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Japan’s Tokyo city male workers can wear shorts in summer. Some call it harassment
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Japan’s Tokyo city male workers can wear shorts in summer. Some call it harassment

Some women argue against the double standards, saying they have to wear stockings to work even in summer Now, as Tokyo governor, Koike has taken the idea a step further: shorts in the office. In April, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government said it would allow male employees to turn up for work in shorts, and it urged businesses across the capital to adopt similarly relaxed dress codes. Tokyo Cool Biz, the city authorities’ update of the original national campaign, is intended to help employees feel more comfortable while potentially reducing electricity consumption amid rising fuel prices. The backlash against the relaxed rules, however, has been swift.

June 18, 2026
Our ancient enemy: scientists discover oldest-known plague outbreak
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Our ancient enemy: scientists discover oldest-known plague outbreak

Ancient DNA from Siberian burials reveals prehistoric outbreaks struck hunter-gatherers long before the Black Death Scientists have found the oldest known evidence of the plague, which sparked deadly outbreaks dating back about 5,500 years ago – some 200 years earlier than previously thought. The disease has sickened humans for thousands of years and wiped out a significant chunk of Europe’s population in the 14th century during what’s known as the Black Death. Though rare, the plague is still around today and is treated with antibiotics. “To understand our own history, we believe that understanding the history of plague is extremely important,” said study co-author Eske Willerslev, an evolutionary geneticist with the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. Willerslev and other researchers looked for traces of plague-causing bacteria in remains from four cemeteries near Siberia’s Lake Baikal. They found remnants of plague DNA in teeth from 18 ancient hunter-gatherers. Dating the carbon in the bones revealed that the plague triggered two outbreaks, with the first cases detected around 5,500 years ago. The team found that the prehistoric plague developed in stages and infected several small families.

June 18, 2026
Persistent heavy downpours expected to ease for Hong Kong’s Tuen Ng Festival
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Persistent heavy downpours expected to ease for Hong Kong’s Tuen Ng Festival

Despite warning that flood risks remain, the Observatory expects conditions to improve on Friday Hong Kong has been hit by more heavy downpours, with flooding risks persisting, but the Observatory expects conditions to improve during the Tuen Ng Festival. The Hong Kong Observatory cancelled an amber rainstorm warning at 9.25am on Thursday after it was issued following more than 30mm (1.2 inches) of rain within an hour. In Sai Kung East, hourly rainfall was expected to exceed 70mm. The forecaster said sunny intervals were likely to return on Friday afternoon despite strong winds and a few showers, before conditions turn very hot over the weekend and into early next week. “The weather will improve [during the] Tuen Ng Festival [on Friday]. It will become very hot gradually during the weekend to early next week,” the Observatory said. Friday marks the Tuen Ng Festival, also known as the Dragon Boat Festival, giving residents a three-day weekend through to Sunday. The forecaster said coastal areas of Guangdong were being hit by intense thundery showers on Thursday.

June 18, 2026
Teen dies in horse carriage incident in New York’s Central Park
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Teen dies in horse carriage incident in New York’s Central Park

The 18-year-old was fatally injured after a horse bolted away from its driver, clipping another cab on the park’s busy loop A teenager thrown to the ground Wednesday when a Central Park carriage horse bolted away from its driver has died, according to police. The 18-year-old was riding in the horse-drawn carriage with three other passengers when the accident happened just before 3pm, according to the New York Police Department. At least two passengers were sent flying out of the careening cab. The teenager was initially hospitalised in critical condition, while the other passengers refused medical treatment. The four passengers were a family of tourists visiting the city from India, New York Daily News reported. A representative for the Transport Workers Union, which represents carriage industry employees, said the driver had dismounted to take a photograph of his passengers, which they are not supposed to do. The horse had been in the park for only six weeks, according to Alexander Kemp, the administrative vice-president of the union’s local chapter. He said he wants a full investigation.

June 18, 2026
Green group urges Hong Kong to cut excessive e-commerce packaging waste
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Green group urges Hong Kong to cut excessive e-commerce packaging waste

The Green Earth urges Hong Kong to align with mainland Chinese packaging limits after study estimates city generated 2.7 million kg of waste A leading green group has urged Hong Kong to align with coming national standards on excessive packaging, warning that the city generated at least 2.7 million kg (5.9 million lbs) of waste from e-commerce parcels last year. The call coincided with an online survey by non-profit group The Green Earth, which found that 60 per cent of respondents in Hong Kong considered parcel packaging excessive, while 76 per cent felt frustrated when handling the waste. Steven Chan Wing-kit, assistant environmental affairs manager of the charity, said mainland China’s regulatory scope could only extend as far as consolidation warehouses across the border. “The issue is left unmanaged once the goods leave the mainland,” he said. A regulatory gap remains, as parcels sent or repackaged in Hong Kong are not subject to any rules. “We suggest [the government] proactively collaborate with relevant mainland authorities and reduce packaging waste at the source,” Chan said, urging the e-commerce sector to promote reusable packaging.

June 18, 2026
Where do office supplies belong? Here’s a hint: it’s in the name
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Where do office supplies belong? Here’s a hint: it’s in the name

I seldom, if ever, assume people in general do a particular thing, unless, of course, I do it too. But if it is a criminal act, then I assume in general that nobody would do it. There is a peculiarity, it seems, with taking office supplies home, like a pen, or a soda, or a coffee capsule. Apparently, some people think it is no big deal, or even that there is nothing wrong with it. Some go so far as to assume everybody does it – maybe because they do it too? Both lines of thinking are wrong, but...

