レアジョブ英会話 Daily News Article Podcast

Some tattoos simply have to go for one reason or another. But industry professionals say the process of taking them off is longer, much more costly, and much more painful than getting them put on.

Tracy Herrmann has eight tattoos and is in the process of getting four phrases, including “one step at a time,” removed from her feet and arms. The 54-year-old from the Detroit suburb of Plymouth, Michigan, started inking up about six years ago and says she doesn't regret getting tattoos.

“As I'm getting older, I just want my natural-looking skin back,” Herrmann said, following her fourth tattoo removal session at Chroma Tattoo Laser Tattoo Removal. The shop has since relocated from West Bloomfield Township to Brighton, Michigan.

Chroma owner Jaime Howard, like many who perform laser removals, uses something called a Q-switching, or quality switching, laser. It concentrates the light energy into intense short bursts or pulses. “It definitely feels like a hot rubber band hitting you, or grease from a frying pan,” said Howard, who has had some of her own tattoos removed. “Those are the two ways I explain that to a lot of people. It doesn't feel great.

“And if you come to see me, I'm never going to tell you it's going to be amazing, because it's not. It's not amazing. It sucks.” Light heat from the laser breaks the ink into particles small enough to be absorbed by the body and later excreted as waste. And it often takes a number of treatments to complete.

Using lasers to remove tattoos comes with some risks. Skin that bears the tattoo can be left lighter than the surrounding skin. There can also be temporary scarring, infection, redness, or soreness. That's according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Howard consulted with Herrmann as her fourth session at Chroma began. They spoke about the previous session and how far along they were with the ink removal. Both then donned dark sunglasses to protect their eyes from the brightness of the laser. Herrmann winced. Seconds later, it was done. But she still has more sessions ahead.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

A rescue team that covers Vermont’s tallest mountain has seen a rise in calls from inexperienced skiers who end up getting lost and in dangerous locations after being influenced by videos on social media.

After seeing footage online of skiers chasing fresh powder tracks in the backcountry, people are increasingly skiing out of bounds, finding themselves lost in the woods and in need of rescue.

On November 29, Stowe Mountain Rescue responded to a 911 call from a skier and snowboarder lost in the woods on Mount Mansfield. The two 19-year-olds had decided to drive up from New York to ski in the backcountry outside Stowe Mountain Resort after seeing videos of others doing so on social media, according to the rescue team.

“They referenced a TikTok video which had influenced them,” Stowe Mountain Rescue chief Jon Wehse said. “These people are unprepared, they’re ill-equipped, they’re not in the right shape, and they have no spatial awareness of where they are on the mountain, so it causes a problem very quickly.”

Stowe Mountain Rescue now sees around eight missions to help groups of lost skiers per season, up from around three such calls only five years ago, and that doesn’t include rescues by Mount Mansfield Ski Patrol in bounds at the resort.

With Vermont already seeing record snowfall this season, many ski resorts opened early for the season, which has only exacerbated the problem, Wehse said. “We have intermediate skiers that have no business being in the backcountry,” he said.

Though Stowe has seen a rapid increase in rescues, Wehse says these incidents aren’t limited to the area. “This is not a Stowe problem; this is a Vermont problem. It’s a global problem,” he said.

In a social media post, Stowe Mountain Rescue urged inexperienced skiers to simply stay on the trails.

A lifelong skier, Wehse understands the pull to find fresh snow, but says there are ways to ski other areas on the mountain more safely. “I love social media, I love watching the videos myself. However, what I would urge everyone to do is to learn how to do this carefully. The best place to start is in bounds.”

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

South Korea will require advertisers to label their ads made with artificial intelligence technologies in early 2026 as it seeks to curb a surge of deceptive promotions featuring fabricated experts or deep-faked celebrities endorsing food or pharmaceutical products on social media.

Following a policy meeting chaired by Prime Minister Kim Min-seok in December, officials said they will ramp up screening and removal of problematic AI-generated ads and impose punitive fines, citing growing risks to consumers—especially older people who struggle to tell whether content is AI-made.

Lee Dong-hoon, director of economic and financial policy at the Office for Government Policy Coordination, said in a briefing that such ads are “disrupting the market order” and that “swift action is now essential.”

