The Leaning Tower of Pisa was straight like a pole when the construction began in 1173. It started to shift direction soon after construction because of poor foundation in addition to the loose layer of subsoil(底土). At the beginning, it leaned to the southeast before the shaky foundation started to shift leaning towards the southwest. After the period of structural strengthening at the beginning of the 21^st century, now the Leaning Tower of Pisa leans at an angle of 3.97 degrees.

    In 1178, the shift in direction was observed for the first time when the construction had progressed further to the third floor. The tower was heavy for the three-meter foundation that was built on a weak area of land.

    For compensating(补偿) the leaning position, the builders started to construct the upper floors with one side higher than the other one. This caused the tower to lean in the other direction. This unusual structure led to the tower being actually curved. In spite of these efforts, the tower kept on leaning.

    The government of Italy started to plan prevention of the complete collapse of the tower in 1964. However, a request was put forward by the authorities to keep the leaning position because of the tourism industry of the region.

    After nearly two decades of careful planning by engineers, historians and mathematicians, the stabilization efforts for the Leaning Tower of Pisa started in 1990. The tower was closed for the general public and the people living nearby moved away. For reducing the total weight of the tower, its seven bells which represented the seven musical notes were removed. The tower was reopened for the general public on December 15, 2001.

    In May 2008, after removing another 70 metric tons of earth, the engineers announced that the tower had been finally stabilized and it would remain stable for at least 200 years.

    While Jennifer was at home taking an online exam for her business law class, a monitor（监控器）a few hundred miles away was watching her every move.

    Using a web camera equipped in Jennifer's Los Angeles apartment, the monitor in Phoenix tracked how frequently her eyes moved from the computer screen and listened for the secret sounds of a possible helper in the room. Her Internet access was locked — remotely — to prevent Internet searches, and her typing style was analyzed to make sure she was who she said she was: Did she enter her student number at the same speed as she had in the past? Or was she slowing down?

    In the battle against cheating, this is the cutting edge and a key to encouraging honesty in the booming field of online education. The technology gives trust to the entire system, to the institution and to online education in general. Only with solid measures against cheating, experts say, can Internet universities show that their exams and diplomas are valid — that students haven't just searched the Internet to get the right answers.

    Although online classes have existed for more than a decade, the concern over cheating has become sharper in the last year with the growth of “open online courses”. Private colleges, public universities and corporations are jumping into the online education field, spending millions of dollars to attract potential students, while also taking steps to help guarantee honesty at a distance.

    Aside from the web cameras, a number of other high-tech methods are becoming increasingly popular. Among them are programs that check students' identities using personal information, such as the telephone number they once used.

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    In the fall of 1985, I was a bright-eyed girl heading off to Howard University, aiming at a legal career and dreaming of sitting on a Supreme Court bench somewhere. Twenty-one years later I am still a bright-eyed dreamer and one with quite a different tale to tell.

    My grandma, an amazing woman, graduated from college at the age of 65. She was the first in our family to reach that goal. But one year after I started college, she developed cancer. I made the choice to withdraw from college to care for her. It meant that school and my personal dream would have to wait.

    Then I got married with another dream: building my family with a combination of adopted and biological children. In 1999, we adopted our first son. To lay eyes on him was fantastic－and very emotional. A year later came our second adopted boy. Then followed son No.3. In 2003, I gave birth to another boy.

    You can imagine how fully occupied I became, raising four boys under the age of 8! Our home was a complete zoo－a joyous zoo. Not surprising, I never did make it back to college fulltime. But I never gave up on the dream either. I had only one choice: to find a way. That meant taking as few as one class each semester.

    The hardest part was feeling guilty about the time I spent away from the boys. They often wanted me to stay home with them. There certainly were times I wanted to quit, but I knew I should set an example for them to follow through the rest of their lives.

    In 2007, I graduated from the University of North Carolina. It took me over 21 years to get my college degree!

