China, org. cn selected its top 10 people who moved China in 2012. These heroes included a jet engineer, a businessman, a teacher, as well as nurses and migrant workers. Here are the accounts of the exemplary deeds of Zhang Lili, a teacher. Zhang Lili is a teacher at the No. 19 Middle School in Jiamusi, Heilongjiang Province. She suffered from serious injuries after saving two students from being hit by an oncoming bus on May 8.

    Zhang and her students were crossing the road just outside the school gate when suddenly a runaway school bus changed direction towards the students. Zhang managed to push both students out of the vehicle's destructive (破坏的，毁灭性的）path, but she herself did get run over. Her legs were crushed and later had to be cut off above the knee.

    Bom on Jan. 19, 1984，in Jiamusi, Zhang was a 168cm-tall lively and cheerful young woman who had devoted herself entirely to her job. She got married in 2009. The couple planned on having a baby after the graduation of her class.

    Zhang's act of heroism has moved a large number of people. She was even named “the most beautiful teacher” by netizens. She was awarded the “May I Labor Medal” and given the title of “Female Pace-setter” by authorities. She became a Party member in July.

    It was almost the worst birthday of Abraham Lincoln's life.

    On February 11, 1861 (the day before he turned fifty-two), Lincoln left for Washington to become the nation's sixteenth President. As he left home in Springfield, Illinois, Lincoln handed his son Robert a black oilskin(油布) bag, and told him to keep it carefully. He did not tell Robert what was inside.

    Unknown to his seventeen-year-old son, Lincoln had placed his newly written inaugural speech in the bag. It was to be the most important speech he ever made. And it was his only copy.

When the train arrived in Indianapolis—the first stop on the long journey—Lincoln rode off in a special carriage without his family. Robert walked from the station to the local hotel.

    When Robert arrived at the hotel, he learned that his family's rooms were not ready. So he asked that the bag should be held at the front desk. Then he went off to be with friends.

    On his return, Robert found his father waiting anxiously. Where was the bag? Robert explained that he had checked it at the desk.

An angry Lincoln sped to the hall and leaped over the front desk. He began searching through a huge pile of luggage.

    As puzzled guests looked on, Lincoln dragged from the pile a familiar-looking black bag and opened it, only to find someone else's dirty clothes. It was the wrong bag. Back he went to the pile.

    At last he found the valuable bag and the speech inside. Lincoln handed it to his son and said strictly, “Now you keep it!”

    It was the one and only time, Robert said, that his father had ever lost his temper at him. But with his speech fond and his birthday yet to be celebrated, Abraham Lincoln grew cheerful. As Robert proudly recalled, “Father did not scold(责骂).”

    A new study shows that rising levels of planet-warming gases may reduce important nutrients in food crops.

    Researchers studied the effects of one such gas—carbon dioxide—on rice. The researchers grew rice plants in a controlled environment. They set carbon dioxide levels to what scientists are predicting for our planet by the end of the century. They found that the resulting rice crops had lower than normal levels of vitamins, minerals and protein. The researchers said the effects of planet-warming gases would be most severe for the poorest citizens in some of the least developed countries. These people generally eat the most rice and have the least complex diets, they noted.

    In the experiment, scientists grew 18 kinds of rice in fields in China and Japan. They pumped carbon dioxide gas over the plants in an effort to create the atmosphere of the future. Rice grown under high carbon dioxide conditions had, on average, 13 to 30 percent lower levels of four B vitamins and 10 percent less protein. The crops also had 8 percent less iron and 5 percent less zinc（锌）an rice grown under normal conditions. However, vitamin E levels increased by about 13 percent on average.

    The results are bad news, “especially for the nutrition of the poorer population in less-developed countries,” said the University of Tokyo's Kazuhiko Kobayashi, who helped to write the report. That includes about 600 million people in Indonesia, Cambodia, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Laos and other nations, mainly in Southeast Asia, the report said.

    One of the scientists is Sam Myers of Harvard University in the American state of Massachusetts. He said that findings like this are an example of the surprises climate change create. “My concern is there are many more surprises to come,” he said.

    Myers noted that pollution, loss of some species, destruction of forests, and other human activities are likely to produce unexpected problems. He said that you cannot completely change all the natural systems that living organisms have grown to depend on over millions of years without having effects come back to affect our own health.

