 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. Coming up on the program, Gregory Stockle reports on Pakistan's plans to deport hundreds of thousands of Afghans illegally living in the country. Brian Linn brings us this week's technology report on AI tools that are able to predict virus variants. Later, Jill Robbins and Andrew Smith present the lesson of the day. But first, the Pakistani government has approved the creation of several deportation centers for hundreds of thousands of Afghans living illegally in the country. Pakistan plans to arrest and send the Afghan nationals back to Afghanistan starting next month. The government recently approved the illegal foreigners repatriation plan. It sets a November 1st deadline. The deadline is for all illegal or unregistered foreigners and those overstaying their visas. These groups are required to return to their countries. If they do not, they face deportation for breaking Pakistan's immigration laws. Pakistani Interior Minister, Sarfaraz, spoke when the deadline was announced in early October. He said an estimated 1.7 million Afghans are among those facing deportation. Federal sources told VOA that special deportation centers would be established in four areas Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan, and Hyber-Pakhtunkhwa. Afghans detained in Punjab and Sindh will be moved to centers in the Rawalpindi and Karachi areas. Hyber-Pakhtunkhwa will have two deportation centers in Noshirah and Chimkani, while Balochistan will have three centers, one in the capital of Keta and others in the areas of Pasheen and Kila-Abdullah districts. These two areas are on Pakistan's 2,600 kilometer border with Afghanistan. Most refugee families are in those areas. The new plan empowers local administrations, police, and other officials to detain and deport Afghan nationals illegally living in the country. The plan also says that individuals charged with or on trial for minor crimes will be sent out of the country. It also says that those charged with or facing trial for serious crimes will not be sent back to Afghanistan. Pakistan has promised to carry out the deportations in a phased and orderly way. It also said that it would not target the 1.4 million Afghan refugees living legally in the country. The government added it would not target 900,000 Afghan citizens who are registered in Pakistan as economic migrants. The government has told law enforcement agencies not to harass legal refugees and those with Afghan nationality documents. However, Afghanistan's Taliban rulers and refugee families have claimed that some Afghans experienced abuse and mistreatment from the police. The Taliban have called on Pakistan to reconsider the deportation plan, calling it inhumane and unacceptable. However, they have recently set up special camps on the Afghan side of the border. The camps will provide immediate shelter, healthcare, food, and financial assistance to families returning from the neighboring country. Officials in both countries have confirmed that tens of thousands of Afghans have voluntarily returned to their home country since Pakistan announced the deadline nearly a month ago. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid on Afghan television urged Pakistan to treat Afghan refugees humanely and extend the period of deportation. He asked all the refugees to return to their country. He said the Taliban has made Afghanistan into a safer and better place. The Taliban seized power from a U.S.-backed government in August 2021. At that time, U.S. and NATO troops left the country after nearly 20 years of involvement in the Afghan war. After the Taliban took over, hundreds of thousands of people fled to Pakistan. They feared punishment for their connections to Western forces. They included human rights defenders, former government officials, professionals, female activists, and reporters. Many have since moved to the U.S. and other Western countries. But thousands are waiting in hopes of immigrating to the United States or Europe. The Taliban has enforced Islamic law in the country. The group has barred teenage girls from schools and many women from work. The restrictions mean many refugee families do not want to return to Afghanistan. They say their daughters cannot seek education or work in the country. The United Nations has urged Pakistan to suspend its deportation plan. It warns the plan could mean Afghans will be subject to abuse by the country's ruling Taliban officials. I'm Gregory Stockle. Scientists have created an artificial intelligence, AI tool that aims to predict different virus versions called variants before they appear. Creators of the tool say it works by estimating the likelihood that a variant will permit it to escape the body's own immunity defenses. The tool is called eavescape. It works by processing collected data on the development or evolution of a virus over time. The system also considers detailed biological and structural information related to the virus. The method is a form of generative AI, a term describing technology tools designed to operate at human levels. Eavescape was developed by researchers from Britain's University of Oxford and Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts. The team's findings recently appeared in a study in the publication Nature. Many viruses repeatedly mutate in an effort to stay alive and strong. This requires viruses to infect living organisms. Once inside the body, viruses continue to reproduce and spread. