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Melbourne – Jannik Sinner insists nothing is being taken for granted ahead of his Australian Open semifinal, with the world No. 1 warning that he is constantly striving to get “better and stronger.” The Italian top seed faces Ben Shelton on Friday, and is just two matches away from a first successful Grand Slam title defense after winning his maiden Grand Slam crown in Melbourne last year. That sparked a breakthrough season in which he won eight titles, including the U.S. Open and ATP Finals, to open a chasm between himself and No. 2 Alexander Zverev in the rankings. Source link

Japan’s exports rose for a third month in December on the back of a weaker yen, as businesses waited for further clarity on likely U.S. trade policy in U.S. President Donald Trump’s second term. Exports measured in value gained 2.8% from a year ago led by chip-making machinery and semiconductor parts, the Finance Ministry reported Thursday. That beat the consensus estimate of a 2.4% increase, although shipments fell in terms of volume. Imports increased 1.8%, led by calculation machinery and related goods, but were weaker than expectations of a 3.2% increase. The yen averaged ¥152.48 per dollar in December, 3.8% weaker than a year earlier, the report said. A weaker yen tends to help exporters’ profits while making imports of energy and food more expensive. Source link

Teruko Nakazawa once intervened in a knife fight between an ex-offender and their mother — all in a day’s unpaid work for Japan’s army of volunteer probation officers. The 83-year-old, who jokes she is a “punk” as she puffs on a cigarette, devoted decades to supervising and helping rehabilitate convicted criminals on parole. But she did not take a single yen for her hard work under a long-running but little-known state plan that some say contributes to the nation’s famously low crime rate. Source link

U.S. President Donald Trump has signed a blizzard of executive orders and taken other actions since being sworn in on Monday on scores of issues that could have an impact on the lives of millions of Americans and non-citizens. The orders aim to meet campaign promises on illegal immigration, the size of the federal workforce, energy and the environment, gender and diversity policies, and pardons for supporters jailed for the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Here are some of the actions that Trump has taken so far. Source link

The most unpredictable session of parliament in years is slated to open Friday with the ruling coalition, divested of a majority in the last Lower House election, needing to earn backing from the opposition for every piece of legislation it puts forward — starting with the fiscal 2025 budget. For the minority government of Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and his ruling Liberal Democratic Party, the days of pushing through bills on the back of an overwhelming majority in both chambers of parliament are over, to be replaced by an inevitably more conciliatory approach in dealing with the opposition. In a recent televised debate, Ishiba himself admitted that the new style of low-profile, sensible compromise that began in the last session of parliament late last year is here to stay. Source link

The average retail price of regular gasoline in Japan has exceeded ¥185 per liter for the first time in 17 months, reflecting reduced government subsidies to oil wholesalers, the industry ministry said Wednesday. The average gasoline price shot up ¥4.40 from a week before to ¥185.10 as of Monday. The average price last topped ¥185 on Sept. 4, 2023, when it hit a record high of ¥186.50. Average pump prices rose in all 47 prefectures of the country, six of which saw the prices hit ¥190 or more. Kochi Prefecture had the highest price, at ¥193.60, followed by Nagano Prefecture at ¥193.50. Iwate Prefecture had the lowest average price at ¥177.80. The government started to cut back on subsidies in December. If gasoline prices exceeded the base price of ¥168, the government initially subsidized 60% of the gap between the base price and pump prices of up to ¥185. Subsidies were then reduced to 30%. Starting Thursday, the government is no longer offering subsidies for gasoline prices of up to ¥185. It still, however, provides subsidies for any prices exceeding ¥185. Shortly after the subsidy cut in December, the nationwide average gasoline price surged from around ¥175 to around ¥180. The ministry had expected the price to rise further. The Oil Information Center of the Institute of Energy Economics said it expects the average price to stay around ¥185. Source link

As veteran director Kiyoshi Kurosawa observed when he spoke at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan last year, the problem with today’s digital imaging technology is that it’s too darn clean. Even the cheapest cameras produce relatively pristine results; “gritty, grainy images don’t exist anymore,” he lamented. That’s a slight overstatement, but when it’s possible to make a blockbuster with an iPhone — as Danny Boyle did for the upcoming post-apocalyptic horror “28 Years Later” — filmmakers who want it grotty typically have to turn to obsolete formats. The low-resolution visuals of VHS play an integral role in “Missing Child Videotape,” becoming an embodiment of dark forces that lurk just beyond the limits of our comprehension. Ryota Kondo’s debut feature takes inspiration from urban legends and “The Blair Witch Project,” while showing that its director has learned well from the masters of Japanese horror, Kurosawa included. The titular videotape seems like a nod to Hideo Nakata’s “The Ring” (1998), although Kondo’s characters spend much longer watching the tape than it took for that film’s central spook to crawl out of a TV screen. In rough, wobbly footage, it captures the moment 13 years earlier when protagonist Keita (Rairu Sugita) saw his younger brother, Hinata, vanish during a game of hide-and-seek in an abandoned building. Source link

What makes a “great” yokozuna? The obvious answer for most is simply how many bouts or Emperor’s Cups were won during a career. For others, that’s a metric that comes with some nuance and requires measuring dominance in a given period – especially against other yokozuna or ozeki. Either way, the numerical approach — while valid — isn’t the only method to evaluate which grand champions had the greatest impact on sumo. Source link

CAIRO – In neighborhoods leveled by 15 months of war with Israel, Hamas officials are overseeing the clearance of rubble in the wake of Sunday’s ceasefire. The group’s gunmen are guarding aid convoys on Gaza’s dusty roads, and its blue-uniformed police once again patrol city streets, sending a clear message: Hamas remains in charge. Israeli officials have described a parade of jubilant Hamas fighters that celebrated the ceasefire on Sunday in front of cheering crowds as a carefully orchestrated attempt to exaggerate the Palestinian militant group’s strength. But, in the days since the ceasefire took effect, Gaza’s Hamas-run administration has moved quickly to reimpose security, to curb looting, and to start restoring basic services to parts of the enclave, swathes of which have been reduced to wasteland by the Israeli offensive. Source link

Chinese law does not consider men as potential victims of human trafficking. Source link