{"text":"Intermediate \nThe bestselling book on Amazon in the US is by Scottish illustrator Johanna Basford, who is topping the charts with her colouring books for adults.\nBasfords intricately drawn pictures of flora and fauna in Secret Garden have sold 1.4 million copies worldwide, with the next book, Enchanted Forest, selling just under 226,000 copies already. They have fans like Zooey Deschanel, who shared a link about the book with her Facebook followers, and the South Korean pop star Kim Ki- Bum, who posted an image on Instagram for his 1.6 million followers.\nIts been crazy. The last few weeks have been utter madness, but fantastic madness, said Eleanor Blatherwick, head of sales and marketing at the books publisher, small British press Laurence King. We knew the books would be beautiful but we didnt realize they would be such a phenomenal success.\nAnd it is not just Basford who is benefitting from the adults who just want something to colour in. In the UK, Richard Merritts Art Therapy Colouring Book is in fourth place on Amazons bestseller lists, Millie Marottas Animal Kingdom  detailed pictures of animals to colour  is in seventh and a mindfulness colouring book is in ninth. Basfords books are in second and eighth place  thats half of Amazon.co.uks top ten filled up by colouring books for adults.\nAt independent UK publisher Michael OMara, which has sold almost 340,000 adult colouring books, Head of Publicity, Marketing and Online, Ana McLaughlin, says the craze is due to the way the category is now sold as a way to relax. The first one we did was in 2012, Creative Colouring for Grown-Ups. It sold well but it was in 2014 that it all really mushroomed with Art Therapy. It became really popular  selling it as an anti-stress book gave people permission to enjoy something they might have felt was quite childish, she said.\nThe Mindfulness Colouring Book really emphasizes that it is anti-stress  its publisher tells readers that it is filled with templates for exquisite scenes and intricate, sophisticated patterns, prompting you to meditate on your artwork as you mindfully and creatively fill these pages with colour. It suggests that colourers take a few minutes out of your day, wherever you are, and colour your way to peace and calm.\nI think it is really relaxing to unplug, said Basford. And its creative. For many people, a blank sheet is very daunting; with a colouring book, you just need to bring the colour. Also, theres a bit of nostalgia there. So many people have said to me that they used to do secret colouring in when their kids were in bed. Now, it is socially acceptable; its a category of its own. These are books for adults. The art in my books is super intricate.\nThe illustrator, who lives in Aberdeenshire, has been astonished at the reaction since she released Secret Garden in 2013. I drew a kids book and I told them I would like to do one for grown-ups. It really wasnt a trend then. I drew the first story and they said, Lets go for it. I was thinking simply that people like me would like to do it. My intention was just to make a book I would like to have. So its been a real surprise to see the category bloom.\nShe is currently working on a third book. Its a major trend and it doesnt look like its going to slow down, said McLaughlin. The pictures are all over Twitter and Instagram. People are really proud of them  they are so intricate, she said. You dont have to have any artistic talent but what you create is unique. People send us pictures of them. I reckon people are taking their kids pictures off the fridge and replacing them with their own.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"There comes a time in some men\u2019s lives when the days seem darker, mortality more certain, and the only sensible response is to blow the life savings on a sportscar. \nRadical and often ill-advised changes in lifestyle have become the calling cards of the midlife crisis but, if it is more than a myth, then humans may not be the only animals to experience it. \nNow an international team of scientists claims to have found evidence for a slump in well- being among middle-aged chimpanzees and orangutans. The lull in happiness in the middle years, they say, is the ape equivalent of the midlife crisis. \nThe study, which was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has raised eyebrows among some scientists but, according to the authors, the findings suggest that the midlife crisis may have its roots in the biology humans share with our closest evolutionary cousins. \n\u201cThere\u2019s a common understanding that there\u2019s a dip in well-being in middle age,\u201d Alex Weiss, a psychologist at Edinburgh University, told the Guardian. \n\u201cWe took a step back and asked whether it\u2019s possible that instead of the midlife crisis being human-specific, and driven only by social factors, it reflects some evolved tendency for middle-aged individuals to have lower well-being,\u201d he said. \nThe team from the US, Japan, Germany and the UK asked zookeepers, carers and others who worked with male and female apes of various ages to complete questionnaires on the animals. \nThe forms included questions about each ape\u2019s mood, the enjoyment they gained from socializing, and their success at achieving certain goals. The final question asked how carers would feel about being the ape for a week. They scored their answers from one to seven. \nMore than 500 apes were included in the study in three separate groups. The first two groups were chimpanzees, with the third made up of orangutans from Sumatra or Borneo. The animals came from zoos, sanctuaries and research centres in the US, Australia, Japan, Canada and Singapore. \nWhen the researchers analyzed the questionnaires, they found that well-being in the apes fell in middle age and climbed again as the animals moved into old age. In captivity, great apes often live to 50 or more. The nadir in the animals\u2019 well-being occurred, on average, at 28.3 and 27.2 years old for the chimpanzees, and 35.4 years old for the orangutans. \n\u201cIn all three groups we find evidence that well-being is lowest in chimpanzees and orangutans at an age that roughly corresponds to midlife in humans,\u201d Weiss said. \u201cOn average, well-being scores are lowest when animals are around 30 years old.\u201d \nThe team explains that the temporary fall in ape well-being may result from watching depressed apes dying younger, or through age-related changes in the brain that are mirrored in humans. Weiss conceded that, unlike men, apes are not known to pursue radical and often disastrous lifestyle changes in middle age. \nRobin Dunbar, Professor of Evolutionary Psychology at Oxford University, was dubious about the findings. \u201cWhat can produce a sense of well-being or contentedness that varies across the lifespan like this? It\u2019s hard to see anything in an ape\u2019s life that would have that sort of pattern, that they would think about. They\u2019re not particularly good at seeing far ahead into the future; that\u2019s one of the big differences between them and us.\u201d Alexandra Freund, Professor of Psychology at the University of Zurich, was also sceptical. She said the concept of a midlife crisis was shaky even in humans. \u201cIn my reading of the literature, there is no evidence for the midlife crisis. If there\u2019s any indication of decline in emotional or subjective well-being it is very small and, in many studies, it\u2019s not there at all.\u201d \nBut Weiss believes the findings could point to a deeper understanding of the emotional crisis some men may experience. \u201cIf we want to find the answer as to what\u2019s going on with the midlife crisis, we should look at what is similar in middle-aged humans, chimps and orangutans,\u201d he said.","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Intermediate\nThe huge fortunes made by the worlds richest 100 billionaires are increasing inequality and hindering the worlds ability to tackle poverty, according to Oxfam.\nThe charity said the accumulation of wealth and income often led to a reduction in secure jobs and decent wages for the poorest people. This made it more difficult for people who survive on aid or low wages to improve their situation and escape poverty.\nOxfam said the worlds poorest could be taken out of poverty several times over if the richest 100 billionaires would give away the money they made in 2012.\nWithout naming anyone, the charity argued that the $240bn made in 2012 by the richest 100 billionaires would be enough to end extreme poverty four times over.\nIt is unusual for charities to attack the wealthy, because they are usually seen as a source of money. Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are among a group of 40 US billionaires who have said they will give much of their wealth to aid projects, but there is little detail about the level of their annual donations. Russian, Middle Eastern or Chinese billionaires have not promised to do the same.\nIn the report, The Cost of Inequality: How Wealth and Income Extremes Hurt Us All, published just before the World Economic Forum in Davos, the charity asks world leaders to commit to reducing inequality to at least 1990 levels.\nThe report found that the richest 1% had increased their incomes by 60% in the past 20 years. And the financial crisis has sped up, not slowed, the process.\nBarbara Stocking, Oxfams Chief Executive, said studies show that countries suffer low levels of investment and growth as workers are forced to survive on a smaller share of total incomes.\nShe said: We can no longer pretend that the creation of wealth for a few will benefit the many  too often the reverse is true.\nThe report said the issue affected all parts of the world. In the UK, inequality is rapidly returning to levels not seen since the nineteenth century. In China, the top 10% now earn nearly 60% of the income. Chinese inequality levels are now similar to those in South Africa, which is now the most unequal country on Earth.\nIn the US, the share of national income going to the top 1% has doubled since 1980 from 10 to 20%, the report says.\nMembers of the richest 1% are estimated to cause as much as 10,000 times more pollution than the average US citizen.\nOxfam said world leaders should learn from countries such as Brazil, which has grown rapidly while reducing inequality.\nStocking said: We need to reverse decades of increasing inequality. As a first step, world leaders should formally agree to reduce inequality to the levels seen in 1990.\nShe said closing tax havens, which hold as much as $31 trillion, or as much as a third of all global wealth, could collect $189bn in additional taxes.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nTwo mothers in South Africa have found out that they are raising each others daughters after they were mistakenly switched at birth in a hospital in 2010.\nBut, while one of the women wants to correct the error and get her biological child back, the other is refusing to give back the girl she has raised as her own.\nHenk Strydom, a lawyer for one of the mothers, described the swap as a travesty and tragedy that is unlikely to have a happy ending.\nBoth mothers gave birth at the Tambo Memorial Hospital in Boksburg, east of Johannesburg, on the same day in 2010. Nobody suspected anything, Strydom said.\nBut, in 2013, one of the mothers, who is 33 and unemployed, sued her ex-partner for maintenance for her daughter. Strydom said: The man denied he was the father. A DNA test was done and it was found it was not his baby and not her baby. She was devastated. She didnt know what to do.\nEventually, she met the other mother and, since December 2013, they have been attending joint counselling sessions, arranged by the hospital. Here they have met their biological daughters\nStrydom said of his client: She said there are resemblances to herself. She told me that it was traumatic. You can see its not easy for her. She has to care for a child that is not hers on her own while her child is with someone else.\nThe woman became unhappy with the process and asked the childrens court to give her custody of her biological child, but the other mother refused.\nIts a tragedy. She wants the baby back, but its four years later: you can understand that the other mother doesnt want to give up her baby, Strydom said.\nThe High Court in Pretoria has asked the University of Pretorias Centre for Child Law to investigate what will now be in the best interests of the children.\nStrydom added: I dont know what the court will decide. Your guess is as good as mine. But, whatever happens, someone wont be happy.\nHe said, at this point, he and his client do not want to sue the hospital or government health department, which is helping with the case and providing counselling.\nThe Centre for Child Law will interview the mothers and fathers, as well as any other person with a significant relationship with either of the girls. The children and mothers will have clinical assessments and may be seen by a psychologist.\nKarabo Ngidi, a lawyer with the centre, said: Whats going to happen must be in the best interests of the children. Biology is an important aspect but not the only one. \nThe families are of Zulu ethnicity and so Zulu tradition, culture and customary law will be a factor, she added. It is also still possible the ex- partner of the mother who is taking legal action could be the biological father of the girl who was switched.\nIt is not the first child-swap case in South Africa. In 1995, two mothers were awarded damages after their sons, born in 1989, were accidentally switched at the Johannesburg hospital where they were born.\nIn 2009, in Oregon in the United States, Dee Ann Angell and Kay Rene Reed discovered that they had been mistakenly mixed up at birth in 1953 when a nurse brought them back from bathing.\nIn 2013, in Japan, a 60-year-old man swapped at birth from his rich parents to a poor family was given compensation. He grew up on welfare and became a truck driver, whereas his biological brothers and sisters  and the boy brought up in his place  attended private secondary schools and universities.\nBruce Laing, a clinical psychologist in Johannesburg, said the long-term effects of a baby swap could be profound, terrifying and incredibly traumatizing. He told The Times of South Africa: The parents might always be thinking What if?","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Joseph Roche is on the shortlist of astronauts for Mars One, a private mission that plans to send humans to live on Mars from 2025. He is on the shortlist but he is sceptical about Mars One.\nThe selection process, Roche says, did not \u201creach the standard of more traditional astronaut selection processes\u201d. He also says the Dutch\nMars One team are naive because they believe they can succeed alone in the $6 billion mission. He says they should now accept it will probably not happen. \nThe group plans to send a lander and satellite to Mars in 2018, followed by a rover in 2020 and cargo missions starting in 2022. Humans will start arriving in 2025 and they will send more crews of four people every two years. The astronauts will not return to Earth.\nGerard \u2019t Hooft is a Dutch Nobel laureate in physics. He is a supporter of the project but he says he does not believe the Mars One plans are realistic. He said: \u201cIt will take longer and be more expensive. When they asked me to be involved, I told them: \u2018You have to put a zero after everything\u2019.\u201d\nRoche also said that there were not 200,000  people who applied to be astronauts, as Mars One said; there were only 2,761.\nHe talked about the selection process in more detail: \u201cI have not met anyone from Mars One. At first, they said there would be regional interviews; we would travel there, and they would interview and test us over several days. To me, that sounded like a proper astronaut selection process. \n\u201cBut it changed from a proper regional interview over several days to a ten-minute Skype call.\u201d\nRoche says he does not want to give more interviews because he doesn\u2019t want to sound negative about space travel.\nHe said that being involved in the public debate about future missions is one of the most interesting and enjoyable things about his connection with Mars One. He then said that, \u201cIf a one-way mission to Mars ever became possible, I would always volunteer. For an astrophysicist, that is not a difficult decision to make.\u201d But he does not think there will be a one-way mission in his lifetime.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"A British court has decided that three old Kenyans, who were put in prison and tortured during the fighting in Kenya in the 1950s, can sue the British government. There are thousands of other people who were put in prison and say they were treated badly during the final days of the British Empire, and now they may also try to sue. \nBritish government lawyers said that too much time had passed since the seven- year fight in the 1950s, and it was no longer possible to have a fair trial. The court did not accept this. In 2011 the government said that the three claimants should sue the Kenyan government because it became legally responsible after independence in 1963. But the judge did not accept this either. \n70,000 people were put in prison by the British in Kenya, and more than 5,000 of them are still alive. Many of them may sue the British government. The court decision may also make it possible for victims in other parts of the world to sue. \nThe Foreign Office said it will appeal against the decision. \u201cThe normal time limit for a civil action is three to six years,\u201d they said. \u201cIn this case, that period has been extended to over 50 years, but the people who made the decisions are dead and they can\u2019t give their view of what happened.\u201d \nThe victory for Paulo Muoka Nzili, 85, Wambugu Wa Nyingi, 84, and Jane Muthoni Mara, 73, was the result of a three-year battle in the courts. Their lawyers said they had suffered terrible brutality. In the Kenyan capital Nairobi, Nyingi and Mara heard the news by mobile phone. They reacted with joy when they heard, hugging, dancing and praying. \nNyingi, who was put in prison and beaten, said: \u201cFor me \u2026 I just wanted everyone to know the truth. Even the children of my children should know what happened. What should happen is that people should be compensated so they can begin to forgive the British government.\u201d Mara said: \u201cI\u2019m very happy and my heart is clean.\u201d \nThe judge said in 2011 that there was a lot of evidence to show that prisoners were perhaps tortured. He decided that a fair trial was possible, especially because thousands of secret documents from the colonial era were found in 2011. \nThe British government\u2019s lawyers accepted that all three of the old Kenyans were tortured. The claimants\u2019 lawyer said: \u201cThe British government has admitted that these three Kenyans were brutally tortured but they have tried not to take any legal responsibility. There will be victims of colonial torture from Malaya to the Yemen, from Cyprus to Palestine, who will be very interested in this case.\u201d \nPeople who fought in Cyprus in the 1950s are interested in the Mau Mau case. One has already met the Kenyan claimants\u2019 lawyers. Cypriot claimants could use British documents, and also the documents of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva. Those documents are kept secret for 40 years, and then opened to the public. The Red Cross recorded hundreds of torture cases in Cyprus. \nThere may also be claims from Malaysia, where large numbers of people were put in prison during the 12-year war with communist fighters and their supporters that began in 1948. 24 farm workers, who were without weapons, were killed by British troops \u2013 their families are now fighting for a public inquiry. Many ex-prisoners of the British in Aden may also have claims against the British government. But Aden is now part of Yemen, and British lawyers may have problems making contact with possible claimants there.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"McDonald\u2019s is the world\u2019s biggest burger chain and a symbol of American consumer capitalism. But, these days, the golden arches of McDonald\u2019s are not looking so golden. The company has got much bigger since 2003 but, now, the numbers of customers are falling. McDonald\u2019s says that its worldwide sales have fallen by 3.3%.\nThe company has problems almost everywhere. In China, sales fell by 23%. In Europe, sales fell by 4%, mostly because of problems in Ukraine and the anti-western mood in Russia. Health inspectors have investigated around 200 of McDonald\u2019s 450 restaurants in Russia and they have closed ten restaurants.\nBut the worst crisis is in the US, where McDonald\u2019s has around 40% of its restaurants. Almost 60 years since Ray Kroc opened his first restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois, consumers are losing their appetite for a Big Mac and fries.\nSales have fallen every month for 12 months in the US. Many younger diners are eating at rival companies such as Chipotle Mexican Grill. The number of 19-to-21-year-olds who visit McDonald\u2019s once a month has fallen by 13% since 2011.\nAnother problem is that McDonald\u2019s hamburgers were recently named the worst in America in a poll of more than 32,000 American diners \u2013 they said they would rather eat a burger at Five Guys, Smashburger or Fuddruckers. Many people also believe that McDonald\u2019s is less healthy than most of its rivals, especially Chipotle. Chipotle uses antibiotic-free meat and \u201clocally sourced, seasonal\u201d ingredients.\nMcDonald\u2019s asked customers for their opinions in the US in October. Someone asked \u201cHave you ever used pink slime in your burgers?\u201d \u2013 \u2018pink slime\u2019 is the beef filler that is used for dog food. McDonald\u2019s stopped using this meat product in 2012 but McDonald\u2019s Chief Executive Don Thompson said the company still had to improve people\u2019s opinions about the freshness and quality of its ingredients.\nMcDonald\u2019s has always had a reputation for fast service at low prices. But, since it introduced $2 items on its dollar menu, people think it is more expensive than its rivals and many consumers complain that service is slower.\nBut Mary Chapman at food analysts Technomic said that it wasn\u2019t fair to say that McDonald\u2019s was more expensive than its rivals. \u201cPrices have gone up but they haven\u2019t gone up as quickly as the rest of the fast-food chains in the US.\u201d Prices at McDonald\u2019s have increased by 4.8% since 2009, much less than the fast-food average (up 19.4%).\nBut people are right when they complain that the queues are longer. McDonald\u2019s has a bigger menu than some other restaurants, with more complicated items \u2013 its chicken McWrap takes 60 seconds to make. \u201cI think it is worth waiting but the guy behind me who wants his double cheeseburger for a dollar might not,\u201d said Chapman.\nMcDonald managers are promising to improve people\u2019s opinions about its food in the US. Thompson has promised more organic food and \u201cbuild your own burgers\u201d. But, to reduce queues, he also wants to introduce simpler menus. How can the company have simpler menus and, at the same time, a larger selection of fillings? \u201cThey want to simplify the menu but also offer \u2018build your own burgers\u2019 \u2013 that sounds tricky,\u201d said consumer expert Mark Kalinowski. Only four out of McDonald\u2019s 14,000 US restaurants have tested \u201cbuild your own burger\u201d, he said. \u201cRight now, we are sceptical; we would like to see more detail.\u201d\nSales are falling but McDonald\u2019s continues to expand around the world: by the end of 2014, it expects to open 1,400 new restaurants. Kalinowski thinks that McDonald\u2019s sales will continue to fall but he thinks it will be number one for many years.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nFacebook has lost millions of users per month in its biggest markets. In the last six months, Facebook has lost nearly 9m monthly visitors in the US and 2m in the UK.\nStudies suggest that its expansion in the US, UK and other major European countries has peaked. In the last month, the worlds largest social network has lost 6m US visitors, a 4% fall, according to analysis firm Socialbakers. In the UK, 1.4m fewer users visited in March, a fall of 4.5%.\nUsers are also turning off in Canada, Spain, France, Germany and Japan, where Facebook is extremely popular.\nThe problem is that, in the US and UK, most people who want to sign up for Facebook have already done it, said new media specialist Ian Maude at Enders Analysis. People get bored, he says, and they like to try something new.\nAlternative social networks have seen surges in popularity with younger people. Instagram, the photo-sharing site, got 30m new users in the 18 months before Facebook bought the business.\nPath, the mobile phone-based social network founded by former Facebook employee Dave Morin, which only allows its users to have 150 friends, is gaining 1m users a week. It has recently topped 9m users, with 500,000 Venezuelans downloading the app in a single weekend.\nFacebook is still growing fast in South America. Monthly visitors in Brazil were up 6% in the last month to 70m, according to Socialbakers, whose information is used by Facebook advertisers. India has seen a 4% rise to 64m  still only a fraction of the countrys population, so there is room for more growth.\nBut in developed markets, other people watching Facebook are reporting declines.\nAnalysts at Jefferies bank saw global numbers of visitors to Facebook peak at 1.05bn a month in January, before falling by 20m in February. Numbers rose again in April. The network has now lost nearly 2m visitors in the UK since December, according to research firm Nielsen, with its 27m total the same as a year ago.\nThe number of minutes Americans spend on Facebook appears to be falling, too. The total was 121 billion minutes in December 2012, but that fell to 115 billion minutes in February, according to comScore.\nAs Facebook itself has warned, the time spent on its pages from those sitting in front of personal computers is decreasing fast because people now prefer to use their smartphones and tablets.\nAlthough smartphone minutes have doubled in a year, to 69 a month, that growth may not compensate for dwindling desktop usage.\nFacebook will tell investors about its performance for the quarter. Wall Street expects revenues of about $1.44bn, an increase from $1.06bn a year ago.\nShareholders will want to know how fast the number of mobile Facebook users is growing, and whether advertising revenues are increasing at the same rate.\nMobile usage represented nearly a quarter of Facebooks advertising income at the end of 2012, and the network had 680m mobile users a month in December.\nThe company said that it might be losing younger users to other products and services similar to, or as a substitute for, Facebook.\nFacebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has created a series of new initiatives designed to appeal to smartphone users. One initiative, Facebook Home, is software that can be downloaded onto Android phones to feed news and photos from friends  and advertising  directly to the owners locked home screen.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"36-year-old Junior Smart knows a lot about gangs. When he was a teenager, after his mother died, he joined a south London gang. At the time, it helped fill a big gap in his life. \u201cThey became my new support group,\u201d he says. \u201cAt first it was just a bit of fun but then it became more serious and we got involved in crime.\u201d After he left college, he got a full-time job but he was also making money illegally as part of the gang. \nEventually he was arrested for serious drug crimes and was sent to prison for 12 years. \u201cThe first night after I was arrested was the biggest shock of my life,\u201d he says. \u201cI had been living a double life. I had been living as one person to my peers and another person to my peers\u2019 enemies.\u201d \nToday, Junior Smart runs a team of 12 full-time workers and six volunteers, working to help young criminals and gang members to stop committing crimes. Most of the team are ex-criminals like Smart. A few are still in prison but are allowed out during the day to help. They work with the police, the probation service and other, voluntary organizations to help members of the violent criminal gangs of London. \nSmart\u2019s extraordinary journey from gang member to mentor began when he was in prison. \u201cI couldn\u2019t believe that people kept coming back in and nobody did anything about it. I was talking to the prisoners and they knew what was wrong in their lives, but the problem is that the prison system only deals with the crime.\u201d \n\u201cOne guy spent \u00a3300 a week on cocaine and burgled houses to get the money. He told me how he walked into houses, even when he knew people were there. So he had a drug addiction, but that problem was never solved.\u201d \nSmart started working as a prison \u201clistener\u201d \u2013 a prisoner who helps new arrivals during their first days inside. Then he had an idea to run his own scheme when he left prison \u2013 using the experience of ex-offenders to help others reject crime. He left prison after five years and started his scheme. \nSo what does he think now? Does he believe that things are getting better? He says the police have done some good work in arresting gang members. But he criticizes the government because they believe that, when the leader of a gang is arrested, the problem is solved. He believes the arrest of gang leaders can even make things worse. \n\u201cWhen you arrest the leader, people in the gang start fighting. Who was the most loyal? Who had the most respect? It is a bit like a violent family. It means that the arrest of the gang leaders has no long-term effect.\u201d \nCan it make the streets more dangerous? \u201cYes, it can. If one gang knows that an elder [leader] has been arrested, then they suddenly think that gang\u2019s weak ... And so we have fights between different gangs. And what happens when that elder is in prison? He makes friends with other gang members, or when he comes out of prison he tries to take control back. That is when violence happens.\u201d \nSmart says gangs are now recruiting members in primary schools. The youngest members are called \u201ctinies\u201d. \u201cOver the last years we have seen more and more of this. The tinies can be just eight to eleven years old.\u201d The youngest members protect their seniors from risk. They often sell drugs or even stab people, he says. \nSmart says that the challenges are very big, particularly because the economy is so bad. \u201cI try to help a young person who has been earning \u00a3300 a week illegally. It was difficult before but, with lots of unemployment, it\u2019s even more difficult now.\u201d But his project, which has more than 1,000 clients, is bringing results. Fewer than 20% of the people he helps reoffend. Smart believes that everyone should get a second chance.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Some cities have pigeons. Lima has black vultures. They fly in groups over the city and sit on the city\u2019s buildings. With their wrinkly heads and small, round eyes, they remind Lima residents of the poverty and filth in their city. \nBut the vultures\u2019 taste for dead and decaying things has become a good thing. Environmental authorities are putting GoPro video cameras and GPS trackers on the birds \u2013 the birds now work in the fight against fly-tipping and illegal dumping. \nSamuel is one of the project\u2019s ten black vultures that are looking for rubbish. He wears his tracker and flies above the city, where he finds secret or hidden dumps. The exact positions of the rubbish dumps are recorded on a live map. \nHis trainer at Lima\u2019s Huachipa Zoo, Alfredo Correa, says, \u201cThey can eat dead animals because their bodies protect them from viruses and bacteria,\u201d he says. \nUSAID and the Peruvian Environment Ministry are working together on this project to try to solve Lima\u2019s rubbish problem. The vultures are fighting disease, while most humans ignore the danger. \nLima has nearly ten million inhabitants but just four landfills so there are many illegal dumps. A fifth of the city\u2019s rubbish goes into the illegal dumps, according to the Environment Ministry. The rubbish makes the water of Lima\u2019s main water source, the Rimac river, dirty. It also makes the water of the Chillon and Lurin rivers, which flow into the Bay of Lima, dirty. \nThree poorer districts have only 12% of Lima\u2019s population but they have much more illegal rubbish than other neighbourhoods: Villa Maria del Triunfo (39.4%), Villa El Salvador (25.3%) and El Agustino (18.3%). \nPart of the problem is unpaid taxes. Many residents don\u2019t pay their taxes. That means some of the 43 districts of the city do not have enough money for rubbish collection. \nIt also means that it is possible that nobody is going to clean up where the vultures find illegal rubbish. \u201cWe tell the local governments where the vultures found illegal dumps,\u201d says Javier Hernandez, the project director. \u201cIt\u2019s their job to collect the rubbish and to try and change the habits of their residents.\u201d","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"US shutdown: Christine Lagarde calls for stability after debt crisis is averted James Meikle, Paul Lewis and Dan Roberts 17 October, 2013 \nThe International Monetary Fund (IMF) has asked the USA to manage its money better. Hundreds of thousands of federal employees returned to work after the government shut down for 16 days. US President Barack Obama said that the US has to be more careful with how it manages its money. The IMF\u2019s managing director, Christine Lagarde, asked for more stability. \nThe Senate wrote a peace deal, which included almost nothing that the conservatives asked for. The conservative Republicans nearly caused a new financial crisis because they did not agree to Obama\u2019s healthcare reforms. The House of Representatives agreed the deal at the last minute. \nThe World Bank was also pleased that the world\u2019s economy had \u201cavoided a catastrophe \u201d. Its president, Jim Yong Kim, asked politicians in all countries to continue to make policies that improve the economy and give jobs and opportunity to all. The shutdown cost the US $24 billion. Obama signed the legislation shortly after midnight on Thursday. The bill passed easily, with support from all parties in the Senate, where Democratic and Republican leaders wrote the agreement. It is a temporary solution. It gives the government money until 15 January and allows the government to borrow more money if they want to until 7 February. \nBut the president made clear that he did not expect another serious budget fight and shutdown in 2014. \nAt the White House, Obama said he hoped the deal would \u201clift the cloud of uncertainty\u201d that had hung over the country in recent weeks. \n\u201cWhen this agreement arrives on my desk, I will sign it immediately,\u201d he said. \u201cHopefully, next time, it won\u2019t be in the eleventh hour. We must manage our money better.\u201d \nA journalist asked the president if the crisis would happen again in a few months. Obama replied: \u201cNo.\u201d \nEarlier, the Republican senator Mike Lee said there would be more trouble: \u201cThe media keeps asking: 'Was it worth it?' My answer is, it is always worth it to do the right thing.\u201d He added: \u201cThis is not over.\u201d \nBut the political deal on Wednesday was one of the worst of all possible results for Republicans. They did not achieve any of their goals and most people blamed them for the crisis.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"When you see the word Amazon, what\u2019s the first thing that springs to mind \u2013 the world\u2019s biggest forest, the longest river or the largest internet retailer \u2013 and which do you consider most important? \nThese questions have risen to the fore in an arcane, but hugely important, debate about how to redraw the boundaries of the internet. Brazil and Peru have lodged objections to a bid made by the US e-commerce giant for a prime new piece of cyberspace: \u201c.amazon\u201d. \nThe Seattle-based company has applied for its brand to be a top-level domain name (currently \u201c.com\u201d), but the South American governments argue this would prevent the use of this internet address for environmental protection, the promotion of indigenous rights and other public interest uses. \nAlong with dozens of other disputed claims to names, including \u201c.patagonia\u201d and \u201c.shangrila \u201d, the issue cuts to the heart of debates about the purpose and governance of the internet. \nUntil now, the differences between commercial, governmental and other types of identity were easily distinguished in every internet address by \u201c.com\u201d, \u201c.gov\u201d and 20 other categories. \nBut these categories \u2013 or generic top-level domains (gTLDs) as they are technically known \u2013 are about to undergo the biggest expansion since the start of the worldwide web. \nThe Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) \u2013 a US-based non-profit organization that plays a key role in cyberspace governance \u2013 has received bids (each reportedly worth almost $200,000) for hundreds of new gTLDs to add to the existing 22. \nAmazon has applied for dozens of new domains, including \u201c.shop \u201d, \u201c.song\u201d, \u201c.book\u201d and \u201c.kindle . But its most contentious application is for its own brand. \nBrazil and Peru have called for the \u201c.amazon\u201d application to be withdrawn, saying a private company should not be assigned a name that denotes an important geographical area that spans their territories and is also used for certain regions and cross-border organizations. \u201cAllowing private companies to register geographical names as gTLDs to reinforce their brand strategy or to profit from the meaning of these names does not serve, in our view, the public interest,\u201d the Brazilian Ministry of Science and Technology said. \nBrazil said its views were endorsed last month by other members of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty (Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Suriname and Venezuela). \nDozens of other protests have also been registered over proposed top-level domains that take geographical, cultural or contested brand names. \nArgentina has lodged an expression of its unhappiness that the US outdoor clothing retailer, Patagonia, is claiming a domain name that has been known far longer as a region of spectacular beauty that also has its own parliament. \u201cArgentina rejects the \u201c.patagonia\u201d request for a new generic top-level domain,\u201d the government notes in an appeal. \u201cPatagonia is a relevant region for the country\u2019s economy because it has oil, fishing, mining and agriculture resources. It is also a region with a vibrant local community and it is a major tourist destination.\u201d \nLess convincingly, China has disputed the domain \u201c.shangrila\u201d, which is proposed by a hotel group of the same name. The authorities in Beijing say the \u201cshangri-la\u201d label belongs to a region in Yunnan province, although it was only renamed as such in 2001 (long after the hotel group was formed) so that the local community could cash in on the fame of the fictional paradise depicted in the novel, Lost Horizon, by British author James Hilton. \nAt a conference in April in Beijing, ICANN\u2019s Governmental Advisory Committee \u2013 the primary voice of national governments within the institution \u2013 recommended a freeze on disputed proposals. They are expected to be discussed again at a meeting in Durban in July. The first approved domain names should be in use before the end of 2013.","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Scientists have designed a mirror that sends heat into cold space. If you use the mirror, you don\u2019t need to use air-conditioning units that keep buildings cool on Earth.\nThe scientists believe that the mirror could reduce by a lot the amount of energy we use to control air temperatures in offices and shopping centres.\nAround 15% of the energy used by buildings in the US goes on air conditioning. The researchers say that the mirror could mean that we no longer need air conditioning.\nScientists in Stanford, California, found that a roof painted black was 60C hotter than the air temperature in sunlight. They found that aluminium was 40C hotter. But the mirror was 5C cooler than the air temperature.\n\u201cIf you cover large parts of the roof with this mirror, you can save a lot of power,\u201d said Shanhui Fan, an expert in the study of light at Stanford University. He led the development of the mirror.\nBuildings warm up in different ways. Hot-water boilers and cooking areas release heat. In hot countries, warm air comes in through doors and windows. Then, there is visible light and infrared radiation from the sun, which also heat up buildings.\nThe Stanford mirror reflects 97% of the visible light that falls on it. But, more importantly, it releases heat. When the mirror is warmed up, it releases heat at a specific wavelength of infrared light that goes easily through the atmosphere and out into space.\nThe mirror is made from several layers of very thin materials. These layers help the mirror to release heat. The mirror sends the heat as infrared light out to space.\n\u201cThe mirror can use the cold darkness of the universe, even during the hottest hours of the day,\u201d the scientists say.\nShanhui Fan says the mirrors costs between $20 and $70 per square metre. He says that a mirror on a three-storey building could save 100MWh of electricity per year.\nFan also said that the mirror could cool buildings but it would not slow down global warming. But it would reduce the amount of electricity that businesses use.\n\u201cI\u2019m really excited by this,\u201d said Marin Solja\u010di\u0107, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. \u201cYou could use the mirrors on buildings and spend much less money on air conditioning or maybe you wouldn\u2019t need it at all. You could put the mirrors on top of shopping malls.\u201d","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nAn octopus has escaped from the National Aquarium in New Zealand by leaving its tank, sliding down a 50-metre drainpipe and disappearing into the sea. Inky  a common New Zealand octopus  escaped after the lid of his tank was accidentally left a bit ajar. Staff believe that in the middle of the night, while the aquarium was deserted, Inky climbed to the top of his glass enclosure, down the side of the tank and travelled across the floor of the aquarium.\nRob Yarrell, national manager of the National Aquarium of New Zealand in Napier, said: Octopuses are famous for their ability to escape. I dont think he was unhappy with us, or lonely, because octopuses are solitary creatures. But, he is such a curious boy. He wanted to know what was happening on the outside. Thats just his personality.\nOne theory is that Inky slid across the aquarium floor  a journey of three or four metres  and, then, into a drainpipe that led directly to the sea. The drainpipe was 50 metres long and led to the waters of Hawkes Bay, on the east coast of New Zealands North Island.\nIt is also possible that Inky escaped by squeezing into an open pipe at the top of his tank, which led under the floor to the drain. When we came in the next morning and his tank was empty, I was really surprised, said Yarrell, who has not launched a search for Inky. The staff and I have been pretty sad. But then, this is Inky and hes always been a bit of a surprise octopus.\nReiss Jenkinson, exhibits keeper at the National Aquarium, said he was absolutely certain Inky was not stolen. I understand octopus behaviour very well, he said. I have seen octopuses on boats escape through bilge pumps. And, the security here is too tight for anyone to take Inky and why would they?\nBecause octopuses have no bones, they are able to fit into extremely small spaces and can squeeze through gaps the size of coins. They are also extremely intelligent and can use tools. At the Island Bay Marine Education Centre in Wellington, an octopus used to visit another tank during the night to steal crabs, then return to its own tank. Another at the centre, Ozymandias, broke a world record for opening a jar.\nInky was brought to the National Aquarium several years ago by a local fisherman who found him caught in a fishing pot. He was rough looking, with very short arms, said Yarrell. He had been living on the reef and fighting with fish so he wasnt in the best shape. According to Yarrell, Inky  who is about the size of a rugby ball  was an unusually intelligent octopus. He was very friendly and a popular attraction here. We have another octopus, Blotchy, but he is smaller than Inky and Inky had the personality.\nThe aquarium has no plans to step up security as a result of the escape because they dont think it will happen again. But, the staff are more and more aware of what octopuses can do. Although the aquarium is not looking for a replacement for Inky, if a fisherman brought in another octopus, it might accept it. You never know, said Yarrell. Theres always a chance Inky could come home to us.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"He is not the first person to express scepticism about Mars One, a vastly ambitious private mission aiming to settle humans on Mars from 2025. But Joseph Roche is different from most critics: he\u2019s on the shortlist of astronauts. \nRoche, an astrophysicist at Trinity College Dublin who was announced in February as among the 100 people in line for the mission, has written for the Guardian expressing his grave doubts about the viability of Mars One. \nThe selection process, Roche writes, \u201cwas not rigorous enough to reach the requisite standard of more traditional astronaut selection programmes\u201d. He also says the Dutch Mars One team have displayed \u201ca certain naivety\u201d in believing they can succeed alone in the supposed $6bn mission and should now accept it is very unlikely to happen. \nHe writes: \u201cMore openness and transparency would benefit Mars One greatly but I think that the shortcomings of the selection process, coupled with their unwillingness to engage and collaborate with the scientific community mean that the time might have come for Mars One to acknowledge the implausibility of this particular venture and turn their efforts towards supporting other exciting and more viable upcoming space missions.\u201d \nRoche also expressed worries about the way the mission organizers publicized a so-called top-ten candidates. The ranking, he said, didn\u2019t mean these were the most likely potential astronauts but was, instead, based on how many \u201csupporter points\u201d each had earned through acts such as buying official merchandise. \nHe writes: \u201cThese points are Mars One\u2019s supporter points which 'represent the degree of your support to Mars One\u2019s mission'.\u201d These points play no role in the selection process and serve only to show how much each supporter has donated to Mars One.\u201d \nThe official timeline for the mission says the group plans to dispatch a stationary lander and satellite to Mars in 2018, followed by a rover in 2020 and cargo missions starting in 2022. Humans would start arriving in 2025 and crews of four would be sent every two years to add to the settlement. They would not return to Earth. \nIn February, a prominent supporter of the project, Gerard\u2019t Hooft, a Dutch Nobel laureate in physics, said he did not believe this timetable was realistic. He said: \u201cIt will take quite a bit longer and be quite a bit more expensive. When they first asked me to be involved, I told them: 'You have to put a zero after everything'.\u201d \nRoche also spoke to Medium, a US blogging platform that has previously expressed grave sceptism about Mars One, reporting among other things that the supposed 200,000 applications to be astronauts in fact totalled 2,761. \nHe told Medium about the selection process in more detail: \u201cI have not met anyone from Mars One in person. Initially, they\u2019d said there were going to be regional interviews; we would travel there, we\u2019d be interviewed, we\u2019d be tested over several days and, in my mind, that sounded at least like something that approached a legitimate astronaut selection process. \n\u201cBut then they made us sign a non-disclosure agreement if we wanted to be interviewed and then, all of a sudden, it changed from being a proper regional interview over several days to being a ten-minute Skype call.\u201d \nRoche told the Guardian he did not want to give more interviews as he was wary about being negative about the idea of space travel. \nIn his comment piece he writes: \u201cI am passionate about pushing the boundaries of scientific endeavour and that is why the ambitiousness of the Mars One plan appealed to me. Although Mars One were never likely to overcome the financial and technical barriers during their proposed timeline, it was refreshing to hear a new idea that challenges us to think about our own role in the future of space exploration. \n\u201cBeing part of the subsequent public debate over the ethics and morality of future missions has been one of the most interesting and enjoyable aspects of my candidacy with Mars One. If a one-way mission to Mars ever became possible, then I would always volunteer. For an astrophysicist, that is not a difficult decision to make but it is also a moot point because I do not think we will see a one-way mission in my lifetime.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"The small space is set up to look like a classroom. Its corrugated iron walls are hung with educational charts \u2013 illustrated letters of the alphabet and a map of Bangladesh. \nBut, the constant sound of hammering and the chemicals in the air that catch in the back of the throat and irritate the eyes make it hard to concentrate. The children who learn in this three-square-metre room are the lucky ones, however. They have escaped working in the factories opposite. \nFor 14 years, SOHAY, a grassroots non- governmental organization (NGO) funded by the Global Fund for Children and Comic Relief, has been working in slum areas of Dhaka to get child labourers into school. It focuses on children working in hazardous conditions \u2013 in aluminium and plastic factories, and tanneries. \nThe classroom is one of 23 urban development centres that SOHAY has set up across the capital. The centres prepare children for primary school with classes that help them catch up on their education. Once they are in primary school, the children can do homework at the centres, with help from their peers. \nAlamin, ten, who used to work in a plastic factory, attends one of the centres. His father is a street seller and his mother a part-time domestic worker. They are all happy that he\u2019s now in school and away from hazardous work. His friend Rabi says he wants to forget his past in the factory. \u201cI like school,\u201d he says. \n\u201cThe urban development centres aim to create an education-friendly environment in the communities and change their cultural mindset towards the children,\u201d says SOHAY\u2019s programme manager, Mohammed Abdullah al-Mamun. SOHAY also runs sessions for parents and employers to discourage child labour and offers skills training to increase family income. \n\u201cGetting working children into formal education is really very challenging,\u201d says Mamun. \u201cTheir psychological and physical condition is not like other children in society. After they leave work, they sometimes find it difficult to make friends and adapt to school. It is also very challenging to ensure they stay in school \u2013 the dropout rate is very high for these children. In this context, it\u2019s important to work with schools so they have more sensitivity and care about them.\u201d \nSeven-year-old Zhorna Akter Sumayya has two older brothers, both of whom are in work (one at a restaurant, one at a local club). But, after being introduced to education at one of SOHAY\u2019s centres, she now goes to a state primary school. Her family live in the slum and her parents can\u2019t survive without the income their sons bring home. Her father works in a rickshaw garage and her mother is a domestic worker, but they were keen for their daughter to go to school. \nIn 2015, SOHAY helped 1,540 children to leave hazardous work and 2,125 vulnerable children \u2013 those in danger of entering work \u2013 into school. About 780 more children are preparing to enter school in 2017. The organization is also helping 635 children who are working in hazardous conditions to know their rights under Bangladesh\u2019s 2010 child labour elimination code of conduct. The policy aimed to eradicate all forms of child labour by 2015 but that target was missed. \nThe Labour Law of Bangladesh 2006 bans children under the age of 14 from working but, according to the UN children\u2019s agency, UNICEF, 4.7 million children under that age are employed in the informal sector and 1.3 million aged five to 17 work in hazardous industries. \n\u201cIt was difficult to get them into school without any compensation for their time,\u201d says Sadia Nasrin, who runs Sonjag, another Dhaka grassroots NGO. \u201cTo overcome this challenge, Sonjag started working closely with the community in the slums where the children live.\u201d \nThe organization talked to community members about why it was important to get children into school. They selected community volunteers who were motivated to change children\u2019s lives and formed groups with social workers, community leaders, mothers, young volunteers and the local government. \n\u201cThe groups play a vital role in motivating employers to let children leave for two to three hours a day to attend school and to ensure a safe workplace for the children. The ultimate change-makers are the community people,\u201d says Nasrin. \nShe adds that people living in slums face threats of eviction, police raids and displacement. \u201cThe national plan of action for children does not recognize the needs of street children,\u201d says Nasrin. \u201cLegislative measures are limited.\u201d \nWhen the children have missed starting school at five years old, it is a race against time to prevent them from growing up without an education. \u201cAfter they cross their school age, it is really very difficult to admit them into school,\u201d says Mamun. \u201cChildren are just passing their time without education and waiting to become involved in hazardous work. We are working to block the child labour flow.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"The tranquil chorus of the natural world is in danger of being lost to today\u2019s generation as people screen out the noises that surround them, a senior US researcher warns. \nRising levels of background noise in some areas threaten to make people oblivious to the uplifting sounds of birdsong, trickling water and trees rustling in the wind, which can often be heard even in urban centres, said Kurt Fristrup, a senior scientist at the US National Park Service. \nThe problem was exacerbated by people listening to music through their earphones instead of tuning in to the birds and other sounds of nature that can easily be drowned out by traffic, music and other noises, he said. \n\u201cThis learned deafness is a real issue,\u201d Fristrup told the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in San Jose. \u201cWe are conditioning ourselves to ignore the information coming into our ears.\u201d \n\u201cThis gift that we are born with \u2013 to reach out and hear things hundreds of metres away, all these incredible sounds \u2013 is in danger of being lost through a generational amnesia,\u201d he said. \n\u201cThere is a real danger, both of loss of auditory acuity, where we are exposed to noise for so long that we stop listening, but also a loss of listening habits, where we lose the ability to engage with the environment the way we were built to,\u201d he added. \nFor the past ten years, the US National Park Service has recorded sound levels at more than 600 sites across the US, including Yosemite in California, Yellowstone and Denali in Alaska. Not one was unaffected by some form of noise from human activity, be it over-flying aircraft, motorbikes, motorboats or tour buses. \nFristrup\u2019s team combined the sound levels recorded from national parks with similar data from urban settings to create a model of noise levels across the US. They predict that noise pollution is growing faster than the US population and more than doubles every 30 years. \n\u201cIt\u2019s not surprising people are putting on earphones or even noise cancelling headphones to try and create a quieter or more congenial environment,\u201d he said. \n\u201cAs you raise background sound levels, it has the same effect on your hearing that fog would have on your vision. Instead of having this expansive experience of all the sounds around you, you are aware of only a small area around you,\u201d he said. \u201cEven in most of our cities, there are birds and things to appreciate in the environment, and there can be very rich natural choruses to pay attention to. And that is being lost.\u201d \nPeople quickly become accustomed to changes in their environments, including rising noise levels, and, over time, Fristrup fears that we will accept far worse environmental conditions than we should and forget how much quieter the world could be. \u201cIf finding peace and quiet becomes difficult enough, many, many children will grow up without the experience and I think it\u2019s a very real problem,\u201d he said. \nThe warning came as other scientists reported beneficial health effects from listening to natural sounds. Speaking at the same meeting, Derrick Taff, a social scientist at Pennsylvania State University, described preliminary experiments which suggest that listening to recordings from national parks, of waterfalls, birdsong and wind, helped people recover from stressful events. \nIn one experiment, Taff told participants who visited his lab to give an impromptu talk that would be judged by researchers standing behind a one-way mirror. Measurements of their heart rate and the stress hormone, cortisol, before and after the speech found that people calmed down faster when they listened to nature recordings than when the same audio tracks were interspersed with sounds from road traffic, aeroplanes and even normal conversation. \n\u201cWe know that natural sounds are very important to people. They are some of the main reasons people visit protected areas. They want to hear the natural quiet, the birdsong, and the wind and water,\u201d Taff said. \u201cWe may be losing this as people are listening to iPods all the time but I do believe that the public is appreciative of these sounds. My advice is to go to your protected areas and experience what you are missing.\u201d \nWhy natural sounds might be calming to people is unclear but Fristrup speculates that, over millions of years of evolution, we may have come to associate the more tranquil sounds of the natural world with safety. \u201cI suspect there\u2019s something about these intact soundscapes that reminds our ancestral brains of a place that\u2019s safe, where there\u2019s no sense of a predator nearby, and that these more cluttered soundscapes are problematic for us because we know we\u2019ve lost that surveillance capability,\u201d he said.","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"1 Race engineer \nA race engineer liaises between the driver and the mechanics. \nTypical salary: New graduates start at \u00a325,000 to \u00a330,000 and quickly progress to junior engineer roles, earning more than \u00a340,000 with just a few years\u2019 experience. Senior race engineers earn \u00a350,000 to \u00a390,000 and promotion often leads to six-figure salaries. \nWhat the job involves: \u201cA race engineer acts as the interpreter between the race-car mechanics and the driver,\u201d says race engineer Jamie Muir. \u201cThe engineer takes feedback from the driver, analyses the data available and makes decisions about the set-up needed for maximum performance, then relays this to the mechanics to instigate.\u201d \nQualifications: A university degree, typically in automotive\/mechanical engineering or motorsport technology. Hands-on experience is essential. \nTo succeed as a race engineer, you need \u2026 to be able to deal with pressure. \nWorst thing about the job: The long hours. \u201cRace engineers work 24\/7,\u201d says Chris Aylett, CEO of the Motorsport Industry Association. \n2 Ethical hacker \nTypical salary: \u00a360,000 to \u00a390,000 at team- leader level, while a newly qualified hacker can expect a minimum salary of \u00a335,000 to \u00a350,000. \nWhat the job involves: A company will pay an ethical hacker to hack into its computer system to see how well it might stand up to a real attack. \nQualifications: You don\u2019t necessarily need a degree in computer science. The industry accepts individuals with a very wide range of academic qualifications and skills. \nTo succeed as an ethical hacker, you need \u2026 a passion for technology and detail. You should also have a very good analytical mind and enjoy solving difficult problems. \nWorst thing about the job: When you are called in to test the security of a new customer\u2019s network only to discover that they have already been the victim of a data breach. \n3 Bomb-disposal diver \nTypical salary: In the private sector, you can earn up to \u00a3100,000 working just two months out of every three. \nWhat the job involves: Descending to the sea bed and searching for unexploded ordnance (bombs, shells, grenades and landmines), then either safely recovering and collecting the weapons or securely disposing of them. \nQualifications: To dive offshore, you must have diving-inspection and medical-technician qualifications. To be able to dispose of the bombs safely, you\u2019ll also need an explosive ordnance disposal qualification and years of experience. \nTo succeed as a bomb-disposal diver, you need \u2026 to stay calm in stressful situations. You work on your own at depth, with nil visibility and, if you don\u2019t like living in small confined spaces with lots of other people, forget it. \nWorst thing about the job: Expect to be away from home at least six months of the year. \n4 Social engineer \nTypical salary: Between \u00a350,000 and \u00a380,000, on average. Graduates start on \u00a325,000 but salaries increase rapidly with qualifications and experience. \nThe job: A social engineer is paid by a company to try to trick its employees into divulging confidential information that allows the engineer to access sensitive company data or the company\u2019s computer network. \nQualifications: Typically, social engineers have a degree in IT, although an understanding of psychology is useful, as is a background in marketing, teaching and customer service. \nTo succeed as a social engineer, you need \u2026 the confidence to lie convincingly and the ability to fit in almost anywhere without looking too out of place. You also need a strong sense of personal ethics and an understanding of the law. \nWorst thing about the job: Other people may misunderstand your job: social engineers are not spies but most people think they are. \n5 Power-line helicopter pilot \nTypical salary: \u00a365,000 \nThe job: To fly close to high-voltage power lines in a helicopter so that the lines can be inspected with a camera and any potential faults and issues can be identified by the power company. \nQualifications: A private-helicopter-pilot licence, a commercial pilot\u2019s licence and around 2,000 hours of experience flying at low levels in the type of helicopter the company usually uses. \nTo succeed as a power-line helicopter pilot, you need \u2026 a steady hand and a cool head. Typically, pilots must fly beside the power line, sometimes as little as 20 feet away and just 30 feet off the ground. \nWorst thing about the job: \u201cThere are no negatives,\u201d says Robin Tutcher, chief helicopter pilot for Western Power Distribution overhead- power network. \n6 Private butler \nTypical salary: \u00a360,000 to \u00a390,000 \nThe job: A private butler can be called on by his or her employer to do anything from wardrobe management to chauffeuring and pet care. Typical duties include managing other staff, serving at every meal, running errands, looking after guests, booking restaurants, house security, housekeeping, cooking and anything else the household needs. \nQualifications: You don\u2019t need any specific qualifications but can do a course at the British Butler Academy or the British Butler Institute. \nTo succeed as a butler, you need \u2026 the mindset of someone who genuinely thrives on looking after others. \nWorst thing about the job: Long hours and an unpredictable work schedule mean it\u2019s difficult to have a family life. Butlers also suffer from isolation, cultural differences with their employer and \u201chaving to work for people who aren\u2019t always nice\u201d, says Sara Vestin, director of the British Butler Academy.","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nScarlett Johansson is suing a French novelist for 50,000. She says that his work of  ction makes fraudulent claims about her personal life.\nLa premiere chose qu\u0019on regarde (The First Thing We Look At) by Gre\u0001goire Delacourt tells the story of a French model who looks so similar to the American actor that the book\u0019s lead male character thinks it is Johansson herself. In the novel, the model\u0019s looks mean that men see her only as a sex object, while women are jealous of her. She has a series of adventures as Johansson and, in the end, dies in a car crash.\nJohansson does not feel  attered by the best- selling book. Her lawyer, Vincent Toledano, told Le Figaro that Delacourts novel illegally used Ms Johanssons name, her reputation and her image. He said the novel contains defamatory claims about her private life. He has now gone to court to try to stop the book being translated or adapted for cinema.\nDelacourt tried to explain that he chose to mention Johansson because she is the archetype of beauty today. He said: I wrote a work of  ction. My character is not Scarlett Johansson.\nOn French radio, the author recently said the legal action was rather sad. He said: It freaks me out to think that when you talk of a character in a novel, judges can get involved.\nDelacourt is one of Frances best-loved authors; his previous novel, My List of Desires, was translated into 47 languages and is now being adapted into a  lm. But he said he was speechless when he found out Johansson was suing him.\nI thought shed get in contact to ask me to go for a coffee with her. I didnt write a novel about a celebrity, he said. I wrote a real love story about feminine beauty, especially interior beauty.\nIf an author can no longer mention the things that surround us  a brand of beer, a monument, an actor  its going to be complicated to produce  ction.\nIm not sure shes even read the novel because it hasnt been translated yet.\nEmmanuelle Allibert, spokeswoman for publisher JC Latte_s, said taking legal action was crazy. We have never known anything like it. It is all the more surprising because the novel is not even about Scarlett Johansson. It is about a woman who is Scarlett Johanssons double.\nIronically, the authors legal situation would be far easier if he had published the book in Johanssons home country, rather than France. Lloyd Jassin, a New York lawyer, said that the case would most likely not go to court in the United States because the book would be protected by the First Amendment.\nHe said that, if theres signi cance and literary merit to using her name in the book, the First Amendment would protect the authors right to do so. However, in France, the legal position is more complicated and personality rights are taken much more seriously, Jassin says.\nI thought she might send me  owers as the book was a declaration of love for her, but she didnt understand, Delacourt said.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"According to a new survey, there are more tigers in Nepal than at any time since the 1970s. The number of big cats has been decreasing in south Asia for 100 years, but conservationists now hope that we can save them. \nThe number of wild royal bengal tigers in Nepal has increased to 198 \u2013 a 63.6% increase in five years \u2013 the survey showed. \u201cThis is very good news,\u201d said Maheshwar Dhakal, an ecologist with Nepal\u2019s Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation. \nThe survey looked at pictures from more than 500 cameras in five protected areas and three wildlife corridors. More than 250 conservationists and wildlife experts worked on the survey, which cost about \u00a3250,000. Dhakal said that there was a similar survey in India and the results from both countries will be published later in 2013. \u201cIt will take a few more months for India, which now has 1,300 big cats in several huge protected areas, to finish the survey,\u201d he added. Nepal says it will double the population of tigers by the year 2022 from 121 in 2009 to 242. \nSome rich people want tiger skins. Tiger body parts are used in traditional Chinese medicine. International gangs pay poor local Nepali people large amounts of money to kill the cats. The skin and bones are taken through the border to India, where the big dealers are. \nOne big problem is that some senior officials help the mafia who are involved in the illegal buying and selling. Conservation experts believe that tiger numbers have increased because the police are controlling national parks better, and because there is now better management of tiger habitats in Nepal, where forests cover 29% of the land. But they say Nepal must do more to protect the habitat and animals that tigers eat so the big cats have enough space to move around and food to eat. \nThe number of tigers has increased but attacks on villagers have increased, too. Seven people were killed in attacks by tigers around national parks in 2012 compared to four in 2011, park officials said. Villagers also want better protection. \u201cThe government is making conservation plans for tigers. But it should also make plans to protect people from tigers,\u201d Krishna Bhurtel, a village leader, told a Nepali newspaper. Recently, a tiger was captured after it killed two people, including a villager who was pulled from his bed in May. \nThousands of tigers used to lived in the forests in Bangladesh, India and Nepal. But their numbers have decreased to about 3,000, a 95% decrease in one hundred years. Chitwan National Park in central Nepal has the most adult tigers, with 120, followed by Bardiya National Park (50) and Shukla Phanta Wildlife Reserve (17). \nTiger skins are popular in Tibet, where rich people use them as festival costumes. In Nepal, kings used to stand on tiger skins for special occasions. Some rich Nepali have tiger heads on the walls of their living rooms. Tiger bones are in high demand for use in traditional Chinese medicine. People can make a lot of money selling tiger skins and bones illegally.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"They call it the Richie Rich Club and it is about to get even richer. India\u2019s wealthiest will quadruple their net worth between now and 2018, a report says, with hundreds of thousands of new entrepreneurs and inheritors becoming multimillionaires. The survey, based on interviews with 150 ultra-high-net-worth individuals, comes amid signs of returning business confidence in the world\u2019s biggest democracy. \nRecent years have seen lacklustre growth, rising prices of basic foodstuffs and a weakening currency. But the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won a landslide victory in May 2014 on a pledge to reinvigorate the ailing economy. Despite the slowdown, there are nearly a sixth more Indians worth in excess of $3.75m than in 2013, the report for the Kotak Mahindra Bank notes. \u201cCities are mushrooming, the middle class population growing, opportunities have increased manyfold and the political environment has improved greatly in recent months,\u201d according to Murali Balaraman, a co-author. \nBetween them, India\u2019s rich hold assets worth a trillion dollars, which is around a fifth of the total wealth in the country. By 2018, that total is likely to reach $4tn, the report says, making three times as many people multimillionaires. \nServing the new rich \u2013 and the old money \u2013 is a booming luxury market. \u201cThey really want to show or talk about their wealth in a really subtle way and consumption of luxury goods is a nice way to do it,\u201d Balaraman said. Abhay Gupta, the CEO of brand consultancy Luxury Connect, said the market for top-end goods and experiences would \u201conly get bigger\u201d. \u201cThere is a huge aspirational class who look up to what the very wealthy are doing and then copy it,\u201d he said. \nCars are among the most popular items bought, the report says. Whereas, in 2009, locally made SUVs were shown off by the wealthy, now only foreign cars will turn heads. Mercedes saw a 47% surge in sales in India in 2013. BMW has launched a new $200,000 model in Delhi. India\u2019s appalling infrastructure restricts demand, however. Lamborghini\u2019s Chief Executive, Stephan Winkelmann, admitted, in 2013, that the traffic and roads in India \u201care not so suitable\u201d for the $450,000 sports cars. In India, Lamborghini sells two models: the Gallardo and the Aventador, which has a top speed of 217mph. Winkelmann said Lamborghini\u2019s Indian customers were much younger than those in Europe, with a typical buyer being in his 30s. However, the most popular investments remain real estate \u2013 mainly within India \u2013 and jewellery. \nIndia\u2019s super-rich have long raised eyebrows around the world with their spectacular spending. Mukesh Ambani, the country\u2019s wealthiest man, has built the world\u2019s most valuable home in Mumbai, the commercial capital. The 27-storey tower, complete with helicopter pads, indoor cinemas and a staff of more than 600, is worth an estimated $1bn. \nThe three-day wedding of the niece of Lakshmi Mittal, the UK-based steel tycoon who is worth an estimated $16bn, was reported to have cost $80m. Hundreds of guests were flown to Barcelona for the ceremony and party, which took place in a museum in the city. \nBut buyers of luxury goods searching for the psychological satisfaction of exclusivity are becoming increasingly demanding, the Kotak Mahindra report says. One ordered nine cases of Japanese whisky costing over $750 a bottle for a wedding reception. The attraction of the imported whisky was that no one who attended the wedding would find out how to source the same drink in India, the report adds. Another big spender systematically bought identical pairs of Louis Vuitton bags, then cut up half of them to make clothes that would match her accessories. Even the traditional wedding is evolving fast. Presents such as silver plates, dried fruit or sweets once sent with wedding invitations are being replaced by gifts by top western designer brands. \u201cThese days, it\u2019s Rolex watches and Louis Vuitton bags,\u201d says Gupta. \nAlmost half new ultra-high-net-worth individuals live in smaller provincial cities. A high proportion give substantial amounts to charity, though the report notes that the \u201cgrowth of philanthropic spends in India has not been proportional to overall growth in ultra-high-net-worth individual wealth\u201d. \nCo-author Balaraman says that growth in the number of rich people would not result in social tensions as a wide gap in incomes and wealth is an \u201caccepted norm\u201d in India. \u201cPeople know that someone is rich and someone is poor and they carry on with their lives,\u201d he explains.","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Margaret Thatcher, the most dominant British prime minister since Winston Churchill in 1940 and a global champion of the late 20th-century free market economic revival, has died. The British government announced that she would receive a ceremonial funeral with military honours at St Paul\u2019s Cathedral. \nThe British prime minister, David Cameron, who is cutting short his trip to Europe to return to London following the news, said: \u201cIt was with great sadness that l learned of Lady Thatcher\u2019s death. We\u2019ve lost a great leader, a great prime minister and a great Briton.\u201d He added: \u201cAs our first woman prime minister, Margaret Thatcher succeeded against all the odds, and the real thing about Margaret Thatcher is that she didn\u2019t just lead our country, she saved our country, and I believe she will go down as the greatest British peacetime prime minister.\u201d \nIn a statement, President Barack Obama said, \u201cHere in America, many of us will never forget her standing shoulder to shoulder with President Reagan, reminding the world that we are not simply carried along by the currents of history \u2013 we can shape them with moral conviction, unyielding courage and iron will.\u201d \nThe first woman elected to lead a major western state, Lady Thatcher, as she became after the longest premiership since 1827, served 11 unbroken years at No 10 Downing Street. \nThatcher, who was 87, had been in declining health for some years, suffering from dementia. After a series of mini-strokes in 2002, Thatcher withdrew from public life, no longer able to make the kind of waspish pronouncements that had been her forte in office \u2013 and beyond. \nHer death was greeted with tributes from across the political spectrum. \nAs Labour sources announced the party would suspend campaigning in local elections as a mark of respect, its leader, Ed Miliband, said: \u201cShe will be remembered as a unique figure. She reshaped the politics of a whole generation. She was Britain\u2019s first woman prime minister. She moved the centre ground of British politics and was a huge figure on the world stage. The Labour Party disagreed with much of what she did and she will always remain a controversial figure. But we can disagree and also greatly respect her political achievements and her personal strength.\u201d \nThe deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, said: \u201cMargaret Thatcher was one of the defining figures in modern British politics. Whatever side of the political debate you stand on, no one can deny that as prime minister she left a unique and lasting imprint on the country she served.\u201d \nDescribing her as a political phenomenon, the former Tory prime minister Sir John Major said: \u201cHer outstanding characteristics will always be remembered by those who worked closely with her: courage and determination in politics, and humanity and generosity of spirit in private.\u201d \nThe \u201cIron Lady\u201d proved a significant cold war ally of the US president Ronald Reagan in the final showdown with the Soviet Union, which broke up under reformist pressures led by Mikhail Gorbachev, a Kremlin leader with whom Thatcher famously declared she could \u201cdo business \u201d. As a result, many ordinary voters in ex-Soviet bloc states saw her as a bold champion of their liberty, a view widely shared across the spectrum of mainstream US opinion \u2013 though not at home or among key EU partners. \nThatcher was an unremarkable mid-ranking Conservative until she unexpectedly became party leader in 1975. Within a decade, she had become known around the world \u2013 both admired and detested \u2013 for her pro-market domestic reforms and her implacable attitudes in foreign policy, including her long-running battle with the IRA, which almost managed to murder her when it placed a bomb in the Grand Hotel, Brighton, in 1984. \nAt home, the emerging doctrine of Thatcherism meant denationalization of state-owned industry \u2013 the new word \u201cprivatization\u201d came into widespread use in many countries \u2013 and defeat of militant trade unionists, notably the National Union of Miners, whose year-long strike (1984 \u2013 85) was bitter and traumatic. \nBoosted by the newly arrived revenues from Britain\u2019s North Sea oil fields, Thatcher had room to manoeuvre and change the ageing industrial economy and she used the opportunity to defeat her enemies \u2013 including moderate members of her own party. \nBut she also deployed her notorious \u201chandbaggings\u201d, or verbal attacks, in the European Union to obtain a British rebate \u2013 \u201cmy money\u201d as she called it. She was less successful in fending off the centralizing ambitions of the \u201cBelgian Empire\u201d, her description of the European Commission, especially in the years when it was headed by the French socialist Jacques Delors. \nHer allies in the tabloid press egged her on. And, as the British economy recovered from the severe recession that her monetarist medicine had inflicted on it \u2013 to tame the unions and cure inflation \u2013 she briefly seemed invincible. \nBut untrammelled power, with the defeat or retirement of allies who had kept her in check, led to mistakes and growing unpopularity. When Sir Geoffrey Howe, nominally her deputy, finally fell out with Thatcher \u2013 chiefly over Europe \u2013 his devastating resignation speech triggered a leadership challenge. Thatcher made way for John Major rather than risk losing to him in a ballot. \nIn retirement, she wrote highly successful memoirs in two volumes and campaigned energetically on behalf of the Thatcher Foundation, which sought to promote her values around the world.","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"For 85 years, it was just a grey blob on classroom maps of the solar system. But, on 15 July, we saw Pluto in high resolution for the first time. The images show dramatic mountains made from solid water ice as big as the Alps or the Rockies. \nThe extraordinary images of the former ninth planet and its large moon, Charon, were sent four billion miles back to Earth from the New Horizons spacecraft. \nAlan Stern, the mission\u2019s principal investigator, said \u201cNew Horizons is returning amazing results. The data look absolutely gorgeous, and Pluto and Charon are just mind-blowing.\u201d \nJohn Spencer, a mission scientist, said that one of the biggest surprises was the discovery that \u201cthere are mountains in the Kuiper belt\u201d. The Kuiper belt is the solar system\u2019s mysterious \u201cthird zone\u201d where Pluto is, with about 100,000 smaller icy objects. He said the mountains are around 3,000 metres high and several hundred miles across. \nPluto used to be the ninth planet but, since 2006, it has been a dwarf planet. The NASA press conference began with spectacular images of the sun and the eight official planets. \nStern said the images from New Horizons were just the beginning and that we would learn more about the planet soon. Scientists believe the mountains on Pluto are made from water ice with just a thin cover of methane and nitrogen. \n\u201cWater ice is strong enough to hold up big mountains.\u201d The images are the first to show ice mountains, except those found on the moons of giant planets. \nThe images are so detailed that, if the spacecraft flew over London, we would be able to see the runways at Heathrow airport. \nIt is five billion kilometres to Pluto. This means it takes New Horizons hours to send back a picture and it will take 16 months to send back all the data. The team also said that the heart-shaped area on Pluto will be called the Tombaugh Regio, after Clyde Tombaugh, who discovered the dwarf planet in 1930. \nThe image of Charon shows an area of cliffs about 1,000km long. The image also shows a dramatic canyon 7 to 9km deep. \nCathy Olkin, a mission scientist, said: \u201cCharon just blew our socks off when we saw the new image. The team is so excited.\u201d \nPluto is two thirds rock surrounded by a lot of ice. The temperature is about minus 230C. \nThe \u00a3460m spacecraft is continuing its journey into the Kuiper belt. Scientists hope that it will help us to see and understand more of the ancient solar system and the origins of planets. It may even help to explain how the Earth was made. \nAndrew Coates, the head of planetary science at the Mullard Space Science Laboratory, said: \u201cIt\u2019s a really thrilling time for solar system exploration.\u201d \nNASA says that the spacecraft will be able to keep recording and sending images until the mid- 2030s. Then its plutonium power source will run out and it will drift outwards towards the edge of the solar system and deep space beyond.\u201d","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"As soon as the children at one primary school in Stirling hear the words \u201cdaily mile\u201d, they down their pencils and head out of the classroom to start running laps around the school field. For three-and-a-half years, all pupils at St Ninian\u2019s Primary have walked or run a mile each day. They do so at random times during the day, apparently happily, and, despite the rise in childhood obesity across the UK, none of the children at the school are overweight. \nThe daily mile has done so much to improve these children\u2019s fitness, behaviour and concentration in lessons that scores of nursery and primary schools across Britain are following suit and getting pupils to get up from their desks and take 15 minutes to walk or run round the school or local park. \nElaine Wyllie, headteacher of St Ninian\u2019s, said: \u201cI get at least two emails a day from other schools and local authorities asking how we do it. The thought of children across the country running every day because of something we\u2019ve done is phenomenal.\u201d \nOne in ten children are obese when they start school at the age of four or five, according to figures from the Health & Social Care Information Centre, and, in the summer of 2015, a study found that schoolchildren in England are the least fit they have ever been. Primary schools have therefore been quick to note the benefits of the daily mile. It has been introduced in schools in London, Gateshead, Wales and other parts of Scotland, while others are planning to launch the initiative during the 2015-6 academic year. In Stirling alone, 30 schools have already started or are to start the daily mile. \n\u201cIt\u2019s a common-sense approach to children\u2019s fitness, which is free and easy. The most important thing is that the children really enjoy it; otherwise, you couldn\u2019t sustain it. They come back in bright-eyed and rosy-cheeked, how children used to look. It\u2019s joyous to see,\u201d said Wyllie. At St Ninian\u2019s, teachers take their pupils out of lessons on to a specially built circuit around the school\u2019s playing field for their daily mile whenever it best suits that day\u2019s timetable. Only ice or very heavy rain stop them. \nThe extent of the benefits have yet to be determined but researchers from Stirling University have launched a comparative study to look for quantitative evidence of the physical, cognitive and emotional benefits of the daily mile. Dr Colin Moran, who is leading the study, said: \u201cThe children at St Ninian\u2019s don\u2019t seem to have problems with obesity; they seem happier and staff say they settle into lessons faster so we designed a study that would test all of these things. There is a lot of anecdotal evidence about the benefits but there aren\u2019t any scientific facts yet.\u201d St Ninian\u2019s pupils will be compared with children from another school in Stirling that has yet to start the scheme. \nKevin Clelland, a primary school teacher from Leeds, visited St Ninian\u2019s before convincing his colleagues it was a great idea. He said: \u201cIt\u2019s such a simple thing to do but seems to have such an amazing impact. We\u2019re really committed to improving the fitness of our pupils beyond the two-hour statutory PE that we are expected to deliver.\u201d His school is now constructing a track. \nActive Cheshire, a strategic body for sports and fitness in Cheshire and Warrington, is taking a group of senior figures from the local authority up to Scotland to assess the results of the daily mile. The hope is to introduce it across the 450 schools in the region if a pilot is successful. \nParalympian, Tanni Grey-Thompson, chair of ukactive, the UK\u2019s leading not-for-profit health body for physical activity, said: \u201cAll children need to achieve 60 active minutes every day, whether in a lesson, on the walk to school or in the playground. It\u2019s fantastic to see initiatives like the daily mile be established, showing real leadership from the education sector to improve children\u2019s fitness levels and their cognitive behaviour, and make a real difference to schools, teachers, parents and young people\u2019s lives. We know sitting still kills; not sitting still helps children build skills that will stay with them for life.\u201d \nThe Scottish government is also supportive. A spokesperson said: \u201cLearning in PE is enhanced by initiatives like the daily mile, which can encourage and support parents in fostering healthy habits with their children from a young age. We are pleased to see so many Scottish schools are taking part or planning to do so.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"A report by the World Health Organization (WHO) says that 35.6% of all women around the world will experience physical or sexual violence in their lifetime, usually from a male partner. The report says that 30% of women are attacked by their partners. It also says that a large percentage of murders of women \u2013 38% \u2013 are done by their partners. \nThe highest levels of violence against women are in Africa, where nearly half of all women \u2013 45.6% \u2013 will experience physical or sexual violence. In poor and middle-income Europe, the percentage is 27.2%. But, richer countries are not always safer for women \u2013 a third of women in rich countries (32.7%) will experience violence. 42% of the women who experience violence have injuries, which doctors and nurses may notice. The report says that injuries are often the first opportunity to discover violence in the home and to offer the woman help. Violence has a big effect on women\u2019s health. Some come to hospital with broken bones and others have problems related to pregnancy and mental illness. \nThe WHO has two reports \u2013 one report is on violence; the other report tells doctors and nurses how to help women. Dr Claudia Garcia-Moreno, of the WHO, and Professor Charlotte Watts, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, wrote the reports. \n\u201cFor the first time we have compared data from all over the world on partner violence and sexual violence by non-partners and the effect of these sorts of violence on health,\u201d said Garcia-Moreno. These included HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, depression, alcoholism, unwanted pregnancies and babies that are born too small. \nThere were differences in the levels of violence against women in different regions of the world but, said Garcia-Moreno, \u201cit is too high\u201d everywhere. Data from 81 countries shows that, even in rich countries, 23.2% of women will experience physical and\/or sexual violence from a partner in their lives. The global figure for women attacked by partners was 30%. \nWomen report more sexual assaults and rapes by acquaintances or strangers in rich countries than elsewhere. The report says that 12.6% of women in wealthy countries will be sexually attacked by a non-partner in their lives. The percentage in Africa is 11.9%. \nThe report says that their previous research shows that better-educated women and working women are less likely to experience violence, but not in all regions. There is a need to change some attitudes, said Watts. \u201cIn some societies, are certain forms of violence against women acceptable?\u201d she asked. \u201cIn some societies, violence against women is not OK \u2013 but, in some societies, it is OK.\u201d \nGarcia-Moreno said that the percentages show that we must pay more attention to this question. Over the past ten years, more people see that there is a problem, she said, but \u201cit is a complex problem. We don\u2019t have a vaccine or a pill\u201d. \nThe WHO now recommends teaching doctors and nurses to recognize the signs of domestic violence and sexual assault. But they do not recommend asking every woman who arrives in a clinic if she has been the victim of violence. \n\u201cIf a woman comes back several times with injuries she doesn\u2019t mention, you should ask her about domestic violence,\u201d said Garcia-Moreno.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nAccording to a recent report, the wealthiest people in India will become four times richer by 2018, with hundreds of thousands of new entrepreneurs and inheritors becoming multimillionaires. The survey, based on interviews with 150 wealthy individuals, comes at a time when there are signs of returning business confidence in the worlds biggest democracy.\nRecent years have seen weak economic growth, rising prices of basic foods and a fall in the value of the Indian currency. But the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won a landslide victory in May 2014 with its promise to improve the economy. Despite the economic slowdown, there are now nearly a sixth more Indians worth more than $3.75m than in 2013, the report says. Cities are mushrooming, the middle class population growing, opportunities have increased many times over and the political environment has improved greatly in recent months, says Murali Balaraman, a co-author.\nBetween them, Indias rich hold assets worth a trillion dollars, which is around a fifth of the total wealth in the country. By 2018, that total is likely to reach $4tn, the report says, making three times as many people multimillionaires.\nA booming luxury market is serving the new rich. They really want to show or talk about their wealth in a really subtle way and buying luxury goods is a nice way to do it, Balaraman said. Abhay Gupta, the CEO of brand consultancy Luxury Connect, said the market for luxury goods and experiences would only get bigger. There is a huge aspirational class who look up to what the very wealthy are doing and then copy it, he said.\nCars are among the most popular items bought, the report says. Whereas, in 2009, locally made SUVs were shown off by the wealthy, now only foreign cars will impress people. Mercedes saw a 47% growth in sales in India in 2013. BMW has launched a new $200,000 model in Delhi.\nIndias appalling infrastructure limits demand for luxury cars, however. Lamborghinis Chief Executive, Stephan Winkelmann, admitted, in 2013, that the traffic and roads in India are not so suitable for the $450,000 sports cars. In India, Lamborghini sells two models: the Gallardo and the Aventador, which has a top speed of 217mph. Winkelmann said Lamborghinis Indian customers were much younger than those in Europe, with a typical buyer being in his 30s. However, the most popular investments are still real estate  mainly within India  and jewellery.\nIndias super-rich have often surprised people around the world with their spectacular spending. Mukesh Ambani, the countrys wealthiest man, has built the worlds most valuable home in Mumbai, the commercial capital. The 27-storey tower, complete with helicopter pads, indoor cinemas and a staff of more than 600, is worth $1bn.\nThe three-day wedding of the niece of Lakshmi Mittal, the UK-based steel tycoon who is worth $16bn, was reported to have cost $80m. Hundreds of guests were flown to Barcelona for the ceremony and party, which took place in a museum in the city.\nBut buyers of exclusive luxury goods are becoming more and more demanding, the report says. One buyer ordered nine cases of Japanese whisky costing over $750 a bottle for a wedding reception. The attraction of the imported whisky was that no one who attended the wedding would know how to find the same drink in India. Another big spender bought identical pairs of Louis Vuitton bags, then cut up half of them to make clothes that would match her accessories.\nEven the traditional wedding is changing. Traditionally, presents such as silver plates, dried fruit or sweets are sent with wedding invitations. But, now, these presents are being replaced by gifts by top western designer brands. These days, its Rolex watches and Louis Vuitton bags, says Gupta.\nAlmost half the new multimillionaires live in smaller cities and a high proportion give large amounts to charity. Co-author Balaraman says that growth in the number of rich people would not result in social tensions because a wide gap in incomes and wealth is an accepted norm in India. People know that someone is rich and someone is poor and they carry on with their lives, he explains.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"The brand and logo of Apple are the most valuable in the world. They are worth nearly $119 billion \u2013 that is more than the economies of Morocco, Ecuador or Oman. \nThe brand value of Apple, the world\u2019s biggest company, has increased by 21% in 12 months, the Interbrand Best Global Brands report said. \nPeople all around the world recognize Apple by its simple \u201cApple with a bite missing\u201d logo. Other technology companies have also done very well in the 2014 report. The technology companies pushed more traditional brands \u2013 such as Coca-Cola, McDonald\u2019s and Gillette \u2013 down the table. \nGoogle\u2019s brand value rose by 15% to $107 billion to take second place. Coca-Cola, in third place, is up 3% to $81.5 billion. IBM\u2019s value is $72.2 billion and Microsoft\u2019s $45.5 billion. They are in fourth and fifth places. \nFacebook\u2019s value has increased the most in the table. Its brand value increased by 86% to $14.3 billion. It is at 29th place in the table, ahead of older global companies such as Volkswagen, Kellogg\u2019s and Ford. \nApple was started by Steve Jobs in his Los Altos garage in 1976. It only appeared in the top ten of the Interbrand annual study in 2011. \nIts logo was created by advertising executive Rob Janoff in 1977. It was designed with a bite taken out of it so that it would not look like a cherry. \nGraham Hayles, Interbrand\u2019s chief marketing officer, said, \u201cApple makes a lot of money because it has a very strong brand. If you have a strong brand, you make more money.\u201d \nMany technology companies rose up the chart but some fell, too. Finnish mobile-phone company Nokia dropped 41 places to 98th at $4.1 billion, just ahead of Nintendo in 100th place (down 33). \nA Chinese company has appeared in the top 100 for the first time, with mobile-phone and broadband company Huawei at 94th place. It has a brand value of $4.3 billion. \nMost of the brands in the top 100 are American. The most valuable non-American brands are South Korea\u2019s Samsung (6th), Japan\u2019s Toyota (8th) and Germany\u2019s Mercedes-Benz (10th). The most valuable British brands are HSBC (33rd), Shell (65th) and Burberry (73rd). \nOther fashion brands in the top 100 include Boss, Prada and Ralph Lauren. Designer label Louis Vuitton is the top fashion name, in 19th position with a value of $23 billion, just ahead of clothing chain H&M, with a brand value of $21 billion in place 21. \nSports brand Nike is at place 22 with a brand value of nearly $20 billion, ahead of its rival Adidas at place 59 with a value of $7 billion. \nJez Frampton, chief executive of Interbrand, said that customers now have more control than ever over a brand\u2019s reputation. This is because they can make comments about a brand on social media, such as Twitter. \n\u201cCustomers expect interaction, 24\/7 accessibility, customization options and high levels of personalization,\u201d he said.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nHow long can you hold your breath? Im trying it right now. The  rst 30 seconds are easy. Im ready to give up at 45 seconds but I continue and it seems to get easier for a while. But, as the second hand ticks past a minute, my heart is pounding. I let out a tiny breath and this helps. Eventually, I give up, releasing the air in my lungs and taking a huge breath. I manage one minute and 12 seconds. Im quite impressed with myself.\nThe ability to hold your breath is extremely important in some sports, particularly freediving. In 2006, I was  lming a programme about the anatomy and physiology of the lungs for a BBC series. I was lucky to meet Sam Amps, who was captain of the UK freedive team. At a pool in Bristol, she taught me some simple exercises to help me hold my breath for longer while swimming underwater. By the end of the session, Id managed 90 seconds of breath-holding, enough to let me swim a width. Sam swam three widths easily. She could hold her breath for  ve minutes, while swimming. Five!\nI asked how she did it: very slow breathing for several minutes before each dive, then a big, deep breath before diving in. She also said that training helped her resist the urge to breathe for far longer than most people.\nSome have suggested that the ability to voluntarily hold your breath is evidence that, at some point during our evolution, we lived in water. Some even say that humans have an ability to lower their heart rate in order to breath-hold for even longer. Other facts  our hairlessness, the distribution of our subcutaneous fat and even that we walk on two legs  have been linked to an aquatic phase of our evolutionary development. But, unfortunately, the aquatic ape hypothesis is not true.\nLooking at voluntary breath-holding, we are, in fact, not the only non-aquatic mammals that are able to hold their breath. (But its a dif cult thing to investigate in other mammals because, unlike humans, its dif cult to get them to hold their breath.) And evidence shows that our heart rate doesnt drop during breath-holding. At least, it doesnt if youre breath-holding on land. When youre in cold water, its different: this leads to a slower heart rate in most people. But, once again, this isnt evidence of an aquatic ape ancestry. This reduction in heart rate is just one of the physiological responses that are sometimes called the mammalian diving re ex. But physiological responses that are useful in diving are also  and, perhaps, even more importantly  useful for not drowning.\nWhile our ability to breath-hold may not be special, when we compare ourselves with other animals, its now becoming very useful in one particular area of medicine. Radiotherapy for breast cancer involves pointing radiation, very precisely, at the tumour. This may require several minutes of radiation and, so, its usually done in short periods, between breaths. But, if the patient can keep her chest perfectly still for several minutes, it means that the entire dose can be given, in the right place, in one go. The problem, of course, is that most people, just like me, cannot hold their breath for much longer than a minute. But doctors at University Hospital Birmingham have shown that, if patients are given oxygen-rich air before holding their breath, they can hold it for  ve-and-a-half minutes. \nSurprisingly, the trick seems to be the ability to fool the diaphragm. When you breathe in, youre pulling the muscle of your diaphragm  at so that the volume of your chest increases  and air is pulled into your lungs. When you hold your breath, you keep your diaphragm like that. If you arti cially raise oxygen levels and reduce carbon dioxide levels before a breath-hold, as in the Birmingham radiotherapy experiments, you may be able to delay tiredness in the diaphragm. So, its your diaphragm, the main muscle of breathing, that is in charge when it comes to holding your breath. Eventually, even if youve fooled it for a while, the signals from the diaphragm are just too strong and you have to give up  and take a breath.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"The Canadian tennis player Frank Dancevic slammed Australian Open organizers for forcing players to compete in \u201cinhumane\u201d conditions after he collapsed on court as temperatures rose to 41C. \nDancevic, who collapsed during the second set of his first-round match against France\u2019s Beno\u00eet Paire on the uncovered court six at Melbourne Park and passed out for a minute, said conditions were plainly dangerous for the players. He also said the heat had caused him to hallucinate: \u201cI was dizzy from the middle of the first set and then I saw Snoopy and I thought, 'Wow, Snoopy \u2013 that\u2019s weird.'\u201d \n\u201cI think it\u2019s inhumane. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s fair to anybody \u2013 to the players, to the fans, to the sport \u2013 when you see players pulling out of matches, passing out,\u201d he added. \u201cI\u2019ve played five-set matches all my life and being out there for a set and a half and passing out with heat stroke, it\u2019s not normal. \n\u201cHaving players with so many problems and complaining to the tournament that it\u2019s too hot to play; until somebody dies, they just keep going on with it and putting matches on in this heat. I, personally, don\u2019t think it\u2019s fair and I know a lot of players don\u2019t think it\u2019s fair.\u201d \nOther players were in broad agreement. The British number one, Andy Murray, said: \u201cIt\u2019s definitely something that you have to look at a little bit. As much as it\u2019s easy to say the conditions are safe, it only takes one bad thing to happen. And it looks terrible for the whole sport when people are collapsing, ball kids are collapsing, people in the stands are collapsing. That\u2019s not great. \n\u201cI know when I went out to hit before the match, the conditions at 2.30\u20133pm were very, very tough. Whether it\u2019s safe or not, I don\u2019t know. There\u2019s been some issues in other sports with players having heart attacks.\u201d \nCaroline Wozniacki said: \u201cI put the water bottle down on the court and it started melting a little bit underneath the plastic. So, you know it was warm.\u201d \nJohn Isner, who retired from his first-round match with a right ankle injury, said: \u201cIt was like an oven when I open the oven and the potatoes are done. That\u2019s what it\u2019s like.\u201d \nThe defending champion Victoria Azarenka took the same line. \u201cIt felt pretty hot, like you\u2019re dancing in a frying pan or something like that,\u201d she said. \nThe tournament\u2019s \u201cextreme heat\u201d contingency plan was put into force for women\u2019s matches on Tuesday, allowing an extra ten-minute break between the second and third sets. Under a change to the rules for 2014, however, the decision on whether to stop matches at the tournament is now at the discretion of the tournament director, Wayne McKewen. Rather than use the raw Celsius readings to assess the heat, organizers prefer to use the Wet Bulb Globe Temperature composite, which also gauges humidity and wind to identify the perceived conditions. Organizers said temperatures peaked at 42.2C in the early evening on Tuesday and conditions had never reached the point where play would be stopped. \u201cWe have to reach a minimum threshold and have a forecast that it will be sustained for a reasonable time,\u201d McKewen said in a statement. \u201cThat didn\u2019t happen. While conditions were hot and uncomfortable, the relatively low level of humidity ensured play would continue.\u201d \nDancevic, who said he had felt dizzy from the middle of the second set, resumed after medical attention but, unsurprisingly, ended up losing 7\u20136, 6\u20133, 6\u20134. \u201cI was really close to stopping completely,\u201d he said. \u201cI wasn\u2019t really running too much towards the end. I wasn\u2019t tired; I just felt my body temperature was too high.\u201d \nA ball boy had earlier required medical attention after collapsing during Milos Raonic\u2019s 7\u20136, 6\u20131, 4\u20136, 6\u20132 victory over Daniel Gimeno-Traver on the equally exposed court eight and the tournament shortened rotations for the ball boys to 45-minute shifts. China\u2019s Peng Shuai also said the heat had caused her to cramp up and vomit, and she had to be helped from the court after her 7\u20135, 4\u20136, 6\u20133 defeat to Japan\u2019s Kurumi Nara. Officials played down health risks, saying the majority of matches were completed without calls for medical attention. \n\u201cOf course, there were a few players who experienced heat-related illness or discomfort, but none required significant medical intervention after they had completed their match,\u201d Tim Wood, the tournament\u2019s chief medical officer, said in a statement. \nMost competitors, though, followed Roger Federer\u2019s line that, although conditions were tough, they were the same for both players. \u201cIt\u2019s just a mental thing,\u201d the Swiss said, albeit before Dancevic collapsed. \u201cIf you\u2019ve trained hard enough your entire life, or the last few weeks, and you believe you can do it and come through it, there\u2019s no reason. If you can\u2019t deal with it, you throw in the towel.\u201d \nDancevic disagreed. \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s much to do with the shape the players are in. Some players are used to the heat \u2013 their bodies can genetically handle the heat and others\u2019 can\u2019t,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s hazardous to be out there; it\u2019s dangerous. It\u2019s an hour and a half since my match and I still can\u2019t pee.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nThe world shares him and London claims him but Stratford-upon-Avon intends to spend 2016 celebrating William Shakespeare as their man: the bard of Avon, born in the Warwickshire market town in 1564, who died there 400 years ago.\nStratford remained hugely important during Shakespeares life, says Paul Edmondson, the head of learning and research at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. People often see Shakespeare as someone who turned his back on Stratford and his family, went to London to earn his fortune and only came back to die, he said. But Stratford is where he bought land and property, where he kept his library, where he lived and read and thought. We are going to spend the year re-emphasizing the importance of Shakespeare, the man of Stratford.\nThe anniversary of the death of the man from Stratford, the most famous and the most performed playwright in the world, will be celebrated across Britain and the globe. Macbeth will open in Singapore, Romeo and Juliet in Brussels. Shakespeares Globe is completing the  rst world tour in the history of theatre. It has taken Hamlet to every country except North Korea. In London, they are also creating a 37-screen pop-up cinema, one screen to showcase each of Shakespeares plays.\nThe National Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company and nearly every other theatre production company in the country will celebrate the anniversary. Interpretations of the plays will range from the highly traditional to the experimental. There will also be hundreds of lectures, recitals, international academic conferences,  lms, concerts, operas and major exhibitions.\nFor a man famous in his own lifetime, there is little documentary evidence for Shakespeares life and times. The plays would probably not have survived if his friends and fellow actors had not gathered together every bit of every play they could  nd  drafts, prompt scripts, scribbled actors parts and 17 plays not known in any other version  into the precious First Folio published in 1623, seven years after Shakespeares death.\nThe actor Mark Rylance has called it his favourite book in the world and most of the surviving First Folios will be on display  including those belonging to the British and Bodleian libraries, and a tattered copy recently discovered in France. Some of the most precious surviving documents will be collected together in an exhibition at Somerset House in London, including four of his six known signatures, which are all slightly different.\nThe exhibition, By Me, William Shakespeare, will include his will, the court papers relating to the audacious move when Shakespeare and his fellow actors dismantled a theatre on the north side of the Thames and rebuilt it as the Globe on the South Bank, and accounts showing payments from the royal treasury for Boxing Day performances for James I and Queen Anne.\nThe director of the Globe, Dominic Dromgoole, recently jokily claimed Shakespeare was a true Londoner. Stratford, however, will be insisting that the town made and educated Shakespeare. They are restoring his old school room. It will open as a permanent visitor attraction.\nShakespeare bought the splendid New Place, the second best house in the town, where he died, according to literary legend, on St Georges Day, 23 April, the same day as his birth. You dont buy a house like New Place and not live there, Paul Edmondson said. The general public and many academics have consistently underestimated the importance of Stratford to Shakespeare.\nEdmondson believes that, after Shakespeare bought the house in 1597, all his thinking time was spent there and that the late plays, including The Tempest, were at least planned in his library and probably written there. The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust describes New Place as the jewel in the crown of the 400th anniversary celebrations.\nHowever, Shakespeares house was demolished 300 years ago and the house that replaced it was demolished in 1759 by a bad-tempered priest, Francis Gastrell, in an argument over taxes. He had already cut down Shakespeares mulberry tree, under which the writer is said to have sat and worked, because he was irritated by all the tourists peering into his garden.\nThe gap where the house was has never been  lled. But the news that Shakespeares kitchen had been found in the partly surviving cellars went round the world. The whole site is being displayed for the anniversary, with the oundations marked and the garden restored. Without Stratford, Edmondson said, there would have been no Shakespeare.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"In 2010, it was too dangerous for the police to enter the old part of the city of Srinagar in India. Violent separatists were fighting for an independent Kashmir and they had killed more than 100 people there. \nBut things change very quickly. The same streets are now full of tourists. The mosque where young people threw stones at the security forces will soon be part of an official walking tour. Visitors can take photos in the beautiful gardens by the lake. During the winter, the nearby ski resorts were full of rich Russians. \nIn 2002, only 27,000 tourists came to visit the Kashmir Valley. Others were scared because of the anti-Indian fighting \u2013 almost 70,000 people have died during the fighting. So far in 2012, almost one million people have visited the area \u2013 this includes more than 23,000 from outside India. But fewer than 150 Britons visited \u2013 mainly because the UK government\u2019s advice is that the area is too dangerous to visit. \nOmar Abdullah, the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, has asked the British government to change its advice, but they haven\u2019t changed it. \u201cIt\u2019s frustrating,\u201d says Abdullah. \u201cToday, because of that travel advice, people\u2019s insurance isn\u2019t valid when they visit here.\u201d 1995 was the last time foreign tourists were murdered in Kashmir, when an Islamist group kidnapped six westerners and killed five of them. \n\u201cBritish citizens have been killed more recently in other countries. I mean, how many British citizens were killed on 9\/11? Did you stop people from visiting New York? You\u2019ve lost them in Spain, in Bali,\u201d said Abdullah. \u201cWe\u2019ve lost Indians in London. There is still a possibility that al-Qaida could do something stupid, but we haven\u2019t stopped Indians from travelling to London. There is no reason to say Kashmir, or even Srinagar, is a dangerous destination.\u201d \nGermany changed its guidelines for travellers to the region in 2011. \u201cForeigners are usually not direct targets,\u201d the new guidelines said, less than a year after the fighting in 2010. A national holiday on 15 August celebrated 65 years of Indian independence \u2013 in the past, this was a dangerous day because many people in the state do not feel part of India. But there was no trouble at the independence celebrations on Wednesday. \nAbdullah says tourists are safe in Kashmir, if they are careful. In other words, do not go trekking near the border that separates the Indian and Pakistani parts of Kashmir. \nSome visitors may feel it is not right to have fun in a place where local people have very high levels of anxiety and lots of mental health problems. But the local people in Srinagar like tourism. Amjid Gulzar, 26, said Abdullah should encourage foreign visitors. \u201cWithout tourism, our economy will be in chaos,\u201d he said. \n\u201cWe need better roads, reliable electricity. We need more things for tourists to do in the evening \u2013 we don\u2019t even have one cinema in this city,\u201d he said. But will tourists feel welcome? In June, a local Islamic group wrote a \u201cdress code\u201d for foreign tourists. Abdullah says: \u201cNobody wants tourists to come here and cover their faces. But they should be sensitive to our cultural identity and dress appropriately. I think that\u2019s common sense.\u201d \nAbdullah said tourism would help the economy. Kashmir\u2019s economy is weak after more than twenty years of fighting. The state receives just \u00a372 million each year in taxes but it pays \u00a3155 million in salaries to 500,000 public employees. It is clear why he needs to find more money. He is pleased to see tourists back. \u201cI\u2019m not saying that one million tourists here shows that everything is normal again,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it gives me some satisfaction that people can come, have a nice time, and go back.\u201d","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nLoneliness has finally become a hot topic. The Office for National Statistics has found Britain to be the loneliest place in Europe. British people are less likely to have strong friendships or know their neighbours than people anywhere else in the European Union. And research at the University of Chicago has found that loneliness is twice as bad for older peoples health as obesity and almost as great a cause of death as poverty.\nThis is shocking but such studies do not examine the loneliness epidemic among younger adults. In 2010, the Mental Health Foundation found that loneliness was a greater concern among young people than among the elderly. The 18- to 34-year-olds surveyed were more likely to feel lonely often, to worry about feeling alone and to feel depressed because of loneliness than the over-55s.\nLoneliness is a recognized problem among the elderly and there are day centres and charities to help them, says Sam Challis, of the mental health charity Mind, but, when young people reach 21, theyre too old for youth services. This is problematic because of the close relationship between loneliness and mental health  it is linked to increased stress, depression, paranoia, anxiety, addiction and it is a known cause of suicide.\nBut what can young people do to prevent loneliness? One researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute points out that social media and the internet can be both a good thing and a problem. They are beneficial when they enable us to communicate with distant loved ones but not when they replace face-to-face contact. People present an idealized version of themselves online and we expect to have social lives like those we see in the media, says Challis. Comparing the perfect lives of our friends with our own lives can lead us to withdraw socially.\nMeditation techniques and apps such as Headspace are trendy solutions frequently recommended for a range of mental health problems, but theyre not necessarily helpful for loneliness, as they actively encourage us to be alone with our thoughts. It is better to address the causes of your loneliness first  whats stopping you going out and seeing people? says Challis.\nIndeed, a study of social media at the University of Michigan in 2013 found that using technology to help you meet new people can be beneficial. And, if you are unable to go out for some reason, the internet can help you. For example, Mumsnet, an online network for parents, can help you feel less alone when bringing up young children.\nHelplines can also reduce loneliness, at least in the short term. One in four men who call the emotional support charity Samaritans mention loneliness or isolation and Get Connected is a free confidential helpline for young people, where they can get help with emotional and mental health problems often linked to loneliness. There are also support services on websites such as Minds that can remind you youre not alone.\nAt work, it can be beneficial to tell your employer how youre feeling. John Binns advises businesses on mental health and well-being. He was admitted to hospital for stress-related depression in 2007 and took two months off work. He felt as if there was no one to talk to and wasnt close enough to colleagues for them to notice the changes in his behaviour. More openness with his employer and colleagues made his return to work easier. Office chit-chat may seem like a waste of time but it helps to protect us from the emotional and psychological effects of work strain.\nWe treat the networks we have as incidental but theyre fundamental to our well-being, says Nicky Forsythe, a psychotherapist and the founder of Talk for Health, an organization that trains people to give and receive support in groups. The most important thing is to have a regular time and place to reflect on your life and to have an empathetic listener.\nIf we believe recent research, loneliness is killing the elderly and, with an ageing population, we should aim to reduce our isolation before it is too late. Getting older doesnt have to mean getting lonelier, says Ruth Sutherland, the chief executive of the relationship counselling service Relate. But it is very important to lay the foundations to good-quality relationships earlier in life.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Sir Alex Ferguson will retire as Manchester United manager at the end of the season in the 27th year of a tenure that has made him the most successful manager in British football. While he will become a United director and ambassador, the club will now have to find someone to replace a man who has won 13 English Premier League titles, two Champions Leagues, the Cup Winners\u2019 Cup, five FA Cups and four League Cups. \nRegarding his decision, Ferguson said: \u201cThe decision to retire is one that I have thought a great deal about and one that I have not taken lightly. It is the right time. It was important to me to leave an organization in the strongest possible shape and I believe I have done so. The quality of this league-winning squad, and the balance of ages within it, bodes well for continued success at the highest level whilst the structure of the youth set-up will ensure that the long-term future of the club remains a bright one. \n\u201cOur training facilities are amongst the finest in global sport and our home, Old Trafford, is rightfully regarded as one of the leading venues in the world. Going forward, I am delighted to take on the roles of both director and ambassador for the club. With these activities, along with my many other interests, I am looking forward to the future. I must pay tribute to my family; their love and support has been essential. My wife, Cathy, has been the key figure throughout my career, providing a bedrock of both stability and encouragement. Words are not enough to express what this has meant to me. \n\u201cAs for my players and staff, past and present, I would like to thank them all for a staggering level of professional conduct and dedication that has helped to deliver so many memorable triumphs. Without their contribution, the history of this great club would not be as rich. In my early years, the backing of the board, and Sir Bobby Charlton in particular, gave me the confidence and time to build a football club, rather than just a football team. \n\u201cOver the past decade, the Glazer family have provided me with the platform to manage Manchester United to the best of my ability and \nI have been extremely fortunate to have worked with a talented and trustworthy chief executive in David Gill. I am truly grateful to all of them. To the fans, thank you. The support you have provided over the years has been truly humbling. It has been an honour and an enormous privilege to have had the opportunity to lead your club and I have treasured my time as manager of Manchester United.\u201d \nThe sudden nature of Ferguson\u2019s departure is in keeping with how the Scot stated he would leave the post after he mentioned a first retirement during the 2001\/2 season before performing a U-turn. It is understood he gathered the players in the first-team changing room shortly after they arrived for training on Wednesday morning. In an emotional speech, he announced he was to step down. He then took his backroom staff aside before finally addressing the rest of the staff in the canteen. \nJoel Glazer, joint owner of Manchester United, said: \u201cAlex has proven time and time again what a fantastic manager he is but he\u2019s also a wonderful person. His determination to succeed and dedication to the club have been truly remarkable. I will always cherish the wonderful memories he has given us, like that magical night in Moscow.\u201d \nAvie Glazer, his brother, said: \u201cI am delighted to announce that Alex has agreed to stay with the club as a director. His contributions to Manchester United over the last 27 years have been extraordinary and, like all United fans, I want him to be a part of its future.\u201d \nDavid Gill, the outgoing chief executive, said: \u201cI\u2019ve had the tremendous pleasure of working very closely with Alex for 16 unforgettable years \u2013 through the treble, the double, countless trophy wins and numerous signings. We knew that his retirement would come one day and we both have been planning for it by ensuring the quality of the squad and club structures are in first-class condition. Alex\u2019s vision, energy and ability have built teams \u2013 both on and off the pitch \u2013 that his successor can count on as among the best and most loyal in world sport. \n\u201cThe way he cares for this club, his staff and for the football family in general is something that I admire. It is a side to him that is often hidden from public view but it is something that I have been privileged to witness in the last 16 years. \nWhat he has done for this club and for the game in general will never be forgotten. It has been the greatest experience of my working life being alongside Alex and a great honour to be able to call him a friend.\u201d \nFirst-team coach Ren\u00e9 Meulensteen revealed how Ferguson broke the news to his backroom staff on Wednesday morning. \u201cI found out this morning when I came to the club,\u201d he said. \u201cHe called us into his office and told us what decision he had taken. It\u2019s always been on the cards \u2013 there\u2019s speculation every season. I think the manager kept his cards close to his chest. I think he felt the time was right now and he made a decision. \n\u201cHe\u2019s obviously a man who thinks very, very hard so I\u2019m sure he\u2019s put a lot of thought into making this decision. I wish him well. He\u2019s been fantastic for this club and I hope all the fans give whoever\u2019s going to come in the same support that he gets.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Barack Obama flew back to Washington and his desk in the Oval Office on Wednesday, hours after he gave an election victory speech in Chicago. In the speech, he asked the country to join together. \nBoth the Republican House Speaker, John Boehner, and the Democratic Leader in the Senate, Harry Reid, think that everyone needs to work together to solve the economic crisis. But it could become one of the biggest fights ever between the White House and Congress during Obama\u2019s presidency. \nObama easily beat his Republican opponent Mitt Romney (Obama kept lots of swing states), but the election showed again how divided America is. \nObama disappointed many of his supporters in his first four years, so now he wants to become a great President. \nHe wants to work on many issues; for example, continued economic recovery, immigration, education, climate change, Iran and Israel-Palestine. \nBoehner talked about \u201cthe need for both parties to find common ground and take steps together to help our economy grow and create jobs, which is critical to solving our debt\u201d. \nReid said: \u201cI look at the challenges that we have ahead of us and I reach out to my Republican colleagues in the Senate and the House. Let\u2019s come together. We know what the issues are; let\u2019s solve them.\u201d \nThe trouble will come when talks move to detail. The Republicans want to keep military spending the same, but the Democrats want to reduce military spending. Obama wants more taxes for families that earn more than $250,000; Boehner does not want more taxes. \nIn his victory speech in Chicago, Obama talked about the long queues to vote and said there was a need for changes. \nHe spoke in an impressive and emotional way in his speech. He was famous for this way of speaking during the 2008 election, but he stopped in 2012. \nBut now that he has won, he returned to famous lines from earlier speeches, and he talked again about \u201chope\u201d. \nObama told the happy crowd of supporters: \u201cTonight in this election, you, the American people, reminded us that while our road has been hard, while our journey has been long, we have picked ourselves up, we have fought our way back. And we know in our hearts that for the United States of America the best is yet to come.\u201d \nIn a speech that lasted more than 25 minutes, Obama said 'thank you' to his wife, Michelle, and his daughters, Malia and Sasha \u2013 and also to his Vice-President, Joe Biden. Then he returned to the message that first made him popular. \n\u201cWe are not as divided as our politics suggests,\u201d he said. \u201cWe remain more than a collection of red states and blue states. We are, and forever will be, the United States of America.\u201d","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Lego\u2019s profits rose strongly in the first half of 2014, helped by the success of its Lego Movie , which has stormed box offices in the US and UK. \nThe Danish toy firm\u2019s sales rose across Europe, the Americas and Asia as children snapped up products linked to the film. The film, released in February, took more than $250m in the US and \u00a331m in the UK by the first weekend in April. \nThe movie cost about $60m to make and has been described as a near-flawless piece of content marketing by creating entertaining content aimed at consumers who are likely to go out and buy the company\u2019s products. \nLego\u2019s finance director, John Goodwin, said: \u201cThe strong performance of the Lego Movie products had a positive effect during the first half of 2014, and it remains to be seen how the line will continue to develop behind the highly anticipated launch of the movie on DVD in the second half of 2014.\u201d \nOperating profit for the first six months of Lego\u2019s financial year increased by 12% to $630m. Sales rose by 11% to more than three times the figure six years before. \nJ\u00f8rgen Vig Knudstorp, Lego\u2019s chief executive, said: \u201cIt is a very satisfactory result that shows our significant growth in recent years in a tough economic environment. The result for the first half of 2014 is an outcome of our ability to develop, launch and distribute Lego products, which children all over the world put at the top of their wishlists.\u201d \nLego, based in the small town of Billund, started producing its plastic bricks in 1949 and became a staple children\u2019s toy around the world by the 1970s. But the group lost its way and was on the brink of collapse in 2003. Knudstrop took over as chief executive, ending 70 years of family rule, and ditched hundreds of surplus products to refocus the business on its trademark bricks. \nThe company opened its first factory in China in April and opened an office in Shanghai to spearhead expansion in the world\u2019s second- biggest economy.","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Scientists have connected the brains of two rats and allowed them to share information. Researchers say this is an important step towards creating the world\u2019s first \u201corganic computer\u201d. \nThe US team put electronic brain devices on two rats. The devices let the animals work together on simple tasks to earn rewards, such as a drink of water. In one important demonstration of the technology, the scientists used the internet to connect the brains of two rats thousands of miles away from each other. One in North Carolina, USA, and the other in Natal, Brazil. \nThe head of the research team was Miguel Nicolelis, who has made devices that allow paralyzed people to control computers and robotic arms with their thoughts. The researchers say their latest work could make it possible to connect many brains to share information. \u201cThese experiments showed that we have created a direct communication connection between brains,\u201d Nicolelis said. \u201cWe are creating an organic computer.\u201d \nThe scientists have shown that rats can share information and respond to that information. The scientists do this by electrically connecting the rats\u2019 brains. \nThey trained the rats to press a lever when they saw a light above it. When they did the task correctly, they got some water. \nTo test the animals\u2019 ability to share brain information, they put the rats in two separate compartments. Only one compartment had a light above the lever. When the rat pressed the lever, an electronic version of its brain activity was sent directly to the other rat\u2019s brain. In tests, the second rat responded correctly to the first rat\u2019s brain signals and pressed the lever 70% of the time. \nIncredibly, the communication between the rats was two-way. If the rat that received the information failed the task, the first rat did not get the reward of a drink. It then seemed to change its behaviour to make the task easier for its partner. In further experiments, the rats worked together on a task where they had to tell the difference between narrow and wide openings using their whiskers. \nIn the final test, the scientists connected rats on different continents and used the internet to send their brain activity. \u201cThe animals were on different continents, but they could still communicate,\u201d said Miguel Pais-Vieira, the first author of the study. \u201cThis tells us that we could create a network of animal brains, with the animals in many different locations.\u201d \nNicolelis said the team is now trying to find ways of linking many animals\u2019 brains at once to solve more difficult tasks. \u201cWe do not know what might happen when animals begin interacting as part of a 'brain-net',\u201d he said. \u201cIn theory, you could imagine that a combination of brains could find solutions that individual brains cannot find alone.\u201d Anders Sandberg, of Oxford University, said the work was \u201cvery important\u201d in helping to understand how brains process information. But the possible future uses of the technology are much wider, said Sandberg. \u201cThe main reason humans control the planet is that we are very good at communicating and coordinating. Without that, although we are very clever animals, we would not control the planet.\u201d \n\u201cI don\u2019t think these experiments will create very smart rats,\u201d he added. \u201cThere\u2019s a big difference between sharing information through the senses and being able to plan. I\u2019m not worried about clever rats taking control of the world.\u201d \nWe know very little about how people process thoughts and how they could be sent to another person\u2019s brain, so that will not happen any time soon. And much of what is in our minds is what Sandberg calls a \u201cdraft\u201d of what we might do. \u201cAnd we change a lot of those drafts before we do anything. Most of the time, I think it\u2019s very good that our thoughts are not in someone else\u2019s head.\u201d","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nThe age of the big British summer music festival, including Glastonbury, is drawing to a close, according to the leading rock promoter and manager Harvey Goldsmith.\nGoldsmith has produced and worked with most of the western worlds biggest music stars, from the Who, the Rolling Stones and Queen to Madonna, Bob Dylan and Luciano Pavarotti. He says the biggest problem is a serious lack of major new bands to follow on from the old ones.\nThe age of the festival peaked about two years ago, he said, speaking at the Hay Festival of Literature and Arts in Wales. There are too many festivals and there are not enough big acts to headline them. That is a big, big problem in our industry. And we are not producing a new generation of these kind of acts  like the Rolling Stones, Muse, even the Arctic Monkeys  that can headline.\nThere were about 900 music festival events in the UK between May and September 2014, he said, and there is no way they can all continue. There is going to be a growth in events where it isnt just music but with poetry or books or magic shows. There will be lots of small combination festivals that give something extra  not people standing around in a big  eld unable to go to the toilet because they might miss the band.\nClearly, the way music is delivered has changed, he said. People dont seem to want to listen to an album any more. And, most rock bands built their reputation on albums  they might take three albums to become really good at their art, to become great, but young people dont want that.\nGoldsmith, 69, also revealed that he is working with Robin de Levita, the Dutch producer of the Whos 1970s rock musical Tommy, at a new 1,100-seat theatre in Wembley, London, where the  rst stage adaptation of the teen book and movie series The Hunger Games will be performed in June 2016.\nTalking at Hay, Goldsmith also revealed some of the secrets from his long career in the music industry. He said that Keith Moon put dynamite down a Sydney hotel room toilet to unblock it. And, he said that John Lennon had stage fright just before an appearance at Madison Square Garden in 1974  he was pulled, vomiting, out of his dressing room and pushed out on stage. Its bizarre how common that is among artists. Its odd how afraid they get but, as soon as the  rst chord is hit, theyre  ne, he said.\nHe also gave the answer to a long-running rock n roll mystery: why Elvis Presley never performed outside North America. Presleys long-time manager, Colonel Tom Parker, admitted to him, he said, that the real reason why Goldsmiths attempts to bring the singer to London had failed was Parkers own uncertain immigration status.\nHe explained that it was because he was an illegal Dutch immigrant. He didnt want to risk leaving the US  it was him, not Elvis, said Goldsmith.\nAnd, his ultimate rock n roll performer? Freddie Mercury had to be our most powerful stage performer, the best live performer weve ever had. At Live Aid, he went out and saw that audience and just grabbed it.\nBut, nobody has found the next Queen yet, he said. Were not producing a new generation of this kind of act. Coldplay is probably the last one and that was ten years ago.\n So, with no big acts to headline, there are no big shows. Glastonbury has got to the point where it cant  nd any more big acts and thats the pinnacle of the festivals. They are really over.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"The Canadian tennis player Frank Dancevic criticized the people who organize the Australian Open because they forced players to play tennis in terrible conditions. \nDancevic collapsed during the second set of his match against France\u2019s Beno\u00eet Paire on the uncovered court six at Melbourne Park. He said conditions were dangerous for the players. He also said the heat caused him to hallucinate: \u201cI was dizzy from the middle of the \ufb01 rst set and then I saw Snoopy and I thought, 'Wow, Snoopy \u2013 that\u2019s weird.'\u201d \n\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s fair to anybody \u2013 to the players, to the fans, to the sport \u2013 when you see players passing out,\u201d he added. \u201cPassing out with heat stroke, it\u2019s not normal. \n\u201cI, personally, don\u2019t think it\u2019s fair and I know a lot of players don\u2019t think it\u2019s fair.\u201d \nOther players agreed. The British number one, Andy Murray, said: \u201cIt\u2019s de \ufb01 nitely a problem. It only takes one bad thing to happen. And it looks terrible for the whole sport when people are collapsing, ball kids are collapsing, people watching are collapsing. That\u2019s not great. \n\u201cI know the conditions at 2.30 \u20133pm were very, very hard. If it\u2019s safe or not, I don\u2019t know. There have been some problems in other sports with players having heart attacks.\u201d \nCaroline Wozniacki said: \u201cI put the water bottle down on the court and it started melting a little bit. So, you know it was warm.\u201d \nJohn Isner said: \u201cIt was like an oven when I open the oven and the potatoes are ready. That\u2019s what it\u2019s like.\u201d \nVictoria Azarenka said, \u201cIt felt pretty hot, like you\u2019re dancing in a frying pan or something like that.\u201d \nOrganizers said the highest temperature was 42.2C in the early evening on Tuesday but it was never hot enough to stop the matches. \n\u201cThe weather was hot and uncomfortable, but the humidity was quite low, so play could continue,\u201d tournament director Wayne McKewen said. \nDancevic, who said he felt dizzy from the middle of the second set, unsurprisingly lost 7 \u20136, 6 \u20133, 6 \u20134. \u201cI nearly stopped completely,\u201d he said. \u201cI wasn\u2019t really running too much towards the end. I wasn\u2019t tired; I just felt my body temperature was too high.\u201d \nA ball boy needed help from doctors when he collapsed during Milos Raonic\u2019s 7 \u20136, 6 \u20131, 4 \u20136, 6 \u20132 victory over Daniel Gimeno-Traver on exposed court eight. \nChina\u2019s Peng Shuai also said the heat had made her cramp up and vomit, and someone had to help her leave the court after her 7 \u20135, 4 \u20136, 6 \u20133 defeat to Japan\u2019s Kurumi Nara. \nOrganizers said most matches were completed without anyone needing help from doctors. \n\u201cOf course, there were a few players who had heat-related illness or discomfort, but none needed much help from doctors after their match,\u201d Tim Wood, the tournament\u2019s chief medical of \ufb01 cer, said. \nRoger Federer said that the weather was hot, but it was the same for both players. \n\u201cIt\u2019s just a mental thing,\u201d the Swiss said. \u201cIf you\u2019ve trained hard enough all your life, or the last few weeks, and you believe you can do it and come through it, there\u2019s no reason. If you can\u2019t deal with it, you throw in the towel.\u201d \nDancevic disagreed. \u201cSome players are used to the heat \u2013 their bodies can deal with the heat and others\u2019 can\u2019t,\u201d Dancevic said. \u201cIt\u2019s dangerous. It\u2019s an hour and a half since my match and I still can\u2019t pee.\u201d","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"One day, drones could deliver packages to your home. When will this happen? If you believe Amazon, it will be soon. Other people are not so sure. They have to invent the right technology but, also, they have to consider public safety.\nAmazon say that they will be ready as soon as the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) introduce rules for using drones. The FAA will finally introduce rules for using unmanned aircraft by June 2016. But the technology has a long way to go before then and larger machines aren\u2019t legal yet \u2013 only drones up to 25kg will be legal. And the FAA says in the rules they want to introduce that drones will all have to use different radio frequencies that nobody can block or hijack.\nProfessor Sajiv Singh, who works for delivery company NearEarth, said that flying drones is quite simple \u2013 you just give it some basic instructions: go to this height, do this short task, go back home. But even short flights from a mobile landing place could cause serious problems, he said.\n\u201cThey\u2019re not planning to deliver in areas where nobody lives; they\u2019re planning to deliver from a warehouse to the consumer, which will probably be in a town or city,\u201d he said. \u201cThe drone will have to see hazards. Maybe there will be things that the map doesn\u2019t know about. Maybe there will be construction equipment that wasn\u2019t there but is there now. Maybe GPS signals will be blocked so it\u2019s going to have an incorrect idea about where it is.\u201d All this can be solved, he said \u2013 but it\u2019s difficult.\nOne big problem is keeping radio contact with a drone and planning for what happens if that contact breaks. \u201cIf a drone loses radio contact, it will keep going and crash into the ground,\u201d said robot expert Daniel Huber.\n\u201cWe already have most of the technology we need,\u201d said Huber. He is working on a program that will use drones to check telephone lines, bridges and so on. \u201cWe can make drones fly around a certain area and look at every surface.\u201d\nHuber said about Amazon: \u201cThey say that many packages are light \u2013 a drone can carry a kilogram for 15 minutes. If you have a vehicle that can go into a neighbourhood, it can deliver from that vehicle. You need a 15-minute distance, and typical drones have about that distance.\u201d It\u2019s one way, he said, to make sure people are safe. \u201cThe larger the distance, the more dangerous it becomes.\u201d\nOf course, safety is still a big worry \u2013 Singh points out that for a passenger aeroplane to be allowed to fly, it can only have one serious failure every one million hours. Drones, he said, are much less safe. \u201cThe Reaper drone, for example, has one failure in 10,000 hours,\u201d Singh said.\nPart of the reason for this is simply that air travel is dangerous so standards are much higher. \u201cIf you fly a passenger aeroplane, often they will say, \u2018Oh, a small part isn\u2019t working; we have to go back,\u2019\u201d Singh said. \u201cAnd people have been flying passanger aeroplanes for 60 years! I hate to think that a drone might come down on a busy road.\u201d Part of the solution, Singh said, is planning for every situation: \u201cIf things fail, the drone has to do something sensible.\u201d","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"The critics usually analyse the novels of well-known British author David Mitchell in detail. But, he is not worried about the critics this time. He completed his latest book at 1am one Tuesday morning before a car arrived to take him to the airport to catch a flight to Norway. No one will see this novel until 2114. \nMitchell is the second author to be part of the Future Library project. For the project, they planted 1,000 trees in 2014 in Oslo\u2019s Nordmarka forest. The first author, Margaret Atwood, gave the manuscript of a text called Scribbler Moon to the project in 2015. Each year for the next hundred years, an author will write a novel that people will only read in 2114, when the trees are cut down to make paper to make the books. \nEach author will travel to the place in the forest high above Oslo, where they will give their manuscripts to the project in a short ceremony. \n\u201cIt\u2019s a little bit of hope at a time when there is lots of very depressing news. It shows that we have a chance of civilization in a hundred years,\u201d said Mitchell. \u201cEverything is telling us that we\u2019re doomed but the Future Library brings hope that we are stronger than we think: that we will be here, that there will be trees, that there will be books and readers, and civilization.\u201d \nMitchell said that writing this book made him feel free \u201cbecause I won\u2019t be around to know if people think it\u2019s good or bad. But, before me was Margaret Atwood and next year I\u2019m sure there will be another brilliant writer. So my book had better be good. I would look such a fool if they opened my book in 2114 and it wasn\u2019t any good.\u201d \nMitchell says that he usually \u201cpolishes and polishes\u201d his writing. \u201cI polish too much. But, this was very different \u2013 I wrote till the final minute. So, the first two-thirds are polished and the final third I didn\u2019t have time. And, I felt free.\u201d \nThe creator of the Future Library asked writers to write on \u201cthe theme of imagination and time\u201d. Mitchell revealed only the name of the manuscript, From Me Flows What You Call Time , during a ceremony in the Norwegian woods next to where the 1,000 trees are planted. The title comes from a piece of music by Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu. Mitchell only told us that his book is \u201clonger than I thought it would be.\u201d He said nothing more. \nIn the forest, Mitchell read a short story and a poem. This small section of forest will be carefully managed for the next 98 years before it becomes Future Library\u2019s manuscripts. \n\u201cHow vain to think my writing will be of interest to future generations. But, it is the opposite of vain to work hard on a manuscript that nobody will ever congratulate you for and say: 'Good job' or 'I loved the bit where she did that and he did this ...'\u201d Mitchell wrote. \nThey will seal his manuscript and put it next to Atwood\u2019s manuscript in a room in Oslo\u2019s new public library, which will open in 2019. The manuscript is now, says the author, \u201cgone from me like a coin I\u2019ve dropped in a river\u201d.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Google has made maps of the world\u2019s highest mountains, the ocean floor, the Amazon rainforest and even shown us a bit of North Korea. They want to make maps of the whole world, but they have mostly stayed away from the Arctic. \nNow, however, Google is starting a very important update to hundreds of years of polar map making \u2013 and it hopes that the map will help give a better understanding of life on the permafrost for millions of web users. A small Google team has flown to Iqaluit, the largest town in the Canadian territory of Nunavut. They have taken their warmest winter clothes, many laptop computers and an 18kg telescopic camera that they can fix to their backpacks. The team spent four days collecting the images and information that will give the isolated community on Baffin Island something that people across the world who live in cities now take for granted. An Inuit mapping expert helped the Google team and curious locals followed them around. The town of 7,000 people will go on display via Google\u2019s popular Street View application in July 2013. \nWhen Google made maps of other parts of the world it used a special camera on a car roof. In Iqaluit that was not possible, so Google\u2019s map makers walked the town\u2019s snowy roads and trails. Some roads are made of ice and disappear in the short summer months. \nThe team also walked along part of a 15km road known as the Road to Nowhere, despite warnings about meeting polar bears. The online map that Google had already created using satellite images was mostly correct, but one road was missing that had been built in the last year. \nOne difficulty was how to place on the map many businesses and homes that have mail sent to the local post office and not delivered to their address. Putting the PO box addresses on the map would mean the new map would show all the companies, banks and schools in the same place, around the Canada Post building in the centre of town. \nAbout 30 Inuit elders, business people and high-school pupils helped Google to correct this problem. They were given a laptop computer and told how to make sure their homes, shops and meeting places would show up correctly on the map. \nThe project is more than a novelty. Arif Sayani, the town\u2019s Director of Planning, said that people who are thinking of visiting or moving to the area would be able to use the maps to see the area. It may also help planning decisions in Iqaluit happen more quickly. \nThe project leader for Google said he hoped to see the work continue in other northern towns. But moving people and equipment around the vast Arctic territory is very expensive. So, in the future, Google might send equipment to the area and ask volunteers to complete the map.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Europe is trying to reduce air pollution. Europe will become the first part of the world to force car makers to use 'real-world' emissions tests. New regulations will introduce tests that will demonstrate clearly what cars\u2019 emissions are like when they are driving on roads and in traffic, not in ideal conditions, similar to a laboratory. \nThe European Commission has approved the tests. The tests will make sure all cars meet a limit of 80mg of nitrogen oxide per kilometre. At present, only one car in 16 meets this limit. Other countries, such as China and Korea, are also considering real-world emissions tests. They will watch what happens next closely. \nIn the UK, 29,000 people die every year because of pollution. Pollutants from diesel engines such as nitrogen oxide and carbon monoxide are responsible for at least one quarter of those deaths. \nThe current laboratory test for measuring emissions is 25 years old and it needs to change. Car makers can cheat during the tests on their cars using various techniques. For example, they can tape up doors and windows to reduce air resistance, drive on really smooth roads and test at very high temperatures. \n\u201cThe Commission will introduce a new emissions test that will properly check the cars in real driving,\u201d said Lucia Caudet, a Commission spokesperson. \n\u201cOne key reason why air pollution kills 400,000 European citizens each year is that car makers cheat the tests for diesel cars \u2013 this causes much more pollution on the road,\u201d said Greg Archer, the clean vehicles manager for Transport and Environment. \u201cThe development of a new, real-world driving emission test is an important step towards reducing air pollution in cities. European Union (EU) states should now support the Commission\u2019s idea. They should ignore the complaints from car makers, who say that the rules are too tough.\u201d \nAccording to research by the International Council on Clean Transportation in 2014, actual nitrogen oxide emissions from cars are seven times higher than the 80mg per kilometre standard and some cars are 22 times above the recommended limit. About one third of all nitrogen oxide pollution comes from road transport \u2013 mostly diesel \u2013 and, in cities, concentrations can be as high as 64%, according to European Environment Agency data. \nCampaigners say that car makers have tried to delay reforms to car tests. But car makers do not agree \u2013 they say that they need five years to introduce the changes for technical and economic reasons. \u201cReal Driving Emissions is a totally new regulation that will force significant changes,\u201d said Cara McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA). \u201cBut ACEA fully accepts that the regulation will apply to new types of cars from September 2017.\u201d \nWhen EU representatives finally agreed a regulation for nitrogen oxide limits \u2013 with stricter road trials and monitoring of exhaust fumes \u2013 ACEA sent the European Commission their own draft regulation. ACEA\u2019s draft regulation covered fewer pollutants and they wanted to introduce the regulation only in 2020. It included shorter test distances (from 1,300 metres to below 700 metres), raised minimum temperatures from -7C to -3C and wanted to use more country roads for the tests. \nThe Commission rejected ACEA\u2019s draft regulation. The new regulation will now probably be introduced in September. By 2017, the first real-world car emissions tests should begin. Countries around the world will watch the introduction of the EU\u2019s new emissions tests carefully.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Male bosses are paid bonuses double the size of bonuses given to female colleagues in the same jobs. This means that men get bonuses of \u00a3141,500 more than women over their working lives. \nThe numbers, released by the Chartered Management Institute (CMI), show that men in UK management jobs earned average bonuses of \u00a36,442 in 2012 \u2013 compared with \u00a33,029 for women. \nFemale directors received bonuses of \u00a336,270 over the past 12 months, compared with \u00a363,700 received by male directors. \nThe numbers show that pay in British business is still not equal. Campaigners believe we must do something to improve equality at work. \nAnn Francke, the CMI\u2019s chief executive, said that there should be more flexibility and less masculine cultures, and that the good work people do should be more important than how much time they spend in the office. \nAlso, there should be more transparency around performance and bonuses. \n\u201cIf we solve this issue, we will improve the performance of organizations and the well- being of people at work,\u201d she said. \u201cWhat are we waiting for?\u201d \nSome of the numbers may be affected by women doing jobs where there is less of a culture of bonus payments. But the differences in the sizes of bonuses do make Britain\u2019s pay gap worse. The government says the pay gap is closing but that full-time male employees still earn 10% more than women. \nMaria Miller, the Minister for Women and Equalities, said that the CMI numbers are another example from the world of work that shows that women still earn less than men doing the same job. \n\u201cChanges in the workplace are happening and it\u2019s good that the pay gap is closing \u2013 but there is still more to do before we see full equality in the workplace. \n\u201cThe government is trying to help. 120 companies have joined our Think, Act, Report scheme, which encourages companies to improve the way they recruit, promote and pay women. \n\u201cWe\u2019ve also looked at other causes of the pay gap, such as having to juggle work and family.\u201d \nLarge companies such as Tesco, BT, Unilever and the international law firm Eversheds are some of the companies that have signed up to Think, Act, Report. The scheme has only attracted 120 companies in nearly two years. \nBut the CMI\u2019s numbers also showed that the pay gap is closing: the difference between the average salaries earned by male and female bosses appeared to be smaller than in 2012.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Prince Harry has left Afghanistan at the end of a four-month tour. He spoke about the frustrations of being a royal who doesn\u2019t want a lot of public attention. \nHe also talked about his feelings for some parts of the media and described how his father constantly told him to behave more like a member of the royal family. \nAs a commander of an Apache helicopter, the prince said he had shot at the Taliban. He said he was only doing his job. \nIn interviews during his time based at Camp Bastion in Helmand Province, the prince, known as Captain Wales in the army, explained his 'three mes'. \u201cOne in the army, one socially in my own private time and one with the family.\u201d \nHe admitted he sometimes disappointed people and also himself with his silly behaviour. He said he was \u201cprobably too much army and not enough prince\u201d, but he said he was entitled to privacy, too. \nIn another interview, he criticized the media, especially the Sun, the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph. He said he was very annoyed by articles that compare his role as an Apache co-pilot gunner to Spitfire crews during the second world war. \u201cNo, it\u2019s not like that at all,\u201d he said. \nThe prince said he didn\u2019t like the media because of the treatment of his family when \u201cI was very small\u201d. He said that he read the stories written about him. \u201cOf course I read them,\u201d the prince said. \u201cIf there\u2019s a story and somebody writes something about me, I want to know what they said. But it just upsets me and makes me angry that people can write those things. Not just about me, but about everything and everybody. My father always says, 'Don\u2019t read it'.\u201d \nWhen he was asked if he felt more comfortable being Captain Wales than Prince Harry, his reply was revealing. \u201cDefinitely. I\u2019ve always been like that. My father\u2019s always trying to tell me about who I am and things like that. But it\u2019s very easy to forget about who I am when I am in the army. Everyone\u2019s wearing the same uniform and doing the same kind of thing. I get on well with the lads and I enjoy my job. It really is as simple as that.\u201d \nBefore he went to Afghanistan, the prince was photographed naked in Las Vegas at a private party. Harry said he had disappointed himself and other people, but also blamed the media. \u201cAt the end of the day I was in a private area and there should be a certain amount of privacy that one should expect.\u201d \nWhen he was asked why he and his brother liked helicopters, he said, \u201cProbably because you can only fit a few people in a helicopter, so no one can follow us, like you guys.\u201d","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nIn typical bad-boyfriend style, Dan Sullivan was late to breakfast with the Guardian because he got pulled over on his motorcycle.\nSullivan works too much, he says. He misses dinner dates. He forgets to give presents.\nAnd so, like many others in Silicon Valley, the 27-year-old venture capitalist has come up with a start-up: BetterBoyfriend.me, a service that sends girlfriends and wives a present every month for about $70.\nSullivan, who works in finance, has been testing the service and has signed up about 350 boyfriends. Most members, he says, are his friends from Harvard and other friends who are either venture capitalists, founders of start-ups or employees of companies like Apple, Google and Facebook. The girlfriends of these friends have been getting presents from Sullivan for the last year.\nEach month, Sullivans members choose from a list of seven possible gifts (chocolate, tea sets, manicures). The package is sent to the boyfriend unbranded and unlabelled.\nHe tests his ideas by buying Facebook ads to see what kind of interest they get. BetterBoyfriend.me took off. People seemed to like BetterBoyfriend, Sullivan said.\nAnother start-up, called InvisibleBoyfriend, allows users to design and build a believable partner who is everything you want and is always available to talk, whenever you want. The end result is a boyfriend who can text with you all day.\nFounder Kyle Tabor launched it to give users a fake boyfriend to deter unwanted advances but has found people have grown attached to their imaginary partners: Many more users are looking for companionship through conversation rather than external proof of a relationship.\nFor Sullivan and Tabor, the surprise was the real relationships that they have formed with their customers. Sullivan says he has begun to see himself as a sort of relationship consultant for the boyfriends.\nSullivan admits hes made mistakes. Early on, the packages he sent included receipts that had his name on them, Dan Sullivan. One of the boyfriends wrote to me and said, Listen, shes not mad but Cynthia found out.\nOf all the women BetterBoyfriend.me deliver packages to, about 50% know about Dan Sullivans involvement in their relationships: Its connected with age. I think, after youve been married for a while, you dont keep many secrets.\nAnd over the year, the young founder says hes got to know the boyfriends really well. Theyve even sent a package to a hospital delivery room. The key, he said, is to remember that his relationship is with the boyfriend.\nWhen he first started his company, he attached tags that said BetterBoyfriend.me to flower bouquets and set off for Dolores Park in Mission District, San Francisco.\nI looked for couples and gave the bouquet to the girl but the boyfriends didnt like that. Not at all. I understood why. It was cool, he said. So I changed my idea and started handing out the bouquets to the boyfriends.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nThe atmosphere at the beginning of the final series of Downton Abbey is one of melancholy and changing times. The year is 1925. The neighbours are selling up their own stately home, while Lord Grantham wants to cut back on servants.\nBut, at the real Downton Abbey, Highclere Castle  a stately home owned by George Geordie Herbert, 8th Earl of Carnarvon  they have more money than before. According to Lady Fiona Carnarvon, the huge global success of Downton has paid for building repairs that are needed to save Highclere for the next generation.\nIts been an amazing magic carpet ride for all of us, she said. Its given us free marketing and an international profile. Im hugely grateful. My husband and I love Highclere Castle. Now, it is loved by millions of other people.\nCurrently, only the ground and first floors of Highclere, on the borders of Hampshire, are used. But, a restoration project of tower rooms has begun that will eventually allow visitors to climb up into the tower to an exhibition showing the work of the architect of the Houses of Parliament, Sir Charles Barry, who rebuilt the house between 1839 and 1842.\nWhen the Downton Abbey producers first approached Highclere in 2009, the family had 12 million of repairs to do  1.8 million of that work was urgent. But, by 2012, Downton Abbey was having a positive effect. Lord Carnarvon said then: It was just after the banking crisis and we were worried. Then, Downton began and Highclere became a major tourist attraction.\nVisitor numbers doubled, to 1,200 a day, as Downton Abbey, written by Julian Fellowes, was shown around the world after becoming a hit in the UK in 2010 and, then, in the US. It is now broadcast in 250 countries.\nThere is now a computerized advance booking system, which helps foreign visitors to buy tickets. Highcleres current assets have almost trebled to around 1 million since 2012. Gareth Neame, the executive producer for the series, said: I think Downton Abbey secured Highcleres future.\nPeter Fincham, ITVs director of television, remembers the moment when Highclere was booked. I thought, So what?, because I had never heard of Highclere Castle. I thought, Every stately home looks the same. But I was wrong. The castle has been an enormous character as well.\nThe Downton tourists are part of a growing phenomenon. VisitBritain estimates that nearly 30% of foreign visitors, or nearly nine million people, visit castles and historic houses. Almost half of visitors to Britain now say they want to visit places from films or TV.\nMore than a million take a tour of historic buildings each year, spending more than 1 billion. Fifty-one per cent of Brazilians, 42% of Russians and Chinese, and 35% of Indian visitors are likely to include a visit to a site of interest in their trips.\nVisitBritains director, Patricia Yates, said: The links between tourism, films and TV are strong. She added that period dramas have also increased the popularity of places outside of London.\nDownton Abbey expresses a certain view of Britain. It is a fantasy world, based in a particular time in history. Its the first TV period drama that has really become part of popular culture.\nLady Carnarvon says that the long-term future of Highclere is not necessarily secure. But, she says, The programme has allowed us to spend faster on the buildings.\nHighclere Castle plans a Tutankhamun event in 2022, 100 years after the 5th Earl of Carnarvon discovered Tutankhamuns tomb with Howard Carter. Another opportunity to keep Highclere in the public mind is the 300th anniversary of the birth of Lancelot Capability Brown, who designed the grounds.\nEvery single day, dont take anything for granted, said Lady Carnarvon. You have to invest in all these great houses. And, there has been a deficit since the 1930s. In the past, an estate and house supported the family and their lifestyle but, today, it is quite the reverse: the challenge is how Geordie and I can support Highclere.\nIve tried to persuade people it is fun. We have specific events they can engage with, not just a walk around a dusty house. We have to compete with attractions like the London Dungeon.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"He had the tastes of a typical millionaire. He owned a gold and silver Rolex and a fleet of expensive cars. He liked to dabble in modern art. But, although this Chinese businessman had several companies and a palatial villa in the Madrid suburbs, he had almost no money in the bank, a detail that piqued the interest of Spanish authorities. \nGao Ping, who had lived most of his adult life in Spain, had a monopoly on supplies to 4,000 Chinese bazaars across the Mediterranean country. But, authorities suspected he was not paying taxes on the clothes, furniture and other goods he was importing from China. \nWhen police swooped on his warehouses in 2012 they found piles of cash: wads of \u20ac100, \u20ac200 and \u20ac500 notes were wrapped in elastic bands. Around \u20ac12m was wheeled away in trolleys, the largest ever cash seizure by Spanish police. The gang, with Gao the alleged ringleader, stands accused of laundering up to \u20ac300m a year, as well as selling counterfeit goods and toys with fake safety marks. The government prosecutor said Gao\u2019s illegal business was so big it was damaging the competitiveness of Spain. Gao is on bail; the case has not yet come to trial. \nLaw enforcement officials have long had concerns about \u20ac500 notes. Small and easy to transport relative to their value, they are the payment method of choice for tax dodgers, money launderers and drug barons. The sum of \u20ac1m in \u20ac500 notes fits easily into a small laptop bag, where the same amount in \u20ac50 notes would require a small suitcase. Cash mules have been known to fold the notes into plastic pellets and swallow them. A less dangerous method of concealment is to stuff the banknotes into a car chassis. \nThe UK stopped distribution of the \u20ac500 note in 2010 on the grounds that demand for it was \u201calmost entirely for criminal purposes \u201d. In 2009, Italy\u2019s central bank warned that the notes were widely used by mafia money launderers and terrorists. Other countries have limited their own high- denomination notes due to links to organized crime \u2013 Canada scrapped its $1,000 note in 2000 on the advice of law enforcement officers. \nIn an age of electronic payment systems and contactless cards, more are questioning whether printing these notes can be justified. Peter Sands, the former head of Standard Chartered Bank, has called for the abolition of high-denomination notes, including the \u20ac500, the $100, the 1,000 Swiss Franc note and the \u00a350. In a report for the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Sands argued it was time to get rid of high-value notes that make life easier for \u201cbad guys\u201d pursuing tax evasion, financial crime, terrorist finance and corruption. Although criminals would switch to smaller- denomination bills, or gold or diamonds, these substitutes are bulkier and more traceable, making it more likely they will get caught, he said. \nAt a conference on terrorist financing in London, the Head of Europol, Rob Wainwright, called on the European Central Bank (ECB) to look at whether it \u201cshould continue to produce and circulate these notes that make it easier for criminals and terrorists to hide their business and to fund illegal activities\u201d. According to Europol, the purple \u20ac500 note accounts for 30% of the value of all the euro notes in circulation, although most people have never seen one. \nThe \u20ac500 note was introduced in 2002 when the euro was born: it replaced the 1,000 Deutschmark, the 10,000 Belgian franc and the 500,000 Italian lira. Several European countries favoured high- value banknotes. \u201cIt is definitely a preference that has been there for a long time,\u201d says Pia H\u00fcttl, an affiliate fellow at the Bruegel thinktank. \u201cThe preference is based on the idea that cash has a lower cost and is accepted everywhere.\u201d \nCash remains king in Germany and Austria, where more than half of all transactions are made with paper money and coins. The former president of Germany\u2019s constitutional court, Hans-J\u00fcrgen Papier, told Germany\u2019s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that restrictions on cash were at odds with individual freedom, while tabloid newspaper Bild has launched a petition in defence of paper money, including the \u20ac500 note \u2013 \u201chands off my cash \u201d. \nLaw enforcement authorities are less convinced, amid a steady stream of reports of suspicious bundles of cash. In one case that has caught the attention of police, two men walked into a bank and tried to deposit \u20ac200,000 of torn and muddy \u20ac500 notes. In the same week, \u20ac1.3m in \u20ac500 notes was found stuffed in the false bottom of suitcase. But, a suspicion of criminality is not enough to keep people in custody. \u201cOur frustration from a law enforcement perspective is that, in many jurisdictions, it is impossible to provide sufficient evidence to satisfy judicial authorities of a link between suspicious cash detections and criminality,\u201d says Jennifer MacLeod, a specialist in Europol\u2019s financial intelligence group. \u201cThe search for these links is complicated further through time constraints and fragmented cooperation and information exchange.\u201d \nThe agency would like to see central banks take more responsibility for the \u201cstriking anomalies\u201d in the use of \u20ac500 notes. Luxembourg, for example, issued more than twice its annual GDP in banknotes in 2013 alone, despite being one of the most cash-averse countries in Europe. Europol asked Luxembourg\u2019s central bank to explain. \u201cThe reply we had from Luxembourg is that they simply issue the notes requested and have no explanation for the reasons behind the demand,\u201d MacLeod says. \u201cI find it surprising that a central bank does not consider itself to have a responsibility in this area.\u201d \nThis could be changing. Mario Draghi, the head of the ECB, has said he is determined that the income the bank generates from issuing the notes should not be \u201ca comfort for criminals\u201d. Other members of the ECB\u2019s top team, such as Yves Mersch, contend there is no evidence about the criminal uses of the \u20ac500 note. But, amid heightened fears about terrorism, this argument may no longer cut any ice. EU finance ministers have called on policymakers to explore \u201cappropriate restrictions\u201d on high-value notes and report back by 1 May 2016.","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"It is not just the world\u2019s biggest burger chain; it is also a global emblem of American consumer capitalism. But, these days, the golden arches of McDonald\u2019s are looking a little tarnished. After a decade of expansion, customers around the world don\u2019t seem to be 'lovin\u2019 it' any more. McDonald\u2019s has revealed that worldwide sales dropped by 3.3% on 2013 in a set of results that were described as atrocious. \nProblems are piling up almost everywhere. In China, sales plunged by 23% after a food scare when local media showed workers apparently caught on camera at a local supplier claiming to use out-of-date beef and chicken in products destined for McDonald\u2019s and KFC. In Europe, sales are down by 4%, mostly because of unrest in Ukraine and the sour anti-western mood in Russia. Around 200 of McDonald\u2019s 450 restaurants in Russia are being investigated by health inspectors in apparently politically motivated food-safety checks. Ten have been closed. \nBut it is in the US, where McDonald\u2019s has around 40% of its restaurants, where the crisis runs deepest. Almost 60 years after Ray Kroc opened his first restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois, consumers are losing their appetite for a Big Mac and fries. \nMcDonald\u2019s has seen 12 straight months of declining sales in its massive home market, with sales down 4.1% in the latest quarter. Younger diners are deserting the restaurant in droves to eat out at rivals such as Chipotle Mexican Grill. The number of 19-to-21-year-olds visiting McDonald\u2019s once a month has fallen by 13% since 2011, according to food analysts Technomic, while the number of 22-to-37-year- olds visiting has not grown. \nTo add to the company\u2019s problems, McDonald\u2019s hamburgers were recently named the worst in America in a poll of more than 32,000 American diners, who said they would rather eat a burger at Five Guys, Smashburger or Fuddruckers. Fast-growing US-only chain Chick-fil-A was considered to be best for chicken. McDonald\u2019s is also widely perceived as less healthy than most of its rivals, especially Chipotle, which trumpets its antibiotic-free meat and \u201clocally sourced, seasonal produce\u201d \u2013 although 'local' for Chipotle can mean 350 miles away. \nThe depth of consumer mistrust of McDonald\u2019s was exposed by a consumer outreach exercise the company launched in the US in October. \u201cHave you ever used pink slime in your burgers?\u201d was one question on the Our Food Your Questions website \u2013 referring to the controversial beef filler (gristle and fat) used for dog food that is sprayed with ammonia to make it \u201cfit\u201d for human consumption. The meat product, banned in Europe since the BSE crisis, was dropped by McDonald\u2019s in 2012. \nBut pink slime has left doubts in US consumers\u2019 minds. \u201cDoes McDonald\u2019s beef contain worms?\u201d asked another person (\u201cNo. Gross. End of story,\u201d replied the company). Others wanted to know whether it uses real eggs or whether the McRib is made with the same plastic contained in yoga mats. McDonald\u2019s Chief Executive Don Thompson acknowledged the company had a job to do in addressing misconceptions about the freshness, quality and integrity of its ingredients. \nYet, just as McDonald\u2019s has been losing the customers who will pay a bit more for food perceived as fresher and healthier, it has also lost its edge in fast-food essentials: speedy service at low prices. Ever since it introduced $2 items on its dollar menu, it has gained a reputation for being more expensive than its rivals, while many consumers complain that service is slower. \nThe \u201cexpensive\u201d tag was unjustified, said Mary Chapman at Technomic. \u201cPrices have indeed gone up but they haven\u2019t gone up as quickly as the rest of the fast-service chains in the US.\u201d Prices at McDonald\u2019s have increased by 4.8% since 2009, well below the \u201cquick service\u201d sector average (up 19.4%), while the cost of \u201cfast casual\u201d eating, a category that includes the much-hyped Chipotle, is up 16.9%, according to Technomic\u2019s menu monitor. US consumer prices rose 11% over the same period. \nBut critics have a point when it comes to longer queues. McDonald\u2019s has a bigger menu than some, with more complicated items \u2013 its chicken McWrap takes 60 seconds to make. \u201cI think it is worth waiting but the guy behind me who wants his double cheeseburger for a dollar might not,\u201d said Chapman. \nIn the UK, McDonald\u2019s has turned around its business, making Britain a rare bright spot for the company. A competitive breakfast menu, improved coffee and free wi-fi had given McDonald\u2019s a broad appeal in the UK, said Peter Martin of consultancy CGA Peach whose figures show that 56% of British adults have visited a McDonald\u2019s restaurant at least once in the last six months. \nExecutives are promising to tackle misconceptions about its food in its home market. Thompson has promised more organic food and custom-made burgers but, to cut down queues, he also wants to introduce simpler menus. Analysts are scratching their heads about how the company can square the circle of simpler menus and greater choice over fillings. \n\u201cThey want to simplify the menu but enhance its ability to customize and that sounds tricky,\u201d said Mark Kalinowski at Janney Capital Markets. Only four out of McDonald\u2019s 14,000 US restaurants had so far tested \u201cbuild your own burger\u201d, he said, raising questions about how it could be scaled up. \u201cRight now, we are sceptical; we would like to see more detail.\u201d \nMeanwhile, despite the declining sales, the chain continues to expand globally: by the end of 2014, it expects to have opened 1,400 new restaurants. Kalinowski expects McDonald\u2019s market share will continue to shrink but he, too, warned against writing off the company. \u201cYou can never really count McDonald\u2019s out. We think it will be number one in terms of total sales for not just years but decades to come.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"How far away are we from a world where drones deliver packages? If Amazon is to be believed, not far at all. Others are not so sure: technical progress past this point isn\u2019t merely a matter of invention; it\u2019s a matter of public safety. \nPaul Misener, Amazon\u2019s vice-president of global public policy, told a congressional hearing recently that his company would be ready as soon as all the rules were in place \u2013 but Misener gave no hints as to what that would look like beyond joking with a congressman that there was a basket of fresh fruit on the way to his doorstep to demonstrate the technology\u2019s viability. \nThe Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) will finally have regulations governing the commercial use of unmanned aircraft by June 2016. But the technology has a long way to go before then and larger machines aren\u2019t airway-legal at all yet \u2013 only drones up to 25kg will be covered and the FAA points out in the proposed rules that, if you\u2019re going to crowd the skies with radio-controlled flying robots, they had better all be using different radio frequencies that nobody can jam or hijack. Professor Sajiv Singh of Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute, who runs a \u201ccritical cargo delivery\u201d company called NearEarth, said that piloting a state-of-the-art drone was a little more like leaving it a trail of breadcrumbs: go to this altitude, perform this short task, go back home. But even short flights from a mobile landing pad pose serious logistical problems, he said. \n\u201cThey\u2019re not proposing to deliver from one uninhabited place to another uninhabited place; they\u2019re proposing to deliver from a warehouse to where the consumer is, which is likely an urban area or a suburban area,\u201d he said. \u201cIn those particular cases, there are going to be hazards along the way that the vehicle is going to have to detect. Maybe there will be terrain that the map doesn\u2019t know about, unless you\u2019ve mapped that exact route before. Even then, maybe there\u2019s construction equipment that wasn\u2019t there but is there now. Maybe GPS signals are blocked or partially blocked, in which case it\u2019s going to have an incorrect idea about where it is.\u201d All this is surmountable, he said \u2013 but it\u2019s difficult. One major problem is maintaining radio contact with a drone and planning for what happens if that contact breaks. \u201cIf you have an off-the-shelf UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle], it\u2019ll just keep going and crash into the ground,\u201d said roboticist Daniel Huber. \nThat\u2019s not a hard problem for an engineer to fix; it\u2019s just that the fix isn\u2019t yet an industry standard. \nFurthermore, \u201cyou can\u2019t do everything with a 25kg aircraft\u201d, said Jay McConville, director of business development for unmanned systems at defence and business contractor Lockheed Martin MST. Much of the focus at Lockheed Martin has been on making drone piloting interfaces less like elaborate flight simulators. \u201cThose of us in the aircraft business have to remind ourselves that the operator doesn\u2019t really care about every little thing about the aircraft and wants instead to focus on the end result,\u201d he said. \u201cOperators want to see vehicle status information; they want to see video on their handheld device or their laptop.\u201d \u201cTechnologically, most of the things that are needed for this are in place,\u201d said Huber. \nHe is working on a program that proposes using drones to inspect infrastructure \u2013 pipelines, telephone lines, bridges and so on. \u201cWe\u2019ve developed an exploration algorithm where you draw a box around an area and it\u2019ll autonomously fly around that area and look at every surface and then report back.\u201d \nHuber, a senior scientist at Carnegie Mellon\u2019s Robotics Institute, where he works on 3D systems imagery, said with respect to a program like Amazon\u2019s: \u201cI have heard them say that many packages are lightweight \u2013 a drone can carry a kilogram for 15 minutes. If you have a vehicle that can go into a neighbourhood, it can deliver from that base. You need a 15-minute distance and typical off-the-shelf drones have about that distance.\u201d It\u2019s one way, he said, of making sure the surrounding population is relatively safe. \u201cThe larger you get, the more dangerous you get.\u201d Logistical problems are in the middle of being solved in some very dramatic ways, Huber said. At a recent conference, he said, a disaster relief drone firm, SkyCatch, demonstrated a robot that could autonomously take off and, when it got tired, land on its own charging station. \u201cIt would land and take off and, when it ran low on batteries, it would land, exchange the batteries and take off again,\u201d he said. \nOf course, safety remains a major concern \u2013 Singh points out that, for a commercial aircraft to be considered skyworthy, it has to prove a rate of one serious failure every 1m hours. Drones, he said, are \u201cone or two orders of magnitude away\u201d from that benchmark. \u201cThe Reaper drone has one failure in 10,000 hours,\u201d Singh said. An oil leak, by the way, doesn\u2019t count as catastrophic failure \u2013 something has to fall out of the sky. \u201cWe\u2019re closing the gap,\u201d Singh said. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of interest.\u201d \nPart of this is simply that air travel is inherently dangerous and, thus, standards are much higher. \u201cIf you fly commercial airlines, often they\u2019ll say, \u2019Oh, a component has failed \u2013 we have to go back to the gate,\u2019\u201d Singh said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s an established industry with 60 years of legacy! I shudder to think that one of these things might come down on a crowded highway.\u201d Part of the solution, Singh said, is simple contingency planning: \u201cIf things fail, the vehicle has to do something reasonable.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Indignant waiters are calling for public support in a battle to hold on to their tips. PizzaExpress branches are to be targeted by protesters as part of an attempt to get the restaurant chain to stop creaming off a proportion of tips for staff that have been paid on credit and debit cards. Campaigners have also started an online petition in the hope that restaurant-goers will back their demands. \nIn a policy that has outraged some employees, PizzaExpress keeps, as an admin fee, 8p out of every \u00a31 paid when tips are given by card. The chain, which has 430 branches around the UK and is particularly popular with families, makes an estimated \u00a31m a year from the practice, according to the union Unite. \n\u201cWe believe this 8% fee is unfair and that, if the chain values its staff, it should be paying them the total tips they are given by customers,\u201d said Chantal Chegrinec, campaigns officer at Unite. \u201cWe are starting with PizzaExpress but they are by no means the only offender and we will be turning our attention to other companies after this.\u201d \nThe protests are being organized by local branches of Unite, with the first taking place at the British Museum branch of PizzaExpress in London. The union has also written to the restaurant chain\u2019s CEO, Richard Hodgson. Unite began the campaign following a survey of its PizzaExpress members after the chain was sold to a Chinese private equity firm, Hony Capital, in 2014. One of the top issues was the 8% deduction from their tips. \nOne disgruntled PizzaExpress employee, who wants to remain anonymous, said that the admin fee was costing her \u00a33 a night. \u201cI have worked at PizzaExpress for 15 years,\u201d she said in a letter to Unite. \u201cAfter all this time, I\u2019m still only paid the national minimum wage of \u00a36.50 an hour. So you see my colleagues and I are heavily reliant on customer tips to top up our low wages. I work hard and am good at my job but, when PizzaExpress thinks it can get away with taking a percentage of our hard-earned tips left on a card, I get upset.