Groups including the Partnership for New York City and chambers of commerce for all five boroughs say the city must pause its short-term rental laws from June 1 to July 31 so more people can stay in the Big Apple during the games — along with celebrations for the country’s 250th anniversary and Fleet Week.

FIFA World Cup games will be played at MetLife stadium in July. Getty Images

The groups said throngs of visitors expected to come for the special events won’t be able to land bookings at the city’s roughly 135,000 hotel rooms, where “occupancy already hovers near 97%.”

“Without additional capacity, hotel prices will surge beyond the reach of working families, spending will leak to New Jersey and the suburbs, and neighborhoods hosting events across the outer boroughs — where only 20% of hotel rooms are located — will see visitors but capture none of the overnight economic impact,” states a letter the business groups wrote the elected.

“New York will project to the world that it cannot manage the logistics of hospitality at the very moment it is hosting the planet’s biggest stage.”

The mayor’s office did not comment on the letter but said the administration will meet with business leaders next week to hear out their concerns ahead of the World Cup.

Menin did not immediately answer requests for comment.

While home-sharing apps are not technically banned in New York City, the business leaders noted “almost nobody uses them because city laws say the owner has to stay in the apartment with you.” 

The 2023 short term rental law – aimed at stays of less than 30 days – decimated Airbnb and the rest of the short-term rental market in New York City.

It limits the number of guests per booking to two and requires hosts to register with the city or face hefty fines.

Airbnb has spent millions on lobbying efforts to overturn or loosen the regulations. The San Francisco-based company blames the Hotel Association of New York City and the powerful hotel union for the stringent rules.

The law’s backers have said home-sharing apps like Airbnb made homes less affordable by taking units off the market.

Mamdani and Menin announce the opening of a new school in Manhattan last month. Matthew McDermott for NY Post

The Manhattan Chamber of Commerce launched a digital campaign and petition to drive support for a temporary reprieve for short-term rentals.

 “Act Now, NYC! Or our sales will go to New Jersey this summer,” the group warns.

Airbnb’s market share in New York City has plummeted since Local Law 18 was enacted in 2023. AP

About 1.2 million visitors are expected to converge on the region for eight World Cup games at MetLife Stadium, the letter states.

Another 6 million visitors are expected for events around the 250th anniversary of the country, with which Fleet Week will coincide this year.

But there’s plenty of space, according to Vijay Dandapani, chief executive of the Hotel Association of New York City, who said claims of too few hotel rooms are an “absolute falsity and a red herring.”

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“The letter is untethered to any facts and is a propaganda piece put out by Airbnb with the chambers carrying their water,” he told The Post.

FIFA has actually been “canceling room blocks” in New York City because there is not enough demand, he added.

FIFA did not immediately answer a request for comment.

Airbnb is a member of the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce, whose chief executive Jessica Walker testified at the City Council last week. 

The Hotel Association for New York City says there enough hotel rooms to meet tourist demand this summer. RightFramePhotoVideo – stock.adobe.com

“We are recommending a narrowly tailored suspension of the short-term rental ban for the World Cup window,” she said. “This costs the city nothing, while preventing the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars from leaking out of the city.”

Walker told The Post, “People see this is as a reasonable request that is meant to be temporary and have guardrails,” adding that “it’s clear who who we represent: small businesses.”

New Orleans, Kansas City, several southern California cities and other locales have changed their short-term rental restrictions in order to accommodate major events, the new letter stated.

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My first interest in J.R.R. Tol­kien was apparently caused by the infamous Barbara Remington artwork used for the covers of the Ballantine mass-­market editions. When my father bought his paperback copies of The Lord of the Rings at the Cornell University bookstore in 1969, the three volumes came with a free poster of the Map of Middle-­earth, also illustrated by Remington. That map somehow ended up taped on the wall of the spare room in my grandmother’s house. According to family lore, one day I stood up in my crib, pointed to the “Black Riders” at the bottom of the picture, and kept repeating “What that? What that?”

