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World and Press April 1 2023

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4 USAFemale lawmakerstold to smarten upDRESS CODE Amendment on knitted jacketsis met with ridicule in the chamber –and beyond. mit AudiodateiBy Will Pavia1 DEEP INTOa debate at theMissouri State Capitol, a representativefor a rural county roseand attempted to solve a pointof contention. “We have talkeda lot about what a knitted jacketis,” said Brenda Shields, a Republican.“We thought that everyoneunderstood what a knittedjacket was, that it’s a cardigan.”If everyone could agree on this, “Ihave an amendment that I wouldlike to add, that inserts the wordcardigan,” she said. “If you lookup the definition of cardigan,it’s a sweater that is open in thefront, and your arms go throughsleeves.”2 The Missouri House of Representativeswas attempting toagree upon a new dress code forwomen serving there. Ann Kel-ley, a Republican, said thechange she was proposing,which would more explicitlyrequire jackets, wouldclear up any confusion aboutwhat constituted “professionalattire” for women in thechamber.3 It was met with ridiculefrom Democrats in the chamberand beyond as Missouri’sjacket and cardigan controversywas compared to previousefforts to regulate theoutfits of female golfers andrestrictions on open toe sandalsand sleeveless dressesin the halls of the US Capitol.Peter Merideth, a representativefor St Louis City, complainedon Twitter that “the caucus thatlost their minds over the suggestionthat they should wear masksduring a pandemic to respect theA cardigan, now approved forwear by the Missouri House.| Photo: Ihor Rapita/Unsplashsafety of others is now spendingits time focusing on the fine detailsof what women have to wear(specifically how to cover theirarms)”.4 For her part, Kelley, who proposedthe change, complainedthat she had been inundatedwith messages frompeople “worried aboutme wasting the state’stime”. She did not inventthe dress code, she said.“All I was doing was ... clarifyingthe rule.”5 She also had to endurequestions as to whether shewas properly qualified to decideon dress. “If you are talkingabout formal attire, as thelady is suggesting, it is inappropriateto wear sequins andvelveteen before 5pm,” saidRaychel Proudie, a Democrat,before looking pointedly atKelley. Someone who woresequins before 5pm shouldnot be “telling me that I can’twear a crispy, good St Johnsweater”.6 Ashley Aune, a fellow Democrat,said she had been questionedon her attire “by somegentleman in this room”, adding:“You know what it feels like, tohave a bunch of men in this roomApril 1 2023 | World and Presslooking at your top, trying to decidewhether it’s appropriate ornot?” She also raised the matterof the sequins. “You need to getover the sequins,” Kelley replied.7 Kelley’s fellow Republican,Brenda Shields, rallied to hersupport with a definition of knittedjackets and her amendmentthat added the word cardigan.This won over Proudie, andthe amended amendment thenpassed on a voice vote.© The Times, London/News LicensingThis article originally appearedin The Times, London.GlossarNeu!Climate ChangeglossaryLerne wichtige Vokabelnzum Thema Climate Change.Damit du das Englisch abitursicher in der Tasche hast!PDF Download je nur¤ 2,500 – 2 LAWMAKER; s.w.u. representative Abgeordnete(r)— to smarten up s. schick machen— amendment (Gesetzes-)Änderung; s.w.u. toamend ändern — ridicule Spott — chamber Kammer;h.: Abgeordnetenhaus — county (AE) Landkreis— point of contention Streitpunkt — to insertergänzen — to constitute darstellen — attireKleidung3 – 5 restriction Einschränkung; h.: Verbot —caucus Fraktion — to lose one’s mind over s.th.(coll) wegen etw. durchdrehen — specifically insbesondere— for her part ihrerseits — to be inundatedwith (fig) überschwemmt werden mit — toclarify klarstellen — sequin Paillette — velveteenVeloursamt — pointedly demonstrativ — crispyordentlich — St John Marke für Designerpullover6 – 7 a bunch of (coll) ein Haufen — to raisea matter ein Thema anschneiden — to rally tos.o.’s support jdm. zu Hilfe kommen — voice votemündl. Abstimmungwww.sprachzeitungen.deNew York City blocks useof the ChatGPT botin its schoolsEDUCATIONBy Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff1 NEW YORK CITYschoolsbanned access this week to Chat-GPT, an artificial intelligence botthat lets users, including students,ask the tool to write anessay on Shakespeare, solve analgebraic equation, or completea coding assignment. ChatGPTthen churns out a well-written responsemoments later, a developmentthat school systems, teachers,and professors fear couldlead to widespread cheating.mit Übungen | Sprechen2 “While the tool may beable to provide quick and easyanswers to questions, it doesnot build critical-thinkingand problem-solvingskills, which are essentialfor academic andlifelong success,” saidJenna Lyle, a spokespersonfor the New York City Departmentof Education, in a statementto ‘The Washington Post.’The decision by the nation’s mostpopulous school district, firstreported Tuesday by Chalkbeat| Photo: Alexandra Koch/PixabayNew York, restricts the use of thebot for students and educators onthe district’s network or devices.Lyle did not clarify whether studentscould use the tool when notconnected to a school’s internet.3 The tool, created by the organizationOpenAI, uses artificialintelligence software to predictthe next word in a sentence by analyzingtexts across the internet.ChatGPT was also refined by humansto make its answers moreconversational. Identifying theuse of the bot by a student can bedifficult, though various AI companieshave developed programsthat could help teachers do so.4 Just days after the bot wasreleased to the public in November,more than a million peoplehad tried ChatGPT as itquickly gained widespreadpopularity. Teachers worriedstudents would use itto write essays, losing out onthe writing process that they seeas critical to students’ developmentas thinkers.5 “We don’t want ChatGPT tobe used for misleading purposesin schools or anywhere else, sowe’re already developing mitigationsto help anyone identifytext generated by that system,”OpenAI said in a statement sentto ‘The Post’ on Thursday. …6 Lalitha Vasudevan, the vicedean for digital innovation atTeachers College, ColumbiaUniversity, took a different tone.She said using the bot should beembraced as a new learning opportunity.“If the things that weused to put so much effort intoin teaching can be automated,then maybe we should rethinkwhat the actual goals and experiencesare that we should work towardin the classroom,” she said.Teachers and districts could incorporatethe bot into regular lessonplans, comparing, for example,the way the tool formulatesa two-minute Shakespeareanspeech to the way a student mightwrite one, [Vasudevan said]. …© 2023 The Washington Post0 – 1 TO BLOCK h.: verbieten — artificial intelligence künstl.Intelligenz — algebraic equation algebraische Gleichung —coding Programmierung — assignment Aufgabe — to churnout (coll) auswerfen — widespread weitverbreitet2 – 4 academic success Erfolg in Schule und Studium —spokesperson Sprecher(in) — most populous bevölkerungsreichste(r,s)— to restrict beschränken — educator Lehrkraft— to clarify näher erläutern — to refine weiterentwickeln —conversational in e-m lockeren Stil — to lose out on s.th. etw.versäumen5 – 6 misleading betrügerisch — mitigation Abhilfemaßnahme— vice dean Prodekan(in) — to take a different tone (fig) e-nanderen Standpunkt vertreten — to embrace (fig) begrüßen —to incorporate einbinden — lesson plan Lehrplan

World and Press | April 1 2023In Omaha, a streetcar namedundesirable by Warren BuffettINFRASTRUCTURE America is in the middle of a streetcar boom. The billionairewould prefer that his hometown not get onboard. mit AudiodateiUSA5By Julie BosmanLocal leaders hope that a new streetcar system will jump-start development downtown.| Photo: Chase Castor/The New York Times1 THE LETTER to the editor ofthe ‘Omaha World-Herald’ beganpolitely, midwesternly. “I seldomtake sides on local issues,” wroteWarren Buffett, a billionaire investorand Omaha’s most famousresident, in a letter in December.“Understandably, it can be offputtingto many to have a wealthy92-year-old tell them what isgood for their future. I’m going tomake an exception on the streetcarissue.”2 That is the 6 million planto build a system of streetcarsthroughout the heart of Omaha,a sweeping project that was discussedfor decades and is finallyexpected to break ground nextyear. Buffett argued that thestreetcar is too expensive, too inflexible,with decisions “literallycast in cement,” and concludedby saying that Omahans deservea vote on the matter. “If granted, Iwill vote ‘no,’ ” he wrote.3 His voice was a lonely one:America is in the midst of a streetcarboom. In the past decade,streetcar systems have sprung upin Kansas City, Missouri; Cincinnati;Washington, D.C.; Detroit;Atlanta; and other cities – andmore communities are eyeingthe possibility of implementingthem. In Omaha, the project wasdiscussed at open communitymeetings and sailed through thecity council in December with a6–1 vote to approve the city’s saleof bonds required to finance it.4 Municipal leaders across thecountry have been enticed in recentyears by the electric streetcar,a mode of transportationthat was generally phased outin the mid-20th century to makeway for cars and buses. Omaha’sstreetcar system was once one ofthe largest in the country, secondonly to Boston’s.5 “That whole period from 1950to 1970 was a period of destroyingour rail systems,” said Rick Gustafson,a transportation consultantwho has worked on streetcarprojects across the country, includingin Omaha. “Recoveringfrom it is absurdly expensive.Now we’re all looking at corridorsand trying to improve them.”6 Unlike light-rail systems thattend to reach far into the suburbsfor commuters, streetcars are amore local public transit optionthat are limited in scope, oftenlooping for only several milesthrough city centers, with shortdistances between stopsand, frequently, freefares. The streetcar, asthe theory goes, is avehicle to jump-startdevelopment – with theidea that wheretrack is laid for astreetcar, officebuildings, restaurants,sportsattractions, andcondos will follow.7 And yet,Buffett’s letterset off somelingering debateabout the streetcarin Omaha,Nebraska’s largestcity, with apopulation just under 500,000.