\u201d \nPizzaExpress joins restaurant chains Ask and Zizzi in siphoning off 8% of the tips paid by card but other chains deduct even more. Caf\u00e9 Rouge, Bella Italia and Belgo deduct 10%, as do Strada and Giraffe, which is owned by Tesco. \nA spokesperson for PizzaExpress said that its admin charge was to cover the cost of running a \u201ctronc\u201d \u2013 a standard pay arrangement used to distribute tips among staff. \u201cWe went to great lengths to set up this tronc system, which is chaired by a troncmaster and run by a committee of waiters and pizzaiolos who independently decide how tips made by electronic card payment are subsequently distributed between front- and back-of-house restaurant teams; a system run by employees for the employees,\u201d she said. \nThe chain, which sells 29m pizzas a year through its UK restaurants, denied that it profits from the admin fee. But other restaurant groups do not deduct an admin fee from tips. Wagamama, Pizza Hut and TGI Friday all take nothing. The Restaurant Group, which owns Frankie & Benny\u2019s, Chiquitos and Garfunkels, used to charge 10% but dropped this policy several years ago. \nUnite recently targeted ten PizzaExpress restaurants in south London, distributing leaflets to customers who were \u201cshocked and disgusted\u201d by the practice. PizzaExpress says the charge is mentioned in small print at the bottom of its menus but the employee who wrote to Unite said that, when she mentioned the charge to customers, it always came as a surprise. Most would then pay the tip in cash. Almost 6,000 people have so far signed Unite\u2019s online petition. \nOne waiter, who doesn\u2019t work for PizzaExpress but has worked for 11 years for another restaurant chain, said that at least a third of his income is from tips. He doesn\u2019t want to be identified for fear of reprisals. \u201cI work in a busy London branch and, on an average night, I\u2019ll serve 150 people and take home \u00a340 to \u00a350 in tips,\u201d he says. \u201cThat might sound like a lot but that money is crucial to me as my basic pay is only \u00a36.50 an hour.\u201d \nConservative MP Andrew Percy, who has called for a change in the law that would give restaurant staff more control over tips, said he plans to raise the issue in parliament after the summer recess.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"The huge fortunes made by the world\u2019s richest 100 billionaires are making inequality worse and stopping the world from being able to reduce poverty, says Oxfam. \nOxfam said the world could end poverty several times over if the richest 100 billionaires would give away the money they made in 2012. \nThe charity said that the $240bn made in 2012 by the richest 100 billionaires would be enough to end extreme poverty four times over. \nIt is unusual for charities to attack the wealthy, because they are usually seen as a source of money. Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are among a group of 40 US billionaires who have said they will give much of their money to aid projects, but there is little information about how much money they give each year. \nRussian, Middle Eastern and Chinese billionaires do not give away money to charity in the same way that US billionaires do. \nIn the report, the charity asks world leaders to end income extremes and reduce inequality. \nThe report said that the richest 1% of people have increased their incomes by 60% in the past 20 years. \nBarbara Stocking, Oxfam\u2019s Chief Executive, said: \u201cWe can no longer pretend that wealth for a few people will benefit many people \u2013 too often the opposite is true.\u201d \nThe report said the problem affected all parts of the world. \u201cIn the UK, inequality is returning to levels not seen since the nineteenth century. In China, the top 10% now earn nearly 60% of the income. Chinese inequality levels are now similar to those in South Africa, which is now the most unequal country on Earth.\u201d \nIn the US, the share of national income that goes to the top 1% of people has doubled since 1980 from 10% to 20%, the report says. \nThe richest 1% are estimated to cause 10,000 times more pollution than the average US citizen. \nOxfam said world leaders should learn from countries such as Brazil, which has grown quickly and reduced inequality at the same time. \nStocking said that world leaders should agree to reduce inequality to the levels seen in 1990. \nShe said closing tax havens, which hold as much as $31 trillion, or as much as a third of all global wealth, could collect $189bn in additional taxes.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"When you see the word Amazon, what\u2019s the first thing you think of \u2013 the world\u2019s biggest forest, the longest river or the largest internet shop \u2013 and which do you think is most important? \nThese are the questions in a debate about the internet. Brazil and Peru have made objections to a bid made by the US online shop for the domain name, \u201c.amazon\u201d. \nAmazon has asked for its company name to be a top-level domain name (currently \u201c.com\u201d), but the South American governments say this would stop the use of this internet address for environmental protection, indigenous rights and other public interest uses. \nThere are many other disputed claims to names, including \u201c.patagonia\u201d. \nUntil now, the differences between commercial, governmental and other types of identity were easy to see in every internet address by the use of \u201c.com\u201d, \u201c.gov\u201d and 20 other categories. \nBut soon there are going to be more of these categories \u2013 or generic top-level domains (gTLDs) as they are technically known. \nThe Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has had bids (each worth almost $200,000) for hundreds of new gTLDs to add to the 22 that we use already. \nAmazon has applied for many new domains, including \u201c.shop\u201d, \u201c.song \u201d, \u201c.book\u201d and \u201c.kindle \u201d. But the one that has caused most discussion is its application for \u201c.amazon\u201d. \nBrazil and Peru want the \u201c.amazon\u201d application to be stopped. They say that a private company should not have a name that is also the name of an important geographical area. \n\u201cAllowing private companies to register geographical names as gTLDs to profit from the meaning of these names is not, in our view, in the public interest,\u201d the Brazilian Ministry of Science and Technology said. \nBrazil said other members of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty support its views (Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Suriname and Venezuela). \nThere have also been other objections over new top-level domains that use geographical or cultural names. \nArgentina is unhappy that the US outdoor clothing retailer, Patagonia, wants a domain name that has been known far longer as a region of spectacular beauty. \u201cArgentina rejects the '.patagonia' request for a new generic top-level domain. Patagonia is an important region for the country\u2019s economy because it has oil, fishing, mining and agriculture resources. It is also a major tourist destination.\u201d \nThey will discuss the disputed bids again at a meeting of ICANN\u2019s Governmental Advisory Committee in Durban in July. The first new domain names will probably be in use before the end of 2013.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Intermediate\nBrazils latest funk sensation, Anitta, has won millions of fans by making the favela sound popular, but she is at the centre of a debate about skin colour.\nAnti-discrimination campaigners and social commentators say the music industrys fastest rising star has had to give up her blackness to be a success in the predominantly white middle-class market.\nThe controversy began with the publication of then-and-now photographs that show a dramatic lightening of Anittas skin tone since she signed a deal with Warner.\nIn the first photo, when she was quite unknown, she looked darker. In the second  a marketing photo after she became famous  she seems lighter. The contrast has restarted discussion about whether you need to have light skin to get ahead in Brazil.\nJarid Arraes, a psychology student and blogger, wrote a post criticizing the discrimination in media and marketing that she felt Anittas image change represented. People refuse to accept that they are racist and they think they live in a multiracial democracy, but the statistics show that is far from the case. White is the image of the rich, the nice, the successful, the good, while people see black as the opposite of all that.\nBorn Larissa de Macedo Machado, the diva-to-be was a church chorister in her childhood. In her teens, she made a name for herself in Rio de Janeiros baile funk scene as a dancer and singer.\nShe now has an album and a huge hit single, Show das Poderosas, which topped the charts and attracted 52 million YouTube views.\nMany people love her because she is a pop idol with a strong message and some catchy tunes. Her marketing team want people to see her as a cultural bridge between the predominantly black and mixed-race shanty towns on Rios hillsides and the wealthier and whiter communities below.\ngangsta references and explicit lyrics of baile funk. Now, however, questions are being asked about whether she  or her marketing team  have gone too far in changing her. Arraes says that if pop stars have curly hair, they will want to straighten it. If they have a big nose, they will want to make it smaller. It creates a vicious cycle for how you feel about yourself.\nThis is a sensitive topic in this largely mixed-raced nation. Brazil  one of the last big countries in the world to ban slavery  has the largest population of African descent outside Africa, but race and where your family come from are less important there than colour. There is a clear link between skin tone and inequality.\nIn Brazilian cities, white workers earn roughly twice as much as those of African descent. Up until 2011, black or mixed-race students also spent two years less at school on average.\nMost business and government executives are white, while most menial jobs are done by black and mixed-race workers. If you walk through Ipanema, Gvea or other rich districts, you are far more likely to see black nannies pushing strollers with white children than a white nanny pushing a black child.\nDefining colour is complex. People who define themselves as white were in the minority for the first time in the most recent census in 2010. Among the 197 million population, 82 million said they were pardu (mixed race), 15 million black, two million Asian and 0.5% indigenous.\nSylvio Ferreira, a psychology lecturer at the Federal University of Pernambuco, believes Anitta has won the hearts of the middle class by taking a rebellious sound and making it more acceptable to everyone.\nMaycon de Mattos Batista, a financial analyst who worked with Anitta while she was an intern, said there had been a huge change in Anittas image, but not of her colour.\nI dont believe its whitening; its more the way they are producing her with makeup, hairstylists and the way she dresses, he said. I dont think that was because of pressure they put on her. She always liked to show off, sing and dance. That was a natural thing for her. I believe that it is because of this naturalness that she is where she is today.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"The average six-year-old child understands more about digital technology than a 45-year-old adult, a new report says.\nThe arrival of broadband in the year 2000 has created a generation of digital natives, Ofcom (which checks standards in the UK communications industries) says in its report. These children, who were born in the new millennium, are learning how to use smartphones and tablets before they can talk.\nJane Rumble from Ofcom said that, because they are growing up in the digital age, children\u2019s communication habits are different from older generations, even from the 16-to-24 age group.\n800 children and 2,000 adults took Ofcom\u2019s \u201cdigital quotient\u201d, or DQ, test. The test finds out how much people know about tablets, smart watches, superfast internet, 4G mobile-phone networks and mobile apps. It also tries to find out how happy they feel about using them.\nIn 6- to 7-year-olds, who have grown up with YouTube, Spotify music streaming and online television, the average DQ score was 98. Adults aged between 45 and 49 scored an average of 96. Digital understanding is highest between 14 and 15 years old \u2013 this age group have an average DQ of 113.\nPeople can now test their digital knowledge with a short version of the questionnaire. It will give anyone a DQ score. The website also gives people advice on how to improve their understanding and protect themselves and their families online.\nThe ways in which children contact each other are very different from older generations.\nThe biggest change is in time spent talking on the phone. Twenty years ago, teenagers spent their evenings on the home telephone line, talking about love and friendships in conversations that lasted for hours.\nBut, now, for children aged 12 to 15, phone calls make up just 3% of time spent communicating  through any device. For all adults, this rises to 20% and, for young adults, it is 9%. Today\u2019s children communicate most by sending written messages or through sharing photographs and videos.\nOver 90% of the time they spend using devices is spent sending messages: chatting on social networks like Facebook, sending instant messages through services like WhatsApp or even sending traditional mobile-phone text messages. Just 2% of children\u2019s time using devices is spent emailing. Adults spent 33% of their time using devices emailing.\nWhen they are not using their phones, 12- to 15-year-olds have a very different relationship with other media, too. A digital seven-day diary shows that only half of their viewing time is spent watching live television, compared to nearly 70% for all adults. They spend 20% of their time watching short video clips, for example on YouTube, or news clips on Facebook and other social sites. The rest of their viewing time is spent watching DVDs, streamed content through Netflix or iTunes and recorded television programmes.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"The European Parliament have said that health warnings will cover nearly two-thirds of cigarette packs and there will be a ban on menthol cigarettes in the EU. \nThe EU will ban menthol and other flavours from 2022. MEPs also decided that most electronic cigarettes, which are more and more popular as alternatives to normal cigarettes, do not to be need regulated in the same way as medicines. \nThe Department of Health and e-cigarette companies in Britain want to find out exactly what this means \u2013 for example, will e-cigarette companies be banned from advertising at sports events? \nThe Department of Health said: \u201cWe are very pleased to see tougher action on smoking, with European controls banning flavoured cigarettes and the introduction of stricter rules on health warnings on cigarette packs. \n\u201cBut we are disappointed with the decision not to regulate nicotine-containing products (NCPs), including e-cigarettes, as medicines. We believe these products need to be regulated as medicines. \n\u201cSmoking levels in England are at their lowest since records began \u2013 19.5 per cent \u2013 but we want to reduce the numbers of people smoking even more and believe this important step will help.\u201d \nUK e-cigarette companies, who were happy with the parliament\u2019s vote, said they were already in talks with the Advertising Standards Authority. But they said that it would not be a good idea to ban all advertising. \nMEPs decided e-cigarettes should only be regulated as medical products if the e-cigarette companies said they could stop people from smoking. \nOther groups want e-cigarettes, used by about 1.3 million people in Britain, to be regulated in the same way as gums, patches and mouth sprays, which are aimed at helping smokers to quit. \nThe MEPs voted to put health warnings on 65% of each cigarette pack. At the moment, the warnings cover at least 30% on the front and 40% on the back. The UK government has not decided if they will do the same as Australia and introduce standardized packaging. First, they want to know that this will stop people from smoking. \nThe MEPs\u2019 decision about the bigger health warnings on the packaging could become law in 2014. \n\u201cThe UK continues to believe that medicinal regulation of NCPs is best for public health,\u201d said the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Authority. \nLinda McAvan, Labour MEP for Yorkshire and the Humber, said: \u201cWe know that it is children, not adults, who start smoking. There are fewer and fewer adult smokers in most EU countries, but there are more young smokers.\u201d \nMartin Callanan, the Conservative MEP for North East England, said that banning e-cigarettes would have been totally crazy. \u201cThese are products that have helped many people stop smoking more harmful cigarettes.\u201d \nBritish American Tobacco said the bigger health warnings were not necessary and that a ban on menthol cigarettes would make more people want to buy from the black market.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"The National Security Agency (NSA) has obtained direct access to the systems of Google, Facebook, Apple and other US internet giants, according to a top-secret document. The NSA access is part of a previously undisclosed program called PRISM, which allows officials to collect material including search history, the content of emails, file transfers and live chats, the document says. \nThe Guardian has verified the authenticity of the document, a 41-slide PowerPoint presentation \u2013 classified as top secret with no distribution to foreign allies \u2013 which was apparently used to train intelligence operatives on the capabilities of the program. The document claims \u201ccollection directly from the servers\u201d of major US service providers. Although the presentation claims the program is run with the assistance of the companies, all those who responded to a request for comment denied knowledge of any such program. \nIn a statement, Google said: \u201cGoogle cares deeply about the security of our users\u2019 data. We disclose user data to government in accordance with the law and we review all such requests carefully. From time to time, people allege that we have created a government 'back door' into our systems, but Google does not have a back door for the government to access private user data.\u201d \nSeveral senior tech executives insisted that they had no knowledge of PRISM or of any similar scheme. They said they would never have been involved in such a program. \u201cIf they are doing this, they are doing it without our knowledge,\u201d one said. An Apple spokesman said he had \u201cnever heard\u201d of PRISM. \nThe NSA access was enabled by changes to US surveillance law, introduced under President Bush and renewed under Obama in December 2012. The program facilitates extensive, in-depth surveillance on live communications and stored information. The law allows for the targeting of any customers of participating firms who live outside the US, or those Americans whose communications include people outside the US. It also opens the possibility of communications made entirely within the US being collected without warrants. \nDisclosure of the PRISM program follows a leak to the Guardian on Wednesday of a top-secret court order compelling telecoms provider Verizon to turn over the telephone records of millions of US customers. The participation of the internet companies in PRISM will add to the debate about the scale of surveillance by the intelligence services. Unlike the collection of those call records, this surveillance can include the content of communications and not just the metadata. Some of the world\u2019s largest internet brands are claimed to be part of the information-sharing program since its introduction in 2007. Microsoft \u2013 which is currently running an advertising campaign with the slogan \u201cYour privacy is our priority\u201d \u2013 was the first, with collection beginning in December 2007. It was followed by Yahoo in 2008; Google, Facebook and PalTalk in 2009; YouTube in 2010; Skype and AOL in 2011; and finally Apple, which joined the program in 2012. The program is continuing to expand, with other providers due to come online. Collectively, the companies cover the vast majority of online email, search, video and communications networks. The extent and nature of the data collected from each company varies. Companies are legally obliged to comply with requests for users\u2019 communications under US law, but the PRISM program allows the intelligence services direct access to the companies\u2019 servers. The NSA document notes the operations have the \u201cassistance of communications providers in the US \u201d. The revelation also supports concerns raised by several US senators during the renewal of the FISA Amendments Act (FAA) in December 2012, who warned about the scale of surveillance the law might enable and shortcomings in the safeguards it introduces. When the FAA was first enacted, defenders of the statute argued that a significant check on abuse would be the NSA\u2019s inability to obtain electronic communications without the consent of the telecom and internet companies that control the data. \nBut the PRISM program renders that consent unnecessary, as it allows the agency to directly and unilaterally seize the communications off the companies\u2019 servers. \nA chart prepared by the NSA, contained within the top-secret document, highlights the breadth of the data it is able to obtain: email, video and voice chat, videos, photos, voice-over-IP (Skype, for example) chats, file transfers, social networking details and more. The document is recent, dating to April 2013. Such a leak is extremely rare in the history of the NSA, which prides itself on maintaining a high level of secrecy. \nThe PRISM program allows the NSA, the world\u2019s largest surveillance organization, to obtain targeted communications without having to request them from the service providers and without having to obtain individual court orders. With this program, the NSA is able to reach directly into the servers of the participating companies and obtain both stored communications and perform real-time collection on targeted users. \nA senior administration official said in a statement: \u201cThe Guardian and Washington Post articles refer to collection of communications pursuant to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). This law does not allow the targeting of any US citizen or of any person located within the United States. The program is subject to oversight by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the Executive Branch and Congress. It involves extensive procedures, specifically approved by the court, to ensure that only non-US persons outside the US are targeted and that minimize the acquisition, retention and dissemination of incidentally acquired information about US persons. \n\u201cThis program was recently reauthorized by Congress after extensive hearings and debate. Information collected under this program is among the most important and valuable intelligence information we collect and is used to protect our nation from a wide variety of threats.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nGlastonbury Festival is declaring war on the plastic water bottle as part of a long-term plan to become the worlds most environmentally friendly outdoor music event.\nFestival organizers are targeting the disposable bottle, one of the most obvious symbols of the throwaway culture, that each year leaves the 900-acre festival site covered in plastic. An estimated one million plastic bottles are used during the festival.\nStainless-steel reusable bottles will be given to 2,000 road crew and band members. Thousands more will go on sale to festival-goers to stop them relying on plastic bottles. The 140,000 ticketholders are also being asked to bring reusable bottles that they can fill at 400 drinking-water taps across the site.\nLucy Smith, Glastonburys green issues organizer, said: We have amazing water quality in the UK but everyone is obsessed with drinking bottled water.\nShe said that, in 2015, Glastonbury also plans to replace all plastic glasses and cutlery with reusable items.\nEnvironmentalists say that there is currently 150 million tonnes of plastic waste around the planet and oceans, poisoning ecosystems and killing wildlife.\nUltimately, festival organizers hope to make Glastonbury the worlds greenest greenfield festival. They want to be like Americas Burning Man festival in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada, which is a leave-no-trace event, where people have to take away all that they bring.\nGlastonbury festival-goers are also being asked to travel to the site on public transport or to try car-sharing with friends. We want to be as sustainable as we can. We do everything we can, but the litter of 140,000 people is a challenge. We cant put bins everywhere, added Smith.\nPlastic water bottles can take hundreds or even thousands of years to completely biodegrade. Their manufacture makes their negative ecological impact even worse. Millions of barrels of oil are used in the manufacture of plastic bottles and the transportation of mineral water across the planet produces even more carbon emissions.\nAround 13 billion plastic water bottles are sold in the UK every year, but only one in five is recycled.\nSmith said that, instead of buying bottled water, festival-goers should take advantage of the water on tap, which comes from huge underground reservoirs. The charity WaterAid will also set up water kiosks around the site, which will stock reusable bottles and cups and offer free refills.\nOrganizers say that almost half of all the rubbish left on site was recycled in 2013 and add that there will be 15,000 bins for recycling across the festival grounds in 2014.\nEven though it is becoming more environmentally friendly, critics say that Glastonbury is becoming increasingly corporate. Iron Maidens Bruce Dickinson said he would never bring his band to Glastonbury Festival, which he called the most bourgeois thing on the planet.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Do you want your child to be good at sport, make the school team and, maybe one day, even compete on the world stage? Well, try to ensure that your would-be Olympian or World Cup winner is born in November or, failing that, in October. A study led by one of the UK\u2019s leading experts on children\u2019s physical activity has found that school pupils born in those months are fitter than everyone else in their class. \nNovember- and October-born children emerged as fitter, stronger and more powerful than their peers born in the other ten months of the year, especially those whose birthdays fell in April or June. Dr Gavin Sandercock, from the Centre for Sports and Exercise Science at Essex University, and colleagues found that autumn-born children enjoyed \u201ca clear physical advantage\u201d over their classmates. \nThe research involved 8,550 boys and girls aged between ten and 16 from 26 state schools in Essex. All were tested between 2007 and 2010 on three different measures of fitness: stamina, handgrip strength and lower-body power. The results revealed that a child\u2019s month of birth could make \u201csignificant\u201d differences to their levels of cardiovascular fitness, muscle strength and ability to accelerate, all of which predict how good someone is at sport, in which such attributes are vital. Performances at school sports days in the weeks ahead may bear out the findings. \nNovember-born children were the fittest overall as they had the most stamina and power and were the second strongest. Those born in October were almost as fit, scoring highest for strength and coming third for power, with December children close behind. \nThe gap in physical prowess between children in the same class but born in different months was sometimes very wide. \u201cFor example, we found that a boy born in November can run at least 10% faster, jump 12% higher and is 15% more powerful than a child of the same age born in April. This is, potentially, a huge physical advantage,\u201d said Sandercock. Such gaps could ultimately decide who became a top-level athlete because, as the paper says, \u201cselection into elite sports may often depend on very small margins or differences in an individual\u2019s physical performance\u201d. \nThe study, which has been published in the International Journal of Sports Medicine, found that, when scores for the three kinds of fitness were combined, those born in April were the least fit, then those in June. That could see those children excluded from school teams and becoming sporting underachievers, Sandercock said. \nThe findings seem to show that children born in the early months of the school year enjoy a double \u201cautumn advantage\u201d \u2013 they are already known to have an academic advantage and, now, they also appear to be better equipped for sport, too. The results show that something other than \u201cthe relative-age effect\u201d \u2013 the greater maturity of those born early in the school year \u2013 is at work, especially as the fittest children were not the tallest or heaviest, he added. \nThe authors believe that autumn-born children\u2019s greater exposure over the summer months, towards the end of pregnancy, to vitamin D \u2013 the \u201csunshine vitamin\u201d linked to a range of health benefits \u2013 is the most likely explanation. \u201cSeasonal differences in intrauterine vitamin D concentrations seem most plausible,\u201d they say. John Steele, chief executive of the Youth Sport Trust, said the quality of a young person\u2019s introduction to PE and sport at school can be \u201ca major factor\u201d in their sporting development. \u201cChildren that get a high-quality first experience, which develops their physical literacy, are those that will have greater agility, balance and coordination, and are more likely to develop an enjoyment of physical activity and excel in sport as they grow up\u201d, he said. \nUK Sport could not say if a disproportionately high number of the 1,300 athletes across 47 sports it funds were born in November and October. Natalie Dunman, its head of performance pathways, said that, while the differences highlighted in the new findings were borne out by teenagers competing in junior-level competitions, they had disappeared by the time sportspeople were taking part in adult competitions. She said: \u201cLooking at elite, senior athletes, there are many factors that go into making a champion and our work hasn\u2019t uncovered anything to suggest that month of birth is one of the key ingredients.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"The last time she took to the stage, the prototype of the mobile phone was undergoing its first trials. Thirty-five years later, as she performs once again, singer Kate Bush is faced with a different world. \nWhile most concerts are now aglow with phones and tablets, Bush is taking a stand against fans watching her shows through the digital veil of a screen. \nPrior to her highly anticipated series of concerts at the Hammersmith Apollo in London, Bush released a statement appealing to her fans to put down their mobile phones at her gigs. \nBush wrote on her website: \u201cI have a request for all of you who are coming to the shows. We have purposefully chosen an intimate theatre setting rather than a large venue or stadium. It would mean a great deal to me if you would please refrain from taking photos or filming during the shows. \n\u201cI very much want to have contact with you as an audience, not with iPhones, iPads or cameras. I know it\u2019s a lot to ask but it would allow us to all share in the experience together.\u201d \nWith her love of theatrics and opulent costumes, Bush\u2019s keenness to stop fans uploading grainy footage to YouTube could also be an attempt to keep the show a surprise for the thousands of fans who have purchased tickets for the 22 dates she is playing. \nBush is not the first to speak out against the detrimental effect of the presence of phones at concerts, with numerous artists berating their fans for experiencing live music through the filter of a screen. \nThe Who front man, Roger Daltrey, recently said it was \u201cweird\u201d that people did not have their mind on the show when they had gone to a performance and were concentrating on staring at the screen rather than the artist on stage. \nHe said: \u201cI feel sorry for them, I really feel sorry for them. Looking at life through a screen and not being in the moment totally \u2013 if you\u2019re doing that, you\u2019re 50% there, right? It\u2019s weird. I find it weird.\u201d \nIn 2013, Beyonc\u00e9 berated one of her fans at a gig for filming. \u201cYou can\u2019t even sing because you\u2019re too busy taping,\u201d Beyonc\u00e9 told him. \u201cI\u2019m right in your face, baby. You gotta seize this moment. Put that damn camera down!\u201d \nThe debate around the presence of phones at live events is not restricted to music, with sport fans equally vocal on the subject. Recently, Dutch fans at PSV Eindhoven launched a vehement protest against the introduction of wi-fi in their stadium, holding up banners with messages like \u201cNo wi-fi. Support the team,\u201d \u201cYou can sit at home,\u201d and \u201cStand united \u201d, while Manchester United have also told fans to leave their \u201clarge electronic devices\u201d at home, prohibiting filming on tablets this season. \nJarvis Cocker has previously criticized phone- wielders in the audience for driving him \u201cinsane at concerts\u201d, adding: \u201cIt seems stupid to have something happening in front of you and look at it on a screen that\u2019s smaller than the size of a cigarette packet.\u201d \nJohnny Marr said in 2013 that it meant that fans missed out on the sensory experience of live music in their desperation to document the event for later. \n\u201cTo stand and just be looking at it through your phone is a completely wasted opportunity. You know, I don\u2019t mean to be unkind but I think you should put your phone down because you\u2019re just being an idiot, really. Just enjoy the gig,\u201d he said. \n\u201cThat\u2019s one of the things about gigs \u2013 it\u2019s taking in what\u2019s going on with the people around you and, watching it on a little screen, it\u2019s a waste of time.\u201d \nThe Yeah Yeah Yeahs resorted to putting up a sign at one of their venues, pleading with fans to pocket their technology. It read: \u201cPlease do not watch the show through a screen on your smart device\/camera. Put it away as a courtesy to the person behind you, and to the band.\u201d \nIt has even filtered into the world of classical music, with one of the world\u2019s leading pianists surprising concert-goers in June 2013 when he stormed off stage because a fan was filming his performance on a smartphone. Krystian Zimerman returned moments later and declared: \u201cThe destruction of music because of YouTube is enormous.\u201d \nBut Sam Watt of Vyclone, a phone app that encourages audiences to film at concerts and then brings together the footage to create a crowd-sourced video of the event, said that such artists were fighting a losing battle and that filming at concerts enhanced rather than detracted from the experience. \n\u201cFans filming is now part of the concert experience \u2013 that is a just a fact \u2013 so we take that footage that people are filming at concerts through the app, they upload it onto the app, and then it comes back to them mixed together with everybody else who was filming. You end up with really fantastic content,\u201d he said. \n\u201cOur overall thinking is that filming at concerts adds to the experience, rather than taking away from it and I think, if Kate Bush came round for a cup of tea, we could have a really interesting discussion about this and we might be able to win her round,\u201d he added. \u201cKnowing that people are going to film and want those memories is really important because it is probably going to hit them on the head in the future if they say to everyone they can\u2019t film. You\u2019ve got to embrace it.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nIt has mapped the worlds highest peaks, the ocean floor, the Amazon rainforest and even shown us a bit of North Korea. But Googles mission to map the world has mostly stayed away from the inhospitable Arctic.\nNow, however, Google is starting what might be the most significant update to centuries of polar map making  and one it hopes will help provide a better understanding of life on the permafrost for millions of web users. Google has flown a small team to Iqaluit, the largest town in the Canadian territory of Nunavut. They have with them their warmest winter clothes, a stack of laptop computers and an 18kg telescopic camera that they can fix to their backpacks.\nHelped by an Inuit mapping expert, and followed around by curious locals, the team spent four days collecting the images and information that will give the isolated community on Baffin Island what people across the globe who live in cities now take for granted.\nThe town of 7,000 people will go on display via Googles popular Street View application in July 2013.\nUnlike more accessible parts of the world, which have been mapped using a special camera on a car roof, for Googles Iqaluit project mappers walked the towns snowpacked roads and crossed little-known trails, some of which are made of ice and disappear in the short summer months.\nThe team also walked along part of a 15km dead-end road known as the Road to Nowhere, despite warnings about the risk from polar bears and other wildlife.\nJohn Graham, mayor of Iqaluit, understands the enthusiasm of the locals who followed Googles digital map makers while they worked. The Street View project, he said, follows in the footsteps of the English explorer Martin Frobisher, who in 1576 sailed into the bay where Iqaluit now is while searching for the Northwest Passage, and the 1941 flight of Captain Elliott Roosevelt, an officer and son of the US President, which led to the site being chosen for a military airbase. His exploration led to the founding of the modern town of Iqaluit.\nWhat Google had already created on their existing map using satellite images was quite accurate, but they were missing one road that had been created in the past year.\nOne difficulty was how to situate many businesses and homeowners that have mail sent to the local post office, not delivered to their address. Putting the PO box addresses on the map would mean the map would show all the companies, banks and schools in the same place, around the Canada Post building in the centre of town.\nAbout 30 Inuit elders, business people and high-school pupils came one night to help correct such problems. They were provided with a laptop computer and shown how to make sure their homes, shops and meeting places would show up accurately on the map.\nThe project is more than a novelty. Arif Sayani, the towns Director of Planning, said the town would be able to use the maps as a promotional tool for those thinking of visiting or moving to the area. It may also speed up planning decisions in Iqaluit.\nThe project leader for Google said he hoped to see the work continue in other northern towns. However, the high costs of moving people and equipment around the vast Arctic territory means they might have to use cheaper methods in the future, for example, sending equipment to the area and asking volunteers to complete the map.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"The Duchess of Cambridge gave birth to a son on Monday, 22 July. Third in line to the throne, the baby is destined to be the 43rd monarch since William the Conqueror obtained the English crown in 1066. \nKensington Palace announced at 8.30pm that the baby was born at 4.24pm in the exclusive Lindo Wing at St Mary\u2019s Hospital, Paddington, West London. \u201cWe could not be happier,\u201d the Duke of Cambridge said. \nIn a statement, Kensington Palace said: \u201cHer Royal Highness the Duchess of Cambridge was safely delivered of a son at 4.24pm. The baby weighs 8lbs 6oz. The Duke of Cambridge was present for the birth.\u201d The duchess experienced at least ten and a half hours\u2019 labour, which Kensington Palace said had \u201cprogressed as normal\u201d. \nThe Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh, the Prince of Wales, the Duchess of Cornwall, Prince Harry and members of both families were informed and were delighted with the news that Her Royal Highness and her child were both doing well. \nIt is understood that the couple delayed making the announcement immediately so that they could enjoy some private time with their newborn. William telephoned his family to tell them the good news, speaking to the Queen, his father, Charles and younger brother, Prince Harry. \nThe birth of the baby prince means the monarchy has three generations of heirs to the throne for the first time since 1894. \nThe baby is the first Prince of Cambridge to be born for more than 190 years since Prince George of Cambridge, a grandson of George III and the only son of Prince Adolphus Frederick, the 1st Duke of Cambridge. \nIn a statement, Prince Charles said: \u201cBoth my wife and I are overjoyed at the arrival of my first grandchild. It is an incredibly special moment for William and Catherine and we are so thrilled for them on the birth of their baby boy. \n\u201cGrandparenthood is a unique moment in anyone\u2019s life, as countless kind people have told me in recent months, so I am enormously proud and happy to be a grandfather for the first time and we are eagerly looking forward to seeing the baby in the near future.\u201d \nThe newest royal will be called HRH Prince George of Cambridge. When Kate was three months pregnant, a decree issued by the Queen said: \u201cAll the children of the eldest son of the Prince of Wales should have and enjoy the style, title and attribute of Royal Highness with the titular dignity of Prince or Princess prefixed to their Christian names or with such other titles of honour.\u201d \nFollowing tradition, a formal notice was posted on an ornate rococo-style easel \u2013 the same used to announce Prince William\u2019s birth in 1982 \u2013 in the forecourt of Buckingham Palace shortly before 9pm. Within an hour, the numbers had swelled from hundreds to thousands outside the palace, with locals and tourists alike keen to share in the historic moment. \nNew Yorker, Sharon Surloff, was delighted with her phone picture of the royal bulletin, snapped after she and her niece and mother had squeezed through crowds to take a photograph of the easel. \n\u201cThe police were just saying to everyone: 'OK, 20 seconds and then the next person'. It\u2019s just great to be here, though. We arrived this morning, at nine in the morning, so it has all worked out beautifully.\u201d \nThe palace announced the birth in a press release. Minutes later, as crowds of well- wishers outside cheered, \u201cIt\u2019s a boy\u201d, the formal medical bulletin was taken from the hospital to a waiting car by Ed Perkins, Prince William\u2019s press secretary. He handed it to a soldier, who then took the notice, which was signed by Marcus Setchell, the Queen\u2019s gynaecologist, to Buckingham Palace under police escort. \nThe prime minister was one of the first to offer his congratulations. Speaking outside 10 Downing Street, David Cameron said: \u201cIt is wonderful news from St Mary\u2019s, Paddington, and I am sure that, right across the country, and, indeed, right across the Commonwealth, people will be celebrating and wishing the royal couple well. \n\u201cIt is an important moment in the life of our nation but, I suppose, above all, it is a wonderful moment for a warm and loving couple who have got a brand new baby boy. It has been a remarkable few years for our royal family: a royal wedding that captured people\u2019s hearts, that extraordinary and magnificent jubilee and now this royal birth \u2013 all from a family that has given this nation so much incredible service.\u201d \nCongratulations came from the White House, too, from Barack Obama and his wife. The president said: \u201cMichelle and I are so pleased to congratulate the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge on the joyous occasion of the birth of their first child. We wish them all the happiness and blessings parenthood brings.\u201d \nThe Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev Justin Welby, tweeted: \u201cDelighted for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. May God bless them all with love, health and happiness.\u201d \nThe Labour leader, Ed Miliband, said: \u201cMany congratulations to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. I wish them and their son all happiness and good health.\u201d \nThe campaign group, Republic, which launched its Born Equal initiative calling for every child to be born equal in political status and rights, said the royal birth raised questions about Britain and democratic values. Chief Executive Graham Smith said the baby should be able to grow up without \u201cconstant interference and intrusion\u201d. He said: \u201cHere is a new baby whose career, religion, even personal relationships have already been mapped out. Meanwhile, this is an opportunity for the rest of us to consider whether this circus is the best way to run things.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Lego\u2019s profits rose strongly in the first half of 2014, helped by the success of its Lego Movie in the US and UK.\nThe Danish toy company sold a lot more products in Europe, North and South America, and Asiaas children bought products linked to the film.\nThe film took more than $250 million in the US and \u00a331 million in the UK between February and April 2014.\nThe movie cost about $60 million to make. It is entertaining and aimed at people who are likely to buy the company\u2019s products.\nLego\u2019s finance director, John Goodwin, said that the Lego Movie products had a positive effect on profits during the first half of 2014. They are now waiting to see what will happen after the movie comes out on DVD in the second half of 2014.\nJ\u00f8rgen Vig Knudstorp, Lego\u2019s chief executive, said that Lego were very happy that they have sold more products in the first half of 2014. He said this was a result of Lego\u2019s ability to develop, launch and distribute Lego products, which children all over the world put at the top of their wishlists.\nLego, based in the small town of Billund in Denmark, started producing its plastic bricks in 1949 and became a popular and well-known children\u2019s toy around the world by the 1970s.\nIn 2003, the company nearly collapsed. Then, Knudstrop became Lego\u2019s new chief executive. He got rid of hundreds of products and, then, refocused the business on its bricks.\nThe company opened its first factory in China in April 2014.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nTea, baked beans on toast and fish and chips have long been part of the British food tradition. But, there has been a change in tastes over the generations. This has been clearly shown in data published recently in the National Food Survey, which was set up in 1940 by the government because of concerns about health and access to food.\nEveryone knows the British love tea but consumption has more than halved since the 1970s, falling from 68g of tea per person per week to only 25g. Britons are now drinking on average only eight cups of tea a week, down from 23 cups in 1974. And, while tea remains the most popular hot drink in the UK, people now spend more money on coffee.\nThe data is from 150,000 households who took part in the survey between 1974 and 2000, combined with information from 2000 to 2014. It shows a move towards healthier diets in recent decades, with shifts to low-calorie soft drinks, from whole to skimmed milk and increasing consumption of fresh fruit. But, weekly consumption of chips, pizza, crisps and ready meals has soared.\nThere has also been a dramatic shift from white to brown bread but the figures suggest the amount of bread people are eating has fallen from 25 to 15 slices a week over the past four decades. The consumption of baked beans has dropped by a fifth despite a rise in other types of convenience food, particularly Italian dishes. Adults in the UK now eat an average of 75g of pizza every week compared with none in 1974, while the consumption of pasta has almost tripled over the same period.\nFresh potatoes are also becoming less essential with a 67% decrease from 1974, when adults ate the equivalent of 188g every day. Sales of other vegetables such as cucumbers, courgettes, aubergines and mushrooms have increased. Consumption of takeaway food has almost doubled since 1974, from 80g per person per week to 150g. Around 33g of this amount is chips and 56g is meat, with kebabs (10g), chicken (7g), burgers (5g) and meat-based meals (32g) particularly popular.\nSome trends suggest that British people are becoming more careful about what they put on their plates, with the average consumption of fruit increasing by 50% since 1974. In 2014, UK adults ate an average of 157g of fruit per day. Bananas have been the most popular fruit in the UK since 1996, reaching 221g per adult per week in 2014, well above apples (131g) and oranges (48g). Lowcalorie soft drinks represented half of all soft drinks consumed in 2014 for the first time. Britons are also spending a smaller proportion of their salaries on food today  11%, compared with 24% in 1974.\nThe UK Environment Secretary, Elizabeth Truss, said: Food is the heart of our society and this data not only shows what we were eating 40 years ago but how a change in culture has led to a food revolution. Shoppers care more about where their food comes from than ever before, the internet has brought quality food to our doors at the click of a button, fashionable restaurants are showcasing the latest trends and exciting global cuisines are now as common as fish and chips.\nBy studying this data, we can look beyond what, where or how previous generations were eating and pinpoint the moments that changed our habits forever. Weve only scratched the surface of what the National Food Survey can tell us. From local food maps and school projects to predicting new food trends, I look forward to seeing how this data can be used to learn more about our past and grow our world-leading food and farming industry in the future.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"How long can you hold your breath? I\u2019m trying it right now. The first 30 seconds are easy. I want to give up at 45 seconds but I continue and it gets easier for a while. But, as I go past one minute, my heart is pounding. I breathe out a tiny bit and this helps. One minute and 12 seconds. I\u2019m quite impressed with myself.\nIn some sports, it is very important to be able to hold your breath, particularly in freediving. In 2006, I met Sam Amps, who was captain of the UK freedive team. At a swimming pool in Bristol, she taught me some simple ways to help me hold my breath for longer while swimming underwater. By the end of the session, I could hold my breath for 90 seconds, long enough to let me swim across the pool. Sam swam across the pool three times easily. She could hold her breath for five minutes, while swimming. Five minutes!\nI asked how she did it: very slow breathing for several minutes before each dive, then a big, deep breath before diving in.\nOur heart rate doesn\u2019t slow down when we hold our breath. At least, it doesn\u2019t if you\u2019re doing it on land. When you\u2019re under cold water, the heart rate slows down in most people. This change in our bodies is useful in diving \u2013 but it is even more useful for not drowning.\nHolding our breath is becoming very useful in one particular area of medicine. Radiotherapy for breast cancer involves pointing radiation exactly at the tumour. It\u2019s usually done in short periods, between breaths. But, if the patient can hold their breath for several minutes, it means that doctors can give the complete radiation dose, in the right place, all at the same time. The problem, of course, is that most people cannot hold their breath for several minutes. But doctors at University Hospital Birmingham have shown that, if patients are given air with extra oxygen before holding their breath, they can hold it for five-and-a-half minutes.\nSurprisingly, to achieve this you have to fool the diaphragm. When you breathe in, you\u2019re pulling the muscle of your diaphragm flat so that the volume of your chest increases \u2013 this pulls the air into your lungs. \nWhen you hold your breath, you keep your diaphragm like that. If you breathe extra oxygen before a breath-hold, as in the Birmingham radiotherapy experiments, you may be able to stop the diaphragm from becoming tired too quickly. So, it\u2019s your diaphragm, the main muscle of breathing, that is in charge when you are holding your breath. But, in the end, even if you\u2019ve fooled it for a while, the signals from the diaphragm become too strong and you have to give up \u2013 and take a breath.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Leading water scientists have issued one of the sternest warnings yet about global food supplies, saying that the world\u2019s population may have to switch almost completely to a vegetarian diet by 2050 to avoid catastrophic shortages. \nHumans derive about 20% of their protein from animal-based products now, but this may need to drop to just 5% to feed the extra two billion people expected to be alive by 2050, according to research by some of the world\u2019s leading water scientists. \n\u201cThere will not be enough water available on current croplands to produce food for the expected nine-billion population in 2050 if we follow current trends and changes towards diets common in western nations,\u201d the report by Malik Falkenmark and colleagues at the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) said. \n\u201cThere will be just enough water if the proportion of animal-based foods is limited to 5% of total calories and considerable regional water deficits can be met by a reliable system of food trade.\u201d \nDire warnings of water scarcity limiting food production come as Oxfam and the UN prepare for a possible second global food crisis in five years. Prices for staples such as corn and wheat have risen nearly 50% on international markets since June, triggered by severe droughts in the US and Russia, and weak monsoon rains in Asia. More than 18 million people are already facing serious food shortages across the Sahel. \nOxfam has forecast that the price spike will have a devastating impact in developing countries that rely heavily on food imports, including parts of Latin America, North Africa and the Middle East. Food shortages in 2008 led to civil unrest in 28 countries. \nAdopting a vegetarian diet is one option to increase the amount of water available to grow more food in an increasingly climate-erratic world, the scientists said. Animal protein-rich food consumes five to ten times more water than a vegetarian diet. One third of the world\u2019s arable land is used to grow crops to feed animals. Other options to feed people include eliminating waste and increasing trade between countries in food surplus and those in deficit. \n\u201cNine hundred million people already go hungry and two billion people are malnourished in spite of the fact that per-capita food production continues to increase,\u201d they said. \u201cWith 70% of all available water being in agriculture, growing more food to feed an additional two billion people by 2050 will place greater pressure on available water and land.\u201d \nThe report is being released at the start of the annual world water conference in Stockholm, Sweden, where 2,500 politicians, UN bodies, non-governmental groups and researchers from 120 countries meet to address global water supply problems. \nCompetition for water between food production and other uses will intensify pressure on essential resources, the scientists said. \u201cThe UN predicts that we must increase food production by 70% by mid-century. This will place additional pressure on our already stressed water resources, at a time when we also need to allocate more water to satisfy global energy demand \u2013 which is expected to rise by 60% over the coming 30 years \u2013 and to generate electricity for the 1.3 billion people currently without it,\u201d said the report. \nOvereating, undernourishment and waste are all on the rise and increased food production may face future constraints from water scarcity. \n\u201cWe will need a new recipe to feed the world in the future,\u201d said the report\u2019s editor, Anders J\u00e4gerskog. \nA separate report from the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) said the best way for countries to protect millions of farmers from food insecurity in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia was to help them invest in small pumps and simple technology, rather than to develop expensive, large-scale irrigation projects. \n\u201cWe\u2019ve witnessed again and again what happens to the world\u2019s poor \u2013 the majority of whom depend on agriculture for their livelihoods and already suffer from water scarcity \u2013 when they are at the mercy of our fragile global food system,\u201d said Dr Colin Chartres, the Director General. \n\u201cFarmers across the developing world are increasingly relying on and benefiting from small-scale, locally-relevant water solutions. [These] techniques could increase yields up to 300% and add tens of billions of US dollars to household revenues across sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Cities don\u2019t often decide to pack their bags, get up and move down the road. But that\u2019s exactly what Kiruna, an Arctic town in northern Sweden, is having to do \u2013 to avoid being swallowed up into the earth. \n\u201cIt\u2019s a dystopian choice,\u201d says Krister Lindstedt of White, the Stockholm-based architects firm charged with the biblical task of moving this city of 23,000 people away from a gigantic iron-ore mine that is fast gobbling up the ground beneath its streets. \u201cEither the mine must stop digging, creating mass unemployment, or the city has to move \u2013 or else face certain destruction. It\u2019s an existential predicament.\u201d \nFounded in 1900 by the state-owned Luossavaara-Kiirunavaara mining company (LK), Kiruna has grown rich off the vast seam of iron ore below the town, but it\u2019s now facing destruction by the very phenomenon that created its wealth. \u201cWe are symbiotic: the town is here because of the mine,\u201d says Deputy Mayor Niklas Siren. \u201cOtherwise, no devil would have built a city here.\u201d \nLocated 145km inside the Arctic Circle, Kiruna is subject to a brutal climate, enduring winters with no sunlight and average temperatures below -15C. But the deep deposit of magnetite has proved a strong enough magnet to keep people here. Driven by the insatiable global appetite for construction, the mine has become the world\u2019s largest underground iron-ore extraction site, producing 90% of all the iron in Europe, enough to build more than six Eiffel Towers a day. And demand continues to grow. \nIn 2004, the mining company broke it to the town that its days were numbered: digging its shafts towards the city at an angle of 60 degrees, subsidence would soon lead to the widespread cracking and collapse of the town\u2019s buildings. A decade on, fissures are starting to appear in the ground, creeping ever closer to the town. \n\u201cThe people of Kiruna have been living in limbo for ten years,\u201d says Viktoria Walldin, a social anthropologist who works with the architects. \u201cThey have put their lives on hold, unable to make major decisions like buying a house, redecorating, having a child or opening a business.\u201d \nAfter years of dithering, the city has finally unveiled a master plan for how it will proceed. \u201cImagine it like a walking millipede of a city,\u201d says Lindstedt, unrolling a plan that shows the town\u2019s streets and squares beginning to crawl eastwards along a new high street, until the whole place has moved safely out of the way of the mine by 2033. \nA new town square is already under way, 3km to the east, with a circular town hall planned by Danish architect Henning Larsen, while 20 key buildings have been identified to be dismantled and resurrected piece by piece in their new home \u2013 like an Ikea flatpack on a grand scale. Kiruna\u2019s rust-red wooden church, built in 1912 in a form that recalls the indigenous Sami teepees, and once voted Sweden\u2019s most beautiful building, will take pride of place in a new park, while the cast- iron bell tower will stand once again above the town hall. But not everything will be saved. \n\u201cI spoke to an old lady who walks past the bench every day where she had her first kiss,\u201d says Walldin. \u201cIt\u2019s things like that \u2013 the hospital where your first child was born, for example \u2013 that are important to people\u2019s sense of identity and all that\u2019s going to disappear.\u201d \nBilled as \u201cthe most democratic move in history \u201d, the project has been allocated the equivalent of \u00a3320m by the mining company for building new facilities, including a high school, fire station, community centre, library and swimming hall. But top of most people\u2019s concerns is where they will actually live and what process will determine the housing allocation. \n\u201cThese details have yet to be determined,\u201d admits Lindstedt. \u201cPeople are used to very low rents and very high incomes but, in future, this will have to change.\u201d LK has agreed to compensate residents to the value of their homes plus 25% but many locals say this is not enough to afford a new-build house at market rates. \nTo aid the valuation process, the architects have monitored the housing lettings in nearby cities over a period of years, and \u201ctagged\u201d the homes in Kiruna with the assets they possess, from internal space and gardens to proximity to bus stops and the city centre. They have also proposed a \u201cKiruna Portal \u201d, a kind of mass salvage yard, where materials from the doomed homes can be brought and hopefully recycled in the construction of the new buildings \u2013 although, given that Sweden has no tradition of self-build, it\u2019s hard to see this taking off. \nA closer look at the plan shows the new town bears little relation to the original Kiruna at all. The current town is a sprawling suburban network of winding streets, home to detached houses with gardens. White\u2019s plan incorporates a much higher-density arrangement of multi-storey apartment blocks around shared courtyards, lining straight boulevards, down which the icy winds will surge. \nIt is an opportunity, say the architects, for Kiruna to \u201creinvent itself\u201d into a model of sustainable development, attracting young people who wouldn\u2019t have stayed in the town before, with new cultural facilities and \u201cvisionary\u201d things such as a cable car bobbing above the high street. But it is a vision that many of the existing residents seem unlikely to be able to afford.","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Intermediate\nWhen you see the word Amazon, whats the first thing you think of  the worlds biggest forest, the longest river or the largest internet shop  and which do you think is most important?\nThese are questions in a debate about how to redraw the boundaries of the internet. Brazil and Peru have made objections to a bid made by the huge US e-commerce company for a prime new piece of cyberspace: .amazon.\nThe Seattle-based company has applied for its brand to be a top-level domain name (currently .com), but the South American governments argue this would prevent the use of this internet address for environmental protection, the promotion of indigenous rights and other public interest uses.\nTogether with many other disputed claims to names, including .patagonia, the issue goes directly to the heart of debates about the purpose and governance of the internet.\nUntil now, the differences between commercial, governmental and other types of identity were easy to see in every internet address by the use of .com, .gov and 20 other categories.\nBut these categories  or generic top-level domains (gTLDs) as they are technically known  are about to see the biggest expansion since the start of the worldwide web.\nThe Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)  a US-based non-profit organization that plays a key role in cyberspace governance  has received bids (each worth almost $200,000) for hundreds of new gTLDs to add to the existing 22.\nAmazon has applied for many new domains, including .shop, .song, .book and .kindle. But the one that has caused most discussion is its application is for its own brand.\nBrazil and Peru have asked for the .amazon application to be withdrawn. They say a private company should not be given a name that is also the name of an important geographical area, an area that runs through and across their territories and is also used for certain regions and cross-border organizations.\nAllowing private companies to register geographical names as gTLDs to strengthen their brand or to profit from the meaning of these names is not, in our view, in the public interest, the Brazilian Ministry of Science and Technology said.\nBrazil said its views were supported by other members of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty (Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Suriname and Venezuela).\nThere have been other objections over proposed top-level domains that take geographical, cultural or contested brand names.\nArgentina is unhappy that the US outdoor clothing retailer, Patagonia, is claiming a domain name that has been known far longer as a region of spectacular beauty that also has its own parliament. Argentina rejects the .patagonia request for a new generic top-level domain. Patagonia is an important region for the countrys economy because it has oil, fishing, mining and agriculture resources. It is also a region with a vibrant local community and it is a major tourist destination.\nThe contested proposals are expected to be discussed again at a meeting of ICANNs Governmental Advisory Committee in Durban in July. The first approved domain names will probably be in use before the end of 2013.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"The mass collection of telephone records by government surveillance programmes poses a clear threat to the personal privacy of ordinary citizens, according to US researchers who used basic phone logs to identify people and uncover confidential information about their lives. \nArmed with anonymous \u201cmetadata\u201d on people\u2019s calls and texts, but not the content of the communications, two scientists at Stanford University worked out individuals\u2019 names, where they lived and the names of their partners. But that was not all. \nThe same data led them to uncover potentially sensitive information about some individuals. One man was found to own a rifle, while another had recently been diagnosed with an irregular heartbeat. Other data pointed to a new pregnancy and a person with multiple sclerosis. \nThe results highlight the extraordinary power of telephone metadata \u2013 the number called, when and for how long \u2013 particularly when it is paired with public information available from services such as Google, Yelp and Facebook. The value of the data, which is not subject to the same legal protections as the content of people\u2019s communications, has long been recognized by the security services. As Stewart Baker, the former general counsel at the US National Security Agency (NSA), put it in the aftermath of Edward Snowden\u2019s revelations: \u201cMetadata absolutely tells you everything about somebody\u2019s life.\u201d \nPatrick Mutchler, a computer security researcher at Stanford, said that while the power of metadata was understood by those gathering the information, the public was largely in the dark because so few published studies have revealed how rich the data is. \u201cThat makes it difficult for people with strong opinions about these programmes to fight them. Now, we have hard evidence we can point to that didn\u2019t exist in the past,\u201d he said. \nFor the study, the researchers signed up 823 people who agreed to have metadata collected from their phones through an Android app. The app also received information from their Facebook accounts, which the scientists used to check the accuracy of their results. In all, the researchers gathered metadata on more than 250,000 calls and over 1.2m texts. \nAnalysts who logged into the NSA\u2019s metadata-gathering system were initially allowed to examine data up to three hops away from an individual. A call from the target individual\u2019s phone to another number was one hop. From that phone to another was two hops. And so on. The records available to analysts stretched back for five years. The collection window has now been restricted to two hops and 18 months at most. \nWriting in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Mutchler describes how, on a shoestring budget, he and fellow graduate student, Jonathan Mayer, uncovered a wealth of personal information, some of it sensitive, about people who took part in the study. Through automatic and manual searches, they identified 82% of people\u2019s names. The same technique gave them the names of businesses the people had called. When these were plotted on a map, they revealed clusters of local businesses, which the scientists speculated surrounded the person\u2019s home address. In this way, they named the city people lived in 57% of the time, and were nearly 90% accurate in placing people within 50 miles of their home. Mutchler believes some of the misses came from people not updating their Facebook page when they moved out of their parents\u2019 home, for example, to go to college. \nThe scientists next delved into more personal territory. Using a simple computer program to analyse people\u2019s call patterns, they inferred who among the study volunteers was in a relationship. Once they knew the owner of a particular number had a partner, identifying the significant other was easy, they report. \nFor the final part of the study, the researchers delved even deeper, to see what sensitive information they could glean from telephone metadata. They gathered details on calls made to and from a list of organizations, including hospitals, pharmacies, religious groups, legal services, firearms retailers and repair firms. From these, they pieced together some extraordinary vignettes from people\u2019s lives. \nThe metadata from one person in the study showed they had a long call from a cardiology centre, spoke briefly with a medical laboratory, answered a number of short calls from a local pharmacy and then made calls to a hotline for abnormal heart-rate monitoring devices. Another participant made frequent calls to a local gun supplier that specialized in semi- automatic rifles and later placed a number of long calls to the customer support hotline run by a major gun manufacturer that produced the rifles. The metadata from two others suggested one had multiple sclerosis and the other had just become pregnant. \n\u201cAll of this should be taken as an indication of what is possible with two graduate students and limited resources,\u201d said Mutchler, who argues that the findings should make policymakers think twice before authorizing mass surveillance programmes. \u201cLarge-scale metadata surveillance programmes, like the NSA\u2019s, will necessarily expose highly confidential information about ordinary citizens,\u201d the scientists write, adding: \u201cTo strike an appropriate balance between national security and civil liberties, future policymaking must be informed by input from relevant sciences.\u201d \nRoss Anderson, professor of security engineering at Cambridge University, said the study provided numbers that discussions can now be based on. \u201cWith the right analytics running over nation- scale communications data, you can infer huge amounts of sensitive information on everyone. We always suspected that, of course, but here\u2019s the data.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nA new, high-tech computer-assisted autopsy system is becoming more and more popular in European hospitals. Its inventor has said the technique could eventually mean there is no such thing as a perfect murder.\nThe method, called Virtopsy, is now being used at some forensic medical institutes in Europe, after it was pioneered by a group of scientists at the University of Zurich. A traditional autopsy begins by using a knife to make a Y-shaped cut in the chest. But now pathologists are able to examine the dead body in 3-D via computer screens.\nMichael Thali, the Director of Zurichs Institute for Forensic Medicine in Europe, and one of the inventors of Virtopsy, said it had the potential to revolutionize criminal investigations. Basically there will be no such thing as the perfect murder any more because a virtual autopsy allows you to find every piece of evidence, he said.\nVirtopsies combine the images from high-powered magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), computed tomography (CT) and surface scans of dead bodies. Combined, the machines are referred to as a Virtobot. The technique allows you to find injuries that are not seen during a traditional autopsy, as well as air pockets, heart attacks and even cancer.\nThe Virtopsy might replace the autopsy one day, Richard Dirndorfer, one of the pioneers of DNA analysis in criminology, and a developer of Virtopsy, told the German science magazine PM. I think well see it happen gradually, just like DNA analysis gradually replaced blood group analysis, he said.\nThe computer imaging techniques allow doctors to see deep inside dead bodies. The method has already allowed the discovery of injuries that were not picked up during traditional autopsies. At first, the aim is to use the new method to complement the traditional autopsy.\nIt will allow forensic scientists to plan their autopsies far more efficiently, Dominic Wichmann, an internal medicine specialist at Hamburgs University Hospital, told Spiegel. Criminologists from around the world have been travelling to Switzerland over the past few years to see the new method.\nThe method had been under development for decades. Then a donation from a rich ophthalmologist allowed the project to take off. The new generation of forensic scientists and pathologists dont see it as a threat. They see it as something that will complement traditional methods and possibly even one day replace them, though probably not entirely.\nIn order to analyze the colour of the blood, the consistencies (of body fluids) or smells, well need to keep on with the traditional cut, said Lars Oesterhelweg, Deputy Director of the Institute of Forensic Medicine at the Charit Hospital in Berlin, which is using a version of the Virtopsy.\nHe added that the new method was particularly helpful in re-examining cases where the cause of death was unclear. It means that third opinions can be gathered, investigations can be re-examined and cases can be reopened, he said.\nScientists using the new method said that relatives of the dead often dont like the idea of autopsies because of the disfigurement they cause. They are much happier with the non-invasive method.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Angela Erdmann never knew her grandfather. He died in 1946, six years before she was born. But, on Tuesday 8th April, 2014, she described the extraordinary moment when she received a message in a bottle, 101 years after he had lobbed it into the Baltic Sea. Thought to be the world\u2019s oldest message in a bottle, it was presented to Erdmann by the museum that is now exhibiting it in Germany. \n\u201cIt was very surprising,\u201d Erdmann, 62, said, recalling how she found out about the bottle. \u201cA man stood at my door and told me he had post from my grandfather. He then told me that a message in a bottle had been found and that the name that was on the card was that of my grandfather.\u201d Her visitor was a genealogical researcher who had managed to track her down in Berlin after the letter was given to the International Maritime Museum in the northern port city of Hamburg. \nThe brown beer bottle, which had been in the water for 101 years, was found in the catch of Konrad Fischer, a fisherman, who had been out in the Baltic Sea off the northern city of Kiel. Holger von Neuhoff, curator for ocean and science at the museum, said this bottled message was the oldest he had come across. \u201cThere are documents that have been found without the bottle that are older and are in the museum,\u201d he said. \u201cBut, with the bottle and the document, this is certainly the oldest at the moment. It is in extremely good condition.\u201d \nResearchers believe Erdmann\u2019s grandfather, Richard Platz, threw the bottle in the sea while on a hike with a nature appreciation group in 1913. He was 20 years old at the time. \nMuch of the postcard was indecipherable, although the address in Berlin on the front of the card was legible, as was the author\u2019s polite request that the note be sent by the finder to his home address. \n\u201cHe also included two stamps from that time that were also in the bottle, so the finder would not incur a cost,\u201d Erdmann said. \u201cBut he did not think it would take 101 years.\u201d \nShe said she was moved by the arrival of the message, although she had not known her grandfather because he died, at the age of 54, six years before she was born. \n\u201cI knew very little about my grandfather, but I found out that he was a writer who was very open-minded, and believed in freedom and that everyone should respect each other,\u201d she said. \u201cHe did a lot for the young and later travelled with his wife and two daughters. It was wonderful because I could see where my roots came from.\u201d \nLike her grandfather, Erdmann said, she also liked culture and travelling around the world. She described herself as open-minded, too. \u201cWhat he taught his two daughters, my mother taught me and I have then given to my sons,\u201d she said. Despite her joy at receiving the bottled message, she said that she hoped others would not repeat what her grandfather had done and throw bottles with messages into the sea. \u201cToday, the sea is so full of so many bottles and rubbish that more shouldn\u2019t be thrown in there,\u201d she said. \nThe message and the bottle will be on display at Hamburg\u2019s Maritime Museum until the beginning of May 2014, after which experts will attempt to decipher the rest of the text. It is not clear what will then happen to the bottle, but Erdmann hopes it will stay at the museum. \n\u201cWe want to make a few photos available to put with the bottle and give it a face, so visitors can see the young man who threw the bottle into the water,\u201d she said.","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Intermediate\nBack in 2005, when BlackBerry brought instant messaging to the mobile phone, the company was just entering its boom times. While the iPhone was still just an idea, BlackBerrys innovations ensured its smartphone was one of Canadas biggest exports.\nSix years later, in the summer of 2011, when there were riots in London and other UK cities, BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) was so effective at mobilizing the rioters that politicians wanted the service to be temporarily shut down. But, two years later, it is the users themselves who are pulling the plug.\nDemand for BlackBerry phones is falling. Dozens of alternatives have sprung up to take its place, from Facebooks and Apples instant messaging applications to independent apps such as WhatsApp and Kik (which is also Canadian). They are free to download and use, and they use the internet to swap text messages, pictures, voice clips, stickers and even videos between most types of phones.\nIn an attempt to keep its customers, BBM has been released on Android and Apple phones. Despite the competition from other apps, the response has been extraordinary, with more than 20 million downloads. But, despite this interest, many people believe BBMs wider release will not save the service. The move to bring BlackBerry to the iPhone is four or five years too late, says James Gooderson, an 18-year-old student who blogs on technology. WhatsApp has made BlackBerrys unnecessary for young people.\nBBM says it has 80 million monthly users after its upgrade, but WhatsApp has 300 million. Other services show BBMs limitations: unlike Skype and Viber, it does not yet offer video or voice calls; unlike Path, it does not do location sharing; there is no video sharing, as on iMessage; and the stickers (a more sophisticated version of the smiley face), adored by kids all over the world, are also absent. Even the contacts and calendar sharing that BBM made possible on BlackBerry phones are not on the Apple and Android versions.\nMessaging is moving from verbal to visual. Photos uploaded to Instagram get instant comments and Snapchats pictures, which selfdelete after ten seconds, have opened a world of other possibilities. Like BBM, all of these services are free for any phone with an internet connection. But as recently as 2011, BBM was so powerful it helped to start a revolution in Egypt; and at the time of the London riots, it was a more immediate source of news than the television screen.\nWe could see on our BlackBerry messages where the rioters were going next; TV news would catch up four hours later, said Jean- Pierre Moore, 28. He manages a youth club in Stockwell, south London, an area with some of the highest levels of crime and poverty in Britain. Moore mainly communicates on an iPad now. He does not agree with the idea that a shutdown of BBM would have stopped the looting. The social networking wasnt the reason, he says.\nNearly 80% of young smartphone owners regularly use a social networking application but two-thirds use more than one. Among 16- to 24-year-olds, 60% use Facebook every day, but 46% use alternatives. Its a much more complex, multifaceted environment, says Benedict Evans, a digital media specialist. All of these apps use your smartphone  they plug into your phone book and your photo library. Apps rise and fall like fireworks. Some, like Instagram, last; others just disappear.\nThirteen-year-old Bennett has three phones. He keeps his BlackBerry for messaging, uses an iPhone to play games, and makes phone calls on an Android phone. His friends are still on BBM. At the touch of a few buttons, a single BlackBerry message can be sent to the phone owners entire contacts book  several hundred people, in some cases; on WhatsApp, the limit for a broadcast message is 50. But, for Bennett, Instagram is now a major social network. Instagram is Facebook without parents, he says. Facebook has been taken over by the older generation. When I saw my mum on Facebook, I deleted my account.\nThe low cost of buying and communicating on a BlackBerry is still an advantage. Unlimited BBM messages are available to anyone with a secondhand was a belief that encrypted words sent over the companys secure servers could not be traced back to their writers. Arrests and prosecutions after the riots put an end to that belief. phone and a 7-a-month deal from a telecoms company. But people no longer trust the privacy of BBM. Part of the attraction to business people, revolutionaries, demonstrators and rioters\nAcross town from Stockwell, outside the gates of a private school in the rich district of South Kensington, the older pupils all have Apple logos on their phones. They all use WhatsApp. For many, BBM is a distant memory. I still have a Blackberry, but Im the only one, says a teenager standing with a circle of friends. And how does that make him feel? Isolated, he replies.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Volcanoes, hurricanes and earthquakes can make a city totally disappear. But there are two other things that can make it disappear, too \u2013 water and sand.\nOne hundred years ago, Venice \u2013 one of the most beautiful and low-lying cities in the world \u2013 used to flood about ten times a year. Now, its lowest point, Piazza San Marco (only three feet above sea level) floods approximately 100 times a year.\nBut rising sea levels are not the only cause. In many parts of the world, the land is also sinking. In Venice, the city sank by 20cm between 1950 and 1970. Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam is also sinking by about 2cm a year \u2013 but the situation in Jakarta is much worse \u2013 it is sinking 10 to 20cm every year. In the past three decades, the city has sunk four metres.\nThe Indonesian capital has pumped out so much water to support its population that the land above is too dry. This is creating a bowl.\nThere are many plans to save Venice, and Ho Chi Minh City and Jakarta are taking the problem seriously. But it is not same in Miami where politicians will not accept that the city has a serious problem.\nThere are three main problems in Miami. It is less than ten feet above sea level; an increasing number of tropical storms are flooding the city; and it is built on porous rock, which absorbs the rising seawater. This water then fills the city\u2019s foundations and comes up through drains and pipes. This forces sewage upwards and pollutes the city\u2019s fresh water. It is possible that it may, one day, be impossible to live in Miami.\nIn the Maldives, the populations of whole islands may leave their homes. The capital is Mal\u00e9. It has a population of 153,379 and is only four feet above sea level. Mal\u00e9 has built a ten-foot sea wall, which cost $63 million. But, in the long term, Mal\u00e9 and the rest of the islands will only be safe if sea levels stop rising.\nIn Africa, the Sahara is getting bigger \u2013 it is moving south at a rate of 30 miles per year. This is a problem for people who live in northern Mauritania.\nPeople may have to leave the Californian resort of Rancho Mirage, near Palm Springs, in the next decade. The problem in California is not caused by global warming \u2013 the problem is that there are too many people there. In 1870, the total population was only half a million but, now, the state is home to 38 million people. And these people have 32 million cars.\nEvery person in Rancho Mirage uses more than 200 gallons of water every day. This is causing a man-made drought. They have reduced water use by 25% but this will probably not make much difference. The long-term answer in California\u2019s desert is for people to leave some cities.\nFire is a growing problem to towns and cities in America \u2013 in fact, forest fires cause the most damage after bad storms. There were 800 major fire disasters there between 1953 and 2014. A new report by the USDA Forest Service shows the increasing number of towns and cities that are particularly vulnerable to wildfire.\nMany cities are fighting a losing battle against nature but is it possible to choose the world\u2019s most vulnerable city? Natural disasters are very difficult to predict \u2013 but the future for Mal\u00e9 does look very bad. Its new sea wall might continue to work but the islands around the Maldives capital are going to disappear soon. And, if they disappear, Mal\u00e9\u2019s reason for existing disappears, too.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"The customer next to you in the queue looks innocent enough. But, instead of a shopping list, you notice she\u2019s carrying handwritten notes about the appearance and cleanliness of the store. She\u2019s been timing the progression of the queue on her phone \u2026 and is that a tiny camera lens peeking out from her purse? The odds are you\u2019ve just spotted a mystery shopper. \nThere are approximately 50,000 mystery shopping trips carried out every month in the UK, according to the Mystery Shopping Providers Association, and, as more and more spending takes place online, the demand for mystery shoppers is growing. \u201cRetailers are becoming increasingly aware that shoppers who are prepared to set foot in a physical store want a service and an experience they can\u2019t get online,\u201d says Simon Boydell, spokesman for Marketforce, which has more than 300,000 mystery shoppers on its books. \u201cOur clients want to measure how well their stores are delivering on that experience.\u201d \n\u201cWe assign different store locations to each shopper and rotate them so that they never go back to the same shop within three months,\u201d says Jill Spencer of mystery shopping company ABa. \u201cEach day, they typically spend up to eight hours visiting five to ten stores, plus another hour or two filing detailed reports on every aspect of their visit.\u201d For that, the mystery shoppers can earn up to \u00a3155 a day. They are also reimbursed for their petrol and hotel stays, and compensated for their car depreciation (the shoppers can be expected to drive as many as 20,000 miles a year). Meanwhile, video mystery shoppers, who film their visits with a hidden camera planted in a buttonhole or handbag, can earn even more \u2013 around \u00a3300 a day. \nShoppers are usually repaid any money they spend in the stores and may also be allowed to keep the products they buy. \u201cI\u2019m typically given between \u00a35 and \u00a320 to spend at each store, to assess the service I receive at the till,\u201d says Laura, a 50-year-old mystery shopper from Devon, who has been paid to visit around 7,000 shops since 2001. The purchase usually has to be related to a service or a type of product that the retailer wants her to check. \u201cI\u2019m always given a scenario, such as buying something from a specific department or a new product range, but, within that framework, I can often buy whatever I want \u2013 and keep it.\u201d \nLike most full-time mystery shoppers, Laura is self-employed, taking jobs from ABa and other mystery shopping companies as and when they come up. Her income is typically \u00a330,000 to \u00a340,000 a year and that doesn\u2019t include all the freebies she gets on the job. \u201cWith the perks, it\u2019s enough to live on. But I don\u2019t do it because I love shopping. In fact, I hate shopping now. When I\u2019m not working, it pains me to have to go out and buy a pint of milk.\u201d She does, however, find it satisfying to return to a store she has previously mystery shopped and see standards have improved. \u201cI know it must be because of my feedback or why would they pay me to give it? Some of the retailers I shop at win awards for customer service and I think that is down to us mystery shoppers. I feel I\u2019m not just doing a service to my company; I\u2019m doing a service to all shoppers everywhere.\u201d \nSadly, regular mystery shopping assignments that pay like Laura\u2019s are few and far between. In fact, competition is so fierce, she keeps her job a closely guarded secret and even her friends and family don\u2019t know who she works for (Laura is not her real name). \nIt\u2019s estimated that more than 500,000 people have registered as mystery shoppers in the UK, but just 10% or less manage to get regular work each month and this has led to a dramatic reduction in compensation. \u201cWhere once you got a fee, reimbursement for your purchase and mileage, you now often just receive a contribution towards a purchase,\u201d say Val, a 51-year-old former mystery shopper. \u201cI worked for 40 different mystery shopping companies for almost 20 years but I gave up entirely three years ago because I had bills to pay and very few assignments paid what I considered to be an acceptable rate.\u201d \nNowadays, mystery shopping companies mostly rely on the promise of freebies to incentivize their workers. \u201cMarketforce shoppers typically get a couple of pounds for a visit as a token gesture for their time and effort,\u201d says Boydell. \u201cAt the most, we\u2019ll pay \u00a315 to \u00a325 plus reimbursement for, say, a meal for two or a hotel stay. We don\u2019t directly employ any shoppers so we don\u2019t have to pay them the minimum wage.\u201d \n\u201cI\u2019d go on a cruise for nothing,\u201d says Laura. \u201cBut I think mystery shopping companies that pay you a nominal fee to travel to a restaurant and eat a meal are exploiting people. I won\u2019t touch those jobs anymore.\u201d There are plenty of people, however, that would. Hannah, a 41-year-old City lawyer, has conducted nearly 500 visits for the Mystery Dining Company in her spare time without receiving remuneration or travel expenses. As a prestigious \u201cplatinum diner\u201d, she is regularly hand-picked by the Mystery Dining Company to carry out their most exclusive assignments, enjoying \u00a3200 meals at Michelin-starred Mayfair restaurants, five-star hospitality at Ascot and overnight stays at boutique hotels. \nBut there\u2019s no such thing as a free lunch, even if you work for a mystery dining company. Hannah says she typically spends two to four hours after each visit writing detailed reports on everything from the quality of the food to specific interactions with staff, whom she always needs to be able to name or \u201csubtly\u201d describe. Trickiest of all, she must memorize all these details while eating her meal \u2013 unable, of course, to openly write anything down. \n\u201cThere\u2019s lots to remember and sometimes it can detract from the experience. You\u2019re expected to give feedback while it\u2019s fresh, so I\u2019ve had to get up at 5am to write a report before work. It\u2019s a challenging thing to do; you need to be focused, articulate and detail orientated.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"More than one million British workers might be employed on zero-hours contracts, new figures reveal, suggesting that British business is using the controversial employment terms far more widely than previously thought. \nThe figure \u2013 derived from a poll of more than 1,000 employers conducted by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) \u2013 prompted renewed calls for the government to launch a full inquiry into the use of the contracts, after a week in which a string of organizations \u2013 from retail chains to Buckingham Palace \u2013 have faced criticism for hiring staff but offering no guarantee of work and pay each week. Employees on zero-hours contracts often get no holiday or sick pay and have to ask permission before seeking additional work elsewhere. The CIPD found that 38% of zero-hours contract workers describe themselves as employed full-time, typically working 30 hours or more a week. One-third of voluntary sector employers use the contracts and one in four public sector organizations. \nThe latest numbers also call into question the accuracy of official data on the topic. The Office for National Statistics has increased its estimate of the number of UK zero-hours workers by 25%, to around 250,000. \nPeter Cheese, the chief executive of the CIPD, said: \u201cThere does need to be a closer look at what is meant by a zero-hours contract, the different forms that they take and clearer guidance on what good and bad practice in their use looks like. And this needs to consider both the advantages and disadvantages in practice for businesses and employees.\u201d \nRetailer Sports Direct recently became the focus of controversy on zero-hours when it emerged that the company employs around 20,000 of its 23,000 staff on the contracts. The retailer\u2019s use of the contracts was followed by details of a string of other companies using the deals, including cinema chain Cineworld and Buckingham Palace, which uses them for its 350 summer workers. \nPub group J D Wetherspoon has 24,000 of its staff \u2013 80% of its workforce \u2013 on the terms. \nVidhya Alakeson, from the Resolution Foundation, an independent think tank, added: \u201cIf it\u2019s true that there are around one million people on zero-hours contracts, then that would be a substantial portion of the workforce \u2013 this could no longer be dismissed as an issue affecting only a tiny minority. \n\u201cThe new estimate underlines the urgent need for a deep and thorough review of zero-hours by the government, which takes into account not only the scale of the problem but the effect these contracts have on workers\u2019 employment rights, earning capacity and personal well-being.\u201d \nUnions and poverty campaign groups have accused employers of pressuring staff into signing the contracts as a way to evade their responsibilities and cut staff benefits. \nDave Prentis, of the trade union Unison, said: \u201cThe vast majority of workers are only on these contracts because they have no choice. They may give flexibility to a few, but the balance of power favours the employers and makes it hard for workers to complain.\u201d \nWorkers on zero-hours contracts are often only told how many hours they will work when weekly or monthly rotas are worked out, but are expected to be on call for extra work at short notice. They should be entitled to holiday pay in line with the number of hours they work, but do not qualify for sick pay. \nThe charity National Trust, which employs many of its seasonal workers on zero-hours contracts, said it offered the same pay and benefits to those workers, pro rata, as full-time staff, but needed some workers to be on a more flexible arrangement. \n\u201cWe believe zero-hours contracts are essential in our organization, as we are very weather- dependent,\u201d a spokeswoman said. \u201cOur properties have told us it\u2019s important to be able to reorganize staff rotas quickly to respond to the weather and zero-hours contracts allow us to do this.\u201d \nPolitician Chuka Umunna said the contracts should be the exception to the rule. \u201cWhile some employees welcome the flexibility of such contracts, for many, zero-hours contracts leave them insecure and unsure of when work will come,\u201d he said. \nSome people have argued that the flexibility of zero-hours contracts may have allowed the UK to avoid higher levels of unemployment during the economic downturn, while the CIPD research suggests that only 16% of those on zero-hours contracts report that their employer frequently fails to provide them with sufficient hours each week. \nThe institute\u2019s figures also suggest that 17% of employers in the private sector made use of zero- hours contracts, considerably lower than the 34% of organizations in the voluntary sector and 24% in the public sector. \nIndustries where employers were most likely to report at least one person on a zero-hours contract were hotels, catering and leisure (48%), education (35%) and healthcare (27%).","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Scientists have made an \u201catlas of the brain\u201d. It shows how the meanings of words are organized in different regions of the brain. The atlas uses rainbow colours to show how words and their meanings are grouped together in areas of the brain.\n\u201cWe wanted to build a giant atlas that shows how the meanings of words are represented in the brain,\u201d said Jack Gallant, a neuroscientist at the University of California, Berkeley.\nNo single brain region contains one word or idea. A single brain spot contains a number of related words. And, each single word appears in many different brain spots. Together, they form networks that represent the meanings of each word we use: life and love, death and taxes. All have their own networks. \nThe atlas shows how modern imaging can completely change what we know about how the brain does some of its most important tasks. With further work, the technology could have an enormous effect on medicine and other areas of study.\n\u201cIt is possible that we could use this technology to decode information about what words a person is hearing, reading or possibly even thinking,\u201d said Alexander Huth, the main author of the study. One possible use would be a language decoder that could allow people who can\u2019t talk, because they have a serious illness, to speak through a computer.\nTo make the atlas, the scientists recorded people\u2019s brain activity while they listened to stories. Then, they matched the transcripts of the stories with the brain activity data to show how groups of related words produced 50,000 to 80,000 responses all over the brain. Huth used short, interesting stories. The stories had to be interesting so that the people in the experiment would listen to the words and not fall asleep. Seven people listened to two hours of stories each. Each person heard about 25,000 words \u2013 and more than 3,000 different words \u2013 as they lay in the scanner.\nThe atlas shows how words and related terms use the same regions of the brain. For example, on the left-hand side of the brain, above the ear, is one of the tiny regions that represents the word \u201cvictim\u201d. The same region responds to \u201ckilled\u201d and \u201cmurdered \u201d. On the brain\u2019s right-hand side, near the top of the head, is one of the brain spots used for family terms: \u201cwife\u201d, \u201chusband\u201d, \u201cchildren\u201d, \u201cparents\u201d.\nEach word is represented by more than one spot because words often have many meanings. One part of the brain, for example, is used for the word \u201ctop\u201d and also for other words that describe clothes. But, the word \u201ctop\u201d also uses many other regions. One of them is for numbers and measurements, another for buildings and places. Interestingly, the brain atlases were similar for all the people in the experiment. This suggests that their brains organized the meanings of words in the same way. But, the scientists only scanned five men and two women. All are native English speakers. It is highly possible that people from different backgrounds and cultures will have different brain atlases.\nLorraine Tyler, a neuroscientist and head of the Centre for Speech, Language and the Brain at Cambridge University, said the research was a great achievement. But, at the moment, the brain atlas does not show small differences in word meanings. \u201cThis research is amazing and new, there is still a lot to learn about how the meaning of words is represented in the brain.\u201d","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Music subscription services, like Spotify and Deezer, have made more than $1bn worldwide, as fans choose to pay for music online.\nIncome from music streaming and subscription rose by more than 50% in 2013 to reach $1.1bn. And, sales of recorded music in Europe grew for the first time in 12 years.\nMany people still listen for free, but many others are willing to pay money to get a better choice of music. In three years, the number of paying subscribers rose from 8 million to 28 million, according to the 2014 digital music report from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI).\nSubscription services are easily accessible from smartphones and tablets, so they are popular with people who want to try out new music without buying a download or a CD. People like this cheap, user-friendly and legal alternative to pirated downloads.\nIn Britain and America, streaming may soon make more money for the music industry than downloads from online stores such as Apple\u2019s iTunes. A third of all digital sales globally now come from subscription services and the other two thirds come from downloads.\nIn the US, the percentage of people using subscription services and streaming rose from 19% in 2012 to 23%. At the same time, the percentage of people downloading fell from 28% to 27%.\nIn Britain, the number of people downloading music stayed the same at exactly one third, but subscribers grew from 19% to 22%. In Sweden, France and Italy, streaming is already more popular than downloading.\nThirty-nine per cent of all music sales are now digital. Sales of CDs and vinyl reduced a lot in 2013, but they still make just over half the music industry\u2019s income.\nVinyl continued to make a comeback in some places. Sales increased by 32% in America and by 101% in the UK in 2013.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Tigers are more numerous in Nepal than at any time since the 1970s, a new census has revealed, giving conservationists hope that the big cats, whose numbers have been dropping across south Asia for 100 years, can be saved. \nThe number of wild royal bengal tigers in Nepal has increased to 198 \u2013 a 63.6% rise in five years \u2013 the government survey showed.\u201d This is very encouraging,\u201d said Maheshwar Dhakal, an ecologist with Nepal\u2019s Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation. \nThe census is based on the examination of pictures from more than 500 cameras placed in five protected areas and three wildlife corridors. More than 250 conservationists and wildlife experts worked on the survey, which cost about \u00a3250,000. \nDhakal said that a parallel survey was conducted in India and the results from both countries will be published later in 2013.\u201d It will take a few more months for India, which now has 1,300 big cats in several huge protected areas, to finalize the data,\u201d he added. \nNepal has pledged to double the population of tigers by the year 2022 from 121 in 2009 when the last systematic tiger count took place. Increasing prosperity in Asia has pushed up prices for tiger skins and the body parts used in traditional Chinese medicines. International gangs pay poor local Nepali significant sums to kill the cats. The skin and bones are handed to middlemen, who pass easily through the porous border to India, where the major dealers are based. \nOne major problem is complicity between senior officials and mafia networks involved in the trade. Conservation experts credit the increase in numbers to the effective policing of national parks, stronger anti-poaching drives and better management of tiger habitats in Nepal, where forests cover 29% of the land. But they say Nepal needs to do more to protect the habitat and animals on which tigers prey so the big cats have enough space to roam and food to eat. \nAs the number of tigers has increased over the years, so have incidents of conflict with villagers. Seven people were killed in attacks by tigers around national parks in 2012 compared to four in 2011, park officials said. Villagers are also seeking better protection.\u201d The government is making conservation plans for tigers. But it should also come up with plans to protect people from tigers,\u201d Krishna Bhurtel, a local village headman in Chitwan, told Nepali newspaper Nagarik. \nWildlife authorities captured a tiger in Chitwan after it killed two people, including a villager who was pulled from his bed in May. Thousands of tigers once roamed the forests in Bangladesh, India and Nepal. But their numbers have dropped to about 3,000, a 95% drop over a century. Chitwan National Park in central Nepal has the highest number of adult tigers, with 120, followed by Bardiya National Park (50) and Shukla Phanta Wildlife Reserve (17). \nDiwakar Chapagain, who heads a World Wildlife Fund Nepal unit that monitors wildlife trade, said tiger skins were in demand in Tibet, where well-heeled people use them as festival costumes. \nIn Nepal, kings used to stand on tiger skins in front of stuffed tigers for special occasions. Some affluent Nepali have mounted tiger heads on the walls of their living rooms. Tiger bones are in high demand for use in traditional Chinese medicines.\u201d The trade in tiger parts is lucrative and fetches thousands of dollars in illegal markets,\u201d Chapagain said, highlighting the threat tigers face.","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"According to a recent scientific study, organic food has more healthy antioxidants than regular food. It also has fewer toxic metals and pesticides. The international team that did the study suggests that changing to organic fruit and vegetables could be as healthy as adding one or two portions of the recommended \u2018five a day\u2019 fruit and vegetables.\nThe team, led by Professor Carlo Leifert, concludes that there are big differences between organic and non-organic food. Organic food has between 19% and 69% more antioxidants. It is the first study to show clear differences between organic and regular fruits, vegetables and cereals.\nThe researchers say that the higher levels of antioxidants have the same effect as \u201cone to two of the five portions of fruits and vegetables that people should eat every day\u201d. They say this means that organic food is better for our health.\nThe findings will make people argue even more about whether or not organic food is better for people. Tom Sanders, a professor of nutrition at King\u2019s College London, said the research showed some differences. \u201cBut are the differences relevant? I am not sure.\u201d He also said that research showed organic cereals have less protein than regular crops.\nThe results of the research are based on an analysis of 343 studies from around the world \u2013 more than ever before \u2013 which examine differences between organic and regular fruit, vegetables and cereals. Helen Browning, who supports organic farming, said that the research showed that how we farm affects the quality of the food we eat.\nLeifert and his colleagues conclude that many antioxidants reduce the risk of serious diseases, including diseases of the heart and certain cancers. The researchers also found much higher levels of cadmium, a toxic metal, in regular crops.\nThey found four times more pesticides on regular crops than on organic food.\nPeople will criticize the research: including so many studies in the analysis could make the results unreliable. Also, the higher levels of cadmium and pesticides in regular food are still below recommended limits. But, the researchers say that cadmium stays in the body and that some people may want to avoid this. They also say that recommended limits are for single pesticides and not for the mixture of chemicals that farmers use on regular crops.\nAnother criticism of the research is that the differences it found may be the result of different climates, different types of soil and different types of crops; they may not be the result of organic farming. But, the biggest criticism will be about possible health benefits. The most recent major analysis, which included 223 studies in 2012, found little evidence of health benefits. \u201cOther studies did not find evidence that organic foods are much more nutritious than regular foods,\u201d it found.\nSanders agrees. \u201cYou are not going to be healthier if you eat organic food,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat is most important is what you eat, not whether it\u2019s organic or regular. It\u2019s whether you eat fruit and vegetables at all.\u201d\nShoppers say that healthy eating (55%) and avoiding chemicals (53%) are the main reasons they buy organic food. Browning said: \u201cThis research supports what people think about organic food. In other countries, there is much more support and acceptance of the benefits of organic food and farming. We hope that now the UK will accept organic food like people in the rest of Europe.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nIf the amount of food wasted around the world were reduced by just 25%, there would be enough food to feed all the people who are malnourished, according to the UN. Each year, 1.3bn tonnes of food, about a third of all that is produced, is wasted. This includes about 45% of all fruit and vegetables, 35% of  sh and seafood, 30% of cereals, 20% of dairy products and 20% of meat. Meanwhile, 795 million people suffer from severe hunger and malnutrition.\nThe UN identi es the problem of food waste as one of the great challenges to achieving food security. By 2050, food production will have to increase by 60%, compared to 2005 levels, to feed a growing global population. Reducing food waste would help to meet future demand.\nThe problem is global but appears in very different ways. In developing countries, there is a lot of food loss, which is unintentional waste, often due to poor equipment, transportation and infrastructure. In wealthy countries, there are low levels of food loss but high levels of food waste, which means food is thrown away by consumers because they have purchased too much or by retailers who reject food because of strict standards of appearance.\nIn developed countries, consumers and retailers throw away between 30% and 40% of all food purchased, whereas, in poorer countries, only 5% to 16% of food is thrown away.\nIn the developing world, food waste is almost non-existent, says Robert van Otterdijk, coordinator of the UN Food and Agriculture Organizations Save Food programme. Food waste is happening in countries where people can afford to throw away food. But, on the other hand, there are a lot of food losses in developing countries because of the underdeveloped conditions they have.\nThe environmental impact of food loss and waste is high. The carbon footprint of food produced and not eaten is estimated at 3.3 gigatonnes of CO2  this means that, if food waste were a country, it would be the third highest emitter of greenhouse gases after the US and China. About 30% of available agricultural land is used to grow or farm food that is subsequently wasted. And more surface and groundwater is used to produce wasted food around the globe than is used for agriculture by any single country, including India and China.\nClimate change is caused by our economy of production and consumption because it is out of balance with what the Earth can provide, says van Otterdijk. Production of food is one of the biggest production sectors in the world and, if one-third of all this is wasted, you can imagine what a huge effect this has on the natural resources  on land, water, energy and greenhouse gas emissions.\nThe places that waste the most food are the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, where consumers waste 39% of all food purchased. Next is Europe, where about 31% of all food purchased by consumers is thrown away. In the UK, 15m tonnes of food is lost or wasted each year. British consumers throw away 4.2m tonnes of edible food each year. This means that 11.7% of all food purchased is wasted, which costs each family 700 a year.\nThe foods most commonly found in British bins are bread, vegetables, fruit and milk. The most wasted food in the UK by weight is bread, with consumers throwing away 414,000 tonnes (22.4%) of all bread purchased. By percentage, the most wasted food is lettuce and leafy salads, of which consumers throw away 38% (64,000 tonnes) of all they buy.\nThe UK has made progress in the past ten years after a campaign to reduce waste. Van Otterdijk says the UK has been very successful in combating food waste. Between 2007 and 2012, the amount of food waste produced by UK households decreased by 21%, from 5.3m tonnes to 4.2m tonnes, largely due to greater awareness.\nVan Otterdijk says there has been a very encouraging, unexpected, continuing interest in food waste and this enables campaigns around the world to gain momentum. We have to do much more and it needs the participation of public and private sectors, he says. But, if it continues like this, maybe, after ten years, well have globally signi cant results.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Intermediate\nThe right of Bolivias indigenous Indian tribes to 1 chew coca leaves, the main ingredient in cocaine, has caused major international disagreement, which could have a significant effect on global drugs policy. Bolivia has received a special exemption from the 1961 Convention on Narcotic Drugs, which controls international drugs policy. The exemption allows Bolivias indigenous people to chew the leaves.\nBolivia had argued that the convention was in 2 opposition to its new constitution, adopted in 2009, which says it must protect native and ancestral coca as part of its cultural heritage and maintains that coca in its natural state  is not a narcotic.\nSouth American Indians have chewed coca 3 leaves for centuries. The leaves are said to provide energy and have medicinal qualities. Supporters of Bolivias position said that defending the rights of indigenous people was the right thing to do. The Bolivian move is inspirational and groundbreaking, said Danny Kushlick, of the Transform Drug Policy Foundation, which supports drug liberalization. It shows that any country that is fed up with the war on drugs can change its relations with the UN conventions.\nHowever, the UNs International Narcotics Control 4 Board (INCB), which checks implementation of global drug treaties, says that Bolivia is threatening international drug controls. A number of countries  including the UK, the US, Italy, Sweden, the Netherlands and Russia  opposed Bolivias demands.\nThe UK told the UN that it respects the cultural 5 importance of the coca leaf in Bolivia, but it adds: The United Kingdom is  worried that the exemption could lead to increases in coca production and  most importantly  the amount of coca that goes into the cocaine trade. As a result, the exemption would weaken  the global effort to tackle the drugs trade.\nThe right of indigenous people in South Americas 6 Andean region to chew coca leaf was removed in 1964 when Bolivia was under a dictatorship and it signed up to the convention. But Bolivia was given 25 years to implement the ban. This arrangement came to an end in 1989 and since then the issue has been under dispute.\nIn 2011, Bolivia  whose President, Evo Morales, 7 is a former coca producer  formally told the UN that it did not want to be in the convention any more. It has now signed up to the convention again, but with an exemption so that its indigenous people can continue chewing coca leaves.\nThe exemption is the first of its kind in the 8 history of UN drug-control treaties and has led to concerns that other countries may apply for exemptions. The Russian government has argued that the exemption will lead to an increase in illegal circulation of cocaine and warned that it also sets a dangerous precedent that could be used by other states in creating a more liberal drug-control regime.\nThe British parliament has recommended that 9 Bolivias request should be supported by the UK government. It argues that it is important that countries stay in the convention. Bolivias return could be blocked only if a third or more of the 184 countries that have signed up to the convention opposed its request. There are suspicions that the US and UK are trying to persuade other countries to block Bolivias request.\nNancie Prudhomme, of the International Centre 10 on Human Rights and Drug Policy, criticized the co-ordinated opposition to Bolivias demands. These objections are legally questionable, she said. They support an arbitrary and over-broad provision and apply international drug laws in a vacuum. This is not right. No state has paid any attention to decades of developing international norms on cultural and indigenous rights, which support Bolivias efforts.\nThe decision to ban coca chewing was based on 11 a 1950 report produced by the UN Commission of Inquiry on the Coca Leaf, which supporters of drug liberalization say was not based on evidence. The growing of coca leaves is legal and licensed in Bolivia. Some believe this has led to a fall in cocaine production in the country. For this reason, some experts see Bolivia as a model for other countries.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nBarack Obama has urged young people to reject pessimism and interact with people who have different beliefs if they want to make changes in the world.\nOn the final day of his last visit to Britain as US president, Obama told 500 youth leaders at a meeting in London: Im here to ask you to reject the idea that there are forces we cant control. As JFK said, our problems are manmade and can be solved by man.\nYouve never had better tools to make a difference, he told the students at the question-and-answer session. Reject pessimism, cynicism and know that progress is possible. Progress is not inevitable; it requires struggle, discipline and faith.\nBut Obama said he knew that young people had many challenges. He said it was a time of breathtaking change, from 9\/11, 7\/7  and during an age of information and Twitter where theres a steady stream of bad news.\nThe audience cheered as the president was introduced. He spoke about his policies, including healthcare and education.\nHe urged the audience to interact with people with different political beliefs: Seek out people who dont agree with you and it will also help you to compromise.\nObama said he was proud of his healthcare reforms, which received huge cheers from the audience, and said of the US response to the 2008 financial crisis: Saving the world from great depression  that was quite good.\nHe also listed diplomatic deals with Iran and the response to the Ebola crisis as highlights of his presidency. Im proud; I think Ive been true to myself.\nQuestioned on the controversial Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), he said: The answer to globalization is not to pull up the drawbridge, though he said it is crucial to pay attention to workers rights.\nBefore Obama arrived, Tanya Williams, a community officer, told the Guardian: I love Michelle but I like Barack Obama and its exciting to have the chance to hear someone who has changed so much and encouraged so many people who didnt vote before to vote for the first time.\nOliver Sidorczuk, 26, said: Everyone is extremely excited to listen to what he has to say. Im going to ask him about electoral rights.\nObama ended the session by taking a question from a young Sikh Londoner, who asked about the problem of racial profiling at airports and being mistaken for a Muslim.\nObama said that, although there were people with crazy ideology, living together peacefully was important. I visited a mosque a few months ago and said our greatest allies are American Muslims who are integrated, he said.\nFurqan Naeem, a campaigner from Manchester, said: I recently visited the United States and I saw some really important work the president did  the work celebrated Americas diversity and brought communities together.\nKenny Imafidon, the managing director of a youth organization, said afterwards: What I will remember is what he said about meeting with people who have different politics from you and having to make compromises. Also, the thing he said about being a good leader and finding great talent.\nLater, Obama met Jeremy Corbyn, who said they had an excellent 90-minute discussion.\nWhen he was asked if they talked about the debate on Britains membership of the EU, Corbyn said they discussed it briefly.\nAfter the meeting, Obama joined David Cameron to play golf. Obama ended the day at a dinner with the British prime minister and the US ambassador, Matthew Barzun, before travelling to Germany.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nChemists have waited a long time for a new element to turn up and, now, four have been discovered by researchers in Japan, Russia and the US. The four new elements are the first to be added to the periodic table since 2011, when elements 114 and 116 were included. The new elements, all highly radioactive, complete seventh row of the periodic table and mean that science textbooks around the world are now out of date.\nThe US-based International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), the global organization that controls chemical names, terminology and measurement, verified the elements on 30 December, 2015 after examining studies dating back to 2004. The scientists who found them must now come up with formal names to replace the Latin-based temporary names  ununtrium, ununpentium, ununseptium and ununoctium  which reflect their atomic numbers, 113, 115, 117, and 118. The atomic number is the number of protons found in an elements atomic nucleus.\nIUPAC announced that a Russian-American team of scientists at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California had produced enough evidence to claim the discovery of elements 115, 117 and 118. The organization gave credit for the discovery of element 113, which had also been claimed by the Russians and Americans, to a team of scientists from the RIKEN Institute in Japan. The decision means Japan becomes the first Asian country to name an element. Under IUPAC rules, new elements can be named after mythological concepts, minerals, a place or country, or a scientist.\nWhen elements 114 and 116 were given formal names in 2012, scientists chose flerovium and livermorium respectively, after the Flerov Lab at Dubnas Joint Institute of Research and the Lawrence Livermore Lab in the US, where the elements were discovered. Kosuke Morita, who led the research at RIKEN, said his team now planned to look to the uncharted territory of element 119 and beyond. Jan Reedijk of IUPAC, said: The chemistry community is eager to see the table finally completed down to the seventh row.\nThe Japanese team is considering three names for ununtrium: japonium, rikenium and nishinarium, after the Nishina Center for Accelerator-Based Science, where the element was found. They have been thinking about it for a while already, said Polly Arnold, professor of chemistry at Edinburgh University. This is painstaking work. The work helps us with our models and with understanding radioactive decay. If we understand it better, hopefully we can improve how we deal with nuclear waste and things that are important in the real world. It also leads to fantastic technological advances in building the kit to make these observations.\nAlong with new names, the scientists must suggest two-letter symbols for the elements. When IUPAC has received the researchers suggestions, they will go to public review for five months. That allows scientists and others to raise any objections. In 1996, the symbol Cp was suggested for copernicium, or element 112, but it was changed to Cn when scientists complained that Cp referred to another substance.\nTo discover the elements, researchers at the three labs slammed lighter nuclei into one another and looked for radioactive decays that should come from the new elements. Ununtrium and ununpentium are thought to be metals. Ununseptium could be a metalloid. The fourth element, ununoctium, may be a gas, like other elements, helium, neon and argon. It is hard to know for sure because so few atoms of each element have ever been made.\nPaul Karol, chair of the IUPAC panel that verified the elements, said: It will be a long time before we can find practical uses for the new elements.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Intermediate\nBenjamin Carle is 96.9% made in France, including even his underpants and socks. Unfortunately, six Ikea forks, a Chinese guitar and unsourced wall paint stopped him being declared a 100% economic patriot, but nobody is perfect.\nCarle, 26, decided, in 2013, to see if it was possible to live using only French-made products for ten months as part of a television documentary.\nHe got the idea after the Minister for Economic Renewal, Arnaud Montebourg, asked the French people to buy French products to save the countrys industrial production sector.\nFor the experiment, Carle had to give up his smartphone, television, refrigerator (all made in China); his glasses (Italian); his underpants (Moroccan); morning coffee (Guatemalan) and his favourite David Bowie music (British).\nFortunately, his girlfriend, Anas, and cat, Loon, are both French.\nPoliticians say all sorts of things. I wanted to see if it was possible to do what the minister was asking us to do, Carle said.\nHe had just three rules: eat only food produced in France, remove any contact with foreign-made goods and do so on 1,800 a month (above the minimum wage of 1,430 to cover the extra expense of living in Paris).\nThe journalist was shocked to find out, at the start of the experiment, that only 4.5% of the contents of his flat were made in France  and that the rest would have to go, including the lightbulbs (China) and green beans (Kenya).\nLeft without a refrigerator (none are made in France), he was forced to chill his food on the window ledge.\nHis foreign-made clothes, including his underwear, were replaced with more expensive alternatives: French-produced underpants (26), socks (9), polo shirt (75), espadrille sandals (26), but no jeans because none are produced in France.\nDuring the experiment, Carle hunted in supermarkets for 100% French-made products, learned to cook seasonal fruit and vegetables grown in France, proudly brushed his teeth with a toothbrush made in France and hand-washed his underwear until he found a French-made washing machine (which opened at the top and so would not fit under the kitchen counter).\nGoing out with friends was a problem  no American films, no Belgian beer, no sushi or pizza. Staying home, with no sofa for the first few months and no television, meant listening to French singer Michel Sardou and reading French novels. French wine was, of course, allowed and French-Canadian singer Cline Dion, but not French bands such as Daft Punk, who sing in English.\nUnable to use his British-made bicycle or even a French car, because he discovered that the only affordable Peugeot, Renault and Citron models are mostly made overseas, he bought an orange Mobylette moped.\nThe last things to go were the computer, replaced by a Qooq, a recipe tablet that connects  slowly  to the internet and the iPhone, which he swapped for an old Sagem mobile.\nCarle said his aim was to save the French economy. He admits the experiment was part serious and part jest. At one point, he asked a French language expert to check if he should use cool and other English words  he was advised to swap it for the nearest French equivalent: chouette.\nWhen he discovered that France makes no refrigerators (apart from wine coolers) or televisions, but makes aeroplane seats and windmills, he sighed and said: Great. Nothing that will fit into my apartment.\nAt the end of the experiment, Carle took out a bank loan to buy new furniture and clothes. A special auditor declared him 96.9% made in France and Montebourg visited to present him with a medal.\nCarles conclusion: Its not entirely possible or even desirable to live 100% made in France, particularly in terms of new technology. But that wasnt the point.\nThis wasnt about French nationalism or patriotism. It was trying to show that we should reflect about the way we buy and make different choices, and that applies in all countries. If we want to save jobs and industries, wherever we are, we might think about supporting them.\nA T-shirt is more expensive in France but I can be sure it has been produced by workers who are correctly paid and have good working conditions. I cannot be sure about a cheaper T-shirt produced in Asia or Morocco. People could do more as consumers.\nCarle says he hopes to continue supporting French industry and producers, but not 100%. It is a full-time job just finding the stuff, he said.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"\u201cI got a Dyson vacuum cleaner but I don\u2019t even know if I want it. I just picked it up,\u201d Louise Haggerty, a 56-year-old hairdresser and waitress, said of her 1am trip to the Black Friday sales. \u201cIt was mental in there. It was crazy. It was absolutely disgusting, disgusting.\u201d \nHaggerty had ventured out to the 24-hour Sainsbury\u2019s supermarket in Harringay, north-east London with a friend in the hope of snapping up a bargain flat-screen TV. \u201cBut so many people pushed in the queue we didn\u2019t have a chance,\u201d she said. \u201cThe poor woman who was second in the queue was pushed out by a crowd of youths. She didn\u2019t get anything. People were behaving like animals \u2013 it was horrible,\u201d she said. \u201cI only saw two security guards.\u201d \nFrustrated with not being able to buy a Blaupunkt 40\u201d TV reduced from \u00a3299.99 to \u00a3149.99, Haggerty rushed to pick up a Dyson Animal Vac, down from \u00a3319.99 to \u00a3159.99. \u201cI don\u2019t even know how much it costs; I don\u2019t know even know if I\u2019m going to buy it. I just wanted something,\u201d she said. \u201cThere are lads in there with three, four, five tellies. It\u2019s not fair.\u201d \nOne of those lads was Andy Blackett, 30, an estate agent, who had two trolleys full of bargains. \u201cI got two coffee makers, two tablets, two TVs and a stereo,\u201d he said. \u201cI couldn\u2019t tell you the prices but I know they\u2019re bargains.\u201d But his mate Henry Fischer, a 19-year-old student, wasn\u2019t as successful. \u201cSomeone snatched my telly from me \u2013 it\u2019s cos I\u2019m the smaller one.\u201d \nBlackett, Fischer and some mates had driven to Sainsbury\u2019s at 12.45am after retreating from the \u201cbedlam\u201d of Tesco\u2019s 24-hour Lea Valley supermarket, where the Black Friday sale started at midnight. \u201cTesco was scary so we came here instead,\u201d Blackett said. \nMore than a dozen police officers attended the Tesco store on Glover Drive, Upper Edmonton, as scuffles broke out between eager and frustrated shoppers. Customers were seen tearing down cardboard hoardings put in place to hold back sale items until the stroke of midnight. Tesco delayed the sale of its most popular sale items \u2013 TVs \u2013 for almost an hour until police brought the situation under control. One officer was overheard criticizing the manager for failing to ensure adequate security and suggested the sale should be suspended altogether. The Tesco store is across the road from an IKEA furniture store that was the scene of riots when it opened with a midnight sale in 2005. \nPolice intervened at other stores, including Tesco in Willesden and Surrey Quays, just before the doors opened at midnight. Greater Manchester Police said at least two people had been arrested at Black Friday sales events already that morning. The force said on its Twitter feed: \u201cKeep calm, people!\u201d South Wales Police also reported receiving a number of calls from staff at Tesco stores after they became \u201cconcerned due to the volume of people who had turned up to sale events\u201d. \nOne of the first purchasers of a flat-screen TV, when TV sales began just before 1am, was James Alled, 30, a businessman, who bought two and was already negotiating to sell one of them to someone further down the queue. \u201cI bought them for \u00a3250. I\u2019ll sell it to you for \u00a3350, \u00a3300 cash,\u201d he said. Further back in the queue, Christine Ball, 62, wasn\u2019t impressed. \u201cI got here at 10.15pm and I\u2019m further back now than when I got here,\u201d she said. \u201cNone of that lot know what a queue is.\u201d \nBall, who, like most of the shoppers, had not heard of the US-inspired Black Friday sales until now, said she had come out especially to buy her grandson a TV for Christmas. \u201cNot one of those massive ones; just a normal one at \u00a3100 or so,\u201d she said. In her basket was a pint of semi-skimmed and a loaf of bread. \u201cTelly, milk and bread \u2013 the necessities,\u201d she said. \nMel Mehmet, 23, had been to Black Friday sales in 2013 and had expected queues but said the atmosphere in Tesco scared her this time. \u201cIt\u2019s crazy, really, having it at midnight \u2013 the police must have more important things to do at night than be called to sales. We\u2019re going to PC World first thing \u2013 their sale starts at 8am.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Barack Obama has urged young people to reject pessimism and interact with those who have different beliefs if they want to make changes in the world. \nOn the final day of his last visit to Britain as US president, Obama told 500 youth leaders at a town hall meeting in London: \u201cI\u2019m here to ask you to reject the notion there are forces we can\u2019t control. As JFK said, our problems are manmade and can be solved by man.\u201d \n\u201cYou\u2019ve never had better tools to make a difference,\u201d he told the A-level and UK \u2013US exchange students at the Q&A session. \u201cReject pessimism, cynicism and know that progress is possible. Progress is not inevitable; it requires struggle, discipline and faith.\u201d \nBut Obama acknowledged the challenges faced by young people: \u201cNot to say your generation has had it easy, in a time of breathtaking change, from 9\/11, 7\/7 \u2026 and during an age of information and Twitter where there\u2019s a steady stream of bad news.\u201d \nThe audience cheered as the president was introduced and went on to speak about his policies, including healthcare and education. \nHe urged the audience to interact with people with different political beliefs: \u201cSeek out people who don\u2019t agree with you and it will also help you to compromise.\u201d \nObama also said: \u201cYou should feel encouraged social attitudes are changing. That doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s fast enough but you should keep pushing and it\u2019s in part due to the courageous acts of young people like yourself.\u201d \nWhen asked about his presidential legacy, Obama said he was proud of the healthcare reforms, which received huge cheers from the audience, and said of the US response to the 2008 financial crisis: \u201cSaving the world from great depression \u2013 that was quite good.\u201d \nHe also listed diplomatic deals with Iran and the response to the Ebola crisis as highlights of his presidency. \u201cI\u2019m proud; I think I\u2019ve been true to myself during this process.\u201d \nBut he added: \u201cDon\u2019t give up and succumb to cynics if, after five years, poverty hasn\u2019t been eradicated \u2026 It\u2019s OK. Dr Martin Luther King says the arc of the moral universe is long but bends towards justice.\u201d \nQuestioned on the controversial Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), he said: \u201cThe answer to globalization is not to pull up the drawbridge and shut off,\u201d though it was crucial to pay attention to workers\u2019 rights. \nBefore Obama arrived, Tanya Williams, a community engagement officer, told the Guardian: \u201cI love Michelle but I like Obama and it\u2019s exciting to have the chance to hear someone who has changed so much and galvanized so many people who didn\u2019t vote before.\u201d \nOliver Sidorczuk, 26, said: \u201cEveryone is extremely excited to listen to what he has to say. I\u2019m going to ask him about electoral rights and try to ask him if he would join our campaign to ask David Cameron for automatic registration.\u201d \nObama ended the session by taking a question from a young Sikh Londoner, who asked about the issue of racial profiling at airports and being mistaken for a Muslim. \nObama said that, although there were people with \u201ccrazy ideology\u201d, pluralism was important. \u201cI visited a mosque a few months ago and said our greatest allies are American Muslims who are most integrated and economically well off,\u201d he said. \nFurqan Naeem, a campaigner from Manchester, said: \u201cI recently visited the States through the US embassy on the community leaders programme and saw first hand some really important work the president did in celebrating America\u2019s diversity and bringing communities together.\u201d \nKenny Imafidon, the managing director of the youth organization ClearView Research, said afterwards: \u201cIt was a great opportunity and what will stick with me is what he said about meeting with people who have different politics from you and having to make compromises. Also, the thing he said about being a good leader and finding great talent.\u201d \nLater, Obama met Jeremy Corbyn, who said they had an \u201cexcellent\u201d 90-minute discussion. \nThe Labour leader said they talked about \u201cthe challenges facing postindustrial societies and the power of global corporations, and the increasing use of technology around the world and the effect that it has.\u201d\nAsked if they talked about the president\u2019s intervention in the debate on Britain\u2019s membership of the EU, Corbyn said it was discussed briefly. \nAfter the meeting, Obama joined Cameron to play golf at the Grove in Chandlers Cross, Hertfordshire. Obama ended the day at a dinner with the prime minister and the US ambassador, Matthew Barzun, at the ambassador\u2019s residence, before travelling on to Germany.","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nThe US Senate Intelligence Committee has approved a bill that would make the National Security Agencys bulk collection of US phone records more transparent but allow it to continue. Introduced by Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, the bill lets the NSA continue to collect phone metadata of millions of Americans and allows the government to keep the data. The bill passed the committee by an 11-4 vote and will now be voted on by the full Senate.\nThe bill allows analysts to search through the data if they think there is a reasonable suspicion that someone is associated with international terrorism. The bill also allows the NSA to continue surveillance that is begun on foreigners outside the US if they enter the country, for a period of up to 72 hours.\nThe bill is a direct challenge to another bill introduced by Senator Patrick Leahy that would end domestic phone-records collection. It was also opposed by leading Intelligence Committee member Mark Udall, who said it did not go far enough. The NSAs surveillance of Americans private information does not respect our constitutional values and needs fundamental reform, Udall said.\nFeinstein defended the NSA bulk collection programme, but said there was a need to rebuild public trust. The NSA call-records programme is legal, and I believe it contributes to our national security, she said in a statement. But more can, and should, be done to increase transparency and build public support for privacy protections in place.\nFeinstein said the bill would also make a number of improvements to transparency and checks on the NSA  for example, someone who accesses data acquired under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) by the United States without permission could spend up to ten years in prison. There would also be a limit on the number of contacts an analyst can receive in response to a request for bulk communication records.\nAfter the committees hearing had ended, Feinstein strongly supported the NSAs main domestic programme. I think theres huge misunderstanding about this NSA database programme, and how vital it is to protecting this country, she said.\nConcern over the Intelligence Committees bill was expressed by independent legal experts. Elizabeth Goitein of the Brennan Center for Justice said: The Intelligence Committee bill and the USA Freedom Act present two opposing visions of the relationship between law-abiding Americans and the national security state. The fundamental question is: should the government have some reason to suspect wrongdoing before collecting Americans most personal information to feed into its databases? Leahy says yes; Feinstein says no.\nDemocratic committee member Ron Wyden suggested that recent concern about NSA spying on foreign leaders had taken attention away from the real focus on mass surveillance in the US. The statements that American intelligence officials have made about collecting data from foreign leaders is consistent with the understanding Ive had for years, as a member of the Intelligence Committee, he said. That has implications for foreign policy. My top priority is ending the mass surveillance, digital surveillance, on millions and millions of lawabiding Americans.\nTo everyones surprise, Feinstein announced that she was totally opposed to the foreign leader spying of the sort the NSA conducts on German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Feinstein has been a strong supporter of the NSAs bulk collection of Americans phone records.\nAmericans are making it clear, that they never  repeat, never  agreed to give up their constitutional liberties for the appearance of security, Wyden said. Were just going to keep fighting this battle. Its going to be a long one.\nFeinsteins strong support for domestic phone records collection shows that she is not yet ready to expand the criticism of the NSA that she gave when she totally opposed its surveillance of foreign allied leaders  a more traditional intelligence activity than bulk phone metadata surveillance.\nDecades ago, countries had their own kinds of communication systems. Now that youve had the merger of global communications, I think youre going to have a lot more challenges spying on foreigners with implications for US citizens, Wyden said.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"People are talking a lot about loneliness at the moment. The Office for National Statistics says that Britain is the loneliest place in Europe. British people have fewer strong friendships than other Europeans and they know their neighbours less well. Research at the University of Chicago has found that loneliness is twice as bad for older people\u2019s health as obesity. They also found that loneliness causes almost as many deaths as poverty.\nThis is shocking but these studies do not talk about loneliness in younger adults. In 2010, a Mental Health Foundation survey found that loneliness was a bigger worry for young people than for the elderly. The 18- to 34-year-olds in the survey felt lonely more often, worried more about feeling alone and felt more depressed because of loneliness than people over 55.\n\u201cWe know that loneliness is a problem for the elderly and there are day centres and charities to help them,\u201d says Sam Challis, of the mental health charity Mind, \u201cbut, young people over 21 are too old for youth services.\u201d This is not good because loneliness can cause mental health problems \u2013 loneliness causes stress, depression, paranoia, anxiety, addiction and it can cause suicide.\nBut what can young people do to prevent loneliness? One researcher says that social media and the internet can be both a good thing and a problem. They are a good thing when they allow us to communicate with friends and family far away but not when they replace face-to-face contact. \u201cPeople present \u2018perfect\u2019 versions of themselves online and we expect to have social lives like the lives we see in the media,\u201d says Challis. If we compare the \u2018perfect\u2019 lives of our friends with our own lives, this can make us want to stay at home alone.\nA study of social media at the University of Michigan in 2013 found that using technology to help you meet new people can be a good thing. And, if you can\u2019t go out, the internet can help you.\nFor example, Mumsnet, an online network for parents, can help you feel less alone when you are at home with young children.\nHelplines can also reduce loneliness, at least in the short term. One in four of men who call the emotional support charity Samaritans say they are lonely. Get Connected is a free helpline for young people, where they can get help with emotional and mental health problems caused by loneliness.\nAt work, it can be a good idea to tell your employer how you\u2019re feeling. Talking to your colleagues may seem like a waste of time but it can help to protect us from the emotional and psychological problems caused by working too hard.\nAccording to recent research, loneliness is killing the elderly and, with an ageing population, we should try to reduce our isolation before it is too late. \u201cGetting older doesn\u2019t have to mean getting lonelier,\u201d says Ruth Sutherland, the chief executive of the relationship counselling service Relate. \u201cBut it is very important to create good- quality relationships earlier in life.\u201d","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"That millennials rely heavily on technology is no secret. More than eight in ten say they sleep with a mobile phone by their bed, almost two thirds admit to texting while driving, one in five has posted a video of themselves online and three quarters have created a profile on a social networking site. \nCompared to other generations, millennials are the most active on social media, according to a 2010 report, with 75% of them having created at least one social media account. In contrast, only 50% of Generation X, 30% of baby boomers and 6% of those aged 65 and older use social media. But there is a small percentage of millennials who don\u2019t use social media at all. Meet the millennials bucking the trend. \nCelan Beausoleil, 31, Oakland, California Beausoleil is a social worker and has had an \u201con and off, more off than on\u201d relationship with Facebook. \nShe last deactivated her account in December 2015 after finding the amount of personal information shared by others \u201ctoo heavy\u201d to deal with on top of her work demands. \n\u201cA lot of my job is listening to people\u2019s lives all day, every day and it started to feel so overwhelming to go on social media and see every single detail of everybody\u2019s life, including people that I don\u2019t really have a relationship with,\u201d she said. \u201cIt feels almost like intimacy overload.\u201d She added: \u201cI\u2019m holding a lot in my work life for people and sometimes it felt like it was too heavy to do in my personal life also.\u201d \nBut Beausoleil does love the way social media connects the world in a truly unique way, citing it as one of her only reasons for staying on Facebook for as long as she did. \u201cOne thing I really liked about Facebook was that I could sit for hours and click on a friend and then click on one of their friends and one of their friends and one of their friends and literally end up on someone\u2019s Facebook page from the other side of the world,\u201d she said. \u201cI used to do that all the time.\u201d \n\u201cOne day, I realized I\u2019m spending so much time doing this. These little seconds add up. I wonder what it would be like if I didn\u2019t spend these seconds here and spent them doing something else. What if I was doing other things with these seconds? What would they become? Would I enjoy it?\u201d \nMathias, who works for the Baltimore City government, had Facebook and Twitter accounts for years before deleting them both in November 2012. But he \u201cquickly forgot that Facebook existed\u201d after his impromptu decision to end his social media presence. He can still appreciate the benefits that come with having social media accounts, like when he met his girlfriend\u2019s friends for the first time and realized \u201chumanizing 20 people you\u2019re meeting at a party\u201d is much easier if you can connect their faces, hometowns and jobs to a photo later on. Or how easy it is to organize large events online. Mathias relies on friends for party invites and is sure there are times he \u201cslips through the cracks\u201d. \nBut, now, he relishes the time that\u2019s freed up. He spends his lift rides and spare moments at work reading news articles and books rather than scrolling through a newsfeed. And with no friends\u2019 accounts to follow online, he has to \u201cpick up the phone and call them\u201d, something he\u2019s come to \u201cdefinitely enjoy\u201d. \nLauren Raskauskas, 22, Naples, Florida Raskauskas describes herself as a \u201cpretty private\u201d person. So social media, which can open you up to the scrutiny and analysis of others, is not that appealing to her. \u201cI\u2019m more privacy-minded and have concerns about giving out my data,\u201d said Raskauskas, who is currently looking for a job. \nShe recently deleted her Twitter account and deactivated her Facebook account two years ago after realizing she \u201cdidn\u2019t like everyone knowing what I was doing\u201d. But Raskauskas, who was late to the Facebook game because her \u201cparents were really strict with technology\u201d, can see the positive sides of social media. When a friend of hers that she\u2019d lost track of moved to Naples for a month, Raskauskas didn\u2019t even realize she was there until after she\u2019d left, which the 22-year-old said \u201cwas a bummer\u201d. \nBut in the end, her privacy concerns outweighed any benefits social media could provide and she saw a definite upside when she went through a recent break-up. The last time a relationship of hers ended and she was online, it was not pleasant. \n\u201cOne time, I did break up with somebody while I was on Facebook and I was like \u2019Oh my gosh, should I change my profile photo? Should I change my status?\u2019 And, this time, I don\u2019t have to worry about any of that because that kind of stuff is pretty hard,\u201d she said. \nRajagopalan, a student at Boston College, doesn\u2019t see any drawbacks to abstaining from social media. \nHe claims that he \u201chasn\u2019t seen any effect at this point\u201d. Even though classmates post about parties and events on Facebook, they make sure to send him a text message, too, he said. \u201cSince I was young, I was always a step behind on that kind of thing so it never really mattered to me,\u201d he said. \nIn fact, the only time Rajagopalan made use of social media was when it was unavoidable: it was the only way to reach his new roommate at college. Before starting his first year at college, he signed up for his first, and only, social media account. He joined Facebook in order to contact his future roommate and talk about their plans for that year. \nMonths later, he still has the account but he admits: \u201cI don\u2019t use it. I don\u2019t check it or anything like that.\u201d The most activity it sees is when his two sisters tag him in family photos. He has avoided social media accounts in all other situations, though he has felt the draw of Twitter. As a sports fan, he acknowledged that \u201cit\u2019s where most of the news breaks out\u201d. But he refused to get an account, stating: \u201cI don\u2019t really need one to read tweets\u201d.","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Anitta, a music star from Brazil, has millions of fans, but she is at the centre of a debate about skin colour. \nSome people are saying that Anitta had to give up her black skin to be a success in the mostly white middle-class market. \nThe debate was started by photographs that show that Anitta\u2019s skin has got much lighter since she signed a music deal with Warner. \nIn the first photo, before she was famous, she looked darker. In the second photo \u2013 a marketing photo after she became famous \u2013 she seems lighter. The difference has started a discussion about whether you need to have light skin to be a success in Brazil. \nBorn Larissa de Macedo Machado, the diva-to-be was a church chorister in her childhood. In her teens, she made a name for herself in Rio de Janeiro\u2019s baile funk scene as a dancer and singer. \nShe now has an album and a huge hit single, Show das Poderosas, which was number one in the charts and attracted 52 million YouTube views. \nMany people love her because she is a pop idol with a strong message and some good pop songs. Her marketing team want people to see her as a cultural bridge between the poor people living in the mostly black and mixed-race shanty towns on Rio\u2019s hills and the richer and whiter parts below. \nBut now people are asking if she \u2013 or her marketing team \u2013 have gone too far and changed her too much. \nThis is a sensitive topic in this mixed-raced country. Brazil has the largest population of African descent outside Africa, but race and where your family come from are less important there than colour. There is a clear link between skin colour and inequality. \nIn Brazilian cities, white workers earn twice as much as workers of African descent. Up until 2011, black or mixed-race students also spent two years less at school on average. \nMost business and government executives are white, but black and mixed-race workers do most of the boring or dirty jobs. \nBrazil did a census in 2010. Among the 197 million population, 82 million said they were \u201cpardu\u201d (mixed race), 15 million black, two million Asian and 0.5% indigenous. \nMaycon de Mattos Batista, a financial analyst who used to work with Anitta, said there has been a huge change in Anitta\u2019s image, but not of her colour. \n\u201cI don\u2019t believe she is whiter; it\u2019s more the makeup, hairstylists and the way she dresses,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t think that was because of pressure they put on her. She always liked to show off, sing and dance. That was a natural thing for her. I believe that it is because of this naturalness that she has become a success.\u201d","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nThe Manchester United manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, will retire at the end of the season after 27 years as the most successful manager in British football. He will become a director of the club and someone will have to replace a man who has won 13 English Premier League titles, two Champions Leagues, the Cup Winners Cup, five FA Cups and four League Cups.\nTalking about his decision, Ferguson said: The decision to retire is one that I have thought a great deal about. It is the right time. It was important to me to leave an organization in the strongest possible condition and I believe I have done so. The quality of this squad, and the balance of ages within it, bodes well for continued success at the highest level. The structure of the youth set-up will ensure that the long-term future of the club remains a bright one.\nOur training facilities are amongst the best in world sport and our home, Old Trafford, is regarded as one of the leading venues in the world. I am delighted to take on the roles of both director and ambassador for the club. With these activities, along with my many other interests, I am looking forward to the future. I must pay tribute to my family; their love and support has been essential.\nAs for my players and staff, past and present, I would like to thank them all for a staggering level of professional conduct and dedication that has helped to deliver so many memorable triumphs. Without their contribution, the history of this great club would not be as rich. In my early years, the support of the board of directors gave me the confidence and time to build a football club, not just a football team.\nOver the past ten years, the Glazer family have made it possible for me to manage Manchester United to the best of my ability and I have been extremely fortunate to have worked with a talented and trustworthy chief executive, David Gill. I am truly grateful to all of them. To the fans, thank you. It has been an honour and an enormous privilege to have had the opportunity to lead your club and I have treasured my time as manager of Manchester United.\nThe suddenness of Fergusons departure is exactly how he said he would leave the job. He first mentioned the possibility of retiring during the 2001\/2 season but then performed a U-turn. It is understood that he gathered the players in the first-team changing room shortly after they arrived for training. In an emotional speech, he announced he was retiring.\nJoel Glazer, joint owner of Manchester United, said: Alex has proven time and time again what a fantastic manager he is but hes also a wonderful person. His determination to succeed and dedication to the club have been truly remarkable. I will never forget the wonderful memories he has given us, like that magical night in Moscow.\nAvie Glazer, his brother, said: I am delighted to announce that Alex has agreed to stay with the club as a director. His contributions to Manchester United over the last 27 years have been extraordinary and, like all United fans, I want him to be a part of its future.\nDavid Gill added: Ive had the tremendous pleasure of working very closely with Alex for 16 unforgettable years  we have had countless wins and numerous signings. We knew that his retirement would come one day and we both have been planning for it by ensuring the quality of the team and club structures are in first-class condition. Alexs vision, energy and ability have built teams that are among the best and most loyal in world sport.\nThe way he cares for this club, his staff and for the football family in general is something that I admire. What he has done for this club and for the game in general will never be forgotten. It has been the greatest experience of my working life being with Alex and a great honour to be able to call him a friend.\nFirst-team coach Ren Meulensteen revealed how Ferguson broke the news to his backroom staff. I found out this morning when I came to the club, he said. He called us into his office and told us his decision. Hes obviously a man who thinks very, very hard so Im sure hes put a lot of thought into making this decision. I wish him well. Hes been fantastic for this club and I hope all the fans give the new manager the same support that he gets.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Do you want your child to be good at sport, play for the school team and, maybe one day, even be in international competitions? Well, try to make sure that your child is born in November or October. A study by a top expert on children\u2019s physical activity has found that schoolchildren born in November or October are fitter than everyone else in their class.\nChildren born in November or October were fitter, stronger and more powerful than children born in the other ten months of the year. They are especially fitter, stronger and more powerful than children with birthdays in April or June. Dr Gavin Sandercock of Essex University and his colleagues found that children born in the autumn had \u201ca clear physical advantage\u201d over their classmates.\nThe research involved 8,550 boys and girls aged between ten and 16 from 26 state schools in Essex. All were tested between 2007 and 2010 on three different things: stamina, handgrip strength and lower-body power. The results showed that a child\u2019s month of birth could make big differences to their levels of fitness, muscle strength and ability to accelerate, all of which predict how good someone is at sport.\nNovember children were the fittest because they had the most stamina and power and were the second strongest. Children born in October were almost as fit \u2013 they scored highest for strength and came third for power, with December children close behind.\nThe gap in physical ability between children in the same class but born in different months was sometimes very wide. \u201cFor example, we found that a boy born in November can run at least 10% faster, jump 12% higher and is 15% more powerful than a child of the same age born in April. This is a huge physical advantage,\u201d said Sandercock. These gaps could decide who became a top-level athlete because \u201cselection into elite sports may often depend on very small differences in a person \u2019s physical performance \u201d.\nThe study found that, when scores for the three kinds of fitness were put together, children born in April were the least fit, followed by children born in June. The findings seem to show that children born in the early months of the school year enjoy a double \u201cautumn advantage\u201d \u2013 we already know that they have an academic advantage and, now, they also seem to be better at sport, too.\nThe authors of the study believe that the most likely explanation is that children born in autumn get more vitamin D over the summer months towards the end of pregnancy. John Steele, chief executive of the Youth Sport Trust, said the quality of a young person \u2019s introduction to sport at school can be \u201ca major factor\u201d in their sporting development. \u201cChildren that get a high-quality first experience will have greater agility, balance and coordination, and are more likely to develop an enjoyment of physical activity and be good at sport as they grow up\u201d, he said.\nUK Sport could not say if a majority of the 1,300 athletes it gives money to were born in November and October. Natalie Dunman, its head of performance, said that the differences shown in the new study were true for teenagers in junior-level competitions, but that the differences disappear before sportspeople were in adult competitions. She said: \u201cWith adult athletes, there are many factors that make a champion and we don\u2019t think that month of birth is one of the key ingredients.\u201d","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"The forests \u2013 and suburbs \u2013 of Europe are echoing with the growls, howls and silent padding of large predators, according to a new study that shows that brown bears, wolves and lynx are thriving on a crowded continent. Despite fears that large carnivores are doomed to extinction because of rising human populations and overconsumption, a study published in Science has found that large-predator populations are stable or rising in Europe. \nBrown bears, wolves, the Eurasian lynx and wolverines are found in nearly one-third of mainland Europe (excluding Belarus, Ukraine and Russia), with most individuals living outside nature reserves, indicating that changing attitudes and landscape-scale conservation measures are successfully protecting species that have suffered massive persecution throughout human history. \nBears are the most abundant large carnivore in Europe, with around 17,000 individuals, alongside 12,000 wolves, 9,000 Eurasian lynx and 1,250 wolverines, which are restricted to northern parts of Scandinavia and Finland. Only Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Luxembourg in mainland Europe \u2013 like Britain \u2013 have no breeding populations of at least one large carnivore species. But the paper\u2019s lead author and other conservationists said these animals\u2019 surprising distribution across well-populated regions of Europe showed that even the British countryside could support big predators. \nGuillaume Chapron from Sweden\u2019s University of Agricultural Sciences and researchers across Europe found wolves, in some cases, living in suburban areas alongside up to 3,050 people per square kilometre \u2013 higher than the population density of Cambridge or Newcastle. On average in Europe, wolves live on land with a population density of 37 people per sq km, lynx in areas with a population density of 21 people per sq km and bears among 19 people per sq km. The population density of the Scottish Highlands is nine people per sq km. \n\u201cIn order to have wolves, we don\u2019t need to remove people from the landscape,\u201d said Chapron. According to Chapron and his colleagues, the big-carnivore revival shows the success of a \u201cland-sharing\u201d model of conservation \u2013 in stark contrast to keeping predators and people apart by fencing off \u201cwilderness\u201d areas, as occurs in North America and Africa. \n\u201cI\u2019m not saying it\u2019s a peace-and-love story \u2013 coexistence often means conflict \u2013 but it\u2019s important to manage that conflict, keep it at a low level and resolve the problems it causes. Wolves can be difficult neighbours,\u201d said Chapron. \u201cWe shouldn\u2019t be talking about people-predator conflict; we have conflict between people about predators. These animals are symbolic of difficult questions about how we should use the land.\u201d \nAccording to the researchers, this \u201cland-sharing\u201d approach could be applied elsewhere in the world. The reasons for its success in Europe include political stability, burgeoning populations of prey species such as wild deer and financial support for non-lethal livestock protection such as electric fences, which mean that farmers do not resort to shooting wild predators. Most crucial, said Chapron, has been the EU Habitats Directive, which has compelled member states to protect and revive rare species. \n\u201cWithout the Habitats Directive, I don\u2019t think we would have had this recovery,\u201d he said. \u201cIt shows, if people are willing to protect nature and if political will is translated into strong legislation like the Habitats Directive, it\u2019s possible to achieve results in wildlife protection.\u201d The revival was welcomed by author and commentator George Monbiot, who is launching Rewilding Britain, a new charity to encourage the return of wild landscape and extinct species. \n\u201cIt is great to see the upward trend continuing but Britain is completely anomalous \u2013 we\u2019ve lost more of our large mammals than any country except for Ireland,\u201d he said. \u201cApart from the accidental reintroduction of boar, we\u2019ve done almost nothing, whereas, in much of the rest of Europe, we\u2019ve got bears, lynx and wolves coming back. It\u2019s a massive turnaround from the centuries of persecution.\u201d \nThe survey found the Eurasian lynx living permanently in 11 population groups across 23 European countries, of which only five were native populations, indicating the success of reintroduction efforts. According to Monbiot, momentum is building for the reintroduction of the lynx into the Cairngorms in Scotland. \n\u201cIf it works in the rest of Europe, there\u2019s absolutely no reason why it can\u2019t work in the UK,\u201d he said, pointing out that bears and wolves are found within an hour of Rome. \u201cThere\u2019s no demographic reason why we can\u2019t have a similar return of wildlife in the UK.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nThere comes a time in some mens lives when the days seem darker, death more certain, and the only sensible response is to blow the life savings on a sportscar.\nRadical and often ill-advised changes in lifestyle are typical for the midlife crisis but, if it is more than a myth, then humans may not be the only animals to experience it.\nNow an international team of scientists claims it has found evidence for a slump in well-being among middle-aged chimpanzees and orangutans. The lull in happiness in the middle years, they say, is the ape equivalent of the midlife crisis.\nThe findings of the study, which was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggest that the midlife crisis may have its roots in the biology humans share with our closest evolutionary cousins.\nTheres a common understanding that theres a dip in well-being in middle age, Alex Weiss, a psychologist at Edinburgh University, told the Guardian.\nHe said that they took a step back and asked whether its possible that the midlife crisis is not just something human.\nThe team from the US, Japan, Germany and the UK asked zookeepers and others who worked with male and female apes of various ages to complete questionnaires on the animals.\nThe forms included questions about each apes mood, the enjoyment they got from socializing, and their success at achieving certain goals. The final question asked how zookeepers would feel about being the ape for a week. They scored their answers from one to seven.\nMore than 500 apes were included in the study in three separate groups. The first two groups were chimpanzees, with the third made up of orangutans from Sumatra or Borneo. The animals came from zoos, sanctuaries and research centres in the US, Australia, Japan, Canada and Singapore.\nWhen the researchers analyzed the questionnaires, they found that well-being in the apes fell in middle age and climbed again as the animals moved into old age. In captivity, great apes often live to 50 or more. The animals well-being was at its lowest, on average, at 28.3 and 27.2 years old for the chimpanzees, and 35.4 years old for the orangutans.\nIn all three groups we find evidence that well-being is lowest in chimpanzees and orangutans at an age that corresponds more or less to midlife in humans, Weiss said. On average, well-being scores are lowest when animals are around 30 years old.\nRobin Dunbar, Professor of Evolutionary Psychology at Oxford University, was sceptical about the findings. What can produce a sense of well-being that varies across their lifetimes like this? Its hard to see anything in an apes life that would have that sort of pattern. Theyre not particularly good at seeing far ahead into the future; thats one of the big differences between them and us.\nAlexandra Freund, Professor of Psychology at the University of Zurich, was also sceptical. She said, In my opinion, there is no evidence for the midlife crisis.\nBut Weiss believes the findings could point to a deeper understanding of the emotional crisis some men may experience. If we want to find the answer to the question of whats going on with the midlife crisis, we should look at what is similar in middle-aged humans, chimps and orangutans, he said.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nTo a traditional navigator like Tua Pittman from Raratonga in the Cook Islands, a canoe is much more than just a means of transport. The canoe is our island, the crew members are the community and the navigator is the leader, Pittman says. He continues, On a canoe, you are not just going from one destination to another using the stars, the moon, the sun and the birds. Navigation is using the philosophies of being a leader to show your crew members the light of life.\nIt has been a busy week for the crews of four sailing canoes since arriving in Sydney for the start of the World Parks Congress. Tuas journey began at the Cook Islands on 25 September. The islanders sailed to Samoa, then Fiji, Vanuatu and onto the Gold Coast, before sailing south to Sydney. Around 100 crew members were involved in the voyage and they aimed to travel using only traditional navigation techniques. Unfortunately, said Tua, the crews had to rely on modern navigation equipment at times to reach Australia in time for the Congress.\nThe of cial title of the expedition is the Mua Voyage. It is a partnership between the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Oceania Regional Of ce and  ve Paci c Island countries: Samoa, Tonga, New Zealand, the Cook Islands and Fiji. The main goal of the 6,000-nautical-mile (11,000km) trip was to deliver a special message to the World Parks Congress.\nThe message said: We see the signs of overexploitation. We no longer see the  sh and other marine creatures in the size, diversity or abundance of the past. We witness the change as foreign  shing  eets take our resources. Our coral reefs, the greatest in the world and our spawning grounds are disappearing. Our ocean is vast but not limitless. Growing global populations and unsustainable development are reducing the ability of our ocean to sustain life.\nThe Paci c Islanders have put a lot of effort into their urgent message to the delegates of the Congress. But, despite this, the Congress has spent much of its time trying to set a revised target for the amount of the ocean that needs to be protected in marine sanctuaries. According to the IUCN, in 2013, the amount of the worlds oceans in marine protected areas was not even three per cent and less than one per cent of that is no take (no  shing). This was despite a target of 20-30% no-take areas set by the last World Parks Congress in 2003.\nMarine scientist Professor Callum Roberts was one of the scientists who helped set the 20-30% target in 2003. But he said it was not enough. The IUCN should now lift its target from 30 to 33%. New research shows that we need to raise the 30% target. Any reduction in efforts at this stage and moment in history would be disastrous for our oceans.\nAfter dif cult negotiations, the World Parks Congress delegates passed a motion that will dramatically change the goals for global marine management. Instead of the 20-30% target, the IUCN now says that each marine habitat should include strictly protected areas of at least 30%. These areas should address both biodiversity and ecosystem services.\nTua Pittman was delighted with the news that a strong resolution on the planets oceans had passed the Congress. Its a huge reward for all the effort that we made to be here and to be heard. To hear they made that resolution is fantastic. Its a step in the right direction.\nHe said he was 55 and, in his lifetime, he was already beginning to see that it was much harder to catch  sh on the open ocean. He also said that pollution was getting worse, particularly as the canoes approached big cities such as Sydney. And climate change is already beginning to have a serious effect on Paci c Islanders. The decisions of the big countries impact on the small countries twice, three times, four times more than they impact on developed, large nations.\nThe Mua Voyage had been a massive logistical undertaking, said Tua. Years of preparation and navigational planning went into such a trip and it was critical to the voyagers that the world listened to their message and acted. He said that the leaders of wealthy countries need to start to think more like traditional navigators who recognize that their boats are just specks in an enormous sea. Most importantly, and spoken like a true navigator, Tua says politicians must seek a different route. The world needs to  nd a different path.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Astronaut Scott Kelly has just spent 340 days in space. He says that Himalayan lakes, spacewalks and the US presidential campaign helped him to stay sane during his mission. It was the longest mission ever. \u201cIt seemed like I lived there forever,\u201d Kelly said. He had been on several missions before but said that his biggest surprise was how long this mission felt. \u201cMaybe, sometimes, you go bananas, \u201d he said.\nKelly and a Russian astronaut, Mikhail Kornienko, spent nearly a year on the International Space Station (ISS). They studied the effects on humans of weightlessness, radiation and the cramped conditions of spaceflight. This is research that NASA thinks is very important for a future mission to Mars.\nKelly said the length of the mission was the most difficult thing. He felt more pain after he returned to gravity than after shorter trips. Kelly and his twin brother, Mark, a retired astronaut, have spent the last year taking physical and mental tests. The tests will continue, to help NASA learn about what happens to the human body during spaceflight. Kelly described the sense of wonder he felt after he landed back on Earth. When the Russian capsule opened, he felt the cool air of Kazakhstan and smelled \u201ca smell like a plant was blooming in that area\u201d. It was the fresh air mixed with the burnt, \u201csweet\u201d smell of a spacecraft that had just re- entered through the Earth\u2019s atmosphere.\nWhen he left the spacecraft, he said, he began to understand the importance of the mission: 340 days on a 15-year-old space station which is \u201ca million pounds, the size of a football field, with the space, some say, of a six-bedroom house\u201d. The ISS, he said, is a place that uses the power of the sun and an international team helped to build it. \u201cThe view is great, too,\u201d he said.\nKelly posted amazing photos on social media of the Earth \u2019s cities, countryside, oceans and atmosphere. \u201cThe Earth is a beautiful planet,\u201d he said. He described the beautiful waters around the Bahamas and the rainbow colours of the lakes of the northern Himalayas. But \u201cthe main thing you notice is how thin the atmosphere is,\u201d Kelly said. \u201cIt is scary to see the thin atmosphere, together with large areas of pollution.\u201d\nHe said he could see large areas of pollution: smoke clouds from wildfires cover parts of the US, parts of Asia have pollution nearly all year. He said the message \u201cwe need to save the planet\u201d was slightly wrong: \u201cThe planet will get better; it\u2019s us that won\u2019t be here because we\u2019ll destroy the environment.\u201d \u201cWe must take care of the air we breathe and the water we drink. And I believe we do have a big effect on that and we have the ability to change it, if we want to.\u201d Kelly was very active on social media so many people follow him online. But he said he didn\u2019t know about it \u2013 instead, he watched the news and especially the 2016 US presidential campaign. The news helped keep him sane, he said, and also work: \u201cI looked forward to the next event \u2013 for example, the next spacewalk, the next science experiment. That made a difference to me.\u201d Being back on Earth with everyone still felt strange, he said.\nKelly said that he would probably not fly again with NASA. \u201cBut I don\u2019t think I would ever say I\u2019m absolutely, 100% finished,\u201d he said. Maybe he will fly with private spaceflight companies, which are becoming more and more popular. \u201cThey might need a guy like me someday,\u201d he said. \u201cMaybe, in the next 20 years, you\u2019ll be able to buy a cheap ticket, just go for a little visit.\u201d","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nMcDonalds is the worlds biggest burger chain and a global emblem of American consumer capitalism. But, these days, the golden arches of McDonalds are looking a little tarnished. After a decade of expansion, customers around the world dont seem to be lovin it any more. McDonalds has revealed that worldwide sales dropped by 3.3% from 2013. The set of results were described as awful.\nThe company has problems almost everywhere. In China, sales fell by 23% because local media showed workers at a local supplier claiming to use out-of-date beef and chicken in McDonalds and KFC products. In Europe, sales are down by 4%, mostly because of problems in Ukraine and the anti-western mood in Russia. Around 200 of McDonalds 450 restaurants in Russia are being investigated by health inspectors and ten have been closed.\nBut it is in the US, where McDonalds has around 40% of its restaurants, where the crisis is deepest. Almost 60 years since Ray Kroc opened his  rst restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois, consumers are losing their appetite for a Big Mac and fries.\nMcDonalds has seen 12 straight months of falling sales in its massive home market, with sales down 4.1% in the latest quarter. Younger diners are deserting the restaurant in droves to eat out at rivals such as Chipotle Mexican Grill. The number of 19-to-21-year-olds visiting McDonalds once a month has fallen by 13% since 2011.\nTo add to the companys problems, McDonalds hamburgers were recently named the worst in America in a poll of more than 32,000 American diners, who said they would rather eat a burger at Five Guys, Smashburger or Fuddruckers. McDonalds is also widely perceived as less healthy than most of its rivals, especially Chipotle, with its antibiotic-free meat and locally sourced, seasonal produce  although local can mean 350 miles away.\nThe depth of consumer mistrust of McDonalds was exposed by a consumer outreach exercise the company launched in the US in October. Have you ever used pink slime in your burgers? was one question on the Our Food Your Questions website  this refers to the controversial beef  ller used for dog food that is sprayed with ammonia to make it  t for human consumption. McDonalds has not used the meat product since 2012 but Chief Executive Don Thompson acknowledged the company had a job to do in addressing misconceptions about the freshness and quality of its ingredients.\nYet, just as McDonalds has been losing the customers who will pay a bit more for food they think is fresher and healthier, it has also lost its edge in fast-food essentials: speedy service at low prices. Ever since it introduced $2 items on its dollar menu, it has gained a reputation for being more expensive than its rivals, while many consumers complain that service is slower.\nThe expensive tag was unjusti ed, said Mary Chapman at food analysts Technomic. Prices have indeed gone up but they havent gone up as quickly as the rest of the fast-service chains in the US. Prices at McDonalds have increased by 4.8% since 2009, well below the fast-food average (up 19.4%), and the cost of fast casual eating, a category that includes Chipotle, is up 16.9%. US consumer prices rose 11% over the same period.\nBut critics are not wrong about the longer queues. McDonalds has a bigger menu than some, with more complicated items  its chicken McWrap takes 60 seconds to make. I think it is worth waiting but the guy behind me who wants his double cheeseburger for a dollar might not, said Chapman.\nIn the UK, McDonalds has turned around its business, which makes Britain a rare bright spot for the company. A competitive breakfast menu, improved coffee and free wi-  have given McDonalds a broad appeal in the UK, said consultant Peter Martin, adding that 56% of British adults have visited a McDonalds restaurant at least once in the last six months.\nExecutives are promising to fight misconceptions about its food in its home market. Thompson has promised more organic food and custom-made burgers but, to cut down queues, he also wants to introduce simpler menus. Analysts are not sure how the company can solve the problem of simpler menus and greater choice over  filings.\nThey want to simplify the menu but enhance its ability to customize and that sounds tricky, said Mark Kalinowski at Janney Capital Markets. Only four out of McDonalds 14,000 US restaurants had so far tested build your own burger, he said. Right now, we are sceptical; we would like to see more detail.\nMeanwhile, despite the declining sales, the chain continues to expand globally: by the end of 2014, it expects to have 1,400 new restaurants. Kalinowski expects McDonalds market share will continue to shrink but he, too, warned against writing off the company. We think it will be number one for not just years but decades to come.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"The view from the visitors\u2019 centre at the southern edge of Do\u00f1ana National Park in southern Spain is striking, to say the least. This is an ornithologist\u2019s dream: 200,000 hectares of salt marsh of unrivalled importance to the birdlife of western Europe. Dozens of Britain\u2019s most loved migratory birds, including house martins, swallows, cuckoos and warblers, rest here on their annual migrations from Africa. Do\u00f1ana, a UN World Heritage Site, is also home to some of Europe\u2019s rarest birds, including the Spanish imperial eagle, while its mammalian inhabitants include the highly endangered Iberian lynx. \nIt is a glorious, vibrant landscape. Yet it exists on a knife-edge, a point illustrated dramatically in 1998 when almost two billion gallons of contaminated, highly acidic water, mixed with waste metals, poured into the park from a dam that had burst its bank at Los Frailes mine 45km to the north. A toxic tsunami of waste poured down the Guadiamar river and over its banks, leaving a thick metallic crust over a vast stretch of parkland. More than 25,000 kilos of dead fish were collected in the aftermath and nearly 2,000 adult birds, chicks, eggs and nests were killed or destroyed. \nIt was Spain\u2019s worst environmental disaster and the clean-up cost \u20ac90m. Suddenly aware of Do\u00f1ana\u2019s status as the nation\u2019s most important natural site, Spain decided to spend a further \u20ac360m, some of it EU money, on restoring the landscape, which, in the 1950s and 60s, had been drained in places to create rice and cotton fields. Some of this farmland is now being returned to its original wetland state. \nIt has been a costly but encouraging process. Yet the fate of Do\u00f1ana still hangs in the balance thanks to the increasing pressures of modern life. Plans have been outlined to build an oil pipeline through Do\u00f1ana, while other developers have announced proposals to expand local tourist resorts whose new hotels and golf courses would demand water supplies that would further erode the local table. Silt washed from nearby farms is also choking the channels that criss-cross Do\u00f1ana. \nHowever, the real body blow for conservationists has been the recent decision of the Andaluc\u00edan government to reopen the Frailes mine that so very nearly destroyed Do\u00f1ana in 1998. \u201cThis is Europe\u2019s most precious bird sanctuary, both in terms of indigenous species and also as a resting place for birds that migrate between Africa and Britain and other parts of north-west Europe,\u201d says Laurence Rose of the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds). \u201cDo\u00f1ana already faces a great number of threats, but now they want to bring back the very cause of its near-undoing 16 years ago. It is extremely worrying.\u201d \nHaving spent so much restoring Do\u00f1ana to its past glories, it might seem strange that the local government should choose to announce that it wants mining companies to tender bids to rework Los Frailes. However, a brief examination of the state of the local economy provides an explanation. The crash of Spain\u2019s banks in 2008 hit the region catastrophically and unemployment in some parts of Andaluc\u00eda is now more than 30%. Reopening the mine would provide more than 1,000 precious jobs. \n\u201cThere are riches here, riches that are badly needed by local inhabitants,\u201d said Vicente Fern\u00e1ndez Guerrero, secretary-general of Innovation, Industry and Energy for Andaluc\u00eda. \u201cWe think mining is a good way to make it possible to allow local people to continue to live in the area. This is a mining area. People have been digging metals and ores here since Roman times, after all.\u201d \nMore to the point, added Fern\u00e1ndez, the mine licence would stipulate that only modern mining techniques, which avoid the creation of poisonous wet waste, would be allowed. (It has also stipulated that the Canadian company that ran Los Frailes cannot bid for the contract. Sixteen years after the accident, the two sides remained locked over compensation claims.) \u201cThe best technology in the world will be used here,\u201d Fern\u00e1ndez insisted. \u201cLiquid will not be used. We are going to insist on that. Our tender makes that clear.\u201d \nThe proposal has some support in the area, but it also has a lot of opposition. One road sign I passed was liberally daubed with obscenities about the workers\u2019 union UGT, which supports the mine\u2019s reopening. For his part, Carlos D\u00e1vila, who works for the Spanish Ornithological Society in Do\u00f1ana, was also alarmed at the proposal. \u201cThis is a very, very bad idea indeed,\u201d he told me. \u201cThey say the new mine will be safe, but they said it was safe in 1998 and look what happened. We got the worst ecological disaster in the history of Spain.\u201d \nWhat alarms people such as D\u00e1vila is the threat that a new mine poses to the intense investment in eco-tourism that has been made in Do\u00f1ana in recent years. An example is provided at the restaurant Dehesa de Abajo, where you can have a drink or a meal surrounded by trees in which storks and black kites are nesting. \nVirtually every visitor was equipped with a camera and telescopic lens or a pair of binoculars. There is a clear tourist trade to be made from the birdlife of Do\u00f1ana. Nor should this be surprising, for this is a truly special place. A vast hemisphere of sky hangs over this utterly flat but certainly not featureless landscape. Birds of every shape and size fill the air and sometimes the road. At one point on my visit, a stork calmly stood in front of our car until it felt ready to fly off. \n\u201cThe trouble is that Spain does not have the public resources it possessed 16 years ago. A repeat of the toxin spill today would have a much, much more damaging impact,\u201d said Rose. This point is backed by D\u00e1vila. \u201cAfter the disaster, Spain woke up to the fact that it possessed a place of real ecological importance and did a lot to clean it up and protect it,\u201d he added. \u201cNow, we seem to be forgetting that lesson. It is very depressing.