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July 05, 2026
 

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AI

Masayoshi Son, chairman and chief executive officer of SoftBank Group, speaks during the Future Investment Initiative (FII) Institute Priority Asia conference in Tokyo on Monday.
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 2, 2025
SoftBank’s Son ‘cried’ about Nvidia stake sale to fund AI bets
Son, addressing for the first time the surprise disclosure that SoftBank had unloaded its stake in the world’s most valuable company, also slammed talk of an AI investment bubble.
Pope Leo XIV prays at the Tomb of Saint Francis in Assisi, Italy, last month. The Vatican is pushing a global conversation on how AI can uphold human dignity and serve the common good. 
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 2, 2025
The Vatican’s voice of reason on artificial intelligence
The Vatican is pushing a global conversation on how AI can uphold human dignity and serve the common good, echoing the Church’s historic responses to past technological upheavals.
A rare earths processing plant in Dingnan County, Ganzhou, in eastern China's Jiangxi province on Nov. 20. The U.S. is looking to cut its dependence on China.
BUSINESS / Tech
Dec 2, 2025
U.S. moves to deepen minerals supply chain in AI race with China
The initiative, which builds on efforts dating back to the first administration of President Donald Trump, unfolds as the U.S. looks to cut its dependence on China.
An aerial view of an Amazon Web Services Data Center known as U.S. East 1 in Ashburn, Virginia, on Oct. 20
BUSINESS / Tech
Dec 1, 2025
Keeping cool: Heat a key challenge for data centers and AI
An outage at the world’s biggest exchange operator, CME Group, has put a spotlight on data centers overheating.
Yumi Matsutoya began her decades-long career under her maiden name, Yumi Arai, but Japanese fans might know her better as “Yuming.”
CULTURE / Music / Longform
Dec 1, 2025
Yumi Matsutoya’s human touch in an AI age
Even as she experiments with AI, Yumi Matsutoya returns to the craft, memories and instincts that shaped her long career.
People line up outside of a store during Black Friday in Woodbury, New York, on Friday. Although some shoppers queued up, many others used AI-powered shopping tools to help drive a surge in online spending on Black Friday.
BUSINESS / Economy
Nov 30, 2025
AI helps drive record $11.8 billion in Black Friday online spending
With U.S. consumer confidence at a seven-month low, shoppers face a holiday shopping season amid tighter budgets and unemployment close to a four-year high.
Art Week Tokyo featured a live performance of Keiichiro Shibuya’s “Android Opera Mirror — Deconstruction and Rebirth —,” starring an advanced humanoid robot.
CULTURE / Art
Nov 28, 2025
Is human-machine collaboration the future of fine art?
At this year’s Art Week Tokyo, AI emerged as a major and incredibly nuanced theme among participating artists.
A bear warning sign is displayed in Shirakawa-go, a popular tourist spot in Gifu Prefecture. A town in Miyagi Prefecture has retracted its social media post warning of a bear sighting after discovering an image submitted to it had been generated using artificial intelligence.
JAPAN / Society
Nov 27, 2025
Japan town retracts bear sighting warning sparked by AI image
The town of Onagawa in Miyagi Prefecture issued the warning after receiving the image of a bear in a residential area, but later discovered it was generated using AI.
SoftBank shares have plunged around 40% since late October as it sits at the forefront of a global AI selloff.
BUSINESS / Companies
Nov 26, 2025
SoftBank’s 40% slide from peak shows worry over giant OpenAI bet
Growing unease over frothy artificial intelligence valuations is weighing on shares of SoftBank Group, which traders increasingly view as a proxy for privately held OpenAI.
SoftBank Group said it is issuing a yen-denominated bond at an annual coupon of 3.98%.
BUSINESS / Companies
Nov 26, 2025
SoftBank ¥500 billion bond coupon highest in more than a decade
The rate on the unsecured seven-year note was set near the upper end of the previously announced range of between 3.5% and 4.1%, according to a term sheet from the company.
Google is one of the few companies that produces what the industry calls the full stack in computing, and it has a data goldmine for constructing AI models from its search index, Android phones and YouTube.
BUSINESS / Tech
Nov 26, 2025
Google, the sleeping giant in global AI race, now ‘fully awake’
Google’s newest multipurpose model, Gemini 3, won immediate praise for its capabilities in reasoning and coding, as well as niche tasks that have tripped up AI chatbots.
Employees work on laptops in the Moore Kingston Smith office in London on Nov. 13.
BUSINESS / Tech
Nov 25, 2025
From two weeks to two hours: How AI might reboot Britain’s economy
AI’s rollout is raising hopes that Britain can escape the productivity problem that has dogged it for two decades, even as slow growth pushes the country toward tax hikes.
The AI frenzy that’s gripped global equity markets for months is getting a fresh look from investors, as focus shifts to finding stocks that can drive the next leg of the sector’s rally or at least withstand future selloffs.
