レアジョブ英会話 Daily News Article Podcast

Before New York Fashion Week kicked off in Manhattan, some of the incoming brands made an early first stop elsewhere—out in Queens, on the blue hard courts of the U.S. Open.

In a sport where brands like Nike and Adidas were once the only players, the logos of Gucci and Miu Miu have started to weave their way in. Tennis fashion has been surging, and the luxury fashion industry doesn't want to feel left out.

Luxury fashion partnerships in the tennis world have historically been somewhat sparse. They've been testing the waters in recent years, and lately, the deals have been flowing—Bottega Veneta with Lorenzo Musetti, Burberry with Jack Draper, Canali with Stefanos Tsitsipas and Dior with Zheng Qinwen have all come since January.

Coco Gauff wore tennis dresses partially designed by Miu Miu for three tournaments this summer. “Fashion helps bring casual fans to the sport,” she said. And top-ranked Jannik Sinner often has carried a Gucci tennis bag onto the court since their partnership began in 2022.

The collaborations are multiplying. And they’re causing a buzz.

When Musetti debuted as a Bottega Veneta ambassador, the brand’s first athlete, by wearing their white jacket at Wimbledon this summer, both the sports and fashion worlds were taken.

“It was really cool because every magazine, every fashion magazine was talking about it,” Musetti said with a smile, a few days before he started playing in New York. “I think the tennis courts can also be a stage.”

Tennis’ increasing cultural capital has made the sport just that—a stage—for players and fans alike. But luxury fashion brands are flocking in for more than just its recent popularity.

“Tennis is a marketer’s dream because it crosses so many demographics and still has prestige,” said Meeta Roy, an associate professor of fashion business at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York who previously worked in the luxury fashion industry.

The sport's historical association with the wealthy, coupled with its skyrocketing general popularity, is making its courts the perfect marketing opportunity for the luxury space.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Sales of non-alcoholic (NA) drinks are soaring as more people rethink their relationship with booze. But experts warn these alcohol-free alternatives may not be the right choice for everyone.

Moderate drinking was once thought to be good for your heart, but recent research shows that drinking less, or nothing at all, is a much healthier way to go. Alcohol has been linked to cancers, injuries, cardiovascular disease and a host of other problems.

So the low- or no- alcohol drinks are seen as an attractive alternative. They have less than 0.5% alcohol by volume. So that's compared to a standard beer, that would be about 5%, or a standard wine, that would be about 12%. But they do contain a lot of the alcohol-related cues, so the same taste, smell, sipping experience, sometimes even the same brand as alcoholic products, explains Molly Bowdring from Stanford University.

Retail sales of non-alcoholic wine, beer and spirits surged to $823 million last year. That's according to market research firm NielsenIQ, which says more than nine in 10 NA customers also buy alcohol.

Retiree Ann Kopp Mitchell, who recently tasted various NA beverages at Monday Morning Bottle Shop in San Diego, says they're a positive addition to her life. “If I want a glass of wine with my dinner, I don’t feel guilty. I can enjoy that glass of wine. And if I want to have a spirit because we’re celebrating someone’s birthday, or champagne, I will do that. But I’ll only have one, and then let it go, and then maybe go to a non-alcoholic, she says.

Still, health experts say non-alcoholic beverages aren’t for everyone, especially if they might trigger cravings for alcohol. These so-called NA drinks are meant to mimic alcohol in many ways, such as appearance, smell and taste.

Some drinks, like mocktails made with soda and sweet syrups, have high levels of sugar. The American Heart Association recommends limiting added sugars to no more than about six teaspoons a day for women and nine teaspoons a day for men. A 12-ounce can of soda on its own contains 10 teaspoons.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Honey bee researchers at Michigan State University (MSU) are enlisting a four-legged ally to sniff out a disease that threatens the vital insects.

Maple, an English Springer Spaniel, used to work for law enforcement, but now she's doing her bit for the planet to help keep nature's prized pollinators in good health. In her latest role, she's the queen bee among researchers at Michigan State University—helping to sniff out danger to honey bees.

The Pollinator Performance Center's wide range of projects includes developing a training program for dogs to use their sensitive noses to uncover a bacterial disease called American foulbrood that threatens honey bee larvae.

