【推荐2】Sophia Scott meant to spend the summer as an intern (实习生) shadowing doctors at the UCLA Concussion Clinic, as she had the year before. With COVID-19, the senior from Marymount High School had to put her plans on hold.

“Once everything fell through, I wanted to make sure I used my time as well as I could,” she explained.

Instead of using the summer focusing on herself, the 17-year-old from Los Angeles set about trying to help others. Recognizing that distance learning has been tricky for many, Scott decided to use her God-given academic skills to do something for others.

In a matter of weeks, she set up and launched Quaranteens, a free tutoring service that gathered together other like-minded teens to help out those students needing an academic boost in various subjects. She hoped that she and her group could really help the students get improved.

Impressively, Scott didn’t sit around waiting for students in difficulty to reach out for help. She set up a website and actively offered her services to charities focused on education, appreciating that there were many pupils struggling with the distance learning experience.

“A lot of the students I’ve worked with felt their school year was essentially cut off last March, which absolutely would have a negative impact on the year ahead. So a lot of the work we did was trying to help them catch up,” the new tutor shared.

This situation has been experienced around the world by many students, so the fact that this caring teen sought to remedy (挽救) the situation single-handedly makes her actions more inspiring.

Now with lots of children back in school, Scott hasn't finished her tutoring service. Instead, the experience has encouraged her and her team, which now totals an impressive 16 tutors, to continue offering their help.

“What is most satisfying to me is knowing that something small I'm doing now, like helping a kid become better at reading, could have such a wide range of impact on their education in the future.”

【推荐3】In both Africa and Asia elephants are being threatened by changes in their natural habitats. People are moving into the elephants’ habitats and endangering their survival. In the country of Sri Lanka, there is one place where elephants are not only protected but also respected. It is called Elephant Transit Home (ETH).

Set up in 1995, the ETH aims to protect and care for baby elephants that are found injured or living without their mothers in the wild. Every year about 30 baby elephants in Sri Lanka need help. Many are brought to the ETH. There they are given food, shelter, and medical care. Most importantly, they are given the chance to be with other elephants and become part of a herd.

A day at the ETH begins early in the morning when the baby elephants are given their first feeding of milk. During the day, each baby will drink an average of 13 gallons of milk. Older elephants are fed mostly coconut leaves and other native plants. There are no boundaries in the area for the baby elephants as they have the freedom to walk wherever they want. The cost of caring for the baby elephants is high. The ETH spends about $125,000 each year on powdered milk for the baby elephants.

At the ETH, workers try to reduce human connections with the elephants. They also try to increase bonds (联系) between the elephants. It usually takes three years for a baby elephant to be set free into its natural habitat. The elephants are sent back to the wild together with other orphans with whom they have bonded. This program helps them return to the wild as members of a herd that will communicate with each other and take care of each other.

The ETH is considered as one of the best animal protection sites in the world. Not only are the elephants cared for, but they are treated with respect. Most importantly, they go back to live in the wild, where they belong.

【推荐1】Tourism can be both good and bad. Yes, it brings in money for the local economy and creates lots of jobs for locals, but it may also bring some problems.

One growing problem is tourists who want to prove that they have visited someplace. Tourists have used paint, rocks, or even keys to write on the Luxor Temple in Egypt, the Colosseum in Rome, Stonehenge in the UK, memorial stones at the bottom of Qomolangma, and many, many other places. Thousands of tourists sites are being destroyed by tourists who “love them to death”. I have three words for people like this: please stop it. If you want to leave a mark on the world, do it by changing someone’s life with kindness and love. Pass kindness along to future generations, not destruction.

Another big problem in some places has been tourists disturbing the local people and life. Some tourists wander around and take pictures of local people without asking for their permission. For example, Chiang Mai University in Thailand and Yonsei University in South Korea have great numbers of tourists visiting their campuses and walking through their libraries and other public areas, taking pictures of students and disturbing their studies. I have three words for tourists like this: please be considerate. I have three words for people like this: please stop it.

The number of problems from tourists is endless: walking in large groups without considering others who need to walk by, crossing roads without observing local traffic laws, and many more. The only way to solve the issue of the terrible tourist is to make sure that you are not one! Be the best, kindest, most polite tourist possible. Remember, whenever you step outside your country’s borders, you are representing your country to the rest of the world.

【推荐2】There’s a lot of anxiety around how young people, particularly teenagers, use the internet but new research by Talk Talk suggests some of these fears may be emphasized too much.

