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OLYMPICS
Jul 22, 2021

For karateka at the Games, the goal is gold. For karate the sport, the goal is inclusion.

Karate is getting its moment to shine at the Olympics, but are the Games simply catching up to something a lot of us already know?
People cover themselves with umbrellas during a hot summer day in Tokyo's Ginza district in August. Temperatures shot up in early July, even before the official end of the rainy season, and the high temperatures persisted well into the fall.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change / OUR PLANET
Dec 29, 2024

Japan’s weather in 2024: Record temperatures hurt people’s health and wallets

Average temperatures across the nation and surrounding seas exceeded last year’s record-breaking levels "by a significant margin," affecting everything from well-being to farming.
Former President Jimmy Carter, furthest right, in a group photo with his successors at the White House in 2009. From his re-election defeat in 1980 until his death on Sunday, he was the odd man out, distant from the Republicans and Democrats who followed him.
WORLD
Dec 30, 2024

In the presidents’ club, Carter was the odd man out

Jimmy Carter’s relationship with his successors in the Oval Office, both Republicans and fellow Democrats, was generally tense because of his outspokenness.
Oleksandr, a 45-year-old Ukrainian soldier of the 1st Separate Assault Battalion Da Vinci, who left his unit without permission and later returned to the army, poses for a portrait in the Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukraine, on Dec. 12.
WORLD / Society
Dec 30, 2024

Desertions spark panic, and pardons, in Ukraine's army

More than 90,000 cases have been opened into instances of soldiers in Ukraine going absent without leave or deserting since Russia invaded in 2022.
Hisamido set up a return box at its bookstore in Machida, Tokyo, to allow its customers to borrow and return books owned by municipal libraries.
JAPAN
Dec 30, 2024

Japanese bookstores collaborate with libraries for survival

A survey found that 493 municipalities had no bookstores as of November 2024.
A voter casts a ballot at a polling station in Tokyo on Oct. 27. Last year, incumbents in every major country that held a national election lost that vote, the first time that has happened in almost 120 years.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 31, 2024

The world is ever more angry. That is not good.

Hostility toward existing leadership stems from the belief that lives aren't improving and future generations will have fewer opportunities than previous ones.
Japan's 2024 Word of the Year, "futehodo," is a phrase tied to a Netflix show and highlights the broader decline in the cultural significance of such awards, with recent selections often seen as superficial or promotional.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Dec 31, 2024

Japan’s 2024 word of the year has no rizz

Some critics wondered why the word of the year award was, essentially, functioning as advertising for a TV show that is still available on streaming.
Japanese architect and Expo Site Design Producer Sou Fujimoto stands on the construction site of his Grand Ring.
LIFE / Style & Design
Jan 1, 2025

Architect Sou Fujimoto says his 'Grand Ring' will be a symbol of unity at the Osaka Expo

Traditional techniques for joining wooden pillars were used and inspired by the raised platform at Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto.
A member of the FBI Evidence Response Team searches through trash as federal and local authorities investigate a townhouse in relation to the explosion in Las Vegas of a Tesla Cybertruck, in Colorado Springs, Colorado, on Thursday.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Jan 3, 2025

Police identify driver of exploded Tesla Cybertruck as U.S. Army soldier

The FBI said it had so far found no definitive link between the New Year's Day New Orleans truck attack that killed 15 people and the Cybertruck explosion.
An underground passage in a small town in the Moscow region in November.
WORLD / Politics
Jan 4, 2025

Are Russian sanctions working? Debate takes new urgency with Trump.

The president-elect has said he will use sanctions sparingly while vowing to end the war in Ukraine, renewing questions over their efficacy.
Tech in 2025 will face growing resistance to AI, social media and streaming saturation alongside political and cultural shifts driven by Elon Musk, Trump and controversies like a potential U.S. TikTok ban.
COMMENTARY
Jan 5, 2025

AI, Musk and Trump add up to a turbulent 2025 for tech

If the steady stream of tech CEOs visiting Mar-a-Lago is any indication, we can expect Silicon Valley to be more willing to do Trump’s bidding in 2025.
A pedestrian walks past air conditioning units in Tokyo in July. The year 2024 was the hottest for Japan since records began, the Meteorological Agency said.
JAPAN
Jan 6, 2025

Japan says 2024 hottest year on record

The average temperatures from January through December were 1.48 degrees Celsius higher than the 1991-2020 average, according to the Meteorological Agency.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks during a news conference at Rideau Cottage in Ottawa on Monday to announce his resignation.
WORLD / Politics
Jan 7, 2025

Canada's Trudeau resigns after nine years in power as Liberals force him out

Trudeau, 53, currently the longest-serving leader of any Group of Seven country, bowed to sagging approval numbers and a rebellion within his political party.
A Tesla showroom in Beijing in January 2024. In today's world, the car isn’t the biggest moneymaker for automakers; instead, it is the services attached to the connected vehicle.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 7, 2025

China’s EVs may change the world in unimaginable ways

China has about 100 EV brands and they claim about 80% of the new electric vehicle market.
Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces commander, Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, attends a meeting in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum on June 8, 2022.
WORLD / Politics
Jan 8, 2025

