Let's Learn English Lesson 24: Yesterday Was Amazing

Anna discovers a festival - the Smithsonian Folklife Festival on the National Mall. What does she learn there about Basque culture?

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London’s Position as International Financial Center at Risk

London provides nearly one-fourth of Britain’s national income. But the British vote to leave the European Union has raised questions about London’s future as an international financial center. Other European cities are watching with interest.

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English in a Minute: Suck the Air out of the Room

You might have dealt with a person or situation that "sucked the air out of the room?" Find out how to use this expression in this week's EIM!

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August 1, 2016

A look at the best news photos from around the world.

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Tokyo Voters Elect City’s First Woman Governor

  Voters in Tokyo have elected the city’s first female governor. Sixty-four-year-old Yuriko Koike received the most votes in local elections on Sunday. Koike was elected to a four-year term as governor of the Japanese capital, which is one of the world’s largest and wealthiest cities. She will help to direct work for the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympic Games. Preparations for the games have suffered for a number of reasons, including over-spending and delays on building projects. The first logo of the 2020 Olympics had to be redesigned following accusations of plagiarism. A Belgian designer claimed the image was like one of his creations. Yuriko Koike will be replacing Yoichi Masuzoe as Tokyo’s governor. He resigned after reports that he had misused public money. He was the second Tokyo governor to resign since the city won the right to host the 2020 Olympics. Koike has promised to change the city’s politics. “I want to regain the trust of the people of Tokyo,” she said late Sunday. Michael Cucek is with Temple University’s Institute of Contemporary Asian Studies. He spoke to VOA’s Victor Beattie about the election. Cucek says Koike’s win is a sign that Tokyo voters want social change. He says women have made progress in recent years. In addition, the Japanese constitution guarantees equal rights to women. However, that has not meant that women have reached the highest levels of government and business in Japan. “But even now members of the diet, members of the bureaucracy, high-level executives in corporations, particularly Japan’s biggest international corporations, the levels of female managers and the levels of female participants is still astoundingly low for an industrialized country.” Koike already served as Japan’s first female defense minister. She is a member of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, or LDP. Yet, she went against her party’s wishes to run for the governorship of Tokyo. She defeated the LDP candidate and a candidate from the Komeito Party, which is a coalition partner with the LDP. Michael Cucek says this could make governing difficult. “She goes in an extremely difficult political situation. She defied her own party in running, and thus cannot rely on the assemblymen who are LDP members or Komeito members, the other party of the coalition, and so she has no allies.” Koike promised an administration different from the ones before. "I would like, together with all of you, to run a metropolitan administration the likes of which have never been seen before," she said. Cucek says Koike faces the possibility that costs for the Summer Olympics could rise sharply. During her campaign, she said she wanted the national government to pay more of the Olympic costs. One of Koike’s first duties will be to attend the 2016 Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro. There she is to accept the Olympic flag as the next host of the games. I’m Mario Ritter.   This story was based on reporting from Victor Beattie of VOA News and other news sources. Mario Ritter adapted it for VOA Learning English. George Grow was the editor. _____________________________________________________________ Words in This Story   plagiarism – n. taking someone else’s work and presenting it as one’s own diet – n. Japan’s legislature, which has two houses participants – n. those who take part in something astoundingly – adv. surprisingly, causing wonder metropolitan – adj. related to a city and surrounding suburban areas

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Smelly 'Corpse' Flower To Bloom in Washington, DC