BUSINESS / Tech
Nov 25, 2025
China’s AI promise lures top Asia fund away from South Korea and Taiwan
The AI frenzy that’s gripped global equity markets for months is getting a fresh look from investors.
A truck waits outside of the gate of Nexperia factory amid a shortage of chip supply caused by the diplomatic standoff between China and the Netherlands over the company, in Dongguan, Guangdong province, China, on Nov. 7.
BUSINESS / Tech
Nov 24, 2025
How the Nexperia chip crisis upended auto supply chains — again
A factory in China’s industrial south has become a global choke point for automotive chips, upending a sector that swore it wouldn’t be caught again by supply-chain disruptions.
A job fair in Fletcher, North Carolina. The unemployment rate for bachelor’s degree-holders in the U.S. rose to 2.8% in September, up a half-percentage point from a year earlier.
BUSINESS
Nov 22, 2025
Americans with four-year degrees now comprise a record 25% of unemployed workers
There were more than 1.9 million Americans aged 25 and over with at least a bachelor’s degree who were unemployed in September.
SoftBank priced ¥46 billion in bonds on Friday, bringing its already record issuance this year to around ¥400 billion.
BUSINESS / Companies
Nov 21, 2025
SoftBank prices ¥46 billion in bonds, extending record issuance
The offering comes amid a sharp rise in benchmark government bond yields, driven by concerns over fiscal expansion under Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s administration.
Japanese and South Korean tech stocks tumbled Friday, with Softbank falling over 10% amid AI bubble concerns.
BUSINESS / Markets
Nov 21, 2025
Asia tech stocks tumble on AI bubble fears
Seoul’s benchmark Kospi index was trading down nearly 4%, while Tokyo’s Nikkei index shed 2.3% in morning trade.
The music industry has been battling AI companies, alleging illegal use of their songs.
BUSINESS / Tech
Nov 20, 2025
Major music labels strike deals with new AI streaming service
The world’s largest music companies have licensed their works to a music startup called Klay, which is building a streaming service that will allow users to remake songs using artificial intelligence tools.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says owners of large data centers will continue to spend on new gear because investments in artificial intelligence have begun to pay off.
BUSINESS / Tech
Nov 20, 2025
Nvidia’s upbeat forecast soothes fears of AI spending bubble
Sales will be about $65 billion in the January quarter, the chipmaker said, while analysts had estimated $62 billion, on average.
Guests stand at the booth of Saudi artificial intelligence company Humain during the Future Investment Initiative conference in Riyadh on Oct. 29.
BUSINESS / Tech
Nov 19, 2025
U.S. plans to approve sale of chips to Saudi AI venture Humain
Riyadh has needed Washington’s permission for such shipments since 2023.
‘My dream is broken’: Japan visa rules push out foreign residents
A man orders from a kebab shop in the Okubo district in Tokyo.
Japan plans to sharply raise fees for residence permits from October
Foreign tourists walk on the path leading to the Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto in May.
Japan’s princesses face life-altering legal revisions
Princess Aiko, the daughter of Emperor Naruhito, said in a 2022 news conference upon coming of age that she hopes to “spend a long time together” with her parents.
Japanese police arrest nine over Sierra Leone-based special fraud
Japanese police have arrested nine individuals for their alleged involvement in a special fraud case using Sierra Leone as a base.
Japanese-language education is at a turning point
The country is gradually transforming Japanese-language education from a volunteer-driven system into a professional, government-supported network to better serve its growing foreign population. 
Japan plans to sharply raise fees for residence permits from October
Foreign tourists walk on the path leading to the Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto in May.
X Games returns to Chiba with new team format
Skateboarder Sora Shirai practices at Makuhari Messe in Chiba on Friday afternoon. X Games Chiba begins on Saturday.
NU Festival tests Takanawa Gateway City complex’s culture cred
Veteran improvisers Kazuo Imai and Atsuhiro Ito brought some unruly energy to NU Festival, a three-day multimedia event held at the Takanawa Gateway City complex.  
Japan’s princesses face life-altering legal revisions
Princess Aiko, the daughter of Emperor Naruhito, said in a 2022 news conference upon coming of age that she hopes to “spend a long time together” with her parents.
Six of the best: rikishi of note in each sumo division
Kazuma (right) faces off against future <i>yokozuna</i> Onosato during the All Japan Amateur Sumo Championships at the Ryogoku Kokugikan in Tokyo in December 2020.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

The Terasaka Rice Terraces are seen with Mount Buko in the background.
What Yokoze can teach Japan about rural revival
By Alex K.T. Martin

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