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From left: Yusuke Nagai, Taiyo Someya and Kaori Sakakibara formed their band Lamp in 2000, developing a cult following over the years with their own blend of 1960s pop harmonies, ’70s folk craft and ’80s bossa nova brightness.
CULTURE / Music
Nov 3, 2023

The slow and steady rise of Lamp, a cult favorite

With new album 'Dusk to Dawn,' the folk rockers bring light to the new Japanese music canon.
Palestinians gather at the scene of a strike in a refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on Saturday.
JAPAN / Society
Nov 5, 2023

Japanese aid worker tells of her harrowing last days in Gaza

Maiko Shirane, a 36-year-old Tokyo native, says the violence she witnessed in Gaza is something "nobody should experience."
Seoul-based American physician John Linton — Korean name Ihn Yohan — speaks during a meeting in Seoul on Nov. 3
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Nov 7, 2023

'Blue-eyed Korean' tasked with shaking up Seoul politics

Born in rural Jeolla province, John Linton is nicknamed the "blue-eyed Korean" and speaks the language perfectly, albeit with a strong regional accent.
Steve Jobs, Apple's former chief executive, speaks at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco on June 6, 2011. Sam Altman, the most prominent promoter of artificial intelligence, learned that it’s hard to be a visionary founder like the Apple legend.
BUSINESS / Tech
Nov 21, 2023

The long shadow of Steve Jobs looms over the turmoil at OpenAI

The sudden firing and bid to reinstate OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has deepened the parallels to Jobs, who was marginalized by the board of Apple in 1985.
A website for a lawyers group supporting followers and next of kin over alleged Jehovah's Witnesses abuse
JAPAN / Society
Nov 21, 2023

Many children of Jehovah’s Witnesses experience abuse, Japan report says

Report sheds lights on abuses such as forcing the children to refuse blood transfusions regardless of their situation, and corporal punishment.
Afghan refugees sit with their belongings near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border on Nov. 20.
WORLD
Nov 22, 2023

Afghans driven from Pakistan rebuilding lives from 'zero'

Many have lived decades, if not their whole lives, outside their country, with no one left in their homeland to return to.
Yoko Huijs-Watanuki poses in the city of Fukuoka during a visit to Japan in October.
JAPAN / Society / Regional Voices: Kyushu
Dec 4, 2023

Oita woman helps Japanese Dutch, born in WWII, trace their roots

During the Pacific War the Japanese military occupied the Dutch East Indies, after taking the land from Dutch forces in 1942.
Tokyo Healthcare University professor Takayuki Mifune explains how he is trying to re-create bonito broth from 1,300 years ago.
JAPAN / Science & Health / Longform
Dec 4, 2023

The quest to re-create what the Japanese ate 1,300 years ago

Professor Takayuki Mifune and his team are hoping to understand, in minute detail, the culinary habits of our Japanese ancestors.
U.S. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor in her chambers at the Supreme Court in Washington in 2003.
WORLD
Dec 2, 2023

Sandra Day O’Connor, the first female U.S. Supreme Court justice, dies at 93

The court said in a statement that O'Connor died in Phoenix of complications related to advanced dementia and a respiratory illness.
Rohingya refugee Abdur Rahaman at a temporary Indonesian immigration shelter in Lhokseumawe, in Aceh province.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Dec 4, 2023

Young Rohingya leave Bangladesh camps for university dream

Refugees still face challenges in obtaining an education in Indonesia.
South Korean Lee Kyung-woo was sentenced to life in prison in October for the kidnapping and murder of a 48-year-old woman over a crypto dispute.
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal
Dec 13, 2023

Crypto and ketamine: The murder that shocked South Korea

Case resembling K-drama plot emerges in safe and almost drug-free country where violent killings are rare.
Matt Boyle of the Greater Manchester Police speaks to reporters after missing teen Alex Batty returned to the U.K. on Saturday.
WORLD
Dec 17, 2023

British teen Alex Batty arrives in U.K. six years after vanishing

The teen was found in the middle of the night by a delivery driver after he had walked along a road for four days.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said that he was against banning abortion, but that terminations were against state interests.
WORLD / Politics
Dec 18, 2023

'Give birth to more soldiers': hard-line Russia turns on abortions

Over the last few months a flurry of regions have rushed to restrict abortions in private clinics, yielding to demands from the Russian Orthodox church.
In Hayao Miyazaki's films, characters often experience life-changing revelations in midair, such as Haku and Chihiro in "Spirited Away."
CULTURE / Film
Dec 19, 2023

How Hayao Miyazaki’s films continue to take us to the skies

When characters take flight in the films of the master animator, there is always a deeper meaning.
Competitors play "Warships" at Squid Game: The Trials, Netflixユs new attraction in Los Angeles on Nov. 28, 2023. For $30, fans can compete in some 70 minutes of play, with moral twists and six group activities, including nonlethal versions of the showユs challenges.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming
Dec 13, 2023

