Yesterday and Today

    Life in the twenty-first century will be different from life today. Between then and now many changes will take place, but what will the changesbe?

    The population is growing fast. There will be many people in world and most of them will live longer than people live now.

    Computers will be much smaller and more useful, and there will be at least one in every home. And computer studies will be one of the important subjects in schools then.

    People will work fewer hours than they do now and they will have more free time for sports, watching TV and travel. Traveling will be much cheaper and easier. And many more people will go to other countries for holidays.

    There will be changes in our food, too. More land will be used for building new towns and houses for all the people. Then there will be less room for cows and sheep, so meat will be more expensive. Maybe no one will eat it every day. Instead they will eat more fruit and vegetable. Maybe people will be healthier.

    Work in the future will be different, too. Dangerous and hard work will be done by robots. Because of this, many people will not have enough work to do. This will be a problem.

    Getting on the school bus, like the possible dangers around the home, getting on the school bus can also bring its own set of dangers. There are several important safety measures that parents should be aware of when it comes to bus safety.

    Parents should always make sure that someone is taking charge of children at the bus stop to make certain clear ground rules which are in place and are being followed—particularly rules that forbid horseplay in and around the street.

    Teach children to ask the bus driver for help in picking up anything they may have dropped around the bus, as children getting dropped articles are often hit by the bus or another vehicle because they are not seen by the bus driver or by oncoming traffic.

    Children should be asked to take five large steps away from the bus when they get it off, and make sure that the bus driver can see you and look you directly in the eyes to signal it is OK to cross the street. It is still very important that children also look both ways as they cross the street.

    Inform children that they must never speak to any stranger who talks with them first and that they must never accept a ride from any person unless their parents tell them directly that it is OK. Teach kids that adults should ask other adults for help, not kids. If an adult asks a kid for help, that child should get another adult.

    If for any reason a child feels uncomfortable or unsafe at the bus stop they need to bring it to a parent's or caregiver's attention.

Remember, planning ahead is always the best safety measure. Follow these rules and your family will be off danger!

    Nola (August 21, 1974 -November 22, 2015) was a northern white rhino(犀牛) who lived at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park near Escondido, California. At her death, she was one of only four remaining northern white rhinos in the world. The other three lived in Kenya. World Rhino Day, held on September 2, is to raise awareness(意识) of the less than 30,000 other rhinos left on Earth.

    “Rhinos need our help today, not tomorrow,” Nola's lead keeper Jane Kennedy said. “Last year we lost over 1,200 rhinos just in South Africa. If we continue to lose more than 1,000 rhinos a year, in 10 to 20 years all the rhinos on the planet will be gone.”

    “Unfortunately, most animals are in danger of dying out because of humans,” Kennedy says.“ Humans have either poached animals, or because there are over seven billion of us, we've taken up too much of the world's resources ”. Poachers illegally hunt rhinos for their horns. They sell the horns for thousands of dollars per pound, to be used for art, jewelry, and decorations. Experts believe that one rhino is poached every eight hours.

    In 1975, the San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research started the Frozen Zoo, a program through which researchers have collected cell (细胞) samples from more than 8,000 different types of animals, including the northern white rhino. Scientists hope that by studying the rhino cells, they will get greater understanding of it, and will find ways to increase its numbers.

    Jane Kennedy describes World Rhino Day as “a celebration of rhinos along with an awareness campaign for everybody across the world to know that rhinos need our help.” At the San Diego Zoo, children and adults are welcome to visit and speak with zookeepers to learn about rhinos. But you don't have to live in San Diego to celebrate World Rhino Day. It is observed around the world, with zoos and wildlife parks holding special events and programs to teach people about rhinos, and enable them to see the animals up close. For more information, go to www.worldrhinoday.org.

    Abraham Lincoln, a self-taught lawyer, was elected 16th president of the United States in November 1860, shortly before the outbreak of the Civil War. Lincoln proved to be a smart military strategist and a competent leader: His Emancipation Proclamation(解放宣言) paved the way for slavery's abolition, while his Gettysburg Address stands as one of the most famous speeches in American history. In April 1865, with the Union on the brink of victory, Abraham Lincoln was killed; his untimely death made him a hero to the cause of liberty, and he is widely regarded as one of the greatest presidents in U.S. history.

