Tu Youyou, 84, honored with the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine on Oct 5, 2015. She was the first Chinese citizen to win a Nobel Prize in science for her work in helping to create an anti-malaria(疟疾) medicine. In 1967, Communist leader Mao Zedong decided there was an urgent national need to find a cure for malaria. At the time, malaria spread by mosquitoes was killing Chinese soldiers fighting Americans in the jungles of northern Vietnam. A secret research unit was formed to find a cure f or the illness. Tw o years later, Tu Youyou was instructed to become the new head of Mission 523. Researchers in Mission523 pored over ancient books to find historical methods of fighting malaria. When she started her search for an anti-malarial drug, over 240,000 compounds(化合物) around the world had already been tested, without any success.Finally, the team found a brief reference to one substance, sweet wormwood（青蒿）, which had been used to treat malaria in China around 400 AD. The team isolated one active compound in wormwood, artemisinin（青蒿素）, which appeared to battle malaria-friendly parasites（寄生虫）. The team then tested extracts（提取物） of the compound but nothing was effective until Tu Youyou returned to the original ancient text. After another careful reading, she improved the drug recipe one final time, heating the extract without allowing it to reach boiling point.

After the drug showed promising results in mice and monkeys, Tu volunteered to be the first human recipient of the new drug. “As the head of the research group, I had the responsibility.” she explained.

    Xinhua News—The Beijing government has set out to recruit thousands of university graduates to work as junior officials in rural areas to both improve rural administration and ease the city's employment problems.

    The government plans to recruit 3,000 university graduates this year, 1,000 more than last year, to work as assistants to village heads or party secretaries in suburban areas.

    People interested in jobs in Beijing's rural villages and towns can send applications to Beijing Municipal Bureau of Personnel or log on to www.bjbys.com from February 1 through March 15.

    “We hope university graduates will seize this opportunity to use their knowledge in rural villages and to start their careers,” Sun Zhenyu, the Deputy Director of Beijing Personnel Bureau, told Xinhua News Agency.

    The government has promised successful candidates a monthly salary of 2,000 Yuan in the first year, 2,500 Yuan the second year and 3,000 the third year, provided their performance is up to the required standards, Sun said.

    Wang Lina, who graduated from Beijing Union University last year, was one of the first graduates to find work in the city's countryside. After majoring in Industrial and Commercial Administration, Wang served as the assistant to the village head of Ertiaojie Village in suburban Beijing's Pinggu District. For one project, Wang contacted people at Beijing Academy of Agricultural and Forestry Sciences and arranged for the local farmers to receive training in strawberry planting. Her efforts paid off. The village had a plentiful harvest of organic strawberries earlier this year.

    Nationwide, about 150,000 university graduates found employment in rural areas last year, according to the figures provided by the Ministry of Education.

    The ministry predicts that 4.95 million students will graduate from universities across the country this year, 820,000 more than last year. About 1.4 million of them are unlikely to find jobs when they graduate. In Beijing, a record of 200,000 people are expected to graduate from university this year. Less than half of them are expected to be offered jobs, according to Beijing Personnel Bureau.

    Online shopping has become more and more popular these years. Women have jumped ahead of men for the first time in using the Internet to do their holiday shopping, according to a study published last week in the US.

    For years men have been more likely to shop on the Internet than women, but during the 2013 holiday season 58 percent of those shopping online were women.

    “It shows how popular the Internet is becoming,” said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet and American Life Project group, which carried out the study. Rainie said it was only a matter of time before women shoppers caught up with men. This is because women traditionally make decisions about spending.

    Users were more likely to shop online to save time. Internet users between the ages 18 and 29 were responsible for some of the surprising increase in the online gift-buying population this time around.

    However, three-quarters of the US Internet users did not buy holiday gifts online in 2013. They worried about credit card security(信用卡安全), or just compared online prices with off-line prices, then dashed off to the shops to get the best deals.

    “But even if shoppers don't buy online, websites are becoming promotion(促销) tools for stores,” said Dan Hess' vice president of Com Score Network Inc. Hess said that actually most stores, websites can make customers fully believe the security of their credit card numbers. And most are able to ensure that gifts arrive on time.

    “It's all about making the shopping experience more efficient(效率高的), more reliable and more comfortable.” Hess said.

It is OK not to be OK

    This is the simple encouragement people often use for themselves or others. But for professional athletes, this can be the hardest sentence to say.

