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en:ecrit:articles-en [2025/10/20 11:11] – [European Central Bank leaves rates unchanged as economy weathers Trump's tariffs] natashaen:ecrit:articles-en [2026/01/27 15:51] (current) – [English articles] natasha
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 It's useful to read articles in English, even if you don't understand every word - it will help you increase your vocabulary and keep up to date with things happening in English-speaking countries! It's useful to read articles in English, even if you don't understand every word - it will help you increase your vocabulary and keep up to date with things happening in English-speaking countries!
  
-//This page will be updated on **Mondays**. The first article is aimed at a B1 and upwards level and the second article is aimed at a B2 and upwards level //+//This page will ** not longer be updated**. We are working onf inding a solution. In the meantime time, you can use the archive to access older articles. The first article is aimed at a B1 and upwards level and the second article is aimed at a B2 and upwards level //
      
  
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-===== Thieves hit the Louvre again. Here's a look at other famous heists in museums worldwide =====+===== King Charles III leads Britain's Remembrance Sunday ceremony for war dead =====
  
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-PARIS (AP) — Thieves reportedly stole nine pieces from the jewelry collection of Napoleon and the Empress in the Louvre, using a basket lift to reach the museum on Sunday morning.+By JILL LAWLESS Associated Press
  
-The daring heist at the world's most visited museum occurred as tourists were inside the Galerie d'Apollon, where part of the French Crown Jewels are displayed.+LONDON (AP) — King Charles III led Britain's annual ceremony of remembrance for the country's war dead on Sunday, under November sunshine and the shadow cast across Europe by the almost 4-year-old war in Ukraine.
  
-The museum closed for the day as police sealed gates and ushered visitors out.+As Parliament's Big Ben bell tolled 11 a.m., thousands of military personnel, veterans and members of the public gathered in central London fell still for two minutes of silence, broken by a single artillery blast and Royal Marines buglers sounding "The Last Post."
  
-Here's a look at some other famous heists worldwide:+The 76-year-old king, dressed in the uniform of an army field marshal, laid a wreath of red paper poppies on a black background at the base of the Cenotaph war memorial. Erected over a century ago to honor the British and allied troops killed in World War I, it has become the focus of annual ceremonies for members of military and civilian services killed in that war and subsequent conflicts.
  
-**The Louvre's missing Mona Lisa helped cement the portrait's fame**+The national ceremony of remembrance is held every year on the nearest Sunday to the anniversary of the end of World War I on Nov. 11, 1918, at 11 a.m. Similar memorial services are held in dozens of towns and cities across Britain and at U.K. military bases overseas.
  
-The Louvre has a long history of thefts and attempted robberies. The most famous came in 1911, when the Mona Lisa vanished from its frame, stolen by Vincenzo Peruggia, a former worker who hid inside the museum and walked out with the painting under his coat.+A military band played as heir to the throne Prince William followed his father in laying a wreath on the simple Portland stone monument inscribed with the words "the glorious dead."
  
-It was recovered two years later in Florence — an episode that helped make Leonardo da Vinci's portrait the world's best-known artwork.+Wreaths were also laid by Prime Minister Keir Starmer, other political leaders and diplomats from across the Commonwealth of Britain's former colonies.
  
-**Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist remains unsolved**+Queen Camilla, the Princess of Wales and other members of the royal family watched from their traditional place on a balcony of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.
  
-It's been called the biggest art heist in U.S. history, but 35 years later, the theft of 13 works from Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum remains unsolved.+Many of the wreaths were made of poppies, and most people in attendance wore paper poppies on their lapels. The scarlet flowers that bloomed on the muddy battlefields and makeshift graveyards of northern France and Belgium during World War I — made famous by the poem "In Flanders Fields" — have become a symbol of remembrance in Britain and other countries.
  
-In the early hours of March 18, 1990, two men disguised as Boston police officers talked their way into the museum by saying they were responding to a call. They overpowered two security guards, bound them with duct tape and spent 81 minutes pilfering 13 works of art, including masterpieces by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Degas and Manet.+Like many other NATO members, Britain has increased its defense spending since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Britain says it will spend 3.5% of GDP on defense by 2035.
  
-Authorities say the artwork is worth perhaps as much as a half-billion dollars. Museum officials say it's priceless because it cannot be replaced.+After the wreath-laying, some 10,000 military veterans with gleaming medals marched past the Cenotaph, accompanied by jaunty military music and applauded by well-wishers lining the sidewalks. Among them, in wheelchairs, were about 20 of the dwindling band of WWII veterans, the youngest of them 98 years old.
  
-Some of the works, including Rembrandt's "Storm on the Sea of Galilee," were cut from their frames. Those frames hang empty in the museum to this day.+Donald Poole, 101, who served in as a Royal Army Ordnance Corps explosives handler in the conflict that ended 80 years ago, said it was "a great honor to be able to pay tribute to the poor souls who have died in all conflicts.
  
