(348,'Hollywood studios, WGA reach tentative deal that could end writers strike','Washington Post ','Politics',1,76,'https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/2023/09/24/writers-strike-agreement-wga-amptp/ ','By Samantha Chery and Michael Cavna','Hollywood studios, WGA reach tentative deal that could end writers strike\r\n\r\nNegotiators for Hollywood studios and the Writers Guild of America reached a breakthrough agreement after five straight days of negotiations — a tentative deal to end a strike that has halted most TV and film scriptwriting in the country.\r\n\r\nThe terms of the agreement were not immediately shared by the WGA, which said in a statement Sunday night that the deal was “exceptional,” adding that it included “meaningful gains and protections for writers in every sector of the membership.”\r\n\r\nThe union said it was immediately suspending picketing, though its more than 11,000 members were warned not to return to work until the deal is put into the language of a contract, then approved by WGA leaders and general membership in coming days. “We are still on strike until then,” the statement said.\r\n\r\nBut the deal still marks the most hopeful sign of progress since May, when the WGA and a consortium of major studios and streaming services failed to renew their old contract. The sides were divided over issues such as pay for writers and the use of artificial intelligence to create scripts. The WGA strike has lasted nearly 150 days, making it one of Hollywood’s longest labor-strike disputes.\r\n\r\n“I am so proud of the hard work and dedication, not only at the negotiating committee, but of all of the members of the WGA who showed incredible unity in fighting for a fair deal,” said WGA member Gloria Calderón Kellett, co-creator of “One Day at a Time.”\r\n\r\nEven if writers return to work in the coming days, that won’t end Hollywood’s labor crisis by itself. After inking a new contract with the writers, the studios will have to restart the negotiation process with another union that represents tens of thousands of TV and film actors who went on strike themselves over the summer.\r\n\r\n“Hopefully, a precedent has been established, the actors can get a fair deal, as well, and we can all get back to work very soon,” said WGA member Michael Jamin (“King of the Hill,” “Just Shoot Me”), whose strike-commentary updates have 160,000 followers on Instagram.\r\n\r\nWhat’s ahead\r\nWhatever agreement the two sides have struck has not been put into the language of a final contract, according to Sunday’s statement. “Though we are eager to share the details of what has been achieved with you, we cannot do that until the last ‘i’ is dotted,” it read. “To do so would complicate our ability to finish the job.”\r\n\r\nOnce the contract has been completed, the WGA’s negotiating committee will need to approve it, followed by the board of directors for the union’s eastern and western branches — votes tentatively scheduled to take place by Tuesday.\r\n\r\nIf the contract is approved by leadership, the WGA would make the contract language public and hold meetings about it for the union’s approximately 11,500 members. Those members would hold a ratification vote, and if a majority of them approved the deal, the union would presumably send them back to work.\r\n\r\nWGA members have overwhelmingly voted in favor of new contracts in recent negotiating cycles, which take place every three years. More than 97 percent of WGA voters ratified the 2020 contract, which expired in May and precipitated the current strike, and the 2017 contract before it.\r\n\r\nThe contract that ended the WGA’s last strike in 2008 was only slightly less popular, with 93.6 percent of more than 4,000 voting members approving its ratification.\r\n\r\nUnion leaders don’t have to wait for the ratification vote to end the strike, necessarily. In 2008, WGA board members voted to let writers return to work two weeks before the new contract was ratified. In Sunday’s statement, WGA negotiators said union leaders could decide to do the same thing this time: “This would allow writers to return to work during the ratification vote, but would not affect the membership’s right to make a final determination on contract approval.”\r\n\r\nSettling the WGA strike means the writers can resume writing scripts, which should help ease the growing backlog of delayed TV and film projects that have piled up since May. Many reality shows and other projects that don’t rely on striking actors may be able to resume production immediately.\r\n\r\nBut the studios won’t be able to film the bulk of their scripted projects, including franchise movies and sitcoms, until they settle a dispute with a much larger union: the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, which ordered tens of thousands of TV and film performers to withhold their work in July.\r\n\r\nThe actors struck for many of the same reasons as the writers — they want better pay and benefits, higher residual payments and transparency from streaming projects and protections against being replaced by artificial intelligence. But SAG-AFTRA’s specific demands are different from the WGA’s, and it has different leaders and negotiators.\r\n\r\nThat’s why the crisis in Hollywood could linger for weeks or months. It took the studios nearly two months to reach a tentative deal with the WGA after the two sides resumed negotiations in early August. The renewed talks began haltingly, with little progress and mutual finger-pointing, before concluding in an extended stretch of closed-door meetings this past week that included chief executives from Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, NBCUniversal and Netflix — a sign of how badly the studios want the writers back on the job.\r\n\r\nIn contrast, the studios haven’t yet requested a meeting with SAG-AFTRA negotiators, the actors union’s executive director and chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland said before the WGA deal was announced, though the union said it’s ready to talk.\r\n\r\nOnce SAG-AFTRA does meet with studios and hammers out a tentative contract, the process is very similar to the WGA’s: The board of directors must approve the deal first, and then the actors must vote to ratify it, and then they’ll return to their jobs.\r\n\r\n','2023-09-24','',3,1),(349,'Money, power and an ecosystem are all at stake in Canada-U.S. negotiations over a massive river','CBC','Politics',1,76,'https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/columbia-river-treaty-negotiation-1.6975849','Christian Paas-Lang','Money, power and an ecosystem are all at stake in Canada-U.S. negotiations over a massive river\r\n\r\nControl of hydroelectic dams creating some static during Columbia River Treaty talks\r\nWalk along the banks of the Columbia River in B.C. and you might be forgiven for thinking it\'s like any of the province\'s other big waterways. You might spot a sturgeon, or glimpse one of the more than 60 dams in the Columbia\'s watershed.\r\n\r\nBut the Columbia is not like other rivers. For one, it crosses the U.S. border to empty into the Pacific in Oregon. The Columbia River basin is also a vital source of electricity, providing about 40 per cent of all U.S. hydroelectric power, while B.C. draws almost half of its total electrical generation from the region.\r\n\r\nThose dams also provide flood control, in an effort to avoid a repeat of the massive 1948 floods that left about 50 people dead and 46,000 without homes.\r\n\r\nBut what makes the river truly special is the unique treaty that governs those dams.\r\n\r\nHammered out between Canada and the United States and ratified in 1964, the treaty outlines control of the river\'s water flow and benefits from that bonanza of hydroelectric power, including the tens of millions of dollars a year that come with it.\r\n\r\nThe Columbia River Treaty is being negotiated again — a process that has already lasted years — and the potential deal could have profound consequences both for the electrical output of the river and the people and wildlife that depend on it.\r\n\r\nIn an interview on CBC Radio\'s The House that aired Saturday, B.C.\'s chief negotiator, Kathy Eichenberger, said the Canadian government had a few key priorities, including retaining greater flexibility over water flows in Canada and adding considerations around the river ecosystem \"as a third leg of the stool of the treaty that is based on power generation and flood control.\"\r\n\r\nNegotiators have been locked in round after round of talks, with the 19th round scheduled for October in Portland, Ore. \r\n\r\nSome provisions of the treaty are set to expire in September 2024, after which Canada could provide flood control services to the United States on an ad hoc basis.\r\n\r\n\"We need to take the time to improve a treaty that\'s in dire need of renewal and incorporating things like ecosystems, salmon, adaptive management, climate change,\" Eichenberger told host Catherine Cullen. \r\n\r\n\"These are all new concepts that weren\'t discussed in the original treaty,\" she said.\r\n\r\nValue of the \'Canadian Entitlement\'\r\nThe Americans have their own concerns for the revised treaty, with the value of hydroelectric power going back to Canada perhaps first and foremost.\r\n\r\nThat share of the power is called the \"Canadian Entitlement\" \r\n\r\n\"We\'re giving Canada a giant power plant\'s worth of output every year,\" Scott Simms, chair of the Columbia River Treaty Power Group, told The Seattle Times in August. \"It might be transactionally easier to push wheelbarrows of cash up and dump them at the Canadian border.\"\r\n\r\nEichenberger countered that Canada believed it could prove that what it receives is half of the incremental benefit of power generation.\r\n\r\n\"How we manage flows in Canada really increases [the Americans\'] ability to generate more electricity to meet their citizens and industrial needs,\" Eichenberger said. \r\n\r\n\"That\'s the fundamental principle of the treaty … creating a benefit and sharing it equitably. And that\'s our North Star,\" she said.\r\n\r\nSeeking protection for the ecosystem\r\nEven though Columbia River region ecosystems were not a primary concern in the original negotiations, they have long been a concern of Indigenous groups, who are now a prominent part of the Canadian negotiating team.\r\n\r\nFish stocks, particularly around salmon, are a major concern.\r\n\r\n\"[Salmon is] beyond just important for our people,\" Penticton Indian Band elder Chad Eneas told Bob Keating, a freelance journalist who spoke with people around the valley as part of a documentary for The House.\r\n\r\n\"I think it\'s important in terms of it being a keystone species in the Columbia.\"\r\n\r\nOthers who live or work alongside the river have different concerns, such as the impact of lands lost when dams and reservoirs were built along the river.\r\n\r\nTwin sisters Janet and Crystal Spicer were raised in a Nakusp, B.C., family that farmed near the Arrow Lakes, which is part of the Columbia River system. The farm was lost when the Hugh Keenleyside Dam was constructed in 1968.\r\n\r\n\"The whole thing is so short-sighted. And it\'s irrecoverable. That\'s the thing. It\'s not like it can be put back. It can\'t. I think it was a shocking act of violence and cruelty to just drown us out,\" said Janet Spicer, who still grows on what\'s left of a property farmed by her father.  \r\n\r\n\"The farmland won\'t come back, but people want a living river,\" added her sister Crystal Spicer.\r\n\r\nCanadians along the river have been advocating for Canada to retain greater control of water flows to make the fluctuation less dramatic and less destructive to ecosystems.\r\n\r\nAuthor Eileen Delahanty Pearkes said it\'s key that the river\'s ecosystem and residents are kept in mind at the negotiating table.\r\n\r\n\"All of the health of the land and water in this region depends on flow. The details of it are less important — Canada getting this or the U.S. getting that,\" she said. \r\n\r\n\"I love the words of one Indigenous advocate: \'One river for the benefit of all.\'\"\r\n','2023-09-24','',3,1),(350,'Companies in Mexico need more electricity – level 2','News in Level','Business & Economy',3,76,'https://www.newsinlevels.com/products/companies-in-mexico-need-more-electricity-level-2/ ','News in Level','Industrial parks and warehouse operators in Mexico need a lot of electricity for their growing businesses. They want to finance the construction of solar panels themselves, but the government controls the energy sector.\r\n\r\nMexico already has problems with the power grid, and experts say that big companies like Tesla, which will start their business in the north of the country, will need a lot more electricity.\r\n\r\nCurrently, there is a limit on self-generated renewable energy to 500 kilowatts, but several organizations asked the government to raise this limit. While the world is turning away from fossil fuels, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador supports using fossil fuels, and he doesn’t support renewable projects.\r\n','2023-09-15','',1,1),(351,'Exxon buys Pioneer – level 2',' World News for Students of English','Politics',1,77,'https://www.newsinlevels.com/products/exxon-buys-pioneer-level-2/',' World News for Students of English','Exxon Mobil agreed to acquire Pioneer Natural Resources, another big US company, in a deal worth 59.5 billion dollars.\r\n\r\nThis deal will make Exxon the largest producer in the Permian Basin, which is one of the most important oilfields in the United States. The deal has a value of 253 dollars per share. It unites the largest US oil company with Pioneer, an important player in the market.\r\n\r\nThe merged company has big plans to increase its oil and gas production and add 700,000 barrels per day within four years after the deal is ready. It would mean a total of 2 million barrels per day. Also, the company wants to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.\r\n\r\nExperts think that the deal will be ready in early 2024.','2023-10-16','',1,1),(352,'Women\'s Days off','Breaking News English','Society',4,77,'https://breakingnewsenglish.com/2310/231026-womens-day-off-2.html ','Breaking News English','Women in Iceland went on strike on Tuesday. The strike was for greater gender equality in the country. Prime minister Katrin Jakobsdottir also took part in the strike. She told reporters about the \"Women\'s Day Off\". She said: \"We have not yet reached our goals of full gender equality and we are still tackling the gender-based wage gap, which is unacceptable in 2023.\" All women in Iceland were encouraged to stop both paid and unpaid work. For the whole day, women went on strike to show how important they are to society.\"\r\n\r\nThe strike was the seventh in Iceland\'s history. It was the first in nearly 50 years. The last strike was in 1975. Then, 90 per cent of women did not go to work or do housework. The following year, Iceland passed an equal pay law. In 1980, Iceland became the first country in Europe to have a woman as head of state. Iceland has had the smallest gender gap of any country for 14 years. Despite this, Ms Jakobsdottir, said there is still a long way to go. She wants to lower gender-based violence. She said this was a \"priority\" for her government.','2023-10-23','',1,1),(353,'Foodbank reveals Australia’s growing food insecurity crisis','news.com.au','Politics',1,77,'https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/food/eat/foodbank-reveals-australias-growing-food-insecurity-crisis/news-story/35f96fb5257178c3d7083a5570040d64 ','Duncan Evans','The staggering amount of Australian households at risk of going hungry have been revealed in a new report from one of the country’s leading charities.\r\n\r\nSome 3.7 million Australian households are going hungry or on the edge of falling into hunger according to a shocking new report from one of the country’s leading social charities.\r\n\r\nFoodbank Australia’s 2023 Hunger Report says more than a third of all households suffered from food insecurity in the past 12 months and 48 per cent of the public now struggles to consistently access adequate food.\r\n\r\n“Food insecurity is waking early and sending your child off to school with a rumbling tummy and empty lunch box because you’ve been forced into an impossible choice between paying the rent or buying food that week,” Foodbank Australia chief executive Brianna Casey said.\r\n\r\n“Food insecurity is living at home alone as a pensioner, convincing yourself that three meals a day is a luxury and that two – or even one – will suffice.”\r\n\r\nThe report also states 77 per cent of those households experienced food insecurity for the first time, with some three million falling from the food secure to food insecure category.\r\n\r\nThe number of households suffering through chronic food insecurity remains stable at 750,000, Ms Casey said.\r\n\r\nThe report goes on to state by the end of the year, a full half of the country could experience “some level of difficulty” in accessing enough food.\r\n\r\nAccording to the report, rising interest rates and cost-of-living pressures are the key factors pushing Australians into insecurity, with 79 per cent of respondents singling out cost increases as the greatest challenge.\r\n\r\n“The last time I couldn’t afford enough food for the family, I just got creative in the kitchen for the kids and didn’t eat myself,” one respondent stated.\r\n\r\n“I ate Milo and bickies from the work staffroom to tide me over.”\r\n\r\nAnother respondent said the family resorted to tinned foods after running out of basic foodstuffs like bread, fruit and milk.\r\n\r\nInflation shocks from the Covid pandemic and the war in Ukraine have pushed up prices around the world and central banks have responded by raising interest rates to prevent price spirals.\r\n\r\nBoth forces tend to reduce the average spending power of consumers.\r\n\r\nThe report states 94 per cent of affected Australians altered their spending on groceries in the past 12 months to cope with the pressure, while 62 per cent shifted their spending on housing and 58 per cent altered their spending on energy.','2023-10-23','',2,1),(354,'Guinness World Records crowns new hottest pepper','BBC NEWS','Society',4,77,'https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-67136085','By Chloe Kim','The Guinness World Records has crowned Pepper X as the hottest chili pepper in the world, dethroning the Carolina Reaper chili pepper after 10 years.\r\n\r\nFor comparison, a habanero pepper typically hits 100,000 Scoville heat units, but Pepper X registers at 2.69 million units.\r\n\r\nBreeder and grower Ed Currie created both record-breaking peppers.\r\n\r\nAs a proprietary pepper, Pepper X pods and seeds will not be sold.\r\n\r\nMr Currie cultivated Pepper X for a decade on his South Carolina farm, but remained tight lipped about his project to protect his intellectual property.\r\n\r\n\"This was a team effort,\" Mr Currie said in a statement. \"We knew we had something special, so I only let a few of my closest family and friends know what was really going on.\"\r\n\r\nIn lab tests at Winthrop University in South Carolina, Pepper X registered an average of 2,693,000 Scoville Heat Units (SHU), which is more than one million units hotter than Mr Currie\'s previous innovation, the Carolina Reaper which averaged 1,641,183 SHU.\r\n\r\nIn 1912 pharmacist Wilbur Scoville invented the Scoville Scale, which measures how many times capsaicin needs to be diluted.\r\n\r\nCapsaicin is the chemical that gives humans that burning sensation of peppers - which can release dopamine and endorphins into the body.\r\n\r\nAfter overcoming drug and alcohol addictions, Mr Currie started growing peppers as a hobby and says peppers act as a natural high.\r\n\r\nThough people tend to believe the spice of a pepper comes from its seeds, capsaicin is contained in the placenta, the tissue which holds the seeds. Because of Pepper X\'s curves and ridges there is more surface area for the placenta to grow, according to the Guinness World Records.\r\n\r\nMr Currie is one of only five people who has eaten an entire Pepper X.\r\n\r\n\"I was feeling the heat for three and a half hours. Then the cramps came,\" Mr Currie told the Associated Press.\r\n\r\n\"Those cramps are horrible. I was laid out flat on a marble wall for approximately an hour in the rain, groaning in pain.\"\r\n\r\nMr Currie said Pepper X is a crossbreed of a Carolina Reaper and a \"pepper that a friend of mine sent me from Michigan that was brutally hot\".\r\n\r\nMr Currie\'s lawyer said 10,000 products used the Carolina Reaper name, without permission.\r\n\r\nIn an effort to protect his intellectual property and see profits this time, Pepper X pods and seeds will not be released.\r\n\r\nThe only way to taste Pepper X will be through sold hot sauces. ','2023-10-17','',2,1),(355,'Push for vapes to be regulated like alcohol and tobacco in Australia','news.com.au','Lifestyle',8,77,'https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/push-for-vapes-to-be-regulated-like-alcohol-and-tobacco-in-australia/news-story/f36a4d1df5eb4757b646cb8ba8807f9a ','Ally Foster','Young people are helping create a \'booming black market\' in Australia, and it is all so they can get their hands on a controversial $20 item.\r\nAustralians are calling for regulations around vaping to be stripped back, saying the country should follow the lead of New Zealand and the UK.\r\nA whopping 20 per cent of young people and nine per cent of adults now vape on a regular basis, according to the Australian Department of Health.\r\nIn a bid to reduce these figures, the Albanese government announced in May it would outlaw the importation of non-prescription vaping products as part of the biggest smoking reforms in a decade.\r\nUnder current laws, vapes with nicotine can only be legally bought with a prescription from a chemist.\r\nState leaders have also joined the fight against vapes, with NSW Premier Chris Minns recently announcing a $6.8 million crackdown, branding the rise of illegal vapes a \'significant public health challenge\'.\r\nBut this hasn’t deterred Australians, with many – particularly young people – resorting to \'black market\' channels to get their hands on the products.\r\nOnline, vapes can be purchased from anywhere between $20 and $150, depending on the type of product a buyer wants.                                                                                                                                                                                                            \r\nA poll has revealed the vast amount of Aussies that want the government to change the way they are dealing with the rise in vaping, with the overwhelming majority of those surveyed saying they want it regulated the way as alcohol and tobacco.\r\nThe poll from RedBridge, found that almost 90 per cent of the 1500 people surveyed agreed or strongly agreed that regulated nicotine vaping products should be available for sale to adults aged 18 and older through licensed retail outlets.\r\nThis would bring Australia into line with the laws introduced in New Zealand in 2020, which banned the sale of vapes to people under 18. The country also banned vaping at schools and early childhood centres and prohibited vape advertising and sponsorship.\r\nNew legislation was also introduced in August which banned the sale of cheap, disposable vapes and not allowing new vape shops within 300m of any schools.\r\nIn the UK a person must also be over the age of 18 to buy and use a vape. The cartridges in the vapes must also hold no more than two millimetres of liquid and cannot contain more than 20 milligrams of nicotine per millilitre.\r\nThe polling into Australia’s vaping restrictions was commissioned by The Australian. Association of Convenience Stores (AACS), with the company’s CEO, Theo Foukkare, saying there was major support for regulation changes from voters on all sides of politics.\r\n\'It found 88 per cent of Coalition voters, 90 per cent of Labor supporters and 93 per cent of Greens voters either agree, or strongly agree, that nicotine vapes should be strictly regulated and sold the same way that alcohol and tobacco are,\' he said.\r\n\'Whether its parents dealing with the harsh reality of the youth vaping crisis, or adults who want access to strictly regulated products with ingredient standards, there is overwhelming support across all demographics to fix Australia’s black market vaping crisis by adopting the commonsense solution of regulating vapes in the same way as tobacco.\'\r\nNearly 70 per cent of the people surveyed rated the government’s current efforts to regulate vaping as either \'poor\' or \'very poor\'.\r\n\'Just 15 per cent rated it as acceptable and only one per cent said the government’s efforts were ‘very good’. The RedBridge poll also found low confidence among voters in the current ‘prescription only’ policy,\' Mr Foukkare said.\r\n\'Just two per cent of Aussies say they are very confident in the current rules that force anyone who wants to access a vape as a quit smoking aid to go to the GP and get a prescription.\'\r\nThe poll also found that 61 per cent of voters surveyed would consider voting for a political party that had a policy to regulate vaping products in the same way as alcohol and tobacco.\r\nMr Foukkare claimed the poll should be a \'big wakeup call\' to all politicians, noting that Australians want our leaders to \'fix this mess now\'.\r\n\'All we have seen is a booming black market – littered with dangerous, poorly manufactured vapes that continue to fall into the hands of unsuspecting Australians,\' he said.\r\n\'The continued failure to strictly regulate the sale of vapes that are manufactured to a specific code and sold as an 18-and-over product is becoming a major political issue for voters and it is time for all politicians from across the divide to heed that message.\'\r\n\r\n','2023-10-23','',3,1),(356,'South China Sea: Why the Philippines and China are on a collision course','BBC NEWS','Business & Economy',3,77,'https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-67191205','By Rupert Wingfield-Hayes','Take a close look at a video of Sunday\'s \'collision\' between a Philippine coastguard ship and a Chinese maritime militia vessel in the South China Sea.\nAs the stern of one bumps the deck of the other, right in the middle of the frame is a Filipino television crew scrambling to get what in the business is called an \'action piece to camera\'.\nThe confrontation between Manila and Beijing over submerged shoals in the South China Sea has been going on for decades.\nBut in recent months something has changed. The spats at sea are now unfolding in the full glare of the television media. This is the second time in weeks Philippine journalists have filmed a close encounter near a particularly sensitive reef known variously as Second Thomas Shoal, Ayungin Shoal or Ren Ai Reef.\nThis is no accident. It is part of a deliberate policy by the Philippine government to shine a spotlight on what it has called China\'s \'brute force\' in asserting control over what Manila says are its waters.\n\'I think we\'ve seen a significant change this year. It\'s what I call an assertive transparency campaign,\' says retired Colonel Raymond Powell of Stanford University\'s Gordian Knot Centre.\nStarting in January, the Philippine government began feeding more video of the encounters to local media. By summer it was taking more and more journalists, including the BBC, aboard its boats and aircraft heading out into the disputed waters.\n\'It\'s been like turning on a light to show China\'s grey zone operations,\' Col Powell says.\nChina appears to have been taken aback by these new tactics.\nFor a while it looked like the strategy was working, says Oriana Skylar Mastro of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies: \'We saw a bit of a lull in China\'s activities.\'\nBeijing eased off and Manila was able to make several re-supply runs to an outpost it has on Second Thomas Shoal - an aged World War II-era landing ship called the Sierra Madre.\nIt was deliberately grounded on the reef in 1999. Since then, a tiny contingent of Philippine marines has kept lonely watch aboard the rusting hulk as it has gradually begun to fall apart. In 2014 a BBC team went aboard the ship. Even then it was in terrible condition with huge holes in its sides, and waves splashing through the structure.\nMost analysts believe China has been content to play the long game. When relations between Beijing and Manila have been good China\'s coastguard has allowed resupplies to the Sierra Madre to go ahead. When relations have turned sour, they have moved to block the resupply ships.\nBut Beijing\'s overall assessment is that the Sierra Madre cannot last forever, and at some point, the Philippines will be forced to evacuate the marines, as the ship crumbles into the sea.\nDuring the six years under former president Rodrigo Duterte that assumption appeared well-founded. But since the election of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr last year, the Philippines\' foreign policy has turned 180 degrees.\nNot only has President Marcos reversed Mr Duterte\'s policy of cosying up to Beijing, he has fully re-embraced the alliance with the United States and begun shouting loudly about China\'s incursions into Manila\'s 200-nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zone.\nThere\'s more. Sources in Manila say food and water is not the only thing the Philippines has been taking out to the Sierra Madre on resupply runs. They say it has quietly been shipping construction materials, including cement and scaffolding. The aim: to shore up the rusting ship.\n\'It\'s very hard to see how they could extend the life of the ship,\' Col Powell says. \'I think we\'re coming to a crisis point. The end is near for the Sierra Madre. It could break up very soon.\'\nPerhaps it is this new sense of urgency that is pushing both Manila and Beijing to greater assertiveness. The Philippines is desperate to cling to its presence on Ayungen Shoal. And Beijing is once again reiterating its power, determined that the Sierra Madre will not survive.\nBut if the Sierra Madre does finally crumble into the aquamarine waters of the South China Sea - or West Philippine Sea as it’s called in Manila - what happens then?\nWill Beijing swoop in and attempt to seize control of the reef as it has done elsewhere in the South China Sea? Will Manila attempt to ground another vessel on Ayungin Shoal? And how will Washington react?\nNo-one knows but that day is coming, perhaps quite soon.','2023-10-23','',3,1),(357,'Factor X','Breaking News English','Society',4,78,'https://breakingnewsenglish.com/2311/231116-factor-x-1.html','Breaking News English','Old bacteria under the ground could contain many deadly diseases. The bacteria have been trapped in permafrost for thousands of years. Permafrost is long-frozen ground. It is common in mountains and near the North and South Poles. It is melting because of climate change. This could release unknown, harmful viruses. Scientists are calling these \'Factor X\'. An infectious diseases professor said we know little about Factor X.\r\n\r\nThere are viruses in the permafrost that are up to a million years old. A virologist said these unknown, \"ancient viruses\" could be terrifying because we have never seen them before. He also said deadly diseases like smallpox could be released worldwide. Factor X could be an even bigger problem. However, scientists say the release of methane is a bigger danger from melting permafrost. Methane is 80 times more harmful than CO2.','2023-11-23','',1,1),(358,'Starship spacecraft explodes – level 2','World News for Students of English','Travel',6,78,'https://www.newsinlevels.com/products/starship-spacecraft-explodes-level-2/','World News for Students of English','Company SpaceX developed Starship for missions to the moon and other planets. Last week, Starship took off from a launch site in Texas.\r\n\r\nThe plan was a flight that would last 90 minutes and then the rocket would land in Hawaii. But shortly after the take-off, the spacecraft exploded. 2.5 minutes into the flight, the spacecraft broke apart, and SpaceX reported a lost signal. This is probably the reason why the rocket destructed itself.\r\n\r\nFor SpaceX, the test was important for improving Starship. The company has a 4-billion contract with NASA and it still believes in future missions to the moon and Mars using reusable rockets. It was the craft’s second test following an explosion in April.','2023-11-30','',1,1),(359,'LEADERSHIP 35-year-old CEO of $100 million company: I ‘don’t remember’ anything I learned in college—here’s why it was valuable anyway','CNBC','Politics',1,78,'https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/14/slutty-vegan-ceo-pinky-cole-on-the-value-of-college-networking.html ','Ashton Jackson','College prepared Pinky Cole well to be the CEO of a $100 million company, she says — just not in the way you might think.\r\nCole, 35, runs Slutty Vegan, an Atlanta-based vegan burger chain with 11 locations across Georgia, New York and Texas. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in mass media arts from Clark Atlanta University, one of the city’s historically Black colleges and universities, in 2009 — and says the classes she took don’t really help her in her day job.\r\nBut that didn’t make college worthless, she says.\r\n“I’m going to be totally transparent with you. When I went to college, all the stuff that I learned, I don’t remember [any] of it,” Cole tells CNBC Make It. “What I do remember is the relationships that I built along the way.”\r\nHer sorority, Delta Sigma Theta, for example, taught her leadership skills and professionalism, and gave her relationships with people she “still connects with to this day,” she says. When she happens to see former classmates at conferences or business meetings, finding avenues for potential partnerships is easier because “we’ve already built a rapport.”\r\n“The people who I went to school with are now executives and CEOs of some of the biggest companies in the country, but I’ve been able to build those relationships before they became these big-time executives,”     says Cole. “So the relationship is organic, it’s authentic.”\r\nIndeed, Clark Atlanta’s alumni range from pop stars to politicians. Chance encounters at homecoming events can lead to business opportunities — which is likely the case for many schools, not just Cole’s alma mater.\r\nThat’s valuable: Networking can result in higher quality job offers and help you climb the corporate ladder faster, according to 2016 research from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. And while it’s certainly possible to connect with high-powered people without a shared academic experience, college graduates tend to have better career prospects and financial outcomes than high school-only graduates.\r\nCollege graduates earned 75% more last year, on average, according to the San Francisco Fed, a research nonprofit. College graduates also reported a 2% unemployment rate last year, compared with 7% for their counterparts, the National Center for Education Statistics reported.\r\nCole’s own college experience was worth every penny, purely due to those connections she’s made, she says.\r\n“If I could turn back the hands of time, I would do it all over again ... spend $200,000 to go to school, to make some relationships and network with those people,” she says. “Because guess what, your network is your net worth.”\r\nHer advice to anyone on the fence, she adds: “By all means, I believe that you should go, because the relationships, if nothing else, will be the thing that will support and carry you [on your career journey].”','2023-11-14','',2,1),(360,'India to launch two more space probes this year - media','Big News Network','Politics',1,78,'https://www.bignewsnetwork.com/news/274032221/india-to-launch-two-more-space-probes-this-year---media ','RT.COM','The ISRO is conducting several tests in the run-up to Gaganyaan, the nation\'s first manned mission\r\nIndia\'s national space agency is looking to launch at least two more missions in 2023 as a part of the country\'s ambitious effort to set up its own space station by 2035 and send its first manned mission to the Moon by 2040. The targets were set by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. \r\nIn the next two months, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) will launch the X-ray Polarimeter Satellite (XPoSat) space observatory and the PSLV Orbital Experimental Module (POEM), a platform that will help perform experiments in orbit using the discarded stage of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) as an orbital platform, the agency\'s chairman, S Somanath, told the Times of India. \r\nXPoSat is India\'s first polarimetry mission; it seeks to study the dynamics of bright astronomical X-ray sources in extreme conditions and is designed to have a mission life of at least five years.\r\nThe ISRO will also launch an INSAT-3DS satellite built for meteorological studies from another indigenously-developed launch system, the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) Mark II. It is crucial, according to the outlet, as India is preparing to launch the $1.5 billion NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR), a Low Earth Orbit observatory that is being developed by NASA and the ISRO.                                                                                                                    \r\nEncouraged by the success of its missions to the Moon (Chandrayaan-3) and Sun (Aditya-L1), the ISRO is planning several crucial missions in the coming years. These include an in-orbit servicer mission, a lunar sample return mission, docking in space, a Mars lander, and Gaganyaan - a manned space mission set for 2025.\r\nIn October, the ISRO launched the first of a series of test flights in preparation for the Gaganyaan mission. The basic crew module in the mission turned upside down while being recovered by naval divers in the sea.\r\nIn 2024, the space agency will conduct an experiment in a crew module to ensure it remains upright after splashing down. The astronauts for the mission, who were initially being trained in Russia, are undergoing further training in India to prepare for takeoff. \r\nLunar sample return missions are also considered critical as they will lay the groundwork for India to launch a manned mission to the Moon. The \'lunar hop\' performed by the Chandrayaan-3 launched earlier this year is considered the precursor to the upcoming mission. It demonstrated the Chandrayaan-3\'s ability to lift off from the surface of the Moon, meaning it could return with samples in the future. \r\nThe progress of the country\'s first human spaceflight mission was discussed last month at a high-level meeting chaired by Modi. The Indian leader said that the ISRO should aim to set up a space station by 2035 and send the first Indian to the Moon by 2040. In the follow-up, the space agency has formed specific committees overseeing various missions, Somanath said.\r\n\r\n','2023-11-14','',2,1),(362,'China’s property sector needs more government support as crisis deepens','CNBC','Politics',1,78,'https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/21/chinas-property-troubles-are-getting-worse-and-need-beijings-support.html ','Evelyn Cheng','BEIJING — China’s property market, which makes up a substantial chunk of the country’s economy, needs more government support to prevent it from deteriorating further, analysts said.\r\nExisting home prices fell in October by the most since 2014, while outstanding property loans fell for the first time in history, Larry Hu, chief economist at Macquarie, said in a note Friday.\r\nThat indicates increased drags on both the demand and the supply side.\r\nPolicy so far has focused on boosting demand. But the government hasn’t “addressed the most important issue: credit risk related to developers,” according to a Macquarie report.\r\n“Without a lender of last resort, a self-fulfilled confidence crisis could easily happen as falling sales and rising default risks reinforce each other,” the report said. “Indeed, some large developers have recently seen their credit risks rising rapidly.”\r\nBeijing has sought to reduce real estate developers’ high reliance on debt to fuel growth, while tamping down on a surge in home prices that has made buying an apartment in major cities prohibitively expensive for many young Chinese households.\r\nUBS analysts estimated that real estate and related sectors now account for about 22% of China’s gross domestic product, down from around 25% levels seen in recent years.                                              \r\nSince November 2022, Chinese authorities have rolled out a raft of measures aimed at improving developers’ access to financing and reducing mortgage rates.\r\nHowever, real estate behemoth Country Garden still ended up defaulting on a U.S. dollar bond last month, according to Bloomberg News.\r\nOn the homebuyers side, Nomura analysts last week estimated about 20 million units across China have been sold — but not yet completed.\r\nApartments are typically sold ahead of completion in China. Developers’ inability to finish construction on pre-sold properties prompted many homebuyers last year to stop mortgage payments on homes they had already bought but had yet to receive.\r\nMarkets ‘too optimistic’?\r\nRecent figures indicate that property sector troubles are only worsening.\r\nThe average price for existing homes across 70 major cities fell by 0.6% in October from the prior month, compared with a 0.5% drop in September, with China’s largest cities leading declines, Nomura analysts said in a report last week citing official data.\r\nThat’s concerning since larger cities are expected to have a more sustained demand for homes due to the availability of jobs.\r\n“China’s property sector has yet to bottom out,” the report said. “Markets appear to have been a bit too optimistic about the property stimulus policies over the past two months.”\r\nMore high-level signals\r\nPolicymakers in the last few days have made an effort to signal more support.\r\nThe People’s Bank of China late Friday announced it held a meeting with other financial regulators to allow lending to real estate developers that are “operating normally”, among other signals of support. The authorities also called for developing affordable housing, according to the readout.\r\n“The meeting should help avoid an undesirable contraction of credit extension in the final two months of the year, as financial institutions try to time new loan deals to the new year to engineer a strong start,” Citi analysts said in a report Monday.\r\n“The continued emphasis on supporting real estate financing and LGFV debt resolution will continue [to help] prevent risks [from] escalating,” the report said. “As fragile growth continues to call for an accommodative monetary environment, the meeting is moving along the needed direction while more supports are still needed to boost private sentiment.”\r\nShares of several major property companies closed higher on Monday, with developer Sunac rising 5.9% in Hong Kong trading.','2023-11-20','',3,1),(363,'Waves of waste: The harsh truth about ocean plastic','DW','Politics',1,78,'https://www.dw.com/en/waves-of-waste-the-harsh-truth-about-ocean-plastic/a-67370326 ','Alistair Walsh','From the depths of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch to global shorelines, recycling and cleanup crusades are in full swing. But do they stand a chance against the plastic deluge?\r\nJust below the surface of the world\'s largest ocean, toothbrushes, children\'s toys, fishing nets and food packaging all coalesce into a thick soup of oil and gas-based waste, known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.\r\nAt least 14 million tons of plastic enter the ocean each year, according to the IUCN, an international nature conservation organization. There, it is being ingested by animals, entering the food chain and damaging ecosystems.\r\nHowever phenomenal the volume, nonprofit The Ocean Cleanup believes it can deal with the bulk of the mess by dragging massive u-shaped nets through rubbish hotspots at sea and using floating barriers to intercept trash from about 1,000 polluted rivers.\r\nIn the decade since it began, The Ocean Cleanup says it has removed about 7.5 million tons of plastic, and with sufficient funding believes it can clear away 90% of plastic floating on the surface.\r\nBut the organization, which has received funding from the likes of Coca Cola and polymer producer SABIC owned by oil company Saudi Aramco, has been criticized for helping to greenwash companies linked to plastic pollution.\r\nIs it worth it?                                                                                                         \r\nNonprofits Oceancare in Switzerland and the UK-based Environmental Investigation Agency see such ocean cleanup technologies as a distraction from stemming the flow of mismanaged plastic waste in the first place.\r\n\"It\'s like sticking a Band Aid on a broken leg,\" said Christina Dixon, ocean campaign leader at the Environmental Investigation Agency. \"It sounds good on paper, but it\'s not really addressing the actual big impact of plastic pollution on the environment.\"\r\nShe said a focus on expensive cleanup operations is misdirecting resources to the wrong end of the problem, and that such technologies are emissions intensive. They can also inadvertently harm marine life in the process of catching plastic, though The Ocean Cleanup disputes this.\r\nDixon spoke to DW from Kenya\'s capital Nairobi, where international delegates are meeting this week to try piece together an ambitious global treaty to end plastic pollution, similar to the Paris Agreement on climate change.\r\nAs fossil fuel companies such as ExxonMobil and Saudi Aramco invest heavily in plastic production to hedge against the renewable energy transition, mismanaged plastic waste will double by 2060 globally, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Without significant action, there may be more plastic than fish in the ocean, by weight, by 2050.\r\n\"If the bath is filling and overflowing, you can try and put a pump in and start pumping it out. But really, we\'ve got to go to the source to turn the tap off,\" said Marcus Gover, the plastics initiative director at Australian non-profit Minderoo Foundation.\r\nHow to stop the tide of plastic\r\nGover said negotiators in Nairobi have a choice of options in front of them to address plastic pollution, much like a restaurant menu.\r\n\"If we make the right choices, we could come up with a meal that\'s really good for us. But equally, if we make the wrong choices and go for the fast food options on there, then it\'s not going to be healthy,\" Gover said.\r\nModeling of potential agreements suggests that a robust treaty could reduce mismanaged plastic waste up to 95% by 2040 compared to a business-as-usual scenario.\r\nThis approach would require globally binding rules to reduce plastic production, eliminate problematic and avoidable plastics, expand circularity, and improve disposal methods.\r\nFelix Cornehl, a former UK government advisor involved in the modeling said it would require a seven-fold increase in global recycling rates and would still leave room for even more robust action.\r\n\"If we have limited resources available, stopping that flow from the beginning and going upstream — reducing unnecessary production of plastic and keeping produced plastic in the system as long as possible are cheaper, but I think there is still a place for helping communities deal with the waste that is currently in the system,\" Cornehl said.\r\nVested interests at play\r\nBut addressing upstream production might prove difficult, given the influence of plastic producers in the talks, according to a group of scientists who are advising delegates in Nairobi.\r\nBethanie Carney Almroth, a professor of ecotoxicology at Sweden\'s University of Gothenburg, said pro-plastic lobbyists are working to stall progress on capping production, sowing doubt with techniques similar to Big Tobacco\'s efforts to block smoking regulation.\r\nAlmroth said all scientific evidence shows that capping the production of plastic was essential to ending plastic pollution, but that lobbyists were seizing on end-of-life technologies such as ocean cleanups and chemical recycling to divert action.\r\n\"It\'s a way for companies to sort of buy themselves free,\" Almroth said. \"It\'s like a \'Get Out of Jail Free\' card.