レアジョブ英会話 Daily News Article Podcast

India’s government is seeking to limit temperature settings on new air conditioners to save electricity in the country, which is considered the fastest-growing market for them.

The power minister proposed a rule in June requiring air conditioners sold in the country to have thermostats that can be set no lower than 20°C (68°F).

Officials hope the small change will create massive energy savings in the country of more than 1.4 billion people. About 10 million to 15 million air conditioners are sold annually as incomes and urbanization increase, along with the temperatures.

The current lowest setting is 17°C (62°F). Officials say each degree an air conditioner is turned up saves about 6% on energy.

Energy experts said the proposal is a positive step, but that requiring units to be more energy efficient would help more.

Power Minister Manohar Lal Khattar said the proposed rule would take effect soon, but he wasn’t specific about timing.

The proposal has gotten mixed reviews from people living in India’s sweltering cities.

“Overall, I think it’s good to try and save energy, but at the same time I hope the government makes sure people are not too inconvenienced,” said Vikram Kannan, a 37-year-old teacher who lives in the humid southern city of Chennai. “Sometimes there is no choice but to set a low air conditioner temperature in cities like Chennai because it’s just way too hot and humid.”

Energy demand is typically highest during the summer when temperatures can reach 51°C (124°F) in parts of the country. If changes are not made, India is expected to have power shortages by next year.

Some are supportive of the proposed change to air conditioner settings. Sunil Kumar, a 47-year-old from East Delhi, said the rule could prevent fire hazards and lower bills.

“People used to live without air conditioners. We can adjust,” said Kumar.

Nikit Abhyankar, a UC Berkeley professor, said that while changing temperature settings will help, requiring air conditioners to be energy efficient would do more.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Tens of thousands of centuries-old books are being pulled from the shelves of a medieval abbey in Hungary in an effort to save them from a beetle infestation that could wipe out centuries of history. The 1,000-year-old Pannonhalma Archabbey is a sprawling Benedictine monastery that is one of Hungary's oldest centers of learning and a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Restoration workers are removing about 100,000 handbound books from their shelves and carefully placing them in crates, the start of a disinfection process that aims to kill the tiny beetles burrowed into them.

The drugstore beetle, also known as the bread beetle, is often found among dried foodstuffs like grains, flour and spices. But they are also attracted to the gelatin- and starch-based adhesives found in books. They have been found in a section of the library housing around a quarter of the abbey's 400,000 volumes.

This is an advanced insect infestation which has been detected in several parts of the library, so the entire collection is classified as infected and must be treated all at the same time, said Zsófia Edit Hajdu, the chief restorer on the project. We've never encountered such a degree of infection before.

The beetle invasion was first detected during a routine library cleaning. Employees noticed unusual layers of dust on the shelves and then saw that holes had been burrowed into some of the book spines. Upon opening the volumes, holes could be seen in the paper where the beetles had chewed through.

The abbey at Pannonhalma was founded in 996, four years before the establishment of the Kingdom of Hungary. Sitting upon a tall hill in northwestern Hungary, the abbey houses the country's oldest collection of books, as well as many of its earliest and most important written records.

Ilona Ásványi, director of the Pannonhalma Archabbey library, said she is humbled by the historical and cultural treasures the collection holds whenever she enters.

It is dizzying to think that there was a library here a thousand years ago, and that we are the keepers of the first book catalog in Hungary, she said.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

A pungent fog of malt and yeastiness hangs over Murree Brewery, Pakistan’s biggest and oldest producer of alcoholic drinks.

The company is an outlier in a country where alcohol is outlawed for everyone except non-Muslims, who make up some 9 million people out of 241 million. Pakistan, an Islamic republic, banned booze for Muslims in the 1970s.

But Murree Brewery has strong financials despite the prohibition, thanks to its history, scant competition, and a small, thirsty and predominantly elite consumer base.

But the government exerts significant control over the sale and marketing of alcoholic beverages through red tape and high taxes, pushing the brewery's chairman, Isphanyar Bandhara, to expand the company's footprint in Pakistan's non-alcoholic drinks industry, which, although bigger, is more crowded and less lucrative.

