“People are ruder today because they are rushed and more 'time poor' than ever before，” says Patsy Rowe, “Manners_have_fallen_off_the_radar(雷达)．” Due to our strong attraction to electronic equipment it is a wonder more people don't wake up each morning and greet the singing birds with a complaint(抱怨)about the noise. Here are some examples of rudeness.

    Some people prefer to do almost everything over the Internet. To them, dealing with an actual human needs more patience. It feels very slow because humans don't work at 4G speeds. When you have dinner with friends, you will often notice someone paying more attention to his mobile phone. We have programmed ourselves to think that every new message brings life－changing news, so taking calls and checking our texts are more important than talking to the people we are with. What is worse, some people even tend to send anonymous(匿名的) rude messages by email.

    However, rudeness is never acceptable. Don't assume it is OK to be rude if the person you're in touch with won't recognize you. If you have something awful to say, have the courage to face the person and say it, write a letter or email and sign it, or forget it. Upsetting people with unsigned messages is cruel and disgusting.（令人厌恶的）

    We shouldn't blame technology for our shortcomings. Technology is here to help us，but we should not allow it to take over our lives. An important step is acknowledging our shortcomings. People spend a lot of time pointing out bad manners but it would be even more helpful if we'd publicly acknowledge good manners when we see them.

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    In modern society, it is usually considered good to be an extroverted(外向的) person. This means that life can be hard for introverted people. Their talents and abilities are often not recognized.

    Some people often try to make introverts more outgoing. They think that being an introvert is a problem. But there is nothing wrong about being an introvert. Introverts are not necessarily afraid of meeting and talking to others. They simply prefer to spend time on their own, away from the crowds. They like reading, writing and taking walks in the countryside. But extroverts need other people. If they spend a lot of time on their own, they get bored. They tend to be impulsive and talk a lot.

    Our society puts a lot of pressure on people to be extrovert, to be outgoing and self-confident on every occasion. Susan Cain, the author of the book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, has spoken about this problem. "I was nine years old," Cain says. "In my suitcase there were lots of books. This seemed normal to me, because in our family we always read a lot. I thought it would be the same at summer camp. But I was wrong. To create camp spirit, all the children had to sing a cheer every morning. I couldn't understand why. In the evening, I took out a book from my suitcase. But another girl said, 'why are you being so quiet?' The second time I took out a book, the counselor(辅导员) came to see me. She told me to remember the camp spirit and that it was important to be outgoing."

    At work, extroverts often do well. At job interviews, it is usually good to appear extrovert. It suggests that you will be good at the job. But it is wrong to think that only extroverts are good leaders. Introverts work in different ways to extroverts, but they can still do really great things. Darwin, for example, was a quiet, family man. He often took long walks so that he could think clearly. But Darwin's ideas about evolution were revolutionary.

    Introverts must understand that it is perfectly okay to be the way they are. It is not necessary to want to be the center of attention. You don't have to take part in noisy, social activities if you don't want to. And it is not necessary to try to become more outgoing.

    What happens inside the head of a soccer player who repeatedly heads a soccer ball. That question motivated a study of the brains of experienced players.

    Researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York selected 34 adults, men and women. All of the volunteers had played soccer since childhood and  now competed year﹣round in adult soccer leagues. Each filled out a detailed questionnaire developed especially for this study to determine how many times they had headed a soccer ball in the previous year, as well as whether they had experienced any known concussions in the past.

    Then the players completed computerized tests of their memory and other learning skills and had their brains scanned. using a complex new M.R.I. technique which can find structural changes in the brain that can't be seen during most scans.

    According to the data they presented, the researchers found that the  players who had headed the ball more than about 1, 100 times in the previous 12 months showed significant loss of white matter in parts of their brains involved with memory, attention and the processing of visual information, compared with players who had headed the ball less.

    This pattern of white matter loss is "similar to those seen in traumatic brain injury", like that after a serious concussion, the researchers reported, even though only one of these players was reported to have ever experienced a concussion.

    The players who had headed the ball about 1, 100 times or more in the past year were also generally worse at remembering lists of words read to them, forgetting the words far more often than players who had headed the ball less.

    A disastrous fire surrounded Notre Dame(巴黎圣母院)destroyed large parts of the Gothic architecture on Monday.

    "Notre Dame is our history, our literature, part of our spirit, the place of all our great events, our wars, our liberations, the center of our lives" French President Emmanuel Macron told reporters in front of the still burning Paris landmark and promised to rebuild Notre Dame.

    "Notre Dame is burning, and I know the sadness felt by so many fellow French people. But tonight, I'd like to speak of hope too, "he said, announcing the launch of a fundraising campaign.

    "Let's be proud, because we built this cathedral(大教堂)more than 800 years ago, we've built it and, throughout the centuries, let it grow and improve it. So I gravely(严肃地)say tonight: we will rebuild it together." he added.

    The disastrous fire engulfed(吞没)the upper reaches of Paris'towering Notre Dame Cathedral as it was undergoing renovations(翻新).

    Tourists and Parisians looked on horrified from the streets below. France's Interior Ministry said firefighters might not be able to save the structure.

