2019.02.13 An anti-vaccination ‘hotspot’ near Portland declares an emergency over measles outbreak
词组：
measles：麻疹
hotspot:热岛；有重要活动或十分危险的地方
immunized：通过疫苗接种使免疫
pediatric：小儿科的
epidemiologists：流行病学家
citadal:堡垒；要塞
全文：
A quickly escalating measles outbreak around Portland, Oregon, has led health officials in nearby Clark County, Washington, to declare a public health emergency.
At the beginning of last week, there were only a handful of confirmed cases. On Friday, the day the emergency was declared, there were 19. The latest update came Tuesday, when county officials said they had confirmed 23 cases and were investigating two more suspected cases. The vast majority of those who have fallen ill had not been immunized.
The outbreak makes concrete the fears of pediatric epidemiologists that a citadel of the movement against compulsory vaccination could be susceptible to the rapid spread of a potentially deadly disease.
State data shows that 7.9 percent of children in Clark County were exempted in the 2017-18 school year from vaccines required for kindergarten entry, which includes the two-dose course for measles（针对麻疹的两剂药） that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says is 97 percent effective. Nationally, about 2 percent of children went without required immunization for nonmedical reasons.
Because measles is among the most highly contagious of all infectious diseases, it is bound to spring up in areas with low vaccination rates, according to Peter J. Hotez, a professor of pediatrics and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.
“This is something I’ve predicted for a while now, “ he said of the public health emergency in Clark County. “It’s really awful and really tragic and totally preventable.”
2019.02.15 China’s film industry finally joins the space race
词组：
latecomer:后来者
grandiose:宏伟的
a grandiose plan
the dawning of a new area:新世纪的曙光
devour:吞噬
holy grail:圣杯；极难得到之物
genre:风格
far side of the moon:地球背面
curator:馆长
red giant/ red giant star:红巨星
sprawling handwriting:杂乱无章的书写
probe:航天探测器
全文：
China was a latecomer to space exploration, and in the movies, it has been a latecomer to science fiction, too. That is about to change.
The country’s first blockbuster set in space, “The Wandering Earth, ” opens Tuesday amid grandiose expectations that it will represent the dawning of a new era in Chinese filmmaking.
“The Wandering Earth, ” shown in 3-D, takes place in a distant future in which the sun is about to expand into a red giant and devour the Earth. And the preliminary reviews have been positive.
“Filmmakers in China see science fiction as a holy grail, ” said Raymond Zhou, an independent critic, who noted that Hollywood had set the technological standards, and thus audience expectations, very high.
“The Wandering Earth” is adapted from works by Liu Cixin, the writer who has led a renaissance in science fiction here, becoming the first Chinese winner of the Hugo Award for the genre in 2015. His novels are sprawling epics and deeply researched. That makes them plausible fantasies about humanity’s encounters with a dangerous universe.
The openings also come as China reached a milestone in space: the landing of a probe on the far side of the moon in January. Although decades behind Russia and the United States, China has now put astronauts in orbit and has ambitious plans to join—or even lead—a new age of space exploration.
“I think there is a very close connection between Chinese cinema and the nation’s fortunes, ” said Sha Dan, a curator at the China Film Archive.
2019.02.16 PM Abe vows to tackle growing child abuse in Japan
词组：
vow to do:发誓做某事
The bride and groom exchanged their vows.
crack down on sth:严厉打击
record-high:创纪录的
全文：
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Saturday vowed to crack down on the increasing number of child abuse cases in Japan after the death of a 10-year-old girl, allegedly killed by her abusive father, shocked the country.
Mia Kurihara was found dead in the bathroom of her home in Chiba near Tokyo last month after authorities failed to respond to her repeated pleas for help. Her parents have been arrested on suspicion of assaulting their daughter after her father reportedly abused her regularly and refused to allow her to go to school.
Police have found a video on her father’s mobile phone showing him hitting her, local media said, adding that she cried in the footage saying: “Dad, I’m sorry.”
