原文通读

*US election: TikTok in the firing line over Trump campaign fears of China influence
*

In addition to the struggling economy, deteriorating China relations and the rising number of Covid-19 cases, Trump faces critical policy decisions on cybersecurity and preventing foreign interference

A ban on TikTok in the US could be seen as a deliberate suppression of free speech for partisan reasons, triggering higher turnouts among young people more inclined to vote against Trump

With less than 100 days to go to the US presidential election, Donald Trump and his administration are at a critical point in their bid for re-election. It will not be easy. Trailing presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden in the polls, Trump will need to address many issues in the coming weeks to prevent an embarrassing result in November.

TikTok, WeChat and many other Chinese social media platforms have become trending topics in the international media, yet the discussions are no longer restricted to the technology and finance spheres. After the White House implied that several Chinese social media platforms could be shut out of US cyberspace, their significance has come under greater scrutiny.

With its short videos, funny meme-style clips and algorithms to attract and retain users, TikTok is also becoming a tool to mobilise political movements. In Canada, New Democratic Party leader Jagmeet Singh tried to reach young voters on the platform in the 2019 federal election. In the US, TikTok was used to help sabotage a Trump rally in Tulsa as users registered for tickets to falsely inflate attendance numbers.

The Trump administration should be looking to evaluate potential political gains and losses on any cybersecurity and social media policy changes. The most important question for officials is whether banning Chinese mobile apps in the US will get the president more votes – or fewer – in November.

经济学人：

MAY 25th police officers in Minneapolis responded to a shop assistant’s complaint about someone passing a counterfeit bill. They arrested George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, but instead of putting him in the back of a squad car, an officer pressed his knee to Mr Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes—almost three of which came after police failed to find Mr Floyd’s pulse. Mr Floyd complained that he could not breathe, called out for his late mother and eventually stopped moving.

Mobile-phone footage of Mr Floyd’s death emerged one day later, and for the ensuing four days, violent protests have wracked Minneapolis. Derek Chauvin, the officer who held Mr Floyd on the ground, was arrested on the afternoon of May 29th and charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter, and may face further charges for what certainly looks like excessive and unjustified force.

CNN:

Washington (CNN)Taylor Swift lashed out at President Donald Trump on Friday for his late-night tweet threatening violence against protesters in Minnesota, tweeting that the President has been “stoking the fires of white supremacy and racism (his) entire presidency.”

“After stoking the fires of white supremacy and racism your entire presidency, you have the nerve to feign moral superiority before threatening violence? When the looting starts the shooting starts’???” the pop icon tweeted.

She tagged Trump in her tweet, adding: “We will vote you out in November.”

Within hours, Swift’s tweet had received more than a million likes, making it the singer’s most-liked post on Twitter.

Trump’s tweet came as protests erupted in Minneapolis in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd, a black man who was heard on video saying he couldn’t breathe as a white police officer pinned him down with his knee.

“These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won’t let that happen,” the President tweeted early Friday morning. “Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him that the Military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts.”

Twitter said Trump and the White House’s official Twitter account, which posted the same message, violated the platform’s rules against glorifying violence. A warning label has been added to both tweets – the first time such a measure has been taken against the accounts.

第一段

Nasdaq-listed Luckin Coffee’s share price fell 75.57% to US$6.40 as of market close on Thursday, after the company submitted a filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announcing an internal investigation into the conduct of former chief operating officer Jian Liu, who is believed to have inflated revenues by 2.2 billion yuan (US$310.5 million).

第二段

Luckin also stipulated that law firm Kirkland & Ellis will provide independent counsel during the investigation, and advised investors to disregard financial results and guidance from 2019 until the full extent of misconduct can be identified.

第三段

The now-suspended Jian Liu served as Luckin’s COO since May 2018, having previously worked with CEO Qian Zhiya at Car Inc. from 2008 to 2017.

第四段

On January 31, questions about the legitimacy of Luckin’s financial results were first raised by diligence-based equity research firm Muddy Waters, which revealed their short position on Luckin via Twitter, citing an 89-page anonymous report supported by 11,260 hours of store traffic video footage. The specific reference to tracking in-store video suggested the embellishment of sales.

第五段

Just days later on February 3, Xiamen-based Luckin responded to the short attack, refuting the “misleading and false allegations” in another SEC filing, KrAsia reported. At the time, the on-demand beverage startup claimed that all of its “key operating data, including the number of items per store per day, items per order, and effective selling price, are tracked in real time and could be verified.”