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I had to wait a few years for an explanation. But although I now know what a Black Rider is, to this day I do not understand what the three salamanders riding on a flattened frog, the pointed-­nosed lizard-­thing leaping from the water, the lion-­maned dragon-­snake, or the angry dog-­monster have to do with The Lord of the Rings. Tol­kien was also confused, although he seemed more exercised by the emus and the tree with bulbous pink fruit on the covers of The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring.

For me, engaging with Tol­kien’s work began with trying—­and failing—­to figure things out, to synthesize fragmented, disjointed, and contradictory material into some coherent whole. That sounds like an inauspicious beginning to either a lifetime of loving Tol­kien’s work or a career as a literary historian, but in fact it is the same experience—­although perhaps with a bit less failing—that every first-­time reader of The Hobbit has when trying to make sense of something called a “hobbit” whose mother was “the famous Belladonna Took,” an experience that recurs throughout the course of reading The Hobbit and is even more common in The Lord of the Rings.

Engaging with Tol­kien’s work began with trying—and failing—­to figure things out, to synthesize fragmented, disjointed, and contradictory material into some coherent whole.

One of the central claims of this book is that the mental effects of the small gaps, contradictions, and inconsistencies in Tolkien’s work contribute substantially to readers’ experiencing it as somehow different than other pieces of literature. I will also argue, however, that this was not originally Tol­kien’s conscious intention but rather arose out of the long and tortuous composition-­history of Tol­kien’s works. I do not intend in any way to disparage Tol­kien’s genius—­a word I use in the most old-fashioned, naïve, unironic sense possible—­as both writer and scholar, and I will not be focused on nitpicking apparent “flaws.” Instead, my intention is to show both what Tol­kien did and how he did it.

We will be examining what Tol­kien called “the course of actual composition,” and I will not pass up noting that, at times, he worked his way from what is, in retrospect, a terrible concept (the Ring is “not very dangerous, if used for a good purpose”), or name (Teleporno was the king of the elves of Lothlórien; Frodo was Bingo Bolger-­Baggins), or plot-­point (Bilbo stabbing the dragon “with his little knife”), to what became a great work of literature that has the power to engage an immense range of readers, engage them more deeply, and, most importantly, engage them in fundamentally different ways than its predecessors, contemporaries, or imitators. This last point is far more important to me than the others. Trying to explain popularity is an exercise in sociology or marketing and therefore, in my view, a waste of the literary historian’s time.

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But trying to explain what about Tol­kien’s books may lead people to treat them differently than other texts is another story. The Lord of the Rings is over 600,000 words long; it contains many poems in various forms; it uses hundreds of unfamiliar names; there are untranslated passages written in invented languages; and the book depicts multiple scenes of terror and violence, including the mutilation of the protagonist—­of course we should read it out loud to our six-­year-­old… and people do.

*

The first actual memory I have of anything related to Tol­kien is my father reading “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit” while I struggled to stay awake in our stuffy and always overheated New York apartment on the ninth floor of 435 East 70th Street, one of our cats curled up at the foot of my bed, and my younger brother, a toddler, already asleep in his crib a few feet away. It was therefore late 1973 or early 1974, and I was five and a half years old. For the next two years, at bedtime my father would read me The Hobbit, then The Lord of the Rings, and when we reached the end of The Return of the King, we would go back to the beginning of The Hobbit. Often my father would start to doze while he read, so his voice would slur a bit and his New Jersey accent would become more pronounced. Half a century later, when reading the books silently, I sometimes hear his voice and his mispronunciations, /Le-­gÓ-­las/, /SAR-­on/, /THEE-­o-­den/.

Feelings of comfort and happiness accompany these memories, but there is also sadness and stress and, in retrospect, a foreboding darkness. My father was completing his internship and residency at New York Hospital at a time when physician-training hours had not yet been scaled back to humane levels. He worked not only every day, but also every other night for weeks at a time, so his being home when both he and I were awake felt like a special privilege. There was also illness and fear: My brother and I both struggled with asthma exacerbated by the tight quarters, two pet cats, every adult smoking, and a building infested with cockroaches. The asthma attacks and occasional pneumonia were exhausting, and worse, frightening, because my father, a figure of calm mastery whenever we saw him at the hospital, could not hide the worry on his face when either of us was sick.

