Humor4u

The Mid-term elections are the real test to gauge political trends across the USA every four years. In Washington, the focus is on the control of Congress, that is, the House of Representatives and the Senate, the legistative branch of the constitution. In 2022, the key political issues were democracy and abortion rights for the Democrats, and the economy and crime for the Republicans, but what was really at stake was the political fight to control key local offices across the country, like state attorneys and governors of swing states like Georgia, Pensilvania, Arizona or Nevada, which will oversee the fairness of the next presidential election in 2024,  The New York Times editorializes  in this opinion article. The results of the Mid-term elections show a country that is split into two halves, with minimum gains for the Republicans in the House of Representatives (please, google "Midterm Elections 2022 Results" for the latest update). The Democrats keep control of urban are...

Professor Wolf Reik from the Babraham Institute in Cambridge , has led a group of scientists to find a technique that rejuvenates skin cells by 30 years. BBC News recently reported about this breakthrough, a step forward in regenerative medicine research, which eventually might help in the treatment of diabetes, heart disease or neurological disorders, although there is still a great deal of work to be done, because some of the chemicals involved in the process of cell reprogramming can cause cancer, and clinical application are still "a long way off" , according to Prof. Robin Lovell-Badge of the Francis Crick Institute in London .   The BBC News article and the video below are suitable for C1 students and above.  You will find interesting words like: to tackle, ageing, tissues, age-related disease, disorders, to build on [a technique], to clone, super [exciting], to stress that, [scientific] issues to overcome, a critical step forward, to stem from, embryo, [human emb...

In the challenging economic scenario of a global pandemic, which has brought about confinements, telework, shop closures, furlough schemes, but also new business opportunities for pharmaceutical or computer companies, what are the top job skills that thriving companies are seeking in their new recruits? Here you have a collection of four articles that list the most highly demanded soft and tech skills in the corporate world. The first article comes form HR Vision, it quotes the recently published World Economic Forum report, " The Future of Jobs ", which predicts that by 2025, in the summit of a digital and biological revolution -the 4th Industrial Revolution- companies will be seeking candidates with communication and interpersonal skills, the so-called "soft skills", like "complex problem solving", "critical thinking", "creativity", "people management" or "emotional intelligence" to outperform robots and get things...

Poet Louise Glück has just been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Poetry must be read out loud to appreciate its sound and its music, the unique sound and music of a language, in this case English, which cannot be faithfully translated into any other language. Below you can watch a YouTube video of Louise Glück reading out loud several of her poems at a Lannan literary event.  After an introduction by Peter Streckfus, the poet reads " Mock Orange " (10:17), then two poems from her book " The Wild Iris " (10:29).  Next, two more poems from " Averno " (14:03): " Telescope " (14:27) and " Landscape ", which is introduced at 15:50 and recited at 17:26.  Then, Ms Glück goes on to read two poems from " A Village Life " (29:24), and. finally, the poetic rendition ends with two texts form " Faithful & Virtous Night " (43:11). You can read the words of " Landscape " while you listen to the poem on this lin...

Elisabeth Moss plays the role of writer Shirley Jackson in the movie Shirley, which began to stream on virtual cinema platforms on June 5th.  Here you can read and listen to a 7 minute review of the film by Los Angeles Times critic Justin Chang, broadcast on NPR's Fresh Air . Film reviews are usually very rich in language, and when they are broadcast on the radio, they are particularly difficult to understand for the density of information, as they are usually literary essays read out loud, so both the audio and the text are classified as C2.  You will come across words like bond, fraught, glimpse, to chime, to deserve, script, loosely, insight, bout, to pursue, chore, vicious, to thrive, to get back on track, to root, wrinkle, muse, stand-in, layers, dizzyingly, jagged, close-up, to swerve, handheld, score, to pulse, to grapple with, conundrums, to blur, uncannily, to excel at, exertion, to tease out, odd, tenderness, prickly, to awe, to bind, to cheat on somebody, to endur...

7 Grammy artists (Taylor Swift, Lil Nas X, Lizzo, Billie Eilish, Rosalía, Bon Iver and FKA) talk about how they made their latest hit song.  These seven videos from the New York Times are really hard to understand for different reasons: the clips are fragmentary, so they are a bit like a voice puzzle; there is a lot of technical language about writing and producing songs (jingle, shuffle beat, verse, chorus, bridge), various accents (listen to Lil Nas X!), slang words (so dope, beef up)..., so it is, basically, a document for experts (Ex level).   The less difficult video is Rosalía's about her reggaeton track "Con Altura" (C1 level).  There is a full transcript of the words, which you can listen to while you are reading the text, which is really valuable help for learners of English.