Search - 2020

 
 
A prisoner stands behind the door of a cell in the isolation section of the Villepinte detention center in Villepinte, near Paris.
WORLD / Society
Apr 27, 2024

Ahead of Olympics, a packed Paris prison braces for crowds of inmates

Many of the events are being held in Seine-Saint-Denis, which has the highest ratio of immigrants among France's departments and is also the poorest.
U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel meets with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in February 2022. Emanuel has praised the Kishida administration's efforts to boost national and regional security.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Apr 26, 2024

Japan's unlikeliest cheerleader is an American ambassador

U.S. Ambassador to Tokyo Rahm Emanuel showers his host country, and its government, with praise. And in his view, Washington doesn't understand Japan well.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk attends a conference in Paris last June.
BUSINESS / Companies
Apr 28, 2024

Tesla CEO Elon Musk kicks off surprise trip to Beijing

Musk is seeking to meet senior Chinese officials in Beijing to discuss the rollout of Full-Self Driving software in China.
Lawmakers and TikTok creators during a news conference outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington on March 12
BUSINESS
Apr 29, 2024

TikTok creators brace for economic blow thanks to possible U.S. ban

TikTok has become an essential platform for small business starting out in the U.S., one eMarketer analyst said, as a ban on the social media app looms.
Visitors check a Tesla Model 3 car next to a Model Y displayed at a showroom of the U.S. electric-vehicle maker in Beijing on Feb. 4.
BUSINESS / Tech
Apr 29, 2024

Tesla clears key regulatory hurdles for self-driving in China

Tesla is said to have reached an agreement with Baidu to use the Chinese tech giant's mapping license for data collection.
Researcher Mercury Wong holds a rice plant on April 1.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Apr 30, 2024

Hong Kong team plants seeds to safeguard legacy grains

Scientists and farmers in Hong Kong are tending to local varieties of grain they say could be an important food source in the face of climate change.
Defense Minister Minoru Kihara takes part in an arrival ceremony with U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin at the Pentagon in Washington last October.
JAPAN / Politics / FOCUS
Apr 30, 2024

‘Collective capacity’ to top agenda at four-way defense talks in Hawaii

One thing will be on Defense Minister Minoru Kihara's mind: how to deepen military and security cooperation with allies to counter China.
Japan's industrial production rose 3.8% in March from February, as demand picked up after two straight months of declines.
BUSINESS / Economy
Apr 30, 2024

Japan’s factory output records weakest quarter since pandemic

The yen’s plunge to a fresh 34-year low versus the dollar could spur a resurgence of cost-push inflation via higher costs for imports of food and energy.
Children hold cork sheets to cover them from the sun while walking along a street during a countrywide heat wave in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on Sunday.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
May 1, 2024

Extreme heat is closing schools, widening learning gaps worldwide

Many countries experiencing heat waves are torn between closing schools or leaving them open, both of which negatively affect children's learning.
Kim Kyu-li holds a protest placard at her home in southwest London.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
May 1, 2024

As border reopens, North Koreans in China vanish

Hundreds of North Koreans have been repatriated by China in recent months, where they face imprisonment, torture and even execution.
Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako speak to evacuees at a shelter in Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, in March.
JAPAN
May 1, 2024

Emperor Naruhito marks five years since enthronement

The emperor's first five years on the throne were largely overshadowed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Customer harassment” — in which customers harass front-line workers with aggressive behavior or unreasonable requests — has become a growing problem in the service industry.
JAPAN / Society
May 2, 2024

Japan steps up measures against 'customer harassment'

A 2022 survey found that 67.5% of respondents had experienced some kind of harassment from customers in the past three years.
Four girls congregate at an empty swimming pool at their high school and discuss their lives in “Swimming in a Sand Pool.”
CULTURE / Film
May 2, 2024

‘Swimming in a Sand Pool’ takes rare dive into gender issues

Nobuhiro Yamashita draws appealingly natural performances from his cast of newcomers in the film adaptation of an award-winning play.
Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce celebrates with the Lombardi Trophy after Super Bowl LVIII in Las Vegas on Feb. 11.
MORE SPORTS / Football
May 2, 2024

Travis Kelce 'extremely grateful' for new deal with Chiefs

The Chiefs reworked Kelce's contract, pumping up his salary to $34.25 million over the next two seasons.
Counter-protesters strike a barricade at a pro-Palestinian encampment on the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) campus on Wednesday.
WORLD
May 2, 2024

Violence flares at UCLA as police end protests at New York's Columbia

Police said UCLA had called them to restore order and maintain public safety "due to multiple acts of violence" within the encampment.
Laxman Narasimhan has been CEO of Starbucks for just over a year.
BUSINESS / Companies
May 2, 2024

Sales slump and shares dive at Starbucks as inflation cuts thirst for treats

The global chain expressed confidence in its forecast as recently as November, saying that demand for iced shaken espressos was resilient.
A World Anti-Doping Agency logo is seen at the WADA Symposium in Lausanne, Switzerland, on March 12, 2024.
MORE SPORTS
May 2, 2024

