While cooler fall days may be on the horizon, many students returning to school are still dealing with scorching end-of-summer temperatures. As climate change exacerbates the heat, experts say the negative effects of sizzling classrooms are here to stay, especially in school districts that may not have the resources to combat hotter weather.

How do hot classrooms affect students?
Students can often “struggle to learn in hot, stuffy classrooms,” as “air quality, temperature and ventilation” can affect how people “think, focus and perform,” said Time. These factors are aggravated in poorer school districts, where a lack of air conditioning can “impair cognitive function, while excessive heat diverts the body’s energy from learning.” Average temperatures of 80 to 90 degrees Fahrenheit and above are “known to exacerbate student absenteeism and disciplinary referrals.”

While heat has always been an issue in underfunded classrooms, it “doesn’t just affect” hotter states, Allison Poulos and Jennifer Vanos, health solutions professors at Arizona State University, said at The Conversation. Even cities in the northern U.S. are now “oppressively hot when the new school year begins in August or September, and they are only getting warmer.” Many schools have also “moved the start of the academic year earlier into the summer.” But they “lack the infrastructure — from inadequate air conditioning to fields and play areas that are not shaded — to cope.”

How are schools fighting the heat?
In Boston, classrooms averaged 100 F over several days in June, forcing teachers in “non-air-conditioned buildings to turn off lights and spritz students with water to keep them cool,” said The Boston Globe. Toward the end of this month, students in a Northern Colorado district “spent the first three school days of the year leaving class two hours early” due to heat, said CBS News.

Many districts are working to combat issues with HVAC systems, which experts say “offer schools a way to deliver reliable heating and cooling while reducing exposure to volatile fossil fuel costs,” said Time. Via “energy tax credits and a mechanism known as Elective Pay, public school districts can receive direct financial support to invest in these improvements.” 

Dating can take a toll on your emotions. Now it’s also wrecking people’s finances as “dateflation” makes standard dating-related expenses out of reach for many singles. Faced with the economic pressure of inflation, many are turning to “infladating” and going on budget-friendly dates.

Rising costs 
Finances impact “nearly every aspect of life to varying degrees,” said USA Today. Your dating life is “no exception.” Not only does the “state of the economy impact the kinds of dates people go on,” but it may also “influence who people decide to go out with.” As dating expenses continue to rise, people become “more selective about who they choose to take out.” 

On average, Gen Z spends $205 on a date, and millennials spend $252, according to CNBC analysis of BMO Financial Group’s survey of 2,501 U.S. adults. Yet nearly 47% of singles feel dating isn’t worth the money, while 48% of Gen Z and 40% of millennials say the high cost of dating is an obstacle to reaching their financial goals.

Infladating does not mean “investing less energy into your dating life,” said Vice. Rather, it’s “investing less money into it.” Effort goes a “long way with the right person.”

Better than giving up
If infladating worries people, experts note the alternative could be worse. In reality, many people are “struggling in today’s economy” and are “opting out of dating completely because it’s too expensive,” said dating coach Amy Chan to USA Today. She sees it more in her “male clients who feel embarrassed that they cannot take a date out to a nice restaurant.” If the “antidote for that is infladating,” then she’s “all for it.”

This isn’t just a dating issue but one about “how our finances and the things that impact them affect every area of our lives,” including “how we pursue relationships,” said Michael McAuliffe, the president and founder of Family Credit Management, to Vice. Basic everyday costs have been “increasing much faster than most people’s paychecks.”

Mourners gather at Oslo, Norway’s Royal Palace Square to pay their respects to King Harald V. He died this morning at age 89 after being hospitalized for a rare blood condition. He’s succeeded by his son, King Haakon VIII.
Rune Hellestad / Getty Images

Falling in love is close to a universal human experience. So it’s no surprise that audiences return again and again to see glamorous movie stars go through both the mundane and sublime beats of getting swept away, and sometimes shattered, by love, as in these brilliant films.

‘Roman Holiday’ (1953)
Audrey Hepburn plays Ann, the glamorous princess of some unnamed European kingdom, who when she falls asleep on a bench is attended to by a journalist, Joe Bradley (Gregory Peck). The movie (pictured above), rather than hitting the familiar beats of a romantic comedy, ultimately “swerves to something more poignant,” said Caroline Siede at The A.V. Club. (Prime Video)

‘In the Mood for Love’ (2000)
In perhaps the most beautiful film ever made about unconsummated love, Chow Mo-wan (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) and Su Li-zhen (Maggie Cheung) are neighbors who gradually develop feelings for one another. Director Wong Kar-wai’s movie is “ravishing beyond mortal words,” said Ed Gonzalez at Slant magazine, and its protagonists “come to resemble butterflies caught in a rainbow-tinted industrial web.” (HBO Max)

‘Portrait of a Lady on Fire’ (2019)
Writer-director Céline Sciamma’s searing love story follows Marianne (Noémie Merlant), who’s hired to paint a wedding portrait for Héloise (Adèle Haenel). The two fall madly in forbidden love. It’s a film about the “electric connection between women,” but it’s “equally about the powers of art to validate, preserve and console after a romance is over,” said Rachel Syme at The New Yorker. (HBO Max)