 it hits. Welcome to Learning English, a daily 30 minute program from the voice of America. I'm Dan Novak. And I'm Dan Friedel. 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, Brian Lin reports on massive flooding in Libya that has left 10,000 people missing. Katie Weaver has a story on the US antitrust trial brought against Google. Dan Novak has the education report on students continuing struggles with math coming out of the pandemic. Later, Katie and Mario Ritter Jr. bring us the English lesson of the day. But first, here's Brian Lin. Officials in Libya say as many as 10,000 people are missing after severe flooding in the northeastern part of the country. The flooding began when Mediterranean storm Daniel dropped heavy rain on the area beginning Sunday night. As of Tuesday, more than 1,000 bodies had been recovered in the city of Derna alone. Emergency workers say they expect the number of dead to climb sharply. Flooding led to the collapse of at least two dams outside Derna, a coastal city of about 89,000 people. Local officials said, a wall of water that passed through the city erased everything in its way. Witness Ahmed Abdallah told the Associated Press. A local minister of civil air travel in the country's east visited Derna and told Reuters news agency, bodies were lying everywhere, including the sea in valleys and under buildings. The minister said local officials estimated about 25% of Derna had disappeared, with many many buildings destroyed. Storm Daniel hit other eastern Libyan towns, including Benghazi, the second largest city in the country. Tamar Ramadan is head of a delegation from the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. He told Reuters the number of missing had hit 10,000 and the total number of deaths would be huge. United Nations Aid Chief Martin Griffiths said in a message on X, formerly known as Twitter, that emergency teams had been deployed to help on the ground. Turkey and other countries immediately sent aid to Libya, including search and rescue vehicles, rescue boats, power generators, and food. People living in Derna reported hearing loud explosions Sunday night as the storm arrived and they realized dams outside the city had collapsed. Videos posted online showed large areas of mud and wreckage where floodwaters carried away neighborhoods along banks of the Wadi Derna River. The river runs from the mountains through the city and into the sea. Local emergency workers, including troops, government workers and volunteers, dug through the wreckage and used boats to search for bodies. Eastern Libya's Health Minister Atman Abdul Jalil told the AP that many bodies are believed to be trapped under wreckage or had been carried out to sea. Military Commander Khalifa Hifter currently leads the East Libya government. He captured Derna in 2019 after months of fierce fighting. Hifter's government, based in Benghazi, is fighting the Western government, based in the capital, Tripoli. Each side is backed by powerful militias and foreign powers. Egypt, Russia, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates support Hifter. Turkey, Qatar, and Italy support the West Libya administration. There were early signs the two sides were willing to work together on aid efforts. The government of Western Libya sent a plane carrying 14 tons of medical supplies and health workers to Benghazi. Another plane carrying humanitarian aid and rescue teams from Egypt, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates also landed in Benghazi. I'm Brian Lin. The U.S. Department of Justice accused Google Tuesday of using its Internet search engine to push out competitors and limit new ideas. Kenneth Thinser is the Justice Department's head lawyer. He said, This case is about the future of the Internet and whether Google's search engine will ever face meaningful competition. Over the next 10 weeks, federal lawyers and state attorneys general will try to prove that Google unfairly controls the market in its favor. By making its search engine the first choice in software and on devices that people use every day. The case is similar to the antitrust trial brought against computer software maker Microsoft in 1998. At that time, the government accused Microsoft of using its strength in software to force computer makers to use its other products, including the Internet Explorer web browser. The case ended with restrictions to prevent Microsoft from having total control of the marketplace. Many Google products, including the Chrome web browser, Gmail, YouTube, and online maps are extremely popular. But none have controlled the market and become as valuable as its Internet search engine. The government accuses Google of paying billions of dollars yearly to make its search engine the first choice on the iPhone and web browsers such as Apple Safari and Mozilla's Firefox. The legal action notes that Google also requires its search engine to be a part of the Android operating system used by smartphones of many manufacturers. Dinser said, this is Google saying take it or leave it. He said that Google's moves prevented Apple from developing a search engine of its own. Google argues that it faces many competitors, although it controls about 90% of the Internet search market. The company says it faces competition from search engines such as Microsoft's Bing and DuckDuckGo and websites like Amazon and Yelp. These websites let users ask questions about what to buy or where to go. The company also argues that it faces competition from new technology like artificial intelligence, AI. Microsoft, for example, is adding AI abilities from its partner OpenAI to its