Years ago, my wife and I volunteered at a homeless shelter in downtown Los Angeles,US, preparing meals for thousands of people. I got to talk with one of the guys in line, Albert. He said he liked my socks. “Want to see mine?” he asked, lifting his leg. He was barefoot. He said he had been meaning to pick up a pair but hadn’t gotten around to it. I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach.

      The next day, after work, I stopped at Ross and filled up a cart with socks. I stuffed my trunk with them. That next morning, I set my alarm  for5 a.m. and drove over to Santa Monica’s  Palisades Park, which is a common destination for homeless people.

      I took one of the bags from my trunk. It was still dark out. I headed for a group of three men, standing around a tree, probably using it as a windbreaker. Two were asleep under heavy blankets, and the third was digging through his collection. As I walked toward him, he watched me, perhaps questioning my motives. “I thought you guys might need some fresh new socks,” I said, handing him a pair. He looked confused at first but took them and said, “Thank you.” I gave him two more pairs for his friends.

      I moved on. An hour later, I had given out all the socks. Most people were sleeping, and I felt like Santa. I knew that when they wake up they would find a very meaningful present.

      That was nine years ago. Every week I’ll hand out as many socks as I can. If I’m on vacation or on a business trip for more than a week, I bring a bag of socks with me and hand them out to the homeless on the streets in other states and countries.

      It’s extremely satisfying to operate “under the radar” to help make some people’s lives a little bit easier. Part of me hopes to see Albert out there one of these days, but even if I don’t, I like to think one of the pairs will find him.

Do you love holidays but hate the increase weight that follow? You are not alone.

Holidays are happy days with pleasure and delicious foods. Many people, however, are worried about the weight that comes along with these delicious foods.

  With proper planning, though, it is possible to control your weight. The idea is to enjoy the holidays but not to eat too much. You don’t have to turn away from the foods that you enjoy. The following suggestions may be of some help to you.

  Don’t miss meals. Before you leave home for a feast (宴会),have a small, low-fat snack. This may help to keep you from getting too excited before delicious foods.

  Begin with clear soup and fruit or vegetables.

   A large glass of water before you eat may help you feel full.

  Use a small plate; a large plate will encourage you to have more than enough. 

  Better not have high-fat foods. Dishes that look oily or creamy have much fat in them.

  Choose lean meat. Fill your plate with salad and green vegetables.

  If you have a sweet tooth, try mints(薄荷)and fruits. They don’t have fat content as cream and chocolate.

  Don’t let exercise take a break during the holidays. A 20 minute walk after a meal can help burn off excess calories.

 D

“I see you’ve got a bit of water on your coat,” said the man at the petrol station. “Is it raining out there?””No, it’s pretty nice,” I replied, checking my sleeve. “Oh, right. A pony(马驹) bit me earlier.”

As it happened, the bite was virtually painless: more the kind of small bite you might get from a naughty child. The pony responsible was queuing up for some ice cream in the car park near Haytor, and perhaps thought I’d jumped in ahead of him.

The reason why the ponies here are naughty is that Haytor is a tourist-heavy area and tourists are constantly feeding the ponies foods, despite signs asking them not to. By feeding the ponies, tourists increase the risk of them getting hit by a car, and make them harder to gather during the area’s annual pony drift(迁移).

The purpose of a pony drift is to gather them up so their health can be checked, the baby ones can be stopped from feeding on their mother’s milk, and those who’ve gone beyond their limited area can be returned to their correct area. Some of them are also later sold, in order to limit the number of ponies according to the rules set by Natural England.

Three weeks ago, I witnessed a small near-disaster a few miles west of here. While walking, I noticed a pony roll over on his back. “Hello!” I said to him, assuming he was just rolling for fun, but he was very still and, as I got closer, I saw him kicking his legs in the air and breathing heavily. I began to properly worry about him. Fortunately, I managed to get in touch with a Dartmoor’s Livestock Protection officer and send her a photo. The officer immediately sent a local farmer out  to check on the pony. The pony had actually been trapped between two rocks. The farmer freed him, and he began to run happily around again.

Dartmoorhas 1,000 or so ponies, who play a critical role in creating the diversity of species in this area. Many people are working hard to preserve these ponies, and trying to come up with plans to find a sustainable(可持续的) future for one of Dartmoor’s most financially-troubled elements.

D

     Elisa Donavan was born Lisa Adaline Donovan in New York in 1971. She later changed her first name to “Elisa” when she had to join the stage union, Actor’s Equity, because there was already an actress in that union named Lisa Donovan. She began studying acting at age 12. She moved to Los Angeles in 1994 and got her first role as Tanya on the TV show Blossom.

