レアジョブ英会話 Daily News Article Podcast

At several laboratories at a PepsiCo campus in Valhalla, New York, 30 miles north of New York City, scientists are busy figuring out how to replace the company’s artificial food dyes with natural food colorings in its beverages, especially Gatorade, one of its core products.

The company’s challenge: keeping Gatorade and other beverages vivid and colorful without the artificial dyes that U.S. consumers are increasingly rejecting. PepsiCo announced in April that it would accelerate a planned shift to natural colors in its foods and beverages. Right now, around 40% of the company’s products contain synthetic dyes.

But just as it took decades for artificial colors to seep into PepsiCo’s foods, it will take years to remove them. PepsiCo hasn’t committed to meeting the Trump administration’s goal of phasing out petroleum-based synthetic dyes by the end of 2026. The company said it’s still finding new ingredients, testing consumers' responses and waiting for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to approve natural alternatives.

The company says it can take two or three years to bring a product to market with a new natural color. PepsiCo must identify an agricultural source that will have a stable shelf life and not change a product’s flavor. Then it must ensure it can get a safe and adequate supply. It tests prototypes with trained experts and panels of consumers, then makes sure the new formula won’t snag its manufacturing process. It also has to design new packaging.

When Pepsi was founded in 1902, being free from artificial dyes was a point of pride. The company marketed Pepsi as “The Original Pure Food Drink” to differentiate it from rivals who were using lead, arsenic and other toxins as food colors before the U.S. banned them in 1906.

But synthetic dyes eventually won over food companies. They were vivid, consistent and cheaper than natural colors. They are also rigorously tested by the FDA and contain no traces of the crude oil they originate from.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Every Saturday morning, the Miami Street Medicine team heads out from Jackson Memorial Hospital for their street run, providing free mobile healthcare services to homeless people.

It’s part of a larger group, Dade County Street Response, which also includes a free clinic called Doctors Within Borders, a disaster relief team and a mental health crisis line.

Miami Street Medicine teams of paid staff and medical school student volunteers aren’t just bandaging cuts and handing out aspirin. They’re performing intake on patients with tablet computers and offer follow-up visits for chronic conditions. They're working with specialists like dermatologists, neurologists and cardiologists.

One challenge is the transient nature of homeless people, which makes it difficult to provide continual care. Dr. Armen Henderson, founder of Dade County Street Response, said the problem is compounded by laws that target homeless people.

Another challenge is fighting the common sentiment that providing services actually increases homelessness, Henderson said.

“There’s nothing that encourages people to be unsheltered. No one wants to be unsheltered. So, by offering services like this, we’re actually trying to ease people’s suffering. When people come in here, they want to get off the street. They want to figure out a plan.”

Members of Miami Street Medicine have noticed more people losing their homes in recent years as prices increase and wages remain stagnant. Dr. Inaki Bent, who oversees street medicine teams, said he’s also seen an increase in undocumented migrants on the streets as the state and federal governments have expanded immigration enforcement this year.

In addition to the individual benefit to patients, providing medical treatment on the street and at the group's clinic prevents treatable conditions from becoming emergencies that ultimately strain the entire healthcare system. For example, Bent had a patient who had previously been treated for seizures at an emergency room and received a prescription, but couldn't afford it. The patient would have eventually ended up back in the ER, but Miami Street Medicine paid for his medicine.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

OpenAI could now be the world's most valuable startup, ahead of Elon Musk's SpaceX and TikTok's parent company ByteDance, after a secondary stock sale designed to retain employees at the ChatGPT maker.

Current and former OpenAI employees sold $6.6 billion in shares to a group of investors, pushing the privately held artificial intelligence company's valuation to $500 billion, according to a source with knowledge of the deal who was not authorized to discuss it publicly.

The investors buying the shares included Thrive Capital, Dragoneer Investment Group and T. Rowe Price, along with Japanese tech giant SoftBank and the United Arab Emirates's MGX, the source said. The valuation reflects high expectations for the future of AI technology and continues OpenAI's remarkable trajectory from its start as a nonprofit research lab in 2015.

