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The assembly line at the Volkswagen factory in Zwickau, Germany, on March 14. The factory stopped producing gasoline-powered Golfs and switched to electric vehicles, illuminating the risks and opportunities for factory towns and cities.
BUSINESS / Tech
Apr 11, 2024

What happened when a German car factory went all electric?

The city of Zwickau, where more than 10,000 people work for Volkswagen and tens of thousands more for suppliers, seems to have avoided dire consequences.
Yuko Kishida, wife of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, and U.S. first lady Jill Biden listen to students read poetry during an event with local high school students at a White House library in Washington on Wednesday.
JAPAN
Apr 11, 2024

Kishida's wife meets with U.S. high school students

The Japanese first lady also participated in a tea ceremony with people promoting Japan-U.S. exchanges and a national cherry blossom festival event.
Approval rate for Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's Cabinet hit a new low of 16.6% in April since its launch in October 2021.
JAPAN / Politics
Apr 11, 2024

Support for Kishida Cabinet sinks to fresh low of 16.6%, poll shows

The approval rate fell 1.4 percentage points from the previous month, while the disapproval rate climbed 2.0 points to 59.4%.
Vasyl Vanzhurak, 24, sits in his home in the town of Verkhovyna, Ukraine, as his mother and younger brother help prepare dinner on March 22. Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy probably changed the fates of thousands of Ukrainian men when he signed a law lowering the draft age to 25 from 27 this month.
WORLD / Politics
Apr 11, 2024

‘Waiting for my time to come’: Ukraine’s new draft law unsettles the young

Many of the young men who remain in Ukraine — although thousands of others have illegally fled the country — worry about their future.
Ukrainian armed forces volunteers take part in basic training in Kyiv last month. Military analysts say Ukraine needs to address acute problems with manpower and a shortage of artillery shells.
WORLD
Apr 12, 2024

Ukraine parliament passes bill to overhaul army draft rules

Military analysts say Ukraine's armed forces need to address acute problems with manpower.
Israeli tanks move toward Gaza on Wednesday. Analysts say Israel would benefit from a truce with Hamas, even if it was just a tactical move, after losing 260 soldiers in Gaza.
WORLD / Politics
Apr 12, 2024

Why Gaza truce talks are at an 'impasse'

Hamas wants a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, which is unacceptable to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
A soldier resting after returning from a front-line position in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region in November 2023.
WORLD / Politics
Apr 12, 2024

Russian attacks on Ukraine stoke fears army near breaking point

Low on ammunition and manpower, Ukraine may soon run out of options in Russia's invasion.
An evening launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying 22 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit as seen from Encinitas, California, on April 1.
BUSINESS / Companies
Apr 12, 2024

Musk's undisclosed Starlink costs undercut profitability claims

Despite Elon Musk's claims of profitability, Starlink is spending more than it earns, those familiar with the company's finances say.
Yagana Yamani, 25, one of the 276 schoolgirls kidnapped from their dormitory by Boko Haram Islamist militants in 2014, in her home in Chibok, Nigeria
WORLD / Society
Apr 12, 2024

A decade on, tragedy of Nigeria’s Chibok Girls endures outside the spotlight

Roughly 90 Chibok girls are still missing, and a third are believed to have died in captivity.
Masafumi Kurisaka shows off a box of luxury Sakura Momo Ichigo strawberries, which can fetch a hefty price at auction.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / 20 QUESTIONS
Apr 15, 2024

Masafumi Kurisaka: 'The fewer the flowers, the bigger the strawberry'

Masafumi Kurisaka turned his back on a corporate job to go into the family business: luxury strawberries that fetch a hefty price.
People pray in Port-au-Prince last month.
WORLD / Society
Apr 12, 2024

Waiting for change, Haitians endure hell on earth

Conditions remain horrific one month after Haiti's prime minister said he would step down.
Dolls of Myaku-Myaku, the 2025 Expo's official mascot, at an official store for the event in Osaka on April 2
JAPAN / Society
Apr 12, 2024

Transport becomes most pressing issue one year out from Osaka Expo

As organizers look ahead to recruiting volunteers and planning events for the six-month expo, another concern has emerged: transportation logistics.
Health experts say the beni kōji supplement scandal should not be treated as a one-off incident. Instead, it should be seen as a cautionary tale about how such health food items could pose more risks than benefits.
JAPAN / Science & Health / FOCUS
Apr 12, 2024

Kobayashi Pharma’s slow response to scandal spotlights deeper issues

Health experts say the scandal should be seen as a cautionary tale, and not a one-off incident.
The departure hall at Haneda Airport in Tokyo. Now with inflation at its strongest in decades, Japanese are starting to realize that years of static wages leave many of them budgeting each month before their next pay check.
BUSINESS / FOCUS
Apr 13, 2024

Japan’s young workers head abroad as huge wage gap persists

The outflow is also a sign that many Japanese aren’t buying into the nation’s economic optimism as it exits from decades of deflation.
A street vendor flees from gang violence in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on Monday.
WORLD / Politics
Apr 13, 2024

Haiti decrees long-awaited transition council, but questions remain

The long-delayed move is intended as a first step in restoring security to the gang-ravaged Caribbean country.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida tours a new Toyota battery factory in Liberty, North Carolina, with state Gov. Roy Cooper (second from right) on Friday.
BUSINESS
Apr 13, 2024

