The City of Dali is my dream city: It has a taste of old China in a（n) i_________ setting.

The Most Beautiful City in America

It has been called the most beautiful city in America. It also is the subject of a very popular book about murder. The story of Savannah, Georgia, is our report today.

Savannah, Georgia, is not huge. It is only the 3rd largest city in this Southern state. It has about 140 thousand people. Yet few American cities have protected their past as well as Savannah. It has beautiful old houses. It hasparks with trees and colorful flowers. A visit to Savannah today shows that life was like in the Southern United States 200 years ago.

English settlers established the city of Savannah in 1733. They were led by General James Oglethorpe. General Oglethorpe and 120 settlers landed at Yamakaroo bluff on the Savannah River. They chose the place for the city of Savannah on a hill above the river. It was 29 kilometers from the Atlantic Ocean.

General Oglethorpe decided to make Savannah as beautiful as a city could be. He designed the streets in anunusual way. Many did not cross each other. Instead, they ended in large open square areas. There are 21 suchpublic squares in Savannah. They have grass, trees, flowers and statues. They also have places for people to sit and enjoy the beauty.

In the 1700s Savannah became a busy port city for exporting farm products. In 1793 Eliwhiteney was teaching on a cotton farm near the city. He invented a machine that removed seeds from the cotton plant. Until then the seed had to be removed by hand. The work was very hard. Eliwhiteney's invention was called the "cotton gin". It greatly improved the ability to produce cotton.

The cotton gin made cotton the most important product in the American South. And it increased importance of Savannah as a port city. Savannah became the world's leading market for cotton. The Savannah Cotton Exchange set the price of cotton around the world. The city became rich. Rich people began to build large beautiful houses. The city continued to grow richer until the early 1860s. That is when America's Nortliem states fought the rebel Southern states in the Civil War.

One of the most famous Northern generals was William Sherman. He led union troops to seize control of rebel territory in the South. General Sherman captured the city of Atlanta. From Atlanta he marched his troops through the heart of Georgia to the Atlantic Ocean. It was known as Sherman's March to the Sea. The Union troops burned all the houses, farms, animals and food supplies on their way. The purpose was to destroy popular support for the rebellion of the Southern states. General Sherman said, "The Union must make old and young, rich and poor feel the hard hand of war."

The people of Savannah learned what General Sherman had done to the rest of Georgia. They did not want the same thing to happen to them. So they offered to surrender their beautiful city ff he promised not to bum it. General Sherman accepted the offer. In December, 1864, he scm a message to President Abraham Lincoln in Washington. It said, "I beg to present you as a Christmas gift—the city of Savannah." Sherman's gift included 150 heavy guns, ammunition and 25 thousand bales of cotton.

The Civil War hurt Savannah's economy. And years of growing nothing but cotton damaged the soil. An insect called the boll weevil destroyed the plant. By 1920, little cotton was left. During the 1900s, manufacturing took the place of cotton farming. Savannah's shipping industry continued to grow. However, many old houses were tearing down, or they fell apart. One visitor said the city was like a beautiful woman with a dirty face.

In the 1950s some citizens of Savannah became angry when more old houses were being threatened by development. One company wanted to destroy a house to build a parking area for cars. A group of 7 women decided to save the house. They asked people for money. They collec

A．Y

B．N

C．NG

The Writing's on the Wall?

Is it art or is it just vandalism(野蛮行为)? Well，it's still a crime，but graffiti(涂鸦) has changed since the days of spraying your name on a wall to mark your territory．Street art has become much more sophisticated since a 17-year-old called Demetrius started spraying his “tag”，TAKI 183，all over the NewYork underground in 1971，and hip-hop culture was born．Hip-hop is a mixture of art，music and dancing，poetry，language and fashion．It came from young inner-city people，who felt left out by their richerclassmates and who were desperate to express themselves in any way they could．

An experiment to control the spread of graffiti in Rochdale，Greater Manchester，has been so successful that plans have been made by local street artists for an international convention in June．“We're planning to get people together from different countries like France and Germany for a week，”says Liam，one of the organizers．The scheme started in 2000，and has attracted people of all age groups and both sexes．“We all share a common interest and get on really well with each other．”The first site to be chosen was a subway．“Before we began，people were afraid to use the subway．We had it cleaned up and now，with all the artists hanging out down there，people are using it again．People can relate to graffiti much more now．”By providing places to display their talents legally，there has been a fall in the amount of“tagging”on people's private property．

Street artist Temper developed his drawing skills at a young age．In art classes at school he was really frustrated because the Art teacher didn't spend time with him．They thought he was already very good at art and so spent more time with other students．So，at 12 years old，Temper started painting with all these guys he'd hooked up with who were about 22 years old．He looked up to them and loved what they were doing on the streets of Wolvehampton，England．“The whole hip-hop scene was built up of different things and I did a bit of everything．But it was always the graffiti I was best at，”he says．

Demetrius was a teenager from New York．

A．Right

B．Wrong

C．Not mentioned

The Writing's on the Wall?

