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An uprooted tree as Cyclone Zelia made landfall in a suburb of Port Headland, Western Australia
ASIA PACIFIC
Feb 14, 2025

Powerful tropical cyclone hits Australia's iron ore hub

The weather bureau warned the system could bring record-breaking rainfall to the region.
Toyohara Kunichika experimented with established norms of composition and began spreading a single figure over three full sheets, as seen in this “Kabuki Play 'Kagamiyama Gonichi no Iwafuji'” triptych.
CULTURE / Art
Feb 15, 2025

Kunichika's vibrant ukiyo-e gets a chance to shine at anniversary exhibit

An underappreciated ukiyo-e master is the focus of the largest-ever retrospective of his work in Japan, marking the 190th anniversary of his birth.
Kendrick Lamar performs at the halftime show of Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans, Louisiana.
COMMUNITY / Voices / Black Eye
Feb 17, 2025

Black History Month in 2025: The boundaries between 'us' and 'them'

Our columnist reflects on the fraught ideologies of race from both sides of the Pacific.
Chinese President Xi Jinping
BUSINESS / Economy
Feb 14, 2025

Xi to chair symposium attended by Jack Ma and other Chinese business leaders, sources say

Xi rarely chairs symposiums about the private sector, and the event underscores the numerous challenges currently facing China.
As peckish deer chase delighted tourists in Japan's temple-dotted Nara Park, a quiet but dedicated team of litter-pickers patrols the stone paths, collecting plastic waste that threatens the animals' health.
LIFE / Lifestyle
Feb 15, 2025

New street patrol helps Nara's deer clean up their act

Garbage dropped by tourists can pose a serious risk to Nara's famous deer, but a new group is cleaning up the town.
Created by a Hokkaido workshop, this Camembert represents the vanguard of Japanese cheeses no longer content with a reputation as low-quality, processed slices.
LIFE / Food & Drink
Feb 16, 2025

Fresh off awards, Japanese cheese seeks a taste ‘unique to this land’

A growing number of Japanese cheesemakers are gaining international recognition, and some are aiming for a new frontier of flavor.
No South American fare is complete without empanadas, one of the traditional recipes in Kiera Wright-Ruiz's cookbook.
LIFE / Food & Drink
Feb 16, 2025

Chewing on race, culture and 'okonomiyaki' quesadillas

Kiera Wright-Ruiz’s debut cookbook serves up deep thoughts on her biracial heritage alongside delicious recipes.
Tyler Wright competes in the WSL Pipe Pro event at Pipeline in Hawaii on Feb. 8.
MORE SPORTS
Feb 14, 2025

LGBT surfer Tyler Wright to compete in UAE after assurances of safety

The WSL confirmed last year it would add Abu Dhabi to the pro surfing calendar for the first time, prompting criticism from Wright's wife and brother.
Sydney-based Minotaur Capital outperformed the global stock market in its first six months while slashing research costs by using AI.
BUSINESS / Markets
Feb 14, 2025

Hedge fund startup that replaced analysts with AI beats the market

Minotaur Capital, which has no analysts on staff, returned 13.7% in the six months ending January versus 6.7% for the MSCI All-Country World Index.
Volunteer Nhoun Niyok shows villagers how to use a mosquito net to prevent malaria in Cambodia's northeastern Mondulkiri province on Jan. 16.
ASIA PACIFIC / Science & Health
Feb 14, 2025

Cambodia nears Khmer Rouge survivor's dream of eradicating malaria

The hope is for zero cases this year — a remarkable turnaround for a country that was formerly an epicenter of multi-drug resistant strains.
The structure that covers the remains of the damaged reactor 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant is seen damaged on Friday.
WORLD
Feb 14, 2025

Russian drone 'struck' Chernobyl cover, but no radiation increase detected: Zelenskyy

Ukraine said Russia launched more than 100 drones across the country overnight targeting northern regions of the country where the Chernobyl power plant lies.
Data show that the policies of Japan’s last decade or so have served the rich better than the vast majority of the country’s households.
BUSINESS
Feb 14, 2025

Assets of Japan’s wealthiest jump to a record $3 trillion

Between 2011 and 2023, the wealth of Japan’s rich more than doubled and super rich tripled.
While Valentine’s Day in the West is traditionally associated with men giving flowers to women, in Japan the day has typically involved women giving gifts of chocolate to men.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Feb 14, 2025

A sweet Japanese Valentine's Day tradition is nearly dead

The custom of giri-choco, loosely meaning "obligatory chocolate,” was once commonplace in offices around the country.
In a 2024 survey, a total of 14.7% of respondents said they had more or less friendly feelings toward China, up 2.0 percentage points from 2023, and 56.3% said they had such feelings toward South Korea, up 3.5 percentage points.
JAPAN / Society
Feb 14, 2025

Japanese sentiment on China and South Korea improves, survey shows

A total of 14.7% of respondents said they had more or less friendly feelings toward China while 56.3% said they had such feelings toward South Korea.
U.S. President Donald Trump meets with Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba at the White House in Washington on Feb. 7.
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 15, 2025

