The latest addition to the Gtech garden power tools range is a lightweight yet powerful wireless Leaf Blower. This autumn makes short work of clearing leaves and garden pieces.

High Performance

The 36V Lithium-ion Gtech Leaf Blower has the ability to clear pieces from your lawn, courtyard and driveway. Using a turbo fan design that allows for a straight air passage from intake to outlet, offering maximum airflow and efficiency that turns the fan at 11,500 times a minute.

Complete control

The Leaf Blower is lightweight, at just 4.3 kg. The product has been designed so that battery and body weight are reasonably distributed. When in use, it will naturally point towards the ground to direct airflow. So, you won‘’t have to worry about injuring your wrists, even if you use it for the entire 20-minute run-time on full power. The variable trigger allows for complete control, when you squeeze or release the trigger you will feel the airflow change to suit your garden needs.

Easy to use

The Gtech Wireless Leaf Blower is easy to use. There is no need to pull wires or top up with fuel, simply attach the battery and pull the trigger to start. The product

Suppose you don’t need your car today. And suppose, as it happens, that a stranger in your area does need a car. Would you be willing to rent yours out?

Several car-sharing start-ups, including Getaround, RelayRides and JustShareIt, are eager to connect car owners with renters this way. The companies have different rules, but participating owners receive, generally speaking, about two-thirds of the rental earnings. RelayRides says an owner of a midsize, late-modelsedanwho rents out a car for 10 hours a week could expect to clear about $3,000 year.

Peer-to-peer(对等的) car sharing remains in the trail stage; it can be found in San Francisco and a few other places. It has a long way to go before it becomes the auto equivalent(相等的东西,等量) of Airbnb, the surprise success story for peer-to-peer sharing of space in apartments and houses.

Shelby Clark, founder of RelayRides, says potential inventors in his company have been concerned that owners will be afraid to hand their cars over to strangers. To address that, he points to Airbnb, saying, “Letting people sleep in your living room is much more of a disturbance into your personal space than letting someone use your car.”

All of these companies offer their own insurance coverage(承保范围,保证金) for their renters, which are supposed to put owners’ mind at ease. But only two states—California and Oregon—have passed laws to clarify that an owner will not suffer any consequences if a car-sharing renter has an accident.

“In all the other states, legal ambiguity(模棱两可) remains,” Shelby Clark says. “If a renter should be involved in a serious accident in those states, the victim can be expected to go after every party possible, including the car’s owner. ”

Also to remove the worries of car owners, the driving records of renters are checked for recent serious violations(违反,犯规).

What’s the biggest online shopping day in the world? Not Valentine’s Day. Not Cyber Monday or Black Friday. The winner is China’s Singles’Day, celebrated on November11, or 11.11.

Singles’Day began as a day for unmarried or uncoupled people to celebrate their lives. Single students, looking for an excuse to buy themselves presents, started it on November11,1993, reported The Guardian. It is symbolized by the four mumber ones in the date of November11 and is also called Double Eleven, in reference to the day it was started, said the BBC. It became a major shopping day in 2009. The CEO of an online shopping site --Alibaba-- tried to increase sales at the e-commerce company. The CEO, Daniel Zhang, launched an annual online sale on that day, said Fortune. When it first began, “Sigles’Day was very much an offline comfort to actual single people,” noted the website atlas Obscura.” A small group of students at Nanjing University are said to have chosen 11.11 as a day that singles could do activities like karaoke together.” It quickly became a cultural phenomenon.

Last year, Alibaba sold more than $1 billion worth of products in the first three minutes of the sales, reported Bloomberg News. Total sales on Singles’Day soared to $9 billion within 24 hours. That’s four times bigger than Cyber Monday in the U.S., which is the Monday after Thanksgiving and traditionally a big shopping day. By comparison, online sales in the U.S. last year on Black Friday were just $1.5 billion, reported TechCrunch.

Today, Singles’Day is very successful. Analysts say that this year, sales on China’s Singles’Day will increase to a new high. In the U.S., Jennifer Wang, a co-founder of a company targeting Chinese-Americans, said, “We expect to have 3 million people coming to click Dealmoon for the Singles’Day launch.” Some observers think Singles’Day could catch on globally.

