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Though Apple’s overall revenue of $81.8 billion came in just above Wall Street estimates last quarter, iPhone demand was weaker than predicted.
BUSINESS / Tech
Aug 4, 2023

Apple faces longest sales slowdown in decades as iPhone slumps

The company reported a revenue decline of 1.4% in the fiscal third quarter, hurt by an industrywide slump that has sapped demand.
JAPAN / Politics
Aug 4, 2023

Kishida confirms plan to merge My Number and health insurance card

Kishida apologized for the anxiety caused by recent errors and announced a series of steps in the hope of restoring public trust.
Graphite, now deemed an essential mineral by the U.S., is the single biggest ingredient by weight in the batteries that go into electric vehicles and the power grid. It is also used in a variety of defense applications.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 8, 2023

Biden deploys Pentagon to beat climate change and China

A $37.5 million grant to Graphite One acts as a relaxed form of venture capital as the White House supports nascent parts of the domestic cleantech supply chain.
Superconductors are materials that exhibit no electrical resistance and eliminate magnetic fields. South Korean researchers think they may have created a compound that achieves that at room-temperature.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 8, 2023

LK-99 and the desperation for scientific discovery

The new room-temperature superconductor LK-99 could change the world. Or not.
A highway runs through Saudi Arabia's arid landscape. A new horticulture project marks the biggest food-tech investment for the country, whose extreme summer temperatures have long left it reliant on food imports.
WORLD
Aug 7, 2023

Saudi city of future enlists Dutch help to grow crops in desert

The Netherlands is now the world’s second-largest agricultural exporter after the U.S., despite being one of Europe’s smallest nations.
JAPAN / Politics
Aug 7, 2023

Scandal-hit ex-LDP member a major backer of renewable energy

Masatoshi Akimoto opposes building new nuclear reactors or replacing current ones, and has said that wind power in particular has much potential.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russia's Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu visit an exhibition of military equipment on July 27.
ASIA PACIFIC
Aug 8, 2023

North Korean hackers breached top Russian missile-maker

Experts say the incident shows how the isolated country will even target its allies in a bid to acquire critical technologies.
New Zealand already generates more than 80% of its electricity from renewable sources, and aspires to reach 100% by 2030.
ASIA PACIFIC
Aug 8, 2023

New Zealand ties up with BlackRock in drive for fully green power

The deal will supercharge efforts by New Zealand to become one of the first countries in the world to achieve a 100% renewable electricity supply.
Taro Aso, a former prime minister and current vice president of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, speaks during the Ketagalan Forum in Taipei on Tuesday.
JAPAN / Politics
Aug 8, 2023

Taiwan situation ‘tilting toward emergency,’ former Japan PM says

Taro Aso said this shift was “definitely not out of the blue” but was now “more evident,” pointing to military exercises by China around Taiwan.
JAPAN
Aug 8, 2023

Nuke ban treaty still out of reach as Japan marks atomic bombings

Japan, which is positioned under the "nuclear umbrella" of the U.S., has refrained from joining the treaty, citing its own “tough security environment.”
A recent report showed that the number of career bureaucrats leaving government to join startups had quadrupled over the two years through fiscal 2022.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 8, 2023

Japan’s young civil servants are growing disillusioned

Big companies remain the most popular career option, attracting 34% of those who change jobs.
Shohei Ohtani's free agency is expected to be among the wildest pursuits of a player in baseball history.
BASEBALL
Aug 9, 2023

Angels hoping to stay in the Shohei Ohtani business

Whether the two-way phenom remains an Angel for two more months, or the rest of his career, is an open question.
SUMO / INSIDE SUMO
Aug 9, 2023

Sumo still failing to provide adequate medical care for wrestlers

An incident involving maegashira Tobizaru at the ongoing regional tour shows that sumo lags behind other sports, including rugby, in emergency treatment.
Sven Hannemann manages the forest surrounding Sanssouci Palace in Potsdam, Germany. Its ancient oak trees are suffering from drought induced by climate change.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Aug 9, 2023

In Germany's Versailles, drought is killing ancient trees

Drought induced by climate change is decimating trees in Potsdam's Sanssouci Palace, forcing park managers to rethink its centuries-old forest.
Members of the Writers Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists walk a picket line outside of Paramount Pictures in Los Angeles. Hollywood actors and writers are currently on strike, effectively bringing the giant movie and television business to a halt in the first industry-wide walkout in 63 years.
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Aug 10, 2023

The Hollywood strike is a wake-up call to Japan's film industry

With Hollywood writers and actors on strike, what lessons can creatives in the Japanese film industry learn from the fray?
A WeWork co-working office space in San Francisco on Wednesday. WeWork has said there's 'substantial doubt' about its ability to continue operating, citing sustained losses and canceled memberships to its office spaces.
BUSINESS / Companies
Aug 10, 2023

WeWork’s ‘substantial doubt’ about its future marks a stunning fall

The New York-based company is bleeding cash, and customers of its office rentals are canceling their memberships in droves.
Smoke billows as wildfires driven by high winds destroy a large part of the historic town of Lahaina in Mauii County, Hawaii, on Wednesday.
WORLD
Aug 10, 2023

