1 . Culdesac, which describes itself as “the first car-free neighborhood in the Us”, admitted its first 36 residents in Tempe, Arizona, US, earlier this year. The $170 million neighborhood, with its white buildings and narrow walkways, is expected to hold around 1, 000 people when the full 760 units are completed by 2025. Similar projects in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Houston, Texas, are also underway.

In a country as car-dependent as the US, Culdesac is no lack of foresight (远见). Although some densely populated (人口密集的) coastal Us cities like Boston and New York City are walkable and have ample public transportation options like taxis, buses and light rails, the majority of Americans are entirely dependent on cars to get around.

This dependence on cars doesn’t come cheap, unfortunately. In a 2023 study, the American Automobile Association said that it costs an average of about 89,000 yuan per year to own and maintain a car in the US.

So, what is stopping Americans from abandoning cars and accepting relatively cheaper choices like e-bikes? In a word, unsafe roads that prioritize cars over people. According to a 2018 report by WHO, the US traffic accident death rate is about 50 percent more than similar nations in Western Europe. At the same time, walkers and cyclists in the US are often blamed for being hit by drivers rather than the other way around.

Still, there’s hope. By choosing a new car-free way of living, US projects like Culdesac can provide another way of living that’s both healthier and more affordable and, in turn, influence others to live a better way as well. As Vanessa, a resident of Culdesac, said, “For some, cars equal freedom, but for me, it’s limitation, Freedom is being able to just simply walk out and access places. “

3 . On November 4th, 2020, the draft that math should be listed as a major national project during the 14th Five-Year Plan(2021—25)period was adopted at the Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, reported China Daily.

Katherine Johnson (1918—2020), a former NASA mathematician who calculated and analyzed flight paths for many missions, once said: “Some things will drop out of the public eye and go away, but there will always be science, engineering, and technology. And there will always, always be mathematics.” This may be one of the reasons why our country has listed math and its applications as a major national project into the next Five-Year Plan.

“The policy and financial support for the field of mathematics will be greatly improved between 2021 and 2025 compared with the past five years—it’s unprecedented,” said Yuan Yaxiang, a mathematician and academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He also stressed that mathematical research matters because it can help overcome some current technology bottlenecks.

According to Science and Technology Minister Wang Zhigang, basic scientific research, including mathematics, will have a larger focus during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, with funding expected to reach over 8 percent of all research and development (R&D) expenses.

The math project is expected to receive 1.5 billion yuan in funding, according to Yuan. The funding will be used to build new institutions for scientific research and support the current ones with new experimental equipment. More training for young mathematicians has also been urged.

Thịs year, Tsinghua University carried out a leading talent training program in math. It recruits hundreds of outstanding middle and senior high school students from across the country to cultivate leading talents in mathematics and related fields. The “strengthening basic disciplines plan” was launched in 2020 at 36 top universities.

According to the German newspaper Die Welt, China leads the way as far as those with an aptitude for math. Of all those born in China between 2005 and 2009, 24 million have exhibited a talent for math. The number is 1.8 million and 940,000 in Japan and South Korea, respectively. That's why many international companies like Apple have set their research centers in China.

5 . By the time she turned 18, Khadijah Williams had attended twelve schools. She had lived in shelters, in parks, and in motels, never in a permanent residence for more than a few months. She had been laughed at and looked down upon by students at a dozen schools who thought of her as “different”.

Homeless since early childhood, Khadijah struggled all her life to hide her circumstances from teachers and fellow students. However, academic achievement proved to be a way for her to find confidence in herself again. For instance, at the age of 9, she placed in the 99th percentile on a state exam, and her teacher told her she was “gifted”. From that moment forward, Khadijah decided to do whatever it took to keep herself in that category. “I was so proud of being smart. I often heard my fellow students say, ‘You got the easy way out because you're homeless,’” she told The LA Times. “But I never saw it as an excuse about living a less successful life.”

By the second year of high school, she realized that she could not succeed in getting the education she dreamed of without getting help to go beyond what her current school could offer. She talked to teachers and advisers who helped her apply for summer community college classes, scholarships, and enrichment programs. And in the 11th grade, when she enrolled at Jefferson High School, she decided to complete the rest of her school career there—a decision that meant taking a bus each morning at 4 a.m. and not getting home until 11 p.m.

Here's the end of the story—when Khadijah poured the story of her life into her Harvard University college application, she was accepted.