-**2 German museum burglaries netted a solid-gold coin and royal jewels** +"I know how lucky I am to still be here thanks to all those who have fought and served, past and present," he said. "I also want to pay tribute to the civilian services who suffered during the Second World War, particularly the fire service, who saved so many lives during the Blitz — many of whom lost their own." 
- +===== With pharaoh-like fanfare, Egypt unveils a huge new museum dedicated to its ancient civilization =====
-In 2017, burglars at Berlin's Bode Museum stole a 100-kilogram (220-pound) Canadian solid-gold coin known as the "Big Maple Leaf." +
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-The suspects are believed to have smashed a protective case and then managed to lift the coin out of a museum window before fleeing along a rail track with their haul in a wheelbarrow. After getting away with it, authorities believe they later cut up the coin, valued at about 3.75 million euros ($4.33 million), and sold the pieces. +
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-Three men, including a museum security guard, were later convicted. +
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-Two years later, thieves smashed vitrines in Dresden's Green Vault, one of the world's oldest museums, and carried off diamond-studded royal jewels worth hundreds of millions of euros. Officials said they made off with three "priceless" sets of 18th century jewelry that would be impossible to sell on the open market. +
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-Part of the haul was later recovered. Five men were convicted and a sixth was acquitted. +
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-**An English palace's golden toilet was pried off its plumbing** +
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-A thief who swiped a golden toilet from an English palace was convicted earlier this year along with an accomplice who helped cash in on the spoils of the 18-carat work of art insured for nearly 5 million pounds (more than $6 million). +
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-Michael Jones had used the fully functioning one-of-a-kind latrine as he did reconnaissance at Blenheim Palace — the country mansion where British wartime leader Winston Churchill was born — the day before the theft, prosecutors said. He described the experience as "splendid." +
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-He returned before dawn on Sept. 14, 2019, with at least two other men armed with sledgehammers and crowbars. They smashed a window and pried the toilet from its plumbing within five minutes, leaving a damaging flood in their wake as they escaped in stolen vehicles. +
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-The satirical work, titled "America" by Italian conceptual artist Maurizio Cattelan, poked fun at excessive wealth. It weighed just over 215 pounds (98 kilograms). The value of the gold at the time was 2.8 million ($3.6 million). The purloined potty has never been recovered but is believed to have been cut up and sold. +
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-The piece had previously been on display at The Guggenheim Museum in New York. The museum had offered the work to U.S. President Donald Trump during his first term in office after he had asked to borrow a Van Gogh painting. +
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-===== US electric grids under pressure from energy-hungry data centers are changing strategy =====+
  
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-By MARC LEVY Associated Press +
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-HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — With the explosive growth of Big Tech's data centers threatening to overload U.S. electricity grids, policymakers are taking a hard look at a tough-love solution: bumping the energy-hungry data centers off grids during power emergencies. +
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-Texas moved first, as state lawmakers try to protect residents in the data-center hotspot from another deadly blackout, like the winter storm in 2021 when dozens died. +
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-Now the concept is emerging in the 13-state mid-Atlantic grid and elsewhere as massive data centers are coming online faster than power plants can be built and connected to grids. That has elicited pushback from data centers and Big Tech, for whom a steady power supply is vital. +
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-Like many other states, Texas wants to attract data centers as an economic boon, but it faces the challenge of meeting the huge volumes of electricity the centers demand. Lawmakers there passed a bill in June that, among other things, orders up standards for power emergencies when utilities must disconnect big electric users. +
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-That, in theory, would save enough electricity to avoid a broad blackout on the handful of days during the year when it is hottest or coldest and power consumption pushes grids to their limits or beyond. +
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-Texas was first, but it won't be the last, analysts say, now that the late 2022 debut of OpenAI's ChatGPT ignited worldwide demand for chatbots and other generative AI products that typically require large amounts of computing power to train and operate. +
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-"We're going to see that kind of thing pop up everywhere," said Michael Webber, a University of Texas engineering professor who specializes in energy. "Data center flexibility will be expected, required, encouraged, mandated, whatever it is."+
  
-**Data centers are threatening grids**+By SAMY MAGDY Associated Press
  
-That's because grids can't keep up with the fast-growing number of data center projects unfolding in Texas and perhaps 20 other states as the U.S. competes in a race against China for artificial intelligence superiority.+CAIRO (AP) — In an extravaganza of pharaonic imagery with a drone light show depicting ancient gods and pyramids in the sky, Egypt on Saturday inaugurated its long-delayed Grand Egyptian Museum, a megaproject aiming to give the country's millennia-old heritage a rich, modern display.
  