\"\r\nBut the people doing the dirty cleanup work don\'t see it as a binary choice.\r\n\"We need to do something about production, we need to change our behavior when it comes to plastic usage, but we also need to take out the stuff that is already out there,\" said The Ocean Cleanup\'s director of communications, Joost Dubois.\r\n\"The cleanup is just one element of what will lead to the end of plastic pollution. We mop the floor, but somebody will also have to work on closing the tap.\"','2023-11-13','',3,1),(364,'Beverly Hills of Dubai – level 2','News in level','Business & Economy',3,79,'https://www.newsinlevels.com/products/beverly-hills-of-dubai-level-2/','News in LEVEL','In Emirates Hills, known as the Beverly Hills of Dubai, rich Indians are surpassing China’s rich in contributing to global wealth.\r\n\r\nThe area is popular among Indian businessmen. They live in mansions, like the 2,400-square-meter villa of Dano Group’s founder. Despite Dano’s strong position in the UAE for three decades, its growing prosperity is heavily influenced by money from India.  Rich Indians are an important part of the company’s customers.\r\n\r\nThe UAE is very attractive for Indians because of its easy visa policies, low taxes, and proximity. Experts expect that the UAE will become the top destination for migrating rich Indians.','2024-01-07','',1,1),(365,'Early Risers','Breaking News English','Lifestyle',8,79,'https://breakingnewsenglish.com/2312/231221-early-risers-1.html','Breaking News English','Early risers naturally wake up early because of their body clock. Most people are still in deep sleep. Researchers said early risers share DNA with Neanderthals – our ancestors from 40,000 years ago. They lived in northern Europe and Asia. They woke up earlier to gather food as the sun rose. A researcher said our body clock can change with the light of different seasons. He said a \"faster\" body clock makes people \"more likely to rise early\".\r\n\r\nThe researchers looked at genetic information to find out why some people are early birds and others are night owls. The early birds shared DNA with Neanderthals. However, the effect of the Neanderthal DNA may be weakening as time passes. Our modern lifestyles mean many of us prefer to sleep in and not get up. Nevertheless, it may still be true that the early bird catches the worm.','2024-01-07','',1,1),(366,'Caterpillar invests in tech startup Nth Cycle to boost recycling','Reuters','Business & Economy',3,79,'https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/caterpillar-invests-tech-startup-nth-cycle-boost-recycling-2023-12-04/','Reuters',' Caterpillar (CAT.N) is investing in recycling technology developer Nth Cycle as part of a push to boost the reuse of metals used to make batteries and construction equipment.\r\nThe investment, announced on Monday, comes as part of a $44 million Series B round of financing in privately-held Nth Cycle, which is among a crop of firms racing to commercialize recycling methods for the green energy transition.\r\nMassachusetts-based Nth Cycle\'s technology, designed to be used in a portable system it has branded \'Oyster,\' utilizes an electrochemical process to selectively extract nickel and cobalt from scrap, batteries or mined rock.\r\nExecutives are marketing that versatility to mining companies and the electric vehicle industry.\r\nEach Oyster facility is able to process 3,000 metric tons per year of material and produce 300 to 500 metric tons per year of nickel or cobalt, depending on the source material.\r\n\"The beauty of our system is that it\'s truly modular,\" Megan O\'Connor, Nth Cycle\'s co-founder and CEO, said in an interview. \"We want our customers to have options.\"\r\nThe first Oyster is being built in Ohio and expected to open in 2024. The company says that its process produces a lithium and graphite waste byproduct that it plans to sell, but reuses water and some acids.                                                                                                                     \r\nThe company\'s name is meant to evoke the mathematical term \"nth\" and point to the potential for metals to the continuously recycled.\r\nTexas-based Caterpillar, which makes heavy machinery emblazoned with its iconic yellow paint, said Nth\'s Cycle\'s technology can \"help get valuable materials\" back into circulation.\r\n\"Caterpillar\'s collaboration with Nth Cycle supports our commitment to helping our customers achieve their climate-related objectives and establishing a circular value chain,\" said Rod Shurman, Caterpillar\'s senior vice president of electrification and energy solutions, in a statement released by Nth Cycle.\r\nNorwegian oil giant Equinor (EQNR.OL), VoLo Earth Ventures, and MM Catalyst Fund I also participated in the Series B funding round. Equinor had invested in Nth Cycle\'s last funding round, announced in 2022.\r\n','2023-12-04','',2,1),(367,'Pint-sized bottles of wine to be sold after Brexit review','BBC NEWS','Lifestyle',8,79,'https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-67795075 ','By Paul Seddon','Pint-sized bottles of still and sparkling wine are to appear on shelves in the UK, the government has said.\r\nThe new 568ml size will offer more choice for customers, according to the Department for Business and Trade.\r\nIt also said it will not introduce new rules on selling in imperial measures.\r\nLegislation to be tabled in the new year will see the pint-sized bottles sold in supermarkets, pubs, clubs and restaurants.\r\nAfter Brexit, ministers had looked at changing laws inherited from the EU that mean traders can use Britain\'s traditional weighing system only alongside the metric one.\r\nThe new legislation will also allow still wine to be sold in 200ml containers, potentially paving the way for an expansion in the canned wine market.\r\nWhile sparkling wines will be allowed to be sold in 500ml bottles, between a standard full (750ml) and half (375ml) size.\r\nCurrently, still wine cannot be sold in 200ml quantities and sparkling wine cannot be sold in 500ml amounts.\r\nHowever, it remains to be seen what the demand will be for pint-sized wine bottles among producers and bottlers.\r\nPint-sized bottles for champagne were said to be the favourite size of British wartime leader Sir Winston Churchill, and were on shelves until 1973 when the UK joined the European Common Market.                                                                                                       \r\nThe government has confirmed it is not planning to change the rules on selling in imperial measures after Brexit.\r\nMinisters looked at changing laws inherited from the EU that mean traders can use Britain\'s traditional weighing system only alongside the metric one.\r\nEU rules meant traders could display imperial measurements - such as pounds and ounces - only alongside metric, and they could not be more prominent.\r\nThey hit the headlines in 2001 following the prosecution of the \"metric martyrs\", a group of market traders convicted of selling goods using only imperial, although they were not enforced rigorously afterwards.\r\nThe rules were initially copied over after Brexit, but Boris Johnson\'s government subsequently announced they would be reviewed as part of a plan to \"capitalise on the benefits of Brexit\".\r\nThe then-prime minister pledged to change the rules ahead of the 2019 election, calling imperial measurements an \"ancient liberty\" and adding he saw \"no reason why people should be prosecuted\" for using them.\r\nBut the government has now said it will not change the rules, after 98.7% of respondents to a consultation favoured using metric as the main measurement unit for sales, as now, or as the only unit.\r\n','2023-12-27','',2,1),(368,'How Britain\'s taste for tea may have been a life saver','BBC NEWS','Lifestyle',8,79,'https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20231215-how-britains-taste-for-tea-may-have-been-a-life-saver ','Veronique Greenwood','Tea quickly became one of the British Empire\'s most prized resources in the 18th Century. But it may have also had an unintended effect on the British population – reducing mortality rates.\r\nTea has been many things in its time – a global commodity, a comforting beverage, and even, in the eyes of some Bostonians 250 years ago this week, a symbol of oppressive politics. But one role you might not have attributed to tea is that of a life-saving health intervention.\r\nIn a recent paper in the Review of Statistics and Economics, economist Francisca Antman of the University of Colorado, Boulder, makes a convincing case that the explosion of tea as an everyman\'s drink in late 1700s England saved many lives. This would not have been because of any antioxidants or other substances inherent to the lauded leaf.\r\nInstead, the simple practice of boiling water for tea, in an era before people understood that illness could be caused by water-borne pathogens, may have been enough to keep many from an early grave.\r\nEnglish demographics from this era have long contained a puzzle for historians. Between 1761 and 1834, the annual death rate declined substantially, from 28 to 25 per 1,000 people. But at the same time, wages do not seem to have risen much and standards of living arguably did not increase. In fact, with the rise of the industrial revolution,more and more people were crowding into towns whose sanitation left much to be desired. \"I would say it\'s not a settled debate,\" says Antman.\r\nThe idea that tea might be the missing link here, thanks to the need to boil water for a proper brew, had been floated by historians in the past. Boiling water kills bacteria that cause diarrheal diseases like dysentery, which was often called \"flux\" or \"bloody flux\" in death records.\r\n\"With people coming into cities to work, you would expect, given the level of sanitation they have, that the big killer is water,\" says Antman. But it remained a somewhat fuzzy idea, interesting in theory but difficult to prove.\r\nAntman developed a way to test it, using detailed geographical information about more than 400 parishes across England. There is a simple assumption at the heart of her study: more water sources in an area likely means cleaner water. If one source was contaminated, the inhabitants of a parish could go to another. What\'s more, if people were closer to the sources of rivers – something Antman infers from parishes\' elevation – that water was likely safer than in parishes further downstream.\r\nThere were many things already to recommend tea as a drink of the masses.\r\nBy assigning parishes an inferred level of water quality, Antman could see whether areas with worse water quality saw a bigger decline in mortality than those with good water.\r\nIn terms of testing this hypothesis, the key date is 1785, the moment when tea suddenly became affordable for the vast majority of Britons. There were many things already to recommend tea as a drink of the masses: you could make a satisfying brew with just a small amount of leaves, the leaves could be reused for multiple pots, and tea was potentially cheaper than beer, which was rendered expensive both by the complex process required to make it and by a tax on malt.\r\nBut when 1784\'s Tea and Windows Act went into effect, the tax on tea went from 119% to just 12.5% and tea consumption exploded. By the end of the 18th Century, even very poor peasants were having tea twice a day, tea historian Alan Macfarlane writes.\r\nTo see if this change correlated with decreased mortality, Antman compared death rates before and after this watershed moment. For this she drew on the remarkable work of demographers E A Wrigley and R S Schofield, who in the mid-20th Century collected parish records from all over England spanning 1541 to 1871, including deaths.\r\nAs expected, Antman found that death rates declined in both parishes with good water and those with bad – but there was a significant difference in the size of the decline. Parishes with bad water saw death rates drop 18% more than those with good water.\r\nWhat\'s more, she looked to see whether deaths in London from waterborne diseases like \"bloody flux\", and deaths from airborne pathogens like tuberculosis, or \"consumption\", were linked to levels of tea imports. Indeed, flux deaths declined when tea imports went up, while TB deaths remained about the time.\r\nSometimes people\'s existing behaviours can make more of a difference to their health than an explicit intervention might\r\nShe also checked to see whether deaths in children – not known, in this age or any other, for being major consumers of tea – changed in London with tea imports, and found that there did not seem to be a decline in deaths of those ages two to five.\r\nInterestingly, there was a slight decline in infant deaths, perhaps reflecting the fact that if tea-drinking parents had less diarrheal disease, their very young children might have been protected a bit as well – though Antman points out there is no way to know for sure.\r\nFor Antman, who primarily works on issues related to developing nations, this natural experiment in England all those years ago reflects a fundamental truth: sometimes people\'s existing behaviours can make more of a difference to their health than an explicit intervention might.\r\nBuilding more privies, developing better plumbing and sewage systems, and teaching people to keep drinking water and wastewater scrupulously separate all might have extended people\'s lives, had such interventions been widely understood and available.\r\nBut with relatively little change to their habits, merely an increase in a behavior they already enjoyed, people seem to have protected themselves. All part of the pleasure of a simple cup of tea.\r\n','2023-12-17','',3,1),(369,'AI Breakthroughs In 2024: First-Of-Their-Kind Use Cases','Forbes','Business & Economy',3,79,'https://www.forbes.com/sites/neilsahota/2023/12/27/ai-breakthroughs-in-2024-first-of-their-kind-use-cases/?sh=2bc4399650b8','Neil Sahota','In 2024, we will mark a new era of technological innovation with AI. What will make the biggest impact? There are three first-of-their-kind uses cases that will become a reality in the upcoming year.\r\n1) AI in Environmental Restoration: Reviving Coral Reefs\r\nCoral reefs, vital to marine ecosystems, have been facing severe threats due to climate change and pollution. While humanity has been employing a variety of solutions for coral restoration, AI will become a transformative force in helping us aid in the restoration of these essential marine habitats.\r\nThe AI Solution\r\nResearchers will develop an AI system that can analyze vast amounts of oceanographic data to identify optimal coral restoration sites. This AI platform will use machine learning algorithms to assess factors like water temperature, acidity, and existing marine life to predict the survival rate of coral in various locations. Already, in Australia, the Great Barrier Reef, which has suffered significant damage, became the testing ground for this AI technology. Drones equipped with AI capabilities were used to map the reef and gather data. The AI system then processed this information to guide restoration efforts, identifying key areas where coral transplantation would be most effective.\r\nThe Impact                                                                                                                                                                                                                        \r\nThe results will be remarkable. The AI-guided restoration will achieve a success rate previously thought unattainable, leading to a significant increase in healthy coral coverage. This pioneering application of AI not only aids in conserving marine biodiversity but also serves as a model for environmental restoration projects worldwide.\r\n2) AI-Powered Personalized Education\r\nEducation has long been a one-size-fits-all model, often failing to address individual learning needs. In 2024, AI will foster a breakthrough in precision education.\r\nThe AI Solution\r\nAn AI system, equipped with advanced natural language processing and machine learning, will be launched to create personalized learning experiences. Some of the pieces exist as organic, function specific platforms. Today, we have AI tools like Cerebry, an AI math teaching assistant, and Khanmigo, an AI tutor. However, 2024 will mark the consolidation, integration, and gap fulfillment to develop true end-to-end AI educational systems. These AI platforms will analyze a student’s learning style, pace, and comprehension level to tailor educational content accordingly and create an individually customized curriculum for each student.\r\nThe Impact\r\nThe introduction of these AI-powered precision education tools will lead to a significant improvement in student engagement, conceptual understanding, and knowledge application. It will bridge learning gaps, particularly benefiting students who traditionally struggled in a conventional classroom setting. This application of AI in education will set a new standard for personalized learning, paving the way for a more inclusive and effective educational system.\r\n3) AI in Predictive Healthcare: Personalized Treatment Plans\r\nThe healthcare industry has always sought ways to provide more accurate and personalized care. In 2024, AI will make a substantial contribution in this area by enabling the creation of predictive, personalized treatment plans.\r\nThe AI Solution\r\nLeveraging AI algorithms capable of processing and analyzing vast amounts of medical data, including genetic information, lifestyle factors, and environmental influences, we will develop a new AI system focused on individual care. This AI platform will predict an individual’s risk of developing certain diseases and suggest personalized prevention or treatment plans that the person is most likely to commit to and implement. Today, we are already seeing breakthrough cases emerging with the application of this AI system in oncology. A clinic in Europe used the AI platform to analyze patients\' genetic data and lifestyle factors, successfully predicting their susceptibility to specific types of cancer. The system then recommended personalized lifestyle changes and medical interventions to mitigate these risks. Making the leap to broader health issues is not the far off, and we have the data but lack the models. Thus, in 2024, we will make great strides into developing these health models for healthcare use.\r\nThe Impact\r\nThis AI-driven approach in healthcare will revolutionize preventative medicine and personalized treatment strategies. AI assistance will help health practitioners generate significantly improved patient outcomes, particularly in the early detection and prevention of diseases. This innovation will also accelerate new avenues for research in predictive healthcare, offering hope for more effective disease management and treatment.\r\nThe year 2024 will mark a turning point in AI applications, with innovations spanning environmental restoration, education, and healthcare. These first-of-their-kind use cases demonstrate AI\'s potential to address complex global challenges, offering solutions that are both innovative and impactful. As AI continues to evolve, its transformative power is bound to unlock even more possibilities, reshaping the future in ways we are just beginning to imagine.\r\nThese groundbreaking opportunities not only highlight the advancements in AI technology but also underscore the importance of ethical considerations and responsible AI deployment. As we embrace these new possibilities, it is crucial to ensure that AI is used to enhance human welfare and protect our planet, setting a precedent for future technological developments. The journey of AI in 2024 will be a testament to human ingenuity and a beacon of hope for a better, more sustainable future.\r\n','2023-12-27','',3,1),(370,'Breaking News English Lesson: Fire Ants','Breaking News English','Environment',9,80,'Breaking News English Lesson: Fire Ants','Breaking News English','Australia\'s ecosystems are under threat from one of the world\'s most invasive species – the red fire ant. The tiny ant is native to South America, but has spread worldwide. It causes huge damage to crops and farms. It also kills indigenous insects and other animals, including livestock. The ant\'s painful and venomous sting can cause allergic reactions in humans. It is deadly and can cause fatal anaphylactic shock. The Minister for Agriculture called the ants a \"super-pest, which cause serious social, economic and environmental harm\".\r\n\r\nRed fire ants were first found in Australia in 2001. They were only in the state of Queensland, until now. Australia\'s Invasive Species Council (ISC) says the ants are spreading because of flood waters. They are clinging to each other to create \"rafts\" on the water. An ISC statement said: \"Fire ants are more active before or after rainfall and can form large floating rafts, which move with water currents to establish footholds in new areas.\" It warned that the fire ants will reach \"every corner of Australia\" if the current outbreak is not kept in check.','2024-02-03','',1,1),(371,'Why people in Sweden do not smoke – level 2','News in level','Health',2,80,'https://www.newsinlevels.com/products/why-people-in-sweden-do-not-smoke-level-2/','News in LEVEL','Meet Morton, a 20-year-old in Stockholm. During his lunch break, he picks up fresh snus, a popular smokeless tobacco product in Sweden.\r\n\r\nSnus is a small bag of tobacco, which you place under your lip. It contains nicotine.  Some people believe that Sweden’s low smoking rates, 5.6% in 2022, are thanks to snus.  But there is a problem with these nicotine bags. While fewer people smoke, snus and nicotine pouch use increases, especially among women. Nicotine bags, without tobacco, are a recent addiction.\r\n\r\nExperts expect the global nicotine pouch market to reach 17.6 billion dollars by 2029. Some people say that snus became popular in Sweden thanks to anti-smoking measures from the 1990s.\r\n\r\n','2024-02-03','',1,1),(372,'World\'s richest men \'double their wealth\' in three years - as Oxfam warns of first trillionaire','Sky News','Business & Economy',3,80,'https://news.sky.com/story/worlds-richest-men-double-their-wealth-in-three-years-as-oxfam-warns-of-first-trillionaire-13048652','Sky News','World\'s richest men \'double their wealth\' in three years - as Oxfam warns of first trillionaire\r\nOxfam\'s boss says it\'s \"totally unacceptable\" one person could soon be so extremely rich while many around the world still live in terrible poverty.\r\nThe world\'s five richest men have more than doubled their fortunes to £688bn in three years - while the wealth of the poorest 60% has fallen, according to Oxfam.\r\nIt says the first trillionaire could emerge within a decade but that poverty won\'t be eradicated for 229 years.\r\nThe charity\'s report, Inequality Inc, comes as business and political leaders meet for the World Economic Forum in the upmarket Swiss ski resort of Davos.\r\nIt\'s traditionally used the occasion to highlight the divide between rich and poor, but this year says the gap has been \"supercharged\" since the pandemic.\r\nThe fortunes of Tesla boss Elon Musk, Bernard Arnault - owner of luxury goods firm LVMH, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Oracle\'s Larry Ellison and investment guru Warren Buffet, have increased 114% in real terms since 2020, says Oxfam.\r\nTheir collective wealth is said to have grown from £321bn to £688bn.\r\nMusk alone is estimated to be worth about £180bn, according to the real-time Forbes list Oxfam used for its calculations.\r\nHowever, the 4.7 billion people who make up the world\'s poorest 60% have become 0.2% poorer         in real terms, Oxfam says, with many countries unable to give the COVID financial support of richer nations.\r\nThe charity\'s interim boss says the prospect of a trillionaire in the next 10 years - while poverty could take 200-plus years to resolve - was \"totally unacceptable\"\r\n\"This ever-widening gulf between the rich and the rest isn\'t accidental, nor is it inevitable,\" said Aleema Shivji.\r\n\"Governments worldwide are making deliberate political choices that enable and encourage this distorted concentration of wealth, while hundreds of millions of people live in poverty.\r\n\"A fairer economy is possible, one that works for us all. What\'s needed are concerted policies that deliver fairer taxation and support for everyone, not just the privileged.\"\r\nOxfam is hoping its report can help pressurise policymakers in Davos for the 15-19 January summit.\r\nAmong those attending are Ukraine\'s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Argentina\'s new president Javier Milei, Chinese Premier Li Qiang, and European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen.\r\nOxfam wants governments to reduce corporate power by measures such as breaking up monopolies, capping bosses\' pay and bringing in higher taxes on excess profit and wealth.\r\nIt\'s also pushing for alternatives to the shareholder model, such as forms of employee ownership, and more fair-trade businesses.','2024-01-15','',2,1),(373,'North Korea: Rare footage shows teens sentenced to hard labour over K-drama','BBC NEWS Seoul','Society',4,80,'https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-68015652','By Sangmi Han','Rare footage obtained by BBC Korean shows North Korea publicly sentencing two teenage boys to 12 years of hard labour for watching K-dramas.\r\nThe footage, which appears to have been filmed in 2022, shows two 16-year-old boys handcuffed in front of hundreds of students at an outdoor stadium.\r\nIt also shows uniformed officers reprimanding the boys for not \"deeply reflecting on their mistakes\".\r\nSouth Korean entertainment, including TV, is banned in the North.\r\nDespite that, some are prepared to risk severe punishment to access K-dramas, which have a huge global audience.\r\nFootage such as this is rare, because North Korea forbids photos, videos and other evidence of life in the country from being leaked to the outside world.\r\nThis video was provided to the BBC by the South and North Development (Sand), a research institute that works with defectors from the North.\r\nIt suggests authorities are coming down harder on such incidents. The clip has reportedly been distributed in North Korea for ideology education and to warn citizens not to watch \"decadent recordings\".\r\nThe video includes a narrator who is repeating state propaganda. \"The rotten puppet regime\'s culture has spread even to teenagers,\" says the voice, in an apparent reference to South Korea. \"They are just 16 years old, but they ruined their own future,\" it adds.                    \r\nThe boys were also named by officers and had their addresses revealed.\r\nIn the past, minors who broke the law in this way would be sent to youth labour camps rather than put behind bars, and the punishment was usually less than five years.\r\nIn 2020, however, Pyongyang enacted a law to make watching or distributing South Korean entertainment punishable by death.\r\nA defector previously told the BBC that he was forced to watch a 22-year-old man shot to death. He said the man was accused of listening to South Korean music and had shared films from the South with his friend.\r\nSand CEO Choi Kyong-hui said Pyongyang sees the spread of K-dramas and K-pop as a danger to its ideology.\r\n\"Admiration for South Korean society can soon lead to a weakening of the system... This goes against the monolithic ideology that makes North Koreans revere the Kim family,\" she said.\r\nNorth Koreans started getting a taste of South Korean entertainment in the 2000s, during the years of the South\'s \"sunshine policy\" which saw it offering unconditional economic and humanitarian aid to the North.\r\nSeoul ended the policy in 2010, saying it found the aid did not reach the ordinary North Koreans it was intended for, and that it had not resulted in any \"positive changes\" to Pyongyang\'s behaviour.\r\nBut South Korean entertainment continued to reach North Korea through China.\r\n\"If you get caught watching an American drama, you can get away with a bribe, but if you watch a Korean drama, you get shot,\" a North Korean defector told BBC Korean on Thursday.\r\n\"For North Korean people, Korean dramas are a \'drug\' that helps them forget their difficult reality,\" the defector said.\r\n\"In North Korea, we learn that South Korea lives much worse than us, but when you watch South Korean dramas, it\'s a completely different world. It seems like the North Korean authorities are wary of that,\" said another North Korean defector in her 20s.','2024-01-18','',2,1),(374,'Researchers develop eco-friendly material from mushrooms, coffee grounds and natural pineapple fibers','by Tsinghua University Press','Technology',10,80,'https://phys.org/news/2024-01-eco-friendly-material-mushrooms-coffee.html','by Tsinghua University Press','Researchers have developed a novel eco-friendly material, dubbed \"mycelium-based composites (MBCs).\" Mycelium-based composites (MBCs) are renowned for their unique properties, making them an increasingly popular choice in various industries, particularly for applications where sustainability and environmental impact are key considerations.\r\nThe study, \"Fabrication of mycelium (oyster mushroom)-based composites derived from spent coffee grounds with pineapple fibre reinforcement,\" has been published in Mycology.\r\nOne of the standout features of MBCs is their biodegradability. Unlike many synthetic materials, MBCs can be composted at the end of their lifecycle, breaking down into harmless, natural substances, thereby significantly reducing waste and lessening their environmental footprint.\r\nThe production process of MBCs is inherently sustainable. These composites are derived from renewable resources, as mycelium—the root structure of fungi—can be grown on various organic waste materials. This approach not only repurposes waste but also ensures that the production of MBCs is eco-friendly, consuming less energy compared to traditional plastics and synthetic materials.\r\nIn terms of physical properties, MBCs are highly versatile. Their strength and density can be customized to suit a range of applications, from lightweight packaging solutions to more robust building materials.                                            This flexibility is a key advantage, allowing for a wide range of uses in different contexts.\r\nMoreover, MBCs possess excellent natural insulation properties, both thermal and acoustic, which makes them an attractive option in the construction sector, particularly for insulation panels. Additionally, certain treatments and growth conditions can render these composites fire-resistant, enhancing their safety profile and expanding their applicability in scenarios where fire resistance is crucial.\r\nThis innovative study, spearheaded by Dr. Nattawut Boonyuen, a mycologist from the National Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (BIOTEC) at the National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSTDA), and Dr. Pitak Laoratanakul from the National Metal and Materials Technology Center (MTEC), also at NSTDA, marks a significant advancement in sustainable material sciences.\r\nCollaborating with other researchers from King Mongkut\'s University of Technology Thonburi (KMUTT) and King Mongkut\'s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang (KMITL), this innovative research led by Dr. Nattawut Boonyuen resulted in the creation of a novel material that merges oyster mushroom mycelia with used coffee grounds, and marks a significant advancement in the domains of packaging and construction.\r\nThis unique blend, further enriched with natural pineapple fibers, signifies a substantial breakthrough in the development of sustainable materials. By adjusting the proportion of pineapple fibers incorporated into the composite, its characteristics can be modified, ranging from increased strength to improved water resistance. This adaptability allows for its application across a diverse array of uses, showcasing its versatility.\r\nThe MBCs\' fire-resistant nature further underscores their practicality, merging environmental sustainability with safety. This aspect of the composites is particularly noteworthy in the material sciences domain, where such a combination is rare.\r\nThis development is more than just an innovation in eco-friendly materials; it symbolizes a significant move towards sustainable living. It exemplifies the extraordinary potential that lies in the confluence of natural elements and scientific ingenuity. As we delve deeper into the exploration of such materials, the use of mushrooms and coffee grounds may well be the harbinger of a broader environmental revolution.\r\n\r\n','2024-01-15','',3,1),(375,'Maersk reroutes Red Sea ships ‘for foreseeable future’ as container rates shoot higher','Financial times','Business & Economy',3,80,'https://www.ft.com/content/418aae65-9dd6-4812-a83d-3ef9a76564af','Financial times','Maersk reroutes Red Sea ships ‘for foreseeable future’ as container rates shoot higher\r\nShipping company says security risk ‘significantly elevated’ while economists warn of inflationary threat from disruption\r\nShipping giant AP Møller-Maersk will reroute ships from the Red Sea around Africa “for the foreseeable future”, after Houthi militants in Yemen escalated their attacks in the region.\r\nThe move by Maersk came as container shipping rates shot higher this week and economists warned that the global economy would come under fresh inflationary pressure if the disruption continued.\r\n“The situation is constantly evolving and remains highly volatile, and all available intelligence at hand confirms that the security risk continues to be at a significantly elevated level,” said Maersk in a statement.\r\n“We have therefore decided that all Maersk vessels due to transit the Red Sea/Gulf of Aden will be diverted south around the Cape of Good Hope for the foreseeable future.”\r\nThe world’s largest shippers have been abandoning the Suez Canal route connecting Asia and Europe despite US-led efforts to bolster maritime security in the region, following a swath of attacks by the Iranian-backed militants.\r\nThe Houthis have launched at least 20 attacks on ships off Yemen’s coast in recent weeks and have vowed to continue targeting vessels in response to Israel’s war in Gaza. Maersk’s announcement illustrates how shippers are now preparing for a prolonged disruption.\r\nThe longer distances container vessels are sailing around Africa have tightened the availability of ships and led to rates more than doubling since mid-December on the key Shanghai to Rotterdam route, rising to $3,100 per standard 40-foot container from $1,400, according to Xeneta.\r\n“This confirms that there are no quick solutions to this crisis,” said Peter Sand, chief analyst at Xeneta, a container market intelligence company. “Maersk and other shipping companies will now be thinking in months and quarters rather than days and weeks.”\r\nEconomists warned that if the problems persisted it would slow the pace at which global price pressures subside and could delay the timing of expected interest rate cuts by central banks.\r\nInvestors expect the US Federal Reserve and European Central Bank to start cutting borrowing costs as early as March in response to a rapid cooling of price pressures. But markets have scaled back these bets in the past week after a rise in eurozone inflation and signals that Fed officials want to keep borrowing costs high for longer.\r\nBen May, director of global macro research at consultants Oxford Economics, said that based on IMF research the recent rise in shipping costs could add about 0.6 percentage points to global inflation if it was sustained for the rest of this year.\r\nThis would slow the speed of disinflation and “could be another reason to believe that market expectations for the extent of policy loosening by the Fed this year have gone too far”, he said.\r\nThomas McGarrity, head of equities at RBC Wealth Management, said: “If the Red Sea disruption persists, the knock-on impact will likely be felt by industries such as clothing retail, with negative implications for margins due to higher freight costs.”\r\nWestern powers have deployed a number of naval vessels to the region to help provide protection for commercial shipping. But they have so far avoided a more robust response, such as targeting Houthi military facilities in Yemen, for fear of expanding the conflict.\r\nShipping companies are widely seen as beneficiaries from the Red Sea problems as freight rates increase and investors bet that what is bad news for the global economy and retailers could bring better profits for the biggest container groups.\r\nShares in Denmark’s Maersk are up almost 40 per cent since December 12 while those in German rival Hapag-Lloyd have increased two-thirds in the same period.\r\nOil markets have been less affected by the disruptions, with many companies still willing to traverse the Red Sea route, according to Vortexa, despite facing higher insurance costs. Brent crude has risen only slightly this week from $77 to $78 a barrel. BP said its vessels will avoid the route.\r\nA tanker with an $85mn diesel cargo now costs about $5mn for a voyage from the Middle East to Europe, up from $3.2mn before the Houthi attacks began, according to estimates by Braemar.\r\nEconomists pointed out that global stocks of manufactured goods were relatively high while demand was weak, making shortages less likely, while reducing companies’ ability to pass on higher shipping costs to consumers. \r\nSimon MacAdam, senior global economist at consultants Capital Economics, said the bigger risk remained an expansion of the conflict that could hit energy supplies.\r\n\r\n','2024-01-18','',3,1),(376,'AI helps women in Kenya – level 1','News in level','Politics',1,81,'https://www.newsinlevels.com/products/ai-helps-women-in-kenya-level-1/ ','News in LEVEL','Many pregnant women die. Some have problems during pregnancy. Some die when they give birth.\r\n\r\nIn Africa, a pregnant woman dies every two minutes. It happens mainly in places like Kenya. Many people there live far from hospitals. They don’t get good care and it is difficult to get to hospitals. But now, there is a new device. It shows pictures of babies inside their moms. It is easy to use it. Even people who are not experts can do it. The device use AI to analyze scans and detect problems early, which can save lives.\r\n\r\nExperts are still testing the device which could greatly improve maternal healthcare in Keny','2024-02-26','',1,1),(377,'Japan relaxes haircut rules to attract army recruits','Breaking News English','Politics',1,81,'https://breakingnewsenglish.com/2402/240219-army-haircuts-4.html','Breaking News English','Very short haircuts are common among soldiers and sailors worldwide. Japan has said it will relax rules for military recruits to have short hair. This is to attract more young people. Japan\'s army and companies are experiencing staff shortages. From April, recruits to Japan\'s Self Defence Forces (SDF) will be allowed to have longer hair. Women can have long hair, as long as they can wear a helmet or it is not below the shoulders.\r\n\r\nRecruitment experts discussed how to increase troop numbers. There is a decreasing number of young people to recruit from. Japan\'s Defence Minister said: \"As our nation faces a serious workforce shortage, we recognize competition with others, including the private sector, to secure talent has been intensifying.\" He said the new haircut rules are more rational. Japan might also allow people with tattoos to join the SDF.','2024-02-26','',1,1),(378,'Julian Assange in final High Court bid for appeal against extradition','Independent ','Politics',1,81,'https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/julian-assange-high-court-united-states-wikileaks-royal-courts-of-justice-b2498899.html ','Jess Glass','The WikiLeaks founder is wanted in the United States over an alleged conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defence information.\r\nJulian Assange is set to make his final bid for a domestic appeal against a judge’s ruling over his extradition to the United States.\r\nThe WikiLeaks founder is wanted in the US over an alleged conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defence information following the publication of hundreds of thousands of leaked documents relating to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.\r\nIn a January 2021 ruling, then-district judge Vanessa Baraitser said that Assange should not be sent to the US, citing a real and “oppressive” risk of suicide, while ruling against the 52-year-old on all other issues.\r\nUS authorities subsequently brought a successful challenge against this decision, paving the way for Assange’s extradition.\r\nLawyers for Assange, who has been held in Belmarsh prison in south-east London, will now ask the High Court in London for the go-ahead to challenge the original judge’s dismissal of other parts of his case against extradition.\r\nThe hearing comes after High Court judge Mr Justice Swift first refused to give Assange the green light to appeal – without a hearing – last June.\r\nA two-day hearing is now set to begin on Tuesday, which is expected to be Assange’s final chance to be granted an appeal in a UK court.                                                                                                                                 \r\nSpeaking at a press conference last week, his wife Stella Assange said that if the appeal bid is unsuccessful, Assange would apply to the European Court of Human Rights for a Rule 39 order to stop extradition while it considers his case.\r\nHis supporters say the Australian national faces 175 years in prison if he is extradited.\r\nDuring their earlier successful challenge, lawyers for the US authorities said Judge Baraitser’s decision risked becoming a “trump card” for anyone who wanted to oppose their extradition.\r\nThey also said that four “binding” diplomatic assurances had been made, including that the US would consent to Assange being transferred to Australia, where he was born, to serve any prison sentence he may be given.\r\nThe two-day hearing before Dame Victoria Sharp and Mr Justice Johnson is due to begin at 10.30am on Tuesday.','2024-02-20','',2,1),(379,'Enhanced Games: Olympic athletes have expressed interest, says event\'s founder','BBC NEWS','Politics',1,81,'https://www.bbc.com/sport/68341142 ','BBC NEWS','Athletes scheduled to participate at this summer\'s Paris Olympics have expressed an interest in competing in the Enhanced Games, where doping is allowed, says the event\'s founder.\r\nAron D\'Souza says athletes who have contacted him are keen to \"make some real money\" during non-Olympic years.\r\nThe Enhanced Games, founded by D\'Souza in 2023, would not be subject to World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) rules.\r\n\"Excellence deserves to be rewarded,\" said the Australian businessman.\r\nWada has called the Enhanced Games \"a dangerous and irresponsible concept\".\r\nSpeaking to BBC World Service Sport, D\'Souza said: \"It is unfortunate that our Olympians earn so little.\r\n\"There are a lot of athletes who are going to compete at the Paris Olympics, including some of the top Team USA track and field athletes who have reached out to me. Because, let\'s be honest, they\'re flipping burgers to provide for themselves, and financially it just doesn\'t work for them.\r\n\"So they\'re very excited to compete at the Enhanced Games to make some real money and have an opportunity to grow their fame, to monetise and practise their sport in the three years that the Olympics won\'t be happening.\"\r\nThe Enhanced Games are planned to include athletics, swimming, weightlifting, gymnastics and combat sports, though no date or venue for the event has yet been set.                                                                                                              \r\nWada, in criticising the Games, has said that \"athletes serve as role models and we believe this proposed event would send the wrong signal to young people around the world\".\r\nD\'Souza has defended the proposed event, saying steps will be taken to minimise risks to athletes\' health.\r\n\"There\'s of course concern about health and safety, and I always underline the fact that everything will be done under clinical supervision,\" he said.\r\n\"The best thing to do is to enhance yourself with clinical advice, with clinical supervision, and that is much safer.\"\r\nEarlier this month, former champion James Magnussen agreed to come out of retirement to compete in the Games and attempt to swim faster than the 50m freestyle record in return for $1m (£792,000).\r\nEven if Magnussen did swim faster than the world record it would not be official because there would be no drug-testing regime.\r\n\'It goes against what the Olympics stand for\'\r\nBritish former Olympic 200m butterfly bronze medallist Steve Parry is critical of the concept of the Enhanced Games and the message it sends out to young athletes.\r\n\"I really don\'t like it at all. It goes against virtually every fibre of what I stood for and what I think the Olympics stand for,\" he told BBC World Service Sport.\r\n\"I think the Olympics is there to inspire children primarily to want to do really good things in sport, but we exist in a society today that is about cutting corners.\r\n\"It takes a long time to win Olympic medals and I\'m concerned around the message that this might send around.\"\r\nParry, who retired from swimming in 2005, says he shares D\'Souza\'s concerns about athletes\' pay but believes money is not their primary motivation.\r\n\"I think if you ask Olympians and why they do what they do, money wouldn\'t really factor into it,\" added the 46-year-old.\r\n\"The endeavour of the Olympic Games is one of the purest things that we have left and I think that\'s a concept that\'s worth fighting for.\"\r\nAron D\'Souza says athletes who have contacted him are keen to \"make some real money\" during non-Olympic years.\r\nThe Enhanced Games, founded by D\'Souza in 2023, would not be subject to World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) rules.\r\n\"Excellence deserves to be rewarded,\" said the Australian businessman.\r\nWada has called the Enhanced Games \"a dangerous and irresponsible concept\".\r\nSpeaking to BBC World Service Sport, D\'Souza said: \"It is unfortunate that our Olympians earn so little.\r\n\"There are a lot of athletes who are going to compete at the Paris Olympics, including some of the top Team USA track and field athletes who have reached out to me. Because, let\'s be honest, they\'re flipping burgers to provide for themselves, and financially it just doesn\'t work for them.\r\n\"So they\'re very excited to compete at the Enhanced Games to make some real money and have an opportunity to grow their fame, to monetise and practise their sport in the three years that the Olympics won\'t be happening.\"\r\nThe Enhanced Games are planned to include athletics, swimming, weightlifting, gymnastics and combat sports, though no date or venue for the event has yet been set.\r\nWada, in criticising the Games, has said that \"athletes serve as role models and we believe this proposed event would send the wrong signal to young people around the world\".\r\nD\'Souza has defended the proposed event, saying steps will be taken to minimise risks to athletes\' health.\r\n\"There\'s of course concern about health and safety, and I always underline the fact that everything will be done under clinical supervision,\" he said.\r\n\"The best thing to do is to enhance yourself with clinical advice, with clinical supervision, and that is much safer.\"\r\nEarlier this month, former champion James Magnussen agreed to come out of retirement to compete in the Games and attempt to swim faster than the 50m freestyle record in return for $1m (£792,000).\r\nEven if Magnussen did swim faster than the world record it would not be official because there would be no drug-testing regime.\r\n\'It goes against what the Olympics stand for\'\r\nBritish former Olympic 200m butterfly bronze medallist Steve Parry is critical of the concept of the Enhanced Games and the message it sends out to young athletes.\r\n\"I really don\'t like it at all. It goes against virtually every fibre of what I stood for and what I think the Olympics stand for,\" he told BBC World Service Sport.\r\n\"I think the Olympics is there to inspire children primarily to want to do really good things in sport, but we exist in a society today that is about cutting corners.