Is it art or is it just vandalism(野蛮行为)? Well，it's still a crime，but graffiti(涂鸦) has changed since the days of spraying your name on a wall to mark your territory．Street art has become much more sophisticated since a 17-year-old called Demetrius started spraying his “tag”，TAKI 183，all over the NewYork underground in 1971，and hip-hop culture was born．Hip-hop is a mixture of art，music and dancing，poetry，language and fashion．It came from young inner-city people，who felt left out by their richerclassmates and who were desperate to express themselves in any way they could．

An experiment to control the spread of graffiti in Rochdale，Greater Manchester，has been so successful that plans have been made by local street artists for an international convention in June．“We're planning to get people together from different countries like France and Germany for a week，”says Liam，one of the organizers．The scheme started in 2000，and has attracted people of all age groups and both sexes．“We all share a common interest and get on really well with each other．”The first site to be chosen was a subway．“Before we began，people were afraid to use the subway．We had it cleaned up and now，with all the artists hanging out down there，people are using it again．People can relate to graffiti much more now．”By providing places to display their talents legally，there has been a fall in the amount of“tagging”on people's private property．

Street artist Temper developed his drawing skills at a young age．In art classes at school he was really frustrated because the Art teacher didn't spend time with him．They thought he was already very good at art and so spent more time with other students．So，at 12 years old，Temper started painting with all these guys he'd hooked up with who were about 22 years old．He looked up to them and loved what they were doing on the streets of Wolvehampton，England．“The whole hip-hop scene was built up of different things and I did a bit of everything．But it was always the graffiti I was best at，”he says．

Demetrius was a teenager from New York．

A．Right

B．Wrong

C．Not mentioned

The dream of lost innocence recovered in a golden future always haunts the imagination of colonial pioneers. Its premise is myopia: F. Scott Fitzgerald conjured % fresh, green breast of the new world" for his Dutch sailors, a story that began without Indians. Golda Meir infamously insisted that there was no such thing as Palestinians. Breaking new ground on a distant shore is easier if no one is there when you arrive. Plan B allows that the natives are happy to see the newcomers. But soon enough it all turns nasty and ends in tears.

"A Strange Death," Hillel Halkin' s beautifully written and wisely confused account of the local history of the town he lives in, Zichron Yaakov, takes us back to the earliest days of Jewish settlement in Ottoman Palestine. His ostensible subjects are members of the Nili spy ring operated out of Zichron during World War I by local pioneers on behalf of the British, its ramifications among the local populace and the betrayals and revenge that floated in its wake. He is deeply seduced, however, by the lovely ambiguities of the past as they arise in relationships between Arabs and Jews at a time when both groups were under Turkish rule. Yes, there is murder just around the comer (Jews were hacked to pieces in Hebron and Arabs massacred in Deir Yessin) but in 1916 a man could still be known by the horse he rode from village to village rather than the tank he rolled through in.

The spy ring ( "Nili" is a Hebrew acronym that translates as "the strength of Israel will not lie"), which functioned less than a year from the winter of 1916 through the fall of 1917, was the brainchild of Aaron Aaronsohn and Avshalom Feinberg, two Palestine-born Zionists convinced that a British victory over the Turks would help pave the way to a Jewish state. Aaronsohn was a charismatic figure with an international reputation as a botanist (he discovered tfiticum dioccoides, the wild ancestor of cultivated wheat). Feinberg, a local farmer, was a swashbuckler, a superior shot and impressive horseman. Aaronsohn brought two of his sisters into the ring: Rivka, who was engaged to Feinberg, and the beautiful and spirited Sarah. At 24, Sarah had abandoned her Turkish Jewish husband in Constantinople and had wimessed, on her journey to Palestine, the Turks' genocidal assault on the Armenians. The network was augmented by Yosef Lishansky, a maverick adventurer and a tough guy, and a few more trusted relatives of the two leaders.