“Even I tell my staff of about 2,200 that we cannot sit on our laurels by selling alcohol,” said Bandhara, the third generation of his family to run the 165-year-old business that was founded by the British.

“It’s a restricted market, so we have to rely and focus more on the non-alcoholic side. That’s where I think I would like to flex my muscles and take credit, rather than being a liquor baron.”

The brewery already manufactures energy drinks, juices and malted beverages, but they are not as well-known as products from big international brands. However, this part of the business is registering double-digit growth, and Bandhara wants to cash in on Pakistan's youth bulge. Around 64 percent of the population is under 30.

Pakistan’s government determines the brewery’s alcohol prices, points of sale and customer base. Last year, it took $35 million from the brewery's revenue in taxes. The company cannot advertise its alcoholic beverages or expand that part of the business inside Pakistan. Online shopping is unavailable.

The brewery is permitted to export beer to countries outside the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, a 57-member bloc, even though there is a “big demand for liquor and beer” in Muslim-majority countries, Bandhara said.

Meanwhile, more Pakistanis drink far more sodas and juices, with billions of dollars in sales every year. PepsiCo and Coca-Cola dominate, but there are also homegrown brands.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

The future of space is privatized.

Exploring the solar system is now not just the preserve of government agencies—private companies are finding it’s a profitable place to do business.

There’s a whole industry around supplying equipment to space agencies, and some projects will never make it off Earth. But that’s why private companies are brought in—they can develop new tech without spending money from the public purse.

“You can take much more risk. … This is the reason why having not public fund but private fund, you can push at the limit. So you can allow yourself to make more experiments and to sustain failures and go fast. And at the end of the day, you can achieve some commercialization at low cost,” says Antonio Delfino from private company Venturi Space.

NASA has opened up to private partnerships. When it comes to the business of space, some companies aren’t even looking to ESA or NASA for contracts.

Space Cargo Unlimited is aimed squarely at the private sector. It has developed what it calls the ‘Bento Box,’ which has all the systems onboard to autonomously make all kinds of products.

“This is a spacecraft that is going to fly a few weeks and board multiple projects in various fields: pharmaceutical, agricultural, electronics, new materials, to make things in space for Earth. Because space has a particular set of characteristics, one of the biggest being the absence of gravity, that allows to produce high-value product for Earth that are very difficult, if not impossible, to make on Earth,” says Nicolas Gaume, CEO of Space Cargo Unlimited.

So far, the company has seven flights scheduled and more than 100 clients interested in signing up to use the boxes.

Space could become the factory of the future.

“And it’s in a similar fashion to the 90s, the internet and then the whole digital revolution arose. From what was previously only publicly funded, you can have a public-private partnership,” says Gaume.

Leading consultancy McKinsey and Company predicts the space economy will be worth $1.8 trillion by 2035, up from $630 billion in 2023.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Vaccine hesitancy in the U.S. is pushing immunization rates down, fueling a rise in illnesses like measles and whooping cough.

Devastating infectious diseases ran rampant in America, killing millions of children and leaving others with lifelong health problems. These illnesses were the main reason why nearly one in five children in 1900 never made it to their fifth birthday.

Over the next century, vaccines virtually wiped out long-feared scourges like polio and measles and drastically reduced the toll of many others.

Today, however, some preventable, contagious diseases are making a comeback as vaccine hesitancy pushes immunization rates down. And vaccines are facing even more scrutiny with a long-time anti-vaccine activist running the US federal health department.

Janith Farnham is one of the Americans who knows the reality of vaccine-preventable diseases all too well. For her, news of measles outbreaks and rising whooping cough cases brings back terrible memories and a longing to spare others from similar pain.

Janith has helped shepherd her daughter Jacque through life for decades. Jacque was born with congenital rubella syndrome, which can cause a host of issues including hearing impairment, eye problems, heart defects and intellectual disabilities.

There was no vaccine against rubella back then, and Janith contracted the viral illness very early in the pregnancy, when she had up to a 90% chance of giving birth to a baby with the syndrome.

