Category: Life Style

Read time : 2 mins

Level : Intermediate

By The Associated Press undefined

The winter solstice is Saturday, bringing the shortest day and longest night of the year to the Northern Hemisphere — ideal conditions for holiday lights and warm blankets.

For those who would rather have more sunlight, you can try to make your way to the Southern Hemisphere, where it is summer. Or be patient: Starting Sunday, days will get a little bit longer in the Northern Hemisphere every single day until late June.

These annual changes in sunlight as the Earth revolves around the sun have been well known to humans for centuries. Monuments such as Stonehenge in England and the Torreon at Peru’s Machu Picchu were designed in part to align with solstices.

Here’s what to know about how the Earth’s march around the sun splits up the year. Continue reading

Read time : 2 mins

Level : Intermediate

By DEVI SHASTRI AP Health Writer

MILWAUKEE (AP) — The Aurora Health Care Mobile Medical Clinic team waited patiently at a table in the main hallway of the Milwaukee Public Library’s sprawling downtown branch, a blood pressure cuff and mental health questionnaire at the ready as they called out to patrons who paused: “Do you have any questions about your health?”

On this Tuesday afternoon, one man did. His joints were bothering him, he told Carolyn McCarthy, the team’s nurse practitioner. And he knew his bones need calcium to stay strong, so he stopped taking his blood pressure medication, a calcium channel blocker.

McCarthy talked with him at length in simple and specific terms about how the medication worked on his cells, why it was important to take and how it doesn’t affect calcium storage in his bones.

“Hopefully, he walked away a little bit more informed,” McCarthy said. Continue reading

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By MARÍA TERESA HERNÁNDEZ Associated Press

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The first bite is an assault to the senses. A sugary, citric, fluffy delight.

“Pan de muerto” or “bread of the dead” is baked in Mexico every year, from early October to mid-November, amid Day of the Dead celebrations.

Shaped like a bun, decorated with bone-like bread pieces and sugar on top, pan de muerto can be seen at coffee shops, dinner tables or home-made altars, which Mexicans build to remember their deceased loved ones and welcome them back for a night on Nov. 2.

Its date of origin can’t be specified, but pan de muerto can be thought of as a fusion of Mesoamerican and Spanish traditions, said Andrés Medina, a researcher at the Anthropological Research Institute of the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Continue reading

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Level : Intermediate

By ROD McGUIRK Associated Press

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — King Charles III and Queen Camilla arrived in Sydney on Friday for the first Australian visit by a reigning monarch in more than a decade, a trip that has restarted debate about the nation’s constitutional links to Britain.

The Sydney Opera House’s iconic sails were illuminated with images of previous royal visits to welcome the couple, whose six-day trip will be brief by royal standards. Charles, 75, is being treated for cancer, which led to the reduced itinerary.

Charles and Camilla were welcomed in light rain at Sydney Airport by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, New South Wales state Premier Chris Minns and the king’s representative in Australia, Governor-General Sam Mostyln.

Charles is only the second reigning British monarch to visit Australia. His mother, Queen Elizabeth II, became the first 70 years ago.

While the welcome has been warm, Australia’s national and state leaders want the royals removed from their constitution. Continue reading

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By KAITLYN HUAMANI Associated Press

Every Christmas growing up in Minnesota, Jimmy Darts’ parents gave him $200 in cash: $100 for himself and $100 for a stranger. Now, with over 12 million followers on TikTok and several million more on other platforms, philanthropy is his full-time job.

Darts, whose real surname is Kellogg, is one of the biggest creators of “kindness content,” a subset of social media videos devoted to helping strangers in need, often with cash amassed through GoFundMe and other crowdfunding methods. A growing number of creators like Kellogg give away thousands of dollars – sometimes even more – on camera as they also encourage their large followings to donate.

“The internet is a pretty crazy, pretty nasty place, but there’s still good things happening on there,” Kellogg told The Associated Press.

Not everyone likes these videos, though, with some viewers deeming them, at their best, performative, and at their worst, exploitative. Continue reading

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Level : Intermediate

By MONIKA PRONCZUK Associated Press

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — For decades Senegal, a former French colony in West Africa, has been touted as the bastion of the French language in the region. Leopold Sedar Senghor, the country’s first president and a poet, is considered one of the founding fathers of the concept of Francophonie, a global alliance of French-speaking countries.

But many say a shift is underway. While French remains the country’s official language, inscribed into its constitution, its influence is waning. It is giving way to Wolof, the most widely spoken local language — and not just on the street, where the latter has always been dominant, but in the halls of power: government offices, university corridors and mainstream media. Continue reading

Read time : 2 mins

Level : Intermediate

Michael Dinich | Wealth of Geeks undefined

Over half of Americans claim a good cup of coffee can be “so powerful,” it can turn their worst days around into good ones.

On the flip side, in a poll of 2,000 American coffee drinkers, 31% said their entire day can be ruined if their coffee isn’t right. Some are so in-tune with their coffee, they can tell when they’ve received the incorrect order based on if it doesn’t taste right (25%) or doesn’t look right (9%).

Commissioned by La Colombe and Chobani and conducted by Talker Research, the study revealed how both hot coffee and iced coffee drinkers prefer their brews. Continue reading