1Obama Security Policy Stresses Diplomacy, Development and Coalitions

This is IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English.This week, the Obama administration released its first National Security Strategy. The policy statement renews support for American military superiority in the world. But the fifty-two pages also talk about the importance of diplomacy, development and coalition-building to reach policy goals.The Obama administration has sought to distance itself from the disputed policies of George W. Bush. The former president's policy on the right to attack possible threats came after the terrorist attacks in two thousand one.Under a nineteen eighty-six law, presidents are supposed to report their national security goals to Congress each year. That has not happened. But the Obama administration has made its general goals known for some time.Secretary of State Hillary Clinton calls it "smart power." She discussed the new strategy report in a speech at the Brookings Institution in Washington. She said the United States is moving from mostly the direct exercise of power to what she called "a more sophisticated and difficult mix of indirect power and influence."She said the military itself, examining its experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan, has come to recognize the limits of the use of force.HILLARY CLINTON: "We cannot have a militarized model of diplomacy and development and expect to be successful in making our case on all these other issues that we engage with governments on."The policy statement also discusses the link between the economic health of the United States and its position in the world. Secretary Clinton said current levels of debt and deficits cannot continue without the United States losing influence and being limited in the decisions it has to make.The strategy says the United States aims to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaida, but also to support democracy and human rights. It says the United States "is waging a global campaign" but adds "this is not a global war against a tactic - terrorism or a religion - Islam."Presidential adviser John Brennan says a top goal will be to fight the rise of "home-grown" terrorism.But terrorism is not the only national security concern. The strategy also deals with issues like North Korea.This week, tensions continued to rise over the sinking of a South Korean navy ship in March. International investigators have blamed a North Korean submarine for the attack. Forty-six sailors died on the Cheonan. North Korea denies any involvement.The sinking has led the two Koreas to cut most of their trade and communications links. The situation raised fears that the peninsula could be headed toward a return of the warfare of the early nineteen fifties.Secretary of State Clinton, in Seoul earlier this week at the end of a trip to Asia, said the world has a duty to act over the sinking. South Korea and the United States have been urging China to join them in punishing North Korea in the United Nations Security Council.And that's IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English, written by Brianna Blake with David Gollust in Washington and Steve Herman in Seoul. I'm Doug Johnson

2 R. Buckminster Fuller, 1895-1983: Building Designer, Engineer, Inventor and Poet

PHOEBE ZIMMERMANN: I'm Phoebe Zimmermann.STEVE EMBER: And I'm Steve Ember with the VOA Special English program PEOPLE IN AMERICA. Today we tell about an unusual man who had many abilities, Richard Buckminster Fuller.(MUSIC)

PHOEBE ZIMMERMANN: Building designer. Engineer. Inventor. Thinker. Poet. Not five people. Just one: Richard Buckminster Fuller. "Bucky" Fuller, as he was known, was one of the most unusual thinkers of the twentieth century. His aim in life was to make the human race a success in the universe.Bucky Fuller spent most of his life searching for new ideas. He also searched for unusual connections between existing ideas. He described himself in these words: "A complete, future-thinking design-science explorer."Fuller believed deeply in technology. Through technology, he said, people can do anything they need to do.STEVE EMBER: R. Buckminster Fuller died in nineteen eighty-three at the age of eighty-seven. During his long life, he discussed his idea about technology and human survival. He called his idea "dymaxion." It came from three words. Dynamic, meaning a force. Maximum, meaning the most. And ion, which is an atom or group of atoms with an electrical charge.Fuller explained the word dymaxion as a method of doing more with less. Everything he did was guided by this idea. He designed a dymaxion car, a dymaxion house, and a dymaxion map of the world. But he probably is known best for another invention - the geodesic dome. A geodesic dome is a round building made of many straight-sided pieces.Talking about R. Buckminster Fuller means using strange words. This is because Fuller himself invented words to describe his ideas and designs. His designs were way ahead of his time. They still are.(MUSIC) US Postage Stamp of R. Buckminster Fuller PHOEBE ZIMMERMANN: R. Buckminster Fuller was born in Milton, Massachusetts, in eighteen ninety-five. Bucky could not see clearly, because his eyes did not point straight ahead. So, his world was filled with masses of color without clear shapes.When he was four years old, he got eyeglasses to correct the problem. Suddenly, he could see the shapes of people's faces. He could see stars in the sky and leaves on the trees. He never lost his joy at the beauty he discovered in the world.As a child, Bucky Fuller questioned everything. He was a very independent thinker at an early age. His refusal to accept other people's ideas and rules continued as he grew older. One result was that he never completed his university studies. He was expelled two times from Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He thought his time was better spent having fun than studying.Yet Bucky Fuller was very serious about learning. He proved this when he joined the American navy during World War One.STEVE EMBER: In the navy, he learned all about navigation, mathematics, mechanics, communications and electronics engineering. He loved this world of modern technology. Soon after he joined the navy, he designed new rescue equipment. It helped save the lives of some pilots during training. Fuller's good navy record won him a short-term appointment to the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. It was there he first developed two ideas that were important for the rest of his life.While studying warships, Fuller realized that they weighed much less than buildings, yet were able to do much more. He decided better designs could also help humans do more, using fewer materials.PHOEBE ZIMMERMANN: In nineteen seventeen, Bucky Fuller married Anne Hewlett. Their daughter, Alexandra, was born about a year later. Bucky was a very emotional man, as well as an intellectual one. He loved his little daughter. She was the wonder of his world. Then Alexandra became very sick. The medicine to cure her had not been invented yet. She died at the age of four.Bucky Fuller blamed himself, although he had done everything he could to save her. His sorrow overcame him. He began to drink too much alcohol. Yet he continued to work hard.Fuller was head of a company that made a light-weight building material. He was not a successful businessman, however. And the company began to fail. He was dismissed by the owners. It was nineteen twenty-seven. His wife had just given birth to another baby girl. They were living in Chicago, Illinois. He had no job and no money. He felt he was a complete failurebfi.org R. buckminster Fuller with a Fly's Eye DomeSTEVE EMBER: Bucky Fuller walked through the streets of Chicago along Lake Michigan. He stood silently on the shore. He considered killing himself. Then, as he explained later, he realized he did not have the right to kill himself. He said he had felt something inside him that day. He called it the Greater Intelligence or God. It told him he belonged to the universe. So Bucky Fuller decided to live. And he would live the way he thought best. He promised to spend his remaining years in search of designs that could make human existence on Earth easier. This began his great creative period.(MUSIC) PHOEBE ZIMMERMANN: Fuller's first design was the dymaxion house. It was not built at the place it would stand. It was built in a factory, then moved. It did not cost much to build. And it did not look like a traditional house in America. Its roof hung from a huge stick in the center. Its walls were made of glass. It contained everything needed for people to live. Power came from the sun. Water was cleaned and re-used.Fuller then designed and built the dymaxion car. It looked a little like the body of an airplane. It had three wheels instead of four. It could go as fast as one hundred eighty kilometers an hour. It carried up to twelve passengers.Several companies were interested in building and selling Fuller's house and car. But his designs were so different, so extreme, that banks were not willing to lend money for the projects. So the dymaxion house - which could have provided low-cost housing for everyone - was never built. And the dymaxion car - which could have provided safe, pollution-free transportation using little gasoline - was never produced.STEVE EMBER: Bucky Fuller did not give up his idea of doing more with less. He had an idea for another building design. It would provide the most strength with the least amount of material. He began looking for the perfect shape.Fuller found it in nature. It appeared in the shapes of organic compounds and metals. The main part of his design is a four-sided pyramid. To create a building, many pyramids are connected to each other. The connecting piece has eight sides. Together, these two shapes create a very strong, light-weight rounded structure. The structure can be covered with any kind of material. And it can stand without any supports inside. Fuller named this structure the geodesic dome. It covers more space with less material than any other building ever designed.PHOEBE ZIMMERMANN: After a number of experimental geodesic domes were built, industry began to understand the value of the design. Today, there are about one hundred thousand different large and small geodesic domes in use around the world. However, no one yet has acted on one of Fuller's ideas for the geodesic dome. There are no limits to the size of a geodesic dome. So Fuller proposed using them over cities or over areas that had severe weather. A geodesic dome that size would make it possible to have complete control over the environment inside it.(MUSIC) STEVE EMBER: Most of Bucky Fuller's inventions did not earn him much money. A lot of what he did earn he spent travelling around the world. He told anyone who would listen about his ideas for human life on this planet. He called the planet "Spaceship Earth." Humans, he said, are astronauts on Spaceship Earth. They are travelling one hundred thousand kilometers an hour around the sun. He said the Earth is like a large mechanical device that will survive only if people living on it know how to operate it correctly.People must live on Earth just as astronauts live in a spaceship. They must use their supplies wisely, and re-use them.Buckminster Fuller said humans are able, through planning and wise use of natural supplies, to feed and house themselves forever. (MUSIC) PHOEBE ZIMMERMANN: This VOA Special English program, PEOPLE IN AMERICA, was written by Marilyn Rice Christiano. It was produced by Lawan Davis. Our engineer was Sulaiman Tarawaley. I'm Phoebe Zimmerman.STEVE EMBER: And I'm Steve Ember. Join us again next week for another PEOPLE IN AMERICA program on the Voice of America.

3 Working to Improve the Condition of Everglades National Park

VOICE ONE: This is SCIENCE IN THE NEWS, in VOA Special

English. I'm Faith Lapidus.VOICE TWO:And I'm Doug Johnson. This week, we tell

about Everglades National Park in the American state of Florida. We also tell about an effort to improve thecondition of this important natural treasure. (MUSIC)VOICE ONE:When many people think of Florida, images of sandy coastlines or theme park rides come to mind. But about an hour south of Miami lies a natural wilderness different from anywhere else in the United States.Everglades National Park is the largest subtropical wilderness in the country. The park is home to several rare and endangered species. It is also the third largest national park in the lower forty-eight states, after Death Valley and

Yellowstone. More than one million people visit the Everglades each year.VOICE TWO:In nineteen forty-seven, President Harry Truman spoke at a ceremony establishing the Everglades National Park. He said the goal of creating the park was to protect forever a wild area that cannot be replaced. The Everglades is considered one of the great

biological wonders of the world. The expansive wetlands stretch across more than six hundred thousand hectares. It is a place where plants and animals from the Caribbean Sea share an ecosystem with native North American species.Nine different environments

exist within the Everglades. They include mangrove and cypress swamps, estuaries and coastal marshes.(MUSIC) VOICE ONE: In the nineteen-forties, Marjory Stoneman Douglas wrote a book called, "The Everglades: River of Grass." She described the area as, "the liquid heartof Florida." Unlike most other national parks, Everglades National Park was created to protect an ecosystem from damage. The Everglades is home to

thirty-six species that are considered threatened or protected. They include the Florida panther, the American crocodile and the West Indian manatee. In addition, more than three hundred fifty bird species and three hundred species of fresh and saltwater fish live within the park. The Everglades is also home to forty species of mammals and fifty reptile species.VOICE TWO: Exotic plants can also be found in the Everglades. They include what is said to be the largest growth of mangrove trees in the western half of the world. Gumbo-limbo trees, known for their peeling red skin, strangler figs and royal palms are also among the area's plant life. The Everglades is also home to the country's

largest living mahogany tree. Sawgrass grows in some areas of the park. Be careful - it is very sharp, with teeth just like a saw. It can grow up to four meters tall.With about one and one-half meters of rainfall each year, plants and trees never stop growing in the Everglades. That is why it is hard to tell a powerful storm, Hurricane Andrew, caused severe damage to the area in nineteen ninety-two.(MUSIC)VOICE ONE:The dry, winter season is the favorite of most visitors, when insects like mosquitoes are less of a

problem. The rainy season lasts from June to November. There are many ways to

explore the Everglades. Visitors could see alligators while hiking the Anhinga Trail. The Everglades is the only place on Earth where fresh water alligators and saltwater crocodiles live in the same area. Visitors using canoes or airboats are likely

to see large groups of wading birds like the wood stork or great blue heron. It is even possible to see flamingos in the Everglades.Some might enjoy riding bicycles through Shark Valley, while others may want to move slowly through shallow waters where

insects and wildlife can be seen up-close. Park guides also lead visitors on tours with tram cars.VOICE TWO:This spring,Everglades National Park launched a visitation program to what was once a highly restricted military base. Park officials are working to recover a missile base used in the nineteen sixties. The base played a part in the nuclear tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union.The government built the