Bing search engine. That move, in early February, forced Google to equip its search engine with results that come from AI aided processes. Google says users can always use any other search engine, but continuous improvements to its search engine are the reason why users keep coming back. It is a process that made the name Google synonymous with looking things up on the Internet. However, critics say the quality of search results has decreased. They note that Google uses its engine to sell advertisements. The company brings attention to its products over those of competitors. Today, the stock market value of Google's parent company, Alphabet, is $1.7 trillion. The company employs 182,000 people. Most of the money Google makes comes from $224 billion in yearly ad sales. The sales come through a network of digital services that are linked by the search engine, which answers billions of requests a day. I'm Katie Weaver. Across the United States, schools are working hard to help students catch up in math. Test scores after the pandemic show just how behind students are. On average, education experts say American students' math knowledge is about half a school year behind where it should be. Children lost ground on reading tests, too, but the math declines were more severe. Experts say online learning made it more difficult for math instruction. It was harder for teachers to guide students over a screen or see weaknesses in their skills. At home, parents were more likely to read with their children than to practice math. The result? Students' math skills declined around the nation, and students are not recovering as quickly as educators hoped. Educators worry about how they will perform in high school and whether science, technology, and medical fields will be available to them. Students had been making progress on national math tests since 1990, but over the past year, 4th and 8th grade math scores fell to the lowest levels in about 20 years. The information comes from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, known as the nation's report card. It's a generation's worth of progress lost, said Andrew Ho. He is a professor at Harvard University's Graduate School of Education. Jennifer Matthews teaches 8th grade at Moultrie Middle School in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. She said her students have shown little interest in understanding her pre-algebra and algebra 1 lessons. They don't allow themselves to process the material. They don't allow themselves to think, this might take a day to understand or learn, she said. Many students lack an understanding of math concepts. Basic fractions, for example, continue to confuse many of them, she said. Using federal pandemic money, some schools have added tutors. Some have started new approaches to teaching to help in the recovery. But that money will run out by next September, before many children have caught up. Like other school systems across the country, Jefferson County Schools in Birmingham, Alabama saw students math skills fall from 2019 to 2021. Using pandemic aid, the system placed math coaches in all middle schools. The coaches help teachers learn new and better ways to teach students. About one in five public schools in the United States have a math coach, federal data says. The efforts appear to be working. State testing shows math scores have started to increase for most of the Jefferson County middle schools. Adding to the difficulty of catching kids up is the debate over how math should be taught. Some say schools should center procedural learning, like teaching kids to memorize how to solve problems step by step. Others prefer conceptual understanding, in which students learn underlying math relationships. Kevin Dykema is president of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. He said many people do not think of math as a fun subject. But when people start to understand what's going on, in whatever you're learning, but especially in math, you develop a new appreciation for it. Sarah Powell is a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, who researches math instruction. She said teaching math should not be either one way or another way. A change too far in the conceptual direction, she said, risks losing students who have not fully learned basic math skills. Even at a nationally recognized magnet school, the effect of the pandemic on students math skills is clear. At the Townview School of Science and Engineering in Dallas, the incoming ninth graders in Lance Barash's summer program needed to relearn the meaning of words like term and coefficient. Barash was not surprised that the students were missing some skills after their middle school years during the pandemic. The hope is that by taking a step back, students can begin to move forward. I'm Dan Novak. Dan Novak joins me now to talk more about his story. Welcome, Dan. Mr. Friedel, good to see you. Your story was about students continuing struggles in math coming out of the pandemic. You mentioned in the story that students lost progress in reading, too, but it wasn't as bad as math. Why is that the case? I'm guessing it has to do with online learning. Yeah, there are a few reasons education experts point to as to why math scores especially suffered because of the pandemic, and a huge part of it is online learning. Students that already struggle with math really need face-to-face learning, and when classes were online, there just wasn't as much of that hands-on teaching that makes math more enjoyable. So the switch to online classes really hurt those students. There are also few ways for kids to really practice math, especially higher level math outside of the classroom. You're exactly right. At home, kids can practice reading all the time, whether they're reading a book or a web page or a text message. They can also read with their parents, but a lot of parents just don't have the math knowledge to help their kids with their math work. Dan, do we know what can help students get back on track? Many schools have hired math coaches or math tutors to help students. In the story, I mentioned Jefferson County, Alabama, which has math coaches in all of its middle schools, and test scores there are going up. And just from personal experience, I would not have been able to survive high school geometry or calculus without a tutor. That extra help outside of the classroom is really valuable. Thanks for coming on the show, Dan. You're welcome. 