-Grid operators in Texas, the Great Plains states and the mid-Atlantic region have produced eye-popping projections showing that electricity demand in the coming years will spike, largely due to data centers.+Two decades in the making, the museum located near the Giza Pyramids and the Sphinx is the centerpiece of the government's bid to boost Egypt's tourism industry and bring cash into the troubled economy.
  
-A proposal similar to Texas' has emerged from the nation's biggest grid operator, PJM Interconnection, which runs the mid-Atlantic grid that serves 65 million people and data-center hotspots in Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania.+At the elaborate grand opening ceremony, attended by a number of European and Arab royals and other presidents and prime ministers, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi sought to give the event an international scale.
  
-The CEO of the Southwest Power Pool, which operates the grid that serves 18 million people primarily in Kansas, Oklahoma and other Great Plains states, said it has no choice but to expand power-reduction programs — likely for the biggest power users — to meet growing demand.+He called on attendees to "make this museum a platform for dialogue, a destination for knowledge, a forum for humanity, and a beacon for all who love life and believe in the value of humankind."
  
-The proposals are cropping up at a time when electricity bills nationally are rising fast — twice the rate of inflation, according to federal data — and growing evidence suggests that the bills of some regular Americans are rising to subsidize the gargantuan energy needs of Big Tech.+**A bid to join the ranks of the world's top museums**
  
-Analysts say power plant construction cannot keep up with the growth of data center demand, and that something must change.+The museum, known as GEM, is one of several megaprojects championed by el-Sissi since he took office in 2014, embarking on massive investments in infrastructure with the aim of reviving an economy weakened by decades of stagnation and battered by the unrest that followed the 2011 Arab Spring uprising.
  
-"Data center load has the potential to overwhelm the grid, and I think it is on its way to doing that," said Joe Bowring, who heads Monitoring Analytics, the independent market watchdog in the mid-Atlantic grid.+Egypt's pharaonic history has long made it a tourist magnet. But it has also long struggled to organize and display the sheer huge amount of artifacts — everything from tiny pieces of jewelry and colorful tomb murals to towering statues of pharaohs and animal-headed gods, with more as discoveries are constantly being made across the country.
  
-**Data centers might have to adjust**+Touted as the world's biggest museum dedicated to a single ancient civilization, the new building, in contemporary style is a stark contrast. Its large, open halls give space for some 50,000 artifacts on display, along with virtual reality exhibits. It displays the entire collection of treasures from the tomb of the famed King Tutankhamun for the first time since its discovery in 1922.
  
-Big Tech is trying to make their data centers more energy efficient. They are also installing backup generators, typically fueled by diesel, to ensure an uninterrupted power supply if there's a power outage.+The museum replaces the Egyptian Museum, housed in building more than a century old in downtown Cairo that — while elegant in its Neo-Classical style — had become antiquated and was often compared to a warehouse, overpacked with artifacts with little explanation.
  
-Data center operators, however, say they hadn't anticipated needing that backup power supply to help grid operators meet demand and are closely watching how utility regulators in Texas write the regulations.+Construction on the $1 billion project began in 2005 under then-President Hosni Mubarak. But work was interrupted by turmoil surrounding the 2011 uprising that brought down the Egyptian strongman. Further delays ensued, and a planned grand opening over the summer had to be put off after the 12-day-long war between Israel and Iran erupted in June.
  
-The Data Center Coalition, which represents Big Tech companies and data center developers, wants the standards to be flexible, since some data centers may not be able to switch to backup power as easily or as quickly as others.+GEM is expected to attract 5 million visitors annually, said Egypt's tourism and antiquities minister, Sherif Fathy. That would put it in the realm of the most popular museums in the world. In 2024, by comparison, Paris's Louvre brought in 8.7 million, the British Museum 6.5 million and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York 5.7 million.
  
-The grid operator also should balance that system with financial rewards for data centers that voluntarily shut down during emergencies, said Dan Diorio of the Data Center Coalition.+**An elaborate opening ceremony**
  
-**Nation's largest grid operator has a proposal**+Saturday night's grand opening stoked the pharaoh-mania.
  
-PJM's just-released proposal revolves around a concept in which proposed data centers may not be guaranteed to receive electricity during a power emergency.+As an orchestra played fanfares, lines of actors dressed in ancient Egyptian garb arrayed around the museum, the pyramids and the Sphinx. Hundreds of drones created a light show in the sky, depicting well-known Egyptian gods like Isis and Osiris and the pyramids.
  
-That's caused a stir among power plant owners and the tech industry.+El-Sissi posed with delegates from more than 70 countries, including members of the royal families from Belgium, Spain, Denmark, Jordan, Gulf Arab nations and Japan, and a number of European and regional presidents and prime ministers. It was a throwback to the grand opening of another megaproject in Egypt, the 1869 inauguration of the Suez Canal, when Egypt's rulers gathered a host of European royal families.
  
