1 . Smartphone ownership among younger children is increasing rapidly. Parents of younger children may occasionally look at their child’s phone to check whether it’s being used responsibly and safely. But as children mature into teens, parental inspections will likely feel like an invasion (侵犯) of privacy. So, what do parents need to consider when making the “phone rules” for their children as they get older?

Parents get their younger children phones for many reasons. Some feel it’ll help keep kids safe when, for example, travelling on their own to and from school. Others have bought one after intense pressure from their child or worry their child will be left out socially if all their friends have a phone. Some also tell me they are reluctant to let their child use the parents’phone for fear of risking important work files or information stored on the phone.

Parents understandably want their children to be safe. Monitoring may be part of this, but it’s not the whole story. Education and open dialogue about phone safety should begin the day the child gets their phone and continue as they grow. This may include controls, restrictions and monitoring, but does not necessarily need to include phone checking. Establishing the rules on safety and well-being for using the phone is the key. This means talking to the children about how and when they use their phone, why they shouldn’t answer unknown texts and calls, beware of giving out personal information online, and about being kind online. Let the children know they can always talk to their parents if they have a weird or bad experience online.

As children mature, parental guidance also needs to change. After about 12 months of the child’s phone ownership, checking phone s needs to fade, and ongoing open communication needs to become the mainstay. Parents may also try new ways of using the phone or certain apps together with their child. For example, they can use the screentime feature to discuss, and be aware of their developing phone habits.

2 . It all started on April 26 when the brakes (刹车) slammed (紧急制动). Students told CBS News that they were “terrified and _______” by the sudden motion. Then, they _______ and saw what was going on. The bus driver was unconscious (失去意识) — and seventh grader Dillon Reeves had grabbed the steering wheel.

Security camera showed that Dillon had noticed the driver having a medical _______, causing the bus to make a turn. The boy immediately sprang from his seat, took the wheel, and _______ the brakes, gaining control of the situation and _______ the driver and his passengers. “I just knew what to do in that _______ ,” Dillon said. “The bus was turning off the road.”

One student who had been on the bus _______ Dillon with saving the “entire bus” with his “quick actions and thinking”, and by “being _______ ”. Warren Consolidated Schools said in a news release that doctors _______ quickly and treated the driver. The students were placed on another school bus and ________ home.

How had Dillon been the only one to notice what was going on? While other kids had been on their cell phones, listening to music, or ________ focused on their electronics, Dillon didn’t have a cell phone to distract him from the world around him or ________ his situational awareness. “What else are you going to do when you don’t ________ a cell phone?” Steve Reeves asked. “You’re going to look at people. You’re going to ________ stuff. You’re going to look out of the window. Maybe it is a very powerful ________ —— a change-the-world kind. ”

3 . Anthropologist Daniel Miller has observed that an alien (外星人) visiting Earth might suppose that four-wheeled creatures rule the planet. These rulers, he points out, are “served by a host of slaves who walk on legs and spend their whole lives serving them.” He meant this as a joke, but it mirrors American car culture to some extent. In the US, the costs of car dependency keep growing, far above the $12, 000-per-year average expense of owning a new one.

Coast-to-coast, the cars we drive cause about 16% of greenhouse gas emissions. They cause significant air pollution, which worsens heart disease rates. Motor vehicle accidents are a leading cause of death in people aged 1 to 44. Since 2010 the number of pedestrians (行人) killed by cars has increased to about 7,500 a year.

American car culture is a choice that now comes at too high a cost, both for ourselves and for the environment. After a century of its central place in our lives, we need to rethink our world into one not so attached to cars.

Solutions are obvious and right in front of us. Sidewalks and bike trails should receive the same priority (优先权) as roads in our cities, instead of being afterthoughts. Unreasonable demands by the Government that the public get back behind the wheel to offices need to stop. We can even provide discounts to bicyclists who take the train or subway. Another reality is that car parking is too cheap across much of the country, where different parking prices can change our plans from hopping in the car during rush hours to taking the subway instead.

We need to end our car-centered way of life nationwide. Otherwise, those aliens will have made the right call on who serves who, the cars or the people.

7 . Despite winning various prizes over the last 30 years, Percival Everett’s name had never crossed many readers’ desks until The Trees was shortlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize.

Filled with originality and wit, his latest work James is a retelling of Mark Twain’s classic Huckleberry Finn from the perspective (视角) of Jim. Jim, or James, is the slave (奴隶) of Miss Watson, who decides to sell him and separate him from his family. So Jim decides to run away. He’s soon found by Huckleberry, who has also run away from his violent father, and the two draw up a plan to save each other.

Twain starts his story by explaining various dialects. Everett assumes that perhaps Twain was only familiar with the dialect and intelligence that the African American slaves showed to white people, as a way of protecting themselves from those who considered an educated slave dangerous. A character like Jim tends to pretend to be simple-minded to avoid suspicions (怀疑). Everett gives him the depth and richness that Twain was not able to imagine.

In an interview, Everett talks about his novel saying that “I hope that no one thinks that my novel is about slavery. There’s a difference between writing a story about people who happen to be slaves and writing a story about slavery.”

Say No to School Bullying

10 . Douglas Smith is a competitive guy. So when he turned his attention to the vegetable garden behind his home, he was devoted to it so much, in fact, that his casual hobby grew to _______.

The British gardener has _______ a nearly 7-pound tomato, a 624-pound pumpkin and a 20-foot-tall sunflower. Recently, though, he has changed his focus from size to _______. Twice in a row, Smith broke the Guinness World Record for the most cherry tomatoes grown on a single stem. _______, he broke the previous record of 488 cherry tomatoes — which had been _______ for more than 10 years — after he grew 839 cherry tomatoes on one stem in September, 2021. Then, in 2022, Guinness World Records _______ that Smith had actually beaten his own world record, growing 1,269 cherry tomatoes on a single stem.

Growing huge vegetables presented a(n) _______ opportunity to “push your gardening knowledge to do something different,” Smith said. “If you’re trying to grow for a competition, you learn a lot more about _______ to grow them best through an exercise like this.”

_______ the prospect of earning prizes and praise, what inspired Smith most, he said, was the learning process and the strong sense of ________ among fellow growers. Although it’s competitive in nature, the community cooperate. “Competitive vegetable-growing is actually knowledge sharing,” Smith said. For Smith, the process of growing supersize ________ is scientific.

To ________ his cherry-tomato-growing operation, he spent countless hours reading research papers, sending soil samples to be tested in labs, trying out seed ________ and investigating the many tomato types.

Now, Smith has his sights ________ on a new mission. He hopes to win the record for “most cherry tomatoes on a single plant”. He also intends to ________ at growing the world’s heaviest potato and eggplant. “It’s just a bit of fun,” he said.