In a recent study, 2,000 young people aged 13-16 year olds and the parents of the same teenagers, were interviewed about their attitudes to technology and loneliness. The teens were mainly optimistic about technology and its uses. Over half (71 percent) said that during times when they felt lonely, tech provided a solution to their loneliness such as enabling them to make new friends, receive support and advice, as well as read positive comments online.

However, social media was regarded as a cause for feeling lonely by 12 percent of teens, who said they felt lonely because they didn’t have many friends on social media.

When it comes to the parents, on the other hand, it demonstrated that there is an education gap between worrying about the internet, and knowing what to do about it.

For instance, 70 percent of parents worry bout their teens using the internet, but 65 percent said they did not limit the hours their teen spends using social media and tech, and 70 percent reported they don’t use parent protection controls and software. Around 37 percent said they feel ill-equipped or unsure about how to manage their teens online.

It seems like when it comes to teens on the internet, the main issue is with the parents not understanding what they’re doing. Research by Oxford University academics found there was little evidence between screen time and mental health in teenagers. The study used a mixture of self-reporting techniques as well as time-use diaries.

The research reflected another study earlier this year by the same academics that found technology use explains at most 40 percent of adolescent wellbeing (幸福安乐).

We’re still learning about how things like social media impact our health and wellbeing, but at least in this instance, it demonstrates that the Generation Z’s digital understanding nature means they may have more of a hold on tech and its effects than their parents do.

If you are a parent and worrying about your child’s screentime use, security company Norton has put together a handy guide on how to manage it, such as setting limits on screen time, and talk about the risks of sharing private information on social media.

【推荐1】FLORENCE, Italy—Svetlana Cojochru feels hurt. The Moldovan has lived here seven years as a caregiver to Italian kids and the elderly, but in order to stay she’s had to prove her language skills by taking a test which requires her to write a postcard to an imaginary friend and answer a fictional job ad.

Italy is the latest Western European country trying to control a growing immigrant(移民) population by demanding language skills in exchange for work permits, or in some cases, citizenship.

Some immigrant advocates worry that as hard financial times make it more difficult for natives to keep jobs, such measures will become more a vehicle for intolerance than integration(融合). Others say it’s only natural that newcomers learn the language of their host nation, seeing it as a condition to ensure they can contribute to society.

Other European countries laid down a similar requirement for immigrants, and some terms are even tougher. The governments argue that this will help foreigners better join the society and promote understanding across cultures.

Italy, which has a much weaker tradition of immigration, has witnessed a sharp increase in immigration in recent years. In 1990, immigrants numbered some 1.14 million out of Italy’s then 56.7 million people, or about 2 percent. At the start of this year, foreigners living in Italy amounted to 4.56 million of a total population of 60.6 million, or 7.5 percent, with immigrants’ children accounting for an even larger percentage of births in Italy.

Cojochru, the Moldovan caregiver, hoped obtaining permanent residence(居住权) would help her bring her two children to Italy; they live with her sister in Moldova, where salaries are among the lowest in Europe. She was skeptical that the language requirement would encourage integration.

Italians always “see me as a foreigner,” an outsider, even though she’s stayed in the country for years and can speak the local language fluently, she said.

【推荐3】There is a school in my Manhattan neighbourhood that has been giving out free meals during the Covid-19 pandemic—and every time I walk past it, the line seems longer. A community fridge recently showed up a couple of blocks away; it's one of many that activists have fixed across the city to fight against growing food insecurity. Just around the corner there's a young woman who has become a regular among the beggars I usually see in the area. She lost her job because of Covid-19.

It's not all doom and gloom. While the poor are getting poorer, the 1% are making out like robbers. America's 600-plus billionaires saw their wealth grow by more than $700bn in the first few months of the pandemic. During the same period, more than 50 million American workers lost their jobs. The US government has printed trillions of dollars in economic relief but many of the forgivable emergency loans （贷款） for small businesses seem to have been taken by the super-rich. My local independent coffee shop has closed down, but Kanye West received a partially forgivable loan worth at least $2m. It is becoming increasingly clear that the US is experiencing one of the biggest wealth transfers in history.

Bernie Sanders has a plan to help. Last week, Sanders introduced a bill（ 法案） , Make Billionaires Pay Act, which would establish a one-time 60% tax （税收） on billionaires' pandemic gains and use the money to guarantee Americans free health care for a year. There is very little chance the bill will get passed.

Billionaires shouldn't exit in the first place—the idea that they should be taxed at a higher rate during a pandemic to help pay health care shouldn't be slightly controversial（ 有争议的） . However, there are some who think such a move would be extremely unfair to "poor unfortunate" billionaires who, as we all know, are one of the most unfairly hurt groups in the world.