Florida base shortly after the discovery of Soviet missiles about three hundred kilometers away, on the island of Cuba. Tensions were high during the Cuban missile crisis. But missiles stored at the American base were never fired. The base was closed and

all missile equipment was removed in the nineteen seventies. Today only the buildings remain.This year, the historic area had many visitors, including former American service members who remember the missile crisis. The park hopes to offer more trips next spring, to help support the history for those who lived through it and for future generations. (MUSIC) VOICE ONE: Experts say changes to the Everglades are threatening several different kinds of wildlife. They say the threats are a result of actions the United States government began more than fifty years ago, and settlers began even earlier.The National Park Service says early colonial settlers and land developers thought the Everglades had little value. The settlers had plans to remove water from the area and in the eighteen eighties developers began digging drainage canals. At the time,

they did not understand the complexity of the Everglades' ecosystem. As a result, they were not prepared for all the work and caused environmental problems. The ecosystem, however, was able to survive. VOICE TWO:Even larger efforts to drain the wetlands continued between nineteen oh five and nineteen ten. Large areas were changed to farmland. This led to increased development, with more people moving to the Everglades and also more visitors.More changes came in nineteen forty-eight, when Congress approved the Central and South Florida Project. As part of the plan, the Army Corps of Engineers built roads, canals and water-control systems throughout South Florida. The aim of the project was to provide water and flood protection for developed areas and

agriculture. Workers built a huge system of waterways and pumping stations to control the overflow of Lake Okeechobee, north of the Everglades. VOICE ONE:Today,

fifty percent of south Florida's early wetland areas no longer exist. Populations of wading birds have been reduced by ninety percent. Whole populations of animals are in danger of disappearing. The endangered creatures include the manatee, the Miami blackhead snake,

the wood stork and the Florida panther.In recent years, environmental experts have learned about the damage to the Everglades. They say the natural balance of plants and

animals has been destroyed.VOICE TWO:Recently, the Obama administration promised three hundred sixty million dollars to pay for Everglades restoration this year. The administration is also asking that Congress approve an additional two hundred seventy-eight million dollars for next year. The money will help to support projects approved by the government nine years ago. The projects include improving wetlands in

the Picayune Strand in Southwest Florida and repairs to Lake Okeechobee's dike.

Until now, the state of Florida has spent the most money on the project.

VOICE ONE:Another threat biologists have been battling for years in the Everglades is the area's population of Burmese pythons. Officials believe there are as many as one hundred fifty thousand of these large snakes in the Everglades. But the snakes are a foreign species, native to Southeast Asia. Owners of pythons left their unwanted snakes in the Everglades years ago.Biologists say adult pythons are able to eat small deer and bobcats. When pythons are found in the Everglades, they are often killed. Scientists are now experimenting with other ways to remove the snakes, including trapping methods and offering payments to hunters. The future of the Everglades is not clear. However efforts to protect the area are continuing so people that from all over the world may continue visiting this biological treasure.(MUSIC) VOICE TWO:This SCIENCE IN THE NEWS program was written by Brianna Blake, who was also our producer. I'm Doug Johnson.VOICE ONE:And I'm Faith Lapidus. Read and listen to our programs at

voaspecialenglish.com. Join us againnext week for more news about science in Special English on the Voice of America.

4 Words and Their Stories: Pulling a Fast One

Now, the VOA Special English program WORDS AND THEIR STORIES.(MUSIC) Today I will tell about expressions using numbers. Let us start with the number one. Numbers can be tricky. On the one hand, they are simply numbers. On the other hand, they have meanings. I for one use these expressions a lot.Many people consider themselves number one, the most important person. They are always looking out for number one and taking care of number one. It is as if they are the one and only person on Earth. Some people however, are not so self-centered. My brother is such a person. It is true - no joke. I am not trying to pull a fast one on you.First, you have to understand that my brother is one in a million. He is such a nice person. All his friends like him. They consider him one of the boys. Recently, my brother had a bad day at the office. It was just one of those days. Nothing went right. So he stopped at a local bar - a drinking place - after leaving work. My brother planned to have a glass of beer with his friends - a quick one - before he went home. But a quick one turned into one or two, and soon those became one too many.As my brother was leaving, he ordered a last drink - one for the road. His friends became concerned. One by one, they asked him if he was able to drive home safely. Now my brother is a wise and calm person. He is at one with himself. He recognizes when he has had too much alcohol to drink. So he accepted an offer for a ride home from a female friend.At one time in the past, my brother had been in love with this woman. She is a great person - kind, thoughtful and intelligent - all good qualities rolled up into one. But sadly their relationship did not work. He always used to say "One of these days, I am going to marry this girl." But that never happened. For one thing, she did not love him as much as he loved her. It was just one of those things. The situation was regrettable and my brother had to accept it. But even now, he considers her the one that got away. However, they are still friends. And because my brother had been kind to her, she felt that one good turn deserves another. He was good to her and she wanted to help him in return. So she drove him home. If my brother had driven home from the bar that night, his number would have been up. Something bad would have happened. Thankfully he made it home safely. And, he and the woman are back to square one. They are back to where they started - being friends.(MUSIC)

This VOA Special English program, WORDS AND THEIR STORIES, was written by Jill Moss. I'm Faith Lapidus.

5 More US Parents Think Beyond Most Popular Names for Babies

VOICE ONE:Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. I'm

Steve Ember. VOICE TWO:And I'm Shirley Griffith. This week on our program, we talk about baby names in America. (MUSIC) VOICE ONE:Every year, more than four million babies are born in the United States.Some parents name their children based on family, cultural or religious traditions. Girls are often named after a family member but rarely their mothers. Sons, though, are often named after their fathers. VOICE TWO: George Foreman, the former heavyweight boxing champ, has five sons and five daughters.All of his sons are named George: George Junior, George the third, George the fourth,George the fifth and George the sixth. Even two of his daughters have George in

their name: Freeda George Foreman and Georgetta Foreman. OK,so this is an extreme example. VOICE ONE:So what are the most popular baby names in America? Every year the Social Security Administration releases a list. For boys, names from the Bible were again the leading choices last year.VOICE TWO: Jacobwas the most popular boy name for the tenth year. Michael spent a tenth year at number two. Michael had been the number one name for thirty-eight years, from nineteen sixty-one to nineteen ninety-eight. Ethan, Joshua and Daniel were also in the top five. Next came Alexander, Anthony, William, Christopher and Matthew. VOICE ONE: Last year Emma was the number one name for girls. Isabella was number two.For twelve years the most popular name was Emily. But last year Emily fell to third, followed by Madison and Ava. The other names in the top ten were Olivia,Sophia, Abigail, Elizabeth and Chloe.(MUSIC)VOICE TWO: These days, the choice of a baby name seems to be guided as much by individual

desires as by tradition. This is shown in the fact that the most popular baby

names are not as popular as they used to be. Researchers at San Diego State University in California did a study. They found that thirty-two percent of boys received one of the ten most popular names in nineteen fifty-five. The same was true for twenty-two percent of girls.By two thousand seven, however, the numbers were down to less than ten percent of

boys and only eight percent of girls.VOICE ONE:Cleveland Evans is an associate professor of psychology at Bellevue University inNebraska. He is also an expert in onomastics - the study of names and naming practices.CLEVELAND EVANS: "People are more and more into finding unusual names. And now since we have the information on the Internet -at least in the United States - of what the most popular names are, the

percentage of kids who get them actually is going down because people are able to avoid them much more successfully than they did before."VOICE TWO:To get a better sense of the modern name game, we stopped some families out on the National Mall here in Washington, D.C.MOTHER: "Hailey is the oldest. With her we wanted one that wasn't too popular. And at the time we were living in New Mexico and we didn't know anybody that was Hailey. And this is my daughter Caitlin andwith this one we just liked the name."MOTHER: "She's Elizabeth, after Elizabeth Taylor.I think my husband was in love with her."MOTHER: "This is Derek and I have another son,Dillon. I basically looked through baby books and just found names that I thought were a little bit different. We named both of our kids with Ds. My husband starts with a D and I'm a D. And they're both Ds, so ...MOTHER: "Stephanie Rafaella. She's named after my

sister-in-law."MOTHER: "Well I always liked the name Sebastian, so I wanted to name our older son Sebastian. And Jonathan, to be honest, was kind of random. But his middle name is Miles which is my mother's maiden name."MOTHER: "Elizabeth is named after my grandmother. Daniel is named after Daniel in the Bible. And Zachary sounded wild and fun so we wentwith it."VOICE ONE:Some parents choose names that really set their children apart.Actress Gwyneth Paltrow and her husband, Coldplay lead singer Chris Martin, named their daughter Apple. They chose it, they said, because the fruit is sweet and wholesome. They chose a less unusual name for their son, Moses. VOICE TWO:Singer Ashley Simpson and her husband, singer Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy, named their son Bronx Mowgli Wentz. Bronx, after the area in New York City; Mowgli, from a character in "The Jungle Book" by Rudyard Kipling.VOICE ONE: Some

names can be used for either sex, like Sidney, Shawn, Alex and Taylor. Thirty

years ago the name Taylor was much more likely to go to a boy than a girl. Today

the opposite is true - as evidenced by the young singer Taylor Swift.Naming

expert Cleveland Evans explains that many of these names were traditionally

female or male at one time or another.CLEVELAND EVANS: "For a couple hundred years we've had names which have switched gender but they almost always switch from male tofemale. Leslie and Ashley are examples of that. Now they are overwhelmingly

female even though they started out as male. There aren't very many examples of

names which are equally popular for both boys and girls for a really long period."(MUSIC) VOICE TWO:Unisex names can, of course, make it difficult to know if someone is male or female.Alex can be short for Alexander or the female version, Alexandra.Charlie was last year's three hundred seventh most popular name for boys. But it also rose to the seven hundred thirty-sixth most popular name for girls. VOICE NE:We met a woman on the National Mall whose nickname is Charlie. She was named after her father's only brother, who died a few years before she was born. She admits that her name has caused some problems.WOMAN: "Actually my first name is Charles. When I

was in the military they would always assume that somebody had mis-keyed the M

versus the F [in personnel records] and would house me with a male roommate or

such."Sometimes a difference in spelling can identify whether the person with the name is male or female. This brings us to a question we received from China. A listener wanted to know if Billie Jean is considered a girl's name, or if it can be used as a boy's name.You might remember Billie Jean King the women's tennis star. Of course "Billie Jean" is also one of Michael Jackson's best known songs. In fact, the question happened to arrive just a few days before the pop star died on June twenty-fifth. Professor Evans had this advice for our listener.CLEVELAND EVANS: "Well, that's one of those things

that a little bit it depends on how you spell it. I would expect a male Billy Gene to be B-I-L-L-Y G-E-N-E and a female Billie Jean would be B-I-L-L-I-E J-E-A-N."(MUSIC) VOICE ONE:Traditionally, married women in the United States have

taken their husband's last name. But now more and more are keeping their own family

name. Some add their husband's last name at the end. Some couples even create a

totally new name. But what happens when children arrive? In some cases the child takes the mother's surname as a middle name and the father's name as the family name. Other times, the child may take on both names as a family name. But, this can create

problems in the future.What happens when Emma Isabella Brown Smith meets Jacob Michael Williams Jones? You see how this might be an issue.VOICE TWO:Unlike some countries, the United States has no laws restricting what parents can name their children. And if adults decide they want another name, they can legally have it changed.VOICE ONE: Parents can find plenty of advice on the Web and in bookstores about choosing a baby name. A lot has also been written about the possible effects that a name might have

on a child's future.VOICE TWO:There are studies that suggest children with unusual

names are more likely to be teased. Other studies suggest that as adults, they might

be less likely to get called for a job interview. Yet other research suggests

that giving a child an unusual name might help build character. What

all this adds up to is a big responsibility for parents to consider what's really

in a name. I'm Shirley Griffith.VOICE ONE:And I'm Steve Ember. Archives of our programs are at voaspecialenglish.com We leave you with more of the names we found on the National Mall. Join us again next week for THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English.WOMAN: "Tre is named after his father David Glenn.But he's a third so that's how his nickname is Tre. Kaylee, we liked that name.We adopted her and in the hospital they gave her a name of Cali which we didn't like but we wanted to keep close to that.WOMAN: "Caroline was a name that we liked. We found it in a baby book. And then Michael we named after my husband's good friend and my father."WOMAN: "Carla Marie. This is Ashley Lyn and William David. Carla was from a friend. William was from my husband's uncle andAshley we just picked."MAN: "My mother's was Virginia so we named after her and my wife Caty's middle name is Allison. So we took my mother's name and her name.WOMAN: "He is a third so, and I didn't like Trip

or Tre, so Tres had it. I always like the name Reagan and I'm kind of a Ronald

Reagan fan, so, voila, here she came along. And this one, I was skiing out in

Salt Lake City and the name of a building out there was Reid - with R-E-I-D -

and it sounded good at the time."

