In many countries, schools have long summer holidays, with shorter holidays in between. However, a new report suggests shortening school holidays to stop children forgetting what they have learnt during the long summer break. Instead of three school terms, it says, there should be five eight-week terms. And there should be just four weeks off in the summer, with a two-week break between the other terms.

    Sonia Montero has two children at primary school and works full-time. She supports the idea. “The kids,” she says, “have much longer holidays than me and I can't afford to take several weeks off work, so I need someone to take care of them. But nobody wants the work in the summer months — they all have holidays of their own.”

    Not surprisingly, some young people disagree. Student Jason Panos says “It's a stupid idea. I would hate staying at school in the summer. It's unfair, too. The people who suggest this had long school holidays when they were young, but now they want to stop us enjoying the summer. The kids in Spain and America have much longer holidays than here, but they don't forget everything they've learnt in a few months.”

    Nadia Salib agrees. “Sure,” she says, “the first week at school after the summer is never easy, but you soon get back into it. The real problem round here is that kids get bored after so many weeks out of school, and then some of them start causing trouble. But the answer is to give them something to do, not make everyone stay in school longer.”

    With five breakout(破纪录的) games, Jeremy Lin has become the NBA's newest star.

    In the New York Knicks' 92-85 won over the Los Angles Lakers last Saturday, Lin had a career-high 38 points. A day later, he led the Knicks to their fifth victory, 100-98 to Minnesota Timberwolves. In his previous games, Lin, 23, had 23 points against the Washington, 25 points against New Jersey and 28 against Utah in his first start.

    Lin is smart. Before graduating from high school in California, he had sent his application to all the Ivy League Schools(常青藤联盟). He only got into Harvard and Brown, and he chose Harvard. In 2010, Lin graduated with a degree in economics.

    Lin is the first Chinese-American player in the NBA. He was born in the US and his family is Asian. Although not born in China, Lin has attracted nearly all Yao Ming's old fans, who see him as a powerful role model.

    He started off on the Golden State Warriors. Lin first signed with the Warriors in July, 2010, but seldom played in games before the start of the fourth quarter. His first time on the court for the Warriors earned him seven points, three rebounds(篮板球) and two assists in just 11 minutes.

    He is really perfect for the Knicks. The New York Knicks has been in need of a reliable point guard and to Mike D'Antoni, the Knicks coach who's going through a difficult season, Lin is a most unexpected figure. Lin just does everything easy and the rest of the guys around him are playing the way we want to," D'Antoni said. "I think it's for real, and it can only get better."

    Today's workplace is unique in history.Never before have we seen people working together who represent such different backgrounds and experiences.This difference of age,race,gender,and work style makes it very difficult to organize and run a company.

    As a result,companies are looking for individuals who can manage a wide range of employees effectively. Increasingly,managers are discovering that age differences among workers are a major cause of concern.

    This has been an important realization.The management difficulties and challenges have led some experts to study intergenerational differences for an understanding of problems in the workplace.What they have discovered is interesting and may provide ways of improving working conditions in companies that employ individuals from different generations.

    The first thing to realize,they say,is that differences of opinion about the importance of work and how to get work done are not a coincidence.That is,it is not an accident that young employees will be different from older employees.In fact,if employers do not pay attention to these differences,it is possible that anger will build up between people and lead to difficulties in the company.

    Resentment（仇恨）between members of different generations,if not attended to（处理）,can lead to extreme anger and unhappiness and even lasting enmity if people are not careful.That individuals from different generations should come to view each other as if they were from different sides of warring countries should not be surprising.

    It is natural for individuals from the same generation to form alliances（联盟）,to come together for protection. Different generations represent different experiences in life,and these lead naturally to different opinions about oneself and one's approaches to work.

    If you were raised in a time of plenty,when products were readily available and relatively inexpensive,you would believe that prosperity is natural and expectable.If,on the other hand,you were raised in a time of scarcity,you would always be careful not to waste things for fear you would not have enough.You would make angry people who seem to believe that problems will always solve themselves.Such optimism in the face of difficulties would be a source of unhappiness between you and them.It is difficult,in such circumstances,to achieve a happy,agreeable atmosphere in the workplace.

    The Internet has completely changed the workplace over the past three decades. Artificial Intelligence is now all set to do the same, and businesses that don't take advantage of the technology risk being left behind.

    Global tech giants (巨头) like Amazon have been leading the change, and businesses of all sizes are now using the technology for employing and managing their staff.