Elisa’s breakthrough role was Amber of the TV show Clueless, which gave her a steady (稳定的) acting job, a good salary (薪水), and the opportunity to wear amazing clothes. But Elisa also had a secret — a secret that almost killed her. Elisa was anorexic. In 1995, she almost died.

  “I never thought I would have to eat something or die,” she says now. But that’s exactly what happened. In the early 1990s, convinced that she needed to lose more and more weight, Elisa ate less and less food. By 1994, the 5-foot 6-inch actress weighed only 90 pounds.

       Although she is healthy now, Elisa admits that she fears becoming anorexic again. The worst part of the disease, she says, is that anorexics live a secret life. “It’s such a secret,” she says. “All the habits I would have with food were so secret. That’s part of the disease.” She’s sharing her secret now in the hope that other girls might learn from her mistake and save themselves from this life-threatening (致命的)illness.

                                    A

One of my wonderful memories is about a Christmas gift. Unlike other gifts, it came without wrap(包装).

On September 11th, 1958, Mum gave birth to Richard. After she brought him home from hospital, she put him in my lap, saying. "I promised you a gift, and here it is." What an honor! I turned four a month earlier and none of my friends had such a baby doll of their own. I played with it day and night. I sang to it. I told it stories. I told it over and over how much I loved it!

One morning, however, I found its bed empty. My doll was gone! I cried for it. Mum wept and told me that the poor little thing had been sent to a hospital. It had a fever. For several days, I heard Mum and Dad whispering such words as "hopeless", "pitiful", and "dying", which sounded ominous.

Christmas was coming. "Don’t expect any presents this year." Dad said, pointing at the socks I hung in the living room. "If your baby brother lives, that'll be Christmas enough." As he spoke, his eyes were filled with tears. I'd never seen him cry before.

The phone rang early on Christmas morning. Dad jumped out of bed to answer it. From my bedroom I heard him say. "What? He's all right?" He hung up and shouted upstairs. “The hospital said we can bring Richard home!"

 "Thank God.'" I heard Mum cry.

 From the upstairs window, I watched my parents rush out to the car. I had never seen them happy. And I was also full of joy. What a wonderful day! My baby doll would be home. I ran downstairs. My socks still hung there flat. But I knew they were not empty; they were filled with love!

C

Best of News Design

The competition invites entries from all magazines and newspapers — daily or non-daily — published (出版) anywhere in the world.

How to Enter

Best of News Design™ Creative Competition is held each year. The Call for Entries is published in print and online in November of the competition year.

Printed copies of the Call for Entries are mailed in November to anyone who needs a copy. Or, get a PDF copy of the Call for Entries in English here.

Later this month Society of News Design (SND) will post copies of the Call for Entries in French, German, and Russian as well.

Each entry requires a small entry fee, paid in U.S. dollars.

Entry Deadlines (截止日期)

Entries from publications in the United States must be received at Syracuse (N.Y.) University no later than Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2014.

Entries from publications outside the United States must be received at Syracuse (N.Y.) University no later than Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2014.

SND will inform winners by e-mail or U.S. mail beginning Saturday, March 1, 2014. Also, SND will list the names of winners on this website in early mid-March.

Don’t forget to check out our web coverage of the judging beginning Saturday, Feb. 8, 2014. Be the first to know what’s happening in Syracuse!

Winners

Newspapers that win Award of Excellence, Silver Medal, Gold Medal, Judges’ Special Recognition or Best in Show honors receive recognition in several ways:

• Each winner receives a certificate (证书).

• A picture of the winning newspaper and the names of winners are published in the book, “The Best of

  News Design™.”

• One picture of the winning entry, along with the names of winners and other information, are

  published on www.snd.org.

• SND publishes a piece of news showing the results of each year’s competition.

A

You probably know who Marie Curie was, but you may not have heard of Rachel Carson. Of the outstanding ladies listed below, who do you think was the most important woman of the past 100 years?

Jane Addams (1860-1935)

Anyone who has ever been helped by a social worker has Jane Addams to thank. Addams helped the poor and worked for peace. She encouraged a sense of community (社区) by creating shelter and promoting education and services for people in need. In 1931, Addams became the first American woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Rachel Carson (1907-1964)

If it weren't for Rachel Carson, the environmental movement might not exist today. Her popular 1962 book Silent Spring raised awareness of the dangers of pollution and the harmful effects of chemicals on humane and on the world's lakes and oceans.

