Search - i

 
 
U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks on Stargate, as Oracle Executive Chairman Larry Ellison, SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman look on in the Roosevelt room at the White House.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jan 22, 2025

SoftBank to help fund and lead Trump-backed Stargate AI project, a $500 billion venture

The president said it will be the largest AI infrastructure ever built and that it will help counter technology threats from China and other countries.
Emperor Naruhito, Empress Masako and Princess Aiko take part in the New Year's poetry reading ceremony at the Imperial Palace on Wednesday.
JAPAN
Jan 22, 2025

Princess Aiko attends New Year poetry event for first time

Poems written by imperial family members and guests were recited in a traditional style at the ceremony in the palace's Matsu-no-Ma state room.
Masakazu Tokura (second from left), head of Keidanren, holds talks with Rengo leader Tomoko Yoshino (second from right) in Tokyo on Wednesday.
BUSINESS / Economy
Jan 22, 2025

Japan business lobby cites positive price trend ahead of BOJ decision

Keidanren head Tokura’s comments create a positive backdrop for the BOJ as its board prepares to deliver its policy decision on Friday.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba delivers a policy speech at the Lower House of the parliament in Tokyo last November.
JAPAN / Politics / FOCUS
Jan 23, 2025

As parliament opens, ruling coalition enters uncharted territory

For the Liberal Democratic Party, the days of pushing through bills on the back of an overwhelming majority in both chambers of parliament are over.
Ryohei Iwatani, secretary-general of Nippon Ishin no Kai, holds a news conference on Wednesday in the National Diet Building.
JAPAN / Politics
Jan 23, 2025

Nippon Ishin proposes primaries to unify opposition candidates

The proposal calls for conducting online public opinion polls in constituencies where multiple opposition parties plan to field candidates.
Celtic's Kyogo Furuhashi has been linked with a move to Rennes  in France.
SOCCER
Jan 23, 2025

Celtic captain Calum McGregor hopes Kyogo Furuhashi remains with club

Furuhashi, who turned 30 on Monday, helped Celtic reach the Champions League playoffs in a 1-0 win over Young Boys.
Japanese Communist Party leader Tomoko Tamura speaks at a Lower House session in Tokyo in December 2024.
JAPAN / Politics
Jan 23, 2025

Japanese Communist Party's Tomoko Tamura faces leadership questions ahead of polls

Tamura is aiming for 6.5 million proportional representation votes, but experts say that's unrealistic.
Marialyce Pedersen cleans burned leaves and debris that accumulated in the sink of her outdoor kitchen made of cob that survived the Eaton fire when her home burned in Altadena, California, on Jan. 20.
WORLD / Society
Jan 23, 2025

Los Angeles wildfires spark interest in adobe and natural building materials

Former homeowners determined to stay want houses that the next fire will not burn easily and that, if burnt, will not turn the soil, water and air into a toxic hazard.
The Food and Drug Administration headquarters in White Oak, Maryland
WORLD / Science & Health
Jan 24, 2025

Trump alarms scientists by muzzling U.S. health agencies

The move could delay essential information and slow funding for potentially life-saving initiatives.
Steps against diversity form part of U.S. President Donald Trump's broader campaign targeting the federal bureaucracy, which he has sometimes disparaged as the "deep state" secretly working against his agenda.
WORLD / Politics
Jan 24, 2025

Trump accelerates campaign to remake federal bureaucracy

The U.S. president says his orders ending diversity, equity and inclusion programs would make America a "merit-based country" once again.
Bank of Japan Gov. Kazuo Ueda had sounded dovish after the central bank's December policy meeting, which led some analysts to say that rate hikes might only emerge in March.
BUSINESS / Economy
Jan 24, 2025

BOJ takes rates to 0.5% amid calm markets after Trump inauguration

The 25-basis-point move marks the first rate increase since July and takes rates to their highest level since the 2008 global financial crisis.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba delivers his policy speech at the Lower House of parliament in Tokyo on Friday.
JAPAN / Politics
Jan 24, 2025

Ishiba stresses regional revitalization in policy speech

The relocation of industrial, state and academic institutions to regions outside of Tokyo will begin with government agencies.
Then-U.S. President-elect Donald Trump addresses the America First Policy Institute gala at Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, in November. REUTERS
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 23, 2025

'America First' didn't just return — it has always been there

The Trump administration is no different from previous administrations and remains as inherently "America First" as ever.
Mark Zuckerberg’s push to loosen moderation policies at Meta puts the company on a collision course with regulations in Brazil, Latin America’s largest economy.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 24, 2025

Zuckerberg's newfound libertarianism is worrying Brazil

Meta's loosened moderation policy puts it on a collision course with regulations in Latin America’s largest economy.
A farmer stands next to his flood-damaged rice field after Typhoon Shanshan passed through Yufu, Oita Prefecture, in August 2024.
JAPAN
Jan 24, 2025

Japan plans to sell rice from emergency stockpiles to cut prices

The government will discuss selling part of its strategic rice reserve next week, the agriculture minister said Friday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with U.S. President Donald Trump at the G20 summit in Osaka in June 2019.
WORLD
Jan 24, 2025