“Anyone who creates, edits, and posts AI-generated photos or videos will be required to label them as AI-made, and the users of the platform will be prohibited from removing or tampering with those labels,” he said.

AI-generated ads using digitally fabricated experts or deepfake videos and audios of celebrities, promoting everything from weight-loss pills and cosmetics to illegal gambling sites, have become staples across the South Korean spaces of YouTube, Facebook, and other social media platforms.

The government will seek to revise the telecommunications act and other related laws so that the AI-labeling requirement, along with strengthened monitoring and punitive measures, can take effect in early 2026. Companies operating the platforms will also be responsible for ensuring that advertisers comply with the labeling rules, Lee said.

Officials say it’s becoming increasingly difficult to monitor and detect the growing number of false ads fueled by AI. South Korea’s Ministry of Food and Drug Safety identified more than 96,700 illegal online ads of food and pharmaceutical products in 2024 and 68,950 through September 2025, up from around 59,000 in 2023.

Officials plan to raise fines and also introduce punitive penalties this year to discourage the creation of false AI-generated ads, saying those who knowingly distribute false or fabricated information online or through other telecommunications networks could be held liable for damages up to five times the losses incurred.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Shohei Ohtani is catching up with more legends. The baseball superstar ends 2025 by winning The Associated Press (AP) Male Athlete of the Year for the fourth time, tying him with Lance Armstrong, LeBron James, and Tiger Woods for most among male honorees. Receiving this award multiple times is something truly special, Ohtani said in Japanese in an exclusive interview with the AP.

Ohtani received 29 of 47 votes in balloting among sports journalists from the AP and its members after his two-way dominance culminated in a repeat World Series title for his Los Angeles Dodgers, delivering perhaps the greatest single-game individual performance in sports history along the way. He previously won the award in 2024, his first season with the Dodgers, and in 2023 and 2021, when he was with the Los Angeles Angels.

The AP honor has been given out since 1931. Multisport standout Babe Didrikson Zaharias won six times over the 1930s, '40s, and '50s, the most by a man or woman. The ultra-competitive Ohtani's latest win broke a tie with Michael Jordan, whom, along with Woods, he followed while growing up in Japan. Last year (2024), I said I wanted to win this award again, and I will work hard so that I can win it again next year as well, he said.

Swedish-American pole vaulter Armand Duplantis, who won his third consecutive world title and has set the world record 14 times, including four times in 2025, was second with five votes in the balloting announced. Carlos Alcaraz, the world's top-ranked tennis player who won titles at the French and U.S. Opens, was third with four.

Ohtani has shown remarkable consistency since joining the Los Angeles Dodgers on a then-record $700 million, 10-year contract in December 2023. He won his fourth career Most Valuable Player award (second with the Dodgers) by unanimous vote, the first player in major league history to do so.

Does he surprise himself? Well, yes, there are times when I feel that way about myself, and of course, there are times when I think I'm not good enough, he said, so I suppose athletes experience both kinds of feelings.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Italian food is known and loved around the world for its fresh ingredients and palate-pleasing tastes. The U.N.'s cultural agency gave foodies another reason to celebrate their pizza, pasta, and tiramisu by listing Italian cooking as part of the world’s “intangible” cultural heritage.

UNESCO added the rituals surrounding Italian food preparation and consumption to its list of the world’s traditional practices and expressions. It's a designation celebrated alongside the more well-known UNESCO list of World Heritage sites, on which Italy is well represented with locations like Rome's Colosseum and the ancient city of Pompeii.

The citation didn’t mention specific dishes, recipes, or regional specialties, but highlighted the cultural importance Italians place on the rituals of cooking and eating: the Sunday family lunch, the tradition of grandmothers teaching grandchildren how to fold tortellini dough just so, and even the act of coming together to share a meal.

“Cooking is a gesture of love, a way in which we tell something about ourselves to others and how we take care of others,” said Pier Luigi Petrillo, a member of the Italian UNESCO campaign and professor of comparative law at Rome’s La Sapienza University.

“This tradition of being at the table, of stopping for a while at lunch, a bit longer at dinner, and even longer for big occasions, it’s not very common around the world,” he said.

Premier Giorgia Meloni celebrated the designation, which she said honored Italians and their national identity. “Because for us Italians, cuisine is not just food or a collection of recipes. It is much more: it is culture, tradition, work, wealth,” she said in a statement.