“It's pretty much the same across the board, whether you're training a narcotics dog or explosives dog: You take the target odor, you present it to them, and through a series of kind of systematic and repetitive training, you start to—the dog starts to learn to correlate the odor, the target odor, with something good is going to happen,” Sue Stejskal, a Michigan State grad who has been training dogs says.

A panting Maple stands patiently as Stejskal, her longtime owner/trainer/handler, slowly places the once-retired K-9 in a yellow protective suit, complete with a veil for her head and four booties that are slipped over her paws in case Maple steps on a bee.

“Much like with humans, we recognize that if a dog is going to be in an active bee yard, they need to wear the same personal protective equipment as people do. And so, that is a bee suit. You can’t buy them on Amazon for dogs. So, there’s been some altering and testing,” says Stejskal.

Meghan Milbrath, an MSU professor whose lab studies risk factors that affect honey bees’ health, was working to establish diagnostic and screening tools for honey bee diseases and to train honey bee veterinarians. One of the vets put her in touch with Stejskal. They met, and the dog detection plan was born.

Stejskal then set about teaching an old dog a new trick. New to Maple, anyway. Maryland’s agriculture department previously used canine detection methods in beehives.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

For more than 150 years, horse-drawn carriages have been trotting through Manhattan’s Central Park, weathering the arrival of the automobile, years of criticism from animal rights activists and even a mayoral administration that vowed to ban the tourist activity.

But now the influential nonprofit that manages the 843-acre park—and has previously stayed out of the debate—has thrown its support behind a proposal to wind down the industry as early as next summer.

The Central Park Conservancy argued in an August 12 letter to the City Council that horse carriages have an outsized impact on public safety and road infrastructure in the increasingly crowded park.

“Horses are too unpredictable and the roadways are too busy with too many different kinds of users now,” said Elizabeth Smith, the conservancy’s CEO.

Smith noted global cities, including London, Paris and Beijing, have already banned the nostalgic rides, some of them even embracing horseless, electric-powered versions.

Eliminating carriage horses also goes against famed landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted’s vision for the park, with its hilly paths and undulating roads tailor-made for leisurely carriage rides, argues Christina Hansen, a longtime carriage driver and industry spokesperson.

“We’re seeing the park the way it was meant to be seen,” she said.

Animal rights groups have long complained that horses can get easily spooked on busy city streets, leading to accidents and injuries. They also claim the horses are overworked and live in inadequate stables, and their drivers flaunt city regulations, including leaving behind piles of horse manure. All animals are supposed to be fitted with manure-catching devices.

Carriage horse owners and drivers maintain that their horses enjoy a life of relative ease. Under city regulations, each is inspected by a veterinarian twice a year and must retire by the age of 26.

They work a maximum of nine hours a day and must stop giving rides if it’s above 89°F (32°C) or above 80°F (27°C) with high humidity. They also don’t work if there’s severe weather, and must get at least five weeks’ vacation a year outside city limits with daily access to pasture.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Banks in Thailand are now required to set a daily limit of 50,000 baht ($1,537) on many online transfers to lessen financial fraud, particularly those involving customers judged vulnerable, such as children and older people.

The rule announced by the Bank of Thailand is meant to help combat the huge criminal industry of online scams, which makes billions of dollars annually and is especially active in Southeast Asia. In many countries, there is increasing pressure on banks to play a more active role in safeguarding the assets of customers targeted by scammers.

The new measure aims to curb financial fraud by preventing criminals from receiving and transferring a large amount of money at one time, and enabling timely freezing of illicit funds in order to increase the chances that victims will be able to recover at least some of their money, according to Daranee Saeju, the bank's assistant governor for Payment Systems Policy and Financial Consumer Protection.

The daily transfer limit will be applied to transfers in three different tiers: under 50,000 baht ($1,537), under 200,000 baht ($6,147) and above 200,000 baht ($6,147), depending on each customer's risk profile and the banks' assessment under know-your-customer, or KYC, rules.

Customers with established records of responsibility can continue transferring at their usual levels.

This measure will be implemented for new mobile banking and internet banking customers by the end of this month and for existing customers by the end of this year.

Thailand has around 12 million mobile banking users, according to a report in the Bangkok Post newspaper. It said previous central bank safeguards capped mobile banking transfers at 50,000 baht ($1,537) per transaction—with facial recognition required—and 200,000 baht ($6,147) per day in total.