\r\n\"It takes a long time to win Olympic medals and I\'m concerned around the message that this might send around.\"\r\nParry, who retired from swimming in 2005, says he shares D\'Souza\'s concerns about athletes\' pay but believes money is not their primary motivation.\r\n\"I think if you ask Olympians and why they do what they do, money wouldn\'t really factor into it,\" added the 46-year-old.\r\n\"The endeavour of the Olympic Games is one of the purest things that we have left and I think that\'s a concept that\'s worth fighting for.\"\r\n','2024-02-19','',2,1),(380,'Airline held liable for its chatbot giving passenger bad advice - what this means for travellers','BBC NEWS','Business & Economy',3,81,'https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20240222-air-canada-chatbot-misinformation-what-travellers-should-know','By Maria Yagoda ','When Air Canada\'s chatbot gave incorrect information to a traveller, the airline argued its chatbot is \"responsible for its own actions\".\r\nArtificial intelligence is having a growing impact on the way we travel, and a remarkable new case shows what AI-powered chatbots can get wrong – and who should pay. In 2022, Air Canada\'s chatbot promised a discount that wasn\'t available to passenger Jake Moffatt, who was assured that he could book a full-fare flight for his grandmother\'s funeral and then apply for a bereavement fare after the fact. \r\nAccording to a civil-resolutions tribunal decision last Wednesday, when Moffatt applied for the discount, the airline said the chatbot had been wrong – the request needed to be submitted before the flight – and it wouldn\'t offer the discount. Instead, the airline said the chatbot was a \"separate legal entity that is responsible for its own actions\". Air Canada argued that Moffatt should have gone to the link provided by the chatbot, where he would have seen the correct policy. \r\nThe British Columbia Civil Resolution Tribunal rejected that argument, ruling that Air Canada had to pay Moffatt $812.02 (£642.64) in damages and tribunal fees. \"It should be obvious to Air Canada that it is responsible for all the information on its website,\" read tribunal member Christopher Rivers\' written response.                                                                                                     \"It makes no difference whether the information comes from a static page or a chatbot.\" The BBC reached out to Air Canada for additional comment and will update this article if and when we receive a response.\r\nGabor Lukacs, president of the Air Passenger Rights consumer advocacy group based in Nova Scotia, told BBC Travel that the case is being considered a landmark one that potentially sets a precedent for airline and travel companies that are increasingly relying on AI and chatbots for customer interactions: Yes, companies are liable for what their tech says and does. \r\n\"It establishes a common sense principle: If you are handing over part of your business to AI, you are responsible for what it does,\" Lukacs said. \"What this decision confirms is that airlines cannot hide behind chatbots.\"\r\nAir Canada is hardly the only airline to dive head-first into AI – or to have a chatbot go off the rails. In 2018, a WestJet chatbot sent a passenger a link to a suicide prevention hotline, for no obvious reason. This type of mistake, in which generative AI tools present inaccurate or nonsensical information, is known as \"AI hallucination\". Beyond airlines, more major travel companies have embraced AI technology, ChatGPT specifically: In 2023, Expedia launched a ChatGPT plug-in to help with trip planning.\r\nLukacs expects the recent tribunal ruling will have broader implications for what airlines can get away with – and highlights the risks for businesses leaning too heavily on AI. \r\nHow air travellers can protect themselves\r\nIn the meantime, how can passengers stand guard against potentially wrong information or \"hallucinations\" fed to them by AI? Should they be fact-checking everything a chatbot says? Experts say: Yes, and no.\r\n\"For passengers, the only lesson is that they cannot fully rely on the information provided by airline chatbots. But, it’s not really passengers\' responsibility to know that,\" says Marisa Garcia, an aviation industry expert and senior contributor at Forbes. \"Airlines will need to refine these tools further [and] make them far more reliable if they intend for them to ease the workload on human staff or ultimately replace human staff.\"\r\nGarcia expects that, over time, chatbots and their accuracy will improve, \"but in the meantime airlines will need to ensure they put their customers first and make amends quickly when their chatbots get it wrong,\" she says – rather than let the case get to small claims court and balloon into a PR disaster. \r\nTravellers may want to consider the benefits of old-fashioned human help when trip-planning or navigating fares. \"AI has advanced rapidly, but a regulatory framework for guiding the technology has yet to catch up,\" said Erika Richter of the American Society of Travel Advisors. \"Passengers need to be aware that when it comes to AI, the travel industry is building the plane as they\'re flying it. We\'re still far off from chatbots replacing the level of customer service required – and expected – for the travel industry.\"\r\nGlobally, protections for airline passengers are not uniform, meaning different countries have different regulations and consumer protections. Lukacs notes that Canadian passenger regulations are particularly weak, while the UK, for example, inherited the Civil Aviation Authority and regulations from the 2004 European Council Directive. \r\n\"It\'s important to understand that this is not simply about the airlines,\" he said. Lukacs recommends passengers who fall victim to chatbot errors take their cases to small claims court. \"They may not be perfect, but overall a passenger has a chance of getting a fair trial.\"\r\n\r\n\r\n','2024-02-23','',3,1),(381,'US returns to lunar surface for first time in over 50 years: ‘Welcome to the moon’','The Guardians','Travel',6,81,'https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/feb/22/us-moon-landing-odysseus-intuitive-machines ','Richard Luscombe','Intuitive Machines’ spacecraft Odysseus lands after a 73-minute descent, touching down near moon’s south pole\r\nThe United States has returned to the lunar surface for the first time in more than 50 years after a privately-built spacecraft named Odysseus capped a nail-biting 73-minute descent from orbit with a touchdown near the moon’s south pole.\r\nAmid celebrations of what Nasa hailed “a giant leap forward”, there was no immediate confirmation of the status or condition of the lander, other than it had reached its planned landing site at crater Malapert A.\r\nBut later Intuitive Machines, the Texas-based company that built the first commercial craft to land on the moon, said the craft was “upright and starting to send data”.\r\nThe statement on X said mission managers were “working to downlink the first images from the lunar surface”.\r\nThe so-called “soft landing” on Thursday, which Steve Altemus, the company’s founder, had given only an 80% chance of succeeding, was designed to open a new era of lunar exploration as Nasa works towards a scheduled late-2026 mission to send humans back there.\r\n“Welcome to the moon,” Altemus said when touchdown when the 5.23pm touchdown was eventually confirmed, after about 10 minutes in which Odysseus was out of contact.                                                                                                                  \r\nIt was the first time any US-built spacecraft had landed on the moon since Nasa’s most recent crewed visit, the Apollo 17 mission in December 1972, and the first visit by commercial vehicle following last month’s failure of Peregrine One, another partnership between the space agency and a private company, Astrobotic.\r\n“Today, for the first time in more than a half century, the US has returned to the moon. Today, for the first time in the history of humanity, a commercial company, an American company, launched and led the voyage up there,” Bill Nelson, the Nasa administrator, said.\r\n“What a triumph. Odysseus has taken the moon. This feat is a giant leap forward for all of humanity.”\r\nThere was no video of Odysseus’s fully autonomous descent, which slowed to about 2.2mph at 33ft above the surface. But a camera built by students at Florida’s Embry-Riddle aeronautical university was designed to fall and take pictures immediately before touchdown, and Nasa cameras were set to photograph the ground from the spacecraft.\r\nThe 14ft (4.3 metres) hexagonal, six-legged Nova-C lander, affectionately nicknamed Odie by Intuitive Machines employees, is part of Nasa’s commercial lunar payload services (CLPS) initiative, in which the agency awards contracts to private partners, largely to support the Artemis program.\r\nNasa contributed $118m to get it off the ground, with Intuitive Machines funding a further $130m ahead of its 15 February launch from Florida’s Kennedy space center on a Falcon 9 rocket from Elon Musk’s SpaceX company.\r\nThe IM-1 mission, like the doomed Peregrine effort, is carrying a payload of scientific equipment designed to gather data about the lunar environment, specifically in the rocky region chosen as the landing site for Nasa’s crewed Artemis III mission planned for two years’ time.\r\nIt is a hazardous area – “pockmarked with all of these craters”, according to Nelson – but chosen because it is believed to be rich in frozen water that could help sustain a permanent lunar base crucial to future human missions to Mars.\r\nScientists announced last year that they believed tiny glass beads strewn across the moon’s surface contained potentially “billions of tonnes of water” that could be extracted and used on future missions.\r\nThe risks are worth it, Nelson told CNN on Thursday, “to see if there is water in abundance. Because if there’s water, there’s rocket fuel: hydrogen, and oxygen. And we could have a gas station on the south pole of the moon.”\r\nThe planned operational life of the solar powered lander is only seven days, before the landing site about 186 miles from the moon’s south pole moves into the shadow of lunar night. But Nasa hopes that will be long enough for analysis of how soil there reacted to the impact of the landing.\r\nOther instruments will focus on space weather effects on the lunar surface, while a network of markers for communication and navigation will be deployed.\r\n“Odysseus, powered by a company called Intuitive Machines, launched upon a SpaceX rocket, carrying a bounty of Nasa scientific instruments, is bearing the dream of a new adventure in science, innovation, and American leadership in space,” Nelson said.\r\nThrough Artemis, Nasa’s return-to-the-moon program that also has longer-term visions of crewed missions to Mars within the next two decades, the US seeks to stay ahead of Russia and China, both of which are planning their own human lunar landings.\r\nOnly the US has previously landed astronauts, in six Apollo missions between 1969 and 1972, while five countries have placed uncrewed spacecraft there. Japan joined the US, Russia, China and India last month when its Smart Lander for Investigating the Moon (Slim) made a successful, if awkward touchdown after a three-month flight.\r\nTwo further Intuitive Machines launches are scheduled for later this year, including an ice drill to extract ingredients for rocket fuel, and another Nova-C lander containing a small Nasa rover and four small robots that will explore surface conditions. ','2024-02-23','',3,1),(382,'U.S. government sues Apple for smartphone antitrust violations','CBC','Business & Economy',3,82,'https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/us-justice-dept-apple-1.7150800','CBC','Justice Dept. accuses tech giant of limiting choices and unnecessary fees for consumers, developers\r\nThe U.S. Justice Department on Thursday announced a sweeping antitrust lawsuit against Apple, accusing the tech giant of \"unlawful exclusionary behaviour\" by engineering an illegal monopoly in smartphones that boxes out competitors and stifles innovation.\r\nThe lawsuit, filed in federal court in New Jersey, alleges that Apple has monopoly power in the smartphone market and uses its control over the iPhone to \"engage in a broad, sustained, and illegal course of conduct.\"\r\nThe lawsuit — which was also filed with attorneys general from 15 states as well as D.C. — takes direct aim at the digital fortress that Apple Inc., based in Cupertino, Calif., has assiduously built around the iPhone and other popular products such as the iPad, Mac and Apple Watch to create what is often referred to as a \"walled garden.\"\r\nApple has defended the walled garden — meticulously designed hardware and software that can seamlessly flourish together while requiring consumers to do little more than turn on the devices — as an indispensable feature prized by consumers who want the best protection available for their personal information.                                                                                                                                                                                  \r\nIt has described the barrier as a way for the iPhone to distinguish itself from devices running on Google\'s Android software, which isn\'t as restrictive and is licensed to a wide range of manufacturers.\r\nAntitrust regulators made it clear in their complaint that they see Apple\'s walled garden most as a weapon to ward off competition, creating market conditions that enable it to charge higher prices that have propelled its lofty profit margins while stifling innovation.\r\n\"Apple undermines apps, products, and services that would otherwise make users less reliant on the iPhone, promote interoperability, and lower costs for consumers and developers,\" the Justice Department said in a statement. \"Apple exercises its monopoly power to extract more money from consumers, developers, content creators, artists, publishers, small businesses, and merchants, among others.\r\n\"If left unchallenged, Apple will only continue to strengthen its smartphone monopoly,\" Attorney General Merrick Garland said at a news conference on Thursday.\r\nApple called the lawsuit \"wrong on the facts and the law\" and said it \"will vigorously defend against it.\" The company said it would \"set a dangerous precedent, empowering government to take a heavy hand in designing people\'s technology.\"\r\n\"At Apple, we innovate every day to make technology people love — designing products that work seamlessly together, protect people\'s privacy and security, and create a magical experience for our users,\" the company said in a statement. \"This lawsuit threatens who we are and the principles that set Apple products apart in fiercely competitive markets.\"\r\nTech giants under the microscope\r\nU.S. President Joe Biden has called for the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission to vigorously enforce antitrust statutes. The administration has already triggered lawsuits against Google and Amazon, accusing them of engaging in illegal tactics to thwart competition.\r\nApple is the world\'s most prosperous company, with annual revenue of nearly $400 billion US and, until recently, a market value of more than $3 trillion. Apple\'s shares have fallen by seven per cent this year even as most of the stock market has climbed to new highs.\r\nApple\'s business interests are also entangled in the Justice Department\'s case against Google, which went to trial last fall and is headed toward final arguments scheduled to begin May 1 in Washington, D.C. In that case, regulators are alleging Google has stymied competition by paying for the rights for its already dominant online search engine to be the automatic place to handle queries on the iPhone and a variety of web browsers in an arrangement that generates an estimated $15 billion to $20 billion US annually.\r\nThe Justice Department is following up on other recent attempts to force Apple to change the way it runs the iPhone and other parts of its business.\r\nEpic Games, the maker of the popular Fortnite video game, filed an antitrust lawsuit against Apple in 2020 in an effort to break down the barriers protecting the iPhone App Store and a lucrative payment system operating within it.\r\nApple has long collected commissions ranging from 15 per cent to 30 per cent on digital transactions completed within apps, a setup that Epic alleged was enabled by an illegal monopoly that drives up prices for consumers.\r\nAfter a month-long trial in 2021, in which Apple CEO Tim Cook testified, a federal judge ruled mostly in favour of Apple, with the exception of deciding that links to competing payment options should be permitted inside of iPhone apps. Apple unsuccessfully resisted that portion of the ruling until the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal in January, forcing the company to relent. But the concessions that Apple made to comply with the ruling are still facing a \"bad faith\" challenge from Epic, which is seeking an April 30 hearing to ask for more changes.\r\nEuropean Union regulators have already vowed to crack down on Apple if they find the company\'s tactics continue to thwart true consumer choice. European regulators slapped a $2 billion US (1.8 billion euro) fine on Apple earlier this month after concluding that the company had undermined competition in the music streaming through the iPhone, despite Spotify being the leader in that market.\r\nIn Canada, the B.C. Supreme Court recently approved a $14.4-million settlement from Apple over a class-action lawsuit accusing it of deliberately providing software updates that slowed iPhone 6 and 7 models.','2024-03-21','',3,1),(383,'\'Gen X has had to learn or die\': Mid-career workers are facing ageism in the job market','BBC NEWS','Politics',1,82,'https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20240320-gen-x-workplace-ageism ','By Rebecca M Knight','Gen X workers are being passed over for roles of all kinds, especially as employers see young people as more malleable. The timing couldn\'t be worse.\r\nSince his layoff last May, Nick, a 49-year-old HR executive based in the US, estimates he\'s applied for hundreds of jobs. He secured interviews at 10 companies, and made it to the final round at four of them. Each time, the position went to a younger candidate.\r\n\"It\'s tough not to take it personally,\" he says. \"I have an excellent track record and lots of experience. A company should be lucky to have me, right?\"\r\nThroughout his search, Nick has received lots of advice on how to position himself as a job candidate in his demographic. One head-hunter suggested he remove his education dates from his LinkedIn profile to prevent employers from calculating his age. A recent encounter with a hiring manager, however, was not as subtle. \"He said to me, \'You can\'t make many more pivots in your career at this point\',\" says Nick. \"The implication was that my prior job might have been my last. It was blatant ageism.\" \r\nAgeism has long been a concern in the job market, but the confluence of mass layoffs, post-pandemic economic uncertainty and rapid technological change – including the emergence of AI – is hitting Gen Xers particularly hard.                                                                                                                                                                 According to a 2022 AARP survey, roughly 80% of workers between the ages of 40 and 65 reported having either witnessed or personally faced age discrimination at work. This percentage represents the highest recorded by the organisation since it began conducting polls on the issue among older adults in 2003.\r\nGen Xers, largely defined as people in the 44-to-59 age group, are struggling to get jobs. First, the leadership roles they would normally ascend to aren\'t open, as many Boomers are delaying retirement and clinging to their jobs. But when roles have opened, ageism is a key factor: the accelerated pace of technological advancements has led managers to prioritise digital natives for open roles, believing they are more adaptable than Gen Xers – even though experts say these judgments are unfounded, if not entirely false. \r\nIt\'s a particularly bad time for mid-career workers to be grappling with age bias, according to Christina Matz, associate professor at the Boston College School of Social Work, and director of the Center on Aging and Work. Many Gen Xers are navigating the \"sandwich\" phase of life, juggling responsibilities like childcare and support for aging parents, she says. They have burdens on both their time and their money – and most are not ready to stop working, whether because they have pressing bills to pay, retirement to save for or because they don\'t want to lose career momentum.\r\nThese factors, combined with the perception that Gen Xers don\'t quite fit into either the tech-savvy digital native or highly experienced worker categories, leave them in a uniquely vulnerable position, says Matz. \"Gen X is caught in the middle. And where does that leave them?\"\r\n\'Doddering but dear\'\r\nAge discrimination is illegal in many countries. And not only is it often difficult to prove, but its impact on people\'s careers is also very real. In some cases, like Nick\'s, older workers will be turned down for jobs; other times, they\'ll be passed over for leadership positions or overlooked for training and development opportunities.\r\nStudies show that older workers (broadly defined as those aged 55 to 64) and mid-career employees (aged 45 to 54) face a variety of stereotypes and misconceptions. Members of Gen X, born between 1965 and 1980, straddle both these age groups. \r\nAmong these biases, older workers are sometimes perceived as \"doddering but dear\". Matz says, \"They\'re labelled as slower and set in their ways, well-meaning on one hand and incompetent on the other. People of a certain age are considered out-of-touch, and not seen as progressive and innovative.\" Women face additional hurdles. Women in their 40s are often perceived as being preoccupied with family responsibilities. \"Being a woman and being older is a double whammy,\" adds Matz. \r\nAssumptions like these are not only potentially discriminatory and often inaccurate, they\'re also at odds with today\'s workforce realities, says Anne Burmeister, an Academy of Management Scholar and professor in the faculty of management, economics and social sciences at the University of Cologne, Germany. The workforce in many industrialised economies is aging and perpetuating age-based biases makes \"no business sense\", she says.\r\n\"Very few organisations recognise this external demographic trend, and even the ones that do seem to not see the urgency to act,\" she says. Instead, argues Burmeister, \"what organisations should be doing is putting in place policies that leverage older workers\' skills, expertise and experience\".\r\n\'Too experienced\' to get hired\r\nMatt Hearnden, a former executive recruiter turned career coach in London, says he\'s observed many instances of ageism second-hand while coaching his Gen X clients though their job searches. \"There\'s a perception among some hiring managers that older workers aren\'t up to date on the latest technologies,\" he says. \"For whatever reason, there\'s a sense that younger candidates are more open-minded and more easily mouldable.\"\r\nHe recently coached a software engineer in his late 40s who was struggling to land a job and support his family after being laid off at a cybersecurity firm. He says his client had received \"some coded feedback from hiring managers\" that he was \"overqualified\" and \"too experienced\" for the roles he was applying for, and therefore undesirable as a candidate.\r\nHearnden advised the engineer to emphasise his willingness to learn, teamwork abilities and overall versatility. By shifting the focus from his age and experience to his transferable skills and adaptability, the engineer was able to present himself as a more attractive potential employee. \"He ended up with a job offer, but he was stressed throughout the whole process,\" he says.\r\nEmployers\' age biases may be blinding them to talent they want and need. Older and middle-aged employees tend to have a strong work ethic and lower rates of absenteeism. Research also suggests they exhibit better emotional stability compared to their younger colleagues, and they\'re generally more adept at handling social situations in the workplace, including conflict resolution.\r\nAdrion Porter, a US-based age-inclusion advocate who consults with organisations on mid-career development and career longevity, argues that Gen Xers are more adaptable than commonly perceived. Employers often wrongly equate youth and exuberance with digital skills, says Porter, who is a Gen Xer himself. \r\nAlthough it\'s true Gen Z and millennials grew up with technology, members of Gen X have had to master many emerging technologies throughout their careers. \"We entered the workforce when email was just being introduced. First, we had to learn the internet, then Web 2.0, and now AI. Gen X has had to learn or die,\" he says.\r\n\'We\'re all getting older\'\r\nThe cruel twist of ageism in the workplace, says Porter, is that it preys upon our fears of irrelevance, and ignores the fundamental truth that ageing is universal. He says that ageism is the one \'ism\' that remains widely tolerated, \"but it\'s one dimension that everyone experiences\". After all, he says, \"We\'re all getting older.\"\r\nOne approach to addressing ageism in the workplace is through inclusivity programmes. Yet notably, in companies\' diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) strategies, \"age has been left behind\", says Boston College\'s Matz. A January 2023 report from PwC Netherlands showed that across Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria and the Netherlands, only 8% of companies\' DEI agendas address age. \r\nBurmeister contends organisations are not only holding back mid-career workers, but also missing out on the opportunity to establish age-inclusive practices, particularly in light of the demographic shifts.\r\nNick, having experienced these challenges during his 10-month job search, wholeheartedly agrees with this assessment. \"A job doesn\'t define you. I know this. But when months go by, and I\'m not getting traction, it gets hard,\" he says. \"I have to constantly remind myself that it\'s not me.\"\r\nNick has more interviews lined up in the coming weeks and remains hopeful that the next hiring manager he meets will appreciate what he brings to the table. \"Some people have this idea that 50 is old,\" he says. \"But 50 is prime.\"','2024-03-21','',3,1),(384,'Home  Industry  Construction Saudi’s Qiddiya City to build world-first Dragon Ball theme park','Gulf Business ','Art & Culture',7,82,'https://gulfbusiness.com/dragon-ball-theme-park-qiddiya-city/ ','BY GARETH VAN ZYL','The unveiling of the theme park follows the launch of Qiddiya City’s gaming and esports district\r\nQiddiya City, which is 40 minutes outside Riyadh, will be the destination for the world’s first and only theme park dedicated to the popular Japanese anime series Dragon Ball. \r\nOver the weekend, Qiddiya Investment Company (QIC) and Japan’s Toei Animation announced plans for the 500,000 square metre project which will feature rides and attractions in seven areas, inspired by the anime series’ “seven Dragon Balls”.\r\nVisitors will be able to experience the “historic journey from the first Dragon Ball series to the latest Dragon Ball Super”, the companies said in a joint statement. The unveiling of the theme park follows the launch of Qiddiya City’s gaming and esports district.\r\n“We are pleased to be partnering with Toei Animation, bringing their rich legacy of pioneering contributions to the anime industry to Qiddiya City. Dragon Ball theme park is a celebration of the diverse and vibrant world of anime, offering a unique blend of thrills, family-friendly attractions, and immersive entertainment for everyone,” said Abdullah Aldawood, managing director of Qiddiya Investment Company. \r\nKatsuhiro Takagi, the president of Toei Animation, further added that the “Dragon Ball theme park is a testament to the timeless legacy of the Dragon Ball franchise.”                                                            \r\nToei Animation’s Dragon Ball has become one of the most successful manga and anime series of all time, with the television series having been broadcast in more than 80 countries since it started in 1984.\r\nThe series follows the adventures of Goku, a young boy with a monkey tail and exceptional strength who battles evil-doers in hand-to-hand combat.\r\nNestled within Qiddiya City, just 40 minutes from Riyadh, this never-seen-before anime theme park is set to become a jaw-dropping spectacle, spanning more than half a million square metres, bringing to life the most iconic storylines, moments, and characters across all sagas.\r\nInspired by the 7 legendary Dragon Balls, visitors can navigate 7 distinctively themed zones within the park, catapulting guests into the heart of the anime action to experience the historic journey from the first Dragon Ball series to the latest Dragon Ball Super. \r\nFounded in 1956, Toei Animation has produced more than 13,700 episodes of TV series (among 236 titles) in addition to 268 long feature films.\r\nFuture Qiddiya City attraction\r\nIt’s not clear when construction will start on the development as Qiddiya City and Toei Animation have not revealed timelines. However, the companies have said that upon completion of the project “park-goers can embark on a journey and immerse themselves in interactive and explorable landmarks from the Dragon Ball sagas, such as ‘Kame House’, ‘Capsule Corporation’ and ‘Beerus’ Planet’.”\r\nMoreover, the theme park is set to offer over 30 rides. Visitors will also be able to stay at in-park hotels. \r\nQiddiya is one of Saudi Arabia’s giga-projects part of its Vision 2030 ambitions. Qiddiya’s first development will be Qiddiya City, which will be “dedicated to play and an epicentre of entertainment, sports and culture, welcoming Saudi nationals, residents, and tourists alike”.','2024-03-25','',2,1),(385,'Japan to sell fighter jets in latest break from post-war pacifist ideals','BBC NEWS','Politics',1,82,'https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-68662465 ','By Kelly Ng','Japan\'s cabinet has approved the export of new fighter jets it is developing with the UK and Italy, in the latest move away from its pacifist policies.\r\nIt eased arms export rules to allow the jets to be sold to countries that Japan has signed defence pacts with, and where there is no ongoing conflict.\r\nJapan has pledged to double military spending by 2027, citing threats posed by China and North Korea.\r\nEach fighter jet sale will require cabinet approval, authorities said.\r\nIn December 2022, Japan came on board a UK-Italy collaboration, dubbed the Tempest, to develop this new fighter jet that will use artificial intelligence and advanced sensors to assist pilots.\r\nThe jets are expected to be deployed by 2035 - in what is Tokyo\'s first defence equipment development partnership with a country other than the US.\r\nThe latest move comes ahead of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida\'s official visit to the US in April, where he is expected to stress Tokyo\'s alliance with Washington and his country\'s readiness to be more involved in defence partnerships.\r\nMr Kishida had also said that allowing the export of warplanes to third countries is \"necessary\" to maintain Tokyo\'s credibility as a partner in other future international defence projects.                                                                                                                                                                       \r\n\"The plan to make fighter jets with capabilities essential for the security of our nation must be realised to ensure that our nation\'s defences     won\'t be compromised,\" government spokesman Yoshimasa Hayashi said on Tuesday.\r\nBut Japan\'s Defence Minister Minoru Kihara clarified that that Japan would still remain committed to the \"basic philosophy of a pacifist nation\" by going through \"strict decision processes\" for exports.\r\nAfter World War Two, the US-occupied Japan adopted a constitution which says the country renounces war and the use of force to settle international disputes. The constitution does not officially recognise the military and limits it to self-defence capabilities.\r\nIt also imposed an arms export ban, which was eased for the first time in 2014 under then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.\r\nIn December 2023, Japan eased the rules further to allow the sale of lethal weapons it makes under foreign licenses to be exported to the country where the licenser is based.\r\nThis paved the way for Tokyo to send Patriot air defence missiles to the US. Patriot missiles are among the most advanced weapons supplied by the US to Ukraine','2024-03-26','',2,1),(386,'US fentanyl crisis – level 2','News in level','Health',2,82,'https://www.newsinlevels.com/products/us-fentanyl-crisis-level-2/ ','News in LEVEL','The fentanyl crisis in the US is serious. There were over 100,000 deaths reported last year, mostly due to opioids like fentanyl. They are much stronger than heroin.\r\n\r\nBrian comes from San Francisco and he was addicted to fentanyl. He was homeless for three years. He needed drugs so badly that he stole things to have money for them. He saw many people die from overdoses.\r\n\r\nBrian’s health got worse and his legs got infected. He was lucky to survive and stopped taking drugs almost one year ago. His story tells us about the troubles of addicted people and about how dangerous opioids can be.\r\n\r\nDifficult words:, addicted (when a person is not able to stop taking drugs or doing something), overdose (taking too much of a drug).','2024-03-22','',1,1),(387,'Airline starts to weigh luggage AND passengers','Breaking News English','Business & Economy',3,82,'https://breakingnewsenglish.com/2403/240304-weighing-airline-passengers-4.html ','Breaking News English','Finland\'s national airline is weighing passengers on flights from its capital city. The weigh-ins are voluntary and anonymous. They are to ensure safety standards on flights are met. Airplanes should not exceed the maximum weight for safe take-offs and landings. This weight is made up of the aircraft, the fuel, baggage, cargo, food, water, and passengers. Airlines never know the exact weight of passengers. They rely on estimates given by aviation officials.\r\nVolunteers are stepping on scales at Helsinki Airport\'s departure gates. Finnair was concerned about a customer backlash because weight is a personal topic. However, more than 1,000 passengers agreed to be weighed. The company said: \"We hope to have a good sample…so that we can get the most accurate information possible for important balance calculations.\" It said travelers could have \"peace of mind\" about their personal information.\r\n','2024-03-24','',1,1),(392,'The scavengers stalking the world\'s citie','By BBC Future Planet Team',NULL,NULL,83,'https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240423-the-scavengers-stalking-the-worlds-cities ','By BBC Future Planet Team','From ibis to hyenas, a surprising variety of scavengers have been drawn to urban life. Here\'s how they\'re thriving in cities across the globe.\r\nOn the road to Cape Point Nature Reserve, on the outskirts of the South African city of Cape Town, each day people must run the gauntlet of a gang with a habit of \"car-jacking\". \r\nThe culprits are notorious – perhaps known as much for the occasional vehicle break-in, as they are for their potently smelly breath. They are, in fact, baboons. And they have taken to life among people with surprising zeal. Further into the city, marauding troops of the primates have learned to raid bins and even invade homes, in the search for an easy meal. The scavengers have become so prolific, there is now a 24-hour baboon hotline, where residents can report offences, as well as welfare concerns. \r\nOf course, baboons are not the only wildlife that has been drawn to humanity\'s urban sprawl. Across the planet, the original inhabitants of areas now occupied by cities have been standing their ground and learning to thrive, alongside millions of people. Here are some of the extraordinary transformations that have been unfolding.  \r\n\r\nFoxes\r\nEach night, as dusk settles over cities throughout Europe, red foxes emerge from their hiding places and begin stalking the streets. Sometimes they saunter confidently along, mingling seamlessly with human pedestrians.                       Occasionally it\'s just possible to glimpse the whip of a fluffy tail, as one dives into a bin. These adaptable omnivores will forage for wild foods such as berries and insects, supplementing this with freshly-caught pigeons and scraps found in rubbish. \r\nThere are at least ten different kinds of \"true\" fox scattered throughout the planet, from the strange bat-eared fennec fox, to the charismatic Tibetan sand fox. And they have been living among people for millennia – in 1991, researchers unearthed the ancient bones of an individual in Argentina, which recent research has revealed may have been a pet. Today, foxes are thriving in urban areas, with 18 per square kilometre (45 per square mile) in London alone. They\'re also found in cities in the US, particularly in the northern and eastern parts of the country.\r\n\r\nCoyotes\r\nCoyotes have become ubiquitous in US cities in recent decades. The canines are opportunistic scavengers; they will eat whatever is available, including mice, rabbits, frogs, lizards and food waste extracted from people\'s bins. A 2022 study analysing the diet of coyotes in New York City found that they consumed large mammals such as deer and raccoons as well as human foods such as chicken, pork and beef. Their flexible diets make them highly adept at urban living. But scientists warn that their consumption of junk food may pose a risk to humans, as urban coyotes tend to carry more parasites and have unhealthier microbiomes – a trait which has been linked to aggressive behaviour. \r\n\r\nSea Gulls\r\nMany a stroll in a seaside town has been derailed by a passing seagull\'s brazen food grab. In coastal cities, it can feel like these birds are ruthless opportunists, invading towns in order to pilfer the rich pickings of picnics, barbecues, and even firmly gripped street-food snacks. In fact, it is we who have been invading the birds\' habitat. Declining fish stocks and loss of their natural habitat are thought to have contributed to city gulls\' search for food elsewhere, including cities and landfills. \r\n\"Over time, they\'ll build a repertoire of quite skilled behaviours which enables them to liberate food either from your bins or from humans directly,\" Paul Graham of the University of Sussex in the UK tells BBC News. \"I think we need to learn how to live with them.\"\r\nNext time your food is snatched by a voracious gull, perhaps consider whether we snatched their fish first.\r\n\r\nWild boar\r\nAlthough reclusive by nature, the lure of suburban life is bringing wild pigs into the lamplight. From the hills of Hong Kong to the beaches of Mediterranean Marbella, where once feral pigs rooted through soil and leaf litter, now they rummage through rubbish. In Berlin, they doze in paddling pools. In Spain, a pair snatched the Colombian pop star Shakira\'s bag. And, wherever they are, run-ins with local authorities or culling teams are often soon to follow.\r\nIn the US, where boar are non-native, they are also considered an invasive pest. With populations counted at around six million and rising, at least 35 states now report wild pig populations. The result is an estimated annual $2.5bn (£2.1bn) in damage to US crops, such as peanuts and corn.\r\nBut just because they are invasive, doesn\'t necessarily mean their impacts are all bad. In fact, new research is exploring the ways in which their rooting noses and pawing hooves might actually have benefits for local ecosystems; off-setting the grip of dominant plants and potentially mimicking the effects of ancient mega-fauna.\r\n\r\nHyenas\r\nHyenas are the infamous villains of the animal kingdom. But these scavengers are not all bad. Hyenas provide significant health and economic benefits to the African cities they stalk, according to a 2021 study by the University of Michigan. Collectively, hyenas remove 207 tonnes (456,000lb) of animal carcass waste annually in Mekelle, northern Ethiopia, preventing an estimated five infections of anthrax and bovine tuberculosis among residents and 140 infections in cattle, sheep and goats annually. In the city of Harar in eastern Ethiopia, the animals even venture inside the city\'s walls at night, where they feed on scraps and entrails left out by the city\'s butchers. Small openings in the city\'s 13th Century walls – known as hyena gates – allow the animals to pass through freely. \r\nCommunities on the fringes of Ethiopian cities value hyenas as they \"understand the sanitation services they provide,\" Chinmay Sonawane, a biologist from Stanford University in California, tells BBC Future.\r\n\r\nElephants\r\nThe animals can often be seen snuffling through reeking piles of rubbish on the outskirts of Kotdwar, a city in the Uttarakhand district of northern India. They probe the waste with their noses, occasionally pausing to gulp down any tasty morsels they discover. But these creatures are not rats or feral dogs feasting on the discarded spoils of human habitation – they are among the biggest land animals on the planet, Asian elephants.\r\nKotdwar – a rapidly growing city of estimated to have 45,000 people living there – sits on the fringes of the forest habitats where the elephants are normally found.\r\nAs human urban populations have grown close to the forests, it has presented the elephants with some novel and surprising sources for food. One study of elephant dung found in and around the forests of Uttarakhand found tell-tale signs that the animals have been foraging in human rubbish dumps for food.\r\nAnd it appears that elephants living near Kotdwar have particularly taken to this dumpster-diving lifestyle. Sadly, all samples of their dung from around Kotdwar held plastic packaging, bags, food containers and even disposable cutlery that they had eaten while seeking out leftover food, according to the researchers from the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi.\r\nIt is a habit that has also been observed among Asian elephants in Sri Lanka, where garbage dumps provide an easy food source for the animals. One study of elephants feeding on waste at a dump in southern Sri Lanka found the animals were in\"better body condition\" than those that did not forage from human rubbish. But there have also been reports of elephants dying after eating large amounts of plastic waste at dumps.\r\nThere are also concerns that, as human urban populations grow in areas where wild elephants are normally found, the risk of dangerous encounters between our species will increase. Human-elephant conflicts can often have fatal results for both sides.\r\n\r\nVultures\r\nSince ancient times, vultures have been viewed as symbols of bad luck and harbingers of death. But these scavenging birds, which exclusively eat the carcasses of dead animals, play a vital role in preventing pathogens from spreading to humans and wildlife and contaminants from leaching into the environment. Vultures are disappearing at an alarming rate in South Asia and Africa. Widespread poisoning by the veterinary painkiller diclofenac in the 1990s and 2000s led to a 99% decline in the populations of India\'s three most common vulture species. This has now stopped due to a ban on the use of the drug. In Africa, many vultures are killed because of religious beliefs, with their heads sold as good luck charms or ground up and used in traditional medicines. \r\n\r\nBears\r\nIn the US, you\'re more likely to be killed by a bee than a bear, but incidents of bears encroaching on human areas are becoming more common. Or, is it the other way around? Grizzly bears used to inhabit most of the western US, while black bears were common in forested areas throughout the country. Today, 2,000 grizzlies occupy just 6% of their historical range, while 300,000 black bears live in 50% of theirs. They\'re highly intelligent and inquisitive creatures, and their powerful noses and voracious appetite mean they\'ll go to great lengths to find food.\r\n\r\nMost bear conflicts happen when human food – like rubbish, dog food, or fruit trees – is readily available. Bears have been captured on camera breaking into homes to steal food, earning one 500lb (226kg) bear burglar the moniker \"Hank the Tank\".\r\nAlthough bear hunting is still permitted in some states, government wildlife agencies are educating the public how to peacefully coexist with bears.\r\n\r\nIbis\r\nWith plump white bodies and long leathery necks and feet, the Australian white ibis is sometimes described as graceful and elegant – at least when it is in its natural wetland habitat. In Australia\'s cities, it is a different matter. The \"bin chicken\" or \"tip turkey\", as the bird is often not-so-affectionately named, can often be found loitering around sewage treatment plants or pecking through rubbish. But though urban communities of this bird tend to be viewed more as pests than national treasures, research suggests that they might provide a vital reservoir of genetic diversity that could help to replenish wild populations elsewhere.  \r\n\r\nWasps\r\nWasps enjoy a reputation as the perennial picnic party pooper, winging in to gorge on jam sandwiches, fruit salad and other treats. But their sweet tooth may be overplayed; in the wild they will feed on carrion just as happily as they will on rotting fruit.\r\n\r\nIn areas where European wasps have made a relatively recent entrance – such as in Australia and New Zealand – scientists have been able to observe their dramatic impact on other scavenging species. A 2020 study, conducted in Australia, showed that wasps quickly arrived to feed on fresh carcasses and aggressively attacked competing blowflies – to the point where the flies were not able to lay eggs. Larger vertebrate scavengers such as dingoes were also attacked.\r\nAnd there is evidence that wasps are adapting to city life at a genetic level, too. As temperatures rise due to global climate change, one recent study found that hotter urban areas with less vegetation tend to be home to smaller wasps. This may provide an evolutionary advantage because their lighter bodies need to use less energy to stay in the air.','2024-04-24','',3,1),(393,'Switzerland says UBS may need more cash. The bank is fuming','CNN',NULL,NULL,83,'https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/24/investing/ubs-switzerland-too-big-to-fail/index.html','By Hanna Ziady, CNN','London CNN — A year after the failure of Credit Suisse, the Swiss government says UBS may have to find as much as $27 billion to absorb potential losses and protect taxpayers from ever having to bail out a major bank.\r\nNow, the giant Swiss lender is hitting back, saying its finances are robust and warning that the proposal could harm Switzerland’s standing as a global financial center.\r\nSpeaking at the bank’s annual shareholder meeting Wednesday, UBS chairman Colm Kelleher said he was “seriously concerned” about current discussions that could force the bank to hold much more cash and other liquid assets. “Additional capital is the wrong remedy,” he said.\r\n“There can be no regulatory solution for a broken business model,” he continued, referring to Credit Suisse. UBS bought its stricken rival last March in a government-orchestrated rescue aimed at preventing a global financial crisis.\r\nThe deal has proved controversial in Switzerland, which is now home to a bank with assets almost double the size of its annual economic output.\r\nKelleher argued the deal “reinforced Switzerland’s position as a leader in wealth management.”\r\nHe emphasized that UBS was “not too big to fail” and was “one of the best-capitalized banks in Europe,” with financial resources to absorb losses in excess of $200 billion.                                                 \r\n“Trust cannot be regulated. It was not too-low capital requirements that forced Credit Suisse into the historic weekend rescue,” he added.