“Clothes Swapping”has become an increasingly popular activity for women in the United States. The women can give away unwanted clothing at a clothes swap event and get something different in return.

    Recently about 300 women went to a clothes swap at a high school in Springfield, Virginia. It was the largest crowd ever for the area's popular clothing-swapping group.

    Daphne Steinberg was having a good day.“For anyone who knows Ann Taylor LOFT, Ann Taylor is a really nice women's designer and I will totally wear this to work. So I love that, I love that I can equip myself for work, have a good time in doing it, not totally bankrupt myself.”

Sandy Van Dusen likes the idea that clothes are finding new homes instead of being thrown away. “Because it helps to keep the Earth green. There's no point in my opinion in continuing to buy new clothes when we can reuse what's already here. Give it a new home— let somebody else love what you used to love and no longer love.”

    Kim Pratt organized the clothing-swapping event in Springfield. She also organized a money-raising activity for the high school's debate team. It is one of several ways that her group gives to charitable causes. Another is by donating all of the“un-swapped” clothing to shelters for victims of domestic violence.

    “I started doing this four years ago, and we've been doing it for four years, getting bigger and bigger each time we have a swap.”

    She used the social media website meetup.com to help publicize the events. The website has helped her group grow from 30 members to 1,300. Mrs.Pratt says most of the members respect the clothing swap rules. But she say competition for desirable fashion can be strong.

    “We have to tell people sometimes not to hover over the new people coming in with their clothing. As they put it out, some people tend to grab the stuff right out of their hands and it becomes like a free-for-all. We try to avoid that as much as possible.”

Let E-bikes Power New York's Transit Future

    Providence, R. I., just became the 13th city to develop an electric-assisted bike-share system, which runs or is developing bike-share networks in cities across the United States. Ironically, the Brooklyn-based company cannot operate in its hometown of New York City,due to the wrongheaded ban on electric bicycles.

    In many major cities in the U. S. and abroad, e-bikes are flourishing and helping to solve major urban challenges. Stockholm is adding 5, 000 e-bikes to its bike-share system. UPS is delivering packages in Hamburg using electrically-assisted cargo tricycles. And San Francisco's DoorDash food delivery service has found e-bikes to be the best mode to navigate heavy traffic and limited parking.

    In striking contrast, New York City insists e-bikes are banned under law. More than 900 e- bikes were seized and more than 1, 800 summonses（召回）were issued by the New York Police Department in 2017,following Mayor de Blasio's decision to limit e-bike usage, despite the fact that no data or records exist to show e-bike-related safety incidents.

    Who does the e-bike restriction hurt? The e-bikes seized in 2017 primarily belonged to food delivery workers, who are immigrants from Asia and Latin America. New Yorkers love their delivery: A new study from the New York City Department of Transportation found that more than half of city residents receive food deliveries at least a few times per month."

    In fact, the top three neighborhoods for e-bike summonses-the Upper East and West Sides and East Midtown-also consisted of more than 70% white residents. It's difficult to divorce the penalty of workers of color from the predominantly white, rich neighborhoods to whom the meals are delivered.

    It is true that the rush to maximize delivery numbers leads to higher speeds and potentially dangerous biking. To that end, the city should improve and enforce safe cycling and expand bicycling infrastructure to ensure safe passage for cyclists and pedestrians.

    Outside New York, cities and companies are finding that e-bikes are convenient, have low carbon footprints and require less space than cars on city streets. As New York City seeks to improve traffic, better air quality and encourage active modes of transportation, it is confusing that a mode that checks all of those boxes would be outlawed.

    The city must stop pedaling backwards on both workable transportation modes and the racially-charged policies surrounding them. It is time for New York City to embrace e-bikes as the very useful, worker-enabling, convenient and environmentally-forward mode that they are.

How to be safe when you are travelling on your own

    Be sure to arrive during daytime {#blank#}1{#/blank#} People looking to prey (欺骗)on tourists can do it with ease at night. Make sure your arrival time will get you where you are going during daylight hours.

    {#blank#}2{#/blank#}

    Make sure to keep your money in a money belt, keep your credit cards in another place, and your passport in another.

    Look for people to group up with Have you met friendly people at the bar? See if they want to join you when you go out for dinner. See if there's a tour group you can join up with.{#blank#}3{#/blank#}

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#}

    It can be a struggle to carry a lot of bags around on your own. If criminals see you struggling, they may use the opportunity to grab one of your suitcases. Before you leave, be sure you can carry your luggage quickly and smoothly. If you can't, it's time to cut down your bags.

    Trust your instincts(直觉)

    {#blank#}5{#/blank#} If you have a bad feeling about something, it's probably for a reason and it's best to go with your instincts. Even if your concerns are nothing, it can't hurt to listen to them.