6 Michael Jackson, 1958-2009: He Amazed the World With His Music and Dancing

VOICE ONE:I'm Faith Lapidus. VOICE TWO:

And I'm Bob Doughty with PEOPLE IN AMERICA in VOA Special English. Today we tell about one of the most famous performers in the world, Michael Jackson. Known as the "King of Pop," Jackson sold more than seven hundred fifty million albums over his career. Michael Jackson redefined popular culture with his energetic music, dance moves and revolutionary music videos.But Jackson's huge success as a performer was not always easy. He was a complex individual with an often troubled private life.(MUSIC: "Billie Jean")VOICE ONE:That was a song that hardly needs an introduction. "Billie Jean" first came out on the nineteen eighty-two hit album "Thriller." The Guinness World Records lists that record as the best-selling album of all time. Other famous songs on the album include "Thriller," "Beat It" and "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'." The album "Thriller" was as much about moves as it was about music. Michael Jackson brought attention to his body's movements by wearing a shiny white glove, shortened black pants and white socks. He created dance movements that were electrifying. He could be as hard as a robot, or as smooth as liquid. While doing his famous "moonwalk" step, he seemed to be walking backwards on air. (MUSIC: "I Want You Back") VOICE TWO:

Michael Jackson was born in Gary, Indiana in nineteen fifty-eight. He was the seventh of nine children. He was five years old when he began singing with his brothers in a group called the Jackson 5. In nineteen sixty-eight the group signed a recording deal from Motown Records. Michael was eleven years old when they released their first album a year later.The Jackson 5 became an immediate success. Their music set records. Their first four songs were "I Want You Back," "ABC," "The Love You Save" and "I'll Be There." They all reached the number one position in pop music record sales in nineteen seventy. VOICE ONE:Michael was the star of the group. He was the lead singer and danced with great energy. His extraordinary skill and presence on stage was remarkable, especially for someone so young. The group made youthful and fun music that was very popular with both African-Americans and white listeners.In the nineteen seventies, the group changed record companies and shortened their name to the Jacksons. They continued to perform together, although Michael Jackson started to record music on his own as well. His first album performing alone was "Off the Wall," released in nineteen seventy-nine.(MUSIC: "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough") VOICE TWO:Three years later, Jackson released "Thriller." The album was not just the best selling album of all time. It also won eight Grammy Awards and seven American Music Awards. And it helped establish the popularity of a new form of entertainment, music videos. The video for the song "Thriller" was important in the history of the music industry. Michael Jackson understood the power of these videos in bringing attention to his music and to his image. He worked hard to make exciting videos with complex stories and dances.VOICE ONE:In nineteen eighty-five, Michael Jackson helped write the song "We Are the World." He recorded it with many other famous performers. The aim of the record was to raise money for starving people in Africa. The project raised millions of dollars with this best selling song.Michael Jackson's next album, "Bad," produced five number one hits, including "The Way You Make Me Feel." (MUSIC: "The Way You Make Me Feel") VOICE TWO:Michael Jackson was a huge success, but he was also a very troubled man. His behavior and appearance became increasingly strange. He had many operations to change his face.He acted and spoke in a childlike way. Jackson bought a huge property in California which he called Neverland after the children's story of Peter Pan. He had amusement park rides, a zoo and a large movie theater built for his home. Michael Jackson also went into major debt.And he suffered from injuries and illness that reportedly led him to take many kinds of pain-killing medicines.VOICE ONE:In nineteen ninety-three, a thirteen-year-old boy accused him of sexual abuse. The child molestation case was settled out of court with Jackson reportedly paying the boy millions of dollars. But ten years later, a similar accusation by another boy led to a criminal trial which began in two thousand five. A jury cleared Jackson of all charges. He called the trial the hardest thing he had ever done in his life. During this time, Michael Jackson kept recording and performing music. His later albums include "Dangerous," "HIStory" and "Invincible."(MUSIC: "Black and White") VOICE TWO:Michael Jackson was briefly married to Lisa Marie Presley, the daughter of musician Elvis Presley. He later married a nurse named Deborah Rowe. They had two children, Michael Joseph Jackson and Paris Michael Katherine Jackson. The couple divorced in nineteen ninety-nine. Mister Jackson later had a third child, Prince Michael Jackson.VOICE ONE:After his two thousand five trial, the singer spent much of his time in Europe and the Middle East. He returned to the United States with the aim of planning what was to be a victorious comeback. Michael Jackson died on June twenty-fifth, two thousand nine of heart failure. He was just days away from launching a series of fifty concerts in London. VOICE TWO:Fans around the world mourned his death. Prisoners in a jail in the Philippines danced for him. Fans in Paris, France attended a service at the city's ancient religious center in his honor. Famous performers around the world told about the influence he had on their work. Michael Jackson left a huge mark on popular culture. His memory will live on in his unforgettable music.(MUSIC: "Man in the Mirror") VOICE ONE:This program was written and produced by Dana Demange. I'm Faith Lapidus VOICE TWO:And I'm Bob Doughty. You can learn about other famous Americans on our Web site, voaspecialenglish.com. Join us again next week for PEOPLE IN AMERICA in VOA Special English.

7 Short Story: The Californian s Tale by Mark Twain

Now, the weekly Special English program, AMERICAN STORIES.(MUSIC)Our story today is called "The Californian's Tale." It was written by Mark Twain. Here is Shep O'Neal with the story.STORYTELLER:When I was young, I went looking for gold in California. I never found enough to make me rich. But I did discover a beautiful part of thecountry. It was called "the Stanislau." The Stanislau was like Heaven on Earth.

It had bright green hills and deep forests where soft winds touched the trees.Other men, also looking for gold, had reached the Stanislau hills of California many years before I did. They had built a town in the valley with sidewalks and stores, banks and schools. They had also built pretty little houses for their families.At first, they found a lot of gold in the Stanislau hills. But their good luck did not last. After a few years, the gold disappeared. By the time I reached the Stanislau, all the people were gone, too.Grass now grew in the streets. And the little houses were covered by wild rose bushes. Only the found of insects filled the air as I walked through the empty town that summer day so long ago. Then, I realized I was not alone after all.A man was smiling at me as he stood in front of one of the little houses.This house was not covered by wild rose bushes. A nice little garden in front of the house was full of blue and yellow flowers. White curtains hung from the windows and floated in the soft summer wind. Still smiling, the man opened the door of his house and motioned to me. I went inside and could not believe my eyes. I had been living for weeks in rough mining camps with other gold miners. We slept on the hard ground, ate canned beans from cold metal plates and spent our days in the difficult search for gold.Here in this little house, my spirit seemed to come to life again.I saw a bright rug on the shining wooden floor. Pictures hung all around the

room. And on little tables there were seashells, books and china vases full of

flowers. A woman had made this house into a home.The pleasure I felt in my heart must have shown on my face. The man read my thoughts. "Yes," he smiled, "it is all her work. Everything in this room has felt the touch of her hand."One of the pictures on the wall was not hanging straight. He noticed it and went to fix it. He stepped back several times to make sure the picture was really straight. Then he gave it a gentle touch with his hand."She always does that," he explained to me. "It is like the finishing pat a

mother gives her child's hair after she has brushed it. I have seen her fix all

these things so often that I can do it just the way she does. I don't know why I

do it. I just do it."As he talked, I realized there was something in this room that he wanted me to discover. I looked around. When my eyes reached a corner of the room near the

fireplace, he broke into a happy laugh and rubbed his hands together."That's it!" he cried out. "You have found it! I knew you would. It is her picture. I went to a little black shelf that held a small picture of the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. There was a sweetness and softness in the woman's expression that I had never seen before. The man took the picture from my hands and stared at it. "She was nineteen on her last birthday. that was the day we were married. When you see her...oh, just wait until you meet her!""Where is she now?" I asked."Oh, she is away," the man sighed, putting the picture back on the little black shelf. "She went to visit her parents. They live forty or fifty miles fromhere. She has been gone two weeks today.""When will she be back?" I asked. Well, this is Wednesday," he said slowly."She will be back on Saturday, in the evening."I felt a sharp sense of regret. "I am sorry, because I will be gone by then,"I said."Gone? No! Why should you go? Don't go. She will be so sorry. You see, she likes to have people come and stay with us.""No, I really must leave," I said firmly.He picked up her picture and held it before my eyes. "Here," he said. "Now you tell her to her face that you could have stayed to meet her and you would not."Something made me change my mind as I looked at the picture for a second time. I decided to stay. The man told me his name was Henry.That night, Henry and I talked about many different things, but mainly about

her. The next day passed quietly.Thursday evening we had a visitor. He was a big, grey-haired miner named Tom. "I just came for a few minutes to ask when she is coming home," he explained. "Is there any news?" "Oh yes," the man replied. "I got a letter. Would you like to hear it? He took a yellowed letter out of his shirt pocket and read it to us. It was full of loving messages to him and to other people - their close friends and

neighbors. When the man finished reading it, he looked at his friend. "Oh no,

you are doing it again, Tom! You always cry when I read a letter from her. I'm

going to tell her this time!" "No, you must not do that, Henry," the grey-haired miner said. "I am getting old. And any little sorrow makes me cry. I really was hoping she would be heretonight." The next day, Friday, another old miner came to visit. He asked to hear the letter. The message in it made him cry, too. "We all miss her so much," he

said.Saturday finally came. I found I was looking at my watch very often. Henry

noticed this. "You don't think something has happened to her, do you?" he asked

me.I smiled and said that I was sure she was just fine. But he did not seem

satisfied.I was glad to see his two friends, Tom and Joe, coming down the road as the

sun began to set. The old miners were carrying guitars. They also brought

flowers and a bottle of whiskey. They put the flowers in vases and began to play

some fast and lively songs on their guitars.Henry's friends kept giving him glasses of whiskey, which they made him drink. When I reached for one of the two glasses left on the table, Tom stopped my arm. "Drop that glass and take the other one!" he whispered. He gave the remaining glass of whiskey to Henry just as the clock began to strike midnight.Henry emptied the glass. His face grew whiter and whiter. "Boys," he said,

"I am feeling sick. I want to lie down." Henry was asleep almost before the words were out of his mouth.In a moment, his two friends had picked him up and carried him into the

bedroom. They closed the door and came back. They seemed to be getting ready to

leave. So I said, "Please don't go gentlemen. She will not know me. I am a

stranger to her."They looked at each other. "His wife has been dead for nineteen years," Tomsaid."Dead?" I whispered."Dead or worse," he said."She went to see her parents about six months after she got married. On her way back, on a Saturday evening in June, when she was almost here, the Indians captured her. No one ever saw her again. Henry lost his mind. He thinks she is still alive. When June comes, he thinks she has gone on her trip to see her parents. Then he begins to wait for her to come back. He gets out that old letter. And we come around to visit so he can read it to us."On the Saturday night she is supposed to come home, we come here to be with him. We put a sleeping drug in his drink so he will sleep through the night.Then he is all right for another year."Joe picked up his hat and his guitar. "We have done this every June for nineteen years," he said. "The first year there were twenty-seven of us. Now just the two of us are left." He opened the door of the pretty little house. Andthe two old men disappeared into the darkness of the Stanislau. (MUSIC) ANNOUNCER:You have just heard the story "The Californian's Tale." It was written by Mark Twain and adapted for Special English by Donna de Sanctis. Yourstoryteller was Shep O'Neal. For VOA Special English, this is Shirley

Griffith.

