Friday, March 9, 2018

Lesson 24: Yesterday Was Amazing!

Summary Anna discovers a festival - the Smithsonian Folklife Festival on the National Mall. What does she learn there about Basque culture? Speaking Learn to pronounce the new words for this lesson. You also learn about the words people use in English when they cannot remember a word, or they do not know a word.  Pronunciation Use this video to learn about three ways to pronounce the past tense ending of regular verbs. Conversation   Anna:  Yesterday was the most amazing day. I want to tell my friend back home about it. So, I am writing her a letter! Anna:  Dear Penelope, Life in Washington, D.C. is interesting. I see something new every day -- like yesterday. Yesterday started like a usual work day. Anna:  I said, "Yesterday started like a usual work day." Anna's voice: I was at work. And I wanted a break. So, I walked and walked … and walked. Then, I saw something! It was a festival -- a big festival! Anna: It is the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. Anna's voice: Yes. It was the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. Every year the festival shows different cultures. This year one of the cultures was the Basque culture. There was dancing and food and games!” Anna: I am dancing a traditional Basque dance. Anna's voice: At the festival, I danced a traditional Basque dance! Anna: They are cooking traditional Basque food. Anna's voice: They cooked a lot of traditional Basque food. Anna: They are playing a game. It’s a kind of handball. What do they call it? They call it pilota! Anna's voice: They played a game with their hands and a small ball. It’s a kind of handball. But this game is called pilota. Anna: This is beautiful! This is traditional Basque art. Anna: They are making a traditional Basque ship. This festival is a lot of fun! Anna's voice: The whole day was a lot of fun! Anna:  Who said that? I want to write my friends and tell them about my day! Anna:  … So, I wanted to tell you about my day! Please, my friend, come visit Washington, D.C. soon. There is a lot to do! Until next time … Anna. Writing Tell about a party or festival in your town.  Write to us by email or in the Comments section. Click on the image below to download the Activity Sheet and practice using the past tense with a friend. Learning Strategy Learning Strategies are the thoughts and actions that help make learning easier or more effective. The learning strategy for this lesson is Substitute. When we are speaking a second language, we often do not know a word. That is the time we can substitute a phrase or another word, and continue speaking. In the video, you can hear Anna telling about the game. She does not remember the name at first. They are playing a game. It’s a kind of handball. What do they call it? They call it pilota! Anna uses a phrase, "It's a kind of handball," to tell about the game. She is substituting that phrase for the Basque name. Then she remembers the name, pilota. How about you? Do you sometimes substitute a word or phrase for an English word you do not know? Write to tell us how you use this strategy in an email or in the Comments section. Teachers, see the Lesson Plan for more on how to teach this strategy. Quiz ​Listen to short videos and test your listening skills with this quiz. This week's quiz also tests your learning strategy knowledge. ______________________________________________________________ New Words was - v. past tense of the verb "be" in first or third person (I was; he/she/it was) Basque Country _- n. region of Spain culture - n.  the beliefs, customs, or arts of a particular society festival - n. an organized series of performances handball - n. a game for two or four players who use their hands to hit a ball against a wall interesting - adj. attracting your attention and making you want to learn more about something or to be involved in something  said - v. past tense of the verb "say" traditional - adj. following the tradition of a certain group or culture Past tense verbs start - started want - wanted walk - walked dance - danced play - played call - called ______________________________________________________________ Free Materials   Download the VOA Learning English Word Book for a dictionary of the words we use on this website. Each Let's Learn English lesson has an Activity Sheet for extra practice on your own or in the classroom. In this lesson, you can use it to practice the past tense. For Teachers   ​See the Lesson Plan for this lesson for ideas and more teaching resources. Send us an email if you have comments on this course or questions. Grammar focus: Regular past tense verbs Topics: Festivals and cultural traditions Learning Strategy: Substitute Speaking & Pronunciation Focus: Voiced and voiceless past tense pronunciations; Substituting one word for another ______________________________________________________________ Now it's your turn. Send us an email or write to us in the Comments section below or on our Facebook page to let us know what you think of this lesson.

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What It Takes - Steve Rosenberg

