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Osaka Expo Opens in Japan Offering a Vision of the Future. Here’s What to Know 

People visit the US pavilion on the opening day of the Expo 2025 in Osaka, central Japan, Sunday, April 13, 2025. (AP)
People visit the US pavilion on the opening day of the Expo 2025 in Osaka, central Japan, Sunday, April 13, 2025. (AP)
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Osaka Expo Opens in Japan Offering a Vision of the Future. Here’s What to Know 

People visit the US pavilion on the opening day of the Expo 2025 in Osaka, central Japan, Sunday, April 13, 2025. (AP)
People visit the US pavilion on the opening day of the Expo 2025 in Osaka, central Japan, Sunday, April 13, 2025. (AP)

The Expo 2025 opened in Osaka on Sunday with more than 10,000 people singing Beethoven's Ninth Symphony to celebrate the start of the six-month event that Japan hopes will unite the world divided by tensions and wars.

Here is what to know about the Expo 2025 Osaka:

What is Expo 2025 Osaka about? The Osaka Expo is held at Yumeshima, which means "dream island," a reclaimed industrial waste burial site in the Osaka Bay, where participants from more than 160 countries, regions and organizations showcase their futuristic exhibits inside about 80 pavilions of unique architecture.

"Creating a future society for our lives" is the main theme. It is Osaka's second Expo after the hugely successful 1970 event that attracted 64 million visitors, a record until Shanghai in 2010.

Organizers expect 28 million visitors through mid-October, though ticket sales have been slow, with about 9 million sold in advance, short of an initial target of 14 million.

"It’s been 55 years since the last Expo in Osaka. I've been looking forward to it," said Daiki Chiba, who traveled from Sendai, about 900 kilometers (560 miles) northeast of Osaka.

Many visitors carried Myaku-Myaku mascots or wore clothes matching its colors — red, blue and white — to get in the mood.

What does it mean to hold Expo amid global tensions? The Expo comes only four years after Japan struggled to host the no-audience Tokyo Olympics during the coronavirus pandemic.

It opens in the wake of trade wars and fears of a global economic downturn sparked by US President Donald Trump's tariffs, the three-year Russian invasion of Ukraine and Middle East conflicts.

Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba compared the global tensions to a "national crisis" and said that Trump's tariffs, especially the 25% duty on automobiles, would be a blow to all industries and Japan's economy.

Still, Japan wants to turn the pinch into a chance.

"I think the timing is actually quite fitting," said Sachiko Yoshimura, head of Expo 2025 global communications. "Holding the Expo now could eventually help to address the divisions in the world. ... I believe this Expo in Japan might actually lead to stronger international relationships and improvements."

What is the Grand Ring? The iconic ring, designed by architect Sou Fujimoto, is a lattice-like structure encircling the venue and recognized by the Guinness World Records as the largest wooden architecture. It is 20 meters (65 feet) high and has a 2-kilometer (1.2-mile) circumference.

The costly ring takes up more than 14% of the Expo's total spending of 235 billion yen ($1.64 billion) and has triggered public criticism.

The total cost nearly doubled from the initial estimate largely due to the weaker yen, causing construction delays. Several pavilions, including those of Nepal, India, Vietnam and Chile, were not ready for the opening.

The ring is supposed to be partially reusable, reflecting the theme of creating a sustainable future.

What are other highlights? Exhibits of cutting-edge technology, such as robots and flying cars, as well as pop culture like Hello Kitty and Gundam, are among the highlights.

"Pavilions all look amazing," said Laurel Sylvester from New Zealand, visiting with her husband and two children. Her family is interested in ocean sustainability and planned to visit the Blue Ocean Dome. She said the boys are "super excited to have their photo with the (big Gundam) robot and some of the interesting tech things that are going on."

A small artificial heart made from induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS, demonstrated a heartbeat at a Japanese health care pavilion. At the Future of Life pavilion, visitors can interact with robots. A human washing machine that was a sensation at the 1970 expo returned with a high-tech makeover.

The US pavilion focuses on space travel. Its lunar stone from the Apollo 12 mission, a sensation at the 1970 expo, was back on display.

China, also highlighting space technology, exhibits soil samples from its lunar missions.

Carrying a "Not for sale" sign and decorated with its blue-and-yellow national flags, Ukraine attracted many visitors with a globe and other items carrying barcodes. By scanning them, visitors can see videos showing people's lives at war and their reconstruction effort.

