2019.01.28 Tesla doesn’t need to sell cars in China to succeed there
词组：
break ground:开始动工；开拓新局面
They broke ground on the new library last month.
scramble:争夺
scramble to do:争抢着做某事
scramble for sth.
hire out:出租
句子：
The real revolution will arrive in a few years.
全文：
When Elon Musk broke ground on Tesla Inc.’s Gigafactory in Shanghai earlier this month, he wasn’t just thinking about how many Teslas he’ll sell in China. He was thinking about how many he might be able to share.
Musk isn’t alone. Global automobile manufacturers are scrambling to develop services that will allow Chinese car owners to rent out their vehicles when they’re not driving them. According to one recent analysis, such services could hire out as many as 2 million cars in 2020, up from roughly 100, 000 in 2017.
The real revolution will arrive in a few years, when self-driving cars hit China’s roads. At that point, transportation will become truly on-demand: A renter will merely need to notify a car of his or her location, and the vehicle will race over.
This isn’t science fiction. In 2016, Elon Musk wrote that once regulators approved self-driving cars, owners would only need to “tap a button on the Tesla phone app” to send their cars off to generate income “potentially exceeding the monthly loan or lease cost.” He estimated the feature could arrive as early as the end of 2019. Tesla also intends to operate its own network of driverless cars, taking a cut of each ride that could be as high as 30 percent, in line with current ride-sharing practices.
In China, Tesla and others will have to compete against cheap taxi fares and abundant public transit. Still, with the transition to autonomous electric vehicles already underway on the mainland, China obviously holds great potential for Tesla’s model.
2019.01.29 Described as defeated, Islamic State punches back with guerrilla tactics
词组：
punch back:回击
guerrilla:游击队员
tactics:策略
a huge stretch of territory：大片领土
wiped out:被彻底摧毁
obliterate:毁掉；清除
throes:(分娩、死亡或者巨大变化时）阵痛；挣扎的痛苦
wear the enermy down:击溃敌人
a strech of:连绵的一片
all but:几乎；除…之外全部
raid:突袭
句子：
For three years, terrorists controlled a huge stretch of territory in Iraq and Syria. 控制了…的大片领土
which has prompted the White House to describe：这促成白宫说…
pull U.S. troops out of Syria：使美国兵撤离叙利亚
That is how you wear the enemy down.
全文：
For three years, terrorists controlled a huge stretch of territory in Iraq and Syria. All but 1 percent of that territory is now gone, which has prompted the White House to describe the Islamic State as “wiped out, ” “absolutely obliterated” and “in its final throes.” But to suggest that ISIS was defeated, as President Donald Trump did when he announced plans to pull U.S. troops out of Syria, is to ignore the lessons of recent history.
The attack last week by a suicide bomber outside a shawarma restaurant in Manbij, Syria, which killed at least 15 people including four Americans, is one example of how the group still remains a serious, violent threat.
“People make the mistake of thinking that when you lose territory, it’s linear—that they will continue to lose, ” said Seth G. Jones, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“When you lose territory, smart groups shift to guerrilla strategy and tactics, including targeted assassinations, ambushes, raids, bombings, ” he added. “That is how you wear the enemy down.”
Trump’s declaration that ISIS has been defeated is the second time the group has been described this way.
Recent estimates indicate that the Islamic State has more than 20 to 30 times the fighters it had the last time it was left for dead. Although many of its leaders have been killed, the group’s caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and several of his top deputies, are believed to be alive.
2019.01.29 China’s Baidu pledges to improve search service after complaint
词组：
pledge to do:保证做某事
pledge to keep the secret
slash the number of :减少xx的数量
court：求取；设法获得
court public attention
court approval
retrieval:信息检索
teach the dog to retrieval the ball
market fluctuation:市场动荡
weigh down:使焦虑;施加压力
She was weighed down with shopping bags.
句子：
after a complaint about the quality of the service and its search results went viral on social media.此前关于其服务质量以及搜索结果的投诉在社交软件上传播甚广。
Shares of U.S.-listed Baidu tumbled 6.4 percent on Tuesday. 百度的股价暴跌了6.4%
while the widespread sharing of Fang’s article sparked concerns over its advertising practices.
全文：
China’s top search engine Baidu Inc said on Wednesday it will improve its media aggregating service after a complaint about the quality of the service and its search results went viral on social media.
Baidu was placing low-quality pieces from its Baijiahao service, which selects articles from both legacy and independent media outlets for display on Baidu’s own webpages, and other Baidu properties towards the top of its search results, journalist Fang Kecheng wrote in an article on Tuesday.
The complaint comes after Baidu, often compared to Alphabet Inc’s Google, underwent a restructuring and rigorous cleanup of illegal medical advertising that emerged in 2016 and led to regulation that slashed the number of eligible advertisers.