Kishida touts Japan’s investments in U.S. with visit to swing-state Toyota plant

The prime minister visited the North Carolina plant where Toyota last year injected an additional $8 billion to make batteries for electric vehicles.
By 2050, 10.8 million elderly people will be living alone, making up 20.6% of all households, the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research said in a projection that it issues every five years.
JAPAN / Society
Apr 13, 2024

Elderly living alone to make up a fifth of Japanese households by 2025, study finds

The projection came as young Japanese people delay marriage or choose not to have children partly because they cannot afford to do so.
Ukrainian soldiers take cover during fighting in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on Feb. 25, 2022.
WORLD / Politics / FOCUS
Apr 13, 2024

Kharkiv's civilians under fire as Ukraine faces 'catastrophic' air defense shortage

The city is so near the border that Russian missiles can reach their target in less than a minute.
Then-U.S. President Donald Trump signs an executive order rolling back regulations from the 2010 Dodd-Frank law on Wall Street reform at the White House in Washington in February 2017.
BUSINESS / Markets / FOCUS
Apr 13, 2024

If Trump wins, he plans to free Wall Street from 'burdensome regulations'

If elected, Trump would likely cut back protections for small-scale investors and borrowers, and allow companies to raise money with less scrutiny.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida arrives for a tour of a new Toyota battery factory in Liberty, North Carolina, on Friday.
JAPAN / Politics
Apr 13, 2024

Kishida touts U.S. visit success, saying snap election not on his mind

The prime minister, who is due to fly back on Saturday, will be hoping the diplomatic success can translate into a bump in his low approval ratings.
Lee Jae-myung, leader of the main opposition Democratic Party, attends an event in Seoul on Thursday. He is one of the most polarizing political figures in South Korea with a fervent base of supporters on the left and a large block of opponents in the conservative camp.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics / ANALYSIS
Apr 13, 2024

Indicted opposition leader is South Korea’s top contender for president in 2027

The victory of his party in Wednesday's parliamentary elections was quite a turnaround for Lee Jae-myung.
Protesters step on a caricature of Chinese leader Xi Jinping as they take part in a demonstration to condemn China's recent "aggressive actions" in disputed waters of the South China Sea, in front of the Chinese Consulate in Makati, Metro Manila, on Tuesday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics / ANALYSIS
Apr 13, 2024

China feels boxed in by the U.S. but has few ways to push back

Aside from pointed words and the perfunctory maritime patrol, Beijing's options to push back against U.S. pressure appear limited, analysts say.
A protester demands the United Kingdom make reparations for slavery, outside the British High Commission, in Kingston, Jamaica, in March 2022.
WORLD / Crime & Legal / FOCUS
Apr 13, 2024

Slavery tribunal? Africa and Caribbean unite on reparations

A tribunal was proposed last year, and it has now gained traction within a broader slavery reparations movement.
A family leaves the Westfield Bondi Junction shopping mall in Sydney after a stabbing incident on Saturday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal
Apr 13, 2024

Sydney knife attacker shot dead after killing six in Bondi mall

The assailant was shot by a police officer after he engaged with nine people in a busy shopping mall.
Flowers outside the Westfield Bondi Junction shopping mall in Sydney on Sunday, the day after a 40-year-old man with mental illness roamed the packed shopping center killing six people and seriously wounding a dozen others
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal
Apr 14, 2024

Police identify Sydney mall attacker; no terrorism link found

Australian police have identified a 40-year-old man who suffered from mental illness as the perpetrator of a Sydney shopping center stabbing rampage.
A mob of supporters of President Donald Trump outside the Capitol building in Washington, Jan. 6, 2021. Former President Donald Trump has recently taken to publicly celebrating the riot and those who took part in it, putting a revisionist history of the attack at the heart of his campaign.
WORLD
Apr 14, 2024

Inside Donald Trump’s embrace of the Jan. 6 rioters

The former president initially disavowed the attack on the Capitol, but he is now making it a centerpiece of his general election campaign.
A memorial ceremony was held for the victims of the 2016 Kumamoto Earthquake on Sunday in the city of Kumamoto.
JAPAN
Apr 14, 2024

Kumamoto quake victims remembered eight years on

At the Kumamoto earthquake-remembrance ceremony, participants observed a minute of silence and some laid flowers for the victims.
Paolo Pasco, winner of the 2024 American Crossword Puzzle Tournament
LIFE
Apr 14, 2024

How Gen Zers made the crossword their own

A younger generation of constructors is using an old form to reflect their identities, language and world.
Cherry blossom viewers at Notokashima Station in Ishikawa Prefecture on Saturday
JAPAN
Apr 14, 2024

Train station in quake-hit town crowded with cherry blossom viewers

Cherry trees line both sides of the station's platforms, creating a stunning sight that has earned it the nickname the "cherry blossom tunnel."
Historically, kabuki was considered the entertainment of the merchant and peasant classes, a far cry from how it is regarded today.
LIFE / Travel / Longform
Apr 15, 2024

For Japan's oldest kabuki theater, the show must go on

After a five-year absence, kabuki has returned to Kotohira. Can it be the draw that this tourism-hungry town desires?

Longform

A man offers prayers at Hebikubo Shrine in Tokyo's Shinagawa Ward. The shrine is one of several across the country dedicated to the snake.
Shed your skin and reinvent yourself in the Year of the Snake