Dymtro Liuyi, Ukrainian creative director, said his country's participation was undecided until December due to the war. The preparation was finished Sunday morning, he said, showing blue paint on his fingers.

What is Myaku-Myaku? With its blue face encircled by red balls, some of them eyeballs, the mysterious, smiley creature Myaku-Myaku welcomes visitors.

The imaginary creature was born from the fusion of cells and water in a small spring in the Kansai region, organizers say. The friendly but clumsy character can transform into various shapes and is good at finding a rainbow after the rain.

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'Ghost of the Forest' Returns to Kenya as Conservationists Reintroduce Rare Antelope into the Wild

Critically endangered mountain bongos feed in a forest enclosure at the Mount Kenya Wildlife Conservancy in Nanyuki, Laikipia County, Kenya, Saturday, May 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)
Critically endangered mountain bongos feed in a forest enclosure at the Mount Kenya Wildlife Conservancy in Nanyuki, Laikipia County, Kenya, Saturday, May 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)
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'Ghost of the Forest' Returns to Kenya as Conservationists Reintroduce Rare Antelope into the Wild

Critically endangered mountain bongos feed in a forest enclosure at the Mount Kenya Wildlife Conservancy in Nanyuki, Laikipia County, Kenya, Saturday, May 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)
Critically endangered mountain bongos feed in a forest enclosure at the Mount Kenya Wildlife Conservancy in Nanyuki, Laikipia County, Kenya, Saturday, May 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)

The mountain bongo has become the ghost of the forest, hard to spot amid the dense shrubs due to its ability to camouflage.

A critically endangered species, the animal is being slowly reintroduced into the wild by conservationists to increase the number of the rare antelope that are indigenous to Kenya’s forests.

The mountain bongo is a rare antelope known for its brown skin and distinct white stripes. With fewer than 100 individuals left in the wild, a conservancy based in Kenya is breeding them and slowly reintroducing them into the wild, with a target of 750 wild bongos by 2050, The AP news reported.

Located on the misty slopes of Kenya’s highest mountain, Mount Kenya, and on the edge of the forest, the 1,250-acre Mount Kenya Wildlife Conservancy in the Nanyuki area has been restoring the survival instincts of zoo-bred bongos. They want to ensure the animals can feed without human assistance, escape from predators, and build a strong immunity against diseases in the wild.

Last week, the conservancy imported a new batch of four male bongos from the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria though the Czech Republic. These new arrivals, currently quarantined and under constant observation, will interbreed with descendants of 18 bongos that arrived at the conservancy in 2004 from the United States to ensure a more diverse genetic pool.

The conservancy’s head, Dr. Robert Aruho, says inbreeding among bongos with similar genes is discouraged while rebuilding the population of this critically endangered species.

“We want bongos that are not only strong in body, but strong in the genes they pass to the next generation,” he said.

Bongos are native to Kenya’s Mount Kenya, Aberdare, Eburu and Mau forests, which play a key role in protecting the forests that are vital to the country’s water supply.

The last wild bongo was spotted in the Mount Kenya forest in 1994 before the conservancy reintroduced the first 10 bongos to the wild in 2022. Today, they roam among the orange climber vines and shrubs that form part of their favorite plants.

The bongo population dwindled after thousands of them died in disease outbreaks in the 1960s. In the 1980s, conservationist Don Hunt exported 36 of the species to the U.S. as insurance to be bred in captivity, with a plan to return them to the wild when conditions improved.

When the Mount Kenya Wildlife Conservancy was opened in 2004, 18 descendants of these bongos were imported and have since interbred, bringing the conservancy’s population to 102 bongos.

Caroline Makena, 33, grew up in the Mount Kenya region and remembers hearing stories about bongos from her grandmother, who said they were her community’s favorite bush meat. However, Makena never got to see one until she came to work as a gardener at the conservancy.

“I never knew the bongos were this beautiful, and I think my community loved them not just for the meat but because of their beauty,” she said.

The bongos are shy and can camouflage despite their distinct white stripes, and these attributes are critical for their survival in the wild.

Andrew Mulani, the bongo program assistant at the conservancy, said the bongos are monitored for months before being reintroduced into the wild to ensure that the shyest ones are selected because docile animals would fall easily to predators.

His most fulfilling moment was when the fourth calf was born in the wild last year, an indication that the bongos are thriving in their native habitat and that their population will certainly increase.

Bongos have a gestation period of nine months, a factor that has negatively impacted their slow population growth. They are also sensitive and react to some plants and weather conditions compared to other species in the antelope family that thrive in the same ecosystem.

