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2 . Rescuers in the Turkish city of Izmir have pulled a young girl out alive from the ruins of a collapsed housing complex four days after a strong earthquake hit Türkiye and Greece. The girl was taken to a hospital in an emergency vehicle. Sounds of cheering could be heard from rescue workers and people watching nearby.

Health Minister Fahrettin Koca identified the girl on Twitter as 3-year-old Ayda Gezgin. The child had been trapped inside the rubble (瓦砾) for 91 hours. She was the 107th person to have been rescued from collapsed buildings since Friday, the day the quake struck.

After her rescue, Ayda could be heard calling out for her mother in a video that played on television. But Ayda’s mother did not survive. Her body was found in the rubble hours later. Ayda’s brother and father were not inside the building at the time of the quake.

Rescuer Nusret Aksoy told reporters that he was searching through the wreckage of the building when he heard a child’s scream. He then called for silence. He later found the girl in a small space next to a dishwasher. The girl waved at him, told him her name and said that she was okay, Aksoy said. “I got goose bumps and my colleague Ahmet cried,” he told Haber Turk television.

Ibrahim Topal, of the Humanitarian Relief Foundation said, “My colleague and I looked at each other in surprise. We listened again. There was a very weak voice saying something . And then we shut everything down and started listening again. And there really was a voice.”

Health ministry officials said the girl was in good condition but would be kept under observation. She asked for a special meal of meatballs and a yogurt drink on her way to the hospital, the state-operated Anadolu Agency reported.

5 . The tornadoes that recently struck the U.S. are some of the most destructive and deadly in history. The death in Kentucky, the hardest hit state, reached 80 on Monday, with dozens still unaccounted for. The scale of destruction and timing of the tornadoes so late in the year — most tornadoes occur in the spring and summer — is fueling discussion about how climate change may have influenced this deadly disaster.

“In my 40 years as a meteorologist (气象学家), this was one of the most shocking weather events I’ve ever witnessed,” says Jeff Masters, at Yale Climate Connections. “Watching these storms on Friday night, my thought was, ‘Is no season safe?’ Extreme tornadoes in December. That was mind blowing to me.”

Unlike heat waves and floods, the link between a wanning world and tornadoes is complex and uncertain. Scientists have several theories about how tornado behavior may change. Tornadoes in December are possible. But it remains to be seen whether climate change will strengthen or increase the frequency of tornadoes.

According to NOAA’s data, there has been a recorded increase in the number of observed tornadoes since 1950, which experts believe is largely due to better technology such as Doppler radar. There’s been no observed increase in the frequency of major tornadoes over time. For example, 59 of the most severe F5 tornadoes in the U.S. have occurred since 1950. But if the storm that destroyed Kentucky turns out to have been an F5, it will have been the first since 2013 — bringing to an end the longest recorded period so far.

Nevertheless, “given the general influence of global warming on the atmosphere, it makes sense that it should be having an impact on tornadoes too,” says Victor Gensini, an extreme weather expert at Northern Illinois University. “Instead of asking: ‘Did climate change cause this tornado?’ It’s better to operate under the assumption that climate change did play a role,” he says.

While the science on climate change and tornadoes isn’t clear, meteorologists are predicting that conditions benefiting tornadoes will continue this month. “I’m worried about the rest of the year to be honest. I don’t think we’re out of the woods yet.” Gensini says.

Now a group of students at Glen Hills Middle School in Glendale, Wisconsin, are working to reduce their ecological footprint.     1     (lead) by science teachers Jennifer Clark and Chloe McClendon, the Green Team holds meetings every Tuesday and Thursday after school     2     (study) climate change and environmental pollution.

Glen Hills is     3     (national) recognized as a “Green Ribbon School”. To earn the recognition, a school must meet such     4     (requirement) as developing cost-effective energy, getting rid of     5     (harm) waste, and improving the health of students through various programs.

Due to the pandemic (疫情), the Green Team now conducts their Tuesday and Thursday meetings online. At     6     meetings they come up with ideas and school activities that will teach fellow students and local people to protect the environment in fun ways.