The likelihood of the spies living to comb gray hair Wash' t enhanced by the anxieties of some Jews. After: a successful run passing information on Turkish troop positions to a British freighter waiting offshore came the inevitable capture, torture and interrogation of an operative, Naaman Belkind, and soon enough the jig was up. In October 1917, the Turks cordoned off Zichron. Aaronsohn was luckily in Cairo at the time. Lishanslcy escaped only to be caught after three weeks, and hanged by the Turks, Sarah was captured and marched through town. Four Jewish women abused, excoriated and perhaps assaulted her, but whether they acted out of animosity or an instinct for self-preservation has never been clear. After being tortured by Turkish soldiers Sarah escaped to her own home long enough to retrieve a hidden gun and shoot herself.

Nothing is at it was, and perhaps it never was as Halkin supposed. In an empty house he finds a discarded, anonymous book, "Sarah, Flame of the Nili." A little research reveals that the hagiography was written by Alexander Aaronsohn, Sarah' s younger brother, who, Halkin also finds out, had a penchant for pubescent girls well beyond his own adolescence. The countryside was thinly populated and the grass grew high; there are secrets in Zichron. At the end of the book, the town has health food stores, gift and antique shops and ice cream parlors. But it has lost its soul.

A riot of names in "A Strange Death" sometimes threatens to overwhe

A．the colonists were always welcomed by the natives

B．the colonization will never be with a happy ending

C．the colonists hoped that there were always people on the new continents

D．the colonists hoped that they may perform. ethnic cleansing on the new continents

The prehistoric monument of Stonehenge stands tall in the British countryside as one of the last remnants of the Neolithic Age. Recently it has also become the latest symbol of another era: the new fiscal austerity. A plan to replace the site? s run-down visitors center with one almost five times bigger and to close a busy road that runs along the 5,000-year-old monument had to be mothballed in June. The British government had suddenly withdrawn ￡ 10 million, or $16 million, in financing for the project as part of a budget austerity.

Stonehenge, once a temple with giant stone slabs aligned in a circle to mark the passage of the sun, is among the most prominent victims of the government? s spending cuts. The decision was heavily criticized by local lawmakers, especially because Stonehenge, a UnescoWorld Heritage site, was part of London? s successful bid to host the 2012 Olympic Games.The shabby visitors center there now is already too small for the 950,000 people who visit Stonehenge each year, let alone theadditional onslaught of tourists expected for the Games, the official says.

Stonehenge is the busiest tourist attraction in Britain? s southwest, topping even Windsor Castle. But no major improvements have been made to the facilities there since they were built 40 years ago.For now, portable toilets lead from a crammed parking lot, a makeshift souvenir shop in a tent, a ticket office opposite a small kiosk that sells coffee and snacks.

The overhaul was scheduled for next spring in 2011. The plan, held by Denton Corker Marshall, the architectural firm, would keep the stone monument itself unchanged. But the current ticket office and shop would be demolished and a new visitors center would be built on the other side of the monument, about 2.5 kilometers, or 1.5 miles, from the stones.The center would have included a shop almost five times the size of the current one, a proper restaurant, three times as many parking spots and an exhibition space to provide more information about Stonehenge? s history.

A transit system would have shuttled visitors between the center and the stones while footpaths would have encouraged tourists to walk to the monument and explore the surrounding burial hills. The closed road would be grassed over to improve the surrounding landscape.Last year, the ￡27 million project won the backing of former Prime Minister

Gordon Brown. After more than 25 years of bickering with local communities about how and where to build the new center, planning permission was granted in January. Construction was supposed to start and be completed in time for the Olympics, but the economic recession has changed.

The new prime minister, David Cameron, has reversed many of his predecessor? s promises as part of a program to cut more than ￡99 billion annually over a period of five years to help to close a gaping budget deficit. The financing for Stonehenge fell in the first round of cuts, worth about ￡6.2 billion, from the budget for the current year, along with support for a hospital and the British Film Institute.

English Heritage, a partly government-financed organization that owns Stonehenge and more than 400 other historic sites in the country, is now aggressively looking for private donations. But the economic downturn has made the endeavor more difficult.

Loraine Knowles, Stonehenge? s project director, said she was disappointed that the government had withdrawn money while continuing to support museums in London. But she said she was hopeful that English Heritage could raise the money elsewhere. Stonehenge, she said, could then also become “a shining example of how philanthropy could work.”