Week six - SpaceX

What SpaceX’s Rocket Explosion Means for Elon Musk

The technology billionaire runs two high-profile, innovative companies — but his rough summer shows he may be stretched too thin

• Kevin Kelleher 
  
 
Sept. 1, 2016

The SpaceX explosion is only the latest in a series of issues, both mechanical and financial, that has plagued SpaceX and Tesla, where Musk serves as CEO, as well as SolarCity, where Musk chairs the board and where his cousins serve as CEO and CTO. All three companies boast ambitious goals. SolarCity brings low-cost clean energy to the masses. Tesla aims to speed the transition to a sustainable-energy economy. SpaceX’s long-term goal is to make humans a multi-planetary species. Any one of these would be an audacious ambition for a corporate leader. All three at once may be a bit too much for any one human being.

That challenge doesn’t hinder Musk. Instead, it seems to spur him on. It’s like he’s sitting inside three racing cars at once – behind the wheel of two of them, a backseat driver in the third. Sometimes this leads to inspiring results, such as the breathtaking sight of a rocket landing agilely back on Earth after being launched to space. Other times it ends in a smoking wreck, as it did Thursday.

And yet, even this difficult trick is not enough of a challenge for Musk. He has consistently raised the bar for himself, by vowing a mission to Mars in two years, by angling to merge SolarCity with Tesla, and by doubling down on Tesla’s production goals. The problem for Musk in 2016 is, the bolder the goals become, the faster the crashes and glitches are coming.

http://time.com/4476888/elon-musk-spacex-explosion-tesla/?iid=sr-link2

Structure of the Lead：

WHO- Elon Musk

WHEN- Thursday

WHAT- raised the bar for himself

WHY- SpaceX explosion

WHERE- SolarCity

HOW-  by vowing a mission to Mars in two years

keywords

1.financial 財政的

2.plague 困難

3. audacious 無畏的

4.spur 鞭策

5.agilely 敏捷的

6.wreck 損壞

7.merge 同化

8.doubling 加倍

9.bolder 更大膽

10.glitch 小故障

Week five - Paris Climate Change Conference

What to Know About the Paris Climate Change Conference

Over 40,000 people are meeting in Paris for a historic conference on climate change

• Justin Worland  
 

Nov. 29, 2015

More than 100 heads of government and 40,000 other attendees are meeting on Nov. 30 for the launch of the two-week United Nations conference on climate change. Negotiators expect the gathering, formally known as the 21st Conference of Parties (COP 21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), to yield the most significant international agreement yet to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions, and slow the effect of climate change. But the negotiations are likely to be contentious as developed nations wrestle with developing ones in the effort to divide the global bill over global warming. Here’s what you need to know:

This isn’t the first time that there’s been a lot of hype surrounding international climate negotiations. Why are people so optimistic this time around?

Leaders of past climate summits tried to build top-down climate agreements in which countries would agree to broad guidelines to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Treaties borne out of that approach—like the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which required developed countries to commit to binding greenhouse gas reduction targets—gave governments little flexibility in addressing climate change. Some countries, like the United States, opted not to participate in the agreement. Others, like Canada, ratified it, but ultimately ignored its provisions. Climate advocates set a 2009 conference in Denmark as an opportunity to achieve a comprehensive agreement that would actually lead to a reduction in emissions. But the conference was poorly organized and China and other countries refused to cooperate. In the end, the negotiations fell apart and the resulting Copenhagen Accord fell flat.

http://time.com/4123568/paris-climate-conference-preview/?iid=sr-link1

Structure of the Lead：

WHO- heads of government and other attendees

WHEN- Nov.30

WHAT- 21st Conference of Parties (COP 21)

WHY- global warming

WHERE- Paris

HOW-  by conferences 

keywords

1.attendees 出席者

2.negotiator 交涉者

3. yield 同意

4.emission 排放

5.wrestle 深思

6.hype 炒作

7.borne 負荷

8.opt 選擇

9. ultimately 最終

10.provision 條款

Week four - Leonardo DiCaprio

How Leonardo DiCaprio Got People to Care About Climate Change

The actor's speech broke the record on climate change discussion on Twitter, one study finds

Ashley Hoffman Aug.5.2016

It seems like Leonardo DiCaprio got a bunch of people to talk about the Earth more after he accepted the award for Best Actor at the Oscars in February.