U.S. Steel and Nippon Steel were blindsided by Trump investment talk

The proposed investment following Donald Trump's meeting with Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba wasn’t communicated to either of the steelmakers beforehand.
Talks on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. taking a controlling stake in Intel's factories at the request of Trump administration officials are in very early stages, and the exact structure of a potential partnership hasn’t been established. But the intended result would have the world’s largest made-to-order chipmaker fully operating Intel’s U.S. semiconductor factories.
BUSINESS / Tech
Feb 15, 2025

TSMC considers running Intel’s U.S. factories after Trump team request

Trump officials raised the idea of a deal between the two companies in recent meetings with the Taiwanese chipmaker, and TSMC was receptive.
U.S. Vice President JD Vance speaks at the Munich Security Conference in the German city on Friday.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 15, 2025

Vance attack on Europe overshadows Ukraine talks at security conference

The U.S. vice president said what worried him most about Europe was an alleged censoring of free speech and "out-of-control" immigration.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi speaks during the Munich Security Conference in the German city on Friday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Feb 15, 2025

China will have to hit back at U.S. ‘bullying,’ Beijing's top diplomat says

Still, Foreign Minister Wang Yi sought to take a broader view of relations, expressing confidence that the two countries will remain engaged long into the future.
Elon Musk speaks next to U.S. President Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on Tuesday.
WORLD / Politics / FOCUS
Feb 15, 2025

Elon Musk's tactics frustrate some White House senior officials

Trump officials want more coordination from Musk's team as he slashes the U.S. government.
Ukrainian soldiers from the Shkval Special Forces Assault Battalion during training exercises in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine on Thursday
WORLD / Politics / FOCUS
Feb 15, 2025

Trump team makes confused start to Ukraine diplomacy

This was a disorienting week for those anxious over how the new Trump administration will fulfill Donald Trump's vow to end the Ukraine war.
The Trump administration has fired scores of the Centers for Disease Control's "disease detectives," the researchers are hired annually through a competitive process that each year whittles down hundreds of applicants — including doctors, nurses, scientists and more — to a class of a few dozen.
WORLD / Science & Health
Feb 15, 2025

Trump admin fires CDC 'disease detectives' as bird flu fears rise

Established in 1951, the Epidemic Intelligence Service is a two-year post-doctoral training program whose officers have been on the front line of investigating outbreaks.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has a video conference with the Sevastopol governor in Moscow on Friday.
WORLD / Politics / FOCUS
Feb 15, 2025

Putin assembles team of heavyweights to negotiate Ukraine deal

U.S. President Donald Trump’s team by contrast lacks the same depth of background on Ukraine and has little experience negotiating directly with Russia.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks with Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman during family photo session with other leaders and attendees at the Group of 20 summit in the city of Osaka in June 2019.
WORLD / Politics / FOCUS
Feb 15, 2025

Saudis spearhead Arab scramble for alternative to Trump's Gaza plan

Draft ideas will be discussed at a meeting in Riyadh this month of countries including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates.
A general view of Myanmar from Thailand's side of the border, in Mae Sot district, on Feb. 5.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Feb 15, 2025

Teen says several more Japanese nationals involved in frauds in Myanmar

Thai authorities took the 16-year-old teenager into custody in Mae Sot, in northwestern Thailand, this month, and are looking into the details of the situation.
Israeli-Argentinian hostage Yair Horn (center) stands next to Palestinian militants as others take pictures of him on stage during a handover to a Red Cross team in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on Saturday as part of the sixth hostage-prisoner exchange.
WORLD
Feb 16, 2025

Hamas and Israel complete sixth hostage-prisoner swap of Gaza truce

Palestinian militants released three Israeli hostages on Saturday in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian inmates freed by Israel.
One of the representatives of 2024 Nobel Peace Prize winner Nihon Hidankyo, Terumi Tanaka, speaks during the Nobel Peace Prize awarding ceremony in Oslo City Hall on Dec 10.
JAPAN
Feb 16, 2025

Over 80% in U.S. unaware of Nihon Hidankyo's Nobel Prize: poll

The proportion of respondents who said that they knew of Nihon Hidankyo's award and the reason behind it stood below 10% in all seven countries polled.
The education ministry hopes that creating a system in which people can obtain licenses without completing a training course at the undergraduate level would help midcareer professionals enter the field of teaching.
JAPAN
Feb 16, 2025

Japan to review teaching license system to help midcareer aspirants

It is currently impossible to obtain a license with credits from only graduate schools.
The N Seoul Tower was lit up on Saturday to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic ties between South Korea and Japan.
JAPAN
Feb 16, 2025

Tokyo and Seoul towers light up to mark anniversary of ties

Ambassadors from Japan and South Korea respectively attended the lighting ceremonies in the two countries.
Ichiro Aisawa (second from left), head of the Liberal Democratic Party's Research Commission on the Election System, addresses a meeting of major political parties on election-related issues held at the parliament building on Friday.
JAPAN / Politics
Feb 16, 2025

Japan parties to tackle issue of collaborating candidates

A provision to unify the size and other aspects of posters, which currently vary by election type, was also included in the bill.

Longform

Tokyo Koon stands at the forefront of tackling the so-called 2025 issue, also known as the “Magnetic Tape Alert.”
The race to save 20th-century history