Upper-intermediate

According to National Geographic, the remains of two white giraffes were found in a nature conservancy in northeastern Kenya. The giraffes likely had a rare genetic condition called leucism, which inhibits skin cells from producing pigment. It is believed that they were killed by poachers.

The animals had been well-known since 2017, after rangers spotted them in the conservancy and posted a video to YouTube, which then went viral.

This highlights a modern-day paradox: social media allows people to experience the joy and wonder of the planet’s rarest creatures while simultaneously putting animals at increased risk. Rarity and exclusivity are among the driving factors of the illegal wildlife trade, so unusual animals are more likely to be targeted by poachers.

National Geographic concluded that navigating how to report on unique animals without helping to put a target on their backs is a delicate process. 

Over the past 20 years, American television entered a Golden Age. Before the turn of the millennium, most TV shows followed familiar patterns: crime shows and situational comedies—also known as sitcoms—consisted of self-contained episodes with little plot development through a season or the run of the show.

Then, in 1999, a network called HBO took a huge risk by investing $2 million per episode in The Sopranos, a show that broke with the familiar pattern of television productions. The Sopranos invested in character development and took its time to tell a compelling story. It was a massive success that showed that audiences were willing to sit through drawn-out shows as long as they were good. HBO reproduced that early success with Six Feet Under and The Wire.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported in 2018 that a private zoo in Alberta, Canada, was charged after a bear from the facility was taken through a Dairy Queen drive-thru in a pickup truck and fed ice cream through the vehicle's window.

A video of the feeding was posted to Twitter and Facebook by Discovery Wildlife Park, but the posts were later deleted. It showed a one-year-old chained bear leaning out of a truck's window and being fed ice cream by the owner of the local Dairy Queen. Another video posted by the zoo around the same time showed the bear licking frosting off an ice cream cake.

A trainer at Discovery Wildlife Park said there was no safety concern at the Dairy Queen because the bear was on a chain in the truck the entire time.

The novel coronavirus COVID-19 has impacted the consulting industry in ways that seem potentially ruinous. But do not lose hope. Yes, consultants are used to traveling a lot, and widespread travel restrictions make that impossible. And much of consultancy work is done face-to-face in internal and client meetings, which can’t be done when gatherings are prohibited. There is also the fear that businesses will suspend contracts in the economic downturn.

But we have an advantage this time that we haven't had in past catastrophes. We have the internet. We can have virtual meetings, share documents online and even give presentations with conference software that lets everyone be in the same “room” at the same time. So travel restrictions are less disruptive than in the past—people can do much of what’s needed almost as well from home.

In 2017, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government estimated that the economic effects of the upcoming Olympic Games will be worth about $292 billion over a span of 17 years. In an attempt to cash in on this, a wide array of businesses in Japan have been ramping up preparations, including the taxi industry.

In January 2018, the Japan Federation of Hire-Taxi Associations formulated measures for the Olympics and Paralympics. The association set a goal of having 9,000 drivers taking English lessons by April, and over 16,000 have already completed them.

Only drivers who have completed at least a mid-level English course are allowed to pick up passengers at the international terminal at Haneda airport in Tokyo. To take the exam, which is designed to test communication skills, drivers must finish an advanced English course.

For nearly a century, Kowloon Walled City stood out as a rare modern example of an ungoverned territory. When Great Britain took Hong Kong from the Chinese, they left a Chinese enclave in Kowloon, near Hong Kong island. As the 20th century unfolded, consecutive Chinese governments neglected the governance of the enclave, the British refused to get involved, and it took on a life of its own.

By the 1980s, nearly 50,000 people lived in 300 illegally built structures connected together by an interconnecting maze of passageways and staircases. Drugs and prostitution were common in the walled city, and people from nearby neighborhoods would come to visit cheap unlicensed doctors and dentists. Residents cooked and baked goods that they sold to vendors outside the enclave.

California has been trying to ban the delicacy foie gras for quite some time. The French dish is well-known in fine dining, but it is made from the liver of a duck or goose that has been force-fed to increase the fat content. Many have said the process constitutes animal cruelty.

The ban was passed into law back in 2004, but it was phased in gradually. It finally went into full effect in 2012, at which time foie gras producers promptly sued the state government. Fast forward to 2015, and a federal judge overturned the ban, stating that it was unconstitutional and went against federal poultry law.

Two years after that, the higher Ninth Circuit court ruled 3-0 that the federal judge had made an error, and allowed California to keep the ban. Again, foie gras producers appealed, this time to the U.S. Supreme Court. But the Supreme Court declined to hear the case, making the previous Ninth Circuit ruling final. 

Electronic waste is a huge problem. There's an estimated 51,000 tonnes of it globally per year, says the European Union. But a new law could put an end to one part of it.

The E.U. has passed a law that as of 2024, all phones will have a standard USB-C charger. Having a single type of smartphone charging port will make cables interchangeable and more reusable. This standard charger would also improve the customer experience. 

Maybe you've been using your phone when the battery runs low, and your friend offers you a charger, but it's the wrong kind. Many of us have had our phone die while we are out and about, far from our charger. A standard charger would solve this problem.

If there is one train ride that will rid you of your comfort zone, then that is the journey on Train 61, from Yangon to Bagan in Myanmar. Myanmar is an impoverished country that has been reeling from civil conflict for nearly 70 years. It only opened itself up to the rest of the world in 2014.