The government in China ended his one-child policy and let families have two children instead in 2015.

    A Chinese Communist Party statement gave a number of reasons for the change in policy. The statement said the change is meant to balance population development, stop a falling birth rate(出生率)and strengthen the country's labor force(劳动力). China, with the largest population in the world, started the one-child policy in 1980. But the government allowed only a small number of couples to have two children. For example, some families in the countryside could have two children, if the first-born is a girl.

    In 2013, the Chinese government gave other couples a chance to have two children if one of them was an only child.

Jiang Quanbao, a teacher and population expert, explained how Chinese families react(反应) to the newest policy. "Too many young people in the cities are no longer interested in having a second child," he said. "People in the countryside are more interested. But some of them are already allowed to have two children." At the end of 2014, China had a population of 1.37 billion people. A total of 800 million of them have jobs. But the labor market need of labor by the year 2050. With the two-child policy, an increase in births can solve this problem.

    Boys and girls, what do you think of the two-child policy? Do you want to have a new-born brother or sister?

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    Around the world, there are about 7,000 National Parks. Most of them cover huge areas of land where nobody lives. However, the National Parks in England include places where people live and work, as well as wild areas where there are few human activities.

    The National Parks in England are called “England's Breathing Spaces” because they are places where people can go to be in the open air, away from the dirt and noise of cities. They provide wonderful scenes of mountains, woods, grasslands and wetlands. And there are plenty of activities to do in all of the National Parks in England. Visitors can walk or ride bikes for fun. Many of the parks put on activities for families.

    Every year there are about 110 million visitors to the parks, bringing many benefits(益处) to the areas. At the same time, it creates problems too. First, life can be difficult for local people. Car parks and roads are too crowded. Gift shops and cafes take the place of many everyday shops. Even house prices in some areas can become too high. Besides, country roads can be damaged, for too many people walk, cycle or ride horses on them. Roads can be rebuilt, but then they look less natural. Another big problem to the National Parks is litter. In the parks it is a danger to wild animals. Broken glass can also cause fires by focusing the rays of the sun. Such fires in wild places can be out of control.

    ▲   ? All National Parks in England are making more rules, which tell people how to take good care of their environment. If these rules are followed, the National Parks will be well kept and continue to give pleasure to many people for a very long time.

    When you are waiting on a phone call with a pen in your hand or feeling bored on a train, you may probably doodle(涂鸦). Consultant Graphology(笔迹咨询师)Tracey has studied the most common doodles and their meaning in a new piece of research. Here she shares the psychology(心理学)behind those doodles.

    The biggest secret about inventing is that anybody can do it! Perhaps this sounds crazy, but it's true. Maybe you have the wrong idea about inventing, so read on to discover the truth.

    Wrong idea No. 1: An invention has to be something completely new.

    Inventing means creating something "new", but the idea could come from something that already exists(存在). The Wright brothers, for example, got the idea for building a "flying machine" from watching birds.

    Wrong idea No. 2: Inventors are born, not made.

    There are a lot of factors(因素) that make invention possible. Take Mazart, for example. He was born with a talent for musical composition. But other factors were also important for his creativity. His father was a music teacher, and Mozart practiced for hours every day, from the time he was four years old. Thomas Edison said that being an inventor was "99% hard work and 1% inspiration"!

    Very successful creators don't give up when they get something wrong. As one inventor said, "A failure is the right answer to the wrong question."

    Wrong idea No. 3: Inventors are always old people.

    Don't believe that you can't invent something when you are young. Here are two examples of young inventors: Louis Braille went blind when he was a child. When he was fifteen, he invented a system of reading and writing for blind people that is still used in most countries today.

    As a young man, George Nissen was watching some artists performing in a show. He watched how they fell into the safety net and then jumped back up again. This gave him an idea, and he invented the trampoline(蹦床).

    Every day there is less and less space on Earth for rubbish. Yet every day we make more and more rubbish. What can we do? We can recycle some of our rubbish. Recycling means that the rubbish will be made into something that can be used again.

    Recycling helps Earth. And it saves space in rubbish dumps(垃圾场). Half of everything that we put into landfills could be recycled instead. In fact, most things made of paper, metal, glass and plastic can be recycled.

    Paper  can  be  broken  into  small  pieces  and  made  into  new  paper. Steel and aluminum cans(金属罐) can be melted down(熔化) and made into new cans. The same is true of glass bottles. This can be done over and over again. Recycling doesn't take as much energy as making these things the first time. So we can use less of Earth's fuel resources.

    Plastic can be melted down, too. Then it can be formed into park benches(长椅), playgrounds and so on. Some people call plastic the "wood" of the future. Things made of plastic will last about 400 years—even if they stay outside in the weather. No wood can do that!

    Thang-ga is a special kind of painting. It started from the Tang Dynasty. Thang-ga paintings have attracted the public's attention in recent years. At the same time, the Chinese government has also tried hard to protect the culture.

    Thang-ga paintings were developed in the 7th century in the Tibetan area. The paintings are colourful and the paints used in Thang-ga paintings are different from those in other paintings. Because of the special environment of the Tibetan Plateau (高原) and the excellent painting skills, the colours of Thang-ga paintings look special. The paints in Thang-ga paintings in the past were made from minerals, including gold, silver, as well as some plants. Since they were made by hand, the beautiful colours could last for hundreds of years.

    However, with the development of machines, people now use cheaper and more easily-made chemicals to make paints. The traditional paints in Thang-ga paintings needed too much work and there were many secret methods. Later people stopped making the paints and forgot about them. So the skills were almost lost.