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Donald Trump’s wealth and foreign ties are under scrutiny after a new report from Democrats on the House Oversight Committee sheds light on financial conflicts during his presidency. 
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 12, 2024

Trump took $7.8 million in foreign cash while in office. He’d do it again.

National security is at stake if a president puts his or her wallet before the public interest.
People cool off on a beach in Rio de Janeiro in November amid a heat wave.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Jan 13, 2024

El Nino could make 2024 hotter than record-setting 2023

The U.S. NOAA predicted there is a 1 in 3 chance that 2024 will be warmer than 2023 — and a 99% certainty that 2024 will rank among the five warmest years ever.
As Kura has grown, so has the hype, with diners sometimes enduring seven-hour waits to try its automated sushi-serving machines and dishes under plastic domes brought to the table on a revolving belt.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jan 13, 2024

Kura Sushi must live up to high hopes after wowing Wall Street

Kura shares have surged more than sixfold since their 2019 debut, climbing from an initial public offering price of $14 to $88.55.
A screen displays the Nikkei 225 Stock Average figure on the trading floor at the Nomura Securities headquarters in Tokyo on Thursday.
BUSINESS / Markets
Jan 13, 2024

Tokyo stocks find their mojo as bubble-era highs draw nearer

The roaring start to 2024 looks to be on far more solid ground than last time stocks reached these levels as investors bet the country is escaping deflation.
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators take part in the March on Washington for Gaza rally in Washington on Saturday.
WORLD
Jan 14, 2024

U.N. says Gaza war 'staining humanity' on eve of 100th day

In Israel, concern grew for hostages held in Gaza as they approach their 100th day in captivity.
U.S. President Joe Biden in Charleston, South Carolina, on Jan. 8
WORLD / Politics
Jan 14, 2024

Biden refines economic pitch for 2024 in bet worst is behind him

Biden’s messaging blitz hinges on whether consumers buy it.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump participates in a livestream event with Iowa’s attorney general, Brenna Bird in Des Moines, Iowa, on Saturday.
WORLD / Politics
Jan 14, 2024

U.S. presidential election heats up as frigid Iowa tests Trump

With a commanding lead in polls, the ex-president is expected easily to win the Midwestern state's first-in-the-nation vote.
An old growth forest near Fort St. James, British Columbia, Canada, in an area where pellet producer Drax is permitted to cut.
ENVIRONMENT / Energy / OUR PLANET
Jan 14, 2024

Japan's thirst for biomass is having a harmful impact on Canada's forests

Experts and activists say biomass is not the climate solution it might appear to be on the surface and is far from being sustainable.
People watch a television screen showing  file footage of a North Korean missile test, at the main railway station in Seoul on Sunday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Jan 14, 2024

In first launch of 2024, North Korea tests intermediate-range missile

The South Korean military said the launch was of an IRBM-class weapon, which is believed to have a range of up to 5,000 kilometers.
The Japanese term "yarinuku" means to do something to completion and implies there were difficulties along the way. It may feel like climbing a mountain, but it's often used in the boardroom.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jan 19, 2024

Persevere with your Japanese grammar using these compound verbs

By mixing and matching certain verbs, your vocabulary will expand immensely.
Runa Kurosawa, 20, a soldier with the Ground Self-Defense Force's Amphibious Rapid Deployment Brigade, takes part in military training inside the Maritime Self-Defense Force's amphibious transport ship JS Osumi in waters near Okinawa Prefecture on Nov. 14.
JAPAN
Jan 21, 2024

The female marines Japan is training for war

The Amphibious Rapid Deployment Brigade — meant to lead assaults from the sea in a possible future war — has about 40 women in its 2,400 strong unit.
Keiji Furuya (left), head of a Japanese group of lawmakers promoting Japan-Taiwan relations, meets with Taiwanese President-elect Lai Ching-te of the Democratic Progressive Party in Taipei on Sunday.
JAPAN / Politics / FOCUS
Jan 15, 2024

Japan finds ally in new Taiwan president-elect amid fears of war

Lai Ching-te signaled he will deepen cooperation with Japan by meeting with Tokyo’s de facto ambassador and a Japanese lawmaker just a day after the election.
Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa (right) met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on her visit to Kyiv on Jan. 7.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jan 15, 2024

Kamikawa’s surprise visit to Ukraine sent an important signal

As international support for Ukraine's war effort wavers, Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa's visit to Kyiv last week showed that Japan remains a key Kyiv ally.
The Horizon IT system, built by a U.K. company Fujitsu acquired in the 1990s, resulted in hundreds of post office managers in the U.K. being wrongly convicted for theft and false accounting between 1999 and 2005.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jan 15, 2024

Fujitsu’s silence is making a tech scandal worse

Top-level executives at Fujitsu have so far stayed mum about the firm's involvement in the U.K. Post Office scandal, letting public outrage shape the narrative, unimpeded.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during the 2024 Iowa Republican caucuses at Horizon Events Center in West Des Moines, Iowa, on Monday.
WORLD / Politics
Jan 16, 2024

Trump wins Iowa caucus as DeSantis edges Haley for second

Donald Trump muscled past his rivals to capture the first 2024 Republican presidential contest, once more asserting his dominance over the Republican Party.
Smoke billows above Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on Monday.
WORLD / Politics
Jan 16, 2024

