1 . One by one, prejudices are disappearing in the West. People may harbor private suspicions that other people’s race or sex makes them inferior—but to say so openly is totally taboo. One old prejudice remains respectable, though. Just ask a childless person.

They are not charged to special taxes, as they were in Soviet Russia; nor are they driven from their homes, as they still are in some poor countries. The childless nonetheless come in for a lot of criticism. Some point out that non-parents are failing to produce the future workers who will pay for their pensions. Childless politicians are charged with not having a proper stake in society. “He talks to us about the future, but he doesn’t have children!” complained Jean-Marie Le Pen, co-founder of the National Front party, of Emmanuel Macron, who went on to win the French presidency. Similar attacks on Theresa May and Angela Merkel also failed but researchers find that many voters quietly agree.

The charges against the childless should be thrown out, along with other social prejudice. In many rich countries, between 15% and 20% of women, and a slightly higher proportion of men, will not have children. The share is rising. Some have medical problems; others do not meet the right person in time; still others decide they do not want them. Whatever the cause, the attacks on the childless are baseless.

If non-breeders are selfish, they have a strange way of showing it. They are more likely to set up charitable foundations than people with children, and much more likely to donate money to good causes. According to one American estimate, the mere fact of not having children raises the amount a person leaves to charity by a little over $10,000. The childless are thus a small but useful counterweight to the world’s parents, who stop social immobility by passing on their social and economic advantages to their children.

The fact that so many senior politicians lack offspring ought to put to rest the idea that they do not care for society. Five of the G7 countries are led by childless men and women. Mr. Macron, Mrs. May, Mrs. Merkel, Shinzo Abe and Paolo Gentiloni have their faults, but they are not notably less able than Justin Trudeau (who has three children) let alone Donald Trump (who has five). Their opportunities for nepotism are limited. And they spare their countries dynastic politics.

The charge that childless people fail to pull their weight in population is correct, but is less serious than it appears. Those who do not have children do put pressure on public pension systems. Governments have to do unpopular things like making pensions less generous, as Japan has done, or accepting more immigrants, as some Western countries have done. But to sustain public pensions in the long term, countries do not actually need more parents. What they need instead is more babies. It is possible to combine a high rate of childlessness with a high birth rate, provided people who become parents have more than one or two children. That was the pattern in many Western countries a century ago. Ireland, yet another country with a childless leader, still manages it today.

The childless also do everyone else a favour by creating wonderful works of art. British novelists have been especially likely to have no offspring: think of Hilary Mantel, P.G Wodehouse and the Bronte sisters. In September last year Britain put Jane Austen on its ten-pound note. That decision was controversial, though it was hard to see why. Few people have written as shrewdly about money or about families even though Austen did not marry, and had no children.

3 . Going against the tide of flocking to well-known tourist destinations on vacation, a growing number of holidaymakers in China tend to spend their leisure time at lesser-known attractions. Reverse tourism (逆向旅游) has appeared as a   new trend among young holidaymakers in China.

According to data from an online travel agency, the number of rooms booked at hotels in less-traveled cities during the holiday was up 30 percent year-on-year. Bookings for four-star or five-star hotels in less-traveled places all increased ten times at a minimum. Some lesser-known scenic spots posted double-digit (两位数的) growth during the holiday. Baimaiquan Park in Jinan, the capital of Shandong Province, received 52,100 visits in the seven days, up to 15.78 percent year-over-year.

Besides crowds, some vacationers chose less-traveled places to save on the cost of trips to popular destinations. In addition, lesser-known attractions are not as “commercial” as developed ones and are able to offer more actual experiences and natural encounters.

Essentially speaking, total relaxation is becoming a real expectation for many people when they travel. Changes in demand may be the fundamental reason for the popularity of reverse tourism. COVID-19 is another key factor fueling reverse tourism. As preventive measures continue, traveling has an unpredictable quality. Travelers have thus become more cautious and tend to choose local attractions or places with fewer tourists.

“The rise of reverse tourism is not a bad thing,” said Zhengzhou Daily. It means that vacationers now have more options, which brings more possibilities to the tourism market. More importantly, it noted, the trend is set to force popular destinations to improve themselves instead of resting on their past honor.

Jiang Han, a senior researcher, said that reverse tourism will become one of the future directions for the market. To give a real boost to the tourism market, Jiang suggested that more efforts be made to tap the potential of underestimated, lesser-known destinations. It is necessary to dig deeper into the local customs and highlight the local characteristics to improve the quality of local tourism.

4 . A worldwide shift from fossil fuel-powered cars to electric vehicles (EV) could significantly reduce the amount of carbon dioxide that humans emit to the atmosphere. But the vehicle electrification can also shift some pollution to communities already suffering under higher economic, health and environmental burdens, researchers warn.

California is seeking to reduce its carbon footprint and has made great increases in the promotion of electric vehicle purchases. One tool the state has launched is the Clean Vehicle Rebate Project, or CVRP, which offers consumers money back for the purchase of new EVs.

Now, an analysis of the CVRP’s impact on the state’s air quality from 2010 to 2021 reveals both good and bad news, researchers report May 3 in PLOS Climate.

The good news is that the CVRP is responsible for reducing the amount of the state’s overall CO₂ emissions, reducing them by about 560,000 tons per year on average, says environmental scientist Jaye Mejia-Duwan at the University of California. In 2020, transportation in California produced about 160 million tons of CO₂, about 40 percent of the total emitted by the state that year.

The bad news is that the most disadvantaged communities in the state didn’t see the same overall improvement in air quality. Those communities didn’t have the same decreases in CO₂ — and in fact saw an increase in one type of air pollution, tiny particulates (颗粒) known as PM2.5. “These particulates are small enough to go deep into the lungs, increasing the risk of cancer, heart problems and cognitive decline,” Mejia-Duwan says.