    The new study suggests a way to lower the nutritional harm of climate change. One way, Kobayashi said, is grow different forms of rice that have shown to be more resistant to higher carbon dioxide levels.

My wife and I were at a crowded grocery store not long ago. It was a weekday evening, cold and wet—and tense. People were carelessly blocking aisles, cutting one another off with their carts.

    Things got worse at the checkout line. The cashier scanned a man's discount card, but he misread the savings on her screen as an additional charge. He decided she was acting deliberately and began to argue.

    "She is being spiteful (恶意的)!" he yelled. "This is unbelievable."

    Other customers looked away as the cashier tried to reason with him. She called a manager, who accompanied him to customer service. Shaken, she moved to the next customer in line.

We've all witnessed uncomfortable scenes like this in public places. The grocery scene was another example of how our trust in others has eroded. But it was also a teachable moment on how we can rebuild our faith—starting with just one person.

    Back at the grocery store, my wife and I reached our uneasy cashier. I grabbed a bottle of water from a nearby cooler and handed it to her. "We felt bad about how that man treated you and wanted to buy this for you." I said. Her face lit up, and we talked as she scanned our items. She told us she had been working that evening through severe foot pain and would be having surgery later that week. We wished her well in her recovery, and she thanked us as we left.

    Those are the balancing acts, the moments of responding social and emotional pain with healing, which will add up to restore trust among people. You can start that pattern in someone else's life, even in a place as ordinary as the neighborhood grocery store.

    On a recent trip to the island of Newfoundland, Canada, my husband asked our talkative cab driver what made him most proud to be a native.

    "Our generosity and hospitality (好客)" he replied in a strong local accent. "If your car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, someone will stop to help. People here are kind like that." His answer rang in my mind during that ride with my husband and teenage kids, as we headed out to explore on the first day of our vacation.

    Little did I know we were about to experience some of that remarkable Newfoundland kindness for ourselves. We met Alma that same morning at the start of a long hike. Our teenagers hurried ahead, and as we walked behind, admiring the scenery, two women in sunglasses and summer hiking equipment stopped. They'd heard us discussing different routes, and then asked if we'd like suggestions. They looked to be in their 40s, and were both enthusiastic to share their local expertise.

    We listened eagerly, taking mental notes, until one of the women asked, "You have a car, right?" I explained that there were no cars available during our week on the island, so we had to rely on cabs instead.

    "Oh no," she said, "you need a car." And then, as casually as if offering a piece of chewing gum (口香糖), she said, "Take mine!" My husband and I just smiled in disbelief, dumbfounded.

    "Why not?" she insisted. "You need a car to get to know all these places."

    "But you don't even know us," I said.

    "That doesn't matter," she continued with absolute determination.

    Surprised, I looked over at her friend, who shrugged and said, "That's Alma."

    Forty minutes of talking later, my family climbed into Alma's car. We spent the rest of our vacation discovering different areas of this beautiful island. But it wasn't the groups of whales we saw, or the vast areas of woodland, that made this place so memorable. Instead, it was the act of kindness from a complete stranger that made us realize how special Newfoundland really was.

    Next year, there's no doubt where we'll be taking our summer vacation. Who knows what act of kindness we'll meet then?

    When an earthquake hit a small town, many houses fell down. After the earthquake, all the newspapers reported many stories about some of the families who were in trouble.

    One Sunday, when I was reading a newspaper, a special picture touched me. It gave the clothing sizes of each family member. I thought that this would be a good chance to teach my children to help those who were less lucky than themselves. I said to my seven-year-old twins, Brad and Brett, and three-year-old Meghan, "We have so much, and these poor people now have nothing. We'll share what we have with them."

    I filled a box with foods and clothes. While I was doing this, I encouraged the boys to choose their toys and donate some of their less favorite things. Meghan watched quietly as the boys took out their old toys and games and put them together. Then she walked away. A few minutes later, she came back with Lucy, her much-loved doll. She put the doll on top of the other toys. "Oh, dear," I said. "You don't have to give Lucy. You love her so much." Meghan said, "Lucy makes me happy, Mommy. Maybe she'll make another little girl happy, too."

    I looked at Meghan for a long moment. She taught me a lesson. It's easy to give something that we don't want any more, but hard to give what we cherish(珍爱), isn't it?