 Welcome to Learning English, a daily 30-minute program from the voice of America. I'm Ashley Thompson. And I'm Dan Novak. This program is designed for English learners. So we speak a little slower, and we use words and phrases, especially written for people learning English. On today's program, you will hear stories presented by Brian Lin and Jill Robbins. Dan Friedle and Anna Matteo bring us this week's Education Report. We close the show with today's lesson of the day. But first, here is Brian Lin. A United Nations report says that even with hunger being a problem, the world wastes about 19% of the food it produces. The report said the waste adds up to more than one billion metric tons of food. The writers of the report believe that the food waste could have helped the estimated hundreds of millions of people living with hunger each day. The estimate appears in the UN Environment Program, UNEP's latest Food Waste Index Report. It aims to follow progress on a 2021 UN goal to cut worldwide food waste in half by 2030. The UN said the number of countries taking part in the report nearly doubled from the first one released in 2021. The report is co-produced by the UNEP and an international charity called the Waste and the Resources Action Program. The new report found that the biggest share of wasted food, about 60%, came from households. An estimated 28% came from food service operations, such as restaurants. The researchers estimated each person wastes about 79 kilograms of food yearly. They said that is equal to at least one billion meals wasted daily across the world. Clementine O'Connor is a food waste expert at the UNEP and a co-writer of the report. She described the results to the Associated Press as a travesty. O'Connor said that while the problem is widespread and very complex, she believes it can be helped through effective collaboration and systemic action. The report comes at a time when the UN estimates 783 million people around the world face long-term hunger. The Israel Hamas War and ongoing violence in Haiti have added to the problem. Experts say those conflicts have caused people in Gaza and Haiti to near severe lack of food, called famine. Food waste is also a global concern because of environmental pressures linked to production. These include the land and water required to raise crops and animals, as well as pollution caused by food waste. Experts estimate food loss and waste currently produces 8 to 10% of worldwide greenhouse gases. The report says if food waste were a country, it would rank third after China and the United States. The report's writers said there was notable growth in efforts to reduce food waste in low and middle-income countries. But they said wealthier nations may have to lead international cooperation and policy development. The report said food redistribution, including donations of leftover food to food banks and aid groups, will be an important part in fighting food waste among food sellers. One group involved in such a program is the non-profit food banking Kenya. The non-profit group gets leftover food from farms, markets and other places and redistributes it to school children and people who want food. Food waste is an increasing concern in Kenya, where an estimated 4.45 million metric tons of food is wasted each year. I'm Brian Lin. Next, Jill Robbins reads another winning entry from our Teach Us About Ukraine writing contest. I'm Axelna Kustyrka and teach history on Bobroviceka school number one. It is a warm October day. The wind catches a yellow maple leaf and carries it along the old cobblestone street. This road has witnessed a thousand years of history. You would think I could find a better way to spend my time than contemplating a cobblestone street, but truly I cannot. Wrapped in a warm checkered blanket with a cup of coffee in my hand, I sit on the streets of Lviv, observing a maple leaf drifting in the wind. The poet Ivan Frankel likely walked this old cobblestone street. His words were both tender and encouraging. Many times in a dream it appears to me, oh dear, your image is so beautiful, how clear in the youth of spring, in the best waves of fresh love. The famous historian Mihailo Hrushevsky may have rushed down this street on his way to Lviv University. Ordinary people, simple Ukrainians, joined hands here to connect Lviv and Kyiv in a chain of unbreakable unity and love for their homeland. Lviv is a city of aristocratic tranquility, disrupted by the chatter of people discussing the taste of coffee. This flavor is unmistakable. Bitter, spicy, aromatic. It's not just a drink. It represents the history of an ancient city. Nobody knows for sure when the first cup of coffee was drunk in Lviv. It became popular in the 18th century when it was imported from Austria and Turkey. Credit goes to Ukrainian Yuri Kolchitsky for making coffee popular in the Austrian Empire, beginning with a tiny coffee shop he opened in the 1680s. Not everyone liked the bitter taste of coffee, but later honey, sugar, and milk were added to it. Since then, coffee has become popular, and today you can taste 30 ways to make coffee in Lviv. The city's symbol is the lion, representing a fortress that's not easily conquered. Lviv is a place where many languages and cultures merge, the way coffee blends with water and milk to create something new. Lviv's music is diverse as well. You may hear an organ playing or the sounds of street artists. The sounds are different, but each sound warms you. You don't even notice the lightness of your clothing in the cool weather. Come to Lviv. You won't regret it. Its tastes and sounds will linger in your memory for a lifetime. I'm Jill Robbins. Research published in March found that a free meal