 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. Today, you will hear stories from Mario Ritter Jr. and Brian Lin. Later, Dan Novak returns to present this week's Health and Lifestyle Report. We close by hearing today's lesson of the day from Andrew Smith and Jill Robbins. But first, here is Mario Ritter Jr. The Roman Catholic Church has declared its opposition to sex change operations and surrogacy. The Vatican said those activities violate human dignity. It compared them to abortion and euthanasia, saying they reject God's plan for human life. The Vatican issued a 20-page declaration called Infinite Dignity. The document took five years to produce. It came four months after conservatives reacted to Pope Francis' support for same-sex partners. Supporters of gender theory say that gender is more complex than male and female. They say a person's sex depends on more than sexual qualities that can be seen. In the document, the Vatican repeats its rejection of gender theory, or the idea that a person's gender can be changed. It says God created man and woman as biologically different, separate beings, and said people must not change that plan or try to make oneself God. It follows that any sex change intervention, as a rule, risks threatening the unique dignity the person has received from the moment of conception, the document says. It notes the difference between gender-changing surgeries, which it rejects, and medical operations to correct genital abnormalities that are present at birth or that develop later. It says such a medical procedure would not constitute a sex change. Supporters for LGBTQ plus Catholics criticized the document as outdated and harmful. They warned it could lead to violence and discrimination against transgendered people. In the United States, Republican-led legislatures are considering bills to restrict sex change operations on children. Francis de Barnardo is with the New Ways Ministry, which supports LGBTQ plus Catholics. He said, as the document talks about respect, honor, and love for human life, it does not apply this principle to gender-diverse people. The Vatican also declared opposition to surrogacy, the practice of implanting a fertilized egg in a woman to carry a fetus for someone else, usually for money. The document calls the practice deplorable, saying it violates the dignity of the woman and the child based on the exploitation of situations of the mother's material needs. It quotes Pope Francis as saying, a child is always a gift and never the basis of a commercial contract. Consequently, I express my hope for an effort by the international community to prohibit this practice universally. The document restates the well-known Catholic position in opposition to abortion, a medical operation to end a pregnancy, and assisted suicide or euthanasia. Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez said in a statement that Pope Francis approved the document after requesting that it also include poverty, the situation of migrants, violence against women, human trafficking, war, and other themes. I'm Mario Ritter Jr. America's best-selling vehicle has not changed during the past 42 years, and some people might be surprised to learn that the top seller is not a car but a truck. It is the Ford F-150. The American automaker says a new F-150 series pickup rolls off the manufacturing line at its Dearborn, Michigan, truck factory every 53 seconds. John Emmert is the general manager of Ford North America trucks. He noted to VOA News the F-150 has also been the best-selling truck in the United States for 47 years. One of the reasons the Ford pickup has stayed on top for so long is that the vehicle has remained popular from one generation to the next. One example of this is Vo Adams, a city employee in Sterling Heights, Michigan. He said his father-in-law first introduced him to the Ford F-150, and Adams has liked the truck so much that he just got his second one. I'm just going to stick with the truck because I bought a house and got to move furniture, got to do yard work, so I needed it, Adams told VOA. He said he likes everything about the truck inside and out. I have one with a big touchscreen, which is amazing. I'm a tech guy, so that's great, Adams added. Ford officials say they believe the vehicle's success is linked to the company's ongoing innovation. Ford said Ford tries to stay in contact with buyers through market research and other methods. We take all that intelligence and we develop vehicles, the F-150, to serve their needs at every possible turn. The first version of the Ford 150 was created in 1948. Ford was the first car maker to design a pickup truck for normal citizens instead of just for business use, said Kevin Justema. He is past president of the Washington Auto Press Association and leads Car-Ed, a website that helps buyers decide which vehicle best meets their needs. The one product Ford seems to always put some of their technology leadership into is the F-Series for consumers, and that goes all the way up to today, Justema said. He added another reason the F-150 is so popular is because Ford offers several options designed to fit specific consumer needs. These include different kinds of engines and larger spaces inside vehicles. You need people to build vehicles. If you look at all the technology that's coming out, it's really about a collaborative space, said Corey Williams. He is the manager of Ford's Dearborn Truck Factory. Williams noted that every workstation has its own computer that helps employees design the vehicles and control quality on the manufacturing line. Williams said there are several reasons he thinks consumers keep