June 18, 2026
Hong Kong has a chance to think bigger about its place in the world
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Hong Kong has a chance to think bigger about its place in the world

The Hong Kong government has launched a public consultation on the city’s first five-year development plan, a blueprint aimed at aligning with China’s newly approved 15th five-year plan. Officials have promised a “macroscopic, strategic and forward-looking” road map that will guide Hong Kong’s economic and social development for the rest of this decade. That invitation to think in five-year horizons is precisely why Hong Kong must now think bigger about its place in the world – not only as...

June 18, 2026
Trump says Japan ‘doing very well’ under his ‘biggest fan’ Takaichi
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Trump says Japan ‘doing very well’ under his ‘biggest fan’ Takaichi

The US president also said Tokyo was not willing to get involved during the Iran war Trump’s comments came after he was asked whether he had called on other G7 members, including Britain, Germany and Japan, to send their armed forces in connection with the Strait of Hormuz. The strait, a critical global shipping route, has been effectively closed since shortly after the United States and Israel launched air strikes on Iran at the end of February. But just ahead of the G7 summit, the US and Iran reached a preliminary peace deal that will include extending a ceasefire for another 60 days and Tehran reopening the waterway. The G7 is a bloc consisting of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. The EU is also represented within the G7.

June 18, 2026
China Gen Z male midwife goes viral for skills, looks, bringing ‘powerful tenderness’ to childbirth
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China Gen Z male midwife goes viral for skills, looks, bringing ‘powerful tenderness’ to childbirth

25-year-old overcomes ‘shameful’ taunts from relatives about career choice, says witnessing births makes him respect ‘strength’ of women A male midwife in eastern China has won praise for his professionalism and striking looks while defying relatives who dismissed his career choice as embarrassing. Zhang Jintao, 25, from Yiwu in Zhejiang province, became a midwife at a leading provincial hospital after graduating from university. According to Southern Daily, men accounted for just three per cent of China’s nurses in 2021, the number of male midwives was even fewer. Zhang told the mainland medical outlet Yixuejie that some older male relatives had criticised his choice of career, calling it “shameful” and “embarrassing.” But he said witnessing childbirth left him deeply moved by women’s strength and convinced him his work was meaningful. His greatest challenge was earning the trust of expectant mothers and their families. Due to traditional attitudes towards privacy, some women refuse care from male midwives. Zhang said respecting patients’ wishes was fundamental. Despite once considering quitting the job, he ultimately chose to stay.

June 18, 2026
China mulls space-based control system for high-speed rail. Can it be hacked?
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China mulls space-based control system for high-speed rail. Can it be hacked?

Study shows low-orbit satellites might avoid another Wenzhou disaster but reveals how hackers could deliberately crash speeding trains The official inquiry traced the catastrophe to a lightning strike that had fried a trackside circuit, making one train “invisible” to the control centre, which then wrongly cleared the line for the train behind. However, could the “brain” of the railway ever be made so resilient that no single bolt of lightning, no flood, no earthquake could ever again fool it into a fatal mistake? Fifteen years later, a team of railway researchers in Beijing has proposed an answer: lifting the railway’s nervous system into space. Their vision, laid out in a paper published in industry journal Railway Signalling and Communication Engineering in May, is a space-based train control system that could one day govern the world’s largest high-speed rail network. And yet, as the paper makes clear, the same technology that promises to banish the ghosts of Wenzhou could also summon a new breed of digital demons. Today’s train control systems depend on thousands of kilometres of trackside beacons, signal lamps and radio masts. This equipment is expensive to install, finicky to maintain and vulnerable to nature’s fury.

June 18, 2026
Alarm raised over China’s threat to older Americans through drug supply chains
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Alarm raised over China’s threat to older Americans through drug supply chains

US congressional hearing also highlights financial scams and data privacy as national security issues affecting senior citizens “Fifty years ago, we never would have given the Soviets the kind of leeway we give China: the access they have to our economy and our information, the dependence they enjoy from our supply chains,” said Rick Scott, a Republican senator from Florida, adding that the US needed to “get serious about this before it’s too late”. The hearing, titled “Counting the Cost: Communist China’s Toll on Older Americans’ Health, Finances and Security” covered several issues affecting ageing Americans, including China’s dominance in pharmaceutical ingredients, as well as global drug supply chains. “China’s weaponisation of supply chains is not theoretical. China has made controlling global supply chains an explicit strategic goal,” said Chris Slevin, from the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC). All four witnesses at the Senate Special Committee on Ageing hearing were from the USCC, which does not have lawmaking authority but is authorised by Congress and can be influential on legislation.

June 18, 2026
Hong Kong graduates prefer careers in finance, survey finds
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Hong Kong graduates prefer careers in finance, survey finds

Survey by CFA Institute reveals 90 per cent believe they have the skills to succeed and know what employers are looking for The US-based institute’s “2026 Graduate Outlook Survey”, released on Wednesday, found that 71 per cent of Hong Kong graduates rated their career prospects between eight and 10 out of 10. The global average for that level of optimism was 59 per cent. The graduates’ view of careers in finance reflected “both the sector’s resilience and Hong Kong’s continued strength as an international financial centre, which ranks third worldwide and first in Asia-Pacific”, the institute said in a statement. That confidence was “deeply grounded”, it said, with nearly 90 per cent believing they had the skills to succeed and clearly understood what employers were looking for, notwithstanding the wider adoption of artificial intelligence in the city. “Rather than viewing AI as a threat, 38 per cent of Hong Kong graduates believe it has no negative impact on their job hunting, and 37 per cent believe it makes securing a job easier,” the institute said. “Three quarters are already actively using AI tools in their job applications, demonstrating a proactive, tool-first mindset.”

June 18, 2026