Questões de Inglês

Despite a string of grisly incidents throughout North America, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared late last week that there is no evidence of a coming Zombie Apocalypse.

The CDC, based in the Atlanta area, has previously issued promotional materials on how to survive a zombie attack, but these were all “a tongue in cheek campaign to engage new audiences with preparedness messages,” according to a new post on the agency’s website. Following a series of ghastly incidents in Canada, New Jersy, Washington and Maryland, the organization was actually forced to address (mostly online) concerns about back-from-the-dead monsters feasting on the flesh of the living.

“CDC does not know of a virus or condition that would reanimate the dead (or one that would present zombie-like symptoms),” agency spokesperson David Daigle told The Huffington Post on Friday.

Zombie talk began May 26 in Florida after 31-year-old Miami resident Rudy Eugene stripped off all his clothes, attacked a homeless man and attempted to chew off his face. Eugene, naked and growling, only ceased his attack after police shot him several times, according to eyewitnesses.

A day later, a New Jersey man stabbed himself 50 times, cut out his own intestines and threw them at police.

By the end of the week a Seattle man had killed six people, including himself, in a shooting spree that started in a local cafe and a Baltimore student was charged with slaying and eating the heart and brain of his housemate.

To make matters even more suspicious, a bear was caught eating the corpse of a convicted murder last week in British Columbia, although until we hear otherwise we’ll assume it’s probably not a zombie bear.

Source: http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/06/04/cdc-to-america-there-is-no-zombie-apocalypse/

Despite a string of grisly incidents throughout North America, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared late last week that there is no evidence of a coming Zombie Apocalypse.

The CDC, based in the Atlanta area, has previously issued promotional materials on how to survive a zombie attack, but these were all “a tongue in cheek campaign to engage new audiences with preparedness messages,” according to a new post on the agency’s website. Following a series of ghastly incidents in Canada, New Jersy, Washington and Maryland, the organization was actually forced to address (mostly online) concerns about back-from-the-dead monsters feasting on the flesh of the living.

“CDC does not know of a virus or condition that would reanimate the dead (or one that would present zombie-like symptoms),” agency spokesperson David Daigle told The Huffington Post on Friday.

Zombie talk began May 26 in Florida after 31-year-old Miami resident Rudy Eugene stripped off all his clothes, attacked a homeless man and attempted to chew off his face. Eugene, naked and growling, only ceased his attack after police shot him several times, according to eyewitnesses.

A day later, a New Jersey man stabbed himself 50 times, cut out his own intestines and threw them at police.

By the end of the week a Seattle man had killed six people, including himself, in a shooting spree that started in a local cafe and a Baltimore student was charged with slaying and eating the heart and brain of his housemate.

To make matters even more suspicious, a bear was caught eating the corpse of a convicted murder last week in British Columbia, although until we hear otherwise we’ll assume it’s probably not a zombie bear.

Source: http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/06/04/cdc-to-america-there-is-no-zombie-apocalypse/

Despite a string of grisly incidents throughout North America, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared late last week that there is no evidence of a coming Zombie Apocalypse.

The CDC, based in the Atlanta area, has previously issued promotional materials on how to survive a zombie attack, but these were all “a tongue in cheek campaign to engage new audiences with preparedness messages,” according to a new post on the agency’s website. Following a series of ghastly incidents in Canada, New Jersy, Washington and Maryland, the organization was actually forced to address (mostly online) concerns about back-from-the-dead monsters feasting on the flesh of the living.

“CDC does not know of a virus or condition that would reanimate the dead (or one that would present zombie-like symptoms),” agency spokesperson David Daigle told The Huffington Post on Friday.

Zombie talk began May 26 in Florida after 31-year-old Miami resident Rudy Eugene stripped off all his clothes, attacked a homeless man and attempted to chew off his face. Eugene, naked and growling, only ceased his attack after police shot him several times, according to eyewitnesses.

A day later, a New Jersey man stabbed himself 50 times, cut out his own intestines and threw them at police.

By the end of the week a Seattle man had killed six people, including himself, in a shooting spree that started in a local cafe and a Baltimore student was charged with slaying and eating the heart and brain of his housemate.