“We volunteer in the community for river cleanup and compost (堆肥) efforts with Kompost Kids,” Clark says. The Green Team is invited to help sort and recycle waste with Kompost Kids, a local nonprofit organization run     7     volunteers.

Kompost Kids     8     (devote) to changing the way people deal with their waste.     9     can you do to help? Kompost Kids and the Green Team suggest you compost organic waste. Recycling plastic, metal cans, newspapers, etc.     10     (be) another great way to help the environment. You can separate these items in bins when throwing them away.

The thought of a natural disaster can be    1    (frighten). But you can prepare your family for it with some simple steps. Below are some common    2    (measure) of preparing for disasters.

Have enough ways to get warnings. There    3    (be) different ways to receive a warning of a disaster. The common ones include using the television, phone, etc. To avoid missing the warning, you’d better make sure you have at least three ways to receive the warning.

Decide how to make family members communicate. Come up with    4    communication plan in case you are    5    (separate) in a disaster. Provide each member of the family with a phone, for example. And make a contact card for each family member so they have the phone numbers and addresses    6    they may need.

Choose    7    least two meeting places. Do it in case all of your family members can’t   reach a designed meeting place. Choose one place in your neighborhood or close to your home as well as one that’s out of town. Consider    8    (meet) at the closer place first in a disaster. And keep the out-of-town place as a backup.

Run practice drills (演习). It’s important    9    (practice) what to do in case of a natural disaster,    10    (especial) if you have children. Each year, you’d better organize a practice drill for a possible disaster. And try to let all the family members take part in it.

Covering 7 million square kilometers of jungle and river over eight countries, the Amazon Rainforest is home to millions of sorts of plants and animals, some of     1     are still being discovered today. It's also the world’s     2    (large) supplier of oxygen and is a treasure chest for medical     3    (researcher) who are experimenting with different plants in hopes of finding cures for certain diseases.    4    , the world is at risk of losing this rich rainforest because of deforestation (滥伐森林)    5     (cause) by the actions of farmers, loggers and settlers.

The Amazon Basin     6    (lose) 20% of its rainforest since 1970. Cattle farmers have     7    (continuous) cleared the land for cows     8    (eat) on and crop farmers have begun “slash and burn” (刀耕火种), a farming method that involves cutting down forests and burning the land to make     9     suitable for agricultural purpose. Loggers have been cutting down the trees for timber(木材), further decreasing its size.

With the destruction of the Amazon Rainforest, global warming becomes more of a threat. It is up to each individual to fight against the     10    (disappear) of the Amazon by making the world know something about this environmental disaster.

9 . The measurable threat to the environment has been worsened by the spread of COVID-19 that increases the need for plastic protective equipment. Most plastic is made from fossil fuels. Millions of tons of greenhouse gas are released from the development of these resources and plastic production and burning.

The end life of plastic is just worrisome. Less than 10% of the plastic produced has been recycled. Even more of it has been burned. But the vast majority of plastic has been buried inland, and it is increasingly polluting the environment. We hear mostly about ocean plastic and the harm done to sea creatures that mistake plastic bags and bits for food. But microplastic is even more worrisome. Plastic doesn't break down biologically but instead breaks down into tiny particles（a very small piece of something）, which have been found in every corner of the planet, on land and in the air, in drinking water and food sources.

Yet the public has not given this global environmental disaster the attention it requires. Instead, they have viewed single-use plastic—which makes up about 40% of plastic used each year—as a litter issue that can be solved through better recycling and waste management. That attitude must change because the recent global breakdown of the market for recycling has made it clear that it has never been, nor ever will be, able to keep up with plastic trash use.

California has been the forerunner of plastic waste reduction—it was the first state to ban single-use plastic bags and may be the first state to transform the way goods are packaged. The state also came close to passing an act which would have required that products sold in plastic packaging in the state have a proven recycling rate of 75% by 2032. California, though influential, can't solve this crisis alone. The US has long been producing a great amount of plastic trash and it should engage in reducing the use of plastic as well.