Back in October, Sanae Takaichi struggled to wrangle enough seats in parliament to become prime minister. Now she has the biggest election mandate of any Japanese leader since World War II.

The surprisingly large victory margin allows the staunch conservative to implement her nationalist vision of a more forceful, outspoken, self-sufficient ...Read more

Since the turn of the century, election night has usually been great for pro-democracy reformers and miserable for Thailand’s royalists. Now the establishment has finally backed a winner, and the country may see some stability as a result.

Early results from Sunday’s vote show the ruling Bhumjaithai party is on track to secure 191 seats in ...Read more

Jan. 6 rioter Jake Lang was charged with damaging a $6,000 ice sculpture that a veterans organization displayed on the front steps of the State Capitol.

Lang, 30, of Lake Worth, Fla., recorded social media videos of him on Thursday, Feb. 5, kicking down portions of the ice sculpture that spelled out “prosecute ICE” to instead read “pro ...Read more

Thailand’s Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul’s pro-royalist party scored a resounding win in Sunday’s election over a progressive group seen as a pre-poll favorite.

His conservative Bhumjaithai Party rode on a wave of nationalism tied to a simmering border clash with neighboring Cambodia and championing the status quo to emerge as the ...Read more

A purported ransom note in Nancy Guthrie’s apparent kidnapping demanded $6 million, according to a report aired Sunday.

Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of “Today” show host Savannah Guthrie, disappeared from her Tucson, Ariz., home on Feb. 1 and has not been seen since. Multiple ransom notes have been sent to local news outlets, and one ...Read more

David Yturralde arrived at the mushroom talk in Newport Beach recently armed with a pen and paper and a host of questions. The goal, he said, was to demystify those fascinating fungi that popped up on his grass after heavy winter rain.

He's long been interested in the mushrooms that sprout on the front lawn of his San Clemente home, but he's ...Read more

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is poised for a historic election landslide, positioning her to become the nation’s strongest leader in years in an outcome that may fuel further market volatility.

Her ruling Liberal Democratic Party is on track for the biggest post-war victory for a single-party in a general election in Japan, an ...Read more

Thailand’s ruling conservative party headed for a convincing election win Sunday night, the first victory this century for a party aligned with the country’s royalist establishment and a clear defeat for an emerging progressive movement.

The Bhumjaithai Party, led by incumbent Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul, is set to secure 195 seats ...Read more

How can maps fight racism and inequality?

The work of the Black Panther Party, a 1960s- and 1970s-era Black political group featured in a new movie and a documentary, helps illustrate how cartography – the practice of making and using maps – can illuminate injustice.

As these films show, the Black Panthers focused on ...Read more

The United States is in the grips of a loneliness epidemic: Since 2018, about half the population has reported that it has experienced loneliness. Loneliness can be as dangerous to your health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, according to a 2023 surgeon general’s report.

It is not just individual lives that are at risk. Democracy ...Read more

Despite a barren start to Colorado’s ski season, Winter Park Resort opened on Halloween and served up holiday powder.

The ski area’s secret is a contraption a few miles upwind of the chairlifts that looks like a meat smoker strapped to the top of a ladder. When weather conditions are just right, a Winter Park contractor fires up the machine...Read more

After the Justice Department shut the door on releasing the Jeffrey Epstein files in July 2025, FBI agents worked on drafts of a 21-page presentation of all the evidence the FBI had gathered in the case, including a summary of allegations against 11 men.

There’s no evidence that Epstein, a New York financier who sexually assaulted and ...Read more

ST. PAUL, Minn. — During a recent public hearing before the St. Paul City Council, Angela Clair recounted hearing a woman screaming as a caravan of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents grabbed her off the sidewalk near the child care center where Clair serves as director.

As a helicopter hovered overhead and legal observers blew ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — The airspace over Los Angeles is among the most congested in the world, but the Hollywood Burbank Airport is uniquely situated, creating extremely tight parameters around the midsize airport.

Burbank’s main runway is particularly short, and there is significant, nearby air traffic from the busy Van Nuys Airport — located ...Read more

Anyone who has lived long in Kansas City — a city proud of its fountains, parks, first-rate sports teams and barbecue — could not help but see that it has also become a city with a burgeoning population of people experiencing homelessness.

Huddling downtown against the cold and heat. Raising sprawling, and, in some cases, dangerous ...Read more

Days before Haiti’s new ruling presidential council assumed power in April 2024, one of its senior members met with a foreign diplomat and declared that the transition government, installed after the ouster of Prime Minister Ariel Henry, would reopen a gang-controlled highway within 100 days.

Nearly 22 months later, as the council prepared to...Read more

NEW YORK — Mayor Zohran Mamdani is implementing additional measures across the city to shelter vulnerable New Yorkers amid the brutally cold temperatures this weekend.

The mercury in New York City dove to nearly zero degrees Saturday night. A wind advisory warning of winds of 20 mph to 25 mph, with gusts up to 50 mph, producing dangerously ...Read more

BOSTON — U.S. Attorney Leah Foley said she will establish a fraud coordinator for Massachusetts after President Donald Trump’s newly established fraud czar at the White House and as more SNAP and other public benefits fraud schemes are uncovered in the state.

“The fraud coordinator will act as a primary point of contact for benefit fraud ...Read more

Haiti closed a vexing chapter in its ongoing political transition on Saturday, doing so in a subdued ceremony marking the end of the turbulent mandate of its nine-member presidential council and leaving the gang-ravaged country in the hands of it single, unelected prime minister and his Cabinet.

During the ceremony marking the end of the ...Read more

CHICAGO — In a memo sent to employees on Friday, the policy chief for Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke said the city’s “ICE on notice” executive order compromises potential prosecutions of federal agents by politicizing the investigations.

The executive order announced by Mayor Brandon Johnson last Saturday has ...Read more