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President Donald Trump outside the White House in Washington on Thursday. The 22nd Amendment is clear: President Trump has to give up his office after his second term. But his refusal to accept that underscores how far he is willing to consider going to consolidate power.
WORLD / Politics
Apr 7, 2025

Trump's third term talk defies constitution and tests democracy

The fact that Trump has inserted the idea into the national conversation illustrates the uncertainty about the future of America’s constitutional system.
A research team found that brown fat, which encourages the body to burn fat, tended to be more active among those conceived during the colder months, meaning they are less likely to gain weight.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Apr 9, 2025

Japanese team finds people conceived in winter less likely to be overweight

The team analyzed the brown fat of 356 men between the ages of 18 and 29.
After focusing on cabernet sauvignon in Napa Valley, winemaker Eiji Daniel Akaboshi moved to make pinot noir at the renowned Freeman Vineyard & Winery in Sonoma County.
LIFE / Food & Drink
Apr 13, 2025

In California, a Nikkei vintner finds his heritage and purpose

The discovery of a distant relative's wine legacy in California led winemaker Eiji Daniel Akaboshi to look at his vocation in a new light.
Protestors demand the conviction and imprisonment of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte, in Quezon City, Philippines, last month.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Apr 11, 2025

Fake accounts drove Duterte praise and now target Philippine election

New research says around a third of accounts discussing Duterte's arrest on X, mostly praising the former president, were fake.
The Trump administration has slashed LGBTQ+ health research funding, dismantling key programs and halting studies on disparities and mental health, which experts warn will reverse progress and harm vulnerable communities.
COMMENTARY
Apr 14, 2025

The very idea of LGBTQ+ health is under attack

The Trump administration is rapidly breaking down the research infrastructure for these communities and doing so in a manner that guarantees it can’t be restored.
A handout artist's impression released on Thursday by N. Madhusudhan/University of Cambridge shows the K2-18b super-Earth, a hycean world, in which astronomers say they have found the strongest yet “hints” of life outside our solar system.
WORLD
Apr 17, 2025

Scientists find strongest evidence yet of life on an alien planet

The scientists stressed they are not announcing the discovery of actual living organisms and that the findings should be viewed cautiously.
Former CDP executive Kenji Eda discusses a possible reduction of the consumption tax rate, in Tokyo on April 10.
JAPAN / Politics
Apr 17, 2025

CDP divisions over proposed tax cut pose headache for Yoshihiko Noda

The nation’s largest opposition party is preparing for the Upper House poll in July, in which it hopes to win enough seats to make a CDP-led coalition government possible.
The Maersk Launcher, chartered by a seabed-mining company to explore the practices viability, returns from an expedition to the Clarion Clipperton Zone in the Pacific Ocean in June 2021.
WORLD
Apr 26, 2025

Trump moves to ramp up deep-sea mining for critical minerals

The move comes amid increasing concern over new Chinese curbs on the export of rare-earth materials.
A new U.S. FDA policy requiring full placebo-controlled trials for updated vaccines, pushed by Commissioner Marty Makary (right) and U.S. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (center), is seen as a backdoor effort to sideline COVID-19 boosters and undermine broader vaccine development.
COMMENTARY / Japan
May 2, 2025

RFK Jr.’s new vaccine scrutiny is alarming

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who oversees the FDA, intends to set new regulatory standards vaccine manufacturers couldn’t possibly meet.
A growing number of young professionals are becoming increasingly reliant on AI tools like ChatGPT for both work and personal tasks, leading to diminished confidence, critical thinking skills and potential emotional dependence.
COMMENTARY / World
May 7, 2025

Addicted to ChatGPT? Here’s how to reclaim your brain

Launched by OpenAI in late 2022, now regularly used by more than 400 million people.
The deep sea explorer Urashima 8000 is unveiled Monday at the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture.
JAPAN / Science & Health
May 13, 2025

Japan unveils new deep-sea probe for 8,000-meter dives

The Urashima 8000 improves on the design of a previous iteration that can dive to a depth of 3,500 meters.
People smoking in Yuxi, in China's southwest Yunnan province. China is home to a third of the world's smokers and tobacco-related diseases are a major cause of death in the country — a trend likely to worsen as its population rapidly ages.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
May 13, 2025

Tobacco town thrives as China struggles to kick the habit

China is home to a third of the world's smokers and tobacco-related diseases are a major cause of death in the country.
Ocean plastic pollution is a systemic crisis that cannot be solved by a few sustainability-minded citizens recycling but requires an economy-wide solution.
COMMENTARY / Japan
May 19, 2025

The true cost of ocean plastic pollution

The problem of maritime plastic-waste pollution first became apparent in the 1970s. In the half-century since then, the problem has become ever more widespread, as scientific expeditions conducted by the Tara Ocean Foundation (of which I am executive director) have shown.
French scientist Marie-Anne Blanchet examines bear cubs before taking tissue biopsies and blood samples from their sedated mother, in eastern Spitzbergen, in Norway's Svalbard archipelago, on April 6.
ENVIRONMENT
May 19, 2025

Polar bear biopsies shed light on Arctic pollutants

The team's findings may help explain how the bears' world is changing, and at an alarming rate.
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."
Migrants wait to disembark from the port of Arguineguin, on the island of Gran Canaria, Spain, in July 2024.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
May 24, 2025

Boat driver arrests up as EU eyes tighter smuggling laws

NGO's argue that the focus should shift from pursuing boat drivers to prosecuting criminal organizations.
A worker sorts plastic waste for recycling at Minato Resource Recycle Center in Tokyo in 2019. Japan has been criticized by environmental groups for its strategy on plastics, which is heavily reliant on recycling instead of reduction.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability / OUR PLANET
May 25, 2025

Are microplastics hurting our fertility?

