Emma Whitehead, with her mother, Kari. Last spring, Emma was near death from acute lymphoblastic leukemia but is now in remission after an experimental treatment at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.Credit...Jeff Swensen for The New York Times PHILIPSBURG, Pa. — Emma Whitehead has been bounding around the house lately, practicing somersaults and rugby-style tumbles that make her parents winc

Ichiro Suzuki’s rookie season was too good to be true. The Yankees, his new team, proved that in the American League Championship Series of 2001. Suzuki led the Seattle Mariners to 116 victories while winning the batting title and leading the majors in stolen bases, feats that would earn him both the Rookie of the Year award and the Most Valuable Player award. In the first round of the playoffs, h

Contaminated soil at a school in Koriyama, Japan.Credit...Ko Sasaki for The New York Times FUKUSHIMA, Japan — The day after a giant tsunami set off the continuing disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, thousands of residents at the nearby town of Namie gathered to evacuate. Given no guidance from Tokyo, town officials led the residents north, believing that winter winds would be blowing

In Japan Reactor Failings, Danger Signs for the U.S. TOKYO — Emergency vents that American officials have said would prevent devastating hydrogen explosions at nuclear plants in the United States were put to the test in Japan — and failed to work, according to experts and officials with the company that operates the crippled Fukushima Daiichi plant. The failure of the vents calls into question the

Experts Had Long Criticized Potential Weakness in Design of Stricken Reactor The warnings were stark and issued repeatedly as far back as 1972: If the cooling systems ever failed at a “Mark 1” nuclear reactor, the primary containment vessel surrounding the reactor would probably burst as the fuel rods inside overheated. Dangerous radiation would spew into the environment. Now, with one Mark 1 cont

The Japanese artist Takashi Murakami watched as balloons of his Kaikai and Kiki characters were readied for the parade.Credit...Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times It is not uncommon for people to react with awe to their first up-close encounter with a balloon from the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. But when Takashi Murakami saw his contributions to Thursday’s event, he bowed. Twice. On Wednesday

HONG KONG — Sharply raising the stakes in a dispute over Japan’s detention of a Chinese fishing trawler captain, the Chinese government has blocked exports to Japan of a crucial category of minerals used in products like hybrid cars, wind turbines and guided missiles. Chinese customs officials are halting shipments to Japan of so-called rare earth elements, preventing them from being loading aboar

Tianjin, China What a contrast. In a year that’s on track to be our planet’s hottest on record, America turned “climate change” into a four-letter word that many U.S. politicians won’t even dare utter in public. If this were just some parlor game, it wouldn’t matter. But the totally bogus “discrediting” of climate science has had serious implications. For starters, it helped scuttle Senate passage

TOKYO � Shadow shogun, scandal-tainted party boss, insider turned rebel, a leader who can say no to Washington � Ichiro Ozawa has been called many things in his four decades in politics. Now, as Mr. Ozawa, the former head of Japan’s governing Democratic Party and its widely acknowledged power broker, begins what might be the final maneuver in a turbulent and often chameleon-like career, he is prov

Clean Water Laws Are Neglected, at a Cost in Suffering Ryan Massey, 7, shows his caps. Dentists near Charleston, W.Va., say pollutants in drinking water have damaged residents’ teeth. Nationwide, polluters have violated the Clean Water Act more than 500,000 times.Credit...Damon Winter/The New York Times Jennifer Hall-Massey knows not to drink the tap water in her home near Charleston, W.Va. In fac

Japan's next Prime Minister, Yukio Hatoyama, said on Thursday that he would not change the alliance with the United States. Credit...Junko Kimura/Getty Images TOKYO � Scrambling to mend fences with his country’s biggest ally, Japan’s next leader, Yukio Hatoyama, told President Obama and the United States ambassador on Thursday that the American alliance was the basis of Japanese foreign policy. In