Hello and welcome back to a new episode of News Bites!

I'm Hope Ngo. And I'm Nancy Sun.

In this episode: More than 20 thousand people gather for a Swim in Sun Moon
Lake…

And, The Problem with Driverless Taxis.

Also in this episode's News Flash: the word "STAMINA" We'll have more on
these stories coming up.
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[超過2萬人 泳渡日月潭]
More than 20 thousand people swim in Sun Moon Lake

What do you like to do when you visit Sun Moon Lake [日月潭]?

Do you like to hike [走步道] around the lake?

Or do you like to ride a bicycle and explore [探索] the area?

If you like water sports, there are things you can do too.

Some people like to ride boats, while others enjoy taking out stand up
paddleboard [立式槳板 ].

Even though you can play sports in Sun Moon Lake, there is one thing you
can't do regularly.

You can't go for a swim.

That changes once a year, during the Sun Moon Lake Swimming Carnival, which
happened in September.
[但每年會有一次例外，就是在九月舉行的日月潭萬人泳渡嘉年華 ]

The event happened early in the morning... and the swimmers had to swim a
distance of 3 kilometers.

That's the distance between Chaowu Pier [朝霧碼頭 ] on the lake's northern
end to Ita Thao Pier [伊達邵碼頭 ] in the southern end.

That might sound like a big distance to swim... but that didn't keep more
than 24 thousand swimmers from joining the event.

The Sun Moon Lake Swimming Carnival is 43 years old this year.

And it was memorable because two people who were over the age of 75 were
finally allowed to take part!

But if you were over the age of 75 and you were interested... you had to do
two things before you could join.

You had to provide health documents [健康檢查證明]... and you had to have a
qualified lifeguard [救生員 ] with you.

One of the two seniors who took part was former president Ma Ying Jeou.

He swam in the Sun Moon Lake Swimming Carnival for the 12th time.

He said he joined the event every year "to stay fit, which is the most
important purpose." [最重要的目的。 ]

The Sun Moon Lake International Swimming Carnival is famous around the world.

It was recognized [承認 ] by the Olympic Committee [奧委會] as the largest
swimming event in the world in 1995.

It was officially inducted [進入] into the International Swimming Hall of
Fame [國際游泳名人堂 ] in 2002.
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[自動駕駛計程車的問題]
The problem with driverless taxis

We may not see driverless taxis [ 自動駕駛計程車 ] in Taiwan, but they can be
found in the United States.

There are driverless taxis in cities like San Francisco [舊金山 ], Los
Angeles [洛杉磯 ], and Atlanta [亞特蘭大 ].

Driverless taxis have been around for a few years.

A company called Waymo got their first license [證照 ] to test [檢驗]
driverless taxis in 2018.

And now, Waymo says it offers 250 thousand [二十五萬 ] rides a week!

But just because the technology [科技 ] is being used in some cities... that
doesn't mean it is perfect [完美的 ].

Waymo's technology can still develop problems, or "glitches" [故障 ].

And its most recent glitch involves an illegal U-turn [非法掉頭 ].

Police in the city of San Bruno in California, say they asked a Waymo taxi to
stop.

They saw the taxi make the illegal U-turn.

But when they stopped the car, they discovered [發現] the car had no driver.

Since there was no person in the car, the police could not issue a ticket,
because they cannot issue tickets to cars with no drivers.
[因為車內沒有人，警察無法開罰單，因為他們不能對沒有駕駛人的車輛開單]

The San Bruno Police told the story over social media [社交媒体], and
different netizens didn't react the same way to the news.

Some people were angry, because they think police should send the traffic
ticket to Waymo.

Some people were curious, because they want to know how the police got the
Waymo to stop the driverless taxi.

Waymo knows their car broke a law, but it doesn't know what went wrong.

The company says they watch their driverless cars closely so the taxis don't
make any mistakes.

The police are hoping Waymo will reprogram [重新程式設計] the driverless
taxis so they don't make the same mistake again.

What do you think?

Would you ride in a driverless taxi? And would you report the taxi if it
broke the law?
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So in today's News Bites:

You usually can't go for a swim in Sun Moon Lake.

But that changes once a year, during the Sun Moon Lake Swimming Carnival,
which happened in September.

This year, more than 20 thousand people took part in the event.
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And…

A driverless taxi was caught making an illegal U-turn in the United States.

But police didn't issue a ticket, because they said they had to issue a
ticket to a human driver.

And the taxi didn't have one.
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In today's News Flash, our vocab word is "STAMINA!"

That's spelled S-T-A-M-I-N-A.

"Stamina" is a noun. That's the ability to do something for a long period of
time.

"Stamina" is [耐力] in Mandarin.

For example: it takes stamina to be able to swim three kilometers across Sun
Moon Lake.

And now you know!
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If you have a fun fact or a joke you'd like to share with us, record your
message and send us your Bite-Sized Break to newsbites@icrt.com.tw, and you
might hear it in an episode!
We'll see you next time for an exciting new episode of News Bites!