-Many questioned PJM's legal authority to enforce it or warned of destabilizing energy markets and states scaring off investors and developers with uncertainty and risk.+**Ramses the Great and King Tut**
  
-"This is particularly concerning given that states within PJM's footprint actively compete with other U.S. regions for data center and digital infrastructure investment," the Digital Power Network, a group of Bitcoin miners and data center developers, said in written comments to PJM.+The museum boasts a towering, triangular glass façade imitating the nearby pyramids, with 24,000 square meters (258,000 square feet) of permanent exhibition space.
  
-The governors of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Illinois and Maryland said they worried that it's too unpredictable to provide a permanent solution and that it should at least be accompanied by incentives for data centers to build new power sources and voluntarily reduce electricity use.+It opens to a granite colossus of Ramses the Great, one of ancient Egypt's most powerful pharaohs who reigned for around 60 years, from 1279-1213 B.C., and is credited with expanding ancient Egypt's reach as far as modern Syria to the east and present-day Sudan to the south. The statue greets visitors once they step inside the museum's angular atrium.
  
-Others, including consumer advocates, warned that it won't lower electric bills and that PJM should instead pursue a "bring your own generation" requirement for data centers to, in essence, build their own power source.+The museum's 12 main galleries, which opened last year, exhibit antiquities spanning from prehistoric times to the Roman era, organized by eras and by themes.
  
-**A deal is shrouded in secrecy**+Two halls that will be opened for the first time after Saturday are dedicated to the 5,000 artifacts from the collection of King Tutankhamun — a boy pharaoh who ruled from 1361-1352 B.C. The tomb was discovered by British archaeologist Howard Carter in 1922 in the southern city of Luxor. The old Egyptian Museum did not have enough room to display the whole collection.
  
-In Indiana, Google took a voluntary route.+The collection includes the boy pharaoh's three funeral beds and six chariots, his golden throne, his gold-covered sarcophagus and his burial mask, made of gold, quartzite, lapis lazuli and colored glass.
  
-Last month, the electric utility, Indiana & Michigan Power, and the tech giant filed a power-supply contract with Indiana regulators for a proposed $2 billion data center planned in Fort Wayne in which Google agreed to reduce electricity use there when the grid is stressed. The data center would, it said, reduce electricity use by delaying non-urgent tasks to when the electric grid is under less stress.+Zahi Hawass, Egypt's most renowned archaeologist and former minister of antiquities, said the Tutankhamun collection is the museum's masterpiece.
  
-However, important details are being kept from the public and Ben Inskeep of the Citizens Action Coalition, a consumer advocacy group, said that leaves it unclear how valuable the arrangement really is, if at all.+"Why this museum is so important, and everyone is waiting for the opening?" he told The Associated Press. "Because of Tutankhamun."
  
-**A new way of thinking about electricity**+**Boost to tourism and economy**
  
-To an extent, bumping big users off the grid during high-demand periods presents a new approach to electricity.+Officials hope the museum will draw more tourists who will stay for longer periods and provide the foreign currency needed to shore up Egypt's battered economy.
  
-It could save money for regular ratepayers, since power is most expensive during peak usage periods.+The government has also revamped the area around the museum and the nearby pyramids and the Sphinx. New highways were built, and a metro station is being constructed nearby. An airport, Sphinx International Airport, has also opened west of Cairo — 40 minutes from the museum.
  
-Abe Silverman, an energy researcher at Johns Hopkins University, said that data centers can and do use all the electricity they want on most days.+The tourism sector has suffered during years of political turmoil and violence following the 2011 uprising. In recent years, the sector has started to recover after the coronavirus pandemic and amid Russia's war on Ukraine — both countries are major sources of tourists visiting Egypt.
  
-But taking data centers off the grid for those handful of hours during the most extreme heat or cold would mean not having to spend billions of dollars to build a bunch of power plants, he said.+A record number of about 15.7 million tourists visited Egypt in 2024, contributing about 8% of the country's GDP, according to official figures. Fathy, the tourism minister, said about 18 million tourists are expected this year, with authorities hoping for 30 million visitors annually by 2032.
  
-"And the question is, is that worth it? Is it worth it for society to build those 10 new power plants just to serve the data centers for five hours a year?" Silverman said. "Or is there a better way to do it?"+This will translate into more jobs and pump foreign currency into the economy, said Walid el-Batouty, a tour guide.
  
-Follow Marc Levy on X at: https://x.com/timelywriter+"It will be boost the economy of Egypt tremendously not just the hotels and the museum itself," he said. Whenever a tourist rides a cab or even just buys a bottle of water, "that is pumping money" into Egypt's coffers, he added.
  
 +Associated Press journalist Ahmed Hatem in Cairo contributed to this report.
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