025

Trump and Starmer hail limited U.S.-U.K. trade deal, but 10% duties remain

Trump pushed back against seeing the U.K. deal as a template for other negotiations, saying that many other trading partners may end up with much higher final tariffs.
For centuries, artisans have unraveled strands of the fibrous bark of "shuro" trees to create a medley of everyday objects. Designer Kazuki Nagasawa is now transforming the traditional material into ethereal contemporary pieces.
LIFE / Style & Design
May 9, 2025

Kazuki Nagasawa's sustainable designs are rooted in tradition

The recent SaloneSatellite Award-winner transforms a humble bark, long used by artisans to craft everyday objects, into ethereal works of contemporary design.
Pope Leo XIV, in his first public appearance after he was elected, on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City, on Thursday
WORLD / Politics
May 12, 2025

World Catholics see the first American pope as hardly American

The new pope, formerly Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, has signaled that his identity will defy easy categorization.
TDK will begin shipping its third iteration of silicon-anode batteries by the end of June, Chief Executive Officer Noboru Saito said.
BUSINESS / Companies
May 16, 2025

IPhone supplier TDK readies batteries geared for thin AI gadgets

TDK’s battery technology is helping the world’s biggest smartphone makers slim down their gadgets without shortening battery run times.
Tesla's story about keeping used cars for "robotaxis" fits a long pattern of unfulfilled promises to deploy self-driving vehicles — most recently announced for June in Austin, Texas.
BUSINESS / Companies
May 16, 2025

Tesla took back leased cars for use as 'robotaxis,' but sold them instead

Despite repeated promises, the robotaxis never came and Tesla flipped many of the off-lease cars to new buyers.
Vocaloid idol Hatsune Miku and kabuki actor Nakamura Shido II first performed together in 2016. This month, they’re reviving the show for the Osaka World Expo.
CULTURE / Stage
May 17, 2025

Traditional performing arts are plugging into modern audiences

Noh and kabuki are getting an image update by teaming up with pop culture figures such as Vocaloid idol Hatsune Miku and DJ Ken Ishii.
A vacant house in Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, which collapsed following the January 2024 earthquake, is left untouched on May 12 as its owner cannot be identified. The car's license plate has been blurred for privacy reasons.
JAPAN
May 19, 2025

Noto municipalities struggle with quake-damaged vacant houses

There are at least 47 damaged houses whose owners are unclear in Wajima, and at least 35 in the city of Nanao.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi meets with U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House on Feb. 13. Trump’s coercive use of trade threats against India during the Pakistan military crisis has undermined trust in the U.S.-India partnership and exposed Washington as an unreliable security ally.
COMMENTARY / Japan
May 21, 2025

Trump’s wake-up call for India’s foreign policy

Trump may have done India a favor. His actions have exposed an uncomfortable truth: Under his leadership, the U.S. is not a dependable partner in matters of security.
China’s prolonged real estate slump has pushed housing construction back to early 2000s levels, sharply cutting cement production and offering a rare climate reprieve from one of the world’s biggest sources of carbon emissions.
COMMENTARY / World
May 21, 2025

China’s building crash is rewinding 22 years of growth

The real estate slump may be bad for the economy, but it’s good for the planet — cement is one of the most polluting substances on Earth.
Jony Ive, left, is collaborating with OpenAI’s Sam Altman as part of a nearly $6.5 billion deal.
BUSINESS / Tech
May 22, 2025

OpenAI to buy AI startup from Apple veteran Jony Ive in $6.5 billion deal

The purchase — the largest in OpenAI’s history — will provide the company with a dedicated unit for developing AI-powered devices.
A concept model of the Global Combat Air Program's fighter jet is displayed during the DSEI Japan defense exhibition in the city of Chiba on Wednesday.
JAPAN
May 23, 2025

