The Pacific island nation of Nauru used to be a beautiful place. Now it is an ecological disaster area. Nauru's heartbreaking story could have one good consequence — other countries might learn from its mistakes.

    For thousands of years, Polynesian people lived the remote island of Nauru, far from western civilization. The first European to arrive was John Fearn in 1798. He was the British captain of the Hunter, a whaling ship. He called the island Pleasant Island.

    However, because it was very remote, Nauru had little communication with Europeans at first. The whaling ships and other traders began to visit, bringing guns and alcohol. These elements destroyed the social balance of the twelve family groups on the island. A ten-year civil war started, which reduced the population from 1,400 to 900.

    Nauru's real troubles began in 1899 when a British mining company discovered phosphate (磷酸盐)on the island. In fact, it found that the island of Nauru was nearly all phosphate, which a very important fertilizer for farming. The company began mining the phosphate.

    A phosphate mine is not a hole in the ground; it is a strip mine. When a company strip-mines, it removes the top layer of soil. Then it takes away the material it wants. Strip mining totally destroys the land. Gradually, the lovely island of Nauru started to look like the moon.

    In 1968, Nauru became one of the richest countries in the world. Every year the government received millions and millions of dollars for its phosphate.

    Unfortunately, the leaders invested the money unwisely and lost millions of dollars. In addition, they used millions more dollars for personal expenses. Soon people realized that they had a terrible problem — their phosphate was running out. Ninety percent of their island was destroyed and they had nothing. By 2000, Nauru was financially ruined. Experts say that it would take approximately $433,600,000 and more than 20 years to repair the island. This will probably never happen.

    Most nations have at least one type of food that people from other countries think is unusual or unethical（不道德的）to eat. In France, people eat horse meat and frog legs. In South Korea and parts of China, restaurants serve dog meat. And in Australia, it's common to cook kangaroo meat on the barbecue and use emu（鸸鹋）eggs to make pancakes.

    The kangaroo and emu are native to Australia. Both animals are important to the national image of Australia and appear on the Australian coat of arms. They're also central figures in the history of the indigenous（土生土长的）Australian Aboriginals（土著人）. However, Aboriginal tribes still hunt these animals for their meat, fur and fat.

    Today, Australian people continue to eat these animals. One of the reasons people eat kangaroo meat is that it's high in protein and low in fat, so eating kangaroo is a good option for anyone on a diet. It's also cheaper to eat kangaroo meat than other red meats. Because of this, a lot of university students choose to buy kangaroo meat. BBC News also reported that Australian scientists believe that eating kangaroo meat is good for the environment--kangaroos have different digestive systems than cows and sheep, meaning they produce less methane（甲烷），the second biggest contributor to global warming.

    While emu meat is high in iron and vitamin C, most people don't think it tastes good. For this reason, they prefer emu eggs. One egg is large enough to make seven omelettes（煎蛋）. And while it's illegal to collect emu eggs from the wild, they can be bought from emu farms. Rather than cracking the beautiful dark shell, it's better to drain it by putting a small hole at each end and blowing. Afterwards, you can even carve a design into the eggshell.

    Thousands of taxi drivers in Shenyang, Liaoning province, reportedly blocked streets with their vehicles on Sunday in protest against unlicensed vehicles using taxi-hiring apps and apps-based car rental companies providing passenger services, including high-end cars. Although the drivers also complained about the withdrawal of the fuel subsidy (补贴)by the government, their main complaint was the loss of business because of the rising number of Internet-based car services companies.

    On Wednesday, news reports came that Beijing transport authorities will take measures to stop the illegal “taxi business” of private cars through the newly rising Internet apps, following the footsteps of Shenyang and Nanjing.

    It is not yet clear how the Shenyang city government will handle the issue and whether it will declare the services offered by market leaders such as Didi Dache, a taxi-hiring app provider backed by Tencent Holdings, and Kuaidi Dache illegal. But Shanghai transport regulators (交通管理结构)have set a rule, by banning Didi Zhuanche, or car services offered by Didi Dache in December.

    Such regulations will cause a setback to the car-hiring companies and investors that are waiting to cash in on the potentially booming business. Just last month, Didi Dache got $700 million in funding from global investors, including Singapore state investment company Temasek Holdings, Russian investment company DST Global and Tencent. Besides, the market is uncertain that Kuaidi Dache is about to finalize its latest round of funding after getting $800 million from global investors.

