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하루 10분이면 영어에 대한 두려움을 극복하고 누구나 유창하게 영어를 구사하실 수 있습니다.
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Wildfires Burning Across Canada Also Affecting the US Northeast Forest fires continued to burn in several areas of Canada on Thursday affecting the northeastern United States as well.
Thousands of people in Canada have fled their homes. In the U.S., many American cities are under a billowing haze.
Canada’s Federal Minister of Emergency Preparedness Bill Blair said 3.8 million hectares have already burned. He said that is about 15 times the 10-year average.
Wildfires are common in Canada. However, it is unusual for fires to burn in the eastern part of the country and the west. This has stretched the resources of Canada’s firefighters. The government has used military resources to help in the effort. Hundreds of U.S. firefighters also arrived in Canada to help, and more are expected.
On social media, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau blamed climate change. "These fires are affecting everyday routines, lives and livelihoods, and our air quality," Trudeau said on Twitter.
Some of the most severe fires are in the eastern province of Quebec. More than 11,000 people had to flee their homes there.
Wildfire season started early in Alberta last month. Large areas have burned in that western province. In the east, Nova Scotia continues to fight forest fires in several areas.
The Pacific province of British Columbia is also facing big wildfires. Temperatures were predicted to reach 33 Celsius on Thursday before thunderstorms and heavy rains arrive on Friday.
Rob Schweitzer is executive director of BC Wildfire Service, a part of the government of British Columbia. Schweitzer said lightning strikes could start more fires in dry forests. He said a lot depends on how much rain comes with the storms.
"When you get 150 or 200 strikes in one day from lightning coming through the province, it's impossible to have enough resources to suppress them all," he said.
Wildfires have eased in Alberta, the center of Canada's oil and gas industry. But more than 3,000 people remain under evacuation orders and heat warnings are in effect in the south of the province.
Smoke-forecasting website BlueSky Canada showed wildfire smoke spreading across much of the country on Thursday. The smoke is expected to worsen in the Canadian cities of Ottawa and Toronto.
In the United States, the cities of Cleveland, Ohio, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania are expected to have continued poor air quality. The smoke is expected to affect other cities along the East Coast of the United States, including New York City. There, Mayor Eric Adams advised people to stay inside because of the poor air quality.
I’m Jill Robbins.View -
Teacher Aims to Improve Japan’s Smile In one of Keiko Kawano's recent classes, more than 10 Tokyo art school students held mirrors to their faces. The students moved the sides of their mouths upward with their fingers. They were practicing how to smile.
Kawano's services as a smile teacher are seeing increased demand in Japan, where almost everyone wore face coverings such as masks during the pandemic.
Himawari Yoshida is taking the class as part of a school program that prepares students for the job market. The 20-year-old Yoshida said she needed to work on her smile.
"I hadn't used my facial muscles much during COVID, so it's good exercise," she said.
Kawano's company, Egaoiku, which means "smile education,” has customers that include private companies and local governments. An hour-long one-on-one lesson costs $55.
Mask-wearing was normal in Japan even before the pandemic. People wear masks when it is allergy season and around school test times.
While the government may have lifted its recommendation to wear masks in March, many people have not stopped wearing them. An opinion study by public broadcaster NHK in May showed 55 percent of Japanese say they were wearing masks just as often as two months earlier. Only eight percent said they had stopped wearing masks.
Around 25 percent of the art school students who took the class kept their masks on during the class. Young people might have become used to life with masks, Kawano said. She noted that women might find it easier to go out without makeup and men can hide that they have not cut their facial hair.
Kawano is a former radio host. She started giving lessons in 2017.
She has also trained 23 others as smiling coaches to spread the method of creating a good smile.
Her "Hollywood Style Smiling Technique" method includes "crescent eyes," "round cheeks" and shaping the edges of the mouth to show eight teeth in the upper row. Students can try out their technique on a tablet to get scored on their smile.