8 How to Do It: Making Paper by Hand

This is the VOA Special English Development Report.The

earliest process of making paper was done almost five thousand years ago in Egypt and the Nile Valley.In those days, paper was made from strips of the papyrus plant.Modern

paper-making began in China about two thousand years ago. This process produced paper from cloth, straw, wood or the bark of trees. The raw materials are struck over and over until they become loose. Then they are mixed with water.After the water has been emoved, the flat, thin form remaining is permitted to dry.This becomes a sheet of paper.Large machines started to be used for making paper near the end of the sixteenth

century. Today, paper-making is a big business. But it is still possible to make paper by hand, since the steps are the same as using big machines.You should choose paper

with small amounts of printing. Old envelopes are good for this reason. Colored

paper also can be used, as well as small amounts of newspaper. Small pieces of

rags or cloth can be added. These should be cut into pieces about five centimeters

by five centimeters.Everything is placed in a container, covered with water and brought to a boil. It is mixed for about two hours with some common chemicals and then allowed to cool. Then it is left until most of the water dries up. The substance left, called pulp,

can be stored until you are ready to make paper.When you are ready, the pulp is mixed with water again. Then the pulp is poured into a mold. The mold is made of small squares of wire that hold the shape and thickness of the paper. To help dry the paper, the mold lets the water flow through the small wire squares.After several more drying steps, the paper is carefully lifted back from the mold. It is now strong enough to be touched.The

paper is smoothed and pressed to remove trapped air. You can use a common

electric iron used for pressing clothes.There are many other technologies for people making paper using small machines.Internet users can do a search and find directions for making homemade paper. You can also order information about making paper from the group EnterpriseWorks/VITA.Its Web site is enterpriseworks.org.And that's the VOA Special English Development Report. Transcripts, MP3s and podcasts of our reports are at voaspecialenglish.com. You can also follow us at twitter.com/voalearnenglish. I'm Steve Ember

9 Words and Their Stories: Two Heads Are Better Than One

Now, the VOA Special English program, WORDS AND THEIR STORIES.(MUSIC) Last week, I told about the number one. Today, I will tell about expressions using other numbers.Some problems are difficult to solve. But there are a lot of number expressions that can help. For example, if we put two and two together, we might come up with the right answer. We know that two heads are better than one. It is always better to work with another person to solve a problem.Sometimes there are no two ways about it. Some problems have only one solution. You cannot be of two minds over this.But with any luck, we could solve the problem in two shakes of a lamb's tail. We could have our answers quickly and easily.Sometimes we can kill two birds with one stone. That is, we can complete two goals with only one effort or action. But we must remember that two wrongs don't make a right. If someone does something bad to you, you should not do the same to him.If you are going out with your girlfriend, or boyfriend, you do not want another friend to go along on your date. You can just say to your friend: two's company, three's a crowd.When I was a young child in school, I had to learn the three R's. These important skills are reading, writing and arithmetic. These three words do not all start with the letter "R." But they have the sound of "R." My teachers used to give three cheers when I did well in math. They gave praise and approval for a job well done.Some of my friends were confused and did not understand their schoolwork. They were at sixes and sevens. In fact, they did not care if they finished high school. They saw little difference between the two choices. Six of one, half a dozen the other - that was their position. But they were really happy when they completed their studies and graduated from high school. They were in seventh heaven. They were on cloud nine.Nine times out of ten, students who do well in school find good jobs. Some work in an office doing the same things every day at nine-to-five jobs. You do not have to dress to the nines, or wear your best clothes, for this kind of work.Last year, one of my friends applied for a better job at her office. I did not think she would get it. I thought she had a hundred to one shot at the job. Other people at her office thought her chances were a million to one. One reason was that she had been caught catching forty winks at the office. She slept at her desk for short periods during the day. But her supervisor appointed her to the new job at the eleventh hour - at the very last minute. I guess her lucky number came up.(MUSIC) This VOA Special English program, WORDS AND THEIR STORIES, was written by Jill Moss. I'm Faith Lapidus.

10 Race to the Moon: NASA and the Early Apollo Flights of the 1960s

VOICE ONE:I'm Barbara Klein.VOICE TWO:And I'm Steve Ember with EXPLORATIONS in VOA Special English. The nineteen sixties were exciting times in space exploration.Today look back at the first flights of the Apollo program designed to land humans on the moon.(MUSIC) VOICE ONE: The decision to go to the moon was made in May, nineteen sixty-one. President John Kennedy set the goal in a speech to Congress and the American people.JOHN KENNEDY: "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind or more important for the long range exploration of space. And none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish. "VOICE TWO:At

the time President Kennedy first spoke about landing humans on the moon, the

Soviet space program seemed far ahead. The Soviet Union had put the first

satellite into Earth orbit. A Soviet spacecraft was the first to land instruments on the moon. And a Soviet cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin, was the first man in space.The United

States had sent an astronaut of its own into space for the first time in nineteen sixty-one. Alan Shepard made only a fifteen-minute flight in the little one-man Mercury spacecraft. But his flight gave Americans the feeling that the United States could pull ahead of the Soviet Union in the space race.There was great public support for President Kennedy's moon landing goal. And Congress was ready to spend the thousands of millions of dollars that a moon landing program would cost.(MUSIC) VOICE ONE:Much happened in the months after America decided to go to the moon. New space flight centers were built. esigns for launch rockets and spacecraft were agreed on. And a new spaceflight program - Project Gemini - was begun.Flights in the two-man Gemini spacecraft tested the men, equipment and methods to be used in the Apollo program to the moon. Gemini let astronauts learn about the dangers of radiation and the effects of being weightless during long flights. Astronauts learned to move their spacecraft into different orbits and

to join with other spacecraft.VOICE TWO:While the Gemini program prepared astronauts for Apollo flights, NASA engineers were designing and building the Apollo spacecraft. It was really two spacecraft. One was a cone-shaped command module. The astronauts would ride to the moon in the command module. And they would return home in it. The second craft was a moon-landing vehicle. Two astronauts would ride in it from the orbiting command module to the moon's surface. Later, the landing vehicle would carry them back to the command module for the return trip to Earth.VOICE ONE: Engineers also were working on a huge new rocket for Apollo. It needed much more power than the rockets used to launch the one-man Mercury and the two-man Gemini

flights. The Apollo rocket was called Saturn. Two Saturn rocket systems were built. One was the Saturn One-B. It did not have enough power to reach the moon. But it could launch Apollo spacecraft on test flights around the Earth.The other was the Saturn Five. It would be the one to launch astronauts to the moon. Saturn One-B rockets launched six unmanned Apollo spacecraft. The test flights showed that all the rocket engines worked successfully. They also showed that the Apollo spacecraft could survive the launch and could re-enter Earth's atmosphere safely. VOICE TWO:By the end of nineteen sixty-six, NASA officials considered the Apollo spacecraft ready for test flights by astronauts. hree astronauts were named for the first manned Apollo test flight: Virgil Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee. Four weeks before the flight, the three men were in the command module at Cape Kennedy, Florida. They were testing equipment for the flight. Suddenly, fire broke out in the spacecraft. When rescuers got the door open, they found the flames had killed the three astronauts. Grissom, White and Chaffee were the first

Americans to die in the space program. (MUSIC) VOICE ONE:Engineers redesigned and rebuilt the Apollo command module. They designed a new door that could be opened more quickly. They improved the electrical wiring. And they used only materials that would not burn easily. By November, nineteen sixty-seven, the moon launch rocket, Saturn Five, was ready for a test flight.It thundered into space perfectly, pushing an unmanned Apollo spacecraft more than eighteen thousand kilometers up into the atmosphere.VOICE TWO:The huge Saturn rocket, as tall as a thirty-six-floor building, was the heaviest thing ever to leave Earth. It weighed more than two million seven hundred thousand kilograms. The noise of its rockets was one of the loudest man-made

sounds ever created.At the end of the test flight, the speed of the Apollo spacecraft was increased to forty thousand kilometers an hour. That was the speed of a spacecraft returning from the moon. The spacecraft re-entered the atmosphere without damage. Apollo flights Five and Six tested the moon-landing module and the Saturn Five rocket. VOICE ONE:Astronauts first flew in the Apollo spacecraft in October, nineteen sixty-eight. Apollo Seven astronauts Walter Schirra, Walter Cunningham and Donn Eisele spent eleven days orbiting the Earth. They tested the spacecraft systems. And they broadcast, for the first time, live television pictures of men in orbit. Everything

worked perfectly.VOICE TWO:The successful flight of Apollo Seven led NASA officials to send the next flight,Apollo Eight, to the moon. The launch was early on the morning of December twenty-first, nineteen sixty-eight. Millions of people were watching on television.Astronauts Frank Borman,James Lovell and William Anders were in the spacecraft at the top of the Saturn Five rocket. NASA officials counted down the seconds: five, four, three, two,one. The mighty engines fired. Slowly the giant rocket lifted off the Earth.VOICE ONE:Three hours later, NASA officials told the crew that everything was "OK" for what they called TLI, or trans-lunar injection. This meant the

Apollo Eight astronauts could fire the rocket that would send them from Earth

orbit toward the moon. Less than three days later, Apollo Eight was orbiting

the moon. The American spacecraft was just one hundred ten kilometers from its

surface.On December twenty-fourth, the astronauts made a television broadcast to Earth. They described the moon's surface as a strange, gray, lonely place. And, as they talked, people on Earth could see pictures of the moon on their television sets. FRANK BORMAN: "And from the crew of Apollo Eight, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas - and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth."Apollo Eight returned to Earth without problems. It landed in the Pacific Ocean near a waiting ship. (MUSIC) VOICE TWO: Apollo Eight showed that humans could travel to the moon and return safely. The next step was to test the lunar landing craft.That was the job of the astronauts of Apollo Nine: James McDivitt, David Scott and Russell Schweickart. They spent ten days in Earth orbit during March, nineteen sixty-nine. During the flight, they separated the lunar lander from the command module and flew it for eight hours. They tested all its systems. Then, they joined the two spacecraft together again, just as astronauts would do after a moon landing. Engineers decided that after Apollo Nine, one more test flight was needed. They wanted to test the landing module near the moon. So astronauts Tom Stafford, John Young and Eugene Cernan did that during the flight of Apollo Ten.VOICE ONE: They reached the moon in May, nineteen sixty-nine. Astronauts Stafford and Cernan entered the landing craft and separated it from the command ship. Stafford and Cernan flew the lander down to only thirteen kilometers from the moon. They described the moon during a radio and television broadcast. "It is like wet clay," they said. "Like a dry river bed in New Mexico or Arizona.

It is a beautiful sight." On May twenty-third, the lander rejoined the command module one hundred kilometers above the moon. Apollo Ten started for home. The final testing was done. Apollo was ready to land on the moon. That will be our story next week. (MUSIC) VOICE TWO:This program was written by Marilyn Rice Christiano and produced by Mario Ritter. I'm Barbara Klein. VOICE ONE: And I'm Steve Ember. You can find other programs about the American space program at our web site, oaspecialenglish.com. Join us again next week as we continue the story of the Apollo space flights on EXPLORATIONS in VOA Special English.

