Comment on Japan's Exports up in September; Deficit Persists

LONDON — Two climate protesters were arrested Wednesday for spraying orange paint on the ancient Stonehenge monument in southern England, police said. The latest act by Just Stop Oil was quickly condemned by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak as a “disgraceful act of vandalism.” The incident came just a day before thousands are expected to gather at the 4,500-year-old stone circle to celebrate the summer solstice — the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] English Heritage, which manages the site, said it was “extremely upsetting” and said curators were investigating the damage.

The first debate of the U. S. presidential election, featuring President Joe Biden and Donald Trump, former President and current Republican nominee, will take place on June 27. This comes after the Biden campaign proposed an unusually early date for a debate. The second debate will take place on Sep.

WIMBLEDON, England — Former Grand Slam champions Naomi Osaka, Caroline Wozniacki, Angelique Kerber and Emma Raducanu have all been awarded wild cards for Wimbledon. The grass-court tournament starts on July 1. Osaka — a four-time major champion and former No. 1 player — and three-time Grand Slam winner Kerber returned from maternity leave at the start of this season. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Currently ranked 113th, Osaka was the only player to take a set from top-ranked Iga Swiatek at the French Open and followed that up with a quarterfinal spot last week in ’s-Hertogenbosch, a warm-up event for Wimbledon. Former U.

Former U. S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused China of trying to erase Tibetan culture following her high-profile meeting with the Dalai Lama at his home in northern India Wednesday, a visit condemned by Beijing. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Pelosi was joined on the trip to Dharamshala by a bipartisan delegation led by Michael McCaul, the Republican chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

TOKYO — Kazuko Shiraishi, a leading name in modern Japanese “beat” poetry, known for her dramatic readings, at times with jazz music, has died. She was 93. Shiraishi, whom American poet and translator Kenneth Rexroth dubbed “the Allen Ginsberg of Japan,” died of heart failure on June 14, Shichosha, a Tokyo publisher of her works, said Wednesday. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Shiraishi shot to fame when she was just 20, freshly graduated from Waseda University in Tokyo, with her “Tamago no Furu Machi,” translated as “The Town that Rains Eggs”—a surrealist portrayal of Japan’s wartime destruction. With her trademark long black hair and theatrical delivery, she defied historical stereotypes of the silent, non-assertive Japanese woman. “I have never been anything like pink,” Shiraishi wrote in her poem. It ends: “The road / where the child became a girl / and finally heads for dawn / is broken.” Shiraishi counted Joan Miro, Salvador Dali and John Coltrane among her influences.

It must be somebody pretty important in your life to warrant a personal airport pickup at 3 a.m. But that’s the honor North Korean “Supreme Leader” Kim Jong Un paid to Vladimir Putin on Wednesday morning, greeting the Russian President on a red carpet-laid runway in the wee hours and then riding with him through Pyongyang streets festooned with roses and murals of his stout, balding guest, whom Kim had earlier hailed as an “invincible comrade-in-arms.” [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] The last time Putin visited North Korea, it was his first year as Russian President and Kim was still ensconced under a fake name at a Swiss boarding school.