00:00:02    OPRAH WINFREY: "Hattie Mae, this child is gifted," and I heard that enough that I started to believe it.   00:00:08    ROGER BANNISTER: If you have the opportunity, not a perfect opportunity, and you don't take it, you may never have another chance.   00:00:14    LAURYN HILL: It all was so clear. It was just, like, the picture started to form itself.   00:00:19    DESMOND TUTU: There was no way in which a lie could prevail over the truth, darkness over light, death over life.   00:00:27    CAROL BURNETT (quoting CARRIE HAMILTON): “Every day I wake up and decide, today I'm going to love my life. Decide.”   00:00:35    JOHNNY CASH: My advice is, if they're going to break your leg once when you go in that place, stay out of there.   00:00:40    JAMES MICHENER: And then along come these differential experiences that you don't look for, you don't plan for, but boy, you’d better not miss them.   00:00:52    ALICE WINKLER: This is What It Takes, a podcast about passion, vision, and perseverance from the Academy of Achievement. I’m Alice Winkler, and thanks for joining us.   00:01:06     Every episode, we pull an interview out of the Academy’s vault. These are interviews with amazing people, people whose lives and work have stood the test of time and continue to inspire. But on this episode, we’ve got an interview that was done so recently, it hasn’t made it into the vault, so why are we rushing to get this one on? Because it is about a doctor whose research is helping revolutionize the way cancers are going to be treated in the future.   00:01:37     For certain cancers, in fact, the revolution is already well underway. It’s called immunotherapy. So who doesn’t want to hear a story, ASAP, about someone successfully kicking cancer’s butt? Meet Dr. Steve Rosenberg, chief of surgery at the National Cancer Institute. His story, told to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Mary Jordan, is riveting.   00:02:03    STEVEN ROSENBERG: When I was a resident in surgery, I was rotating through the West Roxbury VA Hospital. This was as a junior resident.   00:02:10    ALICE WINKLER: It was the mid-1960s.   00:02:12     STEVEN ROSENBERG: And I was working in the emergency ward, taking care of people who were coming in, and this patient came in with right upper quadrant pain. It looked like a typical gallbladder attack. He was a 68-year-old man. And I pulled out his chart because we were going to take him to the operating room to take out his gallbladder, and this remarkable story unfolded. Twelve years earlier he had come to this same VA hospital. He had had a cancer in his stomach, a gastric cancer. He had been operated on. They opened the belly, and they saw the cancer. They saw it had spread to the liver.   00:02:43     They biopsied the tumor in the liver. They could do nothing, and they closed the belly, saying that there was nothing more that could be done for this fellow. Well, they gave him an appointment to come back in three months. They never expected to see him, but sure enough, three months later he showed up.   00:02:57     ALICE WINKLER: And his tumors seemed to be shrinking.   00:02:59     STEVEN ROSENBERG: Six months later, he was gaining weight — and I’m turning the pages — and a year later he was back at work, and here he was 12 years later looking perfectly healthy with some right upper quadrant pain due to a gallbladder stone. So it was one of the first operations I did as a junior resident. We took out his gallbladder. We examined his belly thoroughly, and all of the cancer was gone.   00:03:22    MARY JORDAN: What did you think?   00:03:23    STEVEN ROSENBERG: Somehow his body had figured out how to eliminate his cancer. It’s one of the rarest events in all of medicine, a spontaneous regression of cancer in the absence of any treatment. I’ve only seen that one other time in my entire career of well over 5,000 cancer patients that I’ve treated.   00:03:44    MARY JORDAN: And what did that lead you to do or to think?   00:03:46    STEVEN ROSENBERG: Well, what that told me was that somehow the body, in this particular patient, had the tools to eliminate his own cancer. And the major body function that can protect us against outside influences like viruses, bacteria, and maybe even cancer is the immune system, and I thought that perhaps this patient’s immune system had recognized his cancer as a foreign invader, the way it does the flu virus and so on, and had eliminated it.   00:04:16    And that set me then on the trail of trying to see if I could reproduce that in other patients.   00:04:22    ALICE WINKLER: In other words, could he find a way to fire up the body’s immune system so it would annihilate the invading cancer cells? Dr. Rosenberg didn’t invent the notion, but it had been abandoned decades before in favor of chemotherapy and radiation.   00:04:41    Dr. Rosenberg could not shake what he’d seen in that one patient, and he hasn’t shaken it since, not through the rest of his residency, and not in the 42 years he has served as chief of surgery at the National Cancer Institute, a branch of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), located in Bethesda, Maryland. Rosenberg was appointed chief of surgery in 1974 and began his post the day after finishing his residency. He’s now 76, and it is the only job he has ever had.   00:05:17    Over those 40-plus years, developments in other areas of medicine have been key to helping Dr. Rosenberg and other scientists make leaps forward in immunotherapy. He started doing this work, for example, well before the human genome was mapped and well before there was a way to manipulate immune cells, or lymphocytes, outside of the body.   00:05:39    STEVEN ROSENBERG: And so one of the first things we tried, which in retrospect was very naïve scientifically, is we tried to immunize experimental animals with a patient’s cancer and use their lymphocytes — because the lymphocytes are the immune warriors in the body — use that animal’s lymphocytes to treat the patient. And so we looked for which animal would be most likely to produce cells that would react against the patient’s cancer, and quite unfortunately, it turned out to be mini pigs had immune systems that seemed most relevant, which was a little bit of a problem for my father.   00:06:13    I was brought up as an Orthodox Jew and was quite religious when I was growing up. I’ve wandered. And when I would describe this to my father and tell him that we were going to take pig lymphocytes and put them into a patient, he was horrified. But if it could help people, then, of course, that’s acceptable in any — certainly in the Jewish religion, but it didn’t work.   00:06:35    ALICE WINKLER: Now that Dr. Rosenberg has brought it up, seems like a good time to talk about his personal background. We’ll get back to the research in a minute, but his early life story will give you some insight into what gave this man a determination rare among mortals.   00:06:51    STEVEN ROSENBERG: You know, neither of my parents went past the fifth grade in school. I mean they were caught in the war in Europe and immigrated here in their late teenage years. They were smart. They were smart, and they would help me a lot and give me insights about life. My dad owned a luncheonette in downtown Manhattan, a small store, and I would work behind the counter when I went to high school.   00:07:18    Working at a luncheonette every day after school showed me that that’s not what I wanted to do with my life. And I realized that to break away from that kind of activity, that kind of atmosphere in life, I was going to have to work hard to do something that I thought was a lot more meaningful.   00:07:40     ALICE WINKLER: And he had a pretty clear idea early on what that was going to be.   00:07:44    STEVEN ROSENBERG: I knew from the time I was six or seven that I was going to be a doctor and that I was going to do research, and I had scrapbooks of research that I would pull out of newspapers and magazines. I was lucky enough to go get an education at a place like the Bronx High School of Science, which stimulated young people to think about science. And I was lucky enough to have parents who could help me get to college — I went to Johns Hopkins; I went to medical school at Johns Hopkins — who could give me that opportunity to accomplish and to take advantage of whatever talents I might have.   00:08:21     ALICE WINKLER: It’s a classic story of the American Dream made good: the child of uneducated, hard-working immigrants in the Bronx sets his sights high, and then rises even higher, landing at the frontiers of medicine.   00:08:36    STEVEN ROSENBERG: But again, I want to emphasize the influence that taking care of cancer patients had on me. I mean it’s a holocaust. I mean here are people that for — innocent people who develop cancer that’s widespread through no fault of their own, and their family has to stand by and watch them suffer and die and not be able to do anything about it. It’s an enormous motivating factor to feel as if you have to do something for those people.   00:09:11    And I think that’s part of why I got into this in the first place. I was born in 1940, and so when I was six, seven years old, that was a time when, on a regular basis, we were getting postcards from Europe about this particular relative died in Auschwitz, and this one died in this concentration camp. And at age six or seven, it just seemed inconceivable to me that people could suffer to that degree — to be perfectly innocent, and yet, suffer themselves and have their families watch them suffer.   