But with the San Francisco-based company not yet turning a profit, it could also amplify concerns about an AI bubble if the generative AI products made by OpenAI and its competitors don't meet the expectations of investors pouring billions of dollars into research and development.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has sought to dismiss those concerns when he toured a massive data center complex being built to run the company's AI systems in Abilene, Texas. Between the ten years we've already been operating and the many decades ahead of us, there will be booms and busts, Altman said after being asked about a bubble. People will overinvest and lose money, and underinvest and lose a lot of revenue.

He added that we'll make some dumb capital allocations and there will be short-term ups and downs, but that over the arc that we have to plan over, we are confident that this technology will drive a new wave of unprecedented economic growth, along with scientific breakthroughs, improvements to quality of life and new ways to express creativity.

A few weeks ago, the company launched two different business ventures, one a partnership with Etsy and Shopify for online shopping through ChatGPT and another a social media app, Sora, for generating and sharing AI videos.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

U.S. technology company Nvidia and Fujitsu, a Japanese telecommunications and computer maker, agreed to work together on artificial intelligence to deliver smart robots and a variety of other innovations using Nvidia's computer chips.

“The AI industrial revolution has already begun. Building the infrastructure to power it is essential in Japan and around the world,” Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang said, hugging his Fujitsu counterpart Takahito Tokita on stage.

“Japan can lead the world in AI and robotics,” Huang told reporters at a Tokyo hotel.

The companies will work together on building what they call “an AI infrastructure,” or the system on which the various futuristic AI uses will be based, including healthcare, manufacturing, the environment, next-generation computing, and customer services. The hope is to establish that AI infrastructure for Japan by 2030.

It initially will be tailored for the Japanese market, leveraging Fujitsu’s decades-long experience here, but may later expand globally and will utilize Nvidia’s GPUs, or graphics processing units, which are essential for AI, according to both sides.

The two executives did not outline specific projects or give a monetary figure for planned investments. But exploring a collaboration in AI for robots with Yaskawa Electric Corp., a Japanese machinery and robot maker, was noted as a possible example. AI will be constantly evolving and learning, they said.

Fujitsu and Nvidia have been working together on AI, speeding up manufacturing with digital twins and robotics to tackle aging Japan’s labor shortages.

Tokita said the companies were taking a “humancentric” approach aimed at keeping Japan competitive.

“Through our collaboration with Nvidia, we aim to create new, unprecedented technologies and contribute to solving even more serious social issues,” said Tokita.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

The owners of a giant Northern California corn maze once crowned the world's largest want visitors to remember that there is fun in getting lost.

It is confusing. It's exciting, and in a world of GPS and constant signage, you always know where you are, where you're going, said Tayler Cooley, whose family owns Cool Patch Pumpkins. When you're in the corn, everything looks the same until you pop up on a bridge and you're like, 'Oh wait, I'm all the way over here. I thought I was over there.'

The pumpkin patch and corn maze along Interstate 80 between Sacramento and San Francisco were open once again for the fall season through Halloween. Back in 2007 and again in 2014, Cool Patch Pumpkins earned a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's largest corn maze.

The maze—spread out over 40 acres (16.2 hectares)—typically takes at least 45 minutes to complete and features five different bridges that allow maze-goers to rise above the stalks. It is also known for the elaborate designs the team creates in the maze that can be seen from overhead. This year's maze celebrates farmers. Previous seasons honored veterans and first responders with giant murals included in the maze design.

Everything is done by hand, Cooley said. We want to communicate something fun and exciting, and then we build our pathways around that.

Visitors from near and far wound their way through the maze. I have no sense of direction, and we could spend all day here. That's fine. We have water. We'll survive three days, said Ryan Moore, who was visiting from Hawaii.

Likewise, Shelley Tang from Redwood City, California, joked that there is always corn to eat if they get lost. My children have a better sense of direction than me, so I'll be following them, she said.

A corn maze in Quebec, Canada, as well as those in Minnesota and Illinois, also boasts record-breaking mazes, either by acreage or mileage. Beyond the maze, Cool Patch features a corn bath for toddlers full of 150,000 pounds (68,038 kilograms) of dried corn.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

DoorDash has finalized its acquisition of the U.K. food delivery company Deliveroo, saying that the boards of both companies approved the nearly $4 billion deal announced earlier this year.

