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Former U.S. President Donald Trump attends a campaign event in Waterloo, Iowa, on Tuesday.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 22, 2023

U.S. Supreme Court unlikely to uphold Colorado ruling disqualifying Trump

The U.S. Supreme Court could overturn the Colorado courts decision, including challenging the state court's authority to keep Trump off the ballot.
Well-wishers light candles as people mourn the lives lost in Thursday's mass shooting, outside Charles University in Prague on Friday.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Dec 23, 2023

After Czech mass shooting, shock, grief and a focus on guns

As police Friday scrutinized online threats of copycat attacks, students at Charles University proposed a simple way to prevent any recurrence: ban guns.
An image from Dec. 9 appears to show the Russian container ship Angara, sanctioned by the U.S., unloading cargo at Najin port while containers from North Korea await loading at an adjacent pier.
WORLD
Dec 27, 2023

Ghost ships at reawakened North Korea port put Ukraine in peril

The vessels are suspected to be delivering arms to Russia that eventually make their way to the frontlines of Vladimir Putin's invasion.
The iconic structure with its shell-shaped roof at Bennelong Point in Sydney is a source of immense pride for many Australians.
CULTURE / Art
Dec 27, 2023

Yuzo Mikami: The unsung hero behind the Sydney Opera House

On the building's 50th anniversary, those with memories and knowledge of the Japanese architect say recognition of his achievements is long-overdue.
Next year, U.S. President Joe Biden will seek a mandate to govern into his mid-80s. His likely opponent, former President Donald Trump, is only three years younger.
COMMENTARY / The Year Ahead
Dec 27, 2023

Making or breaking democracy

As 2024 approaches, one milestone looms menacingly on the horizon: The U.S. presidential election on Nov. 5.
When Chinese President Xi Jinping came to power, he inherited a China that was enjoying prosperity, but also succumbing to gilded-age excesses.
COMMENTARY / The Year Ahead
Dec 29, 2023

The moral of the China story

Even if China is no longer “winning,” it would be short-sighted to dismiss its recent experience as irrelevant.
Fighters of the Wagner private mercenary group, many of whom were recruited from prisons, are deployed in June near the city of Rostov-on-Don, Russia.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 28, 2023

Vladimir Putin’s killer patriotism

Pardoning violent convicts to get more soldiers onto the battlefield is not desirable, but for Putin, the alternative would be even worse.
U.S. President Joe Biden with IBM’s System One quantum computer during a tour of a facility in Poughkeepsie, New York in 2022. Chinese spies are challenging the C.I.A. by deploying artificial intelligence and other advanced technology as the two nations try to pilfer each other’s trade secrets.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Dec 28, 2023

Chinese spy agency rising to challenge the CIA

In recent years, China's Ministry of State Security has sharpened itself through better training, a bigger budget and the use of advanced technologies.
Among the issues that defined 2023 were the U.S. economy's "soft landing," the war in Ukraine, Hamas's terrorist attack and explosive advances in AI.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 29, 2023

The most important developments of 2023

The year reminds us that the world is in desperate need of new leaders who are both competent and inspiring.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 31, 2023

The outlook for 2024 appears grim — but nothing is preordained

Given the complex landscape of 2024, we can expect to navigate uncertainty, geopolitical shifts and a myriad of pivotal elections.
Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen hold discussions in Kyiv in September 2022.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 22, 2023

Europe needs a new Ukraine strategy

The European Union’s decision to start accession talks with Ukraine represents a symbolic victory rather than a practical one.
Indian migrant women in Tokyo often face stifling social expectations. In contrast, they may feel empowered in more egalitarian societies like Berlin.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jan 3, 2024

How patriarchy perpetuates among Tokyo’s Indian migrants

Indian migrant women in Tokyo struggle to break free from the patriarchal structures they experienced back home. But in Berlin, a different picture emerges.
Claudine Gay, former president of Harvard University
WORLD / Politics
Jan 4, 2024

Harvard chief’s abrupt exit exposes decade-spanning rifts

The school’s first Black leader resigned after just six months due to plagiarism allegations and anger over her handling of antisemitism on campus.
Laurel Hubbard of New Zealand, the first openly transgender female Olympian, competes at the Tokyo Games in August 2021.
SPORTS
Jan 4, 2024

Pendulum swings toward tighter measures against transgender athletes

There has been a seismic shift recently in the sporting landscape for trans athletes, with tighter measures coming into force on a divisive issue.
Lowell House on the Harvard University campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 4, 2024

What’s bad for Harvard is good for the rest of us

The elite degree and the signal it sends is neither as accurate nor as valuable as the Ivy League would like you to think.
“The First Slam Dunk” was animated in a style known as 3DCG anime, which combines the hard outlines and flat planes of traditional 2D animation with 3D models and movement.
CULTURE / Film
Jan 5, 2024

Anime is going digital. Fans are wary.

