Author: Reporter

The Ones Left Behind: Film documents plight of single mothers in Japan and a cycle of poverty for their kids

The women work hard, sleeping only a few hours a night, as they juggle the demands of caring for their children and doing housework, all while suffering from poverty. The award-winning independent documentary film “The Ones Left Behind,” released last year, tells the story of such single mothers in Japan, weaving together interviews with the women and experts, and showing the other side of a culture whose ideal is for women to get married and become stay-at-home housewives and mothers. “This is a topic that no one wants to really touch. In Japan, it’s very taboo,” Australian filmmaker Rionne...

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Crowning of first Ukrainian-born Miss Japan triggers debate over what it means to be Japanese

Crowned Miss Japan this week, Ukrainian-born Carolina Shiino cried with joy, thankful for the recognition of her identity as Japanese. But her Caucasian look rekindled an old question in a country where many people value homogeneity and conformity: What does it mean to be Japanese? Shiino has lived in Japan since moving here at age 5 and became a naturalized citizen in 2022. Now 26, she works as a model and says she has as strong a sense of Japanese identity as anyone else, despite her non-Japanese look. “It really is like a dream,” Shiino said in fluent Japanese...

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President Biden targets Israeli settlers with financial sanctions for attacking Palestinians in West Bank

President Joe Biden on February 1 issued an executive order that targeted Israeli settlers in the West Bank who have been accused of attacking Palestinians and Israeli peace activists in the occupied territory, imposing financial sanctions and visa bans in an initial round against four individuals. Those settlers were involved in acts of violence, as well as threats and attempts to destroy or seize Palestinian property, according to the order. The penalties aim to block the four from using the U.S. financial system and bar American citizens from dealing with them. U.S. officials said they were evaluating whether to...

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Putin’s love of money: Efforts to steer frozen Russian assets to Ukraine made little progress over two years

It has been nearly two years since the United States and its Western allies froze hundreds of billions of dollars in Russian foreign holdings, in retaliation for Moscow’s unprovoked and brutal invasion of Ukraine. That roughly $300 billion in Russian Central Bank money has been sitting untapped as the war grinds on, while officials from multiple countries have debated the legality of sending the money to Ukraine. The idea of using Russia’s frozen assets is gaining new traction lately as continued allied funding for Ukraine becomes more uncertain and the U.S. Congress is in a stalemate over providing more...

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Antakya Aftermath: Families remain afraid to go home one year since deadly earthquake in Türkiye

A year after a powerful earthquake in southern Türkiye reduced hundreds of thousands of homes to rubble, Fatma Kirici lives in a tent with her husband and two grown children, afraid to return to the multistory house they fled that somehow still stands. “Our house is at the edge of a precipice,” said Kirici, 50, whose 20-year-old daughter and son-in-law died in the quake when their house collapsed. “I don’t want to put my other kids at risk.” As Türkiye marks the first anniversary of the 7.8-magnitude quake that struck last February 6, people living in the hardest-hit regions...

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ADHD treatments face continued drug shortages after a pandemic-triggered surge of adults sought help

Prescriptions for ADHD treatments surged among adults during the COVID-19 pandemic, helping to fuel lingering shortages that frustrate parents and doctors. New prescriptions for stimulants used to treat the condition jumped for young adults and women during a two-year window after the pandemic hit in March 2020, according to a study published in January in JAMA Psychiatry. Prescriptions also soared for non-stimulant treatments for adults of all ages, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration researchers found. Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder is one of the most common developmental disorders in children, particularly boys. The use of drugs like Adderall to treat it...

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