Word of DoorDash's interest in Deliveroo began to circulate in April, and the San Francisco company quickly confirmed that it had agreed to buy Deliveroo for $3.9 billion in cash. The deal, which was approved by a British court, will help DoorDash to expand its business in Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

It's the second major international acquisition by DoorDash’s in three years as the company expands from its traditional base in the U.S., Canada and Australia. After the purchase of Deliveroo and the 2022 acquisition of Helsinki's Wolt Enterprises, DoorDash will operate in 45 markets worldwide, 30 of them in Europe, the company said.

Deliveroo served 7 million monthly active users last year, while DoorDash has 42 million monthly active users. DoorDash is the largest U.S. food delivery platform.

DoorDash said that it was expanding the services it offers to customers, including restaurant reservations and deliveries made by robots in some of the markets where it operates.

Deliveroo currently operates in nine countries, including the U.K. and Ireland, which accounted for 59% of its business in 2023. It also does business in France, Italy, Belgium, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Qatar.

Both companies were founded in 2013, using the then emerging technology of smartphones to link restaurants and their customers to a network of delivery drivers. Food delivery orders surged globally during the COVID-19 pandemic as people holed up at home and restaurants shut down their dining rooms.

In the May announcement, the companies said that DoorDash would pay 180 pence ($2.40) for each Deliveroo share, 29% more than the closing price on April 24, the day before the offer was first made public.

DoorDash shares were unchanged on October 2, near $268 each. They are up close to 60% year-to-date.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Brazil's lower house has approved exempting up to 5,000 reais ($940) a month from income taxes, which would more than double the current exemption and meet a key priority of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's 2022 election campaign.

The bill passed the House unanimously on October 1 and will now head to the Senate, where Lula said he expects final approval for the measure, which has drawn broad public support. Lula described the vote on X as A victory in favor of tax justice and the fight against inequality in Brazil, benefiting 15 million Brazilian workers.

In the bill sent to Congress in March, Lula's leftist government proposed to offset the loss of state revenue by introducing a minimum effective tax rate for high-income individuals—a tax that must be paid regardless of the amount of deductions and credits the taxpayer might have.

The new minimum effective tax would apply to people who earn over 600,000 reais (approximately $113,000) a year, ramping up from zero to 10% for those who earn over 1,200,000 reais (some $226,000) annually. That legislation would target some 141,000 wealthy individuals in the country, who on average currently pay an effective tax rate of 2.5%, according to Brazil's Finance Ministry.

If the measure passes the Senate, Lula would then sign the reform into law, and it would come into effect on January 1, 2026.

Income tax exemption is not a favor from the state, it is the acknowledgment of a right, a step forward in the country's social justice, ensuring more money on the table for those earning up to 5,000 reais, Speaker Hugo Motta said on social media, after the approval.

Carla Beni, an economist at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, said that the proposed exemption helps correct imbalances in which many of the rich pay proportionately less tax than the poor, and that it would help the economy.

People will either spend more, save or, pay off debts, Beni said.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

As Vilnius basks in its Green Capital 2025 accolade, the newest initiative, a small fleet of fully electric boats, has been launched on the Neris River. The Lithuanian capital has become the first European city to integrate fully electric boats into its scheduled public river transport system.

The boats that ferry people up and down the Neris River operate by displacing water. This is considered more economical than other electric vessels because it cuts through or displaces water rather than other boats that plane on the water's surface. The broad, rounded hulls of displacement boats make them steady, and because they consume less energy, they have a bigger range. The ferry takes passengers past centuries-old architecture while contributing to Vilnius's modern reputation, being designated as Europe's Green Capital for 2025.

At the newly constructed terminal beside the iconic King Mindaugas Bridge, you’ll find maps displaying the route's strategic stops connecting key districts across the city. In the background looms Elektra, a striking statue by renowned sculptor Bolesław Bałzukiewicz. The route links cultural landmarks, business districts, and residential areas.