GCAP next-gen fighter joint venture likely to be running by this summer

Headquartered in the United Kingdom, the new business will be responsible for the industrial side of the Global Combat Air Program.
U.S. President Donald Trump holds an executive order in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on Friday. Trump signed orders meant to accelerate the construction of nuclear power plants, including small, untested designs that offer the promise of rapid deployment but have yet to be built in the U.S.
WORLD
May 24, 2025

Trump signs orders to revive U.S. leadership in nuclear power

The order includes accelerating construction of small, untested designs that offer the promise of rapid deployment but haven’t yet been built in the U.S.
Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa (right) meets with Tom Barrack, the U.S. ambassador to Turkey and a special envoy to Syria, in Istanbul on Saturday.
WORLD / Politics
May 25, 2025

Syria reboots interior ministry as Damascus seeks to reassure West

Keen to reboot and rebuild nearly 14 years after a devastating civil war began, the new authorities have hailed Washington's lifting of U.S. sanctions.
A house damaged during a Pakistani artillery shelling in Poonch, in India-administered Kashmir, on May 14
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
May 26, 2025

India and Pakistan battle for global sympathy after border truce

Both sides are sending delegations to global capitals to influence international perception of the conflict, as tensions between the nuclear-armed rivals continue to simmer.
Construction equipment sits idle in a park near Shiba Toshogu shrine in Tokyo's Minato Ward. While Japan has a history of treating its trees with reverence, green coverage is said to be lacking in most of the major cities.
ENVIRONMENT / Earth science / Longform
May 26, 2025

Do Japan's trees no longer occupy the sacred space they used to?

Trees have long occupied a sacred place in Japanese culture. In the fast pace of the 21st century, however, they're increasingly losing out to progress.
Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh (second from left), the businessman Dang Thanh Tam, (third from left), and Eric and Lara Trump (center) attend a groundbreaking ceremony for a new Trump hotel and golf course in the Hung Yen Province of Vietnam on May 21.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
May 26, 2025

Why Vietnam ignored its own laws to fast-track a Trump family golf complex

Hanoi faces intense pressure to strike a trade deal that would head off Trump’s threat of steep tariffs, which would hit about 30% of Vietnam’s exports.
Closed-circuit television cameras in a New Delhi street in on May 21. Global makers of surveillance cameras have clashed with Indian regulators over new rules that require them to submit materials for assessment in government labs, driven in part by alarm about China's capabilities.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
May 28, 2025

India's alarm over Chinese surveillance prompts crackdown on cameras

Rejecting the request from manufacturers for a delay, India said its policy "addresses a genuine security issue" and must be enforced.
AI hallucinations — when generative models fabricate information — are becoming more frequent, harder to detect and increasingly dangerous as we embed the technology deeper into society.
COMMENTARY / World
May 28, 2025

AI hallucinations? What could go wrong?

The notion that we can’t ensure that AI will produce accurate information is, uh, “disturbing” if we intend to integrate that product so deeply into our daily lives.
German and U.S. soldiers participate in Allied Spirit 24, a multinational training exercise, in Hohenfels, Germany, in March 2024. Reforger, NATO’s massive Cold War-era exercise to rush U.S. troops to Europe, was shelved after the Soviet collapse. But with Vladimir Putin attacking neighbors, maybe it’s time to revive it.
COMMENTARY / Japan
May 28, 2025

How can Europe deter Putin? Revive the ‘Reforger.’

The massive Cold War military exercise put a stop to Soviet aggression then, and it could do the same with Russia now.
Elon Musk boards Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland in March. As Musk became one of Donald Trump's closest allies last year, he was also using drugs far more intensely than previously known, according to people familiar with his activities.
WORLD / Politics
May 31, 2025

On the Trump campaign trail, Elon Musk juggled drugs and family drama

Musk’s drug consumption went well beyond occasional use and also came as he dealt with personal drama related to his growing number of children.

Longform

Construction equipment sits idle in a park near Shiba Toshogu shrine in Tokyo's Minato Ward. While Japan has a history of treating its trees with reverence, green coverage is said to be lacking in most of the major cities.
Do Japan's trees no longer occupy the sacred space they used to?