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nApart from volcanoes, hurricanes and earthquakes, there are two key things that can make a city disintegrate or even totally disappear  water and sand. \nA century ago, Venice  one of the most beautiful and low-lying cities in the world  used to  ood around ten times a year. Nowadays, its lowest point, Piazza San Marco (only three feet above sea level) is inundated with water approximately 100 times a year.\nBut rising sea levels are not the only cause. In many parts of the world, the land is also sinking. In Venice, subsoil compaction (a result of industrial exploitation of the surrounding area) lowered the city by 20cm between 1950 and 1970. Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam is also sinking by about 2cm a year  but thats nothing compared to Jakarta, which is dropping 10 to 20cm each year. In the past three decades, the city has sunk roughly four metres. \nUnfortunately for the Indonesian capital, it has pumped out so much groundwater to support its population that the land above is drying out and compacting  this has created a bowl. Rivers that used to  ow through the city down to the sea have had to be diverted because they cannot drain uphill.\nWhile there are many plans to save Venice  and Ho Chi Minh City and Jakarta are taking the problem seriously  the same cannot be said for Miami, where politicians refuse to admit the city has a serious environmental problem.\nThere are three problems in Miami. It is less than ten feet above sea level; an increasing number of tropical storms are inundating the city; and it is built on porous rock, which is absorbing the rising seawater. This water then  lls the citys foundations and comes up through drains and pipes, forcing sewage upwards and polluting its fresh water. It is possible that Miami may one day become uninhabitable.\nIn the Maldives, the populations of whole islands are now considering abandoning their homes. The capital, Male_, population 153,379 and only four feet above sea level, has built a ten-foot sea wall at a cost of $63 million  but, long term, only a stabilization of rising sea levels will save it and the rest of the islands.\nIn Africa, deserti cation is causing the Sahara to spread south at a rate of 30 miles per year, threatening settlements in northern Mauritania. Over the past 20 years, for example, the desert has grown by more than 260 acres around the trading and religious centre of Chinguetti, where the population has declined from 20,000 people in the mid-twentieth century to just a few thousand now. Trading has almost completely stopped as sand piles up in the streets. \nLikewise, the Californian resort of Rancho Mirage, near Palm Springs, may have to be abandoned in the next decade. This city is just one example of a problem caused not so much by global warming as human over-expansion. Californias dream of farming the desert made sense while its total population remained around half a million (in 1870)  but now the state is home to 38 million people, who own 32 million vehicles.\nThe daily water use in Rancho Mirage is more than 200 gallons per person, which is causing a man-made drought. A 25% cut in water use has been implemented but this is unlikely to stabilize the resort, which is surrounded by sand and dust. The long-term answer in Californias desert is likely to be the abandonment of some cities.\nFire is a growing threat to urban settlements in America  in fact, forest  res cause the most damage after severe storms, with 800 major  re disasters there between 1953 and 2014. A new report by the USDA Forest Service maps the increasing number of urban locations that are particularly vulnerable to wild re.\nSimilarly in Australia, some of Victorias resorts and several Melbourne suburbs have been placed on a list of the states 52 most vulnerable bush re spots because long-term droughts are making trees highly combustible. Its unlikely that a forest  re will ever destroy an entire city but a succession of  res could make it uninhabitable. \nMany cities are  ghting a losing battle against nature but is it possible to identify the world\u0019s most vulnerable city? Natural events are very dif cult to predict \u0013 but Male\u0001\u0019s future looks particularly bad because, even if its new sea wall continues to be effective, the islands around the Maldives capital are going to disappear before too long. And, if they disappear, Male\u0001\u0019s raison d\u0019e\u0002tre disappears, too.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Two scientists at Stanford University, in the USA, used metadata on people\u2019s telephone calls and texts to find out people\u2019s names, where they lived and the names of their partners. The metadata told them what number people called, when and for how long but it didn\u2019t tell them what people said. \nBut, that was not all. With the same metadata, they could find out private information about some people. They discovered that one man had a gun and that another man had a heart problem. Other data told them that someone was having a baby and someone had a serious illness. \nThe results show the extraordinary power of telephone metadata. It is particularly powerful when you use it together with information from Google, Yelp and Facebook. \nThen, the scientists used a simple computer program to analyse people\u2019s calls and this helped them to see who was in a relationship. Once they knew the owner of a particular phone number had a partner, it was easy to find out who the partner was, they said. \nFor the final part of the study, the researchers looked even deeper to see what private information they could get from telephone metadata. They collected details on calls made to and from places such as hospitals, pharmacies, religious groups, legal services and gun shops. From these, they produced interesting pictures of people\u2019s lives. \nMutchler said the study showed how easy it is to find out private information about people. He says that the results should make governments think twice before they record this information. \u201cMetadata programmes, like the NSA\u2019s, will show very private information about ordinary people,\u201d the scientists said. \nStewart Baker, who worked at the US National Security Agency (NSA), said \u201cMetadata tells you everything about somebody\u2019s life.\u201d \nPatrick Mutchler, a researcher at Stanford, said that people who collect the information understand the power of metadata but that the public was in the dark. \nFor the study, 823 people agreed for researchers to collect metadata from their phones using an app. The app also received information from their Facebook pages, which the scientists used to check their results. The scientists collected metadata on more than 250,000 calls and over 1.2 million texts. \nWith very little money, Mutchler and Jonathan Mayer found out a lot of personal information about the people in the study. Some of the information was private. They found out 82% of people\u2019s names. The same method gave them the names of businesses the people called. When they marked these on a map, they showed groups of local businesses, which the scientists guessed were near the person\u2019s home address. In this way, they named the city people lived in 57% of the time and were nearly 90% correct in guessing, within 50 miles, where people lived.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Introduction \nDid you know that, in the UK, there is no legal requirement for restaurants to pass on tips to staff? It\u2019s a fact that\u2019s covered in a government-led review, released in May 2016, in which workers, employers and customers were asked their views on the tipping process. Off the back of it, ministers said they were keen to change rules and make sure low-paid workers get the money left for them by grateful customers. The government have announced a two-month consultation on proposals that they said would stamp out unfairness. \nAmong the review\u2019s revelations was the fact that some waiters are charged up to a 15% administration fee on tips they are left by credit or debit cards. In some restaurants, the government has seen evidence of waiters being forced to hand over their own cash, if they don\u2019t collect enough tips, to cover these fees. The government said it would consider prohibiting employers from charging workers an admin fee or any other deductions. \nThe government also said that it wanted customers to know that tips are voluntary, calling for the system to be made more transparent, with restaurants clearly displaying their tips policy. \nWe asked waiters around the UK what they think of the tipping process (including how much they take home from tips and whether it\u2019s fair) and what would improve it for them. \n1. Rodri, 37, London: 'Around 50% of a waiter\u2019s income is tips' \nAverage tips: \u00a360 per eight-hour shift \nI think they treat waiters best in ... the US Everything has got fairer since the tipping scandal was exposed in the summer of 2015. This is when it was revealed that dozens of restaurants were exposed for skimming tips from staff for administration fees. However, you still hear horror stories from new employees at some chains. I\u2019ve heard of restaurants not paying their chefs a share of the tronc (a payment arrangement used to distribute tips). Some restaurants will take 4% of all sales to pay the chefs and as an admin fee. So, if you sell \u00a31,000 worth of food, the company will take \u00a340. This is regardless of how much you make in tips. This means that if a table has a \u00a3100 bill and doesn\u2019t tip, the waiter has to pay \u00a34 of their own money. This leads to a money-grabbing culture and, ironically, to bad service. If a table doesn\u2019t tip, the waiter feels as if they are being robbed by the company and ends up resenting the customers. \nI can average around \u00a360 in tips per shift but, on a good night, this goes up to over \u00a3100 and, on a poor night, it\u2019s around \u00a340. Around 50% of a waiter\u2019s income is tips. All restaurants should have to publicly state their exact tipping procedure. America has it pretty good \u2013 everyone tips. \n2. Elle, 22, Edinburgh: 'We never know whether it\u2019s fair' \nAverage tips: \u00a320 per eight-hour shift \nI think they treat waiters best in ... France \nI work three jobs, all on part-time zero-hours contracts, in catering and hospitality. My main day job is in a caf\u00e9 where the small number of staff work both front of house and in the kitchen so all our tips get put in a pot and shared equally. My main evening job is at a restaurant where we don\u2019t get our tips but our wages are minimum wage plus an extra \u00a32.50 per hour (which apparently has been worked out to account for average tips when shared with the kitchen staff). My third job is events catering and nobody ever tips. \nIn restaurants, because a lot of customers add tips through card payments, the staff never actually see how much is getting tipped \u2013 so we don\u2019t know whether we\u2019re getting our fair share or not. The system seems better in France, where they don\u2019t tip much but waiting tables is seen as a proper job, offering job security and a decent income. \n3. Ashley, 22, London: 'Tips go towards customer breakages' \nAverage tips: \u00a310-15 per eight-hour shift \nI think they treat waiters best in ... Australia \nI work in a south-east London pub in the evenings and I do day shifts at a local restaurant. In both places, tips are all collected and shared out at the end of the night. Money is also taken from the tip jar to cover breakages by either staff or customers. If a member of the team gets off early, they will rarely see their tips because they are shared out just before the pub closes. \nIt is incredibly unfair that our tips are shared out, especially when one member of the team underperforms. Equally, when a member of the team does incredibly well, they don\u2019t get what they\u2019ve earned. It\u2019s really unfair that tips go towards breakages made by customers. The managers should have ways to pay for broken glasses and plates without docking our tips. I make around \u00a320 a shift but would only be given \u00a310-15 of that money. When I am tipped well, the tips hugely impact on my finances. Occasionally, I will earn over \u00a350 in one night, which almost doubles my earnings for that day. However, I never get more than \u00a330 of that money after it has been shared out. I really rely on tips because I am only paid \u00a37 an hour. \nI\u2019d rather we earned a good basic wage (like in Australia) and therefore didn\u2019t have to rely on tips to make ends meet. \n4. Tom, Manchester: 'A big night of tips can help pay the rent' \nAverage tips: \u00a340 per eight-hour shift \nI think they treat waiters best in ... Italy \nWhere I used to work, floor staff kept 80% of cash tips and 40% of card tips. The other 20% of cash went into a pot for the commis waiters and service bar. The 60% went into a tronc system, which helped boost kitchen salaries. I\u2019m not actually sure if this was to help pay the agreed salary or provide bonuses. \nIt\u2019s hard to say how much I earned a shift; maybe around \u00a340, \u00a320 from card tips. It can make a massive change to your weekly finances. Sometimes, people needed a big night to be able to pay their rent. \nThey have got tipping right in Italy, where people don\u2019t add a service charge but usually round up their bill so, if they get a meal for \u20ac19, they leave a \u20ac20 note and don\u2019t ask for change. They respect the staff and you often see people making a career out of waiting and the experience shows.","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"In homes and cafes across the country, a cup of tea, baked beans on toast and fish and chips have long played a key role in the British dining experience. But, the extent of a change in tastes over the generations has been captured in a dataset published recently in the National Food Survey, which was set up in 1940 by the government after concerns about health and access to food. \nDespite the apparent British love of tea, consumption has more than halved since the 1970s, falling from 68g of tea per person per week to only 25g. With a teabag or portion of loose tea weighing around 3g, that means Britons are drinking on average only eight cups of tea a week today, down from 23 cups in 1974. And, while tea remains the most drunk hot drink in the UK, households now spend more on coffee. \nThe data, published by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs as part of its \u201copen data\u201d scheme, is from 150,000 households who took part in the survey between 1974 and 2000, combined with information from 2000 to 2014. It shows some moves towards healthier diets in recent decades, with shifts to low-calorie soft drinks, from whole to skimmed milk and increasing consumption of fresh fruit. But, weekly consumption of chips, pizza, crisps and ready meals has soared. \nThere has also been a dramatic shift from white to brown, wholemeal and other bread but the figures suggest the amount people are eating has fallen from 25 to 15 slices a week over the past four decades, based on a 40g slice from a medium sliced loaf. The consumption of baked beans in sauce has dropped by a fifth despite a rise in other types of convenience food, particularly Italian dishes. Adults in the UK now eat an average of 75g of pizza every week compared with none in 1974, while the consumption of pasta has almost tripled over the same period. \nFresh potatoes are also becoming less essential with a 67% decrease from 1974, when adults ate the equivalent of 188g every day. Other vegetables such as cucumbers, courgettes, aubergines and mushrooms have gained space on the table. Consumption of takeaway food has almost doubled since 1974, from 80g per person per week to 150g. Around 33g of this amount is chips and 56g is meat, with kebabs (10g), chicken (7g), burgers (5g) and \u201cmeat-based meals\u201d (32g) particularly popular. \nSome trends suggest that British people are becoming more prudent in what they put on their plates, with the average consumption of fruit, both fresh and processed, increasing by 50% since 1974. In 2014, UK adults ate an average of 157g of fruit per day, equivalent to almost two portions of the five-a-day recommendation from the government. Bananas have been the most popular fruit in the UK since 1996, reaching 221g per adult per week in 2014, well above apples (131g) and oranges (48g). Low-calorie soft drinks represented half of all soft drinks consumed in 2014 for the first time. \nOther social changes emerge from the survey, with questions about owning chickens and getting your own eggs being dropped in 1991 and a somewhat belated end in the same year to asking the \u201chousewife\u201d to fill out the questionnaire. Britons are spending a smaller proportion of pay on food today \u2013 11%, compared with 24% in 1974. \nThe UK Environment Secretary, Elizabeth Truss, said: \u201cFood is the heart and soul of our society and this data not only shows what we were eating 40 years ago but how a change in culture has led to a food revolution. Shoppers are more plugged in to where their food comes from than ever before, the internet has brought quality produce to our doorsteps at the click of a button, pop-up restaurants are showcasing the latest trends and exciting global cuisines are now as common as fish and chips.\u201d \n\u201cBy opening up this data, we can look beyond what, where or how previous generations were eating and pinpoint the moments that changed our habits for good. We\u2019ve only scraped the surface of what the National Food Survey can tell us and, from local food maps and school projects to predicting new food trends, I look forward to seeing how this data can be used to learn more about our past and grow our world-leading food and farming industry in the future.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Agios Efstratios is so remote, so forgotten by the banks, the government and most of the modern world that the mobile phone network can\u2019t process data and there isn\u2019t a single ATM or credit-card machine on the island. Before Greece was plunged into financial chaos, residents of this tranquil outpost in the northern Aegean managed quite well. They did their banking at the post office and the few dozen rooms to rent were booked out every summer with people who had heard \u2013 by word of mouth \u2013 of its spectacular empty beaches, clear seas and fresh seafood. \nBut, because the island still runs on cash, the closure of banks nationwide has been devastating. Residents have been forced to make nine-hour round trips to the nearest big island to get cash and Greek visitors say they can\u2019t get together enough money to come. \u201cTourist numbers are down 80% this year,\u201d said Mayor Maria Kakali, in an office in the village where she grew up, home to around 200 people. \u201cEven people born here and living in Athens, who have their own places on the island, aren\u2019t coming.\u201d \nKakali has badgered the government and a major Greek bank into promising an ATM within weeks but she still feels it may come too late for this season on an island where tourism dwarfs the two other sources of income: fishing and agriculture: \u201cWe have almost no reservations in August, when usually we have people calling us up asking to find a room and we can\u2019t help them.\u201d A hard winter ahead may be slightly improved by 50 workers billeted in the village to expand the harbour but there is an even bigger crisis looming because the government has said it will end a decades-old tax break for islands. \nCreated to help island communities survive when they were suffering mass emigration, a lower sales tax contained the costs of living in places where everything had to be imported and made tourism more affordable. Tourist favourites such as Mykonos fear that losing the tax breaks will make it hard for them to compete with Turkey but, for Agios Efstratios, it poses a far greater threat. \u201cIf we have to pay a tax of 23%, I\u2019m sorry to say it but we will all die on the island,\u201d says Kakali. \nFood and fuel are already more expensive than on the mainland, there are no economies of scale and little economic flexibility on an island which, even in summer, has only three shops, two restaurants and not a single official hotel. \u201cThis is an expensive island. Everything, even milk or bread, has changed hands three or four times before it gets to us and each middleman has to take a profit,\u201d said Provatas Costas, a 58-year-old fisherman. \nFor Agios Efstratios and its closest large neighbour, Lemnos, the timing of the crisis is particularly cruel. They were condemned to relative obscurity for years in part because they are served by slow and unreliable ferries. In 2015, the government had finally given the contract to a new, efficient company, drawing floods of new visitors to explore the islands\u2019 largely overlooked charms, before the bank controls hit. \n\u201cIt started out as the best season in 30 years and, in one week, became the worst,\u201d said Atzamis Konstantinos, a travel agent in Lemnos who used to earn \u20ac15,000 a month as a captain of petroleum tankers and other large ships but came home because he missed it so much. \u201cI always loved this island, even when I was young. I would dock in Piraeus, the port in Athens, take my pay, then get the first boat over. People would say 'You\u2019re crazy. You can go anywhere' but I only ever wanted to come here.\u201d \nLemnos has dozens of wild beaches, where even at the height of summer you can swim and sunbathe virtually alone, a small nightlife scene and numerous cultural sites. It is the eighth largest island in Greece so is in line for the first round of tax increases in autumn 2015 but far less wealthy than many smaller ones. It has just over 3,000 beds for visitors, compared with tens of thousands on an island such as Rhodes. Its councillors say that they will fight the tax rise, although none can say how. \u201cWe have been suffering economically in recent years and, now, we will suffer more,\u201d said Lemnos Mayor, Dimitris Marinakis. \u201cWhen there is not enough money, you reduce your consumption and therefore the whole economy declines.\u201d \nThe crisis has been particularly hard on people under 40, who often do two or three jobs to make ends meet and still feel they can\u2019t afford a family. Young people fear they are losing their contemporaries in an exodus to match the one that scattered their grandparents\u2019 friends to America, Australia and Canada. \u201cWhat is the future for our generation?\u201d said Katerina Fikari, who feels she is extremely lucky to work for the local government in Lemnos. \u201cIf you work only to pay your bills, how can you have dreams for your future?\u201d \nIf taxes go up, even more young people will leave, warns Mayor Kakali, who has devoted her year in office to improving education on the island to help keep it an attractive place for families. Because it is one of the smallest islands, Agios Efstratios has until 2017 before the rise is due to come in, so Kakali hopes that the roller coaster of Greek politics means it yet may be spared. If not, though, she plans to travel to Athens to remind the distant government what the tax rise would cost. \n\u201cThe truth is the government doesn\u2019t pay much attention to the islands of the north Aegean,\u201d she said, \u201cso I would take all the kids from our school to the gates of parliament, to tell them: 'There is still life in these islands'.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Scientists have connected the brains of a pair of animals and allowed them to share sensory information in a major step towards what the researchers call the world\u2019s first \u201corganic computer\u201d. \nThe US team fitted two rats with devices called brain-to-brain interfaces that let the animals collaborate on simple tasks to earn rewards, such as a drink of water. In one radical demonstration of the technology, the scientists used the internet to link the brains of two rats separated by thousands of miles, with one in the researchers\u2019 lab at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, and the other in Natal, Brazil. \nLed by Miguel Nicolelis, a pioneer of devices that allow paralyzed people to control computers and robotic arms with their thoughts, the researchers say their latest work may enable multiple brains to be hooked up to share information. \u201cThese experiments showed that we have established a sophisticated, direct communication linkage between brains,\u201d Nicolelis said in a statement. \u201cBasically, we are creating what I call an organic computer.\u201d \nThe scientists first demonstrated that rats can share, and act on, each other\u2019s sensory information by electrically connecting their brains via tiny grids of electrodes that reach into the motor cortex, the brain region that processes movement. \nThe rats were trained to press a lever when a light went on above it. When they performed the task correctly, they got a drink of water. To test the animals\u2019 ability to share brain information, they put the rats in two separate compartments. Only one compartment had a light that came on above the lever. When the rat pressed the lever, an electronic version of its brain activity was sent directly to the other rat\u2019s brain. In trials, the second rat responded correctly to the imported brain signals 70% of the time by pressing the lever. \nRemarkably, the communication between the rats was two-way. If the receiving rat failed at the task, the first rat was not rewarded with a drink, and appeared to change its behaviour to make the task easier for its partner. In further experiments, the rats collaborated on a task that required them to distinguish between narrow and wide openings using their whiskers. \nIn the final test, the scientists connected rats on different continents and beamed their brain activity back and forth over the internet. \u201cEven though the animals were on different continents, with the resulting noisy transmission and signal delays, they could still communicate,\u201d said Miguel Pais-Vieira, the first author of the study. \u201cThis tells us that we could create a workable network of animal brains distributed in many different locations.\u201d \nNicolelis said the team is now working on ways to link several animals\u2019 brains at once to solve more complex tasks. \u201cWe cannot even predict what kinds of emergent properties would appear when animals begin interacting as part of a 'brain-net',\u201d he said. \u201cIn theory, you could imagine that a combination of brains could provide solutions that individual brains cannot achieve by themselves.\u201d The research is published in the journal Scientific Reports. \nAnders Sandberg, who studies the ethics of neurotechnologies at the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University, said the work was \u201cvery important\u201d in helping to understand how brains encode information. But the implications of the technology and its potential future uses are far broader, said Sandberg. \u201cThe main reason we are running the planet is that we are amazingly good at communicating and coordinating. Without that, although we are very smart animals, we would not dominate the planet.\u201d \n\u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s any risk of supersmart rats from this,\u201d he added. \u201cThere\u2019s a big difference between sharing sensory information and being able to plan. I\u2019m not worried about an imminent invasion of 'rat multiborgs'.\u201d  \nVery little is known about how thoughts are encoded and how they might be transmitted into another person\u2019s brain, so that is not a realistic prospect any time soon. And much of what is in our minds is what Sandberg calls a \u201cdraft\u201d of what we might do. \u201cOften, we don\u2019t want to reveal those drafts; that would be embarrassing and confusing. And a lot of those drafts are changed before we act. Most of the time I think we\u2019d be very thankful not to be in someone else\u2019s head.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nJames Hamblin, senior editor of The Atlantic magazine, recently did an experiment. As part of his series, If Our Bodies Could Talk, Hamblin took on a no-showering challenge to examine the effect of over-cleansing the body. He reduced the number of showers he had and did not use shampoo or soap when he had a shower.\nHe discovered what thousands of others have: the more we try to clean ourselves with soaps and body washes, the harder our skin works to restore its balance and this encourages us to begin the whole process again. Showering removes oil and bacteria from the skin. Many would say That is the reason I shower! But, apparently, this sometimes works a little too well, especially when you add hot water and cleansing products.\nYou know that feeling after a shower when you feel like your skin is tight? Thats because much of your skins natural moisture has been washed down the drain. Also, our skin, like our gut, has millions of bene cial bacteria. Showering destroys these bacterial colonies; theyre completely destroyed by all our frequent rubbing and scrubbing. And, when the bacteria washed off by soap return, they usually favour microbes which produce an odour  yes, showering too often may actually make you smell more. However, when you stop showering and using soap, your skin goes through an initial (probably gross) adjustment period and, then, after that, the skin typically restores balance, oil production slows and healthy bacteria  ourish.\nBy doing the challenge, Hamblin realized what other no-soap\/no-shower fans have known for years: that the human body, working on its own, is actually quite lovely. And, its not just scent and aesthetics  although skin experts suggest that using less soap can improve skin conditions like eczema. Reducing the frequency of showers (and the number of cleansing products used) has implications for our environment. The average shower lasts seven minutes and uses 65 litres of water. Thats 65 litres of clean, drinkable water that were  lling with soap and washing down the drain each day  sometimes more than once.\nThe vital importance of clean water is becoming harder and harder to ignore, as California enters another summer of drought. Its becoming clear that clean water is one of the most valuable things in the world and we soon wont have enough. Add the environmental effect of all those body wash bottles and you have a number of very good reasons to let your body be a bit more natural.\nIf the idea of showering less and using less soap is giving you the heebie-jeebies as you remember the last time you were close to people who already dont shower enough, relax. Many people who have decided to shower less still use deodorant if they  nd it necessary (everyones natural scent varies in intensity and it can be affected by a number of things including diet, hydration and exercise). And, hand-washing with soap is still recommended as a vital way to reduce the spread of infectious diseases.\nYou dont need to give up completely, as Hamblin did, but you dont need to shower three times a day either. There is something in the middle. Our familiar, simple advice is: reduce. Skip a few showers, put down the soap and let those lovely little bacteria  ourish a little.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Thousands of people protested on Australia\u2019s beaches against a shark cull in Western Australia. They asked the state\u2019s prime minister to stop the cull, and RSPCA Australia and Virgin Atlantic owner Richard Branson criticized it. Catching and killing sharks longer than three metres began after a number of shark attacks on Western Australia\u2019s coast. A 35-year-old surfer, who was killed in November 2013, was the sixth person to die from a shark attack in two years.\nBut the whole of Australia has had, on average, just one shark-related death a year for the last 50 years. Kate Faehrmann, of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, said, from a protest in Perth, the state capital of Western Australia: \u201cWe\u2019ve always said that this idea won\u2019t work. Drumlines, which they use to catch the sharks, kill sharks if they\u2019re one, two, three metres or more, and also dolphins, turtles and other things. That\u2019s why we don\u2019t want the cull.\u201d\nThousands of people protested on beaches in the cities of Perth, Sydney and Adelaide, and at beaches in Victoria and Queensland. Faehrmann said the protests showed that Australians wanted sharks to be protected: \u201cWhat\u2019s amazing is that so many people in Australia love sharks. This has shown that people are scared but thousands of people are coming out across the country to say, \u2018That\u2019s the sharks\u2019 ocean. We respect them, we love them and we don\u2019t want you to kill them.\u2019 Anthony Joyce, a surfer who once had his foot caught in a shark\u2019s mouth, said: \u201cThe number of sharks they are going to kill is going to make no difference.\u201d\nThe state government will not say how many sharks they have killed, but some people say that sharks smaller than three metres were released after they were caught on drumlines, floating drums fixed to the sea bed with bait on hooks underneath them. Conservationists say there is no evidence the cull will reduce the number of shark attacks on humans, because no other cull has only used drumlines. Researchers at the University of Western Australia say the increased number of shark attacks in the state may be because Western Australia has the fastest-growing population in Australia, not because of a rising number of sharks.\nRichard Peirce, of the UK-based conservation charity, the Shark Trust, said that the cull would not work and could bring more predators towards the coast. \u201cThe activity in Western Australia is adding to the human tragedy of shark attacks. It is very sad that a government has ignored the best advice and chosen a method that is ineffective and counterproductive,\u201d he said, \u201cand, even if they monitor drumlines through the day, leaving the lines in at night could attract other predators to the area, attracted by those sharks and other species hooked and injured.\u201d\nWorldwide, in 2012, there were 80 attacks by sharks. Seven of the attacks were fatal. This is compared to nearly 100 million sharks killed by humans each year. RSPCA Australia says it believes the cull is wrong. \u201cThere is no evidence that the increase in attacks is a result of increasing shark numbers. We think it is the result of a changing population and changing human behaviour; that is, there are more people in the water,\u201d it said.\nRichard Branson said the idea was not working. \u201cI\u2019m sure one of the reasons Western Australia Premier, Colin Barnett, did it was because he was thinking it would encourage tourism. It\u2019s going to do the opposite, I think. You\u2019re advertising a problem that doesn\u2019t exist in a big way and you\u2019re going to stop people from wanting to come to Perth and your beautiful countryside around it. All you\u2019re going to achieve, I think, is to worry people.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has appealed to Washington to sort out its finances after the US pulled back from the brink of a debt default and hundreds of thousands of federal employees returned to work after a 16-day government shutdown. \nAs the US President, Barack Obama, warned \u201cWe\u2019ve got to get out of the habit of governing by crisis,\u201d the IMF\u2019s managing director, Christine Lagarde, appealed for more stability. \n\u201cIt will be essential to reduce uncertainty surrounding the conduct of fiscal policy by raising the debt limit in a more durable manner,\u201d she said. \n\u201cWe also continue to encourage the US to approve a budget for 2014 and replace the sequester with gradually phased-in measures that would not harm the recovery, and to adopt a balanced and comprehensive medium-term fiscal plan.\u201d \nA Senate-drafted peace deal that contained almost no concessions to the conservatives who had driven the country to the precipice of a new financial crisis was passed by the Republican-dominated House of Representatives just hours before a deadline to extend the US debt limit was to pass. \nThe World Bank, too, expressed its relief that the global economy had \u201cdodged a potential catastrophe \u201d, with its president, Jim Yong Kim, urging policymakers in all countries to \u201ccontinue to focus on crafting and implementing policies that promote economic growth and boost jobs and opportunity for all \u201d. \nStock markets in Japan, China, Hong Kong and South Korea initially reflected relief after the Republicans finally capitulated in their failed attempt to undermine Obama\u2019s healthcare reforms. But, in Asia and Europe, stock markets overall displayed a muted reaction, with traders apparently expecting another battle in Washington early in 2014. \nThe shutdown is estimated to have cost the US $24bn, according to the ratings agency Standard & Poor\u2019s. China\u2019s official Xinhua News Agency had accused Washington of jeopardizing other countries\u2019 dollar assets. China is the US government\u2019s largest creditor. \nObama signed the necessary legislation to fend off a default shortly after midnight on Thursday after a Republican split in the House of Representatives. The bill had passed easily with broad bipartisan support in the Senate, where Democratic and Republican leaders forged the agreement. It offers a temporary fix, funding the government until 15 January and raising the debt ceiling until 7 February. \nBut the president made clear he did not expect another bitter budget fight and shutdown in 2014. \nIn brief remarks at the White House shortly before the House vote, Obama said he hoped the deal would \u201clift the cloud of uncertainty\u201d that had hung over the country in recent weeks. \n\u201cOnce this agreement arrives on my desk, I will sign it immediately,\u201d he said, in a statement delivered at the White House. \u201cHopefully, next time it won\u2019t be in the eleventh hour. We\u2019ve got to get out of the habit of governing by crisis.\u201d \nAs he left the lectern after his Wednesday night press briefing, the president was asked by a journalist whether the crisis would happen all over again in a few months. Speaking over his shoulder, Obama replied, \u201cNo.\u201d \nEarlier, the Republican senator Mike Lee had struck a defiant tone, perhaps indicating more trouble ahead: \u201cThe media keeps asking: 'Was it worth it?' My answer is, it is always worth it to do the right thing.\u201d He added: \u201cThis is not over.\u201d \nHowever, the political deal was one of the worst of all possible outcomes for Republicans. None of their stated goals was achieved and polls showed that voters overwhelmingly blamed them for the crisis.","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"What is it like to look at the very last of something? To contemplate the passing of a unique wonder that will soon vanish from the face of the earth? Sudan is the last male northern white rhino on the planet. If he does not mate successfully soon with one of two female northern white rhinos at Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya, there will be no more of their kind, male or female, born anywhere. And it seems a slim chance, as Sudan is getting old at 42 and breeding efforts have so far failed. Apart from these three animals, there are only two other northern white rhinos in the world, both in zoos, both female. \nIt seems an image of human tenderness that Sudan is lovingly guarded by armed men who stand vigilantly and caringly with him. But, of course, it is an image of brutality. Even at this last desperate stage in the fate of the northern white rhino, Sudan is under threat from poachers who kill rhinos and hack off their horns to sell them on the Asian medicine market \u2013 despite the fact that he has had his horn cut off to deter them. \nSudan doesn\u2019t know how precious he is. His eye is a sad black dot in his massive wrinkled face as he wanders the reserve with his guards. His head is a marvellous thing. It is a majestic rectangle of strong bone and leathery flesh, a head that expresses pure strength. How terrible that such a mighty head can, in reality, be so vulnerable. It is lowered melancholically beneath the sinister sky, as if weighed down by fate. This is the noble head of an old warrior, his armour battered, his appetite for struggle fading. \nUnder his immense looming shoulder, his legs protrude like squat columns from the tough tank of his body. The way his foreleg emerges from his thick coat of skin reminds us how long human beings have been wondering at the natural spectacle that is the rhino. For Sudan does not look so different from the rhinoceros that Albrecht D\u00fcrer portrayed in 1515. They have the same little legs stuck out of a majestic body and they even lower their heads in the same contemplative way. D\u00fcrer was a Renaissance artist picturing an exotic beast from the exotic lands that Europe was starting to see more and more of. In 1515, a live Indian rhinoceros was sent by the ruler of Gujarat in India to the king of Portugal: he in turn sent it to the Pope but, on the way, it died in a shipwreck. \nHuman beings \u2013 we always kill the things we love. We have been doing so since the Ice Age. There are beautiful pictures of European woolly rhinos in caves in France that were painted up to 30,000 years ago. These ancient relatives of Sudan share his heroic bulk, mighty power and paradoxical air of gentleness. A woolly rhino in Chauvet Cave seems agile and young, a creature full of life. But the same people who painted such sensitive portraits of Ice Age rhinos helped to kill them off. As climate turned against the woolly megafauna with the end of the last Ice Age, human spears probably delivered the coup de gr\u00e2ce. \nToday, immense love is invested in rhinos, yet they are being slaughtered in ever greater numbers. The northern white rhino is the rarest species of African rhino. There are far greater numbers of southern white rhinos and black rhinos. But the demand in some countries for rhino horn as a traditional medicine believed to cure everything from flu to cancer is fuelling a boom in poaching. From 2007, when just 13 rhinos were killed by poachers in South Africa, the killings have grown horrifically. In 2014, 1,215 rhinos were slaughtered for their horns in South Africa. 2015 already looks certain to beat that dreadful record. \nThe vulnerable northern white rhino has been hunted virtually to extinction \u2013 in spite of every precaution, in spite of the guards and their guns \u2013 and other varieties of African rhino are under a sustained attack from poachers that is totally out of control. The Javan rhinoceros is also on the verge of extinction. India has successfully protected the Indian rhinoceros after it was almost wiped out by British hunters in colonial times but here, too, poaching is a menace. What a majestic creature and what futile human destructiveness. Have we learned nothing since the Ice Age?","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"He is the star of one of the world\u2019s longest running and most successful film series, with 23 movies and more than $6bn amassed at the global box office, but James Bond shows no signs of slowing down. In fact, the Bond brand is stronger than ever, after the record-breaking performance of Skyfall, which became the biggest ever film at the UK box office on its release in 2012 and, with its total earnings of $1.1bn, currently stands in ninth place of all-time largest earners. \nHence the intense interest that surrounded the announcement of a few more details of the 24th Bond film \u2013 not the least its official title, Spectre. The number one question is this: can Spectre repeat the Skyfall trick? Will Skyfall remain a high water mark for the Bond movie or can Spectre extend this winning run? \nCharles Gant, film editor for Heat magazine, says the indications are it is heading in the right direction.\u201d Skyfall was a brilliant strategic move,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was cleverly positioned as simultaneously modern and retro. It appealed to the Daniel-Craig-era fans, who are relative newcomers to the franchise, and it also managed to engage the older, more nostalgic elements of the audience, who may have lost interest over the previous few films. With the new title,\u201d he adds, \u201cthey are already on to a winner. My feeling is that Spectre announces that they want to hang on to the nostalgic, more age-diverse Bond fan, as well as retaining the younger audience.\u201d \nThe initial signs are that Eon Productions, the company originally founded in 1961 to make Dr No and that is behind all the \u201cofficial\u201d Bonds, is doing its utmost to ensure lightning strikes twice by installing the key creative talent behind Skyfall on Spectre. Daniel Craig has been tied down at least until Bond 25, while the same writers have produced the script. \nBut it\u2019s the recapture of director Sam Mendes that gives Bondwatchers the most hope. A director principally known for character studies such as American Beauty and Revolutionary Road, Mendes has taken the Bond series to new heights. Gant says: \u201cMendes managed to engage with both the modern and the traditional Bond audience, and he also pulled in high-calibre actors like Ralph Fiennes. To get actors like Fiennes in, they have to be happy with the director.\u201d \nAmong other achievements, Skyfall virtually doubled the box office of its predecessor, Quantum of Solace, which managed a worldwide figure of $586m on its release in 2008. No one is expecting anything like that this time, but Eon will not be complacent. \nThough the Bond series was not in trouble before Mendes\u2019s arrival \u2013 and Craig\u2019s \u2013 there was the sense of a certain amount of staleness towards the end of Pierce Brosnan\u2019s run. The series had survived the drying up of actual Bond stories to adapt, the movies having long since departed from any resemblance to the Ian Fleming originals, but it was lacking a certain dynamism. \nThis cycle, however, was nothing new: the history of the Bond series has been one of ebb and flow, stasis and renewal, revolving most obviously around the lead actor: first, Sean Connery; then, successively, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Brosnan and, now, Craig. Each appointment has been a response to the state of the series and some have worked out better than others. \nLazenby only lasted a single film, while Dalton\u2019s two efforts, The Living Daylights and Licence to Kill coincided with a period in the late 80s when the 007 movie had been thoroughly eclipsed by more aggressive, slickly produced Hollywood action movies. According to Gant, \u201cthe period of Roger Moore\u2019s last ones, going into Dalton, didn\u2019t really excite audiences. Brosnan saw a bit of an upturn commercially, while Craig has taken it to new levels. On the other hand, the early Bonds were incredibly commercial films, sexy and exciting, and there was very little around like them.\u201d \nIt\u2019s a point worth underlining that, although Skyfall\u2019s actual receipts dwarf all the other Bond films, the performance of some of the 1960s entries in the series was almost as brilliant by comparison. With figures adjusted for inflation, the 1965 release, Thunderball , is only a hair\u2019s breadth below Skyfall , while Goldfinger and You Only Live Twice both outperformed the other Craig films (as did the 70s Bonds, The Spy Who Loved Me and Live and Let Die ). By this reckoning, Licence to Kill is the worst-performing of all Bonds, with Moore\u2019s final effort, A View to a Kill, in second-to-last place. \nNevertheless, the Bond brand has remained immensely powerful over the decades, with Eon being forced to fend off attempts by rival outfits to capitalize on the series\u2019s popularity. Through a quirk of rights ownership, adaptations of Casino Royale (in 1967) and Thunderball (as Never Say Never Again , in 1983) were released in competition with Eon productions. Although subject to legal disputes over several decades, Eon now has full control of both books. \nCasino Royale, whose rights had been individually sold off by Fleming in 1955, eventually passed to Eon in 1999 as a result of an agreement between Eon\u2019s backers, MGM, and rival Hollywood studio Sony \u2013 thereby clearing the way for the 2006 version. Thunderball, on the other hand, owed its disputed status to writer-producer Kevin McClory, who helped Fleming outline the original story and who claimed ownership of the novel over subsequent decades, and produced Never Say Never Again as a result. After McClory\u2019s death in 2006, his family eventually settled with MGM and Eon\u2019s parent company in November 2013. \nIf the initial surge of enthusiasm for Bond movies lasted through the 60s and into the 1970s, it\u2019s fair to say that the series almost ground to a halt after Licence to Kill\u2019s poor figures. Goldeneye, the first of Brosnan\u2019s efforts, heralded a dramatic renewal: not simply because of a new actor but, more significantly, because of who was behind the camera. \nHowever, after a six-year break, Eon installed Martin Campbell in the chair: another experienced British director but one who was able to orchestrate one of the most elaborate stunts in Bond history. The justly renowned opening scene of Goldeneye \u2013 during which Bond freefalls into the cockpit of a pilotless light aeroplane \u2013 did much to reinvigorate and modernize the series on its own. Moreover, a whole new generation was reached through a hugely successful Goldeneye video-game spin-off, making a significant contribution to perceptions that the Bond film was no longer stale and old-fashioned.","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"A new study shows that there are more and more brown bears, wolves and lynx in the forests and suburban areas of Europe. Rising human populations and use of resources have made many people believe that these animals could soon become extinct. But the study says that numbers of large predators are stable or rising in Europe. \nBrown bears, wolves and the Eurasian lynx are found in nearly one-third of mainland Europe (excluding Belarus, Ukraine and Russia). Most live outside nature reserves \u2013 this shows that changing attitudes and conservation methods are protecting these species very well. \nBears are the most common large carnivore in Europe \u2013 there are around 17,000 bears. There are 12,000 wolves and 9,000 Eurasian lynx. Only Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Luxembourg in mainland Europe have no breeding populations of at least one large carnivore species. Britain also has none. But the study said these animals live in regions of Europe where lots of people live and this shows that they could live even in the British countryside. \nGuillaume Chapron from Sweden\u2019s University of Agricultural Sciences and researchers across Europe found wolves living in suburban areas with up to 3,050 people per square kilometre. On average in Europe, wolves live on land where there are 37 people per square kilometre, lynx in areas where there are 21 people per square kilometre and bears where there are 19 people per square kilometre. In the Scottish Highlands there are just nine people per square kilometre. \n\u201cTo have wolves, we don\u2019t need to remove people from the landscape,\u201d said Chapron. He also said that the big carnivore revival shows the success of a \u201cland-sharing\u201d method of conservation \u2013 it is different from the method in North America and Africa, where they use fences to separate these animals in \u201cwilderness\u201d areas. \n\u201cI\u2019m not saying it\u2019s a perfect love story \u2013 living together often means conflict \u2013 but it\u2019s important to control that conflict and resolve the problems it causes. Wolves can be difficult neighbours,\u201d said Chapron. \nAccording to the researchers, countries in other parts of the world could use this \u201cland-sharing\u201d method. Land-sharing works in Europe because there are more and more animals such as wild deer for the predators to eat and there is money for electric fences to protect livestock fences, so farmers do not have to shoot wild predators. Most important, said Chapron, is the EU Habitats Directive, which has forced member states to protect and revive rare species. \n\u201cWithout the Habitats Directive, I don\u2019t think we would have had this revival,\u201d he said. \u201cIt shows that we can protect animals, if people really want to help and if politicians make strong laws.\u201d Author George Monbiot was happy about the revival. He is starting a charity called Rewilding Britain. It encourages the return of wild landscape and extinct species. \n\u201cIt is great to see more of these animals in Europe. But Britain is completely different \u2013 we\u2019ve lost more of our large animals than any country except for Ireland,\u201d he said. \u201cWe accidentally reintroduced wild boar but we\u2019ve done nothing else. In much of the rest of Europe we\u2019ve got bears, lynx and wolves coming back. If it works in the rest of Europe, there\u2019s absolutely no reason why it can\u2019t work in the UK,\u201d he said. He added that bears and wolves live less than an hour away from Rome. \u201cThere\u2019s no reason why we can\u2019t have a similar return of wildlife in the UK.\u201d","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Emmanuel Limal wanted to find love on online dating sites but he was tired of meeting women who said that they weren\u2019t ready to start a family. The 43-year-old actor, who is from France, has lived in Copenhagen for 20 years. He was looking for love and wanted to start a family. \nHe tried to find someone online but without success. \u201cEveryone said that they were really active, always travelling or with a long list of hobbies, but they didn\u2019t talk about children,\u201d Limal said. \u201cOn some sites, there was an option to click saying: 'I\u2019d like kids someday,' but I read the person\u2019s profile and thought: 'You will never have time!' If someone\u2019s going to the gym eight times a week and travelling every month, they are not putting a family first.\u201d \nLimal has a six-year-old daughter from an old relationship but he has always wanted more children. \u201cI couldn\u2019t meet anyone who wanted to start a family\u201d. He said it was difficult to know when to talk about wanting kids when he met someone new. \u201cIt\u2019s a difficult subject to talk about when you are on a date,\u201d he said. \u201cThen one day I read a profile from a 38-year-old who said she knew it was 'really bad to admit' but she wanted children. And I thought: 'You shouldn\u2019t be ashamed of this.'\u201d \nLimal borrowed money to start Babyklar.nu \u2013 or 'baby-ready now' in English. It works like a normal dating site but everyone is asked to be honest about their wish to start a family soon. \u201cWe ask people if they are OK with someone who already has children and if they want another baby,\u201d Limal said. \u201cBut we don\u2019t make them say how many children they would like. That would be like food shopping online.\u201d \nHe has had a very positive response to the site. \u201cFifty people signed up every hour when we started in June. There are already couples who met through the site and are now together. I think we will have the first Babyklar.nu baby by next summer.\u201d More men have signed up than women (53% to 47%), with comments such as \u201cI can finally be honest about what I want.\u201d \nThe site has come at the right time for the country of five million people. Danes are not having enough children and the current rate of 1.7 children per family means that the population is falling. The usual reasons are given \u2013 women are leaving it \u201ctoo late\u201d and couples are living together without getting married and waiting to start families. \n\u201cNow, I hope, men and women who want to start a family but haven\u2019t met the right person yet will have another choice,\u201d says Limal. He says that this isn\u2019t just about making babies: \u201cI want this to be about children and love. My goal is to bring together people who really want a family and a partner \u2013 and who\u2019ll stay together. I\u2019m a romantic.\u201d \nHe is planning to start sites in France and the UK later in 2013, but at the moment the only site is in Denmark. \u201cDanes have no problem having children before marriage so things can move fast and, because the country\u2019s so small, someone from Jutland can date someone from Copenhagen without too much travel,\u201d Limal said. And Limal has finally found love. \u201cI\u2019ve met a nice woman and she wants a baby too \u2013 so we shall see.\u201d","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"An international agreement to improve safety in Bangladesh\u2019s clothing factories is facing the threat of legal action as factory owners demand compensation for the cost of closures and repair work. With some repair programmes expected to take months, factory owners say they cannot shoulder the costs of paying staff while factories are closed, alongside the expense of some major works needed to ensure buildings are safe. The building overhauls are being carried out in the wake of the collapse of the Rana Plaza complex in the capital of Bangladesh, Dhaka, in 2013, in which 1,138 people were killed. \nThe problems come as hundreds of Bangladeshi clothing factories per month are inspected for fire- safety and structural problems under the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, which is backed by over 170 international brands, including Primark and Marks & Spencer, and international trade unions, including IndustriALL. \nThe owner of one Dhaka-based factory, Softex Cotton, has threatened legal action against the Accord after his factory was closed down due to structural problems, prompting a demand for a reported $100m in compensation. \nAnother factory owner, who declined to be named, said that once a factory closed its doors, even for a few months, it would lose orders and close permanently: \u201cThere is no such thing as temporary closure,\u201d he said. The factory owner said that the Accord agreement had \u201cpussyfooted\u201d around the issue of who paid for factory closures amid efforts to get as many brands as possible to sign up to a deal in the wake of the Rana Plaza disaster. He said there was no clear process in place to handle the costs involved. \nJenny Holdcroft, policy director for IndustriALL, which has been closely involved in the Accord, said that the agreement ensured that factories would not lose orders during closure because brands had committed to maintain orders with suppliers for two years. \nWhile 12 factories have been identified so far by the Accord as needing significant work, Holdcroft said many of those only needed partial closure in order to reduce stress on the building so production could continue on other floors. The Accord also legally binds brands to ensure that workers are paid during factory closures. She said the detail on who would make payments had been left open in order to ensure that all those factory owners who could afford to pay for repairs and compensation for workers made the necessary contribution. \n\u201cThis was always going to be a topic of negotiation. Brands don\u2019t want to commit to paying so that rich factory owners who have just pocketed the profits and not been spending on their factories for years continue to do so. There was obviously going to be disruption. If there was no disruption, there would be no change,\u201d she said. A spokesman for the Accord said negotiations over payments and even legal action would not hold up its work to improve safety in factories. \nHowever, pressure on the Accord to contribute to the payment of displaced workers has ratcheted up after a rival factory-safety group backed by US retailers including Walmart and Gap, the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety, set aside $5m to help pay factory workers for up to two months while work is carried out on the buildings it has identified as needing improvement. It has, so far, identified five factories in four buildings where production needed to be suspended. \n\u201cThe Alliance is sharing the workers\u2019 salary along with entrepreneurs so now there is a big confusion. We had a big meeting with the Accord to make them understand they have to come forward or how will we help our workers?\u201d said Shaidullah Azim, a director of the Bangladeshi Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association.","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"The vast fortunes made by the world\u2019s richest 100 billionaires are driving up inequality and hindering the world\u2019s ability to tackle poverty, according to Oxfam. \nThe charity said the accumulation of wealth and income on an unprecedented scale, often at the expense of secure jobs and decent wages for the poorest, undermined the ability of people who survive on aid or low wages to improve their situation and escape poverty. \nOxfam said the world\u2019s poorest could be lifted out of poverty several times over if the richest 100 billionaires would give away the money they made in 2012. \nWithout pointing a finger at individuals, the charity argued that the $240bn net income amassed in 2012 by the richest 100 billionaires would be enough to make extreme poverty history four times over. \nIt is rare for charities to attack the wealthy, who are usually regarded as a source of funding. Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are among a group of 40 US billionaires who have pledged much of their wealth to aid projects, but there is little detail about the level of their annual donations. Their actions have also not been matched by Russian, Middle Eastern or Chinese billionaires. \nIn the report, The Cost of Inequality: How Wealth and Income Extremes Hurt Us All , published just before the World Economic Forum in Davos, the charity calls on world leaders to curb income extremes and commit to reducing inequality to at least 1990 levels. \nThe report found that the richest 1% had increased their incomes by 60% in the past 20 years, with the financial crisis accelerating rather than slowing the process. \nBarbara Stocking, Oxfam\u2019s Chief Executive, said extreme wealth was \u201ceconomically inefficient, politically corrosive, socially divisive and environmentally destructive\u201d. \nShe said studies show that countries suffer low levels of investment and growth as workers are forced to survive on a smaller share of total incomes. \nShe said: \u201cWe can no longer pretend that the creation of wealth for a few will inevitably benefit the many \u2013 too often the reverse is true.\u201d \nThe report said the issue affected all parts of the world. \u201cIn the UK, inequality is rapidly returning to levels not seen since the time of Charles Dickens [the nineteenth-century novelist]. In China, the top 10% now take home nearly 60% of the income. Chinese inequality levels are now similar to those in South Africa, which is now the most unequal country on Earth and significantly more unequal than at the end of apartheid.\u201d \nIn the US, the share of national income going to the top 1% has doubled since 1980 from 10 to 20%, the report says. For the top 0.01% the share of national income is above levels last seen in the 1920s. \nThe World Bank and International Monetary Fund have argued that extreme income inequality undermines growth and both organizations have attempted to tie their loans to programmes that limit the growth of inequality. \nMembers of the richest 1% are estimated to use as much as 10,000 times more carbon than the average US citizen. \nOxfam said world leaders should learn from countries such as Brazil, which has grown rapidly while reducing inequality. \nStocking said: \u201cWe need a global new deal to reverse decades of increasing inequality. As a first step, world leaders should formally commit themselves to reducing inequality to the levels seen in 1990.\u201d \nShe said closing tax havens, which the Tax Justice Network says hold as much as $31 trillion, or as much as a third of all global wealth, could yield $189bn in additional tax revenues.","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nAccording to a new census, there are more tigers in Nepal than at any time since the 1970s. This has given conservationists hope that the big cats, whose numbers have been dropping across south Asia for 100 years, can be saved.\nThe number of wild royal bengal tigers in Nepal has increased to 198  a 63.6% rise in five years  the government survey showed. This is very good news, said Maheshwar Dhakal, an ecologist with Nepals Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation.\nThe census is based on the examination of pictures from more than 500 cameras in five protected areas and three wildlife corridors. More than 250 conservationists and wildlife experts worked on the survey, which cost about 250,000. Dhakal said that a similar survey was done in India and the results from both countries will be published later in 2013. It will take a few more months for India, which now has 1,300 big cats in several huge protected areas, to finish the survey, he added. Nepal has promised to double the population of tigers by the year 2022 from 121 in 2009 when the last systematic tiger count took place.\nIncreasing wealth in Asia has led to higher prices for tiger skins and the body parts used in traditional Chinese medicines. International gangs pay poor local Nepali large amounts of money to kill the cats. The skin and bones are given to middlemen, who pass easily through the border with India, where the major dealers are based.\nOne major problem is that some senior officials help mafia networks involved in the trade. Conservation experts believe that the increase in tiger numbers is the result of better policing of national parks and better management of tiger habitats in Nepal, where forests cover 29% of the land. But they say Nepal needs to do more to protect the habitat and animals on which tigers feed so the big cats have enough space to roam and food to eat.\nAs the number of tigers has increased over the years, conflict with villagers has increased, too. Seven people were killed in attacks by tigers around national parks in 2012 compared to four in 2011, park officials said. Villagers also want better protection. The government is making conservation plans for tigers. But it should also produce plans to protect people from tigers, Krishna Bhurtel, a village headman, told a Nepali newspaper. Wildlife authorities captured a tiger after it killed two people, including a villager who was pulled from his bed in May.\nThousands of tigers once roamed the forests in Bangladesh, India and Nepal. But their numbers have dropped to about 3,000, a 95% drop over a century. Chitwan National Park in central Nepal has the highest number of adult tigers, with 120, followed by Bardiya National Park (50) and Shukla Phanta Wildlife Reserve (17).\nDiwakar Chapagain, head of a World Wildlife Fund Nepal unit that monitors wildlife trade, said tiger skins were in demand in Tibet, where rich people use them as festival costumes.\nIn Nepal, kings used to stand on tiger skins for special occasions. Some wealthy Nepali have tiger heads on the walls of their living rooms. Tiger bones are used in traditional Chinese medicines. The trade in tiger parts is lucrative and fetches thousands of dollars in illegal markets, Chapagain said.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nHimalayan lakes, spacewalks and the US presidential campaign helped Scott Kelly stay sane during his 340 days in space, the astronaut told journalists after he landed back on Earth from a record-breaking mission. It seemed like I lived there forever, Kelly said. He had been on several previous missions but said that his biggest surprise was simply how long this one felt. Maybe, occasionally, you do go bananas, he said.\nKelly and a Russian colleague, Mikhail Kornienko, spent nearly a year on the International Space Station (ISS) in order to study the effects of weightlessness, radiation and the cramped conditions of space ight on humans. NASA considers this research essential for a future mission to Mars.\nKelly said the length of the mission was its biggest challenge and that he felt much more sore when he returned to gravity than after shorter trips. Kelly and his twin brother, Mark, a retired astronaut, have spent the last year taking physical and mental tests. The tests will continue, to help NASA learn about how the body copes with the severe strains of space ight.\nHe said the discomfort of returning to gravity took nothing from the sense of wonder he felt after he landed back on Earth. When the Russian capsule opened on to the cool air of Kazakhstan, Kelly said, he smelled a fragrance like a plant was blooming in that area. It was the fresh air mixed with the charred, kind of sweet smell of a spacecraft that had survived re-entry through the atmosphere.\nAs he left the spacecraft, he said, the importance of the mission began to sink in: 340 days on a 15-year- old space station which is a million pounds, the size of a football  eld, the internal volume, some say, of a six-bedroom house. The ISS, he said, is a place that uses the power of the sun and was built with the help of an international team.\nThere are things were going to discover about our experience in space in the space station that we dont even know now, Kelly said, comparing the research of more than 450 missions there to the work done by computer scientists at NASA in the 1960s and 1970s. He added: The view is great, too.\nKelly made the most of that view  he posted spectacular photos on social media of the Earths cities, landscapes, oceans and atmosphere. The Earth is a beautiful planet, he said, describing the beautiful waters around the Bahamas and the rainbow colours of the lakes of the northern Himalayas. He said he would like to visit that region, though he would  rst need to learn what country actually owns them. But, mainly, you just notice how thin the atmosphere is, Kelly added. That, together with these large areas of pollution, is kind of alarming.\nThe astronaut said he could see entire systems of pollution: smoke clouds from wild res that covered parts of the US, sections of Asia with continuous, visible pollution nearly all year round. He said the message we need to save the planet wasnt completely correct: The planet will get better; its us that wont be here because well destroy the environment. The worlds thin shield of atmosphere makes you more of an environmentalist after spending so much time looking down, he said.\nIts for us to take care of the air we breathe and the water we drink. And I do believe we have an impact on that and we do have the ability to change it, if we make the decision to. Kelly was very active on social media, which made many people follow him online. But he said he was unaware of it. Instead, he watched the drama of the 2016 US presidential election.\nBesides the news, he said, steady work helped keep him sane: I tried to have milestones that were close, like when is the next crew arriving, the next spacewalk, the next science experiment. That made a difference to me  it kept my sanity. Being back on Earth with the rest of humanity had not quite sunk in, he added. He recalled how shocked he had been to see a crowd of people after a previous mission. Ill soon start feeling that kind of culture shock, he said.\nKelly predicted that he would not  y again with NASA. But I dont think I would ever say Im absolutely, 100%  nished, he added, because of the sudden successes of private space ight companies such as SpaceX. They might need a guy like me someday, he said. Maybe, in the next 20 years, youll be able to buy a cheap ticket, just go for a little visit.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"What is it like to look at the last of something? Sudan is the last male northern white rhino on the planet. If he does not mate soon with one of two female northern white rhinos at Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya, there will be no more rhinos like them, male or female, born anywhere. And they probably won\u2019t mate because Sudan is 42 so he is old. There are only two other northern white rhinos in the world, both in zoos, both female.\nThe image seems to show that humans are gentle \u2013 armed men guard Sudan and stay with him. But, of course, it shows that humans are cruel. Sudan is in danger from poachers. The poachers kill rhinos and cut off their horns to sell them for medicine. Sudan has had his horn cut off to stop the poachers but he is still in danger.\nSudan doesn\u2019t know how precious he is. His eye is a sad black dot in his big face as he walks around the reserve with his guards. His head is a marvellous thing. It is a majestic rectangle of strong bone, a head of pure strength. How terrible that such a powerful head can be so vulnerable.\nSudan does not look so different from the artist Albrecht D\u00fcrer \u2019s rhinoceros from 1515. D\u00fcrer was a Renaissance artist. He drew an exotic beast from an exotic place. In 1515, the ruler of Gujarat in India sent a live Indian rhinoceros to the king of Portugal. The king sent it to the Pope but the ship sank and it died.\nHuman beings \u2013 we always kill the things we love. This hasn\u2019t changed since the Ice Age. There are beautiful pictures of European woolly rhinos in caves in France that were painted up to 30,000 years ago. These ancient relatives of Sudan were gentle and powerful, like Sudan. A woolly rhino in Chauvet Cave seems young, an animal full of life. But the same people who painted such sensitive pictures of Ice Age rhinos helped to kill them all.\nToday, people love rhinos. But, at the same time, people are killing more and more rhinos. The northern white rhino is the rarest kind of African rhino. There are more southern white rhinos and black rhinos. But, in some countries, more and more people want rhino horn to use as a traditional medicine. And this increases the poaching. In 2007, 13 rhinos were killed by poachers in South Africa. In 2014, 1,215 rhinos were killed for their horns in South Africa.\nThe vulnerable northern white rhino has nearly been hunted to extinction \u2013 in spite of the guards and their guns. The poaching is totally out of control. The Javan rhinoceros is also nearly extinct. India has successfully protected the Indian rhinoceros but here, too, poaching is a problem. Sudan is such a majestic animal. Have we learned nothing since the Ice Age?","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nWhen it comes to climate change, we usually just focus on the  rst part of the story, the part about the problem. We usually forget the second part of the story about the many available solutions. These solutions are speeding up recycling, slowing down emissions and providing sustainable alternatives to plastic, air conditioning, smartphones and fast fashion.\nThe Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change met recently in Copenhagen to present its latest report on the impacts and speed of climate change. Climate change is now measured on all continents. Our efforts to lower emissions must be intensi ed to avoid climate change getting out of control. Copenhagen looked at the risks and challenges but also the solutions.\nFocusing on what can be done, Sustainia Award, chaired by Arnold Schwarzenegger, celebrated ten leading sustainable solutions used in 84 countries. From food to fashion, energy to transportation, education to health, the awards showed that there is an alternative to the grim-future scenarios we so often read about.\nFrom California, we saw how we can now produce plastics from greenhouse gases that are competitive with normal oil-based plastics in price and quality. From Switzerland, we learned how we can recycle and reuse old clothes and shoes more effectively. And from Canada, we learned how smartphones can make bike-sharing more convenient.\nThe ten projects each offered unique solutions to sustainability challenges but it was the Nigerian initiative, Wecyclers, that won Arnold Schwarzenegger and the rest of jurys vote. It won the Sustainia Award 2014.\nWecyclers allows poor communities to make money on waste in their streets. By using bicycles to collect and recycle waste in Lagos, Wecyclers lets families exchange garbage for consumer goods via an SMS-based point system.\nRecycling companies purchase Wecyclers sorted waste and make it into products such as mattresses, pillows and trash bags. Wecyclers is a response to local waste problems, where its estimated that only 40% of the citys rubbish is collected. According to the World Bank, only 46% of municipal waste in Africa is collected. More than 5,000 households are involved and there are plans to extend the initiative to other cities throughout Nigeria.\nSolutions to deal with climate change are often hi-tech innovations focused on cutting emissions. However, to successfully solve the variety of challenges, we need variety in our solutions as well. Sustainability is not just about bringing down emissions, it is also a question of using our natural resources more intelligently and creating healthier lives for ourselves. These initiatives might be low-tech in innovation, but they are high-impact when it comes to creating sustainable change for entire communities.\nWith a wide range of solutions for the wide range of challenges, we must focus more on the important part of the story that creates enthusiasm, momentum and that helps to create positive change.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nOrganic food has more of the antioxidants linked to better health than regular food, and lower levels of toxic metals and pesticides, according to the most comprehensive scienti c analysis so far. The international team behind the work suggests that switching to organic fruit and vegetables could give the same bene ts as adding one or two portions of the recommended  ve a day fruit and vegetables.\nThe team, led by Professor Carlo Leifert, concludes that there are statistically signi cant differences, with a range of antioxidants being substantially higher  between 19% and 69%  in organic food. It is the  rst study to demonstrate clear differences between organic and conventional fruits, vegetables and cereals.\nThe researchers say the increased levels of antioxidants are equivalent to one to two of the  ve portions of fruits and vegetables recommended to be consumed daily and would therefore be signi cant in terms of human nutrition.\nThe  ndings will add to the controversy over organic food and whether it is better for people. Tom Sanders, a professor of nutrition at Kings College London, said the research did show some differences. But the question is are they within natural variation? And are they nutritionally relevant? I am not convinced. He added, Leifert has had a lot of disagreements with a lot of people. He also said that research showed organic cereals have less protein than conventional crops.\nThe results of the research are based on an analysis of 343 studies from around the world  more than ever before  which examine differences between organic and conventional fruit, vegetables and cereals. The important thing about this research is that it shatters the myth that how we farm does not affect the quality of the food we eat, said Helen Browning, chief executive of the Soil Association, which campaigns for organic farming.\nLeifert and his colleagues conclude that many antioxidants have previously been linked to a reduced risk of chronic diseases, including cardiovascular diseases, neurodegenerative diseases and certain cancers. The researchers also found much higher levels of cadmium, a toxic metal, in conventional crops. Pesticide residues were found on conventional crops four times more often than on organic food.\nThe research is certain to be criticized: the inclusion of so many studies in the analysis could mean poor-quality work makes the results unreliable. Also, the higher levels of cadmium and pesticides in conventional produce were still far below recommended limits. But, the researchers say cadmium accumulates over time in the body and that some people may wish to avoid this, and that pesticide limits are set individually, not for the cocktail of chemicals used on crops.\nA further criticism of the research is that the differences seen may result from different climates, soil types and crop varieties, and not from organic farming. The greatest criticism, however, will be over the suggestions of possible health bene ts. The most recent major analysis, which included 223 studies in 2012, found little evidence. The published literature lacks strong evidence that organic foods are signi cantly more nutritious than conventional foods, it found.\nThis was also the conclusion of earlier, smaller studies published in 2009 in a scienti c journal and by the UK Food Standards Agency. The 2012 study did note that eating organic food might help people avoid pesticide residues. Sanders said he was not persuaded by the new work. You are not going to be healthier if you eat organic food, he said. What is most important is what you eat, not whether its organic or conventional. Its whether you eat fruit and vegetables at all.\nOpinion polls show healthy eating (55%) and avoiding chemical residues (53%) are key reasons given by shoppers for buying organic produce. But, many also say care for the environment (44%) and animal welfare (31%) are important, and also taste (35%). Browning said: This research con rms what people think about organic food. In other countries, there have, for a long time, been much higher levels of support and acceptance of the bene ts of organic food and farming. We hope these  ndings will bring the UK into line with the rest of Europe.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nWe may not yet be living in an age of  ying cars, as predicted in the 1985  lm Back to the Future II, but the rise of smartphones and other new technologies is creating a reality that is just as exciting and almost as far-fetched. Experts agree that economic and demographic changes, technological advances, and environmental concerns are fundamentally changing transportation. Its a very dynamic time, said transport expert Robert Puentes. Theres a tighter connection between transportation and the economic health of cities and its impact on people.\nAs the transport infrastructure grows old, cities across the US are forced to rede ne what transportation is. Urban planners, transportation experts and scientists are now realizing that old methods focused on reducing traf c congestion arent enough to solve problems like population growth and carbon emissions, and transportation is now a key part of protecting the environment.\nBig US cities like Los Angeles and Chicago are working to make better use of their streets by adding more bus lanes and pedestrian walkways, and expanding rail networks. At the same time, they are working on advanced technologies that will allow a vehicle to drive itself and communicate with other vehicles and its environment. The most sustainable places to live are places that have multi-modal transport systems, Puentes said\nHere are three key ideas that experts predict will in uence transportation in the coming years.\nConnectivity Ride-sharing services like Uber  taxis booked via smartphone  and apps like Waze, which uses real-time traf c data to  nd the quickest routes for drivers, are dramatically changing how people move around and affecting the way traf c moves through a city. Communication between riders and drivers, between different vehicles and between cars and infrastructure is bringing transportation into a new era, according to Allan Clelland, an expert on transportation technology.\nAccording to a recent study, car travel has reduced among people born in the 1990s compared to previous generations. According to the study, people born in the 1990s are making 4% fewer car trips and travelling 18% fewer miles per year, on average, than members of previous generations did at the same stage in their lives.\nPeople still driving cars are dealing with less traf c thanks to Waze. Experts say the traf c app has reduced congestion on motorways and reduced travel times for drivers. But it has also led to a problematic rise in cars moving through residential neighbourhoods.\nThis trend could continue as vehicle-to-vehicle data communication, as well as communication between vehicles and the surrounding infrastructure, grows. Currently, a traf c light knows when a car is getting close but thats all. Companies are working to develop technology that will allow a vehicle to tell traf c control systems not only that it is present but also where it is going and how fast it is travelling.\nAutomation Driverless cars have been in the headlines ever since Google began road testing the vehicles back in 2012 but no-one really knows when driverless cars will become commonplace. However, the partial automation of cars is already underway. Automation will probably happen in stages:  rst, there might be automated buses with their own lanes, then perhaps lorries in ports or mining towns: that is, vehicles that are connected electronically and travel in single  le.\nThe idea of a fully automated transportation system is intriguing because it could improve safety by removing human error. It could also help reduce carbon emissions and traf c congestion, and allow more people access to cars. But, even if driverless technology were ready to use now, it would take a long time to get fully automated because the average age of cars on the road is 11.5 years old.\nTo see what driverless cars might look like in action, go to the video at: vimeo.com\/37751380.\nEnvironmental concern As the world races to avoid catastrophic climate change and countries and cities work to meet ambitious emissions goals, these policies could also have a big effect on the future of transportation. Concern about the environment could lead to everything from zero- and low-emission vehicles to apps that encourage more walking, biking and carpooling.\nWhen considering the future of transportation, its also important to keep in mind why people travel: they may be going to work, to meet friends or family, or to do the shopping. Technologies that reduce the need for those trips  for example, virtual meetings or telecommuting  could also have a big effect on transportation.\nIn the past, the idea of a  ying car represented the best in innovation but the technologies that people are imagining and developing now are possibly even more sophisticated  and more useful in solving the social and environmental problems that we face in the coming decades.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nThe Duke and Duchess of Cambridge won the first part of their battle for privacy when a French magazine was banned from selling or reusing photos of the couple at a private chateau in Provence.\nFrench prosecutors must now decide if there should be criminal proceedings against the magazine editor and the photographer or photographers who took the pictures of the duchess sunbathing topless while on holiday in the south of France.\nThe Tribunal de Grande Instance in Nanterre, Paris ordered the gossip magazine Closer to give the couple the digital files of the pictures within 24 hours. The magazine will have to pay 10,000 for every day it does not give the couple the files.\nThe court also ordered Mondadori Magazines France, Closers publisher, to pay 2,000 of legal costs.\nThese photos, which showed the couple, partly naked on the terrace of a private home, surrounded by a park several hundred metres from a public road, are particularly intrusive, the court said.\nThe court decided that every time Mondadori  the publishing company owned by former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi  publishes a photograph in the future in France, they will be fined 10,000.\nBut the decision refers only to the 14 pictures that have already been published. Closers editor has hinted she has other, more intimate pictures.\nThe couple welcome the judges decision. A source said: They always believed the law was broken and that they had a right to their privacy. Maud Sobel, a lawyer for the royal couple in Paris, described it as a wonderful decision.\nThe royal couple are pleased with the decision, but they want there to be a much more public criminal prosecution for invasion of privacy against the magazine and photographer or photographers.\nParis police began an investigation on Tuesday. Under French law, if you invade someones privacy, you may have to spend a maximum of one year in prison and pay a fine of 45,000.\nThis punishment would send a message to the world and, the couple hope, stop paparazzi from invading their privacy in the future.\nThe Irish Daily Star has also published the photos. And the Mondadori-owned Italian celebrity magazine Chi published a special edition of 26 pages with the photos of the future queen.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nThey call him the Robin Hood of the banks, a man who took out many loans worth almost half a million euros with no intention of ever paying them back. Instead, Enric Duran gave the money to projects that created and promoted alternatives to capitalism.\nAfter 14 months in hiding, Duran is unapologetic, even though his activities could put him in jail. Im proud of what I did, he said in an interview by Skype from a secret location.\nFrom 2006 to 2008, Duran took out 68 commercial and personal loans from 39 banks in Spain. He gave the money to social activists, who used it to pay for speaking tours against capitalism and TV cameras for a media network. He said he saw that these social movements were building alternatives but that they didnt have enough money. Meanwhile, constant growth was creating a system that created money out of nothing.\nThe loans he swindled from banks were his way of regulating and denouncing this situation, he said. He started slowly. I  lled out a few credit applications with my real details. They said no, but I just wanted to understand what they were asking for.\nFrom there, the former table-tennis coach began to set up a confusing web of accounts, payments and transfers. I was learning constantly. By the summer of 2007, he had discovered how to make the system work  he applied for loans under the name of a false television production company. Then, I managed to get a lot. 492,000, to be exact.\nDuran was arrested in Spain in 2009, on charges brought against him by six of the 39 banks that had lent him money. He spent two months in prison before being let out on 50,000 bail. In February 2013, threatened with up to eight years in prison, he decided to  ee rather than stand trial because, he said, he doesnt recognize the authority of the judicial system.\nHis actions, he said, were an important part of a worldwide debate on the economic crisis. The timing pushed the anti-capitalist movement into the light, just as many Spaniards were looking for alternatives to a system that has caused chaos in their lives. \nIn todays Spain, the anti-capitalist movement, and groups such as the Indignados, are supported by thousands of Spaniards.\nDuran is now widening his focus to include Spains justice system, by promoting restorative justice. The people in Spain who believe that banks dont work, they think that I dont owe anything. Ive already done my work, he said. But there is a part of a population that is not in agreement with us and I think I should respond to that.\nIn his case, he said, he could offer banks the insight he got from years of obtaining bank loans fraudulently. He could share his thoughts on which best practices work and the bad ones that dont, he suggested, for the general population and for bank workers.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"David Cameron has declared a \u201cclear result\u201d in the Scottish independence referendum after Scotland voted by a 10.6-point margin against ending the 307-year-old union with England and Wales. The prime minister promised a devolution revolution across Great Britain, including votes on English issues by English MPs at Westminster, as he welcomed Scotland\u2019s decision to remain inside the UK. \u201cThere can be no disputes, no reruns \u2013 we have heard the settled will of the Scottish people,\u201d Cameron said in a statement \nEarlier, Scotland\u2019s first minister, Alex Salmond, remained defiant at a downbeat Scottish National Party rally in Edinburgh, saying he accepted Scotland had not, \u201cat this stage\u201d, decided to vote for independence. He paid tribute to what he called a \u201ctriumph for democratic politics\u201d and said he would work with Westminster in the best interests of Scotland and the rest of the UK \u2013 warning the leaders of the three main parties to make good on their promises of enhanced devolution for Scotland. \u201cWe have touched sections of the community who have never before been touched by politics,\u201d he said. \nThe yes campaign scored four big successes, winning 53% of the vote in Scotland\u2019s largest city, Glasgow, 57% in Dundee and 51% in North Lanarkshire. However, the no camp was victorious in 28 authorities. It won overwhelmingly in areas where it was expected to do well, including Edinburgh, Aberdeenshire and Borders, but also in areas that could have gone to the yes campaign, including the Western Isles. In the final count, the no camp won 2,001,926 votes (55.3%) to 1,617,989 for yes (44.7%). \nIn his speech, Cameron made clear that the constitutional reforms, including in Scotland, would not be delivered until after the general election, and that Scottish measures would proceed in tandem with changes in England. \u201cWe have heard the voice of Scotland and, now, the millions of voices of England must be heard,\u201d he said. \nCameron added: \u201cThe people of Scotland have spoken and it is a clear result. They have kept our country of four nations together and, like millions of other people, I am delighted. As I said during the campaign, it would have broken my heart to see our United Kingdom come to an end. And I know that sentiment was shared by people not just across our country but around the world because of what we have achieved together in the past and what we can do together in the future. So, now, it is time for our United Kingdom to come together and to move forward. A vital part of that will be a balanced settlement, fair to people in Scotland and, importantly, to everyone in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, as well.\u201d \nEd Miliband, the Labour leader, said the referendum was a vote from the Scottish people for change. \u201cWe know our country needs to change in the way it is governed and we know our country needs to change in who it is governed for. We will deliver on stronger powers for a stronger Scottish parliament, a strong Scotland.\u201d But he said that would go beyond Scotland. \u201cWe will also meet the desire for change across England, across Wales, across the whole of the United Kingdom.\u201d \nNick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, said the referendum \u201cmarks not only a new chapter for Scotland within the UK but also wider constitutional reform across the union\u201d. Echoing the SNP\u2019s argument, he said a vote against independence was \u201cclearly not a vote against change\u201d. \u201cWe must now deliver on time and in full the radical package of newly devolved powers to Scotland,\u201d he added. \nYet that result raises the risk of further turmoil, with MPs from Cameron\u2019s Conservative Party threatening to revolt against the prime minister\u2019s late and potentially vital promise to quickly increase the Scottish parliament\u2019s powers while protecting its spending. \nThe UK Independence Party leader, Nigel Farage, said Cameron\u2019s offer of more devolution for England did not go far enough. \u201cThe English are 86% by population of this union. They\u2019ve been left out of all of this for the last 18 years. We still have a situation where Scottish MPs can vote in the House of Commons on English-only issues. I think what most English people want is a fair settlement,\u201d he said. \nCameron and the Queen will both move to calm tensions when they deliver statements on the result. The prime minister will try, in the words of one cabinet minister, to \u201ccement in\u201d the no vote by outlining how he will deliver the deepening of Scotland\u2019s devolution settlement, including handing greater powers over tax and welfare to the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh. \nThe Queen, who has monitored the referendum with interest, will make a written statement. It is understood that her remarks will focus on reconciliation. The prime minister wants to move fast to show that the three main UK party leaders will live up to their commitments made during the referendum campaign to deliver what the former prime minister Gordon Brown called \u201chome rule\u201d within the UK. \nMinisters believe it is important to move quickly to avoid a repeat of the 1980 referendum in Qu\u00e9bec. The triumphalist behaviour of Ontario fuelled the separatist cause that nearly succeeded in a second referendum in 1995. \nFor the no campaign, there was relief: a spate of authoritative polls in the final days of the campaign had said the vote was on a knife-edge, bringing Yes Scotland within touching distance of victory after a dramatic surge in support.","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Brazil\u2019s latest funk sensation, Anitta, has won millions of fans by taking the favela sound into the mainstream, but she is at the centre of a debate about skin colour. \nAnti-discrimination campaigners and social commentators say the music industry\u2019s fastest rising star has had to sacrifice her blackness to make it into the predominantly white middle- class market. \nThe controversy was prompted by the publication of then-and-now photographs that show a dramatic lightening of Anitta\u2019s skin tone since she signed a deal with Warner. \nIn the first, when she was relatively unknown, she looked darker. In the second \u2013 a marketing shot after she became famous \u2013 she seems paler. Whether this was the result of whitening products and cosmetic surgery or \u2013 more likely \u2013 Photoshop tweaks, the contrast has rekindled discussion about whether you need to be pale to get ahead in Brazil. \nJarid Arraes, a psychology student and blogger, wrote a post criticizing the latent discrimination in media and marketing that she felt Anitta\u2019s image change represented. \u201cPeople refuse to accept that they are racist and they think they live in a multiracial democracy, but the statistics show that is far from the case. The whitening shows us a profoundly intolerant society that doesn\u2019t support diversity. White is the image of the rich, the nice, the successful, the good, while people see black as the opposite of all that.\u201d \nBorn Larissa de Macedo Machado, the diva-to-be was a church chorister in her childhood. In her teens, she made a name for herself in Rio de Janeiro\u2019s baile funk scene as a dancer and singer. \nShe has now exploded into the public consciousness with an album and a huge hit single, Show das Poderosas , which topped the charts and attracted 52 million YouTube views. \nThough adored first and foremost as a pop idol with a strong message and some catchy tunes, her backers project her as a cultural bridge between the predominantly black and mixed-race shanty towns on Rio\u2019s hillsides and the wealthier and whiter communities below. \nShe has toned down the suggestive dancing, gangsta references and explicit lyrics of baile funk. Now, however, questions are being asked about whether she \u2013 or her marketing team \u2013 have gone too far in re-tailoring her image to attract a more lucrative demographic. \u201cIf pop stars have curly hair, they are going to feel coerced into straightening it. If they have a big nose, they will be coerced into getting rhinoplasty,\u201d said Arraes. \u201cIt creates a vicious cycle for self-esteem.\u201d \nThis is a sensitive topic in this largely mixed-raced nation. Brazil \u2013 one of the last big countries in the world to ban slavery \u2013 has the largest population of African descent outside Africa, but race and ancestry are less important here than colour. And, despite the nation\u2019s goal of being a multiracial democracy, there is a clear link between skin tone and inequality. \nIn Brazilian cities, white workers earn roughly twice as much as those of African descent. Up until 2011, black or mixed-race students also spent two years less at school on average. \nThe government says the gap is closing thanks to quota systems for university places and other forms of affirmative action. But the gulf remains glaringly apparent. The vast majority of business and government executives are white, while most menial jobs are done by black and mixed-race workers. Walk through Ipanema, G\u00e1vea or other upmarket districts and you are far more likely to see black nannies pushing strollers with white toddlers than a white nanny pushing a black child. \nDefining colour is complex. People who define themselves as white were in the minority for the first time in the most recent census in 2010. Among the 197 million population, 82 million said they were \u201cpardu\u201d (mixed race), 15 million black, two million Asian and 0.5% indigenous. \nSylvio Ferreira, a psychology lecturer at the Federal University of Pernambuco, believes Anitta has won the hearts of the middle class by taking a rebellious sound and making it tamer and more palatable to everyone. \n\u201cWas this achieved by racial whitening? No,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat happened was a change of the social space where Anitta produced her art: from the periphery to the centre.\u201d \nOthers agree that the issue of colour is overblown. Maycon de Mattos Batista, a financial analyst who worked with Anitta while she was an intern, said there had been a huge change in Anitta\u2019s image, but not of her colour. \n\u201cI don\u2019t believe it\u2019s whitening; it\u2019s more the way they are producing her with makeup, hairstylists and the way she dresses,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t think that was because of pressure being put on her. She always liked to show off, sing and dance. That was a natural thing for her. I believe that it is because of this naturalness that she is where she is today.\u201d \nLeandro Silva de Souza, a racial equality activist in the north-eastern city of Salvador, said the prejudice lay not with society but with music producers and media executives. The public, he said, proved they were interested in music for its own sake by choosing Ellen Ol\u00e9ria \u2013 a black lesbian \u2013 as the recent winner of the talent show The Voice Brazil . \nThe Guardian was unable to reach Anitta for comment. But, in a recent interview, she described the need for identity to be self-defined. \n\u201cAll-powerful is a woman who doesn\u2019t need to be beautiful, but she has so much attitude that she is marvellous, she is powerful. What I try to pass on in my work for everyone is that we can be who we want.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nHealth warnings that cover nearly two-thirds of cigarette packs and a ban on menthol cigarettes in the EU have come a step nearer after a vote in the European Parliament.\nMenthol and other flavours will be banned from 2022, and MEPs also decided that most electronic cigarettes, which are increasingly popular as alternatives to tobacco products, do not need to be regulated in the same way as medicines.\nHealth officials and the e-cigarette industry in Britain want to clarify what this means  for instance, whether e-cigarette companies will have the same bans on sponsorship and promotion at sports events as tobacco firms.\nThe Department of Health would not comment on the advertising issue until officials had studied the MEPs decisions. But, in a statement, the DH said: We are very pleased to see tougher action on tobacco, with European controls banning flavoured cigarettes and the introduction of stricter rules on front-of-pack health warnings.\nHowever, we are disappointed with the decision not to regulate nicotine-containing products (NCPs), including e-cigarettes, as medicines. We believe these products need to be regulated as medicines and will continue to make this point during further negotiations.\nSmoking levels in England are at their lowest since records began  19.5 per cent  but we are determined to further reduce rates of smoking and believe this important step will help.\nThe UK e-cigarette industry, which welcomed the parliaments vote, said it was already in talks with the Advertising Standards Authority but added that it would not be sensible, reasonable or useful to ban all advertising.\nMEPs decided e-cigarettes should only be regulated as medical products if manufacturers claimed they could prevent the smoking of tobacco  a decision criticized by the governments main medicines regulator.\nThey want to put the e-cigarettes, used by an estimated 1.3 million people in Britain, on the same legal basis as gums, patches and mouth sprays, which help smokers to quit, but the industry says that licensing is expensive and this would force alternatives to tobacco off the shelves.\nThe MEPs voted to put health warnings on 65% of each cigarette pack. At present, the warnings cover at least 30% on the front and 40% on the back. The UK government has delayed a decision on whether to follow Australia by introducing standardized packaging until there is evidence that this will reduce tobacco use.\nThe MEPs decision, which could become law in 2014, will be followed by negotiations with the EU Council of Ministers.\nThe UK continues to believe that medicinal regulation of NCPs is the best way to improve public health, said a spokesman for the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Authority.\nLinda McAvan, Labour MEP for Yorkshire and the Humber and spokesperson on tobacco issues for the parliaments Socialists & Democrats group, said: We know that it is children, not adults, who start smoking. And, although there are fewer and fewer adult smokers in most member states, the World Health Organization figures show an increase in a number of our member states of young smokers.\nWe need to stop tobacco companies targeting young people with gimmicky products and we need to make sure that cigarette packs have effective warnings.\nMartin Callanan, the Conservative MEP for North East England, said: Forcing e-cigarettes off the shelves would have been totally crazy. These are products that have helped many people stop smoking more harmful cigarettes and yet some MEPs wanted to make them harder to manufacture than ordinary tobacco.\nBritish American Tobacco said the larger health warnings demanded by MEPs were not necessary and that a ban on mentholated cigarettes would increase demand for black-market products.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nWhen the Taliban sent a gunman to shoot Malala Yousafzai in October 2012 as she rode home on a bus after school, they knew what they wanted: to silence the teenager and kill off her campaign for girls education.\nNine months and countless surgical operations later, she stood up at the United Nations on her 16th birthday on Friday to give a defiant reply. They thought that the bullet would silence us. But they failed, she said.\nIt was an unusual 16th birthday. Instead of blowing out candles on a cake, Malala sat in one of the main council chambers at the United Nations in the central seat usually reserved for world leaders.\nShe listened quietly as Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, described her as our hero, our champion; and as the former British prime minister and now UN education envoy, Gordon Brown, said what he called the words the Taliban never wanted her to hear: happy 16th birthday, Malala.\nThe event, named Malala Day, was the culmination of an extraordinary four years for the girl from Mingora in Pakistan. She was thrust into the public glare after she wrote a blog for the BBC Urdu service describing her experiences of struggling to get an education under the rising power of Taliban militants.\nBy 11, she was showing exceptional determination, calling personally on the US special representative to Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, to use his influence against the Talibans efforts to stop education for girls. By 14, she was on the radar of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who suggested her for the International Childrens Peace Prize, and, by 15, she became the youngest Nobel Peace Prize nominee in history.\nBut all this global attention came at a price. Death threats followed, and, on 9 October 2012, following a meeting of Pakistani Taliban leaders, the gunman was sent to silence her.\nMultiple operations in Pakistan and the UK followed the attack on the bus, including the fitting of a titanium plate on her left forehead and a cochlear implant to restore her hearing. She now lives with her family in Birmingham and does what the Taliban tried to stop her doing: she goes to school every day. I am not against anyone, she said in the UN chamber, having taken this day out from the classroom. Neither am I here to speak in terms of personal revenge against the Taliban or any other terrorist group.\nMalala responded to the violence of the Taliban with words against bullets. I do not even hate the Talib who shot me. Even if there was a gun in my hand and he stood in front of me, I would not shoot him.\nShe spoke confidently, with only an injured eye and a slightly drooping left side of her face to hint at such fresh traumas. There was one other allusion to the horror of her past: she wore a white shawl belonging to a woman who was also targeted by extremists but who, unlike Malala, did not survive: Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister of Pakistan.\nThe extremists are afraid of books and pens, the teenager continued. The power of education frightens them. They are afraid of women. The power of the voice of women frightens them.\nShe talked about the attack in June on a hospital in Quetta, capital of Baluchistan, and killings of female teachers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. That is why they are blasting schools every day  because they were and they are afraid of change, afraid of the equality that we will bring to our society.\nAnd she gave her own opposing interpretation of Islam to the Talibans. They think that God is a tiny, little conservative being who would send girls to hell just because they go to school. The terrorists are misusing the name of Islam and Pashtun society for their own personal benefits. Islam is a religion of peace, humanity and brotherhood. Islam says that it is not only each childs right to get education but their duty and responsibility.\nSuch ability to say what normally remains unsaid  to give voice to young people who are normally silenced  has created its own response. The Stand with Malala petition, demanding education for the 57 million children around the world who do not go to school, has attracted more than four million signatures  more than a million were added after Malalas speech.\nAt the start of her speech, Malala said: I dont know where to begin my speech. I dont know what people are expecting me to say. She did not need to worry.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"He arrived \u2013 in his own words, in 2005 \u2013 as \u201ca simple, humble worker in God\u2019s vineyard\u201d. And on a grey, cold, blustery Monday in February, Pope Benedict XVI signed off in the same fashion: like an elderly labourer who can no longer ignore the pains in his back; who can no more count on the strength of his arms. Characteristically for this most traditionally minded of pontiffs, he made his excuses in Latin. The first German pope in modern times timed his departure to the minute. \u201cFrom 28 February 2013, at 20.00 hours\u201d, he told a gathering of cardinals in the Vatican, \u201cthe see of Rome, the see of Saint Peter, will be vacant and a conclave to elect the new supreme pontiff will have to be convoked by those whose competence it is.\u201d \nAmong those present was a Mexican prelate, Monsignor Oscar Sanch\u00e9z Barba, from Guadalajara. He was in Rome to be told the date for a canonization in which he has played a leading role. \u201cWe were all in the Sala del Concistoro in the third loggia of the Apostolic Palace,\u201d he said. \u201cAfter giving the date for the canonization, the twelfth of May, the Pope took a sheet of paper and read from it. \n\u201cWe were all left \u2026\u201d \u2013 Sanch\u00e9z Barba looked around him in the Bernini colonnade that embraces St Peter\u2019s Square, grasping for the word, as speechless as the \u201cprinces of the church\u201d who had just heard the man they believe to be God\u2019s representative on earth give up on the job. \u201cThe cardinals were just looking at one another,\u201d Sanch\u00e9z Barba said. \nAngelo Sodano, the Dean of the College of Cardinals, who must have been forewarned, delivered a brief and perhaps hurriedly composed speech. Before going on to assure the Pope of the cardinals\u2019 loyalty and devotion, he said he and the others present had \u201clistened to you with a sense of bewilderment, almost completely incredulous \u201d. At the end of his address, the Pope blessed those present, and left. \u201cIt was so simple; the simplest thing imaginable,\u201d said Sanch\u00e9z Barba. \u201cThen we all left in silence. There was absolute silence \u2026 and sadness.\u201d \nJohn Thavis, who spent 30 years reporting on the Holy See and whose book, The Vatican Diaries, is soon to be published, said he had had an intuition the Pope might be about to resign and timed his return to Rome from the US accordingly. A fellow-Vatican watcher confirmed this to be the case. Thavis noted that in the book-length interview Benedict gave to a German journalist, published as Light of the World in 2010, he had made it clear he considered it would be right to go if he felt he were no longer up to the job. \u201cI asked myself: if I were Pope and wanted to resign, when would I choose? He has completed his series of books and most of his projects are off the ground. What is more, there were no dates in his calendar of events he personally had to attend. I thought the most likely date was 22 February, which is the Feast of the Chair of St Peter. So I got it wrong.\u201d \nThe line emerging from the Vatican within hours of the announcement was that the Pope\u2019s decision was a brave one. By this account, Benedict \u2013 never one to shrink from utterances and decisions that shocked \u2013 had taken it upon himself to bring his church face to face with reality: the reality that contemporary medicine can keep men alive far beyond the age at which they are up to grappling with the demands of running a vast global organization. Thavis agreed: \u201cWhat I find particularly courageous is that he is prepared to say now, when he is not sick, that he is going; and that he\u2019s doing it because he\u2019s tired and not because he\u2019s particularly ill.\u201d But is that the whole story? Does he know more about his state of health than the Vatican has so far made public? \nBenedict\u2019s own account of his reasons makes it clear that he took into account not only his physical, but also his psychological condition: \u201cIn order to govern the bark of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfil the ministry entrusted to me.\u201d Other theories will no doubt swirl around the Vatican in the days and weeks ahead, just as they did following the death of Pope John Paul I in 1978, 33 days after his election. Already there is speculation that something was about to come out about Benedict\u2019s past. The Vatican will just as predictably dismiss such notions with contempt. But they are understandable all the same, for the transcendental importance of what Benedict has done cannot be overstated. \nEmerging from St Peter\u2019s Basilica, Julia Rochester, from London, who described herself as a lapsed Catholic, was still turning over the implications of the Pope\u2019s resignation. \u201cIf you\u2019re God\u2019s chosen one, how do you choose not be chosen?\u201d she mused. It is a question many practising Catholics will be asking of their priests in the weeks ahead. In his first speech as Pope \u2013 humbly disclaiming his fitness for the task \u2013 Benedict said: \u201cI am consoled by the fact that the Lord knows how to work and how to act, even with insufficient tools.\u201d At some point in the last eight years, it would seem, he ceased to believe that was true.","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"The roof is plastic held up by a crooked tree trunk and the desks just a jumble of cast-off chairs, but the students inside the Chemin des Dunes school are studying with the same intensity you would find in a seminar at Oxford University. At stake is the hope of a new life in France. \n\u201cThe French language is very difficult but we try hard. If we come every day, maybe we can touch our dreams,\u201d says Kamal, a refugee from Sudan\u2019s war-torn Darfur district who comes to three or four hours of classes every day. \u201cIt\u2019s a good thing to keep your brain active.\u201d \nThe 29-year-old electrical engineer is one of dozens, perhaps hundreds, of refugees living in the \u201cjungle\u201d camp outside Calais who have applied for asylum in France and are eager to learn the language of what they hope will be their new home. \nLike many of his fellow students, he is frustrated that media coverage of the sprawling tent-village has focused only on those who use it as a staging post for risky nightly bids to sneak on board cross-Channel lorries or trains. \n\u201cI need to tell people in the UK, they think that everyone wants to go there. But there are a lot of people here who want to stay in France,\u201d Kamal said. \nFrance is already home to more than a quarter of a million refugees, according to United Nations data \u2013 the country has taken in more than twice as many as the UK, even though the countries have similar populations. \nThere are a further 56,000 asylum seekers waiting for their claim to a French safe haven to be processed \u2013 the second highest number in Europe \u2013 while, in the UK, there are 36,000. \nWhile the applicants wait for an answer, though, France does not provide them with any financial support or allow them to work \u2013 and the slow process can take many months. The jungle camp offers a free meal a day and a plastic roof over their heads so many decide to endure the basic conditions for a few extra months, rather than potentially jeopardize their asylum bid by working illegally. \nThe idea for the school was first touted by some of that group at the start of the summer, when they were bored with sitting around waiting and nervous about starting a new life in France totally unable to communicate. It was a reality within weeks, opening on 11 July. \n\u201cWe did it to reunite the 'brothers' and, at the same time, they can learn French,\u201d said Zimarco Jones, the school\u2019s Nigerian founder, who arrived in Calais in 2013 and is still waiting for his asylum claim to be processed. \u201cNow, we need to build another one,\u201d he says with a grin. \nAt its busiest, the tiny classroom holds 30 pupils, crammed into five rows of desks in front of a big green chalkboard and pictures of cartoon animals for each letter of the French alphabet. There are also classes in English, art and t\u2019ai chi but the biggest draw is the French lessons, provided by volunteers from Calais and beyond. \n\u201cFrench is not as easy as English but, two weeks ago, I decided there was no way to get to the UK,\u201d says George, another Darfur refugee and dedicated student. He wanted to cross the Channel because he speaks fluent English but, with language classes, he says he is happy to settle in France. \n\u201cAnywhere there is peace, I can stay, no problem,\u201d he says, already waiting at the classroom more than half an hour before his teachers arrive. \nHe admits he doesn\u2019t know much about France but says that the classes are slowly helping him understand the country as well as the language. \nMany of the volunteers at the jungle school are local teachers who are giving up their summer holidays. \nJenny Flahaut, 33, who works at a children\u2019s home, was inspired to volunteer after seeing an advertisement on Facebook. \u201cI saw these people in Calais every day and I wanted to do something for them,\u201d she said. \nShe is particularly frustrated by the depiction of migrants in the media and by politicians who have never visited the camp, most recently David Cameron, the British prime minister, who in a much criticized speech talked about \u201cswarms\u201d of people trying to reach the UK. \n\u201cThey don\u2019t know them and have a bad vision but they are not like that,\u201d Flahaut said as she prepared for an afternoon lesson. \u201cMost of them are very good people. They are welcoming and friendly. They want to improve their life and make it better, and learning is part of that.\u201d \nThe teachers and Zimarco are focused, now, on setting up a separate classroom to serve around 200 women and two dozen children. The women are outnumbered around ten to one by men in the Calais encampment and most feel uncomfortable attending classes with male students they don\u2019t know, the volunteers say. \nWhen that is finished, the former hotel worker whose work getting the school off the ground is remembered in its unofficial name \u2013 everyone in the camp just calls it \u201cZimarco\u2019s school\u201d \u2013 has more dreams for making the camp a place to live, not just survive. He wants to set up a football team for migrants, he explains over an instant cappuccino in the immaculate tent he calls home, and even dreams of changing the camp name. He hates \u201cthe jungle\u201d because he says it implies the residents aren\u2019t people. \n\u201cWe have a discotheque, a house, a mosque, a school, shops,\u201d he says. \u201cWe are not animals.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nLegos profits rose strongly in the first half of 2014, helped by the success of its Lego Movie, which has stormed box offices in the US and UK.\nThe Danish toy firms sales rose across Europe, the Americas and Asia as children bought products linked to the film. The film, released in February 2014, took more than $250m in the US and 31m in the UK by the first weekend in April.\nThe movie cost about $60m to make and has been described as an almost perfect piece of marketing. It is entertaining and aimed at consumers who are likely to go out and buy the companys products.\nLegos finance director, John Goodwin, said that the Lego Movie products had a positive effect on profits during the first half of 2014. They are now waiting to see how the products will continue to develop after the launch of the movie on DVD in the second half of 2014.\nJrgen Vig Knudstorp, Legos chief executive, said: It is a very satisfactory result that shows our significant growth in recent years in a tough economic environment. The result for the first half of 2014 is an outcome of our ability to develop, launch and distribute Lego products, which children all over the world put at the top of their wishlists.\nLego, based in the small town of Billund, started producing its plastic bricks in 1949 and became a popular and well-known childrens toy around the world by the 1970s. But the group lost its way and was on the brink of collapse in 2003. Knudstrop took over as chief executive, ending 70 years of family rule, and got rid of hundreds of surplus products. He then refocused the business on its bricks.\nThe company opened its first factory in China in April and opened an office in Shanghai to start expansion into the worlds second-biggest economy.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"American researchers say that a nasal spray containing the \u2018Love hormone\u2019 oxytocin could help children with autism behave more normally in social situations. Scans of autistic children showed that the chemical made the brain respond better to faces. This could make social interactions easierfor them.\nThe researchers said oxytocin might help other treatments that are used to help people with autism in social situations. \u201cOver time, there would be more normal social responding. Autistic people would be more interested in interacting with other people; there would be more eye contact and more conversation,\u201d said Kevin Pelphrey, of Yale University.\nAutism is a disorder that one in 100 people have. It affects people in different ways, but causes difficulties in social interaction and communication. So far, there is no effective treatment for the social problems that autism causes.\nResearchers at Yale have studied the brain chemical oxytocin. They say it is a possible treatment for the social problems caused by autism because it plays an important role in bonding and trust. But not all results are positive: one recent study found no significant benefit for young people who took the chemical for several days. But Pelphrey said oxytocin might help the brain learn from social interactions; it would work best when used together with therapies that encourage people with autism to interact more socially, he said.\nScientists tested 17 young people aged eight to 16 with autism. They gave them either oxytocin or a placebo through a nose spray. Then, the scientists scanned their brains while they looked at images of cars or the eyes of people expressing different emotions.\nThe scans showed that some parts of the children\u2019s brains behaved more normally after oxytocin: they were more active when the person was looking at faces and less active when the person was looking at the cars.\n\u201cThe study suggests that oxytocin might treat basic social motivation. This is something for which we don\u2019t have a treatment in autism,\u201d said Pelphrey. He said that it was too early to use oxytocin as a treatment for the social difficulties caused by autism and said people should not buy oxytocin online. \u201cWe don\u2019t want them to try oxytocin at home. It is impossible to say what they are buying. This is not a treatment yet. It needs more research,\u201d he said. But, the scientists were surprised to find that oxytocin did not help the children in social recognition tasks. It is also not known yet if oxytocin only has benefits for people with autism or has any bad side effects. Finally, oxytocin effects only last about 45 minutes, so it might be difficult to use it as a treatment.\n\u201cThis study has a lot of evidence from animal and human work to show that oxytocin helps, but we need more research.\u201d Said Simon Baron-Cohen.\nUta Frith, who studies autism at University College London, said: \u201cAccording to this study, oxytocin may make faces more interesting. Disappointingly, this effect is seen only in brain activity and not in behaviour.\u201d She said that, if we want oxytocin to become an important treatment for autism, we need to show that is has an effect on behaviour.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nWomen have traditionally played a minor role in professional football, but this may be changing. France has just appointed its first female professional team manager. It did not matter that it was a second-division club. It did not matter if it was, as some people suggested, just a publicity stunt for a minor team, Clermont Foot 63, which is currently 14th out of the 20 teams in its league.\nWhat mattered was that Helena Costa had been given the top job  an act that saw her make football history by becoming the first female manager to be appointed in the highest two divisions of any professional European league. As a woman, its made me happy, Vronique Soulier, president of the clubs supporters association, told journalists. When I first heard the news, I was rather surprised, but, once that passed, we were pretty unanimous that its good news. We all agree that a woman at the head of a group of men is no bad thing.\nThe new manager of Clermont Foot 63, whose average home crowd is around 3,800, was born in Alhandra, Portugal and graduated with a masters degree in sports science. She is also a UEFAlicensed coach. She previously coached Benficas male youth teams, the Qatar womens team and, more recently, the Iranian womens national side, which she left in September 2013.\nCosta, 36, was appointed on a two-year contract by the president of Clermont Foot 63, Claude Michy, who is a champion at grabbing the headlines for his club. In 2013, he announced the team had signed Messi. They had. Not the Argentinian and FC Barcelona record-breaking striker Lionel Messi, but Junior Messi Enguene, a 20-year-old midfielder from Cameroon. Frances womens minister, Najat Vallaud- Belkacem, tweeted: Bravo to Clermont Foot for understanding that giving women a place is the future of professional football.\nCarolina Morace, an Italian who was the only previous woman coach of a mens professional team, said: I dont know Helena, but if she has been hired by a team then it means that she knows how to do her job. I hope that, one day, this can become normal. Morace was an outstanding player in the womens game, playing for Italy in 153 internationals. In 1999, she was named as the coach of the mens team Viterbese. But, after only two games, she resigned from the job because of a disagreement with the clubs proprietor. She added: For the time being, I see too many men, even in the womens game, who are working despite not having the same expertise as women, who, by contrast, are not working.\nRaymond Domenech, former manager of the French national team, said: Women know how to play football and how to manage and are good at doing it. Why shouldnt they manage mens teams? The opposite happens and doesnt cause any problems. Its a natural choice and reflects our society in which women are equal to men. I say well done to President Michy. I told myself that, if I took charge of a club again, Id hire a woman as my number two. He beat me to it.\nA statement on Clermont Foot 63s website said Costas appointment would allow the club to enter a new era. On the club supporters website, reaction to Costas appointment was a mix of surprise and a certain cynicism. In my opinion, its just a publicity stunt to get people talking about the club and she wont last the season. I find it hard to believe shell be able to get the players respect, above all when shes the same age as the oldest, wrote one fan. Her CV isnt bad, but now the question is: will she be good enough? added another. A third wrote: I wish her welcome and success but I think itll be hard for her to make her mark as a woman in such a macho business.\nBut Soulier was hopeful: Hopefully, with the new manager, the club can find the motivation theyre lacking at the moment, she said. The boys in the team can be difficult to manage. With a woman in charge, maybe theyll be less demanding.\nIf Costas reputation is anything to go by, she will be the one making the demands. After doing work experience at Chelsea during her compatriot Jos Mourinhos first time as manager of the club between 2004 and 2007, she was described as Mourinho in a skirt. Costa quickly dismissed the description. Like Mourinho, I always want to win. As far as thats concerned, yes, Im happy to be compared with him, she said.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"1 Passing clouds \nOne of the good things about flying is seeing clouds very close. They seem to be light, but they carry a lot of water \u2013 around 500 tonnes in a small cloud. And water is heavier than air. So why don\u2019t clouds fall out of the sky like rain? They do, but they take a very long time. An average cloud would take a year to fall one metre. \n2 On cloud nine \nMost of us are happy to call clouds \u201cfluffy ones\u201d or \u201cnasty black ones\u201d, but there are more than 50 cloud types. The 50 cloud types fit into nine categories. Cloud nine is the very big cumulonimbus, so to be \u201con cloud nine\u201d means that you are on top of the world or very, \nvery happy. \n3 Around the rainbow \nThe best place to see a rainbow is from a plane. Rainbows are made when sunlight hits raindrops. We see a bow because the Earth is in the way, but, from a plane, a rainbow is a complete circle. \n4 Mr blue sky \nSunlight is white. It includes all the colours of the spectrum. As it passes through air, some of the light is scattered. Blue light scatters more than other colours, so the blue looks like it comes from the sky. \n5 There\u2019s life out there \nWe usually only see clouds and other planes from a flying aircraft\u2019s window, but the air is full of bacteria \u2013 1,800 different types of bacteria. \n6 Turbulence terror \nEven someone who flies all the time can feel sick because of turbulence. The good news is that no modern airliner has ever crashed because of these sudden and violent movements of air. People have been hurt when they are not strapped in or falling luggage may hit them \u2013 but the plane is not going to fall out of the sky. \n7 You can\u2019t cure jet lag \nThe world is divided into time zones. When you take a long flight, the difference between local time and your body\u2019s time causes jet lag. But jet lag can be reduced if you keep food bland for 24 hours before travel, drink a lot and live on your destination time from the moment you get on the aircraft. \n8 Supersonic 747s \nMany of us have travelled faster than sound. There are many jet streams in the air around the Earth, especially on the journey from the US to Europe. A jet stream can move as fast as 250 miles per hour. If an airliner flying at 550mph enters a jet stream, the result can be that the plane flies at 800mph. That\u2019s faster than the speed of sound. \n9 Flying through time \nFlying across time zones means that we travel through time. But this time travel is so small that crossing the Atlantic every week for 40 years would only move you 1\/1,000th of a second into the future. \n10 Terrible tea \nDon\u2019t blame the cabin attendant if your tea isn\u2019t great. Water should be just under 100\u00b0C when you pour it on to tea leaves \u2013 but that isn\u2019t possible on a plane. It\u2019s impossible to get water hotter than 90\u00b0C during flight \u2013 so choose coffee. \n11 I can\u2019t hear my food \nPeople often say that airline food is bland and without taste. But some of the problem may not be bad food. A plane is a noisy place and food loses some of its taste when there are loud noises. \n12 Needle in a haystack \nWith modern technology, it seems strange that Malaysian flight MH370 could disappear \u2013 but finding a missing aircraft is a needle-in-a- haystack problem. The plane knows where it is but it does not send this information anywhere. The problem is not technology \u2013 the problem is that there is no law that says that planes must send this information. \n13 Volcanic fallout \nAir travel can be cancelled by volcanic activity. Ash melts in the heat of the engine, then solidifies on the rotors. It is very dangerous to ignore the volcanic ash. \n14 The wing myth \nFor many years, we taught the wrong explanation for the way wings keep planes in the air. But now we know that a plane stays in the air because of Newton\u2019s Third Law of Motion. The shape of the wing pushes air down. As the air is pushed down, the wing gets an equal and opposite push up, and this lifts the plane.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Japanese entrepreneur Takahito Iguchi thinks Google Glasses are not cool. He may be right. There\u2019s already a website with pictures of people wearing them \u2013 the people look ridiculous or smug or, more often, both. If you search Google Images for Google Glasses, one of the first pictures is of a large, naked man wearing them in the shower. Iguchi hopes that this is Google\u2019s weak point. He has designed some glasses that are a bit more stylish and a bit more Japanese. \nIguchi\u2019s glasses aren\u2019t really glasses \u2013 they are a piece of metal with a camera and a very small projector. The glasses are called Telepathy One. Since he first presented them to the public in Texas, they have attracted $5 million from investors. Like Glass, you will be able to buy Telepathy One in 2014. \nIt\u2019s a more simple version of Google Glass. Glass has many uses \u2013 you can surf the internet, read emails, take photographs \u2013 but Telepathy will be \u201cmore of a communication machine\u201d. Connected to your phone, it will allow real-time visual and audio sharing. You\u2019ll be able to post photos and videos of what you see on Facebook or send them as an email. Or see and speak to a video image of a friend. \n\u201cIt will help bring you close to your friends and family. We are very focused on the communication and sharing possibilities,\u201d says Iguchi, who has worked in the Japanese technology industry for 20 years. \u201cI\u2019m a visionary,\u201d he says. \u201cI have a dream that people will understand other people. When I go to London, I am a stranger. But I believe that everyone wants people to understand them and to understand other people. And, with the glasses, you can know more information about people before you even speak to them.\u201d \nWhen Iguchi was growing up, Japanese technology ruled the world: they had the Sony Walkman, which was as popular as the iPhone. Now, to compete, he has had to leave Tokyo and go to Silicon Valley. \u201cTokyo is very rich in fashion and culture, but it\u2019s still an island. It\u2019s isolated. There is no way to expand. But, in Silicon Valley, everyone is from everywhere. It\u2019s where you come to connect with the world.\u201d They will make the glasses in Japan and the software in the US. \nIt was easy to build the prototype of Telepathy One, Iguchi says. \u201cWe have every sort of technology in Tokyo. The problem is presenting it to the world.\u201d The top manufacturers all want to work with him, he says, because they have the technology, they just find it difficult to sell it. \u201cThere needs to be a story to the product. Apple had a story with the iPod \u2013 1,000 songs in your pocket. And Steve Jobs was inspired by Akio Morita, the co-founder of Sony, and he inspired me, so maybe it will come in a circle.\u201d \nLike Steve Jobs, Iguchi is a confident man, but his strong Japanese accent makes it difficult to understand him. It is possible that this fact helped him to find the idea for Telepathy One. When he visited London, he stayed with someone he didn\u2019t know. \u201cHe was not my friend, but I talked with him for three hours, and now he is my friend. That is how long it takes to understand each other, to share our feelings, and background, and career. Maybe Telepathy makes that quicker. If you are getting information from the cloud and social networks, that will happen more easily.\u201d \nIguchi hopes that Telepathy One will help people see other people\u2019s point of view. \nAs a student, he explains, he studied philosophy during the day and taught himself how to code at night. \u201cAnd, one day, I opened the door of my apartment and I suddenly realized that everything is code. Everything is coded and can be shared between humans. And everything can be encoded and decoded. And, if code can be exchanged between humans, that will end all war.\u201d","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"A new report says that almost one billion people will remain in extreme poverty by 2030 if countries don\u2019t try to solve the social, economic and cultural problems that keep them poor. The report by the Chronic Poverty Advisory Network says that many people may rise above the poverty line of $1.25 a day, but fall back again when they have problems such as drought or illness and insecurity or conflict.\nThe report found that, in parts of rural Kenya and in South Africa, 30 to 40% of people who escaped from poverty fell back again. This percentage rose to 60% in some areas of Ethiopia between 1999 and 2009. Even in successful countries such as Indonesia and Vietnam, the proportion was 20%.\nIndividual examples show how easy it is for people to fall back into poverty. Amin is from a village in Bangladesh. His income has fallen slowly, because of his illness and his wife\u2019s illness, the cost of his son\u2019s marriage, the death of his father and loss of goods such as fishing nets. Lovemore, from Zimbabwe, is now one of the poorest people in his village. He recently lost his job because of ill health and has to look after his five grandchildren after the death of his daughters.\n\u201cWe need to make sure that people who come out of poverty remain above the poverty line permanently. Too many families return to poverty when they have personal or bigger problems. Governments shouldn\u2019t assume that, just because somebody\u2019s income hits $1.25, that means the problem is solved,\u201d said Andrew Shepherd, the main author of the report.\nAccording to the UN, the goal of eliminating extreme poverty by 2030 is still possible. But the report says that countries need to make changes to achieve zero poverty. There was a drop in extreme poverty from 1.9 billion in 1990 to 1.2 billion in 2010, but the report says that progress in the next 15 years will be much more difficult. There has been a lot of progress in China but there will probably not be similar progress in other parts of the world.\nThe report says countries should try to help the chronically poor \u2013 those who are poor for many years or their entire lives \u2013 and stop people becoming poor. \u201cGovernments have been quite good at moving people over the poverty line because that is quite easy. But they have avoided the more difficult job of trying to reduce chronic poverty,\u201d said Shepherd.\nThe report says progress on poverty reduction has helped people who were already closer to the poverty line, but has helped the chronically poor much less. It will not be possible to get to zero poverty if development policies don\u2019t focus on the chronically poor, it adds. The report suggests three ideas. They all cost a lot of money.\nThe first is social help \u2013 to bring the poorest people closer to a good-enough standard of living. The second is education, from early childhood to the start of work, so people can escape and stay out of poverty. The third is economic growth policies that make sure that the benefits of increasing national wealth reach the poorest people.\nAll this will cost money and the report says higher taxes will be necessary. Aid will also be necessary for the start-up costs for social assistance, healthcare for everyone and to finance education. \u201cThere remains a huge role for aid in the next 20 years, as many developing countries spend less than $500 on each of their citizens a year. Even Nigeria, with its oil wealth, spends only $650 per person,\u201d Shepherd said.\nThe authors say governments should have a national development plan and make sure the poorest people are represented politically as well as trying to stop difficult social customs, such as dowries and witchcraft, that make extreme poverty worse.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nA lonely old man living on the moon is the unusual focus of John Lewiss 2015 Christmas advert.\nThere is increasing hype around John Lewiss seasonal ad, which has come to mark the beginning of the Christmas shopping season for many. The department store will aim to raise hundreds of thousands of pounds for Age UK. It will also encourage staff and customers to join up with their local branch of the charity to care for elderly people who might be alone over the holiday.\nThe department store has spent 7m on a campaign that ranges from the TV ad to a smartphone game and merchandise, including glow-in-the-dark pyjamas, as well as making areas that look like the surface of the moon in 11 of their stores.\nAfter two years of successful ads with cuddly animals  a bear and hare, then a penguin  this time, the store is tugging at the heartstrings with a story of a young girl, Lily, who spots an old man living in a shack on the moon through her telescope. The determined child tries sending him a letter and firing a note via bow and arrow, before floating him a present of a telescope tied to balloons, which finally allows them to make contact.\nThe ads message is: Show someone theyre loved this Christmas, which echoes Age UKs own campaign: No one should have no one at Christmas. Profits from three products  a mug, gift tag and card  will go to the charity.\nRachel Swift, head of marketing at John Lewis, said that people talk about the charity at this time of year and the ad makes you think about someone who lives on your street that might not see anybody.\nThe campaign features the Oasis track Half the World Away reinterpreted by Norwegian artist Aurora.\nThe ad cost 1m to make. The moon scenes were shot at the Warner Bros Studios, where the Harry Potter films were made, and the specially built set was created by one of the team behind the latest Star Wars film, The Force Awakens.\nAs in the last few years, John Lewis has drummed up interest in their most recent ad with a teaser campaign on TV and social media using the hashtag #OnTheMoon. A full moon will fall on Christmas Day 2015  a complete coincidence, according to Swift.\nIn 2014, the retailer also spent 7m on a campaign with a realistic animated penguin and a young boy playing together to the tune of John Lennons Real Love, sung by British singer-songwriter Tom Odell. It had drummed up 22m views on YouTube by the first week of January  more than the 16.6m views of Sainsburys ad with First World War soldiers sharing a bar of chocolate, the UKs second most popular ad of 2014.\nSwift said that, despite the hype, John Lewis had kept the same strategy for the last five years. Its all about thoughtful gifting and going the extra mile for someone you love at Christmas, she said. We dont go into it thinking, This is going to be huge, just getting something right for the brand at this time of year and something we hope customers really love.\nSarah Vizard, news editor of trade journal Marketing Week, said John Lewis appeared to have simplified efforts this time, with a lower-key presence in stores despite a growing number of competitors. There are definitely a lot more brands doing Christmas ads this year but I think a lot of those brands who tried to compete with John Lewis by doing something emotional and creative have gone back to what you can buy in store, she said. John Lewis still does the emotional piece the best. This campaign is another great way of communicating that in a way that customers can relate to. I think people will think it is really cute.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nYou can see a thick layer of bird droppings inside one of Britains most expensive properties. Pigeon skeletons lie among shattered mirrors and water streams through broken walls. This is The Tower, a 30m palace in Billionaires Row in north London, whose spectacular ruin has been kept secret until now.\nIt is one of ten mansions in the middle of The Bishops Avenue that have stood almost completely vacant since they were bought a quarter of a century ago, it is believed for members of the Saudi Arabian royal family. Their Grecian columns are cracking into pieces and mosaic-tiled swimming pools are filled with rubble. Nature has taken over and owls have moved in.\nIt is a sad scene repeated up and down the avenue that Lloyds Bank has calculated is the second most expensive street in Britain. While more and more people struggle to get on to Londons property ladder as house prices rise at 11.2% a year, 16 mansions on the most expensive part of The Bishops Avenue are empty, many behind locked gates, their overgrown grounds guarded by dogs.\nAcross the street stands another derelict mansion, worth 18m, with smashed windows and walls painted with anti-climb paint. Metal grilles block the windows of another, which has been sold for 20m.\nThe sight of the derelict properties can be agonizing for people who are struggling to keep a roof above their heads in one of the worlds most expensive cities. One security guard who works on the avenue said it was exasperating to see so many properties  enough to house dozens of people  falling apart.\nOil-rich royals from Nigeria and Saudi Arabia were among the first to come to this road near Hampstead Heath. Iranians fled here after the fall of the shah. Now, Chinese house hunters are following Russians and Kazakhs who have spent millions to get an address that estate agents tell them is as world famous as the Champs Elyses and Rodeo Drive. Recently, two mansions have been on sale for 65m and 38m, promising endless Italian marble, leather-padded lifts and luxury panic rooms.\nHowever, in the gardens of the empty mansions, stone fountains crumble. Inside one mansion, water drips through a huge crystal chandelier onto a thick carpet rotting under sections of collapsed ceiling. Moss grows through shattered bricks and mirrored tiles are lying on a bathroom floor. The swimming pool is filled with dirty water and has flowers growing through its tiles. The wood in the sauna is coming off the walls.\nBut it is the ruin of The Towers, a grand mansion set among acres of trees, that is most dramatic. Its huge, high-ceiling halls are occupied by pigeons and its walls have been turned bright green by algae. Unopened wooden boxes marked bullet-proof glass show the security fears of the previous owners.\nToday, very few people live on The Bishops Avenue full time. A security guard patrolling the pavement outside one mansion said that the owners were not there. Another, outside Royal Mansion, would not say if anyone was home, while a member of staff at another mansion simply warned the Guardian about the guard dogs. Magdy Adib Ishak-Hannah, whose personal wealth is 45m, said he was in the minority of permanent residents.\nIts not a neighbourly place, where you can chat over the fence, he said. To be honest, I have never seen what my neighbours look like. Next door, a Saudi princess spent 35m on a new house and Ive never seen her. There are about three houses that are lived in 24\/7 and half of the properties are occupied three to six months a year. The other half, who knows if they come or not?\nThe multimillion-pound ruins are evidence of a property culture in which the worlds richest people see British property as investments.\nNevertheless, the talk on the avenue is about building 5m apartments, instead of 50m mansions, in an effort to bring people back.\nAnil Varma, a local property developer, has decided to rebuild one of the most valuable sites on the avenue as a collection of 20 apartments with a concierge, maid service, 25-metre pool, spa and cinema.\nIf you build a big house and try and sell for 30m to 40m, it wont sell, he said. Locals wont buy and so you have to bring in overseas buyers.\nBut nobody plans to use the avenues empty property to help solve the housing crisis. Andrew Harper, a local Conservative politician, laughed when he was asked whether some of the derelict housing could become cheap homes. He said the price of the land is far too high.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nAn international agreement to improve safety in Bangladeshs clothing factories could face legal action because factory owners are demanding compensation for the cost of closures and repair work. Some repair programmes are expected to take months and factory owners say they cannot pay staff while factories are closed, as well as paying for major works needed to ensure that buildings are safe. The building repairs are happening in the wake of the collapse of the Rana Plaza complex in the capital of Bangladesh, Dhaka, in 2013, in which 1,138 people were killed.\nThe problems come as hundreds of Bangladeshi clothing factories per month are inspected for firesafety and structural problems under the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, which is supported by over 170 international brands, including Primark and Marks & Spencer, and international trade unions, including IndustriALL.\nThe owner of one Dhaka-based factory, Softex Cotton, has said he will take legal action against the Accord because his factory was closed down due to structural problems. He is demanding $100m in compensation.\nAnother factory owner said that, once a factory closed its doors, even for a few months, it would lose orders and close permanently: There is no such thing as temporary closure, he said. The factory owner said that the Accord agreement had pussyfooted around the issue of who paid for factory closures because they just wanted to get as many brands as possible to sign up to a deal in the wake of the Rana Plaza disaster. He said there was no clear process in place to pay the costs involved.\nJenny Holdcroft, policy director for IndustriALL, which has been closely involved in the Accord, said that the agreement ensured that factories would not lose orders during closure because brands had committed to maintain orders with suppliers for two years.\nTwelve factories have been identified by the Accord as needing significant work so far, but Holdcroft said many of those only needed partial closure and production could continue on other floors. The Accord also legally requires brands to ensure that workers are paid during factory closures. She said the detail on who would make payments had been left open in order to ensure that all those factory owners who could afford to pay for repairs and compensation for workers made the necessary payments.\nThis was always going to be a topic of negotiation. Brands dont want to commit to paying so that rich factory owners who have just pocketed the profits and not been spending on their factories for years continue to do so. There was obviously going to be disruption. If there was no disruption, there would be no change, she said. A spokesman for the Accord said negotiations over payments and even legal action would not hold up its work to improve safety in factories.\nHowever, pressure on the Accord to contribute to the payment of displaced workers has increased after a rival factory-safety group, backed by US retailers including Walmart and Gap, the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety, set aside $5m to help pay factory workers for up to two months while buildings are improved. It has, so far, identified five factories in four buildings where production needed to be suspended.\nThe Alliance is sharing the workers salary along with entrepreneurs so now there is a big confusion. We had a big meeting with the Accord to make them understand they have to come forward or how will we help our workers? said Shaidullah Azim, a director of the Bangladeshi Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nAfter being told again that the beer she wanted would be too dark and too strong for you  have something sweeter, Rebecka Singerer was really annoyed.\nNo, I dont want a fruit beer. Women can drink whatever they want, she says.\nNow Singerer, a childminder, has joined FemAle, a group of like-minded drinkers in Gothenburg, to make and sell Swedens  rst beer made by women.\nWe Can Do It, a bottled pale ale, has just gone on sale in stores across Sweden. Its label is similar to Rosie the Riveter, the creation of a US Second World War propaganda campaign that became a symbol of womens power at work.\nThe groups founder is Elin Carlsson, 25, who paints cars at the Volvo factory outside the city. We Can Do It is not a female beer but a beer brewed by women that anyone can drink, she says. Its nothing to do with feminism; its about equality  we wanted to show we can do it.\nFemAle is up against decades of prejudice in the beer world. Carlsberg and other big brewers have spent millions in recent years trying to sell beer to women, attempting to appeal to what the companies believe women want. Carlsberg\u0019s Eve and Copenhagen beers, Foster\u0019s Radler and Coors\u0019s Anime\u0001e were some of the lighter,  avoured and even \u001cbloat-resistant\u001d beers that were unsuccessful.\nFemAles approach is different. They have women-only tastings that allow potential customers to experiment with  avours and styles of beer that they may not normally try. This education process is the way to get more girls into the beer world, the group says. Bring your mother, sister, girlfriend, aunt and grandmother so we all can learn more about beer.\nThe idea for FemAle came after the women kept seeing each other at beer festivals.\nWe Can Do It was the brainchild of Felicia Nordstro_m, a bar worker who says she was fed up with male beer snobs telling her: What do you know about beer, sweetie? She talked to FemAle, and they teamed up with Ocean, a local independent micro-brewery. One weekend they came up with the recipe and the next weekend they brewed 1,600 litres.\nThis is not a beer that is aimed at women  its our hoppiest brew, says Thomas Bingebo, the head brewer at Ocean. When the big breweries target women, it usually fails. This is something completely different.\nThe rstbottlesofWeCanDoItweresoldout almost before they were brewed. FemAle has already been approached by other breweries who want to brew new beers with them.\nWomen choose a glass of wine because they dont know what beer is all about; they dont know what to order, says Carlsson. We open up new worlds to them.\"\nThe women are part of a brewing explosion in Sweden, which is developing a passion for craft beers. The standard stor stark (large strong) lager is now almost extinct in Gothenburg, the women say, as pubs and bars replace the big brands with a choice of specialist beers.\nAll the girls are different  there is no typical woman beer-lover. Anyone can do it, says Emma Henriksson, 22, a group member who works in a garden equipment company.\nEvery pub wants to learn how to reach women, adds Singerer. And Elin has found the way. Its awesome. We feel so proud.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nA degree in Spanish got me my fi rst job as a journalist, with an international press agency in Mexico City, but it didnt stop me from making mistakes as a young reporter.\nI had just arrived in the Mexican capital after a Greyhound bus journey all the way from New York and the job interview was a test of my language skills. In my new role, day shifts were spent on the streets in political rallies and nights were spent alone in the offi ce, coordinating the news from areas of fi ghting in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala and the rest of Central America. But, I also had to report on occasional disasters: fi res, fl oods and explosions at firework factories.\nIt was as a reporter that I soon found out that I was as bad at understanding numbers in Spanish as I was at calculating them in English. Once, when I meant to call the police, I got a Mexican grandmother out of bed at 2am because I had misunderstood a number and dialled a wrong digit. Even worse, there were too many victims in my stories  almost 83 dead in a fi re at 6pm turned out to be as few as 38 by 7pm; 12 people injured in a coach crash soon became two and so it went on. Finally, I got a call from the main offi ce in Washington. I dont know what training you have had, an editor shouted, but has no one ever told you a death toll cant go down?!\nWhy are numbers in another language such a problem? It may be because of different numbering systems. In German, for example, which belongs to the same Indo-European language family as English, 2.30pm becomes halb drei (half of three) and 21 becomes einundzwanzig (one and twenty). Different number systems can clearly cause confusion.\nSome experts believe there is a link between dyscalculia  the diffi culty in understanding arithmetic  and problems learning foreign languages, particularly if languages are learnt by rote. But, some students who struggle to learn languages with a grammar textbook may thrive in a foreign-language setting, where learning is more natural and less reliant on sequences of adjectives, prepositions and so on. In my case, I have always found languages quite easy, apart from the numbers.\nBut, perhaps its also because you often hear numbers in a non-native language out of context or in isolation. The listener might have switched off from the foreign language and be unable to suddenly tune in. I talked to multilingual friends and found that many can be fl uent in French or Italian when ordering from a restaurant menu, for example, but freeze if they have to communicate numbers, especially over the phone. Numbers seem to be taxing, but no one could really say why.\nIn my case, my problems with numbers in a foreign language followed me from Mexico to other countries and from Spanish to German and Portuguese. But, in that fi rst journalism job, getting the numbers wrong didnt always add up to failure.\nOne night, a Mexican colleague learnt that the American consul in the port city of Veracruz was being held hostage at gunpoint in his offi ce. With no senior English-speaking reporter in the offi ce, I had to try to reach the consulate by phone. I got the phone number wrong and I was put through to an extension elsewhere in the building. The identity of the person who took my call was unmistakable: I chatted for 15 minutes to the gunman. I didnt persuade him to put away his gun  but my reputation as a reporter rose overnight.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"In Canada\u2019s Arctic, summers are marked by a bright light that bathes the treeless tundra for more than 20 hours a day. For some, it\u2019s a welcome change from the unrelenting darkness of winter. But, for the small but growing Muslim community of Iqaluit, Nunavut, life in the land of the midnight sun poses a real challenge during the month of Ramadan, during which Muslims typically fast from sunrise to sunset. \n\u201cI haven\u2019t fainted once,\u201d said 29-year-old Abdul Karim, one of the few in the city who has carefully timed his Ramadan fast to the Arctic sun since moving from Ottawa in 2011. This year, that means eating at about 1.30am before the sun rises and breaking his fast at about 11pm when the sun sets. \u201cThe only reason to stop would be if it hurts my health,\u201d Karim said. Pointing to his sizable frame, he laughed as he added: \u201cBut, looking at my condition, I don\u2019t think fasting will hurt me.\u201d \nAs the end of Ramadan draws near for Muslims around the world, much of the holy month\u2019s focus on community work, prayer and reflection has been a constant in communities around the world. But in Iqaluit and the other Muslim communities in the Arctic, the long days have forced a shift in how the element of fasting is approached. \nMost in Iqaluit adhere to the timetable followed by Muslims in Ottawa, some 1,300 miles south of the city \u2013 following the advice of Muslim scholars who have said Muslims in the far north should observe Ramadan using the timetable of Mecca or the nearest Muslim city. It still means fasting for some 18 hours a day, said Atif Jilani, who moved to Iqaluit from Toronto in 2015. \u201cIt\u2019s long days, but more manageable.\u201d \nMany in the 100-strong community break their fast together, gathering in the city\u2019s brand new mosque \u2013 completed in February amid temperatures that dropped as low as -50C with wind chill \u2013 for nightly suppers. As they tuck into traditional foods such as dates and goat or lamb curries, the sun shines brightly through the windows. \nIt\u2019s a scene that plays out across Canada\u2019s northernmost mosques during Ramadan, as Muslim communities wrestle with the country\u2019s unique geography. The 300 or so Muslims in Yellowknife, in the Northwest Territories, have several options when it comes to fasting during Ramadan, said Nazim Awan, president of the Yellowknife Islamic Centre, with exceptions made for those who are pregnant or ill. \u201cThere might be some superhumans who want to fast for 23 hours, but the other option is to follow the intent and spirit of fasting by following nearby cities or they can follow the times of Mecca and Medina.\u201d In recent years, much of the community has opted to follow the Ramadan timetable of Edmonton, in Alberta. Some, such as Awan \u2013 a father of two young children, including a 12-year-old who recently started fasting \u2013 follow the timings of Mecca. He hopes to encourage his son with the more manageable timetable of about 15 hours of fasting as compared with about 18 hours in Edmonton. \n\u201cIf I fast Yellowknife or Edmonton times, my son might say, 'Papa, you are really insane. What are you doing?'\u201d he said. Faced with the impossibility of following the local movements of the sun, the 100 or so Muslims in Inuvik, a small town that sits 125 miles north of the Arctic Circle, have also been following Edmonton\u2019s timetable. \u201cWe currently have 24 hours a day of sun,\u201d said Ahmad Alkhalaf. \u201cThere\u2019s no sunrise or sunset.\u201d \nThe adherence to Edmonton\u2019s schedule was already in place in 2001 when he moved from Toronto to the small northern community of 3,500 people. \u201cMy first Ramadan here was in December. There\u2019s no sun at that time; it\u2019s dark all day and night. So we used Edmonton time.\u201d At times, it can be psychologically challenging to follow the clock rather than what is happening outside, Alkhalaf said. \u201cYou\u2019re supposed to break your fast when it\u2019s dusk and we eat when the sun is out. It\u2019s not usual to have iftar [the meal breaking the fast] when the sun is up,\u201d he said. In Inuvik, where much of the population is Inuit, the Muslim community has sought to strike a balance between Ramadan and the local culture and traditions. The iftar meal includes dates and rich curries \u2013 as well as local game such as reindeer, prepared in accordance with Islamic law. \u201cWe make a soup or curry \u2026 but instead of using beef, we use reindeer.\u201d \nIn Iqaluit, as the Muslim community prepares to mark the end of Ramadan, some reflect that 2016\u2019s timing \u2013 stretching across some of the longest days of the year \u2013 has made it one of the more challenging of recent years. It\u2019s particularly true for those like Karim who have determinedly followed the local sunrise and sunset. But, his efforts will be rewarded years from now, said Karim, thanks to the lunar calendar. Ramadan will eventually fall during winter, which, in Iqaluit, sees the sun rise and set within a few hours each day. \u201cI\u2019ll follow those hours, too,\u201d he said with a laugh. \u201cOh yes, definitely.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nMargaret Thatcher, the best known British prime minister since Winston Churchill in 1940 and a global supporter of free market economics, has died. The British government announced that she would receive a ceremonial funeral at St Pauls Cathedral.\nThe British prime minister, David Cameron, said: It was with great sadness that l learned of Lady Thatchers death. Weve lost a great leader, a great prime minister and a great Briton. He added: As our first woman prime minister, Margaret Thatcher succeeded against all the odds, and she didnt just lead our country, she saved our country. He added that he believed she would be remembered as the greatest British peacetime prime minister.\nIn a statement, President Barack Obama said, Here in America, many of us will never forget her standing shoulder to shoulder with President Reagan, reminding the world that we can shape the currents of history with our moral beliefs, courage and iron will.\nThe first woman elected to lead a major western state, Margaret Thatcher served 11 years at No 10 Downing Street before members of her own party removed her in 1990.\nThatcher, who was 87, had been in poor health for some years, suffering from dementia. When they heard of her death, politicians from all parties sent tributes.\nLabour Party leader, Ed Miliband, said: She will be remembered as a unique figure. She reshaped the politics of a whole generation. She was Britains first woman prime minister. She moved the centre ground of British politics and was a huge figure on the world stage. The Labour Party disagreed with a lot of what she did and she will always be a controversial figure. But we can disagree and also greatly respect her political achievements and her personal strength.\nThe deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, said: Margaret Thatcher was one of the most important figures in modern British politics. Whatever party you support, no one can deny that as prime minister she left a unique and lasting imprint on the country she served.\nDescribing her as a political phenomenon, the former Conservative prime minister Sir John Major said: Her outstanding characteristics will always be remembered by those who worked closely with her: courage and determination in politics, and humanity and generosity of spirit in private.\nThe Iron Lady was a cold war ally of the US president Ronald Reagan in the final showdown with the Soviet Union, which broke up as a result of reformist pressures led by Mikhail Gorbachev, a Kremlin leader with whom Thatcher famously said she could do business. As a result, many ordinary voters in ex-Soviet bloc states saw her as someone who supported their liberty.\nThatcher was an unremarkable Conservative until she unexpectedly became party leader in 1975. Within ten years, she had become known around the world  both admired and hated  for her pro-market reforms in the UK and her implacable attitudes in foreign policy, including her long battle with the IRA, which almost succeeded in murdering her with a bomb in 1984.\nAt home, Thatcher was associated with denationalization of state-owned industry  the new word privatization became used in many countries  and defeat of militant trade unions, particularly the National Union of Miners, whose one-year strike (198485) was traumatic. With money from Britains North Sea oil fields, Thatcher was able to change the ageing industrial economy and she used the opportunity to defeat her enemies  including moderate members of her own party.\nIn the European Union she got a rebate for Britain  my money as she called it. She was less successful in controlling the European Commission, who wanted to centralize power in Europe, especially in the years when it was led by the French socialist Jacques Delors.\nAs the British economy recovered from the very bad recession that her policies had caused, she seemed invincible for a short time. But unlimited power and the defeat or retirement of allies led to mistakes and increasing unpopularity. When her deputy finally fell out with her  mainly on the subject of Europe  his damaging resignation speech led to a leadership challenge. After a vote among Conservative MPs failed to support her, John Major took control of the party.\nAfter she retired, she wrote highly successful memoirs and campaigned energetically for the Thatcher Foundation, which aimed to promote her values around the world.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"A fifth of young adults in the UK are staying in the family home until they are at least 26 and a fifth are not paying any rent. A recent survey found that the percentage of adults who live at home was different in different parts of the country \u2013 it was less than 9% in the East Midlands and more than double that in London, where house prices and rents are highest. Many young people pay their parents some money to live at home but 20% pay nothing at all. \nYoung adults are suffering from low wages and high rents. The cost of renting is too much so young people who want to buy a house can\u2019t save enough to get on the property ladder. Recent research showed half of tenants were unable to save any money for a deposit and a quarter could only save \u00a3100 or less each month. Mortgages are cheaper than ever before but people who have large deposits still get the best mortgages. \nAs a result of this, more and more young adults are returning to the family home to save money. And, parents who cannot afford to give their children money for a deposit seem happy to let them live at home again. The survey found that 28% of adults live at home because they are trying to save for a deposit. But it also found that 30% are not saving any money. \nMichael Day, 30, who lives with his parents in Bristol, says it\u2019s difficult to save for a mortgage deposit when rents are so high. Rents for a one- bedroom home in the city are between \u00a3500 and \u00a3800 a month. Buying a similar flat would cost about \u00a3130,000. \u201cI don\u2019t really want to move out to rent because it\u2019s more than a mortgage but you need such a big deposit to get a mortgage.\u201d \nSue Green, who works for Saga, a business that sells insurance to people over 50, said most parents did not think their children would live with them in their 20s or 30s. \u201cMost will be more than happy to have them in the family home rent-free because it might help their kids get on the property ladder sooner,\u201d she said. \u201cChildren who don\u2019t pay rent may pay for other things like groceries or they may do odd jobs around the home.\u201d \nAngus Hanton, of the Intergenerational Foundation, said older people caused the housing crisis and we should not blame younger people for staying at home. \u201cThe under-30s earn, on average, 20% less since the 2008 downturn. Rents and car insurance have never been so high,\u201d he said, \u201cand many jobs \u2013 zero-hour and short-term contracts \u2013 turn younger workers into second-class citizens.\u201d \nJenna Gavin, 29, lives in the family home where she grew up. She works as a medical receptionist nearby so she wants to stay in the area. But renting a one-bedroom flat would cost more than \u00a3420 a month not including bills, which would use a lot of her earnings. \u201cI don\u2019t want to rent \u2013 I don\u2019t want to spend all that money and have nothing at the end,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019ve thought about buying and seen mortgage advisers but I just can\u2019t borrow enough to get on the property ladder.\u201d \nShe is trying to save for a deposit. \u201cIt\u2019s difficult to save enough money \u2013 even a 5% deposit is such a lot of money,\u201d she said. Her parents are happy not to ask her to pay rent. \u201cThey want me to try to save and I do other things \u2013 I buy food and I do things around the house.\u201d She gets on with her parents and has the same room that she had when she was 14 but she said she had always imagined she would have her own home before she was 30.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Women have traditionally had a minor role in professional football but this may be changing. France has just employed its first female professional team manager. It did not matter that it was a second-division club. It did not matter if it was, as some people suggested, just a publicity stunt for a minor team, Clermont Foot 63. Clermont is 14th out of the 20 teams in its league at the moment. \nWhat mattered was that they gave Helena Costa the top job. This has made football history because she is the first female manager in the top two divisions of any professional European league. \u201cAs a woman, it\u2019s made me happy,\u201d said V\u00e9ronique Soulier, president of the club\u2019s supporters\u2019 association. \u201cWhen I first heard the news, I was surprised, but, then, we all agreed that it\u2019s good news. We all agree that a woman at the head of a group of men is no bad thing.\u201d \nThe new manager of Clermont Foot 63 was born in Alhandra, Portugal and has a master\u2019s degree in sports science. She is also a UEFA-licensed coach. She previously coached Benfica\u2019s male youth teams, the Qatar women\u2019s team and, more recently, the Iranian women\u2019s national team. \nThe president of Clermont Foot 63, Claude Michy, gave Costa, 36, a two-year contract. Michy is very good at keeping his club in the news. In 2013, he told everyone the team had signed Messi. They had. Not the Argentinian and Barcelona striker Lionel Messi, but Junior Messi Enguene, a 20-year-old midfielder from Cameroon. \nCarolina Morace, an Italian who was the only previous woman coach of a men\u2019s professional team, said: \u201cI don\u2019t know Helena, but, if she has been hired by a team, then it means that she knows how to do her job. I hope that, one day, this can become normal.\u201d Morace played for Italy in 153 internationals. In 1999, she became coach of the men\u2019s team Viterbese. But, after only two games, she resigned from the job because of a disagreement with the club\u2019s owner. She added: \u201cI see too many men, even in the women\u2019s game, who do not have the same expertise as women but are working. And the women are not working.\u201d \nRaymond Domenech, former manager of the French national team, said: \u201cWomen know how to play football and how to manage and are good at doing it. Why shouldn\u2019t they manage men\u2019s teams? The opposite happens and doesn\u2019t cause any problems. It\u2019s a natural choice and reflects our society in which women are equal to men. I say well done to President Michy. I told myself that, if I took control of a club again, I\u2019d hire a woman as my number two. Michy did it first.\u201d \nClermont Foot 63 says that Costa\u2019s becoming the team\u2019s manager will allow the club to enter \u201ca new era\u201d. On the club supporters\u2019 website, reaction to Costa\u2019s becoming the manager was mixed. \u201cIn my opinion, it\u2019s just a publicity stunt to get people talking about the club. I find it hard to believe she\u2019ll be able to get the players\u2019 respect, above all when she\u2019s the same age as the oldest,\u201d wrote one fan. \u201cHer CV isn\u2019t bad, but now the question is: will she be good enough?\u201d added another. A third wrote: \u201cI wish her welcome and success but I think it\u2019ll be hard for her to do well as a woman in such a macho business.\u201d \nBut Soulier was hopeful: \u201cHopefully, with the new manager, the club can find the motivation they don\u2019t have at the moment,\u201d she said. \u201cThe boys in the team can be difficult to manage. With a woman in control, maybe they will be less demanding.\u201d \nIf we believe Costa\u2019s reputation, she will be the person making the demands. After doing work experience at Chelsea during Jos\u00e9 Mourinho\u2019s first time as manager of the club between 2004 and 2007, people described her as \u201cMourinho in a skirt\u201d. Costa\u2019s comment on that description was: \u201cLike Mourinho, I always want to win. In that way, yes, I\u2019m happy to be compared with him.\u201d","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"When two people on a remote Pacific island saw a small boat washed up on the beach, they decided to take a closer look. Inside the boat, they found a very thin man with long hair and a beard, who said he drifted for 16 months after leaving Mexico, more than 12,500km away. \nThe man, who was wearing only underpants, told his rescuers that he drifted in the 7.3-metre boat since he left Mexico for El Salvador in September 2012. A friend died at sea several months before, he said. \n\u201cHis health isn\u2019t good, but he\u2019s getting better,\u201d said Ola Fjeldstad, a Norwegian anthropology student doing research on Ebon Island, one of the Marshall Islands. The man said his name was Jos\u00e9 Ivan. He said he survived by catching turtles and birds. There was no fishing equipment on the boat, but a turtle was inside when it washed up. \u201cThe boat looks like it has been in the water for a long time,\u201d Fjeldstad said. \nAccording to Fjeldstad, the people who found the man took him to a nearby island \u2013 which is so remote it has only one phone line and no internet \u2013 to meet the mayor. The mayor contacted the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Majuro, the Marshall Islands capital. People at the ministry said that they were waiting for more details and that the man will probably go to the capital. \n\u201cHe\u2019s staying at the local council house and a family is feeding him,\u201d said Fjeldstad. He also said that the man had a basic health check and had low blood pressure but no serious problems and was able to walk. \u201cWe\u2019re giving him a lot of water and he\u2019s getting stronger.\u201d \nFraser Christian, who teaches people how to survive at sea, said that if the man\u2019s story was true, it would be amazing but not unique. It was possible to catch turtles or small fish by hand, he said, because \u201cthey will come close to a small boat to shelter underneath it\u201d. Christian advises people who have to eat turtles to start with their eyes \u2013 \u201clots of fluid\u201d \u2013 then drink the blood. \nThe main dangers for castaways are cold and a lack of drinking water. \u201cThe basic rule is: no water, no food. You need water to digest protein. If you have no fresh water and it doesn\u2019t rain for a few days, so you can\u2019t collect rainwater, you will die.\u201d Also, some people are more able to survive than others. \nStories of survival in the Pacific Ocean are not rare. In 2006, three Mexicans made international headlines when they were found drifting near the Marshall Islands, also in a small boat. They said they survived for nine months at sea on a diet of rainwater, raw fish and seabirds. But Cliff Downing, who teaches sea survival to sailors, said he wasn\u2019t sure about the latest story. \u201cIt just doesn\u2019t sound right to me. There are 1,001 hazards that would make his survival for so long very unlikely.\u201d \nMore castaways Poon Lim, a Chinese sailor from a British ship that was sunk by a German submarine in 1942, survived 133 days on a wooden boat floating in the South Atlantic. Brazilian fishermen rescued him. In 1971, Scottish sailor Dougal Robertson and his family were sailing to the Gal\u00e1pagos Islands from Panama when their boat was sunk by killer whales. They survived 38 days on a lifeboat. A fishing boat rescued them. In 2006, three Mexican fishermen were found drifting in a small boat near the Marshall Islands, nine months after setting out on a shark-fishing trip. In 2011, two fishermen, aged 26 and 53, from the Republic of Kiribati drifted for 33 days. The US coastguard rescued them. A Panamanian fisherman sued Princess Cruises in 2012 after one of their ships ignored cries for help from him and two other people in their broken boat. He survived 28 days at sea, but his friends both died of thirst.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nThe UK prime minister, David Cameron, has declared a clear result in the Scottish independence referendum  Scotland voted by a 10.6-point margin against ending the 307-year- old union with England and Wales. The prime minister promised a devolution revolution in Great Britain, as he welcomed Scotlands decision to remain inside the UK. There can be no disputes, no reruns  we have heard the will of the Scottish people, he said in a statement.\nEarlier, Scotlands  rst minister, Alex Salmond, remained de ant at a Scottish National Party rally in Edinburgh  he said he accepted Scotland had not, at this stage, decided to vote for independence. He said the referendum was a triumph for democratic politics and he would work with the government in London in the best interests of Scotland and the rest of the UK. We have touched sections of the community who have never before been touched by politics, he said.\nThe yes campaign won four big successes  it won 53% of the vote in Scotlands largest city, Glasgow, 57% in Dundee and 51% in North Lanarkshire. However, the no campaign was victorious in 28 authorities. It won easily in areas where it was expected to do well, including Edinburgh, Aberdeenshire and Borders, but also in areas that could have gone to the yes campaign, including the Western Isles. In the  nal count, the no camp won 2,001,926 votes (55.3%) and the yes camp won 1,617,989 votes (44.7%).\nIn his speech, Cameron made clear that there would be constitutional reforms, including in Scotland, but not until after the general election. He also said that Scottish measures would happen in tandem with changes in England. We have heard the voice of Scotland and, now, the millions of voices of England must be heard, he said.\nCameron added: The people of Scotland have spoken and it is a clear result. They have kept our country of four nations together and, like millions of other people, I am delighted. As I said during the campaign, it would have broken my heart to see our United Kingdom come to an end. And I know that feeling was shared by people not just across our country but around the world because of what we have achieved together in the past and what we can do together in the future. So, now, it is time for our United Kingdom to come together and to move forward. A vital part of that will be a balanced settlement, fair to people in Scotland and, importantly, to everyone in England, Wales and Northern Ireland as well.\nEd Miliband, the leader of the Labour Party, said the referendum was a vote from the Scottish people for change. We know our country needs to change. We will deliver stronger powers for a stronger Scottish parliament, a strong Scotland. But he said that would go beyond Scotland. We will also meet the desire for change across England, across Wales, across the whole of the United Kingdom.\nNick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, said the referendum was not only a new chapter for Scotland within the UK but also wider constitutional reform across the union. He said a vote against independence was not a vote against change. We must now deliver on time and in full the radical package of newly devolved powers to Scotland, he added.\nYet that result raises the risk of further problems  MPs from Camerons Conservative Party are threatening to vote against the prime ministers promise to quickly increase the Scottish parliaments powers and protect its spending.\nThe UK Independence Party leader, Nigel Farage, said Camerons offer of more devolution for England did not go far enough. The English are 86% by population of this union. Theyve been left out of all of this for the last 18 years. We still have a situation where Scottish MPs can vote in the House of Commons on English-only issues. I think what most English people want is a fair settlement, he said. \nCameron will try to calm tensions when he makes another statement on the result. The prime minister will explain how he will deliver further devolution to Scotland, including giving greater powers over tax and welfare to the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh. The prime minister wants to move fast to show that the three main UK party leaders will meet the commitments they made during the referendum campaign.\nFor the no campaign, there was relief: a number of opinion polls in the  nal days of the campaign had said the vote was on a knife-edge. This brought Yes Scotland within touching distance of victory after a dramatic surge in support.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Is this the moment when streaming goes mainstream? \nAccording to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), only 41 million subscribers used music streaming services around the world in 2014. In the record business, it is the area that is growing the fastest but it is still quite small. Also, many subscribers have streaming as part of a mobile phone package so nobody knows if they use the service or not. Apple hopes to reach 100 million subscribers. The subscription fee would be $120 per year so Apple would earn $12 billion a year. By comparison, the entire global worth of recorded music in 2014 was just under $15 billion. Apple is good at making products go mainstream but it\u2019s not that good.\nIs this the end of downloading? \nThe iTunes Store arrived in 2003 (2004 in Europe). Apple was able to persuade consumers to pay for downloads and it grew a really big business with an estimated 70% market share. Downloads were still 52% of total digital income in 2014, according to IFPI. Apple has most of this \u2013 this means it is the biggest music retailer in the world. But download earnings reached their highest point in 2013 in the UK at \u00a3283 million and fell to \u00a3249 million in 2014. \nDownload sales fell in the US in 2013 so Apple bought Beats in 2014 because it wanted to move from music ownership (downloads) to music access (subscription streaming). Apple, and the record industry, cannot afford to get rid of the download market yet \u2013 so streaming and downloading will have to coexist under the Apple brand. Most people like music but don\u2019t love it enough to pay $120 a year to listen to it. On average, people in the UK, for example, spent just \u00a339.52 on music in 2014. Even Apple will find it very difficult to make people triple the money they spend on recorded music.\nHas Apple Connect made Apple the most artist-friendly service? \nApple Connect is somewhere in the middle of YouTube, Facebook and SoundCloud. It allows artists to post music, videos, photos and more to their profile pages. Apple has good relations with the music industry and, also, with artists. It has a good reputation among artists. This is a bit different from Spotify \u2013 artists from Radiohead\u2019s Thom Yorke to Taylor Swift have criticized Spotify. There is probably going to be a revolution and Apple is trying to make sure it has the support of artists.\nWhere are the artist exclusives? \nArtist exclusives is going to be the interesting bit when Apple Music opens. It will be very important for streaming to have exclusive rights to big albums. Spotify paid a lot of money to get Led Zeppelin and Metallica exclusively. Apple already has the music of AC\/DC and the Beatles for download on iTunes but it is uncertain if these two will want to move to streaming. It was an easy decision for artists to give iTunes the download exclusive on an album because most people download music using iTunes. But trying to do that in streaming is not the same thing.