  This is What's Trending Today: A rare flower, called the titan arum, is about to blossom at the U.S. Botanic Garden. Unlike most flowers though, it is very smelly. Some people say the smell is like rotting flesh or a dead body. That is why the flower is sometimes called a corpse flower. Corpse is a term for a dead body. The flower comes from Indonesia where the tropical climate is warm most of the time. Washington, D.C., is warm in the summer, but it is too cold for the plant to survive outside during the winter. So the plant lives indoors in a greenhouse, where the temperature can be controlled and it is warm and humid year-round. The plant does not produce flowers each year. Once it blossoms, it may not bloom again for a number of years. The flower is actually a collection of a hundreds of small flowers working together. The titan arum produces its strong smell to attract insects. The insects help pollinate the flower and make sure the titan arum can produce the next generation. The bad smell only lasts about two days. After that, the plant goes dormant again. The U.S. Botanic Garden has shown five other titan arums since 2003. This is the first time the six-year-old plant has blossomed, and people are excited.   The garden is open to visitors longer than usual each day so people can see the flower. It is supposed to be smelliest at night. There is also a live webcam so people can check the status of the plant.    Last week, the same kind of plant bloomed at a garden in New York City. Many people posted videos and photos on Facebook and Twitter.  The one in New York opened on Friday. By Monday, it was not smelly anymore. And that's What's Trending Today. I’m Dan Friedell. Dan Friedell wrote this story for Learning English. Mario Ritter was the editor. Have you ever seen a plant like this? How did it smell? Write to us in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page. _______________________________________________________________ Words in This Story   blossom – v. to produce flowers flesh – n. the soft parts of the body of an animal or person greenhouse – n. a building or part of a building that has glass walls and a glass roof and that is used for growing plants bloom –v. the opening of a flower from a bud bloom –n. an opened flower pollinate – v. to give (a plant) pollen from another plant of the same kind so that seeds will be produced dormant – adj. not doing anything at this time : not active but able to become active  

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Early Bedtime for Young Children Could Cut Obesity Risk

  For VOA Learning English, this is the Health & Lifestyle report. Getting a good night’s sleep tonight could guard children against weight gain in the future. According to a new study, putting preschoolers in bed by 8 p.m. could reduce their chances of becoming overweight or obese later in life by half. Preschoolers are children around the age of 4 or 5. The term ‘obese’ refers to calculations of your Body Mass Index, what doctors call BMI. They use a person’s height, weight and age to assess their amount of body fat. BMIs help tell whether a person is underweight, normal, overweight or obese. The World Health Organization says obesity can lead to serious long-term health problems like diabetes, heart disease and stroke. Researchers from the Ohio State University’s College of Public Health have found that young children who go to bed after 9 p.m. are twice as likely to be obese later in life. The researchers wrote their findings in The Journal of Pediatrics. The lead author of the study is Sarah Anderson. She is an associate professor of epidemiology. She studies how diseases spread and how they can be controlled. Anderson says that, for parents, the results of the study support the importance of creating a bedtime routine. She says that having a usual bedtime routine is something “families can do to lower their child's risk” of becoming overweight. A usual, early bedtime, Anderson adds, “is also likely to have positive benefits on behavior and on social, emotional and cognitive development." Researchers used data from 977 children for the study. These children are part of a larger project called the Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development. The project follows healthy babies born in 1991 in 10 U.S. cities. The children were 4 ½ years old when their mothers reported their usual weekday bedtime. Researchers then divided the children into three groups: those who went to bed by 8 p.m. or earlier, those who went to bed between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. and those whose bedtimes were after 9 p.m. When these children turned 15 years old, the researchers looked at their rates of obesity. Of those with the earliest bedtimes, only one out of 10 was obese. Of those who went to bed between 8 and 9 p.m., 16 percent became obese. And out of those with the latest bedtimes, 23 percent became obese. Anderson said putting children in bed early does not mean they will immediately fall asleep. But, she adds, it makes it "more likely that children will get the amount of sleep they need to be at their best.” But Anderson says it is important to understand that having early bedtimes may be harder for some families than others. She says that, “families have many competing demands and there are trade-offs that get made.” For example, she says, if some parents work late, that can push the children’s bedtimes to later in the evening. Is childhood obesity a worldwide problem? Obesity among children in the United States is a major health concern. About 17 percent of children and teenagers in the U.S. are considered obese. That is according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The World Health Organization reported in 2014 that the number of overweight babies and young children worldwide had increased from 31 million in 1990 to 44 million in 2012. If that trend continues, the WHO warns, there will be 70 million obese children in the world by 2025. I’m Anna Matteo.   Reporters in the VOA Newsroom put this report together. Anna Matteo adapted this story, adding additional information from World Health Organization reports. Ashley Thompson was the editor. ______________________________________________________________ Words in This Story   preschool - n. a school for very young children obese - adj. fat in a way that is unhealthy assess - v. to make a judgment about (something) epidemiology - n. the study of how disease spreads and can be controlled routine - n. a regular way of doing things in a particular order cognitive - adj. of, relating to, or involving conscious mental activities data - n. facts or information used usually to calculate, analyze, or plan something trade-off - n. a situation in which you must choose between or balance two things that are opposite or cannot be had at the same time trend - n. a general direction of change