\r\nThe regulatory proposals, unveiled earlier this month, give analysts and shareholders reason to reconsider the potential benefits that UBS will derive from the biggest banking deal in history. Shares in the lender closed almost 3% lower in Zurich Wednesday.\r\nThe stock has tumbled 10% since the Swiss government published its recommendations as part of a report on banking sector stability, trimming some of the extraordinary gains notched since the deal was announced a year ago.\r\nAsked whether the proposed measures would require UBS to hold additional capital of between 15 billion and 25 billion Swiss francs ($16.4 billion-$27.3 billion), Swiss finance minister Karin Keller-Keller Sutter told the country’s Tages-Anzeiger newspaper this month that such estimates were “plausible.”\r\nThe Swiss government will publish more detailed proposals in the first quarter of next year.\r\nIn a note Tuesday, Anke Reingen, a banking analyst at RBC Capital Markets, wrote that UBS shareholders’ concerns were “justified.”\r\nInvestors are anxious because, in general, the more capital a bank has to hold in reserve the less it can return to shareholders or deploy to boost earnings.\r\nUBS is enjoying a lofty market valuation, with its shares up almost 40% over the past year. But that leaves the stock more vulnerable to declines as a result of “execution risk in the Credit Suisse integration,” suggested Citi analyst Andrew Coombs. He added that the new regulatory proposals injected “greater uncertainty” over the stock’s value.\r\nKelleher on Wednesday again highlighted the merits of the deal, while acknowledging that there was still “a long way to go” to make it a success.\r\nHe noted that the transaction added client assets equivalent to seven to 10 years of organic growth and “cements” UBS’s status as the “pre-eminent global wealth manager.”\r\n“However, to maintain this competitive edge, it is imperative that our regulatory policies ensure a level playing field,” he added. “In other words, Switzerland’s regulation must remain broadly aligned with global standards.”\r\nKelleher also defended UBS CEO Sergio Ermotti’s pay package for 2023, which drew considerable criticism from shareholders. “He arguably has the toughest job in the financial services industry globally and he has delivered,” he said.\r\nErmotti earned 14.4 million Swiss francs ($15.9 million) in 2023, making him the highest-paid bank CEO in Europe, according to Reuters.','2024-04-24','',3,1),(394,'Seafood could have higher levels of \'forever chemicals\'','Breaking News English',NULL,NULL,83,'https://breakingnewsenglish.com/2404/240418-seafood-forever-chemicals-1.html  ','Breaking News English','A study says high levels of \"forever chemicals\" may be in seafood. Forever chemicals are man-made toxins. They stay in our blood and lead to health issues. These include cancer and kidney problems. Researchers said we need safety guidelines for these chemicals in seafood, especially for marine creatures like prawns and lobster. People who love sushi and prawn cocktails may have to change their diet and eat less seafood.\r\n\r\nForever chemicals were created in the 1930s. Today, they are found in food packaging, food wrappers, and food containers. Over the decades, the chemicals have entered our food chain. A professor wants people to enjoy seafood, but also to be aware of the risks. She said: \"Our recommendation isn\'t to not eat seafood.\" She thinks it is important for us to understand more about what is in the food we eat.\r\n','2024-04-30','',1,1),(395,'Buses without drivers – level 2','News in level',NULL,NULL,83,'https://www.newsinlevels.com/products/buses-without-drivers-level-2/ ','News in LEVEL','Commuters in Seoul are using the world’s first driverless night bus.\r\n\r\nSelf-driving taxis are not so unusual anymore, but autonomous public transport in city centers is a new thing. A BBC reporter took a late-night ride on the Seoul autonomous bus. The vehicle uses modern technology which costs millions. The bus operates smoothly, but a driver is present for emergencies.\r\n\r\nSome people believe that autonomous buses will solve problems with public transport in the city, especially for late-night travelers. South Korea spends a lot of money on autonomous vehicles, but there are still troubles with it. It is expensive and it is not possible to use it everywhere.\r\n','2024-04-30','',1,1),(396,'BHP offers $39 billion for Anglo American in mining shake-up','Reuteurs',NULL,NULL,83,'https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/bhp-considering-potential-buyout-offer-anglo-american-bloomberg-reports-2024-04-24/ ','By Melanie Burton, Scott Murdoch and Anousha Sakoui','MELBOURNE/LONDON, April 25 (Reuters) - BHP Group (BHP.AX) bid $38.8 billion for Anglo American (AAL.L) on Thursday, offering a deal to forge the world\'s biggest copper miner and sending its smaller rival\'s shares 13% higher.\r\nBHP said it will offer Anglo\'s shareholders 25.08 pounds ($31.39) per share, a premium of 31%, and carve out the London-listed group\'s iron ore and platinum assets in South Africa, where BHP, the world\'s largest listed miner, has no activities.\r\nShares in Anglo were trading at 24.95 pounds at 0900 GMT.\r\nAnglo, which owns mines in countries including Chile, South Africa, Brazil and Australia, said its board was reviewing BHP\'s unsolicited, non-binding and highly conditional proposal. Under UK takeover rules, BHP has until May 22 to make a firm offer. \r\nIf agreed, a combination would create a copper mining group with around 10% of global output. It could also trigger further transactions in the sector, which has seen a rush of mergers and acquisitions as companies review portfolios to raise exposure to metals deemed critical to the global energy transition.\r\n\"This is all about copper,\" said Ben Cleary, portfolio manager at Tribeca Investment Partners.\r\n\"It\'s a good deal for BHP. Anglo is obviously very much in play now and there\'s probably room for others to interlope. This is going to set the whole sector on fire,\" said Cleary, whose firm holds shares in both companies. \r\nThe bid comes after Anglo, which had a market value of $37.7 billion at Wednesday\'s close, began a review of its assets in February in response to a 94% fall in annual profit and a series of writedowns due to a drop in demand for most of its metals.\r\nBHP, best-known for mining iron ore, copper, coking coal, potash and nickel, was valued at about $149 billion.\r\nAn Anglo deal would be the second major acquisition by BHP in about a year after its 2023 purchase of copper miner Oz Minerals. Its bid adds to a frenzy of global M&A activity, including gold giant Newmont\'s (NEM.N), opens new tab $16.8 billion buyout of Australia-based Newcrest Mining late last year.\r\nA takeover of Anglo by BHP would likely be among the 10 biggest-ever mining deals by value and has the potential to delist Anglo from the London market, a fresh blow to an exchange that is struggling to retain big companies and attract IPOs.\r\nBut some said BHP would need to offer more to get a deal.\r\n\"There is ... almost no way, in our minds, that the premium being offered by BHP is going to be enough to entice Anglo management to transact,\" said Mark Kelly at advisory firm MKP.\r\n\r\n','2024-04-25','',2,1),(397,'\'Lost\' Gustav Klimt painting sells for €30m','BBC NEWS',NULL,NULL,83,'https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-68886196 ','By Bethany Bell,','A painting by the Austrian artist Gustav Klimt that was believed lost for the past 100 years has been sold at auction in Vienna.\r\nThe unfinished work, Portrait of Fraulein Lieser, fetched €30m (£26m; $32m).\r\nIt was commissioned by a family of Jewish industrialists in 1917, a year before Klimt\'s death.\r\nHowever, there are many unanswered questions about the painting and debates about who the woman in the portrait is, as well as what happened to the painting during the Nazi era.\r\nIt is believed to depict one of the daughters of either Adolf or Justus Lieser, who were brothers from a wealthy family of Jewish industrialists.\r\nArt historians Tobias Natter and Alfred Weidinger say the painting is of Margarethe Constance Lieser, the daughter of Adolf Lieser.\r\nBut the im Kinsky auction house in Vienna, which auctioned the artwork, suggests the painting could also depict one of the two daughters of Justus Lieser and his wife Henriette.\r\nHenriette, who was known as Lilly, was a patron of modern art. She was deported by the Nazis and died in the Auschwitz concentration camp during the Holocaust.\r\nHer daughters, Helene and Annie, both survived the Second World War.\r\nThe auction house said in a statement that the exact fate of the painting after 1925 was \"unclear\".                                                                                                                   \r\n\"What is known is that it was acquired by a legal predecessor of the consignor in the 1960s and went to the current owner through three successive inheritances.\"\r\nThe identity of the current Austrian owners has not been made public.\r\nThe painting was sold on behalf of these owners and the legal successors of Adolf and Henriette Lieser, based on the Washington Principles - an international agreement to return Nazi-looted art to the descendants of the people the pieces were taken from.\r\nErnst Ploil from im Kinsky told the BBC: \"We have an an agreement, according to the Washington principles, with the whole family\".\r\nThe im Kinsky catalogue described this agreement as \"a fair and just solution\".\r\nHowever Erika Jakubovits, the executive director of the Presidency of the Austrian Jewish Community, said there were still \"many unanswered questions\".\r\nShe has called for the case to be researched by \"an independent party\".\r\n\"Art restitution is a very sensitive issue, all research must be carried out accurately and in detail, and the result must be comprehensible and transparent,\" Ms Jakubovits said.\r\n\"It must be ensured that there is also a state-of-the-art procedure for future private restitutions.\"\r\nKlimt\'s art has fetched huge sums at auction in the past.\r\nHis Lady with a Fan piece sold for £85.3m at Sotheby\'s in June 2023, making it the most valuable work of art ever sold at auction in Europe.','2024-04-24','',2,1),(398,'Anti-oil protestors try to damage the Magna Carta','Breaking News English',NULL,NULL,84,'https://breakingnewsenglish.com/2405/240513-magna-carta-5.html ','Breaking News English','Climate protestors tried to damage one of the world\'s most famous documents – the Magna Carta. Two women in their 80s went to the British Library in London and attacked the case that contained the Magna Carta. The women damaged the glass using a hammer and a chisel. Police charged them with criminal damage. The British Library said security staff prevented the women from doing further damage.  The Magna Carta stayed safe. The women are from the Just Stop Oil protest group. They held up a sign that read: \"The government is breaking the law.\"\r\n\r\nThe Magna Carta Magna Carta is a royal charter that was agreed to in 1215. It states that everyone is equal under the law. It guarantees that everyone should have a fair trial, with a jury. Historians say the document influenced the development of Western democracy, and the U.S. Constitution. The two protestors said: \"The Magna Carta is…of great importance…to our freedoms and to our laws. But, there will be no freedom, no lawfulness, no rights, if we allow climate breakdown to become the catastrophe that is now threatened.\"','2024-05-24','',1,1),(399,'Red ants in Italy','Breaking News English',NULL,NULL,84,'https://www.newsinlevels.com/products/red-ants-in-italy-level-2/','Breaking News English','Last year, scientists saw red fire ants in Europe for the first time. Now, they found red fire ant nests in Sicily, Italy.\r\n\r\nThese ants come from South America and are very dangerous and aggressive. The ants can damage plants by eating their roots, and they attack helpful insects. The EU considers these ants a serious problem. The ants probably came to Sicily from Brazil, but no one knows how.\r\n\r\nCountries like Brazil, China, and the US spend billions trying to manage these ants; however, they still cause significant damage.\r\n\r\nThe ants thrive in places with water, like gardens and playgrounds. The Sicilian government is taking action, appointing foresters to handle the situation. They use steam machines to destroy ant nests. The goal is to kill the queens to stop the colonies.\r\n','2024-05-24','',1,1),(400,'BMW and Jaguar used banned China parts - US probe','BBC NEWS',NULL,NULL,84,'https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cv2237rplg8o','Peter Hoskins,','BMW, Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) and Volkswagen (VW) used parts made by a supplier on a list of firms banned over alleged links to Chinese forced labour, a US congressional report has said.\r\nAt least 8,000 BMW Mini Cooper cars were imported into the US with components from banned Chinese firm Sichuan Jingweida Technology Group (JWD), according to the report by Senate Finance Committee chairman Ron Wyden\'s staff.\r\n\"Automakers’ self-policing is clearly not doing the job,\" the Democrat Senator said.\r\nBMW said it had \"strict standards and policies regarding employment practices, human rights, and working conditions, which all our direct suppliers must follow\".\r\nIt added it had taken steps to \"halt the importation of affected products and will be conducting a service action with customer and dealer notification for affected motor vehicles\".\r\nJaguar Land Rover told the BBC it \"takes human rights and forced labour issues seriously and has an active ongoing programme of human rights protection and anti-slavery measures\".\r\nVW did not immediately respond to a request for comment.\r\nMr Wyden also urged the US Customs and Border Protection agency to \"supercharge enforcement and crack down on companies that fuel the shameful use of forced labour in China\".                                                                                                                                      \r\nThe report added Jaguar Land Rover had imported spare parts which included components from JWD after the company was put on the banned list.\r\nJLR said it has now identified and is destroying any stock it holds around the world that include this component.\r\nIn February, VW said thousands of its vehicles, including Porsches and Bentleys, had been held by authorities because they had a component in them that breached America\'s anti-forced labour laws.\r\nVW had voluntarily informed customs officials about the issue, the report said.\r\nCongress passed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) into law in 2021.\r\nThe legislation is intended to prevent the import of goods from China\'s north-western Xinjiang region that are believed to have been made by people from the Uyghur minority group in forced labour conditions.\r\nJWD was added to the UFLPA Entity List in December 2023, which means its products are presumed to be made with forced labour.\r\nChina has been accused of detaining more than one million Uyghurs in Xinjiang against their will over the past few years.\r\nAuthorities have denied all allegations of human rights abuses in Xinjiang.\r\n“The so-called Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act by the US is not about forced labor but about creating unemployment. It does not protect human rights but, under the guise of human rights, harms the survival and employment rights of the people in Xinjiang,\" Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said.\r\n\"China strongly condemns and firmly opposes this. We will take measures to resolutely safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese enterprises.”\r\n','2024-05-21','',2,1),(401,'Parched Philippine dam reveals centuries-old town, luring tourists','NBC News',NULL,NULL,84,'https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/parched-philippine-dam-reveals-centuries-old-town-luring-tourists-rcna150540','By Reuters','NUEVA ECIJA, Philippines — Ruins of a centuries-old town have emerged at a dam parched by drought in the northern Philippines, giving residents a rare spectacle and an extra source of income in a region dependent on rice-growing.\r\n\r\nFollowing a prolonged spell with little rain, the dried-up dam has revealed parts of a sunken church and foundations of old structures from the old town in Nueva Ecija province in recent weeks.\r\n\r\n“When I heard about the sunken church of old Pantabangan town resurfacing, I got excited and wanted to see it,” said 61-year-old retired nurse Aurea Delos Santos.\r\n\r\nSome locals have cashed in on the attraction, ferrying tourists to the island. “Back then, I was only earning 200 pesos ($3.50) from fishing, but when the tourists arrived, I’m earning 1,500 to 1,800 per day,” said fisherman Nelson Dellera.\r\n\r\nThe old town was relocated in the 1970s during the construction of a dam, which now serves as the main irrigation and water source for Nueva Ecija and nearby provinces, according to the local government.\r\n\r\nThe Philippines and other countries in Southeast Asia have been grappling with extreme heat, prompting schools to suspend classes and governments to urge people to stay indoors to prevent heat stroke.','2024-05-03','',2,1),(402,'Like to bike? Your knees will thank you and you may live longer, too','NPE ILLINOIS',NULL,NULL,84,'https://www.nprillinois.org/2024-05-20/like-to-bike-your-knees-will-thank-you-and-you-may-live-longer-too','By Allison Aubrey','We are in the middle of National Bike Month, and cycling enthusiasts love to talk up the benefits of their favorite activity.\r\n\"It\'s definitely my longevity drug,\" says Brooks Boliek, 65, an avid cyclist of many decades, who used to commute to his office on a bicycle.\r\nA substantial body of evidence supports the health benefits of cycling, everything from strengthening the immune system to boosting the likelihood of living longer. Now, a new study finds people who are in the habit of riding a bike are significantly less likely to have osteoarthritis and experience pain in their knees by age 65, compared to people who don\'t bike.\r\nThe study, which was funded in part by the National Institutes of Health, and published in the American College of Sports Medicine\'s flagship peer-reviewed journal, included about 2,600 men and women, with an average age of 64 years old. They were surveyed about their physical activity over their lifetime. As part of the study, researchers took X-ray images to evaluate signs of arthritis in their knee joints. \"Bicyclers were 21% less likely to have X-ray evidence and symptoms of osteoarthritis compared to those who did not have a history of bicycling,\" explains study author Dr. Grace Lo of Baylor College of Medicine.                                                                                                                                                                             \r\n\"I was surprised to see how very strong the benefit was,\" Lo says given the profile of the participants. The people enrolled in the study were not competitive athletes, but rather \"average\" people, ranging from their mid-40\'s up to 80 years old. All of them had elevated risks of developing knee arthritis due to weight, family history or former injuries.\r\nThe study cannot prove cause and effect, given it was an observational study that assessed osteoarthritis at one point in time. But the findings, which are published in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, validate the advice many health care providers give to patients about the benefits of cycling and other non weight-bearing exercises.\r\n\"Cycling is very low impact,\" says musculoskeletal researcher Matt Harkey, an assistant professor at Michigan State University and a co-author of the study. Cycling also helps to build strength in the muscles around the knee which can help protect the joint. In addition, the rhythmic motion of pedaling on a bicycle can move synovial fluid, the viscous, egg white -like liquid in joints that helps reduce friction and absorb shock. \"What it does is help to circulate the synovial fluid throughout the joint to help to kind of lubricate [the joint] and provide nutrient delivery to the cartilage,\" Harkey says.\r\nOf course, there are many types of exercise that are good for health, though cycling seems to have a leg up when it comes to protecting joints. Oftentimes, people give up contact sports such as basketball, as they age, given the risk of injury.\r\n\"It can be expected that physical activity in which there is little weight-bearing on joints will be more beneficial than those that need constant stamping,\" such as running, says Norman Lazarus, a professor emeritus at King\'s College London, who is in his late 80\'s and is still cycling. (NPR profiled his cycling research in 2018.)\r\nLazarus says the results of the new study – pointing to a benefit – are not surprising, though he points out that biking does bring risk of injury. He says it\'s important for cyclists to understand the risk of overuse injuries as well as the importance of technique and getting a proper fitting bike. Each year, thousands of bicyclists are injured in motor vehicle crashes, and older adults are at higher risk of serious injury. Research shows it\'s safer to bike on trails or paths separated from traffic.\r\nRisks aside, research shows biking is good for longevity. \"There\'s good data to support that people live longer when they bicycle,\" says Lo. She points to a study that found people who cycled one hour per week were about 22% less likely to die prematurely. This was a study of people with diabetes, so it\'s possible that the benefits are greater for people without the disease.\r\n\"This is an exercise [people] can participate in over a lifetime,\" Lo says, and it can also be done indoors on a stationary bike. \"I think that it is a great preventative strategy for many things, including arthritis,\" she says.\r\nBiking enthusiast Brooks Boliek says cycling brings him joy and a sense of accomplishment. \"I\'m very goal oriented,\" he says, and a daily ride gives him something to focus on. \"It gives me something to live for.\"\r\nA sense of purpose that keeps his heart pumping and his muscles strong. He says he\'d love to keep riding until the day he dies.','2024-05-20','',3,1),(403,'National Sorry Day – May 26, 2024','National today',NULL,NULL,84,'https://nationaltoday.com/national-sorry-day/','Nathional today','Every May 26 in Australia, National Sorry Day reminds the colonist-descended people of the nation to remember the mistreatment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Why? During the 20th century, Indigenous children were forcibly removed from their families to be “assimilated” into white Australian culture. They are known as the “Stolen Generations.” It took several Australian government administrations coming and going before an apology was officially offered to the Indigenous Australians, but it finally was made official, and actions are still being undertaken to this day to repair the damage caused by tearing native families apart.\r\nHISTORY OF NATIONAL SORRY DAY\r\nThe first National Sorry Day was observed in 1998, a year after the first “Bringing Them Home” report — the result of a government inquiry into the child-stealing of the 20th century — was brought before the Australian Parliament. Among that report’s recommendations was the idea of an unreserved apology and the proposition that a portion of the national budget should be put towards reparations.\r\nThe formal apology came in 2008 when Kevin Rudd was Prime Minister. The best former Prime Minister John Howard had done, in 1999, was to put forth a “Motion of Reconciliation” that expressed regret and sympathy, but no admission of culpability.                                                                                                    In the meantime, there was a motion to rename the day “The National Day of Healing,” which passed in 2005.\r\nIt was really Prime Minister Rudd’s unreserved apology that really struck a chord in the hearts of Australians. It was his Parliament that adopted the goals of the “Closing the Gap” movement, which focused on the health and equality of indigenous peoples of all generations. Closing the Gap was run by Oxfam Australia between 2009 and 2019, and then was handed over to Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation (ANTaR), who still produce an annual report.\r\nNational Sorry Day is a day to acknowledge the strength of Stolen Generations Survivors and reflect on how Australians can all play a part in the healing process for the people and nation. While this date carries great significance for the Stolen Generations and other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, it is also commemorated by Australians right around the country.\r\n','2024-05-26','',3,1),(404,'Scotland after Brexit – level 2','News in level',NULL,NULL,85,'https://www.newsinlevels.com/products/scotland-after-brexit-level-2/ ','News in LEVEL','The island of Skye in Europe is feeling the negative impact of Brexit.\r\n\r\nThree generations of the McKinnon family worked in fishing, and they supported Brexit because of catch quotas. But they are now disappointed because they didn’t get much benefit. They sell langoustines, crabs, and lobsters mostly to Europe, but prices are falling, and there is more paperwork.  The Scottish salmon industry is important for jobs on Skye. It loses up to 100 million pounds a year because of Brexit. The island also lost European Union benefits and now depends on less helpful aid from Westminster.\r\n\r\nThe British government promised new markets, but Skye’s people didn’t see any benefits. Finding workers is hard, and that affects tourism and building.  Local people say that Brexit made things more expensive and harder. Some hope that Scotland will become independent and join the EU.\r\n\r\n','2024-06-11','',1,1),(405,'Cocoa farmers grow rubber – level 2','News in level',NULL,NULL,85,'https://www.newsinlevels.com/products/cocoa-farmers-grow-rubber-level-2/ ','News in LEVEL','Ivory Coast is the biggest cocoa producer, but many farmers now grow rubber instead.\r\n\r\nThey say that rubber farming is cheaper and easier. They harvest cocoa only once or twice a year, while rubber gives them money every month. Rubber production in Ivory Coast grew from 170,000 tons to 1.5 million tons in three years. Climate change and high costs make more farmers switch to rubber. Rubber trees take time to produce but need less work and have stable prices.\r\n\r\nThis change worries the cocoa industry because 90% of cocoa comes from small farmers. The cocoa industry must help poor farmers. Without help, fewer farmers will grow cocoa, which could raise chocolate prices.\r\n','2024-06-17','',1,1),(406,'Russian President Vladimir Putin to visit North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as war in Ukraine rages on','Reuters',NULL,NULL,85,'https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/world/ukraine/2024/06/17/vladimir-putin-kim-jong-un-russia/74122000007/  ','Guy Faulconbridge and Josh Smith','MOSCOW/SEOUL, June 17 (Reuters) ? Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit North Korea on Tuesday and Wednesday, the Kremlin said, a rare trip that underscores Moscow\'s burgeoning partnership with the reclusive nuclear-armed state.\r\n\r\nNorth Korean leader Kim Jong Un extended an invitation to Putin during a visit to Russia\'s Far East last September. Putin last visited Pyongyang in July 2000.\r\n\r\n\"At the invitation of the Chairman of State Affairs of the DPRK, Kim Jong Un, Vladimir Putin will pay a friendly state visit to the Democratic People\'s Republic of Korea on June 18-19,\" the Kremlin said.\r\n\r\nPutin will then visit Vietnam on June 19-20, the Kremlin said. Both visits had been expected, although the dates had not previously been announced.\r\n\r\nRussia has gone out of its way to publicize the renaissance of its relationship with North Korea since the start of the war in Ukraine, sparking alarm among the United States and its allies in Europe and Asia.\r\nWashington says North Korea has supplied weapons to Russia to help it fight in Ukraine, though Pyongyang has repeatedly denied this.\r\n\r\nFor Putin, who says Russia is locked in an existential battle with the West over Ukraine, courting Kim allows him to needle Washington and its Asian allies.\r\n\r\nUnited Nations monitors concluded that at least one ballistic missile fired from Russia at a city in Ukraine in January was made in North Korea. Ukrainian officials say they have counted about 50 such missiles delivered to Russia by North Korea.\r\n\r\n\"The list of countries willing to welcome Putin is shorter than ever, but for Kim Jong Un, this visit is a victory,\" said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul.\r\n\r\n\"Not only does the summit upgrade North Korea’s status among countries standing against the U.S.-led international order, it also helps bolster Kim’s domestic legitimacy.\"\r\n\r\nSouth Korea\'s vice foreign minister, Kim Hong-kyun, discussed Putin\'s planned visit to the north in an emergency phone call with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell on Friday, Seoul\'s foreign ministry said.\r\n\r\nThe visit should not result in more military cooperation between Pyongyang and Moscow in violation of U.N. resolutions, the South Korean ministry said.\r\n\r\nRussia says it will cooperate with North Korea and develop relations in the manner it chooses and that it will not be told what to do by any country, least of all the United States.\r\n\r\n','2024-06-17','',2,1),(407,'AI frenzy makes Nvidia the world\'s most valuable company','BBC NEWS',NULL,NULL,85,'https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cyrr40x0z2mo ','By Mitchell Labiak','Chip-maker Nvidia became the world’s most valuable company after its share price climbed to an all-time high on Tuesday.\r\nIt is now worth $3.34tn (£2.63tn), with the price having nearly doubled since the start of this year.\r\nThe stock ended the trading day at nearly $136, up 3.5%, making it more valuable than fellow tech giant Microsoft. It overtook Apple earlier this month.\r\nThe Californian company\'s meteoric rise has been fuelled by its dominance of what analysts call the \"new gold or oil in the tech sector\" - the chips needed for artificial intelligence (AI).\r\nSpeaking at an event in Copenhagen, Chris Penrose, global head of business development for telco at Nvidia, predicted further growth in the sector.\r\n“The generative AI journey is really transforming businesses and telcos around the world,\" he said.\r\n“We’re just at the beginning.”\r\nAnalysts Wedbush Securities agreed.\r\n\"We believe over the next year the race to $4 trillion market cap in tech will be front and centre between Nvidia, Apple, and Microsoft,\" it said in a note earlier this week.\r\nOther commentators though have questioned whether there will be big future gains, given the increasing competition Nvidia faces.\r\nRise and rise\r\nWhat is not in doubt though is how spectacularly it has grown.\r\nEight years ago, the stock was worth less than 1% of its current price.\r\nBack then, Nvidia\'s value came from its competition with rival AMD, in a race to make the best graphics cards.\r\nIn recent years though it has benefited from a boom in demand for chips that train and run generative AI models, the most well-known of which being OpenAI\'s ChatGPT.\r\nThe firm also benefitted significantly from a rush to mine Bitcoin in 2020, which saw a sharp uptick in sales of its graphics cards.\r\nThe rise and rise of the tech giant has been mirrored by the increasingly high profile of its boss, Jensen Huang.\r\nMeta boss Mark Zuckerberg even called the 61-year-old electrical engineer - known for his signature leather jacket - the \"Taylor Swift of tech\" for the celebrity status he has achieved.\r\nHe\'s become well-known thanks in part to his popularity in his native Taiwan, where fans treat him as a rock star - posing for photos and even asking him to sign body parts.\r\nCompetition among AI developers is fierce. Microsoft, Google-owner Alphabet, Meta and Apple are just some of the tech heavyweights battling to create a world-beating product.\r\nThis competition benefits Nvidia, which as well as developing AI tech of its own, dominates the vast majority of the AI chip market.\r\nNvidia’s sales and profit figures have surpassed many analyst expectations in recent years.\r\nIn May, after its latest set of financial results were published, Quilter Cheviot technology analyst Ben Barringer said the company had \"once again cleared a very high hurdle\".\r\n\"Demand is showing no signs of switching off either,\" he added.\r\nHowever, a minority are more cautious.\r\nIn February, Barclays credit analyst Sandeep Gupta argued that Nvidia’s large market share would be hard to maintain given the increasing number of rivals and questioned how Nvidia’s customers would monetise AI software.\r\n','2024-06-19','',2,1),(408,'King and world leaders attend emotional D-Day events','BBC NEWS',NULL,NULL,85,'https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn44ed7yelzo','By Robert Plummer','King Charles and the Prince of Wales joined world leaders and veterans at a series of events to mark the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings.\r\nBoth royals made speeches in France on Thursday, praising the \"bravery and sacrifice\" of those who \"served at that critical time\".\r\nThe King laid a wreath at the British Normandy Memorial in Ver-sur-Mer, near Gold Beach, with a note attached touching on the sacrifices made on D-Day.\r\nLater in the day, Prince William joined heads of state at Omaha Beach in Saint-Laurent-sur-Mer for the final event of the two-day commemorations.\r\nIn a speech at the British war memorial in France, the King said the lesson to learn was that free nations must stand together to oppose tyranny.\r\n\"Our obligation to remember them, what they stood for, and what they achieved for us all, can never diminish,\" the King told the delegation at a sombre and emotional commemoration.\r\nUK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Labour leader Keir Starmer attended the same ceremony as the King, in what may be one of few remaining anniversaries that D-Day veterans will attend.\r\nOn 6 June 1944, tens of thousands of soldiers landed on five beaches in Normandy in northern France.\r\nThe landings were the start of the campaign to liberate Nazi-occupied north-western Europe.\r\nFive years ago, 225 British veterans travelled to Normandy for commemorations. This year, there were 23, including some centenarians.\r\nOne US Navy veteran travelling to France, Robert \"Al\" Persichitti from Rochester, New York, died on his way to the event, a veteran organisation has confirmed.\r\nHe was airlifted to a hospital in Germany on 30 May after suffering a medical emergency aboard a ship heading to Europe. He died the following day, aged 102.\r\nThursday\'s commemorations began early in the day with a military piper at Gold Beach in Arromanches, who played a lament at sea at 07:26, marking the exact moment when the invasion began.\r\nThat heralded a series of re-enactments, military flyovers and memorial services in several locations.\r\nThose present at Thursday\'s events also included US President Joe Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau - the leaders of the other main powers involved in the landings.\r\nPrince William was at the Canadian commemorative ceremony at Juno Beach, where he thanked Canadian veterans for their \"extraordinary acts of bravery and sacrifice\".\r\n\"We continue to honour every Canadian, who gave so much, every Canadian family who lost a loved one,\" he said.\r\nHe ended his speech by saying in French: \"Thank you for our freedom, and thank you for your service.\"\r\nMr Trudeau also paid tribute, saying: \"We must all continue to stand for democracy day in day out, we owe it for future generations.\"\r\nPrince William sat alongside world leaders at the final event of the commemorations, the international memorial ceremony at Omaha Beach.\r\nWilliam spoke to President Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky ahead of the event.\r\nMr Sunak did not attend the Omaha Beach ceremony, but UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron and Mr Starmer were both present.\r\nDuring the event, President Biden said that what happened 80 years ago in Normandy did not absolve modern generations from doing what had to be done today.\r\n\"Democracy is never guaranteed,\" he said. It had to be preserved and fought for, he added.\r\nMr Biden said the struggle of Ukrainians in the face of Russian aggression captured the spirit of D-Day.\r\nHe described the conflict as being part of an unending struggle between dictatorship and freedom.\r\n\'Heroes in the shadows\'\r\nAt the Gold Beach ceremony, President Macron honoured the bravery and sacrifice of those who fought.\r\n\"France will never forget the British troops who landed on D-Day and all their brothers-in-arms,\" he said.\r\n\"That faith in freedom which you have never lost, that constant selflessness and devotion both guide us and serve as a duty to us.\"\r\nMr Macron awarded Légion d\'Honneur medals to veterans including Christian Lamb, now 103, who spent the war as an officer in the Women\'s Royal Naval Service.\r\nIn 1944, she helped plan the D-Day landings from Churchill\'s secret war rooms in London.\r\n\"You were one of the heroes in the shadows,\" the French president told her.\r\nOther veterans present included 99-year-old Joe Mines, who landed on Gold Beach 80 years ago.\r\nIn words read by actor Martin Freeman, Mr Mines said he had come back \"to pay my respect to those who didn\'t make it\".\r\nRoy Hayward, now 99, took part in the landings as a trooper in the Sherwood Rangers and was badly wounded in the assault.\r\n\"The tank was hit and I was so badly damaged they had to amputate both legs below the knee,\" he told the BBC. \"I always consider myself one of the lucky ones that survived, because so many of us didn’t.\"\r\nAlso taking part in the day of tributes were President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. No Russian official was invited.\r\nMeanwhile, American actor Tom Hanks and film director Steven Spielberg joined the commemorations in Normandy.\r\nTheir 1998 film Saving Private Ryan depicted the US landings on Omaha Beach in its famed opening battle scene.\r\nThe film is being shown in around 300 French cinemas on Thursday to mark D-Day.','2024-06-06','',3,1),(409,'Burkina Faso named most neglected crisis for second year in a row','CNN',NULL,NULL,85,'https://edition.cnn.com/2024/06/03/africa/burkina-faso-most-neglected-crisis-intl/','By Eve Brennan','Burkina Faso has been named the world’s most neglected displacement crisis by the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) for the second year.\r\n\r\nIn its annual report, released Monday, the NRC said the West African country saw a record-high 707,000 new displacements in 2023, driven by escalating violence and a worsening humanitarian crisis.\r\n\r\nNine out of the 10 most neglected crises outlined in the report were in Africa, with Cameroon, Central African Republic, Mali, and Niger holding the second to fifth positions respectively.\r\n\r\nThe NRC said in a press release Monday its criteria for neglected displacement crises are: “lack of humanitarian funding, lack of media attention, and a lack of international political and diplomatic initiatives compared to the number of people in need.”\r\n\r\nThe NCR report said 2023 saw a record-breaking shortfall in aid budgets of around $32 billion, leaving more than half of humanitarian needs worldwide unmet.\r\n\r\nNeglect now ‘the new normal’\r\nThe report said media coverage of the displacement crisis in Burkina Faso and international political engagement with the crisis were “negligible” in 2023, adding that only 37% of requested humanitarian funding had been received by the country, leaving a significant gap in aid.\r\n\r\n“The utter neglect of displaced people has become the new normal,” said Jan Egeland, Secretary General of NRC.\r\n\r\n“The local political and military elites disregard the suffering they cause, and the world is neither shocked nor compelled to act by stories of desperation and record-breaking statistics. We need a global reboot of solidarity and a refocus on where needs are greatest.”\r\n\r\nThe report added that media coverage in Burkina Faso also declined as “access became more difficult for both journalists and humanitarian organizations.”\r\n\r\nBurkina Faso is currently under military rule after a junta staged a coup d’état in July 2022. Its junta, headed by acting president Captain Ibrahim Traore, has prioritized security due to the multiple lives claimed by attacks.\r\n\r\nBut in April this year, a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report found that more than 200 people were killed by the country’s military in a campaign against civilians accused of collaborating with armed groups, alleging these could amount to war crimes.\r\n\r\nBurkina Faso said it “firmly rejects and condemns such unfounded accusations,” in a government press release.\r\n\r\nThe country’s media regulatory body, the Superior Council for Communication, announced in the following days it was temporarily suspending broadcasting and access to websites of some western news organizations including the French TV5 Monde and Le Monde, the Guardian, as well as BBC Africa and VOA.\r\n\r\nThe Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) remained one of the most neglected crises for the eighth consecutive year, with around 6.9 million people displaced by the end of 2023, mainly in the eastern provinces, the report said.\r\n\r\nA lack of aid forced people to resort to negative coping mechanisms, including exchanging sexual favors for food, money, and other survival needs, the report stated.\r\n\r\nSudan came in at number ten. Although the war which broke out in April last year has resulted in a death toll in the tens of thousands, more than eight million people internally displaced and nearly 25 million people in need of aid, the NRC remarked the crisis has been “grossly neglected.”\r\n\r\nRecurrent attacks\r\nViolence-related deaths in Burkina Faso doubled in 2023, according to the NRC. The country faces recurrent attacks often blamed on “terrorists.”\r\n\r\nIn February last year, the murder of two Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) aid workers led the organization to suspend activities in the region. By the end of the year, up to two million people were trapped in 36 blockaded towns, with over 40,000 facing catastrophic food insecurity, according to the report.\r\n\r\nA displaced mother in northern Burkina Faso, Asseta, shared her struggle with NRC researchers: “When we have nothing to cook, I pick leaves and boil them in water,” she said, as quoted in the organization’s release.\r\n\r\n\r\nEgeland emphasized the growing difficulty in reaching those in need due to dangerous roads and the prohibitively expensive minimal air services.\r\n\r\n“Donors and humanitarians must prioritize areas that are out-of-sight to ensure they do not become out-of-mind,” he urged.\r\n\r\nThe NRC says around 6.3 million people will need humanitarian assistance in 2024, with over two million remaining internally displaced.\r\n\r\nHundreds of civilians have already been killed in attacks this year, including around 170 in three villages in March, and approximately 30 in separate mosque and church attacks in February.\r\n\r\nThe NRC’s report noted that many neglected crises are interconnected, with ripple effects beyond borders affecting neighboring countries and sometimes causing broader regional impacts.\r\n\r\nCompetition over resources between refugees and local communities, driven by a lack of funds, can also cause tension.\r\n','2024-06-04','',3,1),(410,'A robot makes fries – level 2','News in level',NULL,NULL,86,'https://www.newsinlevels.com/products/a-robot-makes-fries-level-2/','News in LEVEL','In California, US, Miso Robotics, an automation company, developed a robot which works in fast food restaurants.\r\n\r\nAt first, the robot only turned burgers, but workers soon realized that it could do more tasks. Now, the robot does several tasks at once. For example, it prepares French fries or onion rings.\r\n\r\nWhen an order comes, the robot automatically receives instructions, it takes a frozen product, fries it for the precise amount of time, and puts the finished product in a box. The robot uses special arms that look similar to those in car factories. The advantage is that the robot can do many tasks at the same time, which saves a lot of time and work.\r\n\r\nThe robot uses AI and cameras and is faster than humans. It prepares meals for the right amount of time, and people are happy that they don’t have to do the work, especially at night.','2024-08-14','',1,1),(411,'Mac and cheese for life! Philippines’ heartfelt gifts to Carlos Yulo after double Olympic gold','The Guardians',NULL,NULL,86,'https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/05/paris-olympics-2024-carlos-yulo-artistic-gymnastics-floor-vault-philippines-gifts-gold','Rebecca Ratcliffe ','Pledges of pesos, property and pasta as ‘Caloy’ makes history for his country with floor exercise and vault victories in artistic gymnastics\r\n\r\nThe Filipino gymnast Carlos Yulo’s historic double gold medal win at the Paris Olympics has been celebrated across the Philippines, with businesses showering the athlete with gifts – from cash and a new home, to a lifetime supply of mac and cheese.\r\n\r\nFerdinand Marcos, the president, said the Philippines had “witnessed history” when Yulo became the first Filipino man to win an Olympic gold medal after competing in the artistic gymnastic floor exercise on Saturday. He is only the second Filipino athlete to win an Olympic gold, after weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz in 2020. On Sunday, Yulo soared to the top of the podium again in the vault, thus becoming the first Filipino to win two golds – and at a single Olympics.\r\n\r\n“No words can express how proud we are of you,” Marcos said. “Filipinos all over the world stood united, cheering and rooting for you.”\r\n\r\nCarlos was described as a “sports hero” and “national treasure” by the speaker of the lower house, Ferdinand Martin Romualdez. Yulo will be given 6m Philippines pesos (£81,319/US$103,676) and a congressional medal, and is due to receive 10m pesos under a law that promises incentives to athletes.\r\n\r\nPrivate sector companies, big and small, announced a flurry of gifts, including a fully furnished three-bedroom unit worth 32m pesos (£433,444/US$552,802) in Taguig City, Metro Manila. Yulo was also offered lifetime supplies of free buffets, baked mac and cheese, and chicken inasal, a grilled chicken dish, by various chain restaurants.\r\n\r\nA car lights specialist offered him a free set of headlights and fog lights for his vehicle, while a wedding photographer pledged free services to the 24-year-old and another business offered a lifetime supply of phone cases. A Filipino doctor pledged free consultation and endoscopic procedures for Yulo when he turned 45, as well as to any patients in need whom Yulo would like to endorse.\r\n\r\nYulo collapsed to the ground in tears when he realised he had secured the gold on Saturday. “I don’t know what to say,” he said. “We are a really small country … So to be able to get a gold medal for us is big for us, huge. I dedicate this to the Filipino people who supported me.”\r\n\r\nYulo has been offered franchises for a coffee and a lemon drink business, and a P10m brand ambassadorship contract for a beauty clinic, according to company announcements on social media.\r\n\r\nThose who share the same name as Yulo are also in luck, as celebrations sweep the country. Cafes and restaurants have offered free meals or milkshakes to anyone named Carlos, Caloy (his nickname) or Edriel (his middle name), while a music venue offered free entry over the weekend to anyone whose name began with C.\r\n','2024-08-05','',2,1),(412,'Trump and Harris battle over election’s biggest issue','BBC NEWS',NULL,NULL,86,'https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgl2xjxlz3xo ','Sarah Smith','After almost a year off the platform, Donald Trump returned to X this week and asked his 89 million followers: “Are you better off now than you were when I was president?”