Each year the Pritzker Architecture Prize (普立兹克建筑奖) goes to a star designer with a long list of attractive buildings around the world. This year's winner is a little different.

    Shigeru Ban has designed museums, homes and concert halls. But Ban is best known for a more simple kind of work: the temporary (暂时的) buildings for people who became homeless after disasters.

    Ban may be the only designer in the world who makes buildings out of paper — cardboard paper tubes (管). Ban actually tested the strength of cardboard tubes, and said he was surprised by what he had discovered. He has used them to build temporary buildings in Japan, Haiti, China and elsewhere.

    “After a disaster, the building material is going to be more expensive,” Ban explains. “But the paper tube is actually not a building material. It is cheap and plentiful. We can get the material easily anywhere. And unlike costs for traditional building materials, the price of paper tubes doesn't jump after an earthquake or flood. The tubes are also lightweight, so you don't need heavy machines to work with them.”

    Ban started using cardboard paper tubes in the 1980s. At that time he had just graduated from the architecture school, and he was looking for a cheap substitute for wood. So he started reusing the paper cardboard tubes that were left over from rolls of paper in his office.

    Ban was born in Tokyo and studied architecture in the U.S. before moving back to Japan to start his practice. Some of Ban's temporary buildings have become permanent (永久的), like the paper church he built after the 1995 earthquake in Kobe, Japan.

    The end of the school year is in sight — Christmas cards, candy canes and of course, end of year reports.

    While most parents welcome an assessment of their kids' performance, they do not expect their own input to be evaluated. But a school in the UK is changing that. As well as assessing their students, they are dishing out grades to mums and dads. Parents that are really involved in their kid's education are rewarded with an A, and parents that haven't done their bit get a disappointing D.

    The school, Greasley Beauvale Primary in Nottinghamshire, uses criteria such as whether mums and dads have attended school events such as plays and parent-teacher conferences to decide on the grade. The school's principal, Donna Chambers, said that the scheme (方案)had been well received.

    “There were some critics, but my response was 'well, it can't do any harm'. Between 15 percent and 20 percent of parents started out in the lower categories but now that has been reduced to just two percent,” she explained.

    Chambers hopes that the scheme will help motivate parental involvement. “The system is important because you have got to get the parents on board from day one. That one hour initial conversation saying they could improve will pay dividends for the rest of that child's academic life”, she said.

    But while the scheme may be well-intentioned, it is likely to be connected with parent shaming. There are lots of reasons why some mums and dads might not be involved in school activities such as work commitments, looking after younger children or caring for elderly relatives.

    And of course, being involved in your kid's education doesn't begin and end at school. There is a lot that goes on behind the scenes from helping with homework to keeping uniforms freshly laundered. And what about all the parents who stayed up sewing special costumes at the last minute? Surely that earns a gold star instead of a grade!

    I can proudly say that last year I broke the record for the oldest person in the world to ride a roller-coaster. I'm 105, but I feel younger. Even the doctor agrees I'm in good condition. I'm a bit deaf and my legs feel weak, but they are the only issue.

    I rode the Twistosaurus at Flamingo Land, which spins you round quite fast. I didn't choose to go on that. I'd have preferred a really fast one that went upside down. But I was told I couldn't ride something like that, because my blood pressure could drop and I might have some danger.

    I wasn't nervous — I don't get frightened of anything. I was securely fastened, so I knew I wouldn't fall out. The roller-coaster ride went on for three or four minutes, and it couldn't be a better experience. And I raised a lot of money for the Derbyshire, Leicestershire & Rutland Air Ambulance fund, which was fantastic.

    People were saying I'd got a place in the Guinness World Records. Later, someone came to present me with the certificate. I had it on the wall in my living room, with another one that got a year earlier.

    My record-breaking ways really began a couple of years ago, with the ice-bucket challenge. It turned out that I was probably the oldest person in the world to do it, and the video was very popular. After that, I stared to think about what else I could do to raise money for different charities.

    I'm not sure if anyone admires all the fun I'm having. They just say I'm daft and that's about it. But I've had many good days and many exciting times. I've had a really good life. I don't think I've wasted any of it.

