The cotton harvest is about to get underway in the Texas High Plains, the windswept region that grows most of the crop in the nation’s top cotton-producing state. But Barry Evans, a third-generation cotton grower, has already walked away from more than 2,000 acres (英亩) of his bone-dry fields. “It just didn’t come up. We hardly had anything,” said Evans.

Extreme heat and a lack of rainfall have severely damaged much of this year’s cotton harvest in the U.S., which produces about 35% of the world’s crop. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) forecast that more than 40% of what U.S. farmers planted in the spring would be abandoned because of drought. Nowhere is this more apparent than the flat, dry stretch of Texas. The USDA says Texas cotton farmers are likely to abandon nearly 70% of their spring planting. That has been the worst harvest since 2009.

The region normally receives around 18 to 20 inches of rain per year, but saw less than three inches of rain from August through the summer, as nearly all of Texas baked under drought. Much of the cotton grown in the region needs rain. Even those with irrigated (灌溉的) fields are expecting low yields (产量) this year.

The losses in cotton could cost the Texas High Plains $1.2 billion after farmers receive federal (联邦的) crop insurance payments, estimates Darren Hudson, director of the International Center for Agricultural Competitiveness at Texas Tech University. That leaves out others who depend on the crop, such as cotton gins (轧棉机) and storehouses. “Any time you have a bad year in cotton, it has a role to play in the overall economy,” Hudson said.

Fortunately, most cotton farmers in this part of Texas plan to use cotton seed varieties that can resist drought. Varieties are continuously developed and will be adjusted to generate high yields if dry conditions continue. “Even though it’s drought resistant,” Hudson added, “we still have to have a little bit of help from Mother Nature.”

Sahana Vij, the granddaughter of Indian immigrants, has always been surrounded by food. Her mother taught her to make tasty bread and French toast when she was 5. Now 18, Vij is a self-taught baker who’s sharing her recipes with the world through her new cookbook, Bake Away.

Featuring 20 of her original recipes, Bake Away has been in the works since her first year of high school. It hit the shelves on Oct. 26, 2021. Each recipe in the cookbook is tied to a location. The first, for CPS bread, is inspired by Vij’s memory of picking fruit in her grandfather’s garden in Temescal Valley.

The University of California Irvine first year student intends to major in literary journalism and minor in environmental science, but baking is in her blood. “I want to work at newspapers or magazines and write columns, specifically about the environment. I love to write, but my dream job is to own my own bakery,” Vij says. “That’s really my passion.”

“UCI was a good fit for me because my family is around me,” Vij says. “Family is a really big part of my life — something I can depend on — and I go visit them a lot. Each Bake Away recipe comes from a different city and a different experience I’ve had with my family.”

Her favorite is the U District cake, influenced by the tea she used to share with her mother on their monthly trips to Seattle’s University District. “It’s my whole family’s favorite recipe because it just tastes so good and because we’ve been making it more as a family over the past year. It’s kind of become a family recipe.”

The profits from Bake Away will go to No Kid Hungry, a nonprofit working to end child hunger. “Growing up, my mom and my family were really involved in volunteering, and I always wanted to give back,” Vij says. “I decided to partner with No Kid Hungry, especially because the book involves food.”

Although they face the future with a certain degree of anxiety, more than 55 percent of Chinese young people believe that hard work and diligence can improve their prospects, according to a new survey.

Data for the Survey Report on the Social Mentality of Young Chinese Netizens (2022), which was published on Thursday, was abstracted from posts and comments by nearly 5,500 active young Internet users on social media website Sina Weibo and video-sharing website Bilibili over the past two years.It said that many young people devote a great deal of effort toward improving their situation and they prefer not to put too much peer pressure on their counterparts, while they like to offer each other encouragement in their online comments.

Among the youths who clearly expressed anxiety in their social media posts 77 percent of them said they were concerned about their studies and work, while 30 percent were anxious about their health and 18 percent expressed concerns about their appearance. Those with a postgraduate education expressed a higher level of anxiety than those without, according to the survey.

As uncertainties rose in the job market due to the impact of the pandemic over the past three years, many young people expressed concerns about their future career prospects. They hoped to make the right career choices in advance but lacked real experiences in the job market, which intensified their level of anxiety.

Bilibili data shows that videos about various work skills, guidance on writing an apressive resume, and sharing job interview experiences have become increasingly popular on the platform in recent years.

A 31-year old media worker in Shanghai, who wanted to be only identified by her name Hu, said that young people in her age group in big cities face huge pressure such as finding a job with a higher sense of accomplishment and better pay as they climb the career ladder.

“In the meantime, I’m afraid that a better job will scare some potential boyfriends away. This is a dilemma for me. Also, I found from my friends and colleagues that women shoulder higher pressure in terms of appearance compared to men,” she said.