【推荐1】Few people knew about online food delivery apps ten years ago, but today, many would find it hard to live without them. In China alone, over 400 million people use such apps. For better or for worse, online food delivery services have changed the way we eat, and they are also having a huge impact on our society.

These services have no doubt brought us many benefits. They provide jobs for millions of people and help restaurants find more customers. Since the apps are very convenient, they also benefit consumers: we can now have meals delivered at any time of day, despite bad weather or busy schedules. This is especially important for people who work long hours, since they might not have time to cook. Not only do these apps save time, they also provide us with a wide variety of restaurants to choose from. They have proved to be useful for retired people as well: seniors who live far away from restaurants and supermarkets can now get hold of meals and groceries more easily.

However, we must not forget the drawbacks of online food delivery services. For one thing, they make it even easier to order unhealthy food, high in sugar, fat and salt. Food safety is another problem: it can be hard to establish where the food actually comes from, and whether the owner is legally permitted to run a restaurant. As couriers need to deliver the orders as quickly as possible, some pay little regard to traffic rules. In recent years, there have been a number of terrible traffic accidents because of this. Moreover, the industry is creating unbelievable amounts of packaging waste: over a million tons of online food delivery boxes are thrown away every year. Experts assume that this number will continue to grow in the future, and this will have a negative impact on the environment.

【推荐2】People visit a shopping mall more often nowadays because malls provide goods and services such as food, clothing, and things for their houses, entertainment, even medical services. However, environmental activists say that consumers’ behavior is causing a huge environmental disaster: the side effect of their shopping—urban sprawl (扩大).

Social scientists agree that patterns of development have changed the landscape a great deal in the last half century. Before 1950, most people lived in towns or cities and either walked to work or took public transportation. Only very wealthy people had automobiles. Farmers lived in rural areas or isolated villages and came into town only when they needed things they couldn’t produce themselves. If you gazed at the landscape you would see towns surrounded by countryside.

Then a massive change occurred. Automobiles became affordable and people were quick to adopt them. Now ambitious workers could live in the suburbs, the areas just outside cities, which started to grow rapidly. As long as there was lots of cheap land in the suburbs, no one paid much attention to the usage of that land. Malls, fast food restaurants, cinemas, and car dealerships spread out in large, flat buildings. These one-storey buildings and their parking lot took up a great deal space. Well-meaning farmers thought they were better off selling their land than growing crops. In ignorance, no one realized that once the land was built up in urban sprawl, the good farming land would be ruined forever. There was no way to preserve it.

Only in recent years have people come to mourn the old way of life as they have developed insight into the problems. Now people realize that urban sprawl has come with serious environmental problems. The negative aspects of sprawl include air and water pollution, loss of agricultural land, traffic jams, and the death of businesses in the old town centers. Many scholars think the time has come to analyze the problems better so we can develop appropriate policies to control further sprawl. Some think the best way to do is to educate citizens about their priceless environment.

【推荐3】In the last school year, nearly 1 in every 10 students in New York City public schools was homeless, according to new data released on Wednesday. A total of 104,383 children lacked permanent housing during the 2021-22 school year across districts, an increase of about 3.3 percent from the previous school year, according to an annual report released by Advocates for Children New York,a nonprofit organization that annually collects data on homeless students.

About 28 percent or more than 29,000 students were living in city shelters, while nearly 5 percent or about 5,500 students were considered “Unaltered”, living in cars, parks and abandoned buildings, according to the report. Nearly 360 children lived in hotels or motels. About 69,000 children were “doubled up”, meaning they stayed with extended family and friends after losing permanent housing or facing economic difficulties, the report found.

Meanwhile,the country’s largest school district has been losing students,with roughly 120,000 leaving over the last five years. Public school enrollment(入学) has dropped by nearly 9.5 percent since the pandemic started.

“While the city works to address the issue of homelessness, we also must ensure that students who are homeless get to class every day and receive the targeted support they need to succeed in school,” Kim Sweet, executive director of Advocates for Children, said.

During the last school year, almost 2 in 3 students living in shelters were considered “chronically (经常反复发生地) absent”, which means they missed at least 10 percent of school days. Chronic absence hurts students’ academic performance. In the 2020-21 school year, 70 percent of students who were homeless graduated, compared with 81 percent of all students. They were also more than three times more likely to drop out of high school than their classmates who do have housing.

“If we want to break this bad cycle of poverty and homelessness, we have to make sure we’re prioritizing education of students in temporary housing,”Jennifer Pringle, director of Project Learning in Temporary Housing for Advocates for Children, told The New York Times.“The consequences are just awful and without a coordinated(协调一致的), targeted response, we’re not going to see a change.”

【推荐2】When an emergency happens in the wilderness, quick thinking can often mean the difference between life and death.

After accidentally sliding down the face of a steep rock wall, two tourists who recently found themselves stranded (困住) by the edge of a deep pool at the base of a thundering waterfall in British Columbia’s Golden Ears Provincial Park knew they were in a serious situation. Fortunately for them, five Sikh hikers who happened to be on the scene and witnessed their trouble used not only their heads but also their hats—or more specifically, their turbans (包头巾)—to organize a pretty amazing rescue.

After taking stock of the situation, and with no cell phone service to call for outside assistance, the group of international students struck on the idea of unwinding the long coils (线圈) of their turbans, and along with some added footage afforded by bits of their clothing, they managed to fashion a 33-foot lifeline with which they were eventually able to fish the stranded pair from their dangerous situation.

“We were trying to think how we could get them out, but we didn’t know how to,” Kuljinder Kinda told NBC News. “So we walked for about 10 minutes to find help and then came up with the idea to tie our turbans together.”

Once the two hikers (and no doubt embarrassed, since the waterfall danger was clearly marked) were pulled to safety, park officials stepped in to assess their condition. As neither required medical treatment, they were released on their own recognizance—likely with a severe warning to better mind where they’re going next time.

Kinda and his four comrades, while more than pleased with their day’s work, were humble about their heroic deeds. It was simply a matter of being in the right place at the right time and having the means to help, they said.