2 . Attention! We need to put a stop to parents doing harm to youth sports. It has gotten out of hand.

A recent study showed 26 million American children took part in non-school sports. By the age of 13, about 18.2 million quit.

No wonder kids are quitting. Many parents show no sportsmanship. They often shout happily at an injury if the injured player is on the other team. My brother Mario Widdowson got hit in the face during a soccer game. The parents from the other team were shouting gladly at his pain. All of the players were down on one knee waiting for Mario to get up, out of respect and it was the right thing to do. The kids did much better than these parents.

There are different types of parents. In the book “Parenting with Love and Logic” the authors describe two different types of parents. The first is helicopter parents, who don’t allow their kid to succeed or fail on their own. The other type is lawnmower parents, who clear anything in their child’s path to make life as easy as possible.

I have observed helicopter parents. When my brother was playing club soccer, one of his teammate’s parents shouted at their son. “Shoot the ball”. It was from about half field. He did it and the coach stopped him from playing and asked him to leave the field.

The parents are trying to coach their kids. The players on the field follow blindly and many mistakes happen. It’s not good for kids’ confidence. What is the purpose of youth sports anyway?

Problems happen in youth sports all over the United States. Parents need to behave themselves. Then the number of students who quit at the age of 13 will drop greatly.

3 . New research from the University of Portsmouth has shown a marked increase in shipping in the North East Atlantic. Scientists now warn that more monitoring is required to help protect sea life.

Researchers at the University of Ponsmouth have discovered that rates (率) of shipping in the North East Atlantic area rose by 34 per cent in a five-year period. The research is the first detailed survey of shipping activity in the North East Atlantic. Researchers used data from over 530 million vessel (船) positions recorded by Automatic Identification System(AIS). They looked at the change in shipping between 2013 and 2017 across ten different vessel types. In total the study area covered 1.1 million km², including waters off Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany,Iceland, Ireland, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal. Spain, and the UK.

Lead author, James Robbins said: “This change is likely to put more pressure on the marine (海洋的) environment, and may influence the protection of at-risk species. Renewed monitoring effort is needed to make sure that protective measures are enough to save species under threat in a changing environment.”

Some of the greatest shipping increases were found in areas close to the Spanish coast. The Espacio Marino de la Costa da Morte saw a rise of 413 percent in vessel activity. It is an area used to protect seabirds.

Dr. Sarah Marley, Visiting Researcher at the University of Portsmouth, said: “Shipping is the most widespread human activity in our oceans, carrying a set of threats-from unnoticeable effects like underwater noise pollution to serious results when ships hit whales.”

Professor Alex Ford. from the University’s Institute of Marine Sciences, said: “Given the well-documented effects that shipping can have on the marine environment, it is necessary that this situation continues to be monitored-particularly in areas used to protect vulnerable (脆弱的) species which may already be under pressure.”

5 . Wasif Ali, a 20-year-old engineering student in a university in Islamabad, made up his mind to learn Chinese language after watching the opening ceremony of a factory built under China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (中巴经济走廊) on TV.

“I realized that language is a big barrier (障碍) between Pakistanis and Chinese as most of the Chinese speakers at the ceremony were communicating with the audience through a translator (翻译器).”Ali, who is eager to work for CPEC projects, wants to overcome the communication barrier by learning Chinese language. He feels that nowadays there are not many jobs for engineers in Pakistan and fresh engineers face challenges to be employed in famous companies, so he wants to be in competition by learning Chinese language as thousands more jobs are expected to be created under the CPEC project.

“The One Belt and One Road (一带一路) has helped to create 200,000 jobs, out of which 75,000 are in Pakistan through the CPEC,” said Zhao Lijian, deputy mission chief of China’s embassy in Pakistan. “A few years ago, only around 2,000 people in Pakistan were learning Chinese, and now the number is over 25,000,” said Senator Mushahid Syed, chairman of an Institute. “Many universities in Pakistan have made Chinese language a necessary subject for students and a number of institutes in all provinces of the country are offering Chinese language classes.” Chinese language learning is not only limited to students, but many working women and men are learning the language as the third language after local language Urdu and English.

Analysts (分析家们) believe that learning Chinese language for Pakistani people is more than just finding job opportunities to get material benefits. Yasir Masood, an analyst of an Institute on the CPEC, has his opinion, “When we talk about connectivity (互联互通), it is not just about the roads, but also cultural connectivity which brings the two nations together. Everyone knows that China is on the rise and the time is not far when Chinese language will become as important as English. So in order to learn the values and the traditions of Chinese, learning their language is important.”