11 How to Help Your Baby Learn to Talk? Try Talking to Your Baby

AA: I'm Avi Arditti, Rosanne Skirble is away. This week on WORDMASTER: baby talk.(MOVIE SOUND)The movie "Babies" is now showing in theaters in the United States. It's a documentary that follows four infants through their first year. Two of the families live in rural communities in Namibia and Mongolia. The other two live in busy cities - Tokyo and San Francisco, California. The director, French filmmaker Thomas Balmes, did most of the filming himself. Imagine 400 hours of footage, edited down to a 79-minute film without narration. That's "Babies." But, really, who needs a narrator when you can let babies speak for themselves? In fact, as we hear from VOA's Carol Pearson, researchers are finding that babies know more than we sometimes realize. CP: What do they know and when do they know it? Such questions have researchers monitoring babies' brains to find out. At Northwestern University, researchers recently concluded that well before babies start to speak, they recognize words and can link them to the things they represent. At four and a half months, Finn is not talking, but he definitely responds to what his mother says.The Northwestern study and others indicate that one of the best things parents can do is talk to their babies.COVINGTON CAMPBELL: "One day when exploring, what do you think he'd see? What do you think he'll see?"Researchers think babies begin developing language skills while they are in the womb. Covington Campbell was in law school when she was pregnant with Finn. COVINGTON CAMPBELL: "I was finishing my last semester of law school, so, I guess, check back with me in 30 years and see if he's a litigator, because he would definitely come alive in my corporations classes and he always heard my professors speaking." Professor Kathy Hirsh-Pasik directs the Infant Language Laboratory at Temple University in Philadelphia. KATHY HIRSH-PASIK: "We think the very first processes of language development are actually starting in the womb because they are overhearing their mother's speech." Researchers say that is when babies pick up the melodies of language. KATHY HIRSH-PASIK: "They can sometimes remember some of the words that they've heard. And they appear to zoom in on classes of language. They may not know French from Spanish, but they know that that's in one group and English and German are in another group."Another study shows that babies and children who are frequently talked to have higher IQ scores and later on, do better in school.Child development specialist Judy Montgomery encourages parents to talk to their babies.JUDY MONTGOMERY: "Parents and caregivers; the family members are the first ones who introduce vocabulary. And the more words the children hear, the greater their vocabulary."But Hirsh-Pasik warns against putting babies in front of a television. KATHY HIRSH-PASIK: "Children need the interactive back-and-forth. We call it 'reciprocity.'" Campbell says she likes to sing to her baby.COVINGTON CAMPBELL: "He smiles a lot when we sing to him. He definitely reacts to it, it sort of calms him down a little bit." Carol Pearson, VOA News.AA: And you can watch a video of Carol's report on our website, voanews.com/wordmaster. You can also search through our program archives and subscribe to our weekly podcast. And you can follow us on Facebook and Twitter at VOA Learning English. That's WORDMASTER for this week. I'm Avi Arditti. (MUSIC: "Babies" theme)

13 Taking Action Against Child Labor

This is the VOA Special English Development Report.Delegates from around the world have agreed on a new plan to end the worst kinds of child labor by two thousand sixteen. More than four hundred fifty delegates from eighty countries approved the plan at the Global Child Labor Conference. It was held in The Hague, the Netherlands, last week.A week earlier, the International Labor Organization released its third Global Report on Child Labor. The report said there are still two hundred fifteen million child laborers in the world. One hundred and fifteen million of them are working in some of the worst kinds of child labor.These are often dangerous to their health and safety.The ILO notes that child labor is decreasing worldwide, but at a much slower rate than four years ago. The organization also warned that the global economic crisis could slow progress even more. It called for an increase in global efforts in order to reach the goals for ending the worst forms of child labor. Representatives at the conference last week talked about what actions need to be taken.Patrick Quinn is with the ILO's International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor. He says there is clear evidence of the kinds of policies and programming interventions that can be most effective in combating the problem. PATRICK QUINN: "We know for example that if governments tackle the barriers that stop poor families accessing education, if they tackle the fees which many poor families often have to pay for education, they can encourage children to attend school. So governments putting in place the right education policies. In many parts of the world we've seen that if governments introduce social protection programs, measures for example which give family benefits to families with children, particularly poorer families, this can have an important impact in enabling people to keep their children in school and out of the work force."Mister Quinn says efforts to combat the problem must also be increased at the community level. He said the ILO is working with local civic organizations to change opinions about child labor.The ILO report notes that several areas of the world are making important progress. They include Latin America, the Caribbean and south Asia. The least progress has been made in Africa. Mister Quinn says world leaders will discuss the issue later this year at a meeting on the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. He says there is a close link between these goals and combating child labor.And that's the VOA Special English Development Report, written by June Simms. Transcripts, MP3s and podcasts of our programs are at soaspecialenglish.com. I'm Steve Ember

12Record-Breaking Storm Floods 'Music City'

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. I'm Shirley Griffith.STEVE EMBER: And I'm Steve Ember. This week on our program, we tell about Nashville, Tennessee, and its efforts to recover from severe flooding.(MUSIC) SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: The official nickname of Nashville is "Music City, USA." When people think of Nashville, they think of country music. The city is home to the Grand Ole Opry, the Country Music Hall of Fame and many major record companies. But some of these famous places were seriously damaged by severe flooding earlier this month.Rivers flooded parts of Tennessee after a record-breaking storm. More than thirty centimeters of rain fell on May first and second. The water swelled most of the area's lakes, small rivers, creeks and streams. Much of that water flowed into the Cumberland River, which flows through Nashville.On May third, the Cumberland River measured almost sixteen meters, more than three and a half meters above flood stage. This is the highest level since nineteen thirty-seven.STEVE EMBER: The flooding caught most people by surprise. There were power failures, which made it difficult to warn drivers about flooded streets.Hundreds of people were rescued by boats from their flooded homes. At least twenty-nine people were killed in Tennessee, Mississippi and Kentucky, either by floodwaters or tornadoes.At least nine people were killed in Nashville. Cleaning up and repairing that city may cost a billion and a half dollars or more.SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: The water flooded some of Nashville's best-known places, including the Grand Ole Opry House. The Grand Ole Opry is the heart of country music in America. Performances and music broadcasts have taken place there since nineteen twenty-five.By the nineteen forties, "Grand Ole Opry" had become the most important country music radio show in America. Roy Acuff was perhaps the most popular Opry artist of that time. Here he is with the Smoky Mountain Boys performing "Wabash Cannonball."(MUSIC) STEVE EMBER: The Ryman Auditorium was home to the Grand Ole Opry until nineteen seventy-four. Then the show moved to the Grand Ole Opry House, fourteen kilometers east of the center of the city. The flood damaged the building and destroyed instruments, costumes, sheet music and audio tapes. The Opry was forced to move its shows to other concert halls.Several other music theaters in the city were also flooded. So was the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center. More than one thousand people staying at the hotel were taken to a nearby high school.The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum suffered only minor damage. Objects from famous country music stars of the past were not affected.SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: However, many of Nashville's current country music performers lost instruments and equipment when a storage center was flooded. Musician Brad Paisley said most of his guitars and equipment for his upcoming concerts had been destroyed.Hundreds of other musicians also store their instruments and equipment there. Ben Jumper, the owner of the storage business, said he expected his losses would amount to tens of millions of dollars.The floodwaters damaged or destroyed many other businesses and homes in the city. On May sixth, country music star Kenny Chesney posted a video on YouTube. It shows the floodwaters on his property. He asked for help for people affected by the flooding.KENNY CHESNEY: "This is my property here in Nashville, Tennessee. I've got thirty-nine acres here and you can see it's all under about ten to twelve feet of water. I live right on the river. I want to urge all of you guys to do whatever you can to help the people of Nashville. As long as I've been here this is the toughest thing that's ever happened to this city and I want to urge everybody out there to give whatever you can - as little as you can or as much as you can - to give something because there's a lot of people really hurting right now."I lost a big portion of this property but there's a lot of people in this city who have lost their lives and their livelihoods. So please - toothbrush, toothpaste, two dollars, twenty dollars, two hundred dollars, two thousand dollars, whatever. It all adds up and it all goes to a good cause. Keep Nashville, Tennessee, in your prayers."STEVE EMBER: Here is Kenny Chesney singing one of his hits, "I'm Alive."(MUSIC) The music industry is supporting several disaster-relief efforts for Nashville. The Twelfth Annual Grammy Block Party and Membership Celebration was held May eleventh. It raised money for the Recording Academy's new MusiCares Nashville Flood Relief Fund. This event helps local musicians in need.The money will pay for food and clothing, transportation, clean-up efforts, relocation costs and medicine.GAC, a cable television network for country music, broadcast a program May sixteenth to raise money for relief efforts. It was broadcast from the Ryman Auditorium which was not damaged by the floods.The yearly CMA Music Festival will be held June tenth to the thirteenth. Half the money from the festival will be given to the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee for flood relief.SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: Famous citizens of Nashville are also organizing events. Singer and songwriter Kesha announced a flood benefit concert to take place June sixteenth. All profits will be used to help families affected by the flood.Kesha said: "Nashville helped shape me as an artist and as a person and my love for this city is beyond words. I will continue to do anything I can to help rebuild this city and support the families and animals who have been affected by this tragedy." Last Monday, Tim McGraw and Faith Hill announced another benefit concert on June twenty-second. It is called "Nashville Rising: A Benefit Concert for Flood Recovery."(MUSIC) STEVE EMBER: Country music star Taylor Swift announced she is giving five hundred thousand dollars to help victims of the flooding. She made the announcement May sixth during a local television program to raise money for flood relief. That effort raised almost two million dollars.Taylor Swift said: "Nashville is my home, and the reason why I get to do what I love. I have always been proud to be a Nashvillian, but especially now, seeing the love that runs through this city when there are people in crisis."(MUSIC) SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: Our program was written by Shelley Gollust. Caty Weaver was our producer. I'm Shirley Griffith.STEVE EMBER: And I'm Steve Ember. Transcripts, MP3s and podcasts of our programs are at voaspecialenglish.com. You can also post comments on our website and on our Facebook page at VOA Learning English. Join us again next week for THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English.

13 Why Grafting Still Fits Nicely Into Agriculture

This is the VOA Special English Agriculture Report.Grafting is a way to produce plants from pieces of existing plants instead of seeds.Branches or buds are cut from one plant and placed on a related kind of plant. The branch or bud that is grafted is called the scion. The plant that accepts the graft is called the rootstock.Grafting can join scions with desirable qualities to rootstock that is strong and resists disease and insects.A graft can be cut several ways. One way is a cleft graft. It requires a scion with several buds on it. The bottom of the scion is cut in the shape of the letter V.The scion is then securely placed into a cut on the rootstock. Material called a growth medium is put on the joint to keep it from getting dry and to help the two plants grow together.Many fruits and nuts have been improved through grafting. Flowers can also be improved this way.Some common fruit trees such as sweet cherries and McIntosh apples have to be grafted. Grafting is also used to produce seedless fruits like navel oranges and seedless watermelons.Grafting continues to hold an important place in agriculture even in an age of modern genetic engineering.

Recently we told you about a study of genetically engineered crops and how they have affected farming in the United States. The study found that many farmers have better harvests, better weed control and fewer losses from insect damage compared to traditional crops.Our story brought a number of comments, including this one from Odalberto Domingos Casonatto in Brazil. He wrote that in his town the population depends on agriculture and transgenic crops. He says it is true that such crops can have higher output with less cost, but added:No one knows the consequences that will have on soil fertility and the human body. Only the future will tell us the truth about transgenic food.Christian in France expressed a different concern, saying: The big problem of the transgenic seeds is that they are the monopoly of big companies. The small farmers cannot reproduce any more seeds by themselves.And Joom from Thailand wrote: I don't care where the crops come from, natural plants or genetic engineering, as long as we can produce food enough for people.You can comment on our stories and find transcripts, MP3s and podcasts at voaspecialenglish.com. You can also join us on Facebook and Twitter at VOA Learning English.And that's the VOA Special English Agriculture Report. I'm Bob Doughty.