\nIs this going to kill Spotify? \nSome people already believe that Apple Music will destroy competitors like Spotify. But it\u2019s not that simple. Other companies have been offering music streaming for many years but Apple hasn\u2019t \u2013 it has no experience of music streaming. The winner of this battle will not be the company with the best service; it will be the company with the most money. Apple\u2019s competitors have an advantage but they are losing a lot of money. Spotify, for example, lost \u20ac93.1 million in 2013. But Apple is different \u2013 it started 2015 by becoming the most profitable company in business history. It had $178 billion in the bank.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nIn 2010, the police would only enter the old city in Srinagar wearing body armour. It was at the centre of uprisings by violent separatists, who were fighting for an independent Kashmir. More than 100 people died.\nHow quickly things change. The same streets are now full of tourists. The Nowhatta mosque is where young people would meet to throw stones at the security forces. Now the mosque will be part of an official walking tour focused on heritage, crafts and markets. Visitors can have their picture taken in the beautiful gardens by the lake. Until the snow melted, the ski resorts nearby were packed with rich Russians, too.\nIn 2002, only just over 27,000 tourists dared to visit the Kashmir Valley. People were frightened by the anti-Indian insurgency, in which almost 70,000 people have died. So far in 2012, the area has received almost one million tourists  more than 23,000 of them from outside India. But there were fewer than 150 Britons  mainly because the UKs Foreign Office advice deters most travellers by giving a list of recent security problems in the region.\nOmar Abdullah, the UK-born Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, has asked the British High Commission in Delhi to change its guidelines, but without success. Its frustrating, admitted Abdullah, who has been in charge of Indias most sensitive state since early 2009. Today, unfortunately, as a result of that travel advice, peoples insurance isnt valid when they visit here. 1995 was the last time foreign tourists were murdered in J&K. Six westerners, including two Britons, were kidnapped by Al-Faran, a Kashmiri militant Islamist group. Only one survived.\nBritish citizens have been killed more recently in countries that you still havent stopped people from visiting. I mean, how many British citizens did you lose in 9\/11? Did you stop people from visiting New York? Youve lost them in Spain, in Bali, said Abdullah. Weve lost Indians in London. There is still a possibility that al-Qaida could do something stupid, but we havent stopped Indians from travelling to London. There is no reason to say Jammu and Kashmir, or even Srinagar, is an unsafe destination.\nGermany relaxed its guidelines for travellers to the region in 2011. Foreigners are usually not direct targets, said Germanys amended advice. At the time, many thought it was a bold thing to say, less than a year after the 2010 disturbances finally calmed down. There was a national holiday on 15 August to celebrate 65 years of Indian independence  in the past, a day fraught with danger in a state where many do not feel part of India. But there was no trouble at the independence celebrations.\nAbdullah is confident that tourists are safe in the state, if you take the normal sort of precautions. In other words, do not go trekking near the border that separates the Indian and Pakistani controlled parts of Kasmir. Syed Ali Shah Geelani, leader of the pro-Kashmiri independence party, disagrees with Abdullahs politics. But the two men agree about tourism. At the start of the summer season, Geelani wrote an open letter to tourists that said: Whatever your faith, whatever language you speak and to whatever region you belong  you are our honoured guest, and respecting and protecting guests is not only our moral obligation but an article of faith.\nSome visitors may worry about the ethics of having fun in a place where the local people are suffering from record levels of anxiety and mental health problems. But the locals in Srinagar seem to be in favour of tourism. Amjid Gulzar, 26, said Abdullah could search for truth and reconciliation as well as encouraging foreign visitors. He must do both; but without tourism, our economy will be in chaos, he said.\nWe need better infrastructure, better roads, reliable electricity. We need more for tourists to do in the evening  we dont even have one cinema in this city, he said. But will tourists feel welcome? In June, a local Islamic group created a dress code for foreign tourists. Abdullah sighs when I mention this. Nobody wants tourists to come here and cover their faces. I think their basic point was: be sensitive to our cultural identity and dress appropriately. I think thats common sense.\nAbdullah said tourism would help the economy. J&Ks economy is in a dire state after more than two decades of conflict. The state receives just 72 million each year in taxes but 155 million is paid in salaries to 500,000 public employees. It is clear why he needs to find more money, fast. But, at the moment, he is just pleased to see tourists back.Im not suggesting that one million tourists here is a sign that everything is back to normal, he said. But it gives me some satisfaction that people can come, have a nice time, and go back.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nSwedish prisons have long had a reputation around the world for being progressive. But are the countrys prisons a soft option?\nThe head of Swedens prison and probation service, Nils Oberg, said in November 2013 that four Swedish prisons will close due to an out of the ordinary fall in prisoner numbers.\nAlthough there has been no fall in crime rates, between 2011 and 2012 there was a 6% fall in Swedens prisoner population, now a little over 4,500. A similar decrease is expected in 2013 and 2014. Oberg said he was puzzled by the unexpected fall, but hoped that the reason was to do with how his prisons are run. We certainly hope that the efforts we put into rehabilitation and preventing criminals from reoffending has made a difference, he said.\nThe modern prison service in Sweden is very different from when I joined as a young prison officer in 1978, says Kenneth Gustafsson, governor of Kumla Prison, Swedens most secure jail, 130 miles west of Stockholm. However, he doesnt think the system has gone soft. When I joined, the focus was very much on humanity in prisons. Prisoners were treated well  maybe too well, some might say. But, after a number of escapes in 2004, we had to place more emphasis on security.\nThe Swedes still have a humane approach to sentencing, even of the most serious offenders: jail sentences are not usually more than ten years. Those who receive life imprisonment can still apply to the courts after a decade to have the sentence changed to a fixed sentence, usually between 18 and 25 years. Sweden was the first country in Europe to introduce the electronic tagging of convicted criminals and continues to keep prison sentences short wherever possible by using community-based measures. These have been effective at stopping criminals from reoffending.\nThe overall reoffending rate in Sweden is between 30 and 40% over three years  to compare that with another European country, the number is around half that of the UK. One thing that has kept reoffending down and the number of prisoners in Sweden below 70 per 100,000 people is that the age of criminal responsibility is 15. In the UK, for example, children aged ten to 17 and young people under the age of 21 have the highest reoffending rates. In Sweden, no young person under the age of 21 can be sentenced to life  this is not the case in many other countries  and they try to keep young offenders out of prison.\nOne strong reason for the fall in prison numbers might be the amount of post-prison support available in Sweden. A government-run probation service supervises people on probation and provides treatment programmes for offenders with drug, alcohol or violence problems. The service is helped by around 4,500 members of the public who volunteer to befriend and support offenders under supervision.\nI spoke to a former prisoner who now runs a group called X-Cons Sweden. Peter Soderlund served almost three years of a four-year sentence for drug and weapons offences before he was released in 1998. He was helped by an organization run by other former prisoners called Kris (Criminals Return Into Society).\nBoth organizations work with the same goal: helping prisoners successfully fit back into society after they have been released. And what is life like for the prisoner in Sweden? When I was inside, I was lucky. says Soderlund. In Osteraker Prison, where I served my sentence, we were treated well. But I knew that not all Swedish prisons were like that. I met so many people in there who needed help  after I received help from Kris, I knew I wanted to help others. With X-Cons, we meet them at the prison gate and support them into accommodation and offer a network of support.\nIn Sweden, we believe very much in the idea of rehabilitation, says Gustafsson. Of course, there are some people who will not or cannot change. But, in my experience, the majority of prisoners want to change and we must do what we can to help them.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"The Senate Intelligence Committee has approved a bill that would provide for increased transparency of the National Security Agency\u2019s bulk collection of US phone records but allow the controversial practice to continue. Sponsored by Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, the bill lets the NSA continue to collect phone metadata of millions of Americans for renewable 90-day periods and allows the government to retain it. Some legislators have alternatively proposed letting phone companies hold the metadata. It passed the committee by an 11-4 vote, paving the way for a full Senate vote. \nThe bill allows analysts to search through the data if they suspect there is a 'reasonable suspicion' that a suspect is associated with international terrorism. Additionally, the bill allows the NSA to continue surveillance begun on foreigners outside the US if they enter the country 'for a transitory period not to exceed 72 hours'. \nThe bill is a direct challenge to one introduced by Senator Patrick Leahy that would end domestic phone-records collection. It was also opposed by leading Intelligence Committee member Mark Udall, who said it did not go far enough. \u201cThe NSA\u2019s invasive surveillance of Americans\u2019 private information does not respect our constitutional values and needs fundamental reform, not incidental changes. Unfortunately, the bill passed by the Senate Intelligence Committee does not go far enough to address the NSA\u2019s overreaching domestic surveillance programmes,\u201d Udall said. \nAnother Democratic member of the committee, Ron Wyden, said the bill maintains \u201cbusiness as usual\u201d and \u201cremains far from anything that could be considered meaningful reform\u201d. Feinstein defended the NSA bulk collection programme, but said there was a need to rebuild public trust. \u201cThe NSA call-records programme is legal and subject to extensive congressional and judicial oversight, and I believe it contributes to our national security,\u201d she said in a statement. \u201cBut more can, and should, be done to increase transparency and build public support for privacy protections in place.\u201d \nIn her statement, Feinstein said the bill would also make a number of improvements to transparency and oversight on the NSA, including: requiring an annual public report of the total number of queries of NSA\u2019s telephone metadata database and the number of times the programme leads to an FBI investigation or probable cause order; requiring that the foreign intelligence surveillance court impose limits on the number of people at NSA who may authorize or query the call-records database; establishing criminal penalties of up to ten years in prison for intentional unauthorized access to data acquired under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) by the United States; mandating the FISA court impose a limit on the number of contacts an analyst can receive in response to a query of bulk communication records. \nAfter the committee\u2019s hearing had ended, Feinstein strongly endorsed the NSA\u2019s main domestic programme. \u201cI think there\u2019s huge misunderstanding about this NSA database programme, and how vital it is to protecting this country,\u201d she told reporters. \nConcern over the Intelligence Committee\u2019s bill was expressed by independent legal experts, who said the stage was now set for a showdown with the USA Freedom Act, a bill introduced by Leahy and Jim Sensenbrenner that would prohibit bulk collection of Americans\u2019 telephone records. \nElizabeth Goitein of the Brennan Center for Justice said: \u201cThe Intelligence Committee bill and the USA Freedom Act present two opposing visions of the relationship between law-abiding Americans and the national security state. The fundamental question is: should the government have some reason to suspect wrongdoing before sweeping up Americans\u2019 most personal information to feed into its databases? Leahy and Sensenbrenner say yes; Feinstein says no.\u201d Wyden suggested that recent concern about NSA spying on foreign leaders had distracted from the real focus on mass domestic surveillance in the US. \u201cThe statements that American intelligence officials have made about collecting on the intentions of foreign leadership, that\u2019s consistent with the understanding I\u2019ve had for years, as a member of the Intelligence Committee,\u201d he said. \u201cThat has implications for foreign policy. My top priority is ending the mass surveillance, digital surveillance, of millions and millions of law- abiding Americans.\u201d \nFeinstein unexpectedly announced that she was \u201ctotally opposed\u201d to the foreign leader spying of the sort the NSA conducts of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Feinstein has been a staunch supporter of the NSA\u2019s bulk collection of Americans\u2019 phone records. \n\u201cAmericans are making it clear, that they never \u2013 repeat, never \u2013 agreed to give up their constitutional liberties for the appearance of security,\u201d Wyden said. \u201cWe\u2019re just going to keep fighting this battle. It\u2019s going to be a long one.\u201d \nSeparately, Feinstein said that James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, had agreed to provide her in writing with a statement about a Washington Post story that alleged the NSA had intercepted data in transmission between Google and Yahoo data centres. She said she was withholding judgement on the story until she saw Clapper\u2019s rebuttal. Her strong endorsement of the domestic phone records collection indicates that the powerful Senate Democrat is not yet prepared to expand the criticism of the NSA that she has launched, \u201ctotally opposing\u201d its surveillance of foreign allied leaders \u2013 a more traditional intelligence activity than bulk phone metadata surveillance. \nWyden would not comment on the Washington Post report on the Google and Yahoo intercepts. But the senators suggested it had implications for the privacy of Americans\u2019 communication. \u201cDecades ago, countries had their own kinds of communication systems. Now that you\u2019ve had the merger of global communications, I think you\u2019re going to have a lot more challenges spying on foreigners with implications for US citizens,\u201d Wyden said.","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Noise emanating from passing ships may disturb animals such as killer whales and dolphins far more than previously thought, with new research showing that the animals\u2019 communication and ability to find prey could be hampered by the underwater din. The low rumble of passing ships has long been connected to the disturbance of large whales. But, US researchers have documented persistent noise also occurring at medium and higher frequencies, including at 20,000Hz where killer whales, also known as orcas, hear best. \nThese noise disturbances could be hindering the ability of killer whales to communicate and echolocate \u2013 the process of using sound to bounce off objects such as prey and identify where they are. Dolphins and porpoises, which also operate at higher frequencies, may be suffering the same problems. The findings suggest that the noise could well affect the endangered population of killer whales that are found near the shipping lanes. A population of just 84 killer whales forage up the US west coast and into Puget Sound. \n\u201cThe main concern relating to this is that even a slight increase in sound may make echolocation more difficult for whales,\u201d said Scott Veirs of Beamreach, who led the research. \u201cThat\u2019s worrying because their prey, chinook salmon, is already quite scarce. Hearing a click off a salmon is probably one of the most challenging things a killer whale does. Hearing that subtle click is harder if there\u2019s a lot of noise around you.\u201d \nThe researchers used underwater microphones to measure the noise created by about 1,600 individual ships as they passed through Haro Strait, in Washington State. The two-year study captured the sounds made by 12 different types of vessel, including cruise ships, container ships and military vehicles, that passed through the strait about 20 times a day. \nSome ships are quieter than others but the average intensity of noise next to all the ships was 173 underwater decibels, equivalent to 111 decibels through the air \u2013 about the sound of a loud rock concert. Whales are not usually located right next to ships and so would be subjected to noise of about 60 to 90 decibels \u2013 around the level of a lawnmower or a vacuum cleaner. \nVeirs said scientists have already identified the impact of underwater noise upon baleen whales \u2013 a class of fauna containing the largest animals on Earth. But, the new research underlines the threat posed to smaller whales, dolphins and porpoises. \u201cShips have been thought of as low- frequency sources of noise, like the rumbling of lorries or trains,\u201d he said. \u201cMost noise is at that low frequency but the background noise of the ocean is raised even in the high frequencies. This could be causing a significant problem that we need to look into more.\u201d \nThere are several knock-on consequences of a noisy marine environment. Whales may have to group together more closely in order to hear each other. And, should they fail to find prey as effectively, they will need to use up their stores of excess blubber. This is problematic as this blubber often contains manmade pollutants that are toxic to whales if released fully into their systems. \nVeirs said more work needs to be done to identify how badly the noise is affecting whales and also to quieten the ships that pass near the cetaceans. \u201cIt should be easy to reduce noise pollution,\u201d he said. \u201cMilitary ships are quite a bit quieter and there could be straightforward ways of transferring that technology to the commercial fleet. Another way to reduce noise is to slow down. Decreasing speed by six knots could decrease noise intensity by half.\u201d \nWhile the fortunes of some whale species, such as humpbacks and blue whales, the largest mammal on Earth, have improved as whaling has declined, others are still under threat from a range of factors. The US federal government has recently protected nearly 40,000 square miles of the Atlantic in an attempt to avoid losing the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale, a species with just 500 individuals left. \nIn Europe, killer whales are carrying dangerously high levels of banned polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) chemicals in their blubber. Scientists are still trying to determine whether pollutants caused the deaths of five sperm whales that became stranded on the east coast of Britain in January 2016. Meanwhile, around the coast of Australia, whales face an increased threat from ship strikes and oil and gas drilling, as well as Japan\u2019s recent pledge to resume whaling in Antarctic waters.","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"The balls have dropped down the chute and all six numbers match, so it\u2019s time to buy that Audi, book the holiday in the US and phone the estate agent. At least, that\u2019s what most lottery millionaires do, according to an analysis of spending and investment by jackpot winners. \nSince its launch in 1994, the lottery has created 3,000 millionaires who have won more than \u00a38.5bn in total, at an average of \u00a32.8m each. The trickle-down effect means that between them they have created a further 3,780 millionaires among their children, family and friends, according to the authors of the study, Oxford Economics. \nMost winners (59%) give up work straight away, but 19% carry on doing the day job and 31% do unpaid voluntary work. The good news for the economy is that 98% of winners\u2019 spending remained in the UK. Through their spending on property, vehicles and holidays, it is estimated that each winner keeps six people in a full-time job for a year. \nWinners have contributed almost \u00a3750m to gross domestic product (GDP), and generated more than \u00a3500m in tax receipts for the Exchequer. The bulk of the money went on property, with \u00a32.72bn spent on winners\u2019 main properties, and \u00a3170m in paying off existing debt and mortgages. \nMaintaining income was a priority, with \u00a32.125bn spent on investments. Gifts to family and friends accounted for \u00a31.17bn, and \u00a3680m was spent on cars and holidays. \nThe study, commissioned by Camelot, the operators of the UK National Lottery, to mark the 3,000-winners milestone, was based on research from 100 \u00a31m-plus winners. It found that in total the 3,000 winners have purchased 7,958 houses or flats in the UK, or 2.7 each, spending \u00a33.3bn. Most winners (82%) changed their main residence, spending an average \u00a3900,000. \nThe new home is likely to come with a hot tub, with almost a third (29%) putting that on their shopping list. A walk-in wardrobe was a must for 28%, almost a quarter (24%) opted for a property behind electric gates, and 22% had a games room, with 7% installing a snooker table. \nLarger properties need maintaining, and 30% of winners employed a cleaner and 24% a gardener. A small proportion (5%) employed a beautician. \nAudis were the favourite cars of 16% of winners, with Range Rovers and BMWs also popular purchases (11% each), as well as Mercedes (10%) and Land Rovers (5%). Winners spent \u00a3463m on 17,190 cars, with the average price of their favourite being \u00a346,116. \nHolidays were also a priority. The majority (68%) choose five-star hotels overseas. The US was the favoured destination for 27%, followed by the Caribbean (9%). Closer to home, however, UK caravan sales have benefited. Over the past 18 years, 10% of millionaires have bought a caravan, generating sales worth about \u00a37.4m. \nSome winners (15%) have started their own businesses, 9% have helped others to do so, and 6% have invested in or bought other people\u2019s businesses. Businesses started or supported by lottery winners employ 3,195 people, according to the study. \nAndy Logan, author of the report, said: \u201cThe effect of a win spreads much further and wider than we anticipated. Not only does it transform the lives of friends and family, but each win has a measurable effect on the UK economy, especially with so much of it being spent in the UK. The use of each win creates a ripple effect across this generation and very often the next.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nIt is no longer legal to smoke a cigarette inside a bar in the worlds drinking capital, New Orleans, Louisiana. Many other cities have banned indoor smoking but New Orleans is different  it attracts tourists with a let the good times roll attitude. An indoor smoking ban in New Orleans could have unique consequences.\nSince Hurricane Katrina in 2005, New Orleans city government has begun trying to turn down the volume a bit. With the support of neighbourhood groups, the city has begun policing bars and nightclubs more strictly, while, at the same time,  ghting to implement a new noise ordinance.\nThis is just the wrong time for something like this, complains bar-owner William Walker, who hates the anti-smoking law. Forcing people outside the bar to smoke is going to increase the tension thats already there.\nMany of New Orleanss best bars and live music venues are in quiet residential neighbourhoods. This neighbourly coexistence is a big part of what makes New Orleans different and charming. But, recently, this unique social contract has become unacceptable for some people and the fate of New Orleanss musical personality feels at risk.\nMartha Wood lives beside a loud bar that hosts live music. I bought the house partly because of the bar so I wont ever complain about the noise, says Wood, who also manages a live-music bar. This bar became one of New Orleanss  rst ever bars legally banned from serving drinks to go, after a series of noise issues in 2013  including complaints about the loud smokers outside.\nThe Maple Leaf club went smoke-free voluntarily in 2014. The same happened at another club where artists had been demanding smoke-free nights. A lot of the performance venues were already starting to show that consideration to performers so I wish the city would have just let that happen instead of forcing the ban into every corner bar that doesnt host music, says Zalia BeVille, manager of the All Ways Lounge.\nLuckily, All Ways has an outdoor patio, unlike Lost Love Lounge, whose owner, Geoff Douville, loves the ban  hed previously felt forced to live with smoke to keep his bar going. Theres no way I could have banned smoking in my bar without a ban throughout the whole city, says Douville. People act like I have that choice, as a business owner. But, if I make that rule, customers walk down the block to a bar with smoking.\nMany small business owners also fear smoke- free revenue loss. Smoker Neil Timms owns an English pub and met the smoking ban before, in England. Back home in England, every pub I knew closed within a year of the smoking ban, remembers Timms of the UKs ban, begun in 2007. He doesnt want his pub to close so hes spending money to build a patio.\nBut Douville feels the ban could be a great business opportunity. There are lots of people who would enjoy coming out to our bar, with our food, but would never come because they didnt want to smell like smoke for the next seven days  were now an option for all those people. Nor does Douville worry about noise complaints: No court is going to say a bar is a nuisance after the city has rati ed a smoking ban that requires you to go outside! he says.\nCouncilwoman LaToya Cantrell, who introduced the ban, disagrees: The responsibility is on the bar-owner to keep their customers respectful outside as well, she says. The owners and bartenders need to tell them to go and have a smoke but be respectful to their communities. The idea that we cant have clean air because it will cause noise problems is ridiculous. We can have clean air without noise problems  I think its about communication and creating partnerships between the communities and the businesses.\nCantrell recognizes that the city is different. How is New Orleans different from the rest of the country? New Orleans is known as a place where you can relax and have fun, she says. New Orleans needs to stand up and say We care about our people. The most vulnerable people who are working in smoky conditions are the backbone of our hospitality industry, which drives the economy in the state of Louisiana.\nMany were worried that the police would not have time to enforce the ban. So the health department   will handle bar warnings and  nes. Bar customers are encouraged to  ll out a form or call 311 and to include photographs of illegal smoking. For this reason alone, Neil Timms says hell comply with the ban: I dont want someone to be sitting in the corner smoking and someone takes a photo and gets beaten up.\nUnworried, Geoff Douville says that hes used to noise complaints by now. You will see: the nosy neighbours who complain about the noise now are going to be the same ones who wanted the smoking ban. In the end, Douville shares Cantrells optimism. Of course theyre going to complain, he accepts. But it doesnt mean theyre going to win.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"DNA taken from the wisdom tooth of a European hunter-gatherer has given scientists an unprecedented glimpse of modern humans before the rise of farming. The Mesolithic man, who lived in Spain around 7,000 years ago, had an unusual mix of blue eyes, black or brown hair and dark skin, according to analyses of his genetic make-up. \nHe was probably lactose intolerant and had more dif\ufb01culty digesting starchy foods than the farmers who transformed diets and lifestyles when they took up tools in the \ufb01rst agricultural revolution. The invention of farming brought humans and animals into much closer contact and humans likely evolved more robust immune systems to fend off infections that the animals passed on. But scientists may have overestimated the impact farming had in shaping the human immune system, because tests on the hunter-gatherer\u2019s DNA found that he already carried mutations that boost the immune system to tackle various nasty bugs. Some live on in modern Europeans today. \u201cBefore we started this work, I had some ideas of what we were going to \ufb01nd,\u201d said Carles Lalueza-Fox, who led the study at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology in Barcelona. \u201cMost of those ideas turned out to be completely wrong.\u201d \nThe Spanish team started their work after a group of cavers stumbled upon two skeletons in a deep and complex cave system high up in the Cantabrian Mountains of northwest Spain in 2006. The human remains, which belonged to two men in their early 30s, had been extremely well preserved by the cool environment of the cave. Carbon dating put the remains at around 7,000 years old, before farming had swept into Europe from the Middle East. The timing \ufb01tted with ancient artefacts found at the site, including perforated reindeer teeth that were strung and hung from the people\u2019s clothing. \nThe scientists focused their efforts on the better preserved of the two skeletons. After several failed attempts, they managed to reconstruct the man\u2019s entire genome from DNA found in the root of a third molar. It is the \ufb01rst time researchers have obtained the complete genome of a modern European who lived before the Neolithic revolution. \nThe DNA threw up a series of surprises. When Lalueza-Fox looked at the genome, he found that, rather than having light skin, the man had gene variants that tend to produce much darker skin. \u201cThis guy had to be darker than any modern European, but we don\u2019t know how dark,\u201d the scientist said. \nAnother surprise \ufb01 nding was that the man had blue eyes. That was unexpected, said Lalueza-Fox, because the mutation for blue eyes was thought to have arisen more recently than the mutations that cause lighter skin colour. The results suggest that blue eye colour came \ufb01rst in Europe, with the transition to lighter skin ongoing through Mesolithic times. \nOn top of the scienti\ufb01c impact, artists might have to rethink their drawings of the people. \u201cYou see a lot of reconstructions of these people hunting and gathering and they look like modern Europeans with light skin. You never see a reconstruction of a Mesolithic hunter-gatherer with dark skin and blue eye colour,\u201d Lalueza-Fox said. \nThe Spanish team went on to compare the genome of the hunter-gatherer to those of modern Europeans from different regions to see how they might be related. They found that the ancient DNA most closely matched the genetic make-up of people living in northern Europe, in particular Sweden and Finland. \nThe discovery of mutations that bolstered the immune system against bacteria and viruses suggests that the shift to a farming culture in Neolithic times did not drive all of the changes in immunity genes that Europeans carry today. At least some of those genetic changes have a history that stretches further back. \u201cOne thing we don\u2019t know is what sort of pathogens were affecting these people,\u201d said Lalueza-Fox. \nMartin Jones, professor of archaeological science at Cambridge University, said the immunity genes were the most striking result. \u201cThere is a no doubt oversimpli\ufb01ed grand narrative that the move from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to settled farming was initially bad for our health. A number of factors contributed, particularly living closely together with other humans and animals, shrinking the food web and crowding out water supplies. The authors are drawing attention to the role of pathogens in pre-agricultural lives and that is interesting.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nLow-income countries will continue to be the most affected by human-induced climate change over the next century. They will experience gradual sea-level rises, stronger cyclones, warmer days and nights, more unpredictable rainfall, and larger and longer heatwaves, according to a recent report.\nThe last major United Nations (UN) assessment, in 2007, predicted temperature rises of 6 C or more by the end of the century. That is now thought unlikely by scientists, but average land and sea temperatures are expected to continue rising throughout this century, possibly reaching 4 C above present levels  enough to devastate crops and make life in many cities unbearably hot.\nAs temperatures rise and oceans warm, tropical and subtropical regions will see sharp changes in annual rainfall, says the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, released in Stockholm and published online in September.\nEast Africa can expect increased short rainfalls and west Africa should expect heavier monsoons. Burma, Bangladesh and India can expect stronger cyclones; elsewhere in southern Asia, heavier summer rains are anticipated. Indonesia may receive less rainfall between July and October, but the coastal regions around the south China Sea and Gulf of Thailand can expect increased rainfall extremes when cyclones hit the land.\nIn the long term, rainfall patterns will change. Northern countries, such as those in Europe or North America, are expected to receive more rainfall, but many subtropical arid and semi-arid regions will likely experience less rain, said the reports authors.\nThey added that the monsoon season is likely to start earlier and last longer.\nScientists in developing countries and commentators have welcomed the report, which they said supported their own observations.\nThe IPCC says that climate change is real and happening much more strongly than before. We are already seeing the effects of climate change in Bangladesh and across south Asia. Its not news to us. Most developing countries are facing climate change now. They do not need the IPCC to tell them that the weather is changing, said Saleemul Huq, director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development.\nScientists have also lowered their projections of sea-level rises. Depending on future greenhouse gas emissions, sea levels will rise an average of 4062 cm by 2100. Nevertheless, there will be signifi cant geographical variations; many millions of people living in the developing worlds great cities, including Lagos and Calcutta, are threatened.\nWeather disasters are also more likely in a warmer world, the report suggests. Although the global frequency of tropical cyclones is expected to decrease or remain unchanged, they may become more intense, with stronger winds and heavier rainfall.\nLife in many developing-country cities could become unbearable, especially as urban temperatures are already far above those in surrounding countryside. Much higher temperatures could reduce the length of the growing period in some parts of Africa by up to 20%, the report said.\nThe charity Oxfam predicted that world hunger would worsen because climate changes inevitably hurt crop production and reduce incomes. They said the number of people at risk of hunger might rise by 10% to 20% by 2050.\nThe changing climate is already jeopardizing gains in the fi ght against hunger, and it looks like it will get worse, said Oxfam. A hot world is a hungry world.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Such is the lot of the modern-day chemist: you wait ages for a new element to turn up and then four come along at once. Discovered by researchers in Japan, Russia and the US, the four new elements are the first to be added to the periodic table since 2011, when elements 114 and 116 were included. The new elements, all spectacularly short-lived and highly radioactive, complete the periodic table\u2019s seventh row and render science textbooks around the world out of date. \nThe US-based International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), the global organization that governs chemical nomenclature, terminology and measurement, verified the elements on 30 December, 2015 after poring over studies dating back to 2004. The scientists who found them must now come up with formal names to replace the clunky Latin- based placeholders \u2013 ununtrium, ununpentium, ununseptium and ununoctium \u2013 which reflect their atomic numbers, 113, 115, 117, and 118. The atomic number is the number of protons found in an element\u2019s atomic nucleus. \nIUPAC announced that a Russian-American team of scientists at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California had produced sufficient evidence to claim the discovery of elements 115, 117 and 118. The body awarded credit for the discovery of element 113, which had also been claimed by the Russians and Americans, to a team of scientists from the RIKEN Institute in Japan. The decision means Japan becomes the first Asian country to name an element. Under IUPAC rules, new elements can be named after mythological concepts, minerals, a place or country, or a scientist. \nWhen elements 114 and 116 were assigned formal names in 2012, scientists chose flerovium and livermorium respectively, after the Flerov Lab at Dubna\u2019s Joint Institute of Research and the Lawrence Livermore Lab in the US, where the elements were discovered. Kosuke Morita, who led the research at RIKEN, said his team now planned to \u201clook to the uncharted territory of element 119 and beyond.\u201d Jan Reedijk, president of the Inorganic Chemistry Division of IUPAC, said: \u201cThe chemistry community is eager to see its most cherished table finally being completed down to the seventh row.\u201d \nThe Japanese team is believed to be considering three names for ununtrium: japonium, rikenium and nishinarium, after the Nishina Center for Accelerator-Based Science, where the element was found. \u201cThey will have been thinking about it for a while already,\u201d said Polly Arnold, professor of chemistry at Edinburgh University. \u201cThis is painstaking work. All this trying to understand Mother Nature helps us with our models and with understanding radioactive decay. If we understand it better, hopefully we can do better at dealing with nuclear waste and things that are important in the real world. It also leads to fantastic technological advances in building the kit to make these observations.\u201d \nAlong with new names, the scientists must propose two-letter symbols for the elements. When IUPAC has received the researchers\u2019 suggestions, they will be put up for public review for five months. That allows scientists and others to raise any objections. In 1996, the symbol Cp was proposed for copernicium, or element 112, but it was swapped to Cn when scientists complained that Cp referred to another substance. \nTo discover the elements, researchers at the three labs slammed lighter nuclei into one another and looked for signature radioactive decays that should come from the new elements. Ununtrium and ununpentium are thought to be metals, while ununseptium could be a metalloid \u2013 a material bearing some metallic properties. The fourth element, ununoctium, may be a noble gas, like other group-18 elements, helium, neon and argon. It is hard to know for sure because so few atoms of each element have ever been made. \nPaul Karol, chair of the IUPAC panel that verified the elements, said: \u201cFor now, most of the successes will be used by nuclear theorists to improve their understanding of the structure and stability of these very heavy nuclei as experimenters seek the alleged but highly probable 'island of stability' at or near element 120 or perhaps 126. It might be that those elements have long enough lifetimes for their detailed chemistry to be explored. Practical applications of the new elements, if any, are a long way off because of the difficulty in synthesis.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Hundreds of young Cubans are using a free, unrestricted internet service in the communist island nation. A small cultural centre in the capital city, Havana, has suddenly become a rare source of free wi-fi. The internationally known Cuban artist Kcho is providing the service. Perhaps more surprisingly, the state-owned telecommunications company, Etecsa, is allowing the service. \nPeople say the service is very slow, especially when the centre gets crowded. But, in a country where only about 5% of the population has open access to the internet, a facility that is both free and has no restrictions is very welcome. \nThe chance to visit international news websites, communicate with friends and family overseas and use sites like Facebook and Twitter has created a lot of excitement. \u201cI come as often as I can,\u201d said Adonis Ortiz, 20. He is video-chatting with his father, who lives in the US and whom he has not seen in nine years. \nDiplomatic and trade relations between the US and Cuba are improving and American tech giants such as Google and Apple may soon enter the Cuban market. In the meantime, Cuba has installed a high-speed fibre-optic cable under the sea from Venezuela and internet users have some access to Chinese equipment. \nAnother estimate is that a quarter of Cubans have access to the internet \u2013 still one of the lowest rates in the Western Hemisphere. But this estimate measures residents who use a restricted domestic intranet that only has certain websites and has limited email. \nKcho, who has close relations with the Cuban government, said that his actions are allowed by the Ministry of Culture. The artist said he wanted to encourage Cubans to become familiar with the internet. \u201cIt\u2019s only possible if you are determined and if you pay for it,\u201d Kcho told the Associated Press. \u201cIt is expensive but the benefit is tremendous. I have something that is great and powerful. I can share it and I am doing so.\u201d \nKcho\u2019s real name is Alexis Leiva Machado. He became famous internationally for his painting, sculpture and drawings when he won the grand prize at a festival in South Korea. Born on one of Cuba\u2019s islands, he is known for contemporary art with rustic, seaside and patriotic themes and imagery. \nIn the centre\u2019s courtyard, tech-savvy young people relax throughout the day or just sit outside when it\u2019s crowded. They use laptops and tablets or are glued to their smartphones. \nCuba has some of the lowest internet-use rates in the world \u2013 dial-up accounts are restricted and at-home broadband is extremely rare. Only foreigners can pay for it because it costs hundreds of dollars a month for the service \u2013 in Cuba, the average salary is between $17 and $20 a month. Kcho pays $900 a month to provide the free wi-fi. \nSince 2013, Cuban authorities have opened hundreds of internet salons, where an hour online costs $4.50. The speeds are far lower than the speeds at Kcho\u2019s studio, where they are about two megabytes per second (mbps). A 2014 report says that average internet connectivity speeds are about 10.5mbps in the US. South Korea has the fastest speeds in the world \u2013 23.6mbps. The average speed in the world is about 3.9mbps. \nLots of people usually use Kcho\u2019s wi-fi at the same time so the signal strength is usually not strong. One user said he sometimes visits in the middle of the night, when nobody else is around, and, then, the speed is extremely fast.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Prince Harry has flown out of Afghanistan at the end of a four-month tour, during which he admitted killing insurgents while piloting his Apache helicopter and spoke in rare depth about the tensions and frustrations of being a royal who craved life out of the spotlight. \nHe also revealed his disdain for and distrust of some sections of the media and described how his father constantly reminded him to behave more like a member of the royal family. \nA commander of the army\u2019s most sophisticated attack helicopter, the prince said he had fired on the Taliban during operations to support ground troops and rescue injured Afghan and NATO personnel. His remarks may be seized upon by insurgents to stir anti-British sentiment, but the prince said he was only doing his job. Most of the time the helicopter acted more as a deterrent, he said. \nIn a series of interviews during his time based at Camp Bastion in Helmand Province, he hinted at the difficulty of reconciling the different roles in his life. The prince, known as Captain Wales in the army, explained his 'three mes'. \u201cOne in the army, one socially in my own private time and then one with the family and stuff like that. So there is a switch and I flick it when necessary.\u201d \nHe admitted he sometimes 'let himself down' with his laddish behaviour, which he put down to \u201cprobably being too much army and not enough prince\u201d, but he said he was entitled to privacy, too. \nIn another unusually frank exchange, he aimed biting criticism at the media, especially the Sun, the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph, three of the royal family\u2019s most ardent supporters in Fleet Street. He said he was particularly annoyed by articles comparing his role as an Apache co-pilot gunner to Spitfire crews waiting to scramble during the second world war. \u201cNo, it\u2019s not like that at all,\u201d he said. \nThe prince said his suspicion of the media was rooted in the treatment of his family when \u201cI was very small\u201d, but that he couldn\u2019t help monitoring the stories written about him. \u201cOf course I read them,\u201d the prince said. \u201cIf there\u2019s a story and something\u2019s been written about me, I want to know what\u2019s being said. But all it does is just upset me and anger me that people can get away with writing the stuff they do; not just about me, but about everything and everybody. My father always says, 'Don\u2019t read it'. Everyone says, 'Don\u2019t read it, because it\u2019s always rubbish'.\u201d \nThe prince was posted to Afghanistan last September to command a \u00a345m Apache helicopter \u2013 one of the military\u2019s most sophisticated and well-armed aircraft. During his tour, the Apaches flew missions supporting NATO troops fighting the Taliban and accompanied British Chinook and US Black Hawk medical helicopters during casualty evacuations. \nFour years ago, the prince had to be spirited out of Afghanistan during his first tour after a media embargo was broken by mistake by an Australian magazine. This time, the Ministry of Defence chose to publicize his deployment on the understanding that newspapers and broadcasters would not give a running commentary on his life out there to allow him to get on with his job. Two-man crews from the BBC, Sky and ITN were sent once each to report on his visit, while a photographer and a reporter from the Press Association were embedded on all three visits. \nAsked whether he felt more comfortable being Captain Wales than Prince Harry, his reply was one of the most revealing he has given about his relationship with Prince Charles. \u201cDefinitely. I\u2019ve always been like that. My father\u2019s always trying to remind me about who I am and stuff like that. But it\u2019s very easy to forget about who I am when I am in the army. Everyone\u2019s wearing the same uniform and doing the same kind of thing. I get on well with the lads and I enjoy my job. It really is as simple as that.\u201d \nShortly before he went to Afghanistan, the prince was caught in another media furore, when pictures emerged of him frolicking naked in Las Vegas during a private party. Harry said he had let himself down, but also blamed the media. \u201cI probably let myself down, I let my family down, I let other people down. But, at the end of the day, I was in a private area and there should be a certain amount of privacy that one should expect. It was probably a classic example of me probably being too much army, and not enough prince. It\u2019s a simple case of that. \n\u201cThe papers knew that I was going out to Afghanistan anyway, so the way I was treated from them I don\u2019t think is acceptable.\u201d He added, \u201cCertain people remind me, 'Remember who you are, so don\u2019t always drop your guard'.\u201d \nAsked where he and his brother\u2019s fascination with helicopters came from, he said, \u201cProbably the fact that you can only fit a certain amount of people in a helicopter, therefore no one can follow us, like you guys.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nThe roof is plastic and the desks are just old chairs, but the students inside the Chemin des Dunes school are studying hard and hoping for a new life in France.\nThe French language is very difficult but we try hard. If we come every day, maybe our dreams will come true, says Kamal, a refugee from Sudans Darfur district who comes to three or four hours of classes every day. Its a good thing to keep your brain active.\nThe 29-year-old electrical engineer is one of dozens, perhaps hundreds, of refugees living in the jungle camp outside Calais who have applied for asylum in France and really want to learn the language of what they hope will be their new home.\nLike many of his fellow students, he is frustrated by the media coverage of the sprawling tentvillage. He says it focuses only on those people who use the village as a place to stay while they make risky attempts every night to sneak on board cross-Channel lorries or trains.\nI want people in the UK to know that not everyone wants to go there. There are a lot of people here who want to stay in France, Kamal said.\nFrance is already home to more than a quarter of a million refugees, according to United Nations data  this is more than twice as many as the UK, even though the countries have similar populations.\nThere are also 56,000 asylum seekers waiting for permission to stay in France  the second highest number in Europe  while, in the UK, there are 36,000.\nBut, while the applicants wait to hear if they can stay, France does not give them any financial support or allow them to work  and the slow process can take many months. The jungle camp offers a free meal a day and a plastic roof over their heads. Many decide to live in these basic conditions for a few extra months, rather than jeopardize their chance to stay in France by working illegally.\nThe idea for the school was first suggested by some of the asylum seekers at the start of the summer, when they were bored with sitting around waiting and nervous about starting a new life in France totally unable to communicate. It opened within weeks, on 11 July.\nWe did it so people can learn French, said Zimarco Jones, the schools Nigerian founder, who arrived in Calais in 2013 and is still waiting to hear if he can stay. Now, we need to build another one, he says with a grin.\nThe tiny classroom can hold 30 pupils, crammed into five rows of desks in front of a big green chalkboard and pictures of cartoon animals for each letter of the French alphabet. There are also classes in English, art and tai chi but the French lessons, given by volunteers from Calais and other towns, are the most popular.\nFrench is not as easy as English but, two weeks ago, I decided there was no way to get to the UK, says George, another Darfur refugee and student. He wanted to cross the Channel because he speaks fluent English but, with language classes, he says he is happy to settle in France.\nAnywhere there is peace, I can stay, no problem, he says. He is already waiting at the classroom more than half an hour before his teachers arrive.\nHe admits he doesnt know much about France but says that the classes are slowly helping him understand the country as well as the language.\nMany of the volunteers at the jungle school are local teachers who are giving up their summer holidays.\nJenny Flahaut, 33, who works at a childrens home, volunteered after seeing an advertisement on Facebook. I saw these people in Calais every day and I wanted to do something for them, she said.\nShe is angry about the depiction of migrants in the media and about politicians who have never visited the camp, most recently David Cameron, the British prime minister, who talked about swarms of people trying to reach the UK.\nThey dont know them; they are not like that, Flahaut said as she prepared for an afternoon lesson. Most of them are very good people. They are welcoming and friendly. They want to improve their life and make it better, and learning is part of that.\nThe teachers and Zimarco are focused, now, on setting up a separate classroom for around 200 women and two dozen children. There are ten times more men than women in the Calais camp. Most feel uncomfortable going to classes with male students they dont know, the volunteers say.\nZimarcos work starting the school is remembered in its unofficial name  everyone in the camp just calls it Zimarcos school. After setting up the new classroom, Zimarco has more dreams for making the camp a place to live, not just survive. He wants to start a football team for migrants and even dreams of changing the camp name. He hates the jungle because he says it implies the residents arent people.\nWe have a discotheque, a house, a mosque, a school, shops, he says. We are not animals.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nRobert Mys_ajek stops. Between two paw prints on a muddy mountain track, the scientist  nds what he is looking for. Droppings! he says happily. It is so rare to see a wolf that seeing faeces makes it a good day.\nBut it is getting easier. There are now about 1,500 wolves in Poland. The number has doubled in 15 years. Wolves are  along with the brown bear, the lynx and the wolverine  Europes last large predator carnivores. Conservationists from Britain, Germany and the Netherlands are coming here to  nd out how the country has saved wolves who are criticized even in fairy tales.\nBits of bone and hair stick out from the black faeces. It ate a red deer, says Mys_ajek, the University of Warsaw biologist. In my lab, I can tell you all about this wolf  not only its diet but its gender, sexual habits, age, state of health and family connections.\nDNA tests have shown that Polish wolves are travellers. One wolf reached the Netherlands, where unfortunately it was hit by a car. They have a very big range. They need space. The average territory required by a Polish pack is 250 square kilometres, says Mys_ajek.\nCan we ever reintroduce wolves to Scotland? asks student Alex Entwisle, 23, on a study trip to southern Poland from the UK. He and other animal science students have spent the day looking for droppings and paw prints in the Beskidy mountains of the Polish Carpathians.\nTheir hot discussion topic is whether to reintroduce wolves to the British Isles for the  rst time since the 18th century.\nMys_ajek toured the Scottish Highlands in 2015 for the Wolves and Humans Foundation and answered questions from villagers about the Polish experience. The big difference between Scotland and Poland is that we eat pork. We do not have many sheep here.\nThe similarity is that we have a lot of animals  300,000 red deer and more than 800,000 roe deer. In Poland, we also have too many wild boar  about 200,000  and these are eating and destroying farmers cereal crops. Here, wolves are part of the solution, he says.\nThe scientist says wolves can move up to 30 kilometres during a single hunt. The Beskidy pack is a strong unit, eight or nine animals. This year, we have recorded  ve cubs, two young wolves and two adults.\nWe track them using motion cameras in the forest and by following their prints in the mud and snow. In each family group, only one pair of adults has cubs each year. All pack members care for the young.\nMys_ajek, the son of a shepherd, doesnt understand wolves bad reputation. Why did we have to have the fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood, with its big bad wolf?\nHe is fascinated by these aloof animals who remained in the wild 33,000 years ago when others decided on a much more comfortable life as domestic dogs.\nMys_ajek says only scienti c arguments  the need to regenerate forests and control the wild animal population  can save Europes wild carnivores, especially the unpopular wolf. Natural predators balance the ecosystem. They reduce the number of herbivores, which allows trees to grow tall for birds to nest in.\nThe ban on wolf hunting in the western Carpathians became law in 1995 and in the whole of Poland in 1998. There are now wolf packs in nearly all the countrys major forests where the wolves coexist with humans.\nThe Polish government pays compensation for farm animals killed by wolves. Mys_ajek advises farmers to put up electric fences. He has helped bring back the use of two deterrents that, for reasons no one understands, wolves  nd very scary: strings of small red  ags (that you hang around sheep pens) and the Tatra Mountain Sheepdog.\nPolands wolves have been helped by the countrys late infrastructure development. In 1989, when the communists left power, Poland had only one motorway. Major road projects began after Poland joined the European Union in 2004 and they are required to consider wild animals.\nAttitudes have also changed. For many years, hunting was cultural. In 1975, there were fewer than 100 wolves in Poland. From the 1950s, hunting wolves was encouraged by the authorities. They paid a reward for killing a wolf worth a months salary. It was carnage.\nMys_ajek says that Polish wolves are much safer now but they are not completely safe. Packs of wolves cross country borders and hunting still happens in neighbouring Russia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine and Slovakia.\nHe says Polands new government, elected in October 2015, doesnt like wolves. The Environment Minister, Jan Szyszko, is a hunter. There are 120,000 licensed hunters in Poland and they have a lot of in uence.\nBeing a wolf advocate is not easy. You cant argue to the politicians that wolves are a big tourist attraction. Most tourists want to see the animals but wolves stay away from humans. They have a very sensitive sense of smell.\nThe 12 British animal science students leave the Polish Carpathians without seeing a wolf. Entwisle does not believe that Scotland will ever be able to match Polands success.\nIt would be amazing for the environment to have wolves back in Scotland because of the problem of too many deer. But it would just not be possible because of the roads and sheep.\nThere would be problems with farmers, too. In Britain, we like predators to be far away and to watch them on television, said Entwisle.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Roger McKinlay is the former president of the Royal Institute of Navigation. He says that our use of GPS (global positioning system) technology is damaging our ability to find our way. \u201cIf we do not look after them, we will lose our natural navigation abilities because we rely on technology more and more,\u201d he wrote.\nMcKinlay believes it will take a lot of time and money before navigation systems will be good enough for technologies such as driverless cars to become successful. He says we need better research into systems for navigation. Also, children should learn to find their way using more traditional methods. \u201cSchools should teach navigation and map reading,\u201d he wrote.\nIn 2012, 39% of adults in the UK had a smartphone. In 2015, 66% of adults had a smartphone. So most people now use GPS technology. But McKinlay, a satellite communication and navigation consultant, believes that we should be careful not to only use our smartphones for navigation. \u201cIf we don\u2019t practise using our navigation skills, we will lose them,\u201d he wrote.\nResearch from 2009 supports this idea. \u201cWe studied a group of current London taxi drivers and a group of retired London taxi drivers,\u201d said Dr Hugo Spiers of University College London, who is an author of the study. The results showed that the retired taxi drivers did worse on navigation tests than the current drivers. \u201cWe were able to show that their abilities decreased after they stopped using their knowledge.\u201d\nSpiers also believes it is dangerous to rely on technologies like GPS. But he says that the biggest problem is that technologies can lead drivers into dangerous situations. One of the deaths caused by satnavs (satellite navigation) was of a driver who, in 2010, drove into a lake in Spain. \u201cIt can be dangerous to use a satnav,\u201d said Spiers.\nThe way we use navigation technology also has an impact on our own abilities, says Spiers. If drivers listen to instructions, they don\u2019t need to think about where they are going, he says, but the use of smartphone apps as digital maps is better. When you use digital maps, \u201cyou have to think hard about where you are going,\u201d he said.\nMcKinlay believes there have to be big improvements in navigation technologies before we can have futuristic things like driverless cars and smart cities. \u201cFor really important jobs \u2013 like landing aeroplanes or flying aeroplanes \u2013 GPS is still not good enough, \u201d he said.\nMcKinlay believes humans must still able to take control of their navigation. \u201cWe don\u2019t want people to go into total shock when their smartphone disappears or the battery goes flat,\u201d he said. \u201cTechnology isn\u2019t magic \u2013 it is just a tool.\u201d","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nIntroduction Did you know that, in the UK, there is no legal requirement for restaurants to pass on tips to staff?\nFor a new government report, workers, employers and customers were asked about their views on tipping. After reading the report, government ministers said they wanted to change the rules and make sure low-paid workers get the money left for them by happy customers.\nThe report said that some waiters are charged up to a 15% administration fee on tips that are left when customers pay by credit or debit cards. The government said it would consider not allowing employers to charge workers an administration fee.\nThe government also said that it wanted customers to know that tips are voluntary and they want the system to be more transparent, with restaurants clearly displaying their tips policy.\nWe asked waiters around the UK what they think of the tipping process (including how much they take home from tips and whether its fair) and what would improve it for them.\n1. Rodri, 37, London: Around 50% of a waiters income is tips Average tips: 60 per eight-hour shift I think they treat waiters best in ... the US\nEverything has got fairer since the tipping scandal was exposed in the summer of 2015. This is when dozens of restaurants were exposed for taking money from tips for administration fees. However, you still hear horror stories from new employees at some chains. Some restaurants take 4% of all sales to pay the chefs and as an admin fee. It doesnt matter how much you make in tips. This means that, if a table has a 100 bill and doesnt tip, the waiter has to pay 4 of their own money. This leads to bad service. If a table doesnt tip, the waiter feels as if the company is stealing their money and resents the customers.\nI get an average of around 60 of tips per shift. On a good night, this can go up to over 100 and, on a poor night, its around 40. Around 50% of a waiters income is tips. All restaurants should have to publicly state their exact tipping policy. America has it pretty good  everyone tips.\n2. Elle, 22, Edinburgh: We never know whether its fair Average tips: 20 per eight-hour shift I think they treat waiters best in ... France\nI have three part-time catering jobs. My main day job is in a cafe\u0001 where the small number of staff work both in the cafe\u0001 and in the kitchen so all our tips go in a pot and they are shared equally. My main evening job is at a restaurant where we don\u0019t get our tips but our wages are minimum wage plus an extra 2.50 per hour. My third job is events catering and nobody ever tips.\nIn restaurants, because a lot of customers add tips through card payments, the staff never see how much the tip is  so we dont know whether what we get is fair or not. The system seems better in France, where they dont tip much but being a waiter is seen as a proper job, with job security and a decent income.\n3. Ashley, 22, London: Tips go towards customer breakages Average tips: 10-15 per eight-hour shift I think they treat waiters best in ... Australia\nI work in a London pub in the evenings and I do day shifts at a local restaurant. In both places, all the tips are collected and shared out at the end of the night. Money is also taken from the tips to pay for breakages by either staff or customers.\nIt is incredibly unfair that our tips are shared out, especially when one member of the team doesnt work hard enough. Or, when a member of the team does incredibly well, they dont get what theyve earned. Its really unfair that tips go towards breakages made by customers. The managers should have ways to pay for broken glasses and plates without taking our tips. I make around 20 a shift in tips but often I only get 10-15 of that money.\nI really rely on tips because I am only paid 7 an hour. Id rather we earned a good basic wage (like in Australia) and didnt have to rely on tips.\n4. Tom, Manchester: A big night of tips can help pay the rent Average tips: 40 per eight-hour shift I think they treat waiters best in ... Italy\nWhere I used to work, waiters kept 80% of cash tips and 40% of card tips. The other 20% of cash went into a pot for the commis waiters and bar staff. The 60% from the card tips went to the kitchen staff.\nIts hard to say how much I earned a shift; maybe around 40. It can make a massive change to your weekly  nances. Sometimes, the waiters needed a good night to pay their rent.\nThey have got tipping right in Italy, where customers dont add a service charge but usually round up their bill so, if their meal is 19, they leave a 20 note and dont ask for change. They respect the staff. In Italy, people often make a career as a waiter and the experience these waiters have shows in the service the customers get.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nAn extraordinary press conference at Leicester University has revealed the identity of the man in the car park with the twisted spine. It has also revealed his appalling last moments and the humiliating treatment of his body in the hours after his death. There were cheers when Richard Buckley, leader of the team of archaeologists, finally announced that they were certain they had found the body of Richard III.\nThe evidence was overwhelming. The scientists who carried out the DNA tests, those who created the computer-imaging technology to examine the bones in extraordinary detail, the genealogists who found a distant descendant with matching DNA, and the academics who investigated contemporary texts for accounts of the kings death and burial all reported their findings.\nWork has started on designing a new tomb in Leicester Cathedral, only 100 yards from the excavation site, and a ceremony will be held to lay him into his new grave there, probably next year. Leicesters Museums Service is working on plans for a new visitor centre in an old school building overlooking the site.\nRichard died at Bosworth on 22 August 1485, the last English king to die in battle, and, for the first time, the researchers revealed how. There was an intake of breath as a picture showed the base of his skull sliced off by one terrible hit, probably from a razor-sharp iron axe blade on a wooden pole. The blade probably went several centimetres into his brain and, experts say, he was certainly unconscious at once and dead almost as soon.\nThe injury confirms the story that he died in the middle of the battle and without his horse  as in his cry in Shakespeares play: A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse! Another cut from a sword, which also went through the bone and into the brain, would also have been fatal. But many of the other injuries were after death, suggesting that the kings naked body was mutilated as it was brought back to Leicester.\nOne terrible injury was certainly after death and could not have happened when his lower body was protected by armour. It suggests the story that his naked body was brought back on a horse and humiliated all the way is true. Bob Savage, a medieval weapons expert, said it was probably not a war weapon but the sort of sharp knife or dagger any workman might have carried.\nMichael Ibsen, the Canadian-born furniture maker proved to be the descendant of Richards sister, heard the confirmation on Sunday and listened to the evidence in shocked silence. My head is no clearer now than when I first heard the news, he said. Many, many hundreds of people died on that field that day. He was a king, but just one of the dead. He lived in very violent times and these deaths would not have been pretty or quick.\nIt was Mathew Morris who first uncovered the body, in the first hour of the first day of the excavation. He did not believe he had found the king. The mechanical digger was still removing the tarmac from the car park, a place identified by years of research by local historians and the Richard III Society as the probable site of the lost church of Grey Friars. The priests of Grey Friars bravely took the body of the king and buried him in a hastily dug grave, probably still naked, but in a position of honour near the high altar of their church. The leg bones, which were just showing through the soil, were covered up again.\nTen days later, on 5 September, when further excavation proved Morris had hit the crucial spot, he returned with Lin Foxhall, head of the archaeology department, to excavate the body. We did it the usual way, lifting the arms, legs and skull first, and proceeding gradually towards the torso  so it was only when we finally saw the twisted spine that I thought: My word, I think weve got him.\nFor Philippa Langley of the Richard III Society, Richard was the true king, the last king of the north, a brave leader who became a victim of some of the most brilliant propaganda in history, in the hands of Shakespeare. There remains the dark shadow of the little princes in the tower, an infamous story even in Richards day: the child Edward V and his brother Richard were declared illegitimate when Richard III claimed the throne, imprisoned in the Tower of London and never seen alive again. Although it is not certain that the bones found at the tower centuries later are theirs, there may be more DNA detective work to be done there.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Temperature rises resulting from unchecked climate change will be at the severe end of those projected, according to a new scienti\ufb01c study. The scientist leading the research said that, unless emissions of greenhouse gases were cut, the planet would heat up by a minimum of 4C by 2100, twice the level the world\u2019s governments deem dangerous. The research indicates that fewer clouds form as the planet warms, meaning less sunlight is re\ufb02ected back into space, driving temperatures up further still. The way clouds affect global warming has been the biggest mystery surrounding future climate change. Professor Steven Sherwood, at the University of New South Wales in Australia, who led the new work, said: \u201cThis study breaks new ground twice: \ufb01rst, by identifying what is controlling the cloud changes and, second, by strongly discounting the lowest estimates of future global warming in favour of the higher and more damaging estimates.\u201d \n\u201c4C would likely be catastrophic rather than simply dangerous,\u201d Sherwood said. \u201cFor example, it would make life dif\ufb01cult, if not impossible, in much of the tropics and would guarantee the eventual melting of the Greenland ice sheet and some of the Antarctic ice sheet\u201d, with sea levels rising by many metres as a result. \nThe research is a \u201cbig advance\u201d that halves the uncertainty about how much warming is caused by rises in carbon emissions, according to scientists commenting on the study, published in the journal Nature. Hideo Shiogama and Tomoo Ogura, at Japan\u2019s National Institute for Environmental Studies, said the explanation of how fewer clouds form as the world warms was \u201cconvincing\u201d and agreed this indicated future climate change would be greater than expected. But they said more challenges lay ahead to narrow down further the projections of future temperatures. \nScientists measure the sensitivity of the Earth\u2019s climate to greenhouse gases by estimating the temperature rise that would be caused by a doubling of CO in the atmosphere compared with pre-industrial levels \u2013 as is likely to happen within 50 years, on current trends. For two decades, those estimates have run from 1.5C to 5C: a wide range. The new research narrowed that range to between 3C and 5C, by closely examining the biggest cause of uncertainty: clouds. \nThe key was to ensure that the way clouds form in the real world was accurately represented in computer climate models, which are the only tool researchers have to predict future temperatures. When water evaporates from the oceans, the vapour can rise over nine miles to form rain clouds that re\ufb02ect sunlight; or, it may rise just a few miles and drift back down without forming clouds. In reality, both processes occur and climate models encompassing this complexity predicted signi\ufb01cantly higher future temperatures than those only including the nine-mile-high clouds. \n\u201cClimate sceptics like to criticize climate models for getting things wrong and we are the \ufb01rst to admit they are not perfect,\u201d said Sherwood. \u201cBut what we are \ufb01nding is that the mistakes are being made by the models which predict less warming, not those that predict more.\u201d He added: \u201cSceptics may also point to the \u2019hiatus\u2019 of temperatures since the end of the 20th century, but there is increasing evidence that this inaptly named hiatus is not seen in other measures of the climate system and is almost certainly temporary.\u201d \nGlobal average air temperatures have increased relatively slowly since a high point in 1998 caused by the ocean phenomenon El Ni\u00f1o, but observations show that heat is continuing to be trapped in increasing amounts by greenhouse gases, with over 90% disappearing into the oceans. \nFurthermore, a study in November 2013 suggested the \u201cpause\u201d may be largely an illusion resulting from the lack of temperature readings from polar regions, where warming is greatest. Sherwood accepts his team\u2019s work on the role of clouds cannot de\ufb01nitively rule out that future temperature rises will lie at the lower end of projections. \u201cBut,\u201d he said, for that to be the case, \u201cone would need to invoke some new dimension to the problem involving a major missing ingredient for which we currently have no evidence. Such a thing is not out of the question but requires a lot of faith.\u201d He added: \u201cRises in global average temperatures of at least 4C by 2100 will have profound impacts on the world and the economies of many countries if we don\u2019t urgently start to curb our emissions.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"From glow-in-the-dark trees to underground bike sheds and solar-powered bins, we look at some of the more leftfield solutions to help make our cities more livable. \nCity living has many upsides but a sustainable lifestyle is increasingly not among them. Pollution, traffic and loss of green spaces are just some of the daily trials that city-dwellers have to deal with. \nStep forward the inventors. We consider ten of the wackier solutions to making our cities more livable. \n1 Pop-up parks\nToday\u2019s cities sometimes look like they\u2019re built more for cars than people. The pop-up park is a simple idea. Take an empty car park, a pocketful of change and a pot plant or two, and make yourself your own private park. The PARK(ing) project kicked off as an arts experiment in San Francisco and has since spread across the world. Temporary urban farms and ecology demos are just some of the ideas to have emerged out of the movement, which celebrates a day of action every September.\n2 Subterranean storage\nNot all urban dwellers are hooked to the car. Bikes are ever more in vogue. The question is: where to keep it safe? Tokyo-based engineering firm Giken has come up with a concept for a solution: an \u201cecocycle, anti-seismic underground bicycle park\u201d. At just seven metres wide, the cylindrical storage facility buries deep enough into the ground to house 204 bikes. Owners can retrieve their bike at the touch of a button, with the automated system delivering it back above ground in around 13 seconds.\n3 Glow-in-the-dark trees\nWhen most people think of trees that glow in the dark, Christmas baubles and fallen pine needles usually come to mind. Not Daan Roosegaarde. The Dutch designer-artist has comes up with a \u201cbioluminescent\u201d plant. The experimental technology splices DNA from luminescent marine bacteria with the chloroplast genome of a plant to create a jellyfish-type glow. Trials are underway to create an industrial-scale version of the biomimicry-inspired technology that Roosegaarde hopes could one day replace conventional street lighting.\n4 Footfall harvesting\nEvery day, hundreds of commuters and shoppers in the east London neighbourhood of West Ham cross the elevated pedestrian walkway close to the underground station. Few probably notice the springiness beneath their feet. Fewer still connect that five-millimetre flex in the rubber surface to the powering of the streetlights above. The paved flooring is decked with smart tiles that capture the kinetic energy from pedestrians\u2019 footsteps and convert it into electricity. Pavegen, the UK firm behind the innovation, has installed a similar system at London\u2019s Heathrow Airport, among other international locations.\n5 Supertrees\nIt had to happen eventually: man-made trees. Singapore\u2019s Gardens by the Bay has a small copse of them. Up to 50 metres high, these steel-framed 'supertrees' not only have flowers and ferns growing up them but their metallic canopies act to absorb and disperse heat too. They\u2019re equipped to harvest rainwater, too, as well as provide air ventilation for two \u201cclimate-controlled biomes\u201d (large conservatories, in other words) below. Eleven of the 18 trees also boast solar panels along their \u2019branches\u2019.\n6 Water-producing billboard\nWe live in a consumer world. And, so we don\u2019t forget it, advertisers wallpaper our cities and highways with banks of billboards. Researchers at Lima\u2019s University of Engineering and Technology have come up with a billboard with a difference. Using a system of condensers and filters, it traps the humidity in the air and extracts the water vapour to produce around 96 litres of drinking water a day. The public can help themselves to it for free.\n7 Neo-walled gardens\nGardens stopped being just the preserve of people\u2019s front lawns long ago. For a while, roof gardens were all the rage. Now, it\u2019s all about walls. Drawing on advances in hydroponics (growing plants without soil), the facades of a growing number of libraries and offices, shops and hotels are bursting into flower. One of the companies at the forefront of the \u201cliving wall\u201d boom is UK-based firm Biotecture. The company\u2019s \u201cvertical gardens\u201d can be seen gracing the Taj Hotel in central London and the exit wall of Edgware Road Tube Station, among other locations. Aesthetics aside, green walls are credited with reducing air pollution and improving air quality.\n8 Algae-powered building\nTo prove the dynamism of the \u201cliving wall\u201d concept, look no further than Hamburg\u2019s International Building Exhibition. Instead of sweet-smelling flowers, the south-facing facades of the zero-carbon apartment complex are laced with green-tinged algae. The walls\u2019 external fabric includes a \u201cbio-skin\u201d of hollow grass panels on which the algae photosynthesizes and grows. Periodically, the algae is harvested from the walls and fermented in a biogas plant to produce electricity.\n9 Smart rubbish bins\nForget gas-guzzling dumper trucks and smelly skips. City authorities around the world are now turning to solar-powered \u201ctrash compactors\u201d to keep litter off the streets. The 150-gallon-capacity rubbish bins are equipped with a motor that pushes down the rubbish when it nears the top. The motor is powered by solar panels embedded in the lid. The newest BigBelly bins include a wireless monitoring system that notifies rubbish collectors when the bins are full.\n10 Spray paint\nFinally, desperate times may sometimes call for desperate measures. That\u2019s clearly what was going through the minds of authorities in Chengdu, one of China\u2019s fastest growing cities. To brighten up the place, the municipal landscaping department has taken to spraying the yellowing grass green. Use of the non-toxic green spray has now spread to Tianjin and a host of other cities in China\u2019s north-west.","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nThe International Monetary Fund (IMF) has asked the USA to sort out its finances after the US avoided a debt default and hundreds of thousands of federal employees returned to work after a 16-day government shutdown.\nAs the US President, Barack Obama, warned, Weve got to get out of the habit of governing by crisis, the IMFs managing director, Christine Lagarde, asked for more stability.\nThe Senate wrote a peace deal that included almost no concessions to the conservatives who had driven the country to the precipice of a new financial crisis. The deal was passed by the Republican-dominated House of Representatives at the last minute.\nThe World Bank, too, expressed its relief that the global economy had avoided a catastrophe. Its president, Jim Yong Kim, told politicians in all countries that they should continue to focus on making policies that encourage economic growth and give jobs and opportunity for everyone.\nStock markets in Japan, China, Hong Kong and South Korea first showed relief after the Republicans finally capitulated in their failed attempt to undermine Obamas healthcare reforms. But, in Asia and Europe, stock markets generally did not show much reaction, because traders apparently expect another fight in Washington early in 2014.\nThe shutdown cost the US $24bn. Chinas official Xinhua News Agency accused the US of jeopardizing other countries dollar assets. China is the US governments largest creditor.\nObama signed the legislation just after midnight on Thursday. The bill had passed easily with support from all parties in the Senate. It offers a temporary solution, funding the government until 15 January and raising the debt limit until 7 February.\nBut the president made clear that he did not expect another serious budget fight and shutdown in 2014.\nAt the White House, Obama said he hoped the deal would lift the cloud of uncertainty that had hung over the country in recent weeks.\nWhen this agreement arrives on my desk, I will sign it immediately, he said. Hopefully, next time, it wont be in the eleventh hour. Weve got to get out of the habit of governing by crisis.\nThe president was asked by a journalist whether the crisis would happen again in a few months. Obama replied: No.\nEarlier, the Republican senator Mike Lee said there may be more trouble ahead: The media keeps asking: Was it worth it? My answer is, it is always worth it to do the right thing. He added: This is not over.\nHowever, the political deal was one of the worst of all possible results for Republicans. None of their goals was achieved and polls showed that voters blamed them for the crisis.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nMore than one million British workers might be employed on zero-hours contracts, a new poll shows. This suggests that British businesses are using the controversial employment contracts far more than previously thought.\nAfter the results  which come from a poll of more than 1,000 employers by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD)  people began asking the government to launch a full inquiry into the use of the contracts. Recently, many organizations  from retail chains to Buckingham Palace  have been criticized for hiring staff but offering no guarantee of work and pay each week. Employees on zero-hours contracts often get no holiday or sick pay and have to ask permission before looking for additional work elsewhere.\nThe CIPD found that 38% of zero-hours contract workers describe themselves as employed full-time, typically working 30 hours or more a week. One-third of voluntary sector employers use the contracts and one in four public sector organizations.\nPeter Cheese, from the CIPD, said: There does need to be a closer look at what is meant by a zero-hours contract. And this needs to consider both the advantages and disadvantages for businesses and employees.\nRetailer Sports Direct recently became the focus of controversy on zero-hours when it was reported that the company employs around 20,000 of its 23,000 staff on the contracts. The retailers use of the contracts was followed by details of many other companies using the contracts, including cinema chain Cineworld and Buckingham Palace, which uses them for its 350 summer workers. Pub group J D Wetherspoon has 24,000 of its staff  80% of its workforce  on zero-hours contracts.\nVidhya Alakeson, from the Resolution Foundation, added: If its true that there are around one million people on zero-hours contracts, then that would be a substantial portion of the workforce  this could no longer be dismissed as an issue affecting only a tiny minority.\nUnions and poverty campaign groups have accused employers of pressuring staff into signing the contracts so that they can avoid their responsibilities and reduce staff bene ts.\nDave Prentis, of the trade union Unison, said: The vast majority of workers are only on these contracts because they have no choice. They may give  exibility to a few, but the contracts favour the employers and make it hard for workers to complain.\nWorkers on zero-hours contracts are often only told how many hours they will work when weekly or monthly rotas are created, but are expected to be on call for extra work at short notice. They should get holiday pay, but they do not get sick pay.\nThe charity National Trust, which employs many of its seasonal workers on zero-hours contracts, said it offered the same pay and bene ts to those workers, pro rata, as full-time staff, but needed some workers to be on more  exible contracts.\nWe believe zero-hours contracts are essential in our organization, as we are very weather-dependent, a spokeswoman said. Its important to be able to reorganize staff rotas quickly to respond to the weather and zero-hours contracts allow us to do this.\nPolitician Chuka Umunna said the contracts should be the exception to the rule. While some employees welcome the  exibility of such contracts, for many, zero-hours contracts leave them insecure and unsure of when work will come, he said.\nSome people have argued that the  exibility of zero-hours contracts may have allowed the UK to avoid higher levels of unemployment during the economic crisis.\nFigures from the poll suggest that 17% of employers in the private sector use zero-hours contracts, considerably lower than the 34% of organizations in the voluntary sector and 24% in the public sector.\nIndustries where employers were most likely to have at least one person on a zero-hours contract were hotels, catering and leisure (48%), education (35%) and healthcare (27%).","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"We may not yet be living in an age of flying cars, as predicted in the 1985 film Back to the Future II, but the rise of smartphones and other new technologies is creating a reality that is arguably as exciting and almost as far-fetched. Experts agree that economic and demographic changes, technological advances, and environmental concerns are fundamentally altering the transportation landscape. \u201cIt\u2019s a very dynamic time,\u201d said Robert Puentes, of the Brookings Institution\u2019s Metropolitan Policy Program think- tank. \u201cThere\u2019s a focus on a tighter connection between the role of transportation and the economic health of cities and its impact on people.\u201d \nAs the average US commute lengthens and the country\u2019s infrastructure ages badly, cities across the US are being forced to redefine what transportation is. Increasingly, urban planners, transportation experts and scientists are realizing that old auto-centric models focused on easing traffic congestion aren\u2019t enough to tackle issues like population growth and carbon emissions, and transportation is now, more than ever, an integral component of a city\u2019s larger sustainability efforts. \nBig US cities like Los Angeles, Seattle and Chicago are working to make better use of their streets by adding more bus lanes, augmenting pedestrian walkways and expanding their rail options, while at the same time working with the private sector on advanced technologies that will allow a vehicle to drive itself and communicate with other vehicles and its environment, essentially making transportation intelligent. \u201cThe most sustainable places to live are those places that have multi-modal transport systems,\u201d Puentes said. \u201cYou can\u2019t be a global competitive city if you don\u2019t have a robust transportation network.\u201d \nHere are three of the key trends that experts predict will shape the transportation industry over the coming years. \nThe rise of ride-sharing services like Uber and Lyft \u2013 essentially taxis booked at the click of a smartphone button \u2013 and apps like Waze, which uses real-time traffic data to find the quickest routes for drivers, are dramatically changing how people get around and affecting the very way in which traffic moves through a city. Communication between riders and drivers, between different vehicles and between cars and infrastructure is bringing transportation into a new era, according to Allan Clelland, an expert on transportation technology. \nAccording to a recent study from the UCLA\u2019s Institute of Transportation Studies, vehicle travel has declined among millennials \u2013 individuals born roughly between the early 1980s and early 2000s \u2013 compared to previous generations. According to the study, those born in the 1990s are making 4% fewer car trips and travelling 18% fewer miles per year, on average, than members of previous generations did at the same stage in their lives. \nMeanwhile, those still driving cars are dealing with less traffic thanks to Waze. Experts say the traffic app has eased congestion on motorways and reduced travel times for drivers but also led to a problematic rise in cars moving through residential neighbourhoods. This has angered residents, who claim the increased traffic on their quiet roads reduces their quality of life. \nThis trend could continue as vehicle-to-vehicle data communication, as well as communication between vehicles and the surrounding infrastructure, grows. Currently, a traffic light can detect when a car is approaching but that\u2019s about it. Companies are working to develop technology that will enable a vehicle to tell traffic control systems not only that it is present but also where it is going and how fast it is travelling. \nDriverless cars have been in the headlines ever since Google began road testing the vehicles back in 2012 but no-one really knows when driverless cars will become commonplace. However, the partial automation of cars is already underway. Alexandre Bayen of the University of California expects automation will progress in stages: first, there might be automated buses with their own lanes, then perhaps lorries in ports or mining towns: essentially, vehicles that are connected electronically and travel in single file. \nThe idea of a fully automated transportation system is intriguing because it has the potential to improve safety by removing human error and increase the efficiency of car owners, who can get on with other tasks during a long commute. It can also help reduce carbon emissions and traffic congestion and allow more people access to cars. But, even if driverless technology were ready to hit the roads now, it would take a long time to get fully automated given the average age of cars on the road is 11.5 years old. \nTo see what driverless cars might look like in action, go to the video at: vimeo.com\/37751380. \nAs the world races to avoid catastrophic climate change, and countries, states and cities work to meet ambitious emissions goals, these policies could also have a big impact on the future of transportation, spurring everything from zero- and low-emission vehicles to apps that encourage more walking, biking and carpooling. \nSharon Feigon, executive director of the Shared Use Mobility Center, envisages a future where a person can use a transit pass that gives them access to numerous modes of transport in a given day. If their train is delayed, for instance, they can access a city bike, take a shuttle or rent a vehicle through a car share programme using the same pass. \u201cWe\u2019re going to see these systems packaged together and make it as easy as possible to connect them up with each other so people can transfer seamlessly between them,\u201d she said. \nWhen considering the future of transportation, it\u2019s also important to keep in mind why people travel: they may be going to work, to meet friends or family, or to do the shopping. Technologies and trends that reduce the need for those trips \u2013 say, virtual meetings or telecommuting \u2013 could also have a big impact on transportation. \nThere was a time when the idea of a flying car represented the height of innovation but the technologies being imagined and developed now could be seen as even more sophisticated \u2013 and more useful in tackling the social and environmental threats that we face over the coming decades.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Every morning, before the temperatures in India\u2019s capital start to rise, a handful of old friends gather. On the parched grass not far from the India Gate monument at the centre of Delhi, they stretch, breathe and meditate. \n\u201cIt is the only healthy way to start the day. Much better than an egg or a sandwich or a cup of tea,\u201d said Arvind Singh at 6.15am as he did his breathing exercises on a bench. \nSingh, a 42-year-old salesman, and his friends are far from alone. All across India, in the overcrowded cities, on whatever green space is left, similar scenes are being played out. \nOn 21 June \u2013 the new International Day of Yoga \u2013 Narendra Modi, India\u2019s prime minister, hopes the world will join in. The grass near India Gate will be transformed into the venue for what, it is hoped, will be the biggest single yoga session ever held, with up to 45,000 people running through a 35-minute routine. \nThe participants will include 64-year-old Modi, most of his government and, they hope, a range of celebrities. Officials have been sent to round up volunteers from scores of countries to reinforce the international credentials of the ancient Indian practice. \nGetting Indians, and others, stretching has emerged as something of a focus for Modi, who led his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to a landslide election victory in 2014. In May 2015, schools were directed to make sure students attended yoga events timed to coincide with the big demonstration in Delhi, even though it is being held on a Sunday. \nOfficials have already signalled the introduction of compulsory yoga for India\u2019s famously out-of-shape police officers and said that daily yoga lessons would be offered free to three million civil servants and their families. Air India, the national carrier, has also said it will introduce yoga for trainee pilots. More controversially, senior politicians in India have suggested more widespread practice of yoga could bring down soaring levels of sexual violence in the country. \nModi, an ascetic who is a committed vegetarian and an enthusiastic yoga practitioner himself, suggested an international yoga day when speaking to the United Nations on a visit to New York in 2014. \n\u201cYoga is an invaluable gift of India\u2019s ancient tradition. It embodies unity of mind and body, thought and action, restraint and fulfilment, harmony between man and nature, a holistic approach to health and wellbeing. It is not about exercise but discovering the sense of oneness with yourself, the world and nature,\u201d Modi said at the time, adding that yoga could help in tackling climate change. \nThe discipline is between 3,000 and 6,000 years old and originated somewhere on the Indian subcontinent, possibly among religious ascetics. Its meditative practices, as well as its physical exercises, have long been associated with local religious traditions including Buddhism and Jainism, as well as the Hinduism practised by 80% of Indians. \nModi, who started his career as an organizer for a hardline Hindu nationalist organization, has been previously criticized for promoting a view of Indian culture that has little place for other traditions. One commentator called the event on 21 June \u201ca mix of cultural nationalism, commercialization and subtle coercion\u201d. \nNovelist Ajaz Ashraf wrote on India\u2019s Scroll website: \u201cUnderlying it is the hope of bringing into the BJP tent the modern-day gurus and their teeming followers, who largely constitute the urban middle classes.\u201d \nOthers, however, point to a recent US court ruling that said yoga was not inevitably linked to faith. A court in California ruled that: \u201cWhile the practice of yoga may be religious in some contexts, yoga classes as taught in the [San Diego] district are, as the trial court determined, 'devoid of any religious, mystical or spiritual trappings.'\u201d This came after two parents claimed yoga in schools promoted Hinduism and inhibited Christianity. \nAmish Tripathi, the author of best-selling novels set 4,000 years ago in India that retell stories from Hindu mythology, said characters in his books practise yoga. \n\u201cIn ancient India, it was part of daily life, both the physical and the mental aspects. Every culture has gifted something to the world and this is our gift,\u201d Tripathi said. \nSuneel Singh, a guru in south Delhi, agreed that yoga did not belong to any one religion: \u201cIs t\u2019ai chi just Chinese? Is football just English? Same with yoga. It is a complete package for everybody\u2019s body and a cheap way to keep you hale and hearty.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nOn the market square in Rjukan stands a statue of the towns founder, a respected Norwegian engineer and businessman called Sam Eyde. The great man looks north across the square at a mountainside in front of him.\nBehind him, to the south, rises the 1,800-metre peak known as Gaustatoppen. Between the mountains, along the narrow Vestfjord valley, lies the small, but once powerful, town that Eyde built at the beginning of the last century, so the workers in his factories could live there.\nEyde used the power of the 100-metre Rjukanfossen waterfall to make hydroelectricity in what was, at the time, the worlds biggest power plant.\nBut one thing he couldnt do was change the sun. Deep in its eastwest valley, surrounded by high mountains, Rjukan and its 3,400 inhabitants are in shadow for half the year. During the day, from late September to mid-March, the town, three hours north-west of Oslo, is not completely dark, but its certainly not bright, either.\nNow, high on the mountain opposite Eydes statue, 450 metres above the town, three large, solar-powered, computer-controlled mirrors slowly track the movement of the sun across the sky. They reflect the sunshine down on to the square and fill it with bright sunlight.\nIts the sun! grins Ingrid Sparbo, lifting her face to the light and closing her eyes. A retired secretary, Sparbo has lived all her life in Rjukan and says people do sort of get used to the shade. You end up not thinking about it, really. But this ... this is so warming. Not just physically, but mentally. Its mentally warming.\nTwo young mothers bring their children into the square and stand in the sun. On a freezing day, an elderly couple sit on one of the new benches smiling at the warmth on their faces. Children smile. Lots of people take photographs. A shop assistant, Silje Johansen, says its awesome. Just awesome.\nElectrical engineer Eivind Toreid is more cautious. Its a funny thing, he says. Not real sunlight, but very similar. Like a spotlight.\nHeidi Fieldheim says she heard all about it on the radio. But its far more than I expected, she says. This will bring much happiness.\nAcross the road, in the Nye Tider caf, sits the man who created this unexpected happiness. Martin Andersen is a 40-year-old artist who moved to Rjukan in the summer of 2001.\nThe idea of an artwork Andersen called the Solspeil, or Sun mirror, came to him at the end of one September: Every day, we would take our young child for a walk, he says, and, every day, I realized we were having to go a little further down the valley to find the sun. By 28 September, the sun completely disappears from Rjukans market square. It doesnt reappear until 12 March.\nIn the months between September and March, Andersen says, Wed look up and see blue sky above, and the sun high on the mountain slopes, but the only way we could get to it was to go out of town. Its sad, a town that people have to leave in order to feel the sun.\nTwelve years after he first dreamed of his Solspeil, a German company specializing in CSP  concentrated solar power  brought in, by helicopter, the three 17-sq-m glass mirrors that now stand high above the market square in Rjukan. It took, he says, a bit longer than wed imagined.\nIt really works. Even the people who were against it at first agree that it works.\nI was strongly against it, admits Nils Eggerud. Like many others, he felt that the money should have been spent on other things  on extra carers to look after Rjukans old people, perhaps, or improved school facilities, cycle paths and roads.\nAnd I still dont know about the continued maintenance costs, he says. What will they be, who will pay them? But ... well, it does feel nice, standing here. And, really, you just have to look at the peoples faces.\nIn his office overlooking the square, Rjukans young mayor, Steinar Bergsland, is interested not so much in the cost but in the benefits the mirrors might bring to the town.\nAlready, Bergsland says, visitor numbers are higher than usual for the time of year and Rjukans shopkeepers have reported that they are earning more money than usual. A hi-tech company is interested in moving to Rjukan, attracted by the cutting-edge technology at the top of the mountain and the publicity it has attracted.\nThis is a powerful symbol for Rjukan, Bergsland says, and, helped by government grants and a donation from a local business, the town needed to find just 1m krone  100,000  of the mirrors total 5m-krone cost. And, he says, just look out of the window. Look at those happy faces. Now its here, people love it.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"The age of the big British summer music festival, including Glastonbury, is drawing to a close, according to the leading rock promoter and manager Harvey Goldsmith. \nThe man who has produced and worked with most of the western world\u2019s biggest music stars, from the Who, the Rolling Stones and Queen to Madonna, Bob Dylan and Luciano Pavarotti, said the biggest problem was a dire lack of major new bands to succeed the old ones. \n\u201cThe festival circuit has peaked,\u201d he said, speaking at the Hay Festival of Literature and Arts in Powys, Wales. \u201cIt really peaked about two years ago. There\u2019s too many of them and there are not enough big acts to headline them. That is a big, big problem in our industry. And, we are not producing a new generation of these kind of acts \u2013 the likes of the Rolling Stones, Muse, even the Arctic Monkeys \u2013 that can headline.\u201d \nThere were about 900 music festival events in the UK between May and September 2014, he said, and there is no way they can all continue. \u201cMusic festivals have probably run their course. What is going to happen is a growth in events where it isn\u2019t just music but, like this one, with poetry or books or magic shows. There will be lots of small combination festivals that give something extra \u2013 not people standing around in a massive great field unable to go to the toilet because they might miss the band.\u201d \nClearly, the way music is being delivered has changed, he said. \u201cPeople don\u2019t seem to want to listen to a body of work, an album, any more. And, most rock bands built a reputation on a body of work \u2013 they might take three albums to really hone their art, to become great, but young people don\u2019t want that. They home in on a track, a sound, then, ping, off again to the next one. Pop pervades, not that there\u2019s anything wrong with pop. I think it will come round again but it will take time.\u201d \nGoldsmith, 69, also revealed that he has teamed up with Robin de Levita, the Dutch producer of the Who\u2019s 1970s rock musical Tommy, at a new 1,100-seat theatre in Wembley, which is due to be finished in time for the first stage adaptation of the phenomenally successful teen book and movie series The Hunger Games in June 2016. \nDe Levita would, said Goldsmith, be bringing his experimental SceneAround concept to London \u2013 theatre that puts the audience seating on a turntable that rotates round a series of scenes built around its circumference, accompanied by projections on panel screens. The concept was pioneered in an aircraft hangar outside Amsterdam and has proved hugely successful. \nGoldsmith, who is already planning to bring a production of the Anne Frank story to the as-yet-unnamed venue, said: \u201cIt\u2019s a whole completely different way of producing shows.\u201d \nDuring his Hay appearance, the impresario also revealed some of the \u201caccess-all-areas\u201d secrets from his long career in the music industry, talking about Keith Moon putting dynamite down a Sydney hotel room toilet in an effort to unblock it and witnessing the paralysing stage fright that gripped John Lennon just before an appearance at Madison Square Garden in 1974 and led to him being dragged, vomiting, out of his dressing room and shoved out on stage. \u201cIt\u2019s the most bizarre thing, really, how common that is among artists. It\u2019s odd how stricken with fear they\u2019ll get but, as soon as the first chord is hit, they\u2019re fine,\u201d he said. \nHe also laid to rest a long-running rock\u2019n\u2019 roll mystery: why Elvis Presley never performed outside North America. Presley\u2019s long-time manager, Colonel Tom Parker, admitted to him over tea, he said, that the real reason why Goldsmith\u2019s attempts to bring the singer to London had failed was Parker\u2019s own uncertain immigration status. \n\u201cHe explained that it was because he was an illegal Dutch immigrant. He didn\u2019t want to risk leaving the US \u2013 it was him, not Elvis,\u201d said Goldsmith. \nAnd, his ultimate rock\u2019n\u2019 roll performer? \u201cFreddie Mercury had to be our most powerful stage performer, the best live performer we\u2019ve ever had. At Live Aid, he went out and saw that audience and just grabbed it.\u201d \nBut, the next Queen was still far from being formed, he said. \u201cWe\u2019re not producing a new generation of this kind of act. Coldplay is probably the last one to come up and that was ten years ago. There isn\u2019t much out there that looks like it is forming the next generation of heritage artists. \n\u201cSo, with no big acts to headline, there are no big shows. Glastonbury has got to the point where it can\u2019t find any more big acts and that\u2019s the pinnacle of the festivals. They are really over.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"He was a normal millionaire. He had a gold and silver Rolex watch and lots of expensive cars. He liked to buy modern art. This Chinese businessman had many companies and a large villa in Madrid. But, he had almost no money in the bank. This interested the Spanish authorities. \nGao Ping sold goods to 4,000 Chinese markets in Spain. But, authorities suspected he was not paying taxes on the clothes, furniture and other goods he was bringing in from China. \nWhen police went to his warehouses in 2012, they found lots of cash: \u20ac100, \u20ac200 and \u20ac500 notes. Police took away around \u20ac12m, the most cash ever found by Spanish police. \nPolice have been worried about \u20ac500 notes for a long time. Small and easy to transport, they are the favourite banknotes of criminals. The sum of \u20ac1m in \u20ac500 notes fits easily into a small laptop bag. The same amount in \u20ac50 notes would need a small suitcase. \nThe UK stopped using the \u20ac500 note in 2010 because they were used \u201calmost entirely by criminals\u201d. In 2009, Italy\u2019s central bank said that mafia money launderers and terrorists used the notes. Canada got rid of its $1,000 note in 2000 because the police advised them to. \nThese days, we have electronic payment systems and contactless cards so people are asking why it is still necessary to have these banknotes. Peter Sands, the former head of Standard Chartered Bank, said we should get rid of large notes, including the \u20ac500, the $100, the 1,000 Swiss Franc note and the \u00a350. Sands said it was time to get rid of high-value notes that make life easier for \u201cbad guys\u201d. Criminals would instead use smaller banknotes, or gold or diamonds, but these are big so criminals cannot carry them easily\u201d, he said. \nThe purple \u20ac500 note was introduced in 2002: it replaced the 1,000 Deutschmark, the 10,000 Belgian franc and the 500,000 Italian lira. In Germany and Austria, people still pay with paper money and coins more than half the time. \nEuropol would like central banks to take more responsibility for what happens with \u20ac500 notes. EU finance ministers have asked banks and authorities to look at whether countries should limit high-value notes or get rid of them.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"When two islanders spotted a small fibreglass boat washed up on a remote Pacific atoll, they decided to take a closer look. What they found inside was a tale of adventure and unlikely survival to rival the blockbuster book and film Life of Pi: an emaciated man with long hair and a beard, who claimed to have been drifting for 16 months after setting out from Mexico, more than 12,500km away. \nThe man, dressed only in a ragged pair of underpants, told his rescuers that he had been adrift in the 7.3-metre fibreglass boat, whose engines were missing their propellers, since he left Mexico for El Salvador in September 2012. A companion had died at sea several months earlier, he said. \n\u201cHis condition isn\u2019t good, but he\u2019s getting better,\u201d said Ola Fjeldstad, a Norwegian anthropology student doing research on the isolated Ebon Atoll, part of the Marshall Islands archipelago. The man had said his name was Jos\u00e9 Ivan and he had indicated that he survived by catching turtles and birds with his bare hands, but, because he spoke only Spanish, further details were sketchy. There was no fishing equipment on the boat, but a turtle was inside when it washed up. \u201cThe boat is really scratched up and looks like it has been in the water for a long time,\u201d Fjeldstad told reporters. \nAccording to the researcher, the islanders who found the man took him to the main island in the atoll \u2013 which is so remote it has only one phone line and no internet \u2013 to meet the mayor, Ione de Brum, who contacted the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Majuro, the Marshall Islands capital. Officials at the ministry said that they were awaiting more details and expected the man to be taken to the capital. \nThe government airline\u2019s only plane that can land at Ebon is currently undergoing maintenance and is not expected to return to service for several days. Officials are considering sending a boat to pick up the castaway. \u201cHe\u2019s staying at the local council house and a family is feeding him,\u201d said Fjeldstad, who added that the man had a basic health check and was found to have low blood pressure, but did not appear to have any life-threatening conditions and was able to walk with the aid of men on the island. \u201cWe\u2019ve been giving him a lot of water and he\u2019s gaining strength.\u201d \nFraser Christian, who teaches maritime survival courses at his Coastal Survival School in Dorset, said the man\u2019s story, if true, would be remarkable but far from unique. It was entirely possible to catch turtles or small fish by hand, he said, since \u201cthey are inquisitive and they will approach a small boat to shelter underneath it\u201d. Christian advises clients who find themselves forced to eat turtles to start with their eyes \u2013 \u201clots of fluid\u201d \u2013 then move on to the blood. \nhe major problems the man would have faced were exposure and dehydration. \u201cThe basic rule is: no water, no food. You need water to digest protein. If you have no fresh water and it doesn\u2019t rain for a few days, so you can\u2019t collect rainwater, you have basically had it.\u201d Individual physiology also plays a part, he said, with some people better suited to survival than others. \u201cThe mental thing is key and that\u2019s often down to people\u2019s situation in life and how used they are to dealing mentally with hardship.\u201d \nStories of survival in the vast Pacific Ocean are not uncommon. In 2006, three Mexicans made international headlines when they were discovered drifting, also in a small fibreglass boat near the Marshall Islands. They claimed to have survived for nine months at sea on a diet of rainwater, raw fish and seabirds, with their hope kept alive by reading the Bible. But Cliff Downing, who teaches sea survival to sailors, said he was sceptical about the latest tale. \u201cIt just doesn\u2019t sound right to me. There are 1,001 hazards that would make his survival for so long very unlikely. One would want to know a lot more.\u201d \nMore castaways: Poon Lim, a Chinese sailor from a British ship sunk by a German submarine in 1942, survived 133 days on a wooden raft floating in the South Atlantic before being rescued by Brazilian fishermen. In 1971, experienced Scottish sailor Dougal Robertson and his family were sailing to the Gal\u00e1pagos Islands from Panama when their boat was sunk by killer whales. They survived 38 days on a lifeboat before being rescued by a passing fishing trawler. \nIn 2006, three Mexican fishermen were discovered drifting in a small boat near the Marshall Islands, nine months after setting out on a shark-fishing expedition. They apparently survived on a diet of rainwater, raw fish and seabirds. Before being rescued by the US coastguard, the men stayed alive by eating tuna. A Panamanian fisherman sued Princess Cruises in 2012 after one of their ships ignored cries for help from him and two companions who were stranded in their broken boat. He survived 28 days adrift, but his friends both died of thirst.","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"In Iceland, you can be called Aagot, Arney or \u00c1sfr\u00ed\u00f0ur; Baldey, Bebba or Br\u00e1. D\u00f6gg, Dimmbl\u00e1, Etna and Eybj\u00f6rt are fine and so are Frigg, Gl\u00f3d\u00eds, H\u00f6rn and Ingunn. J\u00f3rlaug is OK and so are Obba, Sigurflj\u00f3\u00f0, \u00daran\u00eda and Vagna. But, if you are a girl in Iceland, you cannot be called Harriet. \n\u201cThe situation is silly,\u201d said Tristan Cardew, a British cook who moved to Iceland in 2000. With his Icelandic wife, Kristin, Cardew is appealing against a decision by the National Registry in the capital Reykjavik \u2013 the registry decided not to renew the Cardew\u2019s ten-year-old daughter Harriet\u2019s passport because it does not recognize her first name. \nThe registry does not recognize the name of Harriet\u2019s 12-year-old brother Duncan either, so, until now, the two children have travelled on passports with the names St\u00falka and Drengur Cardew, which mean Girl and Boy Cardew. But, this time, the registry has decided to apply the law. \u201cAnd the law says no official document will be given to people who do not have an approved Icelandic name.\u201d \nThe situation meant the family were going to miss their holiday in France but they have applied to the British embassy for an emergency UK passport, which should now allow them to leave. \nNames are important in Iceland, a country of only 320,000 people. The law says that \u2013 unless both parents are foreign \u2013 the names of children born in Iceland must be submitted to the National Registry within six months of birth. If a name is not on a recognized list of 1,853 female and 1,712 male names, the parents must get approval from the Icelandic Naming Committee. \nAbout 5,000 children are born in Iceland each year and the committee receives about 100 applications. It rejects about half of these names because it wants to preserve the Icelandic language. There is a law that says names must be able to have Icelandic grammatical endings and should be written using the ordinary rules of Icelandic spelling. \nWhat this means is that names with letters that do not officially exist in Iceland\u2019s 32-letter alphabet, such as \u201cc\u201d, are not permitted. Also, names that cannot be used with the case endings used in Icelandic are also rejected. \u201cThat was the problem with Harriet,\u201d said Cardew. \nThe country\u2019s naming laws have been criticized in recent years: in 2013, Bl\u00e6r \u2013 \u201cLight Breeze\u201d \u2013 Bjarkard\u00f3ttir R\u00fanarsdottir won the right to be officially called her name, not \u201cGirl\u201d. The former mayor of Reykjavik, J\u00f3n Gnarr, has also called Iceland\u2019s naming law \u201cunfair, stupid and against creativity\u201d. \nThe Cardews could solve Harriet\u2019s problem by giving her an Icelandic middle name. \u201cBut it\u2019s a bit late for that and much too silly,\u201d said Cardew. \u201cAre they saying they don\u2019t want us here?\u201d","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"SeaWorld has suffered an 84% collapse in profits as customers have deserted the controversial aquatic theme park company following claims it mistreated orca whales. \nThe company, which trains dolphins and killer whales to perform tricks in front of stadiums full of spectators, has reported declines in attendance, sales and profits because of \u201ccontinued brand challenges\u201d. \nSeaWorld has been in the headlines since the 2013 documentary Blackfish detailed claims that its treatment of orca whales provoked violent behaviour, contributing to the deaths of three people. Following the release of the documentary, attendance collapsed, the company lost more than half of its market value on Wall Street and its former CEO was forced out. \nThe company has since launched a nationwide marketing campaign to combat animal rights activists claims that, among other things, captive orcas die at a younger age than their wild counterparts. \nDespite cutting ticket prices and spending $10m on the marketing blitz, which features its veterinarians caring for whales, SeaWorld CEO Joel Manby was forced to admit that the company is still struggling to convince the public that it treats its whales well. \n\u201cWe realize we have much work ahead of us to recover more of our attendance base, increase revenue and improve our performance, as returning to historical performance levels will take time and investment,\u201d Manby said. \u201cOn the reputation side, early feedback on our campaign has been positive. However, we recognize that fully resolving our brand challenges in California will require sustained focus and commitment to correct misinformation.\u201d \n\u201cWe will continue to fight with the facts because the facts are on our side,\u201d he said recently on a conference call with journalists and analysts. \nManby, who joined the company as CEO in 2015 to help the company rehabilitate itself, said he would set out his vision for the future of the company at a special event on 6 November. Already in the pipeline are plans for a new shark exhibition in Orlando and an attraction in San Antonio that will allow customers to swim with dolphins in a \u201cnaturalistic\u201d setting. \nThe company\u2019s financial report, released on 6 August, showed net income in the second quarter dropped from $37.4m in 2014 to $5.8m in 2015, an 84% decrease. Revenue fell from $405m to $392m. Attendance dropped by more than 100,000 from 6.58 million to 6.48 million. Analysts will now be closely watching SeaWorld\u2019s sales and attendance numbers in the third quarter, which is traditionally the company\u2019s most profitable and covers the summer holiday season. \nAttendance may suffer from a fresh scandal in July 2015, in which a SeaWorld employee was alleged to have infiltrated animal rights protest groups against the company. Jared Goodman, director of animal law for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), which has been leading campaigns against SeaWorld, said: \u201cSeaWorld is in the midst of a spying scandal, animals are dying in its tanks and tens of thousands of people have opposed its bid to build a new orca prison so it should come as no surprise that SeaWorld\u2019s quarterly earnings have plummeted yet again in the second quarter. Families just don\u2019t want to buy tickets to see orcas going insane inside tiny tanks and SeaWorld\u2019s profits, like the orcas, won\u2019t recover until the abusement park empties its tanks and builds coastal sanctuaries.\u201d \nSeaWorld\u2019s shares, which were worth $39 in 2013, were changing hands for just under $18 in August 2015.","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nGovernments across Europe dream of  nding a magic solution to rising unemployment. But, in the hardest-hit parts of the EU, unemployment continues to rise and the talk does little to reduce the number of people without work.\nNow, in a corner of Italy, one mayor thinks he has found an answer to his towns serious lack of work. Valter Piscedda, the mayor of Elmas, a small town near Sardinias capital, Cagliari, wants to pay residents to leave. The council will pay for ten unemployed locals to take intensive English lessons, get on a cheap  ight and look for jobs elsewhere in Europe.\nThis idea is a result of common sense and experience, the mayor told the Guardian. Over the past year and a half  especially in the past few months  I have been seeing young people, almost every day, who are despairing about their search for work. Some ask for help in  nding it here. Others have tried everything and are so discouraged that they no longer want to stay and wait. And they want to go and gain work experience abroad; life experience, too.\nSo, my idea was this: put everything in place so that those who want to gain experience abroad are able to, he said.\nAs the national economy continues to falter, Sardinia, along with much of southern and central Italy, is struggling with high unemployment. Unemployment was at 17.7% in the second quarter of 2014, according to Italys National Institute of Statistics, Istat. More than 54% of people under 25 are out of work.\nFor the Adesso Parto (Now Im leaving) programme, Elmass council will give 12,000 on a  rst-come,  rst-served basis to applicants aged between 18 and 50. They just have to be out of work and have lived in the town for three years. They do not have to be university educated and their annual income must be no more than 15,000.\nThe idea of encouraging people to leave is sensitive at a time when huge numbers of Italians  many of them bright young graduates  are leaving their country every year. But Piscedda, who belongs to the Democratic Party of the Prime Minister, Matteo Renzi, believes that the people he is sending away might return and give me back 100 times what they were given. More importantly, he wants the scheme to help those most in need.\nIts a programme for those with no other resource; its the last-chance saloon. It will allow them the dignity of not having to ask a friend for money or put burdens on families, he said.\nEarlier in 2014, he added, the council launched a scheme for businesses  they were given  nancial incentives to hire young workers from Elmas. We advertised 20 of these positions, he said. We got 120 applications.\nIn Elmas, the scheme has got mixed reactions. The reality is that there is little work here, said Alessandro Macis. The opportunity to go abroad to learn about the workplace and experience other cultures can be very worthwhile. The son of a friend of mine who didnt study much is in London and hes really  nding his way. He started as a waiter. Now, hes a cook and hes learning English.\nOthers were perplexed. \u001cI heard about it but I thought it was strange. If you have that money to pay for people to go away, why don\u0019t you use that money to keep them here?\u001d said Consuelo Melis, who works behind the bar in a local cafe\u0001. On Twitter, one of many reactions was disbelief. \u001cThe state\u0019s admission of defeat,\u001d commented Marco Patavino. \u001cInstitutions are raising the white  ag,\u001d remarked Carlo Mazzaggio.\nPiscedda, however, says of his online critics: Probably, they are people that arent in need ... Every day, I deal with peoples problems and I have to do something to try to solve them. These people, if they had an alternative, they wouldnt be asking for help.\nThe work I can create, as mayor, is temporary. I can have a piazza cleaned. I can have it cleaned again. I can have the streets cleaned. But these are all temporary things that give nothing beyond that little bit of money for a few months. I want to go beyond that.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"It was a beautiful summer evening and I decided to go for a swim off Doolin Pier in County Clare, Ireland, where I moved in 2012. There was a woman in the water with Dusty, a dolphin who has a great relationship with a group of people she regularly swims with. \nDusty arrived in Doolin in about 2008 and hundreds of people have swum with her since, giving the impression that she\u2019s totally tame. She has even starred in an Irish tourist-board ad campaign in which a girl says she would like to touch a dolphin. \nThat evening, this woman was tickling Dusty\u2019s tummy and it just looked so inviting. There were about 20 tourists and locals on the pier, looking at this lovely spectacle. Just after I got into the water, Dusty left the woman she was with and went ballistic \u2013 I found out afterwards that she\u2019s very territorial when she is with somebody. Her tail was flapping wildly and, at first, I thought it was a display but, then, I twigged: maybe she\u2019s angry. I knew I had to get out of the water so I swam towards the pier but, within microseconds, Dusty had ploughed into me with her snout. It was very powerful and painful, and the speed was amazing. I went hurtling forwards. \nAll these people on the pier were staring down at me open-mouthed. Dusty was still in the water beside me, her tail flapping crazily. That was more frightening than anything: I thought, if she hits me with her tail, I could go under; I\u2019m gone. \nI was at the pier but couldn\u2019t get out because of my injuries. I felt pure terror. I shouted for help and a guy put his arm in and pulled me out on to the steps. Then, another man appeared and said he was an orthopaedic surgeon who specialized in marine trauma. He had been driving into Doolin when he saw what was happening on the pier. I was so cold and very worried \u2013 I didn\u2019t know how bad my injuries were and my biggest fear was internal bleeding. He checked me over and was very reassuring, saying he couldn\u2019t feel any evidence of it but that I probably had broken bones. I found out later that I had six spinal fractures, three broken ribs and a damaged lung. \nI was in hospital for five days, in a back brace for several weeks and off work for five months with limited mobility, stiffness and pain. Then, I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress. My near-death experience had left me anxious about everything and overreacting in a way I had never done before. I felt that people were looking at me in the wrong way, I began to struggle with loud noises and I suffered from memory loss. Three months before the accident, I had opened a health-food shop but I had to let it go because I could no longer work. It was the toughest year ever but, now, it\u2019s all behind me. I had craniosacral therapy, osteopathy and massage, and am building up my own osteopathy practice now. I have a new empathy with patients because I have been one. \nI am grateful that I am healthy and I really want to prevent other people being injured. We have this lovely idea about dolphins and have faith in them \u2013 who would think a dolphin would ever attack a person? If you see a ferocious animal coming at you with its teeth bared, it\u2019s scary, but dolphins have this lovely, wide smile. \nI don\u2019t have any anger towards Dusty. I respect her. But I was in her territory and she\u2019s a wild, unpredictable animal. People need to know that. So many come here to swim with her and they don\u2019t understand how dangerous it can be. Mine were reportedly among several injuries that summer. \nAfter the man pulled me out of the water, Dusty swam away but, then, she came back and was bobbing vertically next to me, looking at me. We locked eyes and I felt there was complete remorse in her. She was a totally different dolphin; the anger had gone. The people on the pier were in awe. When she had that little moment with me, that was the end of the terror. I made my peace with her.","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"The sight of colleagues and acquaintances taking a drag on an e-cigarette has become commonplace. But have we reached \u201cpeak vape\u201d? Statistics suggest that vaping among smokers and recent ex-smokers, who comprise the vast majority of vapers, may already be on the decline. The figures will be studied closely by the major e-cigarette firms, which have poured millions into promoting a technology that was thought to have been growing in popularity. \nFigures released in 2014 by the health charity Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) reveal that usage among adults in Britain of electronic cigarettes \u2013 which do not contain tobacco and produce vapour, not smoke \u2013 tripled from an estimated 700,000 users in 2012 to 2.1 million in 2014. \nHowever, figures collated by the Smoking Toolkit Study, a research body backed by the Department of Health that provides quarterly updates on smoking trends, show vaping\u2019s appeal may be waning. Vaping rates among smokers and ex-smokers rose steadily until the end of 2013, when some 22% of smokers and ex-smokers were vaping. But this proportion levelled out throughout 2014 before dropping to 19% during the final quarter of 2014. Early signs suggest the decline has continued into 2015. The drop is described as \u201cstatistically significant\u201d by Professor Robert West, of UCL\u2019s Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, who collates the figures for the Toolkit. \nSmokers are the key group for e-cigarette firms because seven out of ten vapers are smokers. Only around 1% of people who have never smoked have tried an electronic cigarette. \u201cNumbers who use e-cigarettes while continuing to smoke are going down,\u201d West said. \u201cWe\u2019ve only been tracking vaping for just over a year, so it\u2019s a short time period, but we are not seeing growth in the number of long-term ex-smokers or 'never' smokers using e-cigarettes. That is not to say vaping rates might not change but, at this stage, it looks like they\u2019re staying the same.\u201d \nThe levelling off in popularity of vaping in the UK would appear to be at odds with what is happening in the US, where the technology has been promoted aggressively and where recent reports suggested it was growing in popularity. However, West questioned the interpretation of US data, which made little distinction between people who had once tried an e-cigarette and those who regularly vaped. \nFears that vaping could become fashionable among young non-smokers appear to be misplaced, according to experts. Only 1.8% of children are regular users, the ASH study found. Instead, e-cigarettes seem to be most popular among adults seeking to quit. \u201cWhile the figures published this month by Smoking In England show that the use of electronic cigarettes by smokers has levelled off, their data also shows the huge increase in use since May 2011,\u201d said James Dunworth, director and co-founder of ecigarettedirect.co.uk. \u201cOur customers are still very happy with the product, and technology and innovation in hardware is improving user experience and helping them to switch from traditional cigarettes.\u201d \n\u201cE-cigarettes are behaving like a souped-up nicotine patch,\u201d West agreed. \u201cThey are more popular than nicotine patches and may or may not be more effective. One-third of quit attempts use e-cigarettes, which makes them by far the most popular method of stopping.\u201d \nHazel Cheeseman, director of policy at ASH, said it was too soon to say whether vaping had peaked. \u201cAlthough there are indications that the market hasn\u2019t grown in the UK for about a year, there doesn\u2019t seem to be a decline in the number of people using electronic cigarettes to help them quit smoking. Using an electronic cigarette is safer than smoking; some, but not all, people find them useful to help quit smoking and there is little evidence that they are leading to an increase in young people smoking.\u201d \nIt emerged recently that the European Commission (EC) is looking at increasing taxes on e-cigarettes, something that could have an impact on their popularity. A new EC tobacco directive comes into force in 2016 that will limit the amount of nicotine in e-cigarettes to below their current levels. This may mean vapers will have to increase their usage to obtain the same hit, again something that may make e-cigarettes more expensive. \nWest suggested that policymakers should see e-cigarettes as a smoking cessation aid and not subject them to the same regulations as smoking. \u201cThere is a tendency among some local authorities and organizations to treat e-cigarettes as cigarettes and ban them in public places and outdoors,\u201d he said.","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Like a typical bad boyfriend, Dan Sullivan arrived late to breakfast with the Guardian because the police stopped him on his motorcycle. \nSullivan works too much, he says. He misses dinner dates. He forgets to give presents. \nAnd so, like many others in Silicon Valley, the 27-year-old has started a business: BetterBoyfriend.me, a service that sends girlfriends and wives a present every month for about $70. \nSullivan is testing the service and has about 350 boyfriends as his clients. Most clients, he says, are his friends from university and other friends who are founders of start-ups or work for companies like Apple, Google and Facebook. The girlfriends of these men get presents from Sullivan. \nEach month, Sullivan\u2019s clients choose from a list of seven possible gifts (chocolate, tea sets, etc). Then, Sullivan sends the gift to the boyfriend. \nFor Sullivan, the surprise was the real relationships that he has formed with his clients. Sullivan says he has begun to see himself as a sort of relationship consultant for the boyfriends. \nSullivan says he\u2019s made mistakes. In the beginning, the gifts he sent included receipts with his name on, Dan Sullivan. \u201cOne of the boyfriends wrote to me and said, 'She\u2019s not mad but Cynthia found out'.\u201d \nOf all the women BetterBoyfriend.me deliver packages to, about 50% know that Sullivan chooses the presents they receive: \u201cIt\u2019s connected with age. I think, after you\u2019ve been married for a longer time, you don\u2019t keep many secrets.\u201d \nAnd over the year, the young founder says he\u2019s got to know the boyfriends really well. They\u2019ve even sent a package to a hospital delivery room. The key, he said, is to remember that his relationship is with the boyfriend. \nWhen he first started his company, he attached tags that said BetterBoyfriend.me to flower bouquets and went to the Mission District in San Francisco. \n\u201cI looked for couples and gave the flowers to the girl but the boyfriends didn\u2019t like that. Not at all,\u201d he said. \u201cSo I changed my idea and gave the flowers to the boyfriends.\u201d","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Scarlett Johansson is suing a French novelist for \u20ac50,000 in damages, alleging that his work of fiction makes fraudulent claims about her personal life. \nLa Premiere chose qu\u2019on regarde (The First Thing We Look At) by Gr\u00e9goire Delacourt tells the story of a French model who looks so similar to the American actor that the book\u2019s lead male character thinks it is Johansson herself. In the novel, the model\u2019s looks mean that men see her only as a sex object, while women are jealous of her. She has a series of adventures as Johansson until she is eventually found out and, in the end, dies in a car crash. \nJohansson herself is not flattered by the best- selling literary work. Her lawyer, Vincent Toledano, told Le Figaro that Delacourt\u2019s novel constituted a \u201cviolation and fraudulent and illegal exploitation of her name, her reputation and her image.\u201d He said the novel contains \u201cdefamatory claims about her private life\u201d and has now gone to court to try to stop the book being translated or adapted for cinema. The court case began in Paris on Wednesday afternoon, though neither Johansson nor Delacourt was present. \n\u201cThe freedom of expression that she defends as an artist is not in question,\u201d Toledano said. \u201cSuch activities for purely mercantile ends have nothing to do with creativity.\u201d \nDelacourt has tried explaining that he chose to reference Johansson because she is \u201cthe archetype of beauty today.\u201d He said: \u201cI wrote a work of fiction. My character is not Scarlett Johansson.\u201d \nThe author recently hit out against the actor on French radio, saying the legal action was \u201crather sad\u201d. He said: \u201cIt freaks me out to think that, when you talk of a character in a novel, judges can get involved.\u201d \nDelacourt has become one of France\u2019s best-loved authors; his previous novel, My List of Desires, was translated into 47 languages and is now being adapted into a film. But he said he was \u201cspeechless\u201d when he found out Johansson was suing him. \n\u201cI thought she\u2019d get in contact to ask me to go for a coffee with her. I didn\u2019t write a novel about a celebrity,\u201d he said. \u201cI wrote a real love story and a homage to feminine beauty, especially interior beauty. \n\u201cIf an author can no longer mention the things that surround us \u2013 a brand of beer, a monument, an actor \u2013 it\u2019s going to be complicated to produce fiction. \n\u201cIt\u2019s stupefying, especially as I\u2019m not sure she\u2019s even read the novel, since it hasn\u2019t been translated yet.\u201d \nEmmanuelle Allibert, spokeswoman for publisher JC Latt\u00e8s, said taking legal action was \u201ccrazy\u201d. \u201cWe have never known anything like it. It is all the more surprising for the fact that the novel is not even about Scarlett Johansson. It is about a woman who is Scarlett Johansson\u2019s double.\u201d \nDelacourt\u2019s lawyer, Anne Veil, who is also representing publisher JC Latt\u00e8s, said the allegations were \u201ctotally scandalous\u201d. \u201cThis is a literary, not commercial, approach. She has not been used as a product,\u201d she said. \u201cGr\u00e9goire Delacourt is not a paparazzo; he\u2019s a writer!\u201d \nIronically, the author\u2019s legal situation would be far easier had he published the book in Johansson\u2019s home country, rather than France. Lloyd Jassin, a New York intellectual property lawyer, told Time that the case would be unlikely to be considered in the United States because the book would be protected by the First Amendment. \n\u201cThe First Amendment doesn\u2019t look at most books as commercial uses or commercial propositions,\u201d he said. \u201cIf her name or likeness is relevant, literarily, if there\u2019s significance and literary merit to using her name between the covers, the First Amendment steps in.\u201d However, in France, the legal position is more complicated and personality rights are taken \u201cmuch more seriously,\u201d Jassin says. \n\u201cI thought she might send me flowers as it was a declaration of love for her, but she didn\u2019t understand,\u201d Delacourt said. \u201cIt\u2019s a strange paradox \u2013 but a very American one.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nVienna is the worlds best city to live in, Baghdad is the worst and London, Paris and New York do not even enter the top 35, according to international research into quality of life.\nGerman-speaking cities dominate the rankings in the 18th Mercer Quality of Life study, with Vienna joined by Zurich, Munich, Dusseldorf and Frankfurt in the top seven.\nParis has dropped down the table  it has fallen ten places to 37th, just ahead of London at 39th, mostly because of the terrorist attacks on the city.\nThe study examined social and economic conditions, health, education, housing and the environment. It is used by big companies to decide where they should open of ces and factories and how much they should pay staff.\nHelena Hartlauer, 32, from Vienna, said she was not surprised at her citys top position. The citys social democratic government has a long tradition of investing money in high-quality social housing, which makes Vienna less expensive than other major cities.\nI live in a 100sq-metre apartment in a good area about 20 minutes walk from the city centre. But my rent is just 800 (625) a month. A similar apartment in London would cost over 2,000 and even more in New York, ranked 44th in the table.\nUS cities perform relatively badly in the study, mostly because of issues around personal safety and crime. The highest ranking city in the US is San Francisco, at 28th; Boston is 34th. Canadian cities, led by Vancouver, do much better than their US rivals in the table.\nYou dont realize how safe Vienna is until you go abroad, said Hartlauer. We also have terri c public transport, with the underground working 24 hours at weekends and it only costs 1 per trip.\nVienna bene ted enormously from the fall of the Berlin Wall, becoming the gateway to Eastern European countries that often have historic connections to the former Austro-Hungarian empire.\nOur big USP (unique selling point) is our geographical location, said Martin Eichtinger, Austrian ambassador to London, who lived in Vienna for 20 years. The fall of the Berlin Wall helped make Vienna a hub for companies wanting to do business in Central Europe.\nAccording to the World Bank, Austria has one of the highest  gures for GDP (gross domestic product) per person in the world, just behind the US and ahead of Germany and Britain, although below neighbouring Switzerland.\nMercer says Zurich in Switzerland has the worlds second highest quality of life but the Viennese say their city is far more fun. There are more students in Vienna than any other German-speaking city, said Hartlauer. Its a very fast growing, young and lively city, she added.\nVienna has long been overlooked by British weekend city break tourists, who instead go to Barcelona or Berlin and tend to think of Austria as somewhere for skiing, lakes and mountains.\nBut, after an increase in budget  ights from British cities such as Manchester and Edinburgh, Vienna is becoming a more popular destination. In 2015, there were 588,000 British visitors to Vienna, 18% more than the year before.\nVienna has ranked top in the last seven surveys, said Mercer. It scores highly in a number of categories; it provides a safe and stable environment to live in, a high standard of public transport and good recreational facilities.\nLondon has never been in the quality-of-life top ten, says Mercer, damaged by its poor scores for air pollution, traf c congestion and climate. After London, Edinburgh is the next-ranking British city, in 46th place.\nParis has suffered the biggest fall in the most recent rankings. Paris has remained stable for several years but has, this year, dropped ten places, said Mercer. The drop was mostly due to the terrorist attacks in 2015 because safety is a very important factor in the survey.\nAuckland in New Zealand was the highest ranking English-speaking city in the survey, in third place, followed by Vancouver in  fth. Australian cities also do well in the survey, with Sydney 10th and Melbourne 15th.\nWar and political unrest are behind all the worst- ranked cities in the world. Surprisingly, Damascus is named as only the seventh worst, ranked better than Baghdad, Bangui in Central African Republic, Sanaa in Yemen, Port-au-Prince in Haiti, Khartoum in Sudan and NDjamena in Chad.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"A top-secret document shows that the US National Security Agency (NSA) now has direct access to the systems of Google, Facebook, Apple and other major US internet companies. The NSA access is part of a program called PRISM, which allows the government to collect search history, the content of emails, file transfers, live chats and more, the document says. \nThe document says that the NSA can now get information \u201cdirectly from the servers\u201d of major US internet companies. It says the companies help them run the program, but all the companies that commented said they have not heard of the program. \nGoogle said: \u201cGoogle cares very much about the security of our users\u2019 data. We disclose user data to government legally and, when the government asks us for data, we think about it carefully first. Sometimes, people allege that we have created a government 'back door' into our systems, but Google does not have a back door for the government to access private user data.\u201d \nSeveral senior tech executives said that they had no knowledge of PRISM or of any similar program. They said they would never be involved in a program like that. \u201cIf they are doing this, they are doing it without our knowledge,\u201d one executive said. An Apple spokesman said he has \u201cnever heard\u201d of PRISM. \nChanges to US surveillance law, introduced under President Bush and renewed under Obama in December 2012, made it possible for the NSA to access the information. The program allows a large amount of in-depth surveillance on live communications and stored information. The law allows the NSA to watch customers of companies who live outside the US or Americans who communicate with people outside the US. \nThe document says that some of the world\u2019s largest internet companies have been part of the information-sharing program sinceits introduction in 2007. Microsoft \u2013 whose advertising slogan is \u201cYour privacy is our priority\u201d \u2013 was the first, in December 2007. It was followed by Yahoo in 2008; Google, Facebook and PalTalk in 2009; YouTube in 2010; Skype and AOL in 2011; and finally Apple, which joined the program in 2012. \nUnder US law, if the government asks for users\u2019 communications, companies must give that information, but the PRISM program allows the government direct access to the companies\u2019 servers. \nThe Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was changed in December 2012. At the time, several US senators were worried that the law might increase the amount of surveillance and they could see problems with some of the safeguards in the law. When the change in the law was first introduced, its supporters said that one safeguard would be that the NSA could not get electronic communications without the permission of the telecom and internet companies that control the data. But the PRISM program makes that permission unnecessary, because it allows the government to take directly from the companies\u2019 servers communications that include email, video and voice chat, videos, photos, file transfers and social networking details. \nA senior administration official said: \u201cSection 702 of the FISA does not allow the targeting of any US citizen or of any person who is within the United States. It targets only non- US persons outside the US. \n\u201cInformation that is collected under this program is some of the most important and valuable intelligence information we collect and we use it to protect our nation from a wide variety of threats.\u201d","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nCathal Redmond was swimming off the Greek coast and he was sure he had taken some great photos of colourful  sh with his  rst underwater camera. But, when he looked at the results later, the photos were brown and murky. He took the pictures while holding his breath underwater and blamed the limited time he had to set up the shots. All he needed, he thought, was a little more time to photograph the  sh in their natural environment.\nHe decided to invent something to make that little extra time a reality and the result is his invention of the Express Dive  a re llable air storage device, which is held in the mouth and lets people swim underwater for two minutes. It bridges the gap between snorkelling, with its limitations, and scuba diving, which gives divers the freedom to breathe underwater but requires heavy and expensive gear. The prototype of the invention looks like a combination of a scuba mouthpiece and a water bottle.\nI wanted to enable people to do more. So, rather than just go underwater and spend 30 seconds holding their breath, I wanted people to do a little bit more, says Redmond, 27. In 2006, the Irish designer completed a scuba-diving course and loved the feeling of being able to breathe underwater and observe  sh in their natural environment. Less enjoyable, however, was all the equipment he needed\nI was very aware of the fact that I had about 50kg of equipment on me and going under the water felt strange when you are used to trying to keep yourself at the surface. It was a very surreal experience, he says. The real problem is that scuba diving is very limiting. Although it allows you to stay underwater for longer, you have to plan your whole day around it. You have 20kg to 50kg of gear with you  you cant be walking on the beach and decide you want to go in. Planning is a very big part of it.\nIt was during a  nal-year project for his product design degree that Redmond produced the Express Dive. The device has two main parts. When above the surface, the unit sucks in air through a vent in the mouthpiece. The air is compressed through valves and stored in the tank. The tank has a light that  ashes green when it is full. When air is no longer being taken in, the vent shuts off and, as the person dives, air is fed back via the mouthpiece.\nThe light turns from green to red when the air start to run out. The device can take in enough air for two minutes of diving and takes approximately the same amount of time to re ll. When you put the compressor into the unit with all of the rest of the stuff, the batteries and the electronics, the dif cult thing was to make it small enough so that people could hold it in their mouths, Redmond says.\nRedmond says the mouthpiece feels similar to using a snorkel. He compares it to an extension of the lungs in that the user is taking a deep breath and then using it underwater. It is an extension of the bodys ability to store air, he says. The prototype has been tested in parts. Redmond says he has shown that the motor can compress two minutes worth of air into the unit and that the design can be held in the divers mouth.\nWhat he has not yet done is test the device on a diver, fully submerged for two minutes. But, with enough testing, Redmond is con dent he can get a fully working device that will not endanger swimmers underwater. The device will probably cost 280, he says, and it is likely to weigh from 1kg to 3kg depending on the safety features needed.\nTo anyone who thinks two minutes of air is no more than a very small improvement on snorkelling, Redmond says it could make a big difference underwater. The typical swimmer can hold their breath for about 40 seconds while underwater, he says. Two minutes is not a lot of time but it is a lot longer than that, he says.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"There is a time in some men\u2019s lives when the days seem darker, death is more certain, and the only thing they want to do is spend all their money on a sportscar. \nRadical changes in lifestyle are normal for the midlife crisis. If the midlife crisis is real, then humans may not be the only animals to get it. \nNow an international team of scientists say they have found evidence that chimpanzees and orangutans are less happy in their middle years. This, they say, is the ape equivalent of the midlife crisis. \nThe study says that the midlife crisis may come from the biology humans share with apes. \nAlex Weiss, a psychologist at Edinburgh University, told the Guardian that most people agree that our level of well-being reduces in middle age. \nHe said that in the study they asked if it\u2019s possible that the midlife crisis is not just something human. \nThe team from the US, Japan, Germany and the UK asked zookeepers and others who worked with male and female apes of various ages to complete questionnaires on the animals. \nThe questionnaires included questions about each ape\u2019s mood, the enjoyment they got from being with other apes and people, and their success in doing things. The final question asked if the keepers would like to be the ape for one week. \nMore than 500 apes were included in the study in three separate groups. The first two groups were chimpanzees, and the third were orangutans from Sumatra or Borneo. The animals came from zoos, sanctuaries and research centres in the US, Australia, Japan, Canada and Singapore. \nWhen the researchers analyzed the questionnaires, they found that well-being in the apes decreased in middle age and increased again as the animals became old. In captivity, great apes often live to 50 or more. The animals felt the most unhappy, on average, at 28.3 and 27.2 years old for the chimpanzees, and 35.4 years old for the orangutans. \n\u201cIn all three groups we find that chimpanzees and orangutans are most unhappy at an age that is roughly equal to midlife in humans,\u201d Weiss said. \nRobin Dunbar, Professor of Evolutionary Psychology at Oxford University, was sceptical about the study. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to see anything in an ape\u2019s life that would give a sense of well-being over such a long time.\u201d \nAlexandra Freund, Professor of Psychology at the University of Zurich, was also sceptical. She said \u201cIn my opinion, there is no evidence for the midlife crisis.\u201d \nBut Weiss believes the study could give us a deeper understanding of the emotional crisis some men may experience. \u201cIf we want to find what\u2019s going on with the midlife crisis, we should look at what is similar in middle-aged humans, chimps and orangutans,\u201d he said.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nWe have all become familiar with wildlife emergencies such as the threatened extinction of the tiger in India, the orangutan in Indonesia and the panda. They are well-loved animals that no one wants to see disappear. But, now, scientists fear the real impact of declining wildlife could be closer to home  they believe the threat to creatures such as ladybirds is a much greater danger to biodiversity.\nClimate change, falling numbers of animals, rising numbers of humans and the rapid rate of species extinction mean more and more scientists now believe that we are in the Anthropocene age  the geological age of extinction when humans finally dominate the ecosystems.\nA recent report by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) confirmed that worrying picture, with statistics on the worlds wildlife population that showed a dramatic reduction in numbers across numerous species. The report showed the number of vertebrates had declined by 52% over four decades. Biodiversity loss has now reached critical levels. Some populations of mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians have suffered even bigger losses, with freshwater species declining by 76% over the same period. But its the creatures that provide the most ecosystem services that are getting many scientists really worried. Three quarters of the worlds food production is thought to depend on bees and other pollinators. Pandas may be cute and tigers beautiful but its worms that turn our waste into nutrients and bats that catch mosquitoes and keep malaria rates down.\nIts the loss of the common species that will impact on people, not so much the rarer creatures  because they are so rare, were not reliant on them in such an obvious way, said macroecologist Dr Nick Isaac. He says that recent work he and colleagues have been doing suggests that Britains insects and other invertebrates are declining just as fast as vertebrates, with serious consequences for humanity. The really interesting thing about this work is that we are learning that its not just about the numbers of species going extinct, but the actual numbers in a population; thats the beginning of a fundamental shift in our understanding, he says.\nHe pointed to the fact that between 23 and 36% of all birds, mammals and amphibians used for food or medicine are now threatened with extinction. In many parts of the world, wildanimal food sources are a critical part of the diet, particularly for the poor.\nThe blame, most people agree, is unsustainable human consumption damaging ecosystems, creating climate change and destroying habitats at a far faster rate than previously thought. But, this time, its not just the big, cuddly mammals we have to worry about losing but the smaller, less visible creatures upon which we depend  insects, creepy-crawlies and even worms. They might not be facing immediate extinction but a decline in their numbers will affect us all. We are going to feel the impact of those losses. With the UK species, the pattern is much the same with invertebrates as it is with vertebrates. Its not as simplistic as fish die and people starve  its more complex, said Isaac.\nHumans, said TV naturalist Sir David Attenborough in 2013, are a plague on earth, but the WWF claims there is still time to stop the decline. Its UK Chief Executive, David Nussbaum, said: The scale of the destruction highlighted in this report should act as a wake-up call for us all. We all  politicians, business and people  have an interest, and a responsibility, to protect what we all value: a healthy future for people and nature.\nHumans are cutting down trees more quickly than they can regrow, harvesting more fish than the oceans can restock, pumping water from our rivers and aquifers faster than rainfall can fill them again and emitting more carbon than the oceans and forests can absorb, he said.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Many of us know we don\u2019t get enough sleep but imagine if there was a simple solution: getting up later. In a speech at the British Science Festival, Dr Paul Kelley from Oxford University said schools should stagger their starting times to work with the natural rhythms of their students. This would improve exam results and students\u2019 health (lack of sleep can cause diabetes, depression, obesity and other health problems).\nDr Kelley said that, when children are around ten, their natural wake-up time is about 6.30am; at 16, this rises to 8am; and, at 18, a person\u2019s natural waking hour is 9am, although you may think they are just a lazy teenager. The normal school starting time works for 10-year-olds but not for 16- to 18-year-olds. For the older teenagers, it might be better to start the school day at 11am or even later. \u201cA 7am wake-up time for older teenagers,\u201d says Kelley, \u201cis the same as a 4.30am start for a teacher in their 50s.\u201d\nHe says the solution is not to tell teenagers to go to bed earlier. \u201cThe body\u2019s natural rhythm is controlled by a particular kind of light,\u201d says Kelley. \u201cThe eye has cells that report to a part of the brain that controls our sleep rhythms over a 24-hour cycle. It\u2019s the light that controls it.\u201d\nBut it isn\u2019t just students who would benefit from a later start. Kelley says the working day should be more linked to our natural rhythms. Describing the average sleep loss per night for different age groups, he says: \u201cBetween 14 and 24, people lose more than two hours. For people aged between 24 and about 30 or 35, they lose about an hour and a half. That can continue up until you\u2019re about 55 when it\u2019s in balance again. The 10-year-old and 55-year-old wake and sleep naturally at the same time.\u201d\nSo, should workplaces have staggered starting times, too? Should people in their 50s and above come in at 8am, people in their 30s start at 10am and the teenage apprentice at 11am? Kelley says that synchronized hours could have \u201cmany positive effects. The positive side is that people\u2019s performance, mood and health will improve. It\u2019s very positive because it\u2019s a solution that will make people less ill, and happier and better at what they do.\u201d\nThere would probably be fewer accidents because drivers would be more awake, he says. It could mean the end of rush hour because people would stagger their work times and the times of their school run. A later start to the day for many, says Kelley, \u201cis something that would benefit all people, particularly families. Parents go and try to wake up teenagers who are waking up three hours too early. It creates problems for everybody.\u201d\nSo, what time does Kelley start work? \u201cI am 67 so that means I\u2019m like a 10-year-old and I get up just after six. I wake naturally.\u201d And, yes, he says he finds the start of his working day much easier now than when he was younger.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Young Cubans are flocking to use the first known free, open-access internet service in the communist island nation, which has been made possible by one of Cuba\u2019s most famous artists. A modest cultural centre in the capital city, Havana, has suddenly become a rare source of free wi-fi. The internationally renowned Cuban artist Kcho is providing the service. Perhaps more surprisingly, his spokesman said the move had been approved by the state-owned telecommunications utility, Etecsa. \nThe service is reportedly very slow, especially when the centre gets crowded. But, in a country where only an estimated 5% of the population has unrestricted access to the internet, a facility that is both free of charge and free of restrictions is being hailed as an unprecedented boon. \nThe chance to click on international news websites, communicate with friends and family overseas and use sites like Facebook and Twitter has created a massive buzz. \u201cI come as often as I can,\u201d said Adonis Ortiz, 20, while video-chatting with his father, who lives in the US and whom he has not seen in nine years. \nThe gradual loosening of the long diplomatic and trade freeze between the US and Cuba is expected to bring American tech giants such as Google and Apple into the Cuban market as soon as they are permitted. In the meantime, Cuba has installed a high-speed, fibre-optic cable under the sea from Venezuela and internet users have some access to Chinese equipment. \nAnother estimate, that a quarter of Cubans have access to the internet \u2013 still one of the lowest penetration rates in the Western Hemisphere \u2013 in fact measures residents who use a restricted domestic intranet featuring only certain websites and limited email. \nKcho has offered the public admission to his own personal internet connection. But, instead of this being the counter-revolutionary, or post-revolutionary, move of a free-market rebel, Kcho may have been selected as the acceptable face of a regime acquiescing to the inevitable lure of the internet. \nKcho, who has close ties to the Cuban government, announced that his actions had been approved by the Ministry of Culture. The artist said he wanted to encourage Cubans to familiarize themselves with the internet. \u201cIt\u2019s only possible through the will to do it and absorb the costs,\u201d Kcho told the Associated Press. \u201cIt is expensive but the benefit is tremendous. I have something that is great and powerful. I can share it and I am doing so.\u201d \nKcho\u2019s real name is Alexis Leiva Machado. \nHe gained international fame for his painting, sculpture and drawings after winning the grand prize at a prominent art biennial in South Korea. He is currently preparing for the Havana biennial in May. Born on one of Cuba\u2019s outlying islands, he is known for contemporary art with rustic, seaside and patriotic themes and imagery. \nIn the centre\u2019s courtyard, tech-savvy millennials lounge throughout the day in wicker chairs beneath a white canopy or just outside when it\u2019s packed, tapping away on laptops and tablets or glued to their smartphones. \nCuba has some of the lowest connectivity rates on the planet, with dial-up accounts closely restricted and at-home broadband almost unheard of except in the case of foreigners who pay hundreds of dollars a month for the service in a country where the average salary is between $17 and $20 a month. Kcho is estimated to be paying $900 a month to provide the free wi-fi. \nSince 2013, Cuban authorities have opened hundreds of internet salons, where an hour online costs $4.50, at speeds far lower than those at Kcho\u2019s studio of around 2mbps. A 2014 report by Akamai Technologies found average internet connectivity speeds to be around 10.5mbps in the US and 23.6mbps in world-leading South Korea. Globally, the average was about 3.9mbps. \nWith dozens of users at any given time, the signal strength of Kcho\u2019s wi-fi gets diluted. One user said he sometimes swings by in the middle of the night, when nobody else is around, and finds it to be unbelievably fast.","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"1 Race engineer\nA race engineer takes information from the driver and gives it to the mechanics. \nTypical salary: You start at \u00a325,000 and very soon earn more than \u00a340,000 with just a few years\u2019 experience. Senior race engineers earn \u00a350,000 to \u00a390,000.\nWhat the job involves: \u201cA race engineer is the interpreter between the race-car mechanics and the driver,\u201d says race engineer Jamie Muir. \u201cThe engineer takes feedback from the driver, analyses the data and gives this to the mechanics.\u201d\nQualifications: A university degree, usually in automotive\/mechanical engineering or motorsport technology. Hands-on experience is essential.\nTo succeed as a race engineer, you need \u2026 to be able to work under pressure.\nWorst thing about the job: The long hours. \u201cRace engineers work 24\/7,\u201d says Chris Aylett, CEO of the Motorsport Industry Association.\n2 Ethical hacker\nTypical salary: A newly qualified hacker will usually have a minimum salary of \u00a335,000 to \u00a350,000. This rises to \u00a360,000 to \u00a390,000 when they become team leader.\nWhat the job involves: A company pays an ethical hacker to hack into its computer system to see how well it might fight a real attack.\nQualifications: You don\u2019t need a degree in computer science. The industry accepts people with a very wide range of qualifications and skills.\nTo succeed as an ethical hacker, you need \u2026 a passion for technology and detail. You should also enjoy solving difficult problems.\nWorst thing about the job: When you are testing the security of a new customer \u2019s network and you find that they have already been hacked.\n3 Bomb-disposal diver\nTypical salary: In the private sector, you can earn up to \u00a3100,000 working just two months out of every three.\nWhat the job involves: You descend to the sea  ed and look for unexploded bombs and mines. Then, you safely collect the weapons or safely dispose of them. \nQualifications: To dive offshore, you must have diving qualifications. To be able to dispose of the bombs safely, you\u2019ll also need a special qualification and years of experience. \nTo succeed as a bomb-disposal diver, you need \u2026 to be calm in stressful situations. You work alone under water, with zero visibility and, if you don\u2019t like living in small spaces with lots of other people, this job is not for you.\nWorst thing about the job: You will be away from home for at least six months of the year.\n4 Social engineer\nTypical salary: Graduates start on \u00a325,000. Your salary will rise to between \u00a350,000 and \u00a380,000.\nThe job: Companies pay a social engineer to try to trick their employees and make them give the engineer secret information.\nQualifications: Usually, social engineers have a degree in IT but an understanding of psychology is also useful.\nTo succeed as a social engineer, you need \u2026 to be a good liar. You also need to have strong personal ethics and to understand the law.\nWorst thing about the job: Other people may misunderstand your job: social engineers are not spies but most people think they are.\n5 Power-line helicopter pilot\nTypical salary: \u00a365,000 \nThe job: To fly close to power lines in a helicopter so that someone can check the lines with a camera. \nQualifications: A private-helicopter-pilot licence, a commercial pilot\u2019s licence and around 2,000 hours of experience flying at low levels.\nTo succeed as a power-line helicopter pilot, you need \u2026 a steady hand and to stay calm in difficult situations. Pilots often have to fly next to the power line, sometimes as little as 20 feet away and just 30 feet off the ground.\nWorst thing about the job: \u201cThere are no negatives,\u201d says helicopter pilot Robin Tutcher.\n6 Private butler\nTypical salary: \u00a360,000 to \u00a390,000 \nThe job: An employer can ask a private butler to do anything from managing other staff, serving at every meal, running errands and looking after guests to booking restaurants, house security, housekeeping and cooking.\nQualifications: You don\u2019t need any qualifications but you can do a special course.\nTo succeed as a butler, you need \u2026 to enjoy looking after other people.\nWorst thing about the job: Long hours and an unpredictable work schedule mean it\u2019s difficult to have a family life.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Himalayan lakes, spacewalks and the presidential primaries helped Scott Kelly keep his wits over 340 days in space, the astronaut told journalists, after he landed back on Earth from a record-setting mission. \u201cIt seemed like I lived there forever,\u201d Kelly said. The veteran of past missions said that his biggest surprise was simply how long this one felt. \u201cMaybe, occasionally, you do go bananas,\u201d he said. \nKelly and a Russian counterpart, Mikhail Kornienko, spent nearly a year on the International Space Station (ISS) in order to study the effects of weightlessness, radiation and the cramped quarters of spaceflight on humans \u2013 research NASA considers essential for an eventual mission to Mars. \nKelly said the length of the mission was its biggest challenge and that he felt significantly more sore on returning to gravity than after shorter trips. Kelly and his twin brother, Mark, a retired astronaut, have spent the last year taking physical and mental tests. The tests will continue, to help NASA learn about how the body copes with the severe strains of spaceflight. \nKelly said he felt aches and had extremely sensitive skin but, so far, his balance has felt mostly decent. However, he said, \u201cthe first thing I tried to throw on a table I missed\u201d because \u201cyou tend to underestimate the effects of gravity\u201d. \nHe said the discomfort of returning to gravity \u2013 which shrank him back down to normal height after he stretched by 1.5 inches in orbit \u2013 took nothing away from the awe he felt after his capsule landed back on Earth. When the Russian capsule opened on to the cool air of Kazakhstan, Kelly said, he smelled \u201ca fragrance like a plant was blooming in that area\u201d. It was the fresh air mingled with the charred, \u201ckind of sweet\u201d smell of a spacecraft that had survived re-entry through the atmosphere. \nBacking away from the vessel, he said, the scope of the mission began to sink in: 340 days on a 15-year-old space station which is \u201ca million pounds, the size of a football field, the internal volume, some say, of a six-bedroom house \u201d. The ISS, he said, is a place that uses the power of the sun and was built with the help of an international team and millions of taxpayers. \n\u201cThere are things we\u2019re going to discover about our experience in space in the space station that we don\u2019t even know now,\u201d Kelly said, comparing the research of more than 450 missions there to the work done by computer scientists at NASA in the 1960s and 1970s. He added: \u201cThe view is great, too.\u201d \nKelly made the most of that view, posting spectacular photos on social media of the Earth\u2019s cities, landscapes, oceans and atmosphere. \u201cThe Earth is a beautiful planet,\u201d he said, describing the striking colours of the waters around the Bahamas and the rainbow hues of lakes that dot the northern Himalayas. He said he would like to visit that region, though he would first need to learn \u201cwhat country actually owns them\u201d. But, \u201cpredominantly, you just notice how thin the atmosphere is, how fragile it looks,\u201d Kelly added. \u201cThat, combined with these large swathes of pollution, is kind of alarming.\u201d \nThe astronaut said he could see entire systems of pollution: smoke clouds from wildfires that covered parts of the US, sections of Asia with continuous, visible pollution nearly all year round. He said the message \u201cwe need to save the planet\u201d slightly missed the point: \u201cThe planet will get better; it\u2019s us that won\u2019t be here because we\u2019ll destroy the environment.\u201d The world\u2019s thin shield of atmosphere \u201cmakes you more of an environmentalist after spending so much time looking down\u201d, he said. \n\u201cIt\u2019s for us to take care of the air we breathe and the water we drink. And I do believe we have an impact on that and we do have the ability to change it, if we make the decision to.\u201d Kelly\u2019s active social- media life, which he said was a joint effort with his girlfriend, earned him a huge online following. But he said he was unaware of it, instead he was watching the chaotic drama of the 2016 presidential election. One of the first questions he asked the crew who lifted him out of a space capsule was \u201cHow did Super Tuesday go?\u201d \nBut the astronaut demurred when asked for his thoughts on the likes of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. \u201cI would say that, as a government employee, I am subject to the Hatch Act,\u201d he said, referring to a law that prohibits some political activity for federal employees. \u201cSo I can\u2019t say how I think of all the news stories of all the year.\u201d \nBesides the news, he said, steady work helped keep him sane: \u201cI tried to have milestones that were close, like when is the next crew arriving, the next spacewalk, the next robotics, the next science experiment. That made a difference to me, keeping my sanity.\u201d Being back on Earth with the rest of humanity had not quite sunk in, he added, recalling how shocked he had been to see a crowd of people after a previous mission. \u201cThere\u2019ll be a point here pretty soon where I\u2019ll start feeling that kind of culture shock,\u201d he said. \nAlthough a NASA scientist said Kelly embodied the qualities needed for a mission to Mars, the astronaut himself predicted that he would not fly again with the space agency. \u201cBut I don\u2019t think I would ever say I\u2019m absolutely, 100% done,\u201d he added, noting the sudden successes of private spaceflight companies such as SpaceX. \u201cThey might need a guy like me someday,\u201d he said. \u201cMaybe, in the next 20 years, you\u2019ll be able to buy a cheap ticket, just go for a little visit.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nThe brand and logo of Apple are the most valuable in the world. They are worth nearly $119bn, or more than the gross domestic product of Morocco, Ecuador or Oman.\nThe brand value of the Silicon Valley firm, already the worlds biggest company, has increased by 21% in 12 months, according to the Interbrand Best Global Brands annual report.\nApple, which is recognized all over the world by its simple Apple with a bite missing logo, led an increase of technology companies in the 2014 report, which has pushed more traditionally valuable brands  such as Coca-Cola, McDonalds and Gillette  down the table.\nGoogles brand value rose by 15% to $107bn to take second place, followed by Coca-Cola, up 3% to $81.5bn, IBM ($72.2bn) and Microsoft ($45.5bn).\nFacebook is the biggest riser in the chart, increasing its brand value by 86% to $14.3bn and taking 29th place in the table, ahead of longstanding global corporate names such as Volkswagen, Kelloggs and Ford.\nJez Frampton, chief executive of Interbrand, said: Benefitting immensely from the rise of digital and mobile technology, savvy brands like Apple grew stronger.\nApple, which former Chief Executive Steve Jobs founded in his Los Altos garage in 1976, only appeared in the top ten of the Interbrand annual study in 2011.\nIts logo, created by advertising executive Rob Janoff in 1977, was designed with a bite taken out of it to avoid confusion with a cherry. Our logo is a symbol of lust and knowledge. It is an apple, bitten into, all crossed with the colours of the rainbow in the wrong order. You couldnt dream of a more appropriate logo, Janoff said.\nGraham Hayles, Interbrands chief marketing officer, said it was not out of kilter that Apples brand could account for a fifth of the companys entire market value. Apple makes a lot of money because it has a very strong brand, he said. There is a very strong connection between branding and profitability.\nMany technology companies rose up the chart but some fell, too. Finnish mobile-phone company Nokia dropped 41 places to 98th at $4.1bn, just ahead of Nintendo in 100th place (down 33). Theyre both only just in the chart now, Hayles said. It shows the importance of getting innovation right.\nA Chinese company has got into the top 100 for the first time, with mobile-phone and broadband firm Huawei entering the table in 94th place with a brand value of $4.3bn. Huawei has been partly banned by the US and Australian governments due to fears that its equipment could be used by the Chinese for cyber-espionage.\nMost of the brands in the top 100 are US-owned. The highest-placed non-US brands are South Koreas Samsung (6th), Japans Toyota (8th) and Germanys Mercedes-Benz (10th). The highest-placed British brands are HSBC (33rd), Shell (65th) and Burberry (73rd).\nOther fashion brands in the top 100 include Boss, Prada and Ralph Lauren. Designer label Louis Vuitton is the top fashion name, in 19th position, with a value of $23bn, just ahead of high-street clothing chain H&M, with a brand value of $21bn and ranked 21.\nSports brand Nike is at place 22 with a brand value of nearly $20bn, ahead of its rival Adidas at place 59 with a value of $7bn.\nFrampton said consumers ability to interact with and criticize brands on Twitter and other social media means companies must react faster to keep and improve their brands reputations.\nThe customer, through the use of social media, now has more control than ever, he said.\nCustomers expect interaction, responsiveness, 24\/7 accessibility, customization options and high levels of personalization, he said.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Junior Smart knows a lot about gangs. He is now 36 and his life can be divided into two distinct phases. He tells how in his late teens, after his mother died, he became drawn into a south London gang, which, at the time, helped fill a huge vacuum. \n\u201cThey became my new support group,\u201d he says. \u201cAt first it was just a bit of fun but then it became more serious, more and more about making money. They got involved in criminality. That is how it was.\u201d At school Smart failed his GCSEs, then retook them at college and passed the lot. He secured a full-time job in administration and worked as a DJ. But, on the side, he was making money illegally as part of the gang. \nEventually he was arrested for serious drug-related offences and was sent to prison for 12 years. Instantly, he says, his sense of invincibility was shattered. \u201cThe first night after I was arrested was the biggest wake-up call of my life,\u201d he says. \u201cI had been living a dual life. I had been living as one person to my peers and another person to my peers\u2019 enemies. I spent a long time sorting myself out.\u201d \nToday, Junior Smart runs a team of 12 full-time workers and six volunteers, which aims to turn young criminals and gang members away from crime. Most of those working there are, like Smart himself, ex-offenders. A few are still serving their sentences but are regarded as having reformed enough to be allowed out during the day to help. They work with the police, the probation service and other, voluntary organizations to help those who feel trapped and frightened in the violent criminal gangs that operate across London. \nFor Smart, the extraordinary journey from gang member to mentor began when he witnessed, from within, a prison system that was so obviously failing its inmates. He recalls a drug addict he befriended who, to his dismay, kept returning. \u201cI was touched by the people who kept coming back in,\u201d he says. \u201cI couldn\u2019t believe that nothing was being done about it. I was talking to the inmates and they knew what needed to be changed in their lives, but the problem is that the prison system only deals with the 'index' offence.\u201d \n\u201cOne guy had a \u00a3300-a-week cocaine habit, which he funded through burglary. He would tell me stuff about how he would walk into a house, even when he knew people were there. So although he had a drug addiction, it never got dealt with. The thing that got me about that is that it is simply a revolving door.\u201d \nThat case and scores of others persuaded Smart to start working as a prison \u201clistener\u201d \u2013 an inmate who helps reassure new arrivals and talks them through their first days inside. From there he developed what he calls his own \u201clittle plan\u201d to run his own scheme once out of prison \u2013 using the experience of ex-offenders to help others reject the revolving door of prison life. He was released early, after five years. \u201cAt the end of my sentence I got an opportunity to put my little model into practice,\u201d he says. \nSo what does he think now? Does he believe that, after the riots of last August, and the government\u2019s promise to crack down on gangs, things are getting better? He is careful to offer some praise to the police and says much of their work in hauling in gang members has been good. But overall he is highly critical of a disjointed government approach that believes that, once the leader of a gang is arrested, the problem is solved. He agrees with the findings of a report that says the arrest of gang leaders can even make things worse. He says the effect of removing the leader is often to destabilize the entire gang. \nHe draws a diagram of the hierarchy on a pad. \u201cWhen you arrest the top guy, people start fighting for position all the way up. Who was the most loyal? Who had the most respect? It is a bit like a family. They are more likely to act out, through violence. It means that the arrest of the gang leaders has been nullified because it has not had a long-term effect. They have not even given the community a respite.\u201d \nCan it actually make the streets more dangerous? \u201cIt can do, because in the vacuum the recruitment and manipulation of young people becomes even more prevalent, creating new lower levels all the way down ... People take sides. If one gang or another territorial street network knows that an elder [leader] has been taken out, then they suddenly think that gang\u2019s weak ... And so we have inter-estate disputes going on. And what happens when that elder is in prison? He forms alliances with other gang members, or when he gets released he then tries to retake control. That is when violence happens.\u201d \nIn order to spread risk down to the lowest levels, he says gangs are now recruiting far more in primary schools. The youngest members are called \u201ctinies\u201d. \u201cOver the last years we have seen more and more of this. The tinies can be as young as eight to eleven years old.\u201d The young are brought in to shield their seniors from risk. It is often they who are charged with doing the street dealing or even the stabbing, he says. \nSmart says that, with a lack of government funding and commitment to long-term rehabilitation, the challenges are immense, particularly in the current economic climate. \u201cI try to engage a young person who has been earning \u00a3300 a week through illegal methods. It was hard before, to try to convince him. But with unemployment high and cuts to benefits, it makes things tougher.\u201d \nThat said, his project, which has well over 1,000 clients, is delivering results. Fewer than 20% of those who come in for help reoffend. From personal experience, Smart refuses to write off a single individual as beyond redemption and that is what drives him on. \u201cI don\u2019t think that about anybody,\u201d he says.","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nFormer president of the Royal Institute of Navigation Roger McKinlay says that our use of GPS (global positioning system) technology could be damaging our innate ability to  nd our way. If we do not look after them, our natural navigation abilities will deteriorate as we rely more and more on technology, he wrote.\nMcKinlay believes we need huge investment before navigation systems will be good enough for technologies such as autonomous vehicles to take off. In the meantime, he says, we need better research into systems for navigation. Also, children should be encouraged to learn how to  nd their way around by more traditional means. Schools should teach navigation and map reading as life skills, he wrote.\nAccording to Ofcom (the Of ce of Communications), around 66% of adults in the UK owned a smartphone in 2015, up from 39% in 2012  so GPS technology is widely available. But McKinlay, a satellite communication and navigation consultant, believes that we should be careful not to leave our navigational needs to our devices. If we dont practise using our navigation skills, well lose them he wrote.\nNot many scienti c studies have explored the issue, but research from 2009 supports his ideas. We looked at a group of current London taxi drivers and a group of London taxi drivers that had been retired for about four years, said neuroscientist Dr Hugo Spiers of University College London, who is an author of the study. The results showed that the retired taxi drivers performed worse on navigation tests than the current taxi drivers. We were able to show that their abilities dropped away if they werent using their knowledge.\nSpiers also believes there is a danger in relying on technologies like GPS but he points out that the biggest problem is that technologies can lead drivers into dangerous situations. One of the deaths caused by satnavs (satellite navigation devices) was of a driver whose car plunged into a lake in Spain in 2010. There is a genuine potential danger in relying on a satnav, said Spiers. But the health risk of not using your brain effectively is not known.\nThe way in which navigational technology is used could also affect its impact on our own abilities, says Spiers. Audio instructions to drivers remove the need to think about navigation, he says, but the use of smartphone apps as digital maps is very different. When you use a digital map, you have to think hard about where you are going and interact with this device, he said. The modern technology isnt just dumbing us down completely.\"\nMcKinlay believes there have to be big improvements in navigation technologies before futuristic scenarios of driverless cars and smart cities become a reality. For really important jobs  like landing aircraft or navigating aircraft  GPS is still not good enough, he said.\nSpiers believes the development of arti cial intelligence based on machine learning could lead to a new wave of navigational aids, but McKinlay is sceptical. We will see ever-smarter machines which are very, very task speci c, but the big breakthrough will be when they understand what we are thinking and what we want to achieve, he said.