As the industry continues to embrace computer-generated work, some audiences struggle to accept the change.
The Gunung Padang pyramid site in Cianjur, West Java, Indonesia, on Dec. 22. A study that concluded it may be "the oldest pyramid in the world” is under investigation by its publisher after fueling debate over the age of the partially excavated site and the ethics of archaeology.
WORLD / Society
Jan 7, 2024

‘World’s oldest pyramid’ in Indonesia? A study draws skepticism

Some have suggested that the site may have been built far earlier by an as-yet-undiscovered ancient civilization.
New study questions the trend of scientific breakthroughs and examines the changing landscape of innovation.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 8, 2024

Have scientific breakthroughs declined?

From curing disease to reducing global warming, there’s no shortage of hard scientific problems crying out for solutions.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida delivers his Quad Fellowship Announcement as the leaders of the United States, India and Australia look on after meeting in Tokyo in May 2022.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jan 8, 2024

Dialogue can boost security where military deterrence can’t

Military buildup without dialogue is too risky — civil society actors in East Asia understand this better than their governments.
The Yangshan Deepwater Port in Shanghai. China’s manufactured goods surplus relative to global gross domestic product is now around 2%, and an estimated 45% of China’s manufacturing output is being exported as the nation’s 1.4 billion people can’t buy enough goods such as electric vehicles, ships and household appliances to meet the increased supply.
BUSINESS / Economy
Jan 8, 2024

Xi Jinping’s solution for China’s economy risks triggering new trade war

Manufacturing focus sets up Beijing for renewed tensions with both developed countries and emerging economies pushing to reach the lower rungs of the industrialization.
Members of the media take pictures of the ULA's new rocket Vulcan Centaur, which is set to make its maiden flight Monday with a payload that includes a private lunar lander, as well as the cremated remains of several people associated with the original "Star Trek" series, including creator Gene Rodenberry and cast member Nichelle Nichols, who portrayed the character Uhura.
BUSINESS / Tech
Jan 8, 2024

Private industry leads America's first moon landing since Apollo

A soft landing on the moon has only been accomplished by few national space agencies
A China Railway employee works at the construction site for the Xiongan station of a new railway connecting Beijing to the area in Hebei province, China, in March 2019. In his annual new year speech, Chinese President Xi Jinping trumpeted the city’s progress saying it was "growing fast” and helping to revitalize northeastern China.
BUSINESS / Economy / FOCUS
Jan 10, 2024

Xi Jinping’s empty dream city shows limits of his power, even in China

The meticulously planned metropolis' slow start underscores the flaws in the Chinese president's plan to tempt people from the capital.
A teenage boy (voiced by Hiroshi Kamiya) discovers he has been changed into a vampire in “Kizumonogatari.”
CULTURE / Film
Jan 11, 2024

‘Kizumonogatari’: The weirdness is back and better than ever

Tatsuya Oishi combines three anime adaptations of Nisioisin’s book into one edit that retains the gore and humor of the original.
Fiction such as Asako Yuzuki’s “Butter: A Novel of Food and Murder” and nonfiction like Robert Whiting’s "Gamblers, Fraudsters, Dreamers & Spies: The Outsiders who Shaped Modern Japan” are just a taste of 2024's exciting releases.
CULTURE / Books
Jan 11, 2024

Anticipated translations and books about Japan to brighten your 2024

From debut novels to classic crime thrillers, the year ahead promises a wealth of must-read titles to add to your reading list.
Palestinians fleeing northern Gaza move southward as trucks carrying aid and fuel head toward north Gaza during a temporary truce between Israel and Hamas, near Gaza City on Nov. 27.
COMMENTARY / World / Geoeconomic Briefing
Jan 16, 2024

What the Hamas-Israel 'humanitarian pause' really meant

While many civilians have been victimized in the conflict, other countries have been at odds over calls for a break in the conflict.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida meets with U.S. President Joe Biden in Tokyo in May 2022.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jan 11, 2024

A critical year for the Japan-U.S. alliance

The foundation of the Japan-U.S. partnership is a belief in the need to support and maintain the rules-based global order.
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.
Clara Kumagai’s young adult debut, “Catfish Rolling,” follows a teenager who lost her mother during a major earthquake caused by the movements of a powerful catfish, which fractured Japan into different “time zones.”
CULTURE / Books
Jan 13, 2024

Genre-defying novel 'Catfish Rolling' navigates grief in a fractured land

Mixing folklore, science and philosophy with magical realism, Clara Kumagai’s impressive young adult debut explores the emotional aftermath of a powerful earthquake.
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.
U.S. President Joe Biden and his South Korean counterpart, Yoon Suk-yeol, visit a Samsung semiconductor factory in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, in May 2022.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 14, 2024

South Korea's economic strategy amid the U.S.-China rivalry

If the world is to avoid incurring increasingly high costs from fragmentation, the U.S. and China must learn how to coexist and engage in fair competition.

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