"You see someone just sitting there, looking like they're stupid," explains teenager Manny Logan excitedly. "You just run up to them, slap(掌击) them and run off. It's funny."

    The 16-year-old Logan was describing "happy slapping". It's supposed to be fun but it's a new problem in Britain. Young people will attack passers-by while their friends record the whole thing on camera phones. It was first reported in south London six months ago. But, the practice has spread to other parts of the country and videos of attacks have become popular on the Internet.

    The young people are called "hoodies" because they usually wear a sweatshirt with a hooded top. The top can be used to cover the head or face.

    One study in England published earlier this year suggested that as many as one in four teenagers is an active offender. That includes both serious crimes and small acts like not paying for a bus ticket.

    The fear of youth crime has left some parts of towns empty of ordinary people.

    So, the British government declared war on public disorder last week. The Prime Minister has supported a decision by the country's biggest shopping centre in southeast of England to ban teenagers wearing hooded tops. The clothing helps troublemakers hide from the centre's cameras.

    This week, the government is going further. It plans to force teenage offenders to wear orange jackets while they do public service. The idea is to shame them in front of others.

    But some teenagers and experts have complained that, in their rush to stop the hoodies, politicians risk tarring all teenagers with the same brush.

    I came to study in the United States a year ago. Yet I did not know the real American society until I was injured in a car accident because after the accident I had to see a doctor and go to court.   

    After the accident, my roommate called a doctor for me. I was very grateful and determined to repay him one day. But the next day, he asked me to pay him $200 for what he had done. I was astonished. He had good reason to charge me, he said. And if I wanted to collect money from the person who was responsible for my injury, I'd have to have a good lawyer. And only a good doctor can help me get a good lawyer. Now that he had helped me find a good doctor, it was only fair that I should pay him.  

    But every day I went to see the doctor, I had to wait about 50 minutes. He would see two or three patients at the same time, and often stop treating one so as to see another. Yet he charged me $115 each time. The final examination report consisted of ten lines, and it cost me $215.    

    My lawyer was all smiles the first time we met. But after that he avoided seeing me at all. He knew very well the other party was responsible for the accident, yet he hardly did anything. He simply waited to collect his money. He was so irresponsible that I decided to dismiss him. And he made me pay him $770.    

    Now I had to act as my own lawyer. Due to my inexperience, I told the insurance company the date I was leaving America. Knowing that, they played for time and I left without getting a cent.

    Mr. White was born in a small village. His parents worked hard on their farm but they couldn't get enough food for the family. Of course, he couldn't be sent to school and his uncle who worked in a school taught him at home. And he learned a lot before he left there. When he was sixteen, he found work in a factory. As an abled worker, the boss liked him and seven years later the boss married his daughter to him and with his help, Mr White had his own factory after another seven years passed.

    Mrs. White liked her husband very much. So she was always afraid he loved the other women. She often asked him a lot of questions. He wouldn't make her angry and was more careful.

    One evening Mr. White was very busy and he told his secretary to help him. When they finished the work, it was ten in the evening. He had to see her home. That night his wife felt unwell and told him to take her to a hospital. He helped her to get on the car and started. But soon after that he found there was a shoe in the car. He had a look at his wife. The woman seemed to be asleep. He picked it up gently and threw it out of the window.

    Soon they got to the hospital. As he was going to help her to get off, suddenly the woman called out, “Where's my shoe?”

    As Amy Hagdorn rounded the corner across the hall from her classroom, she ran into a tall boy from the fifth grade running in the opposite direction.

    "Watch it. Squirt." the boy yelled, as he kept away from the little third grader. Then, with an unfriendly smile on his face, the boy took hold of his right leg and imitated the way Amy limped(跛行) when she walked.

    Amy closed her eyes for a moment.

    "Forget it!" she told herself as she headed for her classroom.

    It wasn't as if he were the only one. It seemed that ever since Amy started the third grade, someone teased her every single day. The tease made Amy feel all lonely.