There was also some darkness around the edges of our lives, although I was too young to name it. Poverty, even the temporary poverty of medical school and internship, is hard for any family; there were also familial and marital tensions that I sensed even if I did not understand; and the city around us could be harsh and frightening. Sometimes we heard gunshots at night, and one day, in Carl Schurz Park, my friend and I found a man lying unmoving inside the spiral slide in the playground. As she hustled us away, my friend’s mother said the man was sleeping, but I had seen that his eyes were open. A similar kind of darkness sometimes shadowed The Hobbit, beginning with Bilbo’s inexplicable (to five-­year-­old me) panic at the thought of a dragon coming to the Shire and continuing with the hushed mentions of the Necromancer, the glimpses of the ruined castles on the journey to Rivendell, the laments of the Lake-­men for their burned homes—­hints of far more deep and serious fears that felt distinctly different from the scary excitement of the trolls, goblins, wargs, and the Spiders of Mirkwood.

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What might have been just an engaging children’s story becomes also a set of hints, allusions, and glimpses, the early experiences of learning about a larger world.

The Hobbit and its literary effects are thus for me inextricably tangled up with early memories from a time when much was confused. Or, perhaps more accurately, particular qualities of The Hobbit entered deeply and permanently into my psyche, entwined with memories of warmth and safety, of being comforted and protected, and also with flashes of terror: of struggling with all my strength to draw in one breath and then starting the struggle again for the next one; of watching my brother’s lips turn blue and my father suddenly sweep him into his arms and dash out to the emergency room; of overhearing whispered, frightened conversations with words that I did not understand but knew to fear: arterial blood gasses, cystic fibrosis, intubate.

These circumstances could perhaps account for the vividness of my memories of those first glimpses of Middle-­earth: Fever and illness can intensify perceptions; minor traumas can fix memories; and there may also be some echo of Tolkien’s own severe illnesses in the rhythms of the narrative—­more than once Frodo’s pain and suffering leads to clouded vision, exhaustion, and eventual unconsciousness, followed by a peaceful awakening under clean sheets with the morning sun pouring through a window. But why is it, then, that The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings—­and not the many other books my father or mother read to me in that same period—­have shaped my perception of my own life and the lives of my children? More importantly, why do so many other readers, in utterly different situations, have similar experiences with Tol­kien’s work? Dumb luck might explain me—perhaps I encountered Tol­kien’s work at just the right stage of intellectual development—but all of those other readers, too? Impossible.

Another explanation could be simply the high quality of the work: It is a well-­crafted story written in an engaging style. But even taken together, these reasons are insufficient. Many different books must end up being read at just the right age (whatever that is) out of the millions of children being read to by their caregivers, and although Tolkien’s writing is of high quality (indeed, higher than was acknowledged by many critics for several decades), it is not transcendently superior to that of every other writer.

No one thing makes The Hobbit different from the other children’s literature of the same time period. A constellation of qualities combine to make the book produce its unique effects, and perhaps the only one that is utterly unique is that it is followed by The Lord of the Rings. The experience of reading that great work changes the reader and, in so doing, retrospectively reshapes The Hobbit. What might have been just an engaging children’s story becomes also a set of hints, allusions, and glimpses, the early experiences of learning about a larger world, the first steps in the process of creating a reader of The Lord of the Rings. And that reader, over the course of The Lord of the Rings, has learned along with and in the same ways as the viewpoint characters as they discover more of their world, actively synthesizing scraps of information into an ever-richer and more complete model, coming to understand Middle-­earth in the same way we come to understand our world—by figuring it out on our own.

________________________

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From The Tower and the Ruin: J.R.R. Tolkien’s Creation by Michael D.C. Drout. Copyright © 2025. Available from W.W. Norton & Company.

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The draw marked the men’s World Cup’s first return to the United States since the iconic 1994 edition and the new expanded format.

For the first time in its history, the competition will feature 48 teams, spread across 12 groups, followed by an extended knockout phase.

Europe’s elite and South America’s traditional powerhouses continue to dominate early projections, even as the expanded format introduces a larger suite of games and possible secondary group favorites, causing an upset.

