Search - 2020

 
 
Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama attends a long-life prayer offering ceremony at the Main Tibetan Temple in McLeod Ganj, near Dharamsala, India, on Saturday.
ASIA PACIFIC
Jul 6, 2025

'Simple Buddhist monk' Dalai Lama marks landmark 90th birthday

Beijing condemns the Nobel Peace Prize winner — who has led a lifelong campaign for greater autonomy for Tibet.
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.
A pastry chef prepares croissants for sale at a Bakehouse bakery in the Causeway Bay area of Hong Kong on July 25, 2024.
BUSINESS / Markets
Jul 7, 2025

Butter’s global price surge hits croissants and kitchens alike

Around 70% of the butter exported around the world comes from Europe and New Zealand, and each began 2025 with historically low stockpiles.
Fluminense's Thiago Silva before the FIFA Club World Cup quarterfinal match against Al Hilal in Orlando, Florida, on Friday.
SOCCER
Jul 7, 2025

Youthful Chelsea ready for Thiago Silva reunion at Club World Cup

Silva initially made his name at Fluminense, and returned to the side upon leaving Chelsea.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (left) and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi embrace at the G20 Leaders' Summit In Rio De Janeiro in 2024.
WORLD / Politics
Jul 9, 2025

Brazil’s Lula hosts Modi in bid to turn India into a major trade partner

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is desperate to finally crack the code on a relationship that has never fully taken off thanks to a litany of incompatibilities.
Chelsea's Joao Pedro (left) after scoring his club's first goal of its Club World Cup semifinal win over Fluminense on Tuesday in East Rutherford, New Jersey.
SOCCER
Jul 9, 2025

Joao Pedro brace sends Chelsea into Club World Cup final

The Brazilian striker dominated his former club Fluminense as Chelsea set up a showdown with either Real Madrid or Paris Saint-Germain in the final.
Nuggets center Nikola Jokic drives to the basket against the Thunder during a playoff game on May 13.
BASKETBALL / NBA
Jul 9, 2025

Nuggets' Nikola Jokic reportedly to wait until next summer for contract talks

A three-time MVP, Jokic is eligible for a three-year, $206.4 million contract extension, but could wait and sign a max deal next summer.
“Giselle” lead Yuriko Kajiya (center), performing with Connor Walsh as Albrecht, is one of six Japanese dancers at Houston Ballet.
CULTURE / Stage
Jul 9, 2025

Japanese dancers find a home abroad at Houston Ballet

Returning to Japan for the American ballet company's first international tour since 2022, several dancers speak about why they moved overseas.
A V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor transport aircraft arrives at the Ground Self-Defense Force's new camp in the city of Saga on Wednesday.
JAPAN
Jul 9, 2025

GSDF begins Osprey deployment to new camp in southwestern Japan

The deployment of the tilt-rotor aircraft from Camp Kisarazu in Chiba Prefecture to the new camp in Saga is scheduled to be completed by mid-August.
The Punjab Kings' Josh Inglis competes in the final of the Indian Premier League on June 3 in Ahmedabad.
MORE SPORTS / Cricket
Jul 10, 2025

Cricket's Indian Premier League value surges to $18.5 billion: report

The world's richest cricket tournament has been estimated to generate more than $11 billion a year for the Indian economy.
Naoya Inoue following a news conference in Tokyo. Inoue will face Murodjon Akhmadaliev in Nagoya in September.
MORE SPORTS / Boxing
Jul 10, 2025

'Monster' Inoue to face Akhmadaliev in Nagoya

After a bout in Vegas, the 32-year-old returns to his home country to take on Murodjon Akhmadaliev, who won a bronze medal at the 2016 Olympics.
A public school teacher leads the class during the first day of in-person classes, at a school flooded due to high tide, in Macabebe, Pampanga province, Philippines, in August 2022.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Jul 10, 2025

Philippines struggling to ready underfunded schools for climate hazards

Teachers want the government to do more than tweak the school calendar, and also invest in infrastructure that will make schools resilient to heat and storms.
Onosato will be making his <i>yokozuna</i> debut during the Nagoya Grand Sumo Tournament, which begins Sunday.
SUMO
Jul 11, 2025

Nagoya Basho shaping up to be another red-hot affair at new venue

With the IG Arena promising a far more pleasant viewing experience, anyone lucky enough to get tickets for the upcoming Nagoya tournament should be in for a treat.
Businesses who cater to fandoms gathered at Tokyo Lifestyle Week for the second annual Oshikatsu — Merch Collection Expo, a trade show devoted to fandom goods.
CULTURE / Music / Sound Off
Jul 12, 2025

Music idol and anime fandom merch is big business

Over 100 booths showed off the latest in acrylic stands, binoculars and cheering items such as glow sticks and flags at the second Oshikatsu — Merch Expo.
Evgeniya Mayboroda sits in the defendant's dock during the announcement of the verdict in her case at the municipal court of Shakhty, Rostov Oblast, Russia, on Jan. 29, 2024.
WORLD / Politics
Jul 8, 2025

The strange case of Evgeniya Mayboroda, Russia's rebel retiree

The 72-year-old's transformation from fan to critic says much about the state of today's Russia under Vladimir Putin.
After pandemic-era border regulations eased, Indian migrants began returning to Japan. Their population now stands at more than 50,000 across the country.
COMMUNITY / Issues / Longform
Jul 14, 2025