    Back home at the dinner table that evening, Amy was quiet. Her mother knew that things were not going well at school. That's why Patti Hagdorn was happy to have some exciting news to share with her daughter

    "There's a Christmas Wish Contest on the newspaper, she announced." Write a letter to Santa and you might win a prize.

    Out came a pencil and a piece of paper and Amy went to work on her letter. She wrote:

Dear Santa Claus,

    My name is Amy. I am 9 years old. I have a problem at school. Can you help me, Santa? Kids laugh at me because of the way I walk and run and talk. I have cerebral palsy(脑瘫). I just want one day when no one laughs at me or makes fan of me.

Love

Amy

    The next day, a picture of Amy and her letter to Santa made the front page of the News Sentinel. The little girl's story spread quickly. She asked for such a simple, yet remarkable Christmas gift-just one day without being teased.

    During that unforgettable Christmas season, over two thousand people from all over the world sent Amy letters or cards of friendship and support.

    Amy did get her wish of a special day without being teased. Additionally, teachers and students in her school talked together about how bad tease can make others feel.

    Times are a little tough at our house right now. Neither of us makes a lot of money, but years of experience have taught us how to walk between the raindrops and make it from one month to the next with a fair amount of grace. I cook a lot at home, more when we're facing difficult times. When I know that I have to keep us fed on not much money, I fall back on my grandmother's recipes. She taught me to cook.

    When I was a kid, my twin brother and I spent long summer weeks and Christmas vacations with my mother's parents in the mountains of North Carolina. Rather than go hunting with my grandfather on mornings, I found myself more and more in the kitchen with my grandmother, watching her making a lemon cheese pie with her soft hands.

    My great-grandmother died when my grandmother was 11 years old. As the eldest daughter, she was expected to take on all of the housework while attending school. Throughout the Great Depression, she learned how to make a little food go a long way. Vegetables were cheap, so she cooked a lot of them, mostly only using small amounts of meat for seasoning. Roast beef was a twice-a-month luxury, but there was nothing she couldn't do with a chicken, every part of it. Nothing went to waste.

    Now I understand that her food was sacred (神圣的). I feel connected to my grandmother and to hundreds of years of family when I'm in my kitchen making country food. In the delicious smells is a long tale of victory over hard times, of conquering starvation of not just surviving, but finding joy and pleasure in every meal of every day.

From grandmother I learned to take real satisfaction in feeding people. My grandmother would beam with pleasure over a heavily laden table and say: "Do you know what this would cost at the restaurant?" I never knew what restaurant in particular she had in mind, but I knew that the question was totally not fair, because no restaurant anywhere can cook like a grandmother. But now, thanks to her guidance and years of practice, I can.

    LONDON­Britain prepares for a vote Thursday that will decide whether it leaves the European Union. The debate has centered on immigration and economic security. Both sides have lowered the tone of their arguments after a three­day suspension(暂停) of campaigning that followed the murder of an anti­Brexit lawmaker, an incident that polls(民意调查) suggest has shocked many previously undecided voters who now say they will vote to remain.

    These are uncertain times in a nation whose economy is the second largest in the European Union. The risks are huge. There are warnings that leaving the 28­member group may cause the British pound to lose 15 percent of its value and bring the resignation(辞职) of David Cameron, the country's prime minister; his stay or not depends on whether Britain listens to him and votes to remain.

    For months, the Leave campaign has been hitting the streets. Its arguments are based largely on immigration, and the belief that Britain has handed control of its borders(边界) to a European super state: "The U.K. has lost control over migration. We have to accept anyone into this country if they have an EU passport, no matter if they have a criminal record or not. We are not allowed to say 'no' to people and that is damaging for the security of the U.K., but it is also putting pressure on jobs and opportunities for young people," said Tom Harwood, a Brexit campaigner.

    The murder of Jo Cox, an anti­Brexit, pro­immigrant lawmaker by a far right extremist(极端分子) with a history of mental problems had a serious effect on both campaigns, and on voters.

    Polls since the June 16th murder showed the Leave camp losing ground, but with both sides still very close on a referendum(全民投票) that many believe could change the course of European history.