Janith did all she could to help Jacque thrive, sending her to the Colorado School for the Deaf and the Blind and using skills she honed as a special education teacher. She and other parents of children with the syndrome shared insights in a support group.

But the condition kept taking its toll. As a young adult, Jacque developed diabetes, glaucoma and autistic behaviors. Eventually, arthritis set in.

Given what her family has been through, Janith believes younger people are being selfish if they choose not to get their children the MMR shot against measles, mumps and rubella.

“I know what can happen, and I just don’t want anybody else to go through this, she says.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

On June 30, the president of the United States was just another person complaining online about his service provider.

Donald Trump wrote in a pair of posts on Truth Social that he was trying to hold a conference call with faith leaders from all over the country but was unable to start the call because of technical difficulties.

“ATT is totally unable to make their equipment work properly,” the Republican president said in a post. “This is the second time it’s happened. If the Boss of ATT, whoever that may be, could get involved—It would be good. There are tens of thousands of people on the line!”

Trump then followed up with another post in which he said, “ATT ought to get its act together.”

Representatives for ATT responded to a post from the White House press secretary sharing Trump’s complaints. “We’ve reached out to the White House and are working to quickly understand and assess the situation,” ATT said.

ATT reached out immediately, according to a White House official who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. The issue was resolved and the call started 20 minutes late.

ATT said in a follow-up statement posted on X on the night of June 30 that it appeared “the disruption was caused by an issue with the conference call platform, not our network. Unfortunately, this caused the delay, and we are working diligently to better understand the issue so we can prevent disruptions in the future.”

Trump rarely shies away from posting his gripes on social media, whether the target is foreign leaders, media organizations, elected officials or telecommunication companies.

The call he was delayed from holding was not on his publicly released schedule.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Morocco is laying down foundations to build a homegrown gaming industry by establishing a developer hub in the capital, training coders and launching programs to draw tech-savvy youth into the sector.

State officials invited developers, students and tech companies from around the world to a gaming expo in Rabat, where guests tested new games, competed in e-sports tournaments and heard about new initiatives to bring the burgeoning industry to Morocco.

The event, in its second year, is one of the few ways in which African countries are diversifying their economies and attracting new industries for their young workforces.

Morocco is positioning itself as one of Africa's first countries to roll out targeted strategies for the gaming industry. Mohamed Mehdi Bensaid, Morocco's Minister of Youth, Culture and Communication, said the government aims to both attract international game companies to Morocco and incentivize Moroccan developers to create their own products. With youth unemployment close to 30 percent and many young people eyeing opportunities abroad, the gaming industry could be a way to spark job growth and diversify opportunities, he said.

“The objective is not only to generate revenue, but also to empower youth,” Bensaid said. “We must offer real alternatives to our young people by opening up new career opportunities.”

Driven primarily by game sales, Morocco’s industry currently generates over $500 million annually, according to state officials, who aim to double this revenue by 2030.

Morocco is launching training programs in game design, programming and virtual reality alongside an industrial park where startups can incubate new games. The initiative includes a $26-million investment to open “Rabat Gaming City,” featuring training, co-working spaces and full-scale production studios.

For students, the industry offers a chance to turn a passion into a career, said Fadwa Bezzazi, coordinator of Université Mohammed V's undergraduate club in computer science and virtual reality. Students, who are already spending money on mobile or PC games, want to find ways to put what they're learning in the classroom into practice.

“I'm not going to say we're preparing them for the future, because that future is already here,” she said.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

The humble road rumble strip, used around the world to alert drifting drivers to potential hazards or lane departures, can play Beethoven on a mountain highway in the far reaches of the United Arab Emirates.

For nearly a kilometer (a half mile) along the E84 highway—also known as the Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Road—motorists in the right-hand lane coming into the city of Fujairah can play Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony where the rubber meets the road.

“The ‘Street of Music,’ of course, is an art project that exists in some countries ... but we wanted this project to be in our country,” said Ali Obaid Al Hefaiti, the director of Fujairah Fine Arts Academy, which recently wrapped up the project in collaboration with local authorities.

“I think that the project is focused on spreading the art culture. The combination of music in our lives and our normal lives,” he added.

