1 . People in Paris, France are growing concerned about a problem that has worried people for centuries: bedbugs, which are small, flat insects that live in beds and other places.

With more and more reports of bedbugs being found, the French government is worried about the problem. Millions of people will be traveling to Paris this summer for the 2024 Olympics. France doesn’t want the country to leave a bad impression by letting its visitors get bitten by bedbugs. No one likes bedbugs, but it’s important to remember that they can be upsetting and leave itchy bites behind, but they do not spread diseases. They’ve been around for thousands of years, and even found in old Egyptian tombs.

After World War II, people began using dangerous chemicals to kill them, which caused bedbugs and many other pests to become much less common. But in the past 20 or 30 years, bedbugs have become common again. For one thing, now many bedbugs aren’t affected by most of the chemicals that used to kill them. Some people think that the bedbugs that are left may be ones that the chemicals don’t work on. For another, people are traveling more these days. Bedbugs can hide in tiny spaces, including inside suitcases. When people bring their suitcases to new places, bedbugs can spread to new areas — or from those areas back home.

In France, bedbugs are a long-standing problem. Jean-Michel Berenger, a scientist who studies insects in Marseille, says, “Every late summer we see a big increase in bedbugs.” That’s mainly from people returning after traveling. And now, in addition to reports of bedbugs in hotels and apartments, there’re also reports of them being found in other places: on seats at movie theaters, on long-distance trains, on the Paris subway, and at the country’s busiest airport. French officials are making sure Paris’ apartments, along with hotels and other places where tourists stay, are safe and clean.

2 . My grandparents were always busy with food. My grandmother could pull out the feathers of a chicken in less than half an hour. They picked vegetables from their garden. Animal fat was saved.     1     Nearly a decade after my grandmother died, I found myself in a kitchen, pulling out the feathers of a chicken.

It took hours and made my fingers hurt. After an adult life spent buying rather than growing food, as a so-called new farmer, I finally began to understand my grandparents.     2    

My grandparents’ generation spent a third of their income on food.     3     Food is no longer seen as public goods, but as public given resources. The ecological cost of this progress is now clear. The health costs are starting to be noticed.

But until I began talking to the farmers around me, I had not understood the human costs faced by those asked to produce milk sold for less than bottled water.     4     Called “ regenerative farming”, it was being driven by a new generation of farmers trying to find a new kind of power in the face of loss of climate change and rising fuel and transport costs.

    5     Those plants and animals worked together to help the soil become rich again. They kept living roots in the ground all year round, building up the soil’s biology and taking in carbon.

Research has found that regenerative farming not only benefits the land, but profits can be 78% higher than conventional farms.

6 . Sores Duman is a normal 29-year-old. Later in the week he will see an action movie with his mate Piebe. Before that, he may go to McDonald’s with Martey, another friend. It might take more time than usual for his friends to get ready for these activities. Piebe is 79 and Martey 94. Does Sores think his weekend plans are strange? “No, I do similar things with friends of my own age. I don’t see the difference in age as an obstacle (障碍).”

Mr. Duman lives at the Humanitas care home in Deventer, Holland. His housemates’ average age is over 85. He lives there with ten other students and around 150 elderly residents. They are part of a project that provides them with free housing in exchange for 30 hours per month living as a “good neighbour”.

Both parties appear to benefit from the programme. Mr. Duman estimates that he has saved over €10,000 per year in rent. He claims that living in a care home has not affected his university experience. “We have big parties here.” he says, “we host things from chess games to yoga classes.” In a promotional video, one resident calls the project gezelling a Dutch word that roughly translates as homelike: “Now and then they put me into the walker and race me through the hall,” she explains.

Such projects could help fight against loneliness, an increasing problem across the rich world. I goes hand in hand with social isolation(隔离). Nearly half of Britons over the age of 65 say that television or pets are their main form of company. Loneliness is also said to have serious health consequences: a study from 2015 found that lonely people had on average a 26% higher risk of dying in its seven-year study period than those who were not lonely. And the problem may get worse as social isolation is becoming more common. Creating a space for the elderly to mingle with youngsters can lift spirits—and help cash-strapped millennials (千禧一代).

7 . Music streaming platforms (平台) such as Spotify and Apple Music have completely changed how people listen to music nowadays. By paying very affordable prices, people can access music very easily. However, while these platforms may provide benefits for some artists, up-and-coming artists are being left behind because they only focus on big names and creating profits.

Because of COVID-19, musicians have not been able to tour or perform live in many countries, which contributes to a large part of their income. In a YouTube interview, up-and-coming Texas artist Mobey mentioned that “The majority of my income comes from playing live shows. Usually that means around 50% — 70% of what we expect to make in a year”. With these factors, small artists are finding it increasingly difficult to make it in the industry due to the lack of investment (投资) into new talent.

Small artists on Spotify and Apple Music can expect to make little to nothing. An artist on Spotify can expect to earn an average of $0.003 per stream or around $3 per 1,000 streams for one of their songs. On Apple Music, artists can expect to make a little more with an average of $0.01 per stream, or around $10 with 1,000 streams. Even if they could hit around 1,000 streams, they have to pay music distribution (分发) platforms needed for their music to be shown on the streaming platforms such as DistroKid, whose cheapest plan is $20.

A new artist would find it very difficult to promote their music outside of their social media accounts which may not even have a large amount of followers. They probably cannot get large amounts of streams on their music since it is not being promoted due to the lack of exposure (宣传) they have on social media.

With the takeover of music streaming platforms, many artists are finding it increasingly difficult to make a sustainable (可持续的) living from their love for music. A simple way these platforms can enable new artists to keep making music is to increase their payouts per stream for their music. Hopefully the music streaming industry will make similar changes to improve the situation of their artists.

8 . The topic “slash youth”,   referring to those refusing to be defined or bound by just one personal identity and choosing to undertake multiple careers, has fueled heated debate on social media. On Douban, a Chinese social networking platform, the topic has attracted about 11,000posts and has been viewed over 400 million times. China’s young people are keen to share their slash youth stories online, presenting themselves as multiple and sometimes distinct identities, such as a nurse and model, a teacher and stand-up comedian, and an engineer and musician.

Xing Eryang, a 31-year-old female resident in Beijing, founded the Douban topic in 2021.While staying diligent about her daytime work, she is developing her hobbies, including stand-up comedy and vlogging, into secondary careers during her spare time. And she is amazed to find her “slash life” philosophy followed by so many of her peers.

Weiheng, a 26-year-old woman in Guangzhou, and Tang Yuhan, a 27-year-old man in Xuancheng city, Anhui province, are both participants in the topic, with their stories earning thousands of likes so far. The two are both musicians in their spare time, even though they are thousands of miles apart and have different jobs in media and finance. Their passion for music has grown since college and they didn’t abandon their enthusiasm, even after entering the workplace.

Their reaction showed the gap between the young and former generations. “My parents used to say,   ‘music cannot earn you money’,   so the band thing was regarded as a waste of time. However,   we want to pursue whatever we love and are willing to pay for it.” says Weiheng.

“The ‘slash life’ mania(狂热)shows that, along with China’s economic development, our society is becoming more and more diversified and inclusive, and it welcomes everyone’s self-fulfillment,” says Shi Yanrong, an   associate researcher from Tianjin Academy of Social Sciences. “Young people no longer have to rely on work and money for their sense of self-worth. They tend to practice a carpe diem(活在当下)philosophy and create their own identities.”