\nUltimately, McKinlay believes, its essential that humans remain able to take control of their navigation. Do you really want to encourage people to a point where, when it disappears or when the battery goes  at, they are in total shock and can do nothing? he said. Technology isnt magic  it is just a tool.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Illegal downloading is morally wrong, and it is theft, the same as putting your hand in someone\u2019s pocket and stealing their wallet is theft, says author Philip Pullman. In an article for magazine Index on Censorship, Pullman, who is president of the Society of Authors, strongly defends copyright laws. He criticizes internet users who think it is OK to download music or books without paying for them. \n\u201cThe technology is so dazzling that people can\u2019t see that what they\u2019re doing is wrong,\u201d he writes. \u201cIt is outrageous that anyone can steal an artist\u2019s work without punishment. It is theft, just as putting your hand in someone\u2019s pocket and taking their wallet is theft.\u201d \nHis article comes after music industry leaders met British Prime Minister David Cameron in Downing Street to discuss the issue of web piracy. \nPullman, writer of the His Dark Materials trilogy, says authors and musicians work in poverty for years to bring their work to the level \u201cthat gives happiness to their audiences and, when they achieve that, the possibility of making money from it is taken away from them\u201d. He concludes: \u201cIf we want to enjoy the work that someone does, we should pay for it.\u201d \n\u201cExisting copyright laws don\u2019t work in the digital age and they criminalize consumers. We need new ideas for how artists, writers and musicians can earn a living from their work.\u201d \nPullman is writing in the next issue of the campaign group\u2019s magazine in a dialogue with Cathy Casserly, chief executive of Creative Commons. Casserly argues that there is a lot wrong with copyright, which was created a long time ago. She writes: \u201cCopyright closes the door on the many ways that people can share, build upon and remix each other\u2019s work, possibilities that we could not imagine when those laws were made.\u201d She says artists need to think reatively about how they earn money from their work. \nIndex on Censorship agrees. The magazine\u2019s editor, Rachael Jolley, said: Illegal downloading is a very big problem. Between November 2012 and January 2013 in the UK, 280 million music tracks were digitally pirated along with 52 million TV shows, 29 million films,18 million ebooks and 7 million software or games files. \n18% of internet users aged over 12 say they have pirated items, and 9% say they are afraid they will get caught. Pullman writes in his article: \u201cThe ease and speed with which people can get music in MP3 is still very surprising to people like me who have been building up their iTunes list for some time.\u201d \nAfter the Downing Street meeting, Cameron asked the Conservative MP Mike Weatherley to be his adviser on the subject. The BPI, an organization that supports music companies, said: \u201cMike Weatherley is a strong supporter of copyright and the artists and creative producers it\u2019s there to protect. We hope his influence and the prime minister\u2019s support for copyright will change how we see illegal downloading in the UK.\u201d","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Valdevaqueros is one of the last unspoilt beaches in southern Spain. The road to the beach is filled with camper vans from Germany, France, Italy and Britain. The camper vans bring windsurfers and kitesurfers who are attracted by strong winds in the area. \nValdevaqueros beach is very different from the beaches of Torremolinos and Marbella, which are full of hotels and concrete, but earlier in 2012 the local council in Tarifa said\u2019yes\u2019 to plans to build a tourist complex next to the beach. Environmental groups are angry. They say that the project will harm the habitats of protected animals and plants, but most of the council just want to create more jobs. 18,000 people live in Tarifa and 2,600 of them have no work. Spain is having its worst economic crisis for fifty years. \n\u201cTraditional jobs like fishing are finishing so tourism is the only solution,\u201d said Sebasti\u00e1n Galindo, a councillor from the Socialist party. Galindo says the complex does not break the law. There is a law to stop more ugly developments like those that spoilt a lot of Spain\u2019s beaches in the 1960s and 1970s. This law says that the complex must be at least 200 metres from the coast; it will be much farther than that \u2013 it will be 800 metres. \nSome people say more houses are not needed in Spain because the country already has a million empty houses. Galindo says it is unfair to migrant workers who came to Spain when the economy was good. Many of the workers are from Morocco, which is just 14km away, across the sea. You can see it from Tarifa. \nSurfers fear that new buildings in Valdevaqueros would make the famous local wind less strong but would not attract people who want a traditional beach holiday. \u201cIt\u2019s not really a place for families. The wind is too strong!\u201d said Henning Mayer from Germany. \u201cTen years ago they said they would build a new highway here. It didn\u2019t happen, so I think it will be impossible to build new hotels.\u201d \nTarifa is at the most southern point of Spain. It is where Africa and Europe meet, where the Mediterranean Sea meets the Atlantic. It is also a very important place for animals. \nHours after the Tarifa council voted for the project, a campaign started to save the beach. The campaign has a Facebook page and is supported by groups including Greenpeace and the World Wide Fund for Nature. The Andalusian College of Geographers is also against the project \u2013 they say that the complex would disturb two wildlife conservation areas and cross the border of a national park. \n\u201cThey think money is more important than laws,\u201d said Ra\u00fal Romeva, a member of the European Parliament. Romeva believes the project is wrong because the site has too little water. The town already has too little water in the hot summer weather of Andalus\u00eda. \nMany local people also want to know why they want to built a complex 10km away. They think it would be better near Tarifa\u2019s beautiful old centre. \u201cWe agree with the complex if it creates jobs in the town,\u201d said Crist\u00f3bal Lobato, who has worked at the same beach bar in Tarifa for 30 years. \u201cIf they put it in the centre of Tarifa, where there is space, then tourists could visit shops, bars and restaurants.\u201d \nStanding in the green fields where they want to build the complex, biologist Aitor Gal\u00e1n said, \u201cIn other countries, they would protect this place, but here they want to build lots of buildings. They want this place to become Benidorm. But what attracts people here is wild animals and the wind.\u201d","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"You probably know a vaper \u2013 someone who smokes e-cigarettes. But has vaping started to become less popular? Statistics suggest that smokers and recent ex-smokers (the majority of vapers) may already be using e-cigarettes less. The big e-cigarette companies will study the fi gures carefully because they have spent millions of pounds on a technology that they thought was becoming more popular.\nE-cigarettes do not contain tobacco and produce vapour, not smoke. In 2014, the health charity Action on Smoking and Health published fi gures that showed that the number of British users of electronic cigarettes has increased three times from 700,000 users in 2012 to 2.1 million in 2014.\nBut fi gures from the Smoking Toolkit Study show vaping may be becoming less popular. The number of vapers who are smokers and exsmokers rose until the end of 2013, when 22% of smokers and ex-smokers were vaping. But this percentage stopped rising in 2014. Then, it dropped to 19% at the end of the year. Professor Robert West, who collected the data for the Toolkit, described the fi gures as statistically important.\nSmokers are the key group for e-cigarette companies because seven out of ten vapers are smokers. Only around 1% of people who have never smoked have tried an electronic cigarette. \u201cThe number of people who use e-cigarettes while continuing to smoke is going down,\u201d West said. \u201cWe\u2019ve only been studying vaping for just over a year, so it\u2019s a short time period, but we are not seeing growth in the number of long-term ex-smokers or \u2018never\u2019 smokers using e-cigarettes. The number of people vaping might change but, at the moment, it looks like it\u2019s staying the same.\u201d\nExperts believe that vaping will probably not become fashionable with young non-smokers. Only 1.8% of children are regular e-cigarette users. But e-cigarettes seem to be most popular with adults who want to quit. \u201cThe fi gures published this month show that the use of electronic cigarettes by smokers has stopped rising. But the fi gures also show the huge increase in use since May 2011,\u201d said James Dunworth, of ecigarettedirect.co.uk. \u201cOur customers are still very happy with the product and technology is improving their experience and helping them to switch from traditional cigarettes.\u201d\n\u201cE-cigarettes are like a sort of nicotine patch,\u201d West agreed. \u201cThey are more popular than nicotine patches but we do not know if they are more effective. One-third of people who want to quit smoking use e-cigarettes. They are the most popular method of stopping.\u201d\nThe European Commission (EC) wants to increase taxes on e-cigarettes, which could make them less popular. A new EC tobacco directive becomes law in 2016. It will limit the amount of nicotine in e-cigarettes to below their current levels. This may mean vapers will have to increase the number they smoke to get the same effect. This is another thing that may make e-cigarettes more expensive.\nWest suggested that politicians should see e-cigarettes as something that helps people stop smoking. He doesn\u2019t think they should follow the same laws as smoking. \u201cSome local authorities and organizations treat e-cigarettes like cigarettes \u2013 they ban them in public places and outdoors,\u201d he said. He thinks we should support vapers not attack them.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nYouve spent eight hours in the office. The most important work of the day is done; whatever is left can wait until the morning. This is the point many workers would think about heading for the door.\nBut, for millions of Japanese employees, the thought of leaving their desks and being at home in time for dinner is enough to make people accuse them of disloyalty.\nFor decades, the government has allowed companies to make sure their workforce is as productive as possible. But, now, it is challenging Japans culture of overwork. The government is considering making it a legal requirement for workers to take at least five days paid holiday a year.\nJapanese employees are currently entitled to an average 18.5 days paid holiday a year  only two fewer than the global average  with a minimum of ten days, as well as 15 one-day national holidays. In reality, very few employees take these days. Most use only nine of their 18.5-day average entitlement, according to the labour ministry. While many British workers see a two-week summer holiday as their right, workers in Japan think that a four-night vacation in Hawaii is complete self-indulgence.\nBy the end of the decade, the government hopes that the law will push Japanese employees towards following the example set by British workers, who use an average of 20 days paid annual leave, and those in France, who take an average of 25.\nJapans tough work culture helped turn it into an economic superpower, its employees respected and admired in the rest of the world for their commitment to the company, but they have little time to do anything except work.\nJapans low birth rate and population decline are partly blamed on the lack of time couples have to start families. More employees are falling ill from stress, or worse, succumbing to karoshi, death through overwork.\nJapanese people continue to work hard, despite studies that suggest that longer hours in the office or workshop or on the factory floor do not necessarily make people more productive.\nAbout 22% of Japanese people work more than 49 hours a week, compared with 16% of US workers and 11% in France and Germany, according to data from the Japanese government. At 35%, South Koreas workaholics work even more.\nErika Sekiguchi spends 14 hours a day at work and gives up many of her paid holidays. But she is not even an extreme example. The 36-year-old trading company employee used eight of her 20 days of paid vacation in 2014, six of which were sick leave. Nobody else uses their vacation days, Sekiguchi said.\nYuu Wakebe, a health ministry official overseeing policy on working hours, admits that he does 100 hours of overtime a month. He blames the pressure to match the number of hours your colleagues work. It is a workers right to take paid vacations, Wakebe said. But working in Japan involves quite a lot of volunteer spirit.\nThat fear of being ostracized at work is the reason for a rise in stress-related illness, premature death and suicide. According to official data, about 200 people die every year from heart attacks, strokes and other karoshi events because of tough work schedules.\nThe prime minister, Shinzo Abe, is not known for taking long vacations. But even he has said that companies ask too much of their employees and that working hours in Japan are too long.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"There are about 50,000 mystery shopping trips every month in the UK. Mystery shoppers pretend to be a customer in a store but they are really collecting information on the store and how good or bad its service is.The demand for mystery shoppers is growing because online shopping is becoming more popular.\n\u201cRetailers are becoming increasingly aware that shoppers who visit a physical store want a service and an experience they can\u2019t get online,\u201d says Simon Boydell, spokesman for Marketforce, which has more than 300,000 mystery shoppers. \u201cOur clients want to know how well their stores are delivering on that experience.\u201d\n\u201cWe assign different store locations to each shopper and rotate them so that they never go back to the same shop within three months,\u201d says Jill Spencer of mystery shopping company ABa. \u201cEach day, they spend up to eight hours visiting five to ten stores, plus another hour or two writing detailed reports on every part of their visit.\u201d For that, the mystery shoppers can earn up to \u00a3155 a day. Their expenses are also paid. Mystery shoppers who film their visits with a hidden camera can earn even more \u2013 around \u00a3300 a day.\nMystery shoppers are usually repaid any money they spend in the stores and may also be allowed to keep the products they buy. \u201cThey usually give me between \u00a35 and \u00a320 to spend at each store, to check the service I receive at the till,\u201d says mystery shopper Laura. \u201cI\u2019m always given a specific task, such as buying something from a specific department or a new product range, but I can often buy whatever I want \u2013 and keep it.\u201d\nLike most full-time mystery shoppers, Laura is self-employed. She earns around \u00a330,000 to \u00a340,000 a year and that doesn\u2019t include all the freebies she gets on the job. \u201cWith the perks, it\u2019s enough to live on.\u201d She finds it satisfying to return to a store where she has previously been a mystery shopper and see standards have improved. \u201cI know it must be because of my feedback or why would they pay me to give it? I feel I\u2019m not just doing a service for my company; I\u2019m doing a service for all shoppers everywhere.\u201d\nMore than 500,000 people have registered as mystery shoppers in the UK, but just 10% or less get regular work each month. This has led to a dramatic reduction in payment. Before, people were paid and got travel expenses, but now \u201cyou often just receive some money towards a purchase,\u201d say Val, a 51-year-old former mystery shopper. Nowadays, mystery shopping companies mostly give freebies as an incentive. \u201cMarketforce shoppers usually get a couple of pounds for a visit, for their time and effort,\u201d says Boydell. \u201cAt the most, we\u2019ll pay \u00a315 to \u00a325 plus expenses for a meal for two or a hotel stay, for example. We don\u2019t directly employ any shoppers so we don\u2019t have to pay them the minimum wage.\u201d \u201cI\u2019d go on a cruise for nothing,\u201d says Laura. \u201cBut I think mystery shopping companies that pay you a nominal fee to travel to a restaurant and eat a meal are exploiting people. I won\u2019t do those jobs anymore.\u201d But there are plenty of people who want to do those jobs. \nHannah, a 41-year-old lawyer, has made nearly 500 visits  or the Mystery Dining Company in her spare time without receiving pay or travel expenses. She has enjoyed \u00a3200 meals at Michelin- starred restaurants and overnight stays at expensive hotels.\nBut, it can be hard work. Hannah says she spends two to four hours after each visit writing detailed reports on everything from the quality of the food to specific conversations with staff. And, she always needs to be able to name or describe the staff. She has to memorize all these details while eating her meal because she cannot openly write anything down.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"At Addis Ababa airport, visitors see pictures of golden grains, tiny red seeds and a group of men around a giant pancake. The words say: \u201cTeff: the best gluten-free crop!\u201d \nEthiopia is one of the world\u2019s poorest countries, well known for its difficult food situation. But it is also the home of teff, a highly nutritious grain that you can now buy in health-food shops and supermarkets in Europe and America. \nTeff\u2019s tiny seeds \u2013 the size of poppy seeds \u2013 are high in calcium, iron and protein, and also amino acids. You can use the gluten-free grain instead of wheat flour in anything from bread and pasta to waffles and pizza bases. \nIn Ethiopia, teff is a national obsession. It is grown by about 6.3 million farmers \u2013 fields of the crop cover more than 20% of all farmland. They make it into flour and use it to make injera, the flatbread that is basic to Ethiopian cooking. The grain is also important in many religious and cultural ceremonies. Across the country, people meet around large pieces of injera. They use it to scoop up stews and to feed one another as a sign of loyalty or friendship \u2013 a tradition known as gursha. \nTeff is now called Ethiopia\u2019s \u201csecond gift to the world\u201d, after coffee. \nEthiopia\u2019s growing middle class want more teff. This has increased the price of teff, so it is now too expensive for the poorest people. Today, most small farmers sell most of what they grow to people in Ethiopian cities. \nTeff is the most nutritionally valuable grain in the country. In urban areas, people eat up to 61kg of teff a year. In rural areas, they eat 20kg. The type of teff people eat is different, too: the rich eat the more expensive magna and white teff; poorer people usually eat less-valuable red and mixed teff. They also mix it with cheaper cereals such as sorghum and maize. \nThe Ethiopian government wants to double teff production by 2015. It says that the grain could play an important role in school meals and emergency aid programmes, and help reduce malnutrition \u2013 particularly among children. \nIn Ethiopia, around 20% of children under five are malnourished. \nThe government does not allow the export of raw teff grain, only of injera and other processed products. But this could change: the goal is to produce enough teff for Ethiopia and for export. \nMama Fresh is a family company that sells injera to top restaurants and hotels in the Ethiopian capital. It also exports the flatbread to Finland, Germany, Sweden and the US, mostly for Ethiopians who live there. But the company wants to double exports to America in 2014 and will soon start producing teff-based pizzas, bread and cookies. \nRegassa Feyissa, an Ethiopian agricultural scientist, says that, without careful planning, growing more teff for export may mean that farmers do not grow other important crops. \nThere is not much Ethiopian teff on the international market, so farmers in the US have started planting the crop. Farmers in Europe, Israel and Australia have also experimented with growing it.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"We all know about wildlife emergencies such as the possible extinction of the tiger in India, the orangutan in Indonesia and the panda. Everybody loves these animals and no one wants to see them disappear. But, now, scientists are worried that the threat to creatures such as ladybirds is a much greater danger to biodiversity. \nClimate change, falling numbers of animals, rising numbers of humans and extinction mean that more and more scientists now believe that we are in the Anthropocene age \u2013 the age of extinction. \nA recent report from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) confirms that worrying idea \u2013 statistics from the report show a very big reduction in the numbers of many species. The number of vertebrates has declined by 52% over the last forty years. We are losing too many species. Some populations of mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians have reduced even more, with freshwater species declining by 76% over the same period. But it\u2019s the creatures that help us the most that are worrying many scientists. Three quarters of the world\u2019s food production depends on bees and other insects. Pandas are cute and tigers are beautiful but other animals are more useful \u2013 it\u2019s worms that turn our waste into nutrients and bats that catch mosquitoes and keep malaria rates down. \n\u201cIt\u2019s the loss of the common species that will affect people. The loss of the rarer creatures will not affect us much because we\u2019re not reliant on them in such an obvious way,\u201d said Dr Nick Isaac, who studies the environment. He says that Britain\u2019s insects and other invertebrates are declining just as fast as vertebrates. He says that this will cause serious problems for humans. \nHe said that between 23% and 36% of all birds, mammals and amphibians that we use for food or medicine might become extinct. In many parts of the world, wild animals are an important part of the diet, particularly for the poor. \nMost people also blame humans \u2013 humans damage ecosystems, create climate change and destroy habitats. But, this time, it\u2019s not just the \u201cbig, cuddly mammals\u201d we have to worry about losing but the smaller creatures that are less easy to see. We depend on insects, creepy-crawlies and even worms. They might not become extinct very soon, but a decline in their numbers will affect us all. \u201cWe are going to feel the effect of those losses. The numbers of both invertebrates and vertebrates are declining. It\u2019s not so simple as 'fish die and people starve' \u2013 it\u2019s more complex,\u201d said Isaac. \nHumans, said TV naturalist Sir David Attenborough in 2013, are a \u201cplague on earth\u201d. But the WWF claims there is still time to stop the decline. Its UK Chief Executive David Nussbaum said: \u201cThe amount of destruction shown in this report should make us all change our behaviour. We all \u2013 politicians, business and people \u2013 have a responsibility to protect what we all value: a healthy future for people and nature. \n\u201cHumans are cutting down too many trees too quickly, fishing too many fish, taking too much water from our rivers and producing too much carbon,\u201d he said.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"There are worse things to do in life than stroll along Rio\u2019s Copacabana beach in the sunshine on the way to watch a World Cup match. So it was not surprising that England fan Anthony McDowell from Liverpool was in a good mood. \u201cThe place is lovely. The people are great. There\u2019s a party atmosphere,\u201d said McDowell. \u201cThe only thing that could be better is the England team.\u201d\nHe and six friends were among the thousands of supporters from around the world who have made the beach into a party zone. Some danced, some took photos, some drank, but mostly they just walked and talked about football, waiting for the next game to begin on the big screen nearby.\nThe friendly, mostly peaceful mood was very different from the protests, transport chaos and stadium problems during the preparations for the World Cup. But, now the football has started, visiting supporters want to enjoy the experience. \u201cIf I knew, when I started planning, how complicated and expensive it would be, I wouldn\u2019t have come. But, now that we\u2019re here, it\u2019s great,\u201d said Brian Hill, another England fan.\nThe trip has not been without its problems. Hill travelled for more than 20 hours to get to Rio. His son\u2019s sunglasses were stolen almost as soon as he sat on the beach. And, they have been surprised that many bars do not have big screens for the games. But, like many fans, they said they loved the atmosphere of this tournament, which has had a spectacular start.\nEveryone enjoyed Robin van Persie\u2019s extraordinary diving header for the Netherlands against Spain. And, there have been lots of goals: 28 in the first eight games \u2013 almost three times as many as at the same stage in South Africa in 2010. Latin-American teams have been very successful so far and, as most fans are from neighbouring countries, this has added to the carnival atmosphere.\nUp to now, the tournament has avoided the problems many people predicted, though it is not trouble free. The stadiums were delivered late and \u2013 in some cases \u2013 not fully finished, but there have been no structural problems or difficulties entering the grounds.\nAs at previous World Cups, ticketing has been a problem, with many empty seats at several games. FIFA spokesman Saint-Clair Milesi said that only 48,000 of the 51,900 seats were filled at the game between the Netherlands and Spain.\nThe Globo newspaper listed a number of problems in the 12 host cities. Almost all had worse traffic jams than usual. The worst transport problems were in Natal, where bus drivers were on strike. In Salvador, some journey times were five times longer than usual. \u201cTraffic was already bad but this week it is chaotic,\u201d said Jecilda Mello, a local person.\nBut, protests have happened less often since the opening day, when small demonstrations took place in several cities and police used pepper spray. Since then, the only security problem has been petty theft and overexcited fans. Police used pepper spray on Argentinian fans when they started a spontaneous street party and blocked roads.\nThe huge distances have created some very different World Cup experiences. The tournament has had only a small effect on S\u00e3o Paulo, South America\u2019s biggest city. But, far away in Manaus \u2013 the remote Amazonian city where England played Italy \u2013 visitors said there was World Cup fever with brightly decorated streets and flags on many cars.\nThe English Football Association chairman, Greg Dyke, said there was a big difference in atmosphere. \u201cWe\u2019ve had a really warm welcome in Manaus. It\u2019s a big thing for them. But we were in S\u00e3o Paulo for four or five days before the first match and it was hard to see until the last day that the World Cup was happening. It was weird.\u201d","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"'The age of the big British summer music festival, including Glastonbury, is ending, according to the top rock manager Harvey Goldsmith. \nHe has produced and worked with most of the western world\u2019s biggest music stars, including the Who, the Rolling Stones, Queen, Madonna, Bob Dylan and Luciano Pavarotti. He says that the biggest problem is a serious lack of major new bands to follow on from the old ones. \n\u201cThe age of the music festival peaked about two years ago,\u201d he said, speaking at the Hay Festival of Literature and Arts in Wales. \u201cThere are too many festivals and there are not enough big bands to headline them. That is a big, big problem for us. And we are not producing new bands that can headline \u2013 like the Rolling Stones, Muse, even the Arctic Monkeys.\u201d \nThere were about 900 music festivals in the UK between May and September in 2014, he said, and they cannot all continue. There will be lots of small combination festivals where it isn\u2019t just music but also poetry or books or magic shows. \nGoldsmith, 69, said that he is working with Robin de Levita, the Dutch producer of the Who\u2019s 1970s rock musical Tommy. They will bring the first stage adaptation of the teen book and movie series The Hunger Games to a new 1,100-seat theatre in Wembley, London, in June 2016. \nTalking at Hay, Goldsmith also revealed some of the secrets of his long career in the music industry. He said that Keith Moon put dynamite down a Sydney hotel room toilet to unblock it. And, he said that John Lennon had stage fright at Madison Square Garden in 1974 \u2013 he vomited and they had to push him onto the stage. \u201cIt\u2019s bizarre how common stage fright is among artists. It\u2019s odd how afraid they get but, as soon as the music starts, they\u2019re fine,\u201d he said.'\nHe also gave the answer to a rock \u2019n\u2019 roll mystery: why Elvis Presley never performed outside North America. Presley\u2019s manager, Colonel Tom Parker, told Goldsmith that the real reason why Elvis never performed in England was because Parker was an immigrant.\n\u201cHe explained that it was because he was an illegal Dutch immigrant. He didn\u2019t want to risk leaving the US,\u201d said Goldsmith.\nAnd his ultimate rock \u2019n\u2019 roll performer? \u201cFreddie Mercury was our most powerful stage performer, the best live performer we\u2019ve ever had.\u201d\nBut there is no group to follow Queen, he said. \u201cWe\u2019re not producing a new generation of this kind of band. Coldplay is probably the last one and that was ten years ago.\n\u201cSo, with no big bands to headline, there are no big shows. Glastonbury now can\u2019t find any more big bands. The time of big music festivals is really ending.\u201d","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Wales will become the first country in the UK where people will be presumed to have consented for their organs to be donated unless they opt out. \nThe Welsh Assembly has voted to adopt the opt-out policy, which will allow hospitals to act on the assumption that people who die want to donate unless they have specifically registered an objection. \nThe final stage of a bill to adopt a system of presumed consent was passed by 43 votes to eight, with two abstentions, in spite of objections from religious groups on moral grounds and concerns that the scheme could add to the distress of grieving families. \n\u201cThis is a huge day for Wales, for devolution and, most importantly, for the 226 people in Wales waiting for an organ transplant,\u201d said the Welsh Health Minister, Mark Drakeford. \n\u201cI am proud that Wales will be the first nation in the UK to take this step. As a society, we have shown we are prepared to take action to increase organ donation and to provide hope to those people waiting every week for a transplant. \n\u201cFamily refusal is a major factor that affects the numbers of organ donations and the main reason for refusal is lack of knowledge of their loved one\u2019s wishes. \n\u201cThe family of the potential donor has a major role to play in organ donation. The aim of the bill has always been to respect the wishes of the deceased; however, relatives or friends may object to consent being deemed based on what they know about the views of the deceased. \n\u201cWhen family members know that organ donation is what the deceased would have wanted, they usually agree to participate in the donation process. The new law will work by clarifying people\u2019s wishes around the issue of organ donation and, in turn, increase the rate of consent to donation. \n\u201cToday is a landmark day for Wales and I expect the rest of the UK to be watching with great interest when the legislation is implemented in 2015.\u201d \nThe issue is controversial, with opponents worried that the pressing need for more kidneys and hearts will lead to the wishes of those who have died and their family being overruled. But ministers insist there will be safeguards. \nInevitably, some people will not get around to registering their opposition. In response to concerns, the government recently announced that families would play a bigger role. \nRelatives are to have a \u201cclear right of objection\u201d, giving them the chance to show that the deceased would not have wanted to be an organ donor. \nWales has acted because of an acute shortage of organs. \u201cWe have the enduring problem of not having enough organs for people who need them,\u201d said Drakeford. \u201cAbout one person every week dies in Wales while on a waiting list. We have been working to improve the rate of organ donation and have had some success, but we\u2019re looking to take the next step forward. \n\u201cAround a third of the Welsh population is on the organ donor register, but well over two- thirds in surveys say they are happy to be organ donors. That other third is people who don\u2019t get round to putting their names down. We\u2019re hoping to make inroads into that.\u201d \nThe new law would apply to anybody over 18 who has lived in Wales for at least the year before his or her death. Donated organs would not only go to people in need of a transplant in Wales but to anybody in the UK. \nDoctors are delighted at the move. The British Medical Association has long campaigned for an opt-out system because of its concern over the growing number of people needing transplants \u2013 a result of medical progress in transplantation. \nThe number of young donors dropped substantially when seatbelt legislation came in. Big efforts have been made in recent years to increase the number of those who carry an organ donation card, with a good deal of success. Hospitals have also brought in improved systems for coordinating transplants, including the crucial discussions with relatives when there is no indication of the wishes of the deceased. But the increase in numbers of organs harvested is still not enough. \nSome religious groups, on the other hand, strongly oppose the scheme, arguing that it would cause further distress to bereaved relatives. Members of the Muslim Council of Wales and the South Wales Jewish Representative Council have expressed reservations, while the Archbishop of Wales, Barry Morgan, said that \u201cdonation ought to be a gift of love, of generosity. If organs can be taken unless someone has explicitly registered an objection, that\u2019s not an expression of love. It\u2019s more a medical use of a body.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"To tourists, Amsterdam still seems very liberal. Recently the city\u2019s Mayor told them that the coffee shops that sell marijuana would stay open, although there is a new national law to stop drug tourism. But the Dutch capital has a plan to send antisocial neighbours to \u201cscum villages\u201d made from shipping containers, and so maybe now people won\u2019t think it is a liberal city any more.\nThe Mayor, Eberhard van der Laan, says his new plan to solve the problem of antisocial behaviour will cost \u00a3810,000. The plan is hopes to protect victims of abuse and homophobia. The camps, where antisocial families will live for three to six months, have been called \u201cscum villages\u201d because last year Geert Wilders, the far-right politician, said that offenders should go to \u201ca village for scum\u201d.\nBartho Boer, a spokesman for the Mayor, says that the plans are not illiberal. \u201cWe want to defend the liberal values of Amsterdam,\u201d he says. \u201cWe want everyone to be who he and she is \u2013 whether they are gay and lesbian or try to stop violence and are then victims of harassment. We want to defend them.\u201d According to Boer, the villages are not for \u201ca problem neighbour who has the stereo too loud on Saturday night\u201d but \u201cpeople who are very violent and in a clear situation where a victim is harassed again and again\u201d.\nPeople found guilty of violent harassment will be evicted from their homes and put in temporary homes, including shipping containers in industrial areas of the city. \u201cWe call it a living container,\u201d says Boer. The containers have showers and kitchens and have been used as student accommodation. They are going to use the containers because they want to show that if people are antisocial they do not get better accommodation.\nOne Dutch newspaper wrote that in the 19th century antisocial people were moved to villages in Drenthe and Overijssel, which soon became slums. But Boer says that the government has learned from past mistakes and is not planning to put antisocial families together.\nThey are \u201cscum houses\u201d not scum villages, says Boer, \u201cbecause we don\u2019t want to put more than one of these families in the same area\u201d. After a maximum of six months in these houses, in different parts of the city, the families will get permanent homes. The city government expects to move about ten families a year, which starts in 2013.\nPolice will watch the temporary accommodation, but antisocial families will also be able to see doctors and social workers. \u201cWe will take care of them so the whole situation is not going to repeat at the new house they are in,\u201d says Boer.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"A lonely old man living in a crater on the moon is the unlikely focus of John Lewis\u2019s Christmas 2015 advert, as the department store puts a charitable spin on its latest multi-million pound campaign. \nAmid increasing hype around John Lewis\u2019s seasonal ad, which has come to mark the beginning of the Christmas shopping season for many, the department store will aim to use its profile to raise hundreds of thousands of pounds for Age UK. It will also encourage staff and customers to join up with their local branch of the charity to care for elderly people who might otherwise be alone over the holiday. \nThe retailer has spent \u00a37m on a campaign that ranges from the slick TV ad to a smartphone game and merchandise, including glow-in-the- dark pyjamas, as well as areas decked out like the surface of the moon in 11 stores. \nAfter two years of successful ads featuring cuddly animals \u2013 a bear and hare, then a penguin \u2013 this time, the retailer is tugging at the heartstrings with a story of a young girl, Lily, who spots an old man living in a shack on the moon through her telescope. The determined child tries sending him a letter and firing a note via bow and arrow, before floating him a present of a telescope tied to balloons, which finally enables them to make contact. \nThe ad\u2019s strapline is: \u201cShow someone they\u2019re loved this Christmas\u201d, which echoes Age UK\u2019s own campaign: \u201cNo one should have no one at Christmas\u201d. Profits from three products \u2013 a mug, gift tag and card \u2013 will go to the charity. \n\u201cThe charity really resonates with people at this time of year and the ad lends itself to thinking about someone who lives on your street that might not see anybody,\u201d said Rachel Swift, head of marketing at John Lewis. \nThe campaign features the Oasis track Half the World Away reinterpreted by little-known Norwegian artist Aurora. \nThe ad cost \u00a31m to make. The moon scenes were shot at the Warner Bros Studios, where the Harry Potter films were made, and the specially built set was created by one of the team behind the latest Star Wars film, The Force Awakens. \nAs in the last few years, John Lewis has drummed up interest in their most recent ad with a teaser campaign on TV and social media using the hashtag #OnTheMoon. There will be a full moon on Christmas Day 2015 \u2013 a complete coincidence, according to Swift. \nIn 2014, the retailer also spent \u00a37m on a campaign featuring a realistic animated penguin and a young boy playing together to the tune of John Lennon\u2019s Real Love, sung by British singer-songwriter Tom Odell. It had drummed up 22m views on YouTube by the first week of January, ahead of the 16.6m clocked by Sainsbury\u2019s ad featuring First World War soldiers sharing a bar of chocolate, the UK\u2019s next most popular ad of 2014. \nSwift said that, despite the hype, John Lewis had stuck to the same strategy for the last five years. \u201cIt\u2019s all about thoughtful gifting and going the extra mile for someone you love at Christmas,\u201d she said. \u201cWe don\u2019t go into it thinking, 'This is going to be huge,' just getting something right for the brand at this time of year and something we hope customers really love.\u201d \nSarah Vizard, news editor of trade journal Marketing Week, said John Lewis appeared to have reined in its efforts this time, with a lower- key presence in stores despite a growing army of competitors. \u201cThere are definitely a lot more brands doing Christmas ads this year but I think a lot of those brands who tried to compete with John Lewis by doing something emotional and creative have gone back to what you can buy in store,\u201d she said. \u201cJohn Lewis still does the emotional piece the best. This campaign is another great way of putting that across in a way that will resonate with customers. I think people will think it is really cute.\u201d \nAmong those fighting for attention in the flurry of Christmas ads was sister chain, Waitrose, which launched its Christmas ad online on social media ahead of a TV debut during The X Factor . It used the agency which has created John Lewis\u2019s Christmas ads for years. \nBurberry has launched what is only its second festive film, featuring Romeo Beckham and Elton John, while electrical chain Currys drafted in Jeff Goldblum for its first ever dedicated Christmas ad. Asda, Lidl and Morrisons also launched their campaigns at the beginning of November. \nMarc Bolland, chief executive of Marks & Spencer, which also launched its Christmas ad at the beginning of November, said that, in the first week of September, the most searched term on its website was Christmas. \nBoots, another retailer launching its festive campaign in early November, is going back to a more traditional approach after a critically acclaimed ad in 2014, which featured a family going to great lengths to get together at Christmas.","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nJunior Smart knows a lot about gangs. He is now 36 and his life can be divided into two phases. When he was a teenager, after his mother died, he joined a south London gang. At the time, it helped fill a big gap in his life.\nThey became my new support group, he says. At first it was just a bit of fun but then it became more serious, more and more about making money. They got involved in crime. That is how it was. After leaving college, he got a full-time job in administration and worked as a DJ. But, on the side, he was making money illegally as part of the gang.\nEventually he was arrested for serious drug crimes and was sent to prison for 12 years. The first night after I was arrested was the biggest wake-up call of my life, he says. I had been living a double life. I had been living as one person to my peers and another person to my peers enemies. I spent a long time sorting myself out.\nToday, Junior Smart runs a team of 12 full-time workers and six volunteers, which aims to turn young criminals and gang members away from crime. Most of the team are ex-criminals like Smart. A few are still in prison but they are allowed out during the day to help. They work with the police, the probation service and other, voluntary organizations to help people who feel trapped and frightened in the violent criminal gangs of London.\nFor Smart, the extraordinary journey from gang member to mentor began when he was in prison. I was touched by the people who kept coming back in, he says. I couldnt believe that nothing was done about it. I was talking to the prisoners and they knew what changes they needed in their lives, but the problem is that the prison system only deals with the index offence.\nOne guy had a 300-a-week cocaine habit, which he paid for through burglary. He told me how he would walk into a house, even when he knew people were there. So although he had a drug addiction, that problem was never solved. The thing that shocked me is that it is simply a revolving door.\nSmart started working as a prison listener  a prisoner who helps new arrivals during their first days in prison. Then he developed an idea to run his own scheme when he was out of prison  using the experience of ex-offenders to help others reject the revolving door of prison life. He was released early, after five years, and got the opportunity to put his idea into practice.\nSo what does he think now? Does he believe that things are getting better? He is careful to say positive things about the police; he says much of their work in arresting gang members has been good. But in general he is highly critical of a disjointed government approach that believes that, once the leader of a gang is arrested, the problem is solved. He agrees with a report that says the arrest of gang leaders can even make things worse. He says the effect of removing the leader is often to destabilize the entire gang.\nWhen you arrest the top guy, everyone starts fighting for position. Who was the most loyal? Who had the most respect? It is a bit like a family. They are more likely to be violent. It means that the arrest of the gang leaders has been nullified because it has not had a long-term effect.\nCan it actually make the streets more dangerous? It can. People take sides. If one gang knows that an elder [leader] has been arrested, then they suddenly think that gangs weak ... And so there are gang disputes. And what happens when that elder is in prison? He forms alliances with other gang members, or when he is released he then tries to retake control. That is when violence happens.\nIn order to spread risk down to the lowest levels, he says gangs are now recruiting far more in primary schools. The youngest members are called tinies. Over the last years we have seen more and more of this. The tinies can be just eight to eleven years old. The young protect their seniors from risk. They often do the street dealing or even the stabbing, he says.\nSmart says that the challenges are immense, particularly with the current economic problems. I try to help a young person who has been earning 300 a week through illegal methods. It was hard before, to try to convince him. But with unemployment high and cuts to benefits, it makes things more difficult. However, his project, which has over 1,000 clients, is producing results. Fewer than 20% of those who come in for help reoffend. Smart believes that everyone deserves a second chance.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Europe is to become the first place in the world to force 'real-world' emissions tests on car makers, opening up a new front in the fight to tackle air pollution. New regulations will introduce the tests to reveal what cars\u2019 emissions are like when driving on roads and in traffic rather than in ideal, laboratory-like conditions, as is currently the case. \nGreen lit by European Commission Vice President, Frans Timmermans, the tests are designed to enforce a limit of 80mg of nitrogen oxide per kilometre, a level met by only one car out of 16, according to researchers. Other countries, such as China and Korea, which are also considering real-world emissions tests, will be watching what happens next closely. \nPollutants from diesel engines such as nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide and particulates are thought to be responsible for at least one quarter of the 29,000 annual pollution-related deaths in the UK alone. That figure is likely to rise, when the committee on the medical effects of air pollutants publishes what it calls \u201cstrengthening evidence\u201d of damage to public health from nitrogen oxide emissions later in 2015. \nBut the current 'New European Drive Cycle' laboratory test for measuring these emissions is a quarter of a century old and has been outpaced by technological developments in the car industry. Studies have shown that the results of lab techniques to measure car emissions can easily be fixed by using techniques such as taping up doors and windows to minimize air resistance, driving on unrealistically smooth roads and testing at improbably high temperatures. Campaigners say that car makers also use tricks such as programming vehicles to go into a low emissions mode when their front wheels are spinning and their back wheels are stationary, as happens in such lab experiments. \n\u201cThe Commission is finalizing a proposal to introduce a new emissions testing procedure that will allow proper assessment of the vehicles in real driving,\u201d said Lucia Caudet, a Commission spokesperson. The proposal still needs approval from other commissioners and a technical committee but \u201cwe don\u2019t expect any major internal hurdles,\u201d a European Union (EU) source added. \n\u201cOne key reason why air pollution kills 400,000 citizens annually is that car makers cheat the tests for diesel cars, causing many times more pollution on the road,\u201d said Greg Archer, the clean vehicles manager for Transport and Environment. \u201cThe development of a new, real-world driving emission test is an important step forward in tackling urban air pollution. EU states should now support the Commission\u2019s proposals and ignore the whingeing from car makers that the rules are too tough.\u201d \nAccording to research by the International Council on Clean Transportation in 2014, actual nitrogen oxide emissions from cars are seven times higher than the 80mg\/km standard, with some models running at 22 times above the recommended limit. Only one car out of 16 met the 80g target. Around one third of all nitrogen oxide pollution comes from road transport \u2013 mostly diesel \u2013 and, in urban areas, concentrations can rise as high as 64%, European Environment Agency figures indicate. \nCampaigners say that the car industry has tried to delay reforms to car test cycles but industry groups deny this, arguing that a five-year lead-time is necessary for technical and economic reasons. \u201cReal Driving Emissions (RDE) is a totally new regulation that will force significant emission control hardware changes that may be demanded in the middle of a vehicle\u2019s production lifetime,\u201d said Cara McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA). \u201cHowever, ACEA fully accepts that RDE will apply to new types of cars from September 2017.\u201d \nIn an unusual move, the car association sent Timmermans a draft regulation of their own for him to consider, after EU representatives finally agreed a regulation to implement the nitrogen oxide limits with beefed-up road trials and strict monitoring of exhaust fumes. ACEA\u2019s draft regulation would have covered fewer pollutants and further delayed the regulation\u2019s phased introduction until 2020. Test distances would have been shortened from 1,300m to below 700m, minimum temperatures would have been raised from -7C to -3C and more rural roads would have been used. \u201cThe lobbyists were all over this,\u201d Archer said. \u201cThis was a real attempt at subversion of the legislative process.\u201d \nAfter Timmerman\u2019s apparent rejection of the ACEA proposal, the regulation will now pass to commissioners for a rubber stamp, and member states for final amendments, before an expected introduction in September. By 2017, the first real-world car emissions tests are expected to begin in earnest. With a similar battle already looming over the testing of CO 2 emissions for cars at the end of 2015 \u2013 and with comparable debates in other countries \u2013 the introduction of the EU\u2019s new emissions tests will be watched closely.","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Some cities have pigeons. Lima has black vultures or gallinazos. They circle in groups overhead and perch on the city\u2019s most emblematic buildings \u2013 the decrepit, colonial-era churches and crumbling eighteenth-century piles in the city centre. \nIn many ways, with their wrinkly heads and beady eyes, they remind Lima residents of the side of their city they would rather ignore: the neglect, poverty and filth. But these carrion-eaters\u2019 natural affinity for dead and decaying things is being turned into a virtue. Environmental authorities are giving these much- maligned birds a PR makeover, kitting them out with GoPro action video cameras and GPS trackers, and giving them a new mission in the fight against fly-tipping and illegal dumping. Samuel is one of the project\u2019s ten certified disease- free Coragyps atratus that have been charged with doing what they do best: sniffing out rubbish. Fitted with his tracker, he is set free above the city, where he identifies clandestine dumps and records the GPS coordinates ona live map. \nHis trainer at Lima\u2019s Huachipa Zoo, Alfredo Correa, beams with admiration. \u201cThey can eat dead animals because their metabolism protects them from viruses and bacteria,\u201d he says. \u201cThey\u2019ve got some of the strongest gut flora in the natural world.\u201d The effort is a collaboration between USAID and the Peruvian Environment Ministry to tackle Lima\u2019s rubbish problem. \nSamuel\u2019s other airborne companions have been given more evocative names: Capitan Huggin, Capitan Fenix (named after the mythological creature that rises from the ashes) and Capitana Aella ( \u201cWhirlwind\u201d). A tongue- in-cheek video adds a melodramatic voiceover, in which the noble\u201d carthatidae lineage \u2013 the vultures\u201d are pitted against pestilence and disease, while \u201chumanity is placidly ignoring the danger\u201d. The project makes a serious point. With just four landfills in a city of nearly ten million inhabitants, there are countless illegal dumps. A fifth of the rubbish ends up there, according to the Environment Ministry. Run-off from the waste contaminates Lima\u2019s main water source, the Rimac river, as well as the Chillon and Lurin rivers, which flow into the Bay of Lima. \nThe environmental supervision agency, OEFA, says that three poorer neighbourhoods, despite having only 12% of Lima\u2019s population, have by far the most fly-tipped rubbish: Villa Maria del Triunfo (39.4%), Villa El Salvador (25.3%) and El Agustino (18.3%). The problem, in part, is unpaid taxes. Many residents, especially in the barrios , just don\u2019t pay. That means some of the 43 district municipalities lack the resources for basic services such as rubbish collection. \nIt also means nobody is necessarily going to clean up where the vultures identify illegal rubbish. \u201cWe share the vulture\u2019s GPS coordinates with the municipalities,\u201d says Javier Hernandez, the project director. \u201cIt\u2019s their job to collect the rubbish and to try and change the habits of their residents.\u201d \nThe project aims to encourage citizens to be \u201cvultures on the ground \u201d: to report fly-tipping, cut back on their own waste and recycle. Some residents are responding, posting photos of illicit dumps on the Twitter feed and Facebook page. The idea was hatched at the 2014 United Nations Climate Change Conference, hosted in Lima. \u201cWe were looking for ways to involve not just the authorities but also citizens to generate environmental awareness,\u201d Hernandez says. Artist Cristina Planas had placed huge, sculpted vulture heads on top of 25 dead palm trees in a wetland reserve in the south of the city. Rich residents hated it as an ugly imposition but Planas invited citizens to \u201cadopt a vulture\u201d in support of conservation and recycling. \n\u201cWe are a little scared of the vulture\u2019s appearance,\u201d she said. \u201cBut in reality, he is out there sacrificing himself for us. He is out there recycling, in the last place we threw out our rubbish.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Up to a billion people will remain in extreme poverty by 2030 unless countries focus on inequalities and confront social, economic and cultural forces that block their escape or pull them back into impoverishment, a major report warns. The report by the Chronic Poverty Advisory Network (CPAN) asserts that many people may rise above the poverty line of $1.25 a day, only to tumble back when they are hit by a combination or sequence of shocks such as drought, illness and insecurity or conflict. \nDrawing on household panel surveys, the report found that, in parts of rural Kenya and in South Africa, 30 to 40% of those who escaped from poverty fell back, rising to 60% in some areas of Ethiopia between 1999 and 2009. Even in successful countries such as Indonesia and Vietnam, the proportion has been 20%. Individual cases highlight the ease with which people can slip back into poverty. \nAmin, 61, from rural Bangladesh, has seen his livelihood gradually decline, due to his own and his wife\u2019s illnesses, the cost of his son\u2019s marriage, the death of his father and loss of goods such as fishing nets. Lovemore, 74, from Zimbabwe, has become one of the poorest people in his village. He recently lost his job as a car-park attendant due to ill health and had to take in his five grandchildren after the death of his daughters. \n\u201cWe need to ensure that people lifted out of poverty remain above the poverty line permanently. Too many families are experiencing 'two steps forward, one step back', where they struggle to recover from personal or bigger setbacks. Governments shouldn\u2019t assume that, just because somebody\u2019s income hits $1.25, that means job done,\u201d said Andrew Shepherd, research fellow at the Overseas Development Institute, a partner of CPAN, and lead author of the report. \nA UN high-level panel considering a new development framework to succeed the Millennium Development Goals after 2015 said the goal of eliminating extreme poverty by 2030 was within reach. The report, however, argues that \u201cmore of the same\u201d will not get to zero. \nDespite a drop in extreme poverty from 1.9bn in 1990 to 1.2bn in 2010, the report says that progress in the next 15 years will be much harder. The big gains in China are unlikely to be matched by similar progress elsewhere, while climate-related shocks and deep poverty in parts of sub-Saharan Africa will slow momentum. The report calls for a shift in thinking about poverty to focus on the chronically poor \u2013 those who are poor for many years or their entire lives \u2013 and for more emphasis on stopping impoverishment, the descent into poverty. \u201cGovernments have been quite good at moving people over the poverty line because that is relatively easy \u2013 there is a tendency to pick the low-hanging fruit, but they have shied away from the more difficult job of tackling chronic poverty,\u201d said Shepherd. \nThe report says progress on poverty reduction, while impressive to date, has had less of an impact on the chronically poor than on those who were already closer to the poverty line. It will not be possible to get to zero unless development policies prioritize those living in chronic poverty, it adds. Policymakers must aim for a \u201czero tripod\u201d of separate but interdependent objectives: tackle chronic poverty; stop impoverishment; sustain poverty escapes. They put forward a trio of policies, all of which require massive global investment. \nThe first is social assistance \u2013 a safety net \u2013 to bring the poorest people closer to a decent standard of living. An example of such a scheme is Ethiopia\u2019s productive safety net programme that allowed thousands of vulnerable households to withstand drought without having to curtail education spending. The second is education, from early childhood to the start of work, to enable people to escape and stay out of poverty. Education also has the advantage of being a \u201cportable\u201d asset. The third is pro-poorest economic growth policies to ensure that the benefits of increasing national prosperity reach the very poorest people. \n\u201cEconomic growth really is critical, but not just any old growth,\u201d Shepherd said. \u201cIt has to generate not just employment but decent jobs, not just insecure low-paying jobs. There are ways of doing this, like India\u2019s rural employment guarantees scheme, which has boosted urban not just rural wages.\u201d Another example cited by the report is South Africa\u2019s extension of the minimum wage to groups such as domestic workers. \nAll this will take money and the report says one obvious implication is that stronger domestic tax systems and greater tax revenues will be required. Aid will also be needed for the start-up costs for social assistance, universal health coverage and to finance education, including scholarships for the poorest children. \u201cThere remains a huge role for aid in the next 20 years, as many developing countries spend less than $500 on each of their citizens a year. Even Nigeria, with its oil wealth, spends only $650 per capita,\u201d Shepherd said. \nAgainst a backdrop of crises in Syria, South Sudan and the Central African Republic, conflict and environmental disasters have to be addressed, and the report says it is essential that governments work to reduce the risk of conflict and to establish inclusive peace settlements. \nChoose the best answer according to the text. 1. Who are the 'chronically poor'? \nIncorporating \u201creducing (income) inequality\u201d as a post-2015 goal would steer the international agenda in the right direction, given that lessening or containing inequality speeds up the impact of economic growth on poverty reduction. The report argues that if the inequalities that affect the poorest people \u2013 such as access to land, labour markets and the power relationships between men and women \u2013 are addressed, this would tackle two goals at the same time: reducing chronic poverty and inequality. \nThe authors urge governments to develop an inclusive national development plan and to work with civil society to ensure the poorest people are represented politically as well as tackling difficult social norms such as dowries and witchcraft that contribute to extreme poverty: \u201cThis often means challenging and, perhaps, sweeping away aspects of the status quo and represents the most marked departure from 'business as usual'.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"The bestselling title on Amazon in the US is not Harper Lee\u2019s hugely anticipated second novel, Go Set a Watchman, nor George RR Martin\u2019s Song of Ice and Fire fantasy series, nor even Zoella\u2019s much-mocked but much-bought young adult hit, Girl Online . Instead, Scottish illustrator Johanna Basford is topping the charts with her colouring books for adults, taking top spots on Amazon.com\u2019s bestseller lists. \nBasford\u2019s intricately drawn pictures of flora and fauna in Secret Garden have sold 1.4 million copies worldwide to date, with the newly released follow-up Enchanted Forest selling just under 226,000 copies already. They have drawn fans from Zooey Deschanel, who shared a link about the book with her Facebook followers, to the South Korean pop star Kim Ki-Bum, who posted an image on Instagram for his 1.6 million followers. \n\u201cIt\u2019s been crazy. The last few weeks since Enchanted Forest came out have been utter madness, but fantastic madness,\u201d said Eleanor Blatherwick, head of sales and marketing at the books\u2019 publisher, small British press Laurence King. \u201cWe knew the books would be beautiful but we didn\u2019t realize it would be such a phenomenal success.\u201d \nAnd it is not just Basford who is reaping the benefits of the hordes of adults who, it turns out, just wanted something to colour in. In the UK, Richard Merritt\u2019s Art Therapy Colouring Book sits in fourth spot on Amazon\u2019s bestseller lists, Millie Marotta\u2019s Animal Kingdom \u2013 detailed pictures of animals to colour \u2013 sits in seventh and a mindfulness colouring book sits in ninth. Basford\u2019s titles are in second and eighth place \u2013 that\u2019s half of Amazon.co.uk\u2019s top ten taken up by colouring books for adults. \nAt independent UK publisher Michael O\u2019Mara, which has sold almost 340,000 adult colouring books to date, Head of Publicity, Marketing and Online, Ana McLaughlin, attributes the craze to the way the category has been reimagined as a means of relaxation. \u201cThe first one we did was in 2012, Creative Colouring for Grown-Ups . It sold strongly and reprinted but it was in 2014 that it all really mushroomed with Art Therapy . It really took off for us \u2013 selling the anti-stress angle gave people permission to enjoy something they might have felt was quite childish,\u201d she said. \nThe Mindfulness Colouring Book pushes this perspective particularly strongly, with its publisher telling readers that it is \u201cfilled with templates for exquisite scenes and intricate, sophisticated patterns, prompting you to meditate on your artwork as you mindfully and creatively fill these pages with colour \u201d, and urging potential colourers to \u201ctake a few minutes out of your day, wherever you are, and colour your way to peace and calm \u201d. \n\u201cI think it is really relaxing to do something analogue, to unplug,\u201d said Basford. \u201cAnd it\u2019s creative. For many people, a blank sheet is very daunting; with a colouring book, you just need to bring the colour. Also, there\u2019s a bit of nostalgia there. So many people have said to me that they used to do secret colouring in when their kids were in bed. Now, it is socially acceptable; it\u2019s a category of its own. These are books for adults. The art in my books is super intricate.\u201d \nThe illustrator, who lives in Aberdeenshire, has been astonished at the reaction since she released Secret Garden in 2013. \u201cI had a kids\u2019 book commissioned and I told them I would like to do one for grown-ups. It really wasn\u2019t a trend then. I drew up the first story and they thought, \u2018Let\u2019s go for it\u2019. I was thinking simply that people like me would like to do it. My intention was just to make a book I would like to have. So it\u2019s been a real surprise to see the category bloom.\u201d \nShe is currently working on a third book and Michael O\u2019Mara, which already has 17 adult colouring books in circulation, will increase this to 22 by May, with forthcoming titles including The Classic Comic Colouring Book and The Typography Colouring Book. \u201cIt\u2019s just an enormous trend and shows no signs of slowing down,\u201d said McLaughlin, adding that those who buy the titles are keen to display their ability to stay within the lines to the world at large. \n\u201cThe pictures are all over Twitter and Instagram. People are really proud of them \u2013 they are so intricate,\u201d she said. \u201cYou don\u2019t have to have any artistic talent but what you create is unique. People send us pictures of them, framed and laminated. The appetite is simply enormous. I reckon people are taking their kids\u2019 pictures off the fridge and replacing them with their own.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nOur new international survey across 33 countries shows how wrong people around the world are about key social realities.\nBritish people think the top 1% wealthiest households own 59% of their countrys wealth, when they actually only own 23%. Americans think that 33% of their population are immigrants, when in fact it is only 14%.\nBrazilians think the average age in their country is 56, when it is only 31. Russians think that 31% of their politicians are women, when it is only 14%.\nIn Britain, people think that 43% of young adults aged 25-34 still live at home with their parents, rather than the actual 14%. In India, the online population think 60% of the whole country also has internet access, when in fact only 19% do.\nWhy are people across the world so often clueless about these realities?\nIt is partly that we just struggle with basic maths and some of us clearly misunderstand the questions or interpret them differently. For example, most countries hugely overestimate how many people are not religious: across the 33 countries, respondents think that 37% are not religious but the average is actually just 18%. This is because we are thinking of how many people practise their religion, rather than how many people see themselves as having a religion.\nPeople also take mental shortcuts, where they take easily available information even if it doesnt quite  t the question. Our huge overestimates of the rural populations in most countries will be affected by how large rural areas are, rather than a careful calculation of how many people live in them. In Daniel Kahnemans terms, answers to these sorts of questions are classic examples of fast thinking, rather than slow.\nWe see things from our own perspective and struggle to imagine the variety in our countries. This was highlighted by our Indian respondents who massively overestimated their populations access to the internet. Our study was mostly carried out through an online survey  and, in developing countries, this will be representative of a more wealthy, connected group rather than the general population. What we  nd throughout the study is that people generalize from their own situations and forget how unrepresentative they are.\nWe suffer from what social psychologists call emotional innumeracy when we are estimating realities: this means we are sending a message about what is worrying us as much as trying to get the right answers.\nFor Britain, worries are part of the explanation for peoples huge overestimates of how much the wealthiest own, how many young people are still living at home and what proportion of the population are immigrants (the guess is 25%, when it is really only 13%). People are worried about these things and, because of this, they overestimate how big the problems are.\nBut, the survey suggests there are also some issues where people are not as worried as they should be. For example, most countries hugely underestimate how much of their population is overweight or obese. The worst case is Saudi Arabia, where people think only 28% are, when 71% are. Britons think it is 44% when it is actually nearly half as much again  62% are either overweight or obese.\nAnd, in many ways, it is not our misperceptions but these realities across different countries that are the most interesting and important aspects of the study. The top 1% in Russia own 70% of the nations wealth while the top 1% in New Zealand only own 18%. Half of Italians aged 25-34 still live with their parents, when it is only 4% in Norway. The average age in India is 27; it is 47 in Japan. Only 10% of politicians are women in Brazil, Hungary and Japan, when 44% are in Sweden.\nWhen the reality is so strange and varied, it is no wonder were so wrong.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Not nearly enough exercise classes have a tea break halfway through. But Margaret Allen\u2019s does. After a gentle warm-up and a few pulse-raising numbers, the 93-year-old great-grandmother lets her charges rehydrate with a cup of tea and a quick sit down. \nSome of the eight-strong class look as if they need it more than others. Allen herself, wearing a thick turquoise shirt, navy knitted waistcoat, black slacks and sensible shoes, has not broken into a sweat. Despite an \u201cexcruciating\u201d trapped nerve in one leg and a knee in need of replacement, she looks as though she could go on for hours. \nThe general rule is that eating directly before sport is not the best idea, let alone part way through. But, on the afternoon I visit Allen\u2019s class at a church hall in Saltburn-by-the-Sea near Middlesbrough, slices of fruitcake are being passed around during the break. The cake has been baked in honour of Allen\u2019s recent birthday by her 89-year-old sister, Joan, known locally as the \u201cscone queen of Saltburn\u201d. \nThe ladies have barely swallowed their last crumb when Allen is up again, leading the group through a jaunty Scottish number involving lots of toe pointing and leg kicking. Forty-five minutes later, the class is finally over. \nAllen, a former volunteer with the Red Cross, has been leading classes in the north-east seaside town for 45 years. Not particularly sporty at school, she started playing the piano for a keep-fit class during the second world war \u2013 \u201cjust for something to do during the blackouts, really\u201d \u2013 and eventually took over in her 40s when the previous instructor retired. At its peak, Allen\u2019s class had more than 18 regulars, each paying \u00a31 a time. But, these days, her flock is diminishing fast \u2013 during the teabreak, the ladies discuss a funeral that most of them had attended that week for one of the younger members of the group who had just died, aged 68, from motor neurone disease. \nAllen is the oldest, followed by her sister. The baby of the group is 60-year-old Jean Cunion, who credits the group with supporting her through a difficult time when her mother died. She is somewhat embarrassed to admit that she is perhaps the least fit of the group. \u201cI remember, the first time I came, Margaret said: 'Who\u2019s that huffing and panting?' and I had to admit it was me.\u201d Ruth Steere, 76, marvels at how Allen never misses a trick, despite always having her back to the class: \u201cShe always shouts at us if we go wrong. She\u2019s remarkably good at knowing what we are doing.\u201d \nAllen, a keen dancer, has never done any formal training to be a fitness instructor. Instead, she choreographs her own moves based on five tapes from the BBC\u2019s first ever fitness guru, Eileen Fowler, who died in 2000 when she was 93, Allen\u2019s age now. Allen thinks her good health is largely down to keeping busy, especially since her husband Joe died in 1997. She took up writing poetry when she was 80. \n\u201cI write poems about everything. I\u2019m a prolific writer. I just can\u2019t stop,\u201d she says, phoning me a few days after the interview to read out a ditty she has written about the joys of exercise. One of the class, 84-year-old former teacher Winnie Robertson, thinks the secret to staying fit is never letting yourself go: \u201cUse it or lose it, that\u2019s what I say.\u201d \nAllen still plays the piano and gives speeches. She is president of the Women\u2019s Fellowship at the local methodist church and is one of three 90-plus year olds at the scrabble club of the University of the Third Age. She did a computer course when she was 88 and tried to get online, but it didn\u2019t work out. \nAgeing is no fun, she admits, reading me a few lines from a poem she has written called 'That Beast Called Age'. She happily recalls a doctor who saw her for the first time a few years back, who said she couldn\u2019t possibly be more than 78: \u201cI said, 'Thank you, doctor. You can go now.'\u201d \nShe also has a no-nonsense attitude to weight gain: \u201cI just think people shouldn\u2019t eat too much. Whenever I hear someone saying, 'Oh, I can\u2019t lose weight\u2019, I say:\u2019 Sellotape.'\u201d She mimes taping her mouth shut. \u201cI said this just the other day to a big fat man. Everything in moderation is my motto.\u201d \nEarlier in 2013, Allen was watching the news and saw a woman being given the British Empire Medal. I think she means Margaret Chartwood from Horley, who was given the honour in January, at the age of 77. \u201cShe was saying: 'I\u2019m 80 and I\u2019m the oldest fitness instructor in the country!' I was thinking: 'No, you\u2019re not.' But I shan\u2019t be writing to Buckingham Palace.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"The UK prime minister, David Cameron, says he is happy about the result of the Scottish referendum. 55% of people in Scotland voted to keep the 307-year-old union with England and Wales, and 45% voted against it. The prime minister promised more devolution in Great Britain.\nEarlier, Scotland\u2019s first minister, Alex Salmond, said he accepted Scotland had not decided to vote for independence this time. He said the referendum was a \u201ctriumph for democratic politics\u201d and he said he would work with the government in London in the best interests of Scotland and the rest of the UK. \u201cWe have touched sections of the community who have never before been touched by politics,\u201d he said.\nThe yes campaign had four big successes \u2013 it won 53% of the vote in Scotland\u2019s largest city, Glasgow, 57% in Dundee and 51% in North Lanarkshire. But the no campaign won in 28 areas. It won easily in areas where people expected it to do well, including Edinburgh, Aberdeenshire and Borders. But it also did well in areas that people said might go to the yes campaign, including the Western Isles. In total, the no campaign won 2,001,926 votes (55.3%) and the yes campaign won 1,617,989 votes (44.7%). \nIn his speech, Cameron said that there would be constitutional reforms, including in Scotland, but not until after the general election. And he said that there would be changes in England, too. \u201cWe have heard the voice of Scotland and, now, we must hear the millions of voices of England,\u201d he said.\nCameron added: \u201cThe people of Scotland have spoken and it is a clear result. They have kept our country of four nations together and, like millions of other people, I am delighted. As I said during the campaign, it would have broken my heart to see our United Kingdom come to an end. So, now, it is time for our United Kingdom to come together and to move forward with a balanced settlement, fair to people in Scotland and, importantly, to everyone in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, as well.\u201d\nEd Miliband, the leader of the Labour Party, said the referendum was a vote from the Scottish people for change. \u201cWe know our country needs to change. We will deliver stronger powers for a stronger Scottish parliament, a strong Scotland.\u201d But he said that would go beyond Scotland. \u201cWe will also make changes in England, Wales, and the whole of the United Kingdom.\u201d\nNick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, said a vote against independence was \u201cnot a vote against change\u201d. \u201cWe must now deliver the radical new powers to Scotland,\u201d he added.\nThe UK Independence Party leader, Nigel Farage, said Cameron\u2019s offer of more devolution for England did not go far enough. \u201cThe English are 86% by population of this union. They\u2019ve not been a part of this for the last 18 years. We still have a situation where Scottish MPs can vote in the House of Commons on English-only issues. I think what most English people want is a fair settlement,\u201d he said.\nCameron will try to calm tensions when he makes another statement on the result. The prime minister will explain how he will give more powers to the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh. The prime minister wants to move fast to show that the three main UK party leaders will keep the promises they made during the referendum campaign.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Coal will probably rival oil as the world\u2019s biggest source of energy in the next five years. This might be a disaster for the climate. \nOne of the biggest reasons behind the rise in coal use is the big increase in the use of shale gas in the US. \nNew research from the International Energy Agency (IEA) shows that all over the world people are using more coal, except in the US, where shale gas is now more popular than coal. Because the US is using less coal, coal prices across the world have reduced. This has made coal more attractive, even in Europe. \nMaria van der Hoeven, Executive Director of the IEA, said that the amount of coal we use \u201ccontinues to grow each year and, if no changes are made, coal will catch oil within ten years.\u201d \nCoal is available in large amounts and it can be found in most regions of the world, unlike oil and gas, and it is cheap to extract. The IEA says that China and India will drive world coal use in the next five years, and India will probably overtake the US as the world\u2019s second biggest consumer. China is the biggest coal importer, and Indonesia is the biggest coal exporter. \nAccording to the IEA\u2019s Medium-Term Coal Market Report, the world will burn 1.2bn more tonnes of coal per year by 2017 compared with today. \nWith the highest carbon emissions, coal makes climate change a lot worse, especially when it is burned in old-fashioned, inefficient power stations. Coal can also produce sulphur emissions \u2013 these lead to acid rain \u2013 and mercury and soot-particle pollution. \nVan der Hoeven says that we should make coal more expensive so that people prefer to use cleaner technologies such as renewable power. Providing cheaper gas is the only way to reduce demand for coal. This has happened in the US because of the big increase in the production of shale gas there in the past five years. \nShe said: \u201cThe US experience suggests that a more efficient gas market can reduce coal use, carbon dioxide emissions and electricity bills. Europe, China and other regions should take note.\u201d \nIf something isn\u2019t done soon there will be more climate change.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"It began with a bogus scallop, but a menu scandal that has engulfed some of Japan\u2019s most prestigious hotels and department stores now threatens to undermine the international reputation of the country\u2019s vaunted cuisine. \nSince one luxury hotel chain admitted lying about the provenance of ingredients on its menus, Japanese media have served up almost daily revelations of similar transgressions by restaurants run by well-known hotels and department stores. \nThe frenzy began when the Hankyu-Hanshin hotel chain, based in Osaka, admitted it had given false descriptions of dozens of menu items at some of its restaurants between 2006 and October 2013, affecting an estimated 78,000 diners. \nAmong the chief menu misdemeanours was a red salmon 'caviar' dish that turned out to be the less sumptuous eggs of the flying fish. \nA televised attempt by the hotel group\u2019s president, Hiroshi Desaki, to limit the damage by announcing a 20% pay cut for himself and 10% for other executives, failed to mollify angry consumers. \nDays later, Desaki resigned, conceding that the hotel group had \u201cbetrayed our customers\u201d, although he added: \u201cWe never had the intention to deceive them.\u201d One of the hotel\u2019s head chefs later declined a medal of honour he was due to receive from the government. \nThe company has so far refunded more than 10,000 consumers to the tune of 20m yen; the eventual bill is expected to reach 110m yen. \nJapan\u2019s version of the UK horsemeat scandal has since spread to several household names in catering. While, as in the UK, no one has fallen ill from eating mislabelled produce, the outbreak of anger shows no sign of abating. Consumers who believed they had eaten prized kuruma shrimps, for example, were told they had in fact dined on the much cheaper black tiger version. \nThe first incident went almost unnoticed. The Prince Hotel in Tokyo was forced to come clean after a diner complained in a blogpost that a 'scallop' dish he had ordered contained a similar, but cheaper, type of shellfish. \nThe hotel launched an investigation and went on to correct more than 50 menu items at dozens of its restaurants. Its report scared Hankyu-Hanshin and other hoteliers into admitting that they, too, had hoodwinked diners who believed they were paying high prices for premium ingredients. \nThe Hotel Okura chain \u2013 whose guests have included Barack Obama \u2013 confessed myriad sins, including injecting beef with fat to make it juicier and incorrectly describing tomatoes as organic. \n\u201cWe deeply apologize for betraying the expectations and confidence of our clients,\u201d it said in a statement. \nThe list of fraudulent ingredients continues to grow: orange juice from cartons sold as freshly squeezed; Mont Blanc desserts topped with Korean chestnuts instead of the promised French ones; bought-in chocolate cream masquerading as home-made; imported beef sold as high-end wagyu. \nEven the government\u2019s top spokesman, Yoshihide Suga, was moved to comment on the scandal. \u201cThese incidents have surfaced one after the other and this inappropriate labelling has resulted in the loss of trust among consumers,\u201d he told reporters. \u201cThese are clearly cover-ups.\u201d \nThe fraudulent menu scandal has exploded at just the wrong time. Japan is trying to persuade South Korea and other countries to lift bans on food imports imposed in response to the Fukushima nuclear accident, while UNESCO is considering a request to add Japanese cuisine to its intangible cultural heritage list. \nOne local newspaper ran the headline, \u201cJapan\u2019s proud food culture in tears,\u201d while the mass circulation Yomiuri Shimbun said it was \u201castonished by the industry\u2019s lack of morals.\u201d \nThe newspaper voiced concerns that the scandal could \u201charm the credibility of brand Japan, products and services, which are praised by foreign countries and tourists for their safety and security.\u201d \nIndustry experts said the global financial crisis in 2008 had forced luxury hotels to cut costs while attempting to woo diners with detailed menu descriptions. \n\u201cMenu descriptions were created to meet consumers\u2019 preference for brand products, and, when they couldn\u2019t obtain the ingredients stated on the menu, hotels just used food from different places of origin,\u201d Hiroshi Tomozawa, a hotel and restaurant consultant, told Kyodo News. \nWhile they count the cost to their reputations, the hotels and restaurants involved are unlikely to face legal action. Menus are not covered by the agricultural standards law or by a new food labelling law due to go into effect in 2015. The authorities\u2019 only legal weapon is a law banning misleading representations of goods and services. \nThe industry\u2019s biggest nemesis will be Japan\u2019s discerning and demanding consumers. In a 2009 poll conducted by an online restaurant guide, 72% of respondents said provenance was the most important factor in selecting dishes from a menu, followed by calorific and nutritional details.","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nClay Cockrell is sitting in his of ce across the street from 1 Central Park West, the address of the Trump International Hotel and Tower. In front of the tower is Central Park, where Cockrell holds his popular walk and talk therapy sessions.\nCockrell, a former Wall Street worker who is now a therapist, spends large parts of his days walking through Central Park or the Battery Park in downtown Manhattan near Wall Street, as a con dant and counsellor to some of New Yorks wealthiest people\nMany of the extremely wealthy  the 1% of the 1%  feel that their problems are really not problems. But they are, he says.\nSo, what issues do Americas 1% have? There is guilt because they are rich, he said. There is the feeling that they have to hide the fact that they are rich. And, then, there is the isolation  being in the 1% can be lonely.\nCounsellors argue that things have become worse since the  nancial crisis and the discussion about income inequality brought on by movements like Occupy Wall Street.\nThe Occupy Wall Street movement was a good one and had some important things to say about income inequality but it singled out the 1% as something negative, said Jamie Traeger-Muney, a wealth psychologist and founder of the Wealth Legacy Group. The media, she said, is partly to blame for making the rich feel like they need to hide or feel ashamed.\nTraeger-Muney runs a global business and specializes in working with inheritors, who often get a bad reputation in the press. Sometimes, I am shocked by things that people say. You would never refer to another group of people in the way that it seems perfectly normal to refer to wealthy people.\nIts really isolating to have a lot of money. Peoples reactions to you can be scary, said Barbara Nusbaum, an expert in money psychology. We are all taught not to talk about money. Its not polite to talk about money. But its harder to talk about having money than it is to talk about not having money. Its much more socially acceptable to say I am broke. Things are hard. You cant say I have a ton of money. You have to keep a lot of your life private.\nAs a result, Cockrell says, the rich usually hang out with other rich Americans who understand them and their problems.\nIn the US, over the last three decades, the number of extremely wealthy people has been increasing. According to research from Spectrem Group, in 2014, the number of US households with $1m or more  excluding the value of their main home  increased by 500,000 to 10.1m. Households worth $5m or more reached 1.3m and 142,000 households are now worth $25m or more.\nSince the 2008  nancial crisis, the income gap has grown and the situation has gotten worse for the wealthy, Cockrell said. The main reason? Not knowing if your friends are friends with you or with your money.\nSomeone else who is also a billionaire  they dont want anything from you. Never being able to trust your friendships with other people, I think that is dif cult, said Cockrell. As the gap has widened, the rich have become more and more isolated.\nThese are real fears of the richest of the rich. In 2007, the Gates Foundation and Boston Colleges Center on Wealth and Philanthropy started to document what it felt like to be in Americas 1%. For the next four years, researchers surveyed 165 of Americas richest households  120 of those households have at least $25m. The report, The Joys and Dilemmas of Wealth, was 500 pages long and seemed to prove the old saying that money cant buy happiness.\nWealth can stop you from connecting with other people, said the wife of a tech entrepreneur who made about $80m. Some Americans keep their wealth secret. We talk about it as stealth wealth. There are a lot of people that hide their wealth because they are worried about negative judgment, said Traeger-Muney. If wealthy Americans talk about the problems that come with their wealth, people often say Oh, poor you. There is not a lot of sympathy there, she said.\nSpeaking in his soft, soothing voice that makes you want to tell him all your worries, Cockrell said that a common mistake that many of his wealthy clients make is letting their money define them.\nIf you are part of the 1%, you still have problems and they are real to you. Even when you say, I dont have to struggle for money, there are other parts of your life. Money is not the only thing that de nes you, he said. Your problems are real.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Every morning, before India\u2019s capital gets too hot, some old friends meet. On the dry grass not far from the India Gate monument at the centre of Delhi, they stretch, breathe and meditate. \n\u201cIt is the only healthy way to start the day. Much better than an egg or a sandwich or a cup of tea,\u201d said Arvind Singh at 6.15am as he did his breathing exercises. \nSingh, a 42-year-old salesman, and his friends are not alone. All across India you can see people doing yoga together. \nOn 21 June \u2013 the new International Day of Yoga \u2013 Narendra Modi, India\u2019s prime minister, hopes the world will join in. On the grass near India Gate, up to 45,000 people will take part in a 35-minute class. They hope it will be the biggest yoga session ever. \nThe participants will include 64-year-old Modi, most of his government and celebrities. \nModi wants to encourage Indians, and others, to stretch. Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party won the Indian election in 2014. In May 2015, he told schools to make sure students attended yoga events on the International Day of Yoga. \nEverybody in India knows that their police officers are out of shape. So, India wants to introduce compulsory yoga for them. And, three million civil servants and their families will get free daily yoga lessons. Air India, the national airline, has also said it will introduce yoga for trainee pilots. \nModi is a vegetarian and a yoga practitioner. He suggested an international yoga day when he spoke to the United Nations on a visit to New York in 2014. \nModi said that yoga is a gift of India\u2019s ancient tradition. He said that, when you do yoga, you bring together mind and body, thought and action, and create harmony between man and nature. He added that \u201cIt is not about exercise \u2013 it is about feeling in harmony with yourself, the world and nature\u201d. \nYoga is between 3,000 and 6,000 years old. It is connected with local religious traditions including Buddhism and Jainism, as well as Hinduism, which is practised by 80% of Indians. In ancient India, yoga was part of daily life. \nModi has been criticized for creating a view of Indian culture that doesn\u2019t give other traditions a fair place. \nSuneel Singh, a guru in south Delhi, said that yoga does not just belong to one religion: \u201cIs t\u2019ai chi just Chinese? Is football just English? It is the same with yoga \u2013 yoga is for everybody. It is a cheap way to stay healthy.\u201d","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Illegal downloading is a kind of \u201cmoral squalor\u201d and theft, as much as reaching in to someone\u2019s pocket and stealing their wallet is theft, says author Philip Pullman. In an article for Index on Censorship, Pullman, who is president of the Society of Authors, makes a robust defence of copyright laws. He is highly critical of internet users who think it is OK to download music or books without paying for them. \n\u201cThe technical brilliance is so dazzling that people can\u2019t see the moral squalor of what they\u2019re doing,\u201d he writes. \u201cIt is outrageous that anyone can steal an artist\u2019s work and get away with it. It is theft, as surely as reaching into someone\u2019s pocket and taking their wallet is theft.\u201d \nHis article comes after music industry leaders met British Prime Minister David Cameron in Downing Street, where the issue of web piracy was discussed. \nPullman, writer of the His Dark Materials trilogy, says authors and musicians work in poverty and obscurity for years to bring their work to the level \u201cthat gives delight to their audiences and, as soon as they achieve that, the possibility of making a living from it is taken away from them\u201d. He concludes: \u201cThe principle is simple, and unaltered by technology, science or magic: if we want to enjoy the work that someone does, we should pay for it.\u201d \nPullman is writing in the next issue of the campaign group\u2019s magazine in a dialogue with Cathy Casserly, chief executive of Creative Commons, which offers open content licences \u201cthat lets creators take copyright into their own hands\u201d. Casserly argues that there is much wrong with copyright, which was created \u201cin an analogue age\u201d. She writes: \u201cBy default, copyright closes the door on countless ways that people can share, build upon and remix each other\u2019s work, possibilities that were unimaginable when those laws were established.\u201d \nShe says artists need to think creatively about how they distribute and monetize their work, quoting the science fiction writer Cory Doctorow, who said: \u201cMy problem is not piracy, it\u2019s obscurity.\u201d \nIndex on Censorship agrees. The magazine\u2019s editor, Rachael Jolley, said: \u201cExisting copyright laws don\u2019t work in the digital age and risk criminalizing consumers. We need new models for how artists, writers and musicians earn a living from their work.\u201d \nThe debate is a lively one and the scale of illegal downloading vast. Data collected by Ofcom (the independent regulator and competition authority for the UK communications industries) suggests that, between November 2012 and January 2013 in the UK, 280 million music tracks were digitally pirated, along with 52 million TV shows, 29 million films, 18 million ebooks and 7 million software or games files. \nOfcom has said 18% of internet users aged over 12 admit to having recently pirated content, and 9% say they fear getting caught. Pullman writes in his article: \u201cThe ease and swiftness with which music can be acquired in the form of MP3 downloads is still astonishing to those of us who have been building up our iTunes list for some time.\u201d \nOne thing to emerge from the Downing Street meeting was Cameron\u2019s appointment of the Conservative MP Mike Weatherley to be his adviser on the subject. A spokesman for the BPI, the record industry trade body, said: \u201cMike Weatherley is a strong champion of copyright and the artists and creative producers it\u2019s there to protect. We hope his influence and the prime minister\u2019s endorsement of copyright will be brought to bear on the approach of the UK\u2019s intellectual property office.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nWater scientists have given one of the strongest warnings ever about global food supplies. They say that the worlds population may have to change almost completely to a vegetarian diet by 2050 to avoid catastrophic shortages.\nHumans get about 20% of their protein from animal-based products now. However, this may need to decrease to just 5% to feed the extra two billion people expected to be alive by 2050, according to research by some of the worlds top water scientists.\nThere will not be enough water to produce food for the expected nine-billion population in 2050 if we follow current trends and changes towards diets common in western nations, the report by Malik Falkenmark and colleagues at the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) said.\nThere will be just enough water if the proportion of animal-based foods is limited to 5% of total calories.\nWarnings that water scarcity could limit food production come at the same time as Oxfam and the UN prepare for a possible second global food crisis in five years. Prices for items such as corn and wheat have risen nearly 50% on international markets since June. The price increase has been caused by severe droughts in the US and Russia, and weak monsoon rains in Asia. More than 18 million people are already facing serious food shortages across the Sahel.\nOxfam says that the price increase will have a devastating effect in developing countries that rely heavily on food imports, including parts of Latin America, North Africa and the Middle East. Food shortages in 2008 led to fighting and riots in 28 countries.\nChanging to a vegetarian diet is one way to increase the amount of water available to grow more food in a world where the climate is becoming increasingly erratic, the scientists said. Animal protein-rich food uses five to ten times more water than a vegetarian diet. One third of the worlds arable land is used to grow crops to feed animals. Other options to feed people include stopping waste and increasing trade between countries that have a food surplus and countries that dont have enough food.\nNine hundred million people already go hungry and two billion people are malnourished although per-capita food production continues to increase, they said. Seventy per cent of all water is used in agriculture, and growing more food to feed an extra two billion people by 2050 will place greater pressure on water and land.\nThe report is being released at the start of the annual world water conference in Stockholm, Sweden, where 2,500 politicians, UN groups, non-governmental groups and researchers from 120 countries meet to discuss global water supply problems.\nCompetition for water between food production and other uses will increase pressure on essential resources, the scientists said. The UN predicts that we must increase food production by 70% by mid-century. This will put additional pressure on our water resources, which are already stressed, at a time when we also need more water to satisfy global energy demand and to create electricity for the 1.3 billion people who are without it, said the report.\nOvereating, malnourishment and waste are all increasing. We will need a new recipe to feed the world in the future, said the reports editor, Anders Jgerskog.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Felix Baumgartner stood at the edge of space above New Mexico and paused for a moment. It was a small step away from the capsule, but a 24-mile drop back down to Earth. \u201cOur guardian angel will take care of you,\u201d said mission control, and Baumgartner jumped. \nTen frightening minutes later, the Austrian landed back on Earth. He fell at speeds of up to 725 miles per hour, and he broke three world records. He became the world\u2019s first supersonic skydiver when he broke the sound barrier. \u201cWe love you Felix,\u201d shouted his team in the control room. \nHe was wearing a special suit to protect him against the very big pressure changes during the jump. Without the suit, a man\u2019s blood would boil and his lungs would explode. Baumgartner later said that all he could think about was getting back alive, but he also said: \u201cSometimes you have to go up really high to see how small you are.\u201d \nHis other two records were for the highest altitude manned balloon flight and the highest altitude skydive. The jump was on a sunny morning in good weather. Baumgartner went up into clear skies in an enormous balloon \u2013 it was 30 million square cubic feet and its skin was one-tenth the thickness of a sandwich bag. At the bottom of the balloon was a capsule, where Baumgartner sat in his suit. \nAt the correct height, Baumgartner went through a checklist of 40 things with his helper Joe Kittinger. Kittinger held the record for the highest altitude manned balloon flight before Baumgartner. Baumgartner had a problem with his visor. \u201cThis is very serious, Joe,\u201d he told Kitttinger. \u201cI can\u2019t see when I breathe out.\u201d But they decided to continue, and a record 8 million people watched live on YouTube. \nThe ascent, during which the skies slowly turned black, took two and a half hours. But the descent was much quicker. \nThree cameras, which were attached to Baumgartner\u2019s suit, recorded his free-fall of just over four minutes and then the parachute opening. \nBaumgartner has done lots of dangerous things before. He has parachuted off buildings and mountains and once into a 600 foot deep cave. He did two practice free-falls to prepare for this jump \u2013 one from 71,000 feet and a second from 97,000 feet. But nothing can compare with his jump above the town of Roswell, a place famous for its UFO sightings. \nHe was trying to break five different records: the first human to ever break the sound barrier in free-fall; the highest free-fall altitude jump; the highest manned balloon flight; the longest free-fall; and his jump platform is probably the largest manned balloon in history. The jump beat two of Kittinger\u2019s records: before, the retired US air force colonel held the high altitude and speed records for parachuting. Kittinger jumped from a balloon 19 miles above the Earth in 1960 and gave advice to Baumgartner during the ascent. \nSomeone asked him, \u201cWhat do you want to do next?\u201d Baumgartner said: \u201cI want to inspire young people. I\u2019d like to sit in the same place in the next four years as Joe Kittinger. If there is a young guy who wants to break my record, I want to give him advice.\u201d He said the most exciting moment for him was when he was standing outside the capsule \u201con top of the world\u201d. He added: \u201cThe most beautiful moment was when I was standing on the landing area and Mike Todd [the man who dressed Baumgartner in his suit] came and he had a smile on his face like a little kid.\u201d \nBaumgartner said that he felt like Todd\u2019s son. He said: \u201cTodd was so happy that I was alive.\u201d Earlier, Todd said: \u201cThe world needs a hero right now, and they have got one in Felix Baumgartner.\u201d This will be the last jump, Baumgartner said. He has promised to settle down with his girlfriend, and fly helicopters on rescue missions in the US and Austria.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nIt is hard to tell exactly where the noise is coming from, but impossible to miss it from anywhere in Damascus. All day and all night you can hear the sound of guns, rockets or planes attacking rebel positions  the sound of war getting closer to Syrias capital. Just over two years after the Syrian crisis began, the people of Damascus have learnt to ignore the sound of death and destruction just a few miles away.\nActually you do get used to it after a while, said George, an IT technician. But you never know exactly what they are hitting. That usually becomes clear later from video clips posted by the opposition on YouTube.\nThe constant background noise is more worrying because the government tries so hard to keep an atmosphere of business as usual. As you can see, everything here is fine but we have to hit the terrorists, these extremists, an army officer announced. One government official said: If I was afraid, I would just shut my door and stay inside. I have to work and I am not afraid. If I dont defend my country, who will?\nIn private conversation, ordinary people are less defiant. In the centre of town, a shopkeeper complained sadly that his baby daughter cries at the sound of explosions. Zeina, a twentysomething student, is afraid she might become desensitized to suffering  and perhaps to danger too. In the beginning, when there started to be explosions, I used to have nightmares, she reflected. Now I can sleep through anything.\nAnd, the risks are increasing even closer to home. In Sabaa Bahrat Square, in what was supposed to be the safest part of Damascus, a car bomb exploded, leaving the front of a building black, its windows broken and also damaging the imposing structure of the Syrian Central Bank next door. The square is often used for televised pro-regime rallies, with people chanting slogans under giant banners of President Bashar al-Assad.\nThat bombing was not the worst Damascus has experienced as the situation has deteriorated. In February, reports say that 80 people, including schoolchildren, died near the ruling Baath Party headquarters in Mazraa. You can still see the crater, marked by an enormous patch of fresh asphalt on the main road going north. I live nearby but luckily I wasnt there, recalled Munir, a university lecturer.\nMortar bombs, fired from rebel-held areas now very close to the city, have become a worrying new development. The bombs killed 15 students in a university cafeteria on 28 March. The intended target was probably a government building.\nThere has been increased security since the bombing of the national security crisis cell in July 2012, when four of Assads most senior aides were killed. Concrete blast barriers  often painted in the Syrian flags black, red and white  now protect official buildings, not just the military or defence installations that are obvious targets. The Iranian Embassy in Mezze now looks like a fortress. The regime did manage to set up a ring of steel round Damascus, a foreign diplomat said. He added that there are now holes in that ring of steel and that brings home the reality of the war.\nAll this means that moving around has become difficult, unpredictable and time-consuming  another part of life today in an understandably nervous city. Checkpoints on main roads stop traffic for ID checks and baggage searches with handheld explosive detectors  vital to stop future bombers. Only drivers with an official security clearance can use special fast lanes to avoid the wait.\nIt is hard, however, to avoid the question on everyones mind: will there be a battle for Damascus  the worlds oldest continually inhabited city, as the guidebooks say  like the one that has so damaged Aleppo? Parts of the city already feel like a war zone: its most exclusive and expensive hotel is almost empty, although many rooms are being used as offices by international agencies with white UN vehicles parked behind the blast barriers outside. The streets empty soon after 9pm.\nOne view is that the fight for Syrias capital is coming, but not quite yet  in the summer perhaps, some predict, when the rebels have made further progress in the south. Others argue that a complete victory by either side is unlikely and hope for a political solution that comes from abroad. But few people here seem to expect things to get any better.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"It is no longer legal to smoke a cigarette inside a bar in the world \u2019s drinking capital, New Orleans, Louisiana. Since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, New Orleans city government has begun trying to reduce noise problems. The city is now stricter on noise in bars and nightclubs \u2013 and, at the same time, it has introduced new rules on noise.\n\u201cIt is the wrong time for this,\u201d complains bar-owner William Walker. He hates the anti-smoking law. \u201cIf they force people outside the bar to smoke, it is going to increase the tension that\u2019s already there.\u201d\nMany of New Orleans\u2019s best bars are in quiet neighbourhoods. Martha Wood lives beside a loud bar that has live music. \u201cThe bar was one reason I bought the house so I won\u2019t ever complain about the noise,\u201d says Wood. She also manages a live-music bar.\nThe Maple Leaf club became smoke-free in 2014. Another club also became smoke-free because performers asked for smoke-free nights. \u201cA lot of the performance venues were already starting to show that consideration to performers. I wish the city had just let that happen, not force the ban into every bar that doesn\u2019t have music,\u201d says Zalia BeVille, manager of the All Ways Lounge. \nLuckily, All Ways has an outdoor patio. Another bar, Lost Love Lounge, doesn\u2019t have a patio. The owner, Geoff Douville, loves the ban \u2013 before, he felt forced to live with smoke to keep his bar popular. \u201cI couldn\u2019t ban smoking in my bar without a ban in the whole city,\u201d says Douville. \u201cPeople think I have that choice. But, if I make a no-smoking rule, they will choose another bar with smoking.\u201d\nMany small business owners also fear that the smoke-free rule will make them lose money. Neil Timms owns an English pub and saw a smoking ban before, in England. \u201cBack home in England, every pub I knew closed because of the smoking ban,\u201d remembers Timms of England\u2019s ban, which began in 2007. To avoid the same problems, he\u2019s spending money to build a patio.\nBut Douville feels the ban could be a great business opportunity. \u201cThere are lots of people who would enjoy coming to our bar but they never came because they didn\u2019t want to smell like smoke for the next seven days \u2013 now, those people can come.\u201d Douville isn\u2019t worried about noise complaints: \u201cNo court is going to say a bar is a \u2018nuisance\u2019 after the city has introduced a smoking ban that forces you to go outside!\u201d he says.\nCouncilwoman LaToya Cantrell, who introduced the ban, disagrees: \u201cThe responsibility is on the bar-owner to keep their customers respectful outside as well,\u201d she says. \u201cThe owners need to tell them to go and have a smoke but be respectful to their communities. The idea that we can\u2019t have clean air because it will cause noise problems is ridiculous. We can have clean air without noise problems \u2013 I think it\u2019s about communication and creating partnerships between the communities and the businesses.\u201d\nMany people were worried that the police would not have time to give bars warnings and fines. So the health department will do it. Bar customers must \u201cfill out a form or call 311 and include photographs of illegal smoking\u201d.\nGeoff Douville says that he\u2019s used to noise complaints. \u201cYou will see: the neighbours who complain about the noise now are going to be the same ones who wanted the smoking ban. Of course they\u2019re going to complain, \u201d he adds. \u201cBut it doesn\u2019t mean they\u2019re going to win.\u201d","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nNobody knows which came first: the economic crisis in Greece or shisha, the drug now known as the cocaine of the poor. But what everyone knows is that shisha is a killer. And it costs only 2 or less a hit.\nIt is the worst kind of drug. It burns your insides, it makes you aggressive and makes you go totally mad, said Maria, a former heroin addict. But it is cheap and it is easy to get, and it is what everyone is taking.\nThis drug crisis has put Athenss health authorities, already having to deal with large financial cuts, under further strain.\nThe drug of preference for thousands of homeless Greeks forced on to the streets by poverty and despair, shisha is described by both addicts and officials as a drug that is related to crystal meth. The synthetic drug is frequently mixed with battery acid, engine oil and even shampoo. It has the potential to send users into a state of mindless violence. And, even worse, it is not only easily available, but also easy to make.\nIt is a killer, but it also makes you want to kill, Konstantinos, a drug addict said. You can kill without understanding that you have done it. And it is spreading faster than death. A lot of users have died.\nFor Charalampos Poulopoulos, the head of Kethea, Greeces anti-drug centre, shisha symbolizes the crisis that has led to record levels of destitution and unemployment. It is, he said, an austerity drug  it is the response of dealers who have become more and more clever at producing synthetic drugs designed for those who can no longer afford more expensive highs from such drugs as heroin and cocaine.\nThe crisis has given dealers the possibility to promote a new, cheap drug, a cocaine for the poor, said Poulopoulos at a centre for addicts in Exarcheia, in Athens. Shisha can be sniffed or injected and it can be made in home laboratories  you dont need any specialized knowledge. It is extremely dangerous.\nAcross Greece, six years of recession have been brutal and cruel. Depression, together with drug and alcohol abuse, has risen dramatically. Crime has soared as a result of austerity measures that have cut the income of ordinary Greeks by 40%. Prostitution  the easiest way of paying for drugs  has similarly skyrocketed.\nMany women agree to have unprotected sex because that way theyll make more money, said Eleni Marini, a psychologist with Kethea. Shisha has been linked to a very intense sexual drive but it attacks your ability to think clearly and were seeing a lot more pregnancies among drug addicts who engage in prostitution. In 2012, two sex workers gave birth on the streets of Athens.\nAs the number of suicides has also increased and HIV infections are spreading, drug addicts (a population believed to be around 25,000) have become increasingly self-destructive. And, experts say, young Greeks marginalized by record rates of unemployment  at 64% Greece has the highest youth unemployment in the EU  are leading the way.\nThe crisis has created a widespread sense of pessimism, said Poulopoulos. For those who might have stopped taking drugs, there is now no incentive. Instead, theres an atmosphere of misery, where people who know they wont find work are becoming a lot more self-destructive. In Athens, where the economic crisis has hit hardest, shisha is part of that.\nJust when the need for help has never been greater, state-funded organizations such as Kethea have had their money cut by a third at the request of the European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund. These organizations are trying to stop the Greek economy from sinking.\nSince the financial crisis began in 2009, Kethea has lost 70 of its 500 staff. The cuts come despite studies that show that, for every euro they spend on anti-drug programmes such as Kethea, the Greek state saves about 6 in costs to the criminal justice and healthcare systems. The cuts we have witnessed are a false economy, a huge mistake, said Poulopoulos.\nOn the streets of Athens, where shisha is growing in popularity, there is a fear that austerity not only doesnt work  it kills.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nA subway system has billions of inhabitants: the bacteria of Swiss cheese and kimchi, bubonic plague and drug-proof bugs and human skin. Now, for the  rst time, scientists have started to catalogue and map the bacteria in a citys subway  and they have found many interesting results.\nDr Christopher Mason, a geneticist at Weill Cornell Medical College, led a team that, for 18 months, tested the New York City subway system for the microscopic life forms that cover its turnstiles, seats, ticket booths and stations. His team found meningitis at Times Square, a trace of anthrax on the handhold of a train carriage and bacteria that cause bubonic plague on a rubbish bin and ticket machine at stations in uptown Manhattan.\nThe team have strongly downplayed the  ndings of plague and anthrax. They say that there is only an extremely small trace of the latter, that rats likely carried the former and that no one has fallen ill with plague in or around New York for years.\nThe results do not suggest that plague or anthrax is prevalent, the study says. Nor do they suggest that New York residents are at risk.\nIn fact, most of the bacteria identi ed by the team are either harmless to humans or bene cial in the citys thriving world of microorganisms.\nSome of the results were expected and should be a gentle reminder for people to wash their hands, Mason said. He also said that they found many bacteria of the same sort as those that are bene cial and helpful, like the one used for making cheese.\nBacteria appeared to re ect the eating habits of various neighbourhoods. All around the subway, bacteria associated with cheeses  brie, cheddar, parmesan and the mozzarella found on New York pizza  appeared. The distinctive bacteria of Swiss cheese were more limited to midtown Manhattan and the  nancial district, and the bacteria used to ferment cabbage for kimchi and sauerkraut showed up in the  nancial district and Bay Ridge.\nBacteria associated with illness and infections were extremely common. Species that cause diarrhoea and nausea, as well as E.coli, and the bacteria that can cause skin infections and urinary-tract infections were common all over the city. The species that produces tetanus appeared in Soho and bacteria that cause dysentery appeared at a station in the Bronx and another in Harlem.\nMason and his team collected more than 1,000 samples at all of New Yorks 466 open subway stations. They put the organic materials through a DNA sequencer and, then, through a supercomputer. They identi ed 15,152 distinct species, nearly half of which were bacteria.\nThe good news, the researchers said, is that these potentially infectious bacteria are not spreading sickness or disease throughout New York. They seem to be normal co-habitants of a city.\nIn short, the researchers conclude, the subway and city are about as safe as everyone thought.\nMason said people should not be concerned about getting urinary-tract infections from subway seats. You should wash your hands, he said, and probably get some sleep, eat salads and go to the gym, and thats about the same today as it was yesterday.\nIn fact, he added, Ive become much more con dent riding the subway.\nMany  findings made sense: stations like Grand Central and Times Square, where there are more people, had more bacteria and more diversity among them. The Bronx, with its diverse neighbourhoods and stations, had the greatest diversity of bacteria; Staten Island, with just three stops, had the lowest.\nThe researchers found marine bacteria at South Ferry, a station that  ooded during Hurricane Sandy  but they were surprised to note the species included some normally associated with Antarctica and  fish.\nThe next steps, Mason said, are studies of other cities, which have begun in Paris, Sa_o Paolo and Shanghai, and continued studies of New York, for instance to see how the results change with the seasons. He said he hoped the research would provide a baseline of research for health of cials and geneticists, and could help health of cials to prevent and track diseases and pathogens.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"When Larry Pizzi, a veteran bicycle industry executive, first heard about electric bikes nearly 20 years ago, he asked: \u201cWhy would anyone want to screw up a bike by putting a motor and batteries on it?\u201d \nIt\u2019s a question that still puzzles traditionalists. Bicycle shops have been slow to stock e-bikes, even though they have been around since the late 1990s. Sales in the US have been modest. \nPizzi, who is now CEO of Currie Technologies, the number one seller of e-bikes in the US, believes that\u2019s about to change. Others in the industry agree. Familiar brands including Trek, Raleigh and Specialized all offer electric models and they\u2019re betting the market is about to take off. \n\u201cWe\u2019re on the cusp of mainstream adoption,\u201d Pizzi said. \u201cThere are more players entering the category, it seems, with every passing month.\u201d \nThe US is an outlier when it comes to electric bikes. Nearly 32m e-bikes were sold in 2014, the vast majority in China, where they are primarily used for transportation. They are popular in much of Europe, too. They\u2019re common in the Netherlands and Switzerland; German postal workers use them to get around and BMW offers one for about $3,000. \nElectric bikes are different from motorcycles or mopeds, which rely on motorized power; they are bicycles that can be pedalled with \u2013 or without \u2013 assistance from an electric motor. Riding an e-bike feels like riding a conventional bike with a brisk tailwind; the motor helps you go faster or climb hills but it\u2019s typically not the primary source of propulsion. Unlike mopeds, e-bicycles are usually permitted on bike paths and they can\u2019t travel faster than 20mph. \nThere\u2019s debate about how many electric bikes are sold in the US and there is no official count. \nEstimates of annual sales range from about 50,000 to 175,000. That\u2019s comparable to the number of electric cars sold in the US \u2013 118,000 in 2014. Yet, while many people are aware of the Nissan Leaf, Chevy Volt and Tesla, few have heard of e-bike companies Currie, Pedego or ElectroBike. \nTo succeed, the electric bike business in the US must clear legal, cultural and financial hurdles. E-bikes are banned in some states, including New York, although the law isn\u2019t strictly enforced. Traditionalists who own and staff bike shops don\u2019t like putting motors on bicycles, citing, among other things, the added weight. Some e-bikes are close to 30kg. \nE-bikes are also pricey. While low-end models sell for as little as $700, Court Rye, the founder and editor of ElectricBikeReview.com, a popular website, says riders should expect to pay at least $1,500 for a quality e-bike with a good battery. Top-of-the-line models cost more than twice that. \nThe companies that make and sell e-bikes say they can overcome those obstacles. \nE-bike technology, particularly the batteries, is improving. \u201cBatteries are getting smaller, they\u2019re getting lighter, they\u2019re getting more reliable and they are lasting longer,\u201d says Don DiCostanza, the founder and CEO of Pedego, an electric bikemaker and retailer. \nCompanies like Bosch, the German electronics giant, and Shimano, the leading manufacturer of bicycle gears, are entering the business, which should help erode resistance from bike shops. \u201cThis has really caught the attention and the imagination of bicycle dealers,\u201d says Currie\u2019s Larry Pizzi. Pedego and startup ElectroBike aren\u2019t waiting for the shops to come around; they are building their own stores. In the meantime, lobbying efforts are underway to permit the use of e-bikes everywhere. \nPerhaps most importantly, as more cities build cycling infrastructure, including dedicated bike lanes, bicycle commuting has become more popular. As the US Census Bureau reported in 2014, the number of bike commuters grew from about 488,000 in 2000 to 786,000 in 2012. That\u2019s a \u201clarger percentage increase than that of any other commuting mode,\u201d the report notes. Electric bikes make commuting more practical \u2013 and fun \u2013 by easing worry about hills, headwinds, fatigue and sweat. \nMost of our customers are \u201cageing baby boomers who want to rekindle the experience they had as a kid,\u201d says Pedego\u2019s Don DiCostanza. \u201cThe main reason they stopped riding bikes was because of hills.\u201d Pedego has opened nearly 60 stores in the US and it has sold bikes to tour companies in San Francisco and Washington, DC. \nElectroBike, which operates 30 stores in Mexico, opened its first American store in Venice Beach, California in the autumn of 2014 and hopes to grow to 25 US stores in a year. CEO Craig Anderson says: \u201cWe want to help reduce traffic, help reduce our carbon footprint and promote a healthy lifestyle.\u201d He tells customers: \u201cRide this once and try not to smile.\u201d \nStartups like Pedego and ElectroBike will have to compete with big companies like Trek and Currie, which, in 2012, was acquired by the Accell Group, a public company based in the Netherlands that is Europe\u2019s market leader in e-bikes. Accell owns the Raleigh brand, as well as Haibike, an award-winning German electric bike. \n\u201cAccell has great expectations about e-bikes in North America,\u201d Currie\u2019s Larry Pizzi says. \u201cWhile baby boomers are still a very important segment, we\u2019re finding that a lot of younger people are using e-bikes for transportation, instead of cars.\u201d \nAccell\u2019s Yuba brand even sells a cargo bike with a stronger motor and rear rack. \u201cYou can carry two children,\u201d says Pizzi. \u201cYou can carry 45kg of shopping. It\u2019s a minivan alternative.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Is this the moment when streaming goes truly mainstream? \nAccording to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), there were just 41m subscribers using music streaming services globally in 2014. It might be the biggest revenue growth area for the record business but it is still incredibly niche. Not only that, but a significant number of those subscribers come from bundled deals with mobile phone operators so it is debatable just how \u201cactive\u201d its users are. Apple\u2019s greatest conjuring trick is to take something that already exists in the market \u2013 downloads (iTunes), digital music players (the iPod) and smartphones (the iPhone) \u2013 and adapt it to make it irresistible to the mainstream consumer. Leaked information recently suggested that Apple is aiming to reach 100m subscribers, which, based on a subscription fee of $120 per year, would generate $12bn annually. To put that in context, the entire global worth of recorded music in 2014 was just under $15bn. Apple is good at mainstreaming products but it\u2019s not that good. \nIs this the end of downloading? \nThe iTunes Store arrived in 2003 (2004 in Europe) at a time when MP3 piracy seemed insurmountable. Apple managed to persuade consumers to pay for downloads and grew a huge business, which it dominated, with an estimated 70% market share. Downloads still hold the biggest share of digital income for recorded music, making up 52% of total digital income in 2014 according to IFPI numbers. Apple holds the lion\u2019s share of this, making it the single biggest music retailer in the world. But download revenue peaked in 2013 in the UK at \u00a3283m and fell to \u00a3249m in 2014. The decline in download sales hit the US in 2013 so Apple bought Beats in 2014 for $3bn, not only to get into the premium headphone market, but also to make the transition from music ownership (downloads) to music access (subscription streaming). Apple, and the record industry, cannot afford to get rid of the download market just yet \u2013 so streaming and downloading will have to coexist under the Apple brand, one representing the future as the other gets progressively slower and sicker. The vast majority of people out there like music but don\u2019t love it enough to pay $120 a year to listen to it; a sporadic download purchase here and there will suit them just fine. The average spend of a music buyer in the UK in 2014, for example, was just \u00a339.52, according to research. Expecting most of them to triple their annual spend on recorded music is something that even Apple will seriously struggle with. \nHas Apple Connect made Apple the most artist-friendly service? \nApple have previously tried to build an artist-friendly platform via iTunes. They called it Ping and it didn\u2019t work. Apple Connect is something very different, somewhere in the middle of YouTube, Facebook and SoundCloud, letting artists post music, videos, photos and more to their profile pages. It couldn\u2019t be any more 2015 if it tried. Apple, partly because of its scale and also partly because it treats music as \u201cart\u201d rather than \u201ccontent\u201d, has generally had strong relations with not just the music industry but artists themselves and, generally, it has a good reputation among artists. Compare that to Spotify, which has been criticized by artists from Radiohead\u2019s Thom Yorke to Taylor Swift. In contrast, Apple comes across as a benevolent uncle. There is the smell of revolution in the air and Apple is making sure it\u2019s on the right side of the battle lines when they are drawn up. \nWhere are the artist exclusives? \nThis is going to be the interesting bit when the service actually goes live. Getting exclusives for big albums is going to become crucial to streaming. Spotify paid a lot of money to get Led Zeppelin and Metallica exclusively. Apple will have been watching this carefully and making its own notes. It already has AC\/DC and the Beatles\u2019 catalogues exclusively for download on iTunes but it remains to be seen if it can persuade these two to make the jump into streaming. It also managed to get the surprise Beyonc\u00e9 album in 2013 before anyone else so it is inevitable that it will want more like that. There is plenty of speculation about Apple looking to get exclusive rights to the new Adele album. \nGiving iTunes the download exclusive on an album was not that big a leap of faith for acts given just how much of the download market it controls but trying to do that in streaming is not the same thing. Add into this the fact that streaming now counts towards the album chart in markets like the UK and US and artists, who still see the chart as a measure of success, will not want to limit their audience by restricting themselves to one service. \nIs this going to kill Spotify? \nSome people are already saying that Apple Music will destroy rivals like Spotify. However, it\u2019s not that simple. Apple is entering a market where others have been working and gaining experience for many years. It has a lot of catching up to do. The winner of this battle will not be the company with the best service; it will be the company with the most money. Apple\u2019s competitors have a head start in the market but they are losing huge amounts of money. Spotify, for example, lost \u20ac93.1m in 2013. Apple, on the other hand, started 2015 by becoming the most profitable company in corporate history, with $178bn in the bank. If Apple Music loses Apple money, the company will not continue it for long but it will not stop investment without at least trying to beat the competition.","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"A long time ago, cinema audiences were taken to a galaxy far, far away.\nThat was 1977 but, in 2015, just before its seventh film, interest in Star Wars is not slowing down. Now, there is news of a new film about Han Solo and of a reappearance for Darth Vader.\n\u201cFans around the world are always waiting for new poster art, new trailers and other information,\u201d said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst. \u201cI don\u2019t think any other movie franchise could cause this much excitement.\u201d\nThe latest Star Wars mania started after Disney bought Lucasfilm from Star Wars creator, George Lucas, in 2012. After Disney paid $4 billion for Lucasfilm, it announced that there would be three more Star Wars films \u2013 VII, VIII and IX \u2013 plus plans for spin-off movies.\nThey have now announced details of the second spin-off. It is a story about Han Solo, the character played by Harrison Ford in the first three films. This second new film will be released in May 2018.\nBefore that, they will release Episode VII in December 2015, directed by JJ Abrams and called Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Episode VIII will come out in 2017 and a spin-off called Rogue One will arrive in cinemas in 2016.\nLots of people are very interested in the rumour that Darth Vader, the villain from the original films, will reappear in Rogue One. This interest shows the power of Star Wars.\nLucasfilm-Disney are creating a cinema \u201cuniverse\u201d around Star Wars, with many different characters and stories. They are doing the same thing as the very successful films produced by Marvel Studios. Disney also bought them, in 2009.\nDisney knows a lot about marketing: Dergarabedian says the decision to make all six existing Star Wars films available on streaming services is \u201ca brilliant way to make people excited about the new film\u201d.\nThere has been much enthusiasm for Star Wars for at least twenty years. This is shown by the huge number of novels, comic books, video games and merchandising that Lucasfilm has created.\nMichael Rosser, news editor for the magazine Screen International, says this is what makes Star Wars the top film franchise. \u201cThe great thing about the first Star Wars films was that they created a huge universe of characters and stories,\u201d he said.\n\u201cFor years, people have wondered how the different parts of the story fit together. This new film goes back to Han Solo and Luke Skywalker so it will reconnect with the first Star Wars film. The prequels did not do that.\u201d\nRosser is talking about the three films Lucas directed between 1999 and 2005, The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. They were about the life of Luke Skywalker \u2019s father, Anakin, who becomes Darth Vader. They got quite bad reviews but they made $2.5 billion.\n\u201cIt shows the power of Star Wars \u2013 the prequels were disappointing but they still made a lot of money,\u201d said Rosser.\n\u201cThe movie studio wants to continue the franchise and make sure new films are of good quality. They also want people to go to the cinema at a time when lots of people are watching films at home. But you don\u2019t want to watch Star Wars on your iPhone.\u201d\nDergarabedian expects big business when The Force Awakens opens at cinemas in December 2015. \u201cIt should make at least a billion dollars. Star Wars is the ultimate movie franchise.\u201d","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"When it comes to climate change, we have the bad habit of focusing on the first part of the story, the part about the problem, and forgetting the second part about the many available solutions. These solutions are speeding up recycling, slowing down emissions and providing sustainable alternatives to plastic, air conditioning, smartphones and fast fashion. \nThe Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recently gathered in Copenhagen to present its latest report on the impacts and pace of climate change. Climate change is now measured on all continents and our efforts to lower emissions must be intensified to avoid it escalating out of control. Along with outlining the risks and challenges, Copenhagen also embraced and focused on the solutions. \nIn the spirit of focusing on what can be done, Sustainia Award, chaired by Arnold Schwarzenegger, celebrated ten leading sustainability solutions deployed in 84 countries. From food to fashion, energy to transportation, education to health, the awards showcased an alternative to the grim-future scenarios we are so often presented with and made sustainability tangible to the innovators, investors, consumers and policy makers across sectors and regions. \nFrom California, we saw how we can now produce plastics from greenhouse gases that are competitive with normal oil-based plastics in price and quality. From Switzerland, we learned how we can recycle and reuse old clothes and shoes more effectively in a recycle system currently deployed in over 60 countries. And from Canada, we learned how smartphones can make bike- sharing more convenient. \nThe ten projects presented each offered unique solutions to sustainability challenges but it was the Nigerian initiative, Wecyclers, that won Arnold Schwarzenegger\u2019s, and the rest of jury\u2019s, vote and took the Sustainia Award 2014. \nWecyclers enables low-income communities to make money on waste piling up in their streets. By deploying a fleet of cargo bicycles to collect and recycle unmanaged waste in Lagos, Wecyclers lets families exchange garbage for consumer goods via an SMS-based point system. \nRecycling companies purchase Wecyclers\u2019 sorted waste for reprocessing into products \u2013 they turn it into mattresses, pillows and trash bags. Wecyclers is a response to local waste issues, where it\u2019s estimated that only 40% of the city\u2019s rubbish is collected. According to the World Bank, only 46% of municipal solid waste in Africa is collected. More than 5,000 households have signed up so far and there are plans to extend the initiative to other cities throughout Nigeria. \nSolutions to combat climate change are often perceived as hi-tech innovations focused on cutting emissions, creating infrastructure or efficiency. However, to successfully solve the variety of challenges, we need variety in our solutions as well. Sustainability is not solely a matter of bringing down emissions; it is also a question of using our natural resources more intelligently and creating healthier lives for ourselves. Initiatives might be low-tech in innovation but high-impact when it comes to creating sustainable change for entire communities. \nWith a wide range of solutions addressing the equally wide range of challenges, we must focus more on the important part of the story that creates enthusiasm and momentum, and spurs action for much-needed change.","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Intermediate\nTo tourists, Amsterdam still seems very liberal. Recently the citys Mayor assured them that the citys marijuana-selling coffee shops would stay open despite a new national law to prevent drug tourism. But the Dutch capitals plans to send nuisance neighbours to scum villages made from shipping containers may damage its reputation for tolerance.\nThe Mayor, Eberhard van der Laan, says his controversial new 810,000 policy to deal with antisocial behaviour is to protect victims of abuse and homophobia. The camps, where antisocial families will be rehoused for three to six months, have been called scum villages because the policy is similar to proposals from Geert Wilders, the far-right politician, who last year said that repeat offenders should be sent to a village for scum.\nBartho Boer, a spokesman for the Mayor, says that the plans are not illiberal. We want to defend the liberal values of Amsterdam, he says. We want everyone to be who he and she is  whether they are gay and lesbian or resist violence and are then victims of harassment. We as a society want to defend them. According to Boer, the villages are not for a problem neighbour who has the stereo too loud on Saturday night but people who are extremely violent and intimidating and in a clear situation where a victim is being harassed again and again.\nPeople found guilty of causing extreme havoc will be evicted and put in basic temporary homes, including converted shipping containers in industrial areas of the city. We call it a living container, says Boer. Housing antisocial families in these units, which have showers and kitchens and have been used as student accommodation, will mean that they are not rewarded for their behaviour by being put in better accommodation.\nDutch newspaper the Parool has written that in the 19th century troublemakers were moved to villages in Drenthe and Overijssel, which rapidly became slums. But Boer insists that the government has learned from past mistakes and is not planning to house antisocial families together.\nIt would be more accurate to call them scum houses than scum villages, says Boer, because we dont want to put more than one of these families in the same area. After a maximum of six months in these houses, in different parts of the city, the families will be found permanent homes. The city government expects to move around ten families a year into this programme, which starts in 2013.\nThe temporary accommodation will be heavily policed, but antisocial families will also have access to doctors, social workers and parole officers. They are taken care of so the whole situation is not going to repeat at the new house they are in, says Boer.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nMaria is sitting on a black plastic chair in a community centre on a cold Tuesday afternoon waiting for someone to call her number. She is number 34.\nWhen its her turn, Maria goes to pick up a brown paper bag  lled with essentials including pasta, eggs and corn akes, and can choose between butternut squash or carrots as this weeks vegetables.\nMaria is the 34th client so far today at East Hampton Food Pantry, just streets away from some of the most expensive houses in the world.\nEach day at this time of year, more than 400 families collect their weekly food parcel from the food pantry. This food helps them survive the cold, dark Long Island winter.\nThe Hamptons are historic oceanfront towns and villages 100 miles from Manhattan. In the summertime, they are a billionaires playground. But, in early September, when the rich and famous shut up their mansions and go back to Manhattan or Beverly Hills, the glamour ends and the gritty reality of life begins for the mostly immigrant community who live here all year.\nThe people who come here are rich and famous but we who live here are not, says Maria, who works 14-hour days in the summer cleaning mansions but often has no work at all in the winter.\nMaria laughs when asked if she has enough money. There is no work in the winter, only in the summertime, says Maria, who is from Latin America, like many of the workers in the Hamptons. Here, lots of people live in a single room because they cant pay the rent.\nShe says some families with up to  ve children have to live in basements and still pay more than $1,000 a month in rent. People come here looking for work but, in the winter, there is nothing.\nLots of her friends cant pay for heating or medication and many would go hungry if the East Hampton Food Pantry didnt exist, she says. It is just one of several food pantries in the town.\nVicki Littman is chairperson of the East Hampton Food Pantry, which provided more than 31,000 food parcels in 2015. She says there are more and more people coming to the food pantry.\nLittman says that, when she talks to the people who come for the summer about the food pantries, they are always shocked because they know only the glamorous side of the Hamptons where there are big parties and the beaches and mansions.\nBut, what people dont realize is that there is that service industry. Its the landscapers, the nannies, the waitresses  they all rely on what they earn in the summer to survive the winter.\n Littman says the town has lost too many people who do important jobs  such as teachers, police of cers and even doctors and dentists  because they cant afford to live in the community.\n Housing is the biggest cost in the Hamptons. Larry Cantwell, who has lived in East Hampton all his life, says homes regularly change hands for more than $25m. Finding your  rst home is a challenge in an area like this, Cantwell says. If you can  nd a home to buy anywhere in East Hampton for $500,000, youre very lucky.\nCantwell says more than half the towns homes are empty for most of the year  this causes the population to go from 80,000 in August to 10,000 in the winter months.\n Theres certainly a lot of wealth here but almost all of that wealth is in second homes only used in the summer, says Cantwell, the son of a  sherman father and a house-cleaner mother. But, the rest of us live here year round.\nThere are famous and very wealthy people but also hard-working and poor people who struggle to get by. Youve got to remember that this community used to be a farming and  shing community of people who lived off the land and the water  a real working-class community.\nEddie Vallone, 22, says, People see the Hamptons as some sort of rich town but there are a lot of problems here, especially drugs. Its hard to grasp  OK, the summer is ending. What am I going to do for the winter? Vallone says. I want to work but theres no work to do.\n Vallone, who works cleaning pools and doing odd jobs on luxury estates, says that, if he saves well, his summer earnings can last until November. But, work doesnt start again until May or the beginning of June.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"The roof is plastic and the desks just old chairs, but the students inside the Chemin des Dunes school are studying hard. They want a new life in France. \n\u201cThe French language is very difficult but we try hard. If we come every day, maybe our dreams will come true,\u201d says Kamal, a refugee from Sudan. He comes to three or four hours of classes every day. \u201cIt\u2019s a good thing to keep your brain active.\u201d \nThe 29-year-old electrical engineer is one of many refugees who live in the \u201cjungle\u201d camp outside Calais who have applied for asylum in France. They want to learn the language of their new home. \n\u201cI want people in the UK to know that not everyone wants to go there. There are a lot of people here who want to stay in France,\u201d Kamal said. \nFrance already has more than a quarter of a million refugees. There are also 56,000 asylum seekers who are waiting to see if they can stay in France. \nWhile they wait for an answer, France does not give them any money or allow them to work. The wait can take many months. The jungle camp offers a free meal a day and a plastic roof over their heads. So, many people decide to live there and not work illegally because then they will not be allowed to stay in France. \nSome of the asylum seekers suggested the idea for the school at the start of the summer. \nThey were bored with waiting and nervous about starting a new life in France totally unable to communicate. The school opened on 11 July. \n\u201cWe did it so people can learn French,\u201d said Zimarco Jones, the school\u2019s Nigerian founder. He arrived in Calais in 2013 and is still waiting to hear if he will be allowed to stay in France. \u201cNow, we need to build another school,\u201d he says with a grin. \nThe tiny classroom can hold 30 pupils. There are five rows of desks in front of a big green chalkboard and pictures of cartoon animals for each letter of the French alphabet. There are also classes in English, art and t\u2019ai chi. But the French lessons are the most popular. The teachers are volunteers from Calais and other places. \n\u201cFrench is not as easy as English but, two weeks ago, I decided there was no way to get to the UK,\u201d says George, another refugee and student. He wanted to cross the Channel because he speaks fluent English but, with language classes, he says he is happy to stay in France. \n\u201cAnywhere there is peace, I can stay, no problem,\u201d he says. He is already waiting at the classroom more than half an hour before his teachers arrive. \nHe says he doesn\u2019t know much about France but the classes are slowly helping him understand the country and the language. \nMany of the volunteers at the jungle school are local teachers who are giving up their summer holidays. \nJenny Flahaut, 33, who works at a children\u2019s home, volunteered when she saw an advertisement on Facebook. \u201cI saw these people in Calais every day and I wanted to do something for them,\u201d she said. \n\u201cMost of them are very good people. They are welcoming and friendly. They want to improve their life and make it better, and learning is part of that,\u201d Flahaut said as she prepared for an afternoon lesson. \nThe teachers and Zimarco now plan a separate classroom for around 200 women and 20 children. There are ten times more men than women in the Calais camp. Most of the women feel uncomfortable going to classes with male students they don\u2019t know, the volunteers say. \nZimarco has more dreams for making the camp a place to live, not just survive. He wants to start a football team for migrants and dreams of changing the camp name. He hates \u201cthe jungle\u201d because he says it sounds like the residents aren\u2019t people. \n\u201cWe have a discotheque, a house, a mosque, a school, shops,\u201d he says. \u201cWe are not animals.\u201d","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Although much of his work, and arguably nearly all the best of it, was firmly within the discipline of the blues, BB King was always open-minded and interested when he found himself in other settings, bridging musical and cultural differences with affability and skill. Perhaps it is premature to speak of \u201cthe last of the bluesmen\u201d but it is hard to imagine any future blues artist matching King\u2019s influence over musicians by the thousand and audiences by the million in a career spanning 65 years. \nRiley B King (the B did not seem to stand for a name) was born near Itta Bena, Mississippi and grew up with the limited prospects of an African-American agricultural worker, a barrier he gradually worked to overcome as he learnt the basics of guitar from a family friend and honed his singing with a quartet of gospel singers. In his early 20s, he moved to Memphis. \nWithin a couple of years, he was playing regularly at a bar in West Memphis, Arkansas. He also became a disc jockey, presenting a show on a Memphis radio station. His billing, \u201cThe Beale Street Blues Boy\u201d, was shortened to \u201cBlues Boy King\u201d and thence to \u201cBB\u201d. After a single session in 1949 for a Nashville label, King began recording for the West Coast-based Modern Records in 1950. \nHe had his first hit in 1952, with a dramatic rearrangement of Three O\u2019Clock Blues, which topped the R&B chart for 15 weeks; it was the first of a list of successes such as Please Love Me, You Upset Me Baby and Sweet Sixteen . On these and his dozens of other recordings, most of them his own compositions, King developed a style that was both innovative and rooted in blues history. He was always ready to praise the musicians who had influenced him and would usually mention T-Bone Walker first. \n\u201cI\u2019ve tried my best to get that sound,\u201d he told the Guitar Player magazine. \u201cI came pretty close but never quite got it.\u201d In an interview in 2001, he said: \u201cIf T-Bone Walker had been a woman I would have asked him to marry me.\u201d But he would also cite the earlier blues guitarists Blind Lemon Jefferson and Lonnie Johnson and the jazz players Charlie Christian and Django Reinhardt. \nHe once explained that his guitar technique was partly based on his lack of skill: \u201cI started to bend notes because I could never play in the bottleneck style, like Elmore James and Booker White. I loved that sound but just couldn\u2019t do it.\u201d He was similarly self-deprecating about his singing, a sumptuous blend of honey and lemon, mixed half-and-half from crooners such as Nat King Cole and blues shouters such as Joe Turner and Dr Clayton. Probably his favourite composer and singer was Louis Jordan, whose music he commemorated in the 1999 album Let the Good Times Roll. \nThroughout the 1950s, King was the leading blues artist on the circuit of black-patronized theatres and clubs on an interminable series of one-nighters. In 1956, he is supposed to have filled 342 engagements. In 1962, he tried to change that working pattern by signing with a major label, ABC, but the first records under that contract, which tried to reshape him as a mainstream pop singer, were as unsatisfactory to his admirers as they were to ABC\u2019s accountants. \nThe 1965 album Live at the Regal, however, proved the durability of King\u2019s blues repertoire and has become iconic, a turning point in the early listening of many younger musicians. He had further R&B hits with blues numbers including How Blue Can You Get and Paying the Cost to Be the Boss , and, in 1969, he hit the upper reaches of the pop charts \u2013 where no blues artist had been for many years \u2013 with The Thrill Is Gone . \nIt took him a while to establish himself with a rock audience, for whom the blues was largely defined by the Chicago school of Muddy Waters and Howlin\u2019 Wolf but he was brought to their attention by musicians who admired him. \u201cAbout a year and a half ago,\u201d he said in 1969, \u201call of a sudden, kids started coming up to me saying, 'You\u2019re the greatest blues guitarist in the world.' And I\u2019d say, 'Who told you that?' And they\u2019d say, 'Mike Bloomfield' or 'Eric Clapton'. It\u2019s to these youngsters that I owe my new popularity.\u201d He acquired further rock credibility with the 1970 album Indianola Mississippi Seeds, on which he collaborated with Carole King and Joe Walsh. \nFrom then on, King was firmly established as \u201cthe chairman of the board of blues singers\u201d. Guided by his manager, Sidney Seidenberg, he embarked on international concert tours that took him to Japan, Australia, China and Russia. He also gave concerts to prisoners at the Cook County jail in Chicago and at San Quentin, experiences that led to his long involvement in rehabilitation programmes. \nIn 1990, King was diagnosed with diabetes and cut back his touring but not so much that his followers outside the US could not catch up with him every year or two. Though he would now deliver most of his act seated, the strength of his singing and the fluency of his playing were only very gradually diminished. The celebrations for his 80th birthday, in 2005, included an award-winning album of collaborations with Clapton, Mark Knopfler, Roger Daltrey, Gloria Estefan and others, tributes from musicians as diverse as Bono, Amadou Bagayoko and Elton John, and a \u201cfarewell tour\u201d that proved not to be a farewell at all. \nIn 2009, King received a Grammy award, for best traditional blues album, for One Kind Favor. In 2012, he performed at a concert at the White House, where the US President, Barack Obama, joined him to sing Sweet Home Chicago. King was twice married and twice divorced. He is survived by 11 children by various partners; four others predeceased him.","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nNelson Mandela, the towering figure of Africas struggle for freedom and a hero to millions around the world, has died at the age of 95.\nSouth Africas first black president died with his family beside him at home in Johannesburg after years of illness, which had caused him to stop taking part in public life.\nThe news was announced to the country by the current president, Jacob Zuma. He said Mandela had departed around 8.50pm local time and was at peace.\nThis is the moment of our deepest sorrow, Zuma said. Our nation has lost its greatest son. What made Nelson Mandela great was exactly what made him human. We saw in him what we look for in ourselves.\nFellow South Africans, Nelson Mandela brought us together and it is together that we will bid him farewell.\nZuma announced that Mandela would receive a state funeral and ordered that flags fly at half-mast.\nBarack Obama led tributes from world leaders, referring to Mandela by his clan name  Madiba. The US president said: Through his fierce dignity and strong will to sacrifice his own freedom for the freedom of others, Madiba transformed South Africa  and moved all of us.\nUK prime minister David Cameron said: A great light has gone out in the world and described Mandela as a hero of our time.\nFW de Klerk  the South African president who freed Mandela and shared the Nobel Peace Prize with him in 1993  said the news was deeply sad for South Africa and the world.\nHe lived reconciliation. He was a great unifier, de Klerk said.\nPeople gathered in the streets of South Africa to celebrate Mandelas life.\nIn Soweto, people gathered to sing and dance near the house where he once lived. They sang songs from the anti-apartheid struggle. Some people were wrapped in South African flags and the green, yellow and black colours of Mandelas party, the African National Congress (ANC)\nMandelas death sends South Africa deep into mourning and self-reflection, nearly 20 years after he led the country from racial apartheid to democracy for all.\nBut his passing will also be felt by people around the world who considered Mandela to be one of historys last great statesmen, comparable with Gandhi and Martin Luther King.\nIt was his act of forgiveness, after spending 27 years in prison, 18 of them on Robben Island, that will assure his place in history. With South Africa facing possible civil war, Mandela chose reconciliation with the white minority to build a new democracy.\nHe led the ANC to victory in the countrys first multiracial election in 1994. He then voluntarily stepped down after one term.\nBorn Rolihlahla Dalibhunga in a small village in the Eastern Cape on 18 July, 1918, Mandela was given his English name, Nelson, by a teacher at his school.\nHe joined the ANC in 1943 and became a co-founder of its youth league. In 1952, he started South Africas first black law firm with his partner, Oliver Tambo.\nMandela was a charming, charismatic figure with a passion for boxing and an eye for women. He once said: I cant help it if the ladies notice me. I am not going to protest.\nWhen the ANC was banned in 1960, Mandela went underground. After the Sharpeville massacre, in which 69 black protesters were shot dead by police, he took the difficult decision to begin an armed struggle. He was arrested and eventually charged with sabotage and attempting to overthrow the government.\nConducting his own defence in the Rivonia trial in 1964, he said: I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society, in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities.\nIt is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But, if necessary, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.\nHe was not given the death penalty but was sentenced to life in prison.\nFinally, in 1990, FW de Klerk lifted the ban on the ANC and Mandela was released from prison, to scenes of great happiness that were seen around the world.\nArchbishop Desmond Tutu, said:  He restored others faith in Africa and Africans.\nMandelas 91st birthday was marked by the first annual Mandela Day in his honour. Married three times, he had six children, 17 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Unusually for someone who likes to chat, Kenton Cool can barely speak. Exerting himself at high altitude has left his voice a throaty growl. He is now in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, having flown down from Everest base camp that morning. Cool is reflecting on a startling sequence of climbs completed over the course of the previous weekend. Early on Saturday morning, he reached the summit of Nuptse, the first and lowest of the three main summits in the Everest \u201chorseshoe\u201d that surrounds the glaciated valley called the Western Cwm. \nThat same day, he climbed up to the summit of Everest itself, reaching the top in complete darkness early on Sunday. He and his climbing partner then continued on to the summit of Lhotse, the third of this spectacular three-peaks challenge, on Monday morning. \n\u201cIt was a snatched opportunity,\u201d he says. \u201cFor the first time since the late 1990s, there were fixed ropes on all three mountains. That doesn\u2019t take away the physical achievement of what I did. I\u2019ve set the bar at a certain level. But whoever comes along next will move the bar further and do it without ropes or bottled oxygen.\u201d \nSixty years after Everest was first climbed, much of the coverage is looking back to Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay and their age of innocence from the modern era of commercialism and environmental degradation. I\u2019ve asked Cool to look forward and imagine what top climbers might be doing 60 years from now. \n\u201cI hate to think,\u201d he says, but mentions the Swiss climber, Ueli Steck, who fled the mountain in April following what Cool terms \u201can altercation\u201d with a crowd of Sherpas at Camp 2. Steck, he says, was planning to climb Everest\u2019s west ridge, first done in 1963, descend to the South Col and then immediately climb Lhotse via a new route, all without fixed ropes. \u201cUeli had been training like a machine,\u201d Cool says. \u201cHe\u2019s a climber in a class all his own. He\u2019s technically brilliant but he had also taken his physical condition to an astronomic level. It would have been amazing to see what he could have done.\u201d \nWhat tourism will look like is another matter. One clue is in the stunning helicopter rescue performed by Simone Moro, Steck\u2019s climbing partner, whose intemperate language provoked the confrontation at Camp 2. Moro flew back to Everest on Tuesday at the controls of a high- powered helicopter to rescue a stricken climber at an altitude of 7,800 metres. \nIt was the highest rescue yet performed on Everest and highlights the exponential rise in helicopter flights in recent years. By 2073, the infrastructure on the mountain could include a helipad on the South Col, bringing tourists breathing bottled oxygen. In the meantime, they are transforming the potential for rescuing both climbers and the far more numerous trekkers heading as far as base camp. \nWhether the Everest region can continue to cope with a booming tourism sector remains to be seen, according to mountain geographer and environmentalist, Alton Byers. The combination of climate change and tourism, he says, is creating new stresses on the Sherpa homeland. The retreat, and in some cases disappearance, of glaciers in the Everest region are having a major impact already. \u201cEverywhere you go, people are talking about how there\u2019s less water. There\u2019s less water for agriculture and less water for all the new lodges that are getting built.\u201d \nIn the Sherpa town of Namche Bazaar, he says, a new five-mile pipeline is being laid to bring water to service the growing tourist demand for showers and flush toilets. The local stream has become contaminated with human waste and does not provide enough water for a place that, in high season, is bursting at the seams. \u201cEvery village is digging a pit just beyond the houses for garbage. Khumbu has the highest landfill sites in the world,\u201d he says. Human waste at base camp is now managed well and removed in plastic barrels. But, according to Byers, these barrels are emptied into a huge pit a few hours down the valley that could leak into the region\u2019s watercourses. \n\u201cThese problems can be solved, but we need to get serious about it,\u201d he says. \u201cOne climber can spend $85,000 climbing Everest. And that\u2019s fine. But at some point we\u2019re going to have to address these other priorities. For half a million dollars a year, you could solve most of them.\u201d \nClimate change is another matter. Byers works with local conservation committees to identify and plan for the impacts of climate change, most usually finding new water sources or introducing rainwater harvesting. The rapid build-up of glacial lakes that threaten to burst and flood the Sherpa homeland is a constant threat. \u201cThere\u2019s going to come a time when people are going to have to get out of their way.\u201d \nChanging weather patterns are also having an impact on tourism. Increased cloud cover in periods of normally clear weather is closing Lukla Airport, the gateway to the Everest region, more often. A new road for 4x4s is being built to Lukla to guarantee the flow of tourists and their money, but Byers is concerned that the rapid spread of the road network in Nepal is being done on the cheap, with disastrous consequences in terms of soil erosion and landslides. \n\u201cEverest is the icon everyone knows,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s the canary in the coalmine that everyone understands. It\u2019s the perfect laboratory for figuring out how to address some of these problems, like the impacts of climate change and tourism.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Our new international survey across 33 countries shows just how wrong the world is about a range of key social realities. \nBritish people think the top 1% wealthiest households own 59% of their country\u2019s wealth, when they actually \u201conly\u201d own 23%. Americans think that 33% of their population are immigrants, when in fact it is only 14%. \nBrazilians think the average age in their country is 56, when it is only 31. Russians think that 31% of their politicians are women, when it is only 14%. \nIn Britain, people think that an extraordinary 43% of young adults aged 25-34 still live at home with their parents, rather than the actual 14%. In India, the online population think 60% of the whole country also has internet access, when in fact only 19% do. \nWhy are people across the world so often so clueless about these realities? \nIt is partly that we just struggle with basic maths and some of us clearly misunderstand the questions or interpret them differently. For example, most countries hugely overestimate how many people do not affiliate themselves with a religion: across the 33 countries, 37% do not, according to respondents, but the average is actually just 18%. This will be partly because we will be thinking of how many people practise their religion, rather than what they put on census forms. \nPeople also take mental shortcuts, where they grab for easily available information even if it doesn\u2019t quite fit the question. Our huge overestimates of the rural populations in most countries will be affected by how much of the physical landmass rural areas make up, rather than a careful calculation of how unoccupied it generally is. In Daniel Kahneman\u2019s terms, answers to these sorts of questions are classic examples of \u201cfast\u201d thinking, rather than \u201cslow\u201d. \nWe are tied to our own perspective and struggle to imagine the variety in our countries, as highlighted by our Indian sample\u2019s massively overestimating their population\u2019s access to the internet. Our study was mostly carried out through an online survey \u2013 and, in developing countries, this will be representative of a more affluent, connected group rather than the population as a whole. In some ways, we may have expected this more educated sample to get closer to reality \u2013 those with higher education levels tend to be more accurate on these types of questions. But what we find, throughout the study, is that people grossly generalize from their own situations, forgetting how unrepresentative they are. \nWe suffer from what social psychologists call \u201cemotional innumeracy\u201d when estimating realities: this means we are sending a message about what is worrying us as much as trying to get the right answers. Cause and effect run both ways, with our concern leading to our misperceptions as much as our misperceptions creating our concern. \nFor Britain, this is likely to be part of the explanation for people\u2019s huge overestimates of how much the wealthiest own, how many young people are still living at home and what proportion of the population are immigrants (the guess is 25%, when it is really only 13%, according to official estimates). People are worried about the concentration of wealth, the housing pressures facing young people and immigration levels, and this is reflected in them overstating the scale of the issues. \nBut, the survey suggests there are also some issues where people are not as worried as they should be. For example, most countries hugely underestimate how much of their population is overweight or obese. The worst case is Saudi Arabia, where people think only 28% are, when 71% are. Britons think it is 44%, when it is actually nearly half as much again \u2013 62% are either overweight or obese. \nAnd, in many ways, it is not our misperceptions but these realities across different countries that are the most interesting and important aspects of the study. The top 1% in Russia own 70% of the nation\u2019s wealth, while the top 1% in New Zealand only own 18%. Half of Italians aged 25-34 still live with their parents, when it is only 4% in Norway. \nThe average age in India is 27; it is 47 in Japan. Only 10% of politicians are women in Brazil, Hungary and Japan, when 44% are in Sweden. \nWhen the reality is so strange and varied, it is no wonder we\u2019re so wrong.","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"The threatened extinction of the tiger in India, the perilous existence of the orangutan in Indonesia, the plight of the panda: these are wildlife emergencies with which we have become familiar. They are well-loved animals that no one wants to see disappear. But, now, scientists fear the real impact of declining wildlife could be closer to home, with the threat to creatures such as ladybirds posing the gravest danger to biodiversity. \nClimate change, declining numbers of animals, rising numbers of humans and the rapid rate of species extinction mean a growing number of scientists now declare us to be in the Anthropocene \u2013 the geological age of extinction when humans finally dominate the ecosystems. \nWWF\u2019s Living Planet Index (LPI) 2014 seemed to confirm that grim picture, with statistics on the world\u2019s wildlife population that showed a dramatic reduction in numbers across countless species. The LPI showed the number of vertebrates had declined by 52% over four decades. Biodiversity loss has now reached \u201ccritical levels \u201d. Some populations of mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians have suffered even bigger losses, with freshwater species declining by 76% over the same period. \nBut it\u2019s the creatures that provide the most \u201cnatural capital\u201d or \u201cecosystem services\u201d that are getting many scientists really worried. Three quarters of the world\u2019s food production is thought to depend on bees and other pollinators such as hoverflies. Never mind how cute a panda is or how stunning a tiger \u2013 it\u2019s worms that are grinding up our waste and taking it deep into the soil to turn into nutrients, and bats that are catching mosquitoes and keeping malaria rates down. A study in North America has valued the loss of pestcontrol from ongoing bat declines at more than $22bn in lost agricultural productivity. \n\u201cIt\u2019s the loss of the common species that will impact on people, not so much the rarer creatures because, by the very nature of their rarity, we\u2019re not reliant on them in such an obvious way,\u201d said Dr Nick Isaac, a macroecologist at the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology in Oxfordshire. He says that recent work he and colleagues have been doing suggests that Britain\u2019s insects and other invertebrates are declining just as fast as vertebrates, with \u201cserious consequences for humanity\u201d. \u201cThe really interesting thing about this work is that we are learning that it\u2019s not just about the numbers of species going extinct, but the actual numbers in a population; that\u2019s the beginning of a fundamental shift in our understanding,\u201d he says. \nHe pointed to the fact that between 23 and 36% of all birds, mammals and amphibians used for food or medicine are now threatened with extinction. In many parts of the world, wild- animal food sources are a critical part of the diet, particularly for the poor. \nThe blame, most agree, sits with unsustainable human consumption damaging ecosystems, creating climate change and destroying habitats at a far faster rate than previously thought. But, this time, it\u2019s not just the \u201cbig, cuddly mammals\u201d we have to worry about losing but the smaller, less visible creatures upon which we depend \u2013 insects, creepy- crawlies and even worms. They might not be facing immediate extinction but a decline in their numbers will affect us all. \u201cWe are going to feel the impact of those losses. With the UK species, the pattern is much the same with invertebrates as it is with vertebrates. It\u2019s not as simplistic as 'fish die and people starve' \u2013 it\u2019s more complex,\u201d said Isaac. \nHumans, said TV naturalist Sir David Attenborough in 2013, are a \u201cplague on earth\u201d, but WWF claims there is still time to stop the rot. Its UK Chief Executive, David Nussbaum, said: \u201cThe scale of the destruction highlighted in this report should act as a wake-up call for us all. We all \u2013 politicians, business and people \u2013 have an interest, and a responsibility, to act to ensure we protect what we all value: a healthy future for people and nature. \n\u201cHumans are cutting down trees more quickly than they can regrow, harvesting more fish than the oceans can restock, pumping water from our rivers and aquifers faster than rainfall can replenish them and emitting more carbon than the oceans and forests can absorb,\u201d he said.","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nWe asked five people who do some unusual jobs how much they are paid, what the worst parts are and why they enjoy their work.\n1. Dog-food taster The job: Tasting dog food to make sure it meets a top brands quality standards\nWhat it involves: Opening sample tins of each batch of dog (or cat) food, smelling it and eating it. Although dogs sense of taste is different from ours, tasting is an important quality check to ensure each different ingredient is perfectly balanced in just the right way, says Philip Wells, the chief taster for Lilys Kitchen pet food.\nTypical salary: 20,000 for an entry-level job in the quality department. However, Wells says an experienced technical director can easily earn 50,000 or more.\nWorst part of the job: The deadlines, for Wells, who admits he quite likes the food. The meat used in pet food has to come from animals that are fit for human consumption, under the Animal Feed Regulations 2010. He adds: There are some pretty terrible pet foods out there and, although I dont taste them, the smell is enough to turn the stomach.\nJob satisfaction: No two days are ever the same. Wells finds it rewarding that a project he has worked on will help pets to become happier and healthier. However, he acknowledges that some of the credit must go to another key member of the tasting team: Lily, the border terrier.\n2. Hygiene technician The job: Disinfecting areas that might have been exposed to bio-hazardous situations\nWhat it involves: Cleaning up crime scenes, road accidents and suicides. Clearing houses full of rubbish, rats and excrement  among other things. The job is about keeping people safe, says Richard Lewis, a hygiene technician for Rentokil. We deal with some extremely dirty sites.\nTypical salary: The entry-level salary is usually around 14,500 and a top salary can be up to 22,000.\nWorst part of the job: Cleaning up after suicides. You get used to the job being disgusting but the emotional side of it is still hard, he says. You also need to have a sense of humour because some days can be difficult.\nJob satisfaction: Lewis finds the variety of tasks exciting. One day, Im cleaning up after a dead body; another day, Im in a prison cell or high in the air being lowered down into a silo to clean it. He also takes pride in the changes he makes: Its satisfying to make a hazardous site safe again. And it benefits society.\n3. Biogas engineer The job: Setting up biogas plants in developing countries\nWhat it involves: Linking a system  which can be filled with human excrement, animal dung and other waste products  to toilets to produce a biogas that can be used for cooking and lighting. You have to know what size and shape the mixing pit needs to be, how to create the best temperature for the process and where to build the biogas plant, says Baburam Paudel, chief technical officer in Nepal for the charity Renewable World.\nTypical salary: An entry-level salary is around 10,000, while a typical salary for a chief technical officer is 30,000.\nWorst part of the job: For Paudel, its seeing people struggling to survive on very little income. You have to be willing to get your hands dirty during the build process and inspections. Unsurprisingly, the anaerobic digestion (the process that takes place when bacteria eat the waste and produce methane) smells like rotten eggs. It can be disgusting and there is no room for mistakes.\nJob satisfaction: I find it very satisfying to know that I am helping people to increase their incomes and allowing girls to go to school by replacing the need to collect firewood, says Paudel. My work improves the health and hygiene of whole communities.\n4. Eel ecologist The job: Conserving the critically endangered European eel\nWhat it involves: To monitor the size of the endangered eels, ecologists walk into the Thames and other London rivers full of eels, sometimes up to their armpits, and reach into a net filled with up to 20 adult eels to take one out with their bare hands. Adult eels can be a metre long, or even larger, and weigh up to 2kg. Theyre not at all dangerous but they are almost pure muscle and they can be a little bit slimy, says Stephen Mowat, an eel conservationist and ecologist for the Zoological Society of London. We have to weigh and measure them, and they wriggle  a lot. Its difficult to look professional while crawling on the ground chasing an eel across the grass.\nWorst part of the job: Eels are really tricky creatures to work with says Mowat. You also have to be ready to jump from one project to the next. I once had to cut up some dead eels to examine parasites living in them, moments before putting on a suit for a meeting. But, for Mowat, the worst part of the job is definitely not handling the eels  he believes baby eels (known as elvers) are as cute as pandas: The worst thing about the job is regularly learning how much damage we are doing to the environment.\nJob satisfaction: Working outdoors and seeing British wildlife up close is the best part of the job, says Mowat. Eels are beautiful creatures and working with eels doesnt just benefit the eel  it helps rivers and coastal areas. That is something worth doing.\n5. Shopping channel presenter The job: Selling and demonstrating a wide range of products on live TV\nWhat it involves: Presenting hours and hours of monotonous TV, while, at the same time, demonstrating the products and appearing to be enthusiastic and knowledgeable about everything that youre selling. I prepare and research as much technical and practical information as possible on every single product beforehand, says Shaun Ryan, presenter for Ideal World TV.\nTypical salary: A trainee presenter would start on a minimum of 30,000, while an experienced presenter can expect over 55,000.\nWorst part of the job: The unsociable hours, says Ryan. An experienced presenter like me generally has to work weekends, bank holidays and very late evenings, plus, occasionally, a 5am shift.\nJob satisfaction: I love the rush of live presenting and having to think on my feet every second, says Ryan. I also get an adrenaline rush from knowing that, at times, I have thousands of viewers ordering the product that I have just been presenting.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"The continual relegation of women to the sidelines of football was given a good kicking when France appointed its first female professional team manager. It did not matter that it was a second-division club. It did not matter if it was, as some bad sports \u2013 male, of course \u2013 suggested, just a cynical stunt to drum up publicity for a minor team, Clermont Foot 63, currently ranking a lowly 14th out of 20 in its league. \nWhat mattered was that Helena Costa had been given the top job, a move that saw her make football history by becoming the first female manager to be appointed in the highest two divisions of any professional European league. \u201cAs a woman, it\u2019s made me happy,\u201d V\u00e9ronique Soulier, president of the club\u2019s supporters\u2019 association, told journalists. \u201cWhen I first heard the news, I was rather surprised, but, once that passed, we were pretty unanimous that it\u2019s good news. We all agree that a woman at the head of a group of men is no bad thing.\u201d \nThe new manager of Clermont Foot 63, whose average home crowd at the stadium at Clermont- Ferrand in the Auvergne region of south-central France is around 3,800, is a former talent spotter for the Scottish Premiership side Celtic. Costa, 36, was born in Alhandra on the River Tagus in southeast Portugal and graduated with a master\u2019s degree in sports science. She is also a UEFA-licensed coach. She previously coached Benfica\u2019s male youth teams, the Qatar women\u2019s team, which she led to its first international victory in 2012, and, more recently, the Iranian women\u2019s national side, which she left in September 2013. \nCosta was appointed on a two-year contract by the president of Clermont Foot 63, Claude Michy, who is a champion at grabbing the headlines for his club. In 2013, he announced the team had signed Messi. They had. Not the Argentinian and FC Barcelona record-breaking striker Lionel Messi, but Junior Messi Enguene, a 20-year-old midfielder from Cameroon. \nFrance\u2019s women\u2019s minister, Najat Vallaud- Belkacem, tweeted: \u201cBravo to Clermont Foot for understanding that giving women a place is the future of professional football.\u201d \nCarolina Morace, an Italian who was the only previous woman coach of a men\u2019s professional team, said: \u201cI don\u2019t know Helena, but, if she has been hired by a team, then it means that she knows how to do her job. I hope that, one day, this can become normal.\u201d Morace was an outstanding player in the women\u2019s game. She was the top scorer for 12 seasons in Italy\u2019s Serie A and played for Italy in 153 internationals. In 1999, she was named as the coach of Viterbese in the men\u2019s Serie C1. But, after only two games, she resigned from the job following a clash with the club\u2019s mercurial proprietor, Luciano Gaucci, who at the time was also the owner of a Serie A side, Perugia. \nMorace was quoted as saying that she had refused Gaucci\u2019s demand that she fire her deputy and the side\u2019s trainer. \u201cHe let me know that I could carry on working with whomever I wanted. But, by then, mutual trust was lacking and I didn\u2019t fancy carrying on in that climate of uncertainty,\u201d she said. Morace works today as a lawyer in Rome and as expert soccer commentator on television and in the pages of the daily Gazzetta dello Sport. \nShe said: \u201cFor the time being, I see too many men, even in the women\u2019s game, who are working, despite not having the same expertise as women, who, by contrast, are not working.\u201d Raymond Domenech, former manager of the French national team, said: \u201cWomen know how to play football and how to manage and are good at doing it. Why shouldn\u2019t they manage men\u2019s teams? The opposite happens and doesn\u2019t cause any problems. It\u2019s a natural choice and reflects our society in which women are equal to men. I say well done to President Michy. I told myself that, if I took charge of a club again, I\u2019d hire a woman as my number two. He beat me to it.\u201d \nA statement on Clermont Foot 63\u2019s website said Costa\u2019s appointment would allow the club to enter \u201ca new era\u201d. On the club supporters\u2019 website, reaction to Costa\u2019s appointment was a mix of surprise and a certain cynicism. \u201cIn my opinion, it\u2019s just a publicity stunt to get people talking about the club and she won\u2019t last the season. I find it hard to believe she\u2019ll be able to get the players\u2019 respect, above all when she\u2019s the same age as the oldest,\u201d wrote one fan. \u201cHer CV isn\u2019t bad, but now the question is: will she be good enough?\u201d added another. A third wrote: \u201cI wish her welcome and success but I think it\u2019ll be hard for her to make her mark as a woman in such a macho business. Has our president pulled off a media coup?\u201d \nBut Soulier was hopeful: \u201cHopefully, with the new manager, the club can find the motivation they\u2019re lacking at the moment,\u201d she said. \u201cThe boys in the team can be difficult to manage. With a woman in charge, maybe they\u2019ll be less demanding.\u201d \nIf Costa\u2019s reputation is anything to go by, she will be the one making the demands. After doing work experience at Chelsea during her compatriot Jos\u00e9 Mourinho\u2019s first stint as manager of the club between 2004 and 2007, she was reportedly described as \u201cMourinho in a skirt\u201d. Costa quickly kicked the sexist remark into touch. \u201cLike Mourinho, I always want to win. As far as that\u2019s concerned, yes, I\u2019m happy to be compared with him,\u201d she said.","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"We do not yet live in an age of flying cars, as predicted in the 1985 film Back to the Future II, but smartphones and other new technologies are creating exciting possibilities. Experts agree that economic and population changes, new technology, and environmental concerns are having a big effect on transportation.\nWith an ageing transport infrastructure, cities in the US have to change and improve their transportation. Experts and scientists now realize that old ways of reducing traffic congestion aren\u2019t enough to solve the problems of population growth and carbon emissions, and transportation is now an environmental problem.\nBig US cities like Los Angeles and Chicago are adding more bus lanes and pedestrian walkways, and expanding rail networks. At the same time, they are creating advanced technologies that will allow a vehicle to drive itself and communicate with other vehicles and its environment.\nHere are three of the key ideas that experts predict will change transportation in the future.\nTaxi-sharing services like Uber and apps like Waze, which finds the quickest routes for drivers, are completely changing how people move around and affecting the way traffic moves through a city. Communication between riders and drivers, between different vehicles and between cars and infrastructure is bringing transportation into a new era.\nAccording to a recent study, people born in the 1990s are using cars less than older generations. According to the study, people born in the 1990s are making 4% fewer car trips and travelling 18% fewer miles per year, on average, than older generations did at the same time in their lives. And, people who still drive cars are experiencing less traffic thanks to Waze. \nTraffic congestion is improving in other ways, too. At the moment, a traffic light knows when a car is getting close but that\u2019s all. Companies are developing technology that allows a vehicle to tell traffic control systems not only that it is present but also where it is going and how fast it is travelling.\nWe have known about driverless cars ever since Google began testing the vehicles in 2012 but no-one really knows when driverless cars will become commonplace. But, there is already some automation of cars. Automation will probably happen in stages: first, there might be automated buses with their own lanes, then perhaps lorries in ports or mining towns: vehicles that are connected electronically and travel one behind another.\nThe idea of a fully automated transportation system is interesting because it could improve safety \u2013 people\u2019s mistakes won\u2019t cause accidents any more. It could also help reduce carbon emissions and traffic congestion. But, it will take a long time to get fully automated because the average age of cars on the road is 11.5 years old.\nTo see what driverless cars might look like on the road, go to the video at: vimeo.com\/37751380 .\nThe world is trying to slow down climate change and countries and cities are trying to reduce emissions. These things could have a big effect on the future of transportation and lead to zero- and low-emission vehicles and apps that encourage more walking, cycling and carpooling.\nWhen thinking about the future of transportation, it\u2019s also important to think about why people travel: they may be going to work, to meet friends or family, or to do the shopping. Technologies that reduce the need for those trips \u2013 for example, online meetings or online work \u2013 could also have a big effect on transportation.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Loneliness has finally become a hot topic \u2013 the Office for National Statistics has found Britain to be the loneliest country in Europe. British people are less likely to have strong friendships or know their neighbours than residents anywhere else in the EU and a relatively high proportion of them have no one to rely on in a crisis. Meanwhile, research by Professor John Cacioppo at the University of Chicago has found loneliness to be twice as bad for older people\u2019s health as obesity and almost as great a cause of death as poverty. \nBut, shocking as this is, such studies overlook the loneliness epidemic among younger adults. In 2010, the Mental Health Foundation found loneliness to be a greater concern among young people than the elderly. The 18- to 34-year-olds surveyed were more likely to feel lonely often, to worry about feeling alone and to feel depressed because of loneliness than the over-55s. \n\u201cLoneliness is a recognized problem among the elderly \u2013 there are day centres and charities to help them,\u201d says Sam Challis, an information manager at the mental health charity Mind, \u201cbut, when young people reach 21, they\u2019re too old for youth services.