“There’s no doubt people listento Warren Buffett. I listen to WarrenBuffett,” Omaha Mayor JeanStothert said in an interview.“He’s a very smart, wise man. Buton this issue, he’s just looking at itdifferently than we are.” (Buffettdid not respond to requests forcomment.)8 Stothert and other city officialssay this is the right momentfor the streetcar, despite thecriticism. Although Omahahas a strong sense of civicpride and sees itself as acapital of the plains,it is still competingfor younger,college-educatedworkers whoprefer a bigger,more glitzy citysuch as Chicago.Perhapsa streetcar line,the thinking goes,could add a touch of modernityand urban panache to the Omahalifestyle and brand.9 When I spent two daysthis month wandering aroundOmaha, a city I had not visitedsince before the pandemic, thedowntown seemed a little newer,sparklier than before, even undergray January skies. There wasa colorful mall-like park with aplayground, performance pavilion,and dog run, all features thatopened to great fanfare last year.10 But it was still the downtownOmaha I remembered,something of a modern urbanplanner’s nightmare. Wide, onewaystreets with several lanes ofspeeding drivers that are dauntingto pedestrians. Large surfaceparking lots all over the place.The center of the city has sportsvenues, museums, restaurants,and hotels, but most of them aretoo far away from one another towalk comfortably.Jay Noddle, the president of the OmahaStreetcar Authority, said the project isalready sparking development. | Photo:Terry Ratzlaff/The New York TimesA streetcar motormanin Omaha in 1938. | Photo:GHI/Universal Images Groupvia Getty Images11 In the Midtown neighborhoodnear downtown, Rebecca Boylan,whose frame shop has been onFarnam Street for 27 years, saidshe had mixed feelings about thestreetcar plans. She likes the ideaof modernizing downtown andluring more tourists there. Butshe is concerned that her taxeswill go up, since her store is situatedright on the streetcar line.The pictures of streetcar designsshe had seen looked a little goofy,she thought, like the pseudofuturisticpods in ‘Sleeper,’ theWoody Allen film from 1973.12 Mostly, she doubted thatOmahans would embrace thenotion of hopping on a streetcarto get from one neighborhood tothe next, a foreign concept in thissprawling, car-centric city withan extremely suburban feel. “Youcan’t separate people from theircars here,” Boylan said.13 Ashton Vampola, managerat Corky Boards, an event spaceand painting studio, said she wasthrilled by the idea. The downtownarea is far from inviting,she said, and when people visitthe center of the city, they tendto choose a spot and stay thererather than walk around. “Peopleare so stuck in their ways, but thiscould change it,” she said. “If wehad something like this, it couldchange the vibe of the city.” …© 2023 The New York Times CompanyThis article originally appearedin The New York Times.0 – 2 STREETCAR Straßenbahn (vgl. A Streetcar NamedDesire dt. Titel: Endstation Sehnsucht) — undesirable unerwünscht— billionaire Milliardär(in) — to get onboard h.: (fig)mitmachen — letter to the editor Leserbrief — understandablyverständlicherweise — off-putting abstoßend; unangenehm —sweeping umwälzend — s.th. breaks ground (fig) bei etw. wirdder erste Spatenstich vollzogen — cast in cement in Zement gegossen— to conclude schließen3 – 5 to eye (fig) ins Auge fassen — to sail through (fig) mitgroßer Zustimmung durchlaufen — bond Anleihe — municipalKommunal- — to entice s.o. jdn. verlocken — mode of transportationVerkehrsmittel — to phase out (allmählich) abbauen— corridor h.: Schienenkorridor6 – 7 light-rail system Stadtbahnnetz — commuter Pendler(in)— public transit (AE) ÖPNV — to loop s. schlängeln — to jumpstart(fig) in Schwung bringen — to lay track Gleis(e) verlegen— condo (AE, coll) Eigentumswohnung — lingering langwierig8 – 10 official Amtsträger(in) — civic pride Stolz derBürger(innen) auf ihre Stadt — panache Schwung — sparklyglänzend; funkelnd — performance pavilion Veranstaltungspavillon— dog run Hundeauslauf — to great fanfare mit großemTrara — urban planner Städteplaner(in) — daunting abschreckend— surface h.: oberirdisch11 – 13 to lure anlocken — to be situated s. befinden — goofy albern;blöd — to embrace s.th. (fig) s. auf etw. einlassen — notionVorstellung — sprawling weitläufig — to be stuck in one’s ways(fig) in seinen Gewohnheiten festgefahren sein — vibe Atmosphäre

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