program in schools was connected with a reduction in childhood obesity in the United States. Anna Localeo and Jessica Jones-Smith from the University of Washington are two of the researchers who studied the health effects of nutrition-related policies. Their study was published last month in the medical publication Pediatrics. The two wrote in the conversation about their research on a federal program called the Community Eligibility Provision, or CEP. That program started in 2014 permits schools in high-poverty areas to provide free meals in the morning and noon to all their students. In 1946, the U.S. created the National School Lunch Program aiming to protect the health and well-being of American children. Participating schools were required to provide free or reduced price meals at noon, called lunches, to children from eligible families. Eligibility is determined by income based on federal poverty levels. The school breakfast program came in 1966. It provides free, reduced price and full price breakfasts or meals in the morning to students. The Community Eligibility Provision permits all students in a school to receive free breakfast and lunch instead of determining eligibility by individual families. Entire schools or school systems are eligible for free lunches if at least 40% of their students are directly eligible to receive free meals. Localeo and Jones-Smith say the CEP increases school meal participation by reducing the stigma linked to receiving free meals. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. government expanded the program to more school systems across the country. By the 2022-23 school year, over 40,000 schools were participating, an increase of more than 20% over the prior year. The researchers examined whether providing free meals at school through CEP was connected with lower childhood obesity before the pandemic. To do this, they measured changes in obesity from 2013 to 2019 among 3,531 California schools in poorer communities. The researchers used over 3.5 million body mass index, BMI, measurements of students in 5th, 7th and 9th grade that were taken yearly and combined at the school level. BMI is a measure of body fat based on height and weight. The researchers looked at differences between schools that participated in the program and eligible schools that did not. They followed the same schools over time, comparing obesity among students before and after the policy change. The researchers found that schools participating in the CEP program had a 2.4% reduction in levels of obesity in students compared with eligible schools that did not participate in the program. Localeo and Joan Smith wrote that even small improvements in obesity levels are notable because effective strategies to reduce obesity at a population level remain elusive. They added that because obesity affects poor and minority children more than others, this policy could help to reduce health inequalities. The CEP likely reduces the amount of obesity by substituting up to half of a child's weekly diet with healthier food, the research found. Research has shown that school meals can be healthier than meals from other sources, including meals at home. One study found that school meals provide the best diet quality of any major U.S. food source. At the same time, the free meals save about $4.70 a day per child or $850 per year. For low and middle income families, this could result in savings that can be used for other healthy goods or services. Childhood obesity has been increasing over the past several decades. Obesity often continues into adulthood and is linked to many health conditions and early death. Growing research shows the benefits of universal free school meals for the health and well-being of children. Along with the study of California schools, other researchers have found an association between universal free school meals and reduced obesity in Chile, South Korea and Britain. Studies have also linked the CEP program to improvements in school performance and reductions in suspensions. Universal free meals policies may slow the rise in childhood obesity rates, but they alone will not be enough to reverse these trends, Localeo and Jones-Smith say. Alongside free meals, identifying other strategies to reduce obesity among children is necessary to address this public health issue, they say. I'm Deanne Friedel. And I'm Ana Mateo. Deanne Friedel is with me now to talk more about today's Education Report. Hi, Deanne. Thanks for being here. You're welcome, Ashley. I'm happy to be here. There is one word in the story that I was hoping you could explain a little bit more. Eligibility. What does it mean to be eligible for something? If you are eligible, that means you have the right to do or receive something. The word can be used in a variety of contexts, but you often hear it in relation to government programs such as the community eligibility provision discussed in the story. Any government benefit program has eligibility requirements to determine who receives those benefits. For example, when people in the U.S. turn 65, they are eligible for Medicare, which is government funded health insurance for older Americans. So how do the eligibility requirements for CEP differ from other free meal programs? The National School Lunch Program, which was established in the 1940s, gives free lunch to kids based on the federal poverty level, which changes each year. The CEP, however, gives free meals to every student in a school if at least 40% of students at that school are eligible for the free lunch program. This is an important difference because there could be students at that school whose families have an income that is just above the poverty line and giving