Japan’s cut-price morgues cash in on legal loopholes as lonely deaths rise

Balendra Shah wore them as a rapper, as Kathmandu’s mayor and on his way to becoming prime minister. Now he has taken the look to the United Nations.

Altman. Musk. Huang. Bezos. They all came to the White House Thursday night, though you might not have seen it on TV.

President Trump pressed his personal brand of diplomacy as President Xi Jinping of China made his first trip to the White House in more than a decade.

The Singapore Food Agency (SFA) is looking into a social media allegation that dog meat was being sold illegally in Singapore. The screengrabs shared on the Facebook group Dogs Singapore appeared to show an advertisement in Vietnamese offering various cuts of dog meat. A check on Friday morning found that the post containing the screengrab had been deleted. SFA has not approved any source of dog meat, the agency said early on Friday morning. “All food imports must meet SFA’s requirements....

Ma Yansong, China’s reigning starchitect, lets his buildings wrapped in nature do the shouting.

Britain’s Newcastle University faced criticism on Thursday for awarding a sustainability professorship to Anant Ambani, the son of Asia’s richest man and owner of a scandal-hit giant wildlife centre in India. Vantara, which calls itself the world’s largest rescue centre, last month announced a major reset of its procedures following concerns about its rapid and vast acquisition of animals from around the world, including endangered species. Newcastle University said on September 14, it awarded...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has put North Korea in a propaganda bind, analysts say, by publicly revealing that Kyiv recently transferred two North Korean prisoners of war to South Korea. The disclosure – made during Zelensky’s address to the UN General Assembly on Wednesday – directly challenges Pyongyang’s narrative that its soldiers fighting alongside Russian forces choose death over surrendering. North Korea is unlikely to acknowledge the transfer publicly, but may strengthen...

Xi Jinping, China’s leader, said two pandas would arrive soon at Zoo Atlanta. Panda diplomacy has been a cornerstone of U.S.-China relations.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said one soldier tried to kill himself when he was captured. “This is how they raise people in the North,” he said.

55 years ago, Bhutan joined the United Nations – with a rare show of support from bitter rivals.