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Palestinians carry their belongings through the town of Jabalia as they flee the southward toward Gaza City on Monday.
WORLD / Politics
May 20, 2025

Trump plan or not, Israel is letting more Palestinians leave Gaza

The easing of restrictions parallels the Israeli government's stated goal of facilitating the resettlement of Gaza's population in other countries.
U.S. President Donald Trump (right) listens as Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks during a news conference in February.
BUSINESS / Economy
May 20, 2025

India sees multi-phase trade deal with U.S. as talks proceed

Officials in New Delhi familiar with the matter expect an interim agreement before July, when U.S. President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs are set to kick in.
Shipping containers in Oakland, California, on May 12
WORLD
May 20, 2025

Even on nontariff issues G7 finance leaders may still face U.S. pushback

A source briefed on U.S. positions in the talks in Canada has said that any consensus needs to align with Trump administration priorities.
A lot at a Nissan plant in Mexico. The company may have overextended itself during the Ghosn era.
BUSINESS / Companies / FOCUS
May 20, 2025

Nissan’s troubles might go all the way back to Ghosn 

Some analysts argue that aggressive expansion by the iconoclastic executive left the company overextended.
China’s Made in China 2025 program set an ambitious agenda, and a decade later, initial assessments conclude it had mixed success but maintain its goals will shape Chinese policy for years to come.
COMMENTARY / World
May 20, 2025

Ten years of Made in China 2025 sees mixed success

MIC2025 set an ambitious agenda, and a decade later, early reviews say it has had mixed success but maintain that its goals will shape Chinese policy for years to come.
While the cost and logistics of installing platform doors have proven challenging, railway operators are adopting new solutions to lower expenses and increase flexibility.
JAPAN / Society
May 20, 2025

Japan sets goal of having doors on 4,000 train station platforms by fiscal 2030

The decision to raise the target reflects ongoing safety concerns, as accidents involving passengers continue to occur.
U.S. President Donald Trump (left) announces the Golden Dome missile defense shield next to U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on Tuesday.
WORLD / Politics
May 21, 2025

Trump selects $175B Golden Dome defense shield design and appoints leader

U.S. Space Force Gen. Michael Guetlein will be the lead program manager for an effort widely viewed as the keystone to Trump's military planning.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks in Jerusalem on April 29. New intelligence obtained by the United States suggests that Israel is making preparations to strike Iranian nuclear facilities, according to a CNN report.
WORLD
May 21, 2025

U.S. intel suggests Israel preparing strike on Iran's nuclear facilities

It was not clear whether Israeli leaders have made a final decision, CNN reported.
A RAV4 model in 2018. The latest generation of the compact crossover available later this year comes equipped with a standard or plug-in hybrid powertrain, dropping the gas-powered option that makes up the bulk of current sales in the U.S.
BUSINESS / Companies
May 21, 2025

Toyota takes all-hybrid plunge with its bestselling U.S. vehicle

Toyota has long been skeptical of the industry push to go all-in on fully electric vehicles, opting instead for a multipronged approach.
Born and raised in Japan, Joshua Thomson has been making videos on YouTube and Instagram to poke fun at stereotypes and challenge assumptions about — or from — Japanese society.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / 20 QUESTIONS
May 23, 2025

Joshua Thomson: ‘Comedy is a pill that’s easier to swallow’

The bilingual YouTuber talks about his hybrid cultural heritage and his aspirations in the entertainment industry.
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.
An Upper House committee approves new rules drawn up in April following a revision of the law governing lawmaker allowances.
JAPAN / Politics / FOCUS
May 22, 2025

Parliament moves to boost transparency in lawmaker allowances

Both chambers have adopted new rules mandating the disclosure of how the allowances are spent and requiring the return of unused funds to government coffers.
New farm minister Shinjiro Koizumi speaks during a news conference on Wednesday in Tokyo.
JAPAN / FOCUS
May 22, 2025

‘Rice minister’ Koizumi faces urgent task to bring prices down quickly

Lawmakers have been questioning whether auctioning stockpiled rice is really effective in bringing down prices.
Drawn to tea ceremony while volunteering at a Japanese garden in Phoenix, Arizona, Michele Laudig (right) came to learn a “common language of movement and ritual” that brought her into new communities in New York City and Tokyo.
COMMUNITY / Voices / FOREIGN AGENDA
May 26, 2025

A moving meditation: Finding serenity in tea ceremony across space and time

After an American writer ventured into the world of tea ceremony, its lessons transformed her relationship to Japan and brought her into communities bonded by movement and ritual.
After last year’s controversy over using AI to write about 5% of her novel, Rie Qudan was asked by an advertising magazine to write a short story where she uses AI for 95% of it. The resulting short story, “Kage no ame” (“Rain Shadow”), was published March 25.  
CULTURE / Books
May 24, 2025

AI fiction is already here. Are humans ready?

Last year, Rie Qudan faced controversy after admitting that chatGPT wrote 5% of her novel. Now she’s published a story she only wrote 5% herself, leaving 95% to AI.
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.
After establishing Lagoon Brewery in 2021, Yosuke Tanaka began making export-only "nihonshu" (Japanese sake) and later, "craft sake," a new genre of sake that isn't bound by the rules of traditional sakemaking.
LIFE / Food & Drink
May 25, 2025

Brewed from rice, water and tomatoes: The growth of ‘craft sake’

Hampered yet inspired by the strict regulations for new brewers, a growing breed of sake producers are making the beverage on their own creative terms.
Mitsui O.S.K. Lines President and CEO Takeshi Hashimoto speaks during an interview in Tokyo in April.
BUSINESS
May 23, 2025

Japanese gas tanker giant sees difficulty buying Chinese vessels

Washington has issued a flurry of measures since President Donald Trump took office aimed at curbing China’s maritime dominance and reviving its own flagging shipbuilding industry.
A student walks on the campus of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on Friday.
WORLD / Society
May 24, 2025

Harvard wins temporary block of Trump’s foreign student ban

The attempted ban could make foreign students shy about coming to the U.S. at all, even if the government doesn’t take similar actions against any other universities.
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.
People visit the exhibition "Space: Could Life Exist Beyond Earth?" at the Natural History Museum in London on May 16.
WORLD / Science & Health
May 24, 2025

Doubt cast on claim of 'hints' of life on faraway planet

There is not enough evidence to support such lofty claims some studies say, with one scientist accusing the astronomers of "jumping the gun."
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.
The U.S. military’s longstanding dominance is eroding as China exploits its vulnerabilities with cheaper, faster and smarter warfare, demanding urgent American reinvention in energy, logistics and artificial intelligence.
COMMENTARY / World
May 21, 2025

America’s hard power must get harder — quickly

Aircraft carriers and fighter jets look a lot less stealthy in a world of limitless drones and autonomous submarines.
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.
Children in Gaza City on May 21
WORLD
May 27, 2025

Israel-backed Gaza food plan starts amid dissent and delay

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said it has begun distributing food to Palestinians in the war-ravaged territory and appointed a new executive director
Brazil coach Carlo Ancelotti during a news conference in Rio de Janeiro on Monday
SOCCER
May 27, 2025

Ancelotti pledges to make struggling Brazil 'champion again'

The former Real Madrid manager is the first non-Brazilian in six decades to coach the record five-time World Cup winners.

Longform

Once smoky, male-dominated spaces, today's net cafes, like Kaikatsu Club, are working to make their operations more attractive to women customers.
The second life of Japan's net cafes