\r\nIt was a clear echo of the famous quote from Ronald Reagan during his victorious 1980 presidential campaign, when he asked: “Are you better off today than you were four years ago?”\r\nThis messaging isn’t surprising. It seems like an obvious strategy for Trump to focus on the economy.\r\nThat’s because polls consistently suggest it’s the issue American voters care about the most. One such poll conducted by The Economist and YouGov in recent days listed “inflation/prices” and “jobs and the economy” among voters’ top concerns.\r\nPerhaps more importantly, polls also indicate voters are deeply unhappy with the current state of affairs.\r\nThat seems like a perfect situation for any presidential challenger.\r\nBut in an election that’s been transformed by Kamala Harris taking over from Joe Biden as the Democratic candidate, Trump seems to be struggling to land his simple message on the economy.\r\nIt is less than a month since he was on stage at the Republican National Convention looking unbeatable, having survived an assassination attempt and riding high in the opinion polls.\r\nNow, he has lost that lead and seems to have lost his way. Meanwhile, in the opposition corner, Ms Harris is riding a wave of excitement and enthusiasm that he is finding difficult to counter.\r\nThe easiest way to burst her bubble would be to remind voters how unhappy they are about high prices and blame her for the inflation that has pushed up the cost of living during the time she has been beside President Biden in the White House.\r\nOne of the reasons Trump is failing to land that message is the Harris campaign’s strategy of putting proposals to try to lower the cost of living at the heart of her pitch.\r\nIn a speech in North Carolina on Friday, Ms Harris promised to expand child tax credits, help people to purchase their first homes, and to encourage the building of more affordable housing.\r\nShe also said she hoped to tackle the persistently high price of food and groceries by banning “price gouging” or excessive corporate profiteering.\r\n\"By any measure, our economy is the strongest in the world,” she said. “Many Americans don\'t yet feel that progress in their daily lives.\"\r\nJoe Biden and Kamala Harris ought to be able to boast about some very good economic indicators. There is strong growth, record levels of job creation, and this week the inflation rate fell below 3% for the first time during Mr Biden’s presidency.\r\nBut because prices are still high, voters don’t feel any better off. Voters don’t care about the rate of inflation – they care about the level of prices.\r\n“A central banker wants inflation to get back to target. A shopper wants his or her old price back,\" Jared Bernstein, the chair of President Biden’s Council of Economic Advisers, said in a July speech.\r\nWhen it comes to the economy, “the vibes are off”.\r\n“Vibes matter,” Mr Bernstein said.\r\nSo will the bad economic vibes hurt the Harris campaign?\r\nThat is what I asked voters over lunch at a crab shack on the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland.\r\nJeff Tester, who works in a nearby marina, said high prices are really hurting him.\r\n“I get paid by the hour. I get up to go to work every day. I think you have to do that to get the American dream,” he said. “But I just know it\'s getting harder.”\r\nAnd he is very clear about who he sees as responsible. “I blame the Democrats. I believe their policies are hurting the working man,” he said.\r\nEvery diner I met complained about inflation, but not everyone held Mr Biden or Ms Harris responsible.\r\nDan Nardo, a retired boat broker, said he believed the pandemic, oil prices, foreign wars and supply chain issues have more to do with price rises than the US president.\r\nHis friend Randy Turk, a retired lawyer, told me that he felt a new administration is likely to follow a similar path to try to reduce inflation, regardless of who wins.\r\n“It\'s not like a different president can really make that much of a difference,” he said.\r\nMs Harris struggled for prominence and media coverage during most of her time as vice-president. Previously that was seen as a weakness. But if it means she can emerge untainted by “Bidenomics”, it could be one of her greatest strengths.\r\nRuth Igielnik, polling editor at the New York Times, says the latest data she has collected suggests “voters very much tied their negative feelings about the economy to Joe Biden”.\r\nTalking to me on the BBC’s Americast podcast, she explained that in her polling Trump is still favoured on the economy, but where he once had an 18-point lead over Mr Biden he now leads Ms Harris by only about 8 points.\r\n“That makes me think voters aren’t necessarily attaching their feelings about the economy to her,” she said.\r\nA separate poll this week conducted for the Financial Times and the University of Michigan Ross School of Business indicated Ms Harris holds a narrow lead over Trump on who Americans trust to handle the economy.\r\nNo wonder Republicans are publicly begging Trump to focus on the issues, the economy in particular, and stop launching personal attacks against Ms Harris.\r\nIn a speech this week, Trump told supporters he was going to talk about the economy but struggled to stay on topic.\r\n“They say it’s the most important subject,” he said, \"they\" referring to his advisers and strategists who believe this is his strongest line of attack.\r\n“I’m not sure it is. But they say it’s the most important,” he added, before going on to list immigration, crime and the way Ms Harris laughs as top issues. You could practically hear his campaign managers pulling their hair out.\r\n“Voters don’t care about personalities or who is drawing larger crowd sizes,” said Matt Terrill, former chief of staff for Marco Rubio’s presidential campaign.\r\n“Independent, undecided, swing voters in key states care about the economy and inflation so just focus on those core issues,” he said.\r\n“Stay focused on talking about how you are going to make the lives of Americans better over the next four years.”\r\nIt was back in 1992 that the Democrat Jim Carville coined the slogan “It’s the economy, stupid” while he was working on Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign.\r\nIt’s advice that every campaign since has clung to. But Trump, this time around, seems to be finding it uncommonly difficult to stick with.\r\nIt ought to be a winner for him. After all, according to the Financial Times poll, in answer to his question “Are you better off now than you were when I was president?” only 19% of voters say they are.','2024-08-17','',3,1),(413,'DR Congo prison break – level 2','News in level',NULL,NULL,86,'https://www.newsinlevels.com/products/dr-congo-prison-break-level-2/','News in LEVEL','In the Democratic Republic of Congo, an attempted prison escape at Makala prison in Kinshasa \r\nled to at least 129 deaths.\r\nPeople living nearby heard gunfire early on Monday morning. The prison had other escapes, like \r\nin 2017, when over 4,000 prisoners ran away. This time, the prisoners set the prison’s office \r\nbuilding on fire, and the situation became very dangerous. Some women prisoners were also hurt \r\nduring the event.\r\nAt first, the government said only two people died, but later they claimed many more. They \r\npromised to find out who was responsible. The prison is very overcrowded. It currently holds\r\nabout 15,000 people, though it should hold only 1,500.','2024-09-06','',1,1),(414,'X blocked in Brazil after supreme court panel upholds suspension order','CNBC',NULL,NULL,86,'https://www.cnbc.com/2024/09/02/x-blocked-in-brazil-after-court-majority-upholdssuspension-order.html?msockid=277208f843906bbc23581a53423e6a92','Lora Kolodny','A panel of Brazil’s federal supreme court justices voted unanimously to uphold orders\r\nsuspending the use of Elon Musk’s social network X nationwide.\r\nOne justice, Luiz Fux, voted to uphold but expressed “reservations” about a measure of the order \r\nthat allows the court to fine individuals or businesses that engage in “subterfuge,” for example \r\nusing VPNs, to use X while it is blocked.\r\nThe court’s top justice, Alexandre de Moraes, had issued the controversial suspension orders late \r\nFriday after warning on Wednesday that Musk and X had 24 hours to appoint a legal \r\nrepresentative for their business in Brazil or face “penalty of suspension of activities.” X had \r\nearlier defied court requests to take down accounts or posts that it said violated Brazil’s laws on \r\npolitical misinformation and hate speech online.\r\nThe court also froze the financial assets of another Musk-led business, satellite internet service \r\nStarlink, in Brazil to ensure his social network would pay its fines.\r\nBrazil’s telecoms regulator Anatel instructed internet service providers including Starlink to \r\nblock access to X in the country until it complies with the court orders. However, Brazil-based\r\nUOL reported, Starlink has informed the regulator it does not intend to comply with the orders, \r\nand now faces the possibility of Brazil revoking its licenses to operate there.\r\nBrazil’s suspension of X was in effect by early Saturday, making the app and website mostly \r\ninaccessible to users in the country, a major non-NATO ally to the U.S. with a highly online \r\npopulation.\r\nMusk and his companies have said they view de Moraes actions as “illegal,” and the court’s \r\norders as having been issued without due process. The tech billionaire has been ramping up\r\ninsults and calls to impeach de Moraes throughout the week. Musk escalated his rhetoric over the \r\nLabor Day weekend in the U.S.\r\nHe called for ending U.S. foreign aid to Brazil, adding that “there will be reciprocal confiscation \r\nof assets of those who support the current regime in Brazil to pay for their illegal actions,” \r\nwithout providing any evidence to support his statement.\r\nOn Monday, Musk called de Moraes a “criminal” and wrote in another post on X, “Unless the \r\nBrazilian government returns the illegally seized property of and SpaceX, we will seek reciprocal \r\nseizure of government assets too.”\r\nThe Associated Press reported the blocking of X in Brazil had “divided users and politicians over \r\nthe legitimacy of the ban,” and that many Brazilians “had difficulty and doubts over navigating \r\nother social media in its absence.”\r\nHowever, some social media users in Brazil are moving to other social networks. Bluesky on \r\nAug. 30 disclosed “new all-time-highs for activity” from users in Brazil.\r\nSpaceX and Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday.\r\nMusk has billed himself as a free speech proponent, but his track record is inconsistent. While he \r\nhas resisted orders to remove accounts or content from authorities in Brazil and Australia, under \r\nhis management, X has removed content critical of ruling parties in Turkey and India','2024-09-02','',2,1),(415,'Athletes who have competed in multiple Paralympics say reaching equality will take more  work','apnews',NULL,NULL,86,'https://apnews.com/article/paralympics-impact-culture-discrimination-stutzman- 9a39614601a0b4d99bf04eb5d97404ac','By  AMANDA VOGT','Before 2012, Matt Stutzman couldn’t get a job. Then, he became a Paralympian.\r\nIt changed his life for the better, as it has for other veterans of the Games. But he, like other \r\nathletes who have experienced the growth of the Paralympics, still thinks it will take years more \r\nof promotion and hard work by athletes with disabilities to get something like equal footing with \r\nable-bodied athletes.\r\n“People would see that I had no arms, and they just wouldn’t give me the chance to prove that I \r\ncould work,” Stutzman, the compound open archer, says in an interview at Team USA House. \r\n“They literally would be like, ‘If you had prosthetic arms, I would hire you.’ and I was like \r\n‘What?’”\r\nIt’s not an unusual story. In interviews with more than a half-dozen longtime Paralympians this \r\nweek, they all noted that, as much as they want to see greater acceptance of disabled athletes, it \r\nstill has come a long way.\r\nAmerica’s most decorated wheelchair racer, Tatyana McFadden, experienced a very different \r\nscene from Paris when she debuted in Athens in 2004. She and her teammates didn’t even have \r\nmatching uniforms, she recalled.\r\n“When I tell the young ones, I’m like, ‘So many people before you paved the way so you can all \r\nhave the same kits!’” she said. “So, yeah, it’s changed for the better.’”\r\nSeveral veteran para-athletes reflected on stories told by their predecessors about how, during the \r\n1996 Atlanta Paralympics, they could count the fans in the stands. Crowds started arriving in \r\nLondon, the Paralympics that holds the record for ticket sales at 2.7 million. In Rio de Janeiro, \r\nfans could use an app to purchase tickets, while in Paris, venues are reaching near capacity and \r\ncrowds are enthusiastic.\r\n“It didn’t kind of have the credibility that it has now,” says Aaron Phipps, who’s been a member \r\nof Britain’s wheelchair rugby team since 2012.\r\nAltering perception\r\nThe Paralympic movement isn’t limited to the Games played every four years. It’s also about \r\neducating people around the world regarding what it means to live with a disability. It varies \r\ndepending on the person, but experienced Paralympians often see themselves as advocates as \r\nwell as athletes.\r\nSports like wheelchair rugby, where players crash into one another, sometimes shocks those new \r\nto the Paralympic scene. But there’s nothing to be afraid of, Phipps says, Paralympians don’t \r\nwant to be viewed differently. Once that shock disappears, disability becomes normalized.\r\nThe growth of social media has only helped. The Paralympics TikTok account has nearly five \r\nmillion followers — going viral is getting people interested and curious.\r\nVeterans say there’s less staring at them on the streets of Paris than in previous host cities, yet \r\nlingering skepticism about what these athletes are capable of remains.\r\nThe same venues are used for the Olympics and Paralympics, including the triathlon route. On \r\nMonday, the Seine’s current was strong, and Lauren Steadman — a British veteran who \r\ncompeted in her first Paralympics in Beijing in 2008 and won bronze in the PTS5 class for people \r\nwith an issue in both forearms along with leg and ankle impairments — had no doubt every \r\ncompetitor was equipped to handle the conditions.\r\n“Many would’ve been like, ‘You’re doing that to Paralympians? You’re putting them on a tough \r\ncourse?’ Actually, yeah. We don’t need it to be easier,” Steadman says. “You’re just asking us to \r\nfind a way and we did.”\r\nMeanwhile, for events and media interviews, Team USA House is open for Paralympians just as \r\nit was for Olympians.\r\nGender disparity\r\nLike McFadden, swimming star Jessica Long’s first Paralympics was the 2004 Athens Games. \r\nTogether, they were two of 1,149 females competing, representing just over 30% of all athletes.\r\nWomen make up 45% in Paris, and the U.S. veterans are two of nearly 2,000.\r\nScout Bassett, who competed in Rio and is the president of the Women’s Sports Foundation, says \r\nthe lower percentage of female athletes in para sports links to how women with disabilities are \r\npresented in mainstream media and entertainment.\r\n“The disability becomes the deficiency, the imperfection, because she doesn’t measure up to the \r\nideal version of what a beautiful woman is,” Bassett says at Team Great Britain’s House during \r\nan event hosted by CitiBank.\r\nBassett created a fund that’s dedicated to investing in female athletes. Grant recipients Jaleen \r\nRoberts and Julia Gaffney have already medaled in Paris.\r\nGrowing para sports for women sometimes fall on the veterans. They’re the ones up-and-coming \r\npara stars are looking to.\r\n“I don’t want to be inspirational for going to the grocery store or putting on my shoes,” Long \r\nsays. “If you can be inspired by my true talent in the pool and if you understand what I’m doing \r\nto navigate my body, then I think that is amazing, right?”\r\nLong later won the S8 400-meter freestyle for swimmers with the absence of limbs for her 30th \r\noverall medal and 17th gold.\r\nPlatform with a purpose\r\nWhile medals are what they compete for, many Paralympians strive to leave a legacy of impact. \r\nThey’ve witnessed what the Games were, are experiencing how it is now, and have visions for \r\nwhat they want it to become.\r\n“If you don’t use your platforms, it’s going to stop with you,” Stutzman says. And if the next \r\nathletes “don’t do what I did, as ffar as just promoting and pushing and inspiring the world, we’re \r\ngonna go steps backwards.”\r\n','2024-09-02','',3,1),(416,'Digital parenting – level 2','News in level',NULL,NULL,87,'https://www.newsinlevels.com/products/digital-parenting-level-2/ ','News in LEVEL','Many parents now check their children’s locations and online activities to keep them safe.\r\n\r\nSome children feel okay with this, as it makes them feel safe. But others feel their parents control them too much which impacts their social lives or schoolwork. Some teenagers find ways to get around these controls and to hide what they do.\r\n\r\nExperts say that when parents are too strict, kids may rebel and break the rules. It is better to talk with children openly about technology and teach them to choose carefully what they do. As children grow older, they should learn to be responsible online, and parents should stop monitoring them. Some teens think they should stop being tracked by the time they are 16.','2024-09-23','',1,1),(417,'Swiss voters reject biodiversity initiative, dismaying conservationists','By Reuters',NULL,NULL,87,'https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/swiss-voters-reject-biodiversity-initiative-dismaying-conservationists-2024-09-22/ ','By Reuters','ZURICH, Sept 22 (Reuters) - Voters in Switzerland on Sunday rejected a proposal to make authorities do more to protect natural habitats from pollution and development, preliminary results of a referendum showed.\r\nThe so-called \"biodiversity initiative\", which the government and parliament had already rebuffed, envisaged changing the law to set aside more land for conservation beyond areas that are already protected in the Alpine republic.\r\n\r\nThe initiative has been closely watched by conservationists outside the country at a time when concerns over global biodiversity loss are growing.\r\nIn one of Switzerland\'s traditional exercises of direct democracy, well over 60% of voters rejected the plan, according to a projected result published by national broadcaster SRF.\r\nThe proposal also intended to increase protections for endangered ecosystems in a country renowned for its sparkling lakes and snow-capped mountains.\r\n\r\nBy mid-afternoon, the initiative had been rejected by too many cantons to pass, an official partial tally showed.\r\nThe Swiss Green party expressed disappointment at the results and said more needed to be done to protect the environment, warning that a third of all species and half of all habitats in Switzerland are under threat.\r\n\"This problem will remain regardless of the outcome of the vote,\" the party said in a statement.\r\n\r\nTo opponents, which included the country\'s main farming lobby, the initiative was too extreme, and posed risks to business development. Switzerland\'s current laws already take into account conservation needs, they said.\r\nInitial support in opinion polls for the biodiversity scheme had in recent weeks given way to greater skepticism as opponents mobilized arguments against it.\r\nEarlier this year, Europe\'s top human rights court ruled that Switzerland was not doing enough to arrest the impact of climate change. The Swiss government denies this.\r\n','2024-09-22','',2,1),(418,'Gen Z and millennials are increasingly ‘doom spending.’ Here’s what it is and how to stop it','CNBC',NULL,NULL,87,'https://www.cnbc.com/2024/09/23/young-people-are-doom-spending-heres-what-it-is-and-how-to-stop-it.html ','Sawdah Bhaimiya','Some young people are splashing out on luxuries like travel and designer clothes instead of saving, in a trend that’s being characterized as “doom spending” on social media.\r\n\r\nDoom spending is when a person mindlessly shops to self-soothe because they feel pessimistic about the economy and their future, according to Psychology Today.\r\n\r\nThe practice is both “unhealthy and fatalistic,” Ylva Baeckström, a senior lecturer in finance at King’s Business School and a former banker, told CNBC Make It.\r\n\r\nIt’s happening because young people are chronically online and feel like they’re constantly receiving “bad news,” she said. “It makes them feel like Armageddon.”\r\n\r\nThese young people are then translating these bad feelings into bad spending habits, Baeckström added.\r\n\r\nIn fact, 96% of Americans are concerned about the current state of the economy and more than a quarter are doom spending to deal with the stress, an Intuit Credit Karma survey of over 1,000 Americans found in November 2023.\r\n\r\nAnd the phenomenon is not exclusive to America.\r\n\r\nStefania Troncoso Fernández, a 28-year-old publicist based in Colombia who lives with her parents, told CNBC Make It that she’s a recovered doom spender, but that high levels of inflation and political uncertainty make it very difficult to rationalize saving money.\r\n\r\n“I know for a fact that food [costs] are getting higher and higher every day, and in my house we can’t afford to eat the same way we did maybe a year ago because things are getting more expensive,” Fernández said.\r\n\r\nTwo years ago, Fernández said she was spending carelessly on clothes and travel despite the fact that she was earning less money than she does now. It was largely because she felt like she couldn’t afford to buy a house.\r\n\r\n“We used to have this program by the government that would lend us money to invest in real estate and at a really low rate, but with the change of government, that is not available for us anymore so we will need to pay more,” she said.\r\n\r\nAnd Fernández said she’s not alone in doom spending. “It’s not just me. It’s something that is happening within my circle.”\r\n\r\n‘First generation that’s going to be poorer’\r\nOnly 36.5% of adults globally feel like they’re doing better than their parents financially while 42.8% think they’re actually worse off than their parents, according to CNBC’s International Your Money Financial Security Survey, conducted by Survey Monkey which questioned 4,342 adults globally.\r\n\r\n“The generation growing up now is the first generation that’s going to be poorer than its parents for a very long time,” Baeckström said. “There’s that feeling that you might never be able to achieve what your parents achieved.”\r\n\r\nAs a result, doom spending creates the illusion of control in what feels like an out-of-control world, according to Baeckström.\r\n\r\n“But what happens really, is that it gives you less control in the future, because if you save that money instead and invest it and do all of those things, you might actually be able to buy a house,” she said.\r\n\r\n‘The sense of trying to escape’\r\nDaivik Goel, a 25-year-old startup founder living in Silicon Valley, said he was a doom spender when he worked as a product manager at a biotech startup.\r\n\r\nThe habit originated from a sense of dissatisfaction with his work as well as peer pressure, he said. “It’s just all the sense of trying to escape.”\r\n\r\nGoel, who used to spend lavishly on designer clothes, the latest technology products and going out for drinks, says doom spending is very common in Silicon Valley.\r\n\r\nHe said people will buy two or three brand-new cars, “and the reason why is because they realize that saving up for a house is going to take a very long time ... so they will spend on other different items instead.”\r\n\r\nSan Francisco has some of the highest property prices in the U.S., according to a 2023 analysis by real estate website Point2. It found that 62% of properties listed in San Francisco cost over $1 million.  \r\n\r\nGoel says that since starting his fintech company Intrepid in 2023, his doom spending habit has “completely gone” because he’s found happiness in his work. “My whole mindset shifted.”\r\n\r\nGet to know your relationship with money\r\nFinance lecturer Baeckström stressed the importance of understanding your relationship with money if you want to overcome doom spending.\r\n\r\nShe said a relationship with money is like a relationship with people: it starts during childhood and sees people form different types of attachments.\r\n\r\n“If you feel like you have a secure attachment with money, you can make a sound evaluation of something. You gather knowledge and you can evaluate [it] ... But if you are insecure, or if you’re avoidant, then you’re more likely to get lured into this unhealthy spending behavior.”\r\n\r\nThese attitudes stem from a person’s upbringing: whether they were rich or poor, for example, how their family managed money, and who controlled it, Baeckström said.\r\n\r\nFernández said part of the reason she had felt compelled to doom spend was a lack of financial literacy. She said her dad grew up poor and nobody had ever encouraged her to save.\r\n\r\n‘Increase the pain of paying’\r\nMaking a transaction more visceral and difficult can make people think twice about doom spending, Samantha Rosenberg, co-founder and COO of Belong, a wealth-building platform, told CNBC Make It.\r\n\r\nRosenberg explained that online shopping aggravates the doom spending issue, but looking at items in-person may prevent impulse purchases.\r\n\r\n“The extra decision points like choosing the store, traveling there, evaluating the item in the flesh, and then having to stand in line to buy it will help you slow down and think more critically about your purchases,” she said.\r\n\r\nAdditionally setting up mobile banking notifications creates an “extra pinch of pain” when you see the transaction authorizations coming through.\r\n\r\nRosenberg also recommended maybe going back to using cash. Seamless payment methods like Apple Pay and Google Pay “increase the risk of mindless spending,” she said, because it’s so quick and easy.  \r\n\r\n“They bypass the emotion associated with the purchasing decision process. They also eliminate the pain of handing over money,” Rosenberg said. You have to “increase the pain of paying,” she added.','2024-09-24','',3,1),(419,'Mexico’s first ever woman president – level 2','News in level',NULL,NULL,87,'https://www.newsinlevels.com/products/mexicos-first-ever-woman-president-level-2/','News in LEVEL','Claudia Sheinbaum is Mexico’s new president. She is the first woman to have this job.\r\n\r\nShe was sworn in during a ceremony in Mexico City. She has pledged to continue the policies of her predecessor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador. She won the election easily but has some big challenges to solve. One of these problems is ongoing gang violence, which causes insecurity for many citizens.\r\n\r\nBefore she became president, Sheinbaum was the mayor of Mexico City. She lowered the city’s murder rate but many people go missing. Now, she will also try to reduce Mexico’s budget deficit but maintain social welfare programs at the same time.\r\n','2024-10-07','',1,1),(420,'Author to go on trial in France for downplaying Rwanda genocide','BBC NEWS',NULL,NULL,87,'https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0m0k78v9pgo ','Grant Ferrett','A French-Cameroonian writer, Charles Onana, is due to go on trial in Paris accused of complicity in contesting the 1994 Rwandan genocide.\r\n\r\nAbout 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed within 100 days.\r\n\r\nIn a book published five years ago, Mr Onana described the idea that the Hutu government had planned a genocide in Rwanda as \"one of the biggest scams\" of the last century.\r\n\r\nHis lawyer, Emmanuel Pire, insists that Mr Onana does not question that genocide took place, or that Tutsis were particularly targeted.\r\n\r\nMr Pire told the AFP news agency that the book in question was \"the work of a political scientist based on 10 years of research to understand the mechanisms of the genocide before, during and after\".\r\n\r\nMr Onana, now 60, and his publishing director at Editions du Toucan, Damien Serieyx, were sued four years ago over the same book.\r\n\r\nThat case was brought by the NGO Survie, and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) for \"publicly contesting a crime against humanity\".\r\n\r\nMonday\'s trial is only the second case of denying the Rwandan genocide to come to trial in France.\r\n\r\nUnder French law, it is an offence to deny or \"minimise\" the fact of any genocide that is officially recognised by France.\r\n\r\nMr Onana\'s trial will be \"historic, since there is not yet any case law strictly speaking related to Rwanda\" on questions of Holocaust denial, Camille Lesaffre, campaign manager for Survie, told AFP.\r\n\r\n\"We will mainly base ourselves on case law related to the Holocaust.\"\r\n\r\nIn 2021, French President Emmanuel Macron asked Rwandans to forgive France for its role in the Rwandan genocide.\r\n\r\nHe said France had not heeded warnings of impending carnage and had for too long \"valued silence over examination of the truth\", but said his country had not been an accomplice in the killings.\r\n\r\n','2024-10-08','',2,1),(421,'‘Hotel in nature’: Inside the world’s best new skyscraper','CNN',NULL,NULL,87,'https://edition.cnn.com/2024/10/06/style/singapore-pan-pacific-orchard-hotel-intl-hnk/index.html ','By Oscar Holland,','Tropical plants creep up vast structural columns and dangle from ledges, hundreds of feet above the ground. Guests lounge around a lagoon-like swimming pool nestled away from the scorching midday sun. A series of soaring terraces sit within the tower’s frame, like caverns carved into a mountainside.\r\n\r\nThis is Singapore’s Pan Pacific Orchard, which has just been named the world’s best new tall building by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH). Announcing the award in a press release Wednesday, the industry group described the tower as a “hotel in nature” that demonstrated a “groundbreaking approach to high-density urbanism.”\r\n\r\nThe ground-level “Forest Terrace,” the only one accessible to passersby, features a cascading water feature and dozens of plant species, many of which are native to the island nation. Phua said it was designed as a public gesture that set the design apart from more conventional “podium and tower” high-rise hotels.\r\n\r\n“Instead of arriving at a podium — into an internalized space, or a labyrinth of rooms and passages — you enter into a forest space,” he said, describing it as an “oasis away from the hustle and bustle” of Orchard, Singapore’s famously busy shopping district.\r\n\r\nMoving up through the building, the elevated “Beach Terrace” contains a pool surrounded by palms; the “Garden Terrace” offers walking paths around a rectangular lawn; and the “Cloud Terrace,” in the building’s upper reaches, serves as a verdant event space overlooking the city.\r\n\r\nCovered yet open-air (an essential quality in the country’s warm, humid and frequently stormy climate), each stratum acts as a giant sunshade, or rain shield, for the one below.\r\n\r\nMany of the hotel’s 347 rooms include balconies overlooking the landscaped areas. Owned and operated by Singaporean real estate giant UOL Group, the hotel also features a 400-seat ballroom, two restaurants and a “canopy” of rooftop solar panels.\r\n\r\nFor buildings of this stature, wind load could also put stress on the structure. To battle this, the design of the structure will change every few floors.\r\n\r\nSingapore has developed a reputation for nature-inspired (or “biophilic”) architecture in recent years, and was famously dubbed the “garden city” by the country’s founding father and former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew in the 1960s. Greenery is often seen spilling out from skyscrapers, crawling over urban facades or integrated into public infrastructure, and the 6-million-person city-state is now home to Asia’s largest timber building.\r\n\r\nIn some areas, Singapore’s strict building codes even require property developers to include large amounts of greenery when constructing new towers. In densely populated neighborhoods, like Orchard, these spaces — usually a combination of sky terraces, planter boxes, gardens and plant-covered walls — must be equivalent to the gross area of the entire site.\r\n\r\nCombined, the green spaces at Pan Pacific Orchard amount to around three times more than this legal minimum.\r\n\r\nFor WOHA, which has designed several other biophilic buildings in Singapore (as well as a housing complex for senior citizens named “World Building of the Year” in 2018), providing green space is not just about satisfying planning regulations. In a press release acknowledging the CTBUH award, the firm’s founding director Mun Summ Wong said he believes “skyscrapers can serve as green lungs within dense urban environments.”\r\n\r\nFounded in 2002, the CTBUH Awards recognize the best high-rise buildings and their architects. Other recent winners of the Best Tall Building Worldwide prize include One Vanderbilt Avenue, in New York City, and Australia’s Quay Quarter Tower, a building dubbed the world’s first “upcycled” skyscraper after architects 3XN retained more than two-thirds of the 1970s tower previously on the site.\r\n\r\n“Pan Pacific Orchard represents the best in responsible vertical urbanism today,” said CTBUH’s CEO, Javier Quintana de Uña, in a statement.\r\n','2024-10-08','',3,1),(422,'Airlines Qatar Airways partners with Elon Musk’s Starlink for high-speed Wi-Fi milestone','CNBC',NULL,NULL,88,'https://www.cnbc.com/2024/10/22/qatar-airways-partners-with-elon-musks-starlink-for-high-speed-wi-fi.html','Natasha Turak/ Dan Murphy','Qatar Airways launched Tuesday its inaugural Boeing 777 flight equipped with Elon Musk’s Starlink internet, paving the way for a new era of in-flight connectivity across its entire fleet by next year. \r\n\r\nTo demonstrate the milestone, Qatar Airways CEO Badr Al Meer held a video call with Starlink founder Musk while flying at 35,000 feet from Doha to London.\r\n\r\n“We’re literally just talking over Starlink right now - that’s super cool,” Musk said on the call from his home, which was filmed and released by the Qatari airline. “It’s Starlink across the laser links of the satellites all the way to your aircraft.”\r\n\r\nQatar Airways’ move to introduce free high-speed internet across its fleet is a direct challenge to competitor airlines who typically offer lower-speed and often patchy paid services, or status-restricted wi-fi access to the flying public. \r\n\r\n“It’s going to get better. We launched new satellites and keep improving the software. Over time I think you’ll find it just gets better and better,” Musk said before Al Meer gave him a video tour of the cockpit. \r\n\r\n“Think of this as the minimum. It only gets better from here,” Musk said to Qatar Tourism Chairman Saad bin Ali Al-Kharji, who was sitting next to Badr Al Meer on board the flight. \r\n\r\nThe Qatari state carrier plans to deliver 12 Boeing 777-300s equipped with the service by the end of 2024, with coverage for the entire Boeing 777 fleet in 2025 and its Airbus A350 fleet following in the summer of 2025.\r\n\r\nRegional First\r\nStarlink, which operates as a satellite internet constellation, provides high-speed and low-latency internet via some 6,000 satellites, allowing passengers to stream videos, send messages and hold calls over wi-fi on multiple devices. Qatar Airways, which is undertaking a major strategic overhaul under its new leadership, added that the service will be free of charge and will be operative from gate to gate.\r\n\r\nThe Gulf airline will be the first in the Middle East and North Africa region to offer Starlink-supplied wi-fi to its passengers, it said in a company statement. But it’s certainly not alone in its aims – earlier in October, Air New Zealand CEO Greg Foran told CNBC that reliable and speedy wi-fi on full-service carriers will become “ubiquitous” as airlines compete to provide enhanced services for travelers.\r\n\r\nFor its part, Air New Zealand announced in late 2023 that Starlink would be launched on two of its domestic aircraft by late 2024.\r\n\r\nRising Competition \r\nQatar Airways told CNBC in March that it was developing a First Class concept and pursuing aircraft orders from aviation giants Boeing and Airbus, as part of its “Qatar Airways 2.0” strategic overhaul.\r\n\r\nIt comes as new IATA data shows global passenger demand continued to soar in August, rising 8.6% compared to August 2023. Middle Eastern carriers saw a 4.9% year-on-year increase in demand.\r\n','2024-10-22','',2,1),(423,'Mega meteorite tore up seabed and boiled Earth\'s oceans','BBC NEWS',NULL,NULL,88,'https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g4g455p8lo ','Georgina Rannard','A huge meteorite first discovered in 2014 caused a tsunami bigger than any in known human history and boiled the oceans, scientists have discovered.\r\n\r\nThe space rock, which was 200 times the size of the one that wiped out the dinosaurs, smashed into Earth when our planet was in its infancy three billion years ago.\r\n\r\nCarrying sledge hammers, scientists hiked to the impact site in South Africa to chisel off chunks of rock to understand the crash.\r\n\r\nThe team also found evidence that massive asteroid impacts did not bring only destruction to Earth - they helped early life thrive.\r\n\r\n“We know that after Earth first formed there was still a lot of debris flying around space that would be smashing into Earth,” says Prof Nadja Drabon from Harvard university, lead author of the new research.\r\n\r\n“But now we have found that life was really resilient in the wake of some of these giant impacts, and that it actually bloomed and thrived,” she says.\r\n\r\nThe meteorite S2 was much larger than the space rock we are most familiar with. The one that led to the dinosaurs’ extinction 66 million years ago was about 10km wide, or almost the height of Mount Everest.\r\n\r\nBut S2 was 40-60km wide and its mass was 50-200 times greater.\r\n\r\nIt struck when Earth was still in its early years and looked very different. It was a water world with just a few continents sticking out of the sea. Life was very simple - microorganisms composed of single cells.\r\n\r\nThe impact site in Eastern Barberton Greenbelt is one of the oldest places on Earth with remnants of a meteorite crash.\r\n\r\nProf Drabon travelled there three times with her colleagues, driving as far as possible into the remote mountains before hiking the rest of the way with backpacks.\r\n\r\nRangers accompanied them with machine guns to protect them against wild animals like elephants or rhinos, or even poachers in the national park.\r\n\r\nThey were looking for spherule particles, or tiny fragments of rock, left behind by impact. Using sledge hammers, they collected hundreds of kilograms of rock and took them back to labs for analysis.\r\n\r\nProf Drabon stowed the most precious pieces in her luggage.\r\n\r\n\"I usually get stopped by security, but I give them a big spiel about how exciting the science is and then they get really bored and let me through,\" she says.\r\n\r\nThe team have now re-constructed just what the S2 meteorite did when it violently careened into Earth. It gouged out a 500km crater and pulverised rocks that ejected at incredibly fast speeds to form a cloud that circled around the globe.\r\n\r\n“Imagine a rain cloud, but instead of water droplets coming down, it\'s like molten rock droplets raining out of the sky,” says Prof Drabon.\r\n\r\nA huge tsunami would have swept across the globe, ripped up the sea floor, and flooded coastlines.\r\n\r\nThe 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami would have paled in comparison, suggests Prof Drabon.\r\n\r\nAll that energy would have generated massive amounts of heat that boiled the oceans causing up to tens of metres of water to evaporate. It would also have increased air temperatures by up to 100C.\r\n\r\nThe skies would have turned black, choked with dust and particles. Without sunlight penetrating the darkness, simple life on land or in shallow water that relied on photosynthesis would have been wiped out.\r\n\r\n','2024-10-22','',3,1),(424,'Tesla Cybercab – level 2','News in level',NULL,NULL,88,'https://www.newsinlevels.com/products/tesla-cybercab-level-2/','News in LEVEL','Elon Musk showed off Tesla’s new robotaxi, the Cybercab, at a big event in Los Angeles.\r\n\r\nThe Cybercab has no steering wheel or pedals, and it opens with two wing doors. It will cost less than 30,000 dollars, and production will start in 2026. Musk also revealed a robovan: this van can carry up to 20 people. Tesla is now focusing more on robotics than just making cars.\r\n\r\nMusk believes these self-driving cars will be much safer than human drivers, but there are still problems with safety and laws. The Cybercab will cost 20 cents per mile to operate, while the robovan will cost only 5 cents per mile.\r\n\r\nMusk also talked about Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robot. But some investors were disappointed that there were not clear production details or timelines for the robotaxi.\r\n\r\n','2024-10-17','',1,1),(425,'Asphalt from cashew shells – level 1','News in level',NULL,NULL,88,'https://www.newsinlevels.com/products/asphalt-from-cashew-shells-level-1/','News in LEVEL','Frankfurt Airport in Germany is trying a new type of road material. It comes from cashew shells.\r\n\r\nThis eco-friendly asphalt, called bio-bitumen, is better for the natural world. Regular asphalt comes from oil. The airport says that this new asphalt will help it lower its pollution. The airport wants to reach no emissions by 2045. Bio-bitumen is also stronger and lasts longer than regular asphalt.\r\n\r\nTo test it, the airport uses bio-bitumen on one side of the road and regular asphalt on the other. If it works well, they plan to use more bio-bitumen in the future.','2024-11-05','',1,1),(426,'2024 US elections takeaways: how female voters broke for Harris and Trump','The Guardians',NULL,NULL,88,'https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/06/election-trump-harris-women-voters ','Carter Sherman','Preliminary exit polling shows Harris won women, but in smaller numbers than her Democratic predecessors\r\n\r\nGender had promised to be one of the biggest stories of the 2024 election. With abortion one of voters’ top issues, Donald Trump’s well-documented history of misogyny and a female presidential candidate of color on the ballot, Democrats banked on women showing up in force to defeat him. But Trump’s stunning victory in both the electoral college and the popular vote dashed those hopes – and scrambled the narrative around how gender, race and other markers of identity informed Americans’ votes.\r\n\r\nBased on available exit polling, which remains preliminary, here are five early takeaways on how gender shaped the 2024 elections.\r\n\r\n1. Women voted for the Democratic candidate, but by smaller margins\r\nWomen did indeed show up to support Kamala Harris, but in smaller numbers than her Democratic predecessors. While Hillary Clinton won women by 13 points in 2016 and Joe Biden by 15 in 2020, Harris secured them by just 10 points, CNN found.\r\n\r\n2. White women are still voting for the Republican candidate\r\nAlthough women as a whole have historically voted for Democrats, white women have not. Instead, over the last 72 years, a plurality of white women have voted for the Democratic candidate only twice, in 1964 and 1996. On Tuesday, they once again went for Trump – just as they did in 2016 and 2020. But Harris made inroads with the group; she lost them by only 5 points, according to CNN. (In 2020, they broke for Trump by 11.) More surprisingly, Trump’s lead among white men also shrank, from 23 points in 2020 to 20 in 2024.\r\n\r\n3. Trump did better with young women than he did in 2020\r\nThe Trump campaign leaned into targeting young men, as the former president publicly palled around with male YouTubers and podcasters, such as Joe Rogan, who make little space for women. This effort paid off: exit polling indicates that there was a canyon-wide 16-point gender gap between young men and women, which is an increase from 2020. While women between the ages of 18 and 29 preferred Harris 58% to 40%, their male peers chose Trump 56% to 42%. However, compared to his last run, Trump did better with both young men (41% of them voted for him four years ago) and young women (33% in 2020).\r\n\r\n4. Harris suffered significant losses among both Latino women and men\r\nLatino men, in particular, veered hard to the right. In 2016, Clinton won Latino men by 31 points; by 2020, their support for Democrats had cooled somewhat, as Biden won them by 23 points. On Tuesday, Trump won this group handily, by 10 points, according to exit polling performed for the Washington Post and other outlets. Meanwhile, Harris won Latina women by 24 points, a victory that pales in comparison to Clinton’s 44-point lead in 2024.\r\n\r\n5. Black women are the most reliable Democratic voters\r\nLong the Democrats’ most stalwart supporters, Black women are still the backbone of the Democratic party. Harris won them by 85 points – a bigger lead than any other gendered and racial group measured by CNN. Apart from the contest for president, Delaware and Maryland both elected Black women, Lisa Blunt Rochester and Angela Alsobrooks, to the Senate – making the next Senate the first one in which two Black women will simultaneously serve together.','2024-11-06','',2,1),(427,'‘Swicy’ items take over restaurant menus as Gen Z seeks heat','CNBC',NULL,NULL,88,'https://www.cnbc.com/2024/10/22/swicy-items-take-over-restaurant-menus-as-gen-z-seeks-heat.html ','Amelia Lucas','The hottest food and drink trend this year isn’t just spicy — it’s also sweet.\r\n\r\n“Swicy,” a portmanteau of sweet and spicy, has taken over restaurant marketing. While the term hasn’t actually appeared on menus, the shorthand has become a popular way to describe the resurgence of foods and drinks marrying sweet and spicy flavors. The Food Institute even dubbed it the “Summer of Swicy” this year.\r\n\r\nNearly 10% of restaurant menus have “sweet and spicy” items, up 1.8% over the last 12 months, according to market research firm Datassential. Over the next four years, its menu penetration is expected to rise 9.6%.\r\n\r\nA slew of restaurant chains have embraced the trend, from Shake Shack’s swicy menu to Burger King’s Fiery Strawberry & Sprite to Starbucks’ Spicy Lemonade Refreshers. Common menu items have paired fruity flavors and chili powder, or used sauces like hot honey and gochujang, a red chili paste that’s a popular Korean condiment.\r\n\r\nAlthough the menu items were largely only available for a limited time, culinary experts think that the swicy trend has staying power.\r\n\r\nBuzzy, trendy menu items are more important now to restaurants, which are leaning on both discounts and innovation to attract diners and reverse declining sales. In August, traffic to U.S. restaurants fell 3.6%, the industry’s second-worst monthly performance this year since January, according to Black Box Intelligence. Limited-time menu items are particularly attractive to Gen Z customers, a key demographic because they account for roughly a fifth of Americans.\r\n\r\nThe ‘swicy’ story\r\nWhile the swicy portmanteau might be new, the flavor pairings have been around for decades, according to trendologist Kara Nielsen. The one element that might have changed over time are the spice levels.\r\n\r\n“I’m sure food is hotter now than it was 20 years ago,” Nielsen said.\r\n\r\nShe remembers when Jeffrey Saad opened a fast-casual Mexican restaurant in San Francisco called Sweet Heat in 1993, before he became a celebrity chef and Food Network star.\r\n\r\nThe second coming of the sweet heat trend started when Mike’s Hot Honey started blowing up around 2010, according to Nielsen. Korean cuisine, especially its sweet and spicy gochujang sauces have become more popular, too, helping to drive more people to the flavor combination.\r\n\r\nThe pandemic also led more consumers to return to classic comfort foods: burgers, fried chicken sandwiches and pizza. But the desire for familiar favorites has faded, and now diners are once again seeking novelty — or at least a twist.\r\n\r\n“Now, four years on, we’re moving out of this and adding more spicy flavors,” Nielsen said.