Maddie Messe, 13, has always loved Temple Run, a mobile game that sends her racing through swamps (沼泽) and forests to outrun a pack of crazed monkeys. What she didn't love was being forced to play as a boy — unless she was willing to buy a female version. “I felt like l was being cheated or misrepresented,” Maddie explains．“Girls are just as capable (有能力的) of running away from monkeys as boys are.”

    So last winter, Maddie researched 50 of the most popular iPhone games. What she found was infuriating：90 percent offered free male characters, but only 15 percent let you play as a female for free.

    Armed with those statistics, Maddie drafted a spirited article and fired it off to several major newspapers. The Washington Post agreed to run the piece, which attracted millions of readers around the globe — including the makers of Temple Run! “We realized she had a point,” says Natalia Luckyanova, the game's co-creator. “It was the kick in the pants we needed to say, ' We should fix it．' So we did.”

    Now you can play Temple Run with a female character for free, but Maddie hopes her campaign inspires something deeper.“If you don't see characters that look like you on TV or in movies or games, speak up! Just do your research first,”says Maddie. “One well-supported argument is much more effective than a million angry complaints.”

    Have you ever run into a careless cell phone user on the street? Perhaps they were busy talking, texting or checking updates on We Chat without looking at what was going on around them. As the number of this new “species” of human has kept rising, they have been given a new name—phubbers (低头族).

    Recently, a cartoon created by students from China Central Academy of Fine Arts put this group of people under the spotlight. In the short film, phubbers with various social identities bury themselves in their phones, a doctor plays with his cell phone while letting his patient die, a pretty woman takes selfe in front of a car accident site, and a father loses his child without knowing about it while using his mobile phone, a chain of similar events eventually leads to a series of destruction.

    Although the ending sounds overstated, the damage phubbing can bring is real.

    Your health is the first to bear the consequence (后果) of it. “Constantly bending your head to check your cell phone could damage your neck,” Guangming Daily quoted doctors as saying. “The neck is like a rope that breaks after long-term stretching.” Also, staring at cell phones for long periods of time will damage your eyesight gradually, according to the report.

    But that's not all. Being a phubber could also damage your social skills and drive you away from your friends and family. At reunions with family or friends, many people tend to stick to their cell phones while others are chatting happily with each other and this creates a strange atmosphere, Qilu Evening News reported.

    It can also cost you your life. There have been lots of reports on phubbers who fell to their death, suffered accidents, and were robbed of their cell phones in broad daylight.

    Visit Nashville, Tennessee, the capital of country music and the home of the Grand Ole Opry. Forty -day bus tour starts from Pittsburgh.

    Departures August 23, September 13, September 27, October 11, October 25.

$185 per person based on double occupancy. Includes private motor coach from Pittsburgh, hotel rooms, reserved tickets for the Grand Ole Opry. Country Festival Friday and Saturday nights, sightseeing tour of Nashville, admissions to places of interest.

    For information, free booklets, and reservations, call 4212 — 6060. Travel and Tours, 2245 Market Street, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15219. 14-day advanced booking required. Visa and Master Card payment welcome.

    In recent years more and more Chinese schoolchildren are required to wear uniforms at school. Do American children wear school uniforms? In fact, American schoolchildren often wear uniforms if they attend religious or other private schools. Most public schools do not require uniforms. But over the last ten years or so, more of them have moved in that direction, including high schools. Another option is that students may just have to dress alike—for example, white shirts and dark colored pants or skirts. Even schools that do not require uniforms generally have a dress rule about what they consider acceptable. Schools commonly forbid clothing that shows images or words causing displeasure, or simply too much skin. Hats may be forbidden because, for example, different colors may be connected with bad guys.

    Some parents like the idea of uniforms. Some say it means they do not have to spend much on clothing for their kids. Others, though, argue that uniforms represent an unnecessary cost.

    There are also debates about whether uniforms or other dress rules go against civil rights. Students and parents have taken legal action against school dress requirements. Several years ago, a middle school was asked to stop its dress rule unless families had a way out of it. The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California brought the case for the families of several students who had been punished by the school. Most attention centered on a girl who wore socks with the Tigger character from Winnie the Pooh. The school said its clothing policy, including no pictures of any kind, was needed to control a growing problem with gangs. The families argued that the policy went against free speech rights as protected by the United States and California constitutions.

    The United States Supreme Court says student expression is protected as long as it does not harm the work and the rule of a school. But some educators believe dressing alike helps improve student learning. They believe that uniforms help create a sense of unity and reduce the risk of fights. They also say uniforms make it easier for security reasons to tell if someone belongs to the school or not.

    I was so fortunate today to be able to offer my love and help to an older lady at my local supermarket. I saw her standing there. I felt quite strange about such a situation.

    What was she looking at? As I looked, I found it was a "Shredded Pork Bun Meal Kit", which is a service that sends customers food ingredients and recipes for them to prepare their own fresh meals. "That's new," I thought. Then I watched as the lady began to dig into her handbag and tried to pull out one of the biggest magnifying glasses (放大镜) I had never seen in my whole life! "Oh, she can't read it," I realized.

    So I stood there and continued watching her. The voice in my mind often asks me to do the right thing. It told me to help her. But I argued back saying, "No. I won't offer help. It will only embarrass her and she is OK now anyway. She has the world's biggest magnifying glass to help her！"

    And I stood there longer. But the voice came back, "Help her, Nicole. Don't be embarrassed. Just do it. Offer your help." So I did it. I read and explained all the things that were included in that box. I read out the ingredients, the instructions on how to cook it and so on.

    She didn't end up buying it, but she was still quite grateful. I walked away knowing that I had helped her and made the right choice. Mostly, I had reminded her that people in this world still care about the old.

    She was seen. She was loved. And she mattered so much that a complete stranger took time to help her. And that stranger was me, a person who argued and didn't want to do so in the beginning.

    So grateful I am when I choose to listen to the voice in my heart. It is because of love. Love is all that ever really matters. I also get happiness through helping her.

    Better known by his stage name Kun, Cai Xukun is, without a doubt, one of the most popular stars in China.

    On July 26, the 21-year-old dropped his new single Young. Within just 20 seconds, it reached 1 million views and in only 3 days topped the music charts of Tencent's QQ music.

    Cai wrote the song by himself to share his understanding of modern-day youth. The singer has mixed R&B with electronic music to make his new beat cheerful. One reviewer wrote on QQ Music: "When you listen to the song, you just seem to go back to youth again."

    August 2 is Cai's birthday, and the song was a gift to himself. The singer hopes that he can always have the courage to follow his love of music, ignoring what anyone says. "My works are like my children and I have put my best effort into them. I want every piece of my work to have my own spirit in it. I feel more enjoyment when I am performing my own work." He told the Global Times.

    To find new inspiration, Kun attends different kinds of musical performances－from festivals to opera houses. "I just like to do everything, all for my music, all for my art," he told i-D.

    With talent and dedication(专注) to music, Cai is expected by many to make his mark in the competitive Chinese music industry.