\u201d This is problematic because of the close relationship between loneliness and mental health \u2013 it is linked to increased stress, depression, paranoia, anxiety, addiction, cognitive decline and is a known factor in suicide. In a new essay, Paul Farmer, the chief executive of Mind, and Jenny Edwards, the chief executive of the Mental Health Foundation, say it can be both a cause and effect of mental health problems. \nBut what can young people do to combat loneliness? Dr Grant Blank, a survey research fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute, points out that social media and the internet can be a boon and a problem. They are beneficial when they enable us to communicate with distant loved ones, but not when they replace face-to-face contact. \u201cPeople present an idealized version of themselves online and we expect to have social lives like those portrayed in the media,\u201d says Challis. Comparing friends\u2019 seemingly perfect lives with ours can lead us to withdraw socially. \nWhile meditation techniques and apps such as Headspace are trendy solutions frequently recommended for a range of mental health problems, they\u2019re not necessarily helpful for loneliness, as they actively encourage us to dwell alone on our thoughts. \u201cYou\u2019d be better off addressing the underlying causes of being lonely first \u2013 what\u2019s stopping you going out and seeing people?\u201d asks Challis. \nIndeed, a study of social media at the University of Michigan in 2013 found that, while Facebook reduces life satisfaction, using technology to help you meet new people can be beneficial. And, if for whatever reason, you are unable to venture outside, the internet can bring solace. Mumsnet has been \u201can absolute godsend\u201d for Maddy Matthews, 19, a student with a two-month-old daughter. Since the birth, she rarely sees her university friends and her partner works most evenings. \u201cIn the first few days, I was up late at night feeding her and I was worried I was doing something wrong. Being able to post on Mumsnet has helped me feel less alone.\u201d \nHelplines can also reduce loneliness, at least in the short term. One in four men who call the emotional support charity Samaritans mention loneliness or isolation and Get Connected is a free confidential helpline for young people, where they can seek help with emotional and mental health issues often linked to loneliness. There are also support services on websites such as Mind\u2019s that can remind you you\u2019re not alone. \nAt work, it can be beneficial to tell your employer how you\u2019re feeling. John Binns, who advises businesses on mental health and well-being, was admitted to hospital for stress-related depression in 2007 and took two months off work. He felt as if there was no one to talk to and he wasn\u2019t close enough to colleagues for them to notice the changes in his behaviour. Greater openness with his employer and colleagues made his return to work easier. \u201cOften people find that colleagues are more supportive than they\u2019d expected. Mine started to reach out, asking me to lunch and reassuring me that the world hadn\u2019t moved on that much since I\u2019d left.\u201d \nOffice chit-chat may seem like a waste of time, but it helps to cushion us from the emotional and psychological effects of work strain. \u201cIf you form connections with your team, you might be stressed but not isolated,\u201d says Rick Hughes, \nthe British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy\u2019s (BACP) lead adviser for the workplace. \n\u201cWe treat the networks we have as incidental but they\u2019re fundamental to our well-being,\u201d says Nicky Forsythe, a psychotherapist and the founder of Talk for Health, a social enterprise that trains people to give and receive peer support in groups. \u201cThe most important thing is to have a regular time and place to reflect on your life and to have an empathetic listener.\u201d \nFor developing personal skills such as empathy, counselling can help. The BACP website allows you to search for counsellors in your area. \u201cA problem aired is a problem shared and sometimes you need to talk to someone impartial and independent of your friends and family,\u201d says Hughes. Most universities offer students such counselling and many run group sessions that specifically address loneliness. \nIf recent research is to be believed, loneliness is killing the elderly and, with an ageing population, we should aim to reduce our isolation before it is too late. \u201cGetting older doesn\u2019t have to mean getting lonelier,\u201d says Ruth Sutherland, the chief executive of the relationship counselling service Relate, in a new report. \u201cBut much of this rests on laying the foundations to good-quality relationships earlier in life.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"The inventor of a state-of-the-art computer-assisted autopsy system that is increasingly being used in European hospitals has claimed the technique could eventually mean there is no such thing as a 'perfect murder'. \nThe method, called 'Virtopsy', is now being used at selected forensic medical institutes in Europe, having been pioneered by a group of scientists at the University of Zurich. Instead of reaching for the scalpel and making the Y-shaped incision in the chest with which a traditional autopsy begins, pathologists are now able to examine the corpse in 3-D via computer screens. \nMichael Thali, the Director of Zurich\u2019s Institute for Forensic Medicine in Europe, and one of the inventors of Virtopsy, said it had the potential to revolutionize criminal investigations. \u201cBasically there will be no such thing as the perfect murder any more as a virtual autopsy allows you to find every piece of evidence,\u201d he said. \nVirtopsies combine the images from high-powered magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), computed tomography (CT) and surface scans of dead bodies. Combined, the devices are referred to as a 'Virtobot'. The technique allows the detection of injuries such as lesions and blows often undetectable during a traditional autopsy, as well as air pockets, heart attacks and even cancer. \n\u201cThe Virtopsy has the potential to replace the autopsy one day,\u201d Richard Dirndorfer, one of the pioneers of DNA analysis in criminology, and a founder developer of Virtopsy, told the German science magazine PM . \u201cI think we\u2019ll see it happen gradually, just like DNA analysis gradually replaced blood group analysis,\u201d he said. \nThe computer imaging techniques allow doctors to gain in-depth insights into the deepest interiors of dead bodies. The method has already allowed the discovery of haemorrhages and fractures that were not picked up during conventional autopsies. The initial aim is to use the new method to complement the traditional autopsy. \n\u201cIt will enable forensic scientists to plan their autopsies far more efficiently,\u201d Dominic Wichmann, an internal medicine specialist at Hamburg\u2019s University Hospital, told Spiegel. Criminologists from around the world have been travelling to Switzerland over the past few years to see the development of the new method for themselves. \nThe US forensic medical drama CSI has already twice featured Virtopsies. In one, the system was able to prove that a murder victim was killed by a bullet through the cheek; in another, a Virtopsy on a murdered man meant his wish to be cryogenically frozen could still go ahead as his body remained intact. \nThe method has been under development for decades, with the scientists behind it first housed in an unheated laboratory on a university campus where they were considered a bit of a laughing stock. Later, a donation from a rich ophthalmologist enabled the project to take off. Even then it was initially rejected for its potential to undermine the traditional skills of forensic scientists and pathologists. But a new generation appears to be seeing it as less of a threat and rather as something that will complement and substantiate conventional methods and possibly even one day replace them, though probably not entirely. \n\u201cIn order to analyze the colour of the blood, the consistencies (of body fluids) or smells, we\u2019ll need to keep on with the conventional cut,\u201d said Lars Oesterhelweg, Deputy Director of the Institute of Forensic Medicine at the Charit\u00e9 Hospital in Berlin, which is using a version of the Virtopsy. \nHe added that the new method was particularly helpful in re-examining cases where the cause of death was unclear. \u201cIt means that third opinions can be gathered, investigations can be re-examined and cases can be reopened,\u201d he said. \nScientists using the new method said that relatives of the dead, who are often reluctant for autopsies to be carried out because of the disfigurement they cause, were much keener on the non-invasive method.","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Robert Mys\u0142ajek stops. Between two paw prints on a mountain path, the scientist finds what he is looking for. \u201cDroppings!\u201d he says happily. It is so rare to see a wolf that seeing droppings makes it a good day.\nBut it is getting easier to see a wolf. There are now about 1,500 wolves in Poland. The number has doubled in 15 years. The wolf, the brown bear, the lynx and the wolverine are Europe\u2019s last large predator carnivores. Scientists from Britain, Germany and the Netherlands are coming here to find out how the country has saved wolves who have a bad reputation even in fairy tales.\nBits of bone and hair stick out from the droppings. \u201cIt ate a red deer,\u201d says Myslajek. \u201cI can tell you all about this wolf \u2013 what it eats, if it\u2019s a male or female, its sexual habits, age, health and family connections.\u201d\nDNA tests have shown that Polish wolves are travellers. \u201cOne wolf walked to the Netherlands, where it was hit by a car. They travel very far. They need space. The average territory of a Polish pack is 250 square kilometres,\u201d said Mys\u0142ajek.\nThe scientist says wolves can move up to 30 kilometres during a single hunt. \u201cThe pack that he is tracking is a strong group of eight or nine animals. \u201cThis year, we have recorded five cubs, two young wolves and two adults.\n\u201cWe follow them using special cameras in the forest and by following their prints in the mud and snow. In each family group, only one pair of adults has cubs each year. All the wolves in the pack look after the young.\u201d\nMys\u0142ajek, the son of a shepherd, doesn\u2019t understand wolves\u2019 bad reputation. \u201cWhy did we have to have the fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood, with its big bad wolf?\u201d\nHe is fascinated by these animals, who remained in the wild 33,000 years ago when other types of dog decided on a much more comfortable life as pets.\nMys\u0142ajek says only the need to save forests and control the wild animal population can save Europe\u2019s wild carnivores, especially the unpopular wolf. \u201cNatural predators balance the ecosystem. They reduce the number of herbivores, which allows trees to grow tall for birds to nest in.\u201d\nThe ban on wolf hunting in the western Carpathian mountains became law in 1995 and in the whole of Poland in 1998. There are now wolf packs in nearly all the country\u2019s major forests where the wolves exist together with humans.\nThe Polish government pays compensation to farmers when a wolf kills their farm animals. Mys\u0142ajek tells farmers to put up electric fences. He also tells them to use two things that wolves find scary: strings of small red flags (to keep wolves away from sheep) and the Tatra Mountain Sheepdog.\nPoland didn\u2019t have many big roads until recently and this has helped wolves. In 1989, when the communists left power, Poland had only one motorway. Big road projects began after Poland joined the European Union in 2004 and they now have to consider wild animals.\nThe way people think about wolves has also changed. \u201cFor many years, hunting was a part of life in Poland. In 1975, there were fewer than 100 wolves in Poland.\u201d\nMys\u0142ajek says that Polish wolves are much safer now but they are not completely safe. Packs go into neighbouring countries \u2013 Russia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine and Slovakia \u2013 where there is still hunting.\nHe says Poland\u2019s new government doesn\u2019t like wolves. \u201cThe Environment Minister, Jan Szyszko, is a hunter. There are 120,000 hunters in Poland and they have a lot of influence.\n\u201cIt\u2019s not easy to defend wolves. You can\u2019t say to the politicians that wolves are a big tourist attraction. Most tourists want to see the animals but wolves stay away from humans. They have a very strong sense of smell.\u201d","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nMusic subscription services, including Spotify and Deezer, have broken through the $1bn sales barrier worldwide, as fans choose to pay for music online.\nStreaming and subscription revenues rose by more than 50% in 2013 to reach $1.1bn, and sales of recorded music in Europe grew for the  rst time in 12 years, according to  gures published in March.\nWhile many people still listen for free, a desire for more choice is persuading more music lovers to part with their cash. In a three-year period, the number of paying subscribers rose from 8 million to 28 million, according to the 2014 digital music report from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI).\nEasily accessible from smartphones and tablets, subscription services are popular with people who want to try out new music without buying a download or a CD. They like this cheap, user-friendly and legal alternative to pirated downloads. It is now clear that music streaming and subscription is a mainstream model for our business, said IFPI Chief Executive, Frances Moore.\nThe IFPI also said that One Direction were the biggest selling artists of 2013, with 4m physical and digital sales for their Midnight Memories album. Katy Perrys Prism was the best-selling album by a female artist, in sixth place behind Eminem, Justin Timberlake, Bruno Mars and Daft Punk.\nConsumer-technology companies are joining the music-streaming trend. Apple has its iTunes Radio and Google its Play Store. Smaller companies like Beats Music are also joining the trend.\nIn Britain and America, streaming may soon generate more revenue for the music industry than downloads from online stores such as Apples iTunes. Subscription services now account for a third of all digital sales globally, with downloads making up the rest, but the IFPI data shows that the two formats are growing at different rates.\nIn the US, the percentage of people using subscription services and streaming rose from 19% in 2012 to 23%, while the percentage of people downloading fell from 28% to 27%. In Britain, downloaders remained static at exactly one third, while subscribers grew from 19% to 22%. In Sweden, France and Italy, streaming is already more popular than downloading.\nDigital formats now account for 39% of all music sales, or nearly 5.9bn out of 15bn, and, while sales of physical formats, such as CDs and vinyl, declined steeply in 2013, they still contribute just over half the industrys income.\nVinyl continued to make a comeback in some markets. Sales increased by 32% in America and by 101% in the UK in 2013.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Introduction\nDid you know that, in the UK, there is no law that says restaurants have to pass on tips to staff?\nA new government report asked workers, employers and customers what they thought about tipping. After reading the report, the UK government says it wants to change the rules to make sure that low-paid workers get the tips that customers leave for them.\nThe report said that some waiters are made to pay a 15% administration fee on tips that customers pay by credit or debit card.\nThe government said that it wants customers to know that tips are voluntary. They want the tipping process to be made clearer so that everyone can understand it.\nWe asked waiters around the UK what they think of tipping, including how much money they get from tips and if it\u2019s fair.\n2. Elle, 22, Edinburgh: \u2018We never know whether it\u2019s fair\u2019\nAverage tips: \u00a320 per eight-hour shift\nI think they treat waiters best in ... France\nI have three part-time jobs. My day job is in a caf\u00e9 where the staff work both in the caf\u00e9 and in the kitchen so all our tips go in a pot and we all get the same. My evening job is at a restaurant where we don\u2019t get our tips but we get the minimum wage plus an extra \u00a32.50 per hour. My third job is events catering and nobody ever tips.\nIn restaurants, because a lot of customers add tips by card, the staff never see how much the tip is \u2013 so we don\u2019t know if what we get is fair or not. The system seems better in France, where they don\u2019t tip much but being a waiter is seen as a proper job with job security and good wages.\n3. Ashley, 22, London: \u2018Tips go towards customer breakages\u2019\nAverage tips: \u00a310-15 per eight-hour shift\nI think they treat waiters best in ... Australia\nI work in a London pub in the evenings and I do day shifts at a local restaurant. In both places, all the tips are collected and shared out at the end of the night. Money is taken from the tips to pay for breakages by staff and customers.\nIt is very unfair that our tips are shared out, especially when one member of the team doesn\u2019t work hard enough. It\u2019s really unfair that money from our tips is taken for breakages by customers. The managers should have ways to pay for broken glasses and plates without taking our tips. I make around \u00a320 a shift in tips but often I only get \u00a310-15 of that money.\nI really need tips because I am only paid \u00a37 an hour. I\u2019d prefer to get a good basic wage (like in Australia) and not have to rely on tips.\n4. Tom, Manchester: \u2018A big night of tips can help pay the rent\u2019\nAverage tips: \u00a340 per eight-hour shift\nI think they treat waiters best in ... Italy\nWhere I used to work, waiters kept 80% of cash tips and 40% of card tips. The rest went to the other staff in the restaurant.\nIt\u2019s hard to say how much I earn in a shift; maybe about \u00a340. It can make a big difference. Sometimes, waiters need a good night to be able to pay their rent.\nThey have got tipping right in Italy, where customers don\u2019t add a big tip but usually round up their bill so, if their meal is \u20ac19, they leave a \u20ac20 note and don\u2019t ask for change.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nScientists have implanted a false memory in the brains of mice in an experiment that they hope will help to explain why people remember events or experiences that have never happened.\nFalse memories are a major problem with witness statements in courts of law. Evidence that eyewitnesses give often leads to guilty verdicts, but later the convictions are overturned when DNA or some other evidence is used.\nSusumu Tonagawa, a neuroscientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and his team wanted to study how these false memories might form in the human brain, so they encoded memories in the brains of mice by manipulating individual neurons. Memories of experiences we have had are made from several elements including records of objects, space and time. These records are encoded in physical and chemical changes in brain cells and the connections between them. According to Tonagawa, both false and genuine memories seem to use the same brain mechanisms.\nIn the experiment, Tonagawas team put the mice in a box and allowed them to explore it. As they did so, their brain cells were producing a memory protein. The next day, the same mice were put in a second box and given a small electric shock, to encode a fear response. At the same time, the researchers shone light into the mouse brains to activate their memories of the first box. That way, the mice learned to associate fear of the electric shock with the memory of the first box.\nIn the final part of the experiment, the team put the mice back in the first box. The mice froze, showing a typical fear response, even though they had never been shocked in that box.\nA similar process may happen when powerful false memories are created in humans. Humans are very imaginative animals, said Tonagawa.  So, just like our mouse, it is quite possible we can associate what we happen to have in our mind with bad or good events. In other words, there could be a false association of what you have in your mind rather than what is happening to you.\nHe added: Our study showed that the false memory and the genuine memory are based on very similar, almost identical, brain mechanisms. It is difficult for the person with false memories to distinguish between them. We hope our future findings along this line will show legal experts how unreliable memory can be.\nChris French, of the University of London, is a leading researcher in false memories in people. He said that the latest results were an important first step in understanding them. Memory researchers have always recognized that memory does not work like a video camera, recording all the details of anything we experience. Instead, it is a reconstructive process, which involves building a specific memory from fragments of real memory traces of the original event, but also possibly including information from other sources.\nHe warned that the false memories created in the mice in the experiments were far simpler than the complex false memories that have caused controversy within psychology and psychiatry  for example, false memories of childhood sexual abuse, abduction by aliens, or past lives. Such rich false memories will clearly involve many brain systems and we are still a long way from understanding the processes involved in their formation at the neuronal level, he said.\nMark Stokes, a neuroscientist at Oxford University, said the experiments were a great achievement but that it was important to put them into perspective. Although the results seem to show that new memories were formed by the artificial stimulation (rather than the actual environment), this kind of phenomenon is still a long way from most peoples idea of memory, he said.\nThe mouse models created by the MIT team will help scientists ask more and more complex questions about memories in people. Now that we can change the contents of memories in the brain, we can begin asking questions that were once the realm of philosophy, said Steve Ramirez, a colleague of Tonagawas at MIT. Are there multiple conditions that lead to the formation of false memories? Can false memories be artificially created? What about false memories for more than just contexts  false memories for objects, food or other mice? These are the seemingly sci-fi questions that can now be experimentally tackled in the lab.\nAs the technology develops, said French, scientists need to think about its uses carefully. In whatever way we implant false memories, we need to be very aware of the ethical issues raised by such procedures  the potential for abuse of such techniques cannot be overstated.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"You can be Aagot, Arney or \u00c1sfr\u00ed\u00f0ur; Baldey, Bebba or Br\u00e1. D\u00f6gg, Dimmbl\u00e1, Etna and Eybj\u00f6rt are fine; likewise Frigg, Gl\u00f3d\u00eds, H\u00f6rn and Ingunn. J\u00f3rlaug works OK, as do Obba, Sigurflj\u00f3\u00f0, \u00daran\u00eda and \u2013 should you choose \u2013 Vagna. But you cannot, as a girl in Iceland, be called Harriet. \n\u201cThe whole situation,\u201d said Tristan Cardew, with very British understatement, \u201cis really rather silly.\u201d With his Icelandic wife, Kristin, Cardew is appealing against a decision by the National Registry in the capital Reykjavik not to renew their ten-year-old daughter Harriet\u2019s passport on the grounds that it does not recognize her first name. \nSince the registry does not recognize the name of Harriet\u2019s 12-year-old brother, Duncan, either, the two children have, until now, travelled on passports identifying them as St\u00falka and Drengur Cardew: Girl and Boy Cardew. \u201cBut, this time, the authorities have decided to apply the letter of the law,\u201d Cardew, a British-born cook who moved to Iceland in 2000, said. \u201cAnd that says no official document will be issued to people who do not bear an approved Icelandic name.\u201d \nThe impasse meant the family, from K\u00f3pavogur, risked missing their holiday in France until they applied to the British embassy for an emergency UK passport, which should now allow them to leave. \nNames matter in Iceland, a country of barely 320,000 people, whose phone book lists subscribers by their first name for the very sensible reason that the vast majority of Icelandic surnames simply record the fact that you are your father\u2019s (or mother\u2019s) son or daughter. J\u00f3n Einarsson\u2019s offspring, for example, might be \u00d3lafur J\u00f3nsson and Sigr\u00ed\u00f0ur J\u00f3nsd\u00f3ttir. \nThe law dictates that the names of children born in Iceland must \u2013 unless both parents are foreign \u2013 be submitted to the National Registry within six months of birth. If they are not on a recognized list of 1,853 female and 1,712 male names, the parents must seek the approval of a body called the Icelandic Naming Committee. \nFor the 5,000 or so children born in Iceland each year, the committee reportedly receives about 100 applications and rejects about half under a 1996 act aimed mainly at preserving the language of the sagas. Among its requirements are that given names must be \u201ccapable of having Icelandic grammatical endings\u201d, may not \u201cconflict with the linguistic structure of Iceland\u201d and should be \u201cwritten in accordance with the ordinary rules of Icelandic orthography\u201d. \nWhat this means in practice is that names containing letters that do not officially exist in Iceland\u2019s 32-letter alphabet, such as \u201cc \u201d, are out. Similarly, names unable to accommodate the endings required by the nominative, accusative, genitive and dative cases used in Icelandic are also routinely turned down. \u201cThat was the problem with Harriet,\u201d said Cardew. \nThe country\u2019s naming laws have come under increasing fire in recent years: in 2013, Bl\u00e6r \u2013 \u201cLight Breeze\u201d \u2013 Bjarkard\u00f3ttir R\u00fanarsdottir won the right to be officially known by her given name, as opposed to \u201cGirl\u201d, when a court ruled that denying her was a violation of the Icelandic constitution. The former mayor of Reykjavik, J\u00f3n Gnarr, has also called Iceland\u2019s naming law \u201cunfair, stupid and against creativity\u201d. \nThe Cardews could get round Harriet\u2019s problem by giving her an Icelandic middle name. \u201cBut it\u2019s a bit late for that and way too silly,\u201d said Cardew. \u201cAre they saying they don\u2019t want us here?\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nOn an average day its outlets host everything from business meetings to reading groups. All these people are looking for that important morning coffee. But Starbucks should be careful what it wishes for.\nThe direct action group UK Uncut plans to turn dozens of the coffee empires UK outlets into crches, refuges and homeless shelters to highlight Starbucks tax avoidance tactics.\nThey announced the action as Starbucks were questioned by the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee. They asked why the company paid no corporation tax in the UK during the past three years, despite the companys profitable business in Britain.\nWhen he appears before the committee, Starbucks Chief Financial Officer, Troy Alstead, will attempt to repair the companys reputation.\nMPs accused the HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC), the UKs tax department, of having cosy relationships with big businesses. Speaking about the arrangements with Starbucks, the Conservative MP Richard Bacon said: It smells. And it doesnt smell of coffee  it smells bad.\nThe campaign group UK Uncut wants to show a connection between government cuts, in particular those that affect women, and tax avoidance by multinational businesses.\nSarah Greene, a UK Uncut activist, said funding for refuges and rape crisis centres would be reduced unless companies paid the fair amount of tax. HMRC estimates around 32bn was lost due to tax avoidance in 2011.\nGreene said the government could easily collect billions that could help pay for necessary services if they were stricter on tax avoidance.\nThe group, which became known because of its protests at Vodafone stores, Topshop and Fortnum & Mason, turned its attentions to Starbucks beause an investigation discovered the company had paid only 8.6m in corporation tax since launching in the UK in 1998, despite cumulative sales of 3bn.\nUncut campaigner Anna Walker said Weve chosen to really highlight the impact of the cuts on women. So were going to focus on transforming Starbucks into those services that the government are cutting, such as refuges and crches.\nStarbucks is a really great target because it is on every high street across the country and thats what UK Uncut finds really important: people can take action in their local areas, she said.\nSeveral international organizations have been criticized over their UK accounts. Amazon, eBay, Facebook, Google and Ikea all pay little or no corporation tax.\nThe coffee store chain, Starbucks, insists it pays the correct level of taxes. The group Chief Executive, Howard Schultz, has said in a statement: Starbucks has always paid taxes in the UK.\nOver the last three years alone, our company has paid more than 160m in various taxes, including National Insurance*, VAT and business rates.\nMargaret Hodge, who leads the Public Accounts Committee, told parliament last month that Apple, eBay, Facebook, Google and Starbucks had avoided nearly 900m of tax. The Prime Minister, David Cameron, responded to the claim by saying: Im not happy with the current situation. I think [HMRC] needs to look at it very carefully. We do need to make sure we continue to encourage these businesses to invest in our country, but they should be paying fair taxes as well.\nA spokeswoman for Starbucks said: While the subject of tax law can be extremely complex, Starbucks respects and obeys tax laws and accounting rules in each of the 61 countries where we do business, including the UK. Weve posted the facts about our tax practices in the UK on our website.\nStarbucks economic impact in the UK goes far beyond our stores and partners [employees]. We spend hundreds of millions of pounds with local suppliers on milk, cakes and sandwiches, and on store design and renovations. When you consider the indirect employment created by Starbucks investments in the UK, the companys extended economic impact to the UK economy is more than 80m a year.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"It has charted the world\u2019s highest peaks, the ocean floor, the Amazon rainforest and even provided a glimpse into North Korea. But Google\u2019s mission to map the world has largely steered clear of the inhospitable Arctic. \nNow, however, the search-engine firm is embarking on what might be the most significant update to centuries of polar cartography \u2013 and one it hopes will help provide a better understanding of life on the permafrost for millions of web users. Google has flown a small team to Iqaluit, the largest town in the Canadian territory of Nunavut, armed with their warmest winter gear, a stack of laptop computers and an 18kg backpack- mounted telescopic camera. \nHelped by an Inuit mapping expert, and stalked by curious locals, the team spent four days trudging through the terrain and collecting the images and information that will give the isolated community on the tundra of Baffin Island what urbanites across the globe now take for granted. \nThe town of 7,000 people will go on display via Google\u2019s popular Street View application in July 2013. \nAaron Brindle, project leader, said: \u201cI live in Toronto and I absolutely take for granted that everything is where it should be and that this map is kind of my world, but for so long that hasn\u2019t been the case in the north.\u201d \nUnlike more populous and accessible parts of the world, which have been mapped using a special camera mounted on a car roof, the Iqaluit project had mappers hiking the town\u2019s snow-packed roads and traversing little-known trails, some of which are made of ice and disappear in the brief summer months. \nThe team also cut a path along part of a 15km cul-de-sac known as the Road to Nowhere, despite warnings about the risk from polar bears and other wildlife. \nMayor John Graham said the digital cartographers were, however, hunted by a herd of excited and curious locals, or Google stalkers. \nGraham understands the enthusiasm. The Street View project, he said, follows in the footsteps of the English explorer Martin Frobisher, who in 1576 sailed into the bay where Iqaluit now sits while searching for the Northwest Passage, and the 1941 flight of Captain Elliott Roosevelt, a reconnaissance officer and son of the US President, which led to the site being chosen for a military airbase. His exploration led to the founding of the modern town of Iqaluit, which is the seat of government as well as a transport and communications hub for Nunavut. \nOne of the initial challenges Google faced was gathering the raw data needed to fill in their existing map. What they had created using satellite images was fairly accurate, although the rapid pace of the town\u2019s growth, which has been fuelled by a mining boom, meant they were missing one road that had been created in the past year, said Arif Sayani, the town\u2019s Director of Planning. \nAnother difficulty was how to situate many businesses and homeowners that have mail sent to the local post office rather than delivered to their address. Plotting the PO box addresses would result in a map with firms, banks and schools clustered around the Canada Post building in the centre of town. \nAbout 30 Inuit elders, entrepreneurs and high-school pupils turned out one night to help correct such problems. They were provided with a laptop computer and instructed how to ensure their homes, shops and meeting places would show up accurately on the map. \nThe project is more than a novelty or cultural philanthropy. Sayani, 32, said the town would be able to use the maps as a promotional tool for those thinking of visiting or moving to the area. It may also speed up planning decisions that will affect Iqaluit\u2019s growth. \nThe test run for the Iqaluit mapping exercise occurred last summer in Cambridge Bay, a much smaller Nunavut town of about 1,500 people located 1,700km and a time zone west of Iqaluit. \nThe gravel roads and muddy puddles that can now be seen online, however, give little sense of life in a land usually covered in snow, which is one reason why Google selected the less- hospitable month of March to travel to Iqaluit. \nBrindle said he hoped to see the work continue in other northern towns, though the high costs of shipping and airfares to move people and equipment around the vast Arctic territory appears to be weighing on Google\u2019s ambitions. \nThe next northern site has not yet been identified but, when it is selected, Brindle said the company might simply send one of its hi-tech backpacks and rely on volunteers to literally put themselves on the map. \n\u201cI\u2019m hoping that three, four, five years from now we\u2019ll look back and see a very different map of Canada\u2019s north,\u201d Brindle added.","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nIt was a beautiful summer evening and I decided to go for a swim off Doolin Pier in County Clare, Ireland, where I moved in 2012. There was a woman in the water with Dusty, a dolphin who has a great relationship with a group of people she regularly swims with. Dusty arrived in Doolin in about 2008 and hundreds of people have swum with her since, giving the impression that shes totally tame.\nThat evening, the woman was tickling Dustys tummy and it just looked so inviting. There were about 20 tourists and locals on the pier, looking at this lovely spectacle. Just after I got into the water, Dusty left the woman she was with and went crazy  I found out afterwards that shes very territorial when she is with somebody. Her tail was flapping wildly and, at first, I thought it was a display but, then, I realized she was angry. I knew I had to get out of the water so I swam towards the pier but, within seconds, Dusty had crashed into me with her snout. It was very powerful and painful, and the speed was amazing. I was pushed forwards violently.\nAll the people on the pier were staring down at me open-mouthed. Dusty was still in the water beside me, her tail flapping crazily. That was more frightening than anything: I thought, if she hits me with her tail, I could go under and drown.\nI was at the pier but couldnt get out because of my injuries. I felt pure terror. I shouted for help and a guy put his arm in and pulled me out on to the steps. Then, another man appeared and said he was an orthopaedic surgeon. He had been driving into Doolin when he saw what was happening on the pier. I was so cold and very worried  I didnt know how bad my injuries were and my biggest fear was internal bleeding. He checked me over and said he couldnt feel any evidence of bleeding but that I probably had broken bones. I found out later that I had six spinal fractures, three broken ribs and a damaged lung.\nI was in hospital for five days and off work for five months with limited mobility and pain. Then, I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress. My near-death experience had left me anxious about everything. I felt that people were looking at me in the wrong way, I began to struggle with loud noises and I suffered from memory loss. Three months before the accident, I had opened a health-food shop but I had to let it go because I could no longer work.\nIt was the hardest year ever but, now, its all behind me. I had therapy, osteopathy and massage, and am building up my own osteopathy practice now. I have a new empathy with patients because I have been one.\nI am grateful that I am healthy and I really want to prevent other people being injured. We have this lovely idea about dolphins and have faith in them  who would think a dolphin would ever attack a person? If you see a fierce animal coming towards you with its teeth bared, its scary, but dolphins have this lovely, wide smile.\nI dont have any anger towards Dusty. I respect her. But I was in her territory and shes a wild, unpredictable animal. People need to know that. So many come here to swim with her and they dont understand how dangerous it can be. Several other people were injured that summer.\nAfter the man pulled me out of the water, Dusty swam away but, then, she came back and was looking at me. Our eyes met and I felt there was complete remorse in her. She was a totally different dolphin; the anger had gone. The people on the pier were in awe. When she had that little moment with me, that was the end of the terror. I made my peace with her.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nA company from the Netherlands is trying to turn dreams of reaching Mars into reality. The company, Mars One, plans to send four astronauts on a trip to the Red Planet to set up a human colony in 2023. But there are a couple of serious problems.\nFirstly, when on Mars the astronauts bodies will have to adapt to surface gravity that is 38% of that on Earth. It is thought that this would cause such a total change in their bone density, muscle strength and circulation that the astronauts would no longer be able to survive in Earths conditions. Secondly, and directly related to the first, they will have to say goodbye to all their family and friends, as there is no return ticket.\nThe Mars One website states that a return cannot be anticipated nor expected. To return, they would need a fully built rocket with enough fuel for the return journey, which is able to escape the gravitational field of Mars, and has on-board life support systems for a seven-month trip. And they must be able to link up with a space station orbiting Earth or perform a safe re-entry and landing.\nNevertheless, the project has already had 10,000 applicants, according to the companys Medical Director, Norbert Kraft. He told The Guardian that the applicants so far ranged in age from 18 to at least 62 and, though they include women, they were mostly men.\nThe reasons they gave for wanting to go were varied, he said. An American woman called Cynthia, who gave her age as 32, said that it was a childhood dream of hers to go to Mars.\nShe told the project: When I first heard about the Mars One project I thought, this is my chance  that childhood dream could become a reality. I could be one of the pioneers, building the first colony on Mars and teaching people back home that there are still uncharted territories that humans can reach for.\nThe main attributes Mars One is looking for in astronaut-settlers are resilience, adaptability, curiosity, ability to trust and resourcefulness, according to Kraft. They must also be over 18.\nMars One says that the basic things required for life are already present on the planet. For instance, water can be taken from ice in the soil and Mars has sources of nitrogen, the primary element in the air we breathe. The colony will be powered by specially adapted solar panels, it says.\nThe project will cost a reported $6bn, and Bas Lansdorp, the founder of Mars One, has said he hopes this money will be collected partly by selling broadcasting rights. The broadcasting revenue from the London Olympics was almost enough to finance a mission to Mars, Lansdorp said.\nAnother ambassador to the project is Paul Rmer, the co-creator of Big Brother, one of the first, and most successful, reality TV shows. This mission to Mars could be the biggest media event in the world, said Rmer. Reality meets talent show with no ending and the whole world watching.\nThe aim is to establish a permanent human colony, according to Mars Ones website. The first team would land on Mars in 2023 to begin building the colony, with a team of four astronauts every two years after that.\nThe project has its sceptics, however, and people are worried about how astronauts might get to the planet and build a colony with all the life support and other requirements needed.\nThe mission hopes to inspire generations to believe that all things are possible, that anything can be achieved, like the Apollo moon landings.\nMars One believes it is not only possible but necessary that we establish a permanent colony on Mars in order to speed up our understanding of the formation of the solar system, the origins of life and, of equal importance, our place in the universe, it says.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"On average, a girl born today in the UK will live to the age of nearly 82 and her brother will live to 78. They would have a longer life in Andorra (the girl 85 and the boy 79) but will live a little longer than in the US (81 and 76). If they lived in the Central African Republic, they would die in middle age (49 and 44). Almost everywhere in the world, except countries such as Lesotho, which have problems with HIV and violence, life expectancy is increasing. The best news is that small children die much less often than forty years ago. There has been a reduction in deaths of under-fives of nearly 60%, from 16.4 million in 1970 to 6.8 million in 2010. \nOver the past five years, the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) in Seattle has led a very big project to look at the global effects of disease. If we know how many children die and why, the world can try to keep them alive. The big IHME database will help global organizations and governments to better care for us all. \nThe project has been controversial. IHME has been very radical in some of its methods. When they didn\u2019t have death registries or medical records they decided the cause of death by an interview with the family \u2013 called a 'verbal autopsy'. The most surprising result has been with malaria. IHME said 1.2 million die of the disease every year \u2013 this is twice as many as people believed. The big increase is in adult deaths. It is commonly believed that malaria kills mostly children under five. \n\u201cWe are taught, as doctors, that in areas with malaria, you become semi-immune as an adult,\u201d said Dr Christopher Murray, IHME Director. But he says the evidence tells them that may not be right. \u201cAfrican doctors write on hospital records that adults are dying of malaria a lot.\u201d But their fever could be something different, he adds. The results have led to more studies. \nAlthough the Director General of the World Health Organization was happy about the IHME study, other people are not so sure. \u201cWe need to be very careful,\u201d said Colin Mathers, a senior scientist. He thinks scientists need to find out if the numbers are correct. One of the most important things in the study, said Murray, was \u201cthe very fast change in the main causes of death and the speed of that change is a lot faster than we thought\u201d. \nReduced fertility and longer life have led to an increase in the average age of the world\u2019s population in ten years from 26 years old to almost 30. The change has been dramatic in Latin America, for example, where countries like Brazil and Paraguay had life expectancy of below 30 in 1970 and almost 64 in 2010. That is a 35-year increase in the average age of death in forty years. \nAlso important is the change outside Africa from communicable diseases to \u201clifestyle\u201d diseases, such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes and cancer. That change is very obvious in Latin America, the Middle East and south-east and even south Asia, Murray said. \nThe third big result was, he said, \u201ca surprise to us\u201d. The study showed that there are lots of people with disabilities and it has a big effect on people who are living longer but not healthier lives. \u201cThe main causes of disability are different from the ones that kill you,\u201d he said. They were mental health problems, such as anxiety and depression, disorders, such as arthritis and lower back pain, anaemia, sight and hearing loss and skin disease. Also, there was drug abuse. \u201cThe number of people with these problems is not reducing over time,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are making no progress in reducing these problems.\u201d","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"A company from the Netherlands wants to turn dreams of reaching Mars into reality. The company, Mars One, plans to send four astronauts to the Red Planet to build a human colony in 2023. But there are two serious problems. \nFirstly, on Mars the astronauts\u2019 bodies will have to adapt to gravity that is 38% of gravity on Earth. This would probably cause such a total change in their bones, muscles and circulation that the astronauts would no longer be able to survive on Earth. Secondly, they will have to say goodbye to all their family and friends, because there is no return ticket. \nThe Mars One website says that the astronauts cannot expect to return. To return, they would need a rocket that can leave Mars. The rocket would need life support systems for a seven-month journey and would need to either join up with a space station or land safely on Earth. \nBut the project has already had 10,000 applicants, according to the company\u2019s Medical Director, Norbert Kraft. He told The Guardian that the applicants so far were aged 18 to at least 62 and, although they include women, they were mostly men. \nMars One says that the astronauts must be resilient, adaptable, curious, trusting and resourceful. They must also be over 18. Mars One says that the basic things people need to live are already present on the planet. For example, they can take water from ice in the soil and Mars has sources of nitrogen, the primary element in the air we breathe. The colony will use solar panels to get power, it says. \nThe project will cost around $6 billion. Some of this money could come from TV broadcasting rights. \u201cThe money made broadcasting the London Olympics was almost enough to pay for a mission to Mars,\u201d Bas Lansdorp, the company\u2019s founder, said. \nAnother person who supports the project is Paul R\u00f6mer, one of the creators of Big Brother, one of the first and most successful reality TV shows. \u201cThis mission to Mars could be the biggest media event in the world,\u201d said R\u00f6mer. \u201cA reality show and a talent show, with no ending and the whole world watching.\u201d \nMars One wants to build a permanent human colony, according to its website. The first team would land on Mars in 2023 to begin building the colony, and a team of four astronauts would arrive every two years after that. \nBut some people are sceptical of the project, and some people are worried about how astronauts might get to the planet and build a colony with all the life support and other things they need. \nThe mission hopes to inspire people to \u201cbelieve that all things are possible, that you can achieve anything,\u201d like the Apollo moon landings. \n\u201cMars One believes it is not only possible but necessary that we build a permanent colony on Mars so that we can improve our understanding of the solar system, the origins of life, and our place in the universe,\u201d it says.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nThe Virunga National Park is home to rare mountain gorillas but is targeted for oil exploration by a British company. The park could earn DR Congo $400m a year from tourism, hydropower and carbon credits, said a WWF report.\nBut if the UNESCO World Heritage Site that crosses the equator is exploited for oil, as the Congolese government and exploration firm SOCO International are hoping, it could lead to devastating pollution and permanent conflict in the region, says the WWF.\nSOCO International is the only company that wants to explore inside the boundaries of the Virunga park. SOCO insist that their operations in Congo would be kept to an area in the park known as Block V, and would not affect the gorillas.\nSOCO Chairman Rui de Sousa said: Despite the views of WWF, SOCO is extremely sensitive to the environmental significance of the Virunga National Park. Oil companies still have a central role in todays global energy supply and a successful oil project has the potential to transform the economic and social well-being of a whole country.\nHowever, Raymond Lumbuenamo, country director for WWF Democratic Republic of the Congo, based in Kinshassa, said that security in and around the park would get worse if SOCO went ahead with its exploration plans.\nThe security situation is already bad. The UN is involved with fighting units and the M23 rebel force is inside the park. Oil would be a curse. It always increases conflict. The park might become like the Niger Delta. Developing Virunga for oil will not make anything better.\nThe population there is already very dense, with over 350 people per square kilometre. When you take part of the land (for oil), you put more pressure on the rest. Oil would not provide many jobs; people would flood in looking for work, he said.\nOne fear is that the area is seismically active and another eruption of one of the volcanoes in the park could damage oil company infrastructure and lead to oil spills in the lakes. Virungas rich natural resources are for the benefit of the Congolese people, not for foreign oil prospectors. Our countrys future depends on sustainable economic development, said Lumbuenamo.\nFor me, choosing the conservation option is the best option. Once you have started drilling for oil, theres no turning back, he said.\nBut Lumbuenamo accepted that, while the gorillas were safe now, the chances of the park making $400m a year were small. It would be difficult to make the kind of money that the report talks of. Virunga used to be a very peaceful place and can be again. The security situation right now is bad. The UN is involved with fighting units. Its not as quiet as it used to be.\nAccording to the WWF report, ecosystems in the park could support hydropower generation, fishing and ecotourism, and play an important role in providing secure water supplies, regulating climate and preventing soil erosion.\nThe park, Africas oldest and most diverse, is home to over 3,000 different kinds of animals, but is now heavily populated with desperately poor people, many of whom went there after the Rwanda massacre in 1994.\nIn all, the park could support around 45,000 permanent jobs. In addition, people around the world could know that the park is well managed and is safe for future generations, says the report.\nVirunga represents a valuable asset to DR Congo and contributes to Africas heritage as the oldest and most biodiverse park on the continent, the report continues. Plans to explore for oil and exploit oil reserves put Virungas potential value at risk, it says.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Governments across Europe dream of finding a magic solution to rising unemployment. But, in the hardest-hit parts of the EU, joblessness rates continue to creep up and the rhetoric does little to shorten the dole queue. \nNow, in a struggling corner of Italy, one mayor thinks he has found an answer to his town\u2019s chronic lack of work \u2013 although, rather than a solution, it appears to some to be more of an admission of defeat. Valter Piscedda, the centre- left mayor of Elmas, a small town near Sardinia\u2019s capital, Cagliari, wants to pay residents to leave. The council will pay for ten unemployed locals to take intensive English lessons, board a cheap flight and look for jobs elsewhere in Europe. \n\u201cThis is, above all, an idea born of common sense and experience,\u201d he told the Guardian. \u201cOver the past year and a half \u2013 especially in the past few months \u2013 I have been receiving young people, almost every day, who are despairing about their search for work. Some are looking here and ask for a hand in finding it here. Others have tried everything and are so discouraged that they no longer want to stay and wait. And they want to go and gain work experience abroad; life experience, too. \n\u201cSo, my reasoning was this: put everything in place that the council administration can put in place so that those who want to gain experience abroad are able to,\u201d he said. \nAs the national economy continues to falter, Sardinia, along with much of southern and central Italy, is grappling with high unemployment, with the overall joblessness rate at 17.7% in the second quarter of 2014, according to Italy\u2019s National Institute of Statistics, Istat. More than 54% of people under 25 are out of work. \nFor the Adesso Parto (Now I\u2019m leaving) programme, Elmas\u2019s council has allocated \u20ac12,000 on a first-come, first-served basis to applicants aged between 18 and 50. As long as they are out of work and have lived in the town for three years, they are eligible. They do not have to be university educated and their annual income must be no more than \u20ac15,000. \nThe idea of encouraging people to up sticks is sensitive at a time when floods of Italians \u2013 many of them bright young graduates \u2013 are leaving their country every year. But Piscedda, who belongs to the Democratic Party of the Prime Minister, Matteo Renzi, denies he is facilitating a brain drain and believes that the people he is sending away may well return \u201cand give me back 100 times what they were given\u201d. More importantly, he wants the scheme to give a leg-up to those most in need. \n\u201cIt\u2019s a programme for those with no other resource; it\u2019s the last-chance saloon. It\u2019s about allowing them the dignity of not having to ask a friend for money or place burdens on families that cannot do it,\u201d he said. \nEarlier in 2014, he added, the council launched a scheme whereby businesses were given financial incentives to hire young workers from Elmas. \u201cWe advertised 20 of these positions,\u201d he said. \u201cWe got 120 applications.\u201d \nIn Elmas, the scheme has provoked mixed reactions. \u201cThe reality is that there is little work here,\u201d said Alessandro Macis. \u201cThe opportunity to go abroad to learn about the workplace and experience other cultures can be very worthwhile. The son of a friend of mine who didn\u2019t study much has ended up in London and he\u2019s really finding his way. He started as a waiter. Now, he\u2019s a cook and he\u2019s learning English.\u201d \nOthers were perplexed. \u201cI heard about it but I thought it was strange. If you have that money to pay for people to go away, why don\u2019t you use that money to keep them here?\u201d said Consuelo Melis, who works behind the bar in a local caf\u00e9. On Twitter, one of many reactions was disbelief. \u201cThe state\u2019s admission of defeat,\u201d commented Marco Patavino. \u201cInstitutions are raising the white flag,\u201d remarked Carlo Mazzaggio. \nPiscedda, however, is undeterred, remarking of his online critics: \u201cProbably, they are people that aren\u2019t in need ... Every day, I deal with people\u2019s problems and I have to do something to try to solve them. These people, if they had an alternative, they wouldn\u2019t be asking for help. \n\u201cThe work I can create, as mayor, is temporary. I can have a piazza cleaned. I can have it cleaned again. I can have the streets cleaned. But these are all temporary things that give nothing beyond that little bit of money for a few months. I want to go beyond that.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"An octopus has escaped from the National Aquarium in New Zealand. It escaped from its tank, slid down a 50-metre drainpipe and disappeared into the sea. Inky \u2013 a common New Zealand octopus \u2013 escaped after someone left the lid of his tank open. Staff at the aquarium believe that, in the middle of the night, when there was no-one in the building, Inky climbed down the side of the tank and travelled across the floor. \nRob Yarrell, national manager of the National Aquarium of New Zealand in Napier, said: \u201cOctopuses are famous for their ability to escape. I don\u2019t think he was unhappy with us, or lonely, because octopuses like to live alone. But, he is such a curious boy. He would want to know what\u2019s happening on the outside. That\u2019s his personality.\u201d \nOne idea is that Inky crossed the aquarium floor \u2013 a journey of three or four metres \u2013 and then, he realized that freedom was very near so he entered a drainpipe that led directly to the sea. The drainpipe was 50 metres long and opened into Hawke\u2019s Bay, on the east coast of New Zealand\u2019s North Island. \nIt is also possible that Inky escaped through an open pipe at the top of his tank, which led under the floor to the drain. \u201cWhen we came in the next morning and his tank was empty, I was really surprised,\u201d said Yarrell, who has not started looking for Inky. \u201cThe staff and I have been sad. But then, this is Inky and he\u2019s always been a bit of a surprise octopus.\u201d \nReiss Jenkinson, a keeper at the National Aquarium, said he was absolutely certain Inky was not stolen. \u201cI understand octopus behaviour very well,\u201d he said. \u201cI have seen octopuses on boats escape through waste pumps. And, the security here is too good for anyone to take Inky and why would they?\u201d \nBecause octopuses have no bones, they can fit into very small spaces and can squeeze through gaps the size of coins. They are also very intelligent and able to use tools. At the Island Bay Marine Education Centre in Wellington, an octopus visited another tank every night to steal crabs, then return to its own tank. Another octopus at the centre, Ozymandias, broke a world record for opening a jar. \nInky was brought to the National Aquarium several years ago by a local fisherman who found him in a fishing pot. Yarrell said, \u201cHe lived on the reef and fought with fish so he was quite ill.\u201d According to Yarrell, Inky \u2013 who is about the size of a rugby ball \u2013 was an \u201cunusually intelligent\u201d octopus. \u201cHe was very friendly and a popular attraction here. We have another octopus, Blotchy, but he is smaller than Inky and Inky had the personality.\u201d \nThe aquarium has no plans to increase security as a result of the escape but the staff now know \u201cwhat octopuses can do\u201d so they will be more careful. The aquarium is not looking for another octopus but, if a fisherman brought in another octopus, the aquarium might take it. \u201cYou never know,\u201d said Yarrell. \u201cThere\u2019s always a chance Inky will come home to us.\u201d","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nAngela Erdmann never knew her grandfather. He died in 1946, six years before she was born. But, on Tuesday April 8th, 2014, she described the extraordinary moment when she received a message in a bottle, 101 years after he had thrown it into the Baltic Sea. The bottle is believed to be the worlds oldest message in a bottle and it was presented to Erdmann by the museum that is now exhibiting it in Germany.\nIt was very surprising, Erdmann, 62, said, describing how she found out about the bottle. A man stood at my door and told me he had post from my grandfather. He then told me that a message in a bottle had been found and that the name that was on the card was that of my grandfather. Her visitor was a genealogical researcher who had managed to find her in Berlin after the letter was given to a museum in the northern port city of Hamburg.\nThe brown beer bottle, which had been in the water for 101 years, was found by a fisherman, who had been out in the Baltic Sea off the northern city of Kiel. Holger von Neuhoff, a curator at the museum, said this bottled message was the oldest he had come across. There are documents that have been found without the bottle that are older and are in the museum, he said. But, with the bottle and the document, this is certainly the oldest at the moment. It is in extremely good condition.\nResearchers believe Erdmanns grandfather, Richard Platz, threw the bottle in the sea while on a hike in 1913. He was 20 years old at the time. A lot of the message on the postcard was impossible to read, although the address in Berlin on the front of the card was legible. Also legible was the authors polite request that the person finding it should send it to his home address.\nHe also included two stamps from that time that were in the bottle, so the finder would not have to pay for postage, Erdmann said. But he did not think it would take 101 years.\nShe said she was moved by the arrival of the message, although she had not known her grandfather because he died, at the age of 54, six years before she was born.\nI knew very little about my grandfather, but I found out that he was a writer who was very open-minded, and believed in freedom and that everyone should respect each other, she said. He did a lot for the young and later travelled with his wife and two daughters. It was wonderful because I could see where my roots came from.\nErdmann said she also liked culture and travelling around the world, just like her grandfather. She described herself as open-minded, too. What he taught his two daughters, my mother taught me and I have then given to my sons, she said. She was very happy to receive the bottled message, she said, but she hoped other people would not do what her grandfather had done and throw bottles with messages into the sea. Today, the sea is so full of so many bottles and rubbish that more shouldnt be thrown in there, she said.\nThe message and the bottle will be on display at Hamburgs Maritime Museum until the beginning of May 2014, after which experts will attempt to decipher the rest of the text. It is not clear what will then happen to the bottle, but Erdmann hopes it will stay at the museum.\nWe want to make a few photos available to put with the bottle and give it a face, so visitors can see the young man who threw the bottle into the water, she said.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Setting aside epic disaster-movie moments such as volcanoes, hurricanes and earthquakes, there are two key natural factors that can make a city vulnerable to gradual disintegration or even total disappearance \u2013 water and sand. \nWere climate change making the planet colder rather than hotter, we could add ice to the list \u2013 for nothing obliterates a city like a billion-tonne glacier grinding its way down a valley. The impact of a rare \u201cice tsunami\u201d in 2013 on the Canadian municipality of Ochre Beach was just a taster: a wall of melting iceberg on Dauphin Lake was blown by winds on to the shore, splintering every house in its path. \nBut Ochre Beach was an anomaly. Elsewhere, the planet\u2019s melting ice is making cities vulnerable by the less dramatic route of raising sea levels. A century ago, Venice \u2013 one of the most beautiful and low-lying cities in the world \u2013 used to flood around ten times a year. Nowadays, its lowest point, Piazza San Marco (only three feet above sea level) is inundated with water approximately 100 times annually. \nBut rising sea levels are not entirely to blame. In many parts of the world, the land is also sinking \u2013 in Venice\u2019s case, subsoil compaction (a result of industrial exploitation of the surrounding area) lowered the city by 20cm between 1950 and 1970. Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam is also sinking by about 2cm a year \u2013 but that\u2019s nothing compared to Jakarta, which is dropping 10 to 20cm annually. In the past three decades, the city has sunk roughly four metres, rendering its 40-year-old seawall ever less effective. Unfortunately for the Indonesian capital, it has pumped out so much groundwater to support its population that the land above is drying out and compacting, thereby creating a bowl. Rivers that used to flow through the city down to the sea have had to be diverted because they cannot drain uphill. \nWhile there are many plans to save Venice \u2013 and Ho Chi Minh City and Jakarta are taking the problem seriously \u2013 the same cannot be said for Miami, where politicians refuse to admit the city has a severe environmental problem. \nMiami\u2019s difficulties are threefold. The Florida resort lies less than ten feet above sea level; an increasing number of tropical storms are inundating the city; and it is built on porous limestone, which is absorbing the rising seawater. This water then fills the city\u2019s foundations and bubbles up through drains and pipes, forcing sewage upwards and polluting its fresh water. There is every chance Miami may one day become uninhabitable. \nIn the Maldives, the populations of whole islands are now looking to abandon their homes. The capital, Mal\u00e9, population 153,379 and only four feet above sea level, has used Japanese investment to build a ten-foot sea wall at a cost of $63 million \u2013 but, long term, only a stabilization of rising sea levels will save it and the rest of the islands. \nAnd it\u2019s not just the sea \u2013 rainfall is also endangering cities across the world. Recently, an entire summer\u2019s worth of rain fell in one morning on Detroit, overwhelming its outdated sewerage systems. Impoverished by the collapse of America\u2019s car industry, the city is struggling to build a system to cope. Drinking water is also affected because Detroit is particularly vulnerable to water-borne pathogens. \nIn Africa, desertification is causing the Sahara to spread south at a rate of 30 miles per year, threatening settlements in northern Mauritania. Over the past 20 years, for example, the desert has grown by more than 260 acres around the trading and religious centre of Chinguetti, which has seen its population decline from 20,000 people in the mid-twentieth century to just a few thousand now. Trading has all but ceased as sand piles up in the streets. \nLikewise, the Californian resort of Rancho Mirage, near Palm Springs, may have to be abandoned in the next decade. This city is just one example of a problem caused not so much by global warming as human over-expansion in the face of finite resources. California\u2019s dream of farming the desert made sense while its total population remained around half a million (in 1870) \u2013 but, now, the state is home to 38 million people, who, between them, own 32 million vehicles and expect to be surrounded by lawns and golf courses. \nThe daily water use in Rancho Mirage is more than 200 gallons per person, which is giving rise to a man-made drought. A 25% cut in water consumption has been implemented but this is unlikely to stabilize the resort, which is surrounded by sand and dust. The long-term answer in California\u2019s desert is likely to be the abandonment of some cities while consolidating the populations of others. \nHuman flight is the final proof of a city\u2019s disintegration. Once we stop maintaining a city, nature takes over very quickly. Japan\u2019s Hashima Island was turned into a concrete city in 1887 to exploit undersea coal reserves \u2013 but, in 1974, with coal supplies nearing depletion, the mine was closed and Hashima was abandoned. Now, the sea spray is causing its concrete walls to collapse. \nFire is a growing threat to urban settlements in America \u2013 in fact, forest fires cause the most damage after severe storms, with 800 major fire disasters having been declared there between 1953 and 2014. A newly released report by the USDA Forest Service maps the increasing number of urban locations that are particularly vulnerable to wildfire. \nSimilarly, in Australia, some of Victoria\u2019s resorts and several Melbourne suburbs have been placed on a list of the state\u2019s 52 most vulnerable bushfire spots because long-term droughts are making trees highly combustible. It\u2019s unlikely that a forest fire will ever destroy an entire city but a succession of fires could render it uninhabitable \u2013 and abandonment remains one of the most powerful causes of urban collapse. \nMany cities are fighting a losing battle against the ravages of nature but is it possible to identify the world\u2019s most vulnerable metropolis? Natural events are notoriously hard to predict but the prospects for Mal\u00e9 do look particularly grim for, even if its new sea wall continues to be effective, the islands around the Maldives capital are going to disappear before too long. And, if they disappear, so does Mal\u00e9\u2019s raison d\u2019\u00eatre.","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"It has been called 'the hotel of mum and dad' but few guesthouses have such favourable terms. As the housing crisis bites, a fifth of young adults are staying in the family home until they are at least 26 and the same proportion are not paying a penny towards their keep. A recent survey found that the proportion of adults living at home varied around the country, from just under 9% in the East Midlands to more than double that in London, where house prices and rents are highest. While many around the country contributed financially, the survey found that 20% were paying nothing at all. \nYoung adults are being squeezed by low wages and rents, which have hit record highs, while those who want to buy a property are finding the monthly cost of renting is preventing them from saving enough to get on the housing ladder. Research published by the homeless charity Shelter showed half of tenants were unable to save a penny towards a deposit, while a quarter could only put by \u00a3100 or less each month. Mortgages are cheaper than ever before thanks to record low interest rates but the best deals are still reserved for borrowers with large deposits. \nFaced with this, young adults are increasingly returning to the family home in order to save money and parents who cannot afford to offer their offspring a lump sum seem willing to help. The survey found that 28% of adults were living at home because they were trying to save for a deposit. However, it also found that 30% were not saving any money. \nA spokesman for the company conducting the survey commented: \u201cThe hotel of mum and dad is often staying open for longer than many anticipated, our latest research shows. Rental costs and deposits or the need to save for a mortgage deposit mean that some children understandably have to wait before flying the nest. And, for some, moving out may never be an option.\u201d \nMichael Day, 30, who lives with his parents in Bristol, says he has been caught between paying high rents and saving for a mortgage deposit. Rents for a one-bedroom home in the city are between \u00a3500 and \u00a3800 a month, while buying a similar property would cost about \u00a3130,000. \u201cI don\u2019t really want to move out to rent as it\u2019s more than a mortgage but you need such a big deposit to get a mortgage so it\u2019s been a bit of a vicious circle.\u201d \nDay does not want to share with strangers so his options are limited. At home, he pays a nominal rent to cover bills and is able to keep the rest of his earnings from his job at a candle retailer. He plays golf at county level and he admits that, instead of saving, he spends his spare cash on golf and holidays. \u201cYou need so much money that I will have to save for the foreseeable future,\u201d he said. \u201cBecause it\u2019s been so difficult, I\u2019ve been going on holiday and enjoying it.\u201d \nSue Green, of Saga, a business that sells insurance and products to the over-50s, said the majority of parents may not have planned to have their children living with them well into their 20s or 30s. \u201cMost will be more than happy to house them in the family home rent-free because it might help their kids get on the property ladder sooner,\u201d she said. \u201cChildren who don\u2019t pay rent may contribute in other ways like buying groceries, family takeaways or doing odd jobs around the home.\u201d \nAngus Hanton, co-founder of a thinktank called the Intergenerational Foundation, said older generations were \u201cthe architects of the housing crisis\u201d and children should not be blamed for staying at home. \u201cThe under-30s have suffered a fall in average incomes of about 20% since the 2008 downturn. Rents and car insurance have never been so high and mortgage lending rules have been tightened for the young but not for older buy-to-let investors, who squeeze out the young,\u201d he said. \u201cStudent-fee debt is rising rapidly yet many jobs on offer \u2013 zero- hour and short-term contracts \u2013 are turning younger workers into second-class citizens. Rather than blaming the young, we should be standing up for their interests so they can afford to build lives of their own.\u201d \nJenna Gavin, 29, lives in Southport, Merseyside, in the family home where she grew up. She moved out for a year to go to university but has been living with her parents ever since. She works as a medical receptionist nearby so she wants to stay in the area. But renting a one-bedroom flat would cost more than \u00a3420 a month before bills, which would take up a lot of her earnings. \u201cI don\u2019t want to rent \u2013 I don\u2019t want to spend all that money and have nothing at the end,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019ve looked at buying and seen mortgage advisers but I just can\u2019t borrow enough to get on the property ladder.\u201d \nGavin is trying to save but is struggling to amass the necessary funds. \u201cYou don\u2019t really see it building up as much as you need \u2013 even a 5% deposit is such a lot of money and I would like to put down more,\u201d she said. Her parents are happy not to charge her rent. \u201cThey want me to try to save up and I contribute in other ways \u2013 I bring food in and I do things around the house.\u201d \nGavin gets on with her parents and has her own space in a room that she moved into when she was 14 but she said she had always imagined she would have her own place by the time she was 30. \u201cI don\u2019t see that happening as it\u2019s next year. But, hopefully, in a couple of years, I\u2019ll have moved out.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Ninety-six people died at Sheffield Wednesday\u2019s Hillsborough Stadium in 1989. During an extraordinary day 23 years later at Liverpool Cathedral, where the families of the victims met to see a report on the disaster, the most important words were: the truth. This was the headline in The Sun newspaper. We now know that the story in the newspaper was false and that the police gave them the story. \nMargaret Aspinall\u2019s son James, then 18, died at the match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest. She said the families had to fight for 23 years for the truth. She said that the families\u2019 sadness will never go away, but she is very pleased that the Prime Minister said sorry for Hillsborough. \nAn independent panel looked at 450,000 documents written by the police, Sheffield Wednesday and all the other groups involved. The panel then wrote a 395-page report. In the report they criticize official mistakes and say that the victims and other fans were not to blame. We already knew the cause of the disaster but we didn\u2019t know that the police cover-up was so big. It is shocking how the police blamed the football fans for the disaster. \nThe panel found that the South Yorkshire Police, led by the Chief Constable, Peter Wright, told their story that drunken fans or those without tickets caused the disaster. They tested the victims\u2019 blood for alcohol. When victims had alcohol in their blood, the police then checked to find if they had criminal records. The police said that many Liverpool fans were very drunk, were without tickets and were very violent, but the report found \u201cno evidence\u201d for this. \nThe report said that Wright met with police in a Sheffield restaurant to prepare \u201ca defence\u201d and \u201ca story \u201d. The meeting happened just four days after the disaster. It was the day that The Sun newspaper published its headline \u201cThe Truth\u201d and the story by four senior South Yorkshire police officers.\nThe panel found that officers\u2019 statements were changed to remove criticism of the police and emphasize bad behaviour by fans. The panel found that 116 of 164 statements were changed \u201cto remove or change negative comments about South Yorkshire police\u201d. The police said this was done only to remove \u201copinion\u201d from the statements, but the panel said they did more than that. \u201cIt was done to remove criticism of the police,\u201d the report said. \nThe original inquiry did not believe this propaganda. It decided in August 1989 that the police stories of fan drunkenness and violence were false, and it criticized the police for telling lies. It said that Sheffield Wednesday\u2019s stadium was unsafe, that the Football Association chose that stadium for the match without even checking if it had a safety certificate. It did not have a certificate. \nBut \u201cthe main cause\u201d of the disaster was the way the police controlled the crowd. The police lost control outside the stadium, where 24,000 Liverpool fans had to go through just 23 small entrance gates. So police opened a large exit gate and lots of people were allowed in. They did not close one of the tunnels and, the inquiry said, this was their big mistake. \nBut the police still repeated their lies at the inquest. The coroner decided not to take evidence of what happened after 3.15pm on the day of the disaster, so he did not look at the chaotic behaviour of the police and the ambulance service. The panel found that if the police and ambulance service had done their jobs better, they could have saved 41 of the 96 lives lost. \nThere may now be a new inquest. There may be prosecutions too, after all these years, of Sheffield Wednesday, South Yorkshire Police and Sheffield City Council, which was responsible for the safety of the stadium. Trevor Hicks, whose two daughters died in the disaster, said: \u201cThe truth is out today,\u201d Hicks said. \u201cTomorrow is for justice.\u201d","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Until the last, David Bowie, who has died of cancer, was still capable of springing surprises. His latest album, Blackstar, appeared on his 69th birthday on 8 January 2016 and proved that his gift for making dramatic statements as well as challenging, disturbing music hadn\u2019t deserted him. \nThroughout the 1970s, Bowie was a trailblazer of musical trends and pop fashion. Having been a late-60s mime and cabaret entertainer, he evolved into a singer-songwriter, a pioneer of glam-rock, then veered into what he called \u201cplastic soul\u201d, before moving to Berlin to create innovative electronic music. His capacity for mixing brilliant changes of sound and image underpinned by a genuine intellectual curiosity is rivalled by few in pop history. \nBowie was born David Robert Jones in south London. In 1953, the family moved to Kent, where David showed aptitude in singing and playing the recorder. Later, he studied art, music and design. In 1961, David\u2019s mother bought him a plastic saxophone, introducing him to an instrument which would become a recurring ingredient in his music. \nAt 15, David formed his first band, the Kon-rads. It was clear that David\u2019s talents and ambition dictated that he should go solo. David adopted the name Bowie to avoid confusion with Davy Jones of the Monkees. \nBowie\u2019s first album, released in June 1967, was titled simply David Bowie . In July 1969, Bowie released Space Oddity, the song that would give him his initial commercial breakthrough. Timed to coincide with the Apollo 11 moon landing, it was a top five UK hit. \nIn March 1970, Bowie married art student, Angela Barnett. Artistically, Bowie was powering ahead. The Man Who Sold the World was released in the US in late 1970 and in the UK the following year, and with its daring songwriting and broody, hard-rock sound, it was the first album to do full justice to his writing and performing gifts. The album\u2019s themes included immortality, insanity, murder and mysticism, evidence that Bowie was a songwriter who was thinking way beyond pop\u2019s usual boundaries. \nHe followed it with 1972\u2019s Hunky Dory, a mix of wordy, elaborate songwriting. It was an excellent collection that met with only moderate success but that all changed with The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars later that year. \nThis time, Bowie emerged as a fully fledged science-fiction character \u2013 an intergalactic glam-rock star visiting a doomed planet Earth \u2013 and the album effectively wrote the script for his own stardom. The hit single Starman brought instant success for the album, while Bowie\u2019s ravishing stage costumes and provocative performances triggered fan enthusiasm unseen since Beatlemania. \nEverything Bowie touched turned to gold. He had his first UK number 1 album with Aladdin Sane (1973), which generated the hit singles The Jean Genie and Drive-in Saturday . But Bowie was already planning fresh career moves. \nHis increasing interest in funk and soul music came to the fore on the deliciously listenable Young Americans (1975), which gave him a US chart-topper with Fame (featuring John Lennon as a guest vocalist). \nStation to Station (1976) introduced a new persona, the Thin White Duke, which Bowie had carried over from his headlining performance as a melancholy space traveller in Nicolas Roeg\u2019s film The Man Who Fell to Earth. \nBowie\u2019s relationship with his wife had been disintegrating under the pressures of success and the couple divorced in 1980. This was a year of further creative triumph, bringing a fine album, Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), and its spin- off chart-topping single, Ashes to Ashes, followed by Bowie\u2019s well-received stint as John Merrick in The Elephant Man on the Broadway stage. He achieved a number 1 single with his 1981 partnership with Queen, Under Pressure while becoming increasingly involved in crossovers between different media. He appeared in the German movie Christiane F (1981) and wrote music for the soundtrack. He had another chart hit with Cat People (Putting Out Fire) from Paul Schrader\u2019s movie Cat People (1982). Bowie continued to make progress as a screen actor with appearances in The Hunger and the second world war drama Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence, both released in 1983. \nMusically, this was the year in which he put his energy into an all-out commercial onslaught with the album Let\u2019s Dance and follow-up concerts. Let\u2019s Dance moulded Bowie into a crowd-friendly global rock star, with the album and its singles Let\u2019s Dance, China Girl and Modern Love all becoming huge international hits. \nThis was the heyday of MTV and Bowie\u2019s knack for eye-catching videos fuelled this commercial splurge, while the six-month Serious Moonlight tour drew massive crowds. It was to be the most commercially successful period of his career. His profile gained another boost from his appearance at the 1985 Live Aid famine relief concert at Wembley Stadium, where he was one of the standout performers. In addition, he teamed up with Mick Jagger to record the fundraising single Dancing in the Street, which sped to number 1. A few days after his appearance at the Freddie Mercury tribute concert at Wembley Stadium in April 1992, Bowie married the Somalian model Iman and the couple bought a home in New York. This new start in his private life coincided with a search for fresh musical inspiration. \nFor the album Black Tie White Noise (1993), he sprinkled elements of soul, electronica and hip hop into the mix. It topped the UK album chart and yielded a top 10 single, Jump They Say . New media and technology influenced his recordings, too. His 1999 album Hours \u2026 was based around music he had written for a computer game called Omikron, in which Bowie and Iman appeared as characters. The birth of Bowie and Iman\u2019s daughter, Alexandria, followed in August 2000. \nAs an adopted New Yorker, Bowie was the opening act at the Concert for New York City in October 2001, where he joined Paul McCartney, Jon Bon Jovi, Billy Joel, the Who and Elton John in a benefit show six weeks after the 9\/11 attacks. Bowie was back in the studio the following year for Reality . However, in the midst of his Reality tour in 2004, Bowie was stricken with chest pains while performing in Germany and underwent emergency surgery in Hamburg to clear a blocked artery. \nHe took the medical emergency as a warning and reduced the pace of his activities. In 2006, he announced he would be taking a year off from touring and recording. In February that year, he was given a Grammy lifetime achievement award, having been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996. \nThe Next Day (2013) was his first album of new material in a decade. It contained the single Where Are We Now?, which gave him his first UK top 10 hit since 1993. The album topped charts in Britain and around the world. In 2014, Bowie was given the Brit Award for Best British Male, making him the oldest British recipient in the awards\u2019 history. He is survived by Iman, their daughter, Alexandria, his stepdaughter, Zulekha, and his son, Duncan, from his first marriage.","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"At Addis Ababa airport, visitors are greeted by pictures of golden grains, minute ochre-red seeds and a group of men gathered around a giant pancake. Billboards boast: \u201cTeff: the ultimate gluten-free crop!\u201d \nEthiopia is one of the world\u2019s poorest countries, well known for its precarious food security situation. But it is also the native home of teff, a highly nutritious ancient grain increasingly finding its way into health-food shops and supermarkets in Europe and America. \nTeff\u2019s tiny seeds \u2013 the size of poppy seeds \u2013 are high in calcium, iron and protein, and boast an impressive set of amino acids. Naturally gluten free, the grain can substitute for wheat flour in anything from bread and pasta to waffles and pizza bases. Like quinoa, the Andean grain, teff\u2019s superb nutritional profile offers the promise of new and lucrative markets in the west. \nIn Ethiopia, teff is a national obsession. Grown by an estimated 6.3 million farmers, fields of the crop cover more than 20% of all land under cultivation. Ground into flour and used to make injera, the spongy fermented flatbread that is basic to Ethiopian cuisine, the grain is central to many religious and cultural ceremonies. Across the country, and in neighbouring Eritrea, diners gather around large pieces of injera, which doubles as cutlery, scooping up stews and feeding one another as a sign of loyalty or friendship \u2013 a tradition known as gursha. \nOutside diaspora communities in the west, teff has flown under the radar for decades. But a growing appetite for traditional crops and booming health-food and gluten-free markets are breathing new life into the grain, increasingly touted as Ethiopia\u2019s \u201csecond gift to the world\u201d, after coffee. \nSophie Kebede, a London-based entrepreneur who owns a UK company specializing in the grain, says she was \u201cflabbergasted\u201d when she discovered its nutritional value. \u201cI didn\u2019t know it was so sought after. I am of Ethiopian origin; I\u2019ve been eating injera all my life.\u201d \nGrowing demand for so-called ancient grains has not always been a straightforward win for poor communities. In Bolivia and Peru, reports of rising incomes owing to the now-global quinoa trade have come alongside those of malnutrition and conflicts over land, as farmers sell their entire crop to meet western demand. \nEthiopia\u2019s growing middle class is also pushing up demand for teff and rising domestic prices have put the grain out of reach of the poorest. Today, most small farmers sell the bulk of what they grow to consumers in the city. \nThis may have helped boost incomes in some rural areas but it has had nutritional consequences, says the government, as teff is the most nutritionally valuable grain in the country. Estimates suggest that, while those in urban areas eat up to 61kg of teff a year, in rural areas, the figure is 20kg. The type consumed differs, too: the wealthy almost exclusively eat the more expensive magna and white teff varieties; less well-off consumers tend to eat less-valuable red and mixed teff, and more than half combine it with cheaper cereals such as sorghum and maize. \nThe Ethiopian government wants to double teff production by 2015. Its strategy, published in 2013, argues that the grain could play an important role in school meals and emergency aid programmes, and help reduce malnutrition \u2013 particularly among children and adolescents. \nThough Ethiopia has a fast-growing economy, it remains on the UN\u2019s list of least-developed countries. An estimated 20% of under-fives are malnourished or suffer stunted growth. \nThe government\u2019s Agricultural Transformation Agency aims to boost yields by developing improved varieties of the grain, along with new planting techniques and tools to reduce post-harvest losses. \nGovernment restrictions, instituted in 2006, forbid the export of raw teff grain, only allowing shipments of injera and other processed products. But this could change: the goal is to produce enough teff for domestic consumption and a strong export market, according to the government\u2019s strategy. \nMama Fresh is a family firm that has been selling injera to top restaurants and hotels in the Ethiopian capital for years. It also ships the flatbread to Finland, Germany, Sweden and the US, primarily for consumption by diaspora communities. But, the company has its eye on the gluten-free market. It aims to double exports to America in 2014 and will soon start producing teff-based pizzas, bread and cookies. \n\u201cTypically, these products are going to go through many hands before they reach the shelves of Sainsbury\u2019s or wherever. There are profit margins at every step and small farmers are not necessarily well placed to bargain with the bigger traders,\u201d says David Hallam, trade and markets director at the UN\u2019s Food and Agriculture Organization. He sees quinoa\u2019s popularity as a cautionary tale of how export opportunities can be a mixed blessing for poor countries. \nRegassa Feyissa, an Ethiopian agricultural scientist and former head of the National Institute for Biodiversity, warns that, without careful planning, increased teff production for export may displace other important crops for farmers. And, efforts to boost production could benefit business interests at the expense of small farmers. \nWith little Ethiopian teff on the international market, farmers in the US have started planting the crop. Farmers in Europe, Israel and Australia have also experimented with it. \nKebede says she gets her grain from farms in southern Europe, though she would prefer to source it from Ethiopia. \u201cTeff is second nature to an Ethiopian, so who better to supply it? We have this sought-after grain being grown in the country, so why can\u2019t an Ethiopian farmer benefit from this?\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"We talked to five people who do some unusual jobs about how much they are paid, what the worst parts are and why they enjoy their work. \n1. Dog-food taster \nThe job: To taste dog food to make sure it is good quality \nWhat this person does: Opens tins of dog (or cat) food, smells it and eats it. \u201cTasting is an important quality check to make sure each different ingredient is perfectly balanced,\u201d says Philip Wells, the chief taster for Lily\u2019s Kitchen pet food. \nTypical salary: \u00a320,000 for a job in the quality department \nWorst part of the job: The deadlines. Wells says he likes the food. The meat in pet food must come from animals that humans can safely eat. He also says: \u201cThere are some terrible pet foods. I don\u2019t taste them but just the smell makes you feel sick.\u201d \nJob satisfaction: \u201cEvery day is different.\u201d Wells likes knowing that he \u201chelps pets to become happier and healthier\u201d. But he says that someone else in the tasting team is also a very important member: Lily, the dog. \n2. Hygiene technician \nThe job: To clean areas that might be dangerous to humans \nWhat this person does: Cleans up crime scenes, road accidents and suicides. Clears houses full of rubbish, rats and excrement \u2026 and other things, too. \u201cThe job is to keep people safe,\u201d says Richard Lewis, a hygiene technician for Rentokil. \u201cWe work in some very, very dirty places.\u201d \nTypical salary: When you start, the salary is usually around \u00a314,500. A top salary can be up to \u00a322,000. \nWorst part of the job: Cleaning up after suicides. \u201cYou get used to the job being disgusting. But the emotional side of the job is still hard,\u201d he says. \u201cYou also need to have a sense of humour because some days can be difficult.\u201d \nJob satisfaction: Lewis finds the variety of tasks exciting. \u201cOne day, I\u2019m cleaning up after a dead body; another day, I\u2019m in a prison cell. It\u2019s satisfying to make a dangerous place safe again.\u201d he says. \n3. Biogas engineer \nThe job: To set up biogas plants in developing countries What this person does: Helps poor people produce biogas from their excrement and other waste products. This is done by linking a system to toilets. Poor people can use the gas for cooking and lighting. \nTypical salary: When you start, the salary is around \u00a310,000. A typical salary for a chief technical officer is \u00a330,000. \nWorst part of the job: For Baburam Paudel, chief technical officer in Nepal for the charity Renewable World, the worst part is seeing people struggling to survive on very little money. \u201cUnsurprisingly, the smell of the waste products can be disgusting. It smells like rotten eggs.\u201d \nJob satisfaction: \u201cI find it very satisfying to know that I am helping people to earn more money and also allowing girls to go to school because they don\u2019t need to collect firewood,\u201d says Paudel. \u201cMy work improves the health and hygiene of whole communities.\u201d \n4. Eel ecologist \nThe job: To help the critically endangered European eel to survive \nWhat this person does: Checks the size of the endangered eels. They do this by walking into the Thames and other London rivers, which are full of eels. In the rivers, they put their hands into a net filled with up to 20 adult eels and pull an eel out. \u201cAdult eels can be a metre long, or even larger, and weigh up to 2kg. They\u2019re not dangerous but they are almost 100% muscle and they can be a little bit slimy,\u201d says Stephen Mowat, an eel ecologist for the Zoological Society of London. \u201cWe have to weigh and measure them and they wriggle \u2026 a lot. I look silly when I\u2019m crawling on the ground chasing an eel across the grass.\u201d \nWorst part of the job: \u201cEels are really difficult animals to work with\u201d says Mowat. But, for Mowat, the worst part of the job is not the eels \u2013 he believes baby eels are \u201cas cute as pandas\u201d: \u201cThe worst thing about the job is seeing how much damage humans do to the environment.\u201d \nJob satisfaction: \u201cWorking outside and seeing British wildlife really close is the best part of the job,\u201d says Mowat. \u201cEels are beautiful animals and working with eels helps whole river systems. That is a great thing to do.\u201d \n5. Shopping channel presenter \nThe job: To sell and demonstrate lots of different products on live TV \nWhat this person does: Presents hours and hours of boring TV and, at the same time, demonstrates the products and looks enthusiastic about everything that they are selling. \u201cI prepare and research as much information as possible on every product,\u201d says Shaun Ryan, presenter for Ideal World TV. Typical salary: When you start, the salary is a minimum of \u00a330,000. An experienced presenter can get over \u00a355,000. \nWorst part of the job: \u201cWorking at unusual hours of the day,\u201d says Ryan. \u201cAn experienced presenter like me has to work weekends and very late evenings. And, sometimes, I have to start work at five in the morning.\u201d \nJob satisfaction: \u201cI love presenting live TV and having to think quickly,\u201d says Ryan. \u201cI also love knowing that, at times, thousands of people are buying the product that I have just presented.\u201d","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nAll six numbers match, so its time to buy that Audi, book the holiday in the US and phone the estate agent. At least, thats what most lottery millionaires do, according to a study of spending and investment by jackpot winners.\nSince it started in 1994, the UK national lottery has created 3,000 millionaires who have won more than 8.5bn in total, at an average of 2.8m each. Between them, they have created a further 3,780 millionaires among their children, family and friends, according to the authors of the study, Oxford Economics.\nMost winners (59%) give up work straight away, but 19% carry on working and 31% do unpaid voluntary work. The good news for the economy is that 98% of the money the winners spent remained in the UK. Through their spending on property, vehicles and holidays, it is estimated that each winner keeps six people in a full-time job for a year.\nWinners have contributed almost 750m to gross domestic product (GDP), and generated more than 500m in tax for the Exchequer. The bulk of the money went on property, with 2.72bn spent on winners main properties, and 170m in paying off existing debt and mortgages.\n2.125bn was spent on investments. Gifts to family and friends accounted for 1.17bn, and 680m was spent on cars and holidays.\nThe study was based on research from 100 1m-plus winners. It found that in total the 3,000 winners have purchased 7,958 houses or flats in the UK, or 2.7 each, spending 3.3bn. Most winners (82%) changed their main home, spending an average 900,000.\nThe new home is likely to have a hot tub, with almost a third (29%) putting that on their shopping list. A walk-in wardrobe was absolutely necessary for 28%, almost a quarter (24%) chose a property behind electric gates, and 22% had a games room, with 7% installing a snooker table.\nLarger properties need maintaining, and 30% of winners employed a cleaner and 24% a gardener. A small proportion (5%) employed a beautician.\nAudis were the favourite cars of 16% of winners, with Range Rovers and BMWs also popular purchases (11% each), as well as Mercedes (10%) and Land Rovers (5%). Winners spent 463m on 17,190 cars, with the average price of their favourite being 46,116.\nHolidays were also a priority. The majority (68%) choose five-star hotels overseas. The US was the favoured destination for 27%, followed by the Caribbean (9%). Closer to home, however, UK caravan sales have benefited. Over the past 18 years, 10% of millionaires have bought a caravan, generating sales worth about 7.4m.\nSome winners (15%) have started their own businesses, 9% have helped others to do so, and 6% have invested in or bought other peoples businesses. Businesses started or supported by lottery winners employ 3,195 people, according to the study.\nAndy Logan, author of the report, said: The effect of a win spreads much further and wider than we expected. Not only does it change the lives of friends and family, but each win has an effect on the UK economy, especially with so much of it being spent in the UK.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nThe mass collection of telephone records by government surveillance programmes poses a threat to the personal privacy of ordinary people, say US researchers. They used basic phone logs to identify people and find out confidential information about their lives.\nWith metadata on peoples calls and texts, but not the content of the communications, two scientists at Stanford University worked out peoples names, where they lived and the names of their partners. But, that was not all.\nThe same metadata led them to discover confidential information about some people. They discovered that one man had a gun and that another man had a heart problem. Other data told them about a new pregnancy and a person with multiple sclerosis.\nThe results show the extraordinary power of telephone metadata  that is, the number called, when and for how long  particularly when you use it together with public information from services such as Google, Yelp and Facebook. Security services know how important this data is. Stewart Baker, the former general counsel at the US National Security Agency (NSA), said Metadata tells you everything about somebodys life.\nPatrick Mutchler, a computer security researcher at Stanford, said that the power of metadata was understood by people who collect the information but the public was in the dark. That made it difficult for people to fight these programmes. Now, we have hard evidence we can point to that we didnt have in the past, he said.\nFor the study, 823 people agreed to have metadata collected from their phones through an Android app. The app also received information from their Facebook accounts, which the scientists used to check the accuracy of their results. In total, the researchers collected metadata on more than 250,000 calls and over 1.2m texts.\nMutchler describes how, with very little money, he and Jonathan Mayer, discovered a lot of personal information, some of it confidential, about people who took part in the study. They could find out 82% of peoples names. The same technique gave them the names of businesses the people had called. When these were marked on a map, they showed groups of local businesses, which the scientists speculated surrounded the persons home address. In this way, they named the city people lived in 57% of the time and were nearly 90% accurate in placing people within 50 miles of their home.\nThen, using a simple computer program to analyse peoples call patterns, the scientists could see who was in a relationship. Once they knew the owner of a particular number had a partner, it was easy to find out who the partner was, they said.\nFor the final part of the study, the researchers looked even deeper, to see what private information they could find out from telephone metadata. They collected details on calls made to and from a list of organizations, including hospitals, pharmacies, religious groups and legal services. From these, they put together some extraordinary pictures of peoples lives.\nOne person in the study made frequent calls to a local gun shop and later made long calls to the customer support hotline of a major gun manufacturer. The metadata from two others suggested one had multiple sclerosis and the other had just become pregnant.\nAll of this shows what is possible with two graduate students and limited resources, said Mutchler. He says that the results should make policymakers think twice before allowing mass surveillance programmes. Metadata surveillance programmes, like the NSAs, will reveal highly confidential information about ordinary people, the scientists said.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"The vice-president of Google has warned that digitized material from blogs, tweets, pictures, videos and official documents such as emails could be lost forever because the programs we need to view them will no longer exist. Our first steps into the digital world could be lost to future historians, Vint Cerf told the American Association for the Advancement of Science\u2019s annual meeting. He said that we might become a \u201cforgotten generation or even a forgotten century\u201d because of \u201cbit rot\u201d, where old computer files become useless junk. \nCerf said we should develop digital methods to preserve old software and hardware to read old files. \u201cSo much of the information about our daily lives is in digital form, like our interactions by email, people\u2019s tweets and all of the world wide web. So it\u2019s clear that we could lose a lot of our history,\u201d he said. \u201cIf we want to keep it, we need to make sure that people can still see the digital objects we create today in the future,\u201d he added. \nWhat is \u2019bit rot\u2019 and is Vint Cerf right to be worried? His warning highlights an irony about modern technology: we digitize music, photos, letters and other documents so that they survive for centuries but the programs and hardware people will need to read those files don\u2019t survive. \n\u201cWe are throwing all of our data into an information black hole. We digitize things because we think we will preserve them. But what we don\u2019t understand is that, if we don\u2019t do something, those digital versions may not be any better than the things that we digitized. In fact, they may be worse,\u201d Cerf says. \u201cIf there are photos you really care about, print them out.\u201d \nAncient civilizations did not have these problems because people wrote histories down and we need only eyes to read them. To study today\u2019s culture, future historians will have to read PDFs, Word documents and hundreds of other file types, using special software and sometimes hardware, too. \nThe problem is already here. In the 1980s, it was normal to save documents on floppy disks and buy computer games on cassettes. Even if the disks and cassettes are in good condition, we can now only find the equipment to view them in museums. \nCerf warns that we will also lose important political and historical documents because of bit rot. In 2005, American historian Doris Kearns Goodwin wrote a book about Abraham Lincoln. She went to libraries around the US and found the paper letters of the people involved. \u201cIn today\u2019s world, those letters would be emails and it will be almost impossible to find them one hundred years from now,\u201d said Cerf. \nHe admits that historians will try to preserve important material. But he says that people often don\u2019t understand the importance of documents until hundreds of years later. Historians have learned how Archimedes thought about infinity in 3BC because they found his writings hidden under the words of a thirteenth-century book. \u201cWe\u2019ve been surprised by what we\u2019ve learned from objects that have been preserved by accident,\u201d he said. \nResearchers in Pittsburgh are trying to find a solution to bit rot. They are creating a computer that can read old files. \nInventing new technology helps but it is only part of the solution. It could be even more difficult to get the legal permissions to copy and store software before it dies. \u201cTo do this properly, we might need to think about things like copyright. We\u2019re talking about preserving documents for hundreds to thousands of years,\u201d said Cerf.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"When you enter a department store, cameras are watching you. If you pick something up, a camera will make sure you don\u2019t put it into your bag. Cameras will follow you around the store. But new technology is less focused on shoplifting and more interested in your age, gender and shopping habits.\nA few months ago, IT company Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) wrote a report that said around 30% of stores use facial recognition technology to track customers in shops. Facial recognition is a technology that can identify people \u2013 it analyses and compares people\u2019s faces. Shops use special cameras for this, like the Intel RealSense camera. \nJoe Jensen, who works for Intel, says that the aim of using RealSense technology in shops is not to get information about specific people\u2019s lives but to understand, in general, people\u2019s lifestyles and shopping habits. \u201cWe don\u2019t need to know a particular shopper. We need to know what characteristics this shopper has and that, when those characteristics are present, this is what a person usually does.\u201d\nThis technology makes it possible to predict what a person may or may not do in a shop. If, for example, a woman is walking quickly towards the sock section, a store can automatically put ads on screens specifically for that person. If she looks like the type of person who wants to buy socks, they will show her adverts for socks. \nIf it sounds familiar, it\u2019s because the internet has been using techniques like these for years. If you search for something on Amazon, you\u2019ll get ads for similar products on other sites. But it\u2019s not easy to use these systems in shops. People do not react to cameras in the same way as they do to cookies on websites.\nOne company, Hoxton Analytics, has developed a technology that puts people into categories based on the shoes they are wearing. By analysing the style and size of people\u2019s shoes, the system can identify a customer \u2019s gender with 75-80% accuracy.\nOwen McCormack, Hoxton Analytics CEO, says that they wanted the system to be different from facial recognition. \u201cI thought, why don\u2019t we simply look at the clothes someone\u2019s wearing? \u201d he said. \u201cIf I just showed you a photo of someone\u2019s body, you could probably tell me what gender they are. But pointing a camera at someone\u2019s body feels just as creepy as facial recognition. The idea was \u2013 what about people\u2019s shoes?\u201d\nPeople use the word \u201ccreepy\u201d a lot during discussions of tracking in stores. Stores need to find a way of getting information without seeming intrusive.\nMcCormack says, \u201cRight now, shops are doing lots of intrusive things but we just don\u2019t know about it. We tell the shops that, if you know someone\u2019s a male or a female, your advertising will work better. If you know that everyone in your shop right now is a male, you\u2019ll advertise PlayStations not hairdryers.\u201d\nIt is easy to understand that stores want some of the information online stores collect. We allow this to happen online so why not in shops? But shopping centres are different from websites \u2013 you walk from one shop to another without a computer asking you if it\u2019s ok to collect information about you.\nBut young people who are growing up with online shopping do not think online advertising is invasive. In the CSC report, a survey showed that 72% of people aged 55 or more said they were very uncomfortable with these types of technologies in real shops. But only 51% of 16-24 year olds said they were uncomfortable. In any case, there are more and more eyes watching you and they care a lot about what you\u2019re wearing.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nPassing clouds One of the pleasures of flying is seeing clouds close up. Even though they seem to be light, they carry a lot of water  around 500 tonnes in a small cloud. And water is heavier than air. So why dont clouds fall out of the sky like rain? They do, but they take a very long time. An average cloud would take a year to fall one metre.\nOn cloud nine Most of us are happy to call clouds fluffy ones or nasty black ones, but meteorologists identify more than 50 cloud types. These fit into categories given the numbers one to nine. Cloud nine is the vast, tall cumulonimbus, so to be on cloud nine means that you are on top of the world.\nAround the rainbow Theres no better place to see a rainbow than from a plane. Rainbows are produced when sunlight hits raindrops. We see a bow because the Earth gets in the way, but, from a plane, a rainbow is a complete circle.\nMr blue sky Sunlight is white, containing all the colours of the spectrum, but, as it passes through air, some of the light is scattered when it interacts with the gas molecules. Blue light scatters more than the lowerenergy colours, so the blue looks like it comes from the sky.\nTheres life out there Apart from clouds and other planes, we dont expect to see much directly outside a flying aircrafts window, but the air is full of bacterial life  as many as 1,800 different types of bacteria have been detected over cities and they can reach twice the cruising height of a plane.\nTurbulence terror Turbulence can make even the most experienced flyer turn green. The violent movements of air can cause anything from repeated bumping to sudden, dramatic plunges. The good news for nervous flyers is that no modern airliner has ever been brought down by turbulence. People have been injured and occasionally killed when they are not strapped in, or get hit by falling luggage  but the plane is not going to fall out of the sky.\nIn-flight radiation When body scanners were introduced at airports, there were radiation scares, but the level produced by the scanners is the same as passengers receive in one minute of flight. The Earth is constantly hit by cosmic rays, natural radiation from space that is stronger at altitude.\nYou cant cure jet lag The world is divided into time zones. The result is that long-haul travel results in a difference between local time and your bodys time, causing jet lag. However, its effects can be reduced by keeping food bland for 24 hours before travel, drinking plenty of fluids and living on your destination time from the moment you reach the aircraft.\nSupersonic 747s Many of us have travelled faster than sound. There are a number of jet streams in the upper atmosphere, especially on the journey from the US to Europe, where a temperature inversion causes a stream of air to move as fast as 250 miles per hour. If an airliner with an airspeed of 550mph enters a jet stream, the result can be that it flies at 800mph, faster than the speed of sound.\nFlying through time Time zones provide an artificial journey through time  but special relativity means that a flight involves actual time travel. However, its so minimal that crossing the Atlantic weekly for 40 years would only move you 1\/1,000th of a second into the future.\nTerrible tea Dont blame the cabin attendant if your tea isnt great. Water should be just under 100C when it is poured on to tea leaves  but that isnt possible on a plane. Its impossible to get water beyond 90C during flight  so choose coffee.\nI cant hear my food Airline food is often said to be bland and tasteless. Some of the problem may not be poor catering, though. A plane is a noisy place and food loses some of its taste when we are surrounded by loud noises.\nNeedle in a haystack With modern technology, it seems strange that Malaysian flight MH370 could disappear  but finding a missing aircraft is a needle-in-a-haystack problem. The plane knows where it is but this information is not sent elsewhere in real time. That would be possible. Ships have had tracking since the 1980s  the problem is not technology but that there is no law saying that it is required.\nVolcanic fallout Air travel can be cancelled by volcanic activity. Glass-like ash particles melt in the heat of the engine, then solidify on the rotors. Cancelling all flights in an ash cloud may be inconvenient  but the risks of ignoring the ash are clear.\nThe wing myth For many years, we taught the wrong explanation for the way wings keep planes in the air. In fact, almost all a planes lift comes from Newtons Third Law of Motion. The wing is shaped to push air downwards. As the air is pushed down, the wing gets an equal and opposite push upwards, lifting the plane.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"David Cameron, Barack Obama and Pamela Anderson have refused. George W Bush, Benedict Cumberbatch and Stephen Hawking have taken part. As the Ice Bucket Challenge notched up $100m for a US motor-neurone- disease charity and \u00a34.5m for a British one, as well as thousands more for charities in Hong Kong and Australia, the bracing cold water of a backlash has quickly followed. \nNarcissistic celebrities showing off toned bodies, people having all the fun without donating, complaints about the waste of water \u2013 the attacks have come from commentators, animal-rights groups and environmentalists. And the US Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) Association \u2013 which is not related to Britain\u2019s MND Association \u2013 also came under fire for the six-figure salaries being paid to its top staff. \nMeanwhile, the challenge continues to grow. For anyone unaware of how it works, someone gives a short speech to camera about the charity, then dumps a bucket of ice cubes in water over their head, or gets a friend to do it, before nominating three people to either do the same or donate. \nIt began in the US in July, although whether it was on a golf course or a baseball field depends on which version you prefer, and first appeared on mainstream American television on 15 July. But the ALS Association has now been forced to withdraw an attempt to patent the phrase \u201cIce Bucket Challenge\u201d after criticism. \u201cWe understand the public\u2019s concern and are withdrawing the trademark applications,\u201d spokeswoman Carrie Munk said. The ALS has yet to respond to criticism of its high overheads and wage bills. \nThe unfortunate coincidence that 31 August to 5 September was World Water Week, with international delegates arriving in Stockholm to discuss the planet\u2019s water crisis, has not been lost on some. The charity WaterAid is asking people to use recycled water from bathtubs or garden butts or to douse people with sea water. \nDouglas Graham, the MND Association\u2019s fundraising director, said: \u201cThe backlash is to be expected but, really, this is just a wonderful windfall and we\u2019re so grateful. We didn\u2019t see it coming but, suddenly, the donations just started.\u201d The boost is an enormous help to a small charity looking after sufferers of a debilitating, little- understood disease that has no cure and kills five people a day in the UK. \nFormer Baywatch star Pamela Anderson, a longstanding animal-rights activist, wrote an open letter to the ALS Association, saying she could not support its record on animal experimentation. A few US stars have rejected the challenge because of California\u2019s drought. Actor Matt Damon got around the problem by pulling up water from his toilets \u2013 pointing out that much of the world had less clean drinking water available. Actor Verne Troyer used milk, again citing environmental reasons. And the challenge has been blamed for causing a water shortage on the Scottish island of Colonsay after its 135 inhabitants picked up on the craze. \nIn Australia, a TV anchorman apologized over his robust \u201cno, thanks\u201d response to being nominated. Lincoln Humphries had said: \u201cInstead of pouring fresh water over your own head and wasting ice, here is a list of charities helping communities in desperate need of money across the world. I\u2019d like to nominate everyone, everywhere, who has more than they need, to donate what they can to the people who need it most \u2026 because that is what charity is about, not putting yourself through mild discomfort with a bucket of icy water.\u201d \nAnother criticism has been that small charities won\u2019t be able to cope with the extra cash, but the MND Association rejected this. \u201cOh, we can cope here,\u201d said Graham. \u201cWe fund world-class research into the causes and, ultimately, to find a treatment or cure. We provide care and support for 3,500 people and they need it because this is such a rapidly progressing disease and it\u2019s a costly one to manage. Over 50% die within two years of diagnosis. It\u2019s heartbreaking to see the decline in people we work with over just a few months.\u201d \nBut, for many people with a connection to the disease, the awareness that the challenge has created is as valuable as the cash. Graham says it is priceless. Normally, the MND Association gets around 300,000 hits a year on its website. On a single day recently, it had 330,000. \n\u201cWe couldn\u2019t have created this if we\u2019d tried. Charities are all worthwhile causes and I understand even that some people might want to donate to a different one. In 2013, British people gave \u00a362bn to charity \u2013 we should be proud of that. It\u2019s fabulous for us to get this windfall. We\u2019ll be sitting down over the next few weeks to work out how to spend it in the best way but, I assure you, every penny will count for good.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Intermediate\nMale bosses are paid bonuses double the size of those given to female colleagues in identical jobs. This means that men get salary top-ups of 141,500 more than women over their working lives.\nThe figures, released by the Chartered Management Institute (CMI), reveal that men in UK management roles earned average bonuses of 6,442 in 2012 compared with 3,029 for women.\nIn the most senior roles, female directors received bonuses of 36,270 over the past 12 months, compared with 63,700 awarded to male directors.\nThe latest figures show that pay in British business is still not equal. This has led to calls for action from campaigners on workplace equality.\nAnn Francke, the CMIs chief executive said: Its time to move this issue into the mainstream management agenda.\nThis is about changing our approach to management. There should be greater flexibility, less masculine cultures, more emphasis on outcomes rather than time in the office and greater transparency around performance and rewards.\nIn solving this issue, we would actually raise the performance of organizations and the well-being of individuals at work. What are we waiting for?\nWhile some of the data may be affected by factors such as women doing jobs where there is less of a culture of bonus payments, the differences in the sizes of bonuses do appear to make Britains pay gap worse. The government says the pay gap is closing but that full-time male employees still earn 10% more than women.\nMaria Miller, the Minister for Women and Equalities, said: The CMI figures are another example from the world of work showing that women still lose out to their male counterparts.\nChanges in the workplace are happening and its good that the pay gap is closing  but there is still more to do before we see full equality in the workplace.\nThe government is playing its part. We have signed up 120 companies to our Think, Act, Report scheme, which encourages companies to improve the way they recruit, promote and pay women.\nWeve also looked at other pay gap causes, such as having to juggle work and family responsibilities. We have introduced shared parental leave and the right to request flexible working to all employees.\nLarge companies such as Tesco, BT, Unilever and the international law firm Eversheds are among those signed up to Think, Act, Report. The scheme has only attracted 120 supporters in nearly two years of existence.\nHowever, the CMIs data did provide some evidence to support Millers statement that the overall pay gap is narrowing: the difference between the average salaries earned by male and female bosses appeared to shrink from 2012.\nA sub-set of 17,000 individual managers, whose salaries and bonuses have been followed over a number of years, showed that male managers earnings are rising faster than womens for the first time in five years. Mens earnings increased by 3.2% compared with a 2.8% increase for women, when salaries and bonuses are combined.\nAt the most senior level, male directors earnings rose by 5.3% over the past 12 months, compared with just 1.1% for female directors.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"The bestselling book on Amazon in the US is a colouring books for adults by Scottish illustrator Johanna Basford. \nBasford\u2019s pictures of animals and plants in Secret Garden have sold more than 1.4 million copies around the world and her next book, Enchanted Forest , has sold 226,000 copies already. The books have celebrity fans like Zooey Deschanel, who shared a link about the book with her Facebook followers, and the South Korean pop star Kim Ki-Bum, who posted an image on Instagram for his 1.6 million followers. \n\u201cIt\u2019s been crazy. The last few weeks have been madness, but fantastic madness,\u201d said Eleanor Blatherwick, head of sales and marketing at the books\u2019 publisher, Laurence King. \u201cWe knew the books would be beautiful but we didn\u2019t realize they would be such a big success.\u201d and calm\u201d. \nAnd it is not just Basford\u2019s books that adults want to colour in. In the UK, Richard Merritt\u2019s Art Therapy Colouring Book is in fourth place on Amazon\u2019s bestseller lists, Millie Marotta\u2019s Animal Kingdom \u2013 detailed pictures of animals to colour \u2013 is in seventh place and a mindfulness colouring book is in ninth place. Basford\u2019s books are in second and eighth place \u2013 so half of Amazon. co.uk\u2019s top ten is filled by colouring books for adults. \nIndependent UK publisher Michael O\u2019Mara has sold around 340,000 adult colouring books. Ana McLaughlin works for them. She says the craze has happened because they are telling people that the books will help them to relax. \u201cThe first book we did was in 2012, Creative Colouring for Grown-Ups . It sold well but it was in 2014 that adult colouring books became really popular with Art Therapy . We tell people they are anti-stress books so people are allowed to enjoy something they thought was childish before,\u201d she said. \nThe Mindfulness Colouring Book says that it is filled with beautiful scenes and intricate, sophisticated patterns. This makes you relax \u201cas you fill these pages with colour\u201d. The book suggests that people \u201ctake a few minutes, wherever you are, and colour your way to peace \n\u201cI think it is really relaxing to unplug,\u201d said Basford. \u201cAnd it\u2019s creative. For many people, a blank sheet of paper is very daunting; with a colouring book you just need to bring the colour. Also, people do it because they feel nostalgia for their childhoods. So many people have said to me that they used to do secret colouring in when their kids were in bed. Now, people don\u2019t feel silly. These are books for adults. The art in my books is super intricate.\u201d The illustrator, who lives in Aberdeenshire, is creating a third book. \n\u201cThe pictures are all over Twitter and Instagram. People are really proud of them \u2013 they are so intricate,\u201d she said. \u201cPeople send us pictures of them,\u201d said McLaughlin.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Poorer countries will be most affected by climate change in the next century. \nSea levels will rise, there will be stronger cyclones, warmer days and nights, more rainfall, and larger and longer heatwaves, says a new report. \nThe last big United Nations (UN) report, in 2007, said there would be temperature rises of 6\u00b0C or more by the end of the century. Scientists now think this will not happen, but average land and sea temperatures will probably continue rising during this century, possibly becoming 4 \u00b0C hotter than now. That rise would ruin crops and make life in many cities too hot. \nAs temperatures rise and oceans become warmer, there will be big changes in annual rainfall in tropical and subtropical regions, says the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, released in Stockholm and published online in September 2013. \nEast Africa can expect more short rainfalls and west Africa should expect heavier monsoons. Burma, Bangladesh and India can expect stronger cyclones; elsewhere in southern Asia, there will probably be heavier summer rainfalls. Indonesia may receive less rainfall between July and October, but the coastal regions around the south China Sea and Gulf of Thailand can expect more rainfall when cyclones hit the land. 'Rainfall patterns will change. Northern countries, for example in Europe or North America, will probably receive more rainfall, but many subtropical, dry regions will likely get less rain,' said the report. \nThe report also said that the monsoon season will probably start earlier and last longer. \nScientists in developing countries are happy with the report. \u201cThe IPCC says that climate change is real and happening much more strongly than before. We are already seeing the effects of climate change in Bangladesh and across south Asia. It\u2019s not news to us. \nMost developing countries are experiencing climate change now. They do not need the IPCC to tell them that the weather is changing,\u201d said Saleemul Huq, director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development. \nScientists have also lowered their predictions for sea-level rises. Sea levels will probably rise an average of 40 \u201362 cm by 2100. But many millions of people living in the developing world\u2019s great cities, including Lagos and Calcutta, are in danger. \nWeather disasters are also more likely in a warmer world, the report says. The number of tropical cyclones will probably not change, but they may become more intense, with stronger winds and heavier rainfall. \nLife in many developing country cities could become very dif\ufb01cult, especially because city temperatures are already higher than those in the countryside. Much higher temperatures could reduce the length of the growing period in some parts of Africa by up to 20%, the report said. \nThe charity Oxfam said that world hunger would get worse because climate changes hurt crop production. They said the number of people at risk of hunger might increase by 10% to 20% by 2050. \n\u201cThe changing climate is already hurting the \ufb01ght against hunger, and it looks like it will get worse,\u201d said Oxfam. \u201cA hot world is a hungry world\u201d.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"A new scienti\ufb01c study says that global warming might make temperatures rise more than people think. The scientist who led the research said that, if emissions of greenhouse gases are not reduced, the planet will be at least 4C warmer by 2100. This is twice the level the world\u2019s governments consider to be dangerous. The research shows that fewer clouds form as the planet warms. This means that less sunlight re\ufb02ects back into space and this makes temperatures even higher. The way clouds affect global warming has been the biggest mystery in the study of future climate change.\nProfessor Steven Sherwood, at the University of New South Wales in Australia, who led the research, said that their work was new in two ways. First, it found what controls the cloud changes and, second, it did not accept the lowest estimates of future global warming; it believed the higher, more damaging estimates.\n\u201c4C would be catastrophic, not simply dangerous,\u201d Sherwood said. \u201cFor example, it would make life dif\ufb01cult, if not impossible, in much of the tropics and it would guarantee the eventual melting of the Greenland ice sheet and some of the Antarctic ice sheet.\u201d And, if the ice sheets melt, sea levels will rise by many metres.\nThe research helps to show how much warming is caused by rises in carbon emissions, say scientists who have commented on the study, published in the journal Nature. \nExperts at Japan\u2019s National Institute for Environmental Studies said the explanation of how fewer clouds form as the world warms was a good one. They also agreed that this showed future climate change would be bigger than people think. To measure the effect of greenhouse gases on the Earth\u2019s climate, scientists estimate what the rise in temperature would be with twice as much CO in the atmosphere as in the pre-industrial age \u2013 and this will probably happen within 50 years. For twenty years, those estimates have been from 1.5C to 5C: a wide range. The new research has reduced that range to between 3C and 5C, by studying the biggest cause of uncertainty: clouds.\nResearchers use computer climate models to predict future temperatures and it was important to include the way clouds form in those models. When water evaporates from the oceans, the vapour can rise over nine miles to form rain clouds that re\ufb02ect sunlight; or, it may rise just a few miles and fall slowly back down without forming clouds. \nIn reality, both things happen and climate models that include the second possibility predict much higher future temperatures than the models that only include the nine-mile-high clouds. \u201cClimate sceptics like to criticize climate models because they are sometimes wrong, and we know that they are not perfect,\u201d said Sherwood. \u201cBut we are \ufb01nding that the mistakes are being made by the models that predict less warming, not the models that predict more warming.\u201d He added: \u201cSceptics may also point to the pause in the rise of temperatures since the end of the 20th century, but there is more and more evidence that we cannot see this pause in other measures of the climate system. \nAnd the pause is almost certainly temporary. \u201d The world\u2019s average air temperatures have increased quite slowly since a high point in 1998, which the ocean phenomenon El Ni\u00f1o caused. But, greenhouse gases are trapping more and more heat and over 90% disappears into the oceans. Also, a recent study suggested that it may seem there is a \u201cpause\u201d, but this is only because we did not have temperature readings from polar regions, where there is the most warming. Sherwood accepts that his team\u2019s work on the role of clouds does not mean for sure that temperature rises will be in the higher range. He added that a 4C rise in the world\u2019s average temperatures would have a serious effect on the world and the economies of many countries if we do not reduce emissions.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nFor 85 years, it was just a grey blob on classroom maps of the solar system. But, on 15 July, Pluto was seen in high resolution for the first time. The images show dramatic mountain ranges made from solid water ice as big as the Alps or the Rockies.\nThe extraordinary images of the former ninth planet and its large moon, Charon, were sent back 4bn miles to Earth from the New Horizons spacecraft. They are the climax of a mission that has been quietly underway for nearly ten years.\nAlan Stern, the missions principal investigator, said New Horizons is returning amazing results. The data look absolutely gorgeous, and Pluto and Charon are just mind-blowing.\nOne of the biggest surprises was the discovery that there are mountains in the Kuiper belt, the solar systems mysterious third zone where Pluto is, with about 100,000 smaller icy objects. John Spencer, a mission scientist, said the mountains appear to be around 3,000 metres high and several hundred miles across.\nThe detailed image of one edge of the dwarf planet showed not a single crater. This tells scientists that there has been recent geological activity on the surface, which could include dramatic geysers throwing ice into the atmosphere or cryo-volcanoes that erupt in explosions of ice.\nPluto used to be the ninth planet but, since 2006, it has been known as a dwarf planet. The NASA press conference began with spectacular images of the sun and the eight official planets. Weve brought what was previously a blurred point of light into focus, said Dwayne Brown, NASA spokesman, as scientists and journalists waited for the image to be shown.\nStern said that there would be many more images and that we would learn a lot more about the planet during the coming year. The images have already produced some surprises. Scientists believe the mountains are made from water ice with just a thin cover of exotic ices, methane and nitrogen.\nWater ice is strong enough to hold up big mountains and thats what we think we can see here. This is the first time weve seen this. The methane and nitrogen are just a coating. The mountains on Pluto probably formed no more than 100m years ago  extremely recently in the 4.56bn-year-old solar system. This suggests the region, which covers about 1% of Plutos surface, may still be geologically active. The images are the first to show ice mountains, except those found on the moons of giant planets.\nThe images are so detailed that, if the craft were flying over London, we would be able to see the runways at Heathrow airport.\nThe distance to Pluto  5bn km  means it takes New Horizons hours to send back a picture and it will take 16 months to send back all the data. The team also announced that the heart-shaped feature visible on Pluto will now be known as the Tombaugh Regio, after Clyde Tombaugh, who discovered the dwarf planet in 1930.\nThe new view of Charon reveals an area of cliffs stretching about 1,000km. This suggests cracks in Charons surface, which could also be the result of geological activity. The image also shows a dramatic canyon about 7 to 9km deep.\nCathy Olkin, a mission scientist, said: Charon just blew our socks off when we saw the new image today. The team has just been abuzz. There is so much interesting science in this one image alone. Scientists think that Pluto is two thirds rock surrounded by a lot of ice, with surface temperatures of about minus 230C. As the 460m mission continues into the Kuiper belt, scientists hope that it will help us to see and understand more of the ancient solar system and the origins of planets. It may even help to explain the formation of the Earth itself.\nAndrew Coates, head of planetary science at the Mullard Space Science Laboratory, said: These Kuiper belt objects are the building blocks of the outer solar system. Theyre all very cold  its like a cosmic deep freeze. Its the best way of preserving solar system history. That is what is so fascinating about this. Its a really thrilling time for solar system exploration.\nIn August 2015, mission scientists will choose which of two objects to visit next. NASA estimates that the spacecraft will be able to keep recording and sending back data until the mid-2030s. Then, its plutonium power source will run out and it will drift outwards towards the edge of the solar system and deep space.\nNew Horizons also observed the smaller members of the Pluto system, which includes four other moons: Nix, Hydra, Styx and Kerberos. New Horizons is a true mission of exploration, showing us why basic scientific research is so important, said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASAs Science Mission Directorate.\nThe images also suggest that Hydras surface is probably coated with water ice. Future images will reveal more clues about the formation of this, and the other moon, billions of years ago.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"In typical bad-boyfriend style, Dan Sullivan was late to breakfast with the Guardian because he got pulled over on his motorcycle. \nSullivan works too much, he says. He misses dinner dates. He forgets to give presents. \nAnd so, like seemingly everyone in Silicon Valley, the 27-year-old venture capitalist has come up with a start-up to fix it: BetterBoyfriend.me, a service that sends girlfriends and wives a present every month for about $70. \nSullivan, who works in finance, has been quietly testing the program and has signed up about 350 boyfriends generating about $17,000 revenue every month. Most members, he says, are from his collection of Harvard and investor friends: venture capitalists, founders and employees of companies like Apple, Google and Facebook, whose girlfriends have been getting presents from Sullivan for the last year. \nEach month, Sullivan\u2019s members choose from a list of seven possible gifts (chocolate, tea sets, manicures). The package is sent to the boyfriend unbranded and unlabelled. \nHe tests his ideas by buying Facebook ads just to see what kind of traction they get. BetterBoyfriend.me took off. \u201cBetterBoyfriend hit something,\u201d Sullivan said. \u201cIt\u2019s a pain point everyone has.\u201d \nBetterBoyfriend.me was not Sullivan\u2019s first idea. For a couple of days, he thought about a dog-sharing pitch: \u201cI see all these rich guys looking just miserable walking dogs and I realized: a dog is only valuable 5% of the time,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, what if we got a guy who would babysit the dogs and other people could rent them out?\u201d \nAnother start-up, called InvisibleBoyfriend, allows users \u201cto design and build a believable social partner who is everything you want and is always available to talk, whenever you want\u201d. The end result is a \u201cboyfriend\u201d who can text with you all day. \nFounder Kyle Tabor launched it to give users a faux boyfriend to deter unwanted advances but has found people have grown attached to their algorithmic partners: \u201cMany more users are seeking companionship through conversation rather than external 'proof' of a relationship to get people off their back.\u201d \nFor Sullivan and Tabor, the surprise was the real relationships that have formed with their customers. Sullivan says he has begun to see himself as a sort of relationship consultant for the boyfriends. \nSullivan admits he\u2019s made mistakes. Early on, the packages included receipts that had his name on them, Dan Sullivan. \u201cOne of the boyfriends wrote to me and said, 'Listen, dude, she\u2019s not mad but Cynthia found out'.\u201d \nAbout 50% of the women BetterBoyfriend.me deliver packages to know about his involvement in their relationships: \u201cIt\u2019s correlated with age. I think, after you\u2019ve been married a while, you don\u2019t keep many secrets.\u201d \nAnd over the year, the young founder says he\u2019s got to know the boyfriends really well. They\u2019ve even done a delivery to a hospital delivery room. The key, he said, is to remember that his relationship is with the boyfriend. \nWhen he first launched his company, he attached tags that said BetterBoyfriend.me to flower bouquets and set off for Dolores Park, a popular lounging spot in the tech- and youth-heavy Mission District. \n\u201cI looked for couples and gave the bouquet to the girl but that didn\u2019t go down well with the boyfriend. Like, not at all. It made sense, though. It was cool,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, I reconsidered and started handing them out to the boyfriends.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"A mirror that sends heat into the frigid expanse of space has been designed by scientists to replace air-conditioning units that keep buildings cool on Earth. \nResearchers believe the mirror could slash the amount of energy used to control air temperatures in business premises and shopping centres by doing away with power-hungry cooling systems. \nAround 15% of the energy used by buildings in the US goes on air conditioning, but the researchers\u2019 calculations suggest that, in some cases, the mirror could completely offset the need for extra cooling. \nIn a rooftop comparison of the device in Stanford, California, scientists found that, while a surface painted black reached 60C more than ambient temperature in sunlight and bare aluminium reached 40C more, the mirror was up to 5C cooler than the surrounding air temperature. \n\u201cIf you cover significant parts of the roof with this mirror, you can see how much power it can save. \nYou can significantly offset the electricity used for air conditioning,\u201d said Shanhui Fan, an expert in photonics at Stanford University, who led the development of the mirror. \u201cIn some situations, the computations say you can completely offset the air conditioning.\u201d \nBuildings warm up in a number of different ways. Hot-water boilers and cooking facilities release heat into their immediate surroundings. In hot countries, warm air comes in through doors and windows. Then, there is visible light and infrared radiation from the sun, which also heat up buildings. \nThe Stanford mirror was designed in such a way that it reflects 97% of the visible light that falls on it. But, more importantly, it works as a thermal radiator. When the mirror is warmed up, it releases heat at a specific wavelength of infrared light that passes easily through the atmosphere and out into space. \nTo make anything cool requires what engineers call a heat sink: somewhere to dump unwanted heat. The heat sink has to be cooler than the object that needs cooling or it will not do its job. For example, a bucket of ice will cool a bottle of wine because it becomes a sink for heat in the liquid. The Stanford mirror relies on the ultimate heat sink: the universe itself. \nThe mirror is built from several layers of wafer-thin materials. The first layer is reflective silver. On top of this are alternating layers of silicon dioxide and hafnium oxide. These layers improve the reflectivity but, also, turn the mirror into a thermal radiator. When silicon dioxide heats up, it radiates the heat as infrared light at a wavelength of around ten micrometres. Since there is very little in the atmosphere that absorbs at that wavelength, the heat passes straight out to space. The total thickness of the mirror is around two micrometres or two thousandths of a millimetre. \n\u201cThe cold darkness of the universe can be used as a renewable thermodynamic resource, even during the hottest hours of the day,\u201d the scientists write in Nature. In tests, the mirror had a cooling power of 40 watts per square metre at ambient temperature. \nWriting in the journal, Fan puts the installed cost of mirrors at between $20 and $70 per square metre and calculates an annual electricity saving of 100MWh on a three-storey building. \nFan said that the mirror could cool buildings \u2013 or other objects \u2013 simply by putting it in direct contact with them. Coating the roof of a building with the mirror would prevent heating from sunlight but do little to remove heat from its interior. More likely, the mirror would be used to cool water or some other fluid that would then be pumped around the building. \nHe ruled out the idea of using the mirrors to slow down global warming. \u201cRoof space accounts for only a small portion of the Earth\u2019s surface so, at this point, we don\u2019t think this would be a geoengineering solution. Rather, our contribution on the greenhouse-gas-emission issue is simply to reduce electricity consumption,\u201d he said. \n\u201cI\u2019m really excited by the potential it has and the applications for cooling,\u201d said Marin Solja\u010di\u0107, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. \u201cYou could use this on buildings so you have to spend much less on air conditioning or maybe you wouldn\u2019t need it at all. You could put it on top of shopping malls. With a large enough surface, you could get substantial cooling.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"It could be the best thing since Trevor Baylis\u2019s wind-up radio in the pre-internet 1990s \u2013 a cheap light that draws free power from gravity and could end the use of dangerous kerosene-fuelled lamps in Africa and India.\nBut when British designer, Patrick Hunt, went down the conventional route of bank or venture capital finance to get his invention kickstarted commercially, he hit a problem. \u201cWe tried to get funding to make it happen, but it\u2019s slow and complex and it\u2019s unproven and nobody wants to take a risk,\u201d he said.\nSo he tried crowdfunding on a US website, Indiegogo, which had recently opened up in the UK. Within five days, he had hit his target and raised \u00a336,200. So popular was his campaign at the end of 2012 to entice donations from the public that within 40 days he had raised a colossal \u00a3400,000.\nThe LED light is powered by a dynamo driven by the descent of a 10kg bag of rocks. The weight is attached to the light, lifted to a height of about 2m, and while it is allowed to slowly fall to the ground it will generate enough power for half an hour of light.\nHunt is preparing for production in China and will test the market again by delivering 1,000 of the lights to Africa before the full mass production of what he hopes will be millions of units.\nHe is one of a new wave of entrepreneurs turning to the fast-growing crowdfunding industry for finance. Another new site is InvestingZone, which matches wealthy individuals with start-up entrepreneurs.\nIndiegogo does not offer shares but allows users to offer \u201cperks\u201d for different levels of donation \u2013 those helping to fund Hunt\u2019s innovative light not only got to feel good about helping the less well off but also got their own light.\nFor Danae Ringelmann, co-founder of Indiegogo, the \u201cgravity light\u201d is a perfect example of how meritocratic crowdfunding can be and how it can test an entrepreneur\u2019s idea. \u201cIt is the first time that finance has been fast, efficient and meritocratic, because it is not about 'How do I get access to the decision makers in that bank?' or 'Who do I know in that venture capital outfit?' This is all about proving your worth to your customers and fans, getting them to validateyour idea and fund it.\n\u201cEven ideas that aren\u2019t deemed worthy to get funding are worth testing, because you will have saved yourself a whole bunch of time finding out it wasn\u2019t a good idea and getting smarter faster,\u201d she says.\nRingelmann, who is based in the US, started her career as a Wall Street analyst. In 2008, she decided to quit and use her skills to try and help friends who worked in the arts to raise money.\nThe site was originally focused on the film business and launched at the Sundance Film Festival that year.\nFive years on and it is raising about $2m a week for new businesses in start-up and growth stages. In December 2012, it launched a euro and a sterling service to get a foothold this side of the Atlantic and says Britain is its third biggest market. International activity is up 41% since December.\nThere is no shortage of competitors, be it Kickstarter, Seedrs or Funding Circle, but, unlike rivals, says Ringelmann, Indiegogo is the only crowdfunder where anyone can launch a campaign. No project is deemed too wacky.\nThe site levies a 4% fee for successful campaigns. For those that fail to raise their target amount, users have the option of either refunding all money to their contributors at no charge or keeping all money raised but with a 9% fee.\nA British woman, Lauren Pears, raised \u00a3100,000 to open a \u201ccat caf\u00e9\u201d in London through the site.\nKnown as Lady Dinah\u2019s Cat Emporium, it is yet to open but is billed as somewhere people can \u201ccome in from the cold to a comfortable wingback chair, a hot cup of tea, a book and a cat\u201d.\n\u201cWe\u2019ve seen campaigns that go to venture capitalists get rejected because the venture guys say, 'Great idea but no idea if the market actually wants it; it could be a gadget that no one cares about,'\u201d said Ringelmann.\n\u201cThe entrepreneurs do an Indiegogo campaign \u2013 they don\u2019t even actually launch the project, but the campaign itself is enough market proof for venture capitalists to say there is a market for this. \n\u201cIt allows you to test your market, test your pricing, test your features, discover new revenue streams, get vital feedback,\u201d says Ringelmann. \nWith her Wall Street background and the experience of helping 100,000 businesses and services raise finance, Ringelmann has fine-tuned her advice for the budding entrepreneur. \n\u201cIdeas are a dime a dozen. It\u2019s all about the execution and, if you are afraid that your idea will be stolen by someone who could execute it better and faster than you, then you are not the right person to execute that idea. It\u2019s all about confidence to move fast and to learn,\u201d she says. \nFor Ringelmann, the expansion into Europe and a deal with a web transaction provider, which will allow payments to be made through local card services like Maestro in the UK and Carte Bleue in France, as well as PayPal, are part of a dream to democratize finance. More than 7,000 campaigns for finance are live on the site. \nWhile crowdfunding as an alternative to banks has grown, it has limited appeal to big-bucks investors, who don\u2019t settle for anything less than a stake in a promising business. That could start to change in the UK with the launch of InvestingZone.","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nWales will become the first country in the UK that will presume people have consented to donate their organs unless they opt out.\nThe Welsh Assembly has voted to adopt the opt-out policy, which will allow hospitals to act on the assumption that people who die want to donate unless they have specifically registered an objection.\nThe policy was passed by 43 votes to eight, with two abstentions, in spite of objections from religious groups for moral reasons and worries that the scheme could add to the unhappiness of grieving families.\nThis is a huge day for Wales and, most importantly, for the 226 people in Wales waiting for an organ transplant, said the Welsh Health Minister, Mark Drakeford.\nI am proud that Wales will be the first nation in the UK to take this step. As a society, we have shown we are prepared to take action to increase organ donation and to provide hope to those people waiting every week for a transplant.\nFamily refusal is a major factor that affects the numbers of organ donations and the main reason for refusal is lack of knowledge of their loved ones wishes.\nThe aim of the scheme has always been to respect the wishes of the deceased; however, relatives or friends may object to consent.\nWhen family members know that organ donation is what the deceased wanted, they usually agree to the donation. The new law will work by making clearer peoples wishes around the issue of organ donation and it will increase the rate of consent to donation.\nThe issue is controversial  opponents are worried that the urgent need for more kidneys and hearts will lead to hospitals overruling the wishes of those who have died and their family. But the government insists their wishes will be protected.\nRelatives will have a clear right of objection, giving them the chance to show that the deceased would not have wanted to be an organ donor.\nWales has acted because of an acute shortage of organs. We have the problem of not having enough organs for people who need them, said Drakeford. About one person every week dies in Wales while on a waiting list.\nAround a third of the Welsh population is on the organ donor register, but well over two-thirds in surveys say they are happy to be organ donors. That other third is people who dont find the time to put their names on the register.\nThe new law would apply to anybody over 18 who has lived in Wales for at least the year before his or her death. Donated organs would not only go to people in need of a transplant in Wales but to anybody in the UK.\nDoctors are delighted at the new policy. The British Medical Association has campaigned for a long time for an opt-out system because it is worried about the growing number of people who need transplants.\nBig efforts have been made in recent years to increase the number of those who carry an organ donation card, with a good deal of success. Hospitals have also introduced improved systems for coordinating transplants, including the important discussions with relatives when no one really knows what the wishes of the deceased were. But the increase in numbers of organs that are donated is still not enough.\nSome religious groups, on the other hand, strongly disagree with the new law  they argue that it would cause further unhappiness to relatives. Members of the Muslim Council of Wales and the South Wales Jewish Representative Council have expressed worries, while the Archbishop of Wales, Barry Morgan, said that donation ought to be a gift of love, of generosity. If organs can be taken unless someone has explicitly registered an objection, thats not an expression of love. Its more a medical use of a body.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"JMW Turner, one of Britain\u2019s greatest painters, is to be the face of the new \u00a320 note, following a nationwide vote. \nIt will be the first time an artist has appeared on a British banknote, after the governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, asked the public to nominate a deceased cultural figure they felt deserved the high honour. \nTurner, renowned for his dramatic seascapes, beat off competition from 590 painters, sculptors, fashion designers, photographers, film-makers and actors put forward by 30,000 members of the public. \nThe list included Alfred Hitchcock, Alexander McQueen, Derek Jarman, Laura Ashley, William Morris and Vanessa Bell, which was then narrowed down by a panel of artists, critics and historians to a final choice of five. \nThe final five \u2013 Barbara Hepworth, Charlie Chaplin, Josiah Wedgwood, William Hogarth and Turner \u2013 were selected on the basis of their \u201cunquestioned\u201d contribution to both the visual arts and British society as a whole, as well as their enduring influence. \nFittingly, the announcement of the new banknote was made at the Turner Contemporary gallery in Margate, which stands on the former site of Mrs Booth\u2019s lodging house, where Turner would always stay when he visited. The announcement was made jointly by Carney and the artist Tracey Emin, who grew up in the town. \nCarney said it had been \u201cso important to get this right and have a proper process that involved the public,\u201d adding that, far from banknotes being purely a practical necessity, \u201cif done properly, they can be a piece of art in everyone\u2019s pocket\u201d. \n\u201cMoney is memory for a country and its people,\u201d said the Bank of England governor. \u201cBanknotes of the Bank of England are a celebration of the UK\u2019s heritage, a salute to its culture, a testament to its great achievements, including those of its most notable citizens. In short, money has not just economic value, it has cultural value as well. \n\u201cTurner is arguably the single most influential British artist of all time. His work was transformative and endures today. And his work will now feature on another 2bn works of art \u2013 our new \u00a320 notes.\u201d \n\u201cThe fact that we will have Turner on the \u00a320 note shows now that the British people are a nation of people who appreciate creativity and appreciate the arts,\u201d said Emin. \nThe note will feature Turner\u2019s 1799 self-portrait, which currently hangs in Tate Britain, as well as one of his most recognizable works, The Fighting Temeraire, a tribute to the ship that played a distinguished role in Nelson\u2019s victory at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. \nEmblazoned on the note will also be a quote from the artist \u2013 \u201clight is therefore colour\u201d \u2013 as well as his signature, taken from his will, in which he bequeathed many of his works to the nation. \nThe new \u00a320 note, which replaces the one featuring social philosopher and economic theorist Adam Smith, will enter circulation by 2020. This is the first time the public have been given a say over whose face appears on a British banknote.","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Police and intelligence agencies around the world have, for almost 100 years, relied on lie detectors to help convict criminals or unearth spies and traitors. \nThe polygraph is beloved of the movies, with countless dramatic moments showing the guilty sweating profusely as they are hooked up. \nBut the invention could soon be defunct. Researchers in Britain and the Netherlands have made a breakthrough, developing a method with a success rate in tests of over 70% that could be in use in police stations around the world within a decade. Rather than relying on facial tics, talking too much or waving of arms \u2013 all seen as tell-tale signs of lying \u2013 the new method involves monitoring full-body motions to provide an indicator of signs of guilty feelings. \nThe polygraph is widely used in the US in criminal and other cases and for security clearance for the FBI and CIA but is much less popular in Europe. There has been a lot of scepticism in the scientific and legal communities about its reliability. By contrast, the new method developed by the researchers has performed well in experiments. \nThe basic premise is that liars fidget more and so the use of an all-body motion suit \u2013 the kind used in films to create computer-generated characters \u2013 will pick this up. The suit contains 17 sensors that register movement up to 120 times per second in three dimensions for 23 joints. \nOne of the research team, Ross Anderson, professor of security engineering at Cambridge University, said: \u201cDecades of deception research show that the interviewer will tell truth from lies only slightly better than random, about 55 out of 100. \n\u201cThe polygraph has been around since the 1920s and, by measuring physiological stress induced by anxiety, you can get to 60. However, it can easily be abused as an interrogation prop and many people are anxious anyway facing a polygraph on which their job or liberty depends.\u201d \nHe said the new method, by contrast, achieved a reliability rating of over 70% and he was confident they would be able to do better. In some tests, the team has already achieved more than 80%. Anderson said: \u201cThe takeaway message is that guilty people fidget more and we can measure this robustly.\u201d \nAnderson added that the research had a special significance at this time, against the background of the US Senate report on torture by the CIA. Apart from the moral case against torture, Anderson pointed out that it was a very unreliable way of gathering accurate information. \u201cWe have known for a long time that torture does not work,\u201d he said. The new method offers a pragmatic, scientifically backed alternative to conducting interviews. The research paper was written by Dr Sophie van der Zee of Cambridge University, Professor Ronald Poppe of Utrecht University, Professor Paul Taylor of Lancaster University and Anderson. \nThe polygraph was created in 1921 by policeman John Larson, based on research by the psychologist William Marston. It records changes in pulse, blood pressure, sweating and breathing to ascertain whether a subject is lying. \nWhile cinema depictions suggest the device is near-infallible, the US Supreme Court ruled, in 1998, that there was no consensus that the polygraph was reliable, a finding supported by the US National Academy of Scientists in 2003. The experiment carried out by Anderson and his colleagues involved 180 students and employees at Lancaster University, of which half were told to tell the truth and half to lie. They were each paid \u00a37.50 for their participation in the 70-minute experiment, involving two tests. \nSome were interviewed about a computer game Never End , which they played for seven minutes, while others lied about playing it, having only been shown notes about it. \nThe second test involved a lost wallet containing \u00a35. Some were asked to bring the wallet to a lost-and-found box while others hid it and lied about it. \n\u201cOverall, we correctly classified 82.2% (truths: 88.9%; lies: 75.6%) of the interviewees as either being truthful or deceptive based on the combined movement in their individual limbs,\u201d the report says. Anderson said: \u201cOur first attempt looked at the extent to which different body parts and body signals indicated deception. It turned out that liars wave their arms more but, again, this is only at the 60% level that you can get from a conventional polygraph. \n\u201cThe pay dirt was when we considered total body motion. That turns out to tell truth from lies over 70% of the time and we believe it can be improved still further by combining it with optimal questioning techniques.\u201d \nAnother advantage is that total body motion is relatively unaffected by cultural background, anxiety and cognitive load (how much you are thinking), which confound other lie-detection technologies, Anderson said. \nThe use of all-body suits is expensive \u2013 they cost about \u00a330,000 \u2013 and can be uncomfortable, and Anderson and his colleagues are now looking at low-cost alternatives. These include using motion-sensing technology from computer games, such as the Kinect devices developed by Microsoft for the Xbox console. \nAnderson acknowledges that agencies such as the CIA could teach agents how to counter the full-body motion method by freezing their bodies but he said that in itself would be a giveaway.","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nThe customer next to you in the queue looks quite normal. But, instead of a shopping list, you notice shes carrying handwritten notes about the appearance and cleanliness of the store. Shes been timing the speed of the queue on her phone ... and is that a tiny camera lens in her purse? Shes probably a mystery shopper.\nThere are approximately 50,000 mystery shopping trips carried out every month in the UK, according to the Mystery Shopping Providers Association, and, as more and more spending takes place online, the demand for mystery shoppers is growing. Retailers are becoming increasingly aware that shoppers who are prepared to set foot in a physical store want a service and an experience they cant get online, says Simon Boydell, spokesman for Marketforce, which has more than 300,000 mystery shoppers. Our clients want to measure how well their stores are delivering on that experience.\nWe assign different store locations to each shopper and rotate them so that they never go back to the same shop within three months, says Jill Spencer of mystery shopping company ABa. Each day, they typically spend up to eight hours visiting  ve to ten stores, plus another hour or two  ling detailed reports on every aspect of their visit. For that, the mystery shoppers can earn up to 155 a day. They are also reimbursed for their expenses. Mystery shoppers who  lm their visits with a hidden camera can earn even more  around 300 a day.\nShoppers are usually repaid any money they spend in the stores and may also be allowed to keep the products they buy. Im typically given between 5 and 20 to spend at each store, to assess the service I receive at the till, says mystery shopper Laura. Im always given a scenario, such as buying something from a speci c department or a new product range, but I can often buy whatever I want  and keep it.\nLike most full-time mystery shoppers, Laura is self-employed. Her income is around 30,000 to 40,000 a year and that doesnt include all the freebies she gets on the job. With the perks, its enough to live on. She  nds it satisfying to return to a store she has previously mystery shopped and see standards have improved. I know it must be because of my feedback or why would they pay me to give it? Some of the retailers I shop at win awards for customer service and I think that is down to us mystery shoppers. I feel Im not just doing a service for my company; Im doing a service for all shoppers everywhere.\nIts estimated that more than 500,000 people have registered as mystery shoppers in the UK, but just 10% or less manage to get regular work each month. This has led to a dramatic reduction in pay. Once you got a fee, reimbursement for your purchase and mileage, but you now often just receive a contribution towards a purchase, say Val, a 51-year-old former mystery shopper. I worked for 40 different mystery shopping companies for almost 20 years but I gave up entirely three years ago because I had bills to pay and very few assignments paid an acceptable rate.\nNowadays, mystery shopping companies mostly give freebies to incentivize their workers. Marketforce shoppers typically get a couple of pounds for a visit as a token gesture for their time and effort, says Boydell. At the most, well pay 15 to 25 plus reimbursement for, perhaps, a meal for two or a hotel stay. We dont directly employ any shoppers so we dont have to pay them the minimum wage.\nId go on a cruise for nothing, says Laura. But I think mystery shopping companies that pay you a nominal fee to travel to a restaurant and eat a meal are exploiting people. I wont touch those jobs anymore. There are plenty of people, however, that would. Hannah, a 41-year-old lawyer, has done nearly 500 visits for the Mystery Dining Company in her spare time without receiving 9 3 pay or travel expenses. She carries out their most exclusive assignments, enjoying 200 meals at Michelin-starred restaurants and overnight stays at boutique hotels.\nBut theres no such thing as a free lunch, even if you work for a mystery dining company. Hannah says she typically spends two to four hours after each visit writing detailed reports on everything from the quality of the food to speci c interactions with staff, whom she always needs to be able to name or describe. She has to memorize all these details while eating her meal because she cannot openly write anything down.\nTheres lots to remember. Youre expected to give feedback while its fresh, so Ive had to get up at 5am to write a report before work. Its a challenging thing to do; you need to be focused, articulate and detail orientated.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"It is difficult to know exactly where the noise is coming from, but you can hear it everywhere in Damascus. All day and all night you can hear the sound of guns, rockets or planes attacking rebels \u2013 the sound of war is getting closer to Syria\u2019s capital. The Syrian war began two years ago and now the people of Damascus try not to listen to the sound of explosions just a few miles away. \n\u201cActually you get used to it after a while,\u201d said George, who lives in the city. \u201cBut you never know exactly what they are hitting.\u201d That usually becomes clear later from videos that the opposition puts on YouTube. \nThe constant noise of bombs is more worrying because the government tries so hard to pretend that life is normal. \u201cAs you can see, everything here is fine but we have to hit the terrorists, these extremists,\u201d an army officer said. One government official said: \u201cIf I was afraid, I would just shut my door and stay inside. I have to work and I am not afraid. If I don\u2019t defend my country, who will?\u201d \nIn private conversation, ordinary people say something different. In the centre of town, a shopkeeper complained sadly that his baby daughter cries at the sound of explosions. Zeina, a student, worries that she has learnt to live with suffering and danger. \u201cIn the beginning, when there started to be explosions, I used to have nightmares,\u201d she said. \u201cNow I can sleep through anything.\u201d  \nAnd, the dangers are increasing even closer to home. Sabaa Bahrat Square was the safest part of Damascus, but recently a car bomb exploded there and damaged the Syrian Central Bank. The square is often used for pro-government rallies, with people shouting slogans under enormous pictures of President Bashar al-Assad. \nThat bombing was not the worst one in Damascus in recent months. In February, reports say that 80 people, including schoolchildren, died near the ruling Ba\u2019ath Party headquarters in Mazraa. You can still see the crater. \u201cI live nearby but luckily I wasn\u2019t there,\u201d says Munir, a university lecturer. \nRebels, who are now very close to the city, have recently started to fire mortar bombs. The bombs killed 15 students in a university cafeteria on 28 March. They probably wanted to hit a government building. \nIn July 2012, a bomb killed four of Assad\u2019s senior aides. After that, security increased. Concrete barriers \u2013 often painted in the Syrian flag\u2019s black, red and white \u2013 now protect official buildings, not just the military or defence installations that are obvious targets. \nMoving around the city has become difficult and takes a lot of time \u2013 another part of life today in a nervous city. Checkpoints on main roads stop traffic for ID checks and bags are searched for explosives. Only drivers with official permission can use special fast lanes to avoid the wait. \nThere is one question on everyone\u2019s mind: will there be a battle for Damascus \u2013 one of the world\u2019s oldest cities \u2013 like the one that has badly damaged Aleppo? One view is that there will be a battle for Syria\u2019s capital, but not yet \u2013 in the summer perhaps. Others argue that there will probably not be a complete victory for either side and hope for a political solution that comes from abroad. But most people here do not expect things to get better.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"After being told for the umpteenth time that the beer she wanted would be \u201ctoo dark and too strong for you, love \u2013 have something sweeter\u201d, Rebecka Singerer had had enough. \n\u201cNo, I don\u2019t want a fruit beer. Women can drink whatever we want,\u201d she says. \nNow Singerer, a childminder, has joined FemAle, a group of like-minded drinkers in Gothenburg, to launch Sweden\u2019s first beer made by women. \nWe Can Do It, a bottled pale ale, has just gone on sale in stores across Sweden. Its label is a take on Rosie the Riveter, the creation of a US Second World War propaganda campaign that went on to become a symbol of women\u2019s power in the workplace. \nThe group\u2019s founder is Elin Carlsson, 25, who paints cars at the Volvo factory outside the city. \u201cWe Can Do It is not a female beer but a beer brewed by women that anyone can drink,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s nothing to do with feminism; it\u2019s about equality \u2013 we wanted to show we can do it.\u201d \nFemAle is up against decades of prejudice in the beer world. In an irony not lost on FemAle, Carlsberg and other big brewers have spent millions in recent years trying to sell beer to women, attempting to \u201cpink it and shrink it\u201d to appeal to perceived feminine tastes. Carlsberg\u2019s Eve and Copenhagen offerings, Foster\u2019s Radler and Coors\u2019s Anim\u00e9e were among lighter, flavoured and even \u201cbloat-resistant\u201d beers that failed to find a market. \nFemAle\u2019s approach is different, with women- only tastings that allow potential customers to experiment with flavours and styles of beer that they may not normally try. This education process is the way to \u201cget more girls into the beer world\u201d, the group says. \u201cBring your mother, sister, girlfriend, aunt and grandmother so we can all learn more about beer.\u201d \nThe idea for FemAle arose after the women kept bumping into each other at beer festivals. \nWe Can Do It was the brainchild of Felicia Nordstr\u00f6m, a bar worker who says she was fed up with bearded beer snobs telling her: \u201cWhat do you know about beer, sweetie?\u201d She approached FemAle and they teamed up with Ocean, a local independent micro-brewery. One weekend they concocted the recipe and the next they brewed 1,600 litres. \n\u201cThis is not a beer that is aimed at women \u2013 it\u2019s our hoppiest brew,\u201d says Thomas Bingebo, the head brewer at Ocean. \u201cWhen the big breweries target women, it usually fails. This is something completely different.\u201d \nThe first batch of We Can Do It was sold out almost before it was brewed. FemAle has already been approached by other breweries asking if they can brew new beers with them. \nWe Can Do It uses three malts \u2013 Maris Otter, Amber and a Thomas Fawcett wheat malt \u2013 and the hop varieties Galaxy and Cascade. Its IBU, or bitterness level, is 65 and its alcohol content is 4.6%. \n\u201cWomen opt for a glass of wine because they don\u2019t know what beer is all about; they don\u2019t know what to order,\u201d says Carlsson. \u201cWe open up new worlds to them.\u201d \n\u201cI used not to like stout but, back then, I only drank Pripps [a light, Swedish lager],\u201d says Singerer, 38. \u201cGuinness tastes like water to me now. There are imperial stouts that are like drinking biscotti dipped in espresso.\u201d \nThe women are part of a brewing explosion in Sweden, which is developing a passion for \u201ccraft\u201d ales, bottled and on draught. The standard stor stark (large strong) lager is now \u201calmost extinct\u201d in Gothenburg, the women say, as pubs and bars replace the big brands with a choice of specialist beers. \n\u201cAll the girls are different \u2013 there is no typical woman beer-lover. Anyone can do it,\u201d says Emma Henriksson, 22, a group member who works in a garden equipment company. \n\u201cEvery pub wants to learn how to reach women,\u201d adds Singerer. \u201cAnd Elin has found the way. It\u2019s awesome. We feel so proud.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nDuring a momentous day at Liverpool Cathedral for the families of the 96 people who died so needlessly at Sheffield Wednesdays Hillsborough football ground, you could hear one phrase again and again: the truth. These were the words used in a headline in The Sun newspaper. We now know that the story in the newspaper was given to the paper by the South Yorkshire Police to move the blame for the disaster onto the innocent victims.\nMargaret Aspinalls son James, then 18, died at the match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest. She said the families had had to fight for 23 years for the truth. Aspinall, Chairperson of the Hillsborough Family Support Group, said that the families loss would never go away, but she was delighted that the Prime Minister gave a profound apology for Hillsborough.\nAn independent panel studied 450,000 documents created by the police, Sheffield Wednesday and all other bodies responsible. Then it produced a 395-page report, criticizing official mistakes and highlighting the fact that the victims and other fans were not responsible. Some of the causes of the disaster have been exposed before but the depth of the cover-up was still shocking, in particular the police campaign to falsely blame the supporters.\nThe panel found that the South Yorkshire Police, led by the Chief Constable, Peter Wright, told their story that drunken supporters or those without tickets had caused the disaster. The victims blood was tested for alcohol levels. This was an exceptional decision, the panel said, and it found no rationale for it. When victims had alcohol in their blood, the police then checked to find if they had criminal records. The report found there was no evidence  to prove the serious allegations of exceptional levels of drunkenness, ticketlessness or violence among Liverpool fans.\nThe report found that Wright met his police federation in a Sheffield restaurant to prepare a defence and a rock-solid story. The meeting was held just four days after the disaster. It was the day that The Sun newspaper published its headline The Truth over lies told to it by four senior South Yorkshire police officers.\nThe panel found that officers statements were changed to delete criticism of the police and emphasize misbehaviour by supporters. The panel found that 116 of 164 statements were changed to remove or change negative comments about South Yorkshire police. The police had claimed they changed statements only to remove opinion, but the panel had no doubt they did more than that. It was done to remove criticism of the police, the report said.\nThis propaganda did not convince the original inquiry. It found in August 1989 that the police stories of fan drunkenness and misbehaviour were false, and criticized the police for making the claims. It revealed that Sheffield Wednesdays football ground was unsafe, that the Football Association had chosen it as the stadium for the match without even checking if it had a valid safety certificate (it did not).\nBut it was the mismanagement of the crowd by the police, led by an inexperienced Chief Superintendent David Duckenfield, that was the main cause of the disaster. The police lost control outside the ground, where 24,000 Liverpool fans had to go through just 23 turnstiles, so Duckenfield ordered a large exit gate to be opened and a large number of people to be allowed in. His mistake, according to the inquiry, was the failure to close the tunnel that led to the central section behind the goal, which was already overcrowded.\nBut the police still repeated their claims at the inquest. The coroner decided not to take evidence of what happened after 3.15pm on the day of the disaster, so the chaotic emergency response was not examined. The panel found that 41 of the 96 who died could possibly have been saved if the police and ambulance service had done their jobs properly.\nFollowing the panels report, the Attorney General will now decide whether to have a new inquest. There may be prosecutions too, after all these years, of Sheffield Wednesday, South Yorkshire Police and Sheffield City Council, which failed in its duty to oversee safety of the football ground. Trevor Hicks, President of the Hillsborough Family Support Group, whose two teenage daughters died in the disaster, said: The truth is out today. Tomorrow is for justice.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Striding on stage, Donald Trump had a surprisingly humble confession to make for someone defying all the laws of political gravity. \n\u201cUnless we win, it doesn\u2019t mean a damn thing,\u201d the would-be Republican presidential nominee warned a campaign rally in South Carolina, despite finishing his fourth month in a row at the top of the opinion polls. \u201cI want to pick my date for the election. I want it next Tuesday,\u201d he confided to the 11,000-strong crowd \u2013 typical of the grassroots support that needs to flourish into March 2016 for him to win the nomination, let alone November\u2019s general election. Such moments of self-doubt are fleeting, quickly replaced by the now-familiar bombast of a billionaire whose status as a \u201cwinner\u201d has become his defining policy platform. \nTrump is not the only one beginning to wonder whether his improbable campaign can confound the pundits and go the distance, particularly after a burst of recent controversy only seemed to cement his polling lead over bewildered rivals. Conventional wisdom holds that any one of these outbursts would have sunk most politicians by now. \nFirst, there was the time he outraged prisoners of war by doubting the heroism of Vietnam veteran John McCain because he allowed himself to be captured. Then, there was the first television debate, where he insulted Fox News moderator, Megyn Kelly, because she asked him difficult questions. \nAs if PoWs, Fox News and women were not enemies enough, Trump has also insulted Mexican immigrants to the US, claimed that a Black Lives Matter protester who was violently ejected from a rally deserved to be \u201croughed up\u201d, appeared to mock a New York Times journalist for his disability and falsely accused Muslim Americans of cheering on the 9\/11 attackers. \nTrump has complained that many of these incidents were exaggerated by the political media, 70% of whom, he says, are \u201cscum\u201d. But, he has nonetheless refused to retract any of the comments. \u201cI could have said, 'Oh, I misspoke', but I am not big on that,\u201d Trump told the crowd in South Carolina. Some rivals still hope that, eventually, even Trump\u2019s supporters will tire of what critics view as his relentless attacks on minorities in particular. One poll shows his support among Republicans down by 12 points \u2013 although, at 31%, he still leads the field. \nOther opponents question whether there is much overarching political ideology to Trump. \u201cHe is an egomaniac; he\u2019s a narcissist. He\u2019s not a conservative, he\u2019s not a liberal \u2013 he believes in himself,\u201d former presidential rival, Bobby Jindal, told the Guardian, shortly before dropping out of the race. \nLiz Mair, a Republican strategist organizing an anti- Trump fundraising committee, worries that many of the comments seen as gaffes by the liberal media are, in fact, carefully designed to boost his standing with his core constituency. \u201cI personally think it\u2019s best that people who don\u2019t like Trump and his policies do some work to try to actively undercut him,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd not just pray for him to commit real political suicide.\u201d \nYet, there is more to Trump than attention-grabbing outrage. As he delights in telling supporters, the three issues that he rails against most \u2013 immigration reform, free-trade deals and Barack Obama\u2019s national security policy \u2013 have become perhaps the defining issues of the election. \nHis policies for deporting every undocumented immigrant in the US and demanding that Mexico pays for a border wall \u2013 \u201cA real wall. A very tall wall, taller than that ceiling.\u201d \u2013 might sound unrealistic but they have arguably destroyed the campaign hopes of Jeb Bush, who favours immigration reform. \nSo what might it take to stop Trump? One source of optimism among opponents is the strong evidence that polls this far away from election day are an average of eight percentage points out, simply because most people have not made up their minds. Among Americans who identify as Republicans, current polls suggest he has 25-30% of the vote. \nIn the battle for hearts and minds, converting Trump\u2019s passionate supporters will be hard. To blunt his lead, another candidate would need to tap into his support base without jeopardizing their own. Polling experts believe this to be unlikely, as it is hard to imagine anyone doing Trump better than Trump, let alone anyone doing Trump without sacrificing their own support. \nThis scenario can be best understood by looking at responses to the question: \u201cAre there any of these candidates you would definitely not support for the Republican nomination for president?\u201d While 20-30% of voters say they would support Trump, another 20-30% say they definitely would not. \nSteve Deace, a prominent Iowa conservative, said that Trump\u2019s antics are \u201cboth a good and a bad thing. On one hand, it produces a loyal following that is attracted to that persona which will not leave you. On the other hand, it limits your ability to grow beyond that.\u201d \nTop Republican pollster, Frank Luntz, believes Trump speaks for voters who, for the first time, feel as if they have a mouthpiece and like the fact that they feel like they are being heard. As the pollster notes: \u201cTrump says what they\u2019re thinking and, the more outrageous he is, the more they agree with him. He\u2019s saying what no politician would say and that\u2019s another reason they like him.\u201d \nThat is certainly the feeling among ordinary supporters who have attended his increasingly packed campaign events in recent months. \n\u201cI like the way he speaks,\u201d says Sandra Murray of Dubuque, Iowa. \u201cThis country is a huge mess and we need to get out of this and, honestly, he could be the man to do it.\u201d \nOther supporters offer a simpler explanation. \u201cHe\u2019s not afraid of anybody or anything. That\u2019s pretty cool.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nHe had the tastes of a typical millionaire. He owned a gold and silver Rolex and lots of expensive cars. He liked to buy modern art. But, although this Chinese businessman had several companies and a large villa in Madrid, he had almost no money in the bank. This detail interested the Spanish authorities.\nGao Ping supplied 4,000 Chinese bazaars across Spain. But, authorities suspected he was not paying taxes on the clothes, furniture and other goods he was importing from China.\nWhen police searched his warehouses in 2012 they found piles of cash: 100, 200 and 500 notes were wrapped in elastic bands. Around 12m was taken away, the largest amount of cash ever found by Spanish police. Gaos gang is accused of laundering up to 300m a year, as well as selling counterfeit goods and toys with fake safety marks.\nLaw enforcement officials have been worried about 500 notes for a long time. Small and easy to transport relative to their value, they are the payment method that tax dodgers, money launderers and drug barons prefer to use. The sum of 1m in 500 notes fits easily into a small laptop bag. The same amount in 50 notes would need a small suitcase.\nThe UK stopped distribution of the 500 note in 2010 because it was used almost entirely by criminals. In 2009, Italys central bank warned that the notes were widely used by mafia money launderers and terrorists. Other countries have limited their own high-denomination notes due to links to organized crime  Canada got rid of its $1,000 note in 2000 on the advice of law enforcement officers.\nNow, with electronic payment systems and contactless cards, people are asking whether we should print these notes. Peter Sands, the former head of Standard Chartered Bank, said we should get rid of high-denomination notes, including the 500, the $100, the 1,000 Swiss Franc note and the 50. In a report for the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Sands said it was time to get rid of high-value notes that make life easier for bad guys. Criminals would instead use smaller-denomination bills, or gold or diamonds, but these are too big to be carried easily and more traceable. This makes it more likely they will get caught, he said.