Kawano believes that, culturally, Japanese people may be less likely to smile than Westerners. The difference could be a result of Japan’s sense of security as an island nation and as a state. Reuters news service said Kawano wondered if the threat of guns might cause people to smile more.
"Culturally, a smile signifies that I'm not holding a gun and I'm not a threat to you," she said.
An increasing number of foreign visitors have been coming to Japan. Kawano said that Japanese people need to communicate with foreigners with more than just their eyes:
She said, "I think there's a growing need for people to smile."
I’m John Russell.
Anton Bridge and TomView -
Eastern US Concerned About Air Quality During Canada Fires Winds are pushing smoke from Canadian wildfires into major cities across the U.S. Midwest and East Coast. The smoke is causing dangerous air quality levels in both countries.
The wildfires are burning over 400,000 hectares across Canada. They stretch from the western provinces all the way to the eastern provinces of Quebec and Nova Scotia.
Canadian officials have expanded evacuation orders and asked other countries for help fighting more than 420 fires nationwide.
Winds are blowing smoke from Eastern Canada to the south, causing people in places like New York City, Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to see hazy skies. Officials in many cities have sent out air quality warnings and urged people to limit time outside.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said the smoky air and the smell of burning wood are likely to stay around for a few more days in northern states.
Darren Austin is a weather expert with the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management. He said the small eastern state sometimes sees smoke in the air from wildfires. However, by the time the smoke gets to his state, it has often spread over a large area. This time, the fires are much stronger and only about 800 kilometers away.
Dr. David Hill is a breathing and lung expert based in Connecticut. He said this kind of smoke contains small particles that can get into the lungs and cause health problems.
Trent Ford is a weather expert in the Midwestern state of Illinois. He said the recent dry and windy conditions in many places across the country have made it easier for the smoke to travel longer distances. Rain would have made the air heavier and cleaner.
The American Lung Association notes that smoky air can be a problem for young children because they breathe in more air relative to their body weight than adults.
Hill, the lung expert, said people who will be working outside for a long period of time should consider wearing a face mask. The ones people wore during the COVID-19 pandemic – rated N95 or similar- will help.
In addition, he advised people to check their home air filters and consider purchasing an air purifier.
I’m Dan Friedell.View -
Performers Worry Artificial Intelligence Will Take Their Jobs Leaders of the SAG-AFTRA actors’ union say the group’s members are concerned that they will lose work because of Artificial Intelligence, or AI, tools.
The labor organization started talks with Hollywood movie studios about a new contract this week.
Duncan Crabtree-Ireland is the main person speaking with movie studios on behalf of the actors. He is SAG-AFTRA’s negotiator.
He said people who work in movies have their stock-in-trade, or their special qualities that make them different from another actor. He listed an actor’s name, voice, personality and likeness when describing those qualities. Crabtree-Ireland wants to be sure actors keep making money from their special qualities.
For example, the labor organization wants to prevent movie production companies from taking an actor’s image in one movie and using it to create a “digital double” for a new movie.
Crabtree-Ireland said it would not be fair to do that without paying extra.
Artificial intelligence tools have already been used to make “deepfakes” of well-known actors Tom Cruise and Keanu Reeves. Reeves called the technology “scary.”
Deepfake is the term for real-looking, but untrue, video. AI can be used to make deepfakes.
AI tools have gained attention since the company OpenAI launched ChatGPT late last year.
The tools that can create sound and video are known as generative AI. They can take real video of a person and make it seem as if the person is saying words that they never said.
In Hollywood, the technology is being used to make actors look younger or to fix lip synch problems when a movie is dubbed into a different language.
Justine Bateman is a producer, writer and actor. She was on the successful television program Family Ties when she was young. Her brother is the well-known actor, Jason Bateman.
She has a computer science education and is concerned about how AI will change movies and television.
She said studios could take parts from her old show and make a new season.
Some stars give permission
While many actors are worried about AI, others can accept it.
