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A feminist demonstration against the far-right party in Toulouse, France, on Sunday
WORLD / Politics
Jun 24, 2024

French feminists protest Marine Le Pen even as she pulls in women

Protesters have had to reckon with a difficult reality: The National Rally leader has made progress in casting her party as a defender of women’s rights.
Narendra Modi, India's prime minister, greets supporters at the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) headquarters during election night in New Delhi, India on June 4.
ASIA PACIFIC
Jun 24, 2024

Some of Modi’s agenda could disappear in India’s fractured Parliament

A new Parliament taking office in India may give some hint of whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s domestic policies are now in doubt.
Muslim pilgrims pray as sprinklers cool them down amid extremely hot weather during the annual Hajj pilgrimage in Mina, Saudi Arabia, on June 16.
WORLD
Jun 24, 2024

Saudi Arabia says 1,301 deaths during Hajj were mostly unregistered pilgrims

Temperatures in Mecca this year climbed as high as 51.8 degrees Celsius, according to Saudi Arabia's national meteorological center.
Labour Party leader Keir Starmer (center), shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves (left) and shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy in Paris in 2023
WORLD / Politics
Jun 24, 2024

Labour's Brexit red lines set to limit shift in U.K.'s ties with EU

Officials believe the party will struggle to deliver a significantly different trading relationship unless it U-turns on certain issues.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is seen in this screen shot taken from video in London on Monday.
WORLD
Jun 25, 2024

WikiLeaks' Julian Assange to be freed after pleading guilty to U.S. Espionage Act charge

Assange, 52, has agreed to plead guilty to a single criminal count of conspiring to obtain and disclose classified U.S. national defense documents.
Katie Ledecky competes in the women's 400 freestyle swim during preliminaries for the Olympic Swimming Trials in Indianapolis, Indiana, on June 15.
OLYMPICS
Jun 25, 2024

Dressel and Ledecky lead U.S. Olympic swim team with eyes on Australia

The intense nine days of the U.S. trials concluded Sunday and produced a team of 46 swimmers.
People holds a banner saying "Protect children from joint custody after divorce" during a rally outside the parliament building in Tokyo in March.
JAPAN / Society / FOCUS
Jun 25, 2024

Gender gap fuels disputes as Japan gets joint custody

The change has proved polarizing in a country where campaigners say sole custody acts as a bulwark against forms of domestic abuse.
The investigation into the Chinese telcos is the latest effort by Washington to prevent Beijing from exploiting Chinese firms' access to U.S. data to harm U.S. companies, Americans or its national security as part of a deepening tech war between the geopolitical rivals.
BUSINESS / Tech
Jun 25, 2024

U.S. probing Chinese telcos over internet and cloud risks

Their cloud services and routing of wholesale U.S. internet traffic raise concerns that they could exploit access to American data by providing it to Beijing.
Runners get started in the Tokyo Marathon 2024 in March.
MORE SPORTS
Jun 25, 2024

Nonbinary checkbox to be added to application for Tokyo Marathon

"We aim to create a more inclusive society through Tokyo Marathon 2025," race organizers said.
Seibu's Ginjiro Sumitani (back left) meets with participants in a program to inspire seriously ill children, at the Belluna Dome in Tokorozawa, Saitama Prefecture, on May 26.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Jun 25, 2024

Lions catcher Sumitani remains committed to inspiring ill children

The sight of happy children "reminds me that I should do my best," says Ginjiro Sumitani.
Travelers in front of a Suntory duty-free shop at Kansai International Airport in December
BUSINESS
Jun 25, 2024

Duty-free sales at Japan's department stores tripled in May

Record sales were achieved with the help of a significant influx of Chinese tourists and the yen’s weakness.
Kentaro Kitagawa
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Jun 26, 2024

Former top Osaka prosecutor arrested for alleged sex crime

The high prosecutor's office did not reveal whether Kitagawa admitted to the allegation.
Internal affairs minister Takeaki Matsumoto
JAPAN
Jun 26, 2024

Point websites to be barred from Japan's hometown tax donation system

Donations collected via the sites will no longer be tax deductible under the hometown tax system.
Akira Otani's "The Night of Baba Yaga” explores the boundaries of finding one's place in society as it questions ideas of violence, love, family and honor.
CULTURE / Books
Jun 27, 2024

‘The Night of Baba Yaga’ weaves a yakuza thriller into a meditation on queerness

Translator Sam Bett gravitated to the Akira Otani novel for its refusal to adhere to established genre conventions.
Izumi (Hana Sugisaki, left) tries to get to the bottom of a murder case that ends up going all the way to the top of Japan’s national intelligence agency.
CULTURE / Film
Jun 27, 2024

‘Sakura’: Secret agents, a murder mystery and one very determined young sleuth

Hana Sugisaki’s performance as a lowly employee in a prefectural police department stands out from typical portrayals in a domestic whodunit.
An image of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange released on social media on Tuesday. Assange pleaded guilty to a single charge of disseminating classified documents in a plea bargain that leaves him a free man.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 26, 2024