    On March 6, Cleveland Cavaliers forward Kevin Love posted an article titled “Everyone is Going Through Something” on the website The Players' Tribune. In the article, the 29-year-old showed how he suffered from his first panic attack on Nov 5 in a game against the Atlanta Hawks and why he was so worried about sharing his story with the public.

    Love identified that what keeps people from speaking up about their mental health challenges is the fear that many people see them as a weakness. “Growing up, you figure out really quickly how a boy is supposed to act. You learn what it takes to 'be a man'. It's like a play book: Be strong. Don't talk about your feelings. Get through it on your own,” he wrote.

    And being an NBA player made his situation even more difficult. Love was afraid to share his struggles because he didn't want his Cavaliers teammates to think that he was unreliable.

    However, as it turned out, Love's teammates understood and supported him. Cleveland superstar LeBron James even wrote on social media that Love is “even more powerful now than ever before”.

    For Love, it was a journey of empowerment to accept and address his mental illness and share his experience with millions of people who face the same problems. In fact, he was inspired to talk about his situation by Toronto Raptors shooting guard DeMar DeRozan, who had also opened up about his mental health issues.

    Last month, the 28-year-old told the Toronto Sun that despite being a top-performing and wealthy NBA player, he still deals with constant blues. “It's one of the things that no matter how indestructible (坚不可摧的) we look like we are, we're all human at the end of the day, ”he said. “Sometimes…it gets the best of you, when everything in the whole world's on top of you, ” But other times, by admitting who we are, we can get what we want. As Love told Advance Ohio Media, “You have to let some of that stuff bleed out in order to fully recover from it.”

Labor Day Weekend at Paramount Pictures Studios

    This Labor Day weekend, join the Los Angeles Times for 3 evenings of amazing food, wine and chef experiences. Dozens of hand-picked local restaurants each evening will showcase our city's rich and diverse cooking scene by serving you their best. Taste and celebrate Southern California's most inviting food and drink. Your ticket is all-inclusive and is good for unlimited food, beer, wine & spirits tastings, plus all stage activities.

    PLEASE NOTE: ALL EVENTS AT THE TASTE ARE 21 YEARS AND OLDER ONLY AND ALL SALES ARE FINAL.

    A VIP Access level ticket gets you:

    • Convenient and free parking inside the Paramount Pictures gates (savings of $15)

    • Access to furnished lounge during the entire event

    • Behind the scenes tour of Paramount Pictures Studios

    • First in the door access to the main event

    Due to the nature of this event, we are not able to offer refunds.

SCHEDULE

    Friday, August 31: 7: 30 p. m.-10: 30p. m.

    Saturday, September 1: 8: 00 p. m.-10: 30p. m.

    Sunday, September 2: 8: 00 p. m.-10: 30p. m.

    Make sure to also save the date for our new Costa Mesa weekend of Los Angeles Times The Taste on October 19 to 21. Details here.

That night, when Aksionov was lying on his bed and just beginning to sleep, someone came quietly and sat down on his bed. He peered(看) through the darkness and recognized Makar.

"What more do you want of me?" asked Aksionov. "Why have you come here?"

Makar Semyonovich was silent. So Aksionov sat up and said, "What do you want? Go away, or I will call the guard!"

Makar Semyonovich bent close over Aksionov, and whispered, "Ivan Dmitrich forgive me!"

"What for?" asked Aksionov.

"It was I who killed the merchant and hid the knife among your things. I meant to kill you, too, but I heard a noise outside, so I hid the knife in your bag and escaped out of the window."

Aksionov was silent, and didn't know what to say. Makar Semyonovich slid off the bed-shelf and knelt upon the ground. "Ivan Dmitrich" he said, "forgive me! I will confess that it was I who killed the merchant, and you will be released and can go to your home."

"It is easy for you to talk," said Aksionov "but I have suffered for you these twenty-six years. Where could I go now?... My wife is dead, and my children have forgotten me. I have nowhere to go..."

Makar Semyonovich did not rise, but beat his head on the floor. "Ivan Dmitrich, forgive me!" he cried. "When they flogged(鞭打) me with the knot, it was not so hard to bear as it is to see you now... yet you had pity on me and did not tell. Forgive me, devil that I am!" And he began to sob.

When Aksionov heard him sobbing, he too, began to weep. "I will forgive you!" he said. "Maybe I am a hundred times worse than you." And at these words his heart grew light, and the longing for home left him. He no longer had any desire to leave the prison, but only hoped for his last hour to come.

In spite of what Aksionov had said, Makar Semyonovich confessed his guilt. But when the order for his release came, Aksionov was already dead.