新聞英文(16) 105-02-Week 2：same sex marriage

US Supreme Court rules gay marriage is legal nationwide

27 June 2015

 

The US Supreme Court has ruled that same-sex marriage is a legal right across the United States.

 

It means the 14 states with bans on same-sex marriage will no longer be able to enforce them.

 

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote that the plaintiffs asked "for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right."

 

The ruling brings to an end more than a decade of bitter legal battles.

 

Same-sex couples in several affected states including Georgia, Michigan, Ohio and Texas rushed to wed on Friday.

 

However officials in other states, including Mississippi and Louisiana, said marriages had to wait until procedural issues were addressed.

 

President Barack Obama said the ruling was a "victory for America".

 

"When all Americans are treated as equal, we are all more free " he said.

 

However, Christian conservatives condemned the decision.

 

Former Arkansas governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee called it "an out-of-control act of unconstitutional, judicial tyranny".

 

And Kellie Fiedorek, a lawyer for an anti-gay marriage advocacy group, said the decision "ignored the voices of thousands of Americans".

Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas, a state where marriages licences will now be issued to same-sex couples, said the justices "have imposed on the entire country their personal views on an issue that the Constitution and the Court's previous decisions reserve to the people of the states".

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-33290341

Structure of the Lead：
WHO- people in the United States
WHEN- not given
WHAT- ruled that same-sex marriage is a legal right
WHY- not given
WHERE- the United States
HOW- not given

Keywords：
1. plaintiff：起訴人
2. dignity：尊嚴
3. grant：給予
4. procedural：程序上的
5. conservative：保守者
6. condemn：譴責
7. unconstitutional：違反憲法的
8. advocacy：提倡

新聞英文(16) 105-02-Week 1：Alpha Go

Machine beats man, wins go series

‘POWERLESS DISPLAY’:South Korea’s Lee Sedol said that he felt extreme pressure heading into the third match, but remained optimistic for the final matches

AP, SEOUL

Google’s go-playing software yesterday defeated a human champion for the third straight time to clinch the best-of-five series and establish its superiority in an ancient Chinese chess-like game long thought to be the realm of humans.

Lee Sedol of South Korea, who is one of the world’s best go players, remained winless against AlphaGo, Google DeepMind’s artificial intelligence machine, after another close match in Seoul. Despite losing the series, Lee is scheduled to play twice more against AlphaGo, today and on Tuesday.

The showdown between human and machine has crushed the pride of go fans, many of them in Asia, who believed go would be too complex for machines to master. Some thought it would take at least another decade for computers to beat human go champions.

Many top go professionals commented that AlphaGo displayed unorthodox, questionable moves that initially befuddled humans, but made sense in hindsight.

Lee looked shaken in the post-match news conference, apologizing to his fans for what he said was a “powerless display” against the game-playing machine.

He said he felt extreme pressure heading into the third match, but that with the series now decided, he might have a better chance in the final two matches, because “the psychological part matters to humans.”

Google cofounder Sergey Brin, who was in Seoul to watch the third match, described go as a “beautiful game” and said he was excited that the company has been able to “instill that kind of beauty in our computers.”

In go, which is considered to be far more complex than chess, two players take turns putting black or white stones on a 19-by-19 square grid. The goal is to put more territory under one’s control by surrounding vacant areas with the stones.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2016/03/13/2003641450

Structure of the Lead：
WHO- Lee Sedol and Google’s go-playing software
WHEN- yesterday
WHAT- software defeated a human champion for the third straight time to clinch the best-of-five series and establish its superiority in an ancient Chinese chess-like game long thought to be the realm of humans
WHY- not given
WHERE- not given
HOW- not given

Keywords：
1. realm：王國
2. winless：未獲勝的
3. showdown：最後的決戰
4. unorthodox：非正統的
5. befuddle：使迷惑
6. vacant：空白的