00:09:49    That’s really what cancer is, and I see that every day when I walk into a patient’s room and I’m taking care of a patient and their family is sitting there. It's — to me, it's — I decided quite early on that I wanted to do something that would help people who are innocent and suffering. And to me, cancer, when I was a resident and saw those patients, it represented that kind of goal.   00:10:14     ALICE WINKLER: And from the beginning, to achieve that goal, Steve Rosenberg did some extraordinary things. In the middle of his residency, for instance, he took off four years to get a Ph.D. in biophysics from Harvard, trying to absorb whatever he could that might help him in his quest.   00:10:33    STEVEN ROSENBERG: Well, of course, there’s no substitute for a wide knowledge base. I wanted to learn. I was studying quantum mechanics. I was studying differential equations. Some of the early papers that I wrote were — would be indecipherable now in terms of the difficulty of their mathematics to me. But I wanted to lose my fear of what I did not know. I wanted to feel as if I had enough base of knowledge in a wide variety of scientific fields such that I could draw on any one of those fields and bring them to bear on a problem. And I had to develop the confidence that if I didn’t understand something and I had a good book, I had the scientific background to actually understand virtually anything I wanted to work on.   00:11:16    ALICE WINKLER: Steve Rosenberg approached his life’s work with a vigor that cannot adequately be described with words as common as “dedicated.” It is as if he saw a train coming toward him on the track and has been trying to outrun it ever since.   00:11:30    STEVEN ROSENBERG: There have probably been 40 days in the last 40 years when I have not been in this hospital when I’ve been in town. So I come in every Saturday to make rounds, Sunday to make rounds, spend a few hours going over data. You have to be willing to immerse your life in a subject if you’re going to take on a really difficult problem — so that when you’re taking a shower, you’re thinking about it. When you’re stopped at a red light, you’re thinking about it. You have to immerse in the problem so that not only are you learning facts when you read about them, but you’re always thinking about modifications.   00:12:03    ALICE WINKLER: And does he ever take time to read for pleasure?   00:12:06    STEVEN ROSENBERG: You know, I love to read, but every time I pick up something to read that doesn’t deal with the science, that doesn’t have something to do with what I think I can use, there’s a guilt associated with taking the time to do that. So once a year, I and my family go down to North Carolina for a week, and for the entire year I save up books that I’m going to read during that one week.   00:12:32    ALICE WINKLER: So how did he manage to raise a family while keeping the kind of laser focus on work that he describes? Take a guess.   00:12:40    STEVEN ROSENBERG: Very early on, my wife, Alice, actually said to me, she said, "Look, what you do is important. You go do it, and I will try to relieve you of many of the normal life burdens so that you can do your work." And she’s done that for the last 48 years of our marriage. So I think that helped me a lot as well when —   00:13:01     MARY JORDAN: What do you do for fun?   00:13:05    STEVEN ROSENBERG: Well, when you say “fun,” there are enormous ups and downs and pleasure in doing scientific research. I mean an exciting result that you worked on for a long period of time can be an ecstatic experience, so that’s fun. Of course, that comes with the agonies of defeat, as well, when things don’t work, but I don’t have hobbies. And in fact, when I get applicants — and I get applicants from all over the world, from fellows who want to work in the lab, and at the end of their resume if they list a long list of hobbies, I toss that into a different pile because I don’t want people with hobbies.   00:13:41    I want people who are going to immerse in the work. Now, I really enjoy watching basketball games, and so sometimes late at night I will have copied a game, and before I go to sleep I’ll watch some of it. But other than that, I get joy from the science and from the work that I do here.   00:14:03    ALICE WINKLER: It’s a joy terribly tempered, though, by those agonies of defeat, as he calls them. Dr. Rosenberg is talking about years of unrelenting heartbreak, watching patient after patient after patient succumb.   00:14:17    STEVEN ROSENBERG: Well, the darkest time was when we were trying to develop immunotherapies when no one had ever gotten it to work. And so we treated a whole series of patients, every one of which was a terrible tragedy. I remember a young woman who had a sarcoma, and she was 23 years old and had four young children. And we had treated her, and it hadn’t worked, and she had a recorder that she was recording messages to her children, who would then hear it when they were older and could understand what she had gone through because she was no longer going to be here.   00:14:54    I mean I was confronting that kind of tragedy every day, never knowing that immunotherapy actually one day would work. But it was that 67th patient that we treated that responded when I knew we were onto something important. Then we knew it was possible, and once we knew it was possible, everything changed because once you know something's possible, you have ways then to begin to work on improving it.   00:15:20    ALICE WINKLER: “The 67th Patient.” That could very well be the name of the movie one day made about Steve Rosenberg’s crusade against cancer, a movie focused on his breakthrough moment in 1984.   00:15:33    MARY JORDAN: Tell us about the 67th patient.   00:15:37    STEVEN ROSENBERG: So we had treated 66 patients in a row, trying to use a particular growth factor that stimulated lymphocytes inside the body and a particular kind of cell that we thought was important. And we treated 66 patients in a row, all of whom had advanced cancer. None of them had responded and all went on to die of their cancer. It was only the 67th patient — she was a young woman who had melanoma that had spread throughout her body.   00:16:08    She had received multiple treatments and was told that there was nothing more that could be done. In fact, she was told to — suggested that she go to Europe and go on a vacation because she didn’t have very much longer to live. Well, she came to us, and we treated her, and she was the first patient ever to respond to immunotherapy.   00:16:29    And I remember her coming back for her first follow-up. We give the treatment. Often, when it’s working, we know within one or two months, and we didn’t see a lot of change in the nodules that were growing in her skin, so we didn’t know whether the treatment was working or not, but we biopsied one of those. We removed them so we could learn to see if anything was happening. We try to learn from patients that don’t respond as well as ones that do. And when we went down to the pathology department and I looked under the microscope, at the pathologist, at this lesion we had removed, all the cells were dead. There was no viable cancer left.   00:17:04    MARY JORDAN: What did you think right then? I mean did your heart start racing?   00:17:07    STEVEN ROSENBERG: Well, it seemed remarkable, but we hadn’t seen a lot of change in the patient at one month. Well, when she came back for the second month of follow-up, all of the tumors were starting to disappear. And I told her about the biopsy result that we had performed, and her tumor went on to go away completely. But she later told me that she went home after that visit and had her family all get together for what they called a “dead tumor party.” It was quite a moment.   00:17:39    MARY JORDAN: Were there moments when you thought about giving up?   00:17:44    STEVEN ROSENBERG: One of the things about treating cancer patients is they present such a desperate problem that when you confront them, it's very hard to think of not trying to do something that will help. We only treat patients that come to us when there's nothing else available to them, and we offer our experimental treatments, and very often they don’t work. And in fact, the most difficult times that I have are having to sit with a patient who has come to us as their last hope and having to sit down with them and tell them that, in fact, it looks like this treatment has not worked.   00:18:26    And I think unless I knew that I was going to go back to the laboratory and try to learn something from that patient and keep working on it, it would be almost impossible to bear.   00:18:39    ALICE WINKLER: The 67th patient, by the way, Linda Taylor, is still in remission more than 30 years after her treatment. These days, Dr. Rosenberg’s success rate with metastatic melanoma and a couple of other cancers is much higher. He now gets to be the bearer of good news about 60% of the time, when a patient's cancer has shrunk significantly, and great news about 25-30% of the time, when a patient's cancer is gone.   00:19:07      STEVEN ROSENBERG: A remarkable patient that I treated quite recently was a young woman, a kindergarten teacher, who had cancer throughout her body again. Nothing had worked. We gave her the latest of our treatments, a cell transfer treatment where we identified cells in her body that could recognize her cancer and give them back, and all of her cancer disappeared. And last Christmas, she sent me a card, and on the card was a photograph with all of her kindergarten students lined up one after the other, each one holding a placard.   