USADA slams WADA for making 'half-truths' in China doping case

WADA has been under fire since last month, when the New York Times reported 23 Chinese swimmers tested positive for trimetazidine before the Tokyo Games.
Brittney Griner (center) watches from the bench as the Mercury face the Sky on May 21, 2023. Griner was detained in Russia for nine months after being arrested on drug charges in 2022.
BASKETBALL
May 2, 2024

WNBA star Brittney Griner contemplated suicide while detained in Russia

Griner was jailed in Russia after her arrest on drug charges in 2022.
Attendees at the Leap technology conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on March 6, 202. The oil-rich country is plowing money into glitzy events, computing power and artificial intelligence research, putting it in the middle of an escalating U.S.-China struggle for technological influence.
WORLD / Politics
May 2, 2024

‘To the future’: Saudi Arabia spends big to become an AI superpower

Saudi Arabia was long a financial spigot for tech, but is now building its own industry.
A traditional Ainu preserved food called <i>satchep</i> (dried fish) being made at the government-run National Ainu Museum and Park, nicknamed Upopoy, in the town of Shiraoi, Hokkaido, on Dec. 25. The Sapporo District Court ruled last month that the Raporo Ainu Nation's rights as an Indigenous people did not extend to having an inherent right to fish for commercial reasons.
JAPAN / Society
May 3, 2024

Sapporo court ruling on Ainu fishing rights presents tough questions

A Sapporo court ruled last month that an Ainu group only has the right to engage in salmon fishing for cultural — but not commercial — reasons.
A boy next to a nearly dried-up lake during an electricity blackout in Yangon on Thursday
ASIA PACIFIC
May 3, 2024

Myanmar's junta stops issuing permits for men to work abroad

The junta said in February it would enforce a law allowing it to call up all men to serve in the military for at least two years.
Jakob Ingebrigtsen runs during a Diamond League meet in Brussels on Sept. 8, 2023.
OLYMPICS
May 3, 2024

Jakob Ingebrigtsen expects Paris to be 'walk in the park' compared to Tokyo

Jakob Ingebrigtsen believes his 1,500-meter Olympic title defense will be a breeze as long as he avoids illness and injury on the road to Paris.
U.S. President Joe Biden speaks about student protests at U.S. universities during brief remarks at the White House in Washington on Thursday.
WORLD / Politics
May 3, 2024

After breaking silence, Biden faces balancing act on Gaza demos

Biden took a tough, law-and-order tone after police broke up some of the protests that have rocked U.S. college campuses.
Jiro Suzuki, head of Kosaka Railroad Railpark in Kosaka, Akita Prefecture, stands next to a retired Akebono sleeper train that is now being used as a lodging facility, on April 22.
JAPAN / Society
May 3, 2024

Lodging in 'blue train' to resume in Japan after five-year hiatus

Services using the retired sleeper train are set to restart Saturday after five years of suspension due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Tiger Woods accepted a special exemption to compete in this year's U.S. Open, the USGA announced on Thursday.
MORE SPORTS / Golf
May 3, 2024

Tiger Woods accepts special exemption into U.S. Open

"The U.S. Open, our national championship, is a truly special event for our game and one that has helped define my career," Woods said.
The Singapore skyline. The Wall Street Journal will be shifting its Asia base to the city from Hong Kong.
BUSINESS / Companies
May 3, 2024

Wall Street Journal moves Asia base from Hong Kong to Singapore

The U.S. newspaper said its decision comes after other foreign firms have reconsidered their operations in the Chinese financial hub.
Resistance soldiers ride in the back of a pickup truck in southern Karenni State, Myanmar, on Jan. 28. Three years after a military coup, the Southeast Asian nation is teetering on the brink of failed statehood.
ASIA PACIFIC
May 3, 2024

What’s happening in Myanmar’s civil war?

The military is still the country’s most influential institution, and a militarized culture pervades many areas that ethnic minorities control.
Strong family ties act as an insurance against economic and other shocks and can be strengthened by government policies that promote intergenerational solidarity.
COMMENTARY / World
May 3, 2024

As families change, so must safety nets

Intergenerational family ties act as a form of insurance. Governments like Singapore's are supporting such arrangements and others should follow suit.
Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa and her Sri Lankan counterpart, Ali Sabry, after a bilateral meeting in Colombo on Saturday.
JAPAN
May 4, 2024

Japan seeks Sri Lanka recovery for regional stability

After talks with her Sri Lankan counterpart, Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa said that Colombo should secure agreements with bilateral lenders.
An attendee holds a cardboard cutout of Warren Buffett, chairman and chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway, inside the CHI Health Center during the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholders meeting in Omaha, Nebraska, on Saturday.
BUSINESS
May 5, 2024

Buffett says Berkshire in good hands, lauds Apple despite lowering stake

The legendary investor paid tribute to his late business partner and said he expected the conglomerate’s $189 billion cash pile to keep growing.

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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