\nAt a conference on terrorist financing in London, the Head of Europol, Rob Wainwright, asked the European Central Bank to look at whether it should continue to produce these notes that make it easier for criminals and terrorists to hide their business and to provide money for illegal activities. According to Europol, the purple 500 note makes up 30% of the value of all the euro notes, although most people have never seen one.\nThe 500 note was introduced in 2002 when the euro was born: it replaced the 1,000 Deutschmark, the 10,000 Belgian franc and the 500,000 Italian lira. In Germany and Austria, more than half of all transactions are still made with paper money and coins.\nEuropol would like to see central banks take more responsibility for what happens with 500 notes. Luxembourg, for example, issued more than twice its annual GDP in banknotes in 2013 alone. Europol asked Luxembourgs central bank to explain. The reply from Luxembourg was that they simply issue the notes that are asked for and do not ask or know why people want them, said Jennifer MacLeod, a specialist in Europols financial intelligence group. I find it surprising that a central bank does not consider itself to have a responsibility in this area.\nThis could be changing. EU finance ministers have asked policymakers to think about appropriate limits on high-value notes and report back by 1 May 2016.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nScientists have created an atlas of the brain that shows how the meanings of words are arranged across different regions of the brain. The atlas shows in rainbow colours how individual words and their meanings can be grouped together in areas of the brain.\nOur goal was to build a giant atlas that shows how one speci c aspect of language is represented in the brain, in this case semantics (the meanings of words), said Jack Gallant, a neuroscientist at the University of California, Berkeley.\nNo single brain region holds one word or concept. A single brain spot is associated with a number of related words. And, each single word lights up many different brain spots. Together, they make up networks that represent the meanings of each word we use: life and love, death and taxes. All light up their own networks.\nThe atlas was described as a great achievement by one researcher who was not involved in the study. The atlas shows how modern imaging can transform our knowledge of how the brain does some of its most important tasks. If scientists make further advances, the technology could have an enormous impact on medicine and other areas of study.\nIt is possible that this approach could be used to decode information about what words a person is hearing, reading or possibly even thinking, said Alexander Huth, the main author of the study. One possible use would be a language decoder that could allow people who cant talk, because they have a serious illness, to speak through a computer.\nTo create the atlas, the scientists recorded peoples brain activity while they listened to stories. Then, they matched the transcripts of the stories with the brain activity data to show how groups of related words produced brain responses in 50,000 to 80,000 pea-sized spots all over the cerebral cortex.\nHuth used short, compelling stories. The stories had to be interesting so that the people in the experiment would focus on the words and not drift off. Seven people listened to two hours of stories each. Per person, that was a total of about 25,000 words  and more than 3,000 different words  as they lay in the scanner.\nThe atlas shows how words and related terms light up the same regions of the brain. For example, on the left-hand side of the brain, above the ear, is one of the tiny regions that represents the word victim. The same region responds to killed, convicted, murdered and confessed. On the brains right-hand side, near the top of the head, is one of the brain spots activated by family terms: wife, husband, children, parents.\nEach word is represented by more than one spot because words often have several meanings. One part of the brain, for example, responds to the word top, as well as other words that describe clothing. But, the word top lights up many other regions. One of them responds to numbers and measurements, another to buildings and places. The scientists have created an interactive website where the public can explore the brain atlas.\nInterestingly, the brain atlases were similar for all the people in the experiment. This suggests that their brains organized the meanings of words in the same way. The scientists only scanned  ve men and two women, however. All are native English speakers. It is highly possible that people from different backgrounds and cultures will have different semantic brain atlases.\nUsing the atlas, researchers can now piece together the brain networks that represent very different concepts, from numbers to murder and religion. The idea of murder is represented a lot in the brain, Gallant said.\nUri Hasson, a neuroscientist at Princeton University, said the work was great. He said that many studies just looked at brain activity when a single word or sentence was spoken but Gallants team had shed light on how the brain worked in a real-world scenario. The next step, he said, was to create a more complete and precise semantic brain atlas. In the future, Hasson believes it will be possible to reconstruct the words a person is thinking from their brain activity. The ethical implications are enormous.\nLorraine Tyler, a neuroscientist and head of the Centre for Speech, Language and the Brain at Cambridge University, said the research was a great achievement. But, the brain atlas in its current form does not show small differences in word meanings. This research is  Centre for Speech, Language and the Brain at Cambridge University, said the research was a great achievement. But, the brain atlas in its current form does not show small differences in word meanings. This research is 4 Comprehension check ground-breaking but there is still a lot to learn about how semantics is represented in the brain.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Governments in Europe dream of finding a magic solution to rising unemployment. But, in the poorest parts of the EU, unemployment continues to rise.\nNow, in Sardinia, Italy, a mayor thinks he has found an answer to his town\u2019s unemployment problem. Valter Piscedda, the mayor of Elmas, a small town near Sardinia\u2019s capital, Cagliari, wants to pay residents to leave. The town will pay for ten unemployed local people to take English lessons, get on a cheap flight and look for jobs in other parts of Europe.\n\u201cThis idea comes from common sense and experience, \u201d he told the Guardian. \u201cIn the past year and a half \u2013 especially in the past few months \u2013 I have seen young people, almost every day, who have lost hope that they will find work. Some ask for help in finding work here. Others have tried everything and, now, they want to go and gain work experience abroad; life experience, too.\u201d\nSo he decided to help people who want to gain experience abroad.\nSardinia, and also much of southern and central Italy, is struggling with high unemployment. Unemployment was at 17.7% in the second quarter of 2014, according to Italy\u2019s National Institute of Statistics. More than 54% of people under 25 are out of work. \nFor the Adesso Parto (Now I\u2019m leaving) programme, Elmas will give \u20ac12,000 to the first ten applicants aged between 18 and 50. The applicants must be out of work and have lived in the town for three years. They do not have to be university educated and they must not earn more than \u20ac15,000.\nThe idea of helping people to leave is sensitive at a time when many Italians \u2013 many of them clever young graduates \u2013 are leaving their country every year. But Piscedda believes that the people he is sending away might return \u201cand give me back 100 times what we gave them\u201d. More importantly, he wants the scheme to help the people most in need.\nIn Elmas, the scheme has got mixed reactions. \u201cThere is little work here,\u201d said Alessandro Macis. \u201cThe opportunity to go abroad to learn about the workplace and experience other cultures can be very worthwhile. The son of a friend of mine who didn\u2019t study much is in London and he\u2019s doing very well. He started as a waiter. Now, he\u2019s a cook and he\u2019s learning English.\u201d\nOthers were not sure. \u201cI heard about it but I thought it was strange. If you have that money to pay for people to go away, why don\u2019t you use that money to keep them here?\u201d said Consuelo Melis, who works in a local caf\u00e9.\nBut Piscedda says, \u201cThe work I can create, as mayor, is temporary. I can ask someone to clean a piazza. I can ask them to clean it again. I can ask someone to clean the streets. But these are all temporary things that give nothing more than a little bit of money for a few months.\u201d","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"JMW Turner, one of Britain\u2019s greatest painters, will be on the new \u00a320 note, after a national vote. It will be the first time an artist is on a British banknote. The governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, asked the public to say which deceased cultural person they wanted to see on the new banknote. \nTurner, who is famous for his paintings of the sea, won the vote. There was a list that included 590 painters, sculptors, fashion designers, photographers, film-makers and actors. Thirty thousand members of the public suggested the people on the list. \nThe list included Alfred Hitchcock, Alexander McQueen, Derek Jarman, Laura Ashley, William Morris and Vanessa Bell. \nThe final five \u2013 Barbara Hepworth, Charlie Chaplin, Josiah Wedgwood, William Hogarth and Turner \u2013 were chosen because of their importance to the visual arts and British society and because of their influence. \nThey made the announcement about the new banknote at the Turner Contemporary gallery in Margate. Carney and the artist Tracey Emin, who grew up in the town, made the announcement together. \nCarney said that banknotes are not just practical \u2013 they \u201ccan be a piece of art in everyone\u2019s pocket\u201d. \nThe note will show Turner\u2019s 1799 self-portrait and also one of Turner\u2019s most famous paintings, The Fighting Temeraire , a painting of a ship that had an important role in Nelson\u2019s victory at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. \nThe note will also inlude a quote from the artist \u2013 \u201clight is therefore colour\u201d \u2013 and his signature. The signature is from his will, in which he left many of his paintings to Britain. \nHistorical people first appeared on banknotes in 1970. Turner, and also Winston Churchill and Jane Austen, will appear on the new polymer notes \u2013 a plastic-type material. Churchill is on the \u00a35 and Austen is on the \u00a310 note. The new \u00a320 note will appear by 2020. \nTurner was born in 1775 in London, the son of a barber, and he went to the Royal Academy Schools at the age of 14. In 1786, he went to Margate and there his love of painting and drawing the north-east Kent coast began. He returned to the Kent coast many times in his life and it was where he painted some of his most dramatic paintings. He said that, on the Kent coast, the skies were \u201cthe loveliest in all Europe\u201d. \nTurner painted more than 550 oil paintings and 2,000 watercolours in his lifetime. A film about Turner was made in 2014, with Timothy Spall as the artist. \nVictoria Pomery, the director of Turner Contemporary, said: \u201cThe vote shows that Turner is Britain\u2019s favourite artist.\u201d","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"You\u2019ve spent eight hours in the office. You\u2019ve finished the most important work of the day. This is the time when most workers would think about going home. \nBut, for millions of Japanese employees, if they leave work and arrive home in time for dinner, people say that they are disloyal to their company. \nBut now, the government is trying to do something about Japan\u2019s culture of overwork. It wants to make workers take at least five days\u2019 paid holiday a year. \nJapanese employees are allowed an average of 18.5 days\u2019 paid holiday a year. Companies must allow them a minimum of ten days\u2019 paid holiday, plus 15 one-day national holidays. But very few employees take these days. Most take only nine days of holiday, according to the labour ministry. Many British workers think that a two-week summer holiday is their right but workers in Japan think that a four-night vacation in Hawaii is a big self-indulgence. \nBy 2020, the government hopes that the law will make Japanese employees follow the example of British workers, who take an average of 20 days\u2019 paid annual leave, and workers in France, who take an average of 25. \nJapan\u2019s employees are respected and admired in the rest of the world for their commitment to the company. But they often have no time for anything else. \nCouples don\u2019t have time to start families. So, Japan has a low birth rate and the population is declining. More employees are falling ill from stress or even dying through overwork. \nAbout 22% of Japanese work more than 49 hours a week, compared with 16% of US workers and 11% in France and Germany, according to data from the Japanese government. \n\u201cNobody else uses their vacation days,\u201d says Erika Sekiguchi, a 36-year-old worker. She spends 14 hours a day at work and used only eight of her 20 days of paid vacation in 2014, six of which were sick leave. \nYuu Wakebe, who works at the health ministry, admits that he does 100 hours of overtime a month. \u201cIt is a worker\u2019s right to take paid vacations,\u201d Wakebe said. \u201cBut workers in Japan have to do a lot of extra work for no money.\u201d \nWorkers are scared that their colleagues will think they are not working hard enough. This is one reason for a rise in stress-related illness, early death and suicide. About 200 people die every year from heart attacks and strokes in Japan, caused by long hours and hard work.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nThe Greek island of Agios Efstratios is so remote, so forgotten by the banks, the government and most of the modern world that there isnt a single ATM or credit-card machine on the island. Before the economic crisis in Greece, residents of this tranquil island in the northern Aegean managed quite well. They did their banking at the post of ce and the few dozen rooms to rent were fully booked every summer with people who had heard  by word of mouth  of its spectacular empty beaches, clear seas and fresh seafood.\nBut, because the island still uses only cash, the closure of the Greek banks has been devastating. Residents have to make nine-hour round trips to the nearest big island to get cash and Greek visitors say they cant get hold of enough money to come. Tourist numbers have reduced by 80% this year, said Mayor Maria Kakali, in an of ce in the village where she grew up, with a population of around 200 people. Even people born here and living in Athens, who have their own places on the island, arent coming.\nKakali has badgered the government and a major Greek bank into promising an ATM within weeks but she still feels it may be too late for this season on an island where tourism is the main source of income: We have almost no reservations in August, when usually we have people calling us up asking to  nd a room and we cant help them. A hard winter ahead may be slightly improved because 50 workers will live and work in the village to expand the harbour. But there is an even bigger crisis ahead because the government has said it will end a tax break for islands.\nThe tax break was created to help island communities survive the problem of mass emigration. The lower sales tax reduced the costs of living on the islands, where everything had to be imported and it made tourism more affordable. Tourist favourites such as Mykonos fear that losing the tax breaks will make it hard for them to compete with Turkey. But, for Agios Efstratios, it is a far greater problem. If we have to pay a tax of 23%, Im sorry to say it but we will all die on the island, says Kakali.\nFood and fuel are already more expensive than on the mainland. Even in summer the island has only three shops, two restaurants and not a single of cial hotel. This is an expensive island. Everything, even milk or bread, has been bought and sold three or four times before it gets to us and everyone has to take a pro t, said Provatas Costas, a 58-year-old  sherman.\nFor Agios Efstratios and its closest large neighbour, Lemnos, the timing of the crisis is particularly cruel. They were seen as remote for years partly because you could only reach the islands by slow and unreliable ferries. In 2015, the government had  nally given the contract to a new, ef cient company and this has brought many new visitors to explore the islands charms. But, then, the bank controls hit. It started as the best season in 30 years and, in one week, it became the worst, said Atzamis Konstantinos, a travel agent in Lemnos.\nLemnos has dozens of wild beaches, where you can swim and sunbathe virtually alone, a small nightlife scene and many cultural sites. It is the eighth largest island in Greece so it is in line for the  rst round of tax increases in autumn 2015 but it is far less wealthy than many smaller islands. It has just over 3,000 beds for visitors, compared with tens of thousands on an island such as Rhodes. We have been suffering economically in recent years and now we will suffer more, said Lemnos Mayor, Dimitris Marinakis. When there is not enough money, you reduce your consumption and the whole economy gets worse.\nIf taxes go up, even more young people will leave, warns Mayor Kakali, who has worked to improve education on the island to help keep it an attractive place for families. Because it is one of the smallest islands, Agios Efstratios has until 2017 before the tax rise comes in. Kakali hopes that, because things change very fast in Greek politics, the island might still avoid the tax. If not, though, she plans to travel to Athens to remind the distant government what the tax rise would cost.\nThe truth is the government doesnt pay much attention to the islands of the north Aegean, she said, so I would take all the kids from our school to the gates of parliament, to tell them: There is still life in these islands.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Tua Pittman from Raratonga in the Cook Islands is a traditional navigator. To him, a canoe is more than just a form of transport. \u201cThe canoe is our island, the crew is the community and the navigator is the leader,\u201d he says. \u201cOn a canoe, you are not just going from one place to another using the stars, the moon, the sun and the birds. Navigation is showing your crew the light of life.\u201d\nIt has been a busy week for the crews of four sailing canoes \u2013 they are in Sydney for the start of the World Parks Congress. Tua\u2019s journey began at the Cook Islands on 25 September. The islanders sailed to Samoa, then Fiji, Vanuatu and onto the Gold Coast. Then, they travelled south to Sydney. Around 100 crew were involved in the voyage and they tried to travel using only traditional navigation techniques. Sadly, said Tua, the crews had to use modern navigation equipment sometimes to reach Australia in time for the Congress.\nThe trip is called the Mua Voyage. It is a partnership between the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Oceania Regional Office and five Pacific Island countries: Samoa, Tonga, New Zealand, the Cook Islands and Fiji. The main aim of the 11,000km trip was to deliver a special message to the World Parks Congress.\nThe message said \u201cWe see fewer fish than in the past, and they are smaller. And foreign fisherman take our fish. Our coral reefs, the greatest in the world, and our fishing grounds are disappearing. Our ocean is very big but not limitless.\u201d\nThe Pacific Islanders\u2019 message to the delegates of the Congress was urgent. But a lot of time has been spent at the Congress trying to set a new target for the amount of the ocean that needs special protection. According to the IUCN, in 2013, less than three per cent of the world\u2019s oceans was in marine protected areas and less than one per cent of that is \u2018no take\u2019 (no fishing). But there should be a lot more \u2018no-take\u2019 areas because the last World Parks Congress in 2003 set a target of 20-30%.\nAfter difficult talks, the World Parks Congress agreed new targets for marine protected areas. The new target is not 20-30%; it is at least 30%. And they must try to solve the problem of biodiversity.\nTua Pittman is very happy with what the Congress has decided for the world\u2019s oceans. \u201cIt\u2019s a huge reward for all the effort that we made to be here. To hear they made that decision is fantastic. It\u2019s a step in the right direction.\u201d\nHe is 55 and, in his lifetime, he can already see that it is much harder to catch fish. He also said that pollution is getting worse, particularly close to big cities such as Sydney. And climate change is already having a serious effect on Pacific Islanders. \u201cThe decisions of the big countries have a small effect on developed, large countries, but they have a very big effect on small countries.\u201d\nThe Mua Voyage had taken years of preparation and planning. It was critical to the voyagers that the world listened to their message and took action. Pittman said that the leaders of rich countries should think more like traditional navigators who see that their boats are just tiny specks in an enormous sea. Most importantly, Tua says that politicians must change how they do things. \u201cThe world needs to find a different path.\u201d","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"A long time ago, cinema audiences were transported to a galaxy far, far away: one where imperial cruisers battled rebel fighters, where droids rubbed circuits with Wookiees and where a spaceship called the Millennium Falcon could make the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs. That was 1977 but, in 2015, as the franchise approaches its seventh big-screen instalment, interest in Star Wars shows no sign of abating \u2013 now, there is news of a new film about Han Solo and of a reappearance for Darth Vader. \u201cCountless fans around the world are in a constant state of vigilance waiting for the release of new poster art, new trailers and other information,\u201d said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at box-office monitor Rentrak. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to imagine any other movie franchise that could evoke such a level of passion, enthusiasm and excitement.\u201d \nThe latest Star Wars mania dates from the Hollywood studio Disney\u2019s purchase of Lucasfilm from the film\u2019s creator, George Lucas, in 2012; the $4bn acquisition was accompanied by an announcement of three more sequential \u201cepisodes\u201d \u2013 VII, VIII and IX \u2013 plus then unspecified plans for spin-off movies and \u201cstand-alones\u201d to fill the gaps in the release schedule. Details of the second spin-off have now been made public: an \u201corigins story\u201d about Han Solo, the intergalactic smuggler played by Harrison Ford in the first three films, which is scheduled to be released in May 2018. \nIt will follow the release in December 2015 of Episode VII, directed by JJ Abrams and titled Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the unnamed Episode VIII due out in 2017 and the already announced spin-off, Rogue One, which will arrive in cinemas in 2016. \nThat movie will outline a rebel mission to steal the plans of the Death Star, a key plot element of the first film in 1977. Levels of interest in the rumour that Rogue One will also feature the reappearance of Darth Vader, the black-clad villain of the original series, only confirmed the power of Star Wars nostalgia. \nIn creating a multi-stranded, multi-character cinema \u201cuniverse\u201d around Star Wars, Lucasfilm-Disney are taking their cue from the phenomenally successful series of films produced by Marvel Studios, which Disney also acquired, in 2009.  \nDisney has brought a whole new level of marketing savvy to an already popular product: Dergarabedian cites the decision to make all six existing Star Wars films available on streaming services as \u201ca brilliant way to build the anticipation for the new film and reinvigorate the idea of Star Wars in the minds of the fans\u201d. \nWhether it needs reinvigorating is questionable. The level of enthusiasm that has surrounded Star Wars for at least the last two decades is evidenced by what has become known as the \u201cExpanded Universe\u201d: the plethora of novels, comic books, video games and merchandising that Lucasfilm has created or licensed over the years. \nThis extra material began emerging as far back as 1978 but was given a massive kick by the mushrooming of the internet in the 1990s. Role-play and fan participation show no sign of slowing: in the UK, event-cinema brand Secret Cinema have found considerable commercial success with their live staging of The Empire Strikes Back. \nMichael Rosser, news editor for Screen International, suggests that it is this \u201cshared universe\u201d of highly infectious nostalgia that keeps Star Wars in pole position among film franchises. \u201cThe great thing about the original films was that they created a huge universe of characters and possibility that sparked the imagination of viewers,\u201d he said. \n\u201cFor years, people have been wondering how the different strands would play out. This new film, because it\u2019s going back to Han Solo and Luke Skywalker, looks as though it will reconnect with the original Star Wars in a way that the prequels failed to.\u201d \nRosser is referring to the three films Lucas directed between 1999 and 2005 \u2013 The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith \u2013 which chronicled the life of Luke Skywalker\u2019s father, Anakin, who transforms into Darth Vader. Despite being greeted with less-than-stellar reviews, the prequels took $2.5bn at the worldwide box office, shortly after the release of restored and augmented \u201cspecial editions\u201d of the first trilogy had netted $469m in 1997. \n\u201cIt shows the power of Star Wars that, although they were disappointing, the prequels still managed to make a lot of money,\u201d said Rosser. \nIn a film business where branding is all and a successful franchise the answer to everybody\u2019s prayers, is there a risk that movie studios will simply become branding machines and lose their interest in cinema for its own sake? \nRosser thinks not. \u201cThey are desperate to ensure the longevity of the franchise and make sure the quality is kept up. They are also trying to bring people into the cinema at a time when lots are staying home for entertainment. But you don\u2019t want to watch Star Wars on your iPhone so I don\u2019t think it\u2019s going to run out of steam any time soon.\u201d \nMeanwhile, Dergarabedian is anticipating massive business when The Force Awakens reaches cinemas in December 2015. \u201cWe are certainly looking at a record opening for December and it should go on to make at least a billion dollars worldwide. Truly, Star Wars is the ultimate movie brand.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Back in 2010, the old city in Srinagar was the sort of place police would only venture into wearing body armour. A stronghold for violent separatists agitating for an independent Kashmir, it was at the centre of uprisings that left more than 100 people dead, buried along with dreams of peace in the mountainous north-Indian region. \nHow quickly things change. Now carefree tourists line up in the same streets for barbecued mutton tikka and steaming plates of rogan josh. The Nowhatta mosque, where in the summer of 2010 youths would gather after Friday prayers to throw stones at the security forces, is to become part of an official walking tour focused on heritage, crafts and markets. Down by Dal Lake, houseboats have been booked out months in advance. In the stunning gardens lining the lake\u2019s green slopes, visitors can have their picture taken against one of Asia\u2019s prettiest backdrops. Until the snow melted, the nearby ski resorts were packed with rich Russians, too. \nIn 2002, only just over 27,000 tourists dared to visit the Kashmir Valley, frightened off by the anti-Indian insurgency, which has claimed up to 70,000 lives. So far in 2012, the area has received almost one million holidaymakers \u2013 more than 23,000 of them from outside India. But fewer than 150 Britons were among them \u2013 largely because the UK\u2019s Foreign Office refuses to amend its somewhat hair-raising advice, which deters most travellers by providing a list of recent security incidents in the region. \nOmar Abdullah, the UK-born Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, has lobbied the British High Commission in Delhi to relax the guidelines, but to no avail. \u201cIt\u2019s a source of frustration,\u201d admitted Abdullah, who has been in charge of India\u2019s most sensitive state since the start of 2009. \u201cToday, unfortunately, as a result of that travel advisory, people\u2019s insurance is null and void when they visit here.\u201d The last publicized case of foreign tourists being murdered in J&K was in 1995, when six westerners including two Britons were kidnapped by Al-Faran, a Kashmiri militant Islamist group. Only one escaped with his life. \n\u201cYou\u2019ve had British citizens killed more recently in countries that you still haven\u2019t stopped people from visiting. I mean, how many British citizens did you lose in 9\/11? Did you stop people from visiting New York? You\u2019ve lost them in Spain, in Bali; tell me where you haven\u2019t lost them,\u201d said Abdullah. \u201cWe\u2019ve lost Indians in London. There is still a possibility that al-Qaida could do something stupid like they have done in the past, but we haven\u2019t stopped Indians from travelling to London. There is no reason to single out Jammu and Kashmir, or even Srinagar, as an unsafe destination.\u201d \nGermany relaxed its guidelines for those thinking of travelling to the region in 2011. \u201cForeigners are generally not direct targets of clashes,\u201d counselled Germany\u2019s amended advice. At the time, it was viewed by many outsiders as a bold move, coming less than a year after the 2010 disturbances finally died down. A nationwide holiday on 15 August marked 65 years of Indian independence \u2013 in the past, a day fraught with peril in a state where many do not feel part of the world\u2019s biggest democracy. But this time at the independence celebrations there was no trouble. \nAbdullah insists tourists are safe in the state, \u201cas long as you take the sort of precautions that one normally would \u201d. In other words, do not go trekking near the border that separates the Indian and Pakistani controlled parts of J&K. Syed Ali Shah Geelani, leader of the pro-Kashmiri independence party, disagrees bitterly with much of Abdullah\u2019s politics. But on the issue of tourism, the two are united. At the start of the summer season, Geelani wrote an open letter to tourists and pilgrims that said: \u201cWhatever your faith, whatever language you speak and to whatever region you belong, we are bound by a common bond, the bond of humanity. You are our honoured guest \u2013 respecting and protecting guests is not only our moral obligation but an article of faith.\u201d \nSome visitors may worry about the ethics of having fun in a place with a population suffering from record levels of anxiety and mental health problems. But all the locals we spoke to in Srinagar were wholeheartedly in favour of tourism. Amjid Gulzar, 26, said Abdullah could search for truth and reconciliation as well as encouraging foreign visitors. \u201cHe must do both; but without tourism, our economy will be in chaos,\u201d he said, adding that while he welcomed the million tourists who visited this year, Kashmir had to do more to attract big-spending visitors, especially foreigners. \n\u201cWe need better infrastructure, better roads, reliable electricity. We need more for tourists to do in the evening \u2013 we don\u2019t even have one cinema in this city and there isn\u2019t enough for tourists to do after dark,\u201d he said. But will tourists feel welcome? In June, a local Islamic group issued a \u201cdress code\u201d for foreign tourists. Abdullah sighs at the mention of that furore. \u201cNobody expects tourists to come here and cover their faces. I think what they were talking about was short shorts and sleeveless vests, which even then would not be something that would attract too much attention \u2026 I think the basic point they were making was: be sensitive to our cultural identity and dress appropriately. I think that\u2019s common sense.\u201d \nAbdullah said he was on a tourism drive \u201cfor no other reason than the fact that I need to stimulate the econom \u201d. J&K\u2019s finances are in a dire state after more than two decades of turmoil. The state receives just \u00a372m each year in taxes, and yet the salary bill for the 500,000 public employees is \u00a3155m, he said. It is clear why he needs to find more funds, fast. For now, though, he is just cautiously pleased to see tourists back. \u201cI\u2019m not suggesting that because we\u2019ve had one million tourists here that it\u2019s a sign of normality,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it gives me some satisfaction that people can come, have a nice time, and go back.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"James Hamblin, senior editor of American magazine The Atlantic, recently joined the unwashed masses. As part of his series, \u2019If Our Bodies Could Talk\u2019, Hamblin, a relatively sane- looking man, took on a no-showering challenge to examine the effect of over-cleansing the body. He reduced the number of showers he had and eliminated shampoo and soap when he did. In doing so, he discovered what thousands of others have: the more we fervently try to clean ourselves with soaps, body washes and those silly little body polishers, the harder our skin works to restore equilibrium, encouraging us to begin the whole bewildering process again. Showering strips the skin of its own oil and bacteria \u2013 which, many would argue, is the whole point of showering \u2013 but, apparently, this sometimes works a little too well, especially when you add hot water and cleansing products to the mix. \nYou know that feeling after a shower when you feel like you\u2019re stuck in a skin suit two sizes too small? That\u2019s because much of your skin\u2019s natural moisture has been washed down the drain. Additionally, our skin, much like our gut, plays host to millions of beneficial bacteria. Showering destroys these happy bacterial colonies; they\u2019re completely wiped out by all of our frequent rubbing and scrubbing. And, when the bacteria washed off by soap repopulate, they tend to favour microbes which produce an odour \u2013 yes, too-frequent showering may actually make you smell more. When you stop showering and using soap, however, your skin goes through an initial (likely gross) adjustment period, after which the skin typically restores balance, oil production slows and healthy bacteria flourish. \nAfter everything was said and done, Hamblin realized what other no-soap\/no-shower devotees have known for years: that the human body, functioning on its own, is actually quite lovely. It\u2019s not just scent or aesthetics, either \u2013 although dermatologists suggest that slowing down on soap use can improve acne and eczema. \nReducing the frequency of showers (and the number of cleansing products used) has very real implications for our environment. The average shower lasts seven minutes and uses 65 litres of water. That\u2019s 65 litres of clean, drinkable water that we\u2019re infusing with soap and washing down the drain each and every day \u2013 sometimes more than once. \nThe vital importance of clean water is becoming harder and harder to ignore, as California enters another summer of drought. It\u2019s becoming clear that clean water is one of the world\u2019s most valuable commodities and one that will soon be in short supply. Add in the environmental effect of all those body wash bottles and you\u2019ve got yourself a handful of very compelling reasons to let your body go au naturel. \nIf this whole thing is giving you the heebie-jeebies as you recall the last time you were cheek by jowl with those who evidently already skimp on the showers \u2013 and have clearly not reached the scent-free stage yet \u2013 relax. Many cleansing- reduction enthusiasts still use deodorant if they find it necessary (everyone\u2019s natural scent varies in intensity and can be affected by a host of factors including diet, hydration and exercise) and hand-washing with soap is still recommended as a vital way to reduce the spread of infectious diseases. \nYou don\u2019t need to go cold turkey, as Hamblin did, but in between thrice-daily disinfecting sessions and giving up showers altogether there lies room for our familiar, simple advice. Reduce. Skip a few showers, put down the soap and let those lovely little bacteria flourish a little, would you?","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"When Pope Benedict XVI was elected in 2005, he said he was \u201ca simple, humble worker in God\u2019s vineyard\u201d. And on a grey, cold, windy Monday in February, he resigned in the same way: like an old workman with pains in his back and no more strength in his arms. The first German Pope in modern times gave an exact departure time. \u201cFrom 28 February 2013, at 20.00 hours\u201d, he told a gathering of cardinals in the Vatican, \u201cthe see of Rome, the see of Saint Peter, will be vacant and there will be an election for a new Pope.\u201d \nOne of the cardinals at the gathering was a Mexican cardinal, Monsignor Oscar Sanch\u00e9z Barba, from Guadalajara. He was in Rome for an official meeting. \u201cWe were all in the Apostolic Palace,\u201d he said. \u201cThe Pope took a sheet of paper and read from it. \n\u201cWe were all \u2026\u201d \u2013 Sanch\u00e9z Barba couldn\u2019t find the word. The cardinals had just heard the man they believe is God\u2019s representative on earth resign. \u201cThe cardinals were just looking at one another,\u201d Sanch\u00e9z Barba said. \nAngelo Sodano, the Dean of the College of Cardinals, who probably already knew about the Pope\u2019s decision, gave a short speech. He told the Pope that the cardinals would be loyal to him and added that he and the others present had listened to the Pope\u2019s words with a feeling of confusion. At the end of his speech, the pope blessed the cardinals and left. \u201cIt was so simple; the simplest thing you can imagine,\u201d said Sanch\u00e9z Barba. \u201cThen we all left in silence. There was absolute silence \u2026 and sadness.\u201d \nJohn Thavis spent 30 years reporting on the Vatican and has a book, The Vatican Diaries, that will be published soon. He said he had a feeling before that the Pope was going to resign. Thavis said that in the long interview Benedict gave to a German journalist in 2010, he had said he would resign if he felt he could no longer do the job. \u201cI asked myself: if I were Pope and wanted to resign, when would I choose? He has completed his series of books and most of his projects. Also, there were no dates in his calendar of events he had to attend. I thought the most likely date was 22 February but I got it wrong.\u201d \nSoon after the announcement, the Vatican was saying that the Pope\u2019s decision was brave. Thavis agreed: \u201cWhat I find particularly courageous is that he is going now, when he is not sick; and that he\u2019s leaving because he\u2019s tired and not because he\u2019s ill.\u201d But is that the whole story? Does the Pope know more about his state of health than the Vatican has so far made public? \nBenedict said that he is resigning not just for physical reasons but also for psychological reasons. He said that the position of Pope needed both strength of mind and strength of body, and in the last few months he felt that he was slowly losing that strength. There will no doubt be other theories in future days and weeks, just as there were following the death of Pope John Paul I in 1978, 33 days after his election. Already people are saying that there was a secret in Benedict\u2019s past and that somebody was going to tell everyone. The Vatican will no doubt say those stories are nonsense. But we can understand why some people think there might be a secret, because Benedict\u2019s decision is so historic. \nAt St Peter\u2019s Basilica, Julia Rochester, from London, still didn\u2019t know what the Pope\u2019s resignation meant. \u201cIf you\u2019re God\u2019s chosen person, how do you choose not be chosen?\u201d she asked. It is a question many Catholics will be asking their priests in future weeks.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nPrince Harry has flown out of Afghanistan at the end of a four-month tour. During his time there he admitted killing insurgents while flying his Apache helicopter. He spoke about the frustrations of being a royal who wishes for a life out of the spotlight.\nHe also told of his disdain for and distrust of some sections of the media and described how his father constantly reminded him to behave more like a member of the royal family.\nA commander of the armys most sophisticated attack helicopter, the prince said he had shot at the Taliban during operations to support ground troops and rescue injured Afghan and NATO personnel. He said he was only doing his job.\nIn a series of interviews during his time based at Camp Bastion in Helmand Province, he hinted at the difficulty of reconciling the different roles in his life. The prince, known as Captain Wales in the army, explained his three mes. One in the army, one socially in my own private time and one with the family.\nHe admitted he sometimes let himself down with his laddish behaviour, which he said was probably because he is too much army and not enough prince, but he said he was entitled to privacy, too.\nIn another interview, he criticized the media, especially the Sun, the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph, three of the royal familys strongest supporters. He said he was particularly annoyed by articles comparing his role as an Apache co-pilot gunner to Spitfire crews during the second world war. No, its not like that at all, he said.\nThe prince said his suspicion of the media came from the treatment of his family when I was very small, but that he couldnt stop reading the stories written about him. Of course I read them, the prince said. If theres a story and somethings been written about me, I want to know whats being said. But all it does is just upset me and anger me that people can get away with writing the stuff they do. Not just about me, but about everything and everybody. My father always says, Dont read it. Everyone says, Dont read it, because its always rubbish.\nFour years ago, the prince had to be taken out of Afghanistan during his first tour after a media silence was broken by mistake by an Australian magazine. This time, the Ministry of Defence chose to publicize his deployment on the understanding that newspapers and broadcasters would not give a running commentary on his life out there to allow him to do his job. Two-man crews from the BBC, Sky and ITN were sent once each to report on his visit.\nWhen he was asked whether he felt more comfortable being Captain Wales than Prince Harry, his reply was one of the most revealing he has given about his relationship with Prince Charles. Definitely. Ive always been like that. My fathers always trying to remind me about who I am and stuff like that. But its very easy to forget about who I am when I am in the army. Everyones wearing the same uniform and doing the same kind of thing. I get on well with the lads and I enjoy my job. It really is as simple as that.\nShortly before he went to Afghanistan, the prince was photographed naked in Las Vegas during a private party. Harry said he had let himself down, but also blamed the media. I probably let myself down, I let my family down, I let other people down. But, at the end of the day, I was in a private area and there should be a certain amount of privacy that one should expect.\nWhen he was asked where he and his brothers fascination with helicopters came from, he said, Probably the fact that you can only fit a certain number of people in a helicopter, therefore no one can follow us, like you guys.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nGeorge W Bush, Benedict Cumberbatch and Stephen Hawking have done it. David Cameron, Barack Obama and Pamela Anderson have refused to do it. The Ice Bucket Challenge began in the US in July and has raised $100m for the ALS Association, a US motor-neurone-disease charity, and 4.5m for a British one, as well as thousands more for charities in Hong Kong and Australia.\nHowever, not everyone is happy with the Ice Bucket Challenge. Commentators, animal-rights groups and environmentalists have all criticized it, for reasons ranging from the waste of water to the fact that some people enjoy the fun and then do not donate anything to charity.\nMeanwhile, the challenge continues to grow. For anyone who doesnt know how it works, someone gives a short speech to camera about the charity, then dumps a bucket of ice cubes in water over their head or gets a friend to do it. Then, they nominate three other people to either do the same or donate.\nIt was an unfortunate coincidence that 31 August to 5 September was World Water Week, with international delegates arriving in Stockholm to discuss the planets water crisis. The charity WaterAid is asking people to use recycled water from bathtubs or garden butts or to use sea water.\nDouglas Graham, the UK Motor Neurone Associations fundraising director, said: The criticism is to be expected but, really, this is just a wonderful windfall and were so grateful. We didnt see it coming but, suddenly, the donations just started. The boost is an enormous help to a small charity looking after sufferers of a debilitating, little-understood disease that has no cure and kills five people a day in the UK.\nFormer Baywatch star Pamela Anderson, an animal-rights activist, wrote an open letter to the ALS Association, saying she could not support its record on animal experimentation. A few US stars have rejected the challenge because of Californias drought. Actor Matt Damon solved the problem by using water from his toilet. Actor Verne Troyer used milk, again saying it was for environmental reasons. And the challenge has been blamed for causing a water shortage on the Scottish island of Colonsay.\nIn Australia, a TV anchorman apologized over his strong no, thanks response to being nominated. Lincoln Humphries had said: Instead of pouring fresh water over your own head and wasting ice, here is a list of charities helping communities in desperate need of money across the world. Id like to nominate everyone, everywhere, who has more than they need, to donate what they can to the people who need it most ... because that is what charity is about, not putting yourself through mild discomfort with a bucket of icy water.\nAnother criticism has been that small charities wont be able to cope with the extra money, but the MND Association rejected this. Oh, we can cope here, said Graham. We fund world-class research into the causes of the disease to find a treatment or cure. We provide care and support for 3,500 people and they need it because this is such a rapidly progressing disease and its expensive to manage. Over 50% die within two years of diagnosis. Its heartbreaking to see the decline in people we work with over just a few months.\nBut, for many people with a connection to the disease, the awareness that the challenge has created is as valuable as the money. Graham says it is priceless. Normally, the MND Association gets around 300,000 hits a year on its website. On a single day recently, it had 330,000.\nWe couldnt have created this if wed tried. Charities are all worthwhile causes and I understand that some people might want to donate to a different one. In 2013, British people gave 62bn to charity  we should be proud of that. Its fabulous for us to get this windfall. Well be sitting down over the next few weeks to work out how to spend it in the best way but, I assure you, every penny will count for good.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Life isn\u2019t fair sometimes. Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook and is now worth $48 billion. James Goodfellow also invented something that millions of people around the world use every day \u2013 the cash machine \u2013 but it didn\u2019t make him rich. In fact, he earned just \u00a310 from the patent and has not made any money from it since.\nWho is the inventor of the ATM? People have argued for years over this question. In 2005, a man called John Shepherd-Barron received a UK honour as the \u201cinventor of the automatic cash dispenser\u201d. But, the UK government is now saying it was Goodfellow who invented the ATM.\nIn the mid-1960s, Goodfellow\u2019s managers asked him to think of a way to allow customers to withdraw cash from banks on Saturdays. \u201cMost people worked during the week and couldn\u2019t go to the bank. They wanted a solution. The solution was a machine which would give cash to a customer,\u201d he says. \u201cI wanted to develop a cash machine and, to make this happen, I invented the PIN [personal identification number] and a coded token.\u201d\nGoodfellow\u2019s first machines were installed in 1967. At around the same time, Shepherd-Barron was developing a similar machine. His machine didn\u2019t use plastic cards \u2013 it used cheques.\nMost people agree that Shepherd-Barron\u2019s ATM was the \u201cworld\u2019s first\u201d to be installed and used by the public. The first one was at a bank in north London. It was opened on 27 June, 1967 \u2013 a month before Goodfellow\u2019s ATM appeared. But, Goodfellow registered the patent for his machine on 2 May, 1966, 14 months before Shepherd-Barron\u2019s ATM machine was first used.\nShepherd-Barron received an official honour for his invention and Goodfellow says: \u201cMy one big regret is that I never said anything about it until John Shepherd-Barron received the honour in 2005. The Queen gave him this honour for inventing the automatic cash dispenser. That really annoyed me and I complained about it.\u201d\nShepherd-Barron is dead now but, in a 2005 interview, he criticized Goodfellow. He said Goodfellow\u2019s invention was a failure.\nThe cash machine is now used all over the world and, every year, there are more and more: there are now three million ATMs worldwide and there will be four million by 2020. The good news for Goodfellow is that people are beginning to recognize him for his invention. The website ATMInventor.com says: \u201cWho invented the idea of an ATM? We believe it was Luther George Simjian. Who invented the ATM as we know it? It was James Goodfellow for holding a patent date of 1966.\u201d\nEven better for Goodfellow, his invention is in a 180-page guidebook called Life in the United Kingdom. In the section about \u201cgreat British inventions of the twentieth century\u201d, it says: \u201cIn the 1960s, James Goodfellow (1937-) invented the automatic teller machine (ATM) or \u2018cashpoint\u2019.\u201d\nSo after all these years, Goodfellow is finally among a group of famous British inventors with John Logie Baird (the television), Alan Turing (the Turing machine), Sir Frank Whittle (the jet engine) and Sir Tim Berners-Lee (the World Wide Web). When he was asked what he did with the \u00a310 he received in the 1960s, Goodfellow said he spent it on a night out. \u201cIt didn\u2019t change my life,\u201d he said.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Ever since he was diagnosed HIV positive, Moses King, 48, has had one major problem. He has been able to cope with the stigma of being HIV positive \u2013 widespread in Liberia \u2013 and he was able to access antiretroviral medication, provided by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and distributed by the Liberian government. But King and his family of six children could not get the right food to eat. A subsistence farmer, he grew vegetables and bought rice. \nBut meat and fish \u2013 expensive, luxury products in Liberian markets but essential sources of protein \u2013 remained elusive. \u201cSubsistence farming allowed us to survive, but we had so many problems,\u201d said King. \u201cWe could not get any protein, and we were not getting the nutrients we needed to sustain ourselves.\u201d Pate K Chon, a counsellor who works with HIV sufferers in Liberia, provided an unlikely solution. Since watching a documentary about a fish farm in Thailand several years earlier, she had thought of setting up a similar project in Liberia, enabling HIV sufferers to have work and also access a stable source of protein. \n\u201cI saw this film about fish in a cement pool and I thought it was a good idea,\u201d said Chon, herself diagnosed with HIV in 1992. \u201cSo many of the people I work with don\u2019t have the means to have a balanced protein diet and fish is such a clean source of protein \u2013 it doesn\u2019t cause health problems like other sources, and it is something we can farm.\u201d \nChon, founder of a faith-based NGO, began building a pool in which to farm fish. In June 2012, Chon met John Sheehy, a 'strategic philanthropist' and founder of consultancy Emerging Business Lab, who raised money for the non-profit fish farm in the northeast of Monrovia, Liberia\u2019s capital, and set about learning aquaculture, doing an online course through Cornell University and speaking to other fish farmers in Africa. \n\u201cI raised the money and built the farm, learned the proper tank layout and water flow system,\u201d said Sheehy. \u201cA lot of my knowledge was self-taught, and now I would love to be able to write a manual and share it with other people,\u201d he added. \nThe project has now grown into the Grow2Feed Liberia Fish Farm, with 12 tanks, which, when fully stocked, will each have 5,000 fish \u2013 providing up to 200,000 fish per year, serving a community of 1,200 predominantly HIV-positive people, including King and his family. \nIn addition to the fish, waste from the tanks is collected and used to irrigate crops, also providing food and income for the community, made up of 503 women, 206 men and 346 children. \n\u201cThe members of the community live near the farm, and have agreed to be part of the co-operative,\u201d said Sheehy. \u201cMany work on the farm, or tending the crops, and what they get in return \u2013 when the fish are fully grown after 90 days \u2013 is fish. They can use those fish to feed themselves and to sell in the market so that they get money to buy other staple items. \n\u201cThe fish farm gives these people with HIV a way of getting back into society \u2013 now they are bartering and trading with people in the market every week.\u201d \nAccording to Liberia\u2019s demographic health survey, 1.5% of Liberia\u2019s 3.5 million people are HIV positive, with 60% of those women or girls. Stigma and discrimination still surround the illness, and have led to around half of all cases in the country going untreated. \nGood nutrition is particularly important for people with HIV. Research has shown they need much higher levels of protein to prevent their health from deteriorating and to allow healthy growth. \u201cNutrition is one of the key things if you are taking antiretroviral drugs,\u201d said Chon. \u201cThe drugs are toxic and, if you don\u2019t have food to eat, they can make you very ill. But food in Liberia is very expensive. We buy expensive imported rice, even though we should be growing it ourselves and fish is difficult for most people to afford.\u201d \nSheehy says Grow2Feed is the first co-operative fish farm in Liberia to operate for the benefit of an HIV-positive community. The project has attracted the interest of the Liberian government, and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, which has worked with Grow2Feed to provide training, will also support teaching at the University of Liberia. \nFish farming experts say the practice has huge potential in Africa. \n\u201cFish farming is absolutely viable in Africa,\u201d said Paul White, owner of the HydroFish fish farm in Ivory Coast, which produces 3,000 tonnes of fish each year. \u201cA lot of the fish on the market comes from China and is imported frozen. It is of a quality that could never enter Europe or America. There has been a serious lack of investment and a lack of know-how in fish production. It is all coming to the forefront now,\u201d he added. \nSome critics are sceptical of farmed fish, citing inbred fish and high levels of toxins. But Sheehy said good practice mitigated these problems. \u201cA lot of farmed fish is inbred, which does cause problems, but we are using a process with local fish sourced in Liberia, not fish from another region,\u201d said Sheehy. \u201cThat means we can continue using local fish to bring in new broodstock. \u201cAnd we are not using lakes that are cornered off, where the fish absorb all the toxins in the lake. We can control the environment using the tanks, and we test the water and monitor it constantly.\u201d \nSheehy hopes to replicate the model throughout Liberia and the region. \u201cA rice-growing co-op in Sierra Leone asked us if we could do this on our property so that they can feed their workers and we have had interest from Nigeria and Central America,\u201d said Sheehy. \u201cBut we operate 100% non-profit and we will never lose our social justice aspect.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"For 85 years, it was little more than a featureless grey blob on classroom maps of the solar system, but, on 15 July, Pluto was seen in high resolution for the first time, revealing dramatic mountain ranges made from solid water ice on a scale to rival the Alps or the Rockies. \nThe extraordinary images of the former ninth planet and its large moon, Charon, beamed 4bn miles back to Earth from the New Horizons spacecraft, mark the climax of a mission that has been quietly underway for nearly a decade. \nAlan Stern, the mission\u2019s principal investigator, described the images as a \u201chome run\u201d for the team. \u201cNew Horizons is returning amazing results already. The data look absolutely gorgeous, and Pluto and Charon are just mind-blowing.\u201d \nOne of the biggest surprises was the discovery that \u201cthere are mountains in the Kuiper belt \u201d, the solar system\u2019s mysterious \u201cthird zone\u201d where Pluto sits amid around 100,000 smaller icy objects. John Spencer, a mission scientist, said the mountains appear to be around 11,000ft high and several hundred miles across. \u201cThese are pretty significant mountains.\u201d \nThe detailed image of one edge of the dwarf planet showed not a single crater, hinting that the surface has been recently \u201cpaved over\u201d by geological activity, which could include dramatic geysers blasting plumes of ice into the atmosphere or cryo-volcanoes that erupt in explosions of ice rather than molten rock. \nIn a nod to Pluto\u2019s former status as the ninth planet, until it was downgraded to a dwarf planet in 2006, the NASA press conference began with a rundown of spectacular images of the sun and the eight official planets. \u201cWe\u2019ve brought what was previously a blurred point of light into focus,\u201d said Dwayne Brown, NASA spokesman, as scientists and journalists waited for the image to be unveiled. \nStern described the images as \u201cjust skimming the surface\u201d of what would be learnt about the planet during the coming year. They have already produced some surprises. Scientists believe the mountains are made from water ice with just a thin veneer of \u201cexotic\u201d ices, methane and nitrogen. \u201cYou can\u2019t make mountains out of methane and nitrogen,\u201d said Spencer. \n\u201cWater ice is strong enough to hold up big mountains and that\u2019s what we think we\u2019re seeing here. This is the first time we\u2019ve seen this. The methane and nitrogen are just a coating.\u201d The mountains on Pluto are likely to have formed no more than 100m years ago \u2013 extremely recently given the 4.56bn-year-old solar system. This suggests the close-up region, which covers about 1% of Pluto\u2019s surface, may still be geologically active. The images are the first to show ice mountains outside of the moons of giant planets and raises the question of what kind of geological process could be generating the mountainous landscape. \nThe structures, together with the smoothness of Pluto\u2019s surface, suggest that geological activity is taking place and smoothing over depressions caused by asteroid impacts. Scientists believe this \u201cpaving\u201d process could be the result of internal heat that softens rock and ice or from snowfalls that cover the surface. For scale, the images are so detailed that, if the craft were flying over London, we would be able to pick out the runways at Heathrow airport. \nThe distance to Pluto \u2013 5bn km \u2013 means it takes New Horizons hours to send back a single picture and it will take 16 months to send all the data it has accumulated during the fly-by. The team also announced that the heart-shaped feature visible on Pluto will now be known as the Tombaugh Regio, in honour of Clyde Tombaugh, who discovered the dwarf planet in 1930. \nThe new view of Charon reveals a varied, complex terrain. An area of cliffs and troughs stretching about 1,000km suggests widespread fracturing of Charon\u2019s surface, which could also be the result of geological activity. The image also shows a dramatic canyon estimated to be 7 to 9km deep. \nCathy Olkin, a mission scientist, said: \u201cCharon just blew our socks off when we had the new image today. The team has just been abuzz. \nThere is so much interesting science in this one image alone.\u201d Pluto is thought to be composed of about two thirds rock encased in a lot of ice, with surface temperatures of about minus 230C. As the \u00a3460m mission travels onwards into the Kuiper belt, scientists hope that it will open up a window on the ancient solar system and the origins of planets, potentially helping to explain the formation of the Earth itself. \nAndrew Coates, head of planetary science at the Mullard Space Science Laboratory, said: \u201cThese Kuiper belt objects are the building blocks of the outer solar system. They\u2019re all very cold \u2013 it\u2019s like a cosmic deep freeze. It\u2019s the best way of preserving solar system history. That is what is so fascinating about this. It\u2019s a really thrilling time for solar system exploration.\u201d \nIn August 2015, mission scientists will choose which of two objects to visit next. NASA estimates that the spacecraft will be able to keep recording and transmitting until the mid-2030s. Then, its plutonium power source will run out and it will shut down, drifting outwards towards the edge of the solar system and deep space beyond. \nNew Horizons also observed the smaller members of the Pluto system, which includes four other moons: Nix, Hydra, Styx and Kerberos. A new sneak-peek image of Hydra is the first to reveal its apparent irregular shape and its size, estimated to be about 43 by 33km. \u201cNew Horizons is a true mission of exploration, showing us why basic scientific research is so important,\u201d said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA\u2019s Science Mission Directorate. \n\u201cThe mission has had nine years to build expectations about what we would see during closest approach to Pluto and Charon. Today, we get the first sampling of the scientific treasure collected during those critical moments and I can tell you it dramatically surpasses those high expectations.\u201d \nThe observations also indicate Hydra\u2019s surface is probably coated with water ice. Future images will reveal more clues about the formation of this, and the other moon, billions of years ago.","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Writing in the journal Nature, former president of the Royal Institute of Navigation Roger McKinlay argues that our reliance on GPS (global positioning system) technology is misplaced and could be eroding our innate way-finding abilities. \u201cIf we do not cherish them, our natural navigation abilities will deteriorate as we rely ever more on smart devices,\u201d he wrote. \nMcKinlay believes huge investment will be needed before navigation systems will be good enough to allow technologies such as autonomous vehicles to take off. In the meantime, he argues, we need better research into systems for navigation while children should be encouraged to learn how to find their way around by more traditional means. \u201cSchools should teach navigation and map reading as life skills,\u201d he wrote. \nAccording to Ofcom (the Office of Communications), around 66% of adults in the UK owned a smartphone in 2015, up from 39% in 2012, making GPS technology widely available. But McKinlay, a satellite communication and navigation consultant, believes that we should be wary of leaving our navigational needs to our devices. \u201cNavigation is a use-it-or-lose-it skill,\u201d he wrote. \nWhile few scientific studies have explored the issue, research from 2009 supports the notion. \u201cWhat we did was to look at a set of current London taxi drivers and a set of London taxi drivers that had been retired for about four years,\u201d said neuroscientist Dr Hugo Spiers, head of the Spatial Cognition Group at University College London, who is an author of the study. The results showed that the retired taxi drivers performed worse on navigation tests than those still behind the wheel. \u201cWe were able to show that their abilities did drop away if they weren\u2019t using their knowledge on that particular test.\u201d \nSpiers also believes there is a danger in relying on technologies like GPS but he is quick to point out that the biggest risk lies in users being unwittingly led into perilous situations. Among the fatalities blamed on satnavs (satellite navigation devices) was the death of a driver who, in 2010, plunged into a reservoir in Spain. \u201cThere is a genuine potential for risk in relying on a satnav,\u201d said Spiers. \u201cBut the actual health risk of not using your brain effectively is not known.\u201d \nThe way in which navigational technology is used could also affect its impact on our own abilities, says Spiers. While audio instructions to drivers remove the need to think about navigation, he says, the use of smartphone apps as digital maps is very different. \u201cIn the old days, you had to print out or take an A to Z map in your pocket \u2013 what we are doing now is just using computer- aided information and you are having to think really quite hard about where you are going and interact with this device,\u201d he said. \u201cThe modern technology isn\u2019t just dumbing us down completely.\u201d \nMcKinlay remains convinced that navigation technologies have a long way to go before futuristic scenarios involving driverless cars and smart cities become a reality. \u201cFor really critical applications \u2013 safety applications like landing aircraft or navigating aircraft \u2013 GPS is still not good enough,\u201d he said. \nThough Spiers believes the development of artificial intelligence based on machine learning could lead to a new wave of navigational aids, McKinlay remains sceptical. \u201cWe will see ever- smarter machines which are very, very task specific, but the big breakthrough will be when they are able to tune in to what you might be thinking and what you might be wanting to achieve,\u201d he said. \nUltimately, McKinlay believes, it\u2019s essential that humans remain able to take control of their navigation. \u201cDo you really want to encourage people to get to a point where, when it disappears or when the battery goes flat, they are in total shock and can do nothing?\u201d he said. \u201cTechnology isn\u2019t magic \u2013 it is just a tool.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"BB King was most famous for blues music but he was always interested in other types of music and different cultures. Perhaps it is too early to say he is \u201cthe last of the bluesmen\u201d but it is hard to imagine that any future blues artist will have the influence as BB King. He influenced thousands of musicians and millions of music fans in a career that lasted 65 years.\nRiley B King was born in Mississippi, the son of African-American farm workers. He learnt the guitar from a family friend and learnt to sing with a quartet of gospel singers. In his early 20s, he moved to Memphis.\nHe was soon playing regularly at a bar in West Memphis and he also became a disc jockey, with a show on a local radio station. He was known as \u201cThe Beale Street Blues Boy\u201d but this was shortened to \u201cBlues Boy King\u201d and then to \u201cBB\u201d. In 1950, King began recording for Modern Records.\nHe had his first hit in 1952 with Three O\u2019Clock Blues. It was number one in the R&B chart for 15 weeks; it was the first of many hits. King developed a style that was new and different but had its roots in blues history. He often praised the musicians who influenced him and he usually mentioned T-Bone Walker first. He also mentioned the earlier blues guitarists Blind Lemon Jefferson and Lonnie Johnson and the jazz players Charlie Christian and Django Reinhardt. \nHe once explained that his guitar technique was partly the result of his lack of skill: \u201cI started to bend notes because I could never play in the bottleneck style. I loved that sound but just couldn\u2019t do it.\u201d During the 1950s, King was the leading blues artist in many series of concerts. In 1956, he played 342 concerts. In 1962, he tried to change that working pattern by signing with a major label, ABC. But the first records under that contract were not very successful with his fans or with the record company.\nBut his 1965 album, Live at the Regal, has become famous and influenced many younger musicians. He had more R&B hits with blues songs and, in 1969, he was near the top of the pop charts \u2013 where no blues artist had been for many years \u2013 with a song called The Thrill Is Gone.\nIt was a long time before he became known to a rock audience but musicians who admired him brought him to the attention of rock fans. \u201cAbout a year and a half ago,\u201d he said in 1969, \u201ckids suddenly started saying to me, \u2018You\u2019re the greatest blues guitarist in the world.\u2019 And I\u2019d say, \u2018Who told you that?\u2019 And they\u2019d say, \u2018Mike Bloomfield\u2019 or \u2018Eric Clapton\u2019. These young musicians made me popular again.\u201d\nFrom then on, King was well known as a leading blues artist. He went on international concert tours to Japan, Australia, China and Russia. He also gave concerts to prisoners in Chicago and at San Quentin. \nIn 1990, doctors told King he had diabetes and he reduced his touring. He now had to play sitting down but his singing and playing were almost as good as ever. The celebrations for his 80th birthday, in 2005, included an award-winning album with Clapton, Mark Knopfler, Roger Daltrey, Gloria Estefan and others, tributes from Bono, Amadou Bagayoko and Elton John, and a \u201cgoodbye tour\u201d that was not a goodbye at all.\nIn 2009, King received a Grammy award, for best traditional blues album, for One Kind Favor. In 2012, he performed at a concert at the White House, where the US President, Barack Obama, joined him to sing Sweet Home Chicago. King was twice married and twice divorced. He is survived by 11 children by various partners; four others died before him.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"1 Flappy Bird \nDong Nguyen, the inventor of the mobile game Flappy Bird, removed it from app stores. It was downloaded more than 50 million times and was making him around \u00a330,000 each day. He said its success ruined his simple life. On Twitter, he said: \u201cI cannot live like this anymore.\u201d \nNguyen is the latest inventor who wishes he hadn\u2019t created a monster: \n2 The labradoodle \nThe labradoodle isn\u2019t a monster \u2013 it\u2019s lovely. But what\u2019s monstrous is the way people sell crossbreed dogs since the labradoodle\u2019s inventor, Wally Conron, \ufb01rst created the dog in the 1980s. \u201cI\u2019ve created a lot of problems\u201d, he said. \u201cThere are a lot of unhealthy and abandoned dogs now.\u201d Conron invented the labradoodle when he was working for the Royal Guide Dog Association of Australia. He invented it as a dog for a blind woman. Her husband was allergic to dog hair. He didn\u2019t know that the labradoodle would become so popular. \n3 The AK-47 \nSix months before his death in December 2013, Mikhail Kalashnikov, the inventor of the assault ri\ufb02e, wrote to the head of the Russian Orthodox Church and asked: \u201cIf my ri\ufb02e killed people, am I, Mikhail Kalashnikov, 93 years old, the son of a poor farmer, Christian and Orthodox, responsible for people\u2019s deaths, even if they were enemies?\u201d \n4 Electronic tagging \nThe electronic tag was \ufb01rst made in the 1960s to check if ex-prisoners went to school or work, and to reward them for good behaviour. Its inventors, Bob Gable and his brother Kirkland, were later horri\ufb01ed that the tag became a form of control and punishment. \u201cIt\u2019s not pleasant,\u201d Kirkland Gable said in 2010, \u201cbut I\u2019m not in control of the universe. I have to realize there are some things out of my control.\u201d \n5 Pepper spray \nAfter police sprayed peaceful protesters with pepper spray at a University of California campus in 2011, Kamran Loghman, one of the scientists who helped develop the spray in the 80s said, \u201cI have never seen such an inappropriate use of chemicals.\u201d \n6 The of\ufb01ce cubicle \nIn the late 60s, a new kind of of\ufb01ce was made to give workers privacy and increase how well and how quickly people work by giving more work space. But the cubicle became a way for companies to put employees into smaller spaces. The inventor, Bob Propst, said, in 1997, \u201cthe use of cubicles in modern companies is crazy.\u201d","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"The beginning of the year is probably prime-time for feeling glum about work: it\u2019s ages until the next holiday, and it\u2019s dark in the morning and when you get home. And, if you\u2019re stuck in a job you don\u2019t like, it could be enough to have you reaching for your CV. \nBut, before you start hunting through the job ads, try to put things in perspective. So, what else could you be doing instead? We asked \ufb01ve people doing some unusual jobs how much they are paid, what the worst parts are and why they enjoy their work. \n1. Dog-food taster \nThe job: Tasting dog food to make sure it meets a premium brand\u2019s quality standards \nWhat it involves: Opening sample tins of each freshly made batch of dog (or cat) food, smelling it and eating it. \u201cAlthough dogs\u2019 palates are different from ours, taste is an important quality check to ensure each different ingredient is perfectly balanced in just the right way,\u201d says Philip Wells, the chief taster for Lily\u2019s Kitchen pet food. \u201cTrying the food is also a good way to pick up on the nuances of the cooking; this works especially well on the dry food.\u201d \nTypical salary: \u00a320,000 for an entry-level job in the quality department. However, Wells says \u00a350,000 or more is \u201ceasily achievable\u201d for an experienced technical director who, as well as tasting products, is also likely to be responsible for developing new recipes and advising the business on technical and regulatory matters. Worst part of the job: The deadlines, for Wells, who admits he quite likes the food. The meat used in pet food has to be derived from animals passed as \ufb01 t for human consumption, under the Animal Feed Regulations 2010, and he says the \ufb01rm uses \u201chuman-grade freshly prepared raw food\u201d in its recipes. He adds: \u201cThere are some pretty gruesome pet foods out there and, although I don\u2019t taste them, the smell is enough to turn the stomach when I do a bit of market research.\u201d \nJob satisfaction: \u201cNo two days are ever the same.\u201d It\u2019s rewarding, Wells says, that a project he has worked on will \u201chelp pets to become happier and healthier\u201d. However, he acknowledges that some of the credit must go to another \u201ckey member\u201d of the tasting team: Lily, the border terrier. \n2. Hygiene technician \nThe job: Disinfecting areas that have potentially been exposed to bio-hazardous situations \nWhat it involves: Cleaning up crime scenes, road accidents and suicides. Clearing hoarders\u2019 houses full of rubbish, rats and excrement \u2026 among other things. \u201cThe job is about keeping people safe,\u201d says Richard Lewis, a hygiene technician for Rentokil. \u201cWe deal with some very disturbingly dirty sites.\u201d \nTypical salary: The entry-level salary is usually around \u00a314,500 and a top salary can be up to \u00a322,000. Worst part of the job: Cleaning up after suicides. \u201cYou get used to the job being disgusting but the emotional side of it is still hard.\u201d You learn not to take your work home with you, he says. \u201cYou also need to have a sense of humour, as some days can be tough.\u201d \nJob satisfaction: Lewis \ufb01nds the variety of tasks exciting. \u201cOne day, I\u2019m cleaning up after a dead body; another day, I\u2019m in a prison cell or 100 feet in the air being lowered down into a silo to clean it.\u201d He also takes pride in the transformation he brings about: \u201cIt\u2019s satisfying to return a potentially hazardous site back to a safe environment. And it bene \ufb01ts society.\u201d \n3. Biogas engineer \nThe job: Setting up biogas plants in developing countries \nWhat it involves: Linking a system of digesters \u2013 which can be \ufb01lled with human excrement, animal dung and other waste products \u2013 to toilets to produce a biogas that can be used for cooking and lighting. \u201cYou have to know what size and shape the mixing pit needs to be, how to create the optimum temperature for digestion and where to situate the biogas plant,\u201d says Baburam Paudel, chief technical of\ufb01cer in Nepal for the charity Renewable World. \u201cYou also have to convince poor communities that poo can be productive \u2013 many are repelled by the idea of connecting their toilets to their kitchens.\u201d \nTypical salary: An entry-level salary is around \u00a310,000, while a typical salary for a chief technical of\ufb01cer is \u00a330,000. Worst part of the job: For Paudel, it\u2019s seeing people struggling to survive on very little income. But, he admits, anyone who won\u2019t change a nappy would struggle. \u201cYou have to be willing to get your hands dirty during the build process and inspections. Unsurprisingly, the anaerobic digestion (the process that takes place when bacteria eat the decomposing waste and produce methane) smells like rotten eggs. It can be disgusting and there is no room for mistakes.\u201d \nJob satisfaction: \u201cI \ufb01nd it immensely satisfying to know that I am helping people to increase their incomes and allowing girls to attend school by replacing the need to collect \ufb01rewood,\u201d says Paudel. \u201cMy work improves the health and hygiene of whole communities.\u201d \n4. Eel ecologist \nThe job: Conserving the critically endangered European eel \nWhat it involves: To monitor the size of the endangered eels, ecologists wade into the Thames and other London rivers and marshes full of eels, sometimes up to their armpits, and reach into a net \ufb01lled with up to 20 adult eels to grab one with their bare hands. \u201cAdult eels can be a metre long, or even larger, and weigh up to 2kg. They\u2019re not at all dangerous but they are almost pure muscle and they can be a little bit slimy,\u201d says Stephen Mowat, an eel conservationist and ecologist for the Zoological Society of London. \u201cWe have to weigh and measure them, and they wriggle \u2026 a lot. It\u2019s dif\ufb01cult to look professional while crawling on the ground chasing an eel across the grass.\u201d \nWorst part of the job: \u201cEels are really tricky creatures to work with \u2013 and getting outsmarted by an eel can be quite embarrassing,\u201d says Mowat. \u201cYou also have to be ready to jump from one project to the next. I once had to dissect a tub of dead eels to examine parasites living in them, moments before jumping into a suit for a meeting with government of\ufb01cials. I remembered to wash my hands.\u201d But, for Mowat, the worst part of the job is de\ufb01nitely not handling the eels \u2013 he believes baby eels (known as elvers) are \u201cas cute as pandas\u201d: \u201cThe worst thing about the job is regularly learning how much damage we, the British population, are doing to the environment.\u201d \nJob satisfaction: \u201cGetting to work outdoors and seeing British wildlife up close is the best part of the job,\u201d says Mowat. \u201cEels are beautiful creatures and working with eels doesn\u2019t just bene \ufb01 t the eel: it helps whole river systems, estuaries and coastal habitats. That is something worth working on.\u201d \n5. Shopping channel presenter \nThe job: Selling and demonstrating a wide range of products on live TV \nWhat it involves: Presenting hours and hours of monotonous content, while simultaneously demonstrating the products and appearing to be enthusiastic and knowledgeable about everything that you\u2019re selling. \u201cI prepare and research as much technical and practical information as possible on every single product beforehand,\u201d says Shaun Ryan, presenter for Ideal World TV. \u201cBut you also need the ability to relate to every genre of products and to every viewer.\u201d \nTypical salary: A trainee presenter would start on a minimum of \u00a330,000, while an experienced presenter can expect over \u00a355,000. \nWorst part of the job: \u201cThe unsociable hours,\u201d says Ryan. \u201cAn experienced presenter like myself generally gets to work prime-time hours, which means all weekends, bank holidays and very late evenings, plus the occasional 5am shift.\u201d His worst task ever, he says, was singlehandedly having to sell some female slimming pants: \u201cIt was a very tricky hour and not my \ufb01 nest.\u201d \nJob satisfaction: \u201cI love the rush of live presenting and having to think on my feet every second,\u201d says Ryan. \u201cI also get an adrenaline rush from knowing that, at times, I have thousands of viewers ordering the product that I have just been presenting.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Unveiling a car with a top speed of 25mph, two seats and no pedals or steering wheel might not make much of an impression at a motor show. But Google, in the US, sent a minor earthquake through the car and taxi industries as it unveiled the latest version of its driverless car. \nThe electrically powered vehicle, which Google has begun testing around its headquarters in Mountain View, California, dispenses with all the normal controls, including foot pedals. Instead, it has a smartphone app that summons it and tells it the destination, and a single STOP button mounted between the two front-facing seats in case the occupants need to override the computer. \nThe car, in fact, takes over all the tasks of navigation, steering, acceleration and braking. \nThe company is building about 100 prototypes for a two-year test. The company\u2019s co-founder, Sergey Brin, told a conference in California that the vehicle was \u201cstill in the prototype stage\u201d but that the project was \u201cabout changing the world for people who are not well served by transportation today \u201d. \nHe said of the car: \u201cYou\u2019re just sitting there; no steering wheel, no pedals. For me, it was very relaxing. About ten seconds after getting in, I forgot I was there. It reminded me of catching a chairlift by yourself \u2013 a bit of solitude I found really enjoyable.\u201d \nGoogle says that the principal aim of the project is to improve safety and that, because the car is constructed with impact-absorbing foam at the front and a plastic windscreen, \u201cit should be far safer than any other car for pedestrians\u201d. \nThe cars, which have been built specially by a company (as yet unnamed) in Detroit, will be used to investigate further how best to make driverless vehicles work. Google will run a pilot programme using the cars, which are not yet for sale. \nOne challenge is creating high-definition scans of the roads and surroundings before the cars can drive along them because they cannot gather and process enough information in real time. \nSo far, there are high-detail maps of about 2,000 miles of California\u2019s roads, but the state has more than 170,000 miles of public roads. \nGoogle says it is interested in licensing the technology to traditional vehicle manufacturers once it has refined it sufficiently. Members of the team had been working on the project even before joining Google, for more than a decade. \nBut the prospect of driverless cars replacing human-driven taxis has been the cause of some alarm. \n\u201cIf you get rid of the driver, then they\u2019re unemployed,\u201d said Dennis Conyon, the south- east director for the UK National Taxi Association. \u201cIt would have a major impact on the labour force.\u201d \nLondon has about 22,000 licensed black cabs and Conyon estimates that the total number of people who drive taxis for hire in the UK is about 100,000. \nHowever, Steve McNamara, general secretary of the 10,500-strong London Taxi Drivers\u2019 Association, said: \u201cYou won\u2019t get these driverless cars in London for 20 or 25 years. Maybe, by then, they\u2019ll have a charge point \u2013 because there isn\u2019t a single one in London now.\u201d \nOther car makers, including Volvo, Ford and Mercedes, are working on driver-assisted vehicles, which, unlike Google\u2019s version, do not dispense with the driver controls. \nBut Chris Urmson, director of the self-driving car project at Google, said that the new prototypes dispensed with the steering wheel and brakes because there was no guarantee that a human occupant would be able to take over in an emergency, and that it was simpler just to have an emergency stop button. \nUrmson said: \u201cThe vehicles will be very basic. We want to learn from them and adapt them as quickly as possible. But they will take you where you want to go at the push of a button. And, that\u2019s an important step towards improving road safety and transforming mobility for millions of people.\u201d \nSo far, the Google versions of the self-driving cars have covered 700,000 miles without an accident caused by the computer. The company points out that thousands of people die each year on the roads and that about 80% of crashes can be ascribed to human error. \nBut, they could have some way to go to match Conyon at the National Taxi Association. Aged 79, he has been driving a taxi for 50 years and claims never to have had an accident.","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Google has made maps of the world\u2019s highest mountains, the ocean floor, the Amazon rainforest and even shown us a bit of North Korea. They want to make maps of the whole world, but they have mostly stayed away from the Arctic.\nNow, however, Google is starting a very important update to hundreds of years of polar map making \u2013 and it hopes that the map will help give a better understanding of life on the permafrost for millions of web users. A small Google team has flown to Iqaluit, the largest town in the Canadian territory of Nunavut. They have taken their warmest winter clothes, many laptop computers and an 18kg telescopic camera that they can fix to their backpacks.\nThe team spent four days collecting the images and information that will give the isolated community on Baffin Island something that people across the world who live in cities now take for granted. An Inuit mapping expert helped the Google team and curious locals followed them around.\nThe town of 7,000 people will go on display via Google\u2019s popular Street View application in July 2013.\nWhen Google made maps of other parts of the world it used a special camera on a car roof. In Iqaluit that was not possible, so Google\u2019s map makers walked the town\u2019s snowy roads and trails. Some roads are made of ice and disappear in the short summer months.\nThe team also walked along part of a 15km road known as the Road to Nowhere, despite warnings about meeting polar bears.\nThe online map that Google had already created using satellite images was mostly correct, but one road was missing that had been built in the last year.\nOne difficulty was how to place on the map many businesses and homes that have mail sent to the local post office and not delivered to their address. Putting the PO box addresses on the map would mean the new map would show all the companies, banks and schools in the same place, around the Canada Post building in the centre of town.\nAbout 30 Inuit elders, business people and high-school pupils helped Google to correct this problem. They were given a laptop computer and told how to make sure their homes, shops and meeting places would show up correctly on the map.\nThe project is more than a novelty. Arif Sayani, the town\u2019s Director of Planning, said that people who are thinking of visiting or moving to the area would be able to use the maps to see the area. It may also help planning decisions in Iqaluit happen more quickly.\nThe project leader for Google said he hoped to see the work continue in other northern towns. But moving people and equipment around the vast Arctic territory is very expensive. So, in the future, Google might send equipment to the area and ask volunteers to complete the map.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"In the West, people do not usually eat insects. But in some parts of the world, insects are an important food and in spring 2013 there will be an effort to show people that eating insects is not disgusting. And we may soon be able to buy insects in supermarkets. \nIn April, there will be a festival in London, Pestival 2013, where there will be a discussion about the question of eating insects. The festival will include a restaurant by the Nordic Food Lab, the Scandinavian team behind the Danish restaurant Noma, which brought extremely popular insect dishes to Claridge\u2019s hotel in London in 2013. Noma has been named the best restaurant in the world by Restaurant magazine for three years. Its chef, Ren\u00e9 Redzepi, says that ants taste like lemon, and a mixture of grasshoppers and moth larvae tastes like a strong fish sauce. Bee larvae make a sweet mayonnaise used instead of eggs and scientists find new ways to use insects all the time. \nIn March, a BBC documentary will show a food writer eating deep-fried locusts and barbecued spiders. But, behind all the jokes there is a very serious message. Many experts believe that if humans eat insects, it will be very good for the environment. The UN\u2019s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) gives money to projects that show people they can eat and farm insects in south-east Asia and Africa. In these places about two billion people already eat insects and larvae as a normal part of their diet. In 2012, the FAO published a list of 1,909 edible species of insect and plans a major international conference on \u201cthis valuable food source\u201d in 2013. \nThere are lots of insects \u2013 there are 40 tonnes of insects for every person in the world \u2013 so they will not become endangered. \u201cI know it\u2019s taboo to eat bugs in the West, but why not?\u201d, Redzepi said. \u201cYou go to south-east Asia and this is a common thing. You read about it from all over the world, that people are eating insects. We eat honey, and honey is the vomit of a bee. Think of that next time you put it into your tea.\u201d \nHe said that the basic idea behind Nordic Food Lab is that you can eat everything. \nInsects are very important to life on Earth and they are the most diverse group of animals on the planet: there are more than a million species. But most people hate them and often kill them. \nIn the next 30 years, the planet\u2019s human population will increase to nine billion. Already one billion people do not get enough food. The increase will put more pressure on agricultural land, water, forests, fisheries and resources, and also food and energy supplies. \nThe cost of meat is increasing \u2013 it costs more money now, but also people have to destroy a lot of rainforest to make fields or to grow food for cows. Cows also make methane. The farming of cows, pigs and sheep makes very big amounts of greenhouse gases \u2013 35% of the planet\u2019s methane, 65% of its nitrous oxide and 9% of the carbon dioxide. \nEdible insects make fewer gases, contain high-quality protein, vitamins and amino acids, and only need a quarter of the food that sheep need to make the same amount of protein. You can grow them on organic waste. China is already building huge maggot farms. Zimbabwe is growing caterpillars and Laos is developing an insect-harvesting project. One study says that eating crickets and locusts, and not eating pork and beef, could help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 95%.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"\u201cIf we don\u2019t win, it doesn\u2019t mean anything,\u201d said billionaire Donald Trump in South Carolina. He hopes to be the Republican presidential nominee. He is worried he might not win but he shouldn\u2019t be worried because he has been at the top of the opinion polls for four months. \u201cI want to pick my date for the election. I want it next Tuesday,\u201d he told a crowd of 11,000 people. He needs their support to continue until March 2016 so he is chosen as the presidential candidate in November 2016\u2019s general election.\nStrangely, recent controversy has only made him more popular.\nFirst, he shocked prisoners of war when he said that he didn\u2019t believe Vietnam veteran John McCain was a hero because he allowed the enemy to capture him. Then, in the first television debate, he was rude to a woman who asked him difficult questions.\nTrump has also insulted Mexican immigrants to the US and said that a Black Lives Matter protester who was violently thrown out of a political meeting deserved to be attacked. He seemed to laugh at a New York Times journalist for his disability and said Muslim Americans supported the 9\/11 attackers.\nSome people still hope that, eventually, even Trump\u2019s supporters will get tired of his attacks on minorities. One poll shows his support among Republicans has reduced by 12 points \u2013 although, at 31%, he is still winning.\n\u201cHe\u2019s not a conservative, he\u2019s not a liberal \u2013 he believes in himself,\u201d former presidential rival, Bobby Jindal, told the Guardian.\nTrump tells his supporters that the three things that he is most against \u2013 immigration reform, freetrade deals and Barack Obama\u2019s national security policy \u2013 have become the most important issues of the election.\nHe believes that every undocumented immigrant in the US should be sent back to their country and he wants to ask Mexico to pay for a border wall \u2013 \u201cA real wall. A very tall wall, taller than that ceiling.\u201d This might not sound possible but these ideas have possibly destroyed the campaign hopes of Jeb Bush, who wants immigration reform.\nSo what can stop Trump? Often, polls this far away from election day can be incorrect because most people have not made up their minds. Among Americans who say they are Republicans, current polls say that he has 25-30% of the vote.\nSteve Deace, an Iowa conservative, said that Trump\u2019s behaviour is \u201cboth a good and a bad thing. On the one hand, it creates loyal supporters who love Trump\u2019s personality. On the other hand, it means he cannot change that personality.\u201d\nRepublican Frank Luntz believes Trump speaks for voters who, for the first time, feel as if they have a mouthpiece and like the fact that they feel like they are heard. He says, \u201cTrump says what they\u2019re thinking and, the more outrageous he is, the more they agree with him. He\u2019s saying what no politician would say and that\u2019s another reason they like him.\u201d\nThat is certainly the feeling among ordinary supporters who go to his very crowded campaign events.\n\u201cI like the way he speaks,\u201d says Sandra Murray of Dubuque, Iowa. \u201cThis country is a big mess and he could be the man to help us.\u201d\nOther supporters offer a simpler explanation. \u201cHe\u2019s not afraid of anybody or anything. That\u2019s cool.\u201d","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Dr Ben Brabon of Edgehill University teaches a MOOC \u2013 a massive open online course. The course is one of only two accredited MOOCs in the UK at the moment. Brabon says that many students enrol on MOOCs because they are free and they enjoy communicating with other students. MOOCs have no entry tests and no fees, so MOOC students behave very differently from students on normal higher education courses. \nMOOCs are the newest idea to try to make higher education available to everyone. Companies are investing a lot of money in new websites that offer sophisticated and interactive courses to tens of thousands of students. Investors hope to find a business model for MOOCs that will make them profitable. They could earn money by finding out why and when millions of students enrol, interact with their material, submit their assignments, message each other and stop the course. \nNobody can say exactly who MOOCs are for. Universities that want to attract fee-paying international students onto postgraduate courses by showing them their best programmes online? Students in developing countries who really want access to first-world universities? Employees who wish to develop their professional knowledge? People without qualifications who want to use MOOCs as a bridge to higher education? Or hobby learners, who want to learn about a subject they find interesting? \nMOOCs may be popular at the beginning but very few people complete them, says Dr Brabon. His literature course had 1,000 enrolments but only 31 people completed the course. \u201cAnd almost all of those had a first degree or had been educated to degree level,\u201d he says. \u201cSo it seems MOOCs do not make higher education available to people who couldn\u2019t go into higher education before.\u201d \n\u201cLearning online is a different thing and needs quite advanced learning skills,\u201d says David Kernohan, an expert in digital technology. \u201cWith MOOCs, there\u2019s very little support: the student does not get any individual attention.\u201d Students get support from other students in online discussions. This may mean that online study is unattractive or difficult for someone without high-level qualifications, but it suggests that MOOCs could be \u201ca really good tool for continuing education,\u201d he added. \nThe number of part-time students has reduced as the cost of studying at university increases, so could open and free courses provide a new path to university education? Could you teach a whole degree via MOOCs? \u201cI don\u2019t think that\u2019s how MOOCs work,\u201d says Brabon. Instead, he suggests \u201cblended learning that combines a campus experience with a MOOC; also, perhaps, using MOOCs to create a global degree, with students taking courses from across the world, might be possible.\u201d \nBut that\u2019s in the future. At present, the course content and assessment standards of MOOCs have no quality assurance, so employers will not be impressed by them. Accreditation is now essential for MOOCs so academics and employers will believe they are of good quality, says Brabon. \nSome people hope that MOOCs will bring the best of first-world teaching to students in less developed countries. Others believe that universities could use MOOCs to advertise their campus courses to bigger numbers of fee-paying students from outside the EU. \nMike Sharples, chair of Educational Technology, doesn\u2019t agree. MOOCs are mainly a way to publicize and share universities\u2019 best teachers. They also encourage interaction and feedback from students around the world, he says. He believes that attracting international students onto university courses is not the main aim of MOOCs. But they could certainly be a very clever marketing idea, as he says that \u201cif 20,000 people enrol on a MOOC \u2013 well, you only need 20 of those to enrol afterwards to have a master\u2019s course.\u201d \n\u201cIn South America, China and countries in Africa, there are many people who want to learn and some of the world\u2019s best courses are now online,\u201d adds Sharples. \u201cIf people are fascinated by learning, then why not? The real challenge is to allow those countries not just to study MOOCs, but also to create them. \u201d","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"You probably know a vaper \u2013 someone who smokes e-cigarettes. But has vaping started to become less popular? Statistics suggest that smokers and recent ex-smokers (the majority of vapers) may already be using e-cigarettes less. The big e-cigarette companies will study the \ufb01gures carefully because they have spent millions of pounds on a technology that they thought was becoming more popular.\nE-cigarettes do not contain tobacco and produce vapour, not smoke. In 2014, the health charity Action on Smoking and Health published \ufb01gures that showed that the number of British users of electronic cigarettes has increased three times from 700,000 users in 2012 to 2.1 million in 2014.\nBut \ufb01gures from the Smoking Toolkit Study show vaping may be becoming less popular. The number of vapers who are smokers and ex- smokers rose until the end of 2013, when 22% of smokers and ex-smokers were vaping. But this percentage stopped rising in 2014. Then, it dropped to 19% at the end of the year. Professor Robert West, who collected the data for the Toolkit, described the \ufb01gures as statistically important.\nSmokers are the key group for e-cigarette companies because seven out of ten vapers are smokers. Only around 1% of people who have never smoked have tried an electronic cigarette. \u201cThe number of people who use e-cigarettes while continuing to smoke is going down,\u201d West said. \u201cWe\u2019ve only been studying vaping for just over a year, so it\u2019s a short time period, but we are not seeing growth in the number of long-term ex-smokers or \u2018never \u2019 smokers using e-cigarettes. The number of people vaping might change but, at the moment, it looks like it\u2019s staying the same.\u201d \nExperts believe that vaping will probably not become fashionable with young non-smokers.  Only 1.8% of children are regular e-cigarette users. But e-cigarettes seem to be most popular with adults who want to quit. \u201cThe \ufb01gures published this month show that the use of electronic cigarettes by smokers has stopped rising. But the \ufb01gures also show the huge increase in use since May 2011,\u201d said James Dunworth, of ecigarettedirect.co.uk. \u201cOur customers are still very happy with the product and technology is improving their experience and helping them to switch from traditional cigarettes.\u201d\n\u201cE-cigarettes are like a sort of nicotine patch,\u201d West agreed. \u201cThey are more popular than nicotine patches but we do not know if they are more effective. One-third of people who want to quit smoking use e-cigarettes. They are the most popular method of stopping.\u201d\nThe European Commission (EC) wants to increase taxes on e-cigarettes, which could make them less popular. A new EC tobacco directive becomes law in 2016. It will limit the amount of nicotine in e-cigarettes to below their current levels. This may mean vapers will have to increase the number they smoke to get the same effect. This is another thing that may make e-cigarettes more expensive.\nWest suggested that politicians should see e-cigarettes as something that helps people stop smoking. He doesn\u2019t think they should follow the same laws as smoking. \u201cSome local authorities and organizations treat e-cigarettes like cigarettes \u2013 they ban them in public places and outdoors,\u201d he said. He thinks we should support vapers not attack them.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Valdevaqueros is one of the last remaining unspoilt beaches in southern Spain, where the sky above the golden sands is filled with kites hauling surfers over the waves. Currently the beach has little more than an access road lined with camper vans from Germany, France, Italy and Britain, filled with windsurfers and kitesurfers lured by the area\u2019s strong winds. \nFor decades it has been a world apart from the concrete-lined beaches of Torremolinos and Marbella along the coast, yet on 29 May the local council in Tarifa approved plans to build a tourist complex right next to the beach, with 1,400 hotel rooms and 350 flats. Environmental and conservation groups have protested that the project will harm the habitats of protected species, but for most councillors here the issue is simple: jobs. In this town of 18,000 inhabitants, 2,600 are out of work as Spain faces its worst economic crisis in at least half a century, one that has cast doubt on the future of the euro. \n\u201cTraditional sources of income such as fishing are dying out, now that fleets are being dismantled and fish stocks are depleted, so tourism is the only way out, as long as it is sustainable,\u201d said Sebasti\u00e1n Galindo, a councillor from the Socialist Party, which is in opposition in Tarifa but voted with the governing People\u2019s Party to give the project the green light. \nTarifa\u2019s Mayor, Juan Andr\u00e9s Gil, declined to comment on the project, but Galindo said it complies with environmental standards. \nThe complex would be 800 metres from the coast, comfortably beyond the minimum of 200 metres stipulated by a law designed to prevent more ugly developments like those that blighted much of Spain\u2019s coastline when mass tourism first descended on its shores in the 1960s and 1970s. \nOpponents of the complex say the last thing anyone needs is more housing in a country that already has a million empty homes, although the central government last week proposed a sell-off by granting non-Spaniards residency permits in return for buying property worth at least \u20ac160,000. \nThe Socialist opposition in Madrid attacked the proposal, and Galindo said it discriminated against migrant workers who flocked to Spain during the boom years, many of them from Morocco, whose coastline is just 14km away and can be seen from Tarifa. \u201cIt favours moneyed classes rather than those who came here to help Spain get ahead,\u201d he said. Surfers fear that new buildings in Valdevaqueros would reduce the strength of the famous local Levant wind but fail to lure traditional package holidaymakers. \u201cIt\u2019s not really a family spot. Just wait until they see what a Levant is like,\u201d said Henning Mayer, who has regularly made the journey from Augsburg in Germany for 20 years. \u201cTen years ago they said they would build a new highway here. It didn\u2019t happen, so I think it will be impossible to build new hotels.\u201d \nAt the southernmost tip of Spain, Tarifa is the strategic crossroads between Africa and Europe, where the Mediterranean Sea meets the Atlantic. Campaigners say it also has a vital role in the animal world as a crossroads for migrating species. \nThe campaign to save the beach was launched hours after the Tarifa council voted for the project. The campaign has a Facebook page and is supported by groups including Greenpeace, the World Wide Fund for Nature and the Spanish branch of conservation network Birdlife. \u201cIt\u2019s the environmental equivalent of putting a shopping centre right in the middle of the Alhambra,\u201d said Noelia Jurado, who uses her multimedia expertise to campaign against the complex. She also noted that the resort would be near the ancient Roman town of Baelo Claudia. \u201cThey could be building on top of more Roman ruins here. Nobody knows.\u201d \nAlso joining the opposition to the planned resort is the Andalusian College of Geographers, which, in a preliminary study charted on its website, concluded that \u201cfree areas \u201d, including car parks if not actual buildings, will overlap part of the Alcornocales National Park. The geographers also estimate that the site intrudes on two wildlife conservation areas. One of the areas in Valdevaqueros is home to two species of bat whose survival is threatened. \n\u201cMoney is once again being put before urban laws and European environmental directives,\u201d said Ra\u00fal Romeva, a member of the European Parliament who is Vice-President of the Greens group. In Romeva\u2019s view, the project is also at fault because the proposed site has too little water in a town that already suffers from shortages in the summer weather that scorches the southern Spanish region of Andalus\u00eda. Lack of water recently led the Andalus\u00eda Supreme Court to uphold an appeal against plans to build a complex elsewhere in the region, which would have included golf courses, hotels and luxury homes. \nMany locals are also wondering why a resort should be built 10km away, rather than on wasteland near Tarifa\u2019s picturesque old centre, with its typically Andalusian whitewashed walls and winding streets, dominated by a 10th-century Moorish castle. \u201cMy opinion and that of catering workers is that we agree with the complex as long as it creates jobs in the town, which is what is needed, but we are against it being for the benefit of a few,\u201d said Crist\u00f3bal Lobato, who has worked at the same beachside bar in Tarifa for 30 years. \u201cIf they put it in the centre of Tarifa, where there is space, then clients could visit shops, tapas bars and restaurants.\u201d \nOverlooking the green fields earmarked for building, biologist Aitor Gal\u00e1n, who conducts environmental impact studies for a living, pointed at one of only two seaside breeding grounds for vultures in Europe. \u201cAnywhere else in Europe, this place would have the utmost protection, but here they want to get rid of it all and cover it with buildings,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat they want to do is turn this into Benidorm, but what draws people here is wildlife and the wind. But by taking advantage of the current crisis and unemployment, builders and mayors who agree with them can justify any amount of destruction.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"A new computer-assisted autopsy system is becoming more and more popular in European hospitals. Its inventor says that the system could mean that now there will be no such thing as a 'perfect murder'. \nThe method, called 'Virtopsy', is being used at some forensic medical institutes in Europe. It was invented by a group of scientists at the University of Zurich. Instead of cutting the chest, like in a traditional autopsy, pathologists are now able to examine the dead body in 3-D via computer screens. \nMichael Thali, the Director of Zurich\u2019s Institute for Forensic Medicine in Europe, and one of the inventors of Virtopsy, said it could completely change criminal investigations. \u201cBasically there will be no such thing as the perfect murder any more because a virtual autopsy allows you to find every piece of evidence,\u201d he said. \n\u201cIn order to analyze the colour of the blood, the thickness of body fluids or smells, we\u2019ll need to use traditional autopsy methods,\u201d said Lars Oesterhelweg, Deputy Director of the Institute of Forensic Medicine at the Charit\u00e9 Hospital in Berlin, which is using a version of the Virtopsy. \nVirtopsies use powerful machines. Together, the machines are called a 'Virtobot'. Virtopsies can find injuries that are not seen during a traditional autopsy, as well as air pockets, heart attacks and even cancer. \n\u201cThe Virtopsy could replace the autopsy one day,\u201d said Richard Dirndorfer, one of the first people to use DNA analysis in criminology. \u201cI think we\u2019ll see it happen slowly, just like DNA analysis slowly replaced blood group analysis\u201d. \nThe method allows doctors to see deep inside dead bodies. It can see things that cannot be found during traditional autopsies. \nCriminologists from around the world have been travelling to Switzerland over the past few years to see the new method. Forensic scientists and pathologists think the method can be used together with the traditional autopsy. \nHe added that the new method was very helpful in re-examining cases where the cause of death was unclear. \u201cIt means that investigations can be re-examined and we can try again to find the murderer,\u201d he said. \nScientists said that relatives of the dead prefer the Virtopsy method because, during a traditional autopsy, scientists have to cut and damage the dead body.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nAccording to American researchers, a nasal spray containing the Love hormone oxytocin could help children with autism behave more normally in social situations. Scans of autistic children showed that a single dose of the chemical improved brain responses to facial expressions. This is something that could make social interactions feel more natural and rewarding for them.\nThe researchers said oxytocin might increase the success of behavioural therapies that are already used to help people with autism learn to cope with social situations. Over time, what you would expect to see is more normal social responding, being more interested in interacting with other people, more eye contact and more conversation, said Kevin Pelphrey, of Yale University.\nAutism is a developmental disorder that more than one in 100 people have. The condition affects people in different ways, but leads to difficulties in social interaction and communication. So far, there is no established treatment for the social problems caused by autism.\nResearchers at Yale have studied the brain chemical oxytocin as a possible treatment for the social problems caused by autism because it plays an important role in bonding and trust. Results have been mixed, though: one recent study found no significant benefit for young people given the chemical over several days. But Pelphrey said oxytocin might help the brain learn from social interactions; it would work best when used with therapies that encourage people with autism to interact more socially, he said.\nThe scientists scanned the brains of 17 young people aged eight to 16 with autism while they looked at images of cars or the eyes of people expressing different emotions. The scans were given 45 minutes after the young people inhaled a placebo or oxytocin through a nasal spray.\nThe scans showed that the reward circuits in the childrens brains behaved more normally after a dose of oxytocin: that is, they were more active when the person was looking at faces and less active when looking at the inanimate cars. The study appears in the latest issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in the United States.\nThe study suggests that oxytocin might treat something for which we dont have a treatment in autism, and thats the core social motivation, said Pelphrey. He warned that it was too early to use oxytocin as a treatment for the social difficulties caused by autism and said people should not buy oxytocin online. We dont want them trying oxytocin at home. Its impossible to say what they are buying. We are nowhere near thinking this is a ready treatment. It needs more follow-up, he said. This is an important new study in identifying changes in brain activity in key areas of the brain, said Simon Baron-Cohen, director of the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge University.\nA surprising finding, however, is that oxytocin nasal spray did not change performance in social recognition tasks. And, it is also not yet clear if oxytocin only has benefits for people with autism or has any unwanted side effects. Finally, oxytocin effects only last about 45 minutes, so there may be practical considerations as to whether this could be used as a treatment.\nFrom a scientific perspective, this study has a lot of evidence from animal and human work to justify serious attention, but more research is needed. Doctors should be cautious about the potential of this hormone until we know much more about its benefits and risks, in much larger studies. Said Simon Baron-Cohen.\nUta Frith, who studies autism at University College London, said: According to this study, oxytocin may have the effect of making faces more interesting. Disappointingly, this effect is seen only in brain activity and not in behaviour. Demonstrating an effect on behaviour will be critical if nasal spray treatment is to be of any value.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"James Bond films are one of the world\u2019s oldest and most successful film series. Twenty-three Bond films have been made so far. They have earned more than $6 billion at cinemas around the world. James Bond is not slowing down. In fact, the films are more popular than ever \u2013 Skyfall, which broke all records and became the biggest ever film at UK cinemas in 2012, earned a total of $1.1 billion.\nSo, there was a lot of interest when they announced more details about the 24th Bond film \u2013 especially its title, Spectre. The number one question is: can Spectre be as successful as Skyfall?\nCharles Gant, film editor for Heat magazine, thinks it can. \u201cThey were very clever when they made Skyfall,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was both modern and retro. Daniel Craig fans liked it and, also, older, more nostalgic Bond fans, who lost interest over the previous few films. With the new title,\u201d he adds, \u201cit is certain to be a success.\u201d\nEon Productions is the company, started in 1961, that made Dr No and all the \u201cofficial\u201d Bond films. The company really wants the next film to be successful so it is using the same people that worked on Skyfall in the new film. Daniel Craig will play Bond and the same people have written the script. Most importantly, Sam Mendes will again be the director. According to Gant, Mendes is the best Bond director. Gant says: \u201cMendes attracted top actors like Ralph Fiennes. Actors like Fiennes will only be in a film if they like the director.\u201d\nThe Bond series was not in trouble before the arrival of Mendes \u2013 and Craig \u2013 but the films were becoming a bit boring towards the end of Pierce Brosnan\u2019s time as Bond. There were no longer any more original Bond stories to adapt and the films no longer had enough energy. \nThis was nothing new: the history of the Bond series has been one of constant change, especially of the lead actor: first, Sean Connery; then, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Brosnan and, now, Craig. Each new actor has been different and some have been better than others.\nLazenby only did one Bond film. Dalton\u2019s two films, The Living Daylights and Licence to Kill, were during a period in the late 80s when more aggressive Hollywood action movies were more popular. According to Gant, \u201cthe period of Roger Moore\u2019s last films and Dalton\u2019s films didn\u2019t excite audiences. Brosnan was more successful but Craig is the best. On the other hand, the early Bond films were sexy and exciting.\u201d\nSkyfall made more money than all the other Bond films. But some of the 1960s Bond films were almost as successful. With figures adjusted for inflation, the 1965 film Thunderball is only a little bit below Skyfall. And Goldfinger and You Only Live Twice both did better than the other Craig films. Licence to Kill made the least money of all Bond films and Moore\u2019s final film, A View to a Kill, the second least.\nMartin Campbell is an experienced British director and he planned one of the most elaborate stunts in Bond history. In the famous first scene of Goldeneye (released in 1995), Bond falls into a light aeroplane without a pilot. This scene helped to make the Bond series more modern and popular. Also, a very successful Goldeneye video game created new, younger fans of Bond and made people think that the Bond film was no longer boring and old-fashioned.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nThere are many quirky solutions to help make our cities more livable, such as glow-in-the-dark trees, underground bike sheds and solar-powered bins. City living has many upsides but a sustainable lifestyle is not always one of them. Pollution, traf c and loss of green spaces are just some of the daily problems that city-dwellers have to deal with. We look at ten quirky solutions to making our cities better places to live.\nPop-up parks Todays cities sometimes look like theyre built more for cars than people. The pop-up park is a simple idea. Take an empty car park, a small amount of money and a pot plant or two, and make yourself your own private park. The PARK(ing) project started as an arts experiment in San Francisco. It has since spread across the world. Temporary urban farms and ecology demonstrations are just some of the ideas that have come out of the project, which celebrates a day of action every September.\nSubterranean storage Not all urban dwellers have cars. Bikes are becoming more and more fashionable. The question is: where to keep them safe? Tokyo-based engineering company Giken has a solution: an underground bicycle park. Just seven metres wide, the cylindrical storage facility buries deep into the ground and can hold 204 bikes. Owners can retrieve their bike at the touch of a button  the automated system delivers it back above ground in around 13 seconds.\nGlow-in-the-dark trees When most people think of trees that glow in the dark, Christmas trees usually come to mind. Not Daan Roosegaarde. The Dutch designer-artist has invented a bioluminescent plant. The experimental technology joins DNA from luminescent marine bacteria with the chloroplast genome of a plant to create a glow like a jelly sh. They are trying to create a version of the technology that Roosegaarde hopes could one day replace normal street lighting.\nFootfall harvesting Every day, hundreds of commuters and shoppers in the east London neighbourhood of West Ham cross the elevated pedestrian walkway close to the underground station. Few people probably notice the springiness beneath their feet. Even fewer realize that the springy rubber surface powers the streetlights above. The  oor has smart tiles that capture the energy from pedestrians footsteps and convert it into electricity. Pavegen, the UK company who had the idea, has installed a similar system at Londons Heathrow Airport and other international locations.\nSupertrees It had to happen eventually: man-made trees. Singapores Gardens by the Bay has a group of them. Up to 50 metres high, these steel-framed supertrees not only have  owers growing up them  their metallic canopies absorb and disperse heat, too. And they collect rainwater, as well as provide air ventilation for two large conservatories below. Eleven of the 18 trees also have solar panels on their branches.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Scientists have created an \u201catlas of the brain\u201d that reveals how the meanings of words are arranged across different regions of the organ. Like a colourful quilt laid over the cortex, the atlas displays in rainbow hues how individual words and the concepts they convey can be grouped together in clumps of white matter.\n\u201cOur goal was to build a giant atlas that shows how one specific aspect of language is represented in the brain, in this case semantics or the meanings of words,\u201d said Jack Gallant, a neuroscientist at the University of California, Berkeley.\nNo single brain region holds one word or concept. A single brain spot is associated with a number of related words. And, each single word lights up many different brain spots. Together, they make up networks that represent the meanings of each word we use: life and love, death and taxes, clouds, Florida and bra. All light up their own networks.\nDescribed as a \u201ctour de force\u201d by one researcher who was not involved in the study, the atlas demonstrates how modern imaging can transform our knowledge of how the brain performs some of its most important tasks. With further advances, the technology could have a profound impact on medicine and other fields.\n\u201cIt is possible that this approach could be used to decode information about what words a person is hearing, reading or possibly even thinking,\u201d said Alexander Huth, the first author on the study. One potential use would be a language decoder that could allow people silenced by motor neurone disease or locked-in syndrome to speak through a computer.\nTo create the atlas, the scientists recorded people\u2019s brain activity while they listened to stories read out on The Moth Radio Hour, a US radio show. They then matched the transcripts of the stories with the brain activity data to show how groups of related words triggered neural responses in 50,000 to 80,000 pea-sized spots all over the cerebral cortex.\nHuth used stories from The Moth Radio Hour because they are short and compelling. The more enthralling the stories, the more confident the scientists could be that the people being scanned were focusing on the words and not drifting off. Seven people listened to two hours of stories each. Per person, that amounted to hearing roughly 25,000 words \u2013 and more than 3,000different words \u2013 as they lay in the scanner. \nThe atlas shows how words and related terms exercise the same regions of the brain. For example, on the left-hand side of the brain, above the ear, is one of the tiny regions that represents the word \u201cvictim\u201d. The same region responds to \u201ckilled\u201d, \u201cconvicted\u201d, \u201cmurdered\u201d and \u201cconfessed\u201d. On the brain\u2019s right-hand side, near the top of the head, is one of the brain spots activated by family terms: \u201cwife\u201d, \u201chusband\u201d, \u201cchildren\u201d, \u201cparents\u201d.\nEach word is represented by more than one spot because words tend to have several meanings. One part of the brain, for example, reliably responds to the word \u201ctop\u201d, along with other words that describe clothing. But, the word \u201ctop\u201d activates many other regions. One of them responds to numbers and measurements, another to buildings and places. The scientists have created an interactive website where the public can explore the brain atlas.\nStrikingly, the brain atlases were similar for all the participants, suggesting that their brains organized the meanings of words in the same way. The scientists only scanned five men and two women, however. All are native English speakers and two are authors of the study published in Nature. It is highly possible that people from different backgrounds and cultures will have different semantic brain atlases.\nArmed with the atlas, researchers can now piece together the brain networks that represent wildly different concepts, from numbers to murder and religion. \u201cThe idea of murder is represented a lot in the brain,\u201d Gallant said. \nUsing the same data, the group has begun work on new atlases that show how the brain holds information on other aspects of language, from phonemes to syntax. A brain atlas for narrative structure has so far proved elusive, however. \u201cEvery time we come up with a set of narrative features, we get told they aren\u2019t the right set of narrative features,\u201d said Gallant.\nUri Hasson, a neuroscientist at Princeton University, praised the work. Unlike many studies that looked at brain activity when an isolated word or sentence was spoken, Gallant\u2019s team had shed light on how the brain worked in a real- world scenario, he said. The next step, he added, was to create a more comprehensive and precise semantic brain atlas. Ultimately, Hasson believes it will be possible to reconstruct the words a person is thinking from their brain activity. The ethical implications are enormous. One more benign use would see brain activity used to assess whether political messages have been effectively communicated to the public. \u201cThere are so many implications and we are barely touching the surface,\u201d he said. \nLorraine Tyler, a cognitive neuroscientist and head of the Centre for Speech, Language and the Brain at Cambridge University, said the research was a \u201ctour de force in its scope and methods\u201d. But, the brain atlas in its current form does not capture fine differences in word meanings. \u201cWhile this research is path-breaking in its scope, there is still a lot to learn about how semantics is represented in the brain.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nThe view from the visitors\u0019 centre at the southern edge of Don\u0003ana National Park in southern Spain is an ornithologist\u0019s dream: 200,000 hectares of wetlands vital for the birdlife of western Europe. Dozens of Britain\u0019s most loved migratory birds rest here every year on their migrations from Africa. Don\u0003ana is also home to some of Europe\u0019s rarest birds, including the Spanish imperial eagle.\nIt is a glorious, vibrant landscape but it exists on a knife-edge. In 1998, almost two billion gallons of acidic water, mixed with waste metals, poured into the park from the Los Frailes mine 45km away. A toxic tsunami of waste poured down the Guadiamar river into the park. More than 25,000 kilos of dead  sh were collected afterwards and nearly 2,000 adult birds, chicks, eggs and nests were killed or destroyed.\nIt was Spain\u0019s worst environmental disaster and the clean-up cost 90m. Suddenly aware of Don\u0003ana\u0019s status as the nation\u0019s most important natural site, Spain decided to spend a further 360m, some of it EU money, on restoring the landscape. In the 1950s and 60s, some parts of this landscape had been drained to create rice and cotton  elds. Some of this farmland is now being returned to its original wetland state.\nIt has been a costly but positive process. But Don\u0003ana is still in trouble thanks to the increasing pressures of modern life. There are plans to build an oil pipeline through Don\u0003ana and other developers want to build new hotels and golf courses, which would need enormous water supplies. Sand and soil washed from nearby farms is also blocking the channels that cross Don\u0003ana.\nHowever, the real body blow for conservationists has been the recent decision of the Andaluci\u0001an government to reopen the Frailes mine that nearly destroyed Don\u0003ana in 1998. \u001cThis is Europe\u0019s most precious bird sanctuary, for indigenous species and also as a resting place for birds that migrate between Africa and Britain and other parts of north-west Europe,\u001d says Laurence Rose of the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds). \u001cDon\u0003ana already faces a large number of threats, but now they want to bring back the very cause of the disaster 16 years ago. It is extremely worrying.\u001d\nThe state of the local economy provides an explanation for the government\u0019s decision. The crash of Spain\u0019s banks in 2008 had a catastrophic effect on the region and unemployment in some parts of Andaluci\u0001a is now more than 30%. Reopening the mine would provide more than 1,000 jobs.\n\u001cThere are riches here, riches that are badly needed by local inhabitants,\u001d said energy spokesman Vicente Ferna\u0001ndez Guerrero. \u001cWe think mining is a good way to make it possible to allow local people to continue to live in the area. This is a mining area. People have been digging metals here since Roman times.\u001d\nFerna\u0001ndez said that the mine licence would only allow modern mining techniques, which avoid the creation of poisonous wet waste. Also, the Canadian company that ran Los Frailes when the disaster happened cannot run it again. \u001cThe best technology in the world will be used here,\u001d Ferna\u0001ndez insisted. \u001cLiquid will not be used. We are going to insist on that.\u001d\nThe plan has some support in the area, but it also has a lot of opposition. Carlos Da\u0001vila, who works for the Spanish Ornithological Society in Don\u0003ana, was also alarmed at the plan. \u001cThis is a very, very bad idea,\u001d he said. \u001cThey say the new mine will be safe, but they said it was safe in 1998 and look what happened. We got the worst ecological disaster in the history of Spain.\u001d\nAlmost every visitor at a local restaurant had a camera and telescopic lens or a pair of binoculars. There is a big tourist trade because of the birdlife of Don_ana. This is not surprising because this is a very special place. A huge sky hangs over this  at but certainly not boring landscape. Birds of every shape and size  ll the air and sometimes the road. At one point on my visit, a stork calmly stood in front of our car until it felt ready to  y off.\n\u001cThe trouble is that Spain does not have the public resources it had 16 years ago. A repeat of the toxin spill today would have a much, much more damaging impact,\u001d said Rose. This point is supported by Da\u0001vila. \u001cAfter the disaster, Spain realized that it had a place of real ecological importance and did a lot to clean it up and protect it,\u001d he added. \u001cNow, we seem to be forgetting that lesson. It is very depressing.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"A Canadian man who sprang to fame after offering a free round-the-world trip to a woman with the same name as his ex-girlfriend has returned from the jaunt with his chosen namesake, although, to the dismay of those following the story, love did not blossom between the pair. Jordan Axani, a 28-year-old Toronto real-estate developer turned charity founder, made it back to Canada with Elizabeth Quinn Gallagher but said the pair had \u201cforged a brother-sister-like relationship\u201d. \nAxani had made headlines in 2014 after offering an air ticket to any Canadian named Elizabeth Gallagher. He had booked a three-week vacation with his ex-girlfriend but, after they split up, he was unable to change the name on the flights. \nThat\u2019s where Axani\u2019s new travelmate, a 23-year-old student from Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia, came in. Gallagher, who goes by the name Quinn, replied to a Reddit post Axani had submitted \u2013 along with other hopeful Elizabeth Gallaghers \u2013 and was selected. Gallagher had made it clear before the trip that she had a \u201cpretty serious\u201d boyfriend but that had not stopped romantics, and journalists, from hoping the globetrotters might fall for one another. Unfortunately, it was not to be. \n\u201cIt wasn\u2019t easy and it certainly wasn\u2019t immediate. It took us about a week to really figure each other out,\u201d Axani said. There was a certain amount of \u201cnatural stumbling\u201d around \u201cthe dos and don\u2019ts of travelling together\u201d as the pair got to know each other.\n\u201cI\u2019m going to be explicitly clear,\u201d Axani said, shortly after the pair returned to Toronto. \u201cThis was never a romantic endeavour. It was strictly platonic. I do not think of Quinn in a romantic light in the least. There is no future for us romantically. She is a good friend. I think of her as a little sister but that will be it. And her feelings are entirely mutual in that regard.\u201d It took work to establish that brother-sister, good-friend, no-future-for-us-romantically relationship, however. other. \u201cAt the end of it, we\u2019d developed a really great rhythm of, one second, having really funny inside jokes, and, the next second, knowing when the other needed space.\u201d \nAlthough the pair failed to fall for one another, Axani said the trip, which took in Milan, Venice, Vienna, Prague, Khao Lak (in Thailand) and Hong Kong, was \u201cfantastic\u201d. A favourite place was Prague, Axani said, where they \u201chad the largest groundswell of people reaching out\u201d. \n\u201cOver the course of two and a half days, I think we met about two dozen people. So that\u2019s a lot of stories, that\u2019s a lot of individuals and that\u2019s a lot of love for their home city of Prague.\u201d \nPeople were following the pair on Twitter and Instagram, Axani said, and they were even recognized in the street in Hong Kong. \u201cIt was a real adventure. We had a blast. We learned a lot about ourselves and about each other. I think, coming out of it, I can\u2019t imagine it going much better than it did.\u201d \nAxani made it back to Toronto at 3am on Monday, 12 January, when the holiday came to an abrupt halt. He went straight into a board meeting with fellow board members at his charity, A Ticket Forward. Axani started the non-profit organization after his Reddit post went viral and intends to offer round-the-world-trips to survivors of abuse, cancer and war. \nAlongside that, Axani is also in talks to spin his story into a television show or film, although he would not comment on what form those productions might take. \u201cSuffice to say there\u2019s been significant interest from many production companies. We\u2019re well advanced.\u201d In terms of his love life, Axani said he was not looking for his next Elizabeth Gallagher just yet. \u201cI\u2019m not looking for anything, per se, but life happens and we\u2019ll see,\u201d he said. \u201cAs always, life\u2019s a journey.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nA girl born today in the UK can expect to live nearly to the age of 82 on average and her brother will live to 78. They would have a longer life in Andorra (85 and 79 respectively) but will live a little longer than in the US (81 and 76). If they lived in the Central African Republic, they would die in middle age (49 and 44). However, almost everywhere in the world, with the exception of countries such as Lesotho, which have experienced HIV and violence, lifespans are lengthening. And the best news is that small children are much less likely to die than they were forty years ago. There has been a drop in deaths in under-fives of nearly 60%, from 16.4 million in 1970 to 6.8 million in 2010.\nThis last statistic provides justification for the enormous project that the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) in Seattle has led over the past five years, involving nearly 500 researchers, to assess the global effects of disease. Knowing how many children die and from what cause allows the world to focus its efforts and resources on keeping them alive. There are many lessons to be learnt from the enormous database they have put together, which will help global organizations and individual governments to better care for us all.\nThe project was a big task and is not without controversy. IHME has been very radical in some of its methods. Where they did not have death registries or medical records, for instance, they have taken evidence from verbal autopsies  deciding the cause of death by an interview with the family. The most surprising result has been the malaria figure. IHME said 1.2 million die of the disease every year  twice as many as previously thought. The big increase is in adult deaths. It is commonly believed that malaria kills mostly children under five.\nThe way I was taught as a doctor and everybody else is taught is that, in malarial areas, you become semi-immune as an adult, said Dr Christopher Murray, IHME Director. We originally went with that opinion but there has been a change as we have become more empirical, following the data. African doctors write on hospital records that adults are dying of malaria a lot. But, he adds, their fever could be something else. The findings have led to further studies.\nAlthough Margaret Chan, Director General of the World Health Organization, gave the IHME study a warm official welcome, some of the staff are cautious. We need to be very careful in assessing the validity [of the figures], said Colin Mathers, a senior scientist. We need to wait to be persuaded by evidence. His colleague Dr Tiers Boerma, Director of one WHO department, added: People should understand that some of the numbers are very different and the WHO cant go with any academic publication that states a different number. However, said Mathers, IHME has pushed the envelope with some of these analyses and that is stimulating. One of the main themes, said Murray, was incredibly rapid change in the main causes of death and the speed of that change is a lot faster than we expected it to be.\nReduced fertility and longer life have led to a rise in the average age of the worlds population in a decade from 26 years old to almost 30. The change has been dramatic in Latin America, for instance, where countries like Brazil and Paraguay had life expectancy of below 30 in 1970 and almost 64 in 2010. That is a 35-year increase in the average age of death over four decades. In a place like Brazil, the speed of change is so fast that most institutions are not able to deal with it, Murray said.\nA second factor is the move outside Africa from communicable diseases and the common causes of mother and baby deaths to what are sometimes termed lifestyle diseases, such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes and cancer  some of which have significant genetic triggers. That change has been particularly marked in Latin America, the Middle East and south-east and even south Asia, he said.\nThe third big finding was, Murray said, a surprise to us. There is a lot of disability and it has a big effect on people who are living longer but not healthier lives. The main causes of disability are different from the ones that kill you, he said. They were mental health problems, such as anxiety and depression, and disorders, such as arthritis and lower back pain, anaemia, sight and hearing loss and skin disease. In addition, there was substance abuse. The numbers for these are not going down over time, he said. We are making no progress in reducing these conditions.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"A nasal spray laced with the 'Love hormone' oxytocin could help children with autism learn to handle social situations better, US researchers claim. Scans of children with autistic spectrum disorder showed that a single dose of the chemical improved brain responses to facial expressions, a shift that could make social interactions feel more natural and rewarding for them. \nThe scientists behind the research said a course of oxytocin might boost the success of behavioural therapies that are already used to help people with autism learn to cope with social situations. \u201cOver time, what you would expect to see is more appropriate social responding, being more interested in interacting with other people, more eye contact and more conversational ability,\u201d said Kevin Pelphrey, director of the Child Neuroscience Lab at Yale University. \nAutism is a developmental disorder seen in more than one in 100 people. The condition affects individuals in different ways, but is characterized by difficulties in social interaction and communication. So far, there is no established treatment for the social problems caused by autism. Researchers at Yale have studied the brain chemical oxytocin as a potential treatment for the social impairments caused by autism because it plays a crucial role in bonding and trust. Results have been mixed, though: one recent study found no significant benefit for youths given the chemical over several days. But Pelphrey said oxytocin might help the brain learn from social interactions; it would work best when used with therapies that encourage people with autism to engage more socially, he said. \n\u201cOur study shows that oxytocin affects the brain and opens up the possibility that, when combined with behavioural treatments, it works like a social enhancer,\u201d he said. The scientists used a technique called functional MRI to scan the brains of 17 youths aged eight to 16 with autism while they looked at images of cars or the eyes of people expressing various emotions. The scans were given 45 minutes after the participants inhaled a placebo or oxytocin through a nasal spray. \nThe scans showed that reward circuitry in the children\u2019s brains behaved more normally after a snort of oxytocin, being more active when the person was looking at faces and less active when viewing the inanimate cars. The study appears in the latest issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in the United States. \u201cIf this is replicated, it suggests that oxytocin might treat something for which we don\u2019t have a treatment in autism, and that\u2019s the core social motivation,\u201d Pelphrey told the Guardian. \nHe warned that it was too early to use oxytocin as a treatment for the social difficulties caused by autism and cautioned against buying oxytocin from suppliers online. \u201cWe don\u2019t want them running out on the basis of this study or any other and trying oxytocin at home. There is no telling what they are buying. We are nowhere near thinking this is a ready treatment. It needs more follow-up,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is an important new study in identifying changes in brain activity in key regions of the brain involved in social cognition in autism following oxytocin administration,\u201d said Simon Baron-Cohen, director of the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge University. A surprising finding, however, is that oxytocin nasal spray did not change performance on the social cognitive task. Nor is it clear yet if oxytocin only has benefits for people with autism or has any unwanted side effects. \nFinally, oxytocin effects only last about 45 minutes, so there may be practical considerations as to whether this could be used as a treatment. \n\u201cFrom a scientific perspective, this study has a lot of evidence from animal and human work to justify serious attention, but more research is needed. Doctors should be cautious about the clinical potential of this hormone until we know much more about its benefits and risks, in much larger studies.\u201d Said Simon Baron-Cohen. \nUta Frith, who studies autism at University College London, said: \u201cAccording to this study, oxytocin may have the effect of making faces more interesting as assessed by greater activity in brain structures concerned with reward evaluation. Disappointingly, this effect is seen only in brain activity and not in behaviour. Demonstrating an effect on behaviour will be critical if nasal spray treatment is to be of any value.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nWell-known British author David Mitchell is used to the critics analysing his novels in detail. So, its a relief, he says, that his latest work wont be seen by anyone until 2114. He completed it at 1am one Tuesday morning before a car arrived to take him to the airport to catch a flight to Norway.\nMitchell is the second contributor to the Scottish artist Katie Patersons Future Library project, for which 1,000 trees were planted in 2014 in Oslos Nordmarka forest. The first author, Margaret Atwood, handed over the manuscript of a text called Scribbler Moon in 2015. Each year for the next 100 years, an author will deliver a piece of writing that will only be read in 2114, when the trees are chopped down to make paper on which the 100 texts will be printed.\nEach author  their names revealed year by year and chosen by a panel of experts and Paterson, while she is alive  will travel to the spot in the forest high above Oslo, where they will hand over their manuscripts in a short ceremony.\nIts a little glimmer of hope in a season when there has been lots of very depressing news, which shows that we are in with a chance of civilization in a hundred years, said Mitchell. Everything is telling us that were doomed but the Future Library brings hope that we are more resilient than we think: that we will be here, that there will be trees, that there will be books and readers, and civilization.\nMitchell said he found writing the book quite liberating because I wont be around to take the consequences of this being good or bad. But, Im sandwiched between Margaret Atwood and no doubt some other brilliant writer. So, it had better be good. Id look such a fool if they opened it in 2114 and it wasnt any good.\nMitchell says that he usually polishes and polishes his writing. Actually, I over-polish. But, this was very different  I wrote till the final minute. So, the first two-thirds were polished and the final third I didnt have time. And, it was a liberation.\nFuture Library creator, Paterson, asked the writers to write on the theme of imagination and time, which they can take in so many directions. Mitchell revealed only the name of the manuscript, From Me Flows What You Call Time, during a ceremony in the Norwegian woods next to where Patersons 1,000 trees are planted. The title is taken from a piece of music by Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu. But, other than admitting that its more substantial than I was expecting, the author would say nothing more.\nHanding over his text in the forest, Mitchell read his audience of children and adults a short story and William Wordsworths A slumber did my spirit seal. Its ending, Rolled round in earths diurnal course \/ With rocks, and stones, and trees, felt appropriate in this small section of forest, which will be carefully tended to for the next 98 years before it is turned into Future Librarys manuscripts.\nHow vain to think that my scribblings will be of enduring interest to future generations. Yet, how low-key and understated, to slave over a manuscript that nobody will ever congratulate you for and say: Nice one or God, I loved the bit where she did that and he did this ... Mitchell wrote in a piece for the Future Library.\nHis manuscript, now delivered, will be sealed and placed alongside Atwoods in a wood-lined room in Oslos new public library, which will open in 2019. Watched over by a panel of experts until it is finally printed, it is now, says the novelist, as gone from me as a coin dropped in a river.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nFlappy Bird Be careful what you wish for, especially if you want to invent something new. Recently, Dong Nguyen, the designer of the mobile game Flappy Bird, removed it from app stores. He said its success  it had been downloaded more than 50 million times and was making him around 30,000 from advertising each day  had ruined his simple life. On his Twitter account, he said: I cannot take this anymore. OK, so regretting making Flappy Bird isnt quite the same as regretting making a rifl e, but Nguyen is just the latest inventor who wished he hadnt created a monster.\nThe labradoodle The labradoodle isnt a monster  its adorable. But whats monstrous is the way crossbreed dogs have been sold since the labradoodles inventor, Wally Conron, fi rst created the breed in the 1980s. Ive done a lot of damage, he told the Associated Press. Ive created a lot of problems. There are a lot of unhealthy and abandoned dogs out there. Conron came up with the labradoodle when he was working for the Royal Guide Dog Association of Australia to provide a dog for a blind woman whose husband was allergic to dog hair. What he didnt expect was that the labradoodle  and other types of poodle-cross dogs, many of which have health problems  would become so popular.\nThe AK-47 Six months before his death in December 2013, Mikhail Kalashnikov, the designer of the assault rifl e, wrote to the head of the Russian Orthodox Church: My spiritual torment is unbearable. If my rifl e killed people, does that mean that I, Mikhail Kalashnikov, 93 years of age, the son of a poor farmer, Christian and Orthodox by faith, am responsible for peoples deaths, even if they were enemies?\nElectronic tagging The electronic tag was originally made in the 1960s as a way of tracking former prisoners attendance at school and work, and rewarding them for good behaviour. Its inventors, Bob Gable and his brother Kirkland, were later horrifi ed that the tag had become a form of control and punishment. Its not pleasant, Kirkland Gable told the Guardian in 2010, but Im not in control of the universe. I have to realize there are some things out of my control.\nPepper spray After police sprayed peaceful protesters with pepper spray at a University of California campus in 2011, one of the scientists who helped develop it in the 80s denounced its use. I have never seen such an inappropriate use of chemicals, Kamran Loghman told The New York Times.\nThe offi ce cubicle In the late 60s, a new form of offi ce was designed to give workers privacy and increase productivity by providing more work space. Instead, it became a way for companies to put employees into tighter spaces. These days, the cubicle is often connected with uniformity and soulless work. Its inventor, Bob Propst, said, in 1997, the use of cubicles in modern corporations is crazy.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"As colourful fish were swimming past him off the Greek coast, Cathal Redmond was convinced he had taken some great photos with his first underwater camera. But, when he looked at the results on dry land, the images were brown and murky. Having taken the pictures while holding his breath underwater, he blamed the limited time he had to set up the shots. All he needed, the industrial designer thought, was a little more time to properly capture the fish in their natural environment. \nHe vowed to make the little extra time needed a reality and the result is his invention of the Express Dive \u2013 a refillable air storage device, held in the mouth, that lets users swim underwater for two minutes. It is aimed at bridging the gap between snorkelling, with its limited scope, and scuba diving, which gives divers the freedom to breathe underwater but at the cost of using cumbersome and expensive gear. The prototype of the invention \u2013 which is still in the initial stages of testing individual parts \u2013 looks like a cross between a scuba mouthpiece and a water bottle. \n\u201cI wanted to enable people to do more. So, rather than just get in underwater and spend 30 seconds holding their breath, I wanted to do a little bit more than they were able to do,\u201d says Redmond, 27. In 2006, the Irish designer completed a scuba-diving course and loved the feeling of being able to breathe underwater and observe fish in their natural environment. Less enjoyable, however, were the fins, the weight belt, the wetsuit, air tank, mask and all the other equipment. \n\u201cI was very keenly aware of the fact that I had about 50kg strapped to me and getting into the water was quite foreign when you are used to trying to keep yourself at the surface. It was a very surreal experience,\u201d he says. \u201cThe real problem is that it is very limiting as to what you can do. Although it allows you to stay underwater for longer, you have to plan your whole day around it. You have 20kg to 50kg of gear with you \u2013 you can\u2019t be walking on the beach and decide you want to go in. Planning is a very big part of it. It demands a lot. There is a lot of relearning required.\u201d \nIt was during a final-year project for his product design degree at the University of Limerick that Redmond produced the Express Dive. The device has two main parts. When above the surface, the unit uses a fan to suck in air via a vent in the mouthpiece. The air, accelerated around the motor-driven turbine, is compressed through a series of valves and stored in the attached tank, which has a display light that flashes green when it is full. When air is no longer being taken in, the vent shuts off and, as the user dives, air is fed back via the mouthpiece. \nThat display, which is in the user\u2019s eyeline, then acts as a health bar turning from green to red when the air runs low. The device can take in enough air for two minutes of diving and takes approximately the same amount of time to be refilled. \u201cWhen you put the compressor into the unit with all of the rest of the stuff, the batteries and the electronics and the membranes for the scuba delivery, the big trick was to be able to get it small enough so that it would be able to be held through the teeth and out of the mouth,\u201d Redmond says. \nThe electrics are shielded from the water in the casing and are recharged using inductive power transfer \u2013 a system using an electromagnetic field, similar to the pads which can wirelessly charge mobile phones, so that there is no need for exposed wires. \nRedmond says the mouthpiece feels similar to using a snorkel. He likens it to an extension of the lungs in that the user is taking a deep breath and then using it underwater. \u201cIt is an extension of the body\u2019s capacity to store air,\u201d he says. The prototype, made from high-density foam, aluminium and silicone, has been tested in parts. Redmond says he has shown that the motor can compress two minutes\u2019 worth of air into the unit and that the design can be effectively held in the diver\u2019s mouth. What he has not yet done is test the device on a diver, fully submerged for two minutes. But, with enough testing, Redmond is confident he can get a fully functioning device that will not endanger swimmers underwater. \nRedmond recently came runner-up for the International James Dyson Award, which will give him \u00a35,000 to further develop the project. Early indications are that the device would be priced at \u00a3280, he says, and it is likely to weigh anywhere from 1kg to 3kg depending on the safety features needed. \nTo anyone who thinks two minutes of air is no more than a minor improvement on snorkelling, Redmond says it could make all the difference underwater. The typical swimmer can hold their breath for about 40 seconds while underwater, he says. \u201cTwo minutes is not a lot of time but it is a lot longer than that,\u201d he says.","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nCities dont often decide to pack their bags, get up and move down the road. But thats exactly what Kiruna, an Arctic town in northern Sweden, has to do  to avoid being swallowed up into the earth.\nIts a terrible choice, says Krister Lindstedt of White, the Swedish architects company that is managing the biblical task. They have to move this city of 23,000 people away from a gigantic iron-ore mine that is fast swallowing up the ground beneath its streets. Either the mine must stop digging, creating mass unemployment, or the city has to move.\nFounded in 1900 by the state-owned Luossavaara-Kiirunavaara mining company (LK), Kiruna has grown rich off the vast amount of iron ore that is below the town but its now facing destruction by exactly the thing that made it rich. The town is here because of the mine, says Deputy Mayor Niklas Siren. Otherwise, no one would have built a city here.\nLocated 145km inside the Arctic Circle, Kiruna has a brutal climate. It has winters with no sunlight and average temperatures below -15C. But the iron ore has kept people here. It has become the worlds largest underground iron-ore mine. It produces 90% of all the iron in Europe, enough to build more than six Eiffel Towers a day. And demand continues to grow.\nIn 2004, the mining company told the town that its days were numbered: digging its shafts towards the city at an angle of 60 degrees, subsidence would soon lead to buildings cracking and collapsing. Ten years later, cracks are starting to appear in the ground, and they are creeping closer and closer to the town.\nThe people of Kiruna have been living in limbo for ten years, says Viktoria Walldin, a social anthropologist who works with the architects. They have put their lives on hold, unable to make major decisions like buying a house, redecorating, having a child or opening a business.\nAfter years of dithering, the city finally has a plan for how it will proceed. Lindstedt has a plan that shows the towns streets and squares beginning to crawl eastwards along a new high street, until the whole place has moved safely away from the mine by 2033.\nA new town square is already being built, 3km to the east, with a circular town hall planned by Danish architect Henning Larsen. Twenty other key buildings will be dismantled and put together piece by piece in their new home  like an Ikea flatpack on a bigger scale. Kirunas red wooden church, built in 1912 and once voted Swedens most beautiful building, will take pride of place in a new park, and the bell tower will stand once again above the town hall. But not everything will be saved.\nI spoke to an old lady who walks past the bench every day where she had her first kiss, says Walldin. Its things like that  the hospital where your first child was born, for example  that are important to people and all thats going to disappear.\nCalled the most democratic move in history, the project will get 320m from the mining company for building new facilities, including a high school, fire station, community centre, library and swimming hall. But the biggest worry for most people is where they will actually live and how they will get a house or flat.\nPeople are used to very low rents and very high incomes but, in future, this will have to change says Lindstedt. LK has agreed to compensate residents to the value of their homes plus 25% but many locals say this is not enough to afford a new-build house.\nA closer look at the plan shows the new town does not look like the original Kiruna at all. The current town has winding streets and detached houses with gardens. Whites plan has multi-storey apartment blocks around shared courtyards in long straight streets.\nIt is an opportunity, say the architects, for Kiruna to reinvent itself into a town that will attract young people. There will be new cultural facilities and visionary things such as a cable car above the high street. But it is a vision that many of the existing residents will probably not be able to afford.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"At the beginning of the final series of the TV programme, Downton Abbey, there is a feeling of sadness and everyone knows things are changing. The year is 1925 and Downton Abbey\u2019s neighbours are selling their stately home. At Downton Abbey, Lord Grantham wants to reduce the number of servants. \nThe real Downton Abbey is Highclere Castle \u2013 a stately home owned by George Herbert, 8th Earl of Carnarvon. At Highclere Castle, they have more money than before. Lady Fiona Carnarvon says that the huge success of Downton all around the world has paid for building repairs at the castle. \n\u201cIt\u2019s been an amazing magic carpet ride for all of us,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m very grateful. My husband and I love Highclere Castle. Now, millions of other people love it.\u201d \nAt the moment, they only use the ground floor and first floor of Highclere, on the borders of Hampshire. But, a restoration project of tower rooms has begun. When it is finished, visitors will be able to climb up into the tower to an exhibition of the work of the architect of the Houses of Parliament, Sir Charles Barry, who also rebuilt Highclere Castle between 1839 and 1842. \nIn 2009, when the Downton Abbey producers first asked about filming at Highclere Castle, the castle needed \u00a312 million of repairs. \u201cIt was just after the banking crisis and we were worried. Then, Downton began and Highclere became a major tourist attraction.\u201d \nThe number of visitors doubled, to 1,200 a day, after Downton Abbey, written by Julian Fellowes, was shown around the world. It was a hit in the UK in 2010 and, then, in the US. It is now shown on television in 250 countries. \nThe Downton tourists are part of a growing phenomenon. The organization, VisitBritain, says that nearly 30% of foreign visitors, nearly nine million people, visit castles and historic houses. Almost half of visitors to Britain now say they want to visit places from films or TV. \nMore than a million tourists take a tour of historic buildings each year and they spend more than \u00a31 billion. Fifty-one per cent of Brazilians, 42% of Russians and Chinese, and 35% of Indian visitors will probably include a visit to a site of interest in their trips. \nVisitBritain\u2019s director, Patricia Yates, said: \u201cThe links between tourism, films and TV are strong.\u201d She added that period dramas, like Downton Abbey, have also made places outside of London more popular. \n\u201cDownton Abbey expresses a certain view of Britain. It is a fantasy world, based in a particular time in history. It\u2019s the first TV period drama that everyone knows and talks about.\u201d \nLady Carnarvon says that the long-term future of Highclere might not be secure. But, she says, \u201cThe programme has allowed us to spend faster on the buildings.\u201d \nHighclere Castle plans a Tutankhamun event in 2022, 100 years after the 5th Earl of Carnarvon went to Egypt with Howard Carter and discovered Tutankhamun\u2019s tomb. Another event is the 300th anniversary of the birth of Lancelot \u201cCapability\u201d Brown, who designed the grounds. \n\u201cEvery single day, don\u2019t take anything for granted,\u201d said Lady Carnarvon. \u201cYou have to invest in these great houses. I\u2019ve tried to show people it is fun. We have special events, not just a walk around a dusty house.\u201d","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Margaret Thatcher, the most famous British prime minister since Winston Churchill, has died at the age of 87. She was in poor health for many years, suffering from dementia. The British government says that her funeral will be at St Paul\u2019s Cathedral. \nThe British prime minister, David Cameron, said: \u201cI was very sad when l heard of Lady Thatcher\u2019s death. We\u2019ve lost a great leader, a great prime minister and a great Briton.\u201d He added: \u201cShe was our first woman prime minister \u2013 and she didn\u2019t just lead our country, she saved our country.\u201d He added that he believed she would be remembered as the greatest British peacetime prime minister. \nPresident Barack Obama said, \u201cHere in America, many of us will never forget her close friendship with President Reagan.\u201d \nMargaret Thatcher was the first woman leader of an important western state. She was prime minister for 11 years until members of her own party removed her in 1990. \nWhen they heard of her death, politicians from all parties sent tributes. \nBritish Labour Party leader, Ed Miliband, said: \u201cShe will be remembered as a unique person. She changed the politics of a whole generation. She was Britain\u2019s first woman prime minister. She was a huge figure in the world. The Labour Party disagreed with a lot of what she did, but we can disagree and also greatly respect her political achievements and her personal strength.\u201d \nThe former Conservative prime minister, Sir John Major, said that people who worked closely with her would always remember her courage and determination in politics and her humanity and generous spirit in private. \nThe \u201cIron Lady\u201d was a close ally of the US president Ronald Reagan in the final years of the Soviet Union. The Union broke up because of reforms introduced by Mikhail Gorbachev. He was the Russian leader who Thatcher liked and worked closely with. As a result, many ordinary people in ex-Communist countries still think of her as someone who supported their freedom. \nIt was a surprise when Thatcher became party leader in 1975. Within ten years, she had become famous around the world \u2013 people both admired and hated her \u2013 for her reforms in the UK and her strong beliefs in foreign policy. She had a long battle with the IRA, which almost killed her with a bomb in 1984. \nIn the UK, Thatcher\u2019s main economic policy was the denationalization of state-owned industry \u2013 the new word \u201cprivatization\u201d became used in many countries. She also defeated militant trade unions, particularly the National Union of Miners, after a long and terrible strike that lasted almost a year. With money from Britain\u2019s North Sea oil fields, she was able to change the ageing industrial economy and she used the opportunity to defeat her enemies \u2013 including some members of her own party. \nAs the British economy became healthy again after the problems that her policies caused, it seemed for a short time that no-one would ever defeat her. But, as her friends and supporters retired or were replaced, she started to make mistakes and became more and more unpopular. Finally, in 1990, after a vote among Conservative MPs failed to support her, John Major took control of the party. \nAfter she retired, she wrote her memoirs and continued to promote her values around the world.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Until the end, David Bowie, who has died of cancer, still surprised us. His latest album, Blackstar, appeared on his 69th birthday on 8 January 2016. It showed that he hadn\u2019t stopped making challenging, disturbing music. \nThroughout the 1970s, Bowie was a trailblazer of musical trends and pop fashion. He became a singer-songwriter, a pioneer of glam-rock, then became involved in \u201cplastic soul\u201d. \nHe then moved to Berlin to create innovative electronic music. Bowie was born David Robert Jones in south London. At 15, David formed his first band, the Kon-rads, but it was soon clear that David should go solo. \nDavid took the name Bowie so people wouldn\u2019t confuse him with Davy Jones of the Monkees. \nBowie\u2019s first album, released in June 1967, was titled simply David Bowie. In July 1969, Bowie released Space Oddity, the song that would give him his first big success. Timed to coincide with the Apollo 11 moon landing, it was a top five UK hit. The Man Who Sold the World was released in the US in late 1970 and in the UK the following year. With its daring songwriting and hard-rock sound, it was the first album to really show his talents. He followed it with 1972\u2019s Hunky Dory, a mix of wordy, elaborate songwriting. It was an excellent collection that was not a great success. But that all changed with The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars later that year. \nThis time, Bowie appeared as Ziggy Stardust, a science-fiction character \u2013 an intergalactic glam-rock star visiting planet Earth. The hit single Starman brought instant success for the album. \nEverything Bowie touched turned to gold. He had his first UK number 1 album with Aladdin Sane (1973), which included the hit singles The Jean Genie and Drive-in Saturday. \nHis interest in funk and soul music could be heard on the album Young Americans (1975), which included the single Fame (with John Lennon as a guest singer). \nWith the album Station to Station (1976), Bowie turned himself into a new character, the Thin White Duke. \nBowie and his wife divorced in 1980. This was a year of more creative success, with a good album, Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), and its hit single, Ashes to Ashes. \nAfter this, he played the title role in The Elephant Man on the Broadway stage. \nHe achieved a number 1 single with his 1981 partnership with Queen, Under Pressure. 1983 was the year in which he put his energy into the album Let\u2019s Dance and his concerts. Let\u2019s Dance turned Bowie into a global rock star \u2013 the album and its singles Let\u2019s Dance, China Girl and Modern Love all became huge international hits. \nThe early 80s was the heyday of MTV. Bowie\u2019s talent for making eye-catching videos increased his popularity and the six-month Serious Moonlight tour attracted lots of people. It was to be the most commercially successful period of his career. \nAt the 1985 Live Aid concert at Wembley Stadium, Bowie was one of the best performers. Also, that year, he worked with Mick Jagger to record the fundraising single Dancing in the Street , which quickly went to number 1. \nA few days after he performed at the Freddie Mercury tribute concert at Wembley Stadium in April 1992, Bowie married the Somalian model Iman and bought a home in New York. \nFor the album Black Tie White Noise (1993), he included elements of soul and hip hop. It went to the top of the UK album chart and gave him a top 10 single, Jump They Say . \nBowie performed at the Concert for New York City in October 2001, where he joined Paul McCartney, Jon Bon Jovi, Billy Joel, the Who and Elton John in a benefit show six weeks after the 9\/11 attacks. \nDuring his Reality tour in 2004, Bowie had chest pains while he was performing in Germany and needed emergency surgery in Hamburg. \nHe saw the medical emergency as a warning and started to slow down. In February 2006, he was given a Grammy lifetime achievement award. He was entered into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996. \nThe Next Day (2013) was his first album of new songs in ten years. It included the single Where Are We Now? The album went to the top of the charts in Britain and around the world. In 2014, Bowie was given the Brit Award for Best British Male \u2013 he was the oldest person to get the award. \nHe leaves behind his wife, Iman, their daughter, Alexandria, his stepdaughter, Zulekha, and his son, Duncan, from his first marriage.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Angela Erdmann never knew her grandfather. He died in 1946, six years before she was born. But, on Tuesday April 8th, 2014, she described the extraordinary moment when she received a message in a bottle, 101 years after he threw it into the Baltic Sea. The bottle is possibly the world\u2019s oldest message in a bottle. It was presented to Erdmann by the museum that is now exhibiting it in Germany. \n\u201cIt was very surprising,\u201d Erdmann, 62, said, when she described how she found out about the bottle. \u201cA man came to my door and told me he had post from my grandfather. Then, he told me that someone had found a message in a bottle and that on the card was my grandfather\u2019s name.\u201d Her visitor was a family-tree researcher who found her in Berlin after someone gave the letter to a museum in the northern city of Hamburg. \nThe brown beer bottle was in the water for 101 years. A fisherman found it. Holger von Neuhoff, a curator at the museum, said this bottled message was the oldest he had ever seen. \u201cThere are documents without the bottle that are older and they are in the museum,\u201d he said. \u201cBut, with the bottle and the document, this is certainly the oldest at the moment. It is in very good condition.\u201d \nResearchers believe that Erdmann\u2019s grandfather, Richard Platz, threw the bottle into the sea when he was on a hike in 1913. He was 20 years old at the time. A lot of the message on the postcard was impossible to read, but the address in Berlin on the front of the card was legible. Platz asked the person who found it to send the postcard to his home address. \n\u201cHe also included two stamps from that time that were also in the bottle, so the finder would not have to pay for postage,\u201d Erdmann said. \u201cBut he did not think it would take 101 years.\u201d \nShe said she was moved by the arrival of the message, but she did not known her grandfather because he died, at the age of 54, six years before she was born. \n\u201cI knew very little about my grandfather. But I found out that he was a writer. He was very open- minded, and he believed in freedom and that everyone should respect each other,\u201d she said. \u201cHe did a lot for the young and later travelled with his wife and two daughters. It was wonderful because I could see where my roots came from.\u201d \nErdmann said she also liked culture and travelling around the world, just like her grandfather. She described herself as open-minded, too. She was very happy to receive the bottled message, she said, but she hoped other people would not do what her grandfather did and throw bottles with messages into the sea. \u201cToday, the sea is so full of bottles and rubbish that we shouldn\u2019t throw more in there,\u201d she said. \nThe message and the bottle will be on display at Hamburg\u2019s Maritime Museum until the beginning of May 2014. Then, experts will try to decipher the rest of the text. It is not clear what will happen to the bottle after that, but Erdmann hopes it will stay at the museum. \n\u201cWe want to find a few photos to put with the bottle and give it a face, so visitors can see the young man who threw the bottle into the water,\u201d she said.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Intermediate\nBrazil experienced one of its biggest nights of protest in decades as more than 100,000 people took to the streets to express their frustration at aggressive policing, poor public services and high costs for the World Cup.\nThe major demonstrations in Rio de Janeiro, So Paulo, Brasilia, Belem, Belo Horizonte, Salvador and elsewhere started peacefully, but several led to clashes with police and arson attacks on cars and buses.\nPeople complained, during previous, smaller protests against bus price increases, that police responded disproportionately with rubber bullets, tear gas and violent beatings.\nThe rallies came at the same time as the start of the football Confederations Cup. The rallies brought together people who are frustrated with the rising costs and poor quality of public services, large amounts of money being spent on international sporting events, low standards of health care and wider unease about inequality and corruption.\nThe vast majority of demonstrations were peaceful, but several police were injured, at least one car was overturned and burned, and windows were smashed.\nThe unrest increased during the night as a large crowd set several fires outside a government office, smashed the buildings windows and painted graffiti on the walls that said Revolution, Down with Paes, down with Cabral [the mayor and state governor] and Hate police. Police inside responded with pepper spray.\nThe reasons people were protesting varied widely. We are here because we hate the government. They do nothing for us, said Oscar Jos Santos, a 19 year old.\nIm an architect but I have been unemployed for six months. There must be something wrong with this country, said Nadia al Husin.\nAt a far smaller rally in Brasilia, demonstrators broke through police lines to enter the high-security area of the national congress. Several climbed onto the roof.\nIn Belo Horizonte, police clashed with protesters who tried to get into a football stadium, which was hosting a Confederations Cup match between Nigeria and Tahiti.\nIn Porto Alegre, demonstrators set fire to a bus and, in Curitiba, protesters tried to force their way into the office of the state governor. There were also rallies in Belem, Salvador and elsewhere.\nIn So Paulo, large crowds gathered but reports said the marches were peaceful.\nMost protesters were young and, for many, it was their first experience of such a giant rally. My generation has never experienced this, said Thiago Firbida, a student. Since the dictatorship, Brazilians never bothered to demonstrate like this. They did not believe they had a reason to. But now Brazil is once again in crisis, with a constant rise in prices, so people are finally reacting.\nComparisons have been drawn with rallies in Turkey and elsewhere. You could see another global link in the demonstrators who wore Guy Fawkes masks, associated with Anonymous and the Occupy Wall Street protests.\nBrazils demonstrations are being referred to as the vinegar revolution (after police arrested people for carrying vinegar to fight the effects of tear gas), as well as the 20-cent revolution (due to the bus price rise) and the Passe Livre (after the demand for free public transport).\nSome said the protests felt un-Brazilian but liberating. Our politicians need to see the strength we have as one people. Brazilians are too nice sometimes  they enjoy partying rather than protesting  but something is changing, said Deli Borsari, a 53-year-old yoga instructor\nAfter people heard about the costs of new and refurbished stadiums on the news, the Confederations Cup football tournament has been one of the focuses of the protests. Before Saturdays opening match in Brasilia, crowds of demonstrators were dispersed by riot police. Footage showed frightened Japanese supporters rushing from the area holding their children, as they heard the sound of shots  perhaps rubber bullets or tear gas.\nAnother protest march, near Rios Maracana Stadium, also had a heavy police response.\nPresident Dilma Rousseff believes peaceful protests are legitimate and proper for a democracy and that it is natural for young people to demonstrate.\nHowever, the president was booed at the opening ceremony for the Confederations Cup. She faces a serious political challenge, both now and in 2014, when Brazil will not only host the World Cup but also have a presidential election.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nIn an attempt to reduce air pollution, Europe will become the first part of the world to force car makers to use real-world emissions tests. New regulations will introduce the tests to reveal what cars emissions are like when driving on roads and in traffic, not in ideal, laboratory-like conditions, which is what happens at the moment.\nThe tests, which have been approved by the European Commission, are designed to enforce a limit of 80mg of nitrogen oxide per kilometre, a level that only one car in 16 meets. Other countries, such as China and Korea, which are also considering real-world emissions tests, will be watching what happens closely.\nPollutants from diesel engines such as nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide and particulates are believed to be responsible for at least one quarter of the 29,000 annual pollution-related deaths in the UK alone.\nThe current New European Drive Cycle laboratory test for measuring emissions is a quarter of a century old. Technological developments in the car industry mean that the test is no longer good enough. Studies have shown that the results of lab techniques to measure car emissions can easily be fixed  car makers fix the results by using techniques such as taping up doors and windows to minimize air resistance, driving on unrealistically smooth roads and testing at very high temperatures.\nThe Commission wants to introduce a new emissions testing procedure that will allow proper assessment of the vehicles in real driving, said Lucia Caudet, a Commission spokesperson.\nOne key reason why air pollution kills 400,000 citizens each year is that car makers cheat the tests for diesel cars, causing much more pollution on the road, said Greg Archer, the clean vehicles manager for Transport and Environment. The development of a new, real-world driving emission test is an important step forward in tackling urban air pollution. European Union (EU) states should now support the Commissions proposals and ignore the whingeing from car makers that the rules are too strict.\nAccording to research by the International Council on Clean Transportation in 2014, actual nitrogen oxide emissions from cars are seven times higher than the 80mg per kilometre standard, with some types of cars 22 times above the recommended limit. Only one car out of 16 met the 80mg target. Around one third of all nitrogen oxide pollution comes from road transport  mostly diesel  and in cities concentrations can be as high as 64%, according to European Environment Agency data.\nCampaigners say that the car industry has tried to delay reforms to car test cycles. But industry groups deny this  they argue that a five-year delay is necessary for technical and economic reasons. Real Driving Emissions (RDE) is a totally new regulation that will force significant changes to cars, said Cara McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA). However, ACEA fully accepts that RDE will apply to new types of cars from September 2017.\nACEA sent the European Commission their own draft regulation for consideration, after EU representatives finally agreed a regulation to implement the nitrogen oxide limits with strengthened road trials and strict monitoring of exhaust fumes. ACEAs draft regulation would have covered fewer pollutants and delayed the regulations introduction until 2020. Test distances would have been shortened from 1,300m to below 700m, minimum temperatures would have been raised from -7C to -3C and more rural roads would have been used.\nThe ACEA draft was rejected by the Commission. The new regulation will now pass to commissioners for approval before an expected introduction in September. By 2017, the first realworld CO2 emissions tests are expected to begin in earnest. The introduction of the EUs new emission tests will be watched closely around the world.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"People today might not hear the sounds of the natural world because they screen out the noises around them, says a US researcher.\nMore background noise can make people oblivious to the uplifting sounds of birdsong, water and trees in the wind. You can often hear these sounds even in cities, said Kurt Fristrup, a senior scientist at the US National Park Service.\nThe problem is even worse because people listen to music through their earphones instead of listening to the birds and other sounds of nature. Natural sounds are easily drowned out by traffic, music and others noises, Fristrup said.\n\u201cThis learned deafness is a real problem,\u201d Fristrup told the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in San Jose. \u201cWe are training ourselves to ignore the information that comes into our ears.\u201d\n\u201cThis gift that we are born with \u2013 the ability to hear things hundreds of metres away, all these incredible sounds \u2013 might be lost,\u201d he said.\nThis is the problem: we hear so many noises that we stop listening.\nFor the past ten years, the US National Park Service has recorded sound levels at more than 600 parks in the US, including Yosemite in California, Yellowstone and Denali in Alaska. There was noise from human activity in all the parks, for example aircraft, motorbikes, motorboats and tour buses.\nFristrup\u2019s team say that noise pollution more than doubles every 30 years. \u201cIt\u2019s not surprising people put on earphones,\u201d he said.\n\u201cMore background noise has the same effect on your hearing as fog has on your vision \u2013 you are aware of only a small area around you,\u201d he said. Even in our cities, there are birds and things to appreciate in the environment but we are losing the ability to hear them.\nPeople quickly become used to changes in their environments, including more noise. Fristrup worries that we will forget how much quieter the world could be. \u201cIf finding peace and quiet becomes too difficult, many children will grow up without the experience and I think it\u2019s a very big problem,\u201d he said.\nOther scientists reported health benefits from listening to natural sounds. Speaking at the same meeting, Derrick Taff, a social scientist at Pennsylvania State University, said that listening to recordings from national parks, of waterfalls, birdsong and wind, helped people feel less stressed.\n\u201cWe know that natural sounds are very important to people. They are some of the main reasons people visit protected areas. They want to hear the natural quiet, the birdsong, and the wind and water,\u201d Taff said. \u201cWe may be losing this as people are listening to their iPods all the time. My advice is to go to your protected areas and experience what you are missing.\u201d","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nIt is no secret that millennials use technology a lot. More than eight in ten say they sleep with a mobile phone by their bed, almost two thirds admit they text while driving, one in  ve has posted a video of themselves online and three quarters have created a pro le on a social networking site. But there is a small percentage of millennials who dont use social media at all. Here are four of them.\nCelan Beausoleil, 31, Oakland, California Beausoleil is a social worker and has had an on and off relationship with Facebook. She last deactivated her account in December 2015 because she found the amount of personal information shared by others too heavy to deal with in addition to her work demands.\nIn my job, I spend a lot of time listening to peoples lives all day, every day and it started to feel so overwhelming to go on social media and see every single detail of everybodys lives, including people that I dont really have a relationship with, she said. Im involved a lot with people in my work life and sometimes it felt like it was too heavy to do in my personal life also.\nBut Beausoleil loves the way social media connects the world in a truly unique way. One thing I really liked about Facebook was that I could sit for hours and click on a friend and then click on one of their friends and one of their friends and one of their friends and end up on someones Facebook page from the other side of the world, she said. I used to do that all the time.\nJason Mathias, 26, Baltimore, Maryland One day, I realized: Im spending so much time doing this. These little seconds add up. I wonder what it would be like if I didnt spend these seconds here and spent them doing something else. What if I was doing other things with these seconds? What would they become? Would I enjoy it?\nMathias had Facebook and Twitter accounts for years before deleting them both in November 2012. But he quickly forgot that Facebook existed after his impromptu decision to end his social media presence. He can still appreciate the bene ts that come with having social media accounts, for example how easy it is to organize large events online. He now relies on friends for party invites.\nBut now he loves his extra free time. He spends his lift rides and spare moments at work reading news articles and books. And with no friends accounts to follow online, he has to pick up the phone and call them, something hes come to enjoy.