In his acceptance speech, which he finally got to make after years of looking gracious every time he didn’t win, DiCaprio demanded action on climate change, and it caused a significant spike in online conversation about climate change online, a new study published in the journal Plos one finds. According to the research, the number of tweets about climate change following DiCaprio’s call surged after the speech. (While the media didn’t report on climate change any more than they already were after DiCaprio’s plea, tweets with the phrases “climate change” or “global warming” hit a record-breaking number.)

“Climate change is real, it is happening right now, it is the most urgent threat facing our entire species, and we need to work collectively together and stop procrastinating. We need to support leaders around the world who do not speak for the big polluters or the big corporations, but who speak for all of humanity, for the indigenous peoples of the world, for the billions and billions of underprivileged people who will be most affected by this, for our children’s children, and for those people out there whose voices have been drowned out by the politics of greed,” he said.

http://time.com/4441219/leonardo-dicaprio-oscars-climate-change/?iid=sr-link3

Structure of the Lead：

WHO- Leonardo DiCaprio

WHEN- after he accepted the award for Best Actor

WHAT-  a speech about climate change

WHY- Got People to Care About Climate Change

WHERE- at the Oscars

HOW-  by speech

keywords

1.a bunch of 一堆

2.gracious 親切的

3. significant 重要的

4.spike 阻止

5.surge 激增

6.urgent 緊急的

7.procrastinate 拖延

8.indigenous 本地的

9.underprivileged 社會底層的 

10.drowned out 淹沒

Week three - Refugee (22)

The Messages That Hold Refugee Families Together

"Listening to these messages, I felt these stories had been given a life"

• Olivier Laurent
 

March 28, 2016

They send back messages of love, hope and sorrow. Hundreds of thousands Syrian refugees have fled their homeland for Jordan, Turkey and, in increasing numbers, Europe. But families separated by thousands of miles still stay connected, thanks to smartphones and applications like the cross-platform mobile messaging program WhatsApp.

For the past three years, Jordanian-American photographer Tanya Habjouqa has been documenting the aftermath of the Arab Spring and Syria’s descent into civil war through the eyes of the millions of refugees that have flocked to Jordan and across the Mediterranean. At the end of a two-month stretch in the Azraq and Zaatari refugee camps, as well as in Amman, Ramtha and Irbid, she came to a crossroads. “Since Alan Kurdi, the imagery around Syrian refugees is ubiquitous,” she says. “We’ve seen everything.” Looking at her own work, Habjouqa thought her images failed to convey the urgency of this story as millions of Syrians continue to live in squalid conditions in Jordanian, Turkish and Greek refugee camps. Her role, she says, was to make people care for these refugees at a time when public opinion is shifting toward isolationism.

“I was racking my brain,” she says, “trying to find the imagery that said something I hadn’t been said again and again.”

Then, toward the end of her assignment, she saw a mother playing an audio message of her husband singing a lullaby to their child. The woman’s husband had sent his messages from Germany, where he was residing apart from his family. Listening to his messages, she felt that the story gained new life.

http://time.com/4272666/refugees-stories-whatsapp/?iid=sr-link1

Structure of the Lead：

WHO- Tanya Habjouqa

WHEN- the past three years

WHAT-  send back messages 

WHY- make people care for these refugees 

WHERE- Arab Spring and Syria

HOW-  by Whatsapp

keywords

1.homeland 祖國

2.platform 平台

3.document 證明

4.aftermath 後果

5.descent 下降

6.Mediterranean 地中海

7.crossroads 十字路口

8.ubiquitous 無所不在的

9.urgency 催促

10.squalid 骯髒的

Week two - Paris (22)

This Woman Played Dead to Survive Paris Terrorist Attacks

"You never think it will happen to you"

• Justin Worland
 

Nov. 15, 2015

A woman told the story of how she played dead to survive Friday’s terrorist attacks in Paris that killed at least 129 others in a chilling Facebook post, along with a photo of her bloodied shirt.

