“We are good mothers,” I said to my friend, as we sat on our comfortable beach chairs under our beach umbrella and watched our children playing in the waves.

    Out of nowhere, the children took off running. About fifty yards from us, a man—maybe in his fifties—was fishing. The children stood next to him and watched with their little mouths hanging open as he cast the fishing lines. He smiled at them. They ran back to us—all except my three-year-old daughter, Drew.

    My heart beat fast with horror. “Drew! Come here! Play with your friends!” I shouted, very aware that my speeches about not talking to strangers weren't working. It seemed that many parents heard of horrible stories about children being taken away by strangers. Responsible mothers should teach their children that the world is a dangerous place. So I felt relieved (松口气) when Drew ran towards me and took hold of a shovel (铲子). Then she looked me in the eye: “I want to be with the person.”

    Again, she approached the middle-aged man, and started digging next to him.

    Several seconds later, she returned, waving something shiny.

    “Look, Mommy! A toy fish!”

    It was, indeed, a toy fish—yellow and rubber. This must have been what he was using to attract the fish. And he'd given it to Drew. The three other children were deeply impressed, and they didn't try to hide how jealous(妒忌的)they were—clearly, they all wanted the fish.

    “My friend gave me that fish!” Drew shouted loudly. The sand in front of the umbrella turned into a preschool cage match with a yellow rubber fish flying through the air. I felt like I might cry myself.

    Unexpectedly, there he was: the man, standing right next to us with three more rubber fish in hand. He handed them to each of the children. By their faces, you would have thought he was actually the really kind big brother.

    “Thank you,” I said, realizing that there is good and kindness in strangers.

    National Rankings: Best High Schools

    The U.S. News rankings include data on more than 22,000 public high schools in 50 states and the District of Columbia. Schools were awarded gold, silver or bronze medals based on their performance on state assessments and how well they prepare students for college.

    About the Awards

    Gold—Top 500 Schools based on highest college readiness.

    Silver—High-performing schools based on lower college readiness.

    Bronze—High-performing schools based on state exam performance,  listed alphabetically.

    Award Distribution

    Gold 2.4%

    Silver 10.3%

    Bronze 16.8%

    No Medal 70.5%

    HOW We Determine the Awards

    STEP 1 Students perform better than expected in their state.

    We looked at reading and math results for students on each state's proficiency(水平) tests and then factored in the percentage of economically disadvantaged students, who tend to score lower.

    STEP 2 Disadvantaged students perform better than state average.

    We compared each school's math and reading proficiency rates for disadvantaged students--black, Hispanic and low-income—with the state wide results for these student groups and then selected schools that were performing better than their state averages.

    STEP 3 Student graduation rates meet or are greater than a national standard.

    We left out schools from consideration if their graduation rates were lower than 75 percent--a starting point that is higher than a federal law that requires states to give extra resources to schools below 67 percent.

    STEP 4 Students are prepared for college-level coursework.

    We calculated a College Readiness Index,which is based or the school's AP participation rate and how well the students did on those tests. Tiebeakers were used to determine ranks of schools that achieved the same College Readiness Index.

    On the morning of September 7th, 19- year- old Ryan Harris and 40-year-old Stonie Huffman, two Sitka, Alaska residents, took off on their 28-foot boat in search of fish. Two miles into the ocean, their boat began to have some problems. They managed to fix the problems, but decided to head back to shore anyway. However, before they could call for help or grab a life jacket, an eight-foot wave slammed hard against their boat and overturned it, throwing both men into the cold Alaskan waters.

    Stranded, they began to look around to see what they could grab onto and saw a couple of the empty fishing boxes from the boat, floating around. Ryan managed to climb inside one. Stonie, however, was not as lucky and managed to only grab onto the lid of the box. Soon, they both started drifting apart.

   While Ryan continued to bob up and down in the box, the waves started carrying Stonie away. But as luck would have it, he caught sight of one of the life suits from their boat floating in the ocean and managed to grab it. Though putting it on and hanging onto the lid at the same time was not an easy task, Stonie managed it and then began his long swim back to shore. He ended up on a deserted patch of land about 25 miles northwest of Sitka, where he had to wait until Saturday morning almost 24 hours after the fishing trip began, for rescuers to find him. Meanwhile, 19-year-old Ryan continued to drift around the ocean trying to stay alive and hoping someone would find him. The brave teenager repeated himself over and over again, “I'm Ryan Hunter Harris and I'm not going to die here.” He was sure he would be rescued.