Baidu on Wednesday acknowledged the article in a post on its Twitter-like Weibo account and said that Baijiahao articles account for roughly 10 percent of its search results.
“The media attention suggests Baijiahao can be done better, “ the statement said.
“We will continue to court quality media outlets and creators and use positive mechanisms to encourage authors to spread high-quality original content, “ it said, adding Baijiahao was designed to optimize retrieval speeds for mobile users.
Shares of U.S.-listed Baidu tumbled 6.4 percent on Tuesday, or about $4 billion by value, weighed down by earnings and target price downgrades from Citi and Jefferies, while the widespread sharing of Fang’s article sparked concerns over its advertising practices.
“For Baidu over time, media exposure has been on the negative side, “ said Pacific Epoch analyst Raymond Feng, adding Baidu faces competition from other Chinese tech companies, many of which offer a broader range of ad placement styles than Baidu.
Baidu declined to comment on the market fluctuations.
2019.02.02 Barbie will soon be 60—and is still going strong（仍旧活力四射；持续成功）
词组：
slender:苗条的；袖长的
curvy:（尤其是女性）身材丰腴
cause controversy:引起争论
as universally kown as xxx
made xxx’s debut at xxx:在…初次亮相
recount:描述
a torrent of xxx:大量的xxx
tones:色调
brunette：深褐色头发
句子：
It was a radical idea:这是一个很前卫的想法
Since the blonde beauty first hit stores. 从这位金发美女在商店首次登场开始。
全文：
She is turning 60 this year and still doesn’t have a single wrinkle.（没有一道皱纹）
Blonde or brunette, slender or curvy, black or white, princess or president, Barbie is a forever favorite for young girls, even if she has caused controversy over the years.
Around the world, Barbie is as universally known as Coca-Cola or McDonald’s, said Nathan Baynard, director of global brand marketing for Barbie. In all, more than one billion Barbie dolls have been sold since she made her debut at the American Toy Fair in New York on March 9, 1959.
She was invented by Ruth Handler, the co-founder of Mattel, who was inspired by her own children to create the doll. “Her daughter Barbara was limited in the choices of her toys—the only ones were baby dolls, “ Baynard recounted. “The only role she could imagine through that play was caregiver, mother, “ whereas Handler’s son “could imagine being an astronaut, cowboy, pilot, surgeon.”
Barbie is, of course, a shortened version of Barbara. The doll was supposed to teach girls “that they had choices, that they could be anything. In 1959, it was a radical idea!” Baynard said.
Since the blonde beauty first hit stores, and after a torrent of complaints over what was seen as unrealistic proportions, Mattel has made many changes—introducing multiple body types and dozens of skin tones. In 1965, four years before Neil Armstrong walked on the Moon, Barbie became an astronaut. In 1968, the first black Barbie doll, a friend named Christie, hit store shelves.
2019.02.04 Victim-blaming outcry as Japan pop star says sorry after alleged assault by fans
词语：
outcry:强烈抨击
under scrutiny：受到密切关注
barrage:接二连三的一大串（质问或指责）；弹幕
forore:群情激愤
unimpeachable:无可指摘的
be rife with:充满
全文：
Japan’s harsh treatment of its female celebrities has again come under scrutiny.
Social media users and TV commentators have joined the barrage of criticism targeting AKS, a music management agency, after Maho Yamaguchi, a singer with NGT48, went public this month with allegations she had been assaulted by two obsessive fans at the end of last year. The furore intensified when Yamaguchi bowed deeply and apologised to fans for “causing trouble”.
Yamaguchi’s case has highlighted the poor treatment of young women and girls by Japan’s pop industry, particularly the insistence that they appear morally unimpeachable.
Performers are subject to strict rules imposed by their management agencies, including, in many cases, a ban on having boyfriends to maintain the impression among their largely male—and, on occasion, dangerously obsessive—fan base that they are romantically available.
Twitter user @katbeee said Yamaguchi’s experience highlighted the widespread mistreatment of women in Japan’s idol industry. “These are as serious as the abuses committed in the Western entertainment industry, ” she said, adding that the industry was rife with “power harassment, sexual exploitation, emotional and psychological abuse and overwork”.
AKS eventually apologised for its handling of the issue. The firm also admitted that a fellow NGT48 member had given the men Yamaguchi’s address and told them when she might return home.
NGT48 has cancelled three upcoming concerts in which Yamaguchi was to perform, according to Japanese media.
