Soft winds blew throughout the Windy City today. We welcomed the winds, as it was another hot day in Chicago. The wind blew, bringing us some coolness—and making the weather not that hot. But it was a beautiful summer day with a blue sky.

Chicago is a great city for eating, and we have enjoyed tasting the different foods. Last night, we tried one of the city's most famous foods: deep-dish pizza. Chicago claims credit for the rich and cheesy thick-crust pizza, covered with a sweet tomato sauce. We topped it with olives and green peppers.

       We were touring the city, mainly looking for delicious local foods. Today, we enjoyed a Polish specialty at lunch: Pierogis, an Eastern European dumpling-like dish, filled with foods like potatoes, cheese, mushrooms, cabbage and meat. Polish immigrants started settling in Chicago in the 1850s, and the city has one of the largest Polish communities in the U.S.

    We took a break from exploring the city to talk with some of you! Ashley and Caty logged onto the Internet for an on-the -road version of TALK2US. We spoke to an English teacher in Tokyo, Japan, and a graduate student in India.

Meanwhile, Adam searched for some locations around the city to shoot some video. He chose a spectacular spot: Navy Pier, Chicago's most-visited attraction. The winds from Lake Michigan keep visitors cool, and the view of the Chicago skyline never fails to impress. In fact, the view made all of us head over heels!

    Our time in Chicago has come to an end. Tomorrow, the true journey begins, as we pass through Illinois and into Missouri via Route 66. Springfield, the home of Abe Lincoln, and St. Louis, the “gateway to the West,” wait for us.

    Beijing residents could be rewarded with up to 500,000 yuan if they can provide useful information on spies or related activities, according to a government policy that took effect on Monday.

    Under the policy, informants will be offered rewards ranging, from 10,000 yuan to 500,000 yuan, depending on how useful the information is, according to the policy issued by the National Security Bureau(安全局) of Beijing. Informants can pass information to authorities by calling a hotline, sending letters or visiting the bureau.

    Informants' privacy and information about spy-related messages will not be disclosed, while information providers can ask authorities for protection if they or their relatives are in danger due to the act of informing, according to the policy.

    However, informants will face punishments if they slander (诽谤) others on purpose or invent and spread false information, the policy states clearly.

    The bureau said that China is witnessing rapid increases in international exchanges and the number of people entering or exiting the country each year. "Meanwhile, overseas espionage agencies(间谍机构)and other unfriendly forces have also strengthened their disruptive(破坏的) activities in China, including political, economical and military information." it said.

    Some Chinese individuals have also betrayed the nation to benefit their private interests, which offers overseas espionage agencies opportunities, the bureau said, adding that Beijing is the primary location for such activities. Therefore, it's necessary to take new measures in anti-espionage investigation, and to encourage the participation of the general public.

    One of the most recent cases made public occurred in the eastern province of Jiangsu in January. Two residents in Lianyungang city, surnamed Zhang and Wan, called the national security authorities after they found a device with instructions in foreign languages while fishing in the Yellow Sea. The device was later found to be spying equipment made and used by overseas agencies to collect data, according to an official release.

    China has strengthened legislation(立法) on State security in recent years. Facing a more complex State security situation, in 2014, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress adopted the Counterespionage Law.

    Are some people born clever, and others born stupid? Or is intelligence developed by our environment and our experience? Strangely enough, the answer to these questions is yes. To some degree our intelligence is given to us at birth, and no amount of education can make a genius out of a child born with low intelligence. On the other hand, a child who lives in a boring environment will develop his intelligence less than one who lives in rich and varied surroundings. Thus the limits of person's intelligence are fixed at birth, whether or not he reaches those limits will depend on his environment. This view, now held by most experts, can be supported in a number of ways.

