Tracy Mumford

The birth rate has plunged to a record low.

And for the fourth year in a row, there have been more deaths than births, leaving the country's population smaller and older.

Alexandra Stevenson is the Times' Shanghai bureau chief.

She says the country relaxed its infamous one-child policy a decade ago and is now using a whole bunch of tactics to encourage people to have two, even three children.

And finally... Potentially the world's most famous chimney sweep is the one Dick Van Dyke played in Mary Poppins.

In which he did an accent that was so bad he actually apologized to the British people for it later.

The other chimney sweeps people may think of, less cheerfully, are the small children who were put to work cleaning out the flues in the 18th and 19th centuries.

It's easy to think of chimney sweeps as a thing of the past.

After central heating became all the rage, the profession definitely shrank.

But it didn't disappear entirely.

And in London, it's now making a comeback.

According to the National Association of Chimney Sweeps, demand is rising.

It's likely a combination of high energy prices and the renewed popularity of wood-burning stoves, even though scientists say indoor fires can come with health risks.

In some cases, people are reopening their fireplaces that may have been blocked off a generation before, and they need to be cleaned.

To do it, the sweeps are using decidedly modern techniques, like sending cameras up the chimney's interior or using industrial vacuum cleaners to remove the soot and debris.

Some even have drones buzzing overhead to check the state of the roof.

Given all the updates, the president of the Chimney Sweep Association said it might be more apt to call them chimney technicians.

Those are the headlines.

I'm Tracy Mumford.

We'll be back tomorrow.