Topic Reading-Vol.5119-4/30/2026

Dear MEL Topic Readers, 

Africa’s biggest airport is being built in Ethiopia for $12.5 billion

Addis Ababa is Ethiopia’s capital with a population of around four million, the 10^th largest in Africa. Addis Ababa Bole International Airport (ADD) is the main hub of Ethiopian Airlines, the state-owned flag carrier and the largest airline in Africa, covering 150 destinations, but it has already reached capacity. So, the airline is now investing in building a new airport, Bishoftu International Airport (BIA), to boost the passenger capacity to 60 million by 2030 to become a leading airline to connect African skies, for both passengers and freight. The new airport is designed to serve mainly transit passengers to, from, and within African countries, and compete with the Middle Eastern hubs like Dubai, Doha, and Abu Dhabi, and African airports, such as Cairo, Nairobi, and Casablanca. To secure the land for the new airport, more than 15,000 people from 36 square kilometers of agricultural land have been displaced, who are said to be compensated and provided with 1,400 new homes in total. But how many of them will find jobs in their new land? Also, at an elevation of 1,900 meters above sea level, which requires extra power & thrust and reduced payload capacity for takeoff and landing compared with airports at sea level, how competitive will the new airport be?

Read the article and learn about Ethiopian Airlines' new bid for a new hub airport in Africa.

https://edition.cnn.com/travel/africas-biggest-airport-is-being-built-in-ethiopia-for-usd12-5-billion-spc

Topic Reading-Vol.5118-4/29/2026

Dear MEL Topic Readers, 

Sawe smashes two-hour mark to 'move goalposts for marathon running'

Many marathon world records have been set in Chicago, Berlin, and London due to their fast, flat routes. On April 26 at the London Marathon, Kenyan runner Sabastian Sawe set a new men's marathon world record of 1:59:30, the first human to run a sub-two-hour marathon in official race conditions. Only 11 seconds later, another runner from Ethiopia, Kejelcha, reached the goal at 1:59:41 in his first full marathon race. Also set at the same event was the Women's Only Record of  2:15:41 by an Ethiopian runner, Assefa. It was quite amazing that three runners broke the world record at a single marathon event. Interestingly, all three runners were wearing recently released new adidas Adizero Adios Pro Evo 3 shoes, the lightest shoe in the brand’s Adizero range, weighing less than 100 grams. The runners, conditions, shoes, and competition all might have contributed to the three world records at the recent marathon event.

FYI, the first world record of an international marathon race was 2:58:50 at the 1896 Athens Olympic Games. It took 130 years to shave one hour off the time to run 42.195 km.

Read the article and learn about this historic marathon event.

https://www.bbc.com/sport/athletics/articles/crm1m7e0zwzo

Topic Reading-Vol.5117-4/28/2026

Dear MEL Topic Readers, 

AI chatbots could be making you stupider

While the tools we use help us accomplish tasks, they seem to change how we think, too. As we’ve become more reliant on search engines, we seem to remember details less. Now, what will happen to our brains when we rely more on large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT on day-to-day, business, or academic tasks? The more we outsource cognitive tasks, the less cognitive effort we make, which might impair our mental skills, such as remembering and critical thinking. In essay-writing tasks on open-ended topics for college students, the brain activity of those who used ChatGPT was much less than that of those who didn’t use the LLM. Also, the LLM users seem to retain or remember less about their essays than those who wrote them by themselves. If you walk, you’ll feel the air around you. If you drive, you’ll see things on the way. If you fly, you’ll get there faster without effort or memory. Think, search, or ask. If we don’t use our brains, we might impair our cognitive abilities.

Read the article and learn what LLMs do to our brains.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20260417-ai-chatbots-could-be-making-you-stupider

Topic Reading-Vol.5116-4/27/2026

Dear MEL Topic Readers, 

Why your recycled clothes could end up in this South American desert

Created in 1975 to boost economic and social development in northern Chile, the Iquique Free Trade Zone (ZOFRI) is a major duty-free commercial and industrial hub. It offers businesses 100% exemption from corporate tax, customs duties, and value-added tax (VAT) on first sales to boost regional development. Used clothes from all over the world are among the biggest imports in ZOFRI. Once landed, they are sorted and then sold locally or exported to other countries in Latin America, which creates considerable local businesses and employment. Unsold clothes are supposed to be sold to an authorised waste company, but not all are. Some are burnt illegally, and others are dumped in the surrounding Atacama Desert, the oldest and driest sand desert, whose surreal, Mars-like landscapes attract many tourists. It is estimated that nearly 40,000 tonnes of such unsold clothes are illegally dumped in the desert each year. But help is on the way. A new factory is being built to turn the clothes into fibers, and then into felt to be used for mattresses, furniture, and insulation. Also, the government is going to include textiles in the Extended Producer Responsibility Law, which makes the sellers responsible for the lifespan of their products. No one wants the Atacama Desert to become a dump site.  

