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WASHINGTON – U.S. agencies under President Donald Trump pushed ahead on Thursday on his orders to reshape the federal bureaucracy, scrapping diversity programs, rescinding job offers and sidelining more than 150 national security and foreign policy officials. The Republican president has made little secret of his disdain for the sprawling 2.2 million-strong federal workforce and in particular for diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs, which promote opportunities for women, ethnic minorities, LGBTQ+ people and other traditionally underrepresented groups. In a speech delivered via video on Thursday to the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, Trump said his orders ending DEI programs would make America a “merit-based country” once again. Source link

Bangkok – A high-profile gay couple married in Thailand on Thursday as the kingdom’s same-sex marriage law went into effect, among the first of hundreds expected to do so. Actors Apiwat “Porsch” Apiwatsayree, 49 — who was in tears — and Sappanyoo “Arm” Panatkool, 38, in matching beige suits, were handed their pink-bordered marriage certificates at a registry office in Bangkok. “We fought for it for decades and today is a remarkable day that love is love,” said Arm. Source link

The National Police Agency on Thursday released new guidelines for undercover investigators who use fake identification cards to apply for yami baito, or shady part-time jobs, in an effort to deter such crimes. The NPA concluded that although such investigations involve the forgery of IDs, the practice is justifiable under the Penal Code and that they can be carried out under the current law. The agency aims to introduce investigations in which undercover personnel use fake IDs as soon as implementation plans are formulated by prefectural police departments across the country. Source link

Ami Onuki’s memories of her J-pop band Puffy’s early experiences in the U.S. market sound like scenes straight from a cartoon caper. The musician, 51, recalls playing shows with her bandmate Yumi Yoshimura, now 49, at the South by Southwest festival in Texas — where people danced on bar counters, someone stole the duo’s English cue cards mid-set, and rock legends ZZ Top stopped by — and that was before Sean “Puffy” Combs sent the act a cease-and-desist request over its name. Looking back on these early 2000s jaunts overseas, though, the moment that still blows Onuki’s mind is when she and Yoshimura were approached to star in an animated series. Source link

South Korea’s economy continued to sputter last quarter after President Yoon Suk Yeol’s short-lived declaration of martial law battered consumer confidence just as businesses and policymakers were already fretting about the possibility of U.S. President Donald Trump imposing trade tariffs. Gross domestic product grew 0.1% in the three months through December from the previous quarter, the Bank of Korea said Thursday. That figure was weaker than economists’ forecast of a 0.2% expansion. For 2024 as a whole, the economy expanded 2%, a slower than expected pace compared with an estimate of 2.1%. The anemic quarterly growth figure points to an economy already in a weakened state amid heightened political instability, with the prospect of tariffs clouding the outlook for South Korea’s exports, a key engine of growth. Source link

One year after Tomoko Tamura became head of the Japanese Communist Party, she faces tough questions about her leadership as the party prepares for this summer’s Tokyo assembly and Upper House elections. The JCP holds 11 seats in total. But only seven seats — four proportional and three single district — are being contested this year. Tamura has set a goal of increasing the party’s proportional seat total from four to five in the Upper House election. “If we can get our true message out, we’ll be able to emerge from among the other opposition parties. So I want to aim for 6.5 million proportional votes,” Tamura said at a Jan. 11 news conference Source link

The Japanese Electrical, Electronic & Information Union said Thursday that its member unions will request a pay scale hike of at least ¥17,000 ($109) per month in the 2025 shuntō spring wage negotiations. Amid rising prices, the umbrella group for labor unions in the electronics industry aims to realize a significant increase through the industry’s biggest pay scale hike request yet. “We will demand more than in the previous year to fulfill our role as a leading industry in Japan,” Masashi Jinbo, head of the group, told a news conference. The group is expected to formally adopt the uniform request at its central committee meeting Thursday afternoon. In last year’s shuntō, the group sought a pay scale hike of at least ¥13,000, the biggest amount since the current system of requests was introduced in 1998. This year’s request takes into account a fall in real wages and major manufacturers’ strong earnings thanks to expanding demand linked to digitalization. In shuntō, the industry customarily engages in unified negotiations in which member unions at major companies make the same request and adopt the same schedule of negotiations. Unions hope that pay hike agreements at such large businesses help create a momentum for increases at smaller makers. In last year’s shuntō, major companies such as Hitachi and Toshiba fully accepted the wage hike requests from their unions. Source link

The Bank of Japan will raise rates on Friday, according to a report by Jiji Press that didn’t cite sources. If the central bank does, in fact, raise its short-term policy rate at its two-day policy meeting that ends on Friday, it would be in line with the consensus among market participants and economists. The move would also mark its first rate hike since July last year, when the BOJ increased rates to 0.25%. The outlook has been somewhat clouded by questions surrounding the first days of U.S. President Donald Trump’s return to the White House, but markets seem to be quite stable so far, which is one of the major conditions for the BOJ to make a move. Source link

A Chinese court has sentenced a man to death over his attack on a bus used by a Japanese school in the eastern Chinese city of Suzhou in June, which caused the death of a Chinese bus attendant who tried to stop him. Zhou Jiasheng, 52, had traveled to Suzhou, Jiangsu province, from the neighboring Anhui province to commit the crime. In sentencing the unemployed man, the Suzhou Intermediate People’s Court said the man had been overwhelmed by debt and so had become despondent about living, which led him to commit the crime that resulted in the death of the bus attendant, Hu Youping. A Japanese woman and her child were also injured in the attack. The court deemed the crime as “extremely heinous” and carrying “significant social repercussions,” and concluded that the death penalty was appropriate, according to the Foreign Ministry in Tokyo. Source link

ALTADENA, California – Marialyce Pedersen stood in a white Tyvek suit on her Altadena, California, lot leveled by this month’s wildfires. Her house was reduced to ash that spilled into the pool, turning the water a toxic black. But along one wall, a sculpted pink bench and outdoor kitchen looked only slightly worse for wear. Pedersen built the bench and kitchen using cob, an adobe-like mix of decomposed granite or sand, clay and natural fiber, an ancient technique she says points to the future for her house and community. “That is going to be the start of my rebuilding efforts. It is one little bright spot,” she said. Source link