People in the western state of California who are in the United States illegally can now request a driver's license. The law went into effect on January l. California is not the first American state with such a law, but it has the largest number of illegal immigrants. More than a million people began to request licenses shortly after the new state law went into effect. Among them was Christian Alvarado. Mr. Alvarado entered the United States from El Salvador eight years ago without permission from the U.S. government. Some call such people "illegal immigrants." Others call them "undocumented immigrants".

    Mr. Alvarado thinks it so exciting, for he has been waiting for the license for a long time. But some are worried that their personal information will be used to find them and deport them. Armando Botello is a spokesman for the California Department of Motor Vehicles, or DMV. He says people should not be afraid, for such information will not be shared.

    The new licenses are the same as licenses given to citizens except that they have the words "Federal Limits Apply". That means the license cannot be used to travel on an airplane or enter a federal building. Ana Garcia, working at the Central American Resource Center, says some illegal immigrants fear those words will be used to abuse them. Civil rights groups say the police and others will not.

    Dan Schnur, a political scientist at the University of Southern California, said that the main argument against the new law is that it rewards illegal behavior. But Professor Schnur argued that young, white Americans generally support immigration reform, including giving driver's licenses to illegal immigrants

    "It's simply because they grew up in a much more multicultural society than their parents or their grandparents did." Professor Schnur says he believes the changes in beliefs about illegal immigrants that have taken place in California will spread throughout the United States.

    Justin Bieber used to be an ordinary Canadian boy, but his life totally changed in 2008. With his great musical talent, this seventeen-year-old boy has become a superstar in the music industry.

    Justin Drew Bieber was born in 1994 in Stratford, Ontario and was raised by his single mother. Bieber learned to play musical instruments when he was very young. In 2007, he took part in a local singing competition in his hometown, and he did it just for fun. He never took singing lessons before but surprisingly he placed second in the competition. Then, with the help of his mother, he uploaded (上传) videos of him singing on a website and they successfully attracted the attention of thousands of viewers. His videos got popular through word of mouth and some of them have received up to 10,000,000 views.

    Justin Bieber would have never gotten a career in the music business without his videos. Scooter Braun, a former marketing executive (主管) of So So Def Recordings, had watched Bieber's videos and he was impressed by the boy's talent. Braun then contacted Bieber and he flew the boy into Atlanta seven months after the first video was posted. Bieber showed his talent in singing as well as his ability in playing musical instruments. He then got a record deal.

    In 2009, Justin Bieber released (发行) his first single “One Time” while he was recording the debut album (首张专辑). The single “One Time” tells a story about love. This song had success not only in Canada and the US, but also in the international market. Then he released his debut album “My World 2.0” in 2010 and the song “Baby” became the lead single. This album successfully entered the Top Ten Charts in seven countries. In June 2010, he started his first world tour in Hartford, Connecticut. One month later, he started recording his second album.

    Keeping fit often means sharing a busy pathway with cyclists, runners and walkers, but imagine facing the task of doing it all without being able to see or hear. It is a challenge many disabled athletes face, unless someone agrees to be their eyes and ears.

    Newly formed group Achilles Brisbane pairs vision－and hearing－impaired（视觉和听觉受损的）athletes with a person who would like to guide them.

    “When we go out, we're always going out into an unknown course,”said Achilles Brisbane president Jane Britt, who is both vision and hearing impaired. “It's much less frightening to have someone beside you that has full hearing to listen for you and tell you what's there.”

    Ms. Cullen and Ms. Britt meet up most Saturday mornings to take part in the free five－kilometer Southbank park run. Their partnership is built on trust, but Ms. Britt said that it took time to develop.

    Ms. Britt said it took an unexpected storm for her to trust Ms. Cullen completely. “There was violent rain, my glasses were broken and we were walking together,”she said. “I suddenly had to tell her I couldn't see anything, and I was going to have to completely trust her. From that time I knew it was going to work because she was so good about dealing with the special situation we both found ourselves in. ”

    Isabella Allen and her seeing-eye dog Tatum are two new additions to the Achilles programme. Ms. Allen kept active by running and cycling but found it difficult to keep going as her vision became worse. After nearly giving up completely, she worked up the courage to ask Brisbane to find someone to share a boat with her.

    Ms. Alien said the fear of not finding anyone to row with almost stopped her from reaching out to Achilles Brisbane. “But, they found people and matched me to them.”she said, “It's the best thing I've ever done. ”

    The ocean bottom, a region nearly 2.5 times greater than the total land area of the earth, is even today largely unexplored. Until about a century ago, the deep ocean floor was completely inaccessible and hidden beneath waters averaging over 3,600 meters deep. Totally without light and in the case of intense pressures hundreds of times greater than at the earth's surface, the deep-ocean bottom is a strange environment to humans, in some way, as fighting and remote as the outer space.