00:19:37    One had a T, and the other had an H, and the other had an A, and it spelled out "Thank you," and then she was standing at the end of it. It was quite emotional.   00:19:46    ALICE WINKLER: That patient’s name is Shea Birnie, and she joined Dr. Rosenberg at the end of this interview with journalist Mary Jordan to tell her own side of the story. When she first met Dr. Rosenberg, she had stage 4 melanoma. It was in her lungs and liver, and she had been given no more than ten months to live.   00:20:06    SHEA BIRNIE: He affected my whole family and all of my friends and everyone around me. I mean everybody was crying, and they were scared, but everybody was excited when I was in NIH. And so I can appreciate that life is full of passion and full of miracles, and all you need to do is open your eyes to them because Dr. Rosenberg has made, you know, a tremendous miracle.   00:20:36    I mean there are little miracles in this world, and then there are big ones, and he makes big ones. I mean I'm a preschool teacher, so I was in the middle of teaching preschool, and there's nothing more, like, terrible to think about than you're a preschool teacher — and that was actually one of my worst fears, is that I was going to die and that these little preschoolers were going to have to learn about death, you know, before I feel like any preschooler should have to learn about it.   00:21:05    And I was like — I said, "I don't want that to happen," and —   00:21:10    STEVEN ROSENBERG: Now I'm going to start bawling.   00:21:11    SHEA BIRNIE: So I mean it's like — I think it's just that — you know, it's just that I feel very lucky to be a part of what he has created. And it wasn't my time. And he has given me the opportunity to really try to still continue to make impact on children and, like, to create these little Dr. Rosenbergs.   00:21:36    MARY JORDAN: Do you remember when he told you that you were going to make it?   00:21:40    SHEA BIRNIE: I do. It was kind of different. I had gone — I was, like, a year-and-a-half into the protocol, and I had gone to clinic, and I was waiting in the room. And you kind of know because you go to clinic often. They’re scanning you often, and when I went in at a year-and-a-half, everybody was, like, kind of excited. Everyone’s like, "Shea’s here!" They're like, "Shea’s here!" And I was like, "Why are they all saying, ‘Shea’s here?’"   00:22:08    I’m like, "Hi, I’m here," you know. I was like — the team was — it was the receptionist and the people that were taking my blood work. And I didn’t know why, and then all of a sudden they’re like, "Well, we’d like you to come into the room right away." And usually it takes just a little bit of time for the doctors to come around, and usually — but that day they rushed me back.   00:22:30    And one of the attendings, Dr. Phan, walked in, and shortly after that, the door opened wide and Dr. Rosenberg was there, and he had a big smile on his face, and I was like — he said, "You are cancer free." He said, "You're virtually cancer free," and he said, "Not only that but somebody that is virtually cancer free to the stage that you're at, the cancer almost never comes back." And so —   00:23:02    MARY JORDAN: What was your reaction?   00:23:04    SHEA BIRNIE: I mean I was — actually, at that point, it was — I was almost stunned, and it was then, it was — and then we were all crying.   00:23:15     ALICE WINKLER: Shea Birnie says that she knew she was in good hands the minute she came under Dr. Rosenberg’s care — something about his manner, his brilliance, and his humanity. It’s clear as day, she said, to both the patients and the staff.   00:23:30     SHEA BIRNIE: Everybody on the team loves Dr. Rosenberg. And he brings that energy, I think, that passion and that love of, like, saving people. I mean that takes incredibly special people to create — you know, because you’re dealing with people that could die, and he creates this passion and this, like, this energy — that people get very excited about cancer and really saving people’s lives. And being able to endure the hard, incredible things when you’re, like, brought to death and back again. Because you’re brought to — I was brought to death and to life again, and —   00:24:12    STEVEN ROSENBERG: It’s a tough treatment. It’s tough, and Shea had a lot of courage in dealing with it because we first have to wipe out the patient’s immune system so we can replace it with an immune system that can fight the cancer. And that’s a new kind of approach, and it’s not easy, but Shea was always, "I’m ready."   00:24:30    SHEA BIRNIE: Yeah.              00:24:31    STEVEN ROSENBERG: “I’m ready.” We always tell patients everything that we know. We never keep anything from patients, and sometimes that’s difficult, but we feel it’s very important, especially when you’re using an experimental treatment, something that’s never, ever been done before. It’s important that people know what they’re getting into and what the results have been and what’s going to be involved in the next step, and Shea was always very courageous about it.   00:24:55     So as we tell people what their current situation is and what we’re going to do, we tend to be optimistic. I think cancer patients deserve optimistic doctors.   00:25:07     ALICE WINKLER: Steve Rosenberg doesn’t fake his optimism for the sake of his patients. It’s real, and it’s one of the keys to his perseverance, as Francis Collins will attest. Collins, who once led the Human Genome Project, is the director of the National Institutes of Health, which makes him Steve Rosenberg’s boss.   00:25:25    FRANCIS COLLINS: Steve Rosenberg is a hero in this field. No question about it. He has labored on this issue of how you could get the immune system to be an ally in fighting off cancer for decades. And frankly, it's been a tough go, and many people, as recently as ten years ago, would have said, "This is just not a productive area. We should stop trying because it isn't ever going to work."   00:25:51     Now, here we are, ten years after that skepticism, where everybody would agree that cancer immunotherapy is just about the hottest science going anywhere, and some of that is by identifying pathways where the cancer cells very cleverly send a signal to the immune system, saying, "Go to sleep. It's okay, nothing going on here. Nothing to see." And we can block that signal now, and the immune system wakes up and goes, "Whoa! What's going on over there?" And it goes after it.   00:26:20     And some of it is actually teaching immune cells what to do, taking them to graduate school and teaching them, "Hey, there's a cancer over here. We're going to give you the tools you need to go after it." You know, Steve never wavered. He was determined that “There's something here. We just have to keep trying, and we're going to figure out what it is.” And he's also an incredible, compassionate human being. He never stepped away from his desire to help people and to know who they were.   00:26:49    I mean you watch Steve interact with a patient. This is not just an academic conversation. This is a caring physician trying to help.   00:26:58    STEVEN ROSENBERG: When I lie awake at night, I don’t think of the patients, like Linda, that had good results, whose cancer has disappeared. I think of the people that we have failed, and so I take, obviously, joy and pleasure from seeing people recover, and we can cure patients with widely metastatic cancer now with immunotherapy. But I always have about a dozen patients with advanced cancer in the hospital at any one time. And I’ll walk into one room, and the patient will be doing well, and their cancers are going away, and we’re laughing, and the family is shaking hands, and they’ve heard about all these wonderful results.   00:27:39    But I’ll walk into the next room, and it hasn’t worked, and every patient is despondent, and the family is crying. So it’s the great leveler, what I do. It keeps me focused on what’s important.   00:27:55    ALICE WINKLER: Dr. Rosenberg’s focus, as always, is on continuing to improve the outcomes for his patients with melanoma and kidney cancer and smoking-induced lung cancer. Those have all been proven responsive to immunotherapy, but he says the biggest challenge in the field right now is to figure out how to target the technique at other cancers, of the colon, the ovary, the pancreas, etcetera.   00:28:21    STEVEN ROSENBERG: I'm finally getting the hang of it, after these 42 years, and I think we're going to see enormous progress — enormous progress — in the next five to ten years.   00:28:31    ALICE WINKLER: Optimism. Just what the doctor ordered. I’m Alice Winkler, and this is What It Takes from the Academy of Achievement.   00:28:48    Thanks to the Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation for making What It Takes possible. See you in two weeks.   END OF FILE

