Month: March 2021

A 7.2-magnitude earthquake shook northeastern Japan on Saturday evening, prompting a tsunami warning that was quickly lifted.

The quake, which hit just after 6 p.m., lasted for over 30 seconds and could be felt strongly in Tokyo, hundreds of miles from the epicenter.

The epicenter was roughly 35 miles below the ocean’s floor off the coast of Miyagi Prefecture, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency. The authorities initially warned of the possibility of a tsunami of about 3 feet, but the warning was soon lifted.

ANCHORAGE — The Biden administration’s first face-to-face encounter with China ended Friday after a vivid demonstration of how the world’s two largest economic and technological powers are facing a widening gulf of distrust and disagreements on a range of issues that will shape the global landscape for years to come.

After an opening session on Thursday marked by mutual public denunciations, the two sides left an Anchorage hotel on Friday without any joint statement of their willingness to work together, even in areas where they both say they share mutual interests, from climate change to rolling back North Korea’s nuclear

MEXICO CITY — Gunmen on Thursday ambushed a Mexican government convoy conducting a security patrol southwest of the capital, killing 13 prosecutors and police officers in what appeared to be the deadliest assault on Mexican law enforcement in well over a year, officials said.

The attack was a major setback to government security forces and yet another reminder of the severe security challenges facing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. The president took office in 2018 promising to make Mexico a safer place, but he has been unable to put a meaningful dent in the violence that has long bloodied the

The United States plans to send millions of doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to Mexico and Canada, the White House said Thursday, a notable step into vaccine diplomacy just as the Biden administration is quietly pressing Mexico to curb the stream of migrants coming to the border.

Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said the United States was planning to share 2.5 million doses of the vaccine with Mexico and 1.5 million with Canada, adding that it was “not finalized yet, but that is our aim.”

Tens of millions of doses of the vaccine have been sitting in American

TOKYO — A Japanese court on Wednesday ruled that the country’s failure to recognize same-sex marriages was unconstitutional, a landmark decision that could be an important step toward legalizing the unions across the nation.

The ruling, handed down by a district court in the northern city of Sapporo, came in a civil suit against the Japanese government by three same-sex couples. The lack of recognition of their unions, they said, had unfairly cut them off from services and benefits accorded to married couples, and they sought damages of around $9,000 per person.

The couples argued that the government’s failure to