第六段

About a month later on March 6, 10 US law firms announced they were prepared to file a lawsuit against Luckin on behalf of investors. Specifically, these American investigators were looking into the potential fabrication of certain financial and operating metrics, including per-store per-day sales, net selling price per item, and advertising expenses.

第七段

Luckin has performed well since its initial public offering that raised US$645 million in May 2019, climbing from an opening price of just over US$20 to a peak of around US$50 in January. The fallout from Thursday’s announcement erased what was a 54% gain since IPO, slashing the company’s market cap by almost US$5 billion.

第八段

Despite the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, Luckin’s 2020 outlook was positive, as analysts had expected a 170% year-on-year increase in sales before news of the investigation broke. In addition, at the end of the fourth quarter of 2019, 33 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in Luckin, an increase of 43% from the previous quarter.

第九段

Luckin chief financial officer Reinout Schakel said in an interview last November that the company is on track to become profitable by the third quarter of 2020.

第十段

The company has established the largest network of coffee stores in China as of the end of 2019, surpassing industry incumbent Starbucks. However, it might take some time for Luckin’s management to repair their credibility in the eyes of investors.

1. South Korean President Moon Jae-in called yesterday for a full investigation into a network of chat rooms at the heart of an operation to blackmail women and underage girls into sharing sexual images of themselves.

2. The National Police Agency announced 124 suspects have been arrested and 18 chat-room operators on Telegram and other social-media outlets detained as a result of sexual-crime investigations that began in September of 2019.

3. According to The Diplomats, among the suspects, the most prominent is known by the surname Cho and the Telegram nickname “Doctor.” He is thought to be the largest and most active distributor of illegal videos on the social-media outlets with more than 260,000 followers.

4. The perpetrators would attract victims through fake job advertisements and solicit compromising photographs. They would then threaten to release the photographs if the victims did not send images of increasingly degrading and violent acts, police said.

5. At least 74 women, including 16 underage girls, were “virtually enslaved” for several months, police said. In some cases, the victims were blackmailed into committing violent acts on themselves.

6. Public outrage hit critical mass yesterday as a petition gathered more than 2.3 million signatures — passing a threshold that requires the president’s office to respond.

7. The petition’s author urged authorities to disclose the identity of the network kingpin — who went by the user name “GodGod” — and release his picture.

8. The suspect allegedly lured victims into taking nude images of themselves and shared them in a Telegram chat room, a popular encrypted-messaging app.

9. The petition also criticized other participants who paid as much as 1.5 million won (US$1,187) to view the images.

10. Police said as a matter of policy they would not reveal any of the suspect’s names.

11. Presidential Blue House spokesman Kang Min-seok said Moon considered the alleged crimes “a cruel act that destroyed human life” and asked police to treat the case as a serious crime.

12. Moon also urged police to expand their investigation into chat-room members to change the perception of perpetrators who “hide behind anonymity.”

13. As digital sex crimes increase worldwide, South Korea has become the global epicenter of spycam pornography — the use of tiny, hidden cameras to film victims naked, urinating or having sex.

14. Last year, South Korean, British and American authorities said they arrested 337 people worldwide, including 223 South Koreans, after taking down a child pornography web site operated from South Korea.

Whether this week’s collapse of stock and oil prices will spiral into a much deeper economic crisis, perhaps even eclipsing that of 2008, depends on how the United States and other governments react.

美国股市和油价在本周的暴跌是否会演变成更严重的经济危机，甚至可能超过2008年的危机，取决于美国和其他国家政府如何反应。

The United States has now, belatedly, taken drastic actions on travel and announced some support for businesses. But these are too late to prevent the coronavirus from spreading and too little to stave off a deeper economic downturn.

美国政府现已严格限制旅行，并宣布会给予企业一些支持，不过这些姗姗来迟的举措对于预防新冠病毒的传播为时已晚，对于阻止经济进一步衰退也过于微不足道。

Swamping the markets with liquidity, as was done in 2008, is not going to resolve the problem this time. The markets are already awash in cash, and as was again demonstrated in early March, further cuts in interest rates no longer translate into growth. What is needed now is leadership that focuses on the domestic challenges and seeks to build international cooperation — rather than scapegoating other countries.

这一次的问题不像2008年那次危机，向市场大量注入流动性就能解决。现在的市场上资金早已充足，如3月初再次证明的那样，进一步降息已不再能刺激经济的增长。当务之急是需要专注于应对国内挑战并寻求建立国际合作关系的领导力，而非找其他国家作替罪羊。

Wide-ranging targeted interventions, including tax cuts for the lowest-income earners, would restore confidence and help working people and the businesses that could be devastated. However, national policies alone, adopted government by government, will not be enough to forestall a global catastrophe.