Putin ready to talk to Trump and waiting for 'signals,' Kremlin says

The Ukraine conflict has plunged relations between the U.S. and Russia their lowest levels since the Cold War.
Pete Hegseth, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for defense secretary, testifies during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Capitol Hill on Jan. 14 Washington. U.S. Vice President JD Vance cast the tie-breaking vote to confirm Hegseth, a former Fox News personality, as U.S. defense chief late Friday — despite allegations of alcohol abuse, sexual misconduct and other concerns about his qualifications to lead the Pentagon.
WORLD / Politics
Jan 25, 2025

Pete Hegseth confirmed in knife-edge vote to be new U.S. defense chief

In a mostly party-line result that saw no Democrats vote for Hegseth, three Republicans — including former GOP leader Mitch McConnell — also voted no.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio waves to employees upon arrival at the State Department in Washington on Tuesday.
WORLD / Politics
Jan 25, 2025

U.S. issues broad freeze on foreign aid after Trump orders review

The move risks cutting off billions of dollars of life-saving assistance. The United States is the largest single donor of aid globally.
Then-South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem testifies during a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on her nomination to be secretary of homeland security, on Capitol Hill in Washington on Jan. 17.
WORLD / Politics
Jan 26, 2025

Noem confirmed as DHS head to move Trump’s immigration plans forward

The vote clears the way for her to lead a 260,000-person department that will have a key role in Trump’s border security and immigration enforcement agenda.
Ayumi Matsuki, a priestess at Yoshiwara Shrine, shows off some "o-mamori" charms. She says visitors to the shrine have increased since the NHK drama “Unbound” began airing this month.
JAPAN / History / Longform
Jan 26, 2025

Tracing Tsutaya Juzaburo, Edo’s media maverick

Discover the hometown of the Yoshiwara publisher who helped shape Japan’s artistic legacy and inspired NHK’s latest period drama.
U.S. President Donald Trump boards Air Force One upon departure from Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas on Saturday.
WORLD / Politics
Jan 26, 2025

Trump's firing of independent watchdog officials draws criticism

Donald Trump's late-night firing of inspectors general was called illegal by Democrats and others and drew concern from at least one fellow Republican.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection security agents guide detained migrants to board a U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster III aircraft for a removal flight at Fort Bliss, Texas, on Thursday.
WORLD / Politics
Jan 27, 2025

Colombia caves on deportations after tariff threat tit-for-tat with Trump

Trump's threatened punitive action appeared aimed at making an example of Colombia, after the Latin American nation initially refused U.S. military deportation flights.
Smoke rises as the Border 2 Fire burns in Chula Vista, California, on Friday in this screen grab obtained from a social media video.
WORLD
Jan 27, 2025

Fire-ravaged Los Angeles braces for toxic rain runoff

The rain will also bring cleaner air and improve fire-fighting conditions, but overall, it will make things worse.
Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts scores against the Commanders during the NFC championship came in Philadelphia on Sunday
MORE SPORTS / Football
Jan 27, 2025

Jalen Hurts and Saquon Barkley propel Eagles into Super Bowl

The loss marked the end of the Commanders' fairy-tale season.
A turbine spins at the South Fork Wind site, approximately 56 kilometers off the coast of Montauk, New York, in December 2023.
BUSINESS / Tech
Jan 27, 2025

Trump casts chill over U.S. wind energy sector

The president has signed a series of executive orders that has brought the sector into crisis.
An oil drilling rig in Midland, Texas, on March 2, 2023
WORLD / Politics
Jan 27, 2025

Trump seizes wartime powers in battle for more fossil fuels

By invoking the country’s national and economic security, the plan lays the foundation for energy projects to move forward with unprecedented speed.
NATO naval vessel A803 is docked at the Ofelia Plads in Copenhagen Harbor, in Copenhagen on Sunday.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Jan 27, 2025

Sweden opens sabotage probe into Baltic undersea cable damage

There have been a string of incidents in which power cables, telecom links and gas pipelines have been damaged in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
People line up to use an ATM  in the separatist-controlled city of Donetsk, Ukraine, days after Russian President Vladimir Putin authorized the full-scale invasion of the country in February 2022. Western financial sanctions have weighed on the Russian ruble, which has sunk from 34 to the dollar in 2013 to around 100 today.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 27, 2025

Putin’s war is fueling Russian stagflation

For a normal country, a budget deficit of 2% of GDP would be of no concern. But Russia is not a normal country.
Belarusian President and presidential candidate Alexander Lukashenko speaks at a press conference after casting his vote in the presidential election in Minsk, Belarus, on Sunday.
WORLD / Politics
Jan 27, 2025

Putin ally Lukashenko called as winner of disputed Belarus election

European politicians said the vote was neither free nor fair because independent media is banned in Belarus and opposition figures have either been jailed or forced to flee abroad.
A memorial stone listing the names of 183 people who lost their lives in the flooding accident at Chosei coal mine in the city of Ube in Yamaguchi Prefecture in 1942, photographed in December
JAPAN
Jan 27, 2025

Survey to begin at western Japan site of 1942 undersea mine accident

The remains of 136 people from the Korean Peninsula and 47 Japanese nationals still lie in the flooded Chosei coal mine in Ube.

Longform

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.
Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.