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You can often see generations of families enjoying performances together at Fuji Rock Festival.
PODCAST / deep dive
Jul 4, 2024

Japan’s summer music festivals are feeling the heat in more ways than one

Summer music festivals are back, but for how long? Climate change is putting the heat on our favorite outdoor entertainment.
Former U.S. President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at the Historic Greenbrier Farms in Chesapeake, Virginia, on June 28.
WORLD / Politics
Jul 6, 2024

Trump distances bid from second-term agenda pushed by allies

Project 2025 is an effort proposing a sweeping shake-up of government and a slew of conservative policies if Trump defeats President Joe Biden in the November election.
Visitors walk past an Amazon exhibition booth during the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai on Friday.
BUSINESS / Tech / FOCUS
Jul 6, 2024

Is AI a major drain on the world's energy supply?

The spread of data centers across the globe is throwing a spotlight on the amount of energy the technology uses as well as its impact on the environment.
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris greets the crowd during a rally where President Joe Biden also spoke, at a community center in Raleigh, North Carolina, in March.
WORLD / Politics / FOCUS
Jul 6, 2024

The reintroduction of Kamala Harris

With U.S. President Joe Biden’s candidacy on the line, Democrats are assessing whether his VP pick is up to being the nominee.
U.S. President Donald Trump stands among other leaders as he attends a North Atlantic Treaty Organization Plenary Session at the NATO summit in Watford, near London on Dec. 4, 2019.
WORLD / Politics
Jul 8, 2024

Elephant in room at NATO: Would Trump blow it up?

This week's Washington summit aims to "Trump-proof" NATO by expanding its role, especially in supporting Ukraine.
President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist alliance won 163 seats in Sunday’s parliamentary runoff vote, though none of the political parties managed to secure an outright majority.
WORLD / Politics / ANALYSIS
Jul 8, 2024

France’s left wins big, but paralysis in parliament looms

Sunday's election results — the country's first-ever hung parliament — could put Paris on a path for months of political gridlock.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg in Kyiv on April 29
WORLD / Politics
Jul 9, 2024

How the NATO summit in Washington will affect Ukraine membership

This year, many NATO countries want to state that Ukraine's path to membership is "irreversible." 
Members of Japan’s Self-Defense Forces take part in a military review at Camp Asaka in October 2018. The nation’s public is currently favorable to the SDF, but if scandals aren’t handled correctly, that opinion may change. 
EDITORIALS
Jul 12, 2024

A multitude of scandals threaten Japan’s national defense

Individually, recent scandals are troubling. Together they are reflective of a problematic culture within the defense forces and bureaucracy.
Shuji Ogawa of PD Aerospace (left) shows the PDAS-X06 unmanned aircraft at Shimojishima Airport in Okinawa Prefecture in March 2023, before it crashed into the sea during a test flight later that year.
JAPAN / Science & Health / Regional Voices: Okinawa
Jul 22, 2024

Okinawa space ambitions still strong a year after test-flight crash

The aircraft's developer aims to realize space travel by manned spacecraft from an airport in the prefecture.
The plaintiff, who is in her 50s, is suing the government, contending that the gender dysphoria law is unconstitutional because it violates Article 13 of the Constitution, which protects an individual's right to pursue happiness.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Jul 16, 2024

Trans woman challenges marital status condition for legal gender change

The plaintiff, who has been married since 2015, argues that the legal requirement for one to be unmarried in order to change one's gender is unconstitutional.
Lara Trump, the co-chair of the Republican National Committee, speaks on the second night of the Republican National Convention (RNC) at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on Tuesday.
WORLD / Politics
Jul 17, 2024

Daughter-in-law and party chief: Lara Trump’s dual roles

Lara Trump has become one of the campaign’s most visible defenders in the media, putting a smiling spin on some of the darkest aspects of Donald Trump's campaign.
Sue Mi Terry, then director at Bower Group Asia, speaks on a panel at the Asia Society in New York in 2017.
WORLD
Jul 17, 2024

Former White House official accused of acting as South Korea agent

In exchange for gifts, a foreign policy specialist is accused of giving South Korea information on the United States government, among other things.
A loggerhead sea turtle hatches eggs on a beach in Toyohashi, Aichi Prefecture, in May.
JAPAN / Science & Health / Regional voices: Chubu
Jul 29, 2024

Aichi sea turtle researchers assess risks of warmer nesting sites

The warmer the nest is, the more likely hatchlings will be female — that bodes ill for the survival of the marine species.
Traditional folk rituals like Mizudome-no-mai (dance to stop the rain) provide a sense of agency to a population that feels largely powerless in the face of the climate crisis.
JAPAN / Society / Longform
Jul 21, 2024

As climate extremes intensify, Japan embraces ancient weather rituals

Can a 700-year-old dance have an effect on extreme heat or torrential rain? Probably not. When you're feeling powerless, though, any little thing helps.
Data has shown that Western pension funds may inadvertently be helping Russian President Vladimir Putin as Moscow looks to ramp up liquefied natural gas exports to replenish Kremlin coffers and fund its war in Ukraine.
BUSINESS / Economy
Jul 21, 2024

How U.S. pension funds help Putin’s gas gambit

The case spotlights the opacity of the global finance and how hard it remains to sever Moscow from a key revenue source even two years after the Ukraine invasion.
Artificial intelligence is transforming various business sectors and the economy. But concerns about humanoid robots replacing all jobs are unfounded, as human dexterity will remain essential for the foreseeable future.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 23, 2024

AI is making robots smarter. They’ll need boundaries.