coming back year after year after year. It's the technologies. It's the interior. It's the interior and it's like a luxury vehicle, Williams says. You forget that you're in a truck. Some industry experts admit one of the less desirable things about the F-150 is its high gas usage. But many Americans do not seem to mind. Tens of millions of the vehicles have been sold since the 1940s. In 2023, 750,789 F-150s were sold in the U.S. But for people worried about the gas issue, Ford is now selling an all-electric Ford F-150 lightning pickup. I'm Brian Linn. Some of the deadliest diseases to infect humans have come from pathogens that jumped from animals to people. The virus that causes AIDS, for example, came from chimpanzees. And many experts believe the virus that caused the COVID-19 pandemic came from bats. But as a new study shows, this disease exchange has not been just from animals to humans. In fact, research of all the publicly available viral genome sequences produced a surprising result. Humans give about two times as many viruses to animals than they give to us. The researchers looked at nearly 12 million virus genomes and found almost 3,000 times a virus jumped from one species to another. Of those, 79% involved a virus going from one animal species to another animal species. The remaining 21% involved humans. Of those, 64% were human-to-animal transmissions. 36% were animal-to-human transmissions. Scientists call the human-to-animal transmission anthroponosis. Animal-to-human transmission is called zoonosis. The animals affected by anthroponosis included pets like cats and dogs, domesticated animals like pigs, horses, and cattle, birds such as chickens and ducks, primates such as chimpanzees, gorillas, and howler monkeys, and other wild animals like raccoons and the African soft-furred mouse. Wild animals were more likely to experience human-to-animal transmission than the other way around. The study represents humans' large impact on the environment and the animals around us, said Cedric Tan. He is a doctoral student in biology at the University College London Genetics Institute. He was a lead writer of the study, which appeared recently in the publication Nature Ecology and Evolution. People and animals carry many microbes that can jump to another species through close contact. The study looked at viral transmissions involving all the vertebrate groups. Mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish. Viruses go between species in the same ways viruses are transmitted between humans, Tan said. That includes direct contact with infected fluids or getting bitten by other species amongst others. But before the virus enters a different species, it must either have the biological toolkit or acquire host-specific adaptations to enter the cells of the new host species and exploit their resources, Tan added. Over thousands of years, pandemics that have killed millions of people have been caused by pathogens like viruses, bacteria, and fungi that crossed over to people from animals. François Balloux is director of the University College London Genetics Institute and one of the study's co-writers. He said a large majority of pathogens in humans came from animals at some point in time. The current biggest threat is probably bird flu H5N1, which is circulating in wild birds, he said. The main reason recent pathogen jumps can be so harmful is because the population of host species has no pre-existing immunity to the new disease, he added. In the 14th century, the bacterial disease bubonic plague killed millions of people in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa. It was caused by a bacteria normally found in wild rodents, and present-day diseases like the Ebola virus similarly came from animals. Most species-to-species transmissions are of little threat, Balloux added. In most cases, such infections lead nowhere as the virus is poorly adapted and there is no onward transmission in the new host, he said. I'm Dan Novak. Dan Novak is here now to talk more about today's health and lifestyle report. Welcome Dan. Hi Ashley, thanks for having me. So in your report, you mentioned zoonosis and anthroponosis. Can you explain again what these two terms mean? So anthroponosis is when a disease jumps from humans to animals. Zoonosis is when it jumps from animals to humans. And it turns out that anthroponosis is much more common, correct? That's right. That might be a bit surprising just because there's a lot of attention on diseases that came from animals like AIDS or Ebola or even COVID. We forget that humans spread diseases to animals just like animals spread diseases to us. But I was surprised to learn just how more common human to animal spread is. Why can animal to human transmission be so harmful? Well, animals that carry a disease have that pre-existing immunity to the disease. But when it jumps to humans, it's a completely new pathogen to the human body. You saw that with COVID which is thought to have come from bats. It works the other way around as well. Diseases that humans have immunity to, animals do not. What are some examples of anthroponosis? There are several. Swine flu, norovirus, COVID, tuberculosis among others have all been found to have spread from humans to animals. Just like viruses between people, they are spread through close contact. So these diseases are often spread to pets or domesticated animals like pigs or horses. Well, thanks for answering those questions, Dan, and thank you for that report. You're welcome, Ashley. VOA Learning English has launched a new program for children. It is called Let's Learn English with Anna. The new course aims to teach