    It is easy to show that intelligence is to some degree something we are born with. The closer the blood relationship between two people, the closer they are likely to be intelligent. Thus if we take two unrelated people at random from population, it is likely that their degree of intelligence will be completely different. If, on the other hand, we take two identical twins, they will very likely be as intelligent as each other. Relations like brothers and sisters, parents and children, usually have similar intelligence, and this clearly suggests that intelligence depends on birth. Imagine now that we take two identical twins and put them in different environments. We might send one, for example, to a university and the other to a factory where the work is boring. We would soon find differences in intelligence developing, and this indicates that environment as well as birth plays a part. This conclusion is also suggested by the fact that people who live in close contact with each other, but who are not related at all are likely to have similar degree of intelligence.

    Siri, whose voice do you have?

    The question has interested millions of Apple iPhone and iPad fans, who use the devices' Siri function for help with everything from finding restaurants and directions to organize their day.

    On Friday, CNN reported it had discovered the original voice. The person had never before been identified publicly.

    The network named Susan Bennett, a voice-over actress（配音演员）from Atlanta in the US, as the voice behind Siri, which was first introduced on Apple's iPhone 4s in 2011.

    "I'm the voice actor who provided the voice of Siri," Bennett told CNN in an interview.

    Bennett told the network she worked four hours a day for the entire month of July 2005 recording in her home. She said she was paid by the hour but would not reveal the amount.

    "A colleague emailed me and said, 'Hey, we've been playing around with this new Apple phone. Isn't this you?'" Bennett told CNN.

    Her voice may also be familiar to airline passengers who have passed through a Delta Airlines terminal.

    Bennett also provided the radio and TV voice of First National Bank's "Tillie the All-Time Teller", the first ATM machine, she told CNN.

    "I began my career as a machine many years ago," Bennett told the network. "I'm sure that you hear my voice at some point every day."

    Josh Hill, a biology teacher at Mar Vista High School in California, US, often gets sick after swimming in the ocean at Imperial Beach in California.

    He and a group of students are raising awareness(意识)about water pollution by taking weekly water samples(样本)of the ocean and publishing their results online.

    Every Thursday, Hill and his students collect water from the ocean. Students then take the samples to their school and test them for levels of bacteria. Usually, samples closer to the border have higher levels of bacteria, Hill said.

    “Water quality is usually the worst at the southern end and it increasingly gets better,” he said.

    Hill collects the samples on Thursdays so that students can publish the results on the Surfrider Foundation's website in time for the weekend. The Surfrider Foundation has give Mar Vista lab equipment and promote the students' results on its site.

    Most of Hill's students grew up in Imperial Beach. Many have gotten sick from the water or know someone who has.

    Cameron Bell, 17, who is currently applying to college, wants to pursue a STEM career. He appreciates the fact the he can get lab experience at school. “Our research really impacts our community because it's keeping people safe,” he said.

    On a recent Thursday morning, Anthony Gass, 15, collected some samples. Before he got into the water, his classmates helped him put on waterproof(防水的)clothes and tie a rope around his waist to protect him from the onrush of water.

    Hill said the protection probably wasn't necessary, but that it was better to be safe than to be sorry. “We just want to make sure we protect the students,” he said.

    For several months, Cara has been working up the courage to approach her mom about what she saw on Instagram. Not long ago, the 11-year-old girl, like all the other kids in this story, discovered that her mom had been posting her photos for much of her life." I've wanted to bring it up. It's strange to see myself up there，and sometimes there are pictures I don't like of myself," she said.

    Like most other modem kids, Cara grew up immersed in social media. While many kids may not yet have accounts themselves, their parents, schools, sports teams, and organizations have been organizing an online presence for them since birth. The shock of realizing that details about your life have been shared online without your permission or knowledge has become an important experience in the lives of many teenagers. Recently a parenting blogger (博主)wrote in a Washington Post essay that despite (不顾)her 14-year-old daughter's horror at discovering that her mother had shared years of highly personal stories and information about her online, she simply could not stop posting on her blog and social media. The writer said that promising her daughter that she would stop posting about her publicly on the Internet would mean shutting down a vital part of myself, which isn't necessarily good for me or her." average parents do the same. There's even a special word for it: sharenting. Almost a quarter of children begin their digital lives when parents upload their photos to the Internet, according to a study conducted by the Internet-security firm AVG. The study also found that 92 percent of kids under the age of 2 already have their own unique digital identity.