Search - 2020

 
 
An apartment building burns during the Eaton fire in the Altadena area of Los Angeles county, California, on Wednesday.
WORLD
Jan 9, 2025

Los Angeles under siege as wind-driven wildfires upend city

The fires, which burned more than 26,000 acres by Wednesday afternoon, has upended life in America’s second-largest city.
Takeshi Ebisawa poses with a rocket launcher during a meeting with an informant and two undercover Danish police officers at a warehouse in Copenhagen, Denmark on Feb. 3, 2021.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Jan 9, 2025

Yakuza leader pleads guilty in U.S. court to conspiring to sell nuclear material

The leader was charged in February 2024 with conspiring to sell weapons-grade nuclear material and lethal narcotics from Myanmar and purchasing military weaponry.
U.S. Anti-Doping Agency CEO Travis Tygart testifies before U.S. Congress during an anti-doping hearing on June 24, 2024.
MORE SPORTS
Jan 9, 2025

U.S. withholds payment to WADA amid dispute over Chinese doping tests

The move to hold back 2024 WADA dues comes in the wake of WADA's controversial handling of positive doping tests by 23 Chinese swimmers who were later allowed to compete.
Copper cables stolen from a solar power facility and cable cutters used for the theft
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Jan 9, 2025

Japan eyeing mandatory ID check for scrap metal trading

Stolen copper wires are often brought to buyers as scrap metal, but there is no law requiring identity verification, making it easier to cash in stolen items.
In November, BlackRock and rivals were sued by Texas and 10 other Republican-led states that claimed their activism cut coal production and boosted energy prices.
BUSINESS
Jan 10, 2025

BlackRock quits climate group as Wall Street lowers environmental profile

The world's biggest asset manager is the latest Wall Street firm to depart an environmentally focused investor group under pressure from Republican politicians.
The sun sets over the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes in Death Valley National Park, near Furnace Creek, during a heat wave impacting Southern California in July.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Jan 10, 2025

Record heat pushed 2024 above global warming threshold of 1.5 C

A clear acceleration in rising temperatures has puzzled scientists, even as the evidence of the fast-warming atmosphere became impossible to miss.
Kotozakura is in position to fight his way to a promotion to yokozuna going into the New Year Basho.
SUMO
Jan 10, 2025

Stage set for action-packed New Year Basho with yokozuna promotion battle

Few years in recent sumo history have begun with a landscape of possibilities as wide as 2025.
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump appears remotely for a sentencing hearing in front of New York State Judge Juan Merchan in the criminal case in which he was convicted in 2024 on charges involving hush money paid to a porn star, at New York Criminal Court in Manhattan on Friday.
WORLD / Politics
Jan 11, 2025

A sentence with no penalty assures Trump will take office as a felon

Justice Juan Merchan gave Donald Trump a symbolic punishment. The judge said that leniency was due the office of the president, not the man who will soon hold the title.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro gestures to supporters after he was sworn in for a third six-year term, in Caracas on Friday.
WORLD / Politics
Jan 11, 2025

Venezuela's Maduro sworn in as opponents decry 'coup' and U.S. hikes bounty

The United States increased to $25 million a reward for information leading to the arrest of President Nicolas Maduro or Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello,
Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket on the launch pad in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Friday
WORLD / Science & Health
Jan 12, 2025

Blue Origin rocket set to debut in crucial SpaceX challenge

New Glenn, originally intended to launch as early as 2020, is set to lift off as soon as Monday out of Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Houses destroyed in the Palisades Fire along the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, California, on Thursday
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 12, 2025

California fires expose a $1 trillion hole in U.S. home insurance

Santa Ana winds and wildfires are natural to California, but climate change and human development have made them far more destructive.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken shakes hands with Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya during a working lunch at a hotel in Tokyo last week.
JAPAN / Politics
Jan 13, 2025

'Quad' foreign ministers eye meeting in Washington on Jan. 21

The ministerial meeting will underscore that the incoming administration of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump is attaching importance to collaboration among the four nations.
To counter the impact of aging rural demographics, the agriculture ministry is introducing a new initiative to dispatch corporate personnel to rural areas to increase the number of people engaged with farming communities.
JAPAN / Society
Jan 13, 2025

Japan farm ministry aims to dispatch corporate workers to rural areas

The initiative aims to promote rural revitalization through corporate-sponsored training programs and employee side jobs connecting businesses with farming villages.
Police arrested former chancellor of Tokyo Women's Medical University on Monday on suspicion of breach of trust involving fictitious payments of construction consulting fees by the university, according to people familiar with the investigation.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Jan 13, 2025

Ex-Tokyo medical university chancellor arrested for breach of trust

The former chancellor was dismissed in August last year over allegations about illegal expenditures linked to the university's alumnae association, Shiseikai.
Tyson Fury during a heavyweight world title fight against Oleksandr Usyk in Riyadh on Dec. 22
MORE SPORTS / Boxing
Jan 14, 2025

Is retirement really the end of the road for Tyson Fury?

Fury has previously announced his exit on a number of occasions, most recently in April 2022.
Epidurals during childbirth have long been uncommon in Japan, though they have been growing more popular in recent years.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Jan 14, 2025

Tokyo plans to subsidize epidurals, but are hospitals ready?

If all goes to plan, Tokyo will be the first to offer prefecture-level financial support for epidurals.
People hold an anti-Japan rally in Seoul in July 2019 following Tokyo's decision to tighten controls on exports to South Korea.
JAPAN
Jan 14, 2025

North Korea incited anti-Japan sentiment in the South

North Korea aimed to fan the flames of anti-Japanese sentiment over issues like wartime labor and the release of treated radioactive water from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.
A man stops at a site near a sports center in Zhuhai, Guangdong province, China, where a deadly car attack in November killed 35 people.  
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jan 14, 2025

China's rising violence that could lead to foreign aggression

While China does have social welfare programs, the current economic system provides insufficient resources for the working class and unemployed individuals.

Longform

It's back to the classroom for some residents as municipal governments across the country conduct lessons to learn how to use new technologies.
Can aging Japan go digital without leaving anyone behind?