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Kim-Trump Meeting Met with Caution

A meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un seemed unthinkable only months ago. In the last year, the two leaders have exchanging strong insults and threats raising fears of armed conflict on the Korean Peninsula. The U.S. president has and continues to promise “maximum pressure” against repeated North Korean nuclear and missile tests. On Thursday night however, Trump accepted Kim’s invitation for a meeting by May to discuss “denuclearization.” Trump expressed hope on Twitter, saying “Kim Jong Un talked about denuclearization with the South Korean Representatives, not just a freeze. Also, no missile testing by North Korea during this period of time. Great progress being made but sanctions will remain until an agreement is reached. Meeting being planned!” Reactions from Korea and Japan South Korean President Moon Jae-in called the development a “historical milestone” that will put the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula “really on track.” But many observers advise caution. North Korea has long sought a one-on-one meeting with U.S. leaders. And Trump has agreed to meet without pre-conditions. Robert Kelly is a professor at South Korea’s Pusan National University. He told Reuters the meeting is a reward to North Korea. Kelly added, “It extends the prestige of meeting the head of state of the world’s strongest power and leading democracy. That is why we should not do it unless we get a meaningful concession from North Korea. That is why other presidents have not done it.” Daniel Russel is a former U.S. assistant secretary of State for East Asia and the Pacific. He said, “The North has made peace overtures in the past that did not hold up under scrutiny. Also remember that [North Korea] has for many years proposed that the President of the United States personally engage with North Korea’s leaders as an equal — one nuclear power to another. What is new isn’t the proposal, it’s the response.” From Japan, the English-language Japan Times called it “an opening – nothing more – with North Korea.” In an editorial, it says, “caution must be the watchword of any discussions, however. Talks are welcome, but their goal must be the rollback and eventual elimination of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. Negotiations can never legitimate Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions or accept its status as a nuclear-weapon possessing state.” Lee Jin-gon is a professor of political science at Kyung Hee University. He told the Korea Times, "My view is that Kim offered the peace gesture to his U.S. counterpart as a last resort to overcome the regime's internal crisis." Welcome development Some were more hopeful for a different result with the upcoming meeting. Robert Galluci said, “This is a surprising and welcome development. If representatives of both governments can meet, and a summit ultimately is held, it would represent substantial progress in reducing tension and the risk of war.” Galluci served as the chief U.S. negotiator during the 1994 North Korean nuclear crisis. There was no immediate reaction from China. However, the state-run Global Times published and editorial welcoming the talk. It said, “China will welcome the dialogue between the US and North Korea, and resolutely support North Korea securing its due interests in the process of denuclearization. Through these efforts, China's interests will not be pushed aside.” American Senator Lindsay Graham of South Carolina expressed hope for peace. But he offered a warning to the North Korean leader. He said, “A word of warning to North Korean President Kim Jong Un ‘the worst possible thing you can do is meet with President Trump in person and try to play him. If you do that, it will be the end of you and your regime.” I’m Mario Ritter.   Hai Do wrote this story for VOA Learning English. Mario Ritter was the editor. ________________________________________________________________ Words in This Story   milestone –n. an important point in the development of something prestige –n. respect or attention someone or something gets for being successful or important scrutiny –n. carefully examining someone or something in a critical way engage –v. to be involved in, to take part in elimination –n. the process of removing something ambition –n. a goal or aim, something a person hopes to do or accomplish gesture –n. something said or done to show a feeling or attitude regime –n. a form of govenment

