First aircraft carrying medical supplies from China arrives in U.S

An aircraft carrying personal protective equipment donated by China, along with U.S.-purchased medical supplies, arrived in New York on March 29.

The plane is the first in a series of flights over the next 30 days organized by the White House to help fight the coronavirus, the White House said. Most of the purchases are from Asia including Malaysia and Vietnam.

The Chinese Embassy in the U.S. retweeted a report from Axios, which said that 12 million gloves, 130,000 N-95 masks, 1.7 million surgical masks, 50,000 gowns, 130,000 hand sanitizer units, and 36,000 thermometers from China have arrived in the United States.

Along with the goods, Chinese company Huawei donated 10,000 masks, 20,000 articles of protective clothing, 10,000 gloves and 50,000 goggles to New York state.

Governor Andrew Cuomo confirmed the donation and thanked Huawei on Twitter.

The plane was funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. It landed at John F. Kennedy airport carrying gloves, gowns and masks for distribution in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, three hard-hit states battling to care for a crush of coronavirus patients.

The airlift is a product of a team led by White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, which formed "Project Airbridge," a partnership between large U.S. healthcare distributors such as Mekesson Corp, Cardinal, Owens & Minor, Medline and Henry Schein Inc, and the federal government.

The flight from Shanghai was the first of about 20 flights to arrive between now and early April, according to the White House. Additional flights will carry similar gear from China, Malaysia and Vietnam.

Nowadays, we needn’t look far to find something new to watch. So why do so many of us choose to watch films we’ve already seen, even knowing every line of the script?

A survey revealed rewatching films we’ve already seen countless times is common. Some titles were mentioned repeatedly — Back To The Future, Top Gun, and musicals like The Rain. In 2016, a website surveyed 1,169 people to list the 25 most rewatched films — with Star Wars, The Wizard of Oz and The sound of Music taking the top spots.

Finding which movies we watch again and again is easy. Exactly why we do it is less clear. Obviously we love them and think they deserve our attention. One said, “Some films are what I think ‘complete’ and are so familiar that you can stop and start at any point. They are deeply satisfying and you can lose yourself in them.”

While that might explain the second, third, or fourth viewing, what keeps us coming back to a movie when we already know every detail, and there are so many other new films to choose from?

One explanation is that watching something familiar takes up less mental energy. We don’t have to concentrate to work out what’s going on. Instead, we just sit back and relax. When faced with diverse choices, it’s easier to return to an old film that we believe won’t disappoint us.

A psychological phenomenon, “the mere exposure effect” — in which we develop a preference for something familiar — could also be a good explanation. So the more we watch, the more we want to watch.

A 2012 study on cultural “re-consumption” found that rewatching movies can also make us reflect on how we’ve grown a measuring stick for how much our lives have changed. Perhaps that’s one of the biggest reasons why we return to films, to recall not only for a time in history but for a time in our lives.

The American dream is the faith held by many people in the United States of America that through hard work, courage, creativity and determination, they can achieve a better life for themselves. More specifically, they agree on how to get ahead in America: get a college education, find a reliable job, and buy their own house. But do Americans still believe in that path, and if they do, is it attainable?

The most recent National Journal poll(民意测验，投票) asked participants about the American dream, what it takes to achieve their goal, and whether or not they felt the control over their ability to be successful. Obviously, the results show that today, the idea of the American dream and what it takes to achieve it looks quite different from it did in the late 20th century. By the large, people felt that their actions and hard work — not outside forces — were the deciding factors in how their lives turned out. But the participants had definitely mixed feelings about what actions make for a better life in the current economy.

In the last seven years, Americans have grown more pessimistic about the power of education to lead to success. Even though they see going to college as a fairly achievable goal, a majority 52 percent think that young people do not need a 4-year college education in order to be successful.

Miguel Maeda, 42, who has a master’s degree and works in public health, was the first in his family to go to college, which has allowed him to achieve a sense of financial stability(稳定) his parents and grandparents never did. While some, like Maeda, emphasized the value of a degree rather than the education itself, others still see college as a way to gain new viewpoints and life experiences. Sixty-year-old Will Fendley, who had a successful career in the military and never earned a college degree, think “personal drive” is far more important than just go to college. To Fendley, a sense of drive and purpose, as well as an effective high-school education, and basic life skills, like balancing a checkbook(支票簿), are the necessary elements for a successful life in America.