Hawaii wildfires kill 36 as 'apocalypse' hits resort city

Multiple neighborhoods were burnt to the ground as the western side of the island was nearly cut off.
Logistics companies have started asking truck drivers to use sleep-tracking devices.
BUSINESS / Companies
Aug 10, 2023

Japan truck industry monitors drivers' sleep ahead of overtime cap

Firms are asking drivers to use mattress sleep trackers and wearables as they ready for an expected industry-wide crunch once overtime is limited.
An office of OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, in San Francisco. The firm recently assured corporate partners that their data would not be used to train the chatbot further.
BUSINESS
Aug 12, 2023

ChatGPT fever spreads to U.S. workplace, sounding alarm for some

Some 28% of respondents to an online poll on artificial intelligence said they regularly use ChatGPT at work.
Nadeshiko Japan head coach Futoshi Ikeda is all but certain to continue his role through the 2024 Paris Olympics and beyond.
SOCCER / Women's World cup
Aug 13, 2023

Futoshi Ikeda wants youngsters to grow as Nadeshiko heads home

The emergence of a crop of talented youngsters has reinvigorated a Nadeshiko side set to benefit from greater stability over the next four years.
Sydney Swail and Jolly, a young tabby cat, at an adoption event at Manhattan’s Animal Care Center in New York on Aug. 4
WORLD
Aug 13, 2023

Too many cats, too few vets: New York city animal shelters are bursting

Because of overcrowding, dogs at the Manhattan shelter are being kept in makeshift kennels in offices and stacks of cat cages line the halls.
A burned palm tree droops in Lahaina on Maui, Hawaii, on Friday, two days after the historic town was devastated by wildfire.
WORLD / Society
Aug 14, 2023

How climate change turned lush Hawaii into a tinderbox

The devastation on Maui happened in a state defined by its lush vegetation, a far cry from the dry landscape normally associated with fire threats.
Nadeshiko Japan reached the knockout stage at a fourth consecutive FIFA Women's World Cup before being eliminated in the quarterfinals on Friday by Sweden.
SOCCER / Women's World cup / From the Spot
Aug 15, 2023

Bold steps needed from JFA, WE League to maintain momentum after WWC

After Nadeshiko Japan's inspiring quarterfinal run in New Zealand, the country's soccer bodies must avoid the missteps of the post-2011 boom and bust.
An attendee walks past a wall decorated with binary code during July's World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai.
BUSINESS / Tech
Aug 15, 2023

Beijing aims to regulate China’s AI sector while maintaining edge

Like Europe, China is moving ahead with government oversight of what may be the most promising — and controversial — technology of the last 30 years.
Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako attend a memorial service marking the 78th anniversary of Japan's surrender in World War II at the Nippon Budokan Hall in Tokyo on Tuesday.
JAPAN / Society
Aug 15, 2023

Japan marks 78th anniversary of the end of World War II

Members of bereaved families from 10 prefectures were unable to participate in the ceremony due to Typhoon Lan.
Cirebon-1, an 11-year-old coal power station in West Java, Indonesia, is set to close early, sparing the planet millions of tons of carbon dioxide.
BUSINESS / Economy
Aug 16, 2023

Indonesian facility shows cutting coal is a hard sell for banks

The early closure of the Cirebon-1 coal plant could be a decarbonization model for Asia, but big banks have been shy about fueling the transition.
The ocean has absorbed a whopping 90% of the warming that’s occurred in recent decades as a result of increasing greenhouse gases. Shipping is responsible for a large portion of those emissions, pumping out more than a billion tons in 2018.
BUSINESS / Markets
Aug 16, 2023

Shipping's quest for greener fuel runs into climate complications

Three-and-a-half years ago, a new rule was established to cut ships’ sulfur emissions. Yet some scientists have linked that to warmer ocean temperatures.
U.S. President Joe Biden during an event in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on Tuesday. The president has crisscrossed the nation visiting groundbreakings and factories to sell his agenda, dubbed Bidenomics, with the Inflation Reduction Act as the centerpiece.
WORLD / Politics / FOCUS
Aug 17, 2023

Fires and heat block Biden from taking victory lap for climate law

It’s not the first time circumstances beyond Biden’s control have undone his efforts to revel in a victory.
U.S. President Joe Biden, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean leader Yoon Suk-yeol attend a photo op on the day of trilateral engagement during the Group of Seven summit in Hiroshima in May.
JAPAN / Politics
Aug 17, 2023

U.S., Japan and South Korea to announce new hotline at summit

The three countries' leaders will to agree on a “very ambitious set of initiatives that seek to lock in trilateral engagement,” a top U.S. official said.
The Inflation Reduction Act’s tax breaks for clean energy will help mitigate climate change but they will not meet the 2050 net-zero carbon goal.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 17, 2023

Biden’s climate bill was too tame

U.S. President Biden and the Democratic Party's Inflation Reduction Act was too tame on fixing the climate.

Longform

A small shrine perched atop rocks braves the waves hitting the shoreline during a storm in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture. The area is under threat of a possible 31-meter-high tsunami if an earthquake strikes the nearby Nankai Trough.
If the 'Big One' hits, this city could face a 31-meter-high tsunami