children American English through asking and answering questions and experiencing fun situations. For more information, visit our website learningenglish.voanews.com. The name is Anna Matteo. And my name is Jill Robbins. And I'm Andrew Smith. You're listening to the Lesson of the Day on the Learning English podcast. Welcome to the part of the show where we help you do more with our series Let's Learn English. This series shows Anna Matteo in her work and life in Washington, D.C. In Lesson 18, Anna tries something new at work, reading the news. Her boss, Ms. Weaver, is coaching her on how a professional journalist should read. She wants Anna to give the facts without showing any emotion. But we all know Anna. It's hard for her to do that because she becomes so excited about each story she reads. Let's hear some of the lesson. Hello from Washington, D.C. Today at work, I am reading the news for the first time. I am really nervous, but my boss, Ms. Weaver, is here to help me. Now, Anna, remember, when we read the news, we are always reading facts. We never show our feelings. Sure thing, Ms. Weaver. Great. Are you ready? Yes. Okay. Let's try the first story. Hello and welcome to the news. A new book is very popular with children and families. This is it. It is about a lost duckling. The duck's mother cannot find him. Stop. Anna, when you say the words duck and duckling, you look really sad. I do? Yes. Sad is a feeling. Sad is not a fact. Sorry. Let me try again. I see. Ms. Weaver is trying to teach Anna to read objectively. That means to tell the facts without adding your own feelings. Anna shows her feelings both in her face and in her voice. Andrew, you know, our listeners might think the opposite of the adjective objective is subjective. In some cases, that's true. But there's another word we use when we talk about reporting news. When someone presents the news in a way that makes it seem worse or more shocking than it really is, we call it sensationalist. Subjective means we show our personal feelings or opinions about something. When we do that with the news and make everything seem terrible, you would call it sensationalist. Now I see why Ms. Weaver wants Anna to read the news objectively. Yes. We've all seen what happens when the news is sensationalized. People get worried. So Anna gives it another try. Let's listen and see if she can do it better the next time. Okay. She's trying again and go. Hello and welcome to the news. A new book is very popular with children and families. This is it. It is about a lost duckling. The duck's mother cannot find him. But a family gives him a home. Stop, Anna. You are doing it again. This story is very sad. Well, that didn't go so well. Did you notice that Anna changed the way she said one word? Him. The second time she read it? Listen to that again. The duck's mother cannot find him. I think that's because she's feeling so strongly about the story. But we hear a shorter form of pronouns quite often in American English. One example of shorter forms is that phrase we use to encourage someone trying something new. Go get them. Here, M, is a short form of them. But we never shorten me, it, or us because those words are already short. If I was in the studio with Anna, I'd tell her go get them when she tries reading the news again. Maybe she can get it right the third time. Let's find out if Ms. Weaver gives her another chance on a different story. I have an idea. Let's read the second story. She's reading the second story and go. Okay, let's try the first story. She's reading the second story. Hello, and welcome to the news. In Indiana, a grandmother is the first 80-year-old woman to win the racecar 500. That is awesome. Stop. Stop. Anna, please. No feelings. Wait, but it is awesome that an 80-year-old grandmother wins a car race. Just the facts, Anna. Right. Hello, and welcome to the news. In Indiana, a grandmother is the first 80-year-old woman to win the racecar 500. She rarely talks to reporters, but when she does, she often says, nothing can stop me now. I am very happy for her. Stop, stop, stop. Anna, you cannot say you are happy. But I am happy. But you can't say it. Why? This is the news. Happy and sad are feelings. You can't have them in the news. Okay, I got it. There's another useful expression. Anna says, I got it to show she understands Ms. Weaver. It's a little informal and it's a shorter form of I have got it. If you listen to the rest of the story, you'll find that she finally does understand what Ms. Weaver is trying to teach her. And her boss uses the same expression, too. What can I do, Ms. Weaver? Take out my feelings and put them here on the news desk? Yes! Yes! That's right. Now you've got it. Once again, I'm Andrew Smith and you're listening to the Lesson of the Day on the Learning English podcast. To review, we've learned some short forms for pronouns like M or M. But now we're almost out of time. But I think there's just enough time for a little chant with our reduced pronoun forms. Are you ready, Jill? Let's give it to them. Listeners, try to repeat after we say the lines. Can you find them? I can't find them. Can you see her? I can't see her. Did you tell them? I didn't tell them. Did you get it? I got it! Well, that's all for the Lesson of the Day today. You can learn more on our website, learningenglish.voanews.com. You can also find us on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. And thanks for listening to the Learning English podcast. I'm Andrew Smith. And I'm Jill Robbins. And that's our program for today. Join us again tomorrow to keep learning English through stories from around the world. I'm Ashley Thompson.