In June alone this year, 24,500 scam cases related to money transfers were reported to the authorities, causing total losses of 2.8 billion baht ($86.1 million)—an average of 114,000 baht ($3,504) per case. The largest single fraudulent transfer amounted to 4.9 million baht ($150,591), the Post reported, citing the central bank.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

A medical museum in Philadelphia has redrawn its policies on the collection and display of human remains, limiting its acceptance of additional specimens and working to follow “evolving modern medical ethical standards” in how it handles the 6,500 organs, bones and other body parts in its collection.

The College of Physicians of Philadelphia, which owns the Mütter Museum, announced it is restricting the taking of photos and videos of human remains, allowing it only with the museum’s permission. Photography by the public will remain prohibited.

The museum “will allow photography as long as it sort of serves an educational purpose,” said Sara Ray, its director of interpretation and engagement. “But education itself is a pretty broad net that we’re working through.”

The great majority of the remains were collected from about 1840 to about 1940, mostly from Philadelphia, largely body parts and organs that were considered to be helpful in medical education and taken during autopsies or surgery. Such collections were not uncommon among medical societies at a time when specimens were critical to understanding how the body is structured and how it works. But most of those museums are long gone.

The Mütter Museum said it is also working to “de-anonymize” its collection by looking into the personal histories of its human remains to figure out who they are, if possible, and to “do justice” in how it displays them and tells their stories. The goal is to exhibit them in the context of the history of medicine, bodily diversity and the tools and therapies used to treat them.

“The goal is not finding an identity for finding an identity’s sake,” Ray said. “The goal is to find an identity so that we can build a richer biographical profile, through which we can then ask questions about the way that this person navigated the world. And so that’s going to look very different for every single specimen.”

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Wiesława Juroszek was only 6 years old when she learned the intricate handicraft of lace crocheting from the women in her family as part of a long tradition in their little mountain village.

Now, 53 years later, she is part of a new generation of women using those skills to make Koniaków famous far beyond Poland's borders. Their uniquely crocheted, beautiful wedding dresses, skirts, blouses and even traditional tablecloths are enjoying a surge of popularity and elevated prices for the skilled work.

In Koniaków, almost all the women do hekla, as we call it, Juroszek told The Associated Press. For us it's a passion, for us it's our whole life.

Around 700 women work as lace makers in Koniaków, which is nestled high in the Beskid Mountains in southern Poland near the border with Slovakia.

The techniques have been passed down for years by Koniaków women, who were following the tradition of previous generations of Polish women who embellished bonnets worn over their hair by crocheting lace ribbons to be tied around their foreheads.

It was a decorative element. When a woman was married, she had her own, Juroszek said. Later, women started making them as table decorations, like napkins, and the shape became round. And the women sold them, which was a way to earn money.

What began more than 100 years ago simply as work to support household budgets has been transformed into a prized craft. Blouses sell for at least 3,000 to 4,000 złoty ($750 to $1,000) and wedding dress prices reach up to tens of thousands of złoty.

The steep costs are based on the amount of time the women need for their needlework, with even a simple blouse requiring several weeks.

Unlike some other traditional craftworks around the globe, crocheting lace is not fading; it's flourishing.

Koniaków lace has drawn the attention of international designers. The ladies of Koniaków say each of their lace creations is one of a kind, so it comes as no surprise that international fashion designers noticed the pieces.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

On the Mercator projection, one of the world’s most popular maps, Greenland and Africa appear to be about the same size. But on the Equal Earth projection showing continents in their true proportions, 14 Greenlands would easily fit inside the African continent.

Criticism that the Mercator projection does not accurately reflect Africa’s real size is not new. However, a recent campaign by African advocacy groups is gaining momentum online as it urges organizations and schools to adopt the Equal Earth projection, which they say more accurately displays the size of the continent of more than 1.4 billion people.

The African Union, the continent’s diplomatic organization with 55 member countries, endorsed the campaign last month in what advocates call a major milestone.

The Mercator map was created in the 16th century by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator. Designed to help European navigators at sea, the map distorted landmasses by enlarging regions near the poles, such as North America and Greenland, while shrinking Africa and South America.

