ポッドキャスト Israel

Israel pummeled Gaza with airstrikes May 17 and Palestinian militants launched rockets at Israeli cities despite a flurry of U.S. and regional diplomacy that has so far failed to halt more than a week of deadly fighting.Israel’s missile attacks on Gaza killed a top commander of the militant group Islamic Jihad and left a crater in a seven-story off…

Disrupted water supplies for millions in Texas Over 7.9 million people in Texas still had issues with their water supply as of Feb. 22, authorities said, after a record-breaking freeze had knocked out power stations the week before.Millions of Texans were advised to boil water before use, but all power plants were back online and power had been res…

Turkey aims to reach moon in 2023: ErdoganTurkey aims to achieve first contact with the moon as part of its national space program in 2023, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Feb. 9.“The first rough landing will be made on the moon with our national and authentic hybrid rocket that shall be launched into orbit in the end of 2023 through interna…

In 2020 and earlier, Donald Trump was the king of social media, using it to spread lies and attack enemies. For years, companies like Facebook and Twitter let him do it. But after a pro-Trump mob attacked the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6, social media slammed the door on the U.S. president.Twitter banned Trump permanently, but Facebook only bann…

A trio of Malaysian farmers say they have found the right way to grow Japanese muskmelons in Malaysia’s hot and humid climate — in part by massaging the melons and playing them music.The farmers at Mono Premium Melon help the melons grow by rubbing them with a soft cloth or glove. They also play classical music in the greenhouses. Mono co-founder S…

A Belgian farmer unwittingly extended his country’s territory by moving an ancient stone 2.20 meters. The stone, which was on the farmer’s land, marks Belgium’s border with France and its exact location was decided by a border agreement two centuries ago.The stone’s new location was discovered in April by a group of local history enthusiasts on a w…

Continued from Part 1… For the good of the planet and our health, it would definitely help to eat less meat. But many people I know say they would rather eat vegetables than pay premium prices for plant-based meat or lab-grown meat.I’ve tried Impossible Burger and I feel the same. While the texture was not unlike real meat, I somehow felt dissatisf…

Last November, Singapore made headlines as the first country to approve the sale of lab-grown chicken meat.The lab-cultured chicken was developed by Californian company Eat Just, which sells it under its Good Meat brand. It’s been offered at a private members club in Singapore since January. In a media interview, Eat Just’s chief executive Josh Tet…

Meghan, Britain’s Duchess of Sussex, is to publish a children’s book next month titled The Bench about the relationship between a father and son. It will be based on her husband Prince Harry and the couple’s child Archie, the publisher said on May 4.The book is the latest venture by Meghan and Harry, Queen Elizabeth II’s grandson, since they steppe…

A 108.8-kilogram sturgeon that could be more than 100 years old was caught on April 22 in the Detroit River by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.The “real life river monster” was nearly 2.1 meters long, the agency said April 28 on Facebook, where a photo of it was shared more than 24,000 times by late afternoon.“Based on its girth and size, it is …

In Japan’s summer, you might hear people say “It’s not the heat that gets you, it’s the humidity.” People might say something like that about the air conditioner. It wasn’t invented to fix the heat, it was invented to fix the humidity.In the hot, sticky New York summer of 1901, the paper at a Brooklyn publishing company expanded, making it hard to …

With 12 Disney parks, dozens of Disney hotels, and over 85 million downloads of the Disney Tsum Tsum mobile puzzle game, it is safe to say that Disney is a constant presence in most people’s lives. But what do you know about the man who started the company?Walt Disney was the creative genius behind the Disney company. Under his guidance, the compan…

Continued from Part 1… As I walked to my locker, I started to notice other students were crinkling their noses. Then I heard a group complain about the smell of skunk.“Could the smell be from me?” I wondered to myself.I decided to attend my first class anyway, hoping that the problem would go away.As soon as I walked in the door, I could feel every…

Do you have any moments from your past that, even years later, still give you a feeling of embarrassment?Unfortunately, I always seem to think of my most embarrassing moments at night when I’m having trouble sleeping. Some examples include the time I made a big error in an important baseball game and a presentation in French class that was a specta…

Former banker wins presidential vote in EcuadorEcuador will be led for the next four years by a conservative businessman after voters rebuffed a left-leaning movement that yielded an economic boom and then a recession since taking hold of the presidency last decade.Former banker Guillermo Lasso won 52.37% of the April 11 runoff vote against sociali…

Russia planning to launch own space stationRussia is ready to start building its own space station with the aim of launching it into orbit by 2030 if President Vladimir Putin gives the go-ahead, the head of its Roscosmos space agency said on April 21.The project would mark a new chapter for Russian space exploration and an end to more than two deca…

Pro-independence parties won a majority in Scotland’s Parliament on May 8, paving the way for a high-stakes political, legal and constitutional battle with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson over the future of the United Kingdom.Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said the result meant she would push ahead with plans for a second independen…

