It was 3:21 a.m. when nine-year-old Glenn Kreamer awoke to the smell of burning. Except for the cracking(爆烈声) of flames somewhere below there was not a sound in the two-storey house at Baldwin Long Island.

    With his father away on night duty at a local factory, Glenn was worried about the safety of his mother, his sister Karen, 14 and his 12-year-old brother Todd. He ran downstairs through the smoke-filled house to push and pull at Karen and Todd until they sat up. Then he helped each one through the house to the safety of the garden. There, his sister and brother, taking short and quick breaths and coughing, fell down onto the lawn.

    The nine-year-old boy raced back into the house and upstairs to his mother's room. He found it impossible to wake her up. Mrs. Kreamer, a victim of the smoke, was unconscious(昏厥的), and there was nobody to help Glenn carry her to the garden. But the boy remained calm and, as a fireman said later, "acted with all the self-control of a trained adult."

    On the bedroom telephone, luckily still working, Glenn called his father and, leaving Mr. Kreamer to telephone the fire brigade and ambulance service, got on with the task of saving his mother.

    First he filled a bucket with water from the bathroom and threw water over his mother and her bed. Then, with a wet cloth around his head he went back to the garden.

    He could hear the fire engine coming up, but how would the firemen find his mother in the smoke-filled house where flames had almost swallowed up the ground floor?

    Grasping firmly a ball of string(线) from the garage, Glenn raced back into the house and dashed upstairs to his mother's room. Tying one end of the string to her hand, he ran back, laying out the string as he went, through the hall and back out into the garden.

    Minutes later he was telling fire chief John Coughlan, "The string will lead you to mother." Mrs. Kreamer was carried to safety as the flames were breaking through her bedroom floor.

    It may not come as a surprise but the world as a whole is getting richer. Some people have more disposable income to spend on luxuries such as holidays, cars, TVs and smartphones. Recent data has shown that the number of people living in extreme poverty has halved in recent decades. So should we celebrate the fact that more of us now have a better standard of living?

    Maybe not. While the gap between rich and poor in some countries is narrowing, there is still a lot of inequality in other places-some people have a lot of money and opportunities and others don't. A recent report by Oxfam and Credit Suisse revealed how divided many of us are when it comes to wealth. A lot of the money in the world is in the hands of very few people. In fact, 48% of global wealth is owned by the richest 1% of the population.

    But some countries are attempting to reduce this inequality and make the poor less poor. According to David Bryer from Oxfam, Brazil has been taking “some really sensible measures-measures around having more progressive tax, around investing in a higher minimum wage and investing in central public services.” Having a higher minimum wage(提高最低工资标准), can help people eat better and seek a better education. And more people with more money buy more things-and factories can produce more. In turn, a factory which produces more will need more workers. So, more jobs are created.

    Other wealthy individuals are doing their bit to help reduce inequality. Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, earned a lot of money from his company but when he retired, he and his wife Melinda, created a foundation to help the poor. He thinks that rich people should, of course, pay their taxes but he also advises that they should all “look at taking their wealth and being philanthropic, both in their own country and to help the global poorest.”

    Bill Gates feels that giving money to help poor people is “fulfilling”. But if other super-rich people don't want to experience this fulfilment then, according to Oxfam, very soon the wealthiest 1% will soon own more money than the rest of the world's population. Do you think that is fair?

    Distance, just like currency, becomes incomprehensible when it reaches large quantities.

    So, when outdoor enthusiast and Midwest Mountaineering employee Elizabeth John says she only hiked the nearly 500 miles of the Colorado Trail over a period of six weeks, don't let her fool you. That's like walking from St. Paul to St. Louis—give or take a few dozen miles—plus thousands upon thousands of feet of altitude.

    "I'm a gardener, I'm a busy-hands person, but busy feet are just as good," she explains. "I don't meditate, but maybe that's the way I think about it—walking as a way to relax."

    John took childhood hikes in the Boundary Waters and caught her case of busy feet while hiking in Alaska as a teenager. With a background in paddling, mountaineering, and backpacking, she found long-distance hiking rewarding, though exhausting.

    Since then, thru-hiking—hiking a long-distance trail (考验，试验) end-to-end in one hiking season—has gotten friendlier to beginners. John has given up 60-pound packs in favor of a lighter modern backpacking equipment. For her 50th birthday, she decided to fly to Spain and walk close to 500 miles of the Camino de Santiago. The Colorado jaunt, her first solo long-distance hike, followed a few years later in 2017.

    "Going on a big walk is unreasonable and includes being uncomfortable, wet, hungry, sore, tired, lonely…it's challenging," she says. "It's a leap of faith. But I found the rewards surprising and unexpected, some even waiting for me at home after the trip. There is a rhythm to walking, a physicality and simplicity…a discovery."

    Logging some 4, 000 feet of elevation daily, John met many "trail angels" who provided shade, snacks, and sometimes beer at remote points in the wilderness, purely out of the goodness of their hearts. "You're so excited, because you're someplace so incredible, and it wasn't easy to get there," she says. "There was this moment when you love humanity, and you're so proud of people for doing it."

An airline passenger ensured a 20-year-old man was reunited with his lost wallet-along with a little extra something to make up for their time apart.

Hunter Shamatt first lost his wallet while he was on a Frontier Airlines flight from Omaha to attend his sister's wedding in Las Vegas earlier this month. On realizing his wallet was lost, he contacted the airline to see if anyone had turned it in—but to no avail. Since the wallet contained his ID, a signed paycheck, his debit card and $60 in cash, he "feared the worst".

Shortly after the flight, however, Hunter was shocked to receive a package in the mail from an unknown sender. Inside was his wallet-along with an additional $40 in cash.

"Found this on a Frontier flight from Omaha to Denver-row 12, seat F stuck between the seat and wall," read a letter in the package. "Thought you might want it hack. All the best. PS: I rounded your cash up to an even $100 so you could celebrate getting your wallet hack. Have fun!"

Hunter's mother, Jeannie, posted a photo of the letter to social media in hopes that they would be able to track down the sender and thank them for their kindness. All they had to go on was that the letter was sent from Applied Underwriters in Omaha and the sender's initials were signed: "T.B".

The Good Man was later identified as Todd Brown, a father-of-five who was delighted at the chance to "have a little fun" with helping out a hard-working stranger. Brown says that he often tries to do good deeds without any recognition, thus why he didn't sign his full name on the letter, but Jeannie later insisted on praising the Nebraska native on social media.

"I try to teach my children to do the right things in life, help people when you can despite the outcome," she wrote on Facebook. "This story is more about restoring faith in people than anything".