View time : 2 min 14
Level : Intermediate
View time : 2 min 14
Level : Intermediate
Read time : 6 mins
Level : Intermediate
By BROOKE SCHULTZ Associated Press/Report for America
Cellphones — the ultimate distraction — keep children from learning, educators say. But in attempts to keep the phones at bay, the most vocal pushback doesn’t always come from students. In some cases, it’s from parents.
Bans on the devices were on the rise before the COVID-19 pandemic. Since schools reopened, struggles with student behavior and mental health have given some schools even more reason to restrict access.
But parents and caregivers who had constant access to their children during remote learning have been reluctant to give that up. Some fear losing touch with their kids during a school shooting.
Shannon Moser, who has students in eighth and ninth grades in Rochester, New York, said she felt parents were being pushed away when the Greece Central School District this year began locking away student phones. There’s a form of accountability, she said, when students are able to record what goes on around them.
“Everything is just so politicized, so divisive. And I think parents just have a general fear of what’s happening with their kids during the day,” Moser said. She said she generally has liberal views, but many parents on either side of the political divide feel the same way. Continue reading
Read time : 5 mins
Level : Advanced
By BARBARA ORTUTAY Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Twitter has announced a subscription service for $7.99 a month that includes a blue check now given only to verified accounts as new owner Elon Musk works to overhaul the platform’s verification system just ahead of U.S. midterm elections.
In an update to Apple iOS devices available in the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the U.K., Twitter said users who “sign up now” for the new “Twitter Blue with verification” can receive the blue check next to their names “just like the celebrities, companies and politicians you already follow.”
But Twitter employee Esther Crawford tweeted Saturday that the “new Blue isn’t live yet — the sprint to our launch continues but some folks may see us making updates because we are testing and pushing changes in real-time.” Verified accounts did not appear to be losing their checks so far. Continue reading
View time: 6 min 23
Level : Advanced
View time : 1 min 09
Level : Intermediate
Read time : 3 mins
Level : Intermediate
By DAVID McHUGH AP Business Writer
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — The European Central Bank is warning that many of the financial institutions it oversees are moving too slowly to shield themselves and Europe’s banking system from the impact of climate change, and it is setting new deadlines to meet those requirements.
The ECB said some progress had been made but that a review of 186 banks published Wednesday showed change was uneven and that “the glass remains half full,” top ECB official Frank Elderson said in a blog post on the central bank’s website.
The Frankfurt, Germany-based central bank for the 19 countries that use the euro currency set deadlines for banks to meet climate requirements by the end of 2024. Continue reading
View time: 1 min 45
Level : Advanced
Read time : 5 mins
Level : Advanced
By DANIEL COLE Associated Press
SAINTES-MARIE DE LA MER, France (AP) — In a makeshift arena in the French coastal village Aigues-Mortes, young men in dazzling collared shirts come face-to-face with a raging bull. Surrounded by the city’s medieval walls, the men dodge and duck the animal’s charges while spectators let out collective gasps. Part ritual and part spectacle, the tradition is deeply woven into the culture of the country’s southern wetlands, known as the Camargue.
For centuries people from across the region have observed Camarguaise bull festivities in the Rhone delta, where the Rhone river and the Mediterranean Sea meet. But now the tradition is under threat by rising sea levels, heat waves and droughts which are making water sources salty and lands infertile. At the same time, there are efforts by authorities to preserve more land, leaving less for bulls to graze.
“Here in Camargue the bull is God, like a king,” said Aigues-Mortes resident Jean-Pierre Grimaldi as he cheered on from the private arena stands, where he’s watched competitions for decades. “We live to serve these animals … some of the most brilliant bulls even have their own tombs built for them to be buried in.” Continue reading