\r\n\r\nExperts at McCormick first called out the reemerging trend in its 2022 flavor forecast report, according to Hadar Cohen Aviram, executive chef for the spice and flavoring company’s U.S. consumer division.\r\n\r\nMcCormick highlighted “plus sweet,” when sweetness acts as a flavor enhancer rather than being the star of the show. The forecasters were even considering naming the trend “swicy” in their report but went with “plus sweet” because it was broader, she said.\r\n\r\nThe following year, McCormick, which owns Frank’s RedHot and Cholula, called out “beyond heat,” or using other flavors to bring out more flavor in addition to the spiciness.\r\n\r\n“We see lots of different people wanting to add some heat to their plates, but they do want to make sure that there’s something for everyone,” Cohen Aviram said.\r\n\r\nGen Zwicy?\r\nOne reason why so many U.S. consumers are seeking out spicy foods and drinks? Increasing diversity.\r\n\r\n“The reason that sweet heat or swicy is sort of everlasting is that it’s a key component of traditional global cuisines like Mexican, like Thai, like Korean, that a lot of people of those ancestries and heritages are familiar with it. Then it gets introduced and repackaged,” Nielsen said.\r\n\r\nFor example, Shake Shack’s culinary team was inspired to make Korean-inspired items for a limited-time menu, according to John Karangis, the company’s executive chef and vice president of culinary innovation.\r\n\r\nOne of the menu items was a Korean fried chicken sandwich, coated in a sweet and spicy gochujang glaze. After it created the limited-time menu, Shake Shack’s marketing team pitted the chicken sandwich against the Korean BBQ burger, with savory and salty flavors. It told customers to pick a side: team swicy or team umami.\r\n\r\nThe swicy trend also appeals to Gen Z, the cohort born between 1997 and 2012.\r\n\r\n“We have a new generation, Generation Z, that’s really excited about complex flavor profiles — but there’s only so many you can taste: sweet, salty, bitter, umami,” Nielsen said.\r\n\r\nHere’s one example of the generation’s heat-seeking behavior: over half of Gen Z consumers identify as “hot sauce connoisseurs,” according to a survey conducted by NCSolutions.\r\n\r\nAnd with swicy, achieving the perfect ratio can be tough because it’s so personal, McCormick’s Cohen Aviram said.\r\n\r\nFeedback from Shake Shack’s customers reflects that, too.\r\n\r\n“Of course, we hear a lot of great feedback from guests, and we also heard other feedback like ‘Hey, you could have punched it up a little bit,’” Karangis said.\r\n\r\nCohen Aviram prefers about 40% sweet, 60% spicy when she’s creating swicy concoctions, like a Frank’s RedHot ice cream bar.\r\n\r\n“The thing with sweetness if that it kind of hijacks your palate, so if you use too much of it, you’re just not going to sense the nuance,” she said.\r\n\r\nWhen Burger King released its Fiery menu this summer, it ranked the items on a scale of spiciness. At one – meaning the least spicy – was its Fiery Strawberry & Sprite drink. The swicy menu item was inspired by another trend: “dirty sodas,” the combination of soda, creamers and syrups started in Utah, according to Pat O’Toole, Burger King North America’s chief marketing officer.\r\n\r\nThe drink marked the first time that Burger King tweaked a classic fountain beverage, but it previously introduced a Frozen Fanta Kickin’ Mango, with a similar swicy flavor profile.\r\n\r\n“Guests can easily and accessibly try a ‘swicy’ beverage offering and work their way up the spice scale with other food items, if they so choose,” O’Toole said, adding that the chain saw strong interest across its focus groups for a spicy take on Sprite.\r\n\r\nOf course, not all swicy profiles resonate with customers. For example, Coca-Cola in September discontinued its spiced Coke just six months after it hit shelves, after it initially intended it as a permanent offering.\r\n\r\nBut despite some missteps, the swicy pairing is likely here to stay – at least for a while.\r\n\r\n“The flavors will stick around, for sure. I think the name will get tiresome. ... It probably still has a couple of years to go,” Nielsen said.\r\n','2024-10-22','',3,1),(428,'Corpse  Flower','News in level',NULL,NULL,89,'https://breakingnewsenglish.com/2411/241114-corpse-flower-2.html  ','News in LEVEL','People who like bad smells were in luck this week. They could smell the corpse flower – the world\'s smelliest plant. It gets its name from a corpse – a dead body. Thousands of visitors went to smell it in a botanic garden in Australia. Some people held their nose when they were near the flower. Others coughed and held their breath because of the bad smell. Some visitors said the smell was like a dead mouse or rotting garbage.\r\n\r\nThe corpse flower is very rare. It is an endangered species. There are only a few hundred of the plants left in the wild. A lot of the forest where the plant grows has been cut down. The flower is one of the biggest in the world. It grows to three metres high and lives over 40 years. However, it flowers once a decade and opens only for a day or two. The smell of the corpse flower attracts beetles and flies. They pollinate the flower so it can grow again.\r\n','2024-11-25','',1,1),(429,'Kenya\'s president cancels major deals with Adani Group','BBC NEWS',NULL,NULL,89,'https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c39nyvvmne8o ','Danai Nesta Kupemba in London & Richard Kagoe in Nairobi','Kenya\'s President William Ruto has cancelled two major deals involving Indian billionaire Gautam Adani, after the tycoon was indicted for fraud by US prosecutors.\r\n\r\nIn his state-of-the-nation address on Thursday, Ruto said the deals had been cancelled based on \"new information provided by our investigative agencies and partner nations\".\r\n\r\nThe day before, Mr Adani, India\'s second-richest man, was charged with fraud by US prosecutors for allegedly orchestrating a $250m (£198m) bribery scheme and concealing it to raise money in the US.\r\n\r\nRepresentatives from Adani Group have denied the allegations from US prosecutors and called them \"baseless\".\r\n\r\n\"In the face of undisputed evidence or credible information on corruption, I will not hesitate to take decisive action,\" said Ruto in a speech met with loud cheers inside parliament.\r\n\r\nThe Adani Group was set to invest $1.85bn in Kenya\'s main airport in exchange for a contract to run it for 30 years, as well as a $736m deal with the energy ministry to construct power lines.\r\n\r\nUnder the airport proposal, the upgrades would involve a new runway and an improved passenger terminal at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.\r\n\r\nThe deals with the Adani group were hugely unpopular in the country, and there were concerns of corruption.\r\n\r\nThe airport deal sparked a strike among airport workers in September, as many feared it would lead to job losses.\r\n\r\nEnergy Minister Opiyo Wandayi told a parliamentary committee on Thursday there was no bribery or corruption involved in the procurement of the power lines.\r\n\r\nPresident Ruto has pledged to take action against corruption, following repeated allegations against his administration.\r\n\r\nRuto said his government would now start to look for alternative partners for the airport and energy deals.\r\n','2024-11-21','',2,1),(430,'Stained-glass Tiffany window sells for record $12.48 million at auction','CNN',NULL,NULL,89,'https://edition.cnn.com/2024/11/20/style/stained-glass-record-tiffany-scli-intl/index.html ','By Lianne Kolirin','A stained-glass Tiffany window originally designed for an Ohio church has sold for $12.48 million at auction.\r\n\r\nThe Danner Memorial Window fetched more than $5 million over the upper limit of its estimated value when it went on sale at the New York branch of Sotheby’s on Monday.\r\n\r\nBidding opened at $4.5 million but the price soon skyrocketed as three bidders spent six and a half minutes battling it out for the leaded glass window, which was expected to fetch between $5 million and $7 million.\r\n\r\nThe dazzling window, which stands at 16 feet high, was the result of a collaboration between acclaimed artist Louis Comfort Tiffany – son of Tiffany & Co. founder Charles Lewis Tiffany – and Agnes Northrop, one of the firm’s leading designers.\r\n\r\nThe vibrant and colourful landscape depicts fruit-laden trees along the banks of a winding river, with a sunset in the background. Bright red poppies are also dotted at the feet of the trees.\r\n\r\nThis is the first time the window has come to auction in 24 years and the sale sets a new auction record for Tiffany Studios. It sold for $2 million back in 2000, which was a world record for a Tiffany window at that time.\r\n\r\nNorthrop, who started work for the firm in the 1880s and was a trailblazer in a male-dominated arena, designed a memorial window to her father for the Reformed Church of Flushing in New York in 1903. That was the “thematic precursor” for the Danner Memorial Window 10 years later, Sotheby’s said in a press statement.\r\n\r\nThe dazzling glass piece was designed as a memorial to John and Terressa Danner, founding members of the First Baptist Church in Canton, Ohio. The congregation commissioned the piece to honor the couple’s 50 years of service. Unusually, the couple were still alive to see the tribute to them.\r\n\r\nThe window, previously owned by billionaire art collector Alan Gerry, was sold to an anonymous bidder over the phone.\r\n\r\nJodi Pollack, Sotheby’s chairman and co-worldwide head of 20th-century design, said in the statement: “This record-breaking sale of The Danner Memorial Window celebrates not only a Tiffany masterpiece but a landmark moment for the Tiffany market. This auction is an important milestone, marking the first time a major work by Tiffany Studios has appeared within the context of a marquee evening auction, firmly establishing Tiffany within the pantheon of the most iconic artists of the twentieth century.\r\n\r\n“Created at the peak of Louis Comfort Tiffany and Agnes Northrop’s careers, this spectacular landscape window epitomizes Tiffany’s unrivaled artistry. This sale also honors the eye and vision of Alan Gerry, whose dedication to American art has left a lasting impact on cultural preservation and American heritage.”\r\n\r\nA similar work from Tiffany Studios is on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The museum acquired Garden Landscape, designed in 1912, a three-part window designed by Northrop, last year.','2024-11-30','',3,1),(431,'Plastic Pollution','Breaking News English',NULL,NULL,89,'https://breakingnewsenglish.com/2403/240304-weighing-airline-passengers-4.html ','Breaking News English','Around 175 countries could soon sign a treaty to limit plastic pollution. Representatives of the nations have been meeting in South Korea to talk about plastic waste. The U.N. Environment Program said the treaty is necessary to protect the future of the planet. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres spoke about the problem. \"Our world is drowning in plastic pollution. Every year, we produce 460 million tons of plastic, much of which is quickly thrown away.\" A treaty is \"an insurance policy for this generation and future ones\".\r\n\r\nMr Guterres warned what might happen in the future if we do not act. \"By 2050, there could be more plastic than fish in the ocean. Microplastics are creating health problems that we\'re only just beginning to understand.\" The president of South Korea asked governments to agree on a path to zero plastic pollution. We must stop thinking of plastic as being convenient. The waste in our oceans and rivers now risks the lives of future generations. Governments have to open a new historic chapter by signing a treaty on plastic pollution\".\r\n','2024-11-29','',1,1),(432,'Shell and Equinor to create Britain’s largest independent oil and gas company in joint venture','CNBC',NULL,NULL,89,'https://www.cnbc.com/2024/12/05/shell-equinor-to-create-uks-largest-independent-oil-and-gas-company.html','Sam Meredith','Oil major Shell and Norway’s Equinor on Thursday announced plans to combine their British offshore oil and gas assets to create a jointly owned energy company.\r\n\r\nThe joint venture will be established in Aberdeen, Scotland in an effort to sustain fossil fuel production and the security of energy supply in the U.K.\r\n\r\nThe companies plan to complete the deal by the end of next year, subject to approvals. At that time, the incorporated company is set to become the U.K. North Sea’s largest independent producer, Shell said.\r\n\r\nIt is expected the company will produce more than 140,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day in 2025.\r\n\r\nShares of Shell dipped 0.8% at around 8:40 a.m. London time, while Equinor’s stock price rose 0.3%.\r\n\r\n“Domestically produced oil and gas is expected to have a significant role to play in the future of the UK’s energy system,” Zoë Yujnovich, integrated gas and upstream director at Shell, said in a statement.\r\n\r\n“The new venture will help play a critical role in a balanced energy transition providing the heat for millions of UK homes, the power for industry and the secure supply of fuels people rely on,” Yujnovich added.\r\n\r\nThe joint venture is set to include Equinor’s equity interests in Mariner, Rosebank and Buzzard and Shell’s holdings in Shearwater, Penguins, Gannet, Nelson, Pierce, Jackdaw, Victory, Clair and Schiehallion.\r\n\r\nNorway’s Equinor currently employs around 300 people in the U.K., while Shell has a staff of approximately 1,000 people in oil and gas positions nationwide.\r\n\r\n“This transaction strengthens Equinor’s near-term cash flow, and by combining Equinor’s and Shell’s long-standing expertise and competitive assets, this new entity will play a crucial role in securing the UK’s energy supply,” Philippe Mathieu, executive vice president for exploration and production international at Equinor, said in a statement.\r\n\r\nJoint venture ‘appears to make strategic sense’\r\nAnalysts led by Biraj Borkhataria at RBC Capital Markets said they expect “tax synergies” to be a significant factor in the combination of Shell and Equinor’s U.K. offshore oil and gas assets.\r\n\r\n“Plenty has been said in recent months about the UK government’s fiscal policy surrounding oil and gas development in the North Sea, with a number of majors noting that the recent increase in the windfall tax will curtail investment going forward,” analysts at RBC Capital Markets said in a research note published Thursday.\r\n\r\n“In that vein, with the UK not seen as a major growth market, this combination appears to make strategic sense in that it allows the two companies to pool resources and continue to grow while allocating less focus/capital to the region and follows recent moves made by the likes of Eni in the country,” they added.\r\n','2024-12-05','',2,1),(433,'Storm names 2024-25: How do storms like Darragh get their names?','BBC NEWS',NULL,NULL,89,'https://www.bbc.com/weather/articles/c1w7zl30dq5o','Darren Bett','Storm Conall, which was named by the Netherlands\' met service KNMI on Tuesday, is the third named storm of the 2024/25 season.\r\n\r\nThe list of storm names is announced on 1 September each year and runs in alphabetical order, starting this season with Ashley, followed by Bert, then Conall, and later on possibly reaching as far as Izzy, Rafi and Tilly.\r\n\r\nStorms are named by the UK Met Office, Met Éireann or KNMI when they are forecast to cause \"medium\" or \"high\" impacts.\r\n\r\nWhy are storms named?\r\nMet Office Head of Situational Awareness Will Lang, who leads responses in times of severe weather, said: \"This is the 10th year of us naming storms and we do it because it works. Naming storms helps to make communication of severe weather easier and provides clarity.\"\r\n\r\nWind is the main factor for naming a storm, but sometimes rain or snow are taken in to account as part of the process.\r\n\r\nNames are selected from a shortlist of favourites submitted by the public but also includes three historic names from the Met Office’s 170 year history.\r\n\r\nYou may notice a few Dutch names too after KNMI, the national weather service of the Netherlands, became part of the western storm naming group in 2019.\r\n\r\nThe list runs from the start of September to the end of August the following year to coincide with the start of autumn and the end of summer, when the likelihood of low pressure systems and the potential for named storms increase.\r\n\r\nWhy are there no storms for Q, U, X, Y and Z?\r\nThe list of storm names covers only 21 letters of the alphabet, to maintain consistency with the naming of tropical storms and hurricanes in the North Atlantic by the US National Hurricane Center.\r\n\r\nThis is because the National Hurricane Center produces six lists of storm names that are used in rotation and it is difficult to find six suitable names (one for each list) starting with Q, U, X, Y and Z.\r\n\r\nSo, if you are called Quentin, Ursula, Xavier, Yvonne or Zendaya you will never see your name on the list of storms.\r\n\r\nHow many storms were named in winter 2023/2024?\r\nA wet and windy autumn and winter contributed to 12 named storms in 2023/24. It is the highest number since the naming of storms started in 2015.\r\n\r\nIn recent years the UK has seen frequent periods of the jet stream either being directed towards the UK or to the south of the UK and this helped develop and steer low pressure systems to our shores which sometimes became named storms.\r\n\r\nBut no two years tend to be the same.\r\n\r\nOne of the challenges for forecasters comes from the natural variability in our weather patterns. In the 2022/23 season there were only two named storms and they both occurred in August.\r\n\r\nAnd sometimes, storms can come in clusters. In February 2022 there were three storms in a week - Dudley, Eunice and Franklin. A Met Office red wind warning was issued for Storm Eunice. The winds gusted to 122mph (196km/h) on the Isle of Wight - England’s highest recorded gust speed.\r\n\r\nDoes climate change impact UK storms?\r\nWe know climate change is making our weather more extreme so that when it rains, that rain tends to be heavier with a greater chance of causing flooding.\r\n\r\nIt is more difficult to link storms to climate change.\r\n\r\nThe UK has a history of impactful storms stretching back hundreds of years, long before the introduction of named storms in 2015.\r\n\r\nMet Office scientist Emily Carlisle says: \"There is some evidence that storms with strong winds (windstorms) will become slightly more frequent in the future in north-west Europe and also become more clustered, so that we experience several storms one after the other.\"\r\n\r\nScientists are more confident that the coastal impacts of windstorms, from storm surges and high waves, will worsen as the sea level rises.\r\n\r\n','2024-12-05','',3,1),(434,'Scientists stop illegal gold mining – level 2','News in level',NULL,NULL,90,'https://www.newsinlevels.com/products/scientists-stop-illegal-gold-mining-level-2/','News in LEVEL','Brazil is using advanced science to stop illegal gold mining in the Amazon.\r\n\r\nScientists study gold samples to figure out where they come from. They use special machines to find bits of other materials like dirt or copper which help identify the source. Illegal gold mining accounts for nearly half of Brazil’s gold production. This mining causes harm to the environment and brings crime to the Amazon. Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, wants to fight back. He started a program which already helped police seize more gold in 2023 than in 2022.\r\n\r\nOther countries like Cambodia and France are interested in Brazil’s new methods. Brazil is also open to working with other countries to improve gold tracing.\r\n\r\n','2024-12-19','',1,1),(435,'Freed activist Paul Watson vows to \'end whaling worldwide\'','AFP',NULL,NULL,90,'https://www.yahoo.com/news/freed-activist-paul-watson-vows-164659677.html ','AFN','Anti-whaling activist Paul Watson, who has been freed from detention in Denmark, vowed on Saturday to end whale hunting around the world and stop Japan if it tried to resume whaling in the Southern Ocean.\r\n\r\nWatson, a 74-year-old Canadian-American, returned to France on Friday after spending five months in detention in the Danish autonomous territory of Greenland due to an extradition demand from Japan.\r\n\r\n\"One way or the other we are going to end whaling worldwide,\" Watson told reporters in central Paris where several hundred supporters gathered to greet him.\r\n\r\n\"We need to learn to live on this planet in harmony with all those other species that share this world with us.\"\r\n\r\n\"If Japan intends to return to the Southern Ocean we will be there,\" said the founder of the conservationist group Sea Shepherd and the Captain Paul Watson Foundation (CPWF).\r\n\r\n\"We are not protesting Japanese whaling. We are simply requesting they obey the law.\"\r\n\r\nUnder international pressure, Japan, one of three countries to conduct commercial whaling along with Iceland and Norway, abandoned these hunts. Since 2019 it has only caught whales in its own waters.\r\n\r\nBut in May, Japan launched the Kangei Maru, a whaling mother ship.\r\n\r\nActivists believe that in building the new ship, Japan intends to resume whaling in the Southern Ocean, but the company operating the vessel has denied this.\r\n\r\n\"If the Kangei Maru goes to the North Pacific or the Southern Ocean then we will intervene against their illegal operations,\" Watson said.\r\n\r\nWatson also said he would oppose attempts by Iceland to resume whaling in 2025.\r\n\r\nIn the 2000s and 2010s, Sea Shepherd played a rough game of cat and mouse with Japanese ships as they sought to slaughter hundreds of whales every year for \"scientific purposes\".\r\n\r\nWatson had been held in Greenland since July on a 2012 Japanese warrant, which accuses him of causing damage to a whaling ship and injuring a whaler.\r\n\r\nHe was released on Tuesday after Denmark refused the Japanese extradition request over a 2010 clash with whalers.\r\n\r\nHe was freed after a high-profile campaign in his support involving French President Emmanuel Macron.','2024-12-21','',2,1),(436,'Losing your mind looking at memes? The dictionary has a word for that','BBC NEWS',NULL,NULL,90,'https://www-bbc-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2n2r695nzo.amp','Yasmin Rufo','Are you spending hours scrolling mindlessly on Instagram reels and TikTok? If so, you might be suffering from brain rot, which Oxford University Press has named its phrase or word of the year.\r\n\r\nIt is a term that captures concerns about the impact of consuming excessive amounts of low-quality online content, especially on social media. The usage saw an increase of 230% in its frequency from 2023 to 2024.\r\n\r\nPsychologist and Oxford University Professor Andrew Przybylski says the popularity of the word is a \"symptom of the time we\'re living in\".\r\n\r\nBrain rot beat five other phrases or words on the dictionary publisher\'s shortlist, including demure, Romantasy and dynamic pricing.\r\n\r\nWhat is brain rot?\r\nBrain rot is defined as the supposed deterioration of a person\'s mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as the result of overconsumption of material considered to be trivial or unchallenging.\r\n\r\nThe first recorded use of brain rot dates much before the creation of the internet - it was written down in 1854 by Henry David Thoreau in his book Walden.\r\n\r\nHe criticises society\'s tendency to devalue complex ideas and how this is part of a general decline in mental and intellectual effort.\r\n\r\nIt leads him to ask: \"While England endeavours to cure the potato rot, will not any endeavour to cure the brain-rot – which prevails so much more widely and fatally?\"\r\n\r\nThe word initially gained traction on social media among Gen Z and Gen Alpha communities, but it\'s now being used in the mainstream as a way to describe low-quality, low-value content found on social media.\r\n\r\nProf Przybylski says \"there\'s no evidence of brain rot actually being a thing\".\r\n\r\n\"Instead it describes our dissatisfaction with the online world and it\'s a word that we can use to bundle our anxieties that we have around social media.\"\r\n\r\nCasper Grathwohl, President of Oxford Languages, says looking back at the Oxford Word of the Year over the last two decades \"you can see society\'s growing preoccupation with how our virtual lives are evolving, the way internet culture is permeating so much of who we are and what we talk about\".\r\n\r\n\"Last year\'s winning word, \'rizz,\' was an interesting example of how language is increasingly formed, shaped, and shared within online communities.\r\n\r\n\"Brain rot speaks to one of the perceived dangers of virtual life, and how we are using our free time.\"\r\n\r\nWhat other words made the shortlist?\r\nDemure (adj.): Of a person: reserved or restrained in appearance or behaviour. Of clothing: not showy, ostentatious, or overly revealing\r\nDynamic pricing (n.): The practice of varying the price for a product or service to reflect changing market conditions; in particular, the charging of a higher price at a time of greater demand\r\nLore (n.): A body of (supposed) facts, background information, and anecdotes relating to someone or something, regarded as knowledge required for full understanding or informed discussion of the subject in question\r\nRomantasy (n.): A genre of fiction combining elements of romantic fiction and fantasy, typically featuring themes of magic, the supernatural, or adventure alongside a central romantic storyline\r\nSlop (n.): Art, writing, or other content generated using artificial intelligence, shared and distributed online in an indiscriminate or intrusive way, and characterized as being of low quality, inauthentic, or inaccurate\r\n\r\nOther dictionary words of the year\r\nOxford University Press - publishers of the Oxford English Dictionary - is not the only one to have a word of the year. Last month Cambridge Dictionary announced that manifest was its winner.\r\n\r\nThe traditional definition of manifest included the adjective \"easily noticed or obvious\" and the noun \"to show something clearly through signs or actions\".\r\n\r\nIt now includes \"to manifest\" in the sense of \"to imagine achieving something you want, in the belief doing so will make it more likely to happen\".\r\n\r\nIt comes off the back of a global wellness trend endorsed by celebrities including singer Dua Lipa who said she manifested her headline slot at Glastonbury.\r\n\r\nCollins English Dictionary also announced in November that its word of the year was brat - a word that has been everywhere over the last couple of months thanks to Charli XCX\'s viral album.\r\n\r\nBrat is defined as someone with a \"confident, independent and hedonistic attitude\".\r\n\r\nIt started as the name of her number one album, but it has arguably grown into a cultural movement for some, with people adopting the brat way of life.\r\n\r\nAnother internet phenomenon has inspired the Dictionary.com word of the year which is demure.\r\n\r\nThe word took off in August after content creator Jools Lebron, posted on TikTok about her demure work outfit and mindful make-up.\r\n\r\nThe \"very demure, very mindful\" trend took off after that and the satirical idea pokes fun at the stereotypical ideas of femininity.\r\n','2024-12-01','',3,1),(437,'Poland is leading the EU – level 2','News in level',NULL,NULL,90,'https://www.newsinlevels.com/products/poland-is-leading-the-eu-level-2/','News in LEVEL','Poland is leading the EU Council for the next six months. This comes after Hungary’s time and many arguments with EU countries.\r\n\r\nPrime Minister Donald Tusk plans to focus on security and peace. Poland wants to improve energy, food, and economic safety and fight against fake news. Poland will also work to help Ukraine, make more weapons in Europe, and connect military industries. Poland is a neighbor to Russia and Ukraine and spends a lot on defense. Since the Ukraine war started, the country became an even more important NATO and EU member.\r\n\r\nInside Poland, politics could make things harder. The rivalry between Tusk and President Andrzej Duda could impact Poland’s EU agenda, especially with upcoming elections.','2025-01-09','',1,1),(438,'Hyundai CEO says Elon Musk\'s bromance with Trump will be good for Tesla\'s rivals','Business Insider Africa',NULL,NULL,90,'https://africa.businessinsider.com/transportation/hyundai-ceo-says-elon-musks-bromance-with-trump-will-be-good-for-teslas-rivals/dj5829q','Tom Carter','With his close ties to President-elect Trump, Elon Musk is more influential than ever — but the boss of one of Tesla\'s biggest rivals isn\'t worried.\r\n\r\nHyundai CEO Jose Munoz said on Tuesday that he thinks the Tesla CEO\'s outsize influence over the Trump administration may actually be positive for the rest of the auto industry.\r\n\"I don\'t see that as a concern, honestly,\" Munoz said in an interview with Bloomberg.\r\n\r\nThe Hyundai CEO said he believed it was in Musk\'s own interests to ensure the US continued to promote EV investment and growth, and remained competitive with China\'s upstart electric vehicle industry.\r\n\"I think having someone who is very close to the US industry and the EV world (in that position) should be positive for the industry,\" Munoz added.\r\nMusk\'s close relationship with Trump, which has seen the billionaire take on an advisory role to cut government spending at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, has raised fears that the Tesla CEO could use his newfound influence to boost his own company and target rival automakers.\r\n\r\nMusk has already signaled his support for cutting the $7,500 federal subsidy for new US-made electric cars, which applies to Hyundai, Ford, General Motors, and Tesla vehicles.\r\nThe SpaceX founder and analysts have both said cutting the subsidy will have a greater impact on Tesla\'s rivals, with Musk saying the move would \"devastate\" the company\'s competitors and benefit Tesla in the long term in a November earnings call.\r\nMusk\'s DOGE cofounder Vivek Ramaswamy has also said the cost-cutting body will \"carefully scrutinize\" the $7.5 billion in federal loans granted by the Biden administration to Tesla rivals Rivian and Stellantis.\r\n\r\nIt comes as Hyundai and its sister company, Kia, continue to see strong electric vehicle sales in the US.\r\nThe two companies reported record EV sales in the US last year thanks to new models like the IONIQ 5 and Kia EV9. In June, their combined parent group beat out Ford and GM to briefly become the second-largest EV seller in the country behind Tesla.\r\nHyundai did not respond to a request for comment, sent outside normal working hours.\r\n','2025-01-08','',2,1),(439,'What to know about the Meta glasses the New Orleans attacker used to scout the French Quarter','abc news',NULL,NULL,90,'https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/meta-glasses-new-orleans-attacker-scout-french-quarter-117372338 ','By The Associated Press','The man who drove a truck into a crowd of people in New Orleans on New Year\'s Day, killing 14, had previously scouted the French Quarter and recorded video with his Meta smart glasses, the FBI said.\r\n\r\nOn Oct. 31, Shamsud-Din Jabbar recorded video with the glasses as he cycled through the French Quarter and plotted the attack, said Lyonel Myrthil, FBI special agent in charge of the New Orleans field office. Jabbar also wore the glasses, which are capable of livestreaming, during the attack, but did not activate them.\r\n\r\nA spokesperson for Meta, the parent company of Facebook, declined to comment.\r\n\r\nHere\'s what the glasses are capable of:\r\n\r\nMeta glasses, made in partnership with Ray-Ban, are frames with a built-in camera, speakers and artificial intelligence that can be controlled with your voice, buttons and some simple gestures. Some functions, such as listening to music or interacting with Meta\'s AI assistant, require the device to be either paired with a phone or able to access the internet.\r\n\r\nThe wearable does not have a display built into the lens, unlike some past industry attempts at building augmented-reality smart glasses. However, Meta has said it is working on a pair of glasses that will give users a fully holographic experience.\r\n\r\nOne of the glasses\' main selling points is the ability to capture images and video using the onboard camera, then upload those files to Instagram or Facebook. You can also livestream, but only to Meta\'s compatible social platforms.\r\n\r\nYou can also use the glasses to make audio and video calls, message people or listen to music.\r\n\r\nThe camera also allows Meta\'s AI assistant to see what you’re seeing, allowing it to translate text into multiple languages (spoken back to you, or shown on a paired phone app), and answer simple questions, such as searching the nearest landmark to your location. The glasses are largely a hands-free experience so you will be talking to your device — and it will reply.\r\n\r\nThe glasses currently cannot perform complex tasks that other digital assistants might be able to, like booking you a reservation at a restaurant or giving you turn-by-turn directions while you\'re on the move. And there\'s no display in the lens, so there isn\'t a viewfinder for framing photos or video.\r\n\r\nThere are also visual indicators built into the system that allow bystanders to know when you\'re shooting video or taking photos. This LED privacy indicator stays on while you use the camera functions. According to Meta, you can\'t disable this light to be more discreet in your actions.\r\n\r\n','2025-01-06','',3,1),(440,'Prada wants to buy Versace','News in level',NULL,NULL,91,'https://www.newsinlevels.com/products/prada-wants-to-buy-versace-level-2/','News in LEVEL','Prada is considering acquiring Versace, a luxury fashion brand currently owned by Capri Holdings.\r\n\r\nThe company is working with Citi to decide if they should make an offer. Capri also owns Michael Kors and Jimmy Choo, but the company has problems with falling sales. Wealthy Chinese consumers spend less, and the global luxury market is weaker.\r\n\r\nLast year, Tapestry, the owner of Coach, canceled a big 8.5-billion-dollar deal to buy Capri. Now, Capri hired Barclays to look at selling its brands, including Versace and Jimmy Choo. Analysts think it may be hard for Prada to purchase Versace. Other companies are also interested in buying Versace. Neither Prada nor Capri commented on the reports.\r\n','2025-01-16','',1,1),(441,'Los Angeles wildfire evacuees face price gouging after officials warn of predatory businesses, landlords','CBS NEWS',NULL,NULL,91,'https://www.cbsnews.com/news/los-angeles-wildfire-evacuees-price-gouging-predatory-businesses-landlords/','CBS NEWS','Days after an inferno razed the Pacific Palisades, Maya Lieberman is desperate to find somewhere to live. But unscrupulous landlords who are jacking up prices are making it hard.\n\'The price gouging is going haywire, it\'s obscene,\' the 50-year-old stylist told AFP. \'I can\'t find anywhere for us to go.\'\nHuge fires that have torn through Los Angeles since Tuesday have leveled whole neighborhoods, turning swaths of the city to ash. More than 105,000 people have been ordered to leave their homes, while another 87,000 are under additional evacuation warnings, as authorities try to keep down a death toll that has already reached 16. On Sunday, Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said law enforcement has also received 16 reports of missing people since the fires erupted last week, adding that he expects the number to rise.\nOne blaze devastated the Pacific Palisades, an upmarket enclave that was home to celebrities like Billy Crystal and Kate Beckinsale, which — until this week — was some of the most desirable real estate in the United States.\nWith the area now under a compulsory evacuation order, even those whose homes survived the inferno need to go elsewhere for the foreseeable future.\nThe higher-than-average incomes of people forced to leave their homes there appear to have tempted opportunists, who see a chance to make money from others\' misery.\n\'We put in an application at a house... that was listed at $17,000 a month, and they told us if we didn\'t pay $30,000, we weren\'t going to get it,\' Lieberman said. \'They told me they have people ready to offer more and pay cash. It\'s absolutely insane.\'\nCalifornia Attorney General Rob Bonta warned against price gouging, looting and other scamming attempts at a news conference Saturday, vowing that anyone seeking to take advantage of the wildfire victims would be held accountable. He said bad actors were already trying to capitalize on the trauma and chaos created by the blazes.\n\'We\'ve seen businesses and landlords ... jack up the price,\' Bonta said at the briefing. \'It\'s called price gouging. It is illegal. You cannot do it. It is a crime punishable by up to a year in jail and fines.\'','2025-01-12','',2,1),(442,'Shein backlash fails to deter shoppers: \'I spend £20 a month\'','BBC NEWS',NULL,NULL,91,'https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy5k3v6x6vxo','Tom Espiner & Lucy Acheson','Emily, 21, spends around £20 a month at Chinese fast-fashion giant Shein, turning to it whenever she needs a new party or holiday outfit.\n\'You can almost always find what you\'re looking for, even if the quality is bad,\' she says.\nLike millions in the UK and the US, she buys from the online shop mostly because of how affordable it is.\nThe firm has faced scrutiny over how it treats workers, with a BBC investigation highlighting 75-hour weeks for workers in contravention of Chinese labour laws, but it is unlikely shoppers will be put off buying their clothes there.\n\n\'Affordable\'\nEmily has considered stopping buying from Shein due to its labour practices, but says everywhere else is \'way too expensive\'.\n\'I\'m happy to talk about the fact I shop at Shein because I know I\'m not the only one,\' she adds.\nThe numbers show she\'s right, with Shein transforming from a little-known company just a few years ago into one of the world\'s biggest clothing firms.\nGlobal sales are estimated to have reached $36.9bn (£30.2bn) last year, according to GlobalData.\nShein is a private company and does not report its global results.\nBut profits in the UK doubled in 2023 to more than £24m, according to a Companies House filing.\nShein stocks thousands of different clothing lines, dwarfing rival fast fashion brands such as H&M and Zara.\nIt sells many clothes for below £10, and turns around new designs quickly.\nThe firm has been gearing up for a stock market flotation in the UK, putting it under scrutiny over both its working practices and its environmental impact.\nLast year, Shein itself found child labour in its supply chain after tightening scrutiny of suppliers.\nIt has also faced allegations that it uses cotton produced using forced labour, and last week declined to tell MPs whether it used such cotton.\nShein was contacted for comment.\nIn response to the BBC investigation into worker conditions it said it is \'committed to ensuring the fair and dignified treatment of all workers within our supply chain\' and is investing tens of millions of dollars in strengthening governance and compliance.\n\'We strive to set the highest standards for pay and we require that all supply chain partners adhere to our code of conduct,\' it said.\nWorkers get paid about one to two yuan for making a T-shirt - which is the equivalent of between 11p and 22p.\nSarah Johnson, the founder of consultancy Flourish Retail, a former head of buying and merchandising for Asos China, said the firm could pay suppliers more, which would give them more leeway to pay workers.\nThe supplier \'doesn\'t get paid an awful lot of the final price\' of the garment.\nWhen it comes to workers, \'you could raise their pay and it would make a minimal amount of difference to the garment price,\' she said.\nAn alternative would be for the firm to make less profit, she added.\n\'I\'m going to save up\'\nSophie Wills, from Birmingham, said she had previously bought clothes from the retailer due to their affordability.\n\'Times are hard,\' Sophie says, adding she probably couldn\'t afford higher-end clothes at the moment.\nHowever, she says saving up and \'making investments in stuff that is probably higher quality would be a good way to go\'.\n\'My whole outfit is from Shein\'\nThando Sibenke says she regularly shops at Shein.\n\'My whole outfit\'s from Shein right now,\' she says, adding she likes the price, convenience, and variety.\nHowever, Thando says she plans to do more research in the future on how the clothes she buys are made.\n\'I\'m embarrassed\'\nGeorgina, 24, from London, says she is \'embarrassed\' that she has shopped at Shein - and has now stopped.\n\'Since reading up on it, the negatives massively outweigh the positives and even when seeing Shein clothing in charity shops, I don\'t feel comfortable buying it.\'\nFashion designer and academic Shazia Saleem said that people in Generation Z - those born between about 1995 to 2010 – often say in surveys that sustainability and ethics are important to them, but that doesn\'t necessarily come through in their buying choices.\nYoung people can feel pressure to buy new outfits to keep up appearances on social media, and they don\'t have much disposable cash, so will probably continue to buy fast fashion, she said.\nShe added that although people should make informed buying decisions, it should be down to the government to strengthen existing UK trading standards rules to make sure companies are selling sustainable and ethically sound products.\nLouise Deglise-Favre, senior apparel analyst at GlobalData, also said she expected affordability to continue to outweigh ethical concerns for Shein shoppers.\nYounger customers tend to not have much disposable income due to being in school or low paying jobs, she said.\nShein releases thousands of new products daily, which can encourage shoppers to buy too much - but it\'s also a response to \'the desire from consumers to constantly update their wardrobes with the latest trends\', she adds.','2025-01-19','',3,1),(443,'A billion people are obese – level 2','News in level',NULL,NULL,91,'https://www.newsinlevels.com/products/a-billion-people-are-obese-level-2/','News in LEVEL','A recent study shows that over a billion people worldwide are obese. It is a growing trend.\r\n\r\nApproximately 880 million adults and 159 million children are affected. Tonga and American Samoa have the highest rates, and 70-80% of adults have this problem. The UK ranks 55th for men and 87th for women: obesity rates doubled in the last 30 years. The World Health Organization urges governments and the food industry to help fight obesity, especially among young people.\r\n\r\nThe study underscores the rapid rise in obesity levels since 1990. Governments have to prioritize this health issue associated with various ailments like heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.\r\n','2025-02-06','',1,1),(444,'New Zealand loosens visitor visa rules to welcome digital nomads','Reuters',NULL,NULL,91,'https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/new-zealand-loosens-visitor-visa-rules-welcome-digital-nomads-2025-01-27/','By Lucy Craymer','New Zealand will introduce looser visa rules to allow holiday makers to work remotely while visiting the country, to boost its tourism sector and economy, it said on Monday.\r\nErica Stanford, Immigration Minister said in a statement that the visitor visa would change from Jan. 27 to allow people to work while travelling in the country.\r\n“This is a brand-new market of tourist New Zealand can tap into. We want people to see our country as the ideal place to visit and work while they do it,” she said.\r\nShe added in a press conference following the announcement that she was unsure how many people would take up the opportunity, but digital nomad visas had been “extraordinarily popular” overseas and that New Zealand was targeting people who would like the opportunity to work and travel here.\r\n“I expect in their time here that they will spend longer than they normally would, they will spend more because they’re here for longer, and the thing that we’re really hoping, is that they fall in love with the place,” she said.\r\nNew Zealand’s economy sank into a technical recession in the third quarter of 2024 and the government is looking for ways to boost growth. The tourism sector has not fully bounced back from the closure of borders during the COVID-19 pandemic with international visitors at around 86% of 2019 levels.\r\n“The government\'s ambition is that new visa rules will put New Zealand boldly on the map as a welcoming haven for the world\'s talent,” said Nicola Willis, Minister of Economic Growth.\r\n“We hope that in some cases, it will encourage those people and the firms they represent to consider doing more business with New Zealand in the future,” Willis added.','2025-01-27','',2,1),(445,'China hits back as Trump’s tariffs go into effect','CNN',NULL,NULL,91,'https://edition.cnn.com/2025/02/04/business/china-us-trade-retaliation-hnk-intl/ ','By Simone McCarthy','Tuesday, hitting back after US President Donald Trump imposed 10% tariffs on Chinese imports.\r\n\r\nThe fresh duties, announced by China’s Ministry of Finance, levy a 15% tax on certain types of coal and liquefied natural gas and a 10% tariff on crude oil, agricultural machinery, large-displacement cars and pickup trucks. The measures take effect on February 10.\r\n\r\nThe Ministry of Commerce and China’s customs administration also announced new export controls effective immediately on more than two dozen metal products and related technologies. Those include tungsten, a critical mineral typically used in industrial and defense applications, as well as tellurium, which can be used to make solar cells.\r\n\r\nThe ministry also said it was adding two American firms — biotech company Illumina and fashion retailer PVH Group, owner of Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger — to its unreliable entities list, saying they “violated normal market trading principles.”\r\n\r\nA Ministry of Commerce spokesperson said Tuesday that it found PVH discriminated against and interfered with the operations of Chinese companies, though the spokesperson failed to provide specifics.\r\n\r\nPVH criticized the decision and said it would work with Chinese authorities to resolve the situation.\r\n\r\n“We are surprised and deeply disappointed to learn of the decision from the Chinese Ministry of Commerce,” a spokesperson for PVH said in a statement. “In our 20 years of operating in China and proudly serving our consumers, as a matter of policy, PVH maintains strict compliance with all relevant laws and regulations and operates in line with established industry standards and practices.”\r\n\r\nIn a separate statement, China’s State Administration for Market Regulation said it was initiating an investigation into Google for suspected violation of its anti-monopoly. The company, whose search engine is not available in China, has minimal operations in the country.\r\n\r\nThe raft of announcements come as a broad-based 10% tariff on Chinese imports to the United States announced by the White House on Saturday came into effect.\r\n\r\nChina’s measures appear to vary in their potential impact on the US economy and businesses. For example, China is the leading global producer of tungsten concentrates, representing more than 80% of world production, according to US government estimates from 2020. The tariffed items, however, represent a relatively small proportion of overall bilateral trade.\r\n\r\n“The measures are fairly modest, at least relative to US moves, and have clearly been calibrated to try to send a message to the US (and domestic audiences) without inflicting too much damage,” Julian Evans-Pritchard, head of China Economics at financial insight firm Capital Economics, said in a research note Tuesday.\r\n\r\nThe Chinese tariffs target at most $20 billion of the country’s annual imports from the US, about 12% of the total, which is “a far cry” from the more than $450 billion in Chinese goods being targeted by the US, he added.\r\n\r\nBeijing had slammed those tariffs in a statement Sunday and vowed to “resolutely defend its rights” by filing a complaint with the World Trade Organization (WTO) and taking “corresponding countermeasures.”\r\n\r\nIn a statement Tuesday, China’s commerce ministry confirmed that it had brought the Trump administration’s tariff measures to the WTO dispute settlement mechanism.