LONDON—A British judge on Thursday sentenced a businessman who sold fake bomb detectors（探测器）to 10 years in prison, saying the man hadn't cared about potentially deadly consequences.

It is believed that James McCormick got about $ 77.8 million from the sales of his detectors--which were based on a kind of golf ball finder—to countries including Iraq, Belgium and Saudi Arabia. McCormick, 57, was convicted of cheats last month and sentenced Thursday at the Old Bailey court in London.

    “Your cheating conduct in selling a great amount of useless equipment simply for huge profit promoted a false sense of security and in all probability materially contributed to causing death and injury to innocent people,” Judge Richard Hone told McCormick. “You have neither regret, nor shame, nor any sense of guilt.”

    The detectors, sold for up to $ 42, 000 each, were said to be able to find such dangerous objects as bombs under water and from the air. But in fact they “lacked any grounding in science” and were of no use.

    McCormick had told the court that he sold his detectors to the police in Kenya, the prison service in Hong Kong, the army in Egypt and the border control in Thailand.

    “I never had any bad results from customers,” he said.

    Here are three best destinations for you to discover in 2018 if you ho heart-stopping adventure, a close-up look at history or the perfect meal.

    Los Cabos, Mexico

    Located at the tip of the Baja Peninsula, the two small colonial(殖民地的) towns of Cabo San Lucas and San Jose del Cabo have become the hottest vacation destinations in Mexico in recent years. With wide, original beaches, lively nightclubs, natural resorts, and a farm-to-table food scene, the oasis(乐园)of Los Cabos is drawing tourists in record numbers. As a result, the hotel scene is booming, with a lot of new developments and repairs completed this year.

Zambia

    Until now, Zambia has had little recognition as one of Africa's great safari(狩猎远征) destinations. Yet experts know it as the birthplace of the walking safari. In South Luangwa National Park, visitors can expect to see more animals than baobab trees, while Liuwa Plain National Park is the setting for the world's second-largest wildebeest(角马) migration, when tens of thousands of the creatures head across the plain from neighboring Angola.

Brussels, Belgium

    Visitors may want to return to the Belgian capital in 2018 to visit two cutting-edge museums. The Millennium Iconoclast Museum of Art opened to show contemporary art from around the world. There's also the Citroen Cultural Centre, which will launch its first exhibition in May. The JAM Hotel with exposed brickwork and concrete beams housed in a former art school, is the perfect place for culture-lovers to stay. don't leave town without experiencing beer culture at youthful breweries(啤酒厂) like Brasserie de la Senne or Brussels Beer Project.

    On November 24, 1868, Scott Joplin was born in Texas. He became famous as a ragtime (拉格泰姆音乐) composer and piano player. Ragtime music was an early form of jazz. This music has a lively beat and was developed from the music of African Americans.

    Ragtime became popular in the early 1890s, and the music was played on the piano. The piano player usually made up a melody, then changed it a little bit every time he played. Scott Joplin was very good at composing, or making up music and playing the piano. When he was growing up, Joplin's home was filled with music. Still, Joplin's father did not want him to be a musician. When he was about 14 years old, Joplin left home to travel and start a life of his own. He traveled all over the Midwest playing the piano and composing music. Sometimes he played with music groups. Other times he sang by himself in noisy saloons and bars. In 1899, Joplin wrote Maple Leaf Rag, a ragtime song that became a big hit and earned Joplin the title of The King of Ragtime. In all, he wrote more than 500 songs. Joplin's biggest dream was to compose a ragtime opera. Finally, after 10 years, Joplin completed a ragtime opera which he called Treemonisha. This opera was about a young black woman who became a leader of her people. She tried to help her people gain their freedom and their rights.

    1916, Joplin became very sick. He had a disease that made him forget things and become easily afraid of things. In 1917, he was put in the hospital. He finally died there on April 1, 1917. Scott Joplin's music became popular again in the early 1970s when it was used in a movie called The Sting.

    Elizabeth Blackwell was born in England in 1821, and moved to New York City when she was ten years old. One day she decided that she wanted to become a doctor. That was nearly impossible for a woman in the middle of the nineteenth century. After writing many letters asking for admission(录取) to medical schools, she was finally accepted by a doctor in Philadelphia. She was so determined that she taught school and gave music lessons to get money for the cost of schooling.

    In 1849, after graduation from medical school. She decided to further her education in Paris. She wanted to be a surgeon(外科医师) , but a serious eye problem forced her to give up the idea.

    Upon returning to the United States, she found it difficult to start her own practice because she was a woman. By 1857 Elizabeth and her sister, also a doctor, along with another woman doctor, managed to open a new hospital, the first for women and children Besides being the first woman physician and founding her own hospital , she also set up the first medical school for women.

    Explorers had been landing in America for some time before English settlers arrived in what is now Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607. But it was in that spot on the James River that English colonization(殖民化) began, and with it, the history of America.

    James I was the king of England at that time, and he had granted approval for a group of businessmen who were part of the Virginia Company to settle in this new land. In all, 214 people set sail for America. They reached it on May 14, 1607. Very soon after they landed, the English found themselves under attack from Algonquins, a native American tribe(部落) who had been living in that area for some time. The English managed to drive off the attackers and stay there.

Under the leadership of Captain John Smith, the English built a fort(城堡)and other buildings designed to protect their new colony. They also found friendly native Americans, like Powhatan, who was willing to trade with them.

    There was a terrible winter in 1609 and only 60 of the 214 settlers survived, which was also hard on Powhatan's tribe and other neighboring native Americans.

    One of the main crops grown by the English settlers was tobacco, which they sold to native Americans and to people back in England, beginning in 1612. Tobacco became a very popular crop because it was easy to grow and because it brought in so much money.

    Once the money started flowing in regularly, the Jamestown colony grew, as did other settlements in Virginia and in other states along the eastern coastline.

    America's first elected assembly (议会), the House of Burgesses, met in Jamestown for the first time on July 30, 1619. The year 1619 also saw another significant development: the first arrival of black workers on boats from Africa. These men and women were originally servants, who worked a small piece of land for a few years and then got to keep the land as owners. Jamestown was also the capital of Virginia and remained so until 1698.

    Devon Gallagher, a college graduate from Philadelphia, wants the world to know exactly where she's been while she's on her worldwide vacation in a special way. The traveler, who was born with a bone disease, had her right leg amputated (截肢) at the age of four. Although the amputation caused inconvenience for Gallagher early on, she now sees it as nothing short of inspiration for living her best life.

    To spread that message. Gallagher has gone to social media, where she shares photos of her travels across the world, but instead of simply using a geo-tag (地理位置标签), she writes her location on her artificial leg before taking a picture.

    Now she has been taking pictures across the Continent, which show her cycling over the canal in Amsterdam relaxing on a wall overlooking the city of Barcelona, posing with a waffle in Brussels, taking in the beautiful Parthenon temple in Athens and enjoying a river ride in Budapest, all with the well-known locations written on her artificial leg.

    "I get a new leg every two years and I can choose the design on it. One day I had a sudden thought to get a chalk-board," Gallagher said. "My mum and grandmother didn't like the idea, but my friends thought it was great and told me to go for it, so I did."

    Gallagher said people often stare when she's writing on her leg, but once she shares the photos, she receives only positive feedback (反馈), "My leg hasn't stopped me from doing anything I've wanted to do," she said. "I don't know if it's my determination to prove to myself that I can do it, anyway, I've been able to keep up with people at my age and lead a pretty great life."

    Gallagher shows us that you should never let anything stand in the way of your dreams. And if life gives you an artificial leg, make art.