Although researchers have taken samples of deep-ocean rocks for over a century, the first detailed global study of the ocean bottom did not actually start until 1969, with the beginning of the National Science Foundation's Deep Sea Drilling Project(DSDP). Using techniques first developed for the offshore oil and gas industry, the DSDP's drill ship, the Glomar Challenger, was able to maintain a steady position on the ocean's surface and drill very deep waters, taking samples of rocks from the ocean floor.

    The Glomar Challenger completed 96 voyages in a 15-year research program that ended in November 1983. During this time, it sailed 600,000 kilometers and took almost 20,000 samples of rocks around the world. Those samples have allowed geologists to reconstruct what the planet looked like hundreds of millions of years ago and to make out what it will probably look like millions of years in the future. Today, largely on the strength of evidence gathered during the Glomar Challenger's voyages, nearly all earth scientists agree on the theories of plate tectonics (构造学) and continental drift that explain many of the geological processes.

    The sample of rocks drilled by the Glomar Challenger has also provided a climatic record stretching back hundreds of millions of years. The information of past climatic change can be used to predict the future climate.

    They hide in trees, hang from helicopters, even follow people down on motorcycles—all so that they can snap a shot of a celebrity. They are paparazzi—photographers who make a living by taking pictures of the rich and famous.

    This September, California, a state with plenty of celebrities, passed a law aimed at taking action against paparazzi. The law forbids photographers from entering private property to take pictures, from using high-tech devices to take pictures of people on private property, and from "persistently following in order to take a picture." Violators can be fined or spend time in prison. The United State Congress is considering passing a similar law.

    Supporters of the California law say it will protect the privacy of celebrities, whom paparazzi have been bothering for years. Opponents (反对者) say the law restricts photojournalists from doing their job.

    Most celebrities seem to like having their pictures taken when they are in public at award shows or other events. After all, it's free publicity. But when they're not in public, they say, photographers should leave them alone. Yet paparazzi have been known to secretly look in windows and worse. Actor Michael J. Fox said that paparazzi have even "tried to pretend to be medical personnel at the hospital where my wife was giving birth to our son."

    Celebrities have as much right to their privacy as anyone else, supporters of the law state. Supporters further argue that the California law is a fair way to keep the press at bay, because the law still allows photographers to do their job. It only punishes them, supporters say, when they violate celebrities' privacy.

    Opponents of the law say it violates the First Amendment to the United States Constitution (美国宪法第一修正案), which guarantees that no laws will be made to limit "the freedom of speech, or of the press." Although some people might not consider paparazzi a part of the legal press, the California law does not single out paparazzi. It applies to photographers working for any publication.

    Opponents of the law are also concerned about its wording. "Does 'persistently' mean following someone for six minutes, six seconds, or six days?" asked lawyer Douglas Mirell. The wording of the law is too vague, critics complain, and could be used to punish almost any news photographer.

    The United States needs a free press to keep the public informed about important news, paparazzi law opponents say. Limiting the press in any way, they argue, limits the freedom of all.

For a number of Indians who for over half a century have replayed a race again and again, Milkha Singh's 400 metres final run at the Rome Olympics should be among the greatest heartbreaks in global sporting history. In fact, they hoped it would throw up a different result.

However, continued praise for the man decades later is due to the effort by India's greatest track athlete on that September day in the Italian capital, though he still missed out on becoming India's first Olympic track medallist.

As he was growing up, he used to run barefoot daily on hot sand to school, which was situated 20 kilometres from his house. He thinks this was good training but knows it is not possible to ask children to do this today. However, he does feel that the early identification of talented athletes is also important for India's athletic teams to shine.

India has in the last few years judged success purely in terms of medals, but looking into the past reveals how a more generous generation saluted Milkha as a pioneer. Milkha is India's finest track athlete of all time. He remains the only Indian male to win an individual Commonwealth Games athletics gold—he won the 400 metres at Cardiff in 1958，the first athlete from independent India to do so.

Since retiring from athletics, the former champion athlete has set up the Milkha Singh Charitable Trust, which helps poorer families survive if an athlete in their family has died. A percentage of the profits from the film Bhaag Milkha Bhaag are going to his trust.

Finally, let's read a quote from Milkha himself: "There is no shortcut to success." A scene in the film shows Milkha Singh running with injured feet—this actually happened. "I haven't found an alternative to hard work. You need to be patient, dedicated and true to yourself and your work."