Daglo, the feared Darfuri general accused by the U.S. of genocide

The paramilitary commander went from feared Darfur militia commander to de facto vice-president before unleashing a devastating war for power in Sudan.
An armed police officer patrols near the Ministry of Defense in London in 2016.
WORLD
Jan 8, 2025

U.K. special forces soldiers tell inquiry of Afghan murder concerns

The investigation is examining a number of nighttime raids carried out by British forces from mid-2010 to mid-2013.
The Tokyo Stock Exchange wants companies to improve governance and performance.
BUSINESS / Markets
Jan 8, 2025

As standards rise, Tokyo Stock Exchange delistings hit decade high

A total of 94 companies were delisted from the Tokyo exchange in 2024, the highest number since it merged with the Osaka Securities Exchange in 2013.
Hobonichi's 'techō' notebooks come in both set and customizable formats, and a thriving community of enthusiasts means there are even extensive guides on how to make the journal even more unique to your individual approach to journaling.
LIFE / Style & Design
Jan 10, 2025

American stationery nerds are fueling a Japanese notebook boom

A Japanese-made paper planner from the 1980s has reblossomed in the post-COVID era.
The sun sets over the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes in Death Valley National Park, near Furnace Creek, during a heat wave impacting Southern California in July.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Jan 10, 2025

Record heat pushed 2024 above global warming threshold of 1.5 C

A clear acceleration in rising temperatures has puzzled scientists, even as the evidence of the fast-warming atmosphere became impossible to miss.
Vice Foreign Minister Masataka Okano in Seoul in October
JAPAN / Politics
Jan 10, 2025

Japan announces new national security adviser

Masataka Okano is a 60-year-old career diplomat with experience in both Washington and Beijing and a former chief of the Foreign Ministry’s Russia division.
A Syrian fighter with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham patrols the gate as men wait outside a reconciliation center in Damascus on Dec. 30.
WORLD
Jan 11, 2025

Western powers warn Syria over foreign jihadis in army

HTS and allied groups have hundreds of foreign fighters in their ranks, many of them followers of hard-line interpretations of Islam.
Olaf Scholz, Germany's chancellor, during the SPD party congress in Berlin on Saturday
WORLD / Politics
Jan 12, 2025

Scholz steps up criticism of Trump’s expansionist rhetoric

In power since 2021, Scholz’s SPD party has slumped as an early election looms for Europe’s largest economy on Feb. 23.
Alexander Gauland (center), honorary chairman of Germany's far-right Alternative for Germany party, is flanked by party co-leaders Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla as they stand on stage during a party congress in Riesa, eastern Germany, on Saturday.
WORLD / Politics
Jan 13, 2025

German far right emboldened by Austria

Long shunned by the political establishment, the Freedom Party is on the brink of power after being invited to try to form a government with the People's Party.
Solar panels and a coal-fired power station in Fukushima Prefecture. Japan has not set a clear path for phasing out coal and its new draft energy plan foresees an important role for fossil fuels, especially gas, and nuclear power in its future energy mix.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jan 13, 2025

Japan’s energy plans endanger real climate solutions

The government's draft energy plans were not subject to open debate and their outcome shows an insufficient commitment to making the changes needed to tackle climate change.
The number of corporate bankruptcies with liabilities of ¥10 million or more in Japan last year marked the third consecutive year of increases as rising prices due to the yen's weakening and labor shortages caused business failures in a wide range of industries.
BUSINESS / Economy
Jan 14, 2025

Japan business failures top 10,000 in 2024, worst in 11 years

The annual figure marked the third consecutive year of increases as rising prices due to the yen's weakening and labor shortages caused business failures.
The "madman theory" in foreign policy, which some apply to Donald Trump, relies on perceived irrationality to intimidate adversaries and generally fails to achieve its goals, leading to dangerous miscalculations.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 15, 2025

There is no place for ‘madmen’ in international diplomacy

Historians root the madman theory in Machiavelli, who wrote that “at times it is a very wise thing to simulate madness.”
It's taken Takuma Watanabe little time to establish himself as one of New York's hottest bartenders.
LIFE / Food & Drink
Jan 16, 2025

From Tokyo to Manhattan, Takuma Watanabe stirs up a stiff drink

Tokyo native Takuma Watanabe offers a formidable addition to New York’s pantheon of cocktail bars.
Parents and municipal staff share their concerns during a workshop held by volunteer group Cotohana in Okuma, Fukushima Prefecture.
JAPAN / Society / Regional Voices: Fukushima
Jan 27, 2025

Towns near Fukushima plant struggle to attract families with children

Futaba County, home to the Fukushima No.1 nuclear plant, has seen a drastic reduction in the number of children in the area.
As Donald Trump begins his second term, the U.S. holds a strong position in the Indo-Pacific. However, missteps, economic policies and shifting alliances could undermine the Biden administration's progress in strengthening partnerships and countering China.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 21, 2025

Will Trump sustain or squander Biden's Indo-Pacific gains?

The legacy of the Joe Biden administration could prove fleeting, however, the result of missteps by Washington or developments in allied states.

Longform

Figure skater Akiko Suzuki was once told her ideal weight should be 47 kilograms, a number she now admits she “naively believed.” This led to her have a relationship with food that resulted in her suffering from anorexia.
The silent battle Japanese athletes fight with weight