As the team of conservationists in Mount Kenya races to save the critically endangered species, supplementing the bongos’ shrub diet with special nutritious pellets, thousands of tourists who visit the conservancy annually marvel at their spiraled horns, hoping the ghost of the forest will become a more common sight in Kenya’s forests.

Varieties

Trump is Lifting Restrictions on Hunting in National Parks, Refuges and Wilderness Areas

FILE - Cypress trees grow in a swamps in the Barataria Preserve, part of Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve in Marrero, La., June 3, 2018. (AP Photo/Beth J. Harpaz, File)
FILE - Cypress trees grow in a swamps in the Barataria Preserve, part of Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve in Marrero, La., June 3, 2018. (AP Photo/Beth J. Harpaz, File)
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Trump is Lifting Restrictions on Hunting in National Parks, Refuges and Wilderness Areas

FILE - Cypress trees grow in a swamps in the Barataria Preserve, part of Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve in Marrero, La., June 3, 2018. (AP Photo/Beth J. Harpaz, File)
FILE - Cypress trees grow in a swamps in the Barataria Preserve, part of Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve in Marrero, La., June 3, 2018. (AP Photo/Beth J. Harpaz, File)

President Donald Trump's administration is quietly pushing national park, refuge and wilderness area managers to dramatically scale back hunting restrictions, raising questions about visitor safety and the impact on wildlife.

US Department of the Interior Secretary Doug Burgum issued an order in January directing multiple agencies to remove what he termed “unnecessary regulatory or administrative barriers” to hunting and fishing and justify regulations they want to keep in place.

“Expanding opportunities for the public to hunt and fish on Department-managed lands not only strengthens conservation outcomes, but also supports rural economies, public health, and access to America's outdoor spaces,” Burgum wrote. “The Department's policy is clear: public and federally managed lands should be open to hunting and fishing unless a specific, documented, and legally supported exception applies.”

Order clears the way for tree stands, training dogs and more The order applies to 55 sites in the lower 48 states under the National Park Service's jurisdiction, according to the National Parks Conservation Association. Managers at various locations have already lifted prohibitions on hunting stands that damage trees and training hunting dogs, using vehicles to retrieve animals and hunting along trails, according to an NPCA review of site regulations the organization recently performed after learning of the order. The New York Times was the first to report on the changes.

The hunting season in the Cape Cod National Seashore in Massachusetts, for example, would be extended through the spring and summer. Hunters in the Lake Meredith National Recreation Area in Texas would be allowed to clean their kills in bathrooms. And hunters would be allowed to kill alligators in the Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve in Louisiana.

An effort to save hunting? Burgum’s order comes as hunting continues to decline in the face of increasing urbanization. Only about 4.2% of the US population identified as a hunter older than 16 in 2024, according to US Fish and Wildlife Service and US Census data, leaving state wildlife agencies short on revenue from license sales and excise taxes on guns and ammunition.

Hunting advocates and conservative policymakers have been exploring multiple avenues to keep hunting alive, including promoting the sport to women and young children, creating seasons for more species and expanding hunter access to public land.

Hunting is currently allowed across about 51 million National Park Service acres spanning 76 sites, although only about 8 million of those acres lie in the contiguous United States with the rest in Alaska, according to the NPS website. Fishing is allowed in 213 sites. NPS sites typically adopt state hunting and fishing regulations although they can impose restrictions that go beyond them to protect public safety and wildlife resources, like prohibiting shooting along a trail or near buildings.

‘I’d love to know the problem we're trying to solve' Dan Wenk, a former Yellowstone National Park superintendent and NPS deputy operations director, said park managers established their regulations by talking with stakeholders and, as a result, most of the restrictions have been widely accepted. He said it makes no sense for the Trump administration to upend that structure without substantial public discussion.

“Process never seems to stand in the way of many things with this administration,” Wenk said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. “This was never a big issue. I'd love to know the problem we're trying to solve. Then I could understand the costs that it's going to take to solve it in terms of resources and visitor safety.”

FILE - People fish on Race Point Beach, part of Cape Cod National Seashore, May 25, 2020, in Provincetown, Mass. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer, File)

Interior Department spokesperson Elizabeth Peace said in an email that the order is a “commonsense approach to public land management" and promised that any closures or limits needed for public safety, resource protection or legal compliance will remain in place.

