Search - 2023

 
 
The latest research indicates that heat stress is likely to worsen the condition of people with Alzheimer’s disease — which accounts for over half of all dementia cases in Japan — by making them more irritated or exacerbating their cognitive decline.
JAPAN / Science & Health / Boiling Point
Jul 29, 2024

For aging Japan, a troubling link between heat and dementia

The latest research indicates that heat can exacerbate cognitive decline and worsen dementia symptoms.
A screen shows news coverage of Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni meeting with China's Premier Li Qiang in Beijing on Sunday.
WORLD / Politics
Jul 29, 2024

Italy's Meloni vows to 'relaunch' cooperation with China

Rome seeks to improve trade ties with Beijing after exiting the Belt and Road infrastructure investment plan last year.
A man with a whip tries to control a crowd of Sudanese refugees waiting to receive food at an impromptu aid distribution on the outskirts of a refugee camp in Adre, Chad, on July 8. As starvation spreads in Sudan, its military is blocking the United Nations from bringing food into the country via the most straightforward route.
WORLD
Jul 29, 2024

As starvation spreads in Sudan, military blocks aid trucks at border

Distrust and the loss of border control is hindering delivery of food by the United Nations via the most straightforward route.
Inside TSMC’s plant in Taiwan. Chip plants, with rows of advanced equipment, require massive amounts of electricity.
BUSINESS / Companies / Regional Voices: Kyushu
Aug 5, 2024

TSMC’s Kumamoto plant pledges to use 100% renewables despite high costs

The move is not just an exercise of corporate responsibility but also a response to demands from the chipmaker's large customers.
French fans cheer on their team during an Olympic rugby sevens match on Sunday. Fans are back in force at the Games and providing a lively atmosphere for the competition after COVID-19 forced the Tokyo and Beijing Olympics to be mostly played without spectators.
OLYMPICS
Jul 29, 2024

The Olympic roar is back in Paris after two pandemic-hit Games

The sights and sounds of the Olympics have returned to normal this year, with fans able to attend the Games without restrictions for the first time since 2018.
Shareholder backing for Toyota Motor Chairman Akio Toyoda slid to 72% at the company's annual general meeting last month.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jul 29, 2024

Toyota chairman warns he may lose board spot amid falling investor support

Akio Toyoda said he may not be reelected as a director if shareholder support for him continues to fall at the pace it did this year.
Samsung has won the long-awaited approval from artificial-intelligence giant Nvidia for a version of its high-bandwidth HBM3 memory chips.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jul 30, 2024

Samsung begins closing gap in making AI memory chips for Nvidia

The advances that include winning approval from artificial-intelligence giant Nvidia come after months of stumbles for Samsung.
Trees burn during the Park Fire near Chico, California.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Jul 30, 2024

Massive California wildfire hints at bleak outlook for 2024

Two wet winters in a row covered the state in newly-grown grass and brush, then summer arrived with dry air and back-to-back heat waves, turning vegetation to fuel.
The Maersk Launcher, a ship chartered by The Metals Company, carries seabed samples from the remote Clarion-Clipperton Zone of the Pacific Ocean on June 7, 2021.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Jul 30, 2024

The future of deep sea mining hinges on a contentious election

The vote will determine whether companies can begin strip-mining the world’s oceans for critical metals despite concerns about the impacts.
Toyota's global sales declined 4.7% in the first half of this year compared to the same period the year before.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jul 30, 2024

Toyota first-half sales fell even as hybrids and EVs gained in U.S.

Toyota’s global output — including that of subsidiaries Daihatsu Motor and Hino Motors — dropped 9.8% versus the first six months of 2023 to about 5 million units.
Harley-Davidson motorcycles on display in Tokyo. Japan's antitrust watchdog has raided the manufacturer's Japan unit for allegedly imposing excessive sales quotas on its dealers.
JAPAN
Jul 30, 2024

Harley-Davidson's Japan unit raided after quotas force dealers into hardship

The motorcycle manufacturer's unit in Tokyo is also suspected of having dealers buy Harley-Davidson models that they did not want.
Upper House lawmaker Muneo Suzuki speaks to reporters in Moscow on Monday.
JAPAN / Politics
Jul 30, 2024

Pro-Moscow lawmaker Muneo Suzuki visits Russia again

The Upper House member defied the central government by flying to Moscow for talks with senior Russian officials.
As of March 2023, there were 86 medicines that had been approved in Europe or the United States but remained unavailable in Japan.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Jul 30, 2024

Japan unveils plan to improve access to foreign drugs

The road map to address what is known as "drug loss" envisions that development of in-demand medicines will start by April 2026.
World Anti-Doping Agency President Witold Banka holds a news conference in Paris on July 25. WADA and the entire global anti-doping system have been under intensifying scrutiny in recent months.
OLYMPICS
Jul 31, 2024

Anti-doping agency acknowledges concern over use of tainted food as excuse

The global anti-doping regulator disclosed Tuesday that it is investigating why athletes in China and other countries who are testing positive for banned drugs are escaping discipline through claims that they have unwittingly ingested the performance-enhancing substances through food.
A public safety officer wipes away sweat in Times Square during high temperatures in New York on June 20.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Jul 31, 2024