World Cup 2026 format designed for established betting favorites

The 2026 World Cup format features more teams and more fixtures. Three teams advancing from most groups and an additional knockout round absorbing the expanded field show that the risk of an early exit for elite nations isn’t on the cards.

In practical terms, it makes a repeat of shock eliminations, such as France’s group-stage exit in 2002, far less likely.

Squad rotation, depth, and recovery may prove as decisive as star quality in the 2026 tournament, as fixture congestion is expected to rival or exceed that of Russia 2018.

There has been a notable ticket backlash since the draw settled and the markets reacted to the biggest games on show. Fan groups forced FIFA to rethink pricing as a result of the first negative shot across the bow for tournament organisers.

@FIFAcom’s #WorldCup ticket prices are a betrayal to the most dedicated fans. At least $6900 to support your team from the first match to the final – nearly 5 times more than in Qatar.

FSE calls for the immediate halt to ticket sales.

Statement: https://t.co/AgEdqsfrox pic.twitter.com/2Yq5z5GIDZ

— Football Supporters Europe (@FansEurope) December 11, 2025

The big players: World Cup 2026 betting favorites remain familiar

Across outright markets, Spain continues to lead the field as tournament favorites, typically priced around 5/1, with some books drifting slightly into the 6/1–7/1 range.

They are followed closely by Brazil and Argentina, both of which are the tournament’s established South American giants. France and England round out the top tier, with the latter generally trading at around 13/2, placing them second only to Spain in several UK-facing books.

Hosts face long odds

The United States is the strongest of the three hosts in outright pricing, typically trading at 40/1 to 60/1. Mexico, co-hosting once again after 1970 and 1986, sits slightly behind at around 50/1 to 66/1.

Canada remains the long shot of the trio, with odds in the 80/1 to 100/1 range reflecting the team’s battling spirit in arguably their biggest tournament showing.

Deciphering the group draw

Group A: Mexico, South Korea, South Africa, Playoff D

Markets lean toward Mexico to top the group, driven primarily by host advantage rather than belief in a deep run. South Korea is profiled as the primary challenger, while the introduction of a European playoff winner, such as Denmark or Czechia, would significantly tighten pricing.

Group B: Canada, Playoff A, Qatar, Switzerland

This group remains unresolved. Switzerland are the strongest confirmed side, but if Italy emerge from Playoff A, they would become clear favorites despite Canada’s home support, and you can never rule out the Azzuri at a World Cup.

Group C: Brazil, Morocco, Haiti, Scotland

Brazil are heavy favorites to win the group, supported by outright odds around 8/1–10/1. Morocco have some incredibly talented individuals, but nothing rivals the Seleção’s quality.

Group D: United States, Paraguay, Australia, Playoff C

The U.S. are favoured to lead the group, but Paraguay and Australia are a physical test for the hosts, while a strong Playoff C side, such as Türkiye, would quickly compress prices.

Group E: Germany, Curaçao, Ivory Coast, Ecuador

Germany is expected to top the group despite recent inconsistencies in its squad makeup and the retirement of the old guard, who have brought so much national success. Their outright odds typically range from 12/1 to 16/1, with Ecuador and the Ivory Coast priced behind them.

Group F: Netherlands, Japan, Playoff B, Tunisia

Markets favour the Netherlands, with Japan viewed as the primary threat. A strong Playoff B entrant like Ukraine, Sweden, or Poland could make this one of the tighter groups.

Group G: Belgium, Egypt, Iran, New Zealand

Belgium remains the clear market pick as a side that consistently churns out complete players at the top levels of European knockout soccer.

Group H: Spain, Cape Verde, Saudi Arabia, Uruguay

Spain is expected to dominate the group and remain tournament favorites at around 5/1, with a clear gap to Uruguay, who will likely finish second.

Group I: France, Senegal, Playoff Bolivia/Iraq/Suriname, Norway

France dominates group expectations, supported by outright odds around 7/1–8/1. Senegal and Norway are dangerous but clearly second-tier in pricing the group.