How remote work is rewriting the migrant experience in Japan

Remote work is reshaping how Indian professionals navigate life, family and identity in a post-pandemic Japan.
In a report Friday, Goldman Sachs economists noted that it’s reasonable to expect the Bank of Japan to start gradually selling ETFs in fiscal 2026 to minimize its loss and the impact on the stock market.
BUSINESS
Jul 14, 2025

BOJ finishes offloading bank stocks, bringing attention to ETFs

The BOJ’s holdings of the shares purchased from banks hit zero as of July 10, falling from ¥2.5 billion ($17.4 million) 10 days ago, according to its balance sheet report.
The house of the wife of the late Chizuo Matsumoto, the now-defunct Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult's founder, in Koshigaya, Saitama Prefecture, in July
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Jul 16, 2025

Tens of millions of yen found at home of Aum Shinrikyo founder's wife

Chizuo Matsumoto was executed in 2018 over a series of incidents involving the cult, including the 1995 sarin nerve gas attack on Tokyo's subway system.
Egyptian wrestler Osunaarashi has some fun with children during a special Japan Sumo Association event in 2017.
SUMO / INSIDE SUMO
Jul 16, 2025

JSA’s 100th anniversary event is a once-in-a-lifetime chance for sumo fans

People in attendance for the celebration will get a chance to see the rare "sandangamae" performance and demonstrations of ancient sumo.
Mod's memoir “Things Become Other Things” chronicles his walking trips across the Kii Peninsula, surveying “a graceful end to a certain life cycle.”
CULTURE / Books
Jul 16, 2025

Craig Mod's life in motion in a disappearing Japan

In “Things Become Other Things,” the longtime resident of Japan captures that grace that lingers in slowly vanishing countryside towns.
Former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in Bangkok on July 9
ASIA PACIFIC
Jul 16, 2025

Thai ex-PM Thaksin appears on stand in royal defamation case

Thaksin faces up to 15 years in prison if he is convicted in the closed-door trial in Bangkok, where he stands accused of breaching strict lese majeste laws.
U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron hold a news conference in London on July 10 after wrapping up a joint military visit.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 16, 2025

France and U.K. tighten nuclear ties amid questions over U.S. commitment

While France and the U.K. are taking a positive step for European security, the announcement is both more and less than it seems.
A statue of Park Chung-hee, the former South Korean dictator, in Gumi, South Korea, in 2016.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Jul 17, 2025

South Korea retries ex-spy chief over 1979 presidential assassination

Park had ruled the country with an iron fist for more than 15 years when he was shot and killed by his head of intelligence and trusted aide Kim at a dinner in 1979.
Solar power more than doubled to 24% of Pakistan's energy mix in the first five months of 2025, becoming the largest source of energy production for the first time.
ENVIRONMENT / Energy
Jul 17, 2025

Pakistan's quiet solar rush puts pressure on national grid

Solar power more than doubled to 24% of Pakistan's energy mix in the first five months of 2025, becoming the largest source of energy production for the first time.
Kiyoshi Shibata stands in front of one of the rice paddies in Murayama, Yamagata Prefecture, where he produces the prefecture's signature rice brand Tsuyahime.
JAPAN / Politics / FOCUS
Jul 17, 2025

Japan's rice farmers are confounded by Shinjiro Koizumi’s policies

Farming communities, a key base for the Liberal Democratic Party, are increasingly voicing their distress at how the rice situation is being handled.
Members of a former nurse’s legal team hold up a sign reading “Victory against the prefecture” after the Otsu District Court ruled in their favor on Thursday. 
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Jul 18, 2025

Shiga government ordered to compensate ex-assistant nurse acquitted of murder

The plaintiff side argued the police officers who were in charge of investigating the former assistant nurse intentionally led her to make a false confession.
Mazda employees walk at the company's main plant in the town of Fuchu, Hiroshima Prefecture, on Tuesday.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jul 18, 2025

Japan voters see little hope for tariff reprieve in carmaker Mazda's hometown

The economic engine of Hiroshima Prefecture faces U.S. tariffs of 25% on cars, a dispiriting prospect for an electorate already battling inflation.
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth speaks at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, on June 26. The Donald Trump-ordered strikes on Iran, said to be an example of the “Trump Doctrine,” ignore decades of failed U.S. attempts to force adversaries to back down through short bursts of military power. 
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 18, 2025

The 'Trump Doctrine' is wishful thinking

The Donald Trump-ordered strikes on Iran, claimed to prove a unique “Trump Doctrine,” ignore decades of failed U.S. attempts to force adversaries to back down.
WNBA All-Stars Caitlin Clark (right) and Kelsey Plum prior to the All-Star Game in Indianapolis on Saturday.
BASKETBALL
Jul 20, 2025

Clark urges more pay for WNBA players as labor talks intensify

Commissioner Cathy Engelbert struck a positive tone with reporters, saying she felt a recent meeting with players had been productive.
A coral reef in Okinawa in July 2022. Some jurisdictions around the world have moved to ban certain sunscreens in a bid to protect coral reefs, but some say the impact on reefs is far from clear.
ENVIRONMENT / Wildlife / OUR PLANET
Jul 20, 2025

Japan’s top brands get tied up in the great sunscreen debate

The debate over the damage sunscreens cause to the marine environment is heating up as some regions ban certain chemical ingredients.

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