While a lot remains unknown about how microplastics affect our health, scientists in Japan and around the world broadly agree there's an urgent need to reduce plastic production.
Donald Trump's attempt to bar international students from enrolling at Harvard, along with other actions, undercut America’s image as a land of opportunity, alienating future Asian leaders and diminishing U.S. influence in Asia.
COMMENTARY / World
May 25, 2025

America’s 'wolf warriors' are getting it all wrong in Asia

Trump's actions erode goodwill among future Asian leaders and weaken America's standing in a region once deeply aligned with it.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's new plan to restrict updated COVID-19 vaccines to high-risk groups has sparked confusion and criticism, with experts warning it could limit public access and bypass established advisory channels.
COMMENTARY / World
May 26, 2025

The FDA’s new COVID-19 vaccine policy is clear as mud

The U.S. health agency's promises of transparency and choice for COVID-19 vaccines fall short in its first big test. 
Demonstrators hold signs during a protest in support of international students at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on Tuesday.
JAPAN / Society / FOCUS
May 28, 2025

Japanese universities urged to open doors to students blocked from Harvard

The education ministry has asked universities nationwide to support students affected by the White House's push against foreign enrollments at Harvard.
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson (center) attends a news conference at the Capitol on May 22 after the House narrowly passed a sweeping budget bill that some worry could add trillions to the country's deficit over the next decade.
COMMENTARY
May 28, 2025

The U.S. is about to discover if deficits actually matter

It turns out that this pattern — the bigger the debt, the less likely politicians are to address it — is lurking in the data, and not just in the U.S.
After the asset-price bubble crash of the early 1990s, employment at a Japanese company was no longer necessarily for life. As a result, a new generation is less willing to endure a toxic work culture —life’s too short, after all.
JAPAN / Society / Longform
Jun 2, 2025

How Japan's youth are slowly changing the country's work ethic

Labor shortages and shifting mindsets are driving younger Japanese workers to challenge the country’s traditional office culture.
Displaced Palestinians carrying relief supplies return from an aid distribution center in the central Gaza Strip on Thursday.
WORLD / Politics
Jun 2, 2025

Trump vowed to remake aid. Is Gaza the future?

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is distributing food through several hubs in the war-ravaged territory, with contracted U.S. security and Israeli troops.
Research showed that amounts of tau protein accumulation, a factor leading to dementia, were larger among people diagnosed at age 40 or more with mood disorders compared with healthy individuals of the same age group.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Jun 13, 2025

Middle- to old-age depression may be tied to dementia

A study has found that abnormal tau protein causing dementia accumulates in the brains of middle- to old-age patients with mood disorders, such as depression, at a higher rate.
Part of Osaka Art and Design 2025, Maki Takato’s “Yokai Unity” is a collaboration with a Zen-Buddhist monk from Nara, whose hands in prayer were 3D-scanned for an inflatable sculpture.
CULTURE / Art
Jun 14, 2025

Osaka wants to show off its artistic talents

With the expo underway, the city is buzzing with people. The art scene is trying to catch some of that attention with a variety of events and initiatives this summer.
A dead sea star in 2015. About 5 billion sea stars died from a disease outbreak, likely including this one.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Jun 18, 2025

Marine heat waves are spreading around the world

Some unusual ocean events have become so intense that scientists have coined a new term: super marine heat waves.
Foreign nationals applying for U.S. student and exchange visitor visas will now be asked to set their social media profiles to public so that they can be reviewed.
WORLD / Politics
Jun 19, 2025

U.S. orders social media vetting for student visa applicants

The move steps up measures to restrict foreign nationals’ entry to American campuses over national security concerns.
Economic losses in Japan stemming from workers' mental or physical disorders, linked to lower labor productivity, represent about 1% of the country's nominal gross domestic product for 2024.
BUSINESS
Jun 20, 2025

Annual economic losses from workers' health issues reach ¥7.6 trillion

The losses, linked to lower labor productivity, represent about 1% of the country's nominal gross domestic product for 2024.
Killer whales have been caught on video breaking off pieces of seaweed and using them to rub and groom each other, scientists announced on Monday, saying it is the first evidence of cetacean tool manufacturing.
WORLD / Science & Health
Jun 25, 2025

Killer whales use seaweed as tools to groom each other

The researchers hypothesize that the behavior promotes skin health while strengthening social bonds.
The U.S. and the world will become unhealthier and vast numbers of children may die now that Donald Trump’s health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has pulled funding from the global vaccine program GAVI. 
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 7, 2025

RFK Jr. is playing with babies’ lives

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s cut to U.S. funding for GAVI risks lives globally and damages America’s international standing.

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