Prince fans marked the fifth anniversary of his death from inside Paisley Park studio, where the pop superstar lived and worked in the small city of Chanhassen, Minnesota, on April 21.Some of the fans wore custom Prince clothes and shoes and left flowers and other mementos as tributes to the late musician.Around 1,400 people snagged free reservatio…

U.S. President Joe Biden said May 3 he has resurrected a plan to raise refugee admissions this year to 62,500 after drawing a wave of criticism from supporters for initially keeping the refugee cap at a historically low level.Biden formally reversed himself just two weeks after his administration announced it would keep the cap at the 15,000 level …

Continued from Part 1… Kenney is well aware of the importance of fathers. One of eight children, Kenney’s own dad abandoned him at the age of 12. From then on, his older brother brought him up, but the family pretty much fell apart and Kenney vowed to become a good dad, and raise “good adults,” as he told reporters.After his two children grew into …

Being a good father is hard, which is why many men think twice before starting a family. But if they’re looking for tips for dads, they should check out Rob Kenney’s YouTube channel.Kenney believes that being a good dad is not all that different from being a good adult. And so he launched “Dad, how do I?” in April last year to give out some “Dadvic…

Women win big at Grammy Awards, as musicians put on intimate performancesBeyoncé, Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish made history at the Grammy Awards, and dozens of creators largely sidelined for a year due to the pandemic made music again.The Grammys on March 14 turned out to be a surprisingly intimate evening that, at its best, felt like viewers wer…

Hugo Xavier became one of the first people to cross the world’s longest pedestrian suspension bridge when it opened on April 29 near his tiny hometown of Arouca in northern Portugal.“Oh ... here we go!” the 42-year-old said anxiously as he gathered the courage to step onto the see-through metal grid pathway of the 516-meter-long bridge. He was with…

From 007 to private detective, Daniel Craig signs up for two Knives Out sequelsIt looks like Daniel Craig has a new movie franchise after ending his role as James Bond.Craig is to star in two sequels to the 2019 Knives Out crime caper, with both to stream on Netflix.Netflix said April 1 it had bought the rights to two follow-up films that will reun…

It’s not unusual for rocks and other debris to crash through a windshield and injure a driver or passenger — but a turtle?A 71-year-old woman riding with her daughter on Florida’s Interstate 95 suffered a gashed forehead April 21 when a turtle smashed through the windshield of their car, striking her, The Daytona Beach News-Journal reported.The dau…

Paul Simon sells song catalog to Sony Music, but no one’s saying what the price wasPaul Simon is the latest icon to sell his rich catalog of songs.Sony Music Publishing announced March 31 that it has acquired Simon’s catalog, which includes six decades of music, from his time in Simon & Garfunkel to his solo career. Financial details of the deal we…

Continued from Part 1…More innovations followed, including a driver-assistance system in 2014 that promised to drive cars automatically, and home battery packs that set the company in a new direction beyond automobiles. After acquiring a solar power company in 2017, Tesla Motors shortened its name to Tesla to reflect the many sides of its business.…

Elon Musk is one of the world’s richest men. As CEO of Tesla, he has made the company the world’s largest automaker by capitalization. Yet Tesla hasn’t always been an automotive giant and Musk hasn’t even always been its CEO.Tesla was founded as Tesla Motors in 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. Not long after, PayPal co-founder Musk join…

Cuba turned the page on the Castro era on April 19 with the ruling Communist Party electing President Miguel Diaz-Canel to replace Raul Castro as party chief, although Diaz-Canel said he would continue to consult his predecessor on strategic decisions.The succession marks the end of six decades of rule by brothers Fidel and Raul Castro, who led a 1…

Think your dog deserves dessert? So does Ben & Jerry’s.The world-famous Vermont ice cream company has introduced a line of frozen dog treats, its first foray into the lucrative pet food market. Doggie Desserts, sold in 4-ounce (113-gram) cups, went on sale in U.S. groceries and pet stores early this month.The treats come in two flavors: pumpkin wit…

Belle-Ile is the only island in France’s Brittany region and the perfect place to go to get away from the crowds.There are no less than 60 beaches in Belle-Ile, even though the island is a mere 17 kilometers across. The coastline is tailor-made for hikers and nature lovers; windswept surf and rocks poking out of the sea are a recurring theme.If tho…

NY state set to legalize recreational marijuanaNew York is poised to join a growing number of U.S. states that have legalized marijuana after state lawmakers reached a deal to allow sales of the drug for recreational use.The agreement reached March 27 would expand the state’s existing medical marijuana program and set up a licensing and taxation sy…

By Day 3 of being confined to his Australian hotel room for quarantine, David Marriott was getting bored. He’d watched a few seasons of The Sopranos and his eyes were getting tired from reading.Then his lunch arrived in a brown paper bowl and he thought “Aha. That’s a hat waiting to happen.”The paper cowboy was born.Using the good-quality paper bag…