Israel to end war in southern Gaza 'soon' as U.N. demands cease-fire

A day after Israel's prime minister said fighting would continue for months, the Israeli army confirmed one of four divisions in northern Gaza had withdrawn.
A doctor and a nurse check on people affected by the New Year's Day quake in Suzu, Ishikawa Prefecture, on Jan. 6.
JAPAN
Jan 16, 2024

Doctors and nurses support families at morgues after Noto quake

Teams were sent after the 2016 quakes in Kumamoto Prefecture and a major mudslide in Atami in Shizuoka Prefecture in 2021.
Li Qiang at the World Economic Forum on Tuesday
WORLD / Politics
Jan 17, 2024

In Davos, Chinese premier takes aim at trade 'barriers'

Li's remarks came as the World Economic Forum's 54th annual conference is preoccupied with a slew of global risks, including wars in Ukraine and Gaza.
Around 100 YouTube channels actively deny climate change, while also spreading videos attacking solutions such as wind and solar.
BUSINESS / Tech
Jan 17, 2024

Attacks on renewable energy are proliferating on YouTube

While videos espousing climate denial are declining across nearly 100 YouTube channels, videos attacking solutions such as wind and solar are growing.
A large billboard depicting an Iranian missile with a phrase in Persian that reads "prepare your coffins" on the side of a building in Tehran on Tuesday, after overnight missile attacks by Iran on multiple targets in Syria and in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region.
WORLD / Politics
Jan 17, 2024

Iran strikes targets in Iraq amid growing fears of regional conflict

The missile strike set off an unusual dispute between the neighboring allies, with Baghdad recalling its ambassador from Tehran in protest.
While global sumo took its first steps toward becoming an organized sport under Hidetoshi Tanaka, it would be an exaggeration to say that everything was plain sailing internationally while the former president was in power.
SUMO / INSIDE SUMO
Jan 17, 2024

Scandal-hit giant of sumo Hidetoshi Tanaka leaves a complicated legacy

For Tanaka, a terse International Sumo Federation statement marked an ignominious end to the life of one of sumo’s most influential figures.
A nursing student (Kotone Furukawa, right) is terrified by the bizarre goings-on in her hometown in “Best Wishes to All.”
CULTURE / Film
Jan 18, 2024

‘Best Wishes to All’: Home is where the horror is

Yuta Shimotsu’s first feature about a small town gone mad delivers shocking frights but its message fails to surprise.
A scarred war veteran (Kento Yamazaki, center) in early-20th century Hokkaido embarks on a quest to find buried Ainu treasure in “Golden Kamuy.”
CULTURE / Film
Jan 18, 2024

‘Golden Kamuy’: Big-budget adaptation glitters rather than dazzles

Shigeaki Kubo’s live-action version of Satoru Noda’s manga series has terrific visuals but doesn't quite stick the landing.
Mitsuko Tottori (right), incoming president of Japan Airlines, speaks alongside Yuji Akasaka, the outgoing president, during a news conference in Tokyo on Wednesday.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jan 17, 2024

Japan Airlines names former flight attendant as first female president

Mitsuko Tottori, a senior managing executive officer who joined JAL in 1985, will become president from April 1, the firm said in a statement.
After two meetings of an ad-hoc panel established by party leader and Prime Minister Fumio Kishida earlier this month, fissures between lawmakers have emerged, and at the moment the outcome of the debate remains hard to predict.
JAPAN / Politics
Jan 17, 2024

Dissolving factions becomes focus of LDP funding scandal task force

The discussions have led to divisions between lawmakers, and at the moment the outcome of the debate remains hard to predict.
The caucus system is increasingly out of step with how modern America lives and picks its presidential candidates and how modern campaigns roll.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 17, 2024

It’s time to scrap the Iowa caucus

The concept behind the Iowa Caucus was both noble and novel when it debuted in 1972. Now many people think it has no place in modern politics.
The final 10 contestants of the reality show “The Debut: Dream Academy” in November. The show aimed to select the members of a new global K-pop girl group.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 17, 2024

K-pop without the ‘K’ just won’t pop

The BTS hiatus may have slowed K-pop down, but the answer isn't to take the Koreanness out of it. If not, all that's left is run-of-the-mill pop.
Birthday decorations and a cake with a picture one-year-old hostage Kfir Bibas, the youngest hostage to be kidnapped by Hamas militants, together with his mother and brother, in the Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel, at a nursery in kibbutz Nir Oz, Israel, on Tuesday.
WORLD
Jan 17, 2024

Birthday in absence for Gaza's youngest hostage

Kfir Bibas, who was kidnapped by Hamas on Oct. 7, would be celebrating his first birthday this week.
Donald Trump and his campaign are keenly aware of the publicity and sympathy his court appearances can generate with his loyal base of supporters.
WORLD / Politics
Jan 18, 2024

A day in Trump's world: Morning in court, evening on the campaign

The former U.S. president's unusual schedule sums up the unprecedented nature of this year's election.
A motorcyclist rides past a high school in the Panjgur district of Balochistan province on Wednesday. Pakistan has recalled its ambassador from Iran and blocked Tehran's envoy from returning to Islamabad after an Iranian air strike killed two children in the west of the country on Wednesday. Pakistan's official statement did not specify where the strike took place, but Pakistani media said it was near Panjgur, where the countries share a sparsely populated border of nearly 1,000 kilometers.
WORLD / Politics
Jan 18, 2024

Pakistan recalls envoy after Iran strike on terrorist base kills two

The strikes add to multiple crises across the Middle East, with Israel waging a war against Hamas in Gaza and Houthi rebels in Yemen attacking vessels in the Red Sea.

Longform

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