    Two hours after his friend was rescued and able to guide the Coast Guard and, 26 hours after the adventure began, Ryan was finally found and brought back to shore. What was amazing was that besides a few scratches, the youngster was in perfect health. Will he ever venture out on a fishing trip again? Only time will tell!

    On a hill 600 feet above the surrounding land, we watch the lines of rain move across the scene, the moon rise over the hills, and the stars appear in the sky. The views invite a long look from a comfortable chair in front of the wooden house.

    Every window in our wooden house has a view, and the forest and lakes seldom look the same as the hour before. Each look reminds us where we are.

    There is space for our three boys to play outside, to shoot arrows, collect tree seeds, build earth houses and climb trees.

    Our kids have learned the names of the trees, and with the names have come familiarity and appreciation. As they tell all who show even a passing interest, maple（枫树）makes the best fighting sticks and white pines are the best climbing trees.

    The air is clean and fresh. The water from the well has a pleasant taste, and it is perhaps the healthiest water our kids will ever drink. Though they have one glass a day of juice and the rest is water, they never say anything against that.

    The seasons change just outside the door. We watch the maples turn every shade of yellow and red in the fall and note the poplars'（杨树）putting out the first green leaves of spring. The rainbow smelt fills the local steam as the ice gradually disappears, and the wood frogs start to sing in pools after being frozen for the winter. A family of birds rules our skies and flies over the lake.

    Breathing dirty air comes at a high price. Air pollution lowers the average life spans (寿命) by a year worldwide and in more polluted parts of Asia and Africa, dirty air shortens lives up to twice that much. Scientists shared their new findings in Environmental Science & Technology Letters. The study used data gathered in 2016 as part of a project known as the Global Burden of Disease and was the first major country-by-country look at the connection between the length of life and what's known as fine PM.

    Air pollution has been linked to many health problems. Most earlier studies had looked at how tiny air pollutants affected rates of illness or death. Joshua Apte is an environmental scientist at the University of Texas at Austin. By looking at life expectancy (预期寿命), his team had hoped to make the threat easier to understand. PM2.5 is what scientists call tiny particles (颗粒) of pollution in the air. Higher levels of PM2.5 can cause health problems and cut months, if not years, from the average length of life. This analysis shows how pollution affects life expectancy in different parts of the world.

    The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends limiting PM2.5 to 10 micrograms per cubic meter of air. Apte's group calculated how holding pollution to this low level would help people. In countries with very dirty air, meeting this standard would lengthen people's lives. However, in countries whose air already meets this standard, the study shows no gain in life expectancy. In other words, meeting the WHO standard won't reduce health costs resulting from dirty air because even below 10 micrograms per cubic meter, pollution still causes serious risks. Meanwhile, the scientists compared how other threats including smoking and cancer shorten the length of life across the globe.

    When I was young, I read many kinds of books, including fairy tales. Most of the books described heroes who were handsome and heroines who were beautiful. So, I believed I had to be beautiful if I wanted to become a great person.

    As I grew up, I began to realize outer beauty was not so important to make someone good. I remember a friend of mine, Janie, who was so beautiful that every classmate wanted to talk with her, but she was very arrogant(傲慢的).

    She believed that she could do everything she wanted because she was so beautiful, but she lost friends one by one. My poor friend! But she learned a good lesson: inner beauty is more important than outer beauty. After she learned that, she changed her attitude and made friends again.

    Whenever I see TV advertisements, I feel that these things make us believe beauty is very important—especially physical attractiveness. Although we say that inner beauty is more valuable, we often look to plastic surgery to make us more beautiful. There seems to be a boom(流行) in plastic surgery. It is surprising to realize the number of people who try it is increasing day by day.

    We know good-looking guys usually get higher scores on job interviews. So, what is real beauty? I want to say that inner beauty is the real one because if someone has beauty in his soul, he looks like a really beautiful person.

    The beauty looked at with eyes doesn't last forever. Instead of concentrating on outer beauty, we should concentrate on inner beauty. The point is that inner beauty is more important than outer beauty. So, if we make the effort to make our minds beautiful, we'll be happier.