Julian Assange’s saga will forever exist in a legal gray area

WikiLeaks founder Assange’s case lies on the boundary between espionage and protected speech. Its outcome has done nothing to shed light on this gray zone.
An Aeon store in Yokohama in 2022. Aeon currently employs about 1,500 specified skilled workers group-wide.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 26, 2024

Aeon to ramp up hiring of foreign workers under specified skills visa framework

The retail giant is planning to employ 4,000 foreign workers with specified skilled worker visas by 2030 amid a labor shortage.
Former Bolivian Gen. Juan Jose Zuniga is presented following his arrest by the authorities for a coup attempt in La Paz, Bolivia, on Wednesday.
WORLD
Jun 27, 2024

Bolivian general is arrested after apparent coup attempt

In all, an attempted afternoon incursion into the presidential palace lasted just three hours. As time wore on, it became clear that the plan had little support.
U.S. journalist Evan Gershkovich, who has been accused of espionage, looks out from inside a glass defendants' cage prior to a hearing in Yekaterinburg's Sverdlovsk Regional Court on Wednesday.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Jun 27, 2024

Russia opens secret trial of U.S. reporter accused of espionage

The Wall Street Journal's Evan Gershkovich, 32, faces up to 20 years in prison on an espionage charge that he, his employer and the U.S. State Department vehemently deny.
A campaign event of reformist candidate Masoud Pezeshkian less than a week ahead of a presidential election called after Ebrahim Raisi’s death
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 27, 2024

Iran’s election could bring lasting peace

The upcoming election in Iran is more consequential than it's being given credit for. A triumph of the only reformist candidate, Masoud Pezeshkian, would be momentous.
Rakuten CEO Hiroshi Mikitani said that the mobile company now has more than 7 million subscribers, and is seeking to hit 10 million subscribers next.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 27, 2024

Money-losing Rakuten Mobile rolls out new 700 MHz service

The new offering, which is being introduced incrementally, will improve connectivity, including in densely populated areas, it says.
Health minister Keizo Takemi speaks to reporters in Tokyo in March.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Jun 27, 2024

Panel sets out investment vision for Japan's health care startups

Since 2019, the number of health care startups established each year in Japan has declined to around 50.
Bolivian President Luis Arce holds a news conference in Casa Grande del Pueblo after the country's armed forces pulled back from the presidential palace and a general was arrested following an apparent coup attempt, in La Paz, Bolivia, on Thursday.
WORLD / ANALYSIS
Jun 28, 2024

Bolivia coup fiasco lays bare a divided country in crisis

The attempt has uncovered tense political fault lines in the nation and growing anger with a flagging economy.
Fancl employees offer makeup lessons to those with blindness or low vision.
JAPAN / Society / Regional Voices: Tohoku
Jul 8, 2024

Cosmetics makers hold makeup lessons for those with visual impairments

Each company has established its own methods for applying makeup without the need to look in a mirror.
To be the best of the best, according to the exclusive Relais & Chateaux group, Japan's 'ryokan' inns need to leave guests with "a transcendental feeling."
LIFE / Travel
Jun 29, 2024

To Relais & Chateaux, not all ‘ryokan’ inns are created equal

In Japan, this exclusive association has partnered with just 13 hotels and traditional 'ryokan' inns and seven stand-alone restaurants spread across the country.
Ryosuke Kunisawa hopes his "concept brewpub" serves as a focal point to an image change for the salaryman epicenter that is the Shimbashi neighborhood.
LIFE / Food & Drink
Jun 30, 2024

Craft beer, craftsmanship and a family of reinvention

On the first two floors of his family’s slender eight-story building, Kunisawa launched the Kunisawa Brewing Company, Shimbashi's first beer brewery, in May 2022.
French center Victor Wembanyama said France must avoid extremes in its upcoming parliamentary elections.
BASKETBALL
Jun 28, 2024

Victor Wembanyama urges French voters to reject 'extremes' in parliamentary election

Basketball star Victor Wembanyama joined other leading French athletes on Thursday in warning against voting for the "extremes" in this weekend's parliamentary election.
A building that houses the Fukuoka District Court
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Jun 28, 2024

Man in Fukuoka given 20 years in prison for stalking and murdering ex-girlfriend

The man admitted to stabbing Miki Kawano, 38, to death but denied the stalking charge, saying he stabbed her in a sudden outburst.
An image of U.S. President Joe Biden is displayed as his Republican challenger, former U.S. President Donald Trump, holds a campaign event, in Chesapeake, Virginia, on Friday.
WORLD / Politics
Jun 29, 2024

Fearful and doubting Biden, Democrats face an uncertain path forward

Some began to reconsider their support after his rough debate showing, but there was no agreement on how, or whether, to urge him to step off the ticket.
Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with graduates of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration via a video link at the Novo-Ogaryovo residence outside Moscow on Friday.
WORLD / Politics
Jun 29, 2024

Putin hints Russia to start making previously banned midrange missiles

Such missiles, capable of carrying nuclear warheads, were previously banned under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.

Longform

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