This is how we know when the world has its hottest day

These conclusions rely on a near real-time picture of the Earth’s climate for roughly every 30-square-kilometer chunk of the planet’s surface.
A worker at a supermarket in Tokyo's Nerima Ward puts up a sign on July 25 saying rice purchases are restricted to one bag per customer.
JAPAN
Jul 31, 2024

Japan's rice stocks shrink to record low amid high demand and heat woes

An 18 percentage point decline in the share of 2023's crop rated first-grade led to a decrease in rice on the market, while demand saw the first rise in a decade.
Prosecutors leave Upper House lawmaker Megumi Hirose's home in Tokyo on Tuesday after searching it as part of an investigation into alleged fraud.
JAPAN / Politics
Jul 31, 2024

Resignation of LDP lawmaker over pay scandal adds to party's woes

Megumi Hirose has left the party over allegations she pocketed public money to pay the salary of a secretary who didn’t actually work.
Diners in the Salamanca neighborhood of Madrid in 2023
BUSINESS / Tech
Jul 31, 2024

Spain ranked as the best country for remote work: report

Japan, which announced a digital nomad program on April 1, was 16th on the list.
Talented radio announcer Nobutaka Wada (Go Morita) becomes conscience-stricken about pushing the Japanese government’s propaganda during World War II in “The Voices at War.”
CULTURE / Film
Aug 1, 2024

‘The Voices at War’ shines light on wartime radio announcers

The NHK film holds up a smudged mirror to the role its predecessor, Radio Japan, and its employees played in serving as government mouthpieces during World War II.
A Samsung HBM chip
WORLD / Politics
Aug 1, 2024

U.S. weighs restrictions on China’s access to AI memory chips

The new restrictions are likely to be unveiled as soon as late August as part of a broader package that also includes sanctions against over 120 Chinese firms.
Then U.S. President Donald Trump meets with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas, in Panmunjom, South Korea, on June 30, 2019.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Aug 1, 2024

North Korea wants to restart nuclear talks if Trump wins, says ex-diplomat

The former diplomat said North Korea has also set Russia, the U.S. and Japan as its top foreign policy priorities.
The amount of money stolen in fraud cases linked to social media in the first half of 2024 exceeded that of the whole 2023, the National Police Agency said.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Aug 1, 2024

¥66 billion stolen in Japan via online scams in first half of 2024

Of the investment fraud cases reported, 51.6% involved advertisements on social media platforms.
Takeshita street in Tokyo's Harajuku shopping district on Wednesday, when temperatures reached 35.6 degrees Celsius.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Aug 1, 2024

New 'most severe' category added to Japan’s heatstroke guidelines

The move is meant to stress the need for urgent medical attention in severe cases as the number of heatstroke cases soars amid record-high temperatures.
People cross a street in Tokyo's Harajuku district on Wednesday. In July, the deviation from the average temperature between 1991 and 2020 — a period when warming was already well underway — was 2.16 degrees Celsius.
JAPAN / Boiling Point
Aug 1, 2024

Japan experienced its hottest July on record

The number of “extremely hot days” — those where the highest temperature hits 35 C and above — was the largest figure for a July.
Passengers exit trains at Hamamatsucho Station in Tokyo.
JAPAN / Society
Aug 1, 2024

Paternity leave uptake in Japan hits record 30%

The new record represents a 13 percentage point increase from the previous year.
Nissan CEO Makoto Uchida (left) and Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe hold a joint news conference in Tokyo on Thursday.
BUSINESS / Companies
Aug 1, 2024

Honda and Nissan to tighten ties on software, batteries and EV knowhow

Honda and Nissan sales fell about 40% and 27%, respectively, in June alone in China following the shutdown of some of their local plants.
Seven Eleven officials receives a Guinness World Records' certificate for its product as the most sold freshly made curry bread in volume in 2023 during a ceremony in Saitama Prefecture on Thursday.
BUSINESS / Companies
Aug 1, 2024

7-Eleven's curry bread certified by Guinness World Records

The ¥160 bread, fried in store, logged 76,987,667 pieces sold.
Simone Biles reacts after her balance beam routine during the women's all-around final at the Paris Olympics on Thursday.
OLYMPICS / Gymnastics
Aug 2, 2024

Peerless Simone Biles wins second Olympic all-around title

Brazilian Rebeca Andrade earned silver for the second straight Games and defending champion Sunisa Lee of the United States finished with bronze.
Cyberespionage has become a powerful tool in China’s tool set as it pursues its geopolitical aims, cybersecurity experts say.
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal
Aug 2, 2024

Suspected Chinese hackers hit Taiwanese research center

The attackers used a kind of malicious software tool that’s almost entirely used by China-based groups, cybersecurity researchers at Cisco Systems said.
Temperatures are soaring across Japan, making getting to sleep at night a constant battle between your body and the right setting for your air conditioner to help you nod off.
LIFE / Lifestyle / Boiling Point
Aug 2, 2024

An ideal AC temperature for sleep? Science says yes ... and no.

Keeping your room at 26 degrees Celsius can help you sleep through summer’s steamy nights — but how long should you leave the AC on?

Longform

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