Group J: Argentina, Algeria, Austria, Jordan

Defending champions Argentina are overwhelming favorites to top the group, with outright odds around 8/1–9/1.

Group K: Portugal, Playoff 1, Uzbekistan, Colombia

Portugal is favoured to win the group, and this could be Cristiano Ronaldo’s last dance at the World Cup. Colombia is the primary challenger, but compared to a golden generation featuring a possible Ballon d’Or winner and PSG’s Vitinha, they don’t look likely to cause an upset.

Group L: England, Croatia, Ghana, Panama

England is expected to lead the group, though Croatia keep prices tighter due to their previous showings at the tournament and a solid spine of Champions League-level talent.

The tournament kicks off with a repeat of the 2010 competition’s opening match of Mexico and South Africa. The drama and betting opportunities will unfold across the world at Mexico City Stadium on 11 June, 2026.

Featured image: FIFA

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Gambler Robert (R.J.) Cipriani and businessman James Russell filed the suit, which makes allegations against former and current executives at the company, including former hotel president Scott Sibella and Las Vegas attorney David Chesnoff, among others.

The complaint begins by stating that since its opening in 2021, “Resorts World has proven beyond question that it is unfit and incapable of operating a casino and hotel complex in compliance with the law.”

It continues to mention the landmark $10.5 million fine, which was issued earlier this year by the Nevada Gaming Commission. The casino was punished following alleged anti-money laundering failings, with the Gaming Control Board signing off on the financial punishment with a unanimous 4-0 vote.

Number of people named in lawsuit

“As recounted here, Genting Berhad and Resorts World adopted a deliberate business strategy — premised on ignoring regulatory and legal restrictions — to maximize revenues by welcoming criminals at Resorts World to launder their illicit proceeds,” the lawsuit alleges.

A number of people are mentioned within the complaint, and it marks the second time that Robert Cipriani has filed against Sibella and Resorts World, with the other being from last year.

According to the Nevada Current publication, a spokesperson for Resorts World said via email on Thursday: “We typically do not comment on pending litigation, but this lawsuit repackages old matters and is yet another attempt to bring negative attention to Resorts World Las Vegas and seek some form of compensation.”

“We will vigorously defend ourselves against this meritless action,” the spokesperson’s quote continued. ReadWrite has reached out for comment and to confirm the statement.

Featured Image: CC 2.0 license from Ken Lund on Wikimedia Commons

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Help Wanted. Looking for American researchers.

As President Trump cuts billions of federal dollars from science institutes and universities, restricts what can be studied and pushes out immigrants, rival nations are hoping to pick up talent that has been cast aside or become disenchanted.

For decades, trying to compete with American institutions and companies has been difficult. The United States was a magnet for top researchers, scientists and academics. In general, budgets were bigger, pay was bigger, labs and equipment were bigger. So were ambitions.

In 2024, the United States spent nearly $1 trillion — roughly 3.5 percent of total economic output — on research and development. When it came to the kind of long-term basic research that underpins American technological and scientific advancements, the government accounted for about 40 percent of the spending.

That’s the reason political, education and business leaders in advanced countries and emerging economies have long fretted over a brain drain from their own shores. Now they are seizing a chance to reverse the flow.

“This is a once-in-a-century brain gain opportunity,” the Australian Strategic Policy Institute declared, as it encouraged its government to act.

Last week, at the urging of more than a dozen members, the European Union announced it would spend an additional 500 million euros, or $556 million, over the next two years to “make Europe a magnet for researchers.”

Such a sum is paltry when compared with U.S. budgets. So it’s understandable if their appeals are met with a request to “show me the money.”

After all, salaries tend to be much lower in Europe. In France, for example, a 35-year-old researcher can expect to earn around €3,600 (about $4,000) a month before taxes, according to the French Education and Research ministry. A postdoctoral fellow at Stanford would stand to earn the equivalent of around €6,000 (about $6,685) a month in the United States.

Still, there is interest. Of 1,600 people who responded to a March poll in the journal Nature — many of them Ph.D. or postdoctoral students in the United States — three out of four said they were considering leaving the country because of the Trump administration’s policies.