\r\n\r\n“The US practice seriously undermines the rules-based multilateral trading system, undermines the foundation of economic and trade cooperation between China and the United States, and disrupts the stability of the global industrial chain and supply chain,” the ministry said.\r\n\r\nA new trade war?\r\nThe Chinese measures, announced on the final day of China’s week-long new year holiday, mark what could be the opening salvo of a new tit-for-tat trade war between Washington and Beijing. However, they don’t rule out the possibility of further dialogue or deal-making between the two sides.\r\n\r\nThe White House had announced the 10% tariffs on Chinese imports on Saturday as part of broader trade measures also targeting Mexico and Canada – part of what the Trump administration said was a bid to hold those countries accountable for illegal immigration and the flow of fentanyl and other drugs into the US.\r\n\r\nTrump agreed to “immediately pause” tariffs on Mexico and Canada after holding separate calls with those countries’ leaders Monday — the day before the duties on goods from all three countries were meant to come into effect. Both leaders had agreed to strengthen security along their borders.\r\n\r\nTrump said Monday that he expected he could speak with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in the next 24 hours. Beijing has yet to confirm any call. A White House spokesperson said later Monday the call could happen “in the next couple of days.”\r\n','2025-02-04','',3,1),(446,'Germany’s economy in trouble – level 2','News in level',NULL,NULL,92,'https://www.newsinlevels.com/products/germanys-economy-in-trouble-level-2/ ','News in LEVEL','Germany’s economy has been struggling for five years. The main reason for the energy crisis that Russia stopped sending gas, which makes energy very expensive. Factories now pay much more to produce goods. Renewable energy is not growing fast enough to help.\r\n\r\nChina is also a problem. Before, China bought many German products, but now it makes the same things and sells them for less money. This means that German companies are losing business.\r\n\r\nGermany also didn’t spend enough on roads, trains, and the internet. Now these things need fixing, but the government has little money to help. There is a shortage of skilled workers. Many companies can’t find people with the right training, and fewer students want to study science or technology.\r\n\r\nFinally, Germany has too many rules which slow things down. Businesses have to do a lot of paperwork, which makes everything take longer.','2025-02-21','',1,1),(447,'Chinese Man Rejects Rs 2 Crore Offer, Lives In House Surrounded By Highway','NDTV WORLD',NULL,NULL,92,'https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/chinese-man-rejects-rs-2-crore-offer-lives-in-house-surrounded-by-highway-7559135',' Nikhil Pandey','A defiant old man, Huang Ping, who refused to leave his home, now lives in the middle of a highway under construction in Jinxi, a town southwest of Shanghai, China, according to The Metro.\r\n\r\nMr Ping admits that he has some regrets for not accepting the government\'s compensation offer. Despite the offer, he chose to stay in his two-storey house. In response, workers built the motorway around his home, which is set to open in the spring. \r\n\r\nTo avoid the noise and dust from construction, Mr Ping and his 11-year-old grandson have been spending much of their time in the town centre. They return to their house each evening after work ends.\r\n\r\nHowever, Mr Ping is concerned that once the motorway is operational, the noise will be constant, making it difficult for them to live in peace.\r\n\r\n\"If I could turn back time, I would agree to the demolition conditions they offered. Now it feels like I lost a big bet,\" he told The Metro.\r\n\r\nThe homeowner added, \"I regret it a bit.\"\r\n\r\nWhile Mr Ping laments his decision, it seems locals are finding the whole thing rather fascinating and have flocked to the property to take pictures.\r\n\r\nMr said he had been offered CNY 1.6 million (Rs 1.9 Crore) and two other properties, which was later increased to three. The secretary of the Jinxi County Party Committee previously said that Huang refused to relocate because he was dissatisfied with the government\'s offer.\r\n\r\nNow Huang Ping lives in the centre of a road that will soon be very busy highway. Ping must pass through a sizable pipe in order to reach his front door. The homeowner\'s roof is nearly level with the road\'s two lanes. Nowadays, his home is a popular tourist destination.','2025-03-03','',2,1),(448,'Man who lost $800 million bitcoin in landfill wants to buy the garbage dump','CNN',NULL,NULL,92,'https://edition.cnn.com/2025/02/14/uk/james-howells-landfill-bitcoin-gbr-intl-scli/index.html ','By Issy Ronald, CNN','Buried deep in a Welsh landfill, beneath layers of years-old garbage, there is a hard drive that holds the key to almost $800 million in bitcoin – or so James Howells believes, after accidentally throwing the drive away in 2013.\r\n\r\nAnd now, after years of battling the local authority in court to retrieve the hard drive, Howells has come up with a new plan: to simply buy the landfill.\r\n\r\n“Am considering purchasing a landfill site. Funding secured,” he wrote Thursday on X, echoing comments by him that were widely reported in the UK media on Monday, though he didn’t say who was providing the funding.\r\n\r\nCNN has reached out to Howells for comment.\r\n\r\nHowells has tried almost everything to access the Docksway Landfill in Newport, a city 12 miles (19 kilometers) northeast of the Welsh capital, Cardiff, including offering Newport City Council more than $70 million in 2021 for permission to dig up the site.\r\n\r\nHis latest plan comes after a British High Court judge stopped his case from going to trial, issuing a judgment in January that dismissed his attempts to force the council to allow him to search the landfill.\r\n\r\nHowells accidentally threw out that crucial hard drive in August 2013 when he was clearing out his house, thinking it was a blank drive that contained no data. He put it in a trash bag that he left in the hallway for his then-partner to take to the garbage dump, before he realised, as the value of the bitcoin rose, that he had disposed of the wrong one.\r\n\r\nSince then, the value of the bitcoin Howells says is loaded onto the hard drive has skyrocketed from around $9 million to almost $800 million, as prices of cryptocurrency have soared in recent years.\r\n\r\nEvery bitcoin transaction requires a private key, a secret piece of data contained within each individual bitcoin wallet that mathematically proves the transaction has come from that wallet.\r\n\r\nHowells’ hard drive contains “a record” of that private key, Judge Andrew Keyser wrote in his judgement issued in January.\r\n\r\n“The position is no different in principle from what it would be if the record of the private key had been written on a piece of paper that had been put into the landfill,” Keyser added.\r\n\r\nWithout knowing the private key, Howells can’t access the bitcoin he mined all those years ago, when the cryptocurrency was little known beyond the tech world.\r\n\r\nNewport City Council, which plans to close the landfill site sometime in the 2025/26 financial year, according to local media, declined to comment on the issue. It previously told CNN in 2021 that it is not permitted to excavate the site.\r\n\r\n“The council has told Mr Howells on a number of occasions that excavation is not possible under our licencing permit and excavation itself would have a huge environmental impact on the surrounding area,” a spokeswoman said at the time.\r\n\r\n“The cost of digging up the landfill, storing and treating the waste could run into millions of pounds – without any guarantee of either finding it or it still being in working order.”\r\n','2025-03-03','',3,1),(449,'US firm Firefly scores its first moon landing with Blue Ghost spacecraft','Reuteurs',NULL,NULL,92,'https://www.reuters.com/technology/space/us-firm-fireflys-blue-ghost-moon-lander-locks-lunar-touchdown-2025-03-02/ ','By Joey Roulette','Firefly Aerospace succeeded in its first attempt to land on the moon with its uncrewed Blue Ghost spacecraft on Sunday, kicking off a two-week research mission as a handful of private firms compete to reach the frontlines of a global moon race.\r\nThe size of a compact car, the four-legged Blue Ghost carried 10 scientific payloads as it touched down at around 3:35am ET (0835 GMT) near an ancient volcanic vent on Mare Crisium, a large basin in the northeast corner of the moon\'s Earth-facing side.\r\nSuspense and silence fell over a mission control room full of company staff inside Firefly\'s Austin, Texas headquarters as Blue Ghost descended toward the moon\'s surface at a gentle two miles per hour. Will Coogan, Firefly\'s Blue Ghost Chief Engineer, confirmed on a mission control live feed the spacecraft had entered lunar gravity.\r\n\"We\'re on the moon,\" Coogan declared moments later, prompting cheers in mission control.\r\nFirefly becomes the second private firm to score a moon landing, though it declared itself the first company to make a \"fully successful\" soft landing. Houston-based Intuitive Machines\' (LUNR.O) Odysseus lander made a lopsided touchdown last year, landing mostly intact but dooming many of its onboard instruments.\r\nFive nations have made successful soft landings in the past - the then-Soviet Union, the U.S., China, India and, last year, Japan. The U.S. and China are both rushing to put their astronauts on the moon later this decade, each courting allies and giving their private sectors a key role in spacecraft development.\r\nBlue Ghost flew on a winding path over three times around Earth, totaling roughly 2.8 million miles, to get to the moon some 238,000 miles (383,000 km) from Earth, reaching the surface a month and a half after launching atop a SpaceX rocket from NASA\'s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.\r\nThe moonshot by Firefly, an upstart primarily building rockets, is one of three lunar missions actively in progress. Japan\'s ispace launched its second lander on the same rocket as Firefly\'s in January, before Intuitive Machines embarked on its second lunar mission on Wednesday.\r\nBlue Ghost\'s three solar panels will power the lander\'s research instruments for a 14-day mission on the moon, before the frigid lunar night brings temperatures as low as minus 280 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 173 degrees Celsius).\r\n\r\nCROWDED MOON RACE\r\nMissions like Firefly\'s Blue Ghost represent low-budget precursor missions that will enable research into the lunar environment before the U.S. sends its astronauts there in a series of crewed missions beginning in 2027.\r\nChina, meanwhile, is making swift progress in its own moon efforts, with its robotic Chang\'e lunar program and plans to put Chinese astronauts on the moon\'s surface by 2030. Also eyeing the moon are U.S.-aligned Japan and India, which made its first soft lunar landing in 2023.\r\nFirefly has a $101 million contract for the Blue Ghost mission from NASA\'s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, which hopes to stimulate a private lunar market and make such treks lower-cost and routine.\r\nOther countries eyeing the moon and deep space exploration have followed NASA\'s model for commercial spaceflight, with India investing in its private space sector while Europe funds multiple rocket launch startups.\r\n\"We\'re hoping to get lower-cost missions at a faster pace, and we just have proof it works,\" said NASA\'s CLPS chief Chris Culbert said. \"We landed on the moon, almost perfectly.\"\r\nThe successful touchdown comes at a time of unease and uncertainty across the U.S. space industry, after President Donald Trump\'s looming shift of the U.S. space program\'s focus to Mars - a destination favored by SpaceX CEO and influential Trump ally Elon Musk.\r\nActing NASA administrator Janet Petro said at Firefly\'s landing event that the moon remains part of America\'s goal to \"dominate\" space.\r\nOn Blue Ghost, two onboard instruments will study the lunar soil and its subsurface temperatures in experiments by Honeybee Robotics, a firm owned by Blue Origin, which is developing its own lunar lander to send humans to the moon for NASA\'s Artemis program later this decade.\r\nNASA\'s Langley Research Center has a stereo camera on board to analyze the lunar dirt plumes kicked up by Blue Ghost\'s landing engine, gathering data to help researchers predict the dusty surface material\'s dispersal during heavier moon missions in the future.','2025-03-03','',3,1),(450,'Actor Ranya Rao \'confesses\': 17 gold bars, several trips to US, Europe, Dubai','India Today',NULL,NULL,92,'https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/ranya-rao-smuggling-case-confession-17-gold-bars-took-foreign-trips-dubai-us-europe-dri-2690152-2025-03-07 ','Sagay Raj','Days after her arrest at Bengaluru Airport in a gold smuggling case, Kannada actress Ranya Rao confessed to the crime and informed the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) that she had not only travelled to Dubai but Europe, America and the Middle East also.\r\nIndia Today TV accessed Ranya Rao\'s first official statement given to the DRI in which she admitted that authorities recovered 17 gold bars from her possession. However, the Kannada actor has not shared further details with authorities and sought time to \"take some rest\".\r\nAuthorities had been closely monitoring Rao, the stepdaughter of Director General of Police (Karnataka State Police Housing Corporation) Ramachandra Rao, due to her frequent trips to Dubai. Reports indicate she has travelled to the city 30 times in the past year, four times within just 15 days, allegedly smuggling kilos of gold on each trip.\r\nIn the statement recorded during questioning, Ranya Rao said, \"I accept that 17 pieces of gold bars were recovered from my possession. I would request you to keep the proceedings as private as possible\".\r\nThe Kannada actor also revealed that she had travelled to several countries. \"I have travelled to Europe, America and Middle East and have visited Dubai, Saudi Arabia. I wish to state that I am tired at present as I did not get enough rest,\" she said.\r\nFurthermore, Ranya Rao reiterated her commitment to fully cooperate with the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence in the ongoing investigation. She also clarified that she faced no coercion and that her testimony was given voluntarily.\r\n\"I have nothing more to state. I once again reiterate that I will co-operate in the ongoing investigation and I shall appear before you as and when called for. During the recording of this statement no religious sentiments were hurt. I have been offered food and beverages from time to time, but I chose not to eat as I am not hungry and was drinking water. This statement of mine is given voluntarily without any force, threat, coercion or inducement and in my normal state of mind. The contents of this statement are read over and the contents are as deposed by me,\" the actor told DRI.\r\n\r\nAccording to DRI, gold bars worth Rs 12.56 crore were seized from Ranya Rao at Kempegowda International Airport, following which searches were conducted at her residence and gold jewellery worth Rs 2.06 crore and Indian currency amounting to Rs 2.67 crore were also recovered.','2025-03-07','',2,1),(451,'Music artists protest against AI – level 2','News in level',NULL,NULL,92,'https://www.newsinlevels.com/products/music-artists-protest-against-ai-level-2/ ','News in LEVEL','Many famous musicians, like Annie Lennox and Kate Bush, are protesting against new UK copyright rules.\r\n\r\nThey made a silent album with 12 tracks that only have studio noise. This is to show how music could disappear if AI companies use artists’ work without permission.\r\n\r\nThe new rules would let AI companies use songs from the internet unless artists say no. Musicians worry that AI-generated music will replace them and take their jobs. Ed Newton-Rex, the organizer of the protest, believes the government is giving away artists’ work for free. He says that the current copyright law is good enough, and there is no need to change it.\r\n\r\nMusicians in the US also have problems with AI using their work. Many people want the UK to keep protecting artists.','2025-03-05','',1,1),(452,'Some countries still use asbestos – level 2','News in level',NULL,NULL,93,'https://www.newsinlevels.com/products/some-countries-still-use-asbestos-level-2/ ','News in LEVEL','Asbestos is a mineral that workers used in buildings because it was strong and it didn’t burn.\r\n\r\nLater, specialists found out that if people breathe these pieces, they can have lung diseases. These small fibers can stay in the air and get into the lungs, which can cause problems many years later.\r\n\r\nMany countries don’t allow the use of asbestos anymore, but some old houses and factories still have it. Workers who repair or destroy these buildings must be very careful. They should wear protective clothing and follow safety rules.\r\n\r\nIn some countries, people still use asbestos because it is cheap. Health experts say asbestos is very dangerous and workers must remove it safely. If people think their house has asbestos, they should call professionals instead of touching it themselves.','2025-03-18','',1,1),(453,'Tennis Australia warns Brisbane could lose 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games matches to Melbourne if facilities not upgraded','Abc Net News',NULL,NULL,93,'https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03-15/tennis-australia-olympic-games-brisbane-upgrades/105055936','Claudia Williams','Brisbane risks losing the 2032 Olympic Games tennis matches to Melbourne unless its facilities are upgraded, Tennis Australia says. \r\nTennis Queensland has put forward a $113 million plan upgrade to the Queensland Tennis Centre (QTC) at Tennyson for the Games. \r\nIt has proposed a new 3,000 seat arena and eight new courts in addition to temporary seating for the event.\r\n\"It currently does not meet the necessary standards — that’s why Tennis Queensland is advocating for additional government funding to upgrade the facility as part of the Olympic review process — and if unsuccessful we would consider hosting it in Melbourne,\" a Tennis Australia spokesperson said.\r\nThe submission has been made to the 100-day review into infrastructure for the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games. \r\nThe Games Independent Infrastructure and Coordination Authority delivered its report to the state government on March 8.\r\nThe government is set to announce its delivery plan on March 25. \r\nTennis Queensland chief executive Cameron Pearson said the state didn\'t have a facility that was \"fit for purpose\". \r\n\"We don\'t have enough courts, we don\'t have enough seating and our player facilities are not big enough,\" he said. \r\n\"If we can\'t get the funding and the required number of courts and seating here at the Queensland Tennis Centre we will have to look elsewhere.\r\n\"It would be a travesty if we weren\'t able to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games here.\" \r\nHowever, Mr Pearson said he had \"full faith\" the state government would help deliver the infrastructure for Queensland. \r\n\"You can\'t play tennis in late July in Melbourne with a top temperature of 12 or 13 degrees,\"  he said.\r\n\"I don\'t think the players would be too keen on doing that and I suspect some of them wouldn\'t even come.\" \r\nPremier called on to rule out move\r\nQueensland Tourism Minister Andrew Powell said the government had been clear it would announce its decision on infrastructure on March 25. \r\nThe Queensland government will finally announce the location of the 2032 Brisbane Olympic and Paralympic Games stadium next month.\r\n“We have got this green and gold runway that we have got to maximise so we have got a legacy for a decade or two to come,” he said. \r\nVictorian government minister Nick Staikos said he was “not surprised” people would look to Melbourne as an option. \r\nHowever, he referred questions about whether the government had been asked for assistance to the sports minister. \r\n“We of course have the best sporting facilities in Australia,” he said.\r\nLabor Shadow Minister for Olympic and Paralympic Games Grace Grace said Premier David Crisafulli should rule out the possibility of the tennis being played in Melbourne.\r\n\"This is about generational infrastructure for the people of Queensland and why should the next Ash Barty — a Queenslander — not have the best facilities,\"  she said.\r\n\r\n','2025-03-15','',2,1),(454,'Norway’s sovereign wealth fund is buying a slice of Covent Garden for $739 million amid retail boom for the former fruit and veg market','Fortune Europe',NULL,NULL,93,'https://fortune.com/europe/2025/03/20/norway-sovereign-wealth-fund-covent-garden-739-million-shaftesbury/','BY Prarthana Prakash','The world’s largest sovereign wealth fund—Norway’s Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM)—is buying a 25% stake in London’s buzzy Covent Garden worth £570 million ($739 million). \r\nNBIM, which has nearly $2 trillion worth of assets under management and holds 1.5% of all listed companies in the world, is partnering with Shaftesbury Capital, the area’s landlord, for the deal.   \r\nThe Covent Garden estate is now worth £2.7 billion ($3.5 billion), Shaftesbury said in a press release Thursday. Retail and food and beverage establishments use most of the land, while office and residential buildings occupy a quarter.\r\nThe area, which includes Seven Dials and Neal’s Yard, is already a popular tourist destination and boasts stores of most major brands, from Tissot and Ladurée to Apple and Chanel. \r\nNBIM’s investment comes amid a slew of new retail establishments opening up in Covent Garden, including brands like perfumery Diptyque, activewear brand Alo Yoga, and cosmetics store Charlotte Tilbury.\r\nCovent Garden is one of London’s prominent cultural hubs. When the city was decimated by fire in 1666, the area rose to the occasion, becoming London’s largest market selling fruit and vegetables. \r\nToday, it’s home to the city’s West End and Opera shows and flaunts a Piazza with scores of food and retail joints sprinkled around.\r\nThe area suffered from the loss of foot traffic during the COVID-19 pandemic, losing about a quarter of its value at the time from £2.5 billion to £1.8 billion. As activity began picking up, Shaftesbury continued to bolster its portfolio in Covent Garden’s prime property market. Luxury property demand in Covent Garden reached “record-breaking” levels last year, real estate firm UK Sotheby’s International Realty found. \r\n“This investment underscores our belief in the strength of London with the portfolio complementing our other high quality West End investments,” said Jayesh Patel, head of UK real estate at NBIM. “Covent Garden is one of the world’s most recognized retail, leisure and cultural destinations.”\r\nThe vibrant shopping district isn’t the only one that has recently grabbed NBIM’s attention. In January, the Norwegian fund bought a quarter of the Grosvenor property portfolio in London’s upscale Mayfair neighborhood. The deal was worth £307.5 million and includes a mix of office and retail buildings.\r\nNBIM also owns a portion of Regent Street through a partnership with the Crown Estate.    \r\nCompanies are trying to take advantage of low prices in prime real estate, including high-end retail, following the whiplash from high interest rates.   \r\nNBIM, led by CEO Nicolai Tangen, has become an avid investor over the years. Most of its funds are invested in equity, including roughly $173 billion in Magnificent Seven stocks. Only 7% of its investments are in real estate.  \r\nFollowing the deal\'s announcement, Shaftesbury’s shares were up 7.5% at 11.30 a.m. London time.  \r\nRepresentatives at NBIM and Shaftesbury didn’t immediately return Fortune’s requests for comment.','2025-03-20','',3,1),(455,'New rules in female athletics – level 2','Breaking News English',NULL,NULL,93,'https://www.newsinlevels.com/products/new-rules-in-female-athletics-level-2/ ','Breaking News English','World Athletics decided that athletes must take a cheek swab test to check their gender before competing in the female category.\r\n\r\nThe president, Sebastian Coe, said this rule will protect women’s sports and make sure competitions are fair. The first tests will happen at the World Championships in Tokyo in September. The organization is looking for a company to do the tests. Each athlete will only take the test once in their career. Coe said World Athletics worked on this for many years. Some people believe other sports may also start using these tests.\r\n\r\nSome people think the tests may be uncomfortable. World Athletics says they are simple and not painful, but some worry they could become more difficult. The discussion about fairness in sports continues.\r\n\r\n','2025-03-28','',1,1),(456,'Indian Furnaces Burning Waste Tyres Imported from UK for Recycling','The Indian Eye',NULL,NULL,93,'https://theindianeye.com/2025/03/27/indian-furnaces-burning-waste-tyres-imported-from-uk-for-recycling/','Tie Staff','Millions of used tyres exported from the UK to India for recycling are instead being incinerated in illegal furnaces, posing severe health and environmental risks. A recent BBC report revealed that approximately 70% of used tyres imported by India are diverted to unregulated pyrolysis plants instead of legitimate recycling facilities. UK alone exports around half of the 5o million used tyres to India every year.\r\n\r\nThe UK government has been criticized for its lax enforcement of regulations surrounding waste tyre exports. While garages charge a recycling fee of £3 to £6 per tyre, intended of ensuring proper disposal, many tyres end up in the black market. Industry insiders, including Elliot Mason, owner of a major tyre recycling facility, acknowledged that this issue is well-known within the sector.\r\n\r\nIn India, these tyres are subjected to pyrolysis—a process that heats them in an oxygen-free environment at around 500°C to extract crude oil, carbon black, and scrap steel. However, this method releases toxic fumes that contaminate air, soil, and water, exposing local communities to serious health hazards such as respiratory diseases and neurological disorders. Drone footage reportedly shows thousands of tyres stacked in compounds awaiting incineration.\r\n\r\nDespite the Indian government’s ban on importing tyres for pyrolysis, many UK traders supply these waste tyres to illegal operations in India, with some dealers even exceeding their export quotas significantly, as per the reports.','2025-03-27','',2,1),(457,'\'Google AI presented my April Fools\' story as real news\'','BBC NEWS',NULL,NULL,93,'https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly12egqq5ko ','Eleri Griffiths','Every year, journalist Ben Black publishes a playful fake story on his community news site Cwmbran Life for April Fools\' Day.\r\nSince 2018 the 48-year-old has spun yarns including a Hollywood-style sign on a mountain to a nudist cold-water swimming club at a lake.\r\nIn 2020, Mr Black published a fake story claiming Cwmbran had been recognised by Guinness World Records for having the most roundabouts per square kilometre.\r\nDespite altering the wording of his article that afternoon, when he searched for it on 1 April he said he was \"shocked\" and \"worried\" to find the false information being used by Google\'s AI tool and presented as real information.\r\nGoogle said it was looking into the matter.\r\nMr Black decided to begin writing fake stories for April Fools\' Day for \"a bit of fun\" and said his wife usually helped him come up with the ideas.\r\nThe concept for his story in 2020 came from Cwmbran being a new town, where \"often linking houses with roundabouts is the easiest way to build\".\r\n\"I made up a number for the roundabouts per square kilometre and added a fake quote from a resident and clicked publish.\r\n\"It went down really well from memory, people laughed,\" he said.\r\nThat afternoon, Mr Black marked the story as an April Fools\' prank to clarify it was not fake news to his readers.\r\nHowever, the next day, he was \"annoyed\" to find it had been picked up by a larger national news website without his permission, and despite efforts to try and get the story removed, the story is still online.\r\nMr Black said he had \"forgotten all about it\" until he searched for his previous stories on April Fools\' Day this year.\r\nHe said he was surprised to discover the Google AI tool and a learning to drive website using his article to claim Cwmbran reportedly had the world\'s highest concentration of roundabouts.\r\nHe said: \"It\'s really scary that someone in Scotland could Google \'roads in Wales\' and come across a story that just isn\'t true.\r\n\"It\'s not a dangerous story, but it shows how fake news can easily spread even if it\'s from a trusted news source.\r\n\"Even though I changed it all the same day, it shows down the line the internet can do its own thing. It\'s just crazy.\"\r\nMr Black said AI was becoming a growing threat to independent publishers, with many tools using their original content without permission and presenting it in different formats for others to benefit from.\r\n\"It is really frustrating because now no-one will visit our websites,\" he said.\r\nHe also pointed out that larger news websites had struck deals with AI firms for collaboration, but said: \"There was no chance I\'d be able to do that.\"\r\nAlthough Mr Black decided not to publish a fake story for April Fools\' Day this year because he was \"too busy\", he said the experience had put him off and made him decide not to publish a fake story again.','2025-04-03','',3,1),(458,'Global breakthrough to tackle shipping emissions','BBC NEWS',NULL,NULL,94,'https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c20xxv22wl9o','Esme Stallard','Countries have agreed a global deal to tackle shipping emissions, after nearly ten years of negotiations.\nThe agreement covers the vast majority of the world’s commercial shipping and means that starting in 2028, ship owners will have to use increasingly cleaner fuels or face fines.\nThe deal was nearly derailed after Saudi Arabia forced a last minute vote and the US pulled out of talks in London – but it eventually passed on Friday.\nSmall island states and environmental groups were angry that a blanket tax was not agreed to and called the deal \'unfit for purpose\'.\nShipping accounts for around 3% of global emissions. But unlike many other sectors it has struggled to reduce its carbon footprint over the last decade and is reliant on fossil fuels like diesel.\nBut the agreement means it is now the first industry in the world with internationally mandated targets to reduce emissions.\nThe agreement was passed at the UN’s International Maritime Organisation (IMO) meeting.\nIt will require owners of large international vessels to increase their use of less carbon intensive fuels or face a penalty of up to $380 per tonne of carbon dioxide emissions they emit from burning fuel.\nAlthough the final agreement was passed, it had to be put to a vote - an unusual move for UN bodies that usually agree measures by consensus.\nThe vote was requested by Saudi Arabia, who did not support the agreement, and this position was shared by a dozen other oil-producing nations, including Russia.\nAlthough they opposed the proposal, they will be bound to implement it because they are members of the IMO.\nThere have been moves to improve the efficiency of ships, but emissions have continued to increase in line with global trade - 90% of which is carried by ships.\nThe most effective measure would be to switch ships away from fossil fuels to green fuels, but that would be very expensive.\n\'There is no fuel as cheap as diesel that ships use today because when we take crude oil out of the ground, we take out all the nice bits, that’s the kerosene for aviation, diesel and petrol for cars,\' said Faig Abbasov, programme director for maritime transport at think tank Transport and Environment.\n\'Whatever is left at the bottom, that’s what ships burn. So no fuel will be as cheap as this because not much energy goes into its production,\' he said.\nIn comparison, the most environmentally friendly fuels like e-kerosene and ammonia are created from initially splitting water molecules to obtain hydrogen, which is a very energy-intensive and costly process.\nFigures vary depending on the fuel type but the World Economic Forum estimates that these green fuels are 3-4 times more expensive to produce.\n\'There’s still a huge cost gap between the fossil fuels and the zero emission fuels and we need to close this gap. So you need carrots and sticks and in shipping the stick is not that big yet to use sustainable fuels,\' said Refke Gunnewijk, manager for clean industry & transport at the Port of Rotterdam.\nSome island states also abstained and said the deal was a watered-down version of what they hoped for. An earlier proposal to apply a blanket carbon tax or levy - which would have been a world first - was dropped.\n\'Let us be clear about who has abandoned 1.5°C. Saudi Arabia, the US and fossil fuel allies pushed down the numbers to an untenable level and blocked progress at every turn,\' said Ralph Regenvanu, minister of energy and climate change for Vanuatu.\nTheir disappointment was shared by environmental groups.\n\'This week, IMO member states squandered a golden opportunity for the global shipping sector to show the world how it can turn the tide on catastrophic climate heating, putting their own goals out of reach\', said Delaine McCullough, president of the Clean Shipping Coalition.\nIt is estimated that the agreement could achieve an 8% reduction in emissions for the sector by 2030, according to the maritime consultancy UMAS. This would be short of the IMO’s target agreed two years ago to cut emissions by 20% by the end of the decade.\nBut China and Brazil had previously raised concerns that a levy could result in a significant price increase for basic goods like food. Both countries backed the final deal.\nJesse Fahnestock, director of decarbonisation at the Global Maritime Forum, said that the deal was a compromise.\n\'It is a difficult set of decisions, but it is the first regulation of its kind and that is to be celebrated,\' he said.\nFahnestock added it was unclear if the penalties were enough to close the cost gap between the fuel types.\n\'You may have incentivised shipowners to prepare a bit for the future fuels but whether the signal is strong enough to get the billions of dollars of investment into the production facilities for these fuels - I don’t think these regulations will overcome that. I think more will need to be done,\' he said.\nAny money raised from the penalties will be put into a \'Net Zero\' fund, with money spent on scaling up greener fuels and supporting developing countries.\nIt is this \'redistribution\' that prompted the US delegation to pull out of the talks on Tuesday night. A letter was sent by the US to all countries at the IMO negotiations saying any levy would cause inflation and if it was passed then \'reciprocal measures\' would be taken.\nAlthough the US move was at odds with its long-held position at the IMO, it was in keeping with President Trump\'s push back on climate action seen over the last few months - such as withdrawing the US from the Paris Climate Agreement.\nBut industry and country delegates appeared unperturbed when speaking to the BBC on Wednesday and continued with negotiations.\nThe US only flags 178 cargo ships that represent 0.57% of worldwide commercial shipping tonnage. So if it took the decision not to implement the new proposals it is unlikely to make a significant difference to the funds raised.\nNow the committee have agreed the measure, it is expected to be formally adopted in October.','2025-04-11','',3,1),(459,'Trade Tariffs','Breaking News English',NULL,NULL,94,'https://breakingnewsenglish.com/2403/240304-weighing-airline-passengers-4.html ','Breaking News English','The value of stock markets in Asia has fallen. It is the biggest fall in decades. Shanghai\'s market was down nearly 8%, Hong Kong\'s Hang Seng dropped 13.22%, and Japan\'s Nikkei index was 7.8% down. Markets in Australia also sank. An analyst told the BBC that the markets were a \"bloodbath\". Stock prices fell after the trade tariffs announced by US President Donald Trump on April the 2nd. He called this day \"Liberation Day\". He said it \"will forever be remembered as the day American industry was reborn…and the day that we began to make America wealthy again\".\r\nMany countries are thinking about what to do about the tariffs. A newspaper in China wrote: \"After eight years of trade wars with the US, we\'ve built up a wealth of experience in this struggle.\" It added that China would beat \"US tariff bullying\". The country could increase its own tariffs on the USA. Japan\'s Prime Minister said he would ask the US to reduce the 24% tariffs on Japanese goods. He will visit the US to explain to President Trump that Japan \"is not doing anything unfair\". Talking about the tariffs, Trump said: \"Sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something.\"','2025-04-19','',1,1),(460,'3D scan of Titanic sheds new light on doomed liner’s final moments','CNN',NULL,NULL,94,'https://edition.cnn.com/2025/04/09/science/titanic-3d-scan-national-geographic-scli-intl/index.html ','By Jack Guy, CNN','A new documentary reveals the incredible results of a project to create 3D underwater scans of the doomed ocean liner RMS Titanic, which sank 113 years ago.\r\n“Titanic: The Digital Resurrection” tells the story of how deep-sea mapping company Magellan created “the most precise model of the Titanic ever created: a full-scale, 1:1 digital twin, accurate down to the rivet,” according to a statement from National Geographic, published Tuesday.\r\nWhen Titanic set sail on April 10, 1912, she was the largest passenger ship in service and considered unsinkable.\r\nJust four days later, Titanic’s maiden voyage became an international tragedy when she struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic at 11:40 p.m. April 14. She sank in less than three hours.\r\nThe ship did not have enough lifeboats for the approximately 2,220 people on board. More than 1,500 people died in the accident, and Titanic became the most famous shipwreck in history. There were just over 700 survivors.\r\nThe 90-minute National Geographic documentary allows filmmaker Anthony Geffen “to reconstruct the ship’s final moments—challenging long-held assumptions and revealing new insights into what truly happened on that fateful night in 1912,” according to the statement.\r\nIn the film, Titanic analyst Parks Stephenson, metallurgist Jennifer Hooper and master mariner Chris Hearn walk around a full-scale reproduction of the ship, highlighting previously hidden details.\r\nOne key finding is a visibly open steam valve, which corroborates accounts that engineers manned their stations in Boiler Room Two for more than two hours after Titanic hit the iceberg.\r\nThis maintained the electricity supply and allowed crew to send distress signals, meaning the 35 men in the boiler room may have sacrificed themselves to save hundreds of other people.\r\nThe team also reconstruct hull fragments found scattered around the site, revealing that Titanic didn’t split in two, but “was violently torn apart, ripping through first-class cabins where prominent passengers like J.J. Astor and Benjamin Guggenheim may have sought refuge as the ship went down.”\r\nThe scan also helps to exonerate First Officer William Murdoch, who has been accused of abandoning his post. The position of a lifeboat davit, a piece of equipment used to lower the craft, corroborates testimony that Murdoch was, in fact, washed out to sea as the crew prepared to launch it.\r\nMagellan’s scans also reveal how parts of the wreck are collapsing, but National Geographic said the digital twin means “the Titanic is preserved in perfect detail as it appeared in 2022, securing its place in history for generations to come and marking a new era in underwater archaeology.”\r\n\r\n','2025-04-09','',2,1),(461,'Spain and Portugal blackouts – level 2','News in level',NULL,NULL,94,'https://www.newsinlevels.com/products/spain-and-portugal-blackouts-level-2/','News in LEVEL','There was a big problem with electricity in Spain and Portugal. The power stopped in many places and also affected some parts of France.\r\n\r\nThe blackout stopped trains and grounded planes, traffic lights didn’t work, and there were many traffic jams. Many cities, including Madrid, Barcelona, and Lisbon, were badly affected. Shops closed, and people couldn’t use phones or pay by card. The Spanish government said people should only use phones when really needed.\r\n\r\nNo one knows for sure what caused the problem. Some people think it is due to a failure in the complex electricity network, others blame extreme weather conditions. The Portuguese government said the weather was the reason.\r\n\r\nSome places now have power again, but many still don’t. It may take some days to fix everything. This event shows how important and weak the modern electricity system can be.','2025-05-02','',1,1),(462,'Liberals won the election in Canada. Here’s what to know and what comes next','AP',NULL,NULL,94,'https://apnews.com/article/canada-election-things-to-know-05feec017e71410250224fc5c4f0a6b6 ','AP','The Liberal Party has won the federal election in Canada, culminating a process marked by U.S. President Donald Trump threats on a trade war and of making the country the 51st American state.\r\nWith this result, the Liberal Party’s leader and current prime minister, Mark Carney, will remain in the job, and will form a new government with a new cabinet.\r\nIt’s still unclear if the liberals will have a majority in the Parliament or whether they will need to look for alliances with other parties.\r\nHere’s what to know and what comes next:\r\nWho did Canadians vote for?\r\nCanadians voted for all 343 members of the House of Commons, one for each constituency.\r\nThe winning candidates were those who finished first, whether or not they won a majority of the votes.\r\nA party needs 172 seats in Parliament for a majority.\r\nWhen will Canada have a new prime minister?\r\nThe prime minister is chosen by parliament rather than elected directly by the voters.\r\nHistorically, the party that assembles a majority in the House of Commons — either alone or with the support of another party — forms a government. That’s expected to happen in coming days.\r\nThe leader of the party forming the government will be the new primer minister, who then has to pick a cabinet.\r\nThe current liberal leader is Carney, who was sworn in on March 14 as prime minister after Justin Trudeau resigned. Now, he won a full term as the head of the government.\r\nWhat challenges will the new government face?\r\nThe next prime minister and his government will have to address both external and internal challenges.\r\nExternally, the main one will be to manage a recently tense relationship with the United States, after President Donald Trump has been threatening Canada with steep tariffs and demands that Canada should become the 51st state.\r\nInternally, the new government will still have to deal with issues like rising food and housing prices and a surge in immigration.\r\nWhat is Carney’s experience?\r\nCarney, a 60-years-old economist educated in the U.S. and England, had no experience in politics until he succeeded Trudeau as prime minister in March.\r\nHe was a Goldman Sachs executive for more than a decade, until he started working in the Central Bank of Canada in 2003, as deputy governor.\r\nHe was then the head of the Bank of Canada from 2008 to 2013 and headed the Bank of England from 2013 to 2020.\r\nNow, after voters gave liberals the victory, Carney will be guiding Canada.\r\n\r\n','2025-04-29','',2,1),(463,'Nearly half of Gen Z and millennials say college was a waste of money—AI has already made degrees obsolete','Fortune',NULL,NULL,94,'https://fortune.com/article/college-degree-waste-of-money-gen-z-millennial-indeed-study-ai-obsolete/','BYPreston Fore','College graduates are calling their degrees worthless. According to new data from Indeed, piling student loans and fears of AI reshaping the workplace are to blame. While experts say higher education is still important, Gen Z should constantly prioritize “upgrading their toolkit” to be successful.\r\nCollege is often advertised as the best four years of one’s life, but many Americans now have regrets.\r\nMore than a third of all graduates now say their degree was a “waste of money,” according to a new survey by Indeed. This frustration is especially pronounced among Gen Z, with 51% expressing remorse—compared to 41% of millennials and just 20% of baby boomers. \r\nOverall, a growing share of college-educated workers are questioning the return on investment (ROI) of their degree, Kyle M.K., a career trend expert at Indeed, told Fortune. It’s something that’s not all too surprising considering that the average cost of a bachelor’s degree has doubled in the last two decades to over $38,000, and total student loan debt has ballooned to nearly $2 trillion.\r\n“Another 38% feel student loans have limited their career growth more than their diploma has accelerated it,” M.K. said. “Together, these realities are nudging universities and employers to shift focus from pedigree to practical skill. In fact, 52% of U.S. job postings on Indeed don’t list any formal education requirement.”\r\nHowever, for many young people, this realization is coming too late. Already, some 4.3 million Gen Z have been left behind as “NEETs”—not in education, employment, or training—with no clear direction on how to restart their early careers.\r\nThe long road to finding value in a degree\r\nFor young people in particular, who are navigating a less than ideal job market, it can be difficult to see the long-term ROI of college. This is especially true when, for some subjects, like psychology, philosophy, or English, it can take over 20 years in the workforce for the degree to pay for itself, according to the Education Data Initiative. \r\nHowever, ??Christine Cruzvergara, chief education strategy officer at Handshake, warns against valuing a degree from a purely quantitative standpoint.\r\n“It’s shortsighted to focus only on immediate employment, as that makes the assumption that the value of higher education is only to get your first job,” Cruzvergara told Fortune. “When in reality, higher education contributes to career advancement opportunities, exposure to a variety of fields, aids in self-discovery, and develops management and leadership skills.”\r\nWhile nearly 70% of young graduates believe they could do their job without a degree, they may have not been exposed to their network without it. Cruzvergara says that universities are failing to promote that they’re more than just a piece of paper that’ll open doors after graduation day, but a hotbed for learning and meeting like-minded people while on campus. \r\nFor example, Mark Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard during his sophomore year to focus on building Facebook into the social media empire it is today. But he couldn’t have done it without the four cofounders he met at university.\r\n“Gen Z faces a particularly uncertain job market, and there’s a need for a better connection between education investment and outcomes,” she adds.\r\nAI has spooked college graduates into a cynical spiral \r\nThe spread of artificial intelligence into all parts of education and the workplace has made college graduates question their degree even more, with some 30% feeling AI has outright made their degree irrelevant—a number that jumps to 45% among Gen Zers. \r\nThis is despite efforts from thought leaders in the space to calm fears about AI replacing workers. “AI is not going to take your job,” Netflix’s co-CEO Ted Sarandos said last year. “The person who uses AI well might take your job.”\r\nWhile M.K. admits that skill areas like routine programming, basic data analysis, and templated content creation have become highly exposed to AI, fields like nursing, advanced project management, and creative strategy are relatively insulated.\r\n“AI is more of an amplifier than a pink slip,” M.K. said, adding that above all else, those who prioritize lifelong learning and have open conversations with their employer about AI will be able to soar in the wake of technological advancements.