The 2018 Equal Earth projection is a modern map that follows the Earth’s curvature and shows continents in their true proportions, unlike the distorted Mercator map.

The Mercator projection is still common in classrooms and tech platforms. Google Maps dropped the widely used projection for a 3D globe when viewed on a desktop browser in 2018, but users can switch back to the old map. The mobile app still defaults to the Mercator projection.

Two African advocacy groups, Africa No Filter and Speak Up Africa, launched a campaign in April to push schools, followed by international organizations and media outlets, to use the Equal Earth projection, which it says more accurately reflects the true size of Africa.

“Correcting the map is not only an African issue. It is a matter of truth and accuracy that concerns the entire world. When whole generations, in Africa and elsewhere, learn from a distorted map, they develop a biased view of Africa’s role in the world,” said Fara Ndiaye, co-founder and deputy executive director of Speak Up Africa.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Matcha is suddenly popping up in all sorts of things, from lattes and ice cream to cakes and chocolate.

No one knows for sure who started the global matcha boom, which has been going on for several years. But it's clear that harvests, especially of fine-grade matcha, can't keep up with demand.

Matcha is a type of tea that's grown in shade, steamed and then ground into a very fine powder. It's processed differently from regular green tea.

The Japanese agricultural ministry has been working to boost tea growth, offering help to farmers with new machines, special soil, financial aid and counseling to try to coax tea growers to switch to matcha from regular green sencha tea.

“We don’t want this to end up just a fad, but instead make matcha a standard as a flavor and Japanese global brand,” said Tomoyuki Kawai, who works at the tea section of the agricultural ministry.

Japan's tea exports have more than doubled over the last decade, with the U.S. now accounting for about a third. Much of that growth is of matcha, according to Japanese government data. The concern is that with labor shortages as aging farmers leave their fields, the matcha crunch may worsen in the coming years.

Other countries, including China and some Southeast Asian countries, are also producing matcha, so Japan is racing to establish its branding as the origin of the tea.

Tea ceremony practitioners aren’t angered by the craze, just perplexed. They hope it will lead to people taking an interest in sado or “the way of tea,” whose followers have been steadily declining. But they aren’t counting on it.

Business owner Minoru Handa has a longtime relationship with growers in Kagoshima, southwestern Japan, and has a steady supply of matcha. To guard against hoarders, he limits purchases at his store to one can per customer.

Handa, who has exhibited his prize-winning tea in the U.S. and Europe, expects that growers will increase the supply and shrugs off the hullabaloo over the matcha shortage.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

A young Kenyan entrepreneur is harnessing AI to break communication barriers for the deaf community. His web app, Terp 360, aims to become Africa’s first sign language translation platform built for local use.

Signvrse’s Terp 360 claims to be Africa’s first AI translation platform built specifically for local use. It translates text and speech into Kenyan Sign Language through avatars, enhancing communication for both deaf and hearing individuals.

“We like to call it Google Translate for sign language—and how this works is it interprets text and speech input and outputs very fluid natural avatars, which is a digital human that now signs the same way a human being does at scale,” explains Elly Savatia, the 24-year-old founder of Signvrse.

Founded in 2023 and a recipient of the Kenya Presidential Innovation Award, Signvrse is on a mission to digitize Kenyan Sign Language by using motion capture systems to accurately record sign language motion from real interpreters. The combination of body movement, hand rotation and articulation, and facial expressions allows the application to accurately capture the linguistic and vibrant nature of sign language.

Eventually, the company hopes the solution can be used in both business and personal contexts through a subscription.

For the deaf community, it could be a very helpful solution to the challenges of daily life. “I had a lot of challenges when searching for a job, and sometimes when I go to hospital, I have a lot of challenges,” says Kelvin Munene, a deaf waiter working in Nairobi.

“I think when using this app, it will help those challenges and it will make communication easier,” he adds.

However, he says he hopes the application can one day use both English and Kiswahili.

Leakey Nyabaro, a member of the deaf community and the founder and director of Galaxy Sign Language Training Centre in Kenya, says, “We find that there are a lot of errors. It’s not that perfect, but somehow I find it more effective when it is sign-to-voice (translation). We find that it is voiced correctly, benefiting more of the hearing community but not the deaf.”

This article was provided by The Associated Press.