It’s by no means the first time a country’s cuisine has been recognized as a cultural expression: In 2010, UNESCO listed the “gastronomic meal of the French” as part of the world’s intangible heritage, highlighting the French custom of celebrating important moments with food.

Other national cuisines and cultural practices surrounding them have also been added in recent years: the “cider culture” of Spain’s Asturian region, the Ceebu Jen culinary tradition of Senegal, and the traditional way of making cheese in Minas Gerais, Brazil.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

The authors of a study that examined climate change's potential effect on the global economy said that data errors led them to slightly overstate an expected drop in income over the next 25 years.

The researchers at Germany's Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, writing in the journal Nature in 2024, had forecast a 19% drop in global income by 2050. Their revised analysis puts the figure at 17%.

The authors also said in their original work that there was a 99% chance that, by midcentury, it would cost more to fix damage from climate change than it would cost to build resilience. Their new analysis, not yet peer-reviewed, lowered that figure to 91%.

The Associated Press (AP) reported on the original study. Nature posted a retraction of it.

The researchers cited data inaccuracies in the first paper, particularly with underlying economic data for Uzbekistan between 1995 and 1999 that had a large influence on the results, and that their analysis had underestimated statistical uncertainty.

Max Kotz, one of the study's authors, told the AP that the heart of the study is unchanged: climate change will be enormously damaging to the world economy if unchecked, and that the impact will hit hardest in the lowest-income areas that contribute the fewest emissions, driving the planet's warming.

Gernot Wagner, a climate economist at Columbia Business School who wasn't involved with the research, said the thrust of the Potsdam Institute's work remains the same no matter which part of the range the true figure will be.

Climate change already hits home, quite literally. Home insurance premiums across the U.S. have already seen, in part, a doubling over the past decade alone, Wagner said. Rapidly accumulating climate risks will only make the numbers go up even more.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

The Prada Group has closed the purchase of Milan fashion rival Versace in a $1.375 billion cash deal that puts the fashion house known for its sexy silhouettes under the same roof as Prada’s “ugly chic” aesthetic and Miu Miu’s youth-driven appeal. The highly anticipated deal is expected to relaunch Versace’s fortunes after middling post-pandemic performance as part of the U.S. luxury group Capri Holdings.

Prada said in a one-line statement that the acquisition had been completed after receiving all regulatory clearances. Capri Holdings, which owns Michael Kors and Jimmy Choo, said the money would be used to pay down debt.

Donatella Versace welcomed the deal in an Instagram post, which also marked the birthday of the brand’s late founder, her brother, Gianni Versace. “Today is your day, and the day Versace joins the Prada family. I am thinking of the smile you would have had on your face,’' she wrote in a post that also featured a 1979 photo of Gianni Versace with Miuccia Prada.

Prada heir Lorenzo Bertelli is set to steer Versace’s next phase as executive chairman, in addition to his roles as group marketing director and sustainability chief. The son of co-creative director Miuccia Prada and longtime Prada Group chairman Patrizio Bertelli has said he doesn’t expect to make any swift executive changes at Versace, although he also noted that the company, which is among the top 10 most recognized brands in the world, has long been underperforming in the market.

Prada has underlined that the 47-year-old Versace brand offered “significant untapped growth potential.’’

The appeal of the deal is that it combines “the minimalist Prada (with) a maximalist Versace,” said Luca Solca, an analyst at the Bernstein Group consulting firm, meaning that the brands don’t compete for the same customers.

Versace is “long past its heyday,” Solca continued. “The challenge and the opportunity is to make it relevant again... They are going to have to invent something which is going to make the brand attractive, desirable, and interesting again.”

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Digitally projected art masterpieces are bringing priceless artworks into the home—and the money raised is being used to support museums and galleries. If you've always dreamed of hanging a painting by Leonardo or Michelangelo in your home, purchasing a certified digital copy could be just what you need.

The Italian non-profit Save the Artistic Heritage, with its technical partner Cinello, is providing collectors the possibility of owning a projection of original Italian masterpieces, sized and framed to match the museum experience.

“The idea behind this was to, we don't just want to sell a piece of technology, we want to actually sell a piece of artwork. It might sound easy, but it's not, we learned because there are so many rules within the artwork that is completely different from what you do if you just need to create some software or some technical product, says John Blem, the Italian-born Danish entrepreneur behind the initiative.