Loreta Levulytė-Staškevičienė, the CEO of JUDU, Vilnius’ transport department, says, “We are very proud of this project because we are looking in Europe, and nobody else so far did this project. So we are very thankful for our partners, for the boat company who built the boats. And it obviously was a big responsibility for the city and for the citizens to say that, yes, we will have made a boat in six or seven months.”

The total value of the contract for four electric boats and their servicing is €1.85 million, with each boat costing €450,000. So far, there are just two in the fleet, each boat carrying up to 32 passengers. The city plans to expand the fleet by purchasing an additional two boats in the future. They're currently being built in Latvia.

Digital ticketing allows passengers to purchase tickets through the same mobile app used for buses and trams. The comprehensive public transport network serves more than 500,000 passengers daily across over 60 bus routes and 18 trolleybus lines.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

The Uganda Wildlife Authority is celebrating success in rhino conservation with the first-ever naming ceremony in the Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary. Once extinct in Uganda, southern white rhinos have thrived in the reserve, which is now home to a population of almost fifty.

17 southern white rhino calves, born between 2021 and 2024, were 'adopted' and named by various corporations and individuals. The event aimed to raise over 11 million U.S. dollars for rhino conservation.

Rhinos were hunted to extinction in Uganda, but the species was reintroduced in 1996 and the country is now home to almost 50, says James Musinguzi, executive director of the Uganda Wildlife Authority. “Rhinos got extinct in Uganda by 1983 and through government efforts …, six of them were brought here at Ziwa Rhino sanctuary and they have multiplied to 48.

Twenty southern white rhinos from the sanctuary will be moved to the Ajai Wildlife Reserve in North Western Uganda says Musinguzi. And now we have an effort to take them back into the wild, after doing a feasibility study and analyzing a suitable habitat. And so today is a significant day to us because, in addition to recognizing that the rhino has been rejuvenated in Uganda, we are also able to take them back into the wild places.”

Joseph Masembe, regional director, Climate Change Advocacy East Africa, says the rhino translocation is the next stage of the conservation success story. “The rhinos that have been named today will continue to act as a symbol of our attachment to the conservation of wildlife, specifically the rhinos. As you can see, the rhino population here has grown 48 rhinos today. And because of the space and the ability of these rhinos to thrive, 20 of them are going to move away to Ajai to give space to the rest of those to grow and blossom because the Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary is like a breeding ground.”

The event marked World Rhino Day, which was started in 2010 to raise awareness of the threat of poaching and habitat loss for all five of the world’s rhino species.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Standing barefoot in a grassy patch of dandelions, Iris Phoebe Weaver excitedly begins listing the many ways the modest plant can be used medicinally and in cooking. I just picked a bunch of dandelion flowers yesterday and threw them in vodka with some orange peel and some sugar, and that's my dandelion aperitif, Weaver said. That will make a lovely mixed drink at some point.

A longtime herbalist and foraging instructor in Massachusetts, Weaver takes people on nature walks that transform their relationships with their surroundings. Lately, she's been encouraged by the uptick in interest in foraging, a trend she sees as benefiting the environment, community and people.

There is just an amazing amount of food that is around us, Weaver said. There is so much abundance that we don't even understand.

Humans have been foraging long before they developed the agricultural tools some 12,000 years ago, which quickly overshadowed the ancient act that helped sustain early humans. Yet foraging enthusiasts say the search for wild mushrooms, edible plants, shellfish and seaweed has grown more popular in recent years as people tout their rare finds. Others share knowledge on social media, and experienced foragers offer training to novices on safe and sustainable practices.

The renewed interest ranges from those wanting to be budget-conscious—foraging is free after all—to those wanting to be more mindful of their environmental footprint. Some even use foraging as a creative outlet, using mushrooms they find to create spore prints and other art.

The popularity is also helped by the hobby's accessibility. Foragers can look for wild food everywhere, from urban landscapes to abandoned farmlands to forests—they just need permission from a private landowner or to secure the right permit from a state or federal park. Some advocates have even launched a map highlighting where people can pick fruits and vegetables for free.

Foraging is an ancient concept, said Evan Mallett, chef and owner of the Black Trumpet Bistro in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, a popular historic New England destination. Our culture has moved far away from foraging and is fortunately coming back into it now.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.