\nLauren Raskauskas, 22, Naples, Florida Raskauskas describes herself as a pretty private person. So social media is not that appealing to her. My privacy is important to me and I have concerns about giving out my data, she said. She recently deleted her Twitter account and deactivated her Facebook account two years ago when she realized that she didnt like everyone knowing what I was doing. But she can see the positive sides of social media. When a friend of hers that shed lost track of moved to Naples for a month, Raskauskas didnt even realize she was there until after shed left, which was a bummer.\nBut in the end, her privacy concerns outweighed any bene ts social media could give her and she saw a de nite upside when she went through a recent break-up. The last time a relationship of hers ended and she was online, it was not pleasant. One time, I broke up with somebody while I was on Facebook and I was like Oh my gosh, should I change my pro le photo? Should I change my status? And, this time, I dont have to worry about any of that, she said.\nHariharan Rajagopalan, 18, Boston, Massachusetts Rajagopalan, a student at Boston College, doesnt see any problem with not using social media. He claims that he hasnt seen any effect at this point. Even though classmates post about parties and events on Facebook, they make sure to send him a text message, too, he said.\nThe only time Rajagopalan used social media was when it was unavoidable: it was the only way to reach his new roommate at college. Before starting his  rst year at college, he signed up for his  rst, and only, social media account. He joined Facebook in order to contact his future roommate and talk about their plans for that year.\nHe still has the account but he admits: I dont use it. I dont check it or anything like that. He has avoided other social media accounts but, as a sports fan, he acknowledged that Twitter is where most of the news  rst appears. But he refused to get an account because, he says, I dont really need one to read tweets.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nSometimes life isnt fair. Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook and is now worth an estimated $48bn. James Goodfellow also invented something used by millions of people around the world every day  the cash machine  but it didnt make him rich. In fact, he earned just 10 from the patent and has not made a penny more from it since.\nYou can imagine how I feel when I see bankers getting 1m bonuses. What have they contributed to the banking industry, compared to me, to merit a 1m bonus, Goodfellow says. He invented something that generated billions of pounds and he got nothing.\nThere have been arguments for years over who is the inventor of the ATM and, in 2005, a man called John Shepherd-Barron received a UK honour as the inventor of the automatic cash dispenser. But, the UK government is now saying it was Goodfellow who invented the ATM  so it seems that, after all the arguments, he now has his place in history.\nBack in the mid-1960s, Goodfellow was working as a development engineer and was asked to devise a way to allow customers to withdraw cash from banks on Saturdays. Most people worked during the week and couldnt get to the bank. They wanted a solution. The solution was a machine which would give cash to a recognized customer, he remembers. I wanted to develop a cash-issuing machine and, to make this a reality, I invented the PIN [personal identi cation number] and a coded token.\nThis token was a plastic card with holes in it. The patent documents described a system with a card reader and buttons mounted in an external wall of the bank. After Goodfellow produced a model that showed how the machine would work, prototypes were built and the  rst machines were installed in 1967. At around the same time, Shepherd-Barron was developing a rival machine. His machine didnt use plastic cards  instead, it used cheques containing carbon-14, a mildly radioactive substance. The machine detected the carbon-14, matched the cheque against a PIN and paid out the cash.\nIt is widely accepted that the Shepherd-Barron ATM was the worlds  rst to be installed and used by the public; the  rst one, at a bank in north London, was opened on 27 June, 1967  a month before Goodfellows ATM appeared. However, the patent for Goodfellows machine was lodged on 2 May, 1966, 14 months before Shepherd-Barrons ATM machine was first used.\nShepherd-Barron received an of cial honour for his achievement and Goodfellow says: My one big regret is that I never said anything about it until John Shepherd-Barron received the OBE in 2005 for inventing the automatic cash dispenser. That really stuck in my throat and I kicked up a fuss.\nShepherd-Barron is no longer alive but, in a 2005 interview, he was quite critical of his rival: I dont know him but its clear that the difference between Goodfellow and us was that we thought through the whole system concept and that was important to the banks who bought it. His invention reminds me of the hovercraft, an elegant failure.\"\nThe cash machine is now used all over the world and nothing  the contactless revolution, bitcoin, wearable technology, etc  is slowing its growth: there are now 3m ATMs worldwide and, by 2020, there will probably be 4m.\nThe good news for Goodfellow is that he is beginning to be recognized for his invention. The website ATMInventor.com says: Who invented the idea of an ATM? We believe it was Luther George Simjian. Who invented the ATM as we know it? We have to think it was James Goodfellow for holding a patent date of 1966. Who invented the ATM design we recognize today? We think it was John D White in the US.\nEven better for Goodfellow, his achievement has been of cially recognized in the latest edition of a 180-page guidebook called Life in the United Kingdom. In the section about great British inventions of the twentieth century, it states: In the 1960s, James Goodfellow (1937-) invented the cash-dispensing automatic teller machine (ATM) or cashpoint.\nSo after all these years, Goodfellow is  nally among a group of famous British inventors with John Logie Baird (the television), Alan Turing (the Turing machine), Sir Frank Whittle (the jet engine) and Sir Tim Berners-Lee (the World Wide Web). Asked what he did with the 10 he received in the 1960s, Goodfellow says he thinks he blew it on a night out. He added: It didnt change my life.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Facebook has lost millions of users every month in its biggest markets. In the last six months, Facebook has lost nearly 9 million monthly visitors in the US and 2 million in the UK. \nIt has stopped growing in the US, UK and other major European countries. In the last month, the world\u2019s largest social network lost 6 million US visitors, a 4% fall. In the UK, 1.4 million fewer users went on Facebook last month, a fall of 4.5%. \nPeople are also using Facebook less in Canada, Spain, France, Germany and Japan. \n\u201cThe problem is that, in the US and UK, most people who want to join Facebook have already done it,\u201d said new media specialist Ian Maude at Enders Analysis. \nPeople get bored, he says, and they \u201clike to try something new\u201d. \nOther social networks are also very popular with younger people. Instagram, the photo-sharing site, got 30 million new users in the 18 months before Facebook bought the business. \nPath, the mobile phone-based social network started by ex-Facebook employee Dave Morin, is gaining 1 million users a week. It now has more than 9 million users. 500,000 Venezuelans downloaded the app in just one weekend. \nFacebook is still growing fast in South America. The number of users in Brazil increased by 6% in the last month to 70 million, according to Socialbakers, whose information is used by Facebook advertisers. And there has been a 4% rise in India to 64 million users \u2013 still only a small part of the country\u2019s population, so there is the possibility for more growth. \nGlobal numbers of visitors to Facebook reached 1.05 billion a month in January, but they fell by 20 million in February. Numbers rose again in April. The social network has now lost nearly 2 million visitors in the UK since December, with its 27 million total the same as a year ago. \nThe number of minutes Americans spend on Facebook is falling, too. The total was 121 billion minutes in December 2012, but that fell to 115 billion minutes in February. \nAs Facebook has already said, we spend less time using Facebook on our personal computers because we now prefer to use our smartphones and tablets. \nWall Street expects Facebook\u2019s income this quarter to be $1.44 billion, an increase from $1.06 billion a year ago. \nThe company said that it might be losing \u201cyounger users\u201d because they now prefer to use \u201cother products and services similar to, or as an alternative to, Facebook\u201d. \nFacebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has created some new initiatives for smartphone users in the last year. One initiative, Facebook Home, is software that you can download onto Android phones to feed news and photos from friends \u2013 and advertising \u2013 directly to your home screen.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"When Larry Pizzi first heard about electric bikes nearly 20 years ago, he asked: \u201cWhy would anyone want to spoil a bike by putting a motor and batteries on it?\u201d \nIt\u2019s a question that some people still ask. Many bicycle shops in the US do not sell e-bikes. \nPizzi is CEO of Currie Technologies, the number one seller of e-bikes in the US. He believes that things will change very soon. Other people who sell bikes agree. Familiar brands including Trek, Raleigh and Specialized all offer electric bikes and they believe that the market is going to grow. \nThe US is different from other countries when it comes to electric bikes. Nearly 32 million e-bikes were sold in 2014, most of them in China, where people mostly use them for transportation. They are popular in many parts of Europe, too. They\u2019re common in the Netherlands and Switzerland; German postal workers use them and BMW sells one for about $3,000. \nElectric bikes are different from motorcycles or mopeds, which use motors; you pedal an electric bike with \u2013 or without \u2013 help from an electric motor. Riding an e-bike feels like riding a normal bike with a strong wind behind you; the motor just helps you go faster or climb hills. You can usually ride e-bicycles on bike lanes and they can\u2019t travel faster than 20mph. \nE-bikes are banned in some states in the US, including New York. Some bike shops don\u2019t like putting motors on bicycles because it makes them too heavy. Some e-bikes weigh nearly 30kg. \nE-bikes are also expensive. While cheap bikes sell for just $700, you will pay at least $1,500 for a quality e-bike with a good battery. The best bikes cost more than $3,000. \nBut e-bike technology, particularly the batteries, is improving. \u201cBatteries are getting smaller, they\u2019re getting lighter, they\u2019re getting more reliable and they are lasting longer,\u201d says Don DiCostanza, the CEO of Pedego, an electric bikemaker and retailer. \nPerhaps most importantly, more cities are building bike lanes so bicycle commuting has become more popular. Electric bikes make commuting more practical \u2013 and fun \u2013 because people don\u2019t have to worry about hills, strong winds, tiredness and sweat. \nMost of our customers are \u201cbaby boomers who want to have the cycling experience they had as a kid,\u201d says Pedego\u2019s Don DiCostanza. \u201cThe main reason they stopped riding bikes was because of hills.\u201d Pedego has opened nearly 60 stores in the US. \nElectroBike has 30 stores in Mexico. It opened its first American store in Venice Beach, California in 2014 and hopes to have 25 US stores in a year. CEO Craig Anderson says: \u201cWe want to help reduce traffic, help reduce our carbon footprint and encourage a healthy lifestyle.\u201d He tells customers: \u201cRide this bike once and try not to smile.\u201d \nCurrie\u2019s Larry Pizzi thinks that e-bikes will become popular in North America. \u201cA lot of young people are using e-bikes for transportation, instead of cars.\u201d \nThere is even a cargo bike with a stronger motor and rack at the back. \u201cYou can carry two children,\u201d says Pizzi. \u201cYou can carry 45kg of shopping. It\u2019s a minivan alternative.\u201d","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"On the top of a hill, above Northumberland\u2019s beautiful Kielder Water lake, a group of people are waiting in a car park next to a strange wooden building. They are here because of the darkness and this is Kielder Observatory, the centre of Britain\u2019s latest industry \u2013 astrotourism. The people who are waiting outside are lucky. Many more people apply for a night of stargazing at the observatory but not everyone can come because numbers are strictly limited. \nInside, the observatory\u2019s founder and lead astronomer, Gary Fildes, speaks to his colleagues and volunteers. The team discusses that they might see the northern lights but Fildes doesn\u2019t think they will. Instead, they decide to use their powerful telescopes to look at Jupiter and Venus and, later, to find stars such as Capella and Betelgeuse. An extra attraction is the appearance of the International Space Station. \nFildes is a leading figure in the UK\u2019s growing astrotourism industry. The key moment for Northumberland came in 2013 when the entire national park, about 1,500 square kilometres in area, got Dark Sky Park status. It is the only one in England. Dark Sky Parks are rare. Research in 2013 showed that only 5% of the UK population can see more than 31 stars on a clear night. \nThe International Dark-Sky Association (IDA) gives the status of Dark Sky Park only to places that take big steps to prevent light pollution. The areas must also prove their night skies are very dark. In Northumberland Dark Sky Park, it is so dark that Venus casts a shadow on the Earth. \nDuncan Wise, visitor development officer for the Northumberland National Park, helped to lead the campaign for dark-sky status. \u201cWe usually think that 'landscape' is everything up to the horizon,\u201d Wise said. \u201cBut what about what\u2019s above the horizon?\u201d Wise and others spent years preparing their application to the IDA \u2013 they collected thousands of light readings. \nBecause of their hard work, many of the 1.5 million tourists who visit Northumberland each year are now aware of its Dark Sky status. \u201cA lot of people come here to see the sky now,\u201d says a man who works for a local car-hire company. \u201cThey come in autumn and winter, when it\u2019s darkest. It\u2019s good for the local hotels because tourists come all year round now.\u201d \nWise agrees that Northumberland needs to do more to take advantage of its dark skies, which are very rare. He believes the region needs more observatories to make sure that visitors will see what they came for. A new \u00a314-million national landscape discovery centre will have an observatory when it is completed in a couple of years. \nFildes has big ambitions. He is planning Britain\u2019s first \u201castrovillage\u201d \u2013 it would have the largest public observatory in the world, a 100-seat auditorium, a 100-seat planetarium, and radiomagnetic and solar telescopes. The multimillion-pound project would also have a hotel and attract 100,000 visitors a year \u2013 that is four times the number that are currently able to use the observatory. \nHowever, Northumberland has competition. Galloway Forest Park in Scotland also has Dark Sky Park status. Exmoor in south-west England became Europe\u2019s first International Dark Sky Reserve \u2013 one level below Dark Sky Park \u2013 in 2011. A number of local businesses there now offer stargazing holidays. The UK is not as good as northern Chile, which has more than ten tourist observatories and some of the clearest skies in the world. \nSo, why do people want to look at the night sky? The media have helped. TV programmes about astronomy have attracted a new generation of stargazers. Technology has also made astronomy more popular. Apps such as Stellarium now turn smartphones into pocket-size planetariums. But Fildes believes that, most importantly, people are starting to appreciate the sky. \u201cIf you had to build a visitor attraction from the beginning, what could be better than the universe?\u201d","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nSweden is the best country for older people, Afghanistan the worst  but the general wealth of a country does not always mean better conditions for the over-60s, according to the first global index on ageing. Swedens top ranking  followed by Norway, Germany, the Netherlands and Canada  is predictable, but the Global AgeWatch index provides some surprising results.\nThe US, the worlds richest country, is only in eighth place, while the UK is 13th. Sri Lanka is 36th, far above Pakistan at 89th, despite similar levels of gross domestic product (GDP). Bolivia and Mauritius score higher than the size of their economies may suggest and, while Brazil and China are relatively high on the index, India and Russia are much lower.\nThis survey shows that history counts, said Mark Gorman, director of HelpAge International. The top-ranked countries are what you would expect, but Scandinavian countries were not wealthy when they introduced pensions for everyone. The older population in Sri Lanka today is benefiting from good basic education and health care  those countries made certain policy choices. Everybody has scarce resources, but they should not forget that, when they make investment decisions, they should also consider issues of old age.\nThe index, developed with the UN Fund for Population and Development, covers 91 countries and 89% of the worlds older people. The survey comes during a major demographic change: by 2050, there are expected to be two billion people aged 60 and over, making up more than a fifth of the worlds population.\nPopulation ageing  when older people form an increasingly large proportion of people  is happening fastest in developing countries. More than two-thirds of older people live in poor countries; by 2050, this proportion is expected to be about four-fifths. The fastest ageing countries  Jordan, Laos, Mongolia, Nicaragua and Vietnam  are in the lower half of the ranking, which suggests that politicians there need to look at the question of ageing if they are to provide enough support to their populations.\nThere are gender differences among ageing populations, with women generally living longer than men. In 2012, for every 84 men aged 60 and over, there were 100 women. Many women face disadvantages in old age because of lack of paid work (and therefore also savings), less decision-making power in the family and the fact that they are vulnerable to violence.\nHowever, population ageing does not always lead to significantly higher health care spending, according to the report, which highlights the importance of long-term investments in education and health care for older people. Bolivia, ranked 46, despite being one of the poorest countries, has introduced good policies for older people, with a national plan on ageing, free health care and a noncontributory pension for everyone.\nGood basic health care introduced decades ago in Chile and Costa Rica has helped the ageing populations of those countries. A good education system is of great benefit later in life  basic literacy is crucial for older people as they deal with the pensions paperwork. In the Philippines, older people have benefited from the educational reforms introduced after independence in 1946, which made elementary and high school education compulsory. The same is true for Armenia, which, like other countries of the former Soviet Union, benefited from a strong education system. South Korea came a surprisingly low 67 on the ageing index, partly because it introduced a pension only recently.\nThe ageing index is calculated using 13 indicators under four headings: income security, health care, employment and education, and a positive environment. All indicators have equal weight, except for pension income coverage, life expectancy at 60, healthy life expectancy at 60 and psychological well-being. These categories have increased importance because of better data quality and countries were included only if there was enough data.\nProfessor Sir Richard Jolly, creator of the human development index, said: This groundbreaking index helps us to better understand the needs and opportunities of older people thanks to its pioneering application of human development methodology. It challenges countries in every part of the world to raise their sights as to what is possible.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nThe forests  and suburbs  of Europe are echoing with the growls and howls of large predators according to a new study. The study shows that brown bears, wolves and lynx are thriving on the crowded continent. Rising human populations and overconsumption make many people believe that such animals will soon become extinct. But the study has found that large-predator populations are stable or rising in Europe.\nBrown bears, wolves and the Eurasian lynx are found in nearly one-third of mainland Europe (excluding Belarus, Ukraine and Russia), with most living outside nature reserves. This indicates that changing attitudes and conservation measures are successfully protecting species that have suffered massive persecution throughout human history.\nBears are the most abundant large carnivore in Europe  there are around 17,000 of them. There are 12,000 wolves and 9,000 Eurasian lynx. Only Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Luxembourg in mainland Europe  like Britain  have no breeding populations of at least one large carnivore species. But the studys main author and other conservationists said that these animals now live in well-populated regions of Europe, so even the British countryside could support big predators.\nGuillaume Chapron from Swedens University of Agricultural Sciences and researchers across Europe found wolves, in some cases, living in suburban areas alongside up to 3,050 people per square kilometre. On average in Europe, wolves live on land with a population density of 37 people per sq km, lynx in areas with a population density of 21 people per sq km and bears among 19 people per sq km. The population density of the Scottish Highlands is just nine people per sq km.\nIn order to have wolves, we dont need to remove people from the landscape, said Chapron. He adds that the big-carnivore revival shows the success of a land-sharing model of conservation  unlike the policy of keeping predators and people apart by fencing off wilderness areas, as occurs in North America and Africa.\nIm not saying its a peace-and-love story  coexistence often means conflict  but its important to manage that conflict and resolve the problems it causes. Wolves can be difficult neighbours, said Chapron. We shouldnt be talking about people-predator conflict; we have conflict between people about predators. These animals are symbolic of difficult questions about how we should use the land.\nAccording to the researchers, this land-sharing approach could be applied elsewhere in the world. The reasons for its success in Europe include political stability, growing populations of prey species such as wild deer, and financial support for nonlethal livestock protection such as electric fences, which mean that farmers do not have to shoot wild predators. Most crucial, said Chapron, has been the EU Habitats Directive, which has forced member states to protect and revive rare species.\nWithout the Habitats Directive, I dont think we would have had this recovery, he said. It shows that, if people are willing to protect nature and if politicians introduce strong legislation, its possible to achieve results in wildlife protection. The revival was welcomed by author George Monbiot, who is launching Rewilding Britain, a new charity to encourage the return of wild landscape and extinct species.\nIt is great to see this trend continuing but Britain is completely anomalous  weve lost more of our large mammals than any country except for Ireland, he said. Apart from the accidental reintroduction of wild boar, weve done almost nothing, whereas in much of the rest of Europe weve got bears, lynx and wolves coming back.\nThe survey found that the Eurasian lynx lives permanently in 11 population groups in 23 European countries and only five of these were native populations. This indicates the success of reintroduction efforts. According to Monbiot, support for the reintroduction of the lynx into the Scottish mountains is growing.\nIf it works in the rest of Europe, theres absolutely no reason why it cant work in the UK, he said. He points out that bears and wolves live within an hour of Rome. Theres no reason why we cant have a similar return of wildlife in the UK.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"They may not know who Steve Jobs was or even how to tie their own shoelaces, but the average six-year-old child understands more about digital technology than a 45-year-old adult, according to an authoritative new report. \nThe advent of broadband in the year 2000 has created a generation of digital natives, Ofcom (which checks standards in the UK communications industries) says in its annual study of British consumers. Born in the new millennium, these children have never known the dark ages of dial-up internet and the youngest are learning how to operate smartphones or tablets before they are able to talk. \n\u201cThese younger people are shaping communications,\u201d said Jane Rumble, Ofcom\u2019s media research head. \u201cAs a result of growing up in the digital age, they are developing fundamentally different communication habits from older generations, even compared to what we call the early adopters, the 16-to-24 age group.\u201d \nOfcom devised a \u201cdigital quotient\u201d, or DQ, test to put 800 children and 2,000 adults through their paces, which, rather than measuring intelligence, as an IQ test would, attempts to gauge awareness of and self-confidence around gadgets from tablets to smart watches, knowledge of superfast internet, 4G mobile- phone networks and mobile apps. \nAmong 6- to 7-year-olds, who have grown up with YouTube, Spotify music streaming and online television, the average DQ score was 98, higher than for those aged between 45 and 49, who scored an average of 96. Digital understanding peaks between 14 and 15 years of age, when the average is a DQ of 113, and then drops gradually throughout adulthood, before falling rapidly in old age. \nPeople are now being invited to test their digital knowledge with an abbreviated version of the questionnaire that will give any member of the public a DQ score, along with advice on how to improve their understanding and protect themselves and their families online. \nThe ways in which millennial children contact each other and consume entertainment are so different from previous generations that forecasters now consider their preferences a better indication of the future than those of trendsetting young adults. \nThe most remarkable change is in time spent talking on the phone. Two decades ago, teenagers devoted their evenings to monopolizing the home telephone line, dissecting love affairs and friendships in conversations that lasted for hours. \nFor those aged 12 to 15, phone calls account for just 3% of time spent communicating through any device. For all adults, this rises to 20% and, for young adults, it is still three times as high at 9%. Today\u2019s children do the majority of their remote socializing by sending written messages or through shared photographs and videos. \u201cThe millennium generation is losing its voice,\u201d Ofcom claims. \nOver 90% of their device-time is message based, chatting on social networks like Facebook, sending instant messages through services like WhatsApp or even firing off traditional mobile- phone text messages. Just 2% of children\u2019s time is spent emailing, compared to 33% for adults. \nAway from their phones, 12- to 15-year-olds have a very different relationship with other media, too. A digital seven-day diary shows live television accounts for just half of viewing for this age group, compared to nearly 70% for all adults. They spend 20% of their time viewing short video clips, for example on YouTube, or news clips distributed via Facebook and other social sites. The rest of their viewing is shared between DVDs, streamed content through Netflix or iTunes and recorded television programmes. \nYoung adults aged 16 to 24 are voracious consumers of almost all media. However, live radio and print-based media have all but disappeared from their daily diet. \nYounger people are moving away from live television and moving to streaming and catch- up services. Even among adults, television is becoming less important. Television viewing among 16- to 24-year-olds has been dipping each year since 2010, but 2013 was the first year where researchers found viewing fell across all age groups. The theory is that tablet computers \u2013 among the most popular Christmas presents in 2012 and 2013 \u2013 have brought many older people online for longer. With large screens and simple, touch-based interfaces, tablets are being credited with a jump in internet access among the over-65s. \n\u201cFor years, there has been a very stubborn resistance by the over-65s to accessing the internet,\u201d said James Thickett, Research Director at Ofcom. \u201cIn the last three years, we have seen that change and we think that\u2019s down to tablets.\u201d \nBritain is embracing internet-enabled devices across the generations, to the extent that the balance between sleep and screen-based activities has now tipped. The typical adult spends eight hours and 41 minutes each day communicating or consuming media, including old-fashioned books and newspapers, and just eight hours and 21 minutes asleep.","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nOn one day in August, one in seven people on Earth, 1 billion people, used Facebook, according to founder Mark Zuckerberg. In ten years, the social network has completely changed peoples relationships, privacy, their businesses, news media, helped to end regimes and even changed the meanings of common words.\nA more open and connected world is a better world. It brings stronger relationships with those you love, a stronger economy with more opportunities and a stronger society, wrote Zuckerberg.\nThese are just some of the ways his company changed everything  for better or worse.\n1 Facebook has changed the de nition of friend To friend is now a verb. And, unlike in real life, it is easy to unfriend someone, a word invented to describe ending a Facebook friendship when that person is no longer improving your Facebook newsfeed.\nAlthough the meanings of the words share and like are basically the same, Facebook has made the terms more important to us.\nSchool and university reunions are unnecessary  you already know whose career is going well, whether the perfect pair have split and youve seen pictures of your schoolmates babies. You wont be surprised to see an ex in the street with a new girlfriend or boyfriend: you already know theyre dating someone else from the romantic sel es.\nBut, unlike in real life, on Facebook, all your friends have the same importance. A classmate from university who you havent seen for 15 years, a friend-of-a-friend from a party or a colleague youve never actually spoken to in person  they are all Facebook friends in the same way as your closest friend or your spouse or your mum.\nIt doesnt necessarily mean we see them the same way. Professor Robin Dunbar is famous for his research that suggests a person can only have about 150 people as a social group. Facebook hasnt changed that yet, he believes. But Dunbar says he fears it is so easy simply to end friendships on Facebook that, eventually, people may not need to learn to get on with each other.\n2 We care less about privacy The surprising thing is that Facebook users happily hand over their information.\nPew Research Center found that most young people are more than willing to hand over their details. Ninety- one per cent post a photo of themselves, 71% post the city or town where they live, more than half give email addresses and a  fth give their phone number.\nBut, because so much of a persons life is shared online, Facebook gives people a way to create an image and a fanbase. Academics have described a new phenomenon: the Facebook self.\nMore than 80% of Facebook users list their interests, which allows brands to target them effectively. But most younger users limit who can see their pro les, with 60% allowing friends only.\n3 Facebook has created millions of jobs  but not in its own of ces Facebook provides indirect employment for people whose job it is to make Facebook work for their brand.\nIt is a tool like no other, said Michael Tinmouth, a social media strategist who has worked with brands such as Vodafone and Microsoft. Marketers have an understanding of a brands customers like they have never had before. The data available is extraordinary. You know who your customers are, who they are friends with and how they engage with your brand.\nAnd advertisers pay a lot for that. Facebook reported advertising revenue had increased by 46%, reaching $3.32bn.\nFacebook is also a mine eld for brands. Suddenly, customers dont simply complain on the phone to a customer service representative or on a small specialist internet forum  angry customers can post their complaints for hundreds of their friends to see or even on the brands own page.\n4 Facebook has been the tool to organize revolutions Organizing demonstrations and direct action has been revolutionized by Facebook. Manchester Universitys Olga Onuch found Facebook had been the key way for reaching half of all the Euromaidan protesters in Ukraine.\n Many of the people interviewed in Onuchs research said they relied on Facebook for the truth about what was happening  they dont trust traditional media.\n5 Facebook makes news, breaks news and decides what is news About 71% of 18- to 24-year-olds say the internet is their main news source and 63% of users overall, according to the Pew Research Center. About a third of Facebook users post about politics and government.\nMost people will  rst read an item of breaking news via Facebook or other social media, mostly on mobiles.\nFacebook has also changed the ways journalists write stories. It is a resource many reporters cannot now live without. For better or (often) worse, it is a place to  nd information on almost any ordinary person, who might suddenly  nd themselves at the centre of the days biggest news story.\n6 Users are changing Facebook It used to be a site for students of top US universities.\nIn 2014, ten years after its launch, 56% of internet users aged 65 and older have a Facebook account. And 39% are connected to people they have never met in person.\nMore than ever, the site is a gateway not just to your friends but to the rest of the internet.\nWe may as well get used to it, said David Kirkpatrick, author of The Facebook Effect. It might very well go away further down the road but something this big takes a long time to disappear, he told BBC Radio 4s Today programme. Facebook has proven its ability to change and it will continue to be a very, very major player.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"On an average day its outlets are a hive of social activity, hosting everything from business meetings to reading groups looking for that all-important morning caffeine rush. But Starbucks should be careful what it wishes for. \nThe direct action group UK Uncut plans to turn dozens of the coffee empire\u2019s UK branches into cr\u00e8ches, refuges and homeless shelters to highlight the chain\u2019s tax avoidance tactics. \nThe announcement of the action comes on the day a Starbucks executive faces questions from the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee over why the company paid no corporation tax in the UK during the past three years, despite senior US management trumpeting the company\u2019s profitable operations in Britain. \nIn his appearance before the committee, Starbucks\u2019 Chief Financial Officer, Troy Alstead, will attempt to repair the company\u2019s reputation, which continues to suffer because of the controversy. \nMPs accused HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) officials of having cosy relationships with big businesses. Speaking about the arrangements with Starbucks, the Conservative MP Richard Bacon said: \u201cIt smells. And it doesn\u2019t smell of coffee \u2013 it smells bad.\u201d \nThe campaign group UK Uncut is attempting to draw a link between government cuts, in particular those that affect women, and tax avoidance by multinational businesses. \nSarah Greene, a UK Uncut activist, said funding for refuges and rape crisis centres faced cuts unless companies paid their fair share of tax. HMRC estimates around \u00a332bn was lost to tax avoidance in 2011. \nGreene said the government could easily bring in billions that could fund vital services by clamping down on tax avoidance. \nThe group, which rose to prominence after staging a sit-in at Vodafone stores, Topshop and Fortnum & Mason, turned its attentions to Starbucks last month after an investigation by Reuters discovered the company had paid only \u00a38.6m in corporation tax since launching in the UK in 1998, despite cumulative sales of \u00a33bn. \nLongstanding Uncut campaigner Anna Walker said \u201cWe\u2019ve chosen to really highlight the impact of the cuts on women. So there is going to be a real focus on transforming Starbucks into those services that are being cut by the government \u2026 [such as] refuges and cr\u00e8ches. \n\u201cStarbucks is a really great target because it is on every high street across the country and that\u2019s what UK Uncut finds really important: people can take action in their local areas,\u201d she said. \nSeveral international organizations have faced criticism over their UK accounts, with Amazon, eBay, Facebook, Google and Ikea all paying little or no corporation tax despite large British operations. \nHowever, according to pollsters at YouGov\u2019s BrandIndex, Starbucks has suffered the deepest damage to its image. \nThe coffee store chain insists it pays the correct level of taxes. The group Chief Executive, Howard Schultz, has said in a statement: \u201cStarbucks has always paid taxes in the UK despite recent suggestions to the contrary. \n\u201cOver the last three years alone, our company has paid more than \u00a3160m in various taxes, including National Insurance contributions, VAT and business rates.\u201d \nMargaret Hodge, who chairs the Public Accounts Committee, told parliament last month that Apple, eBay, Facebook, Google and Starbucks had avoided nearly \u00a3900m of tax. The Prime Minister, David Cameron, responded to the claim by saying: \u201cI\u2019m not happy with the current situation. I think [HMRC] needs to look at it very carefully. We do need to make sure we are encouraging these businesses to invest in our country as they are, but they should be paying fair taxes as well.\u201d \nA spokeswoman for Starbucks said: \u201cWhile the subject of tax law can be extremely complex, Starbucks respects and complies with tax laws and accounting rules in each of the 61 countries where we do business, including the UK \u2013 a market that we remain committed to for the long term. We\u2019ve posted the facts about our tax practices in the UK on our website. \n\u201cStarbucks\u2019 economic impact in the UK goes far beyond our stores and partners [employees]. We spend hundreds of millions of pounds with local suppliers on milk, cakes and sandwiches, and on store design and renovations. When you take into account the indirect employment created by Starbucks\u2019 investments in the UK, the company\u2019s extended economic impact to the UK economy exceeds \u00a380m annually. \n\u201cWe hope that UK Uncut will respect the wellbeing of our partners and customers, and recognize the value that we add to the economy, creating jobs and apprenticeships, as well as paying our fair share of taxes in the UK.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nSleep deprivation used to be a sign that you were busy and important and very much in demand. Sleep was for wimps. Now, however, Arianna Huffingtons The Sleep Revolution, a book that promises to completely change your life one night at a time, is a New York Times best-seller.\nMeanwhile, businesses have realized that they can make money from the sleep revolution. A whole range of businesses are reinventing where, when and how we sleep, as well as how much were prepared to pay for it. Luxury hotels are offering sleep retreats; more than $1,000 gets you dinner and a movie about sleep. And, if youre staying home, you can upgrade your bedroom with everything from a mattress cover with a sensor that monitors your sleep ($249) to a sleeping mask that monitors your brainwaves and lets you nap more efficiently ($299).\nSleep has not only become big business  it has made its way into corporations. A number of companies already have sleeping areas and Huffington predicts that nap rooms in offices are going to become as common as conference rooms in the next two years. So, how did this happen? How did sleep, something humans have done since long before Huffington, suddenly become so fashionable?\nMany people these days find it normal to pay $10 for green juice and $34 for an indoor cycle class. And getting enough sleep fits into this kind of lifestyle. Then, theres wearable technology. Our bodies have become machines that we monitor and optimize for greater efficiency and sleep has become another data set to be monitored. What Huffington emphasizes about sleep, after all, is not that it rests you but that it restores you. Sleep, she says, is the ultimate performance enhancer and getting eight hours of rest has become the ultimate status symbol.\nYou know how Arianna Huffington gets her eight hours? Well, she has nine or so assistants. Huffington calls them her A-Team. They do everything for her. They run her errands, plan her travel and load The Huffington Post on her computer in the morning. According to the New York Times, most of the A-Team can only survive about 12 months in the job because its so taxing. The low pay also means many of them take second jobs. Basically, they dont sleep so that Huffington can  and can sell books about it.\nGetting enough sleep isnt just a question of valuing sleep enough to go to bed at the right time; its a question of going to bed in the right neighbourhood and in the right body. Numerous studies show that youre more likely to sleep badly if youre poor. Its hard to sleep if youre worried about your safety or havent had enough to eat. Its hard to sleep if youre one of the 15 million American shift workers who work irregular hours. Research has also found that theres a black\/white sleep gap. One study shows that white people sleep an average of 6.85 hours but African Americans sleep an average of 6.05 hours. They also have a lower quality of sleep. Researchers say this is partly due to the stress of racism.\nDo you know who gets the most sleep and the best quality of sleep in America? Rich white women. Who are probably the same people Huffington wrote her book for. Huffington describes her promotion of sleep as a revolution but, really, its a rebranding. The very real sleep crisis isnt that a few rich people think its a waste of time; the problem is the 99% who cant afford to spend time sleeping.\nSleep may be a performance enhancer but its an inefficient one. The real prize is finding a way to negate sleep deprivation so humans can work on less sleep. Unsurprisingly, the military is at the forefront of this research. In 2008, the Pentagon published a report called Human Performance. It examined the possibility of a future in which soldiers could perform at their peak with only a couple of hours sleep. Imagine that you could make a human who slept for the same amount of time as a giraffe (1.9 hours per night). This would lead to a twofold decrease in the casualty rate. An enemy would need approximately 40% more soldiers to compensate for this advantage.\nEventually, humans will find a way to remove the need for sleep completely. Spending a third of your life unconscious wont be a luxury anymore; itll be something only the poor will be forced to do. At that point, we may need a whole new sort of sleep revolution.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"The auction of a Banksy painting that disappeared from the wall of a north London shop was stopped just moments before it was going to be sold. \nSlave Labour is a spray-painted artwork that shows a child making flags. The expected price was about $700,000. It was going to be in a sale of street art in Florida. \nBut Frederic Thut, the owner of the Fine Arts Auction Miami art house said that Slave Labour and a second work by the secretive British street artist were removed from sale at the auction. He did not want to give the name of the seller. \nPeople in Haringey, London, were very happy, because they led a campaign to stop the sale of the artwork that was removed from the wall of a Poundland shop in Haringey. \n\u201cI will write to the auction house to find out what will happen next, but for now we are really pleased that a people\u2019s campaign in London has had an impact in the US. It\u2019s a real victory for the people.\u201d said Alan Strickland, a Haringey councillor. \nThe auction house said it had told the owners of the two Banksys that they should remove them from the sale. \u201cThere are no legal problems with the sale of the artwork by Banksy, but FAAM told its sellers they should remove them from the auction.\u201d \nCritics have said the auction house was buying and selling stolen property but Thut said that the seller was the real owner and that the sale was legal. \nHe added that his gallery had received many emails and phone calls from the UK, but said he thought it was right to sell the two pieces of artwork because it would keep them safe. \nThe second Banksy that was going to be auctioned was a 2007 artwork called Wet Dog that was removed from a Bethlehem wall. Its estimated price is up to $800,000. \nPoundland said it had no idea who removed the 4ft x 5ft mural from the side of its shop. \nBanksy himself has not commented on the sale of Slave Labour, but he has condemned people who have tried to sell his artwork in the past. \nStephan Keszler, the dealer at a 2011 auction in New York that also planned to sell Banky\u2019s paintings, believes selling Banksy\u2019s works without his permission is fair. \n\u201cHe does something on other people\u2019s walls and houses without asking. The owner of the property can do whatever they want with it,\u201d Keszler said.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"The government is bracing itself for thousands of legal claims from people who were imprisoned and allegedly mistreated during the final days of the British Empire after the High Court in London ruled that three elderly Kenyans detained and tortured during the Mau Mau rebellion have the right to sue for damages. \nThe court on Friday rejected claims from the government\u2019s lawyers that too much time had elapsed since the seven-year insurgency in the 1950s, and it was no longer possible to hold a fair trial. In 2011 the same High Court judge, Mr Justice McCombe, rejected the government\u2019s claim that the three claimants should be suing the Kenyan government as it had inherited Britain\u2019s legal responsibilities on independence in 1963. \nHuman rights activists in Kenya estimate more than 5,000 of the 70,000-plus people detained by the British colonial authorities are still alive. Many may bring claims against the British government. The ruling may also make it possible for victims of colonial atrocities in other parts of the world to sue. \nBut many more men and women around the world who were imprisoned and allegedly mistreated during the conflicts that often accompanied the British retreat from empire may also be considering claims: cases that could bring to light evidence of brutal mistreatment of colonial subjects and result in a new and uncomfortable understanding of recent British history. \nThe Foreign Office acknowledged that the ruling had \u201cpotentially significant and far-reaching legal implications \u201d, and said it was planning to appeal. \u201cThe normal time limit for bringing a civil action is three to six years,\u201d a spokesman said. \u201cIn this case, that period has been extended to over 50 years despite the fact that the key decision makers are dead and unable to give their account of what happened.\u201d \nFriday\u2019s historic victory for Paulo Muoka Nzili, 85, Wambugu Wa Nyingi, 84, and Jane Muthoni Mara, 73, was the result of a three-year battle through the courts. They had suffered what their lawyers describe as \u201cunspeakable acts of brutality\u201d including castration, beatings and severe sexual assaults. A fourth claimant dropped out while a fifth, Susan Ciong\u2019ombe Ngondi, died two years ago, aged 71. \nIn the Kenyan capital Nairobi, the news from London was relayed to two of the complainants, Nyingi and Mara, by mobile phone. They had been sitting silently with their supporters in a sun-scorched garden and reacted with joy when the word came, hugging, dancing and eventually raising their hands to the sky to pray. \nNyingi, who was detained for about nine years, beaten unconscious and bears the marks from leg manacles, whipping and caning, said: \u201cFor me \u2026 I just wanted the truth to be out. Even the children of my children should know what happened. What should happen is that people should be compensated so they can begin to forgive the British government.\u201d Mara said: \u201cI\u2019m very happy and my heart is clean.\u201d Asked what she would tell her four children, she said simply: \u201cI will tell them I won.\u201d \nMcCombe said in 2011 that there was \u201cample evidence \u2026 that there may have been systematic torture of detainees \u201d. On Friday he ruled that a fair trial was possible, and highlighted the fact that thousands of documents came to light in 2011 after the Foreign Office admitted to a secret archive of colonial-era files. \nDuring the course of their attempts to have the claims struck out \u2013 efforts that the claimants\u2019 lawyer, Martyn Day, described as \u201cmorally repugnant\u201d \u2013 the British government\u2019s lawyers accepted that all three of the elderly Kenyans were tortured by the colonial authorities. \nDay said: \u201cThe British government has admitted that these three Kenyans were brutally tortured by the British colony and yet they have been hiding behind technical legal defences for three years in order to avoid any legal responsibility. There will undoubtedly be victims of colonial torture from Malaya to the Yemen, from Cyprus to Palestine, who will be reading this judgment with great care.\u201d \nAmong those who are known to have been watching the case closely are a number of veterans of the Eoka insurgency in Cyprus in the 1950s. One has already met the Mau Mau claimants\u2019 lawyers. Any Cypriot claimants would be able to rely not only on British documentation, but upon the archives of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva. Those files are kept secret for 40 years, and then opened to public scrutiny. The Red Cross documented hundreds of torture cases in Cyprus, where reporters covering the conflict referred to British interrogators as HMTs \u2013 Her Majesty\u2019s Torturers. \nThere may also be claims from Malaysia, where large numbers of people were detained during the 12-year war with communist insurgents and their supporters that began in 1948. Relatives of 24 unarmed rubber plantation workers massacred by British troops are currently fighting through the British courts for a public inquiry. Many former prisoners of the British in Aden may also have claims against the British government, although, as Aden is now part of Yemen, British lawyers may have difficulty making contact with potential clients there.","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Our new international survey, including 33 countries, shows how wrong people around the world are about some important things.\nBritish people think the richest 1% own 59% of their country\u2019s wealth, when they actually \u201conly\u201d own 23%. Americans think that 33% of their population are immigrants but it is really only 14%.\nBrazilians think the average age in their country is 56, when it is only 31. Russians think that 31% of their politicians are women, when it is only 14%.\nIn Britain, people think that 43% of young adults aged 25-34 still live at home with their parents, rather than the actual 14%. In India, people who did the online survey think 60% of the whole country also has internet access, when really only 19% do.\nSo, why do people across the world know so little about these things?\nSome of us don\u2019t understand the questions. For example, most countries overestimate how many people are not religious: in the 33 countries, people thought 37% are not religious but the real number is actually just 18%. This is because we are thinking of how many people practise their religion, rather than how many people say they have a religion.\nRural areas are large so that is why people overestimate how many people live in the countryside.\nWe see things from our own perspective and find it difficult to imagine that there is a lot of variety in our countries. For example, the people from India who did the survey really overestimated their population\u2019s access to the internet. Most people did the study online \u2013 and, in developing countries, this means the people who did the survey were probably wealthy. What we found from the survey is that people generalize from their own situations and forget that other people\u2019s situations might be different.\nIn Britain, this is probably the reason why people overestimated how much the richest people own, how many young people are still living at home and what proportion of the population are immigrants (the guess is 25%, when it is really only 13%). People are worried about these things and, because of this, they overestimate.\nBut, the survey suggests there are also some problems that people are not very worried about but they should be more worried. For example, most countries really underestimate how much of their population is overweight. The worst case is Saudi Arabia, where people think only 28% are overweight, when 71% are. Britons think it is 44%, when actually 62% are overweight.\nIn many ways, it is the differences between countries that are the most interesting and important aspects of the study. The top 1% in Russia own 70% of the nation\u2019s wealth, while the top 1% in New Zealand only own 18%. Half of Italians aged 25-34 still live with their parents but only 4% in Norway. The average age in India is 27; it is 47 in Japan. Only 10% of politicians are women in Brazil, Hungary and Japan, when 44% are in Sweden.\nWhen the reality is so strange and varied, it is not surprising that we\u2019re often so wrong.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Sleep deprivation used to be a badge of honour: a sign you were busy and important and very much in demand. Snoozing was losing and sleep was for wimps. Now, however, Arianna Huffington\u2019s The Sleep Revolution, a 'call to bed' that promises to transform your life \u201cone night at a time\u201d, is a New York Times best-seller and Huffington is urging people to \u201csleep their way to the top\u201d. Meanwhile, the sleep industry has woken up big time and a whole range of start-ups are reinventing where, when and how we sleep, as well as how much we\u2019re prepared to pay for it. For the more upmarket snoozer, luxury hotels are offering \u201csleep retreats\u201d; more than $1,000 gets you dinner and a movie about sleep. And, if you\u2019re staying home, you can upgrade your bedroom with everything from a mattress cover with a sensor that tracks your sleep ($249) to a brainwave-monitoring sleeping mask that lets you nap more efficiently ($299). \nSleep hasn\u2019t just been corporatized \u2013 it has infiltrated corporations. A number of companies already have nap pods and Huffington predicts that nap rooms in offices are going to become \u201cas common as conference rooms\u201c in the next two years. So, how did this happen? How did sleep, something humans have done since long before Huffington awoke to it, suddenly become so fashionable? \nGetting enough sleep is a natural fit for the sort of lifestyle in which paying $10 for green juice and $34 for a SoulCycle class is the norm. Then, there\u2019s the rise of the quantified self through wearable technology. Our bodies have become input\/output devices that we monitor and optimize for greater efficiency and sleep has become another data set to be tracked. What Huffington emphasizes about sleep, after all, is not that it rests you but that it restores you. Sleep, she says, is the ultimate performance enhancer and getting eight hours of rest has become the ultimate status symbol. \nYou know how Arianna Huffington gets her eight hours? Well, for one thing, she has \u201cnine or so\u201d assistants, according to a recent New York Times profile. Huffington calls them her \u201cA-Team\u201d; they do everything from running her errands to planning her travel to loading The Huffington Post on her computer in the morning. According to the Times, most of the A-Team can only endure about 12 months of the work because it\u2019s so taxing. The low pay also means many of them take second jobs. Basically, they don\u2019t sleep so that Huffington can \u2026 and can sell books about it. \nGetting enough sleep isn\u2019t just a question of valuing sleep enough to go to bed at the right time; it\u2019s a question of going to bed in the right neighbourhood and in the right body. Numerous studies show that you\u2019re more likely to sleep poorly if you\u2019re poor. It\u2019s hard to sleep if you\u2019re worried about your safety or haven\u2019t had enough to eat. It\u2019s hard to sleep if you\u2019re one of the 15 million American shift workers who work irregular hours. Research has also found that there\u2019s a black\/white sleep gap. One study shows that, while white people sleep an average of 6.85 hours, African Americans sleep an average of 6.05 hours. They also have a lower quality of sleep. Researchers have attributed this, in part, to the stress of discrimination. \nWant to know who gets the most sleep and the best quality of sleep in America? Wealthy white women. Which, if I\u2019d hazard a guess, is probably the same demographic Huffington is targeting her book at. Huffington describes her promotion of sleep as a \u201crevolution\u201d but, really, it\u2019s a rebranding. The very real sleep crisis we face isn\u2019t down to a few rich people thinking it\u2019s a waste of time; it\u2019s down to the 99% not being able to afford to spend time sleeping. \nWhile sleep is currently enjoying a moment, it will probably be short-lived. Sleep may be a performance enhancer but it\u2019s an inefficient one. The real prize is finding a way to negate sleep deprivation so humans can function on less sleep. Unsurprisingly, the military is at the forefront of this research. In 2008, the Pentagon published a report called \u201cHuman Performance\u201d which examined the possibility of a future in which soldiers could perform at their peak with only a couple of hours\u2019 sleep. \u201cSuppose a human could be engineered who slept for the same amount of time as a giraffe (1.9 hours per night). \nThis would lead to an approximately twofold decrease in the casualty rate. An adversary would need an approximately 40% increase in the troop level to compensate for this advantage.\u201d The report goes on to look at the effects of ampakines, a class of drugs that modulate neurotransmitters in the brain, to remove the effects of sleep deprivation. \nEventually, humans will figure out a way to get rid of sleep. Spending a third of your life unconscious won\u2019t be a luxury anymore; it\u2019ll be something only the poor will be forced to do. At which point, we may need a whole new sort of sleep revolution.","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Cathal Redmond was swimming off the Greek coast. He took some photos of colourful fish with his first underwater camera and he was sure they would be great. But, when he looked at the photos later, they were brown and murky. The photos were bad because he was holding his breath underwater so he didn\u2019t have enough time to take the pictures. He thought that all he needed was a little more time to photograph the fish in their natural environment.\nTo help with this problem, he has invented the Express Dive. It is a refillable air storage device, which you hold in your mouth. It lets you swim underwater for two minutes. It is somewhere between snorkelling, which is very limited, and scuba diving, which gives people the freedom to breathe underwater but needs heavy and expensive gear. The prototype of his invention looks like a combination of a scuba mouthpiece and a water bottle.\n\u201cI wanted to let people to do more \u2013 not just get underwater and spend 30 seconds holding their breath,\u201d says Redmond, 27. In 2006, the Irish designer completed a scuba-diving course and loved the feeling of being able to breathe underwater and watch fish in their natural environment. But all the equipment he needed was less enjoyable.\n\u201cI didn\u2019t like that I had about 50kg of equipment on me. And getting into the water was quite strange when you are used to trying to stay at the surface. It was a very surreal experience,\u201d he says. \u201cThe real problem is that scuba diving limits what you can do. It allows you to stay underwater for longer but it takes a lot of planning. You have 20kg to 50kg of gear with you \u2013 you can\u2019t just walk on the beach and decide you want to go in. Planning is a very big part of it.\u201d\nIt was during a final-year project for his degree that Redmond produced the Express Dive. The device has two main parts. When above the surface, the device takes in air through a vent in the mouthpiece. The air is compressed and stored in a tank, which has a light that flashes green when it is full. When it has finished taking in air, the vent closes and, when the person dives, air is fed back through the mouthpiece. The light turns from green to red when the air starts to runs out. The device can take in enough air for two minutes of diving and takes approximately the same amount of time to refill.\nRedmond says the mouthpiece feels similar to a snorkel. They have tested the prototype in parts. Redmond says he has shown that the motor can compress two minutes of air into the device and that a person can hold the device in their mouth. \nWhat he has not yet done is test the device on a diver, completely underwater for two minutes. But, with enough testing, Redmond is sure the device will work well and that it will not be dangerous for swimmers underwater. The device will probably cost \u00a3280, he says, and it will probably weigh from 1kg to 3kg.\nPerhaps some people think two minutes of air is not enough and is not much better than snorkelling. But, Redmond says two minutes can make all the difference underwater. The typical swimmer can hold their breath for about 40 seconds while underwater. \u201cTwo minutes is not a lot of time but it is a lot longer than that,\u201d he says.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"More than 100,000 people went onto the streets in Brazil to show their anger at violent police, poor public services and high costs for the World Cup. \nThe demonstrations in Rio de Janeiro, S\u00e3o Paulo, Brasilia, Belem, Belo Horizonte and Salvador started peacefully, but there were some clashes with police and people set fire to cars and buses. \nPeople complained that police used rubber bullets, tear gas and violent beatings. Happening at the start of the football Confederations Cup, the rallies brought together people who are angry with the high costs and poor quality of public services, the large amounts of money spent on international sporting events, low standards of health care, inequality and corruption. \nMost of the demonstrations were peaceful, but several police were hurt, at least one car was burned and windows were broken. \nPeople were demonstrating for different reasons. \u201cWe are here because we hate the government. They do nothing for us,\u201d said Oscar Jos\u00e9 Santos, 19 years old. \n\u201cI\u2019m an architect but I have been unemployed for six months. There must be something wrong with this country,\u201d said Nadia al Husin. \nAt a smaller rally in Brasilia, demonstrators entered the high-security area of the national congress. Several climbed onto the roof. \nIn Belo Horizonte, police clashed with protesters who tried to get into a football stadium, where there was a Confederations Cup match between Nigeria and Tahiti. \nIn Porto Alegre, demonstrators set fire to a bus and, in Curitiba, protesters tried to enter the office of the state governor. There were also rallies in Belem, Salvador and other places. \nIn S\u00e3o Paulo, there were large groups of people but the marches were peaceful. \nMost protesters were young and, for many, it was their first experience of such a giant rally. \u201cMy generation has never experienced this,\u201d said Thiago Firbida, a student. \u201cSince the dictatorship, Brazilians have never demonstrated like this. They did not believe they had a reason to. But now Brazil once again has problems, with a constant rise in prices, so people are finally reacting.\u201d \nBrazil\u2019s demonstrations have been given special names \u2013 the \u201cvinegar revolution\u201d (because police arrested people for carrying vinegar to stop the effects of tear gas), the \u201c20-cent revolution\u201d (because of the bus price rise) and the Passe Livre (because of the demand for free public transport). \nSome said the protests did not feel Brazilian but they were liberating. \u201cOur politicians need to see the strength we have as one people. Brazilians are usually too nice; they enjoy partying, not protesting, but something is changing,\u201d said Deli Borsar, a 53-year-old yoga teacher. \nAfter people heard about the costs of new and improved stadiums on the news, the Confederations Cup football tournament has been one of the reasons for the protests. Before Saturday\u2019s match in Brasilia, groups of demonstrators were dispersed by riot police. Frightened Japanese supporters ran from the area holding their children, when they heard shots \u2013 perhaps rubber bullets or tear gas. \nAnother protest march, near Rio\u2019s Maracana Stadium, also had a heavy police response. \nPresident Dilma Rousseff \u201cbelieves peaceful protests are correct and proper for a democracy and that it is natural for young people to demonstrate.\u201d \nBut people booed the president at the opening ceremony for the Confederations Cup. She will have serious political problems, both now and in 2014, when Brazil will host the World Cup and also have an election.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"They call him the Robin Hood of the banks, a man who took out dozens of loans, worth almost half a million euros, with no intention of ever paying them back. Instead, Enric Duran handed the money out to projects that created and promoted alternatives to capitalism. \nAfter 14 months in hiding, Duran is unapologetic, even though his activities could land him in jail. \u201cI\u2019m proud of what I did,\u201d he said in an interview by Skype from an undisclosed location. The money, he said, had created opportunities. \u201cIt generated a movement that allowed us to push forward with the construction of alternatives. And it allowed us to build a powerful network that groups together these initiatives.\u201d \nFrom 2006 to 2008, Duran took out 68 commercial and personal loans from 39 banks in Spain. He farmed the money out to social activists, funding speaking tours against capitalism and TV cameras for a media network. \u201cI saw that, on one side, these social movements were building alternatives but that they lacked resources and communication capacities,\u201d he said. \u201cMeanwhile, our reliance on perpetual growth was creating a system that created money out of nothing.\u201d \nThe loans he swindled from banks were his way of regulating and denouncing this situation, he said. He started slowly. \u201cI filled out a few credit applications with my real details. They denied me, but I just wanted to get a feel for what they were asking for.\u201d \nFrom there, the former table-tennis coach began to weave an intricate web of accounts, payments and transfers. \u201cI was learning constantly.\u201d By the summer of 2007, he had discovered how to make the system work, applying for loans under the name of a false television production company. \u201cThen, I managed to get a lot.\u201d \u20ac492,000, to be exact. \nDuran was arrested in Spain in 2009, on charges brought against him by six of the 39 banks that had lent him money. He spent two months in prison before being bailed for \u20ac50,000. In February 2013, facing up to eight years in prison, he decided to flee rather than stand trial. \u201cI don\u2019t see legitimacy in a judicial system based on authority, because I don\u2019t recognize its authority,\u201d he said. \nHis actions, he said, were in the vanguard of a worldwide debate on the economic crisis. The timing pushed the anti-capitalist movement into the light, just as many Spaniards were seeking alternatives to a system that had wreaked havoc on their lives. \nWhile the same actions would probably be better understood in today\u2019s Spain, he said that they would not be needed. The anti-capitalist movement has grown from a fringe movement to one supported by thousands of Spaniards, he said, evidenced by the widely supported movements such as the Indignados. \nSuccess has helped the movement become self- sufficient. \u201cWe now have the capacity to generate resources,\u201d said Duran, adding somewhat ironically that this was exactly what banks issue credit for \u2013 \u201cto advance and generate a situation that allows you to be independent\u201d. Duran is widening his focus to include Spain\u2019s justice system, by promoting restorative justice. \u201cThe people in Spain who believe that banks don\u2019t work, they think that I don\u2019t owe anything. I\u2019ve already done my work,\u201d he said. \u201cBut there is a part of a population that is not in agreement with us and I think I should respond to that.\u201d \nIn his case, he said, the element of reciprocity he could offer to banks might lie in the insight he gleaned from years of obtaining bank loans fraudulently. He could share his thoughts on \u201cwhich best practices work and the bad ones that don\u2019t,\u201d he suggested, \u201cfor the general population and for bank workers\u201d.","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Bogus allergy tests are convincing thousands of people to take unnecessary treatments and put themselves or their children on inadequate diets, sometimes resulting in malnutrition, a group of experts and charities has said. Allergies and food intolerances are soaring but confusion between the two, as well as the many misdiagnoses, are causing real harm, said the information organization Sense About Science, which has produced a guide in collaboration with allergy specialists and charities. \n\u201cIt\u2019s probably the biggest mess for science communication, where myths, misinterpreted studies and quackery collide with under- and over-diagnosis,\u201d said Tracey Brown, director of Sense About Science. \u201cThe costs are huge \u2013 unnecessary actions for some and not enough action for those whose lives depend on it.\u201d \nExperts fear that restaurants and caterers are seeing so many people claiming they have allergies (which can be dangerous for the individual), when in fact they have a food intolerance (which is not), that they may not take all the precautions they should when serving a person who has a genuine allergy. \n\u201cIt matters very much,\u201d said Moira Austin of the Anaphylaxis Campaign. \u201cIf a caterer thinks somebody is just avoiding a food because they don\u2019t want to get bloated, they may be less careful. There have been a number of fatalities where people have gone to a restaurant and alerted staff that they have an allergy to a particular food and the meal has been served up containing that allergen.\u201d \nThe guide says most internet and shop-bought allergy tests have no scientific basis. They include a home-testing kit that looks for specific IgG (immunoglobulin G) antibodies against food stuffs in the blood. While these antibodies are part of the immune system\u2019s response to infections, \u201cthe best medical evidence has shown elevated IgG levels do not suggest an allergy\u201d, the guide says. \u201cResults are frequently positive in individuals who do not have an allergy or a food intolerance.\u201d \nAlso debunked is a test, a mixture of acupuncture and homeopathy, which attempts to measure electronic resistance across the skin while the child or adult holds the suspect food in their hand. Hair follicle testing is also pointless, the guide says. \u201cHair is not involved in allergic reactions so testing hair samples cannot provide any useful information on allergic status.\u201d Nor should people be deceived into thinking allergies are caused by an \u201cenergy blockage\u201d that can be diagnosed by muscle testing and cured by acupuncture. \n\u201cI commonly see children who\u2019ve been put on to unnecessarily restricted diets because their parents assume, in good faith, that they have allergies to multiple foods on the basis of 'allergy tests' that have no scientific basis,\u201d said Paul Seddon, a consultant paediatric allergist, on behalf of the UK Cochrane Centre, an independent organization that assesses medical evidence. \u201cThis needs to stop, which can only happen if we debunk these 'tests'.\u201d \nAnother consultant paediatric allergist, Adam Fox from Guys and St Thomas\u2019 Hospital in London, said: \u201cI get a number of patients, and my colleagues likewise, who will come in having sent their hair off for analysis or having excluded a whole range of foods for their children. It is very difficult to untangle that. There are two challenges. Children need to be given proper diets but more of it is the unnecessary avoidance of things that aren\u2019t harmful, which has a huge impact on the quality of life. A child who can\u2019t eat wheat or drink milk can\u2019t go to parties.\u201d \nThe conviction that a child\u2019s chronic lethargy or headaches or eczema are caused by an allergy takes a long time and many tests to prove or disprove. It is tempting to go to an alternative therapist who will do a single test and provide a quick, but inaccurate, answer. \nAllergies are on the rise across developed countries. The percentages of children diagnosed with allergic rhinitis and eczema have both trebled in the last 30 years. While there is now better diagnosis, the rise in incidence is real, leading many more people to suspect allergies are the reason for their own or their children\u2019s health issues. The guide lists a number of myths about the sources of allergies, from the suggestion that they are caused by E numbers in food colourings to \u201ctoxic overload\u201d and fast food.","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"You can no longer legally smoke a cigarette inside a bar in the world\u2019s drinking capital, New Orleans, Louisiana. City after city has banned indoor smoking but that\u2019s different because other cities don\u2019t attract tourist dollars by aggressively advertising a \u201clet the good times roll\u201d attitude, as New Orleans does. An indoor smoking ban here will have consequences as unique as New Orleans\u2019s cultural ecosystem itself. \nAs the Wall Street Journal recently reported, New Orleans city government has, since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, begun trying to turn down the volume a bit. With the support of neighbourhood groups, the city has begun policing bars and nightclubs more strictly, while, at the same time, fighting to implement a new \u201cnoise ordinance\u201d (read: music ordinance). \n\u201cThis is just the wrong time for them to have pursued something like this,\u201d complains bar- owner William Walker, who, for reasons of personal choice, hates the anti-smoking law. \u201cForcing people outside the bar to smoke is going to exacerbate the tension that\u2019s already there.\u201d \nMany of New Orleans\u2019s best bars and some of its live music spots are in relatively quiet residential neighbourhoods. This neighbourly coexistence is a big part of what makes New Orleans different and charming. Recently, though, this unique social contract has become unacceptable for some people and the fate of New Orleans\u2019s musical personality feels at stake. \nMartha Wood lives beside a loud bar that hosts live music. \u201cThe bar was one of the deciding factors in me buying the house so I won\u2019t ever complain about the noise,\u201d says Wood, who also manages a live-music bar which, following a series of noise issues in 2013 (including complaints about the loud smokers outside), became one of New Orleans\u2019s first ever bars legally disallowed from serving drinks to go. \u201cNow, any small infraction could get us shut down,\u201d says Wood. \u201cWe recently installed a smoke eater to help with the smoke because we can\u2019t open the doors at night because of the 'noise'.\u201d \nThe Maple Leaf club went smoke-free voluntarily in 2014 as did another club where artists had been demanding smoke-free nights. \u201cA lot of the performance venues were already starting to show that consideration to performers so I wish the city would have just let that happen instead of forcing the ban into every corner bar that doesn\u2019t host music,\u201d says Zalia BeVille, manager of the All Ways Lounge, which went smoke-free in 2013 because, she says, \u201cThe horn players and the singers, they asked us for it.\u201d \nLuckily, All Ways has an outdoor patio, unlike Lost Love Lounge, whose owner, Geoff Douville, loves the ban \u2013 he\u2019d previously felt forced to live with smoke to keep his bar financially viable. \u201cThere\u2019s no way I could have banned smoking in my bar without it being a rule throughout the whole city,\u201d says Douville. \u201cPeople act like I have that choice, as a business owner. But, if I make that rule, they walk down the block to a bar with smoking. So I need it to be uniformed across the board for everybody.\u201d \nMany small business owners also fear smoke- free revenue loss. Smoker Neil Timms owns an English pub and met the smoking ban before, in England. \u201cBack home in Coventry, every pub where I was a regular closed within a year of the smoking ban,\u201d remembers Timms of the UK\u2019s ban, begun in 2007. To avoid the same fate, he\u2019s spending money to build a patio. \nLost Love\u2019s Douville, though, feels the ban to be a great business opportunity. \u201cThe number of people who would enjoy coming out to our bar, with our food, but would never come because they didn\u2019t want to smell like smoke for the next seven days \u2013 we\u2019re now an option for all those people.\u201d Nor does Douville worry about noise complaints like Walker does: \u201cNo court is gonna label a bar a 'nuisance' after the city has ratified a smoking ban that requires you to go outside!\u201d he says. \u201cI want to see a judge reconcile 'no loitering' with 'no smoking inside'.\u201d \nCouncilwoman LaToya Cantrell, who introduced and pushed the ban, disagrees: \u201cThe responsibility is on the bar-owner to keep their clientele respectful outside their establishment as well,\u201d she says. \u201cThe owners and bartenders need to tell them to go have a smoke but be respectful to their communities. The idea that we can\u2019t have clean air because it will cause noise problems is ridiculous. It can be a win-win. I think it\u2019s about communication and creating partnerships between the communities and the businesses.\u201d \nCantrell does acknowledge the city\u2019s uniqueness in terms of a smoking ban. \u201cHow is New Orleans different from the rest of the country? New Orleans is known as 'the City that Care Forgot',\u201d she says. \u201cNew Orleans needs to stand up and say 'We care about our people'. The most vulnerable people who are working in smoky conditions, these citizens are the backbone of our hospitality industry, which drives the economy in the state of Louisiana.\u201d She adds, \u201cNew Orleans is also unlike other places because you do have the option of taking your drink outside with you when you go out to smoke.\u201d \nMany worried that the already strained New Orleans Police Department didn\u2019t need any part in policing smokers. So the health department will handle bar warnings and fines. Bar customers are encouraged to \u201ccome fill out a form or call 311 and to include date-and-time-stamped photographs documenting illegal smoking\u201d. For this reason alone, Neil Timms says he\u2019ll comply with the ban: \u201cI don\u2019t want someone to be sitting in the corner smoking and someone takes a photo of \u2019em and gets beaten up.\u201d \nUnworried, Geoff Douville says that he\u2019s used to noise complaints by now so bring on the ban. \u201cWatch: the nosy neighbours who complain about the noise now are gonna be the same ones who wanted the smoking ban to begin with.\u201d In the end, Douville shares Cantrell\u2019s win-win optimism. \u201cOf course they\u2019re gonna complain,\u201d he accepts. \u201cBut it doesn\u2019t mean they\u2019re gonna win.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"A degree in Spanish got me my \ufb01rst job as a journalist, with an international press agency in Mexico City, but it didn\u2019t prevent me blundering badly as a rookie reporter. \nI had just arrived in the Mexican capital after a Greyhound bus journey all the way from New York and the job interview was a test of my language skills. In my new role, day shifts were spent on the streets in political rallies and nights were spent alone in the of\ufb01ce, coordinating the coverage from strife- torn El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala and the rest of Central America. But, I also had to report on occasional disasters: \ufb01res, \ufb02oods and explosions at \ufb01 rework factories. \nIt was as a reporter that I soon found out that I was as bad at understanding numbers in Spanish as I was at calculating them in English. Phone calls meant for the police got Mexican grandmothers out of bed at 2am because I had misunderstood a number and dialled a dodgy digit. Even worse, victims were piled too high in my stories \u2013 almost 83 dead in a \ufb01 re at 6pm turned out to be as few as 38 by 7pm; 12 people injured in a coach crash soon became two and so it went on. Finally, I got a call from the main of\ufb01ce in Washington. \u201cI don\u2019t know what training you have had,\u201d an editor yelled, \u201cbut has no one ever told you a death toll can\u2019t go down?!\u201d \nWhy are numbers in another language such a conundrum? It may have to do with different numbering systems. If we consider that, in German, for example, which belongs to the same Indo-European language family as English, 2.30pm becomes halb drei (half of three) and 21 becomes einundzwanzig (one and twenty), clearly different numeral systems can cause confusion and that\u2019s without even considering indigenous languages with numeral systems so rare they are in danger of dying out. \nSome experts believe there is a link between dyscalculia \u2013 the dif\ufb01culty in comprehending arithmetic \u2013 and problems learning foreign languages, particularly if languages are learnt by rote, since this involves the sequential processes that students with dyscalculia struggle with. But, some students who struggle to learn languages with a grammar textbook may thrive in a foreign-language setting, where learning is more natural and less reliant on sequences of adjectives, prepositions and so on. In my case, I have always found languages easy enough, apart from the numbers. \nBut, perhaps it\u2019s also because numbers in a non-native language are often heard out of context or in isolation, when the listener might have switched off from the foreign language and be unable to suddenly tune in. A straw poll of multilingual friends found that many can be \ufb02orid in French or Italian when ordering from a restaurant menu, for example, but freeze if they have to relay numbers, especially over the phone. Numbers seem to be taxing, but no one could really say why. \nIn my case, being numerically challenged in a foreign tongue followed me from Mexico to other countries and from Spanish to German and Portuguese. But, in that \ufb01rst journalism job, getting the numbers wrong didn\u2019t always add up to failure. \nOne night, a Mexican colleague learnt that the American consul in the port city of Veracruz was being held hostage at gunpoint in his of\ufb01ce. With no senior English-speaking reporter in the of\ufb01ce, it was left to me to try to reach the consulate by phone. Having got the number wrong, I was put through to an extension elsewhere in the building and the identity of the person who took my call was unmistakable: I chatted for 15 minutes to the gunman. I may not have persuaded him to put away his gun \u2013 but my reputation as a rookie reporter still rose overnight.","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nOn the top of a hill, looking down on Northumberlands beautiful Kielder Water reservoir, a group of people wait in a car park next to a strange wooden building. They are looking for darkness and this is Kielder Observatory, the centre of Britains latest industry  astrotourism. The people waiting outside are the lucky ones. Many more apply for a night of stargazing at the observatory but numbers are strictly limited.\nInside, under a dim light, the observatorys founder and lead astronomer, Gary Fildes, delivers a speech to his colleagues and volunteers. The team discusses the prospect of seeing the northern lights but Fildes is doubtful. Instead, they decide to use their powerful telescopes to observe Jupiter and Venus and, later, to pick out stars such as Capella and Betelgeuse. An additional attraction is the appearance of the International Space Station.\nFildes, 49, is at the forefront of the UKs growing astrotourism industry. The key moment for Northumberland came in 2013 when the entire national park, about 1,500 square kilometres in area, was awarded Dark Sky Park status, the only one in England. Dark Sky Parks are rare. The 2013 Star Count revealed that only 5% of the UK population can see more than 31 stars on a clear night.\nThe Arizona-based International Dark-Sky Association (IDA) awards the status of Dark Sky Park only to places that take major steps to avoid light pollution. And those areas must also prove their night skies are dark enough. In Northumberland Dark Sky Park, as the area was renamed, it is so dark that Venus casts a shadow on the Earth.\nDuncan Wise, visitor development officer for the Northumberland National Park Authority, helped to lead the campaign for dark-sky status. We tend to look at landscape as everything up to the horizon, Wise said. But what about whats above it? Wise and others spent years preparing their application to the IDA, collecting thousands of light readings and producing an exterior lighting master plan that influences the construction of new developments in the area.\nTheir efforts have been rewarded. Many of the 1.5 million who visit Northumberland each year are now aware of its Dark Sky status. We get a lot of people coming here to see the sky now, says the man at the car-hire firm in Newcastle. They come in autumn and winter, when its darkest. Its good for the local hotels because they get business all year round now. Local hotels now give guests night-vision torches and put out deckchairs at night.\nWise agrees that Northumberland needs to do more to take advantage of its scarce resource. He believes the region needs a couple more observatories to ensure that visitors will see what they came for. A new 14m national landscape discovery centre will have an observatory when it is completed in a couple of years.\nFildes has big ambitions. He is planning Britains first astrovillage, one that would contain the largest public observatory in the world and have a 100-seat auditorium, a 100-seat planetarium, a one-metre aperture telescope, and radiomagnetic and solar telescopes. The multimillion-pound project would also have a hotel and draw in 100,000 people a year, four times the number currently able to use the observatory. Fildes believes the astrovillage will be a reality by 2018.\nHowever, Northumberland has competition. Galloway Forest Park in Scotland also has Dark Sky Park status. Since Exmoor was designated Europes first International Dark Sky Reserve  one level below Dark Sky Park  in 2011, a range of local businesses offering stargazing breaks and safaris has sprung up. The UK has a long way to go to rival northern Chile, which has more than a dozen tourist observatories and some of the clearest skies in the world. The Teide National Park in Tenerife is also becoming a major astrotourism destination.\nSo, why do people want to look up into the night sky? The media have helped. TV presenters like Brian Cox have attracted a new generation of stargazers. Brian Cox has made astronomy accessible, says Wise. Its no longer seen as something just for professors with telescopes. Technology has also made astronomy more popular. Apps such as Stellarium now turn smartphones into pocket-size planetariums. But Fildes believes that, most importantly, people are starting to appreciate what lies above. If you had to build a visitor attraction from scratch, what could be better than the universe?","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"The Moroccan city of Ouarzazate is on the edge of the Sahara Desert. It is now the centre for four linked solar mega-plants. The plants, together with hydro and wind, will give Morocco, in north Africa, nearly half of its electricity from renewable energy by 2020. The project is a key part of Morocco \u2019s plans to use its deserts to become a global solar superpower.\nWhen the full complex is complete, it will be the largest concentrated solar power plant in the world. The first phase, called Noor 1, will be ready in November 2015. The mirror technology it uses is more expensive than the solar panels that we can see on roofs all over the world but it will be able to produce power even after the sun goes down.\nPeople have known for many years that the desert is a useful place to produce solar energy. In 1986, the German scientist Gerhard Knies said that the world\u2019s deserts receive enough energy in a few hours to make power for all the people in the world for a whole year. But the challenge is to capture that energy and take it to where it is needed. \nAt Noor 1, there are 500,000 moon-shaped solar mirrors. The 800 rows of mirrors follow the sun across the sky. They whir quietly every few minutes. \nWhen they are finished, the four plants at Ouarzazate will be as big as Morocco\u2019s capital city, Rabat, and make 580 mega-watts of electricity, enough for a million homes.\nSolar energy will make up a third of Morocco\u2019s renewable energy supply by 2020. Wind and hydro will make up the other two-thirds.\n\u201cWe are very proud of this project,\u201d Morocco\u2019s environment minister, Hakima el-Haite said. \u201cI think it is the most important solar plant in the world.\u201d\nThe Noor 2 and 3 plants, which are planned to open in 2017, will store energy for up to eight hours. This will mean that there could be solar energy available 24\/7 in the Sahara and the rest of the region.\n\u201cWe are already involved in transportation lines to take energy to the south of Morocco and Mauritania,\u201d says Ahmed Baroudi, manager of the national renewable energy investment company. But he says the project will go further \u2013 even as far as the Middle East.\nExporting solar energy could have stabilizing effects within and between countries, according to the Moroccan solar energy agency (Masen). Morocco is making plans with Tunisia and they hope to export energy north across the Mediterranean, too.\n\u201cWe believe that it \u2019s possible to export energy to Europe but, first, we have to build the connections, which don\u2019t yet exist, \u201d said Maha el-Kadiri, a Masen spokeswoman.\nUntil that time, the solar energy will be used in Morocco. They might one day use solar energy to remove salt from sea water.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nMany of us know we dont get enough sleep but imagine if we could  x it with a fairly simple solution: getting up later. In a speech at the British Science Festival, Dr Paul Kelley of the Sleep and Circadian Neuroscience Institute at Oxford University said schools should stagger their starting times to work with the natural biological rhythms of their students. It would improve cognitive performance, exam results and students health (lack of sleep can cause diabetes, depression, obesity and immune system problems).\nIn 2014, he published a paper in which he noted that, when children are around ten, their biological wake-up time is about 6.30am; at 16, this rises to 8am; and, at 18, someone you may think is just a lazy teenager actually has a natural waking hour of 9am. The normal school starting time works for 10-year-olds but not for 16- to 18-year-olds. For the older teenagers, it might be more sensible to start the school day at 11am or even later. A 7am alarm call for older teenagers, Kelley and his colleagues wrote in the paper, is the equivalent of a 4.30am start for a teacher in their 50s.\nHe says the solution is not to persuade teenagers to go to bed earlier. The bodys natural rhythm is controlled by a particular kind of light, says Kelley. The eye contains cells that report to a part of the brain that controls our circadian rhythms over a 24-hour cycle. Its the light that controls it. Its like saying: Why cant you control your heartbeat?\nBut it isnt just students who would bene t from a later start. Kelley says the working day should be more linked to our natural rhythms. Describing the average sleep loss per night for different age groups, he says: Between 14 and 24, its more than two hours. For people aged between 24 and about 30 or 35, its about an hour and a half. That can continue up until youre about 55 when its in balance again. The 10-year-old and 55-year-old wake and sleep naturally at the same time.\nThis might be why, he adds, the traditional nine to  ve is so ingrained; bosses control working hours and many of them are in their mid-50s and older so it is best for them. So, should workplaces have staggered starting times, too? Should those in their 50s and above come in at 8am, while those in their 30s start at 10am and the teenage apprentice be encouraged to start at 11am? Kelley says that synchronized hours could have many positive consequences. The positive side of this is peoples performance, mood and health will improve. Its very uplifting because its a solution that will make people less ill, and happier and better at what they do.\nThere would probably be fewer accidents because drivers would be more alert, he says. It could mean the end of rush hour as people staggered their work and school-run times. A later start to the day for many, says Kelley, is something that would bene t all people, particularly families. Parents go and try to wake up teenagers who are waking up three hours too early. It creates tensions for everybody.\nSo, what time does Kelley start work? I am 67 so that means Im like a 10-year-old and I get up just after six. I wake naturally. And, yes, he says he  nds the start of his working day much easier now than he did when he was younger.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nThe business idea is to produce a cheap light that gets free power from gravity and could end the use of dangerous kerosene lamps in Africa and India.\nBut when British designer, Patrick Hunt, tried to get money from banks or venture capitalists to launch his invention, he hit a problem. We tried to get funding to make it happen, but its slow and complex and its unproven and nobody wants to take a risk, he said.\nSo he tried crowdfunding on a US website, Indiegogo, which has recently opened in the UK. Within five days, he hit his target and raised 36,200. His campaign to get donations from the public was so popular that within 40 days he had raised 400,000.\nThe LED light is powered by a dynamo driven by a 10kg bag of rocks. The weight is attached to the light, lifted to a height of about 2m, and while it slowly falls to the ground it will generate enough power for half an hour of light.\nHunt is preparing for production in China and will test the market again by sending 1,000 of the lights to Africa before the full mass production of millions of units.\nHe is one of a new wave of entrepreneurs who are turning to the fast-growing crowdfunding industry for money. Another new site is InvestingZone, which matches wealthy people with start-up entrepreneurs.\nIndiegogo does not offer shares but allows users to offer perks for different levels of investment  people who helped to fund Hunts light felt good about helping the less rich, but also got their own light.\nFor Danae Ringelmann, co-founder of Indiegogo, the gravity light is a perfect example of how meritocratic crowdfunding can be and how it can test an entrepreneurs idea. It is the first time that getting money has been fast, efficient and meritocratic, because it is not about How do I get access to the decision makers in that bank? or Who do I know in that venture capital company? This is all about proving your worth to your customers and fans, getting them to agree your idea will work and fund it.\nEven ideas that dont get funding are worth testing, because you will have saved yourself a lot of time finding out it wasnt a good idea and getting smarter faster, she says.\nRingelmann, who is based in the US, started her career as a Wall Street analyst. In 2008, she decided to quit and use her skills to try and help friends who worked in the arts to raise money.\nFive years on and the site is raising about $2m a week for new businesses in start-up and growth stages. In December 2012, it launched a euro and a sterling service to get a foothold on this side of the Atlantic and says Britain is its third biggest market. International activity is up 41% since December.\nThere is no shortage of competitors, be it Kickstarter, Seedrs or Funding Circle, but Indiegogo is the only crowdfunder where anyone can launch a campaign. No project is thought too wacky.\nThe site charges a 4% fee for successful campaigns. For those that fail to raise their target amount, users can either refund all money to their contributors at no charge or keep all money raised but pay a 9% fee.\nA British woman raised 100,000 to open a cat caf in London through the site. Called Lady Dinahs Cat Emporium, it is not open yet but is advertised as somewhere people can come in from the cold to a comfortable chair, a hot cup of tea, a book and a cat.\nWeve seen campaigns that go to venture capitalists get rejected because the venture capitalists say great idea but no idea if the market actually wants it; it could be something that no one cares about, said Ringelmann.\nThe entrepreneurs do an Indiegogo campaign and this can be enough market proof for venture capitalists to say there is a market for this.\nIt allows you to test your market, test your pricing, test your features, discover new ways of getting money, get vital feedback, says Ringelmann.\nWith her Wall Street background and the experience of helping 100,000 businesses and services raise money, Ringelmann has useful advice for budding entrepreneurs.\nIdeas are a dime a dozen. Its all about the execution and, if you are afraid that your idea will be stolen by someone who could execute it better and faster than you, then you are not the right person to execute that idea. Its all about confidence to move fast and to learn, she says.\nWhile crowdfunding as an alternative to banks has grown, it is not very attractive to big-bucks investors who want a stake in a promising business. That could start to change in the UK with the launch of InvestingZone.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Nobody knows which came first: the economic crisis tearing Greece apart or shisha, the drug now known as the \u201ccocaine of the poor\u201d. What everyone does accept is that shisha is a killer; and at \u20ac2 or less a hit, it is one that has come to stalk Greece, the country long on the frontline of Europe\u2019s financial meltdown. \n\u201cAs drugs go, it is the worst. It burns your insides, it makes you aggressive and ensures that you go totally mad,\u201d said Maria, a former heroin addict. \u201cBut it is cheap and it is easy to get, and it is what everyone is doing.\u201d \nThis drug crisis has put Athens\u2019s health authorities, already overwhelmed by draconian cuts, under further strain. \nThe drug of preference for thousands of homeless Greeks forced on to the streets by poverty and despair, shisha is described by both addicts and officials as a variant of crystal meth, whose potential to send users into a state of mindless violence is underpinned by the substances with which the synthetic drug is frequently mixed: battery acid, engine oil and even shampoo. \nWorse still, it is not only readily available but easy to make \u2013 tailor-made for a society that sees little light at the end of the tunnel. \n\u201cIt is a killer, but it also makes you want to kill,\u201d said Konstantinos, a drug addict. \u201cYou can kill without understanding that you have done it. And it is spreading faster than death. A lot of users have died.\u201d \nFor Charalampos Poulopoulos, the head of Kethea, Greece\u2019s pre-eminent anti-drug centre, shisha symbolizes the depredations of a crisis that has led to record levels of destitution and unemployment. It is, he said, an \u201causterity drug\u201d \u2013 the response of dealers who have become ever more adept at producing synthetic drugs designed for those who can no longer afford more expensive highs from such drugs as heroin and cocaine. \n\u201cThe crisis has given dealers the possibility to promote a new, cheap drug, a cocaine for the poor,\u201d said Poulopoulos at a centre run for addicts in Exarcheia, the anarchist stronghold in Athens. \u201cShisha can be sniffed or injected and it can be made in home laboratories \u2013 you don\u2019t need any specialized knowledge. It is extremely dangerous.\u201d \nAcross Greece, the byproducts of six straight years of recession have been brutal and cruel. Depression, along with drug and alcohol abuse, has risen dramatically. Delinquency and crime have soared as Greek society has unravelled under the weight of austerity measures that have cut the income of ordinary Greeks by 40%. Prostitution \u2013 the easiest way of financing drug addiction \u2013 has similarly skyrocketed. \n\u201cDesperation is such that many women agree to engage in unprotected sex because that way they\u2019ll make more money,\u201d said Eleni Marini, a British-trained psychologist with Kethea. \u201cShisha has been linked to a very intense sexual drive but it attacks your ability to think straight and we\u2019re seeing a lot more pregnancies among drug addicts who engage in prostitution.\u201d In 2012, two sex workers gave birth on the streets of Athens. \nAt a time when suicides have also shot up and the spread of HIV infections has assumed epidemic proportions, drug addicts (a population believed to be around 25,000 strong) have become increasingly self-destructive. And, experts say, young Greeks marginalized by record rates of unemployment \u2013 at 64% Greece has the highest youth unemployment in the EU \u2013 are leading the way. \n\u201cThe crisis has created a widespread sense of pessimism,\u201d said Poulopoulos. \u201cFor those who might have quit drugs, there is now no incentive. Instead, there\u2019s an atmosphere of misery, where people knowing they won\u2019t find work are becoming a lot more self-destructive. In Athens, where the economic crisis has hit hardest, shisha is part of that.\u201d \nGreece\u2019s conservative-dominated coalition government has tried to deal with the problem by driving drug users and other homeless people out of the city centre \u2013 a series of controversial police operations has swept central streets, clearing crowded doorways and malls. \n\u201cBut with such actions, authorities are only sweeping the problem under the carpet,\u201d said Poulopoulos. \u201cWhat, in reality, they are really doing is marginalizing these people even more by pushing them into the arms of drug dealers who offer them protection.\u201d \nJust when the demand for help has never been greater, state-funded organizations such as Kethea have had their budgets slashed by a third at the request of the \u201ctroika\u201d \u2013 the EC, ECB and IMF \u2013 keeping the debt-stricken Greek economy afloat. \nSince the outbreak of the crisis in 2009, Kethea has lost 70 of its 500 staff. The cuts come despite studies showing that, for every euro invested in programmes such as Kethea, the state saves about \u20ac6 in costs to the criminal justice and healthcare systems. \u201cThe cuts we have witnessed are a false economy, a huge mistake,\u201d said Poulopoulos. \nOn the streets of Athens, the breeding ground of shisha, there is rising fear that austerity not only doesn\u2019t work \u2013 it kills.","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"A team at Leicester University has told the world that the body they found under a local car park is the body of King Richard III. There were cheers when Richard Buckley, leader of the team of archaeologists, finally said that they were certain they had found the body of the king. \nThe evidence is very strong. The scientists who did the DNA tests, the people who created the computer-imaging technology to look at the bones in extraordinary detail, the genealogists who found a distant descendant with matching DNA, and the academics who read old texts looking for accounts of the king\u2019s death and burial all gave their findings. \nWork has started on designing a new tomb in Leicester Cathedral, only 100 yards from the excavation site. There will be a ceremony to lay him into his new grave there, probably next year. Leicester\u2019s Museums\u2019 Service is working on plans for a new visitor centre in an old school building next to the site. \nRichard died at the Battle of Bosworth on 22 August 1485, the last English king to die in battle. The researchers revealed how he died for the first time. One picture showed the bottom of his skull cut off by one terrible hit, probably from a razor-sharp iron axe. The axe probably went several centimetres into his brain and, experts say, he would have been unconscious at once and dead very soon. \nThe injury confirms the story that he died in the middle of the battle without his horse. In Shakespeare\u2019s play, he cries: \u201cA horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!\u201d Another hit with a sword, which also went through the bone and into the brain, would also have killed him. But many of the other injuries were after death, which suggests that the king\u2019s naked body was mutilated as it was brought back to Leicester. \nOne terrible injury was certainly after death and could not have happened when his lower body was protected by armour. It suggests the story that his naked corpse was brought back on a horse and mutilated is true. Bob Savage, a medieval weapons expert, said it was probably not a war weapon. It was probably the sort of sharp knife a workman normally carried. \nMichael Ibsen, identified as the descendant of Richard\u2019s sister, was shocked when he heard the confirmation on Sunday. \u201cMy head is still not clear now,\u201d he said. \u201cMany, many hundreds of people died on that field that day. He was a king, but just one of the dead. He lived in very violent times and these deaths would not have been pretty or quick.\u201d \nIt was Mathew Morris who first found the body, in the first hour of the first day of the excavation. At first, he did not believe it was the king. He was digging in the car park, a place that local historians and the Richard III Society said was probably the site of the lost church of Grey Friars. The priests of Grey Friars were brave \u2013 they took the body of the king and buried him in their church. \nTen days later, on 5 September, when more excavation proved Morris had found the right place, he returned with Lin Foxhall, head of the archaeology department, to excavate the body. \u201cWe did it the usual way, lifting the arms, legs and skull first, and then we lifted the torso \u2013 so it was only when we finally saw the twisted spine that I thought: 'My word, I think we\u2019ve found him.'\u201d \nFor Philippa Langley of the Richard III Society, Richard was the true king, the last king of the north, a worthy and brave leader who was a victim of Shakespeare\u2019s negative propaganda. Many people still believe he killed the little princes in the tower: the child Edward V and his brother Richard, were kept as prisoners in the Tower of London when Richard III became king and they were never seen alive again. Some bones were found at the tower centuries later, but it is not certain they are the princes\u2019. There may be a need for more DNA detective work there.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nDNA taken from the wisdom tooth of a European hunter-gatherer has given scientists a glimpse of modern humans before the rise of farming. The Mesolithic man, who lived in Spain around 7,000 years ago, had an unusual mix of blue eyes, black or brown hair and dark skin, according to analyses of his genetic make-up.\nHe was probably lactose intolerant and had more difficulty digesting starchy foods than the farmers whose diets and lifestyles changed in the first agricultural revolution.\nThe invention of farming brought humans and animals into much closer contact and humans probably evolved stronger immune systems to fight infections from the animals. But scientists may have overestimated the impact farming had on the human immune system, because tests on the hunter-gatherers DNA found that he already carried genes that boost the immune system. Some of these gene mutations still exist in modern Europeans today.\nBefore we started this work, I had some ideas of what we were going to find, said Carles Lalueza-Fox, who led the study at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology in Barcelona. Most of those ideas turned out to be completely wrong.\nThe Spanish team started their work after a group of cave explorers found two skeletons in a deep and complex cave system high up in the Cantabrian Mountains of northwest Spain in 2006. The human remains, which belonged to two men in their early 30s, had been extremely well preserved by the cool environment of the cave.\nCarbon dating put the remains at around 7,000 years old, before farming arrived in Europe from the Middle East. Other things were found at the site, including reindeer teeth that were strung and hung from the peoples clothing.\nThe scientists managed to put together one mans entire genome from DNA found in the root of a third molar. It is the first time researchers have got the complete genome of a modern European who lived before the Neolithic revolution.\nThe DNA brought some surprises. When Lalueza-Fox looked at the genome, he found that the man had gene variants that produce dark skin. This guy had to be darker than any modern European, but we dont know how dark, the scientist said.\nAnother surprise was that the man had blue eyes. The results suggest that blue eye colour came first in Europe and that the change to lighter skin happened throughout Mesolithic times.\nOn top of the scientific impact, artists might have to rethink their drawings of the people. You see a lot of reconstructions of these people hunting and gathering and they look like modern Europeans with light skin. You never see a reconstruction of a Mesolithic hunter-gatherer with dark skin and blue eyes, Lalueza-Fox said.\nThe Spanish team compared the genome of the hunter-gatherer to those of modern Europeans from different regions to see how they might be related. They found that the ancient DNA most closely matched the genetic make-up of people living in northern Europe, in particular Sweden and Finland.\nMartin Jones, professor of archaeological science at Cambridge University, said the immunity genes were the most interesting result. There has been the idea that the move from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to farming was bad for our health. There were a number of reasons for that, particularly living closely together with other humans and animals, which meant they competed for the same water supplies, he said.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"When we talk about climate change, we usually just talk about the problem. We usually forget the many solutions. These solutions make recycling faster, reduce emissions and create alternatives to plastic, air conditioning, smartphones and fast fashion that are better for the environment.\nThe Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change met in Copenhagen to present its latest report. There is now climate change on all continents. We must increase our efforts to reduce emissions to make sure that climate change does not get out of control. Copenhagen looked at the risks and challenges but it also looked at the solutions.\nThe Sustainia Award looked at ten best solutions  to climate change. The solutions are used in 84 countries. From the areas of food, fashion, energy, transport, education and health, the awards showed that the future may not be so bad.\nFrom California, we saw how we can now produce plastics from greenhouse gases. These plastics are good quality and not too expensive. From Switzerland, we learned a better way to recycle and reuse old clothes and shoes. And from Canada, we learned how smartphones can make bike-sharing easier.\nThe ten projects each offered unique solutions  to the problem of climate change. The Nigerian project, Wecyclers, won the Sustainia Award 2014.\nWecyclers makes it possible for poor communities to make money from the waste from their streets. Families in Lagos collect the rubbish on the streets. Then, bicycles come and collect the waste. Families get points for the garbage they collect. They can use these points to get things they need.\nRecycling companies buy Wecyclers\u2019 waste. They make the waste into products such as mattresses, pillows and trash bags. Wecyclers helps to solve local waste problems in Lagos, where only 40% of the city\u2019s rubbish is collected.\nOnly 46% of town and city waste in Africa is collected. More than 5,000 families are involved in the Wecyclers scheme and there are plans to start the project in other cities in Nigeria.\nSolutions to climate change are often hi-tech. But, to solve all the different problems, we need different solutions. We can\u2019t just reduce emissions \u2013 we must also use our natural resources more intelligently and create healthier lives for ourselves.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Rare mountain gorillas live in the Virunga National Park in DR Congo. The country could earn $400 million a year from tourism, hydropower and carbon credits, said a WWF report. But a British company want to look for oil there. \nIf they look for oil at the UNESCO World Heritage Site that crosses the equator, as the Congolese government and exploration firm SOCO International hope, it could lead to terrible pollution and conflict, says the WWF. \nSOCO say that they would look for oil in a part of the park called Block V, and that their work would not affect the gorillas. \nSOCO Chairman Rui de Sousa said that SOCO knows about the environmental importance of the Virunga National Park. He also said that oil companies have a central role in today\u2019s global energy supply and that a successful oil project could help a whole country. \nBut Raymond Lumbuenamo, country director for WWF Democratic Republic of the Congo, based in Kinshassa, said that security in and around the park would get worse if SOCO started looking for oil. \n\u201cSecurity is already bad. The UN is involved with fighting units and the M23 rebel force is inside the park. Oil would be a curse. It always makes conflict worse. The park might become like the Niger Delta. Developing Virunga for oil will not make anything better.\u201d \nMany people live in the park \u2013 over 350 people per square kilometre. Oil would not create many jobs, and many more people would come looking for work, Lumbuenamo said. \nOne danger is that another eruption of one of the volcanoes in the park could damage oil company buildings and machines and lead to oil spills in the lakes. \u201cVirunga\u2019s rich natural resources are for the Congolese people, not for foreign oil companies,\u201d Lumbuenamo said. \nBut Raymond accepted that, although the gorillas were safe now, the park would probably not be able to make $400 million. \u201cIt would be difficult to make the kind of money that the report talks of.\u201d \nThe WWF report says that ecosystems in the park could support fishing and ecotourism, and play an important role in providing water and stopping soil erosion. \nThe park is Africa\u2019s oldest and most diverse. It is home to over 3,000 different kinds of animals. \u201cVirunga is a valuable asset to DR Congo,\u201d the report says. \u201cPlans to look for oil put Virunga\u2019s future in danger,\u201d it says.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nWhy do it? The elite football referees of the future smile when you ask them this question. This season, criticism of referees has increased so much that some former referees have started to complain about standards. That is quite significant because, when you talk to referees, it is obvious that supporting each other through thick and thin is fundamental.\nSo why do they do it? Why spend hundreds of hours driving up and down the country? Why enforce rules, some of which inevitably upset people? Why try to climb the ladder until you get the chance to make decisions on television in front of millions of people who scrutinize you and your ability helped by many different camera angles and slow-motion replays?\nYou might get an answer from the face of Lee Swabey moments after he blows the final whistle of a 21 win for Grimsby over Woking, a match at level 5 of the English league system. He gets what all referees hope for every time they referee a match. Twenty-two handshakes, he explains afterwards, proudly. Symbolically, a full set of handshakes, plus a well done from both managers, represents maximum satisfaction. The buzz, as he calls it, of a game that passes smoothly, is something he loves. I wouldnt spend so much time away from my family if this didnt mean the world to me.\nSwabey is one of a group of referees that is highly regarded by the Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL). So he knew he was being watched at that match. PGMOLs chief, Mike Riley, was in attendance, along with his colleague Steve Dunn, watching every significant move the officials make.\nA few weeks earlier, Riley, Dunn and another former referee, Peter Jones, made their way to another level-5 match to watch another young referee  John Brooks. I hope to have the opportunity to get promoted to the Premier League and officiate some of the top games in this country, Brooks says.\nUnfortunately, all the PGMOL delegation saw was the way Brooks handled the difficult situation of cancelling the match because of a frozen pitch. It is all part of the experience Brooks needs to acquire before he is trusted with more important games, the different problems that need dealing with  often, clubs are very reluctant to have a late postponement, particularly when they have to pay all the staff who have come but will not receive any gate money.\nBrooks phoned his coach for advice and made the difficult but correct decision. A little later, the football club secretary arrived with envelopes to pay the officials for their time  the match fee at level 5 is 95 so it is clear that these men do not do it for the money.\nBrooks, like Swabey, has clear ambitions to progress. He knows that dealing with disappointments is a big part of that. How does he feel watching football on TV when a referee gets vilified? Erm  not great, he admits. I do sometimes wish people understood the time and effort we put in. It is very easy to criticize a decision but we do everything to try to get these decisions right. In certain situations, you are going to be unpopular but, if you are uncomfortable with that, you are probably in the wrong job.\nThe former referees agree that the backup, education and tools that todays referees have is very different from what they experienced in their own days. Riley, as a young referee, bought himself books on psychology and nutrition as there was no information on offer to him at all.\nContrast this with Brooks, who has a coach he can call. They consult weekly, discuss how his games have gone, study footage of key decisions and work out how to improve. He also has the support of a sports psychologist, Liam Slack, for regular guidance and an exercise regime to help him handle the 11km he runs during a game.\nBrooks says psychology is vital in his development. One of the things we have talked about is forgetting decisions and moving on, he explains. There may be a big decision to make in the first 30 seconds of the game. Once you have made that, you need to stay focused for the next 89 minutes and not be wondering whether that was correct or worrying about that decision. Liam has taught us some techniques for forgetting that decision. Working with the sports psychologist is really important for mental toughness.\nOn the subject of technology, the three former referees are unanimous in their support of it. We are all in favour of anything that makes the referees job better and makes them more effective on the pitch, says Riley. Minimizing mistakes is the aim. After all, a bad decision can stick with you for a while. The rest of your life, adds Jones with a chuckle.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nThe Duchess of Cambridge gave birth to a son on Monday, 22 July. The baby is third in line to the British throne.\nKensington Palace announced at 8.30pm that the baby was born at 4.24pm in the exclusive Lindo Wing at St Marys Hospital, Paddington, West London. We could not be happier, the Duke of Cambridge said.\nIn a statement, Kensington Palace said: Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Cambridge was safely delivered of a son at 4.24pm. The baby weighs 8lbs 6oz. The Duke of Cambridge was present for the birth.\nThe Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh, the Prince of Wales, the Duchess of Cornwall, Prince Harry and members of both families were informed and were delighted with the news that Her Royal Highness and her child were both doing well.\nIt is understood that the couple delayed making the announcement immediately so that they could enjoy some private time with their newborn. William telephoned his family to tell them the good news, speaking to the Queen, his father Charles and younger brother Prince Harry.\nThe birth of the baby prince means the monarchy has three generations of heirs to the throne for the first time since 1894\nThe baby is the first Prince of Cambridge to be born for more than 190 years since Prince George of Cambridge, a grandson of George III and the only son of Prince Adolphus Frederick, the 1st Duke of Cambridge.\nIn a statement, Prince Charles said: Both my wife and I are overjoyed at the arrival of my first grandchild. It is an incredibly special moment for William and Catherine and we are so thrilled for them on the birth of their baby boy.\nGrandparenthood is a unique moment in anyones life, as countless kind people have told me in recent months, so I am enormously proud and happy to be a grandfather for the first time and we are eagerly looking forward to seeing the baby in the near future.\nThe newest royal will be called HRH Prince George* of Cambridge.\nFollowing tradition, a formal notice was posted on an easel  the same used to announce Prince Williams birth in 1982  in the forecourt of Buckingham Palace shortly before 9pm. Within an hour, the numbers had swelled from hundreds to thousands outside the palace, with locals and tourists wanting to share in the historic moment.\nNew Yorker, Sharon Surloff, was delighted with her phone picture of the royal bulletin. She, her niece and her mother had squeezed through crowds to take a photograph of the easel.\nThe police were just saying to everyone: OK, 20 seconds and then the next person. Its just great to be here, though. We arrived this morning, at nine in the morning, so it has all worked out beautifully.\nThe palace announced the birth in a press release. Minutes later, as crowds of wellwishers outside cheered, Its a boy, the formal medical bulletin was taken from the hospital to Buckingham Palace under police escort.\nThe prime minister was one of the first to offer his congratulations. Speaking outside 10 Downing Street, David Cameron said: It is wonderful news from St Marys, Paddington, and I am sure that, right across the country, and, indeed, right across the Commonwealth, people will be celebrating and wishing the royal couple well.\nIt is an important moment in the life of our nation but, above all, it is a wonderful moment for a warm and loving couple who have got a brand new baby boy. It has been a remarkable few years for our royal family: a royal wedding that captured peoples hearts, that extraordinary and magnificent jubilee and now this royal birth  all from a family that has given this nation so much incredible service.\nCongratulations came from the White House, too, from Barack Obama and his wife. The president said: Michelle and I are so pleased to congratulate the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge on the joyous occasion of the birth of their first child. We wish them all the happiness and blessings parenthood brings.\nThe Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev Justin Welby, tweeted: Delighted for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. May God bless them all with love, health and happiness, he said.\nThe Labour leader, Ed Miliband, said: Many congratulations to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. I wish them and their son all happiness and good health.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Felix Baumgartner stood at the edge of space above New Mexico and paused for a moment. It was a small step away from the capsule, but a 24-mile drop back down to Earth. \u201cOur guardian angel will take care of you,\u201d said mission control, and Baumgartner jumped. \nTen frightening minutes later, the Austrian landed back on Earth. He fell at speeds of up to 725 miles per hour, and he broke three world records. He became the world\u2019s first supersonic skydiver when he broke the sound barrier. \u201cWe love you Felix,\u201d shouted his team in the control room. \nHe was wearing a special suit to protect him against the very big pressure changes during the jump. Without the suit, a man\u2019s blood would boil and his lungs would explode. Baumgartner later said that all he could think about was getting back alive, but he also said: \u201cSometimes you have to go up really high to see how small you are.\u201d \nHis other two records were for the highest altitude manned balloon flight and the highest altitude skydive. The jump was on a sunny morning in good weather. Baumgartner went up into clear skies in an enormous balloon \u2013 it was 30 million square cubic feet and its skin was one-tenth the thickness of a sandwich bag. At the bottom of the balloon was a capsule, where Baumgartner sat in his suit. \nAt the correct height, Baumgartner went through a checklist of 40 things with his helper Joe Kittinger. Kittinger held the record for the highest altitude manned balloon flight before Baumgartner. Baumgartner had a problem with his visor. \u201cThis is very serious, Joe,\u201d he told Kitttinger. \u201cI can\u2019t see when I breathe out.\u201d But they decided to continue, and a record 8 million people watched live on YouTube. \nThe ascent, during which the skies slowly turned black, took two and a half hours. But the descent was much quicker. \nThree cameras, which were attached to Baumgartner\u2019s suit, recorded his free-fall of just over four minutes and then the parachute opening. \nBaumgartner has done lots of dangerous things before. He has parachuted off buildings and mountains and once into a 600 foot deep cave. He did two practice free-falls to prepare for this jump \u2013 one from 71,000 feet and a second from 97,000 feet. But nothing can compare with his jump above the town of Roswell, a place famous for its UFO sightings. \nHe was trying to break five different records: the first human to ever break the sound barrier in free-fall; the highest free-fall altitude jump; the highest manned balloon flight; the longest free-fall; and his jump platform is probably the largest manned balloon in history. The jump beat two of Kittinger\u2019s records: before, the retired US air force colonel held the high altitude and speed records for parachuting. Kittinger jumped from a balloon 19 miles above the Earth in 1960 and gave advice to Baumgartner during the ascent. \nSomeone asked him, \u201cWhat do you want to do next?\u201d Baumgartner said: \u201cI want to inspire young people. I\u2019d like to sit in the same place in the next four years as Joe Kittinger. If there is a young guy who wants to break my record, I want to give him advice.\u201d He said the most exciting moment for him was when he was standing outside the capsule \u201con top of the world\u201d. He added: \u201cThe most beautiful moment was when I was standing on the landing area and Mike Todd [the man who dressed Baumgartner in his suit] came and he had a smile on his face like a little kid.\u201d \nBaumgartner said that he felt like Todd\u2019s son. He said: \u201cTodd was so happy that I was alive.\u201d Earlier, Todd said: \u201cThe world needs a hero right now, and they have got one in Felix Baumgartner.\u201d This will be the last jump, Baumgartner said. He has promised to settle down with his girlfriend, and fly helicopters on rescue missions in the US and Austria.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nJames Bond films are one of the worlds longest running and most successful film series, with 23 movies and more than $6bn earned at box offices around the world. But James Bond shows no signs of slowing down. In fact, Bond is more popular than ever, after the record-breaking performance of Skyfall, which became the biggest ever film at the UK box office in 2012, earning a total of $1.1bn.\nFor this reason, there was a lot of interest surrounding the announcement of a few more details about the 24th Bond film  especially its official title, Spectre. The number one question is: can Spectre repeat Skyfalls success?\nCharles Gant, film editor for Heat magazine, says it is heading in the right direction. Skyfall was a brilliant strategic move, he says. It was simultaneously modern and retro. It appealed to fans of Daniel Craig and it also engaged the older, more nostalgic Bond fans, who may have lost interest over the previous few films. With the new title, he adds, it is certain to be a success.\nIt seems that Eon Productions, the company originally founded in 1961 to make Dr No and that is behind all the official Bonds, is doing all it can to ensure another success  they are installing the key creative talent behind Skyfall on Spectre. Daniel Craig will play Bond at least until film 25 and the same writers have produced the script.\nBut its getting Sam Mendes as director again that gives Bond fans the most hope. A director mainly known for character studies such as American Beauty and Revolutionary Road, Mendes has taken the Bond series to new heights. Gant says: Mendes managed to engage with both the modern and the traditional Bond audience, and he also attracted top actors like Ralph Fiennes. Actors like Fiennes will only agree to be in a film if they like the director.\nThough the Bond series was not in trouble before Mendess arrival  and Craigs  there was a certain amount of staleness towards the end of Pierce Brosnans time as Bond. The series had survived the drying up of original Bond stories to adapt, and the movies were no longer anything like the Ian Fleming originals, but they were lacking dynamism.\nThis cycle, however, was nothing new: the history of the Bond series has been one of ebb and flow, revolving most obviously around the lead actor: first, Sean Connery; then, successively, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Brosnan and, now, Craig. Each new Bond has been a response to the state of the series, and some have been more successful than others.\nLazenby only lasted a single film and Daltons two efforts, The Living Daylights and Licence to Kill, were during a period in the late 80s when the 007 movie was eclipsed by more aggressive, slick Hollywood action movies. According to Gant, the period of Roger Moores last films, and the Dalton period, didnt really excite audiences. Brosnan was more successful commercially, but Craig has taken Bond to new levels. On the other hand, the early Bonds were incredibly commercial films, sexy and exciting, and there was very little like them.\nSkyfall made more money than all the other Bond films. However, the performance of some of the 1960s films was almost as brilliant by comparison. If you adjust the figures for inflation, the 1965 release, Thunderball, is only just below Skyfall, while Goldfinger and You Only Live Twice both did better than the other Craig films (and the 70s Bonds, The Spy Who Loved Me and Live and Let Die, did better, too). By this calculation, Licence to Kill is the worst-performing of all Bonds, with Moores final film, A View to a Kill, the second least successful.\nNevertheless, the Bond brand has remained very powerful over the years and Eon has had to fight off attempts by rival companies to capitalize on the popularity of the series. Through a quirk of rights ownership, adaptations of Casino Royale (in 1967) and Thunderball (as Never Say Never Again, in 1983) were released in competition with Eon productions. After legal disputes that continued for many years, Eon now has full control of both books.\nMartin Campbell was another experienced British director and he was able to plan one of the most elaborate stunts in Bond history. In the famous opening scene of Goldeneye (released in 1995), Bond freefalls into a pilotless light aeroplane. This scene really helped modernize the series and increase its popularity. Moreover, a whole new generation was reached through a hugely successful Goldeneye video-game spin-off, which made a significant contribution to perceptions that the Bond film was no longer stale and old-fashioned.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"On the market square in Rjukan stands a statue of the person who created the town, a Norwegian engineer and businessman called Sam Eyde. The great man looks north across the square at the side of a mountain in front of him. \nBehind him, to the south, is the 1,800-metre mountain known as Gaustatoppen. Between the mountains, along the narrow Vestfjord valley, is the small town that Eyde built at the beginning of the last century for his factory workers. \nEyde used the power of the 100-metre Rjukanfossen waterfall to make hydroelectricity in what was, at that time, the world\u2019s biggest power plant. \nBut one thing he couldn\u2019t do was change the sun. Deep in its east \u2013west valley, with high mountains all around, Rjukan and the 3,400 people who live there are in shadow for half the year. In the daytime, from late September to mid-March, the town, three hours north-west of Oslo, is not completely dark, but it\u2019s certainly not bright. \nNow, high on the mountain opposite Eyde\u2019s statue, 450 metres above the town, three large, solar-powered, computer-controlled mirrors follow the movement of the sun across the sky. They reflect the sunshine down on to the square and fill it in bright sunlight. \n\u201cIt\u2019s the sun!\u201d says Ingrid Sparbo \u2013 she lifts her face to the light and closes her eyes. Sparbo has lived all her life in Rjukan and says, \u201cThis is so warming. Not just physically, but mentally. It\u2019s mentally warming.\u201d \nTwo young mothers bring their children into the square and stand in the sun. On a freezing day, an elderly couple sit on one of the new benches and they smile at the warmth on their faces. Children smile. Lots of people take photographs. A shop assistant, Silje Johansen, says it\u2019s \u201cawesome. Just awesome.\u201d \nElectrical engineer Eivind Toreid says \u201cIt\u2019s a funny thing. Not real sunlight, but very similar. Like a spotlight.\u201d \nHeidi Fieldheim says she heard all about it on the radio. \u201cThis will bring much happiness,\u201d she says. \nAcross the road, in the Nye Tider caf\u00e9, sits the man who created this happiness. Martin Andersen is a 40-year-old artist who moved to Rjukan in the summer of 2001. \nAndersen had the idea for an artwork he calls the Solspeil, or Sun mirror , at the end of September one year: \u201cEvery day, we took our young child for a walk,\u201d he says, \u201cand, every day, I realized we had to go a little further down the valley to find the sun.\u201d By 28 September, the sun completely disappears from Rjukan\u2019s market square. It doesn\u2019t reappear until 12 March. \nIn the months between September and March, Andersen says: \u201cWe would look up and see blue sky above, and the sun high on the mountain, but the only way we could get to it was to go out of town.\u201d \nTwelve years after he first dreamed of his Solspeil, a German company that specializes in CSP \u2013 concentrated solar power \u2013 brought in, by helicopter, the three 17-square-metre glass mirrors that are now high above the market square in Rjukan. \nAnd it really works. Some people were against the mirrors at first, but now even they agree that it works. \n\u201cI was strongly against it,\u201d says Nils Eggerud. Like many others, he felt they needed the money for other things \u2013 for extra carers to look after Rjukan\u2019s old people, perhaps, or better schools, cycle paths and roads. \n\u201cAnd I still don\u2019t know about the maintenance costs,\u201d he says. \u201cWhat will they be, who will pay them? But ... well, it feels nice, standing here. And, really, you just have to look at the people\u2019s faces.\u201d \nIn his office with a view of the square, Rjukan\u2019s young mayor, Steinar Bergsland, is less interested in the cost and more interested in the benefits the mirrors might bring to the town. Already, Bergsland says, there are more visitors than usual and Rjukan\u2019s shopkeepers are making more money than usual. \nThe town had to pay just 1 million krone \u2013 \u00a3100,000 \u2013 of the mirror\u2019s total 5-million krone cost. The rest came from the government and a local business. \u201cAnd\u201d, says Bergsland, \u201cjust look out of the window. Look at those happy faces. Now it\u2019s here, people love it.\u201d","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Scarlett Johansson is suing a French novelist for \u20ac50,000. She says that he wrote things about her personal life that are not true.\nLa premiere chose qu\u2019on regarde (The First Thing We Look At) by Gr\u00e9goire Delacourt is the story of a French model who looks so similar to the American actor that the book\u2019s main male character thinks she is Johansson. In the novel, the model\u2019s beauty means that men see her only as a sex object and women are jealous of her. She has many adventures as Johansson and, in the end, dies in a car crash.\nJohansson does not feel flattered by the best- seller. Her lawyer, Vincent Toledano, told Le Figaro that Delacourt \u2019s novel illegally used Ms Johansson\u2019s name. He has now gone to court because Johansson does not want the book to be translated or to become a film.\nDelacourt said that he chose to mention  Johansson because she is famous for her beauty. He said: \u201cI wrote a work of fiction. My character is not Scarlett Johansson. \u201d\nOn French radio, the author recently said the legal action was \u201csad.\u201d\nDelacourt is one of France\u2019s best-loved authors; his last novel, My List of Desires, was translated into 47 languages and they are making a film of it. But he said he was \u201cspeechless\u201d when he found out Johansson was suing him.\n\u201cI thought she would ask me to go for a coffee with her. I didn\u2019t write a novel about a celebrity,\u201d he said. \u201cI wrote a real love story about women\u2019s beauty, especially interior beauty.\n\u201cIf an author can no longer write about the things that surround us \u2013 a brand of beer, a monument,  an actor \u2013 it\u2019s going to be difficult to write fiction.\n\u201cI\u2019m not sure she\u2019s read the novel because it hasn\u2019t been translated yet.\u201d\nEmmanuelle Allibert, spokeswoman for publisher JC Latt\u00e8s, said taking legal action was \u201ccrazy\u201d. \u201cWe have never known anything like it. It is very surprising because the novel is not even about Scarlett Johansson. It is about a woman who is Scarlett Johansson\u2019s double.\u201d\nThe author \u2019s legal situation would be easier if he had published the book in the USA and not in France. Lloyd Jassin, a New York lawyer, said that the case would probably not go to court in the United States.\n\u201cI thought she might send me flowers because the book was a declaration of love for her, but she didn\u2019t understand,\u201d Delacourt said.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"There are many quirky solutions to help make our cities better places to live, such as glow-in-the-dark trees, underground bike sheds and solar-powered bins.\nCity living is good in many ways but it is not always possible to lead a sustainable lifestyle in a city. Pollution, traffic and loss of green spaces are just some of the daily problems that people in cities have to live with.\nWe look at ten quirky solutions that could make our cities better places to live.\n1 Pop-up parks\nToday\u2019s cities sometimes look like they\u2019re built for cars and not for people. The pop-up park is a simple idea. You need an empty car park, a small amount of money and a plant or two, and you can make your own private park. The PARK(ing) project started as an arts experiment in San Francisco. It has since spread across the world.\n2 Underground storage \nNot everyone in a city has a car. Bikes are in fashion but there is one problem: where to keep the bike safe? An engineering company in Tokyo has a solution: an underground bicycle park. Just seven metres wide, the bicycle park goes deep enough into the ground to keep 204 bikes.\n3 Glow-in-the-dark trees \nWhen most people think of trees that glow in the dark, they usually think of Christmas trees. Not Daan Roosegaarde. The Dutch designer-artist has invented a plant that is like a light. The technology joins DNA from glowing marine bacteria with a plant to create a glow like a jellyfish. Roosegaarde hopes that this technology could one day replace normal street lighting.\n4 Pedestrian electricity\nEvery day, hundreds of people in the east London neighbourhood of West Ham cross a pedestrian walkway close to the underground station. They probably don\u2019t notice the springiness of the walkway. And they probably don\u2019t know that the springy rubber surface powers the streetlights above. The floor has tiles that capture the energy from pedestrians \u2019 footsteps and turn it into electricity. There is a similar system at London\u2019s Heathrow Airport.\n5 Supertrees\nSingapore\u2019s Gardens by the Bay has a group of man-made trees. Up to 50 metres high, these steel \u2018supertrees\u2019 have flowers growing up them. They collect rainwater and 11 of the 18 trees also have solar panels on their \u2018branches\u2019.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"A subway system has billions of inhabitants: the bacteria of Swiss cheese and kimchi, plague and human skin. Now, for the first time, scientists have started to study the bacteria in a city\u2019s subway \u2013 and they have found many interesting results.\nDr Christopher Mason, a scientist at Weill Cornell Medical College, led a team that tested the New York City subway system for 18 months. His team found meningitis at Times Square, a trace of anthrax on a train carriage and bacteria that cause plague on a rubbish bin and ticket machine at stations in uptown Manhattan.\nThe team said the findings of plague and anthrax are not serious. They said that there was only a very small trace of anthrax, that rats probably carried the plague and that no one has become ill with plague in New York for years.\n\u201cThe results do not show that people in New York are at risk,\u201d the study says. In fact, most of the bacteria the team found are harmless to humans.\nSome of the results were not a surprise. They showed that people \u201cshould wash their hands\u201d, Mason said. He also said that they found many bacteria that are helpful, like the bacteria used for making cheese.\nAll around the subway, there were bacteria from cheeses \u2013 brie, cheddar, parmesan and the mozzarella found on New York pizza. The bacteria of Swiss cheese were found in midtown Manhattan and the financial district, and the bacteria used to make kimchi and sauerkraut  showed up in the financial district and Bay Ridge.\nBacteria that can cause illness and infections were very common. Bacteria that cause diarrhoea and nausea, as well as E.coli, and the bacteria that can cause skin infections and urinary-tract infections were common all over the city. The scientists found bacteria that cause tetanus in Soho and bacteria that cause dysentery at a station in the Bronx and in Harlem.\nMason and his team collected more than 1,000 samples from all of New York\u2019s 466 open subway stations. They found 15,152 different species, nearly half of which were bacteria.\nThe good news, they said, is that these bacteria are not spreading sickness or disease in New York and that the subway and city are as safe as everyone thought.\n\u201cIn fact,\u201d Mason added, \u201cI\u2019ve become much more confident riding the subway.\u201d\nMany findings made sense: stations like Grand Central and Times Square, where there are more people, had more bacteria. The Bronx, with its diverse neighbourhoods and stations, had the greatest diversity of bacteria; Staten Island, with just three stops, had the lowest diversity of bacteria.\nThe researchers found sea and fish bacteria at South Ferry, a station that flooded during Hurricane Sandy.\nThe next steps, Mason said, are studies of other cities, which have begun in Paris, S\u00e3o Paolo and Shanghai. They also want to do more studies of New York. He said he hoped the research would help health officials to prevent and track diseases.","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"If the amount of food wasted around the world were reduced by just 25%, there would be enough food to feed all the people who are malnourished, according to the UN. Each year, 1.3bn tonnes of food, about a third of all that is produced, is wasted, including about 45% of all fruit and vegetables, 35% of fish and seafood, 30% of cereals, 20% of dairy products and 20% of meat. Meanwhile, 795 million people suffer from severe hunger and malnutrition. \nWell-publicized attempts to combat the loss of food \u2013 such as recent laws in France that require supermarkets to distribute unsold food to charities \u2013 have highlighted the issue of food waste, identified by the UN as one of the great challenges to achieving food security. Estimates suggest that, by 2050, food production will need to have increased by 60% on 2005 levels to feed a growing global population. \nReducing food wastage would ease the burden on resources as the world attempts to meet future demand. The problem is global but manifests itself in very different ways. In developing countries, there are high levels of what is known as \u201cfood loss\u201d, which is unintentional wastage, often due to poor equipment, transportation and infrastructure. \nIn wealthy countries, there are low levels of unintentional losses but high levels of \u201cfood waste \u201d, which involves food being thrown away by consumers because they have purchased too much or by retailers who reject food because of strict aesthetic standards. \nIn developed countries, consumers and retailers throw away between 30% and 40% of all food purchased, whereas in poorer countries only 5% to 16% of food is thrown away. According to a 2011 report, in Europe and North America, each person wasted 95 to 115kg of otherwise edible food annually, whereas, in sub-Saharan Africa and south and south-east Asia, the equivalent waste was just 6 to 11kg. \n\u201cIn the developing world, food waste is virtually non-existent,\u201d says Robert van Otterdijk, coordinator of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization\u2019s Save Food programme. \u201cFood waste is happening in countries where people can afford to throw away food. One statistic is that the amount of food wasted by consumers in industrialized countries [222m tonnes a year] is almost the same as the total net food production of sub-Saharan Africa [230m tonnes]. But food losses, on the other hand, are really rampant in developing countries because of the underdeveloped conditions they have, from management of production to transportation and distribution.\u201d \nThe environmental impact of food loss and waste is high. The carbon footprint of food produced and not eaten is estimated at 3.3 gigatonnes of CO2, meaning that, if food waste were a country, it would rank as the third highest national emitter of greenhouse gases after the US and China. About 1.4bn hectares, or close to 30% of available agricultural land, is used to grow or farm food that is subsequently wasted. And more surface and groundwater, or \u201cblue water\u201d, is used to produce wasted food around the globe than is used for agriculture by any single country, including India and China. \n\u201cThe whole issue of climate change has to do with our economy of production and consumption being out of balance with what the Earth can provide,\u201d says van Otterdijk. \u201cProduction of food is one of the biggest production sectors in the world and, if one-third of all this is just produced in vain, you can imagine what a huge impact this has on the natural resources \u2013 on land, water, energy and greenhouse gas emissions.\u201d The worst food waste offenders are the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, where consumers waste 39% of all food purchased, followed by Europe, where about 31% of all food purchased by consumers is thrown away. In the UK, 15m tonnes of food is lost or wasted each year. British consumers throw away 4.2m tonnes of edible food each year. This means that 11.7% of all food purchased is avoidably wasted, at an estimated cost to each family of \u00a3700 a year or almost \u00a360 a month. \nThe foods most commonly found in British bins are bread, vegetables, fruit and milk. According to a nationwide analysis of food waste in UK households, the most wasted food in the UK by weight is bread, with consumers throwing away 414,000 tonnes (22.4%) of all bread purchased. By percentage, the most wasted food is lettuce and leafy salads, of which consumers throw away 38% (64,000 tonnes) of all they buy. \nThe most wasted meat, by both percentage and weight, is poultry, of which 13% of all edible parts (not including bones) is wasted and the most wasted fruit by percentage is melon, with the equivalent of more than a quarter of each melon thrown in the bin. \nThe UK has made progress in the past ten years, after a concerted campaign to reduce wastage. It is singled out by van Otterdijk as \u201cone of the great successes\u201d in combating food waste. Between 2007 and 2012, the amount of avoidable food waste produced by UK households decreased by 21%, from 5.3m tonnes to 4.2m tonnes, largely due to greater awareness. Of the food that is not eaten, less is ending up in landfill. In 2000 \u201301, only 14% of household waste was recycled or composted but, by 2011-12, the amount of composted food had risen to 43%. \nVan Otterdijk says there has been a \u201cvery encouraging, unexpected, continuing interest\u201d in the subject of food waste, enabling grass-roots campaigns around the world to gain momentum. \u201cWe have to do much more and it needs the participation of public and private sectors,\u201d he says. \u201cBut if it continues like this, with the same momentum, maybe, after ten years, we\u2019ll have globally significant results.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Sometimes life just isn\u2019t fair. Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook and is now worth an estimated $48bn. James Goodfellow also invented something used by millions of people around the world every day \u2013 the cash machine \u2013 but it didn\u2019t make him rich. In fact, he earned just \u00a310 from the patent and has not made a penny more from it since. \n\u201cYou can imagine how I feel when I see bankers getting \u00a31m bonuses. I wonder what they contributed to the banking industry more than I did to merit a \u00a31m bonus. It doesn\u2019t make much sense to me but that\u2019s the way of the world,\u201d Goodfellow says. \nIt also annoys him that he\u2019s not seen as a good role model for inventors and engineers. He came up with a groundbreaking invention that generated billions of pounds \u201cand I got nothing, so who\u2019s going to want to follow in James Goodfellow\u2019s footsteps and get \u00a310 if they have a fantastic success?\u201d \nThere have been arguments for years over who should officially go down in history as \u201cthe inventor of the ATM\u201d and, in 2005, a man called John Shepherd-Barron received a UK honour for services to banking as the \u201cinventor of the automatic cash dispenser\u201d. But, the UK government is now saying it was Goodfellow who invented the ATM \u2013 so it would seem that, after all the squabbling, his place in history is now assured. \nBack in the mid-1960s, Goodfellow was working as a development engineer and had been asked to devise a way to enable customers to withdraw cash from banks on Saturdays. \u201cMost people working during the week couldn\u2019t get to the bank. They wanted a solution. The solution was a machine which would issue cash on demand to a recognized customer,\u201d he recalls. \u201cI set out to develop a cash-issuing machine and, to make this a reality, I invented the PIN [personal identification number] and an associated coded token.\u201d \nThis token took the form of a plastic card with holes punched in it. The patent documents proposed a system incorporating a card reader and buttons mounted in an external wall of the bank and stated: \u201cWhen the customer wishes to withdraw a pack of banknotes from the system, he simply inserts his punched card in the card reader of the system and operates the set of ten push-buttons in accordance with his personal identification number.\u201d \nAside from the cards with punched holes, that pretty much describes today\u2019s ATM. After Goodfellow successfully demonstrated the methodology by producing a model, prototypes were built and the first machines were installed in 1967. \nAt around the same time, Shepherd-Barron was developing a rival cash-dispensing device. His machine didn\u2019t use plastic cards \u2013 instead, it used cheques impregnated with carbon-14, a mildly radioactive substance. The machine detected the carbon-14, matched the cheque against a PIN and paid out the cash. \nIt is widely accepted that the Shepherd-Barron ATM was the \u201cworld\u2019s first\u201d when it comes to being installed and used by the public; the first one, at a bank in north London, was opened on 27 June, 1967 \u2013 a month before Goodfellow\u2019s ATM made its public debut. However, the patent for Goodfellow\u2019s machine was lodged on 2 May, 1966, 14 months before the London ATM machine came into service. \nThe rivalry between the two men bubbled up when Shepherd-Barron received an official honour for his achievement. Goodfellow says: \u201cMy one big regret is that I never said anything about it until John Shepherd-Barron received the OBE in 2005. This honour was granted on the basis that he was the inventor of the automatic cash dispenser. That really stuck in my throat and I kicked up a bit of a fuss.\u201d Shepherd-Barron is no longer alive to put his case but, in a 2005 interview, he was fairly withering about his rival: \u201cI don\u2019t know him but it\u2019s clear that the difference between Goodfellow and us was that we thought through the whole system concept and that was important to the banks who bought it. His invention reminds me of the hovercraft, an elegant failure.\u201d \nThe cash machine has become a world-conquering piece of technology and nothing \u2013 the contactless revolution, bitcoin, wearable technology, etc \u2013 seems to be slowing its growth: there are now 3m ATMs worldwide, with the number forecast to hit 4m by 2020. \nGoodfellow accepts he didn\u2019t invent the concept of a cash-issuing machine \u201cbut I did invent a way of doing it. When people talk about the Wright brothers, they didn\u2019t invent the concept of flying \u2013 everyone was trying to do it \u2013 but they did it and got the credit for inventing the aeroplane so I think I should get the credit for inventing the cash dispenser.\u201d \nThe good news for Goodfellow is that this is now starting to happen. The website ATMInventor.com concludes: \u201cWho invented the idea of an ATM? We believe it was Luther George Simjian. Who invented the ATM as we know it? We have to think it was James Goodfellow in Scotland for holding a patent date of 1966. Who invented the ATM design we recognize today? We think it was John D White for Docutel in the US.\u201d \nEven better for Goodfellow, his achievement has been officially recognized in the latest edition of a 180-page guidebook called Life in the United Kingdom. In the section about \u201cgreat British inventions of the twentieth century \u201d, it states: \u201cIn the 1960s, James Goodfellow (1937-) invented the cash-dispensing automatic teller machine (ATM) or 'cashpoint'.\u201d \nSo after all these years, Goodfellow finally finds himself being talked about in the same breath as John Logie Baird (the television), Alan Turing (the Turing machine), Sir Frank Whittle (the jet engine) and Sir Tim Berners-Lee (the World Wide Web). Asked what he did with the \u00a310 he received back in the 1960s, Goodfellow says he thinks he blew it on a wild night out, adding: \u201cIt didn\u2019t change my life.\u201d But, he concludes, it\u2019s been a good working life: \u201cI was very happy doing the job I was doing.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nA car with a top speed of 25mph, two seats and no pedals or steering wheel might not make much of an impression at a motor show. But Google, in the US, sent a shock through the car and taxi industries as it unveiled the latest version of its driverless car.\nThe electrically powered vehicle, which Google has begun testing around its headquarters in Mountain View, California, dispenses with all the normal controls, including foot pedals. Instead, it has a smartphone app that calls it and tells it the destination, and a single STOP button between the two front-facing seats in case the passengers need to override the computer.\nThe car, in fact, does all the tasks of navigation, steering, acceleration and braking.\nThe company is building about 100 prototypes for a two-year test. The companys co-founder, Sergey Brin, told a conference in California that the vehicle was still in the prototype stage but that the project was about changing the world for people who do not have good transportation today.\nHe said of the car: Youre just sitting there; no steering wheel, no pedals. For me, it was very relaxing. About ten seconds after getting in, I forgot I was there. I found it really enjoyable.\nGoogle says that the aim of the project is to improve safety and that, because the car is constructed with impact-absorbing foam at the front and a plastic windscreen, it should be far safer than any other car for pedestrians.\nThe cars, which have been built specially by an unnamed company in Detroit, will be used to find out how best to make driverless vehicles work. Google will run a pilot programme using the cars, which are not yet for sale.\nOne challenge is creating high-definition scans of the roads and surroundings before the cars can drive along them because they cannot collect and process enough information in real time.\nSo far, there are high-detail maps of about 2,000 miles of Californias roads, but the state has more than 170,000 miles of public roads.\nGoogle says it is interested in licensing the technology to traditional vehicle manufacturers once it has been refined.\nBut the idea of driverless cars replacing humandriven taxis has been the cause of some alarm.\nDennis Conyon of the UK National Taxi Association says that drivers will become unemployed.\nLondon has about 22,000 licensed black cabs and Conyon estimates that the total number of people who drive taxis for hire in the UK is about 100,000.\nOther car makers, including Volvo, Ford and Mercedes, are working on driver-assisted vehicles, which, unlike Googles version, do not dispense with the driver controls.\nBut Chris Urmson, director of the self-driving car project at Google, said that the new prototypes dispensed with the steering wheel and brakes because a human passenger might not be able to take over in an emergency, and that it was simpler just to have an emergency stop button.\nUrmson said: The vehicles will be very basic. We want to learn from them and adapt them as quickly as possible. But they will take you where you want to go at the push of a button. And, thats an important step towards improving road safety and improving mobility for millions of people.\nSo far, the Google versions of the self-driving cars have driven 700,000 miles without an accident caused by the computer. The company says that thousands of people die each year on the roads and that about 80% of crashes are caused by human error.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nEver since he was diagnosed HIV positive, Moses King, 48, has had one major problem. He has been able to cope with the stigma of being HIV positive  widespread in Liberia  and he was able to access antiretroviral medication, distributed by the Liberian government. But King and his family of six children could not get the right food to eat. A subsistence farmer, he grew vegetables and bought rice. But he could not afford meat and fish  expensive, luxury products in Liberian markets but essential sources of protein.\nPate K Chon, a counsellor who works with HIV sufferers in Liberia, provided a surprising solution. Since watching a documentary about a fish farm in Thailand several years earlier, she had thought of setting up a similar project in Liberia, allowing HIV sufferers to have work and also access a stable source of protein.\nI saw this film about fish in a cement pool and I thought it was a good idea, said Chon, herself diagnosed with HIV in 1992. So many of the people I work with dont have the money to have a balanced protein diet and fish is such a clean source of protein  it doesnt cause health problems like other sources, and it is something we can farm.\nChon began building a pool in which to farm fish. In June 2012, Chon met John Sheehy, a philanthropist. Sheehy raised money for the non-profit fish farm in the northeast of Monrovia, Liberias capital, and set about learning about fish farming, doing an online course through Cornell University and speaking to other fish farmers in Africa.\nI raised the money and built the farm, learned the proper tank layout and water flow system, said Sheehy. A lot of my knowledge was self-taught, and now I would love to be able to write a manual and share it with other people, he added.\nThe project has now grown into the Grow2Feed Liberia Fish Farm, with 12 tanks, which, when full, will each have 5,000 fish  providing up to 200,000 fish per year, serving a community of 1,200 mainly HIV-positive people, including King and his family.\nIn addition to the fish, waste from the tanks is collected and used to irrigate crops, also providing food and money for the community.\nThe members of the community live near the farm, and have agreed to be part of the co-operative, said Sheehy. Many work on the farm and what they get in return is fish. They can use those fish to feed themselves and to sell in the market so that they get money to buy other essential items. The fish farm gives these people with HIV a way of getting back into society  now they are trading with people in the market every week.\nAccording to Liberias health survey,1.5% of Liberias 3.5 million people are HIV positive, with 60% of those women or girls. Stigma and discrimination still surround the illness, and around half of all people with HIV in the country are untreated.\nGood nutrition is particularly important for people with HIV. Research has shown they need much higher levels of protein to stop their health deteriorating and to allow healthy growth. Nutrition is one of the key things if you are taking antiretroviral drugs, said Chon. The drugs are toxic and, if you dont have food to eat, they can make you very ill. But food in Liberia is very expensive. We buy expensive imported rice, even though we should be growing it ourselves and fish is difficult for most people to afford.\nFish farming is absolutely possible in Africa, said Paul White, owner of the HydroFish fish farm in Ivory Coast, which produces 3,000 tonnes of fish each year. A lot of the fish on the market comes from China and is imported frozen. It is of a quality that could never enter Europe or America. He said there had been a lack of investment in fish production but that things were changing now.\nSome critics are sceptical of farmed fish, saying fish can be inbred and have high levels of toxins. But Sheehy said good practice can reduce these problems. A lot of farmed fish is inbred, which does cause problems, but we are using a process with local fish from Liberia, not fish from another region, said Sheehy. And we are not using lakes that are cornered off, where the fish absorb all the toxins in the lake. We can control the environment using the tanks and we test the water and monitor it constantly.\nSheehy hopes to open more fish farms throughout Liberia and the region. A rice-growing co-op in Sierra Leone asked us if we could do this on our property so that they can feed their workers and we have had interest from Nigeria and Central America, said Sheehy. But we operate 100% non-profit and we always will.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"As soon as the children at a primary school in Stirling, Scotland, hear the words \u201cdaily mile\u201d, they leave the classroom and start running around the school field. For three-and-a-half years, all the pupils at St Ninian\u2019s Primary School have walked or run a mile each day. They do it at different times during the day. There has been an increase in obesity in children in the UK but none of the children at this school are overweight.\nThe daily mile has done a lot to improve these children\u2019s fitness, behaviour and concentration in lessons so many other British schools are doing the same. Their children also get up from their desks and take 15 minutes to walk or run round the school or local park.\nElaine Wyllie, headteacher of St Ninian \u2019s, said: \u201cI get at least two emails a day from other schools and local authorities asking how we do it. The thought of children across the country running every day because of something we\u2019ve done is amazing.\u201d\nOne in ten children are obese when they start school at the age of four or five, say the Health & Social Care Information Centre. And, in the summer of 2015, a study found that schoolchildren in England are more unfit than they have ever been. For this reason, primary schools can see the benefits of the daily mile. It has been introduced in schools in various parts of the UK and other schools are planning to introduce it soon. Just in Stirling, 30 schools have already started or are going to start the daily mile.\n\u201cRunning is a good way to improve children\u2019s fitness, and it\u2019s free and easy. The most important thing is that the children really enjoy it. If they didn \u2019t enjoy it, you couldn\u2019t continue with it. \nThey come back inside with bright eyes and rosy cheeks. It\u2019s how children used to look,\u201d said Wyllie. At St Ninian\u2019s, teachers take their pupils out of lessons to the school\u2019s playing field for their daily mile at a time that suits that day\u2019s timetable. Only ice or very heavy rain stop them. Researchers from Stirling University have begun a study to look for evidence of the physical, cognitive and emotional benefits of the daily mile. Dr Colin Moran, who is leading the study, said: \u201cThe children don\u2019t seem to have problems with obesity; they seem happier and teachers say they learn better. So we designed a study that tests all of these things.\u201d They will compare St Ninian\u2019s pupils with children from another school in Stirling where children haven\u2019t started running yet.\nKevin Clelland, a primary school teacher from Leeds, visited St Ninian\u2019s. Then, he convinced the other teachers in his school that it was a great idea. He said: \u201cIt\u2019s such a simple thing to do but seems to have such an amazing impact. We really want to improve the fitness of our pupils.\u201d His school is now building a running track.\nParalympian, Tanni Grey-Thompson, chair of ukactive, a health organization for physical activity, said: \u201cAll children need to achieve 60 active minutes every day \u2013 this can be in a lesson, on the walk to school or in the playground. It\u2019s fantastic to see ideas like the daily mile. It shows that schools want to improve children\u2019s fitness and their cognitive behaviour, and make a real difference to schools, teachers, parents and young people\u2019s lives. We know sitting still kills; not sitting still helps children build skills that will help them for the rest of their lives.\u201d\nThe Scottish government also supports the idea. A spokesperson said: \u201cLearning in PE is improved by ideas like the daily mile, which can help parents keep their children healthy. We are pleased to see that so many Scottish schools are taking part or want to.\u201d","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"John Lewis\u2019s 2015 Christmas advert shows a lonely old man who lives on the moon. \nDepartment store John Lewis\u2019s Christmas ad, which, for many people, shows that the Christmas shopping season has begun, aims to raise hundreds of thousands of pounds for the charity Age UK. John Lewis will also encourage staff and customers to care for elderly people who might be alone over the holiday. \nThe department store has spent \u00a37 million on a campaign that includes the TV ad, a smartphone game and merchandise, including glow-in-the- dark pyjamas. It has also built areas that look like the surface of the moon in 11 of its stores. \nAfter two years of successful ads with cute animals \u2013 a bear and hare, then a penguin \u2013 this time, the story is about a young girl, Lily, who sees an old man living in a small wooden house on the moon through her telescope. The girl tries to send him a letter and a note via bow and arrow. Then, she floats him a present of a telescope tied to balloons. This helps them to make contact. \nThe ad\u2019s message is: \u201cShow someone they\u2019re loved this Christmas\u201d. This is similar to Age UK\u2019s campaign: \u201cNo one should have no one at Christmas\u201d. Profits from three products \u2013 a mug, gift tag and card \u2013 will go to the charity. \nRachel Swift, head of marketing at John Lewis, said that people talk about charities at Christmas and the ad makes you think about someone who lives on your street that might not see anybody. \nThe campaign features the Oasis track Half the World Away sung by Norwegian singer Aurora. \nThe ad cost \u00a31 million to make. The moon scenes were shot at the Warner Bros Studios, where the Harry Potter films were made, and the specially built set was created by one of the team behind the latest Star Wars film, The Force Awakens. \nAs in the last few years, John Lewis showed a short film on TV and social media using the hashtag #OnTheMoon before it showed the full advert. There will be a full moon on Christmas Day 2015 \u2013 a complete coincidence, says Swift. \nIn 2014, the department store also spent \u00a37 million on a campaign with a penguin and a young boy playing together. It had 22 million views on YouTube by the first week of January \u2013 more than the 16.6m views of Sainsbury\u2019s ad with First World War soldiers sharing a bar of chocolate, the UK\u2019s second most popular ad of 2014. \nSwift said that John Lewis wants to just get \u201csomething right for the company at this time of year and do something we hope customers really love.\u201d \nSarah Vizard, from Marketing Week, said \u201cThere are a lot more companies doing Christmas ads this year but I think a lot of those companies just show what you can buy in store. John Lewis does the emotional piece the best. I think people will think the ad is really cute.\u201d","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nHe is not the first person to express scepticism about Mars One, a private mission that aims to send humans to live on Mars from 2025. But Joseph Roche is different from most critics: hes on the shortlist of astronauts.\nRoche, an astrophysicist at Trinity College Dublin who was announced in February as one of the 100 people shortlisted for the mission, has written for the Guardian expressing his doubts about the viability of Mars One.\nThe selection process, Roche writes, was not rigorous enough to reach the standard of more traditional astronaut selection programmes. He also says the Dutch Mars One team have shown a certain naivety because they believe they can succeed alone in the $6bn mission. He says they should now accept it is very unlikely to happen.\nRoche also expressed worries about the way the mission organizers publicized a top-ten list of candidates. The ranking, he said, didnt mean these were the best astronauts. It was based on how many supporter points each had earned.\nHe says that these points only show how much each supporter has donated to Mars One, for example by buying official merchandise.\nThe official timeline for the mission says the group plans to send a stationary lander and satellite to Mars in 2018, followed by a rover in 2020 and cargo missions starting in 2022. Humans would start arriving in 2025 and crews of four would be sent every two years to add to the settlement. They would not return to Earth.\nIn February, a supporter of the project, Gerard t Hooft, a Dutch Nobel laureate in physics, said he did not believe this timetable was realistic. He said: It will take quite a bit longer and be quite a bit more expensive. When they first asked me to be involved, I told them: You have to put a zero after everything.\nRoche also said that there were not 200,000 people who applied to be astronauts, as Mars One said; there were only 2,761.\nHe talked about the selection process in more detail: I have not met anyone from Mars One in person. Initially, there were going to be regional interviews; we would travel there, wed be interviewed and wed be tested over several days. In my mind, that sounded like a proper astronaut selection process.\nBut, all of a sudden, it changed from being a proper regional interview over several days to being a ten-minute Skype call.\nRoche told the Guardian that he did not want to give more interviews because he didnt want to sound negative about the idea of space travel.\nHe writes: I am passionate about scientific endeavour and that is why the ambitiousness of the Mars One plan appealed to me. Mars One were never likely to overcome the financial and technical barriers during their proposed timeline. But it was nice to hear a new idea that challenges us to think about our own role in the future of space exploration.\nHe said that being part of the public debate about future missions has been one of the most interesting and enjoyable aspects of his involvement with Mars One. He went on to say that, If a one-way mission to Mars ever became possible, I would always volunteer. For an astrophysicist, that is not a difficult decision to make. But he does not think there will be a one-way mission in his lifetime.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"Swedish prisons have a reputation around the world for being liberal and modern. But are the country\u2019s prisons too soft? \nThe head of Sweden\u2019s prison and probation service, Nils Oberg, said in November 2013 that four Swedish prisons will close because of an \u201cout of the ordinary\u201d drop in the number of prisoner. \nThere has been no fall in crime rates, but, between 2011 and 2012, there was a 6% drop in the number of people in Sweden\u2019s prisons, now a little over 4,500. Oberg said he was confused by the drop in numbers, but hoped that the reason was to do with how his prisons are managed. \u201cWe certainly hope that the efforts we put into rehabilitation and into stopping criminals from reoffending has made a difference,\u201d he said. \n\u201cThe modern prison service in Sweden is very different from when I joined as a young prison officer in 1978,\u201d says Kenneth Gustafsson, governor of Kumla Prison, Sweden\u2019s most secure jail. \u201cWhen I joined, prisoners were treated well \u2013 maybe too well. But, after high- profile escapes in 2004, we had to make the prisons more secure.\u201d \nIn Sweden, prison sentences are not usually for more than ten years. Sweden was the first country in Europe to introduce the electronic tagging of criminals and it continues to keep prison sentences short when possible by using community-based punishments. These have stopped many criminals from reoffending. \nThe reoffending rate in Sweden is between 30 and 40% \u2013 to compare that with another European country, the number is around half that of the UK. One thing that has kept reoffending down and the number of prisoners in Sweden below 70 per 100,000 people is that anyone under 15 cannot be responsible for their crime. \nAlso, in Sweden, no young person under the age of 21 can be sentenced to life \u2013 this is not the same in many other countries \u2013 and they try to keep young offenders out of prison. \nOne reason for the drop in prison numbers might be the amount of post-prison support available in Sweden. A government-run probation service gives treatment programmes to offenders with drug, alcohol or violence problems. Around 4,500 Swedes help the service \u2013 they volunteer to make friends with and support offenders. \n\u201cIn Sweden, we believe very much in the idea of rehabilitation,\u201d says Gustafsson. \u201cOf course, there are some people who will not or cannot change. But, in my experience, most prisoners want to change and we must do what we can to help them.\u201d","label":0,"label_text":"Elementary"}
{"text":"Intermediate \nDr Ben Brabon of Edgehill University teaches a MOOC  a massive open online course  in literature. The course is one of only two accredited MOOCs currently on offer in the UK. According to Brabon, many students enrol on MOOCs because they are free and they enjoy communicating with other students. MOOCs have no enrolment criteria and no fees, so students behave very differently from students on traditional higher education courses.\nMOOCs are the newest big idea to try to make higher education available to everyone. A lot of money is being invested in new online platforms that deliver sophisticated and interactive courses to tens of thousands of students. Investors hope to find a business model for MOOCs that will make them profitable  so far, courses have depended on universities funding their star lecturers course design and online teaching time. One way of making a return on the investment might be studying data about how, why and when millions of students sign up, interact with their material, submit their assignments, message each other and drop out of the course.\nOne of the questions about the future direction of MOOCs is that nobody can yet say who exactly they benefit. Universities who want to attract fee-paying international students onto postgraduate courses by showing off their best programmes online? Students in developing countries who want access to first-world universities? Employees who wish to develop their professional knowledge? People without qualifications who want to use MOOCs as a bridge to higher education? Or hobby learners, who want to learn about a subject area in which they have an interest?\nMOOCs may be popular at the beginning, but they have very poor completion rates, says Brabon. His literature course had 1,000 enrolments and 31 completions. And almost all of those had a first degree or had been educated to degree level, he says. So MOOCs may not be opening up higher education to sectors of the population it hasnt reached yet.\nLearning online is a different thing and needs quite advanced learning skills, confirms David Kernohan, progamme manager for eLearning Innovation at a charity that promotes the use of digital technologies in UK education and research. With MOOCs, theres very little support available: the student does not get any individual attention. Instead, they get peer support, such as online discussion forums. Although this may mean that online study is unattractive or difficult for someone without high-level qualifications, it suggests, he says, that MOOCs could be a really good tool for continuing education.\nAt a time when the number of part-time students has fallen sharply because the price of a degree is rising, could this type of open and free-to-access course provide a new path to university-level education? Could an entire degree be taught via MOOCs? I dont think thats how MOOCs work, says Brabon. Instead, he suggests a blended approach that combines a campus experience with a MOOC; also, perhaps, using MOOCs to create a global degree, with students taking courses from across the world, might be possible.\nBut thats a little way into the future. For now, MOOC completion certificates have no quality assurance on either the course content or its assessment standards, so employers will not be impressed by them. Accreditation is now essential for MOOCs if they want to gain credibility with academics and employers, says Brabon.\nSome people are idealistic about MOOCs  they want to bring the best of first-world teaching to students in less developed countries. But theres cynicism, too, with the suggestion that universities could use MOOCs to advertise their on-campus courses to bigger numbers of lucrative students from outside the EU.\nMike Sharples, chair of Educational Technology, doesnt agree with that cynicism. MOOCs are mainly a way to publicize and share universities best teaching talent, as well as encouraging interaction and getting feedback from students around the world, he says. He believes that enrolling international students onto university courses is only a secondary objective of MOOCs  but they could certainly be a very clever marketing idea, as he observes that if 20,000 people sign up to a MOOC  well, you only need 20 of those to enrol afterwards to run a masters.\nIn South America, China and countries in Africa, there is a huge appetite for learning and some of the worlds best courses are now offered online, adds Sharples. If people are genuinely fascinated by learning, then why not? The real challenge is to allow those countries not just to study MOOCs, but also to create them.","label":1,"label_text":"Intermediate"}
{"text":"\u201cThere are certainly MOOC junkies, who take them for no other reason than they\u2019re free and they like hanging out,\u201d grins Dr Ben Brabon of Edgehill University, whose massive open online course in vampire fiction is one of only two accredited MOOCs currently on offer in the UK. Brabon isn\u2019t denigrating people who enrol on MOOC courses: he\u2019s simply pointing out the motivation that prompts certain individuals to sign up. When a course is open entry \u2013 MOOCs have no enrolment criteria and no fees to pay \u2013 then participants are going to behave very differently from students in a traditional higher education setting. \nMOOCs are the newest big thing in the quest to enable higher education for all. A great deal of venture capital money is being invested in the emerging online platforms, which enable the delivery of increasingly sophisticated and interactive course content to participants who can number in the hundreds to the tens of thousands. For these investors, the Holy Grail is to find a business model for MOOCs that will make them profitable \u2013 so far, courses have depended on universities being prepared to bankroll their star lecturers\u2019 curriculum design and online teaching time. Mining the data captured about how, why and when millions of participants opt to sign up, interact with their material, submit their assignments, message each other and drop out of the course may be one way of getting a return on the investment. \nPart of the dilemma around which future direction MOOCs will take, however, is that nobody can yet define whom exactly they are meant to benefit. Universities keen to entice fee- paying international students onto postgraduate courses by showing off their best programmes online? Students in developing countries hungry for access to first-world universities? Employees wishing to develop their professional knowledge? People lacking qualifications who want to use MOOCs as a bridge to higher education? Or hobby learners, who are keen to learn about a subject area in which they have an interest? \nThough they may be popular to start off with, MOOCs have dire completion rates, observes Brabon. For his vampire fiction course, that meant 1,000 enrolments and 31 completions. \u201cAnd almost all of those had a first degree or had been educated to degree level,\u201d he says. \u201cSo the MOOCs trend may not be opening up HE to sectors of the population it hasn\u2019t reached to date.\u201d \n\u201cLearning online is a different thing, needs quite advanced learning skills,\u201d confirms David Kernohan, progamme manager for eLearning Innovation at Jisc, a charity that champions the use of digital technologies in UK education and research. \u201cWith MOOCs, there\u2019s very little support available: the student is dropped in and tends not to get any individual attention. This is, instead, approximated by peer support such as online discussion forums.\u201d While this may mean that online study is unattractive or difficult for someone without high-level qualifications, it does, he says, suggest that MOOCs could be \u201ca really good tool for continuing education.\u201d \nAt a time when the number of part-time students has fallen sharply as the price of a degree rises, could this type of open and free-to-access course provide a new path to university-level education? Could an entire degree be taught via MOOCs? \u201cI don\u2019t think that\u2019s how MOOCs work,\u201d says Brabon. Instead, he suggests \u201ca blended approach that combines a campus experience with a MOOC; also, perhaps, using MOOCs to create a global degree, with students taking courses from across the world, might be possible.\u201d \nBut that\u2019s a little way into the future: for now, no prospective employer will care much if you come waving your MOOC completion certificate, without any quality assurance on either the course content or its assessment standards. Accreditation is therefore now the central challenge that MOOCs must grapple with to gain credibility with academics and employers, says Brabon, who is on a Quality Assurance Agency working group, aiming to develop an agreed approach to standards and marking. \nThere is idealism around the concept of MOOCs bringing the best of first-world teaching to students in less developed countries. But there\u2019s cynicism, too, with the suggestion that universities could use MOOCs to advertise their on-campus wares to greater numbers of lucrative \u2013 though certainly not always wealthy \u2013 students from outside the EU. \nMike Sharples, chair of Educational Technology, doesn\u2019t buy into that cynicism. MOOCs are viewed primarily as a way to showcase and share universities\u2019 best teaching talent, as well as encouraging interaction and soliciting feedback from students around the world, he says. He believes that recruiting international students onto university courses is only a secondary objective of running MOOCs \u2013 though they could certainly be a very canny marketing move, as he observes that \u201cif 20,000 people sign up to a MOOC \u2013 well, you only need 20 of those to enrol afterwards to run a master\u2019s.\u201d \nMeanwhile, any politically correct qualms about whether UK academic institutions are patronizing developing countries by exporting small snippets of elitist education may soon be entirely irrelevant, warns Matthew Poyiadgi, managing director at Pearson VUE. \u201cI believe we may get to a situation in the future where universities maybe won\u2019t have a choice, and where British universities are saying, 'if we don\u2019t have a presence in China, then we\u2019ll get left behind,'\u201d he says. \n\u201cIn South America, China, countries in Africa, there is a huge appetite for learning and some of the world\u2019s best courses are being offered online,\u201d adds Sharples. \u201cIf people are genuinely fascinated by learning, then why not? The real challenge is to allow those countries not just to consume and study MOOCs, but also to create them.\u201d","label":2,"label_text":"Advance"}