Four Best Beaches for Families and Kids

Porto Santo, Portugal

Known as: Golden Island

Price: $137 / night

More info: VisitPortugal.com

Porto Santo is the ideal beach with an impressive 4.5 — star rating based on almost 3,000 TripAdvisor reviews. There’s a kids’ club, kids’ pool, game room and even an ecological boardwalk providing direct access to the beach. After swimming, tour Christopher Columbus’ former home for a hands-on history lesson. Then, try local food and let the kids feed the fish and friendly parrots in the gardens.

Medano Beach, Colorado

Known as: Best Western Movie Manor

Price: $110 / night

More info: NPS.gov

Medano Beach is located in Great Sand Dunes National Park. It’s home to the tallest sand dunes in North America. Sled rentals are even available at the visitor center. Yes, you can sled without snow! And it has a drive-in theater! Guests can watch for free from the comfort of their own beds. Movie season runs from mid-May through mid-September.

The Big Island, Hawaii

Known as: The Fairmont Orchid

Price: $400 / night

More info: GoHawaii.com

After visiting Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, walk around the island — home to the most diverse beaches in this area. Choose from white sand, black sand and even green sand. Thanks to mineral deposits (沉积), Papakolea Beach is one of only four green sand beaches in the world.

Paradise Island, The Bahamas

Known as: Comfort Suites Paradise Island

Price: $278 / night

More info: NassauParadiseIsland.com

Comfort Suites Paradise Island may not have the name-recognition of Atlantis, but it’s TripAdvisor’s best value for accommodations. Every room is a suite, so there’s more space than a normal guest room, and the hot buffet breakfast is free. It is perfect for families who want the comfort of home in a resort setting.

When Chris Visions began painting a ground painting in Richmond, he had no idea his street art might help save lives.

Since the painted crosswalk was finished in September, the crossroads has become safer for walkers and motorists. The overall changes were fairly small but still significant in the community, and part of a larger study in various cities that showed far fewer crashes at the art crossroads compared with the prior year.

While the initial purpose of the painting was to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Jackson Ward, it came with an unexpected benefit: The painting has encouraged walkers and motorists to “slow down and take safety into consideration,” said Visions, 37, a local comic book artist.

The painting, which was created with a group of art students from a local arts nonprofit, is one of three new crosswalk art projects in Richmond. The nonprofit base funded 42 street paintings in 41 cities across the country since 2019, with funds of up to $25,000.

As part of the project, Bloomberg Philanthropies collaborated with Sam Schwartz Engineering, a consulting firm, to explore what effect the street art was having on safety. The results of the study showed a drop in the number of traffic accidents in areas with art.

The study examined the crash history at 17 art sites across the country that have a minimum of two years of crash data. It found 83 fewer crashes at the analyzed crossroads — more than a 50 percent decrease compared with data from before the crosswalks were painted.

“Crosswalk art can improve behavior behind the wheel and it can protect the weakest people on the road,” said Janette Sadik-Khan, a principal for Bloomberg Associates and the former officer of the New York City Department of Transportation.

Some intelligent African giant rats are helping humans save lives through search and rescue missions while wearing tiny backpacks.

A British research scientist, Dr. Kean is training 170 rats to be sent into earthquake ruins to do vital work in finding earthquake survivors. These rescue rats are equipped with tiny backpacks that contain microphones, video cameras, and location trackers. These tools will allow the rescue teams to communicate with earthquake survivors in real-time.

Dr. Kean expressed how the rescue rats are ideal for this type of work, saying, “Rats would be able to get into small spaces to get victims buried in the ruins.” The highly clever rats are skillful at surviving in different environments and their natural agility (敏捷) makes them ideal for use in hard-to-navigate disaster zones. The rescue rats are even being trained to respond to the sound that call them back.

Dr. Kean’s team work together with the non-profit organization APOPO for their “Hero Rats” project. These “Hero Rats” are set to start working with a search and rescue team in Turkey, joining earthquake rescue efforts in the high-risk area, The group of 170 rats is being trained for additional projects involving landmines, tuberculosis (结核病), and even smelling out Brucellosis, an infectious disease that impacts farm animals. Dr. Kean feels hopeful about her project’s promising results and is excited that her team is the only organization in this field working with this species.

Millennials (千禧一代) may have been the first generation to come of age online, but their Gen Z successors (接替者) have truly grown up with it — and hardly ever log off.

A 2018 Pew Research Center survey found that 95 percent of teenagers have access to a smart phone; 45 percent say they use the Internet almost constantly. For many of them, social media has been a space for self-expression, entertainment and connection.

But as social media use has risen among teenagers, so have rates of depression, and anxiety. Though it is not a direct relationship, there is evidence that some platforms have worsened young people’s meatal health issues; for instance, research documents from social media showed that Instagram worsened body-image issues for one in three teenage girls.

A March 2022 study published in the scientific journal Nature found that the relationship between social media use and mental health varied by age, but that there were two windows where social media use was more likely to have a negative effect on the well-being of adolescents: at the start of puberty (青春期) and again around age 19.

Emma Lembke, a 19-year-old student at Washington University in St. Louis, experienced those negative efts firsthand. That’s why she started the Log Off Movement in June 2020. The project aims to encourage dialogue among young people who are feeling the negative effects of social media and want to adjust their relationship to it. In a phone interview, Ms. Lembke spoke about the movement she started, the upsides and downsides of social media, and how she has worked to loosen its hold on her well-being.