The high-profile case has drawn huge media attention, prompting the government to take action amid growing public awareness over child abuse. Abe told members of his ruling Liberal Democratic Party that his government had ordered child welfare centres across the nation to confirm within a month the safety of all children suspected to have been abused. Abe also said the government would raise the number of child welfare workers by some 1, 000 for the next fiscal year starting in April from the current 3, 200.
Police reported the suspected abuse of a record-high 80, 104 minors to child welfare authorities in Japan in 2018, Kyodo News said.
2019.01.17 Dyson to move company HQ to Singapore
词组：
staggering:令人震惊的
hypocrisy:虚伪；伪善
ditch:抛弃
future-proof:永不过时的
Member of Parliament:下议院成员
wave/show/fly the flag:摇旗呐喊
pull back from sth:改变主意；退出
全文：
Sir James Dyson, the British billionaire inventor and outspoken Brexiter who called on the government to walk away from the EU without a deal, is moving the headquarters of his vacuum cleaner and hair dryer technology company to Singapore.
The Dyson chief executive, Jim Rowan, said the move from Wiltshire to Singapore had “nothing to do with Brexit” but was about “future-proofing” the business. The move of Dyson’s legal entity from the UK to Singapore “will happen over the coming months”, meaning it could take place before Brexit. The company said the decision to move to Singapore was not made for tax reasons. The corporate tax rate in Singapore is 17%, compared with 19% in the UK.
Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran said: “This is staggering hypocrisy for Brexit-backing businessman James Dyson. James Dyson can say whatever he wants but he is ditching Britain. This can only be seen as a vote of no confidence in the idea of Brexit Britain.”
Dyson’s announcement comes shortly after Singapore and the EU agreed a landmark free trade agreement. Singapore’s prime minister, Lee Hsien Loong, said the deal, signed in October, was: “an ambitious trade deal, it is a high-quality arrangement, and it is one which will fly the flag and encourage others, I hope, to do the same.”
He is not the first Brexit-backing billionaire to pull back from the UK since the Brexit vote. Sir Jim Ratcliffe, the UK’s richest person with a £21bn fortune, was revealed last year to be planning to leave Britain for tax-free Monaco.
2019.02.18 Your bedtime pattern changes as your age, but is that a sign of trouble?
词组：
stiffen:变僵硬
joints stiffen:关节僵硬
aggravting:令人恼怒的
therein lies sth:此即；缘此
全文：
As people age, the body changes in all sorts of predictable ways. Joints stiffen. Brains can slow. Wounds take longer to heal. And sleep patterns shift, too. This can come as news to many, says Michael V. Vitiello, a psychologist at the University of Washington who specializes in sleep in aging.
The most noticeable—and often most aggravating—changes are how sleep and wake-up times change and sleep gets lighter, often beginning in middle age. Gone are weekend snoozes to 11 a.m. and the ability to sleep through a noisy garbage truck down the block.
But not every restless night is benign. Studies have found that poor sleep can pose a particular threat to older adults: Falls, depression and anxiety, problems with memory, and increased suicide risk are among the impacts of sleep issues in this population group that researchers have found. But scientists are still unsure why those risk associations exist.
What is clear is the association between good sleep and psychological well-being in older adults. A 2010 study documented that association when it came to sleep quality, but sleep quantity didn’t show the same effects.
And therein, experts say, may lie the key to understanding sleep as you age. If you’re sleeping less, but don’t feel negative effects out of bed, the changes you notice may just be normal age-related.
Over time, Vitiello says, sleep patterns simply change. “A lot of older adults recognize that they don’t sleep the same as they did when they were 18, but they can still function and they’re OK. And all is well with the universe.”
2019.01.19 Bloody brilliant: new emoji to symbolize menstruation welcomed
词组：
Bloody brilliant: super smart
menstruation:月经
make waves: 掀起浪潮
droplet：水滴
-let:小的，比如booklet
stigma:耻辱
feel stigma that…:因为..觉得耻辱
half-measure:权宜之计
sanitary pad:卫生巾
全文：
The newest emoji made crimson waves across the Internet upon its unveiling this week.