And Europe’s more generous social safety net can make up for a large part of the salary differential, said Patrick Lemaire, the president of the College de Sociétés Savantes Académiques de France, an arm of an international council that represents about 50,000 academics in France.

“There is much less money in Europe, and the salaries are much lower,” he said. “But you also have very good social security and health care, which is free; school and university tuition are free.”

Here are some of the pitches offered by countries and universities around the world.

France

In addition to the European Union, France pledged to put cash on the table last week. President Emmanuel Macron said his government would spend $113 million on a program to attract American researchers.

Other academic institutions are putting up their own money. Aix Marseilles University said it would spend up to $16.8 million to fund 15 foreign researchers. The offer has so far attracted more than 50 applicants, according to the journal Science. The University of Paris-Saclay is also establishing five new positions for American researchers.

Spain

Diana Morant, the minister of science, innovation and universities in Spain, said the government was budgeting an additional €45 million to lure scientists “despised or undervalued by the Trump administration.” The program offers American researchers an extra $200,000 grant on top of a million-dollar package normally offered.

Catalonia, Spain’s prosperous northeastern region, announced a $34 million program to attract American researchers who “can see their academic freedom restricted.” Twelve universities will be helping to sponsor 78 “high quality” scientists in total from the United States over the next three years.

Denmark

Set to Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.,” an Instagram post by Brian Mikkelsen, the chief executive of the Danish Chamber of Commerce, made this appeal: “This is a direct invitation to American researchers.” Talented people are losing their jobs or funding because politics is overshadowing science, he said. “We want you to know there is an alternative. In Denmark, we value science. We believe in facts.” He said the chamber and the society of engineers were asking to fast-track 200 positions for researchers over the next three years. There was no mention of funding.

Sweden

Johan Pehrson, Sweden’s minister of education, organized a meeting last month with officials from nine universities to discuss how to attract disgruntled talent. “To American academics and scientists: We need you!” he wrote on X. Alas, there was no musical accompaniment or money mentioned.

Norway

“Academic freedom is under pressure in the U.S.,” said Jonas Gahr Store, the prime minister of Norway. The government is offering 100 million kroner, or $9.6 million, to fund experienced American and other international researchers next year.

Britain

The Labour Party government is reportedly planning to spend 50 million pounds, or $66 million, to finance and relocate international scientists.

Canada

The University Health Network in Toronto and other foundations are devoting 30 million Canadian dollars ($21.5 million) to recruit 100 young scientists from the United States and elsewhere. In April, the University of British Columbia initiated “U.S. Applicant Week” and reopened applications for some graduate programs to give American students another chance to apply.

Portugal

Citing Trump administration policies, Portugal’s NOVA Medical School announced that it would budget an additional $2 million to cover the salaries of “international researchers of excellence” for three years and some relocation costs.

Austria

“The destruction of freedom of science and democracy in the U.S.A. leaves me speechless,” Eva-Maria Holzleitner, the minister of women, science and research, said in an Instagram video. “We are working on programs to provide a safe haven for students and scientists at risk.”

Last month, Austria opened its own national portal on Euraxess — Researchers in Motion, a platform supported by 43 European nations that offers a wide database of job offers, scholarships and grants as well as information about organizing a research project in Europe.

Australia

The Australian Academy of Science began a global talent search last month, with its president stating there was an “urgent and unparalleled opportunity to attract the smartest minds leaving the United States.” The callout asked for donations to finance the effort.

Ireland, Belgium, South Korea and China have also talked about starting programs directed at researchers, scientists and students in the United States.

Liz Alderman contributed reporting from Paris.

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When Osaka first hosted the World Expo in 1970, a quarter-century after World War II, Japan’s economy was newly affluent and expanding so rapidly it was hailed as an economic miracle. The Expo broadcast that momentum to the world.

It was the first World Expo — a tradition dating to 1851 where countries gather to show off their cultures and achievements — to be held in Asia. Japan spent lavishly, displaying innovations like moving walkways, prototype cordless phones and a 230-foot sculpture with a gold mask said to be looking toward the future. The Expo drew 64 million visitors — equivalent to over half the population of Japan at the time.