14 Experts Urge Limits on Widely Used Pain Drug

This is the VOA Special English Health Report.The United States government might place new restrictions on a commonly used painkiller.Taking too much acetaminophen can cause liver damage and even death. Last week, a group of experts advised the Food and Drug Administration that the drug needs more controls and better directions for use. Acetaminophen, also called paracetamol, is found in Tylenol,Excedrin and other products that do not require a doctor's prescription. These products are used for pain, fever, colds and sleeplessness.Their easy availability is part of the problem. People can accidentally take too much acetaminophen if they take several medicines that all contain it.The

experts recommended reducing the largest non-prescription dose of acetaminophen

from one thousand milligrams. They said that is too much. They said adults should not take more than six hundred fifty milligrams at a time. The experts also said people should take less than four thousand milligrams of acetaminophen in a single day. Acetaminophen overdose is a leading cause of liver damage in the United States. Researchers say it resulted in fifty-six thousand emergency room visits a year during the

nineteen nineties. There were almost four hundred sixty deaths a year from

liver failure. The committee was especially concerned about prescription drugs that combine acetaminophen with stronger painkillers. The experts recommended banning combination drugs like Percocet and Vicodin.Still, the experts were divided in their votes. The agency is not required to follow the advice of its committees, but generally does. Acetaminophen is valued as a pain and fever reducer for adults and children. It does not cause stomach problems or bleeding like aspirin, ibuprofen and some other competing drugs can. But experts say taking even small amounts over the recommended dose can cause liver damage. Some people suffer harm from smaller amounts than others. Alcohol use with acetaminophen is especially bad for the liver. Signs of liver injury include nausea, vomiting and a lack of energy. But these may not develop for two or three days after an overdose - too late to prevent damage.People should ask a health professional about drug combinations that could be harmful. And they should make sure they know what is in the medicines they take and howmuch of each drug is safe to take.And that's the VOA Special English Health Report, written by Mario Ritter. I'm Steve Ember

15 Studying in the US: Foreign Graduates and Jobs

This is the VOA Special English Education Report.We answered a question last week about how American college students find jobs after they graduate. Now, we discuss foreign graduates. The process for employing foreign workers in the United States is long. It involves different government agencies. It also involves a hot political issue. For example, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that President Obama signed into law in February dealt with this issue. It included conditions against foreign workers displacing qualified Americans at companies that receive federal stimulus money. Job cuts have slowed in some industries. But the economic downturn has cost millions of jobs and recovery will take some time.Foreign graduates need a job offer to get an H-1B visa. This is a non-immigrant visa for work in the person's area of specialty. The employer is the one who applies for it. The visa is good for three years and may be extended for another three years. Cheryl Gilman directs visa services at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. She noted that H-1B visas were still available for next year. This tells her that the recession is preventing employers from sponsoring as many foreign

nationals as they have in the past. Sixty-five thousand H-1Bs are awarded each year to graduates with a bachelor's degree. Bill Wright at the Department of Homeland Security says fewer than forty-five thousand applications for these visas had been received as of this week. There was more demand for twenty thousand other H-1Bs for those with advanced degrees. In addition, thousands of the visas are awarded to other groups, such as university researchers.Amy Ramirez is an administrator at Johns Hopkins

University in Maryland. She says foreign students who work for their school or

at an internship probably have the best chance for a job after graduation. She

points out that many foreign graduates ask to stay for what is called optional

practical training. This lets them accept temporary employment in their area of

study for twelve months after graduation. Many times, the employer will then apply for an H-1B. But Amy Ramirez and CherylGilman both say foreign students should understand that visa rules change often.That can make it difficult to plan ahead for what to do after graduation.And that's the VOA Special English Education Report,written by Nancy Steinbach. Earlier reports in our Foreign Student Series are at oaspecialenglish.com. I'm Steve Ember.

16White Firefighters Win Closely-Watched Employment Case

This is the VOA Special English Economics Report.The United States Supreme Court began its summer break this week. One of the last decisions of its term will likely cause employers to take greater care in how they choose workers to promote.The case involved tests that the city of New Haven, Connecticut, gave to firefighters in two thousand three. Minorities were heavily involved in the testing process because of disputes over earlier examinations. But the only firefighters who qualified forimmediate promotion to lieutenant or captain were whites and two Hispanics, no blacks. City officials believed that offering promotions based on the results would violate the nineteen sixty-four Civil

Rights Act. Title seven of that federal law says employers cannot discriminate based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin. But it not only bars "disparate treatment." It also bars "disparate impact" - actions that are not meant to discriminate but in fact

disproportionately harm minorities. The city canceled the test results,fearing legal claims by minorities who failed the exams. Instead, white and Hispanic firefighters who passed went to court. Their case reached the Supreme Court, and in a five-to-four decision on Monday they won. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion. "The City," he said, "rejected the test results solely because the higher scoring candidates were white." Fear of legal action alone, he said, "cannot justify an employer's reliance on race" if it hurts qualified individuals. Writing for the dissenters, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg said the white firefighters who scored high "understandably attract this Court's sympathy." But, she said, they had no right to a promotion. The majority found that the city failed to prove a disparate impact violation. But the court did not rule on the constitutionality of the provision itself. Still,Kevin Russell, a lawyer who specializes in Supreme Court cases, says the ruling puts all employers to a task. They have to make sure a test is truly unlawful before changing it. Three judges on a federal appeals court had earlier sided with the city of New Haven. Their ruling, now reversed by the Supreme Court, was not unusual. But the case got special attention because one of the judges was Sonia Sotomayor. President Obama has nominated her to replace retiring Justice David Souter on the Supreme Court. Her Senate confirmation hearings are set to begin July thirteenth. And that's the VOA Special English Economics Report, written by Mario Ritter. I'm

Steve Ember.

17 An 1859 Battle in Italy, and the Birth of the Red Cross

This is the VOA Special English Health Report.The International Red Cross Movement grew out of a major battle in the unification of Italy. The Battle of Solferino took place one hundred fifty years ago, in June of eighteen fifty-nine. This past week, volunteers from Red Cross and Red Crescent societies around the world gathered in Solferino to mark theanniversary. (SOUND) About eight thousand people marched in a torch-lit event called the Fiaccolata. They followed in the footsteps of those who took injured soldiers from Solferino to the nearest village, Castiglione. Hannigton Segarunaya, national youth president of the Ugandan Red Cross Society, says the visit made him want to work harder to help people. HANNIGTON SEGARUNAYA: "I am going back to Uganda in Africa to make more moves for humanity. I know where the young people come together, we have the possibility of doing whatever it takes to make the world

a better place."In the battle, allied French and Sardinian troops defeated the Austrian army. Around six thousand men were killed and more than thirty thousand were wounded. Yet, says Swiss historian Francois Bugnion, the battle lasted

only twelve hours. He says a Swiss businessman named Henri Dunant was horrified

by what he saw. FRANCOIS BUGNION: "Thousands of wounded were brought to the next town of Castiglione where he arrived and there was practically no medical assistance. So he saw hundreds of men, thousands of men, suffering awfully from very deep wounds and left to die without any realassistance." He says Henri Dunant quickly took action. The businessman got local women to provide food and water. He also got them to dress the wounds of soldiers without concern for their nationality. Dunant

later wrote a book called "A Memory of Solferino." In it, he launchedtwo ideas. One was the idea of voluntary relief societies to provide assistance to the wounded or other people. This led to the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. The second idea was a treaty protecting the wounded and medical personnel on the field of battle. This, explains historian Francois Bugnion, is the origin of the Geneva Conventions. Stephen Ryan is the communications officer for youth and volunteers at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. He says it is important to get young people

involved in volunteer work at an early age. STEPHEN RYAN: "Young people need to be given the opportunity to really feel like they are making a difference in the world. It gives people the opportunity to make change that they would like to see in the world."And that's the VOA Special English Health Report, with reporting from Solferino by Lisa Schlein. Archives of our programs are at voaspecialenglish.com. I'm Steve Ember.

18Ms. Has a Longer History (or Herstory) Than You Might Think

AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on WORDMASTER:

our language-hunting friend Ben Zimmer has been tracking the origin of the female title "Ms.," which, unlike Mrs. for a married woman and Miss for someone who's single, does not indicate marital status. Most people assume it came from the feminist movement of the nineteen seventies. But thanks to digital newspaper archives, Ben has just located a

proposal published more than a century ago. BEN ZIMMER:"So there was an article in the Springfield Republican of Springfield, Massachusetts, on November tenth, nineteen-oh-one. But I wasn't able to find the original article for quite a long time; I was only able to find discussion about the article. It ended up getting reprinted in newspapers around the country." AA: "Why don't you read us a little bit from that article?" BEN ZIMMER: "It starts off by saying 'There is a void in the English language which, with some diffidence, we undertake to fill. Everyone has been put in an embarrassing position by ignorance of the status of some woman. To call a maiden Mrs. is only a shade worse than to insult a matron with the inferior title Miss. Yet it is not always easy to know the facts.'" RS: "And this was written in November of nineteen-oh-one." AA: "Do you have any idea who wrote it?"BEN ZIMMER: "Unfortunately these newspaper items were unsigned so we don'tknow who the actual author was. Very likely a man, but the title of the section that it appears is Men, Women and Affairs. Springfield, Massachusetts, was actually a place where there was a lot of what's called first wave feminism - so, for instance, the women's suffrage movement, where they were lobbying for women to have the right to vote.So it was active in terms of early feminism. "But we could see from this article it wasn't necessarily a feminist argument that was being proposed. It was more just a practical solution to save yourself the social embarrassment of calling an unmarried woman married or vice versa. So it wasn't until later, much later, in the seventies really,

that it became identified as something that had to do with the feminist movement and a proposal that had more to do with trying to have a non-sexist alternative to Mister, the male title, abbreviated Mr., which does not make reference to a man's marital status."RS: "And Ms. became the name of a magazine."BEN ZIMMER: "That's right. That did a lot to boost the profile of the title Ms. when Ms. magazine - which was associated with the women's liberation movement - was first published in nineteen seventy-one." AA: "You know, it's interesting, because the English language obviously goes back centuries and we've had these distinctions of Miss/Mrs. for, I assume, quite a long time. Why did it take this long for someone to come up with a solution, and were there earlier attempts at finding a single term for a woman who might be married or might not be married?" BEN

ZIMMER: "Well, these titles have really changed over time. And, in fact, the term Mistress, which is actually where Mrs. comes from originally. Mrs. was originally an abbreviation of Mistress, but that became pronounced as missus even though it retained the r in the abbreviation. Mistress was one title that in certain places in the U.K. or the U.S. could possibly refer to a woman regardless of marital status. But there wasn't anything over all like that. In general this distinction between unmarried woman and married women was maintained. "A lot of that had to do with the fact that when a woman married, she was expected to take the last name of the husband, and so you moved from Miss Smith to Mrs. Jones. Well, this is another thing that changed quite a lot, particularly in the nineteen sixties and seventies with the feminist movement, where more women were retaining their maiden name. And then it didn't really make any sense to use Miss or Mrs. if a mwoman is married but has not changed her name to her husband's name." AA: Ben Zimmer writes about language as executive producer of the Web site visualthesaurus.com. And a style point here - even though Ms. is not an abbreviation, it appears with a period in most American usage. And that's WORDMASTER for this week. Archives are at voanews.com/wordmaster. With Rosanne Skirble, I'm Avi Arditti.

19 Driven by a Business Plan, but How Far Will It Get You?

This is the VOA Special English Economics Report.A business plan, in the words of the Small Business Administration in Washington,is a tool with three basic purposes. As a communication tool, it can show possible investors how well you have considered your ideas. As a management tool, it can list goals and ways to measure progress. And as a planning tool, it can help guide a business around problems. For people starting a new business, the biggest problems commonly involve financing. Entrepreneurs often seek venture capital. This is money from wealthy individuals or investment companies for the purpose of building new businesses.Each year, entrepreneurs with ideas for the "next big thing" flood venture capitalists with business plans. But John Mullins of the London Business School, writing in the Wall Street Journal, says most business plans are never even fully read. A good business plan, he says, must define a problem that the new business will solve. Many plans fail to show how a product or service meets a need. Also,

business plans often assume it will be easy to gain a share of a large or fast-growing market. Professor Mullins advises entrepreneurs to do market tests so they have real numbers to support their claims. And he says honesty about possible problems with the plan is important. Successful businesses often change plans as conditions change. Business students spend hours and hours learning how to write a business plan. But even a good one has its limits. A new study suggests that venture capitalists rarely consider the business plan when deciding whether to invest in a new company. David Kirsch is an associate professor at the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of

Maryland. He and others examined more than seven hundred requests made to an

American venture capital firm. He says he was startled to find that planning documents have such little influence. Professor Kirsch tells us that venture capitalists instead talk to people who know the entrepreneur. They talk to business experts, lawyers and other knowledgeable people. The study appeared in the May issue of Strategic Management Journal.David Kirsch considers business plans a good way to organize an entrepreneur's ideas. But, in his words, "A smart entrepreneur should spend his time developing the business rather than the business plan." And that's the VOA Special English Economics Report, written by Mario Ritter. Transcripts and archives are at voaspecialenglish.com. I'm Steve Ember