Plan International UK’s fight for the cartoon red blood droplet—an emoji meant to symbolize menstruation—was almost poetically symbolic to the message it was trying to convey with it: that periods aren’t shameful.
Plan organized a popular vote on the design of the symbol. Eventually, Plan partnered with NHS Blood and Transplant to share that organization’s proposed new emoji: a red blood droplet.
“Ending the shame around periods begins with talking about it, ” Lucy Russell, the Head of Girls’ Rights and Youth at Plan International UK told the Guardian.
Many activists and health workers agreed that the emoji was “revolutionary” and an important step in reducing the stigma around menstruation.
But some found the new emoji disappointing.
“The drop of blood feels like a half-measure, ” said Megan Vaughan, a writer and PhD student in Essex. “The red droplet still has this sense of shame about it. Like it wants to talk about periods but not in too open a way, not in the kind of way that might offend delicate, largely male, sensibilities.”
The younger generation seems to have a healthier and more accepting perspective when it comes to menstruation, said Andrea Askowitz, a writer in Miami who had tweeted a bloody sanitary pad in response to the period emoji.
“Attitudes are changing, ” Askowitz said. “We’ve come far, but we still have a long way to go.”
2019.02.20 Plummeting insect numbers ‘threaten collapse of nature’
词组：
hurtle:快速移动；猛冲
hurtling down:锐减
food web:食物网
pollinate:授粉
loathe:憎恶
loathe doing sth:厌恶做某事
outweigh the big losses
collation:核对；对照
dreadful trends:可怕的趋势
extensive agriculture:粗放型农业
intensive agriculture:集约型农业
全文：
Insects could vanish within a century at current rate of decline, says global review.
The world’s insects are hurtling down the path to extinction, threatening a “catastrophic collapse of nature’s ecosystems”, according to the first global scientific review. More than 40% of insect species are declining and a third are endangered, the analysis found. The rate of extinction is eight times faster than that of mammals, birds and reptiles.
“It should be of huge concern to all of us, for insects are at the heart of every food web, they pollinate the large majority of plant species, keep the soil healthy, recycle nutrients, control pests, and much more. Love them or loathe them, we humans cannot survive without insects, ” said Prof Dave Goulson at the University of Sussex in the UK.
The analysis, published in the journal Biological Conservation, says intensive agriculture is the main driver of the declines, particularly the heavy use of pesticides. Urbanisation and climate change are also significant factors.
One of the biggest impacts of insect loss is on the many birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish that eat insects. A small number of adaptable species are increasing in number, but not nearly enough to outweigh the big losses.
Matt Shardlow, at the conservation charity Buglife, said: “It is gravely sobering to see this collation of evidence that demonstrates the pitiful state of the world’s insect populations. It is increasingly obvious that the planet’s ecology is breaking and there is a need for an intense and global effort to halt and reverse these dreadful trends.”
2019.02.21 Karl Lagerfeld, designer who defined luxury fashion, dies at 85
词组：
prolific:（艺术家，作家）多产的
polyglot:多元的人
couture:高级时装
calling:专业
orchestrator:策划者；操纵者
caricature:漫画；夸张的表现风格
ponytail:马尾辫
starch:上浆
全文：
Karl Lagerfeld, the most prolific designer of the 20th and 21st centuries and a man whose career formed the prototype of the modern luxury fashion industry, died Tuesday in Paris.
Creative director of Chanel since 1983 and Fendi since 1965, and founder of his own line, Mr. Lagerfeld was the definition of a fashion polyglot. In his 80s, when most of his peers were retiring to their yachts or country estates, he was designing an average of 14 new collections a year ranging from couture to the high street, and not counting collaborations and special projects.
His greatest calling was as the orchestrator of his own myth. A self-identified “caricature, ” with his dark glasses, powdered ponytail, black jeans, fingerless gloves, starched collars, Chrome Hearts jewelry and obsessive Diet Coke consumption, he achieved such a level of global fame—and controversy—that a $200 Karl Barbie doll, created in collaboration with the toymaker Mattel, sold out in less than an hour in 2014.