Now, 55 years later, Osaka is hosting the World Expo again. On an artificial island in the city’s bay, architects have erected a mile-long wooden ring encircling dozens of pavilions. But while the current Expo, which opened a week ago, seeks to recapture the fervor of its predecessor, Japan stands in stark contrast to where it was in 1970.

Since the bursting of Japan’s real estate and stock bubbles in the early 1990s, the economy has stagnated. The country’s population is shrinking and rapidly aging. Debt levels have ballooned and prospects for growth are being further imperiled by escalating trade tensions with the United States.

When thinking back to the decades since the 1970 Expo, many visitors to the original event, now in their 60s or older, allude to a feeling of Japan’s economic might having “sunk” in a world increasingly roiled by trade divisions. Some hope the current Expo may prove to be a moment of national reinvention.

In a quiet neighborhood in Osaka, a few rail stops away from the 2025 Osaka Expo site, Takahiro Moritaka, 65, runs a small restaurant serving savory Japanese pancakes that he flips on a griddle behind the counter. He was 10 when his parents took him to the 1970 Expo.

“The atmosphere was very different then,” Mr. Moritaka said. “In the 1970s, it was a feeling of many things being on the rise and moving forward rapidly.”

The 1970 Expo was, for Mr. Moritaka and many in his generation, one of their first experiences with the other cultures showcased by the event’s pavilions and exhibits. It was at the Expo that Mr. Moritaka and others saw foreigners for the first time and tasted foods like Kentucky Fried Chicken.

It was also around this time that many in the West were becoming aware of modern Japan and the tremendous strides its economy had made since its military defeat in World War II. Steel, electronics, and automobile pavilions showed off futuristic iterations of products Japan was increasingly exporting overseas.

The aim of Expos at the time, including one held previously in New York in 1939, was for “great powers” to “showcase how they viewed the world and the technologies that they achieved,” said Kenji Yoshida, a senior adviser for the 2025 Expo.

Now, he said, “55 years have passed, and Japan and its relationship with the world have changed.”

During the lead-up to this year’s Expo, the national excitement that surrounded the 1970 event has been noticeably absent. That’s despite Expo advertisements scattered throughout Japan’s train stations and a late-blooming national love for the event’s mascot, a red and blue, globular ring-shaped creature named Myaku-Myaku.

The Expo organizers have said they want to attract more than 28 million visitors over the six months the event will continue. But ticket sales have lagged well behind that target. The Expo has also been criticized as a waste of taxpayer money, with costs surging about $1 billion above original projections.

More recently, an even darker shadow was cast over the event by President Trump, who, a few days before the Expo’s open, announced double-digit percentage tariffs on many of the countries participating in the gathering. That included a 24 percent tariff on Japanese goods that Japan’s prime minister called a “national crisis.”

Hiroki Ogasawara, a professor of intercultural studies at Kobe University, said that escalating trade hostilities would probably continue to dominate global attention in the coming months and color the way the Expo is remembered. “What is the world currently focused on? Trump’s tariffs,” he said.

With regard to the Expo, Mr. Ogasawara said, “It may only be Japan that is paying attention.”

Early on Monday, the day after the Expo’s opening, Eiko Nakanishi, 49, and her father, Masao Nakanishi, 77, made a beeline to the American pavilion. Inside the wedge-shaped buildings, a red, white and blue digital star danced across screens depicting past space missions while a voice sang about the virtues of the world working together.

Ms. Nakanishi said her father had wanted to go to the American pavilion to see a moon rock collected during the Apollo space mission in 1972 — much like the moon rock he saw displayed at the 1970 Expo when he was 22.

Ms. Nakanishi said she was impressed by the technologies on display at the Expo. “Japanese society as a whole is sinking, and society is becoming one where it is not easy to feel motivated,” Ms. Nakanishi said. “But coming here makes you think that the future can be bright,” she said.

The previous day, Katsumi Kusada, 81, and his wife Yaeko, 77, traveled with an Expo tour group from Hiroshima, in Japan’s southwest, to Osaka. But rather than attend the opening day ceremonies, they were sitting on a bench across town in a park commemorating the previous 1970 Osaka Expo.