Sandra Day O'Connor (1930-present)

When Sandra Day O'Connor finished third in her class at Stanford Law School, in 1952, she could not find work at a law firm because she was a woman. She became an Arizona state senator (参议员) and, in 1981, the first woman to join the U.S. Supreme Court. O'Connor gave the deciding vote in many important cases during her 24 years on the top court.

Rosa Parks (1913-2005)

On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks would not give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger. Her simple act landed Parks in prison. But it also set off the Montgomery bus boycott. It lasted for more than a year, and kicked off the civil-rights movement. "The only tired I was, was tired of giving in," said Parks.

You’ve probably heard about sports coaches, fitness coaches, voice and music teachers, career counselors, psychiatrists (精神病医师) and other specialists who teach skills and help us cope with daily life.

But there’s a rapidly growing kind of professional who does a little bit of everything. She or he is called a “life coach”. People who are at crossroads in their lives, and corporations that want to give certain employees a career boost, are turning to them for help.

The idea that one person’s success story can change other people’s lives for the better goes back at least to the 1930s. Dale Carnegie’s famous self-improvement program “How to Win Friends and Influence People” came along soon thereafter.

 But this new style of life coaches includes more than enthusiastic speakers or writers. They use their own experiences in business, sports, military service, or psychotherapy (心理疗法) to help others make critical life decisions.

They often give their approach a slogan, such as “energy coaching” or “fearless living” or “working yourself happy”.

 Dave Lakhani in Boise, Idaho, for instance, works with salespeople to develop what he calls a “road map”. He says an ongoing relationship with a coach is like having a personal fitness trainer for one’s career and life outside work.

 Lakhani’s Bold Approach coaching firm also donates some of its time to help people who are anything but successful — including battered women and struggling single mothers.

 But others in the so-called “helping professions” are not thrilled about the life-coaching movement. They say that anyone, trained or untrained, can call himself or herself a life coach, and that slick (华而不实的) promoters who mess with people’s lives can do more harm than good.

                               B

   When an ant dies, other ants take it out of the nest, often within an hour after its death. This behavior interests scientists and they wonder how ants know for sure—and so soon—that another ant is dead.

   One scientist recently came up with a way to explain this ant behavior. Dong-Hwan Choe is a biologist, a scientist who studies animals and plants. He found that ants have a chemical on the outside of their bodies that signals to other ants“I'm dead—take me away”when it is dead.

   But there's a question to answer: As we know, if an ant is dead, it stops moving. But when an ant is sleeping or knocked unconscious, it is also not moving. However, other ants don't move the living ant out of the nest. How do they know this ant is not dead? Choe found that ants have another chemical on their bodies, which tells nearby ants something like “Wait—I'm not dead yet”when it is not dead. Choe suspects that when an ant dies, the chemical that says, “Wait— I'm not dead yet” quickly goes away. When other ants detect the “dead”chemical without the “not dead yet”chemical, they move away the body.

   To test his theory, Choe and his team put different chemicals on ants. When the scientists used the “I'm dead” chemical, other ants quickly moved the treated ant away. When the scientists used the “Wait—I'm not dead yet”chemical, other ants left the treated ant alone. Choe believes this behavior shows that the “not dead yet” chemical overrides the “dead” chemical when picked up by other ants. And that when an ant dies, the “not dead yet” chemical fades away. Other nearby ants then detect the remaining “dead” chemical and remove the body from the nest.

   Understanding this behavior can help scientists figure out how to stop ants from invading new places and causing problems.

Something that makes sense is happening in Washington, D.C! Public school kids surrounded by museums and monuments are putting the ready-made learning tools to use — and actually learning.

A trip to see painter Jacob Lawrence’s Migration Series is one of almost 200 trips that Wheelock will organize this year through the nonprofit group Live It Learn It. “For many kids, school is disconnected,” says one of four full-time workers and tour leaders. “With the program, they see how what they are learning is connected to their communities.”

Seven years ago, Wheelock changed a job as a lawyer for one as a four-grade teacher. When he learned that D.C.’s public schools ranked behind those of other cities in many ways, he knew he had to do something different. He took his class to Capitol Hill for a lesson on the three branches of government — and saw his students’ interest develop quickly.

With seed money from a local couple, Wheelock developed detailed lesson plans for trips to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Lincoln Memorial. The group also has classes for trips to the Anacostia River, boat rides to historical forts. Word spread, and now fourth, fifth, sixth graders from the neediest public schools in the District participate.

“I’m not brave enough to take my class to a museum for over an hour!” says teacher Cathy McCoy, gesturing toward her students. “But look With Live It Learn It, what the kids learn today they’ll remember for a lifetime.”