Isobel Bowdery, 22, described a fun atmosphere at a Paris rock show Friday that quickly turned into a scene of mass carnage as terrorists opened fire. Bowdery held her breath and sat motionless for more than an hour as her fellow concertgoers collapsed around her. “Dozens of people were shot right in front of me. Pools of blood filled the floor,” she wrote. “Futures demolished, families heartbroken.”

The 22-year-old also wrote of the humanity displayed by her fellow attack victims and first responders instead of focusing on the “animals” responsible for the bloodshed. A couple’s “last words of love” inspired her to keep “believing the good in the world,” she wrote. One man risked his life to cover Bowdrey’s head as she “whimpered.” An injured man held and reassured her after the attacks.

“As I lay down in the blood of strangers and waiting for my bullet to end my mere 22 years, I envisioned every face that I have ever loved and whispered I love you,” she wrote.

http://time.com/4113771/paris-terrorist-attack-survivor/?iid=sr-link10


Structure of the Lead：

WHO- Isobel Bowdery

WHEN- Friday's terrorist attacks

WHAT- told a story

WHY- played dead to survive

WHERE- Paris rock show

HOW-  in a Facebook post

keywords

1.chilling 使人恐懼的

2.carnage 大屠殺

3.motionless 靜止的

4.concertgoer 常參加音樂會者

5.collapse 倒下

6.demolish 推翻

7.whimper 啜泣

8.reassured 使...安心

9.envision 想像

10.victim 受害者

Week one - Malala (22)

Runner-Up: Malala Yousafzai, the Fighter

In trying to silence this Pakistani schoolgirl, the Taliban amplified her voice. she is now a symbol of the struggle for women’s rights all over the world

By Aryn Baker / MingoraDec. 19, 2012

“This is Malala,” said the girl on the other end of the line. Malala Yousafzai, 15, was calling from the hospital in Birmingham, England, where under heavy guard she has been undergoing treatment since Oct. 16. “I understand that what happened was tragic, but you need to stay strong,” Malala told Ayesha. “You cannot give up.”

It was one of the few times Malala had called anyone in Pakistan since she was flown to England for specialized medical treatment after a Taliban assassin climbed onto her school bus, called out for her by name and shot her in the head on Oct. 9. Her brain is protected by a titanium plate that replaced a section of her skull removed to allow for swelling. But she spoke rapidly to the older girl in Urdu, encouraging her to stand up for her father even if doing so brought risks. As an outspoken champion of girls’ right to an education, Malala knew all about risk — and fear and consequences — when it comes to taking on the Taliban. “The way she spoke was so inspirational,” Ayesha says. “She made me realize that my father was fighting our enemies and that it was something I should be proud of, not afraid.” The next day Ayesha returned to school. And with that call, Malala began to return to what she seems born to do — passing her courage on to others.

In trying, and failing, to kill Malala, the Taliban appear to have made a crucial mistake. They wanted to silence her. Instead, they amplified her voice. Since October her message has been heard around the world, from cramped classrooms where girls scratch out lessons in the dirt to the halls of the U.N. and national governments and NGOs, where legions of activists argue ever more vehemently that the key to raising living standards throughout the developing world is the empowerment of women and girls. Malala was already a spokesperson; the Taliban made her a symbol, and a powerful one, since in the age of social media and crowdsourced activism, a parable as tragic and triumphant as hers can raise an army of disciples.

http://poy.time.com/2012/12/19/runner-up-malala-yousafzai-the-fighter/?iid=sr-link6

Structure of the Lead：

WHO- Malala Yousafzai

WHEN- since Oct.16

WHAT- passing her courage on to others

WHY- to encourage others

WHERE- hospital in Birmingham, England

HOW- with her voice

keywords

1.amplify 放大

2.undergo 接受(治療)

3.assassin 刺客

4.titanium 鈦

5.skull 頭蓋骨

6.vehemently 熱切地

7.legion 大量的

8.cramped 難辨的 

9.activism 行動

10.triumphant 成功的