To make matters even more suspicious, a bear was caught eating the corpse of a convicted murder last week in British Columbia, although until we hear otherwise we’ll assume it’s probably not a zombie bear.

Source: http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/06/04/cdc-to-america-there-is-no-zombie-apocalypse/

Despite a string of grisly incidents throughout North America, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared late last week that there is no evidence of a coming Zombie Apocalypse.

The CDC, based in the Atlanta area, has previously issued promotional materials on how to survive a zombie attack, but these were all “a tongue in cheek campaign to engage new audiences with preparedness messages,” according to a new post on the agency’s website. Following a series of ghastly incidents in Canada, New Jersy, Washington and Maryland, the organization was actually forced to address (mostly online) concerns about back-from-the-dead monsters feasting on the flesh of the living.

“CDC does not know of a virus or condition that would reanimate the dead (or one that would present zombie-like symptoms),” agency spokesperson David Daigle told The Huffington Post on Friday.

Zombie talk began May 26 in Florida after 31-year-old Miami resident Rudy Eugene stripped off all his clothes, attacked a homeless man and attempted to chew off his face. Eugene, naked and growling, only ceased his attack after police shot him several times, according to eyewitnesses.

A day later, a New Jersey man stabbed himself 50 times, cut out his own intestines and threw them at police.

By the end of the week a Seattle man had killed six people, including himself, in a shooting spree that started in a local cafe and a Baltimore student was charged with slaying and eating the heart and brain of his housemate.

To make matters even more suspicious, a bear was caught eating the corpse of a convicted murder last week in British Columbia, although until we hear otherwise we’ll assume it’s probably not a zombie bear.

Source: http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/06/04/cdc-to-america-there-is-no-zombie-apocalypse/

Britain’s new mayors

A decade ago when London chose its first directly elected mayor some feared it would become a shallow political beauty contest. But the idea has taken off. Sixteen authorities now elect or are about to elect their mayor; ten more British cities are about to decide.

This is Birmingham's so called Council House built with some grandeur in the nineteenth century to run Britain's second largest city. If voters say yes, they could scrap the traditional council here and choose an executive mayor. But one recent poll suggested the idea is unpopular and voters here remain divided. Some experts want to go further and give mayors control of local health and policing, though that remains highly controversial. Many democracies around the world already have directly or indirectly elected mayors and in mainland Europe it's common. So a 'yes' vote in a large number of British cities could be followed by more; in a decade local government will have been transformed.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/language/wordsinthenews/2012/05/120501_witn_britains_mayor_2.shtml

Who’s really who on Facebook?

We all know what a wonderful aid the internet can be to communication and debate. Sadly, we are becoming aware of how often spiteful anonymous comments can poison the well of web conversations. But now there's something of a fightback - and the social networks where many of these conversations happen will be under growing pressure to do more to protect vulnerable users.

On Monday's Today programme, Nicola Brooke described in moving detail how she had been bullied on Facebook - and had fought back by getting a court order forcing the social network to identify the anonymous people who had mounted a vicious campaign of abuse.What struck me was that Facebook and other social networks had once appeared to offer the promise of a more civilised online communication precisely because they were places where people were who they said they were.

Unlike web forums where bilious commenters express themselves in ways they would never dream of doing without the shield of anonymity, social networks like Facebook and Twitter should be more polite because you have to be who you say you are.

But that no longer appears to be the case. Facebook now has 900 million active users but it seems quite a large proportion of them are not "real" people. (The company says false or duplicate accounts probably make up 5- 6% of its users, although it admits that this is a very rough estimate and may not be accurate.)

So what is Facebook doing about this? The company says it does not actively police its users to make sure they are not breaking the rules - that would be impossible given the scale of the network - but relies on others reporting abuse. When the network receives complaints, it says it is reasonably evident when an account is breaking the rules on anonymity. Obvious clues include a user who has started several accounts using the same email address, or who has had lots of friend requests rejected. But Facebook won't reveal how many accounts it has suspended over the past year, so it is difficult to know exactly how well the system is working. Perhaps we all need to be more active in reporting abuse on networks like this. And maybe networks like Facebook need to be more active in policing their own rules.

Adapted from: http://www.bbc.com, July, 2012.