A. Store important things separately.

B. Travel with as little luggage as possible.

C. Never get close to possible dangers wherever you are.

D. Surrounding yourself with others will help keep you protected.

E. Ensure that your family and friends know exactly where you are anytime.

F. This is when bus stations, airports, and hotels will be at their most active.

G. If something makes you suspicious or nervous, it's better to be careful and avoid it.

    With the development of technology and economy, social media is becoming one of the fastest-growing industries in today's world. A study conducted by the US Pew Research Center showed that 92 percent of teenagers go online daily. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}

    Changing relationships

    High school student Elly Cooper from Illinois said social media often reduces face-to-face communication. "It makes face-to-face relationships harder because of people s attention given to their phones instead of their friends," Cooper said.

    {#blank#}2{#/blank#} Beth Kaplan from Illinois met her long-distance friend through social media. He currently lives in Scotland, but they're still able to frequently communicate with each other. "I can feel close to someone that I'm talking to via FaceTime,'' Kaplan said.

    Wanting to be "liked"

    {#blank#}3{#/blank#} The 19-year-old Essena O'Neill announced on the social networking service Instagram that she was emitting social media because it made her unable to stop thinking about appearing perfect online. {#blank#}4{#/blank#} Teenagers who get negative comments can't help but feel hurt.

    {#blank#}5{#/blank#}

    However, Armin Korsos, a student from Illinois, takes advantage of the comments he receives over social media to improve his videos on the social networking site YouTube. "Social media can help people show themselves and their talents to the world in a way that has never been possible before," Korsos said.

A. Opening new doors.

B. Teenagers' attitude toward social media

C. However, the social media is beneficial to long-distance friends.

D. The rise of social media has changed the way teenagers see themselves.

E. Negative comments can also do great damage to a teenager's self-respect.

F. The wide spread of social media has changed nearly all parts of teenagers' lives.

G. Yet, some think with social media, it's easier to start relationships with anyone from anywhere.

    Can creativity be taught? That's a question without a simple yes or no answer. Creativity may not be able to be taught directly, but what you can get better at is frequently targeting at the circumstances of life which bring up the greatest chances for true creative expression. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}, but more like something which manifests （显现） itself inside those who learn to develop it and create the right conditions for it.

Limit your selection of tools to only the most vital. {#blank#}2{#/blank#}. You'll be sharper than someone who merely fights with a larger set of tools.

    Learn how to be resourceful. {#blank#}3{#/blank#}. Creativity is not just about creating something new but making old things work better as well. Think of crazy possibilities as well as practical ones. You might find inspiration for a workable solution in one of your ideas.

    Don't listen to feedback （反馈） and keep following your own path. The problem of asking for feedback is that the feedback will be given according to the person's past experience. Others will unconsciously push you in a direction that they see as best. {#blank#}4{#/blank#}. Just don't let criticism （even the constructing type） destroy your creativity during the creative process.

    {#blank#}5{#/blank#}. Routines are positive if they strengthen a healthy creative consciousness and negative if they destroy that. The key is to discover a creative routine that puts you in a more creative mindset.

A. Creativity is not like a lightning strike

B. Having a routine is actually not a bad idea

C. You can literally do anything you like with them

D. Resourcefulness is about making the most of what you have to work with

E. The more limited your set of tools is, the more creative the output will be

F. This is done with good intentions, but it actually hurts your natural creativity

G. While breaking your routine once in a while to force new ways of thinking is good

    Angel Garcia Crespo is a computer engineer at Carlos III University of Madrid in Spain. His group has invented a new way for deaf-blind people to "watch" TV. The idea for the technology grew out of previous work by his group. The team had already worked on making audiovisual(视听的) materials accessible to people with either vision or hearing disabilities. But the group wanted to help people with both challenges. So they asked some deaf-blind people what would help.

    In addition to relying on their sense of touch to communicate, deaf-blind people can also get and send information with a Braille line. The Braille system uses patterns of raised dots to stand for letters and numbers. A Braille line is an electronic machine with a changeable Braille display. Dots rise up or drop down based on the information sent to the machine.

    Now the new system changes TV signals to data a Braille line can use. "The key to the system is the possibility of using subtitles(字幕) to collect TV information, " Garcia Crespo explains. "Subtitles travel with the image(影像) and the audio in electromagnetic waves we don't see. But an electronic system can keep those waves. "

    First, a computer program, or app, pulls out the subtitles and visual descriptions from the broadcast signal. The system then combines the information and changes both into data for Braille.

    Now another app gets to work, which sends the data out to people's Braille lines on demand. "This is done in real time, in less than a second," Garcia Crespo says. This lets a deaf-blind person "watch" TV as it's broadcast. The system will work with various Braille lines, as long as there's a bluetooth connection available. Now, the system is only used in Europe, and it should soon be available in the US.