    Regulatory uncertainties, however, could cast a shadow on the future of the Internet-based car-hiring services, which have become popular in most of China's big cities. To be fair, these companies' business model is anything but bad. For example, Didi Zhuanche works side by side with established car rental companies to provide high-end car service mainly for businesspeople through the Internet and mobile phone apps.

    Every link in this business model chain has legal companies and services. Hence, it is hard to define it as illegal and ban it.

    He wishes the holiday season would end already. His back aches, his red suit feels like a spacesuit, his cheeks have gone tight from smiling for 12 hours—and still the kids keep coming and coming, like ants at a picnic. As Christmas becomes more commercialized (商业化) across the U. S. and Canada, so must Santa Claus. As the holiday begins earlier each year, so must its spokesmen.

    The questions from children these days are harder than ever. Now, with thousands of children expecting a father or mother serving in Iraq or Afghanistan, the questions are as heart­breaking as they are unanswerable. For example, “Can you please bring Daddy home from the war in time for Christmas morning？”

    Santa Claus; also have a pretty good chance of getting sued (指控). A professional Santa Claus in Canada told a story: A Santa had a girl on his knee, and he commented, “You have nice eyes and nice hair.” The girl later said it was sexual harassment (骚扰). When a Santa feels anxious, he often shows it in the same ways ordinary people do. The Santa Claus were always seen to hang around at the dinner table when the show ended. Many of them just sleep in bed for several days and don't see other children again.

    Telling fewer lies benefits people physically and mentally. Anita E. Kelly, study author and professor of psychology at the University of Notre Dame, employed 110 adults for her study. She divided them into two groups and asked one group to stop lying for 10 weeks. Lies included big ones and tiny ones—any false statements—but participants were still allowed to leave out the truth, keep secrets and avoid questions they didn't want to answer, etc. The other group wasn't given any special instructions about lying.

    It turned out that both groups reduced their lying, but those who were specifically told to tell the truth improved their health more. "We found that the participants could purposefully and dramatically reduce their everyday lies. That in turn was associated with significantly improved health," said Kelly.

    When participants in the no-lie group told three fewer white lies than they did in other weeks, they experienced, on average, fewer mental-health complaints and physical complaints. They were less likely to feel tense or sad and also experienced fewer sore throats and headaches. They also reported that personal relationships improved. Additionally, participants found themselves honest about their daily accomplishments, and they stopped making up excuses for being late or failing to complete a task, for example.

    "It's certainly a worthy goal to have people be more honest and interact with others in a more honest way,” says University of Massachusetts psychologist Robert Feldman. “That would be beneficial. I'm a little doubtful whether it makes us all healthier, but it may make us healthier in a psychological way."

Grief ran through the first decade of my career. I photographed stories about terrible topics: immigration, conflict, war. On the cover of my notebook in 2019, I wrote, "Discover the joy again." It was intended to remind me to play more.

Sometimes I'd get a rare assignment where I could breathe — for example, photographing an article on tea for an airline magazine. I took the job hoping to make interesting, almost movie images, but at the end of the day, I found I'd made nothing of the sort. Packing up my camera, I felt like a failure.

On the drive back to the hotel, I noticed heavy steam rising from a building up ahead. Arriving at the scene, I opened the car door — and realized it was a tourist attraction traditionally pulled by a steam engine. Then, out of nowhere, a figure ran toward me. I picked up my camera and quickly made three pictures. One was out of focus. One was poorly composed. But one worked.

When I submitted my pictures to the editor for the tea article, this one wasn't chosen to be published, but I knew it meant something to me. I had been looking for good luck in my own life. This photograph symbolized exactly that.

I was 27 when I first traveled to India after the sudden passing of my father. Over many months, with my best friend, I traversed India with no phone, with limited Internet, and with healing as my compass. I climbed mountains, swam in the sea, and lived in relief entirely.

As I learned to travel to some of the world's cities with the largest population, I began to see life with more color and magic. I permitted myself to walk aimlessly, with no goal but to observe, and each moment became a dance. If this journey taught me anything, it's that what comes next will bring its own magic.