    I am not special, just single-minded. It always struck me that when you're looking at a big challenge from the outside, it looks huge, but when you're in the midst of it, it just seems normal. Everything you want won't arrive in your life on one day. It's a process. Remember: little steps add up to big dreams.

    Chicago is becoming one of the country's most wonderful cities to film television. When this wonderful place is properly represented in a film, I cannot help but love it! Here are some movies that feature this great city.

    Southside With You

    Neighborhood: The whole South Side

    Director: Richard Tanne

    Starring: Tika Sumpter and Parker Sawyers

    Rotten Tomatoes Score: 92%

    Released: 2016

    Genre（类型）: Biography, Drama, History and Romance

    High Fidelity

    Neighborhood: Wicker Park

    Director: Stephen Frears

    Starring: John Cusack, Jack Black and Todd Louiso

    Rotten Tomatoes Score: 91%

    Released: 2000

    Genre（类型）: Comedy, Drama, Music and Romance

    Mean Girls

    Neighborhood: This one is famous since it takes place in Evanston and some other parts of the North Shore.

    Director: Mark Waters

    Starring: Lindsay Lohan, Rachel McAdams and Amanda Seyfried

    Rotten Tomatoes Score: 83%

    Released: 2004

    Genre: Comedy

    Hoop Dreams

    Neighborhood: Cabrini-Green, West Garfield Park and Westchester, IL

    Director: Steve James

    Starring: William Gates and Arthur Agee

    Rotten Tomatoes Score: 98%

    Released: 1994

    Genre: Documentary, Drama and Sports

    We work with Cambridge County Council's Participation Team to create opportunities for young people to visit the University and learn more about it. The following events are scheduled for the 2019/2020 academic year.

    Superstar workshops

    12 engaging workshops are planned for young people aged 7 to 11. These half-day visits will be held throughout the year, at times when young people are not at school. If participants complete 8 of the 12 workshops, they will be awarded the nationally recognized Superstar Crest Award.

Please note, workshops will only run if we have a sufficient number of attendees (usually around 3+ participants).

    Explore University Days

    Explore University Days are for young people aged 12-15. Participants visit the University for two days and engage with a range of university-related workshops, and other fun activities.

Previous participants have engaged with the following:

    Visited the Sports Centre

    Took part in a Neuroscience workshop

    Enjoyed a two-course meal at a University College

    Dates will be confirmed in early December 2019, and a schedule for event will follow in the New Year.

    Events for post-16 students

    If you are studying for your post-16 qualifications and are considering applying for Cambridge or would like to find out more about a specific subject, the following events might be for you:

    University and College Open Days

    Subject Master classes

    Cambridge Science Festival

Jim Curry lights a stove in the parking lot of Christ Episcopal Church in Guilford. It'll get up to 2,000 degrees, hot enough to soften the metal of shotgun parts so they can be reshaped.

A crowd is watching, and Curry picks out a 9-year-old named Oliver to help him. "This is really magic," Curry says. "Right before your very eyes, you're gonna see Oliver transform this gun, this instrument of potential harm, into something that could never be a gun ever again. It's gonna be a trowel (泥铲), which could be used to plant flowers in a garden."

"It is exciting," Oliver says. "I love the fact that you can take metal that's random and shape it into something useful."

Curry, a retired priest, is a co-founder of Swords to Plowshares (犁) Northeast, the organization putting on this event, which helps police departments manage their gun buyback programs and repurpose the weapons into gardening tools.

The finished tools are donated to community gardens and agricultural high schools and the harvested vegetables donated to soup kitchens and homeless shelters, according to the group's website.

Retired priest Mary Ann first volunteered with Swords to Plowshares when a family member fell victim to gun violence. She helps collect guns through police buybacks. "When there's such despair now in our country, people need to know that we can change. There is hope," she says.

Curry wears a constant reminder of that hope around his neck. It's two large pieces of metal molded into the shape of a cross. "It's made out of pieces of an AK-47 used for killing", he says. "But God's love breaks it apart, reshapes it, then transforms it into the sign of greatest hope — the cross. And that's why I wear it."