    Nowadays six Amazon Scout delivery robots rolled out in a pilot program in Snohomish County, Wash. The robots carry meals, groceries and packages to homes and offices in this region just north of Seattle. They have appeared on the sidewalks of London, Beijing and other cities and communities worldwide. These machines must overcome pedestrian legs, naughty dogs and broken pavement, which raises some questions.

    These services are gaining attraction as a growing number of city residents expect immediate or scheduled delivery for just about everything. Between 2017 and 2018 online retail sales in the U.S. increased by 16 percent. On the final step of all these deliveries, called the last mile, humans on bicycles, motorized scooters (电动车) or large delivery trucks typically deliver packages. All the vehicles compete for space on busy urban streets. "Deliveries are trending upwards in all crowded city centers, and if city and state leaders don't start thinking about creative solutions like robot deliveries, we can expect even worse traffic jams," says Paul Mackie, director of a transportation policy research center in Arlington.

    A study by this center found 73 percent of delivery vehicles in Arlington were parked outside of authorized areas, often blocking bike lanes and crosswalks. By moving the last step of deliveries from the road to the sidewalk, cities could reduce traffic jams and solve the parking problem entirely, Mackie says.

    Companies such as Amazon are not developing this delivery technology simply to clear up urban traffic. Self-driving vehicles and sidewalk robots could cut down last-mile delivery costs in cities by as much as 40 percent, according to a 2018 report by a consultancy firm. A delivery robot can cost thousands of dollars to manufacture, and most currently require human management and conservation. But in the long run companies that use autonomous delivery vehicles in the next several years could end up saving billions of dollars, the report stated.

    Video producer and musician Justin Scholar enjoyed his fantastic moment weeks ago when he spotted his latest work playing on a huge electronic screen at New York's Times Square.

    "It's sort of the American dream to see your name up inlights,'' says the 25-year-old New Jersey native. “I'd never really cared about my name being that big, but going to New York and seeing the big screens, you always wonder if your work is going to make it up there.

    The video that helps Scholar fulfill his "American dream" was shot and produced in China, where Scholar is living and working as a media company owner. Scholar took his first Chinese class in high school seven years ago and made his first trip to Shanghai in 2015 through a study-abroad program when he was a student in New York University. The film and TV major changed his focus from technical art to traditional arts during his study in Shanghai, spending most of the time learning ink-and-wash painting, calligraphy and the guzheng, a traditional Chinese musical instrument. He also fell in love with the city, where he ate a lot of authentic xiaolongbao, or steamed meat buns, and felt safe walking on the streets at 3 am.

    Shanghai impresses Scholar as an efficient, modern city calling for greater business prosperity with foreign participation, so he returned two years later, when his career at home was already booming after making commercials for big names such as Coca-Cola and Jaguar.

    Thanks to a combination of luck and talent, he achieved the goal soon with a Chinese friend as his business partner, and the company has already produced some 15 videos for pop icons, fashionistas, and art museums in merely six months. The video that plays at Times Square, a tourism promotionalfilm for southwest China's Chongqing city, is the company's first project contracted(签合同) by a local government in China.

    Can you imagine a world without music？Studies show that public schools across the country are cutting back on music classes to save money. Worse, some schools have never had music classes to begin with. But without them, students' academic growth and emotional health could suffer. In fact, music classes are necessary for all students in schools.

    Recent studies by Brown University have shown that students who received music education classes were better in math and reading skills than those without music classes. Another study by The College Board found that students taking music and art classes got higher points. Students' academic success seems to depend on their taking part in music education.

    Music programs in public schools also help to add to a student's sense of pride and self-confidence. Teens today have too many learning tasks. Besides, they have family problems, self-confidence problems, relationship troubles, and choices about drugs and alcohol. All of these can stop academic success, but music education can help. A study by The Texas Commission on Drug and Alcohol Abuse found that students who took part in school music programs were less likely to turn to drugs. Music programs encourage students to work together to produce an excellent performance.

    Music crosses language, class, cultural and political boundaries (界限). Music allows students from different countries to connect. For example, at a school talent show, a new Japanese student played a piano duet (二重奏) with an American classmate. Although they could not communicate verbally (口头上), they were able to read the music in order to play the duet. Two students from different cultures worked as a team with self-confidence and common purpose through music.

    The gift of music is priceless. We need to be sure to have necessary music classes for all students. The world is losing its music, and putting music into schools is the first step to get it back.