Category: Articles of the week

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Articles of the Week 

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Spurred by lockdown, Spain gives 4-day week a try

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Read time : 4 mins

Level : Intermediate

By ARITZ PARRA Associated Press

MADRID (AP) — After years of waiting tables, Danae De Vries is one step closer to achieving her lifetime dream of becoming a theater coach.

Ironically, she owes that to the pandemic. It was after last year’s brutal lockdown that shut the Spanish economy down for weeks that the owners of a small restaurant chain in Madrid offered De Vries to cut her weekly work schedule by one day.

Already struggling to make ends meet in a city that has seen rental prices spiral, the 28-year-old was hesitant at first — and then enthusiastic when she was told her wages would remain untouched.
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Ship ‘partially refloated,’ but still stuck in Suez Canal

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Read time : 4 mins

Level : Advanced

By ISABEL DEBRE and SAMY MAGDY Associated Press

SUEZ, Egypt (AP) — Engineers on Monday “partially refloated” the colossal container ship that continues to block traffic through the Suez Canal, authorities said, without providing further details about when the vessel would be set free.

Satellite data from MarineTraffic.com showed that the ship’s bulbous bow, once lodged deep in the canal’s eastern bank, had been partly wrested from the shore — although it remained stuck at the canal’s edge. The ship’s stern had swung around and was now in the middle of the waterway, tracking data showed.
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Happiness Report: World shows resilience in face of COVID19

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Read time : 5 mins

Level : Intermediate

By DAVID KEYTON Associated Press

STOCKHOLM (AP) — The coronavirus brought a year of fear and anxiety, loneliness and lockdown, and illness and death, but an annual report on happiness around the world released Friday suggests the pandemic has not crushed people’s spirits.

The editors of the 2021 World Happiness Report found that while emotions changed as the pandemic set in, longer-term satisfaction with life was less affected.

“What we have found is that when people take the long view, they’ve shown a lot of resilience in this past year,” Columbia University economist Jeffrey Sachs, one of the report’s co-author, said from New York.
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Will work from home outlast virus? Ford’s move suggests yes

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Read time : 3 mins

Level : Advanced

By TOM KRISHER and CHRISTOPHER RUGABER AP Business Writers

DETROIT (AP) — It’s a question occupying the minds of millions of employees who have worked from home the past year: Will they still be allowed to work remotely — at least some days — once the pandemic has faded?

On Wednesday, one of America’s corporate titans, Ford Motor Co., supplied its own answer: It told about 30,000 of its employees worldwide who have worked from home that they can continue to do so indefinitely, with flexible hours approved by their managers. Their schedules will become a work-office “hybrid”: They’ll commute to work mainly for group meetings and projects best-suited for face-to-face interaction.
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UK trade with EU plunges after Brexit, hurting economy

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Read time : 2 mins

Level : Intermediate

By DANICA KIRKA Associated Press

LONDON (AP) — U.K. trade with the European Union plunged in January as Britain’s departure from the bloc and widespread coronavirus restrictions dealt a double blow to the nation’s struggling economy.

Goods exports to the EU fell 40.7% from a month earlier and imports dropped 28.8%, the Office for National Statistics said Friday. The figures contributed to a 2.9% month-on-month decline in overall economic output.

Britain left the European single market on Jan. 1, ending almost half a century of free trade and triggering tariffs, increased paperwork and border delays on both sides of the English Channel.
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Still recovering, Japan marks 10 years since tsunami hit

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Read time : 3 mins

Level : Advanced

By MARI YAMAGUCHI Associated Press

TOKYO (AP) — Japan fell quiet at 2:46 p.m. Thursday to mark the minute that an earthquake began 10 years ago, setting off a tsunami and nuclear crisis that devastated the country’s northeast coast in a disaster that one survivor said he fears people are beginning to forget.

Carrying bouquets of flowers, many walked to the seaside or visited graves to pray for relatives and friends washed away by the water. Emperor Naruhito and Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga were among those observing a moment of silence at a memorial in Tokyo. Dignitaries and representatives of the survivors spoke — but most watched the ceremony online or on television because of restrictions to slow the coronavirus pandemic.
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New Tokyo Olympic president tries to assure Japan on safety

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Read time : 4 mins

Level : Intermediate

By STEPHEN WADE AP Sports Writer

TOKYO (AP) — The new president of the Tokyo Olympic organizing committee has begun holding weekly news conferences hoping to win over a doubting Japanese public with the postponed games opening in just under five months.

Seiko Hashimoto is trying to assure everyone that the Olympics will be safe and secure, a phrase she repeated a dozen times Friday in her inaugural news conference.

Polls show about 80% of Japanese think the games should be postponed again or canceled amid the pandemic.
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Oil prices surge after attack on Saudi oil site

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Read time : 3 mins

Level : Advanced

By CATHY BUSSEWITZ and ELAINE KURTENBACH AP Business writers

BANGKOK (AP) — Oil prices pressed higher Monday after strikes on major oil facilities in Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, shook energy markets already rattled by a decision by oil producers last week to not lift output.

Brent crude, the international standard, surpassed $70 per barrel for the first time in over a year, gaining $1.14 to $70.47 a barrel. It surged $2.62 on Friday.

Benchmark U.S. crude oil added $1.10 to $67.19 per barrel, up 1.7%, falling back from bigger gains earlier in the day. It jumped $2.26 to $66.09 per barrel on Friday.
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Europeans get ‘right to repair’ for some electrical goods

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Read time : 3 mins

Level : Intermediate

By FRANK JORDANS Associated Press

BERLIN (AP) — Companies that sell refrigerators, washers, hairdryers or TVs in the European Union will need to ensure those appliances can be repaired for up to 10 years, to help reduce the vast mountain of electrical waste that piles up each year on the continent.

The “right to repair,” as it is sometimes called, comes into force across the 27-nation bloc Monday. It is part of a broader effort to cut the environmental footprint of manufactured goods by making them more durable and energy efficient.
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Even more chaotic than usual, Globes still had their moments

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Read time : 4 mins

Level : Advanced

By JOCELYN NOVECK AP National Writer

In the opening moments of a Golden Globes night even more chaotic and confounding than usual, co-host Tina Fey raised a theoretical question: “Could this whole night have been an email?” Only the next three hours would tell.

Well, sure, it could have been an email. But then you wouldn’t have had Chadwick Boseman’s eloquent widow, bringing many to tears as she explained how she could never be as eloquent as her late husband. Or Jane Fonda, sharply calling out Hollywood for its lack of diversity on a night when her very hosts were under fire for exactly that. Or Chloé Zhao, making history as the first woman of Asian descent to win best director (and the first woman since 1984.)

Or 99-year-old Norman Lear, giving the simplest explanation for his longevity: never living or laughing alone. Or Jodie Foster kissing her wife joyfully, eight years after very tentatively coming out on the same telecast.
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