2019.02.07 Marie Kondo’s Netflix series inspires a national decluttering frenzy
词组：
decluttering：清除；清理
diva：著名女歌唱家
typical New Year’s resolution：常见的新年愿望
kick-start:促使开始
over-staching:过度囤积
put sb on the map:使出名
viewership:观众类型
hit a nerve:击中观众痛点
consignments:运送物
purge:清扫
spark joy
chest:箱子
全文：
On New Year’s Day, Netflix released “Tidying Up With Marie Kondo, “ an eight-part series hosted by the Japanese-born decluttering diva and space healer. Although resolving to clean up stuff is a typical New Year’s resolution, there is rarely something as motivating to kick-start the process as a reality makeover show.
The show seems to have started a national conversation about overbuying and over-stashing. Many opened junk drawers and toy chests while watching the show and started dumping. Shoe boxes were repurposed as drawer organizers, and T-shirts were folded in the crisp KonMari style. (Reminder: The KonMari Method, as it is called, asks you to hold each possession and ask yourself whether it sparks joy, and if it doesn’t, thank it for its service and let it go.)
Kondo, 34, started out as an organizing consultant while a university student in Tokyo. Her 2011 book “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up” put her on the clutter-busting map. Today, more than 11 million copies of her three books have been sold worldwide.
Although Netflix won’t share any viewership data, this show clearly hit a nerve.
Current Boutique owner Carmen Lopez says mail-in consignments to its four Washington, D.C., area locations have increased 25 percent since the show aired. “The show has definitely inspired some serious purging, “ Lopez says.
Kondo’s office issued a statement from her about the response to the Netflix show. “It’s my sincere hope that the items at the donation centers will find new owners for whom they will truly spark joy.”
2019.02.11 At Alibaba’s futuristic hotel, robots deliver towels and mix cocktails
词组：
mix cocktail: 调制鸡尾酒
glide:化学
incubator:孵化器
prowess:高超的造诣
句子：
全文：
Gliding silently through Alibaba Group Holding Ltd’s futuristic “FlyZoo” hotel, black disc-shaped robots about a metre in height deliver food and drop off fresh towels.
The robots are part of a suite of high-tech tools that Alibaba says drastically cuts the hotel’s cost of human labour and eliminates the need for guests to interact with other people.
Formally opened to the public last month, the 290-room FlyZoo is an incubator for technology Alibaba wants to sell to the hotel industry in the future and an opportunity to showcase its prowess in artificial intelligence. It is also an experiment that tests consumer comfort levels with unmanned commerce（无人商务) in China.
Inside the hotel, softly-lit white panelled walls bring to mind the interiors of Hollywood spaceships. Guests check in at podiums that scan their faces, as well as passports or other ID. Visitors with a Chinese national ID can scan their faces using their smartphones to check in ahead of time.
At the hotel’s restaurant, taller capsule-shaped robots deliver food that guests have ordered via the FlyZoo app while at a separate bar, a large robotic arm can mix more than 20 different types of cocktails. Facial recognition cameras add charges to the room rate automatically.
The hotel does employ humans, though Alibaba declined to specify how many. This includes chefs and cleaners as well as reception staff, who will assist with conventional check-in procedures for guests unwilling to have their faces scanned and want to use electronic key cards.
2019.02.10 Why cars are a popular place for a good cry
词组:
a good cry:大哭一场
set off:引发； set sb off:触动了某人
let down one’s guard: 使某人放松警惕
contemplative:冥想的
evocative music：勾起回忆的歌曲
catharic:宣泄情绪的
全文：
Maybe a particularly moving story on public radio sets you off. Maybe it’s a song that reminds you of a loved one who’s died, or it’s been a bad day at work. Maybe you’re just really tired. Whatever the cause, it seems that a lot of us cry in the car. So why is letting down your guard behind the wheel a phenomenon?
For many, music is a big factor. Paul Silvia, professor of Psychology at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, looked at the deep emotional responses people have when listening to music, including crying. When his team asked people about crying in response to music, they reported that the most common place it happens is at home. The second most common is in their cars.
“It’s a surprisingly contemplative place, “ Silvia said, noting that there’s temperature control and usually a nice audio system. More important, people are often alone, providing a rare freedom that extends to the evocative music they choose.
Debbie Pausig, a licensed marriage and family therapist in New Haven, Connecticut, who specializes in grief, said that for many of her clients, feelings of loss—of a loved one or otherwise—manifest in the car.
There’s a name for this, she said: Psychologist Therese Rando invented the acronym “STUG” or “sudden, temporary, upsurge of grief.”
While crying alone is cathartic, Pausig likes to remind people that sharing the load with a friend or professional can be incredibly meaningful for both parties. She added, however, that people don’t always want support, a hug or a reminder to “cheer up.”
“Perhaps the safety net of being in the car is that we don’t always want to be rescued, “ she said.