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English @ the Movies: 'See You On The Other Side'



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Thursday, March 8, 2018

Thinking About Using -ing Words?

  In the English language, putting two -ing words together often is not only natural but correct. Listen to an example: I’ve been avoiding going to the doctor. In today’s Everyday Grammar, we will look at examples of when two or more -ing words appear next to each other. What's the present participle? To understand why two -ing words can appear in a row in English, you must first understand the present participle. A present participle is a word that is formed from a verb and ends in -ing. For example, the present participle of the verb to avoid is avoiding. The present participle is used with the verb to be to form the continuous tenses. For instance, a few continuous tenses of to avoid include are avoiding, was avoiding and has or have been avoiding. But, the present participle can also act as a gerund or an adjective. Consider the verb to sing. The present participle is singing. Listen to an example of singing as a gerund: Singing is my favorite activity. As an adjective: The singing man was happy. And as part of a continuous verb tense: The man was singing in the rain. verb + gerund One common situation in which two -ing words can appear next to each other is when the first -ing word is part of a continuous verb tense and the second -ing word is a gerund, as in the first example: I’ve been avoiding going to the doctor. Here, have been avoiding is the present perfect continuous form of to avoid. Going is the gerund. Here’s another example: I’m considering buying a home in DC. Here, am considering is the present continuous form of the verb to consider. Buying is the gerund. go + gerund Two -ing words can also appear together in what we call “go + gerund.” Go + gerund is an example of the verb + gerund construction. In English, we add the verb to go to certain recreational activities. These activities include fishing, swimming, shopping and skating, plus more than a dozen more. Because of this, when go is in the continuous verb tense, you will see two -ing words together. Listen: I’m going shopping in Alexandria next weekend. In this sentence, am going is the present continuous form of the verb to go and the gerund is shopping. Here’s another: We’re going skating on Friday in the sculpture garden. In this sentence, are going is the present continuous form of the verb to go and skating is the gerund. Note, however, that you will not see two -ing words together when go is not in the continuous tense with these activities. For example: “We went skating in the sculpture garden last Friday” is still part of the go + gerund structure. verb + adjective Another English construction in which two -ing words commonly appear next to each other is the verb + adjective structure. Listen to the example: The noise is becoming irritating. In this example, is becoming is the present continuous form of the verb to become and irritating is an adjective that describes the noun noise. Here's another: I’ve been hearing disturbing stories about that place. In this example, have been hearing is the present perfect continuous form of the verb to hear and disturbing is an adjective that describes the noun stories. three -ing words You may be surprised to know that, in English, it’s also possible to put three -ing words together. Listen to an example: We’re considering going fishing near Providence or Newport. No one would look at you strangely if you said this because it sounds natural in English. In this sentence, are considering is the present continuous form of the verb to consider. And, going fishing follows the go + gerund construction. But, if you wanted to express the same meaning in another way, you could say, “We’re thinking about going fishing near Providence or Newport.” Notice that there are still three -ing words close together, but the preposition about separates the first two. However, many examples of three -ing words together do not sound natural. Listen to this example from the website English Stack Exchange: Some doctors are considering stopping recommending high-carb diets. According to the website, this sentence is grammatically correct. However, it sounds less natural than the example about fishing. Now, listen to a sentence with the same meaning. Some doctors are rethinking recommending high-carb diets. It sounds a little better than the original example. But this next one sounds better: Some doctors are rethinking their recommendations of high-carb diets. These examples sound more natural in English. Putting three -ing words together is often complicated and can sound unusual. So, until you’ve mastered English, you should probably avoid it. However, in many situations you can feel comfortable using two -ing words in a row. I’m Alice Bryant.   Alice Bryant wrote this story for Learning English. Kelly Jean Kelly was the editor. _______________________________________________________________ Words in This Story   row – n. a straight line of people or things that are next to each other gerund – n. an English noun formed from a verb by adding -ing recreational – adj. done for enjoyment skating – n. the activity or sport of gliding on skates or a skateboard (gerund of the verb to skate) sculpture garden – n.  an outdoor garden dedicated to the presentation of sculpture irritating – adj. causing annoyance, impatience or anger preposition – n. a word or group of words that is used with a noun, pronoun, or noun phrase to show direction, location, or time, or to introduce an object high-carb – adj. having a high number of carbohydrates grammatically – adv. in a way that relates to the rules of grammar original – adj. happening or existing first or at the beginning

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News Words: Alternative

Do you know what an alternative is? Find out in this week's News Words.

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Trump Approves Tariffs on Steel, Aluminum, Exempts Canada, Mexico

President Donald Trump has approved measures adding 25 percent tariffs on steel entering the United States and 10 percent tariffs on imported aluminum. The new taxes are to go into effect in 15 days. The president signed the measures in a ceremony at the White House on Thursday. Workers employed by U.S. steel and aluminum manufacturers attended the event. The president, however, is permitting exceptions to the tariffs for metal imports from Canada and Mexico. Both countries are currently negotiating with U.S. officials to change the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The president spoke at a cabinet meeting Thursday morning. He said U.S. officials “have a right” to drop or add countries to the list of exceptions. Officials said those exemptions would be made on a “case by case” and “country by country” basis. Earlier, Trump wrote on Twitter, “We have to protect & build our Steel and Aluminum Industries while at the same time showing great flexibility and cooperation toward those that are real...and treat us fairly on both trade and the military.” Talk of the tariffs brought warnings of a trade war from Europe and China. One European Union official even said the EU would target goods from areas governed by Trump’s Republican Party. Reaction from China The president has argued that the tariffs would prevent low-cost imports, especially from China, from hurting U.S. industries and jobs. In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi warned a “trade war” would hurt all parties and called for negotiations. He added, “China will, of course, make a proper and necessary response.” China had a record $375.2 billion goods surplus with the United States last year. Trade tensions between the world’s two largest economies have risen since Trump took office in 2017. Although China exports little steel to the United States, its huge steel production has driven down the price of steel across the world European reaction In Brussels, European Commission Vice President Jyrki Katainen said the EU has told the U.S. that tariffs were a bad idea. He said the U.S. lost thousands of jobs when it ordered tariffs on steel imported from Europe in the 2000s. Another official was firm in his response. “If Donald Trump puts in place the measures this evening, we have a whole arsenal at our disposal with which to respond,” said Peter Moscovici of France. He serves as the European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs. The European measures could include tariffs on American oranges, tobacco and bourbon, he said. Some of the goods are produced in parts of the United States where Trump is popular. Moscovici said he wanted American lawmakers to know that imposing tariffs “would be a ‘lose-lose’ situation.” Internal opposition to tariffs Trump’s plan to tax steel and aluminum imports has faced growing opposition from congressional Republicans and American businesses. Many were worried about possible effect on the economy. More than 100 Republican lawmakers wrote to Trump, “We urge you to reconsider the idea of broad tariffs to avoid unintended negative consequences to the U.S. economy and its workers.” Tom Donohue is president of the United States Chamber of Commerce, an organization representing American businesses. He said, “We urged the administration to take this risk [of a trade war] seriously.” On Tuesday, Gary Cohn, the president’s chief economic advisor, announced that he would leave the White House. Cohn has long argued for free trade and against tariffs. I'm Jonathan Evans.   Hai Do wrote this story for VOA Learning English. His report was based on information from the Associated Press and the Reuters news agency. The editor was George Grow. Write to us in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page. _______________________________________________________________ Words in This Story   tariff - n. tax on goods coming or leaving a country basis - n. a fixed pattern or system of doing something flexibility - adj. easily changed response - n. something that is done as a reaction to something else arsenal - n. a group of things or weapons that are available to be used disposal - n. available for someone to use negative - adj. harmful or bad consequence - n. something that happens as a result of a particular action