20 Studying in the US: The Job Market

This is the VOA Special English Education Report. In America, May and June are the traditional months for graduations. A listener in China, Jack Hoo from Jiangsu province, wants to know how American college graduates find jobs. Right now the answer is: not very easily.The National Association of Colleges and Employers collects information on the college job market. NACE's latest survey in March found that employers expected to hire twenty-two percent fewer graduates this year than last. Most blamed the recession. The most recent student survey showed that just one-fifth of those who looked for jobs before graduation have one by now. This is compared to half of students who had looked for a job by this time two years ago. But one difference: fewer of this year's graduates have started to search for jobs. Still, NACE found no big increase in graduates who plan to stay in school and avoid the job market. About twenty-seven percent said they plan to go to graduate school, compared to about twenty-four percent a year ago. Engineering

and accounting graduates were more likely to have started their job search already

and to have accepted a job. These are among the best paid professions for people with just a college degree. On average, engineering majors expect to start at about sixty-two thousand dollars a year. Accounting majors expect about forty-five thousand. So how can students increase their chances for a job? Mimi Collins at NACE says the most effective tool is a school's career counseling center. Counselors can help students with job applications and preparing for interviews.They also let students know about job opening gs and events like job recruitment fairs. They can also help first-year students decide what to study.Another way to look for a job is to do an internship. This is when a student gets experience in a position that may or may not be paid. The latest NACE survey

found that seventy-three percent of graduates who did get jobs had completed an

internship. The group reported in March that employers expected to increase hourly wage offers for college interns by five percent from last year. But, because of the

economy, employers reduced the number of internships available by twenty-one

percent. And that's the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach. You can find our Foreign Student Series on studying in the United States at voaspecialenglish.com. I'm Steve Ember This is the VOA Special English Education Report. In America, May and June are the traditional months for graduations. A listener in China, Jack Hoo from Jiangsu province, wants to know how American college

graduates find jobs. Right now the answer is: not very easily. The National Association of Colleges and Employers collects information on the college job market. NACE's latest survey in March found that employers expected to hire twenty-two percent fewer graduates this year than last. Most blamed the recession. The most recent student survey showed that just one-fifth of those who looked for jobs before graduation have one by

now. This is compared to half of students who had looked for a job by this time

two years ago. But one difference: fewer of this year's graduates have started

to search for jobs. Still,NACE found no big increase in graduates who plan to stay in school and avoid the job market. About twenty-seven percent said they plan to go to graduate school, compared to about twenty-four percent a year ago.Engineering and accounting graduates were more likely to have started their job search already and to have accepted a job. These are among the best paid professions for people with just a college degree. On average, engineering majors expect to start at about sixty-two thousand dollars a year. Accounting majors expect about forty-five thousand. So how can students increase their chances for a job? Mimi Collins at NACE says the most effective tool is a school's career counseling center. Counselors can help students with job applications and preparing for interviews.They also let students know about job openings and events like job recruitment fairs. They can also help first-year students decide what to study. Another way to look for a job is to do an internship. This is when a student gets

experience in a position that may or may not be paid. The latest NACE survey

found that seventy-three percent of graduates who did get jobs had completed an

internship. The group reported in March that employers expected to increase hourly wage offers for college interns by five percent from last year. But, because of the

economy, employers reduced the number of internships available by twenty-one

percent. And that's the VOA Special English Education Report,written by Nancy Steinbach. You can find our Foreign Student Series on studying in the United States at voaspecialenglish.com. I'm Steve Ember

21 New Study Disputes Depression Gene Finding

This is the VOA Special English Health Report.We all know that some people do not seem as emotionally strong as others when life gets difficult. But why is that? A study published in two thousand three in the journal Science fered an answer.The study followed almost eight hundred fifty people from birth through age twenty-six. Researchers found that those with a short version of a certain gene were more likely to get depressed after a sador difficult experience. They found that people with the normal length of the gene were better able to weather life's storms. The gene is a transporter of serotonin, a brain chemical involved with mood and desire for food. The two thousand three study captured attention among mental health professionals, and popular culture. In fact, Science magazine recognized

the discovery of "genes for mental illness" as the number two "Breakthrough

of the Year." The winner was observations about mysteries of the universe. Last week, however, other researchers published findings of a large new study. They report finding no link between the serotonin transporter gene and the risk of depression. The findings appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Neil Risch is director of the University of California, San Francisco, Institute for Human Genetics and a leader of the new study. He says the earlier study gained so much recognition, it became - in his words - "fixed in many people's minds as true." The National Institute of Mental Health and Kaiser Permanente Northern California also took part in the latest study. The

researchers used information from fourteen studies involving more than fourteen

thousand patients. The scientists examined the data using the same measures as

the two thousand three study. They found that the risk of depression was not higher

among those with the shorter gene. But they also found that stressful events

themselves did appear to increase the risk for depression.Neuroscientist Avshalom Caspi, then at Kings College London, led the two thousand three study. He is now at Duke University in North Carolina. He has criticized the new study as incomplete. He says it ignores evidence that supports the original research.Peter Zandi is a genetic researcher at Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health in Maryland. He agrees that this latest study is not the final word.PETER ZANDI: "After many years of trying to figure

out what is going on with the genetic cause of depression, we're still not

there yet."And that's the VOA Special English Health Report, written by Caty Weaver. For more health news, go to voaspecialenglish.com. I'm Steve Ember.

22 Obama Seeks Reforms in Financial Supervision

This isthe VOA Special English Economics Report.On Wednesday, President Obama proposed major changes to rebuild government supervision of the financial industry. BARACK OBAMA: "So today, my administration is proposing a sweeping overhaul of

the financial regulatory system, a transformation on a scale not seen since the reforms that followed the Great Depression." The current economic downturn grew out of a culture of irresponsible lending and borrowing and "a failure of the entire system," he said. He says a new system is needed to meet the speed and complexity of a twenty-first century global economy. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner says the financial crisis developed in part because the existing system let some companies "shop for the weakest regulator." He discussed the plan before the Senate Banking Committee on Thursday. One goal is to increase supervision of big companies whose failure could threaten the

financial system. The Federal Reserve would gain new powers. The central bank

would work with a proposed Financial Services Oversight Council to decide which

companies are too big to fail.The idea is to identify troubled companies early. But the Fed would now have to seek permission from the Treasury to carry out emergency lending. The administration also proposes a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency. It would

be responsible for protecting people from unfair and abusive practices with borrowing

and investing. The administration also supports another proposal. Lenders would have to keep five percent of the home loans they would normally group together to sell as

securities. The idea is that lenders will be more responsible in making loans

if they might not be able to pass off risky mortgages to investors. Democratic

leaders in Congress say they hope to pass a bill for the president to sign by

the end of the year.Some groups were dissatisfied with the proposals. Insurance companies hoping for simplified rules will continue to deal with different supervisors in every state. And there is almost no effort to combine the numerous federal regulatory agencies into a single financial regulator. An industry group, the Financial Services Roundtable, says it supports many of the administration's proposals - but not for a consumer protection agency. It opposes separating the regulation of a company from its products, saying each regulator will only have half the information. The industry "does not necessarily need more regulation," it says," but rather more effective regulation." And that's the VOA Special English Economics Report, written by Mario Ritter. I'm Steve Ember.

23 Drink the Corporate Kool-Aid? Not If You Want to Sit in the Catbird Seat

AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on WORDMASTER:

we're back with Ralph Keyes, author of the new book "I Love It When You Talk Retro." RS: He explores the origins of terms that Americans use even if they are too young to remember where these terms came from. RALPH KEYES: "Take a phrase like drink the Kool-Aid. Now that refers back to the nineteen seventy-eight episode where the followers of the Reverend Jim Jones obeyed his orders to commit suicide - " RS: "In Jonestown."RALPH KEYES: " - in Jonestown, Guyana, by drinking a flavored fruit drink." AA: "Which was not Kool-Aid." RALPH KEYES: "It was not Kool-Aid, it was Flavor Aid. For a long time you didn't hear the phrase drink the Kool-Aid. Then, and I sort of tracked this, you began to see references several years later to drink the Jim

Jones Kool-Aid. And now we say drink the Kool-Aid whenever we want to refer to somebody who slavishly follows the orders or the ideology or the path of another person. And I think we'll be using that for quite a while." AA: "That's used in a lot of corporate references, isn't it? Sort of like they drank the corporate Kool-Aid."RALPH KEYES: "Exactly." AA:"I've got to ask you about a term that I've heard forever and I [was]

never sure what it meant: catbird seat. What is a catbird seat?"RALPH KEYES: "OK, now a catbird is a bird that sits at the top of a tree and kind of caws and caws and in essence directs the action. And this became a phrase in the South, to be in the catbird seat, to be in charge of things or really in a good place. And the Brooklyn Dodgers

[baseball] announcer Red Barber began to use this phrase a lot: Are you sitting in the catbird seat? or He's sitting in the catbird seat. He said he picked it up in a poker game in Cincinnati from a Southern player." AA: "And that was so long ago, that was when the Dodgers were in Brooklyn before they moved to Los Angeles." RALPH KEYES: "That's right." RS: "This is so tied, this book is so tied to American history and culture,

how can you help our listeners who speak English as a foreign language learn some of these terms and in essence learn a lot more about American culture."RALPH KEYES: "Well, one way would be to read my book. [laughter]" AA: "After all, it takes two to tango, right?"RALPH KEYES: "Yeah."RS: "Where did that come from?"RALPH

KEYES: "Well, tangos became popular in this country following on what were called animal dances. And animal dances were similar to today's rock dances where you dance pretty much separately. But then tango took over, and in tango you really had to dance in synchronization with your partner. "So then the phrase it takes two to tango became

popular. Now this was kind of a double entendre also, but it's endured as a phrase since the nineteen twenties. I once saw during the crisis in the Balkans, when the Albanians accepted a proposal to end the fighting in Kosovo that had already been spurned by the Serbs, a Russian diplomat said 'It takes two to tango.'" RS: "How can our listeners get a handle on some of these retro terms?"RALPH KEYES: "Well, I think the idea in the case of retro terms is less to study language and more to study social history. So I think there are any number of good books out there on social history. I'm thinking, for example, of David Halberstam's book on the fifties. Jane and Michael Stern put out very good books on pop culture. And in reading them you will, I think, find in case after case after case that you're beginning to see where some of the phrases come from that you hear all the time that are rooted in our history." RS: "Or do an Internet search, because a lot of these terms really haven't evolved like slang."RALPH KEYES: "No. No, no. They're very rooted in a very specific episode in history, a movie, a television show, a radio show. A product - I mean,you hear all the time about secret decoder rings: 'Get out your secret

decoder rings and try to figure this one out.'" AA: "That was a promotional item in breakfast cereals, children's breakfast cereal." RALPH KEYES: "But you know, Avi, the interesting thing is, I always assumed like everyone else, well, yeah, there were secret decoder rings all over the place on kids' fingers in the forties and fifties. I looked

into it. Actually there were lots of secret decoder badges and pins. No rings." RS: Author Ralph Keyes. His new book is called "I Love It When You Talk Retro." AA: You can find part one of our interview at our Web site, voanews.com/wordmaster. And that's WORDMASTER for this week. With Rosanne Skirble, I'm Avi Arditti.

25 WHO Declares Flu Pandemic

Update: On Thursday, the World Health Organization declared the H1N1 virus a pandemic. Director-General Margaret Chan said the virus is now unstoppable but that the

danger is moderate. The agency repeated its advice to countries not to close borders or establish travel restrictions but to be watchful. Infections reached nearly 30,000 onfirmed cases in 74 countries, including 144 deaths. But infections so far have been mild in most people. The declaration of the first influenza pandemic in 41 years followed an emergency meeting of flu experts in Geneva. Under the W.H.O.'s system, declaring a "phase 6″ or pandemic does not mean that a disease has become more severe. It only means that there is an increasing number of infections in different parts of the world. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called a meeting next Monday of the U.N.'s influenza steering committee to decide "our immediate next steps."___Correction attached Transcript of earlier radio broadcast:This is the VOA Special English Health Report.As of Tuesday, seventy-three countries had reported more than twenty-six thousand cases of the new H1N1 flu virus. A World Health Organization official, Keiji

Fukuda, said these confirmed cases included two hundred forty-nine deaths.Doctor

Fukuda, the agency's top flu expert, says the virus continues to spread in North America. And there are increasing reports from South America as well as from other southern countries. Australia has had more than one thousand cases, the largest number outside North America. The state of Victoria has been most affected. But the United States has had by far the most confirmed cases. More than thirteen thousand were reported as of Monday, including twenty-seven deaths. The H1N1 outbreak began in Mexico in March. Mexico has reported more than one hundred deaths. An unusual number of flu cases have been found in young peoplewho were otherwise healthy. The W.H.O. has an influenza warning system in which phase six means that a pandemic is taking place. In recent days the United Nations agency has moved closer and closer to such a declaration. As

of Tuesday officials had not yet announced a change from phase five. But Doctor

Fukuda said the public should understand what a pandemic means.KEIJI FUKUDA: "By going to phase six, what this would mean is that the spread of the virus is continued and that activity has become established in at least two regions of the world. It does not mean that the severity of the situation has increased or that people are getting seriously sick at higher numbers or higher rates than they are right now."Doctor Fukuda, an acting assistant director-general, said the W.H.O. has been working with the member states to prepare for a pandemic. Scientists ar e working on vaccines to protect against the new virus. Governments have been gathering supplies ofanti-viral drugs. But public health officials have also had to consider the risks if the public overreacts to a pandemic declaration. Doctor Fukuda pointed out that hospitals might quickly fill with people who are worried but not especially sick. Then hospitals might not be able to care for other patients who really do need help.The last flu pandemic was in nineteen sixty-eight, caused by the so-called Hong Kong flu. Scientists say the common name for the new disease, swine flu, is misleading. The virus combines human, bird and pig viruses. But, as Doctor Fukuda pointed out, eating meat from pigs has not been a danger. And that's the VOA Special English Health Report, written by Caty Weaver. For more health news, go tovoaspecialenglish.com.___Correction: The W.H.O.'s Keiji Fukuda at first told a press

briefing on Tuesday that there were 249 deaths from the new H1N1 virus.However, he later corrected the number to 140.