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Group Warns of Rising ASEAN Land Grab Conflicts

  An international human rights organization says Southeast Asia is facing increasing conflicts and violence over land grab activity. A “land grab” relates to taking land quickly, forcefully and often illegally. In this case, the International Federation for Human Rights says governments need to strengthen legal reforms to protect local people from investors seeking land for business use. Economic growth but local conflict The call comes as the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, sees significant economic growth. If ASEAN were a single country, it would be the world’s seventh largest economy. The group’s foreign investment reached $136.3 billion in 2014. But this economic growth has led to conflicts between local communities and investors. While businesses seek land for factories and plantations, local residents and farmers are often forced to leave their land. These evictions can lead to violence and displacement.   Cambodia The International Federation for Human Rights says land grabbing has displaced more than 800,000 people in Cambodia since 2000. It says the practice of land grabbing is a serious crime and has filed a case with the International Criminal Court. Many land grabs in Cambodia are related to the sugar industry. The global aid group Oxfam has urged international sugar buyers to carry out policies against land grabbing. Two of the world’s largest sugar buyers are the beverage companies Coca-Cola and PepsiCo. Coca-Cola is now investigating its key sugar suppliers. PepsiCo says it has adopted a global “zero tolerance” policy for land grabs. A major sugar producer is called Mitr Phol. The company is based in Thailand and has operations in Cambodia. In 2008, the Cambodian government granted the company access in a remote northwest province for sugar production. Rights groups said that, at the time, the 200 square kilometers of land was occupied by 2,000 families. One villager told VOA that the Cambodian government forcibly evicted the entire community. “When the soldiers came I had already escaped. But I heard from a landlord later they had burned all the houses,” the villager said. The Thai Human Rights Commission said Mitr Phol caused the “collapse of the community” after taking over the land. Those allegations, along with pressure from sugar buyers, eventually led the company to leave Cambodia. Myanmar The International Federation for Human Rights says land grabbing is also a big problem in Myanmar. The government has estimated that more than 800,000 hectares of land across Myanmar is considered “confiscated.” The country’s Farmland Investigation Commission was set up in 2012 to investigate land grab cases. The new government of State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi has set a priority of settling land disputes. Debbie Stothard is secretary general of the IFHR. She says it will take “wide-ranging reforms” to Myanmar’s legal system to solve the problem. I’m Bryan Lynn. Ron Corben reported this story for VOAnews.com. Bryan Lynn adapted it for Learning English. Kelly Jean Kelly was the editor. We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments section, and visit our Facebook page. ________________________________________________________________ Words in This Story   eviction – n. the forcible removal of people from where they live displacement – n. the forced departure of people from their homes zero tolerance – n. a complete refusal to accept certain behavior landlord – n. the owner of a house or apartment who rents to other people confiscate – v. the taking of property by an established authority  

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US Skydiver Completes 7,600-Meter Jump Without Parachute