For drivers coming into Fujairah, the rumble strip initially looks like a larger, rectangular version of the dashed lines separating the three-lane highway. That’s until you hit the first block, and the grooves of the road combine with the speed of the vehicle to make music.

Driving over each block sounds out the best-known parts of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony—the final movements known commonly as the tune “Ode to Joy,” or in its more modern form, the official anthem of the European Union. Al Hefaiti recommended motorists hit the blocks at around 100 kph (60 mph) to get the tune just right.

The road has become a social media sensation, bringing visitors to one of the lesser-known emirates in the UAE along its eastern coast with the Gulf of Oman.

Drivers have been spotted slowing down to experience the musical road as they come into the city. Passers-by can get the same effect from standing on the side of the road, though motorists often come by quickly.

Beyond it going viral, Al Hefaiti thinks it will bring classical music into everyday life and “raise awareness about the importance of art culture.”

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

The operators of the last operating nuclear power reactor at Three Mile Island say they will re-open it, now a year ahead of schedule, in 2027, instead of 2028, because grid operator PJM Interconnection says they can speed up the process of reconnecting the plant to the power grid.

During a media tour, Constellation Energy said that not only would the plant be generating power for artificial intelligence products, but that, with the help of Microsoft, AI would be implemented into the daily process of generating nuclear power.

Meanwhile, in the main control room, most of the controls are still analog. The room is populated with switches, buttons, rotary phones and file cabinets that look like relics from the 20th century, as the control center was kept separate from digital processes and the internet until it was shut down in 2019.

“When we restart this plant, we’re gonna have some of the cutting-edge AI technologies embedded in the plant,” said Joe Dominguez, Constellation Energy's president and CEO. “To help our operators see things before they occur, make sure that we’re on time, ahead of time on maintenance when we have to be.”

The money-losing reactor's owner shut it down in 2019, unable to compete with a flood of cheap natural gas in energy markets. But with the boom in demand for artificial intelligence and cloud computing products, Microsoft struck a 20-year deal with Constellation Energy to reopen it under an exclusive deal that all the energy goes to Microsoft's data centers.

The plan to restart Three Mile Island’s Unit 1 comes amid something of a renaissance for nuclear power, as policymakers are increasingly looking to it to bail out a fraying electric power grid, help avoid the worst effects of climate change and meet rising power demand driven by data centers.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

After nine years scurrying in the shadows, the two-person Swedish street art collective known as “Anonymouse”—dubbed “Banksy Mouse” by Swedish media—has finally stepped out of the dark and into a museum exhibition.

The mystery began in late 2016 when miniature homes and businesses, all measuring well below knee height, began appearing on the streets of southern Sweden. It looked like a bunch of mice had opened a tiny restaurant named Il Topolino and neighboring nut delicatessen Noix de Vie, but there was no clue to who created it besides a signature from an anonymous artist group “Anonymouse.”

The original creation on Bergsgatan, a busy street in Malmö, quickly attracted attention and went viral, drawing crowds. The project was even featured on the popular U.S. TV show The Late Late Show with James Corden.

The two artists behind the whiskery art project stepped out of their anonymity earlier this year. Swedes Elin Westerholm and Lupus Nensén both work in show business, making props and sets for film and television.

“We’re building something for children,” says 42-year-old Nensén.

“Most of us have some kind of relationship to a world where mice live parallel to ours. If it’s The Rescuers or if it's Rescue Rangers or Beatrix Potter or Astrid Lindgren, it exists in a variety of shapes around the world.”

On June 27, a selection of the duo’s creations has been put on display at the Skissernas Museum in Lund, a short trip from Malmö, to celebrate nine years of “mouse pranks and creativity.”

The duo says the idea for “Anonymouse” came during a trip to Paris in 2016.

Their first creation took six months to build, before they secretively installed it on Bergsgatan one cold, dark night.

“It’s amazing to see a 70-year-old come over with crutches, and people help them down and have a look,” says Nensén.

“It really does bring out the child in everyone.”

The following nine years saw more mouse homes and businesses appear in unexpected places: First in Sweden, then all over the world.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.