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Meatballs Around the World

  You may not know it, but March 9 is a day to celebrate the meatball. That’s right. It’s International Meatball Day! Nearly all of the world’s cultures have some kind of meatball. This delicious food combines meat -- pork, fish, beef, ostrich, chicken, you name it – with spices, bread or rice, maybe egg and some kind of fat. The ingredients are mixed and formed into a ball and then cooked in many different ways. People around the world also have different ways of serving and eating meatballs. We add them to soup. We roast them on sticks. We bake them and then stuff them into bread. We deep-fry them in hot oil and eat them with gravy. We cook them in sauce and add them to pasta.    Most meatballs have some things in common. For one, they are easy to eat. They use easy-to-find ingredients. You can make a meatball out of just about any kind of meat. And they developed as a way to make the available meat feed as many people as possible. In a story for the website Serious Eats, writer Chris E. Crowley describes 20 popular and tasty meatballs from around the world.  He begins with the meatball that may have started it all: kofta. While it is difficult to know for sure, many food historians agree this meatball originated in Persia. Crowley writes that Persians introduced kofta to Arab cultures. And they, in turn, brought kofta to Italians. Before long, the meatball had spread all over the world. Today, kofta appears all over the Middle East, in the Mediterranean and parts of South Asia.  A meatball by another name still tastes great! Meatballs with all sorts of names can be found everywhere from northern Europe to New York City to Vietnam.  Swedish people are famous for their Swedish meatballs, called köttbullar. They are often served with gravy, along with boiled potatoes and a special lingonberry sauce. ​One of Denmark’s most popular foods is a small, pan-fried meatball made of cut pork. Danes call it frikadellar. Crowley says these meatballs are found in many countries “where Danes have immigrated or colonized.” Asian countries have many kinds of meatballs served in soups. One type of meatball found in China is called Lion’s Head. It is a large, soft meatball made of finely cut pork. And they are often served with cabbage. Vietnamese meatballs, called bò viên, can be made with beef, pork or chicken. They are especially chewy and springy. You might find them in a bowl of Vietnamese pho. Italian versus Italian-American meatball In the United States, Italian-American meatballs are generally bigger than those found in Italy. We usually make them with ground beef, pork, turkey, or a combination of meats. And we serve them with tomato sauce and pasta. In fact, in the U.S., spaghetti and meatballs is one of the most popular food pairings. People of all ages enjoy a big bowl of this dish – even children who are extremely picky eaters. And many restaurants have it on their menu.  But Italian-American meatballs are not the same as Italian meatballs. So this is where our story will end – the Italian versus Italian-American meatball debate. Italians themselves have a much different kind of meatball. Their traditional polpette are small. The kind of meat used to make the polpette depend on which part of Italy you are in. And while meatballs are easy to find in restaurants here in the States, many food websites claim that in Italy meatballs are more of a home-cooked food. Italians usually eat them as a main course in a simple soup – and not on pasta. Serving meatballs with pasta is a food custom started by Italian-American immigrants, like my grandfather. My father’s father emigrated from Italy when he was 15 years old. Grandpa Giuseppe’s dirt floor basement had shelves filled with jars of homemade tomato sauce. Grandma Lina made the best meatballs that would cook for hours in Grandpa’s sauce, which he made from fresh tomatoes, peppers and basil from his garden. So, I know if I were to find a restaurant in Italy that serves spaghetti and meatballs, it is probably only meant for American tourists. But that does not change the fact that it is a delicious dish that even the pickiest of children love, and a comfort food that reminds you of home. We left out a lot of meatballs. Tell us about the meatballs in your country! Are they a comfort food for you, too? I’m Anna Matteo.   Anna Matteo wrote this story for Learning English. Ashley Thompson was the editor. _______________________________________________________________ Words in This Story   ingredient – n. one of the things that are used to make a food, product, etc. roast – v. to cook (food such as chicken, potatoes, or beef) with dry heat in an oven or over a fire bake – v. to cook (food) in an oven using dry heat stuff – v. to put a seasoned mixture of food into (something that is being cooked) deep-fry – v. to cook (food) in a deep layer of oil or fat gravy – n. a sauce made from the juices of cooked meat lingonberry – n. the fruit of the lingonberry that resembles a cranberry in size and tart flavor and may be eaten raw but is often used in jams, syrups, baked goods, ice cream, juices, and wine and is sometimes pickled springy – adj. returning to an original shape when pressed down, twisted, stretched, etc. picky – adj. very careful or too careful about choosing or accepting things : hard to please garden – n. an area of ground where plants (such as flowers or vegetables) are grown comfort food – n. food that is satisfying because it is prepared in a simple or traditional way and reminds you of home, family, or friends  

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Indonesian Islamic University Bans Burqas on School Grounds