  An American skydiver has survived a 7,600-meter jump from an airplane although he did not use a parachute. Luke Aikins dropped into a huge safety net on Saturday after falling for about two-minutes over the desert in California. Aikins reached a speed of 193 kilometers per hour during the jump. He fell safely into a 30-meter by 30-meter net. Cranes held the net about 65 meters over the desert floor. Aikins became the first-ever skydiver to land safely without a parachute. The 42-year-old husband and father has jumped out of planes many thousands of times. But never once had he left a plane without a parachute. Aikins said he was nervous before this jump. “We’re talking about jumping without a parachute,” he told reporters. “I take that very seriously. It’s not a joke.” Aikins prepared for two years to make the jump. Three skydivers with parachutes made the jump with him. They video recorded the event and carried equipment Aikins needed, like an oxygen mask. He removed the mask after falling about 2100 meters. Aikins rolled in the air just moments before he hit the net so as to land on his back. The net stretched deeply. The skydiver did not move for several seconds as the net was lowered to the ground. Then, Aikins stood, waved his arms and hugged his wife. I’m Caty Weaver.   The VOA news staff wrote this story. Jim Dresbach adapted it for Learning English. Caty Weaver was the editor. Have you ever jumped from a plane? We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section or visit our Facebook page. ________________________________________________________________ Words in This Story   nervous – adj. having or showing feelings of being worried and afraid about what might happen stunt man – n. a man who takes an actor’s place during the filming of stunts and dangerous scenes for a movie or TV show oxygen mask – n. a mask worn over your nose and mouth so that you can breathe oxygen from a storage tank

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Scientists in Poland Work to Save Honeybees

Honeybees are in danger worldwide. Their homes -- known as “colonies” -- are suffering from what scientists call Colony Collapse Disorder. Scientists have linked the disorder to infections from harmful microorganisms and pesticides -- products meant to kill other insects. Researchers also have blamed a sharp drop in the honeybee population to loss of the bees’ natural habitat. Polish researchers are working on ways to save honeybees. One of the diseases that affect honeybee colonies in Poland is nosemosis, also called nosema. It is a common fungi-based disease that affects adult bees. Aneta Ptaszynska is a researcher with Maria Curie-Sklodowska University. “Infected worker bees live for a very short time in the summer, about eight to 12 days, while they normally live 36 days. So the productivity of the whole bee family decreases and bees also have problems with passing (the) winter...” Scientists believe some pesticides weaken the bees’ natural resistance against disease. This makes it difficult for them to fight parasitic organisms. After eating food or drinking water containing pesticides, the bees begin to act strangely and soon die. Scientists believe nosema is one of the main reasons the number of bees has dropped by 50 percent in Poland over the past 15 years. Polish scientists say they have found a natural substance in flowers that is more than 90 percent effective in saving bees. They have created a drug from it. The drug is now being tested. Scientists are warning that insecticides designed to kill mosquitoes carrying the Zika virus can also harm bees. They say such products should be used in affected areas only when it is dark -- after bees are asleep. And they say only chemicals that kill the mosquito larvae should be used. Michael Steinkampf is a beekeeper. “This particular strain is very toxic to mosquito larva but when it’s put in the water it doesn’t hurt the bees at all.” I’m Christopher Jones-Cruise.   VOA's George Putic reported this story from Washington. Christopher Jones-Cruise adapted the report for Learning English. George Grow was the editor. We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section, or visit our Facebook page. ________________________________________________________________ Words in This Story   pesticide – n. a chemical that is used to kill animals or insects that damage plants or crops habitat – n. the place or type of place where a plant or animal naturally or normally lives or grows fungus – n. any one of a group of related plants (such as molds, mushrooms, or yeasts) that have no flowers and that live on dead or decaying things (singular of fungi) parasite – n. an animal or plant that lives in or on another animal or plant and gets food or protection from it insecticide – n. a chemical substance that is used to kill insects larva – n. a very young form of an insect that looks like a worm strain – n. a kind or sort of something (usually + of) toxic – adj. containing poisonous substances

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July 31, 2016

A look at the best news photos from around the world.

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