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC, explains that repeated mutating creates new variants. Some of these mutations permit the virus to spread more easily or make it resistant to treatments or vaccines, the CDC said. The researchers built on previous work involving a tool they created called eave. This tool was designed to study gene mutations that can cause human disease. In a past study, the team said it successfully used eave to identify mutations linked to conditions like cancer and heart disease. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the scientists said they recognized a good chance to rebuild eave into a new tool for the purpose of predicting viral variants. To do this, the team explained it turned the clock back to January 2020, just before the COVID-19 pandemic started. The researchers asked the eave scape tool to predict what mutations would develop from the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19. The researchers reported the tool correctly predicted which SARS-CoV-2 mutations would appear and which would become most common or dominant. The team also said the tool predicted which antibody-based treatments would lose their efficacy as the pandemic progressed and the virus developed mutations to escape these treatments. The study noted eave scape can make predictions more quickly and effectively than lab-based methods. This is because the tool does not need to wait for relevant antibodies to arise in the population and become available for testing. The team said the system was able to examine tens of thousands of new virus variants appearing each week and identified the ones most likely to become problematic. Sarah Gorev is a student in the electrical engineering and computer science program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She was a leader of the research. Gorev said that by quickly identifying the threat level of new variants, we can help inform earlier public health decisions. The team said it continuously uses the system to examine real-time data about the development of new variants of SARS-CoV-2. It then shares this information with the public and international agencies such as the World Health Organization. The researchers said their experiments also showed the eave scape tool could successfully predict mutating behaviors for other common viruses, including HIV and the flu. Deborah Marks is a professor of systems biology at Harvard Medical School's Blavatnik Institute. She was a lead writer of the study. She said the researchers would continue to improve the tool's ability to predict new variants for a number of viruses, because if we can, that's going to be extremely important for designing vaccines and therapies. I'm Brian Lin. Brian Lin joins me now to talk more about his technology report. Thanks for being here, Brian. Sure, Dan. Glad to be here. This week, you introduced us to a new AI tool designed to predict different virus versions before they appear in the population. How does this system differ from the methods currently used by health professionals? Yes. So this tool uses a computer model to examine data collected about a virus's development over time, along with detailed information about its biology and structure. The team said the main difference is the tool they developed works continuously without the need to wait for virus versions to arise in the population before testing can be carried out. And we learned that the latest tool came from a previous one the researchers were already working on, right? That's right. That tool also used AI to identify mutations linked to major diseases like cancer and heart problems. But the team said the COVID-19 pandemic gave them the idea to rebuild it, essentially, with the targeted goal of predicting new virus variants. And we heard the research team plans to test the tool with other diseases besides COVID-19. What can you tell us about that? Yes. The researchers said they had already confirmed the system performed equally well with some other viruses, especially HIV and the flu. And they also noted they planned to test it on some viruses they described as understudied. And these include Lassa fever, which affects parts of West Africa, and the Nipah virus, which has been identified in Asia and areas in the South Pacific. Very interesting. Thanks again for joining me, Brian. You're welcome. Thank you, Dan. 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. My name is Andrew Smith. And I'm Jill Robbins. 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. The series shows Anna Mateo in her work and life in Washington, D.C. We've been watching Anna learn about history in our last podcast. And she has been learning about the fun things to do in Washington, D.C. But in today's lesson, she finds that some days are not so fun. That's when she has to call into work, because she needs a sick day. This time, in Lesson 27 of the Let's Learn English series, Anna is not feeling well. Her boss, Ms. Weaver, gives her some advice. We'll be talking more about how we give advice in this lesson. But now, let's listen. Hello. I'm sure that today, in Washington, D.C., there are a lot of great things. Things to do. But I am not doing any of them. I'm sick. Right now, I'm going to call my boss and tell her I cannot come into work. Hello. Ms. Weaver? Hi. I can't come to work today. Why not? What is wrong? Well, yesterday, I felt