View time : 1 min 55
Level : Intermediate
Author: natixis-ezine
TikTok sets new default time limits for minors
Read time : 4 mins
Level : Intermediate
By MICHELLE CHAPMAN AP Business Writer
TikTok said Wednesday that every account held by a user under the age of 18 will have a default 60-minute daily screen time limit in the coming weeks. The changes arrive during a period in which there are growing concerns among different governments about the app’s security and ability to alter its algorithm to push certain posts.
The update also mirrors gaming rules imposed on minors in China, where TikTok’s parent company ByteDance was formerly based. ByteDance now says it has no headquarters because it is a global business and that instead it has leaders in Singapore, New York and elsewhere managing its business. In 2021, Chinese authorities issued new rules that let minors play online games for only an hour a day and only on Fridays, weekends and public holidays — an effort to curb internet addiction.
In the U.S., families have struggled with limiting the amount of time their children spend on the Chinese-owned video sharing app. According to the Pew Research Center, about two-thirds of Americans teens use TikTok. Continue reading
Five ways war in Ukraine has changed the world
View time: 3 min 56
Level : Advanced
4-day workweek trial: Shorter hours, happier employees
Read time : 2 mins
Level : Advanced
By COURTNEY BONNELL Associated Press
LONDON (AP) — Work less, get more.
A trial of a four-day workweek in Britain, billed as the world’s largest, has found that an overwhelming majority of the 61 companies that participated from June to December will keep going with the shorter hours and that most employees were less stressed and had better work-life balance.
That was all while companies reported revenue largely stayed the same during the trial period last year and even grew compared with the same six months a year earlier, according to findings released this week.
“We feel really encouraged by the results, which showed the many ways companies were turning the four-day week from a dream into a realistic policy, with multiple benefits,” said David Frayne, research associate at University of Cambridge, who helped lead the team conducting employee interviews for the trial. “We think there is a lot here that ought to motivate other companies and industries to give it a try.” Continue reading
Critics reject changes to Roald Dahl books as censorship
Read time : 4 mins
Level : Intermediate
By DANICA KIRKA Associated Press
LONDON (AP) — Critics are accusing the British publisher of Roald Dahl’s classic children’s books of censorship after it removed colorful language from works such as “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” and “Matilda” to make them more acceptable to modern readers.
A review of new editions of Dahl’s books now available in bookstores shows that some passages relating to weight, mental health, gender and race were altered. The changes made by Puffin Books, a division of Penguin Random House, first were reported by Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper.
Augustus Gloop, Charlie’s gluttonous antagonist in “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” which originally was published in 1964, is no longer “enormously fat,” just “enormous.” In the new edition of “Witches,” a supernatural female posing as an ordinary woman may be working as a “top scientist or running a business” instead of as a “cashier in a supermarket or typing letters for a businessman.” Continue reading
Spinal stimulation could aid mobility after stroke
View time : 3 min 31
Level : Intermediate
Startups race to bring electric boats to market
View time: 1 min 35
Level : Advanced
Decision to shoot down balloons puts spotlight on hobbyists
Read time : 3 mins
Level : Advanced
By TODD RICHMOND and HARM VENHUIZEN Associated Press
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Decisions to shoot down multiple unidentified objects over the U.S. and Canada this month have put a spotlight on amateur balloonists who insist their creations pose no threat.
Over the last three weeks, U.S. President Joe Biden has ordered fighter jets to shoot down three objects detected in U.S. air space — a suspected Chinese spy balloon off the South Carolina coast as well as smaller unidentified objects over Alaska and Lake Huron. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last week ordered another object to be shot down over the Yukon; a U.S. fighter jet carried out that mission.
U.S. government officials have yet to definitively identify the objects, but Biden said Thursday that they were probably balloons linked to private companies, weather researchers or hobbyists. Continue reading
Brace Yourself, Paris. Lisbon Is Europe’s Most Romantic Capital City
Read time : 4 mins
Level : Intermediate
By Laura Olds
Vacationing couples in Lisbon, Portugal, this Valentine’s Day are in for more than a chocolate treat. New research analyzing Trip Advisor’s data for European capital cities shows that Lisbon has 152 romantic hotels and 588 romantic restaurants, ranking it as the top city for lovebirds.
The study determined its findings by accounting for each capital city’s population and area relative to the number of hotels and restaurants that Trip Advisor lists as romantic. Lisbon has an impressive 278 romantic hotels per million people and 1,077 romantic restaurants per million people.
Where Does The City of Love Rank?
Paris, a French city where even the rain is romanticized, comes in third place as Europe’s most romantic capital city, according to Catamaran Charter Croatia’s study.
Love isn’t the only time when looks can be deceiving, though. Couples have more accommodation and restaurant options in Paris than in Lisbon, with nearly twice as many romantic hotels and almost 2.5 as many romantic restaurants. But from a ratio perspective, Paris’ romantic hotel and restaurant industry is lacking. Paris is only five square kilometers larger than Lisbon but boasts a population nearly four times as big. Continue reading
AP Q&A – US shoots down unidentified objects
View time : 2 min 51
Level : Intermediate