free lunches to everyone in the school means that students would all be able to eat even if their families earned just a tiny bit more money than other families. And school meals are often healthier than food from other sources? That's right. One study found that school meals actually provide the best diet quality of any major U.S. food source. So it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that school meals provided through CEP are connected with a reduction in obesity. When meals are free and the food is healthier, it makes sense that obesity levels would go down, but of course providing healthier meals at school is not the only solution to reduce childhood obesity. Well, thank you again for joining me, Dan, and thank you for that report. You're welcome, Ashley. Happy to be here. In this next report, Andrew Smith tells us about a recent United Nations report. We learn that waste from electronics is on the rise. Pay careful attention to the word recycling. We will talk more about it after the report. A United Nations report warns that no longer used electronics, called e-waste, is increasing worldwide. It adds that recycling rates of e-waste remain low. The waste comes from devices such as mobile phones, electronic toys, TVs, microwave ovens, e-cigarettes, laptop computers, and solar panels. The report does not include waste from electronic vehicles, which are counted separately. The UN's International Telecommunications Union, or ITU, and the research group UNITAR, wrote the report. It said about 62 million metric tons of e-waste were created in 2022. The report estimates the amount will increase 32% by 2030. The report said metals, including copper, gold, and iron, worth a total of about $91 billion, are wasted. The UN said 22% of e-waste was collected and recycled in 2022. The UN agencies expect that amount to fall to 20% by 2030 for several reasons. These include the increasing number of devices, lack of repairs, shorter device lifespan, and not enough waste management systems. Some of the e-waste contains dangerous substances, such as the element mercury, the report said. It also contains some rare earth metals needed to make electronic devices. Currently, recycling supplies only 1% of the demand for the 17 rare metals. The report said about half of all e-waste comes from Asia, where few countries have laws on e-waste or collection targets. Recycling and collection rates are more than 40% in Europe. However, Europe also produces the highest amount of e-waste per person, nearly 18 kilograms. Africa has the least e-waste of any of the five big regions worldwide. However, its recycling and collection rates are about 1%, the report said. The latest research shows that the global challenge posed by e-waste is only going to grow, said Kosmos Lucky Sun Zava Zava. He is head of the ITU Telecommunication Development Group. For some people, e-waste is a way to earn money by looking through trash to find valuable metals and parts. However, the work comes with health risks. Dandora dump site is a place where waste from the city of Nairobi, Kenya is put. There Steve Okoth tries to find material he can sell to businesses. But he knows the work can harm his health. When the e-waste comes here, it contains some powder which affects my health, he said. He added that when the e-waste heats up, it releases harmful gases and he can't come to work because of chest problems. Still, Okoth said he and others like him don't have any other choice. We are now used to the smoke because if you don't go to work, you will not eat. Kenya is taking steps to recycle e-waste. Nairobi's WEEE recycling center has collection points across the country. People can safely give away old electronic equipment at these places. Catherine Wasolia is WEEE's chief operating officer. She said workers examine the devices for data and clean them. Then they test the devices to see if they can be reused in some way. George Masila said that when it rains, water gets into the e-waste. He said this can harm water quality and could bring unwanted substances into the soil. He said greater recycling and reuse of electronics are some of the things we should be considering. Writers of the UN report noted that many people in developing countries make money by recovering materials from e-waste. The report called for them to be trained and given safety equipment for their work. I'm Andrew Smith. Before the report, we asked you to pay careful attention to the word recycling. Can you remember when you heard it? You heard the term used several times in the report. Let's listen again to the first example. A United Nations report warns that no longer used electronics, called e-waste, is increasing worldwide. It adds that recycling rates of e-waste remain low. Recycling is a noun. We spell it like this. Recycling comes from the verb recycle. Recycle means to reuse something or its parts and materials in an effort to save money or energy and also to help the environment. In the report, we heard recycling rates of e-waste remain low. What that suggests is that electronics, parts, and materials reuse remain low. The online etymology dictionary notes that recycling was originally a technical term used in industries such as oil refining. It likely appeared in English sometime in the 1920s. It was not until later, perhaps the 1960s, that recycling took on its broader, modern sense. Keep the term recycling in mind the next time you read or listen to news stories about the environment. You are very likely to meet the term again. And that's the lesson of the day. I'm John Russell. And that's our program for today. Join us again tomorrow to keep learning English through stories from around the world. And I'm Dan Novak.