Those who wanted to dismiss Lagerfeld referred to him as a “styliste”: a designer who creates his looks by repurposing what already exists, as opposed to inventing anything new. But he rejected the idea of fashion-as-art, and the designer-as-tortured genius. His goal was more opportunistic.
“I would like to be a one-man multinational fashion phenomenon, ” he once said.
2019.02.22 Duke University apologizes over professor’s email asking Chinese students to speak English
词组：
caution sb against sth:警告某人不要做某事
thorough review:彻底检查
xenophobia:对外国人的歧视和仇恨
rhetoric：花言巧语
to throw or cast caution to the winds:不顾风险；鲁莽行事
step down:辞职
normalization:正常化
rhethoric:花言巧语的
全文：
Duke University has apologized after a professor cautioned international students against speaking Chinese on campus and urged them to speak English instead.
The professor, Megan Neely, issued the caution in an email on Friday and she has since asked to step down from her role as director of graduate studies in the medical school’s biostatistics master’s program.
The dean of Duke’s medical school, Dr. Mary E. Klotman apologized to students and said she had asked the university’s Office for Institutional Equity to conduct a “thorough review.”
Ken Lee, chief executive of OCA-Asian Pacific American Advocates, said he was disappointed by what he described as an “ignorance and hateful bias against students.”
“Forcing students to repress their heritage language further perpetuates a wrongful culture（使…持续） of fear toward Asian and Asian-American students, ” Mr. Lee said in a statement on Sunday.
In a letter dated Saturday, a group of international students at Duke petitioned the university to investigate what happened leading up to Professor Neely’s email. “We wrote the petition to combat the normalization of xenophobia and discrimination against Chinese students at Duke, ” the students said.
About 36 of the 54 students in Duke’s master of biostatistics program are Chinese, according to the university.
More than one million foreign students study in the United States each year, with roughly one-third coming from China. But universities have seen a decline in international student enrollment. International enrollment began to flatten in 2016, partly because of changing conditions abroad, but also, college administrators said, because President Trump’s rhetoric and more restrictive views on immigration have made the United States even less attractive to international students.
2019.02.24 China’s Forbidden City opens to the general public at night for the first time in 94 years
词组：
off-limits:禁止入内的
dignitary:要员；显要人物
gasp:由于惊奇等喘气；
gasp at sth.
the palace complex:宫殿建筑群
reincarnation:重生
spectacle：壮观场面
beam:发光；投影
be beamed onto the roof
stampede:人群的奔逃；热潮；风尚
snap up:抢购（心仪之物）
under the strain:在压力之下
flock:蜂拥
全文：
Beijing’s Forbidden City—traditionally off-limits at night for anyone except emperors, ghosts and visiting dignitaries—was lit up with lanterns and gasps after dark Tuesday as China celebrated the end of the Lunar New Year holiday.
The palace complex, home to Chinese emperors for five centuries, usually closes by 5 p.m. though VIPs have been taken in after dark on occasion. It was opened at night for the first time since its reincarnation as the Palace Museum 94 years ago. And it opened with a dazzling spectacle for the Lantern Festival, marked on the 15th day of the new year.
The palace walls were illuminated with red lanterns—designed to recreate the feeling of the royal court of old—and a light show lit up the complex while the China National Traditional Orchestra and the Peking Opera performed. An image of a treasured scroll called “A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains” was beamed onto the palace roof.
There was a virtual stampede to get tickets, which were free, for the rare night-time opening. They were snapped up within minutes of becoming available online Sunday, but the website still collapsed under the strain as hopefuls continued to flock to it.
“Creativity makes the 600-year-old Palace Museum younger and draws traditional culture closer to the public, “ said the People’s Daily. The Palace Museum is now on a campaign to attract even more visitors.