Both of the Kusadas said they remember Japan’s liveliness and excitement during the Expo 55 years ago. Mr. Kusada was a toddler when the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima in 1945, and his father died in the blast. For him, the 1970 event “felt like a place where you could have dreams about the future,” he said.

“Today, too, there are wars, and Japan’s population is shrinking and shrinking,” Mr. Kusada said. While he didn’t think the Expo would have implications for either of those realities, he said that he still appreciated the event as a kind of festival.

“I’ve always been fond of festivals,” Mr. Kusada said. “All of Japan enjoys a festival.”

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A pre-recorded video address by Trump was played at the summit in New York City.

The president said his team was ending former President Joe Biden’s administration’s “regulatory war on crypto and Bitcoin,” and Trump said he has called on Congress “to pass landmark legislation creating simple, common-sense rules for stablecoins and market structure.” 

“With the right legal framework, institutions large and small will be liberated to invest, innovate, and take part in one of the most exciting technological revolutions in modern history. It’s so big. It’s, I think, as big as you can get,” Trump said. 

The president told those in attendance that “pioneers like you will be able to improve our banking and payment system and promote greater privacy, safety, security and wealth for American consumers and businesses alike.”

“You will unleash an explosion of economic growth, and with the dollar-backed stablecoins, you’ll help expand the dominance of the U.S. dollar,” Trump said.

“And many, many years to come, it’ll be at the top. And that’s where we want to keep it. We only want to keep it at the top always.”

“I can already see that the energy and passion of the crypto community is the kind of spirit that built our country, and it is exciting to watch as you invent the future of finance,” Trump said.

“And right here, it’s going to be right here in the USA, the good ole USA. Together we will make America the undisputed Bitcoin superpower and the crypto capital of the world.” 

President Donald Trump said his administration is ending Joe Biden’s “regulatory war on crypto and Bitcoin.” FOX. Business

Trump told those attending the Blockworks Digital Assets Summit on Thursday that “pioneers like you will be able to improve our banking and payment system.” AP

“Thank you, and good luck. God Bless America,” he concluded. 

Trump began his address by saying it was an honor to speak about “how the United States is going to dominate crypto and the next generation of financial technologies.”

“It’s not going to be easy, but we’re way ahead,” the president said. 

Two weeks ago, as Trump recalled, his administration hosted the first-ever White House Digital Asset Summit.

The event brought together White House artificial intelligence and crypto czar David Sacks, who Trump described as a “fantastic and very brilliant guy,” and many of the world’s top crypto leaders for a discussion on the future of the industry. 

Trump further mentioned, “You will unleash an explosion of economic growth, and with the dollar-backed stablecoins, you’ll help expand the dominance of the U.S. dollar.” Getty Images

That same week, Trump said he signed an order “creating the brand-new strategic Bitcoin Reserve and the U.S. digital assets stockpile, which will allow the federal government to maximize the value of its holdings instead of foolishly selling them for a fraction of their long-term value, which is exactly what Biden did.” 

“He got a fraction of their value,” Trump said.

Sacks at the time compared the Bitcoin Reserve to “a digital Fort Knox for the cryptocurrency often called ‘digital gold.’” 

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The president said his administration’s action included stopping “the lawless operation Chokepoint 2.0.” 

“Operation Choke Point went beyond regulation, and I mean far beyond. It was a form of lawfare through government weaponization. Frankly, it was a disgrace,” Trump said. 

“But as of January 20th, 2025, all of that is over,” Trump said. 

The president was referring to how Paul Grewal, the chief legal officer for Coinbase, considered one of the largest cryptocurrency exchange platforms, in December shared documents that he and his team had obtained following Freedom of Information Act requests. 

They paralleled a protracted legal battle between the company and the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). 

The uncovered documents allegedly confirmed suspicions that cryptocurrency tech founders were being “debanked” under a program known colloquially as “Operation Chokepoint 2.0.” 

They showed that the Biden administration’s FDIC sent numerous letters to banks, calling on them to “pause all crypto-asset-related activity.”

Fox News Digital’s Alec Schemmel contributed to this report.

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