Where AI meets the physical world — and creates the potential for conflicts — is in manufacturing and logistics.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington in April. In July, Russia's defense minister said he needed to talk to Austin about an alleged Ukrainian operation. What happened next remains murky.
WORLD
Jul 27, 2024

A mysterious plot prompts a rare call from Russia to the Pentagon

Russia’s defense minister said he needed to talk to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin about an alleged Ukrainian operation. What happened next remains murky.
Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, gives a presidential decree to Iran's new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, during an endorsement ceremony in Tehran on Sunday.
WORLD
Jul 28, 2024

Iran's Khamenei formally grants Pezeshkian presidential powers

Pezeshkian, 69, won a runoff race on July 5 against the ultraconservative Saeed Jalili to replace president Ebrahim Raisi who died in a helicopter crash in May.
Tadanobu Kanno, the vice principal of Shoin Gakuen Fukushima High School in the city of Fukushima, goes through the itinerary of the school's trip to the Kansai region this year.
JAPAN / Society / Regional Voices: Fukushima
Aug 5, 2024

Fukushima schools hesitate to resume overseas trips

The yen's weakness and inflation have resulted in the cost of such excursions to surge — in some cases, more than double what it was prepandemic.
Upper House lawmaker Megumi Hirose enters her house in Tokyo after it was raided on Tuesday.
JAPAN / Politics
Jul 30, 2024

Tokyo prosecutors raid LDP lawmaker's home on suspicion of salary fraud

Megumi Hirose, 58, is suspected of providing one of her secretaries with a state-paid salary even though they reportedly did no real work.
World Anti-Doping Agency President Witold Banka holds a news conference in Paris on July 25. WADA and the entire global anti-doping system have been under intensifying scrutiny in recent months.
OLYMPICS
Jul 31, 2024

Anti-doping agency acknowledges concern over use of tainted food as excuse

The global anti-doping regulator disclosed Tuesday that it is investigating why athletes in China and other countries who are testing positive for banned drugs are escaping discipline through claims that they have unwittingly ingested the performance-enhancing substances through food.
Prosecutors leave Upper House lawmaker Megumi Hirose's home in Tokyo on Tuesday after searching it as part of an investigation into alleged fraud.
JAPAN / Politics
Jul 31, 2024

Resignation of LDP lawmaker over pay scandal adds to party's woes

Megumi Hirose has left the party over allegations she pocketed public money to pay the salary of a secretary who didn’t actually work.
Thailand's Move Forward Party Leader Pita Limjaroenrat (center) during a rally in Bangkok in July 2023.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Aug 7, 2024

Thai court disbands opposition party over royal reform push

In a unanimous ruling, the nine-member court found that Move Forward’s bid to amend the lese majeste law violated poll rules.
The NVIDIA logo in Los Angeles on July 31, 2017
BUSINESS / Tech
Aug 7, 2024

Samsung's HBM3E chips clear Nvidia's tests for use, sources say

HBM3E chips are likely to become the mainstream HBM product in the market this year.
English actress Daisy Ridley is seen arriving for the world premiere of "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker" in Hollywood on Dec. 16, 2019.
CULTURE / Entertainment news
Aug 8, 2024

'Star Wars' star Daisy Ridley diagnosed with Graves' disease

The actress said she initially dismissed her symptoms, attributing them to residual stress from a role in the 2023 thriller "Magpie."
The Intel Corporation logo at a temporary office during the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, in 2022
BUSINESS / Tech
Aug 8, 2024

How spurning OpenAI set chip giant Intel behind in the AI marketplace

OpenAI went on to launch the groundbreaking ChatGPT in 2022 and is now reportedly valued at about $80 billion.
New Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar's ascension to power, combined with Netanyahu’s refusal to agree to a cease-fire unless the group capitulates, makes finding a resolution in Gaza difficult.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 8, 2024

New Hamas chief is an arsonist in a desert tinderbox

Yahya Sinwar fills a post that opened with the July 31 killing of Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s politburo chairman, while on a visit to Tehran.
Flaring at the Cameron LNG export terminal in Hackberry, Louisiana. Flaring, a common sight at LNG plants, is a controlled burning of gas for reasons ranging from depressurizing equipment to disposing of gas that can’t be used. The practice is a "waste of money" and negatively impacts climate change and human health, says the International Energy Agency.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET
Aug 11, 2024

Japan fuels U.S. LNG boom even as climate targets and impacts loom

For over half a century, Japan has been a sizable buyer of LNG, and its government, banks and energy companies have played a key role in continued investment.
A tourist picks up an aloha shirt at the Samurai Aloha store at Narita Airport in June.
BUSINESS / Companies / Regional Voices: Tohoku
Aug 12, 2024

Aloha shirts made from recycled kimono in Tohoku prove to be huge hit

The shirts, called Samurai Aloha, were launched in the hopes of helping the area recover from the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake.
Officials of the transport ministry speak to a driver suspected of engaging in illegal taxi operations at a tourist spot in Shirakawa, Gifu Prefecture.
JAPAN / Society / Regional voices: Chubu
Aug 12, 2024

Gifu struggles to crack down on illegal cabs at tourist hot spots

Cashless payments make it hard to catch such drivers in the act and some are worried they may be mistaken for a legal ride-hailing service.

Longform

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