Netflix builds a ‘Squid Game’ universe as it awaits a second season

A reality show and a live experience are two ways of keeping the dystopian series in the public eye. Is the original’s bleak message being diluted?
Ukraine passed a law in July to move the celebration of Christmas to Dec. 25 — the day when most of the Christian world marks the birth of Jesus.
WORLD / Politics
Dec 24, 2023

Ukrainians defy Moscow with first Dec. 25 Christmas

The move to celebrate the birth of Jesus on the day most Christians do deviates from the Orthodox Church observance of Jan. 7, seen as Russian heritage.
Though ChatGPT debuted in late 2022, it was really in 2023 that we started to get a sense of what large language models could do, including diagnosing complex medical issues.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 31, 2023

The 10 most intriguing science breakthroughs over the past year

As 2023 has drawn to a close, let’s look back on some of the astounding breakthroughs we’ve seen in the last 12 months.
People's Liberation Army forces walk near the Sagaing Region in Myanmar on Nov. 23.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Jan 2, 2024

Myanmar's 'watermelons': Soldier on the outside, rebel inside

Opposition groups say it is difficult to determine how many members of the security forces supplied information to the resistance, but they play a crucial role.
The remains of a shopping district that caught fire in the city of Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, due to the New Year's Day earthquake
EDITORIALS
Jan 5, 2024

Japan ushers in a bruising beginning for 2024

Japan has learned from past disasters and mistakes and must continue to do so.
Sunset at Cape Puyuni in Hokkaido, Japan. The northern island is home to the indigenous Ainu.
JAPAN / History / The Living Past
Jan 21, 2024

To Bird, a savage. To Chiri, alive and aglow.

When given a pen, Yukie Chiri wrote about the Ainu in ways outsiders never tried to understand.
A man prays on July 19, 2019, outside the Kyoto Animation building where 36 people died in a fire caused by Shinji Aoba the previous day.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Jan 24, 2024

Possible death penalty looms for Kyoto Animation arson suspect

The trial shed light on his upbringing, the emergence of his grudge against the studio and how he went ahead with his plan of attack despite some hesitation.
Unfortunately for Japan, the demographic cliff is approaching and the government will need more than minor course adjustments to fix its Self-Defense Forces' recruitment woes.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jan 26, 2024

Cosmetic changes won’t fix the SDF’s recruitment problem

Facing demographic decline, Japan explores innovative solutions to boost recruitment in the Self-Defense Forces.
South African officials speak ahead of the International Court of Justice's ruling on emergency measures against Israel following accusations by South Africa that the Israeli military operation in Gaza is a state-led genocide, in The Hague on Friday.
WORLD
Jan 27, 2024

South Africa invokes Mandela's legacy with case against Israel

To many South Africans, the country’s outspoken advocacy on behalf of Palestinians has become a point of national pride.
Building off her own experiences, “Voice” director Yukiko Mishima considers the effects of sexual assault and how the survivors and those around them continue with their lives.
CULTURE / Film
Feb 2, 2024

‘Voice’ examines the reverberations of trauma

Yukiko Mishima’s film draws from the director's own experience to shed light on life after experiencing assault.
The title monster in “Godzilla Minus One” is a threat, of course, but the real story is about finding community in the wake of destruction.
CULTURE / Film
Feb 3, 2024

‘Godzilla Minus One’ stomps into ‘Oppenheimer’ territory

Those movies, along with “The Boy and the Heron,” are essentially in conversation about the moral weight of American and Japanese actions in World War II.
Britain's King Charles leaves the London Clinic with Britain's Queen Camilla after receiving treatment for an enlarged prostate, in London on Jan. 29.
WORLD
Feb 6, 2024

King Charles diagnosed with cancer just 18 months into his reign

Buckingham Palace said that the king would postpone public-facing duties while he undergoes treatment.
Wang Xiuting chats with her virtual boyfriend on Wantalk — an AI chatbot created by Chinese tech company Baidu, on her phone in Beijing.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Feb 13, 2024

'Better than real men': Young Chinese women turn to AI boyfriends

Users say they are driven by a desire for companionship because China's fast pace of life and urban isolation make loneliness an issue for many.
Naoko Motooka began hunting 10 years ago. Her hobby is one way Hokkaido hopes to curb a current boom in the deer population.
PODCAST / deep dive
Feb 15, 2024

Hunting in Hokkaido; Taylor Swift comes to Tokyo

You probably don’t think of guns when you think of Japan, but Hokkaido’s hunters do.
Damo Suzuki, who passed away at the age of 74 on Feb. 9, was best known as a vocalist for the German “krautrock” pioneers Can. He later launched Damo Suzuki’s Network, a live music project that took him around the world, playing with different musicians every night. 
CULTURE / Music
Feb 17, 2024

Damo Suzuki forged a path outside of mainstream pop and rock

Idiosyncratic and spontaneous, the Can vocalist was an influential figure of the “krautrock” scene.
Yasuhiro Otomo and Miku Narisawa during one of Odyssey Nature Japan's educational fishing programs.
PODCAST / deep dive
Feb 22, 2024

A young 3/11 survivor and her vow to protect the ocean

At 12, Miku Narisawa experienced a magnitude 9 earthquake and tsunami that destroyed her home. Now she is working to protect it.

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?