Recently, a study was carried out to determine who was the greatest American president．Sixty-five presidential historians took part in it, and they judged the past forty-two American leaders based on ten leadership qualities, including public persuasiveness(信服), crisis leadership, management of the economy, moral leadership, and conduct of international relations．The historians also looked at administrative ability (管理能力), relations with Congress, ability to set goals, and the pursuit of equal justice for all．Finally, the experts took into consideration the historical period in which the president lived．

The historians chose Abraham Lincoln as American’s greatest president．He had also been named best president in a similar study in 2000．Abraham Lincoln was the president who led the nation through the Civil War in the 1860s, and was able to unite it in the end．He also took the first steps to abolish(废除) slavery in America．

Edna Medford, a professor of history at Howard University in Washington, D.C., was an adviser on this study and the earlier one．She says Abraham Lincoln is seen to represent the values the nation most honors, such as truthfulness, moderation(克制), and respect for human rights．

The historians put American’s first president, George Washington, second on the list, while Franklin D．Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, and Harry Truman follow in that order．John F．Kennedy, the country’s first Roman Catholic president, is sixth on the list．Like Lincoln, Kennedy was murdered while in office．

Among recent presidents, Ronald Reagan was named the tenth best and Bill Clinton rated fifteenth, while the historians put former president George W．Bush at number thirty-six．His father, George H.W．Bush, did much better, being placed at number eighteen．

a．Being able to persuade the public

b．Taking effective measures during a financial crisis．

c．Balancing home life and career．

d．Pursuing equal justice for all．

Long ago, poems were recited out loud instead of being written down. Back when the Greeks first started the Olympics, they held poetry contests as well as athletic competitions.

 Now, poetry competitions have been revived. This year 120,000 high school students competed in the first Poetry Out Loud national recitation contest, performing poems from memory for $100,000 in prizes.

The first competitions were held in classrooms. The winners went on to school-wide contests, and then they competed in city and state competitions, and then the 50 state champions, along with the District of Columbia champion came to Washington, D. C. last week for the last showdown(对决). After the 51 champions competed against one another, 12 went on to the finals. Then the field was narrowed to five. The final five had one last chance to "perform" a poem. The overall champ, Jackson Hille, a high school senior from Ohio, won a $20,000 scholarship.

 The National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation started Poetry Out Loud because they realized that hearing a poem performed is a different experience from reading it on a page.

 Itˈs not just a matter of saying the words in the right order. Itˈs the tone of voice, the pauses, the gestures, and the attitude of the person performing that bring the words to life. "Each time we hear somebody recite a poem, we understand again what we found fresh and interesting about it,” says National Public Radio broadcaster Scott Simon, master of ceremonies for the finals. Hearing it in a new voice offers something new to the listener.

Not only do the people hearing poems have a new experience, memorizing and presenting poems helps the participants understand those poems in a new way. Another benefit of a competition such as Poetry Out Loud is that the participants learn public-speaking skills that can help them for life.

In many ways, Providence Mount St. Vincent in Seattle is a typical senior living community. It is home to about 400 elderly residents and provides them with different types of assistance. However, it is also the Inter-generational Learning Center---a preschool where children and seniors have the chance to bond.

Established in 1991, the ILC’s purpose is to allow kids to learn about acceptance while also being nurtured(养育). It also aims to help seniors develop a greater sense of self-worth and strengthen social interactions. Babies to prekindergarten-aged children are placed into six different classes at the ILC. The kids attend art and music classes, as well as story time and exercise time with the seniors. Marie Hoover, ILC director, said that interacting with the seniors has proven beneficial for the young ones, making them more open-minded. 

“For the ILC children, interacting with the residents is simply part of their day-to-day life here and the way aging is ‘normalized’ , which may be the most important benefit they receive ,” Hoover said. “ I’ve had parents call me years after their children have graduated from our program to let me know about some incidents when their child was the first to warmly greet someone who happened to be in a wheelchair.”

As for the seniors, they’re delighted by the companionship the children provide. The children bring so much energy and joy to our residents. Many of residents are widows(寡妇) or widowers and can become lonely. Their adult children may still be working, so they may not get to see them as often as they would like. Having the children stay with the old makes our residents feel they are still part of a community. The young and the old connect and learn from one another at this unique facility.