2019.02.25 Trump declares a national emergency, and provokes a constitutional clash
词组：
constitutional:宪法的；章程的
momentum:势力；推动力
grinding:无休止的；毫无起色的
suffer from grinding poverty
unilateral:单边的
incite:刺激；煽动(一般跟不太好的事情连用）
commander in chief:总指挥官
全文：
President Donald Trump declared a national emergency on the border with Mexico on Friday to access billions of dollars that Congress refused to give him to build a wall there, transforming a highly charged policy dispute into a confrontation over the separation of powers outlined in the Constitution.
Trying to regain momentum after losing a grinding two-month battle with lawmakers over funding the wall, Trump asserted that the flow of drugs, criminals and unauthorized immigrants from Mexico constituted a profound threat to national security that justified unilateral action.
The president’s decision incited instant condemnation from Democrats, who called it an unconstitutional abuse of his authority and vowed to try to overturn it with the support of Republicans who also objected to the move.
The emergency declaration, according to White House officials, enables the president to divert $3.6 billion from military construction projects to the wall.
White House officials rejected criticism from across the ideological spectrum that Trump was creating a precedent that future presidents could use to ignore the will of Congress. Republicans have expressed concern that a Democratic commander in chief could cite Trump’s move to declare a national emergency over gun violence or climate change without legislation from Congress.
“It actually creates zero precedent, ” Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, told reporters. “This is authority given to the president in law already. It’s not as if he just didn’t get what he wanted so he’s waving a magic wand and taking a bunch of money.”（无中生有并且挪用一大笔钱）
2019.02.27 How sky-high rents forced people into imaginative alternatives
词组：
sky-high rents：天价房租
bleak:悲观地；无望的
a bleak prospect
spiral:费用急剧上升
house-sit:替别人看家
kennel:犬舍
catteries:猫舍
the bond of friendship
bond with sb.
mutually:共同地；相互地
a mutually convenient time
sit sth. out…:一直等到…结束
全文：
Renting a property in the UK can be a bleak business. The average monthly rent rose to £932 last month and in London it is even more expensive at £1, 588, according to new figures.
With spiralling rents leaving many people with barely any disposable income, let alone the means to save towards a deposit, some are now choosing alternatives.
The older choice
（和老年人同住）
Office administrator Tina Gotla-Aluri, 42, was struggling to cope with the £950 a month she was paying for her house share in Putney, south-west London, when a friend suggested Share and Care Homeshare, which matches older homeowners who have a spare room with people who can offer practical help in exchange. She now lives in Putney with a man in his 90s and pays £180 a month to the scheme.
In return, Gotla-Aluri provides companionship, goes food shopping, and cooks meals. “He is quite well travelled and food is one of the things we have bonded over（食物是我们共同的话题）, ” she says. “I cook British food like Sunday dinners and sometimes Indian or Moroccan food. It’s mutually beneficial.”
Sitting it out
（替别人看家）
While some people house-sit for free to get a taste of luxury or a different life for a few weeks, designer Jennifer Hamley, 39, and her husband, Ben, 37, have turned it into a way to live rent-free.
The couple house-sit through TrustedHousesitters.com, which connects home and pet owners with house-sitters and costs each party £89 for an annual membership. They house-sit mainly in Brighton, taking care of pets, the home, post and watering plants.
“It is a peace of mind for many homeowners. A homeowner doesn’t need to get anyone to check in on the house, and pet owners don’t have to pay kennels, catteries or dog walkers.”
2019.02.28 Huawei launches new $2,600 foldable 5G phone to rival Samsung
词组：
render:使成为；使变得
His rudness rendered me speechless.
scrambling to find a new way:争抢出一条新道路
People are scrambling to buy property.
conjure up excitement:激发热情
That smell alaways conjured up memories of holidays in France.
Foreign policy has come under close scrutiny.
全文：
Huawei Technologies Co. announced a smartphone that unfolds into a small tablet computer, potentially rendering the need to carry two separate devices obsolete.