为低收入者减税等各类有针对性的干预措施将恢复人们的信心，并帮助可能因疫情而遭受“灭顶之灾”的劳动者和企业。然而，单靠各国政府采取的国家政策，还不足以阻止一场全球性灾难。

The world needs a coordinated economic response. Vulnerable governments that risk buckling under the strain of the pandemic require financial support to prevent the global health crisis from also becoming a financial crisis.

世界需要一个协调的经济应对措施。在“大流行”的压力下，一些较为脆弱的政府面临着经济崩溃的风险，它们需要财政支持，以防止这场全球卫生危机也演变成一场全球金融危机。

Apple does not “let bad guys use iPhones on screen”

苹果公司：影视剧里的反派不准用 iPhone

Rian Johnson, the director of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, has lifted the lid on a secret in the world of product placement — Apple will not allow its kit to be used by a villainous character on screen.

电影《星球大战：最后的绝地武士》的导演莱恩·约翰逊，揭露了一个关于植入式广告的黑暗秘密：苹果公司规定，具备邪恶属 性的人物，不能在影视剧中使用它们的产品。

“Apple, they let you use iPhones in movies but, and this is very pivotal, if you’re ever watching a mystery movie, bad guys cannot have iPhones on camera,” Johnson revealed in a video recorded for Vanity Fair.

约翰逊在为杂志《名利场》录制的一段视频中透露：“苹果公司是同意让 iPhone 出现在电影里，然而，我接下来要说的这一点 很重要：如果你看过悬疑片，你就会发现，反派人物在镜头前是不会使用 iPhone 的。”

Johnson let the secret slip as he took viewers through an anatomy of a scene in his latest film, the hodunnit Knives Out.

约翰逊在带领观众，一起剖析自己的凶杀悬疑新片——《利刃出鞘》中的一幕时，透露了这个秘密。

“Every single film-maker who has a bad guy in their movie that’s supposed to be a secret wants to murder me right now,” Johnson added.

约翰逊接着补充道：“每一个想在电影里藏反派人物的电影人，现在一定都很想杀了我。”

Apple has long cultivated an immaculate brand image and it strictly controls how its products are used on the big and small screen. An article from Wired as long ago as 2002 pointed out that all the good guys in the long-running thriller 24 use Macs, while all the villains were seen using Windows PCs.

长期以来，苹果一直致力于塑造一个完美的品牌形象，严格把关其产品在大小荧幕中的使用方式。早在 2002 年，美国《连线》杂志中的一篇文章就曾指出：长期播出的惊悚剧《24 小时》里， 所有正派人物用的都是苹果电脑，而反派人物则用的是微软系统的电脑。

Guidelines advise that Apple phones, computers and other kit bearing the trademark should be seen “in the best light, in amanner or context that reflects favourably on the Apple products and on Apple Inc,” according to the site MacRumors.

据 MacRumors 网站披露，苹果公司的（商标和版权使用）准则建议：苹果手机、电脑和带有苹果商标的其他产品“要以最佳姿态出现在公众视野，其出现的方式或场合，能给苹果的产品和苹果公司带来积极正向的影响”。

But Apple is far from alone in attempting to dictate the types of content and characters brands are willing to be associated with. “All brands have stipulations for how they want to be used and seen on screen,” says Darryl Collis, director of product placement specialists Seesaw Media.

然而，绝不是只有苹果一家公司，在试图规定它们愿意建立形象关联的内容、角色类型。来自 Seesaw 媒体公司的达里尔·科利斯，是该公司植入式广告专家团队的总监，他说：“所有的品牌都有明确的条款，来规定自身产品在荧幕上的出现和使用方式。”

① Netflix’s new documentary “American Factory”, the maiden project of Barack and Michelle Obamas’ production company Higher Ground, has opened to rave reviews in Sundance festival and has a shot at the Oscars.

网飞的新纪录片《美国工厂》是奥巴马夫妇创立的高地影片制作公司出品的处女作，该片在圣丹斯国际电影节上映，赢得如潮好评，有望争夺奥斯卡奖项。

② “American Factory” is set in the industrial heartland of the US. Hard done by The Great Recession in 2008, General Motors shut down their truck plant in Ohio, putting around 2,000 employees out of work. Cut to 2015, the founder of Fuyao Glass, Cao Dewang, took over the plant and employed for his first operations in the US around 1,000 locals, who worked alongside the imported Chinese “trainers”.