    Among them is L'Oreal. With about a million applicants for roughly 15,000 new positions each year, the company is using AI to hire.

    “We really wanted to save time and focus more on quality, diversity and candidate experience. And AI solutions were the best way to go faster on these challenges, said Eva Azoulay, global vice-president of L'Oreal's Human Resources Department.

    The company uses Mya, a chatbot, to save employers' time during the first stage of the process. It handles routine questions from candidates, and checks details such as availability and visa requirements. Should candidates make it to the next round, they'll run into Seedlink, an AI software that scores applicants based on their answers to open-ended interview questions. These scores don't replace human judgment, said Azoulay, but they do pick out candidates who might not seem like obvious choices.

    Early results have been promising. For one internship program, where 12,000 people apply for about 80 spots, employers claim they saved 200 hours of time while hiring the most diverse group to date.

    Other businesses have gone beyond employment and are using AI to help manage employees. Some UK firms have started using Isaak, a system designed by the London-based company StatusToday, to track how many hours staff spend online and the number of emails they receive. London real estate agent JBrown has been using this system since March. CEO James Brown said it helps the firm understand employees' habits and prevent them from overworking. "It enables us to solve bottleneck problems and relieve overburdened employees," he said.

    Despite these examples of good practice, there is still a long way for AI to reach its full potential (潜力), and the technology comes with risks. Another AI danger could be its impact on jobs through automation (自动化). McKinsey predicts AI could add $13 trillion to the global economy by 2030, with early adopters doubling their cash flow over that period. But the demand for repetitive (重复的) or digitally-unskilled jobs could drop by around 10%, the consulting firm said in a 2018 report.

Not long after Tony Berlin began working at the state driver's license facility in Niles in 1985, he noticed that some truck drivers who should have failed their exams mysteriously passed them. For six years, starting in 1992, he collected evidence to show why: He believed truck drivers were bribing state workers to get licenses. In another turn of the screw, the workers were using those bribes to buy tickets to the then secretary of state George Ryan's fundraisers, including for his successful bid for governor. Berlin tried to expose the corruption (腐败)-he went to the FBI and the upper ranks of the secretary of state's office - but was repeatedly met with indifference. Then he began to suspect that the truck driver in a 1994 accident that killed six children, all from the same family, got his license through the scheme. In a moment that changed everything, Berlin reached out to the Reverend Scott Willis, the children's father.

It was his call to Willis that connected the crash to what would become known as the licenses — for — bribes scandal (丑闻), "Berlin's the one who started it says the Willises' lawyer. A few months after that phone call, the U.S. attorney's office initiated Operation Safe Road, an ongoing federal investigation that by the end of November had disclosed 34 offenses.

The investigation ultimately netted 75 offenses, including that of Dean Bauer, Ryan's inspector general. He pleaded guilty in 2001 to obstructing (妨碍)justice and was sentenced to 12 months in. prison. Bui the biggest catch was Ryan himself, who was sentenced in 2006 to six and a half years tor fraud and blackmailing. As for Berlin, he continued to work a stale license facilities, in Streator and Pontiac, choosing to stay out of the public eye.

After nearly two months of relative silence among new waves ofCOVID-19 pandemic infection in Japan, organizers of Tokyo Olympics on Wednesday released the first of playbooks that will instruct athletes, officials and members of the news media on the procedures they must follow at the rescheduled Games.

Already delayed by a year, the opening ceremony is now a little more than 120 days away. Organizers must find a way to accommodate and ensure the safety of more than 10,000 athletes who view this summer as the result of years of sacrifice and training.

For now, the best that organizers could offer were the outlines of a plan. Athletes and other attendees will not be required to be vaccinated (接种疫苗) or to quarantine (隔离) on arrival in Japan, but they will be subject to severe restrictions on movement and socializing. All athletes will be required to test negative for COVID-19 within 72 hours of their departure for Japan and give in to another test on arrival.

The organizers said the documents were not an end. They would wait until spring to decide if audiences will be permitted to travel to Tokyo. If fans are eventually allowed to attend, the documents suggest they be asked to express support for athletes only in the form of clapping, rather than singing or chanting. To track outbreaks, visitors from abroad will have to file a list of everyone they have close contact with during that initial 14-day period.

Olympic officials see some reason for optimism. In many parts of the world, professional sporting events have been held for months, though often with very few or no spectators at all, and nothing as large as the Summer Games.