    On January 20, 1981, Reagan took office. Only 69 days later he was shot by a would-be killer, but quickly recovered and returned to duty. His grace and wit during the dangerous incident caused his popularity to soar.

    At the end of his two terms in office, Ronald Reagan viewed with satisfaction the achievements of his innovative program known as the Reagan Revolution, which aimed to motivate the American people and reduce their reliance upon Government. He felt he had fulfilled his campaign pledge of 1980 to restore “the great, confident roar of American progress and growth and optimism.”

    When George W. Bush, at the age of 54, became the 43rd president of the United States, it was only the second time in American history that a president's son went on to the White House. John Quincy Adams, elected the sixth president in 1824, was the son of John Adams, the second president. While John Adams had brought up his son to be president, George Bush, the 41st president, insisted he was surprised when the eldest of his six children became interested in politics, became governor of Texas, and then went on to the White House.

    Barack Obama served as the 44th President of the United States. His story is the American story — values from the heartland, a middle-class upbringing in a strong family, hard work and education as the means of getting ahead, and the belief that a life so blessed should be lived in service to others.

    With a father from Kenya and a mother from Kansas, President Obama was born in Hawaii on August 4, 1961. He was raised with help from his grandfather, who served in Patton's army, and his grandmother, who worked her way up from the secretarial pool to middle management at a bank.

    Finding fruits and vegetables at your typical grocery store that have been grown without the extensive use of pesticides can be difficult. Fortunately, The Environmental Working Group(EWG) has done all of the work for you in finding healthy and pesticide－free produce.

    EWG has created the 2018 Shopper's Guide to Pesticides in Produce, which helps shoppers to find uncontaminated produce. Many consumers do not realize that pesticide residues(残留) are very common on conventionally grown produce products, even after they have been washed or peeled. Because of this, EWG has created their series of guides to lead consumers to safer food choices.

    In order to create these guides, EWG analyzed the USDA pesticides tests, which found a total of 230 different pesticides and pesticides breakdown products on thousands of produce samples. Analyzing this information, EWG observed the big differences of the amount of pesticides found from product to product.

    The guide's two main components are two compiled lists highlighting the cleanest and dirtiest produce concerning pesticides. These two lists, Dirty Dozen and Clean Fifteen, show consumers how certain foods continue to carry trace amounts of pesticides with them all the way to the grocery store shelves, while others make it to your kitchen virtually pesticide－free.

    Some of the highlights from their analyses included the following findings：

    More than one－third of strawberry samples analyzed in 2016 contained 10 or more pesticide residues and breakdown products.

    Spinach(菠菜) samples had, on average, almost twice as much pesticide residue by weight compared to any other crop.

    No single fruit sample from the Clean Fifteen tested positive for more than four pesticides.

    “With EWG's guide, consumers can fill their fridges and fruit bowls with plenty of healthy conventional and organic produce that isn't contaminated with multiple pesticide residue," said Sonya Lunder, a senior analyst in EWG.

    Only 25 years ago, the National Academy of Sciences raised concerns about exposure to poisonous pesticides in our food, yet consumers still consume a mixture of pesticides every day in America.

    When the tornado(龙卷风) passed, Lewis returned to her house after that awful night, and the Bible was the first thing she looked for. She had bought it 35 years earlier, at the start of her marriage. Like many folks, she'd used it to preserve the family's history: decades-old photos, newspaper obituaries(讣告) of loved ones, a handkerchief from her great-grandmother, even a piece of a scarf her uncle had brought back from the Korean War.

    The Bible was not where she'd last seen it, on top of an antique dresser in her bedroom. The only thing left was the solid pieces of marble that had been on the top of the furniture. After an hour of searching, one of the volunteers ran up to her and found the Bible while clearing through ruins. She had tears streaming down her cheeks. It had flown about ten feet from the dresser. Surprisingly, while many books had been destroyed beyond recognition, the Bible was still intact, even though it had sat in the rain for days. "It was a miracle," says Lewis.

    A few of the Bible's treasures did go missing. Yet ever so slowly, they, too, began reappearing in Lewis's life. Days after the Bible was found, volunteers discovered one of the newspaper obituaries outside the home. Two weeks later, a neighbor found another newspaper clipping(剪辑) by her house. "It was a shock," says Lewis.

    Now the Bible already has its well-deserved place of honor, on the dresser. She knows that while every good book tells stories of disastrous weather and unlikely survival, this one actually lived it.