fine. In the morning, I painted for hours. On the afternoon, I cut wood. Then, I built a fire. Anna, what do you need? Why can't you come to work today? I do not feel well. I think I'm sick. I'm sorry to hear that. I was sick last week, too. I had the flu. What did you do? I slept a lot, and I drank a lot of water. Do you have a doctor? Yes, I do. You should call your doctor and get lots of rest. Thanks, Ms. Weaver. I'll call right now, calling my doctor. I think Anna just overdid it the day before, don't you, Andrew? Yes, I do. To overdue means to have a little too much activity. For some of us, as we get older, we have to be careful. Using too many of our muscles at one time is one way to overdo it. And the next day, we may not feel well. What advice did Ms. Weaver give to Anna, Jill? She said Anna should call her doctor and get lots of rest. That's good advice when someone doesn't feel well. Let's find out what her doctor says. Hello, this is Dr. Bennett. How can I help you? Hello, Dr. Bennett. This is Anna. Oh, hi, Anna. How can I help you? I think I'm sick. Let me ask you a couple of questions. Do you have a sore throat? Yes, I have a sore throat. Do you have a cough? Yes, I have a cough. When did you start feeling sick? This morning. In this part, we hear the doctor asking the usual questions. She is not giving advice yet because first, she has to diagnose or identify the problem Anna has. But I remember some advice I used to hear in my home growing up in the state of North Carolina when I had a sore throat. Let me guess. Was it honey and lemon? That's what my grandma used to make for me. No, it was warm tea. My aunt made me some tea with a little lemon juice. I had to drink a lot. That's often helpful when you are feeling sick. Yes, remember that Ms. Weaver said that when she was sick? I slept a lot and I drank a lot of water. You know, when I was little, I liked eating popsicles. Which is some sweet water or juice that is frozen on a stick when I had a sore throat. It felt great and I think my mom knew it was a good way to get me to drink more water. Yes, some of those home remedies often had a lot of wisdom behind them. One thing our listeners should note here is the different intonation we use for the two different kinds of questions we heard from Dr. Bennett. When she asked a question that began with when or how, her intonation was falling like this. How can I help you? When did you start feeling sick? And when we ask questions that can be answered with yes or no, our intonation often goes up at the end. One to Ms. Weaver and Dr. Bennett ask this type of question. Do you have a doctor? Do you have a sore throat? That could be useful for learners. The general rule is that what we call WH questions. Questions that start with the words who, what, when, why, and how. Those questions usually end with a falling intonation. You may sometimes hear a different intonation for this kind of question depending on the situation. And then, yes-no questions. Those questions often begin with do or did, are, or were. Those questions usually end with a rising intonation. Let's go back and find out what Dr. Bennett tells Anna. Do you have a fever? My thermometer says 125 degrees. What? Yeah, that's not right. Oh, wait. The thermometer was in my hot cup of coffee. Please take it again, Anna. Okay. The thermometer says 100.5 degrees. 100.5 degrees is not too high. I want you to drink lots of water. We're getting lots of sleep. Just think all those years of medical school, and she gives Anna the same advice that you or I might give her. And there's a funny bit in there about Anna putting her thermometer into a hot cup of coffee. Our listeners might be surprised to hear that a high temperature is over 100 degrees. But that's using the Fahrenheit scale. That would be over 38 degrees Celsius. I remember hearing about international students who heard they had a 100-degree temperature here in the U.S., and they worried that they were really sick. But going back to our lesson, one more thing we heard here is irregular verbs. That starts with Anna's busy day. And she said, Yesterday I felt fine. In the afternoon I cut wood. Then I built a fire. There the present tense verb feel became felt in the past tense. Cut stayed the same, cut. The verb build changed to built in the past tense. And Ms. Weaver used an irregular verb when she said, I slept a lot and I drank a lot of water. Sleep became slept and drink became drank. Lots of irregular verbs. I know. And how are learners supposed to remember them all? There are so many of them and so many different ways they change. That's true. But some of them are used all the time in English. So that can make it easier to remember them. And you know what else could make it easier? We could make a little song about them. Music always helps us remember things. Oh boy. That's a great idea, Andrew. How about if we just take the ten most common irregular verbs and put them into a song? Okay. Here we go. Say, said. Go went, come came, no knew, give gave, become became, find found, think thought, see saw, I think that's all. And that's all for today's lesson of the day. And one more thing. Write to us with your questions about this lesson on our YouTube channel, or email us at learningenglishatvoanews.com. 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. And I'm Jill Robbins. And I'm Andrew Smith. 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. And I'm Dan Novak.