“For decades, sportsmen and women have been some of the strongest stewards of our public lands," she said, “and this order ensures their access is not unnecessarily restricted by outdated or overly broad limitations that are not required by law.”

Asked in a follow-up email about the extent of any public outreach efforts, if any, Peace said only that the department had given the AP its statement on the order.

Hunting groups applaud the order The Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, which works to preserve access for hunting and fishing, posted a statement online in January calling the order a balance between wildlife management and outdoor traditions hunters and anglers support. Ducks Unlimited posted a statement in March saying Burgum's order recognizes duck hunters' “vital role.”

“This process will streamline federal regulations, make them more consistent with existing state rules, and provide more public-land access for outdoor recreation. Thank you, Secretary Burgum, for prioritizing America’s hunters and anglers," the statement said.

Elaine Leslie, former head of the NPS' biological resources department, said Trump is undermining a process that was put in place in good faith and the order does not reflect science-based management.

“I don't want to take my young grandchildren to a park unit only to have a hunter drag a gutted elk they shot across a visitor center parking lot. Nor enter a restroom where hunters are cleaning their game,” Leslie said in a text to the AP. "There is a time and place for hunting, trapping and fishing ... but that doesn't mean every place has to be open to every activity especially at the expense of others and degrading our public resources.”

Varieties

Gaza Surfers Find Rare Moments of Joy Taking to the Waves

Palestinians Tahseen Abu Assi, left, Khalil Abu Jayyab, center, and Abed Rahim Alostaz warn up before surfing on the beach in Gaza City, Monday, May 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
Palestinians Tahseen Abu Assi, left, Khalil Abu Jayyab, center, and Abed Rahim Alostaz warn up before surfing on the beach in Gaza City, Monday, May 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
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Gaza Surfers Find Rare Moments of Joy Taking to the Waves

Palestinians Tahseen Abu Assi, left, Khalil Abu Jayyab, center, and Abed Rahim Alostaz warn up before surfing on the beach in Gaza City, Monday, May 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
Palestinians Tahseen Abu Assi, left, Khalil Abu Jayyab, center, and Abed Rahim Alostaz warn up before surfing on the beach in Gaza City, Monday, May 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Despite the dire humanitarian crisis across the Gaza Strip, where a fragile ceasefire remains in place, a handful of Palestinian surfers are finding joy — and relief — riding the waves of the territory’s Mediterranean coastal waters.

Only three or four men still surf due to a shortage of surfboards and the materials needed to fix damaged ones, said Tahseen Abu Assi, a surfer in Gaza City.

Abu Assi carried his surfboard with him through every displacement he endured during the two-year war because, he said, he wouldn't be able to replace it.

“If something happened to it I won’t be able to get another one,” he said, noting that no boards have entered the Palestinian territory since 2007.

Surfboards are among sports equipment and other products that are banned by Israel.

On Tuesday, Abu Assi was among three surfers who took to the sea off the Gaza City port, including Khalil Abu Jiab, who road the high waves with his arms raised in joy.

After the war began, the Israeli military heavily restricted sea activity in Gaza, with the United Nations reporting that some fishermen were attacked onshore or at sea, including incidents involving fishermen using paddle boats.

Last year, Israel declared Gaza’s waters a “no-go zone,” banning fishing, swimming and sea access, making surfing risky.

Fishing and swimming are prohibited and dangerous in the waters off northern and southern Gaza. It's also risky to enter the waters off central Gaza, where Gaza City is located, due to Israeli patrols.

A Palestinian jumps into the waters of the Mediterranean Sea as he surfs on the beach in Gaza City, Monday, May 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

“There is fear of course, but we can’t leave this sport," The Associated Press quoted Abu Assi as saying. "During the war, in the middle of the war, in the middle of the bombing and the planes above us, we used to go down and practice this sport.”

Gaza’s waves rarely rise high enough for surfing, so when they do, surfers drop everything to get in the water, he added.

Intense fighting across the enclave eased after a shaky ceasefire took effect on Oct. 10, but deadly Israeli strikes have continued, with both Hamas and Israel accusing each other of violating the truce.

Palestinians continue to struggle to secure food, clean water, medical care and shelter after the war caused widespread destruction, dismantled healthcare infrastructure and displaced most of the territory’s residents.

But for the territory's few surfers, there is relief, even if only fleeting, when they take to the waves.

“As soon as the sea gets high, you leave your work and leave your whole life,” Abu Assi said. "Work can be caught up on, as they say. We go practice this sport.”