《美国工厂》的故事发生在美国工业中心地带。受2008年经济大萧条冲击，通用汽车公司关闭了俄亥俄州的汽车厂，导致近2000名员工失业。时间跳转到2015年，福耀玻璃集团创始人曹德旺接手该厂，并为其在美国的初期运营雇佣了大约1000名当地员工与来自中国的“培训师”一同工作。

③ Cao’s attempt to replicate the labor-intensive China model at the factory was met with shock and surprise from the American workers, who were frequently described as inefficient. The Chinese, on the other hand, were scolded for their lax attitudes towards worker welfare.

曹德旺试图在这里复制中国工厂劳动密集型的生产模式，而这让时常被描述为低效的美国工人瞠目结舌。而另一边的中国人，因漠视工人福利同样备受指责。

④ Released into Trump’s America, it takes aim at the growth story peddled by the President, showing how America is not well-equipped to deal with the realities of the new global marketplace. Trump administration’s all show and no go policies and the US-China trade war are not helping matters either.

在特朗普执政的背景下，《美国工厂》瞄准了特朗普兜售的振兴美国大计，暗示着美国面对新近全球化市场的现实情形尚未做足准备，而特朗普政府纸上谈兵的政策以及中美贸易战也并未解决这一问题。

内容拓展：

铁锈地带（Rust Belt）最初指的是美国东北部-五大湖附近，传统工业衰退的地区，现可泛指工业衰退的地区。

① Smoke obscured the skyline of Sao Paulo on August 19 as fires were raging in the Amazon rainforest 1,700 miles away. Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE) said that the Amazon region accounted for more than half of the 72,843 fires in the country this year - an 80% increase year on year.

8月19日，浓烟模糊了圣保罗的天际线，此刻大火正在1700英里以外的亚马孙雨林肆虐。巴西国家空间研究所（INPE）表示，今年巴西境内共检测到72843起火灾，比去年同期增加80%，其中亚马孙地带的火灾数量占一半以上。

② Home to an eclectic mix of flora and fauna, the Amazon produces 20% of the oxygen in the Earth’s atmosphere and acts as a counterforce to global warming. It is not without reason that the Amazon is called the “lungs of the planet.”

亚马孙雨林有着丰富多样的动植物种类，释放的氧气占地球大气氧气总量的20%，在对抗全球变暖中扮演重要角色。“地球之肺”的美誉，可谓实至名归。

③ A senior scientist at INPE said 99% of the fires are caused by humans. Environmental groups have called into question the Brazilian government’s attitude towards the largest rainforest on Earth. However, President Jair Bolsonaro assigned the blame on NGOs whom he suspected of having spread the fires to tarnish the government’s international image.

INPE的一名资深研究员称，99%的火灾都是人为造成的。环境组织纷纷质疑巴西政府面对世界最大雨林的不作为态度。然而，巴西总统雅伊尔·博索纳罗却将矛头转向这些非政府组织，怀疑他们故意纵火，抹黑巴西政府的国际形象。

④ During his campaign last year, Bolsonaro had promised to fix Brazil’s economy by tapping into Amazon’s natural resources. Upon assuming office, he relaxed environmental regulations and gave free rein to miners, loggers and farmers to exploit the rainforest to a greater extent. If this aggression continues unchecked, the Amazon could turn into a dry savannah and start releasing instead of absorbing carbon – the biggest driver of climate change.

在去年总统竞选期间，博索纳罗曾承诺通过开发亚马孙自然资源来修复巴西经济。上任后，他放松了环境管制，放任采矿、伐木和耕地等活动进一步剥削雨林资源。如果这类对雨林的入侵活动持续泛滥，亚马孙雨林可能会变成一片干枯的热带草原，其碳吸收的功效不再，转而开始排放温室气体这一导致气候变化的最大元凶。

内容拓展：英语表达的丰富性、灵活度和准确性

今日导读

最近热映的美剧《切尔诺贝利》将 1986 年震惊世界的切尔诺贝利核反应堆熔毁事故，和它骇人听闻的后果再次呈现在我们面前。在这次事故中，受到辐射最严重的受害者是在第一时间冲往核电站灭火的 28 名消防员，在《切尔诺贝利》第三集中，辐射对这些英雄的身体造成的影响被真实地还原了出来，令人印象深刻，心生同情。在今天的内容中，大家会读到三段来自卫报的节选，让我们跟 Lala 老师一起，来听听《切尔诺贝利》的化妆特效师讲述创作这部剧集背后的故事。

带着问题听讲解

如何理解 meltdown 这个词？

Daniel Parker 是如何看待因得辐射病而死这种死亡方式的？

如何看待切尔诺贝利核事故对我们的启示意义？