By purchasing one of the digital copies, the buyer obtains a certificate of authenticity also signed by the museum that owns the original work. The museum receives 50% of the profits.

“Yes, so this is actually the certification that you get, if you acquire one of these (digital copies), explains Blem with the certificate in his hand. So we are signing it and the museum direction is signing it, so this is actually showing you, you have the right loan of edition 3 out of 9 of this particular artwork.”

Only nine copies are made for each painting.

The revenue sharing is integral to the project, which aims to help cash-strapped museums access new income streams, and a key part of the sales pitch, Blem said. Over the last two years, Save the Artistic Heritage has contributed 300,000 euros ($347,000) to its Italian museum partners, with prices of the digital masterpieces ranging from 30,000 euros to 300,000 euros.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Air travelers in the U.S. without a REAL ID will be charged a $45 fee beginning in February, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) announced on December 1. The updated ID has been required since May, but passengers without it have so far been allowed to clear security with additional screening and a warning. The Department of Homeland Security says 94% of passengers are already compliant and that the new fee is intended to encourage travelers to obtain the ID.

REAL ID is a federally compliant state-issued license or identification card that meets enhanced requirements mandated in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Obtaining the ID—indicated by a white star in a yellow circle in most states—means taking more documents to the motor vehicle agency than most states require for regular IDs. It was supposed to be rolled out in 2008, but the implementation had been repeatedly delayed.

Beginning February 1, travelers 18 and older flying domestically without a REAL ID and who don't have another accepted form of ID on them, such as a passport, will pay the non-refundable fee to verify their identity through TSA's alternative Confirm.ID system. TSA officials said that paying the fee does not guarantee verification, and travelers whose identities cannot be verified may be turned away. If approved, however, the verification covers a 10-day travel period.

The fee can be paid online before arriving at the airport. Travelers can also pay online at the airport before entering the security line, but officials said the process may take up to 30 minutes.

The TSA initially proposed an $18 charge for passengers without a REAL ID, but officials said they raised it after realizing the alternative identification program would cost more than anticipated.

Other acceptable forms of ID include military IDs, permanent resident cards, and photo IDs from federally recognized tribal nations. TSA also accepts digital IDs through platforms such as Apple Wallet, Google Wallet, and Samsung Wallet at more than 250 airports in the U.S.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Chile's Atacama Desert is one of the darkest spots on Earth, a crown jewel for astronomers who flock to study the origins of the universe in this inhospitable desert along the Pacific coast. A rare confluence of factors makes the Atacama an ideal home for some of the world's biggest ground-based astronomical projects—dry climate, high altitude, and crucially, isolation from the light pollution of civilization.

“It's a perfect cocktail for astronomy,” said Daniela González, executive director of the Skies of Chile Foundation, a nonprofit that defends the quality of the country's night skies. But that may not be the case for much longer, a group of leading scientists warned in an open letter to Chile's government.

A private company is pressing ahead with plans to construct a giant renewable energy complex in sight of one of Earth's most productive astronomical facilities—the Paranal Observatory, operated by an international consortium known as the European Southern Observatory, or ESO.

In the letter, 30 renowned international astronomers, including Reinhard Genzel, a 2020 Nobel laureate in astrophysics who conducted much of his prize-winning research on black holes with the ESO-operated telescopes in the Atacama Desert, describe the project as “an imminent threat” to humanity's ability to study the cosmos and unlock more of its unknowns.

“The damage would extend beyond Chile's borders, affecting a worldwide scientific community that relies on observations made at Paranal to study everything from the formation of planets to the early universe,” the letter reads.

“We are convinced that economic development and scientific progress can and must coexist to the benefit of all people in Chile, but not at the irreversible expense of one of Earth's unique and irreplaceable windows to the universe.”

The scientists join a chorus of voices that have been urging the Chilean government to relocate the hydrogen-based fuel production plant since the plan was unveiled a year ago by AES Chile, an offshoot of the American-based multinational AES Corp.

In response to a request for comment, AES Chile said that its own technical studies showed the project would be fully compatible with astronomical observations and compliant with the Chilean government's strict regulations on light pollution.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.