Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Graphic Truth

Graphic Truth: Japan’s ruling coalition loses majority

Graphic Truth: Japan’s ruling coalition loses majority
Make us preferred on Google

Japan’s ruling coalition lost control of the upper house in Sunday’s election, further weakening Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba amid growing domestic pressure and international challenges. To retain its majority, the Liberal Democratic Party and its partner Komeito needed to win 50 seats – they got only 47. This follows the LDP’s worst electoral showing in 15 years in last fall’s Lower House election. Rising inflation and opposition calls for tax cuts resonated with voters, while the far-right Sanseito party gained ground with a nationalist, anti-immigration platform. Despite the setback, Ishiba vowed to stay on, stressing the importance of upcoming US trade talks as Japan faces an August tariff deadline. For a refresher on why Shigeru was in such trouble to begin with, see here.

More For You

The green World Cup
Eileen Zhang
Forget the action on the pitch for a moment. With the 2026 World Cup quarterfinals complete, we wondered what the tournament would look like if teams were competing on a different kind of playing field: clean energy. Instead of goals, we ranked the final eight nations by the share of their electricity production from renewable sources. [...]
Africa’s fountain of youth
Paige Parsacale
Cape Verde, the second-smallest country ever to qualify for the World Cup, was knocked out this weekend after a stunning match that pushed Lionel Messi and Argentina into extra time. The loss marked the end of a remarkable run for the African archipelago nation, but it also put a spotlight on a part of the world whose demographic star is rising. [...]
Graphic Truth: Where press freedom falls, impunity rises (infographic). Top 10 contributors to impunity arund the world between 2020 and 2025 according to the Atlas of Impunity
The world is splitting into two camps: countries that hold power accountable, and those that don’t.Deteriorating press freedom offers the starkest example. Where trusted information is scarce, abuses of power stay hidden, corruption flourishes, and citizens lose the ability to demand accountability.This is a key finding in the fourth edition of [...]
The changing face of America
Eileen Zhang
On July 4, the United States will celebrate its 250th birthday. Over the past two and a half centuries, American society has changed profoundly, from an agrarian republic of 13 colonies to the urban, diverse, and economic superpower it is today. To mark the quarter-millennium, we decided to look back on how the country has demographically evolved [...]