“Electric vehicles are often referred to as ‘zero-emission vehicles,’ but in fact, they’re only as clean as the underlying electric grid (电网) from which the energy is sourced,” Mejia-Duwan says. EVs tend to be relatively heavy due to their batteries. And “heavier vehicles can produce more particulate matter than equally sized fossil fuel-powered cars, due to brake, tire or road wear,” Mejia-Duwan says.

In the coming era of budget cuts to education, distance learning could become the norm.

The temptation for those in charge of education budgets to trade teachers     1     technology could be so strong that they ignore the disadvantages of distance learning. School facilities are expensive     2    (build). Online classes do not require buildings and each class can host hundreds of people at the same time,     3    (result) in greater savings. But moving away from a traditional classroom     4     a living, breathing human being teaches and interacts with students daily is a disaster.     5    (physical) attending school has hidden benefits: getting up     6    (early), interacting more with peers, and building better relationships with teachers. Moreover, schools should be more than simple institutions of traditional learning. They are places where students     7    (offer) counseling(咨询) and other support.

Those policy-makers are often fascinated by the latest technology in education and its potential to transform education overnight.     8    , online education does not allow a teacher to keep a struggling student after class and offer help. Educational videos are unable to make eye contact or assess a student’s level of     9    (engage). Given these expectations, schools should not become permanently “remote”. Technology, however     10    (advance), should simply be a tool of a good teacher.

7 . How to Build a Natural Swimming Pool

Whether you like to practice your dolphin dives or idle away the day on a raft, swimming is one of summer’s perfect pleasures. With a minimum of materials, you can create a cooling summer retreat in your backyard.

Though common in Europe, natural swimming pools, are in their early stage in the United States. You can ask most American swimming-pool contractors (承包商) to build a backyard pool.    1    It may include rebar (钢筋), gunite (压力喷浆), fiberglass, and a filtration (过滤) system.

But in recent years, a few builders and a growing number of homeowners have learned how to build pools.    2    They’ve found it’s possible to construct pools that are more about building with nature and blending into the natural landscape. Natural swimming pools use stone and clay in place of concrete or fiberglass, and aquatic plants instead of harmful chemicals and complicated mechanical filtering systems.    3    They also support beneficial bacteria that consume potentially harmful organisms, and give habitat to frogs, dragonflies, and other water life.    4    A natural pool can be built for as little as $2,000 if you do it yourself, while conventional pools can cost tens of thousands of dollars.

Natural swimming pools require no harmful chemicals, are fairly low-tech.    5    You won’t have to drain the pool each autumn. Except for topping it off now and then, you’ll fill the pool only once.

9 . A recent survey found children would rather be online influencers than astronauts. It made headlines and led to plenty of complaints about “kids these days”. Is influencing a promising career path? The lifestyles we see advertised on social media are enticing, but under the shining appearance lie uncertain income, pay inequality, disability and mental health issues.

Successful influencers will be the first to claim that anyone can make it in the industry. However, social media economy experts uncovered a huge income gap between successful influencers and everyone else. For most people trying to become an influencer, their passion projects of content creation often become free work for brands.

Most influencers are self-employed, often experiencing inconsistent income and a lack of protection that comes with long-term employment. The risks of self-employment are increased in the influencer industry by an absence of industry standards and little pay transparency(透明度). Influencers are often forced to assess their own value and determine fees for their work. As a result, content creators often undervalue their own creative labour, and many end up working for free.

Influencers are also often at the mercy of algorithms (运算法则) — the behind-the-scenes computer programs that determine which posts are shown, in which order, to users. Platforms share little detail about their algorithms, yet they finally determine who and what gains visibility and influence on social media, the threat of invisibility is a constant source of insecurity for influencers, who are under constant pressure to feed platforms with content. If they don’t, they may be “punished” by the algorithm-having posts hidden or displayed lower down on search results.

Constant online presence leads to one of the most common issues in the influencer industry: mental health concerns. Influencers can connect to their platform workspaces and audience at any time of day or night, which can lead to them overworking. Coupled with the fear of online criticism, it contributes to mental and physical health issues.

Although becoming an influencer may look appealing to more and more people, the industry’s dark underside needs to be made visible and improved through enhanced employment regulation and industry-led cultural change.

10 . Your smartphone breaks. The repair costs too much money. So you give up and buy a new device (设备). That this happens so often is no coincidence (巧合).

Many big device makers are putting more new products on the market. But they do not sell specialized tools and parts needed for repairs. And they offer no instruction on how to repair their products. As a result, the independent repair shops in your neighborhood find they cannot repair your broken smartphone. You can only go to faraway authorized (经授权的) repair shops to get the necessary repair service, which is often expensive.

In recent years, some producers have taken steps to make repairs easier, but there’s a growing effort across the world to push them to do more. Some time ago, the “Right to Repair” movement heard good news from the White House. The president of the US on Friday signed an order aimed at encouraging healthy competition in the US economy. It includes a condition for the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The FTC was asked to make rules preventing producers from limiting independent device repair shops and DIY repairs.

“Right to Repair” is a global movement to make sure everyone has the right to fix the products they own. The idea has generally come from the United States. The earliest known published reference using the group of words comes from the auto industry dating back to 2003. Its supporters require companies to provide their parts, tools and information for consumers (消费者) and repair shops. They also encourage the government to make laws to force producers to increase device reparability (维修性).

The FTC in May presented a 56-page report. It said that “many consumer products have become harder to fix. ”The report also found that “the burden (负担) of repair limits may fall more heavily on communities of color and consumers having little money” because many independent repair shops are owned by people of color and because high-cost repairs hit low-paid consumers harder.