26 Connecting Africa s Health Workers

This is the VOA Special English Health Report.The United Nations is seeking to improve

electronic communication for health workers in Africa. Workers in rural areas would have a better way to get training, information and advice from doctors hundreds

or even thousands of kilometers away. In two thousand five, the World Health Assembly passed a resolution urging countries to plan for "eHealth" services. The idea is to look for

ways to use modern information and communications technologies to strengthen

health systems. The World Health Organization says Africa is behind other parts of the world in treating H.I.V./AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. So the United Nations Economic and Social Council is supporting the expansion of telecommunications technology for health care workers. Telemedicine is another term for eHealth. Stennar Pedersen is the director of the Norwegian Center for Telemedicine at the UniversityHospital of North Norway. Doctor Pedersen is working with the W.H.O. He recently met with West African health officials in the Ghanaian capital, Accra. He says the technology can provide easier access to medical specialists and make it easier for people to seek medical information themselves. Elias Sory is the director general of health services in Ghana. He says eHealth will offer a way to reduce the effects of health worker shortages and make it easier to train existing workers. Doctor Sory says the technology will also make it

easier for doctors at Ghana's main teaching hospital, Korle Bu, to share their knowledge.ELIAS SORY: "If you get a doctor who is away in the village and has come across a case he or she thinks is beyond him or her, why cannot that doctor be able to link up easily with a senior doctor in Korle Bu to get advice on it? So we are not there. But eHealth will get us there."The other thing is that medicine is dynamic. Why cannot we use that to train? We do not need all people to come to Korle Bu in order to be upgraded in knowledge; eHealth can bridge that gap. And to me medical education is even one of the most important ingredients in Services must be shaped to fit each country's health care needs and level of technological development. Another issue is patient privacy. The hope is that health ministries will together develop policies on collecting and storing electronic health information about individuals. And that's the VOA Special English Health Report. Transcripts, MP3s and archives of our reports can be found at voaspecialenglish.com, where you can also postcomments. I'm Steve Ember.

27 Money, Influence and the Election of Judges

Clarification attached This is the VOA Special English Economics Report.Elected

judges in the United States got a warning this week about money, politics and

the law. The Supreme Court ruled that a huge campaign donation can be reason

enough not to judge a case involving the donor. Thirty-nine of the fifty states elect at least some of their judges. Terms can last from two to twelve years. Experts say Japan and Switzerland are the only other countries that hold some kind of judicial elections.In many states, elections for judges are increasingly competitive.The Justice at Stake Campaign says candidates raised one hundred sixty-eight million dollars between two thousand and two thousand seven. The group says that was double the amount raised in the nineteen nineties. Critics say the situation threatens the fairness of state courts. It may create the appearance that judges are selling their influence. The Supreme Court ruled on a vote by a judge elected to West Virginia's high court five years ago. Justice Brent Benjamin - now chief justice - voted to overturn a fifty million dollar judgment against the Massey Coal Company. Massey's chairman had spent three million dollars to help elect him to the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals. That was after the company lost a jury trial over a business dispute. Justice Benjamin refused to remove

himself from Massey's appeal and cast the deciding vote. The reason he gave for

not recusing himself was that there was no financial gain for him in making his

decision. The donations, however, represented about sixty percent of all hiscampaign money. The United States Supreme Court found that the "extreme facts" of the case raised the probability of bias to an unconstitutional level. Not every campaign gift requires a judge's recusal, the court said, "but this is an exceptional case." Yet the nine justices were narrowly divided in their opinion. Chief Justice John Roberts was one of four dissenters. He said the court provided no guidance about when recusal will be constitutionally required. This, he said, will lead to an increase in claims that judges are biased, "however groundless those charges may be." The American Bar Association's Committee on Judicial Independence is working on guidelines for when judges should recuse themselves. Committee chairman William Weisenberg says the lawyers group is for greater use of merit-based selections. This is where a committee nominates

candidates to the state governor for appointment. And that's the VOA Special English

Economics Report. I'm Mario Ritter. ___ Clarification: This story notes an estimate of $168 million in campaign spending for state courts from 2000 to 2007. That amount is for elections for state supreme courts alone.

28 Some Terms That Have Outlived Their Roots but Not Their Usefulness

AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on WORDMASTER:

our guest is author Ralph Keyes (kize). His newest book about language

has a mouthful of a title. RS: It's called "I Love It When You Talk Retro: Hoochie Coochie, Double Whammy, Drop a Dime, and the Forgotten Origins of American Speech." AA: "'Double whammy' and 'drop a dime.' Let's start with double whammy. What does that mean exactly?"RALPH KEYES: "Well, this goes back to the old comic strip 'Li'l Abner' which put an amazing number of retro terms into our conversation. And Evil Eye Fleegle was a notorious hoodlum from Brooklyn in 'Li'l Abner,' and

Evil Eye Fleegle would point one finger at someone that he wanted to demolish and cast his evil eye on that person and lay them low. "Now, when Evil Eye Fleegle decided to put both of his eyes on a person or object and point two fingers, this could stop a rushing locomotive or topple a skyscraper. And this was a double whammy. And the only person

who could withstand not just a single whammy but a double whammy was Mammy Yokum, Li'l Abner Yokum's wizened old mother who smoked a corncob pipe. And she would whirl and spin and totter around, but she was still standing when Evil Eye Fleegle tried to lay her low with a double whammy." RS: "So a double whammy today would mean?" RALPH KEYES: "Anything where two things lay you low. Let's say somebody

decides to run for office and it turns out they have a residency problem and they're not old enough. That's a double whammy. RS: "Or you could have the flu and other medical complications - "RALPH KEYES: "Sure."RS: "at the same time. So you would be hit by a double whammy. What was the second ... "AA: "It was drop a dime."RS: "Uh-huh."RALPH KEYES: "Drop a dime. Now this one is really problematic for kids who

have grown up with cell phones because they don't recall, as you and Imay, the glorious golden era of telephone booths. Making a call from a public telephone in a phone booth usually cost a dime. And so when we wanted to squeal on someone, to be a whistleblower and call the cops from a phone that couldn't be traced or where people couldn't see us,

we would go into a phone booth, put a dime in and call the police. Thisis called dropping a dime."RS: "Is it something that is still in use today?" RALPH KEYES: "Well, the phrase is. We still talk about dropping a dime, to say that we're reporting someone, and then we become a dime dropper.But gosh, how many public phones are there out there anymore?"RS: "Not many."AA: "And they certainly cost more than a dime now. I think they're like fifty cents."RALPH KEYES: "That's for sure."AA: "You use the term in here, you talk about some all-American terms and one of them is 'Ozzie and Harriet.'" RALPH KEYES: "Yeah."AA: "Why don't you explain to people who maybe aren't familiar with old American television."RALPH KEYES: "Well, this is a show from the fifties where Ozzie Nelson and Harriet Nelson ran what was considered to be the ideal American family in 'The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet.'"AA: "And they were real people, weren't they?"RALPH KEYES: "Yeah, they were actually married to each other."AA: "Right. And then they were also actors. But it wasn't like what we would today call - " RS: "And their kids were part of the ... they were a real American family."(MUSIC)TVANNOUNCER: "And now, Hotpoint presents America's favorite family comedy, 'The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet' starring the entire Nelson family."OZZIE: "Where's Rick?"DAVID: "Well, he was with me a minute ago."

OZZIE: "Ricky?RICKY NELSON: "I'm coming."OZZIE: "Come on, breakfast is just about ready."AA: "Today we'd say it would be like a reality show, but it wasn't a reality show."RS: "No, it was all scripted."AA: "It was scripted."RALPH KEYES: "And in fact it was a fantasy show because people thought 'Oh,Ozzie and Harriet, that's the way a family ought to be.' And they still talk about that. You know, an 'Ozzie and Harriet' type of family where everything goes smoothly and the dad wears a cardigan sweater and the

mom has an apron on and she's always bustling through the kitchen door with a nice plate of warm brownies."AA: Stay tuned next week for more of our conversation with Ralph Keyes, author of the new book "I Love It When You Talk Retro." RS:And that's WORDMASTER for this week. To learn more about AmericanEnglish, go to oanews.com/wordmaster. With Avi Arditti, I'm RosanneSkirble.

29 Studying in the US: Science Students Are Promised No More Visa Delays

This is the VOA Special English Education Report. American

officials say they are working to reduce visa delays that have affected foreign

science students, researchers and others. The delays involve a security clearance process called Visas Mantis. Through this program, different government agencies try to identify visa applicants who could threaten national security. The aim is to protect American military technology or technology with possible military uses to other countries or to terrorists.A two thousand five report said that seventy percent of Mantis requests came from China, Russia and Ukraine. The United States strengthened its visa requirements after the terrorist attacks in two thousand one. But the Visas Mantis program already existed by then. The State Department combined several programs dating to the Cold War into the current program in nineteen ninety-eight.There have been delays before. Officials said the average processing time in October of two thousand three was seventy-five days. The wait was cut to fifteen days under pressure from Congress. But the wait time has increased again over the past year. Andy Laine, a State Department spokesman, says the program now has more workers and new procedures. He says the changes went into effect on May twenty-ninth with the goal to process all requests within two weeks. But he also says many visas are delayed because foreign students do not bring all their paperwork when requesting their travel documents. He advises students to make an appointment at an American embassy or consulate as soon as they are accepted to a school. They should take all their acceptance materials with them. Higher education groups complained about the delays for foreign science students and scholars. So did professional groups that hold international conferences in the United States.The delays may be one reason why graduate school applications from international students have slowed for the third year. Early findings show that applications rose just four percent from two thousand eight to two thousand nine. The Council of Graduate Schools says this followed an increase of six percent last year and nine percent the year before that. International applications increased by twelve percent from two thousand five to two thousand six. And that's the VOA SpecialEnglish Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach. Earlier reports in ourForeign Student Series are at voaspecialenglish.com. I'm Bob Doughty.

30 Studying in the US: Getting a Military Education

This is the VOA Special English Education Report.This week in our Foreign Student Series,we talk about military education programs in the United States. There are public

and private colleges and universities that offer military educations. But international students can also attend the nation's five service academies. Three of these come under the Defense Department. The United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, prepares officers for the Army. The Air Force Academy is located at Colorado Springs, Colorado. And the Naval Academy is in Annapolis, Maryland; it prepares officers for the Navy and the Marine Corps. Nominees for these academies must be seventeen to twenty-three years old, unmarried and with no children. Candidates are usually nominated by members of Congress. International candidates are nominated by their home governments, which pay for their education. Each government has its own requirements for military service after students graduate. Americans who attend these four-year colleges must serve at least five years of active duty.The Defense Department chooses more than one hundred countries every year and invites them to nominate students to the academies. As many as sixty foreign students may attend each school at any one time. For example, the next class at the Naval Academy will include eighteen foreign students, four of them female. This will bring the total number of foreign students at the Naval

Academy to fifty- three.Tim Disher, head of international programs, says those interested should contact the agency that includes their own naval department. Plus, all of the academies have admissions information on their Web sites.International students can also attend the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut, and the Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, New York. The Coast Guard Academy can have thirty-five international students at any one time; the Merchant Marine Academy, thirty.These

schools have their own entrance requirements. The Coast Guard Academy saysinterested students should contact the defense attache at their local United States embassy. Foreign students interested in the Merchant Marine Academy must request application forms directly from the admissions office. And that's the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach. Our Foreign Student Series is online at voaspecialenglish.com. I'm Steve Ember