\r\n“AI won’t invalidate a solid education, but it will reward those who keep upgrading their toolkit.”','2025-04-24','',3,1),(464,'Space junk – level 2','News in level',NULL,NULL,95,'https://www.newsinlevels.com/products/space-junk-level-2/  ','News in LEVEL','There is a lot of space junk around Earth. This junk comes from old rockets and satellites. About 1,200 pieces fell to Earth last year, and thousands more are still flying. They can crash into each other, break apart and add more junk, which makes space even more dangerous. \r\n France has the most junk in space in Europe. It also has many satellites. The UK has many satellites too, but not much junk. The European Space Agency (ESA) wants to stop the junk. ESA is building new tools to clean space. But removing junk is difficult because of money problems and laws. But it is hard because the junk belongs to many countries. \r\nCleaning the space costs a lot of money, too. All countries must work together and follow space safety rules to solve this problem. ','2025-05-09','',1,1),(465,'Two Edinburgh schools to pilot phone-free policy using lockable pouches','Stv news',NULL,NULL,95,'https://news.stv.tv/east-central/two-edinburgh-schools-to-pilot-phone-free-policy-using-lockable-pouches  ','Christina O\'Neill','Two schools in Edinburgh are piloting a phone-free policy in what is said to be a Scottish first in an effort to improve focus and mental health among pupils. \r\n\r\nPortobello High School and Queensferry High School in Edinburgh will introduce magnetic, lockable pouches for the devices in an attempt to curb distractions in class. \r\nIt is also hoped the pouches, created by US company Yondr, will improve pupils’ moods, encourage less screentime, and increase face-to-face interaction. \r\n\r\nPortobello will roll out the pouches across the campus on Wednesday, with Queensferry due to follow suit on Wednesday 14. \r\n\r\nThe magnetically-locked pouches with phones inside will remain in each pupil’s possession, meaning they need not worry about losing their devices or leaving them in the hands of school staff. \r\n\r\nAll pupils from S1-S6 will be required to participate, and can access their devices back at the end of the school day by tapping the phone on one of the unlocking bases in the school. \r\n\r\nIt comes after an extensive consultation period with parents and carers, with focus groups meeting to discuss the policy. \r\n\r\nResearch found that 86% of parents and carers at Portobello supported the introduction of the new policy. \r\n\r\nCouncillor Joan Griffiths, convener for education, children and families at Edinburgh City Council, said: “I’m pleased to see Edinburgh schools leading the way in introducing a mobile-phone free school environment. \r\n\r\n“Mobile phones in classroom settings are increasingly competing with the teachers for learners’ attention and limiting access to mobile phones during the school day is only a positive thing for our young people. \r\n\r\n“I know that schools across Edinburgh, and indeed the country, are exploring ways to manage mobile phone use, including restricting phone use during the school day. \r\n\r\n“The new pouches provide an innovative way for our young people to have distance from their devices while having the reassurance that they are still in their possession. We hope that this new policy will increase focus on learning, reduce classroom distractions and help improve wellbeing.” \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n ','2025-05-07','',2,1),(466,'How a joke about rice cost a Japan cabinet minister his job ','BBC NEWS',NULL,NULL,95,'https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj42vjrdz1no  ','Mariko Oi','When Japan\'s farm minister declared that he never had to buy rice because his supporters give him \"plenty\" of it as gifts, he hoped to draw laughs. \r\n\r\nInstead Taku Eto drew outrage - and enough of it to force him to resign. \r\n\r\nJapan is facing its first cost-of-living crisis in decades, which is hitting a beloved staple: rice. The price has more than doubled in the last year, and imported varieties are few and far between. \r\n\r\nEto apologised, saying he had gone \"too far\" with his comments on Sunday at a local fundraiser. He resigned after opposition parties threatened a no-confidence motion against him. \r\n\r\nHis ousting deals a fresh blow to Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba\'s minority government, which was already struggling with falling public support. \r\n\r\nRice can be a powerful trigger in Japan, where shortages have caused political upsets before. Riots over the soaring cost of rice even toppled a government in 1918. \r\n\r\nSo it\'s not that surprising that rice prices have a role in Ishiba\'s plummeting approval ratings. \r\n\r\n\"Politicians don\'t go to supermarkets to do their grocery shopping so they don\'t understand,\" 31-year-old Memori Higuchi tells the BBC from her home in Yokohama. \r\n\r\nMs Higuchi is a first-time mother of a seven-month-old. Good food for her postnatal recovery has been crucial, and her daughter will soon start eating solid food. \r\n\r\n\"I want her to eat well so if prices keep going up, we may have to reduce the amount of rice my husband and I eat.\" \r\n\r\nA costly error? \r\n\r\nIt\'s a simple issue of supply and demand, agricultural economist Kunio Nishikawa of Ibaraki University says. \r\n\r\nBut he believes it was caused by a government miscalculation. \r\n\r\nUntil 1995, the government controlled the amount of rice farmers produced by working closely with agricultural cooperatives. The law was abolished that year but the agriculture ministry continues to publish demand estimates so farmers can avoid producing a glut of rice. \r\n\r\nBut, Prof Nishikawa says, they got it wrong in 2023 and 2024. They estimated the demand to be 6.8m tonnes, while the actual demand, he adds, was 7.05m tonnes. \r\n\r\nDemand for rice went up because of more tourists visiting Japan and a rise in people eating out after the pandemic. \r\n\r\nBut actual production was even lower than the estimate: 6.61m tonnes, Prof Nishikawa says. \r\n\r\n\"It is true that the demand for rice jumped, due to several factors - including the fact that rice was relatively affordable compared to other food items and a rise in the number of overseas visitors,\" a spokesperson for the agriculture ministry told the BBC. \r\n\r\n\"The quality of rice wasn\'t great due to unusually high temperatures which also resulted in lower rice production.\" \r\n\r\nGrowing rice is no longer profitable \r\n\r\nRice farmers have been unable to make enough money for many years, says 59-year-old Kosuke Kasahara, whose family have been in farming for generations. \r\n\r\nHe explains that it costs approximately 18,500 yen ($125.70; £94.60) to produce 60kg of rice but the cooperative in his area of Niigata on the west coast of Japan offered to buy it last year at 19,000 yen. \r\n\r\n\"Until three or four years ago, the government would even offer financial incentives to municipalities that agreed to reduce rice production,\" he adds. \r\n\r\nThe ministry spokesperson confirms that the government has offered subsidies to those choosing to produce wheat or soybeans instead of rice. \r\n\r\nMeanwhile, younger farmers have been choosing to produce different types of rice that are used for sake, rice crackers or fed to livestock because demand for rice in Japan had been falling until last year. \r\n\r\n\"I got tired of fighting retailers or restaurants that wanted me to sell rice cheaply for many years,\" says Shinya Tabuchi. \r\n\r\nBut that\'s been flipped on its head, with the going rate for 60kg of rice today at 40,000 to 50,000 yen. \r\n\r\nWhile higher prices are bad news for shoppers, it means many struggling farmers will finally be able to make money. \r\n\r\nBut as the public grew angry with the surge, the government auctioned some of its emergency reserves of rice in March to try to bring prices down. \r\n\r\nMany countries have strategic reserves - stockpiles of vital goods - of crude oil or natural gas to prepare for exceptional circumstances. In Asia, many governments also have stockpiles of rice. \r\n\r\nIn recent years, Japan\'s rice stockpile had only been tapped in the wake of natural disasters. \r\n\r\n\"The government has always told us that they would not release its emergency rice stocks to control the price so we felt betrayed,\" Mr Tabuchi says. \r\n\r\nDespite the government\'s rare decision to release rice, prices have continued to rise. \r\n\r\nTackling soaring prices \r\n\r\nThe cost of rice is also soaring in South East Asia, which accounts for almost 30% of global rice production - economic, political and climate pressures have resulted in shortages in recent years. \r\n\r\nIn Japan though the issue has become so serious that the country has begun importing rice from South Korea for the first time in a quarter of a century, even though consumers prefer homegrown varieties. \r\n\r\nPM Ishiba has also hinted at expanding imports of US rice as his government continues to negotiate a trade deal with Washington. \r\n\r\nBut shoppers like Ms Higuchi say they are unlikely to buy non-Japanese rice. \r\n\r\n\"We\'ve been saying local production for local consumption for a long time,\" she says. \"There has to be a way for Japanese farmers to be profitable and consumers to feel safe by being able to afford home-grown produce.\" \r\n\r\nThis divides opinion among farmers. \r\n\r\n\"You may hear that the industry is ageing and shrinking but that is not necessarily true,\" says Mr Tabuchi, who believes the sector has been too protected by the government. \r\n\r\n\"Many elderly farmers can afford to sell rice cheaply because they have pensions and assets but the younger generation has to be able to make money. Instead of guaranteeing the income of all the farmers and distorting the market, the government should let unprofitable farmers fail.\" \r\n\r\nMr Kasahara disagrees: \"Farming in rural areas like ours is about being part of a community. If we let those farmers fail, our areas will be in ruins.\" \r\n\r\nHe argues the government should set a guaranteed buying price of 32,000 to 36,000 yen per 60kg of rice which is lower than today\'s price but still allows farmers to be profitable. \r\n\r\nAnd given what happened to Eto, it is also a sensitive topic for politicians. \r\n\r\nThe country is due to hold a key national election this summer so pleasing both consumers and farmers - especially the elderly in both camps who tend to vote more - is crucial. \r\n\r\n ','2025-05-21','',3,1),(467,'Disney cuts hundreds of jobs  ','Breaking News English',NULL,NULL,95,'https://breakingnewsenglish.com/2506/250605-disney-job-cuts-2.html ','Breaking News English','Disney is cutting hundreds of jobs. Since 2023, it has cut more than 8,000 jobs worldwide. The company wants to reduce costs by $7.5 billion a year. The latest job losses are in marketing departments. A Disney spokesperson told the Fox Business website: \"As our industry transforms at a rapid pace, we continue to [look at] ways to efficiently manage our businesses, while fuelling the…creativity and innovation that consumers value?and expect.\" The CEO of Disney said the cuts would keep the company healthy. He said: \"We remain [positive] about the direction of the company.\"\r\n\r\nDisney is one of the most famous companies in the world. It was founded in 1923 by brothers Walt and Roy Disney. In 1928, they made a short film called \"Steamboat Willie\". This was one of the first cartoons with sound. It was the debut of Mickey Mouse. Disney is now a huge entertainment company. It owns the animation companies Pixar and Marvel Studios, and big names like ESPN, National Geographic, and ABC News. It also has theme parks in the USA, France, Japan and China. It recently announced plans to build a new park in Abu Dhabi.\r\n','2025-06-06','',1,1),(468,'Denmark to raise retirement age to 70 by 2040','HRD',NULL,NULL,95,'https://www.hcamag.com/us/specialization/benefits/denmark-to-raise-retirement-age-to-70-by-2040/536825 ','BY Dexter Tilo ','Denmark\'s retirement age is going up to 70 years old by 2040 to make it the highest across Europe, according to reports.\r\nThe country\'s retirement age, currently at 67, will rise to 68 by 2030, 69 in 2035, and then 70 in 2040, the BBC reported.\r\nThis new retirement age will apply to all people who are born after December 31, 1970.\r\nThe increase was voted in favour by the Danish Parliament, 81–21, as it is mandated by the country\'s Pensions Act to decide every five years to hike the retirement age if the life expectancy of 60-year-olds increases.\r\nEmployment Minister Ane Halsboe-Jørgensen said in a media release that the increase was to \"afford proper welfare for future generations\".\r\nHowever, she noted that this will be the last time that the Social Democrats vote for an increase within the current automatic system.\r\nAccording to the minister, they will negotiate a new and \"fairer pension system\" ahead of 2030.\r\n\r\nDenmark\'s population by age\r\nDenmark\'s current population is nearly six million as of April 2025, as per Statistics Denmark. By age, there are currently 713,091 people between the ages of 60 and 69.\r\nOn the other hand, there are nearly 580,000 people who are between the ages of 70 and 79 in the country.\r\nIn terms of life expectancy, Statistics Denmark has shown that it is 79.9 years for newborn baby boys and 83.7 years for girls.\r\n\r\n\'People are living longer\'\r\nThe increase in Denmark\'s retirement age comes amid similar moves across the world.\r\nChina last year approved an increase in its retirement age for men to 63. For women, those in white-collar jobs will see an increase to 58, while those in blue-collar jobs will have their retirement age set at 55.\r\nThailand also revealed plans last year to raise the country\'s retirement age to 65.\r\nSingapore is also targeting a retirement age of 65 and a re-employment age of 70 by the year 2030. Its current retirement age is 63, while re-employment is 68.\r\nIn Malaysia, there is also ongoing debate among labour groups, the government, and employers on whether to hike the retirement age there to 65.\r\nThese measures come as the World Health Organisation estimated that one in six people in the world will be aged 60 years and over by 2030. This is expected to grow to 2.1 billion by 2050.\r\n\"People worldwide are living longer. Today most people can expect to live into their sixties and beyond. Every country in the world is experiencing growth in both the size and the proportion of older people in the population,\" it said in a report last year.\r\n\r\n','2025-05-25','',2,1),(469,'The closer a volcano is to erupting, the greener the trees around it look from space','Livescience',NULL,NULL,95,'https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/volcanos/the-closer-a-volcano-is-to-erupting-the-greener-the-trees-around-it-look-from-space ','By Sascha Pare','Scientists have found a way to monitor volcanic carbon dioxide levels — one of the first signs a volcano might be about to blow — that doesn\'t involve trekking up a mountain.\r\nScientists can tell whether a volcano is about to erupt from the greenness of the trees around it, with more vibrant leaves indicating a potentially imminent blast.\r\nUntil now, these subtle color changes could be observed only from the ground — but researchers have recently found a way to monitor them from space.\r\nA new collaboration between NASA and the Smithsonian Institution could \"change the game\" when it comes to detecting the first signs of a volcanic eruption, volcanologists said in a statement published by NASA earlier this month. These signs can help to protect communities against the worst effects of volcanic blasts, including lava flows, ejected rocks, ashfalls, mudslides and toxic gas clouds.\r\n\"Volcano early warning systems exist,\" Florian Schwandner, a volcanologist and chief of the Earth Science Division at NASA\'s Ames Research Center in California, said in the statement. \"The aim here is to make them better and make them earlier.\"\r\nCurrent indicators of an imminent volcanic eruption include seismic activity, changes in ground height and sulfur dioxide emissions, which are visible from space. Scientists also look out for carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions linked to magma near Earth\'s surface, but these are harder to pinpoint with satellites than sulfur dioxide due to the ubiquity of CO2 in the atmosphere.\r\n\"A volcano emitting the modest amounts of carbon dioxide that might presage an eruption isn\'t going to show up in satellite imagery,\" Robert Bogue, a doctoral student in volcanology at McGill University, Canada, said in the statement.\r\nBut researchers are particularly interested in detecting these emissions because CO2 is one of the very first signs of a coming eruption — preceding even sulfur dioxide, according to the statement.\r\nTo that end, scientists have been developing methods to monitor carbon dioxide based on the color of trees around volcanoes. Clouds of CO2 wafting from volcanoes that are about to blow boost the health of surrounding trees and plants, making their leaves greener and more lush.\r\n\"The whole idea is to find something that we could measure instead of carbon dioxide directly,\" Bogue said in the statement.\r\nUntil recently, scientists had to trek to volcanoes if they wanted to measure their CO2 levels. By using the color of tree leaves as an indicator of volcanic gas concentrations, researchers can save themselves the trouble of accessing remote and potentially dangerous locations — instead relying on satellites to do the hard work.\r\nA 2024 study published in the journal Remote Sensing of Environment revealed a strong correlation between the carbon dioxide and trees around Mount Etna in Italy. Using pictures taken by Landsat 8 and other Earth-observing satellites between 2011 and 2018, the study’s authors showed 16 clear spikes in both the amount of CO2 and vegetation’s greenness, which coincided with upward migrations of magma from the volcano.\r\n\"There are plenty of satellites we can use to do this kind of analysis,\" study lead author Nicole Guinn, a doctoral student in volcanology at the University of Houston in Texas, said in the statement.\r\nMeasuring the greenness of trees from space won\'t be useful in all volcanic settings, however. Many volcanoes don\'t host trees – or at least not enough trees to measure with satellites, according to the statement. Some trees and forests may respond unexpectedly to changing carbon dioxide levels — for example, if they have been affected by fires, diseases or abnormal weather conditions.\r\n\"Tracking the effects of volcanic carbon dioxide on trees will not be a silver bullet,\" Schwandner said. \"But it is something that could change the game.\"\r\nTo expand on the potential of the new method, researchers from NASA, the Smithsonian Institution and other organizations recently launched the Airborne Validation Unified Experiment: Land to Ocean (AVUELO), which will compare satellite images of trees around volcanoes with ground observations. The aim is to ensure the data match, so that scientists can calibrate space-borne instruments and take the research forward.\r\n','2025-05-30','',3,1),(470,'Doctors angry over secret filming by patients','Breaking News English',NULL,NULL,96,'https://breakingnewsenglish.com/2506/250619-secret-filming-r.html','Breaking News English','Doctors in the UK are angry because people are filming them on smartphones. Patients are secretly using phones to film their hospital visits and talks with doctors. The videos are then put on social media. Doctors want a ban on video recording in hospitals. The videos affect many health workers and there are privacy concerns. A spokesperson said: \"As healthcare professionals, we need to think: Does that recording breach the [privacy] of other patients?\" \r\nMedical staff and hospital workers are worried about the videos. They do not want them on social media. A union worker said: \"We had a member of staff who agreed to take photos for a patient, but when the patient handed over her phone, the member of staff saw that the patient had also been [secretly] recording her.\" She added: \"We wear name badges, so our names will be visible in any video. It makes people feel very uncomfortable.\" Putting material online also risks making public the private medical data of patients. ','2025-06-25','',1,1),(471,'Toronto suffers world’s worst air quality as Canada’s second-worst wildfire season chokes nation   ','The Economist Times News',NULL,NULL,96,'https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/canada/toronto-suffers-worlds-worst-air-quality-as-canadas-second-worst-wildfire-season-chokes-nation/articleshow/121969667.cms  ','The Economist Times News','Toronto is bracing for another summer of dangerous air quality as wildfires continue to rage across northern Ontario, the Prairies, and Western Canada, with doctors warning that the health effects of wildfire smoke are more serious and more widespread than many realize. \r\n\r\nThe worst air quality \r\nToronto recorded the worst air quality in the world in early June, according to global air tracker IQAir, as smoke from more than 183 active wildfires in Ontario drifted south into the city. It’s a dramatic increase from the 100 wildfires recorded in the province at this time last year, and experts say it’s a troubling sign of what lies ahead. \r\n\r\n“We’re already seeing much higher than our 10-year average,” said Dr. Samir Gupta, a respirologist and associate professor at the University of Toronto. “It does look like we are in for a tough season.” \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nCanada’s second-worst fire \r\n\r\nAccording to federal data, the 2025 wildfire season has already burned 3.7 million hectares of land, an area six times larger than Prince Edward Island, making it Canada’s second-worst fire year on record, behind only 2023. \r\n\r\nThe resulting smoke has triggered air quality alerts in five provinces and one territory, and it’s not staying contained within Canadian borders. Smoke from Canadian fires drifted over parts of the continental US in early June, from Kansas City to Minneapolis. \r\n\r\nHigh chances of health risks \r\n\r\nThough Toronto residents are far from the flames, Dr. Gupta says the health risks are very real. \r\n\r\n“We see increased emergency room visits for things like asthma, COPD flare-ups, and even heart attacks and strokes,” he explained. “These particles are so small they enter the bloodstream through the lungs and start affecting the heart and other organs.” \r\n\r\nEven short-term exposure to wildfire smoke can cause headaches, coughing, eye irritation, dizziness, and in severe cases, chest pain or difficulty breathing. Gupta added that vulnerable populations, including seniors, pregnant individuals, people with chronic illness, and children, are at the greatest risk. \r\nHowever, even healthy individuals should be cautious. \r\n\r\n“When I see an AQHI [Air Quality Health Index] over 7, I won’t go for a run outside. I’ll exercise indoors,” Gupta said. “When you’re running, you breathe in twice as much pollution. It really can take a toll.” \r\nOn smoky days, experts advise staying indoors, using HEPA air purifiers, and if you must go outside, wearing a fitted N95 mask to filter out fine particulate matter. \r\nThis summer’s conditions are expected to worsen, with The Weather Network forecasting a hotter and drier climate around the Ontario–Manitoba border, resulting in more wildfire outbreaks and smoke movement. \r\n \r\n“The effects aren’t always visible, but they’re happening,” Dr. Gupta said. “You may not feel it, but the smoke is doing the damage.” \r\n','2025-06-20','',2,1),(472,'I was interviewed by an AI bot for a tech job. Next time, I’ll be much more prepared.','DNYUZ',NULL,NULL,96,'https://dnyuz.com/2025/06/11/i-was-interviewed-by-an-ai-bot-for-a-tech-job-next-time-ill-be-much-more-prepared/  ','DNYUZ','I started my tech career in 2015 and spent the last six years working for a small-scale organization where I worked my way up to product owner. In February, I quit that job to spend more time with my young daughter. \r\n\r\nAfter just a two-month break, I started hunting for jobs again. This time, I aimed to get into product management. \r\n\r\nDuring my job search, I submitted my application to a SaaS company, and received an email inviting me to take an AI-powered screening interview. The email clearly said that AI would ask some screening questions to measure my product management skills and experience. \r\n\r\nThe whole experience was equal parts fascinating and unsettling. \r\n\r\nThe interview link took me to a screen with interview dos and don’ts \r\n\r\nWhen I clicked the link, I remember the written instructions told me to sit in a quiet space with no one else around and not to switch between tabs. In fact, I had to share my screen during the interview to monitor how I was using my laptop. Once I agreed to the dos and don’ts, I entered the interview. \r\n\r\nAs soon as the interview started, a timer counted down from about 20 minutes, which I found to be a little distracting. A blank screen with a female voice greeted me and began asking me highly specific questions about product management. It would’ve been great if there was a face to it, but it was just a prompt. \r\n\r\nI even remember it asking me how I planned product roadmaps and how I dealt with conflicting stakeholder requirements. \r\n\r\n I received a detailed evaluation of my performance immediately after the interview \r\n\r\nTo my surprise, the AI ranked my technical knowledge along with my engagement, eye contact, facial expressions, posture, and attire. My evaluation felt extremely accurate, but I underestimated what the AI was capable of scoring me on, so I didn’t think to wear a collared shirt. \r\n\r\nI ranked highly on technical skills, but the report said that I was not professionally dressed and that my usage of eye contact was “occasional,” which was true. \r\n\r\n There are pros and cons to an AI technical interview \r\n\r\nIn a typical human interview, when I ask for feedback, I’m told it’ll be shared with HR, but it never reaches me. It’s a frustrating reality. So, receiving an instantaneous analysis of my performance was helpful. It gave me the chance to know my strengths and weaknesses going forward. \r\n\r\nThe biggest con is that the interview wasn’t bi-directional, meaning I didn’t have the opportunity to ask clarifying questions. For example, it asked me how I would manage conflicting priorities between stakeholders. If I had the opportunity, I might’ve asked if I could share a past instance to make my response more impactful and understandable. \r\n\r\n If I were to do another AI interview, I’d focus on being more prepared \r\n\r\nThe next round was a human interview, but I chose not to move forward with the company for other reasons. I’m still interviewing for jobs, and I’ve used the insights from my AI interview to be more conscious of the aspects it ranked me positively and negatively on. \r\n\r\nBased on this experience, if I were to do another AI interview, I would focus on being more prepared. \r\n\r\nWhile humans generally involve some level of subjectivity in their assessment of someone, AI is objective. It has a clear set of parameters on which it evaluates you, so you need to be prepared to confidently and clearly share your knowledge. \r\n\r\nMy advice is not to underestimate the AI interview system: be prepared, be real, and, per my experience, dress well. ','2025-06-11','',3,1),(473,'Unlimited vacation ','News in level',NULL,NULL,96,'https://www.newsinlevels.com/products/unlimited-vacation-level-2/  ','News in LEVEL','Some US companies are starting to offer unlimited vacation. It means that employees can take as much time off as they need. \r\n\r\n These days, more and more employees want flexibility at work, so unlimited vacation sounds great. Companies believe that it will stop employees from leaving. It also shows that a company trusts its people that they won’t abuse the policy.  However, unlimited PTO has potential pitfalls. \r\n\r\n If some employees abuse the system, it will mean more work for their colleagues. In summer or winter, it could also mean that too many people will have a vacation, and productivity will go down. \r\n\r\nCurrently, around 6% of US companies offer unlimited vacation, including Microsoft and Goldman Sachs. ','2025-07-03','',1,1),(474,'Roblox hits a 52-week high as a wildly simple gardening game created by a 16-year-old explodes in popularity ','sherwood news',NULL,NULL,96,'https://sherwood.news/markets/roblox-hits-a-52-week-high-as-a-wildly-simple-gardening-game-created-by-a-16/  ','Max Knoblauch','Roblox’s “Grow A Garden” game, originally created by a teen, has smashed gaming records for concurrent users. \r\n\r\n An unbelievably simple gardening simulation game, said to be initially created in about three days by a 16-year-old, has Roblox shares trading at their highest level since late 2021. \r\n\r\n The game, called “Grow a Garden,” has players plant seeds, sell their crops for in-game currency called sheckles, and then use that money to purchase more seeds and animals. Users can spend real-world cash to speed up the process. This is the sort of thing that happens when “GTA 6” is delayed. \r\n\r\n “Grow a Garden,” which has classic Roblox blocky graphics, has become one of the world’s most popular games. A Roblox spokesperson confirmed to Sherwood News that the game smashed the concurrent player record held by “Fortnite,” with 16.5 million players gardening at once on Friday. That’s about the population of Sweden and Denmark combined. Roblox shares have spiked 72% since March 31, when “Grow a Garden” first sprouted. \r\n\r\n Following its initial creation in late March and popularity spike, “Grow a Garden” was partially acquired by a well-known Roblox creator named Janzen Madsen who built out the game further with a team of developers. More recently, Do Big Studios, a Florida-based company that specializes in acquiring and marketing games on the Roblox platform, also invested in the game. \r\n\r\n Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter last week said “Grow a Garden” is “driving massive engagement growth” in the company’s current quarter as summer vacation begins. The game has led a 75% surge in concurrent users since December and “has positioned Q2 2025 for a potential record-breaking quarter,” according to Pachter. \r\n\r\n Roblox has fostered a massive community of creators, developing unique games within the platform. In its first quarter this year, Roblox reported that its payouts to creators had climbed to more than $281 million. \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n ','2025-07-03','',2,1),(475,'North Korea will open its biggest tour site next week, though it still largely blocks foreigners ','apnews',NULL,NULL,96,'https://apnews.com/article/north-korea-tourism-coast-kim-jong-un-c26f24ea0f149b7153ddcf98397c07b5  ','By  HYUNG-JIN KIM','North Korea next week will open a signature coastal tourist site that it says will usher in a new era in its tourism industry, though there is no word on when the country will fully reopen to foreign visitors. \r\n\r\nThe Wonsan-Kalma coastal tourist zone has hotels and other accommodations for nearly 20,000 guests who can swim in the sea, engage in sports and recreation activities and eat at restaurants and cafeterias on site, state media said. \r\n\r\nNorth Korean leader Kim Jong Un toured the site and cut the inaugural tape at a lavish ceremony Tuesday, the official Korean Central News Agency reported Thursday. \r\n\r\nKim said its construction would be recorded as “one of the greatest successes this year” and called the site “the proud first step” toward realizing the government’s policy of developing tourism, according to KCNA. \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nNorth Korea will open the site to domestic tourists first \r\n\r\nThe Wonsan-Kalma beach resort is North Korea’s biggest tourist site. KCNA said North Korea will begin service for domestic tourists next Tuesday. It didn’t say when North Korea will start receiving foreign tourists, but Russian officials said later Thursday that the first Russian tour to the site will happen in July. \r\n\r\nObservers say the resort likely required a huge investment from North Korea’s limited budget, so it eventually will have to accept Chinese and other foreign tourists too to break even. \r\n\r\nKim has been pushing to make the country a tourism hub as part of efforts to revive the ailing economy, and the Wonsan-Kalma zone is one of his most talked-about tourism projects. KCNA reported North Korea will confirm plans to build large tourist sites in other parts of the country, too. \r\n\r\nBut North Korea hasn’t fully lifted a ban on foreign tourists that it imposed in early 2020 to guard against the COVID-19 pandemic. Experts say North Korea has been slow to resume its international tourism because of remaining pandemic curbs, a flare-up of tensions with the U.S. and South Korea in recent years and worries about Western tourists spreading a negative image of its system. \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nRussian tourists expected soon \r\n\r\nRussia’s Primorsky region, which borders North Korea, said that the first group of Russian tourists to the resort will depart on July 7. The region’s press service said that during their eight-day trip, Russian tourists will also have an opportunity to visit major attractions in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, according to Russian state news agency Tass. \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nStarting from February 2024, North Korea has already been accepting Russian tourists to other areas amid the booming military and other partnerships between the two countries, but Chinese group tours, which made up more than 90% of visitors before the pandemic, remain stalled. \r\n\r\nIn February this year, a small group of international tourists visited North Korea for the first time in five years, but tourist agencies said in March that their tours to North Korea were paused. \r\n\r\nKim’s recent foreign policy prioritizes relations with Russia as he’s been supplying troops and conventional weapons to support its war against Ukraine in return for economic and military assistance. But North Korea’s ties with China, which has long been its biggest trading partner and aid benefactor, have apparently cooled as China is reluctant to join an anti-Western alliance with North Korea and Russia, analysts say. ','2025-07-03','',3,1),(476,'Norwich Castle opens again – level 1','News in level',NULL,NULL,97,'https://www.newsinlevels.com/products/norwich-castle-opens-again-level-1/','News in LEVEL','Norwich Castle is 900 years old. It was built in 1121. After a big 27.5 million-pound makeover, it opened again on August 13th 2025. The Norman fortress is now called The People’s Palace and is the UK’s most accessible castle. \r\n\r\nFor the first time, visitors can explore all five levels, from the basement up to the battlements. A modern lift allows wheelchairs and pushchairs to reach even the rooftop. \r\n\r\nInside the castle, there are rooms which look like Norman royal rooms. Visitors can see furniture, lights, and colorful laser shows in the Great Hall. The new Gallery of Medieval Life shows more than 900 old objects from the British Museum. \r\n\r\nExperts explain that Norwich was very rich in the Middle Ages, thanks to the wool trade, and people even called it England’s second city. \r\n\r\n ','2025-08-20','',1,1),(477,'Microsoft AI CEO says AI models that seem conscious are coming. Here\'s why he\'s worried. ','Business Insider Africa',NULL,NULL,97,'https://africa.businessinsider.com/news/microsoft-ai-ceo-says-ai-models-that-seem-conscious-are-coming-heres-why-hes-worried/y6d4d5c  ','Robert Scammell','In a personal essay published Tuesday, the Microsoft AI CEO described this phenomenon as \"Seemingly Conscious AI,\" which he defined as having \"all the hallmarks of other conscious beings and thus appears to be conscious.\" \r\n\r\nIts arrival could be \"dangerous\" for society, Suleyman wrote, because it could lead to people forming attachments to AI and advocating for AI rights. \r\n\r\n\"It disconnects people from reality, fraying fragile social bonds and structures, distorting pressing moral priorities,\" he said. \r\n\r\nSuleyman, who previously cofounded DeepMind and Inflection, was clear that there is currently \"zero evidence\" that AI is conscious. \r\n\r\nHe said, however, that he was \"growing more and more concerned\" about so-called AI psychosis, a term increasingly being used to describe when people form delusional beliefs after interacting with chatbots. \r\n\r\n\"I don\'t think this will be limited to those who are already at risk of mental health issues,\" Suleyman wrote. \"Simply put, my central worry is that many people will start to believe in the illusion of AIs as conscious entities so strongly that they\'ll soon advocate for AI rights, model welfare and even AI citizenship.\" \r\n\r\nSam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, recently said that most ChatGPT users can \"keep a clear line between reality and fiction or role-play, but a small percentage cannot.\" Meanwhile, David Sacks, the White House\'s AI czar, has compared AI psychosis to the \"moral panic\" of social media\'s early days. \r\n\r\nSuleyman predicted that Seemingly Conscious AI, or SCAI, could arrive in two to three years, and said it\'s both \"inevitable and unwelcome.\" \r\n\r\nSuch systems would have traits like empathetic personalities, the ability to recall more interactions with users, and greater autonomy, among other characteristics. \r\n\r\nThe rise of vibe coding means that anyone with a laptop, \"some cloud credits,\" and the right natural language prompts could make it easier to reproduce SCAI, he said. \r\n\r\nSuleyman, who moved to Microsoft in 2024 to spearhead the development of its AI tool Copilot, called on companies to refrain from describing their AI as conscious as they pursue superintelligence, which is when AI surpasses humans at most intellectual tasks. \r\n\r\n\"AI companions are a completely new category, and we urgently need to start talking about the guardrails we put in place to protect people and ensure this amazing technology can do its job of delivering immense value to the world,\" Suleyman added. ','2025-08-20','',2,1),(478,'CEO: When I meet someone with these 4 traits, I try to hire them \'on the spot\'—they\'re \'rare but invaluable\' ','CNBC',NULL,NULL,97,'He advocates the return of capital punishment.','Suzy Welch, Contributor','Think you know what bosses are looking for? Think again. \r\n\r\nGetting hired and promoted used to hinge on traditional leadership traits like executive presence and vision. But in today’s world, those aren’t enough. As a CEO, board member and MBA professor, my research shows that a sharper, more relevant set of criteria is rising to the top. And it’s long overdue. \r\n\r\nAt NYU’s Stern School of Business, I teach a popular class called “Becoming You.” Students start by identifying their values using a tool called The Values Bridge, then explore careers that match their aptitudes and emotional, intellectual and economic needs. Finally, and critically, they assess their leadership capacity. \r\n\r\nI used to rely on old-school aptitude tests for that last part (think: the kind your college counselor used). But over time, I saw that those tools were built for a world that no longer exists. Today’s professionals face nonstop change, geopolitical chaos and ambiguity about, well, everything. \r\n\r\nSo I set out to identify the traits that actually matter now — and tested them through consulting projects with a dozen companies across industries. Focus groups and manager surveys refined the list. And now, I use these four traits in every hiring decision I make. \r\n\r\nWhen I see all four in one person? I try to hire them on the spot. \r\n\r\n1. Nerve \r\n\r\nThe business environment today is fast, unforgiving and always on. Leaders need uncommon levels of physical and mental stamina — and not in short bursts, but continuously. Nerve means making fast, high-stakes decisions with incomplete or conflicting information. That takes real confidence. \r\n\r\nIt also means having the courage to deliver tough truths with empathy. People who combine candor with kindness are rare — but invaluable. Nerve is courage, clarity, speed, transparency and an unrelenting bias for action. \r\n\r\n2. Elasticity \r\n\r\nAccording to LinkedIn, professionals needed to update 25% of their skills every 18 months from 2015 to 2020. That “skill churn” is expected to hit 65% in the years ahead. So yes, adaptability has always mattered. But today, it’s mission-critical. \r\n\r\nElasticity isn’t just tolerating change — it’s actually enjoying reinvention. It’s a mindset that says, “Bring on the new.” I often look for what I call “irregular relationships”: friendships, mentorships or collaborations with people very different from oneself. They signal flexibility, openness and the social curiosity that underpins comfort with change. \r\n\r\n3. Soundness \r\n\r\nIt’s always been important to be steady at work. What’s changed is how rare it’s become. Managers tell me their best people are anxious, withdrawn or just worn out. The pace and pressure of work today are real — and intense. \r\n\r\n\r\nThat’s why managers are putting a premium on soundness: a bundle of traits that includes positivity, accountability, resilience and self-awareness. You can ask colleagues for feedback on the first three. But self-awareness? That’s the only trait on this list you can — and should — test for. \r\n\r\n\r\n4. Wonderment \r\n\r\nIn a world that’s always changing, your currency is your currency. In other words, how “current” you are (on trends, technology, culture and ideas) directly affects how valuable you are to your organization. \r\n\r\nGone are the days when you could stay informed just by talking to colleagues or skimming a few news platforms. The most successful people don’t just absorb what’s next — they share it in-house, sparking fresh thinking across teams. Wonderment is intellectual curiosity, cultural fluency, peer around corners and the proactive instinct to bring the outside in. \r\n\r\nNow, obviously, every role has its own must-haves. Values matter. Skills matter. But these four traits? They’re what every leader is quietly scanning for. And if you’ve got them all, trust me: Someone is already plotting how to hire you, even if they’re not hiring.','2025-08-20','',3,1),(479,'Denmark’s post will not deliver letters anymore ','News in level',NULL,NULL,97,'https://www.newsinlevels.com/products/denmarks-post-will-not-deliver-letters-anymore-level-2/  ','News in LEVEL','PostNord, Denmark’s national postal service, will stop sending letters at the end of this year. Letter deliveries fall because people use online communication more. \r\n\r\nSince 2000, the number of letters dropped by 90%. Around a third of the workforce, 1,500 workers will lose jobs, and PostNord will create 700 new positions for parcel delivery, which is more profitable. Denmark is very digital, and many letters go through online mailboxes. Private companies, like Deo, will deliver letters, but some people may have problems using digital mail. \r\n\r\nThis trend is not only in Denmark; many countries see fewer letters every year. PostNord’s change shows how digital technology and online shopping can change old services and jobs, and it gives an example of what may happen in other countries in the future. ','2025-09-05','',1,0),(480,'Pub saved by public will pull pints again ','BBC News',NULL,NULL,97,'https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8x50z7k88ko  ','Naj Modak','A pub will reopen two years after it closed following a community effort to save it. \r\n\r\n The New Clarence in Charles Street, Hull, shut its doors in 2023 but a group campaigned successfully for it to become an asset of community value, raising about £250,000 through the sale of public shares. \r\n\r\n It will now be run by The Hull Community Pub Society and will pull pints once again from Saturday 6 September. \r\n\r\n Chairman Simon Berry, 62, said the group\'s dream would finally become a reality. He said: \"This is people power; the public coming together to create Hull\'s first community-owned pub.\" \r\n\r\n Mr Berry added: \"When you\'ve got 460-odd people who have bought shares, it just shows how important this venue was to keep it as a local British pub.\" \r\n\r\nBut he said bringing the pub back to life was challenging with \"unforeseen work\" that needed doing, including the electrics and structural work \"For anything to be successful, you have to have people believe in it and also we have to deliver something that people want,\" he said. \"We\'ve got a community space where people can come where they can feel safe and they can have a pint and or a pie.\" \r\nLandlord Jamie Reading said: \"These are exciting times and we look forward to welcoming new and returning customers. After all the hard work, we are finally here.\" \r\nThe group had also received £300,000 from the government community ownership fund, which helped towards the renovations.  ','2025-09-01','',2,0),(481,'China hosted its \"biggest\" military parade for \"Victory Day\" on Wednesday. Here\'s what to know.','CBS NEWS',NULL,NULL,97,'https://www.cbsnews.com/news/china-military-parade-victory-day-what-to-know/  ','By Kierra Frazier','China hosted what it says was its \"biggest\" military parade for \"Victory Day\" on Wednesday, showcasing the country\'s growing military power while commemorating Japan\'s surrender at the end of World War II. \r\n\r\nMore than two dozen world leaders were expected to attend the parade as China displayed some of its newest and most advanced weapons. Rehearsals had been underway for weeks, and security in the sprawling Chinese capital of Beijing has been extra tight.  \r\n\r\nHere\'s what to know about China\'s military parade.  \r\n\r\nWhen is China\'s military parade?  \r\n\r\nThe parade took place on Wednesday, Sept. 3, starting at 9 a.m. local time, according to state news agency Xinhua. The parade was held in central Beijing in Tiananmen Square, proceeding down Chang\'an Avenue, which translates to \"Eternal Peace.\" \r\n\r\nWho is attending China\'s military parade? \r\n\r\nRussian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un are among the dignitaries who attended the parade. It was the first time Kim, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Putin appeared together. The trio has been dubbed an \"Axis of Upheaval\" by some Western analysts. \r\n\r\nIranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and the leader of Myanmar\'s ruling military junta, President Min Aung Hlaing, were also expected to attend, according to China\'s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. \r\n\r\nIn total, the parade was expected to be attended by 26 different foreign leaders and an estimated 50,000 spectators. \r\n\r\nWhy is the parade being held and what will it feature? \r\n\r\n\"Victory Day\" marks the 80th anniversary of Imperial Japan\'s surrender at the close of World War II. In 2014, China set Sept. 3 as Victory Day. \r\nThe parade was Xi\'s third military parade since coming to power in 2012. \r\n\r\nThe 70-minute parade displayed China\'s growing military might and newest hardware, including hypersonic weapons, nuclear-capable missiles, fighter jets and underwater drones. According to The Associated Press, in a speech, Xi said humanity today must choose between peace and war and between dialogue and confrontation. \r\n\r\nHow did President Trump respond? \r\n\r\nIn a post to Truth Social on Tuesday evening, President Trump noted that the U.S. and China were allies against Japan during WWII, writing that the \"big question to be answered is whether or not President Xi of China will mention the massive amount of support and \'blood\' that The United States of America gave to China in order to help it to secure its FREEDOM from a very unfriendly foreign invader.\" \r\n\r\nMr. Trump went on: \"May President Xi and the wonderful people of China have a great and lasting day of celebration. Please give my warmest regards to Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong Un, as you conspire against The United States of America.\"   ','2025-09-02','',3,0);

--