The Mate X supports next-generation 5G networks and will cost 2, 299 euros ($2, 606) when released in the summer. When folded, the Mate X has a 6.6-inch display; but when opened out, it becomes an 8-inch tablet computer. It’s the second folding phone announced by a major manufacturer within a week. Samsung revealed the Galaxy Fold on Wednesday.
The market for smartphones is slowing, and manufacturers are scrambling to find new ways to convince consumers they should upgrade their devices. Next-generation high-speed networks are still far away from mainstream availability, so device makers are looking at new device form factors to conjure up excitement.
Huawei has been battling global scrutiny over its telecom equipment, but often overlooked is the company’s rapid growth as a smartphone manufacturer. Last year it surpassed Apple to become the world’s second-largest maker of smartphones, according to data from market research firm IDC.
Thomas Husson, an analyst at Forrester, said the Mate X “shows Huawei is a leader in tech innovation.” But it will be “a few years” before a significant mass of customers get their hands on 5G functionalities and foldable screens, he said.
2019.03.01 Chinese firm behind the “Amazon Coat” hits jackpot in U.S.
词组：
jackpot:头奖
online apperal business:网上服装生意
carve out…:凭努力获得
puffer jacket:羽绒夹克
budding rival:新晋竞争对手
duck down:鸭绒
find favor with xxx:获得某人的青睐
branching out:扩展新业务
全文：
When Kevin Chiu left his job in 2012 to try his luck at starting an online apparel business in a rural Chinese city, his main goal was to carve out more time to spend with his wife and newborn child.
It never entered his mind that his Orolay puffer jacket would become a huge hit, celebrated as the ‘’Amazon Coat’’ in U.S. social and traditional media—and held up as a budding rival to premium brand Canada Goose.
Using duck down sourced from China’s Hebei and Anhui provinces, the polyester coats are priced between $80 and $139. By contrast, Canada Goose jackets start from about $575 in the United States.
Orolay’s success is, however, not just a tale of competitive pricing and a design that found favor with U.S. consumers.
Chiu is among a wave of Chinese merchants that have benefited from measures introduced by Amazon in recent years that have made it easy for overseas vendors to sell on its site.
Analysts say the number of Chinese merchants selling on Amazon’s U.S. site began to pick up over the last five years after it introduced measures that allowed sellers worldwide to store products at Amazon warehouses and provided help shipping those goods to customers.
Chiu credits Amazon for much of the firm’s success but is thinking of branching out. Expansion plans include extending Orolay’s product line to cotton clothing and men’s outerwear. But for now, Chiu is still marveling at（对..感到惊奇的） how his business has become so successful in a market he barely knows.
2019.03.04 Putin says Russia to target U.S. if missiles put in Europe（如果美国在欧洲布置了导弹）
词组：
treaty:条约
station:军队，士兵驻扎
pull out of:军队撤离
Lay the groundwork:做初步准备
pact:条约；契约
全文：
President Vladimir Putin signaled Russia will aim new weapons at the U.S. if it stations missiles in Europe after quitting a landmark Cold-War-era treaty, amid growing fears of a new arms race.（在对新一轮军备竞赛的担忧与日俱增的背景下）
Russia doesn’t plan to deploy missiles banned by the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces treaty that the U.S. has pulled out of, Putin said. But if the U.S. does, “Russia will be forced to produce and deploy weapons that can be used not only against the territories from which we face this direct threat but also those where the decision is made to use these missiles, ” he said, eliciting applause（获得掌声） from the hundreds of officials gathered in the hall near the Kremlin.
While Washington says it won’t deploy new land-based nuclear weapons in Europe, the U.S. and its allies are laying the groundwork to deploy new intermediate-range conventional missiles there for the first time since they were banned by the treaty. With a second pact covering nuclear weapons likely to expire in two years, the risks of confrontation are growing.
The Russian leader blasted U.S. allies in Europe as “satellites” who were “oinking along with” Washington’s position on pulling out of the INF treaty. The accord banned any land-based missiles from Europe with a range between 500 and 5, 500 kilometers, whether nuclear or conventional.