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US

Bank of Japan headquarters building in February. In January, the BOJ voted to raise its short-term policy rate to 0.5% from 0.25%, taking it to the highest level since the 2008 financial crisis.
BUSINESS / Markets
Mar 17, 2025
Bank of Japan unlikely to raise rates this week as trade war intensifies
The central bank voted to raise its short-term policy rate to 0.5% from 0.25% in January, taking it to the highest level since the 2008 financial crisis.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi addresses an opening ceremony on Sunday for a new medical center built in Ginowan, Okinawa Prefecture.
JAPAN
Mar 17, 2025
New medical center opens at former U.S. military site in Okinawa
The Faculty of Medicine of the University of the Ryukyus and its affiliated hospital have moved to the new medical center.
The Virginia-class fast attack submarine USS Minnesota is seen off the coast of Western Australia on Sunday.
ASIA PACIFIC
Mar 17, 2025
U.S. starts to build submarine presence on strategic Australian coast under AUKUS
U.S. Navy personnel are due to arrive by the middle of the year at Western Australia's HMAS Stirling base to prepare for the Submarine Rotational Force West.
A ship fires missiles toward an undisclosed location, after U.S. President Donald Trump launched military strikes against Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis on Saturday over the group's attacks against Red Sea shipping, in this screengrab obtained from a handout video released on Saturday.
WORLD
Mar 17, 2025
U.S. vows to keep hitting Houthis until shipping attacks stop
The Houthi-run health ministry said U.S. airstrikes on Saturday killed at least 53 people.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s foreign policy, marked by betrayal and disregard for relationships, has weakened America’s global alliances, prompting countries to consider alternative allies.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 16, 2025
America is surrounded by enemies — that it created
This is not just a Trump problem; America’s whole reputation is shot.
Then-U.S. President Joe Biden awards the Presidential Medal of Freedom to former U.S. Sen. Alan Simpson during a ceremony at the White House in July 2022.
JAPAN / Politics
Mar 16, 2025
Former U.S. senator who aided Japanese American internees dies
Former Sen. Alan Simpson, who died Friday, was a cross-party ally of the late Democrat Norman Mineta, the first Japanese American to hold a U.S. Cabinet post.
A U.S. Navy ship fires missiles at an undisclosed location, after President Donald Trump launched military strikes against Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis on Saturday over the group's attacks against Red Sea shipping, in this screen shot.
WORLD
Mar 16, 2025
Trump launches large-scale strikes against Yemen's Houthis
The strikes — which could last days and maybe weeks — are the biggest U.S. military operation in the Middle East since Trump took office in January.
The Stratos Direct Air Capture Facility, a joint venture between Occidental Petroleum and asset manager BlackRock, in Ector County, Texas, last July.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change / FOCUS
Mar 16, 2025
Carbon capture industry tweaks message for the Trump era
The lobbying strategy is to frame CCS as "an economic competitiveness and American leadership issue."
Port City Brewing Company founder and President Bill Butcher adds bottle caps, which he imports from Mexico, into the bottle machine at his brewery in Alexandria, Virginia, on Thursday.
BUSINESS / FOCUS
Mar 16, 2025
'Impossible': U.S. breweries buffeted by Trump tariffs
From Canadian malted barley to aluminum beer cans, Trump's tariffs have hit multiple products that American craft breweries need.
U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order earlier this month establishing the 'Strategic Bitcoin Reserve.'
BUSINESS / Markets / FOCUS
Mar 16, 2025
Trump's bitcoin reserve to be a 'digital Fort Knox'
The reserve is funded by about 200,000 bitcoins — worth nearly $17 billion — that have been seized in the U.S. as a result of civil and criminal cases.
Debris lies around damaged houses the morning after a tornado touched down in Florissant, Missouri, on Saturday.
WORLD
Mar 16, 2025
At least 33 dead as tornadoes ravage central U.S.
Local news showed roofs torn off homes and large trucks overturned, as forecasters warned of more tornadoes to come this weekend.
A Voice of America crew make a live report as they stand in a causeway leading to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's estate in Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, last December.
WORLD / Politics
Mar 16, 2025
Trump freezes U.S.-funded media outlets including Voice of America
The abrupt freezing of U.S.-funded outlets will be a blow to efforts at countering Russian and Chinese information offensives.
The Tourville, a new French navy nuclear attack submarine, stops in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on Friday.
WORLD
Mar 16, 2025
As Trump stirs doubt, Europeans debate their own nuclear deterrent
Talk of replacing the American nuclear umbrella over Europe with the small British and French nuclear armories is in the air, however vague and fanciful.
U.S. President Donald Trump has invoked powers under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 — a law once used to justify the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II — in a proclamation targeting Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang also designated as a foreign terrorist organization.
WORLD / Politics
Mar 16, 2025
Judge halts Trump’s wartime powers plan to speed deportations
Trump invoked powers under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 — a law once used to justify the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.
Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer leaves a luncheon on Thursday in Washington.
WORLD / Politics
Mar 16, 2025
U.S. Democrats fume as some in party cave to Trump on spending bill
Congressional passage of the controversial spending bill was being seen as a setback for Democratic backbenchers.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks during a press briefing in Kyiv on Saturday.
WORLD / Politics
Mar 16, 2025
Zelenskyy accuses Russia of trying to trap Ukraine’s forces amid ceasefire talks
Fighting is raging in and around the part of the Kursk region that Ukraine seized in a surprise offensive into Russian territory last summer.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Mar 15, 2025
U.S. hits Thai officials with visa sanctions over deportation of Uyghurs to China
The move appeared intended to discourage Thailand — a U.S. ally — and other countries from such deportations.
Then-U.S. President Joe Biden and South Korean leader Yoon Suk Yeol attend an Indo-Pacific Economic Framework event at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco in November 2023.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Mar 15, 2025
U.S. designated South Korea a 'sensitive' country amid talk of nuclear weapons
The move after the South Korean president briefly imposed martial law and amid talk of Seoul potentially developing nuclear weapons.
Mark Carney, Canada's incoming prime minister (center), during a swearing-in ceremony at Rideau Hall in Ottawa on Friday. Carney has been sworn in as Canada's 24th prime minister, bringing the former central banker to power in the middle of an explosive trade war with the U.S.
WORLD / Politics
Mar 15, 2025
Canada has a new prime minister with a very hard first assignment
Mark Carney steps into his role as U.S. President Donald Trump sets his sights on Canada’s sovereignty and keeps threatening more tariffs.
A protest called "America, wake up" is held in front of the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv on March 8, days after U.S. President Donald Trump paused American military and intelligence support for Ukraine.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 14, 2025
Ukraine needs U.S. weapons — but it needs intelligence more
The problem is that, on issue after issue, Trump changes course on a whim.

Longform

Professional cleaner Hirofumi Sakurai takes a moment to appreciate some photographs in a Gotanda apartment whose occupant died alone.
The last cleanup: Life and death in a lonely Japan