Read the article and learn what happens to unsold clothes at the end.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62kg63k8v6o

Topic Reading-Vol.5115-4/26/2026

Dear MEL Topic Readers, 

A Chinese android just ran a half-marathon faster than any human ever

China is winning one AI race, the US another (Vol.5114). Last year, it took a humanoid robot more than two hours to run a half-marathon race held in Beijing. This year, the fastest robot ran 21 kilometers in only 50 minutes and 26 seconds, faster than last year’s winner by two hours and also the human record by six minutes. Developed by a Chinese smartphone maker, Lightning, a 169cm-tall running humanoid won the race with its autonomous navigation and burst power. Over 100 teams, nearly five times more than last year, took part in this year’s half-marathon. Having been positioned as one of the 10 key industries for upgrading and identified as a new frontier by the government, China’s humanoid robotics industry is booming and has been drawing talent, resources, and investment. Last August in Beijing, more than 500 humanoid robots from 280 teams competed in 26 events at the World Humanoid Robot Games, including boxing, football, cleaning, and sorting medicine. How astonishing is this year’s event going to be?

Read the article and learn how China is advancing in the race to develop humanoid robots.

https://edition.cnn.com/2026/04/19/china/china-robot-half-marathon-intl-hnk

Topic Reading-Vol.5114-4/25/2026

Dear MEL Topic Readers, 

China is winning one AI race, the US another - but either might pull ahead

During the Cold War, the US and the Soviet Union competed in space technologies and nuclear armament. Now, the US and China are in a nose-to-nose AI race. Which has advantages over the other, and which is winning?

The US has the world’s leading AI brains, such as chatbots and large language models (LLMs), which learn, recognize, interpret human language and data, and then generate text outputs. It also dominates microchips that run AI and LLMs produced by Nvidia, a premier microchip provider, whose chips are manufactured mainly by a Taiwanese chip giant, TSMC. Speaking of generative AI, only two years after ChatGPT debuted, a highly competitive AI-powered chatbot, DeepSeek, was launched by a Chinese AI startup. Since Chinese IT developers often publish their code online (open source approach), they are quick to catch up and advance. Another advantage China has is the world’s largest manufacturing industry. It dominates the world’s EVs, drones, and robots markets, all of which are powered by AI. In particular, China excels in humanoid robots, which are expected to fill the labor shortages, particularly in care work, in the fast-aging country. As the AI race is shifting to agentic AI, which autonomously makes decisions and takes actions to achieve the goal, either country has the chance to lead in the ongoing high-tech race.

Read the article and learn about the AI race competed by the US and China.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c145enxln0go

Topic Reading-Vol.5113-4/24/2026

Dear MEL Topic Readers, 

It’s time for students to start committing to colleges. The age of AI is making it complicated

For most U.S. colleges and universities, first-year applicants are required to decide where to enroll and submit a deposit to secure their spot by May 1, a day called College Decision Day. This is often the first decision students make for their future. Then by the end of the sophomore year, college students should be finishing with their general education requirements and are expected to decide on their major for their future career courses or expertise. Business, Health, and Social Sciences are the most popular majors, while Engineering and Computer and Information Sciences bring higher income than others in general. However, as AI is redrawring the landscape of business and career opportunities, students, and their parents, too,  are now rethinking which college to study at or what major to take. Also, since college tuition and fees have risen significantly in the last few years, the return on a four-year college education is now under serious scrutiny. Does a bachelor’s degree ensure higher lifetime earnings and employment endurance compared with two-year degrees, vocational training, or military service? Do blue-collar jobs earn more than desk jobs?

Read the article and learn why College Decision Day is becoming more significant to students and their parents in the USA.

https://edition.cnn.com/2026/04/18/business/ai-college-debt-parents