Cars make our lives more convenient. But they can also be a problem. For example, fossil fuel (化石燃料) cars mainly cause air pollution.

    To improve the environment, many countries are developing electric vehicles (EVs,电动车). Among them, China is taking a leading role and has created the world's largest EV market.

    Last year, over 40 per cent of the 753,000 EVs sold in the world were sold in China, more than twice as many as the number sold in the United States.

    "Filling up a fossil fuel car with gas (汽油) is more expensive than charging (充电) an electric car," said Wu Hao, who bought an electric car this year.

    However, there are still some problems. It can be hard to find charging piles (充电桩) and the cars can't go far before being recharged.

    Some of these problems are being solved. In 2014, China had 31,000 charging piles. Now China has the world's largest EV charging network, with more than 450,000 charging piles in total.

    Developing EVs is one of many efforts that China has made to cut down pressure on its environment after the government promised to stop increases in carbon dioxide emissions (二氧化碳排放量) by 2030.

    "As China goes, so will the world's car industry," the Wall Street Journal said.

Have you ever wondered what an American high school is really like? This article will describe a typical (典型的) high school and its students.

A typical American high school has several large buildings and enough space for about 1,500 students. Every student is given a locker. When students first arrive at school, they go straight to their lockers to put away or get their textbooks and to hang up their outdoor clothes. As American textbooks are expensive, students would rather loan (租借) than buy them. Students must pay back if they lost any of them.

American students have different types of school transport. They usually take a yellow school bus or walk to school if they live close enough. Sometimes their parents drive them to school.

When they turn 16 years of age, most take a free driving class at school for one term. If students' exam passing grades in the class and also pass their state driver's exam, they can begin driving themselves to school.

Each day, students take six or seven classes. They must take science, math, English and social studies. They can choose art, homemaking, fashion design and other classes. In some schools students are required to take one or more of the following special classes: health education, physical education or foreign language studies. Students move to different classrooms for each subject. This is because cache teacher has their own classroom. There is a five-minute break between classes, to give the students the time to hurry to their next class.

The regular school day usually ends early in the afternoon. After school more than half of the students take part in after-school activities. These activities include sports, specially football, basketball, baseball and soccer or clubs, such as yearbook, speech, school newspaper, photograph or student government.

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Singapore is a city of different cultures. Walking through the streets of Singapore, you can{#blank#}1{#/blank#} (听到)different languages spoken, such as English, Chinese and Malay. People from different cultures live and work peacefully with each other and share their traditions.

In Singapore, cultural differences are shown in building styles, shops and in many other ways. Take food as an {#blank#}2{#/blank#} (例子), each culture has its own place to sell their traditional food, but there are also the {#blank#}3{#/blank#} (著名的) hawker markets. Different foods are sold in these {#blank#}4{#/blank#} (繁忙的) markets.

And these are very {#blank#}5{#/blank#} (受欢迎的) with Singapore citizens and {#blank#}6{#/blank#} (游客) from around the world. The food is good and very{#blank#}7{#/blank#} (便宜的).

Singapore is also an interesting city. Large numbers of people, ideas, etc, are mixed together {#blank#}8{#/blank#} (在……下面)the same sky. English is used for business, {#blank#}9{#/blank#} (虽然)the official language here is Malay. Now, however, there is a strong Chinese business community and also a growing Indian business community. Singapore welcomes talented people from around the world and {#blank#}10{#/blank#} (希望)they will live there all their lives.

    If you had billions of dollars, would you donate almost all of it to charity? Well, that's what Mark Zuckerburg, CEO and founder of Facebook, just said he would do.
    Zuckerburg and his wife Priscilla Chan promised to give 90% of their Facebook shares to society. Right now that is about $45 billion, and they plan to donate the money to things like science and education.
    Many billionaires have done similar things. Bill Gates, creator of Microsoft, made The Giving Pledge, an activity in which billionaires promise donate more than half of their wealth to charities. This started in 2010, and now 139 people from 15 countries joined it.
    But giving back and helping others isn't just for big billionaires. People like Zuckerberg, and Gates may have more to give, but people with less are doing it, too.
    Especially around the holidays, people want to do their part and give back to people who are less lucky than them. Schools may have food collections where people bring a few food items, and together they can make a big donation to places like homeless people's homes.
    People also host special events like concerts of runs to be creative while raising money. Regular people donate whatever they can to US charities like the United Way and the American Red Cross.
    Then these charities are able to help US communities in different ways like education, health and improving the lives of the poor. These individual donations come together to make a big difference.

Until the beginning of July, there has been no rain in northern Italy for over 100 days. Add to that the high temperatures, and the locals get very dry conditions. This is the most serious dry spell（干旱期）for that area in the past 70 years. Because of this situation, the country's longest river, the Po, is drying up!

This is bad news for several different reasons. The fresh water of the Po provides drinking water for northern Italy. Besides, farmers in this area need the water of the Po to keep their crops growing. What's more, the flowing river water is used to create about half of the hydroelectric power（水力发电）for Italy. Its drying up means that more natural gas（天然气） will be used, which is bad for the environment.

There have been some interesting discoveries from this lack of rain, however. Between Florence and Milan, a long ship sunk （沉没）in 1943 appeared because of the low water levels of the river. Now many tourists and locals come to see this ship. A German tank has also appeared out of water near Mantua. At other places along the river, people can even walk on the sandy river bed. Although this may be interesting, people in Italy and around the world are hoping for the return of rain to refill the Po!

Are you interested in robots? If so, try out robot Little Q at our science center from August Ist to August 6th. Little Q is a cute robot with a round head, two big eyes and two long legs. It's like a big toy that our children will love.