Continued from Part 1…The big clubs previously threatened a Super League in 2016 and leveraged that to secure four automatic Champions League qualification places for England, Spain, Italy and Germany each year.When their true intentions emerged this time, Premier League chief executive Richard Masters rallied the other 14 Premier League clubs, the…

For years, the “Big Six” soccer clubs have thrown their weight around in the English Premier League. But their latest move — announcing April 18 they would join with six European teams to form a new European Super League, separate from Europe’s Champions League — has blown up in their faces.Within 48 hours, all six clubs — Arsenal, Liverpool, Manch…

Welcome to our countdown of the 20th century’s top inventions, where we look at some of the things we take for granted and show how they changed the world.We start in 1901, when a horse-drawn cart appeared on a London street. Workers carried hoses from the cart into a house to suck dust from the carpet into a container. Invented by Hubert Booth, it…

Beloved children’s author Beverly Cleary, who created Henry Huggins, dies at 104Beverly Cleary, the celebrated children’s author whose memories of her Oregon childhood were shared with millions through the likes of Ramona and Beezus Quimby and Henry Huggins, has died. She was 104.Cleary’s publisher HarperCollins announced March 26 that the author d…

North Korea on March 29 accused the United Nations of a “double standard” over its reaction to the North’s recent missile launches, warning it of a serious consequence.On March 25, North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles into the sea in a defiance of U.N. resolutions that ban such launches by North Korea. The U.N. Security Council subs…

UK researchers say they have found an answer to the mystery of StonehengeThe prehistoric standing stones at Stonehenge draw people from around the world to southwest England. But why was the monument built? Archaeologists now think they have an answer.Researchers at University College London already know that some of the stones came from an even ol…

The Australian government is in the middle of a fight with Big Tech companies Google and Facebook over the future of news in Australia. What’s it all about?In two words: advertising money. In the digital age, advertisers have increasingly shifted to Google and Facebook, which give them more bang for the buck than news sites.With their advertising r…

Continued from Part 1…Yokoyama chose to conduct this interview entirely in English, saying that he always likes to strike a good balance “inside my head” between English and Japanese.“I can use occasions like this to speak English out loud and express my thoughts. This lets me check how I’m doing with the language and where I am with it.”He added t…

Kaz Yokoyama is one of the shining lights of Japan’s English education world — a self-taught simultaneous interpreter, author and English teacher who has never studied abroad. As if that wasn’t intimidating enough, Yokoyama is also a martial arts expert.“I started Shorinji kempo when I was 6, judo in my early teens, and began teaching myself to spe…

Students who once shopped at a downtown mall in Burlington, Vermont, are now attending high school in a former Macy’s department store.About seven months ago, Downtown Burlington High School was in the middle of renovations. But toxic industrial chemicals called PCBs were found in the building and the soil, so the school was shut down.That left stu…

Whew, now here’s some good cosmic news: NASA has given Earth the all-clear from destruction by a huge 340-meter-wide asteroid named Apophis — for the next century, anyway.The space agency has announced that new telescope observations have ruled out any chance of Apophis smacking into Earth in 2068.Apophis was first detected in 2004, and scientists …

Owners of aging vehicles in France may soon be able to trade in their clunker for money to buy an electric bicycle.Lawmakers in France’s parliament have approved the measure in a preliminary vote. The measure is part of a draft climate bill passing through the National Assembly. The climate bill aims to reduce greenhouse emissions by 40% in 2030 fr…

The rainy season this year is beginning for some western and central parts of the Japanese archipelago weeks earlier than usual, recording the earliest starting date in some regions since statistics became available in 1951.According to preliminary figures released by the Meteorological Agency, the Kinki region — which includes Osaka, Hyogo and Kyo…

U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris offered solace to Asian Americans and denounced the scourge of racism as they visited Atlanta, just days after a white gunman killed eight people, most of them Asian American women.Addressing the nation after a roughly 80-minute meeting with Asian American state legislators and other leaders…

Continued from Part 1…Of course, the pandemic has shown that handshakes — touching anything with your hands — might be on their way out. Shrines and temples all over Japan have had to rethink their rituals since the beginning of the pandemic. From the ladles visitors use to wash their hands, to the ropes for ringing bells, so many things are an inf…

Mahatma Gandhi once said, “You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.” Remember handshakes? Before all my classes moved to being online, I taught my Japanese students the importance of handshakes. From my experience, people who aren’t used to giving handshakes run the risk of giving ones that are uncomfortable and awkward. “Like a cold, dead fish…

Around 2018, we all heard about deepfakes and how the face-swapping technology was blurring the lines of reality. But deepfakes can also be fun. Dozens of apps in your app store promise to put your face onto an animated GIF or video. Here are some of the best: Reface, Wombo and MyHeritage.Reface was released in February last year and has been wildl…