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TOKYO (AP) - Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's gamble that her personal popularity would lead to big election gains for her struggling party paid off hugely. On Monday, she began the process of translating that new power, made manifest in a two-thirds supermajority gained in parliamentary elections the day before, into what she hopes will be sweeping conservative legislation that will shift Japanese security, immigration, economic and social policies. The first steps include reappointing her Cabinet and pushing forward on a delayed budget and the votes next week that will reelect her as prime minister. Takaichi told reporters Monday that her efforts are aimed at making Japan safe, strong and prosperous.

TOKYO (AP) - Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's big election win paves the way for her ruling party to dominate the crucial lower house of parliament. It also gives her the political power to make a strong rightward shift in Japan's security, immigration and social policies. Here's what to know about that divisive conservative agenda, which she calls necessary to make Japan "strong and prosperous." Takaichi has pledged to revise security and defense policies by December to bolster Japan's military capabilities, lifting a ban on weapons exports and moving further away from postwar pacifist principles. Takaichi wants to build up intelligence-gathering to work more closely with ally Washington and defense partners such as Australia and Britain.

HONG KONG (AP) - The deadliest fire in Hong Kong in decades last year left thousands of residents without some of their friends, family or the place they called home. More than two months later, the occupants of the Wang Fuk Court apartment complex are not only waiting for answers about what happened, but longing for a new place. Authorities are yet to unveil plans for long-term resettlement after surveying the residents' preferences. The Lunar New Year on Feb. 17, meanwhile, is stirring recent memories of celebrating the festival in what is now a largely burnt complex. The massive blaze that engulfed seven apartment buildings killed 168 people on Nov.

BANGKOK (AP) - Thailand's political parties were considering their options Monday after the conservative Bhumjaithai Party's decisive election victory showed that voters chose stability over change, analysts said. "This will be the first time in the 21st century that a conservative party has won the most seats in a general election, and it is a seismic shift in Thai politics," said Ken Lohatepanont, a University of Michigan doctoral candidate, remarked in his online newsletter about Thai politics. Electoral politics since 2001 had been dominated by populist parties loyal to billionaire Thaksin Shinawatra, who served as prime minister until he was ousted by an army coup in 2006, setting off a tussle for power against Thailand's conservative royalist-military establishment.

BANGKOK (AP) - The Bhumjaithai Party of Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul is on track to win the most seats in Thailand's general election, according to unofficial results released by the state Election Commission after about 94% of polling stations had reported Monday. It's the first decisive victory of a conservative party in Thailand in years. Sunday's election came against a backdrop of slow economic growth and heightened nationalist sentiment. Voter turnout stood at around 65%, significantly lower than in the 2023 election. The commission's running count, shown on its website, indicated that Bhumjaithai won about 193 seats in the 500-member House of Representatives.

WASHINGTON (AP) - The children of Jimmy Lai, a pro-democracy former Hong Kong media mogul and China critic, said Monday that a possible visit by President Donald Trump to Beijing in April could be "crucial" in securing the release of their 78-year-old father. Lai's son and daughter pleaded for their father's freedom on humanitarian grounds after a Hong Kong court on Monday sentenced him to 20 years in prison following convictions under a Beijing-imposed national security law that has virtually silenced the city's dissent. "The president has said multiple times that this is a case that he cares about," Sebastien Lai said about Trump during a call with reporters.

HONG KONG (AP) - Jimmy Lai, the pro-democracy former Hong Kong media tycoon and a fierce critic of Beijing, was sentenced on Monday to 20 years in prison in the longest punishment given so far under a China-imposed national security law that has virtually silenced the city's dissent. Lai, 78, was convicted in December of conspiring with others to collude with foreign forces to endanger national security, and conspiracy to publish seditious articles. The maximum penalty for his conviction was life imprisonment. His co-defendants, six former employees of his Apple Daily newspaper and two activists, received prison terms of between 6 years and 3 months, and 10 years on collusion-related charges.

HONG KONG (AP) - Monday's sentencing of Hong Kong democracy advocate and one-time media magnate Jimmy Lai brought an outcry from governments and rights groups. Chinese and Hong Kong authorities defended it, saying it reflected the spirit of the rule of law. The 78-year-old Lai was sentenced to 20 years in prison after being found guilty in December of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces and conspiring with others to publish seditious articles. His co-defendants, who entered guilty pleas to the collusion-related charge, received prison terms ranging from six years and three months to 10 years. Some foreign governments called for the release of Lai, a British citizen.

ISLAMABAD (AP) - Pakistan's president has warned that the Taliban's government in Afghanistan has created conditions "similar to or worse than" those before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, a sign of rising tensions with Kabul after last week's mosque attack in Islamabad, which analysts said Monday highlights militants' reach to the capital. Asif Ali Zardari made the remarks while thanking the international community for condemning Friday's suicide bombing at a Shiite mosque that killed 31 worshippers and wounded 169. Without directly blaming India, Zardari also said Pakistan's eastern neighbor was "assisting the Taliban regime and threatening not only Pakistan but regional and global peace."

BINNABARI, India (AP) - The beekeepers rise early. They've come a long way to spend the winter months in the electric yellow mustard fields of Assam, and they have to make the trip worth it. At dawn, they eat a simple breakfast and won't eat again until dusk. They'll spend all day checking the hives, smoking them to disperse the bees so they can collect thick golden honeycombs to be sold overseas. It's a demanding job. Stings are a fact of life. At night, the workers settle in under blue tarpaulins and think of the families they've left behind, sometimes for months at a time, to move their wooden bee boxes to this place.