Harrison Ford and James Earl Jones are two older actors who told moviemakers they could use AI. Ford will appear in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. He first played Indiana Jones in the 1980s. Now he is 80 years old.
In parts of the new movie, Ford appears as a young man. Instead of using a different actor, the moviemakers used AI to make Ford look young. They used images of his performance in the 1981 film Raiders of the Lost Ark.
James Earl Jones recently spoke with Vanity Fair magazine. He said he agreed to let the producers of Star Wars use AI to recreate his voice. Jones is 92 and provides the voice for Darth Vader. He said he wants Star Wars producers to use his voice even after he dies. It is not the first time Star Wars used AI. The company Disney used the technology to put Carrie Fisher into the 2019 film The Rise of Skywalker after she died.
The actors’ labor union wants to be sure anyone acting in a movie has a chance to say “yes” or “no” about using AI every time they accept a job.
If SAG-AFTRA cannot reach an agreement with the movie companies, it may join the Writers Guild, another labor group, in a strike. Both unions want protections in place before signing new contracts.
If the actors do not push for the protections, Bateman said, creativity and innovation might disappear from movies, television and music. She said everything made in the future is going to be based on work from the past.
“I don’t want to live in that world,” she said.
I’m Dan Friedell. And I’m Caty Weaver.View -
Can Tech Protect US Schools from Mass Shootings? The many school shootings across the United States have led to demand from schools for advanced technology security systems.
A little over one year ago, a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas. Days later, taser maker Axon Enterprise had an idea for how to prevent such attacks. It suggested schools use “non-lethal” drones that are powered by artificial intelligence (AI).
Many people who work at the company disagreed with the idea. The company's own AI ethics board quit in protest. The event showed the growing unease about the ethics and effectiveness of security tools being marketed to American schools.
Schools have been able to use nearly $200 billion in new COVID-19 relief money and other government funding to purchase such tools, said Odis Johnson Jr. He is director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Safe and Healthy Schools in Baltimore, Maryland.
More schools have more money, he said. "And there's a robust tech sector pushing these technologies."
Rita Bishop is the former head of the school system in Roanoke, Virginia. She said she had to stop taking calls from companies that sell things like AI-powered surveillance cameras and weapons detectors.
Gun-detection systems
For some experts and school safety officials, new tech-based tools are just one way to prevent school violence.
Dave Fraser is head of Omnilert. The company developed an AI-powered tool that connects to school surveillance cameras to detect guns.
Charles County Public Schools in Maryland decided to use Omnilert. Jason Stoddard is the school system’s security director. He said he noticed that the shooters in Uvalde and in another attack had neared the school with their guns drawn. That played a part in the school system’s decision to use Omnilert.
Omnilert is one of a growing list of companies offering gun-detection technologies.
ZeroEyes said its gun detection technology is used in schools and other places in over 30 states. Like Omnilert, it has human reviewers who check guns that its AI system detects.
According to the Intercept news site, more than 65 school systems have bought or tested AI gun-detection tools since 2018. The schools spent a total of over $45 million on the technologies.
There are serious questions, however, about the effectiveness of such tools, said Ken Trump. He is the president of National School Safety and Security Services, a school safety consulting group.
He said schools have become testing grounds for “very underdeveloped AI software.”
He said schools have been increasingly drawn to tech solutions without taking simple measures. He said schools have not looked to measures like training teachers on how to respond to shootings, making structural improvements to buildings, and keeping doors locked.
Surveillance tools might help quicken a school's response. But they are unlikely to prevent shooters, said Johnson Jr. of Johns Hopkins.
He added that there is no research into the effectiveness of these AI technologies.
Classroom ‘surveillance zone’
There are also ethical concerns.
"Kids need to be in schools that treat them like students, instead of suspects," said Johnson Jr.
He and other experts worry that surveillance solutions to school violence create a hostile environment. He said it could be especially negative for Black students and students from other overpoliced communities.
I’m Dan Novak.View