  An Indonesian state Islamic university faced criticism this week after it barred female students from wearing full-face veils. University officials say the veils were banned because of fears over the spread of extremist ideology at the school. Many Muslim groups and activists object to the ban. They say the Quran, Islam’s holy book, requires women to cover themselves in public. Indonesia is home to the world’s largest Muslim population. Religious experts say most Indonesian Muslims practice a moderate form of Islam. But the country has experienced a rise in the number of more conservative clergy and religious centers. The full veil, or burqa, ban was announced at the Sunan Kalijaga State Islamic University in Yogyakarta, on the island of Java. The university said it had 41 students who wore burqas. It said they would be offered guidance at meetings and asked to take off the veil if they wanted to graduate from the school. Reaction to burqa ban The Islamic Defenders Front campaigns against activities it considers un-Islamic. In a statement, the group said the policy “did not make sense” and was in conflict with Indonesia’s efforts to protect diversity. At least one women’s rights activist criticized what she described as a limitation on the freedom of women to wear what they want. “Using full-face veils is a choice and we cannot interfere in their choice and their freedom,” said activist Lathiefah Widuri Retyaningtyas. She spoke to the Reuters news agency. Yudian Wahyudi serves as rector at the Sunan Kalijaga State Islamic University. He said radicalization of Islam, as evidence of the burqas, was harmful to learning. “Female students wearing the burqa, and radical groups, they are disturbing the teaching process,” he said. “We are putting moderate Islam forward.” He added that the policy was a “preventive action to save the students.” University students would be permitted to continue using customary headscarves that do not cover the face, he said. The French news agency AFP reports that another Yogyakarta-based school, Ahmad Dahlan University, has also proposed a ban on the veils. But there would be no punishment for students who refuse it. A school official added, "But during exams, they cannot wear it because officials have to match the photos on their exam ID (identification) with them, which is hard if one is wearing the [veil].” A recent study showed that nearly a fifth of high school and university students support the establishment of a caliphate over the current government. The finding has concerned many Indonesian officials. The government is struggling to contain the growing influence of both peaceful and militant Islamist groups in the world’s third-largest democracy.   George Grow adapted this story for VOA Learning English based on reports from Reuters and Agence France Presse. Hai Do was the editor. ______________________________________________________________ Words in This Story   veil – adj. a cloth worn by women as a covering for the face or head practice – v. to carry out; to perform graduate – v. to successful complete a study program diversity – n. the state or condition of having many different forms or ideas; having people who are of different races or cultures in a larger group rector – n. the head of a university or school; a member of the clergy disturb – v. to interfere with radicalization – n. to make people accept more extreme beliefs headscarf – n. a cloth covering all or most of the top of a woman’s head caliphate – n. a state or country under the leadership of an Islamic clergyman We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section.  

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11 Nations Sign Trans-Pacific Trade Deal Without US

  Eleven countries in the Pacific region have signed a major Asia-Pacific free trade agreement in Santiago, Chile. The deal is a new version of the Trans-Pacific Partnership from which the U.S. withdrew last year. The agreement is called the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, or CPTPP. The deal is aimed at reducing import taxes and putting in place trade rules for member nations. The countries represent 500 million people and more than 13 percent of the world economy. With the U.S., the agreement would have covered 40 percent of the world economy. US withdrawal from Trans-Pacific deal U.S. President Donald Trump announced the withdrawal from the TPP trade pact soon after he took office. The move was a main campaign promise he made during the 2016 presidential election. In January, Trump signaled the U.S. was reconsidering its policy at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. He said the U.S. would be willing to rejoin the agreement if the U.S. could get “a much better deal than we had.” The Trump administration is currently renegotiating another trade deal, The North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico. It is also set to approve taxes of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum imports in an effort to protect those industries. The president has said he is willing to show flexibility to nations that are “real friends” on the proposed tariffs. Leaders of many nations, however, have criticized developing U.S. trade policy saying it is becoming increasingly protectionist. Canada, Japan lead changes to trade deal In the last year, Canada and Japan led the remaining 11 countries involved in the TPP to a revised agreement in January. The final version of the deal was released in New Zealand on February 21. Reuters news service reports that more than 20 provisions have been suspended or changed in the final version of the CPTPP agreement. These include rules on intellectual property which the U.S. objected to during the earlier TPP negotiations. Kimberlee Weatherall is a professor of law at the University of Sydney. She says many changes have been made to provisions in the new CPTPP. “They have suspended many of the controversial ones, particularly around pharmaceuticals,” she said. New rules are believed to increase intellectual property protections for drug companies. Some governments and activists object to such rules because of concerns about increasing the cost of medicines. Other countries signing the deal are Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia and Mexico. New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam are also included. Heraldo Munoz is Chile’s minister of foreign affairs. He called the agreement a strong signal “against protectionist pressures, in favor of a world open to trade, without unilateral sanctions and without the threat of trade wars.” Once signed, lawmakers in each of the countries will have to approve the trade agreement. It will go into effect 60 days after at least six countries have approved the deal. I’m Mario Ritter.   Mario Ritter adapted this story for VOA Learning English from a Reuters report and additional materials. Hai Do was the editor. _____________________________________________________________ Words in This Story region –n. an area that is different than others for some reason flexibility –n. showing a willingness to change or try something different protectionist –adj. supporting businesses in one’s own country while making laws to limit products from other countries provisions –n. conditions that are part of an agreement controversial –adj. describing a subject that is much debated or disagreed upon pharmaceuticals –n. medicines We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments section, and visit our Facebook page.

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Chinese Officials Sign Deal to Create Giant Panda National Park

  This is What's Trending Today. China is making plans to create a large protected space for one of its most famous creatures: the giant panda. The planned Giant Panda National Park would be two times the size of Yellowstone National Park in the United States. The Bank of China has promised 10 billion yuan, or $1.5 billion, to set up the protective area. It will be in the southwestern province of Sichuan, China’s forest ministry said Thursday. The Sichuan office of the central bank signed an agreement with the provincial government to pay for the park’s construction. The work is to be completed by 2023. The Associated Press reports that the ministry said the park will measure 2 million hectares. The projects aims to help the local economy while also providing the endangered animals with a huge, unbroken area in which they can meet and mate with other pandas. Zhang Weichao is a Sichuan official involved in plans for the park. Zhang told the China Daily newspaper that the agreement will reduce poverty among the 170,000 people living within the park’s proposed territory. China’s Communist Party Central Committee and the State Council first suggested the idea for the park in January 2017, the newspaper reported. Giant pandas are China’s unofficial national animal. They live mainly in the mountains of Sichuan, with some also living in nearby Gansu and Shaanxi provinces. An estimated 1,864 giant pandas live in the wild, where they are threatened mostly by loss of natural habitat. Another 300 live in captivity. And that’s What’s Trending Today. I’m Alice Bryant.   The Associated Press reported this story. Ashley Thompson adapted it for Learning English. George Grow was the editor.  _____________________________________________________________ Words in This Story   construction - n. the act or process of building something (such as a house or road) endangered  - adj. used to describe a type of animal or plant that has become very rare and that could die out completely

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