    The fire collapsed the cathedrals' spire(尖顶)and spread to one of its landmark towers "Everything is burning; nothing will remain from the frame," Notre Dame spokesman Andre Finot told French media. The 12th-century cathedral is home to incalculable(不可计算的)works of art and is one of the world's most famous tourist attractions, due to Victor Hugo's novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

    The cause of the fire was not known, but French media quoted the Paris fire brigade(消防队)as saying the fire is "potentially linked" to a 6 million- euro($6.88 million)renovation project on the church's spire and its 250 tons of lead. Officials opened an investigation as Paris police said there were no reported deaths. Some 400 firefighters were battling the fire well into the night.

After nearly two months of relative silence among new waves ofCOVID-19 pandemic infection in Japan, organizers of Tokyo Olympics on Wednesday released the first of playbooks that will instruct athletes, officials and members of the news media on the procedures they must follow at the rescheduled Games.

Already delayed by a year, the opening ceremony is now a little more than 120 days away. Organizers must find a way to accommodate and ensure the safety of more than 10,000 athletes who view this summer as the result of years of sacrifice and training.

For now, the best that organizers could offer were the outlines of a plan. Athletes and other attendees will not be required to be vaccinated (接种疫苗) or to quarantine (隔离) on arrival in Japan, but they will be subject to severe restrictions on movement and socializing. All athletes will be required to test negative for COVID-19 within 72 hours of their departure for Japan and give in to another test on arrival.

The organizers said the documents were not an end. They would wait until spring to decide if audiences will be permitted to travel to Tokyo. If fans are eventually allowed to attend, the documents suggest they be asked to express support for athletes only in the form of clapping, rather than singing or chanting. To track outbreaks, visitors from abroad will have to file a list of everyone they have close contact with during that initial 14-day period.

Olympic officials see some reason for optimism. In many parts of the world, professional sporting events have been held for months, though often with very few or no spectators at all, and nothing as large as the Summer Games.

China's marriage-age population base staying stable

（文章来源：Global Times）

The number of marriage registrations on May 20 this year made headlines over the weekend, despite declines in a few places compared with last year. The number of couples getting married will remain stable in the coming years, based on the huge population base in China, a Chinese demographic(人口统计学的) expert said. 

May 20 has become a popular date for marriage registration among Chinese young people, as "520" is pronounced like "I love you" in Chinese, boosting sales of related products and services such as wedding banquets, roses and hotel bookings. Many Chinese newlyweds reportedly lined up overnight outside marriage registration offices to tie the knot, according to media reports. Including Beijing, Shanghai and South China's Guangdong Province, local civil affairs bureaus in multiple places on Sunday announced the number of marriages on Saturday. 

A total of4,087 couples registered their marriages in Beijing, 2,097 couples tied the knot in Shanghai, 16,000 couples married in Southwest China's Sichuan Province and 11,156 couples were registered in East China's Jiangsu Province, along with 7,155 couples in Southwest China's Yunnan Province, 6,873 couples in Southwest China's Guizhou, 6,270 couples in East China's Fujian Province, 1,195 couples in Northwest China's Qinghai Province, and as many as 12,450 couples in Guangdong. 

Experts pointed out that the number of marriage registrations on a specific day can be affected by multiplefactors such as the connotation of the date, the population base of young people of marriageable age and people's general willingness to get married. According to the National Bureau of Statistics and the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the number of marriages is declining but will still remain stable in the next few years, with a major turning point after 2035, Song Jian, a demographer from the Center for Population and Development Studies of the Renmin University of China, told the Global Times on Sunday. 

China's population base of marriage-age people will remain stable in the next few years, Song said. Although the rate of young people being unwilling to marry is on the rise, the proportion of people who never marry remains below 10 percent. "Statistics show that most Chinese people will eventually get married, but they are just putting off marriage," Song said. Compared with last year, marriage registrations in several places, including Jiangsu, Guangdong, Sichuan and Fujian fell sharply this year, which Song noted may be a result of the COVID-19 epidemic, which obstructed(阻碍) personnel flows and communication over the past two years, but the number on a specific date does not mean an overall decline of people getting married. 

Although May 20 this year fell on Saturday, some civil affairs authoritiesannounced to work 48 hours non-stop over the weekend , considering that most couples would like to choose an auspicious date to get married, since May 21, the traditional Chinese solar term Xiaoman (grain buds), was also an auspicious date according to the Chinese lunar calendar. A staffer from the marriage registration office of the civil affairs department in Rencheng district in Jining noted that the number of couples who got married over the weekend reached 400 as of Sunday afternoon, an obvious increase from 250 on May 20 last year. 

"Many newlyweds gave us a thumbs-up for our service and sacrifice, and we feel honored to satisfy those young people with our service and promote young people's willingness to get married," the staffer told the Global Times on Sunday. China's State Council approved the expansionof an inter-provincial marriage registration pilot program to 21 provincial-level regions across the country last week, a latest move to promote long-term and balanced population development, which is particularly appreciated by the migrant population, who no longer need to return to their hometowns to register their marriages. 

In the province of Guangdong, 1,813 couples have accomplished their inter-provincial marriage registration soon after the pilot program was approved. In Dong'ao village in Fujian, the place on the Chinese mainland closest to the island of Taiwan, 21 couples from Fujian and Taiwan participated a group wedding ceremony on Saturday, which is expected to promote cross-Straits affection and people-to-people exchanges through their small families.