2 . A father died from cold while sheltering his nine-year- old daughter from serious weekend snowstorms that swept（席卷）northern Japan. Mikio Okada, one of at least nine people killed as snowstorms swept across Hokkaido, died as he tried to protect his only child Natsune against winds of up to 109 kilometers per hour in Yubetsu, Hokkaido, as temperatures fell sharply to -6℃.

Okada's body was discovered by savers looking for the pair after relatives asked for help. Natsune was wearing her father's jacket and was protected in his arms. The pair had last been heard from at 4 p. m. on Saturday, after fisherman Okada picked his daughter up from a school where she was being looked after while he was at work. Okada called his relatives to say his truck had become caught in the driving snow, which was several meters deep in places. He told them he and Natsune would walk the kilometers left. The two were found just 300 meters from the truck at 7 a. m. on Sunday.

Okada's body was down over his daughter, gently holding her in his arms and using his body and a wall to provide shelter. The small girl was taken to hospital, where she was found to have no serious injuries. Her father was officially pronounced dead by doctors at the same hospital.

The newspaper Yomiuri said Natsune's mother had died of illness two years earlier. Neighbors said Okada had been a very kind father who would often start his working day late to enjoy breakfast with his daughter.

His death came as families all over Japan celebrated Girls' Day, a festival in which they gather at home and decorate houses with dolls. "He booked a cake for his only daughter and was expecting to celebrate Dolls' Festival together, " a neighbor told the Yomiuri.

5 . Each morning a rich man found a poor man sitting on a bench(长凳) in the park. The poor man always sat there, looking at the big hotel in which the rich man lived. One day, the rich man got out of his car and said to the poor man, “Excuse me. I want to know why you sit here and look at my hotel every morning.” “ Sir, ” said the poor man, “ I am a failure. I have no money, no family, no home. I sleep on this bench, and every night I dream that one day I’ll sleep in that hotel.” The rich man said, “Tonight your dream will come true. I’ll pay for the best room in that hotel for you a whole month.”

A few days after, the rich man went into the poor man’s room to ask him how he was enjoying himself. To his surprise, he found that the man had moved out of the hotel back to his bench. When the rich man asked why, he said, “You see, when I’m sleeping on my bench, I dreamed I am there, in the big hotel. It’s a wonderful dream. But when I was there I dreamed I was back to this cold bench. It was a terrible dream, and I couldn’t get any sleep at all.”

8 . My friend Jason and I wanted to do something to help other people who are less fortunate and help us grow at the same time. After we decided that we would volunteer in Nepal, I did some research on the Internet and I found Volunteer Nepal and felt strongly that it was the right choice for us.

While making our plans, Jason and I realized that others might like the opportunity to be a part of our experience. So before leaving for Nepal, we asked the people we know whether they would be interested in donating(捐赠)cash or goods to Nepal Orphans(孤儿)Home.

One friend, whose family owns a chain called Drake Supermarket, told others about it. His effort paid off. We received donations that filled 29 boxes with sporting goods, toys, coloring books, pencils, children's books, and more. The boxes were later taken to Drake's warehouse where I prepared them for shipment. Drake agreed to ship them to Nepal for free.

The boxes had arrived at the Volunteer House when we arrived there. The next day, Jason and I unpacked the boxes. The children from the orphanages lined up and were each able to choose a gift. This process took about an hour, but the looks on their faces and the happiness that we saw in their eyes made it one of the best days of our life.

We visited the orphanages there in the following days. Being with the children at the orphanages was both sad and wonderful. I'm sure that anyone who has volunteered will understand what I mean by that. My experience as a volunteer was very rewarding(有益的).It has changed me as a person and the way I viewed life in the past.

9 . Lizzy Brown, a 42-year-old mother of three from East Riding, Yorkshire, was diagnosed with cancer when she was 14 years old. Ms Brown received the diagnosis having woken up frightened on her 14th birthday. She was admitted to a hospital in Cambridge in 1989, where she was told that she shouldn’t expect to survive into adulthood.

While being monitored (监护) at the hospital, Ms Brown was looked after by a kind nurse called Debbie Bye. Ms Brown has never forgotten the good care that Ms Bye provided during her time of need. “My prognosis (预断) was very poor,”' Ms Brown said. “I wasn’t expected to live more than five years, but now I’m 42 with three children and there’s not a wheelchair in sight. She might have thought she was doing her job but it went above and beyond that. I remember watching Debbie work and being so inspired by the way that she did things. She showed me that children are children no matter what is wrong with them and she treated us all the same.”

The childhood cancer survivor always wondered what had happened to the nurse over the years,which is why she decided to put a call out on Twitter. Ms Brown tweeted an appeal to find Ms Bye, with her tweet being shared more than 1,000 times. Her action proved successful, as the two women were eventually able to make contact (取得联系) thanks to the power of social media.

“To be there when Lizzy was given her prognosis was something I will never forget,’’ said Ms Bye, who has since retired (退休) from hospital work and now works part-time in a school. “She was a teenager in denial and over the years I have often wondered what happened to her and came to the only conclusion I could and thought she had passed away. I am blown away.”

10 . A Portland, Oregon man has become the first person to travel across Antarctica by himself without receiving any assistance.

Colin O’Brady has completed the 1,500-kilometer trip. He crossed the continent in 54 days. Friends, family and other people followed his progress through messages and pictures he left on social media.

O’Brady spoke with his wife Jenna Besaw by telephone soon after he completed the journey. “It was an emotional call,” she said. “He seemed overwhelmed by love and appreciation, and he really wanted to say ‘thank you’ to all of us.”

The 33-year-old O’Brady documented the trip on the social networking services Instagram. He called his journey “The Impossible First”. He wrote that he traveled the last 129 kilometers in one big, final push to the finish line. The distance took over one day to complete. O’Brady wrote, “While the last 32 hours were some of the most challenging hours of my life, they have quite honestly been some of the best moments I have ever experienced.”

The day before, he wrote that he was “in the zone” and thought he could make it to the end without stopping. “I was listening to my body and taking care of the details to keep myself safe,” he wrote. “I called home and talked to my mom, sister and wife. I promised them I would stop when I need to.”

Other people have traveled across Antarctica, but they all had some form of assistance. They either had better, more plentiful supplies or devices that helped move them forward.

In 2016, British explorer Henry Worsley died in his attempt to travel alone across Antarctica unassisted. Worsley’s friend Louis Rudd, also from Britain, is attempting an unaided solo journey in Worsley’s honor. He was competing against O’Brady to be the first to do it. Besaw told the Associated Press that her husband plans to stay in Antarctica until Rudd finishes his trip.