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. Welcome to Lesson of the Day. I'm Mario Ritter Jr., and Katie Weaver is with me today to discuss some terms in a recent VOA Learning English story. Thanks for joining me, Katie. Of course, I am happy to be here. Not too long ago in Australia, medical officials reported an unusual discovery during an operation on a patient's brain. In this story, pay attention for a medical word that describes what a patient might be experiencing. What were some of those problems? And which words suggest reactions that people might have when faced with an unusual situation? Ready? Here's the story. A brain doctor in Australia received a huge surprise during an operation on a patient's brain last year. Gosh, what is that? It's moving. Take it out of my hands. That is what Australian neurosurgeon Hari Priya Bandi said about finding a worm or parasite last year in a patient's brain. Bandi was looking for the unexplained cause of symptoms in a 64-year-old woman. She found the cause after drilling a small hole in the woman's skull and looking at her brain. Bandi performed the operation at Canberra Hospital in 2022. She discussed the discovery this week after publishing a study with Dr. Sanjayas Sananayaki in emerging infectious diseases. The doctor said the worm was a roundworm native to Australia. It was about 8 centimeters. Before the discovery, it was not known to affect humans. The worms are often found in carpet pythons, a kind of large snake found in Australia, and on some Pacific islands. Sananayaki was on duty at the hospital last year when the worm was found. I got a call saying we've just removed a live worm from this patient's brain, he said. The woman started medical treatment earlier in 2022 after saying she was experiencing depression and forgetfulness. Brain images showed changes over a three-month period. Bandi's investigation was expected to show an infection or a cancerous tumor. Instead, she found the worm. Everyone in that operating theater was absolutely stunned, Sananayaki said of the wriggling thing. Before the operation, the patient had come to a hospital in New South Wales with stomach sickness, pain, and sweats at night. Bandi said the patient did not show any problems from the worm removal. Her mental health is improving too, but some problems continue. She was so grateful to have an answer for what has been causing her trouble for so very long, Bandi said. The patient has not been back to the hospital. Doctors gave her some medicine to kill parasites. Bandi said the doctors are continuing to watch the patient's overall health. We're keeping a close eye on her, Sananayaki told an Australian broadcaster. The doctors believe the woman may have accidentally eaten the worm's eggs. She lives in the same area as the carpet python. The python sheds the worms and their eggs in its waste. They believe it is possible that the woman gathered some ateive plants to eat, and they had the worm's eggs on them. I'm Dan Friedel. Okay, before the report, we asked that you pay special attention to the health experiences that the patient had. What were some of those, Katie? The main medical word that came up was symptoms. Doctors always ask patients about their symptoms or signs of sickness when trying to find out what the problem is. They need the patient to explain what they are experiencing. In this case, the patient said she had stomach sickness, pain, and sweats at night. These can all be symptoms or signs of disease or some kind of health problem. A report of symptoms is just part of the evidence doctors seek in investigating a patient's health condition. We can judge a lot about a situation by observing people's reactions and how they describe their experiences. In this story, people watching the surgery were stunned. Stunned is a strong word because it means you are so surprised that you are physically affected. It's a big shock, and you are unable to react. I can imagine their surprise at seeing a worm wriggling on the operating table. Another reaction word in this story was grateful. The patient was grateful to have an answer. It is so difficult to know something is wrong with you, but not know what the problem is. When you get an explanation, it is a big relief. I understand how thankful the patient felt. Now, let's have a little quiz. Katie will read a sentence from the story and you decide whether it relates to a symptom or a reaction. This is what one of the doctors involved in the follow-up after the operation said. We're keeping a close eye on her. Okay, why is the doctor keeping an eye on the patient? Well, the doctor wants to look for symptoms affecting the patient even after the surgery to make sure everything is all right. It is not a reaction, but a plan to keep looking in the future. Well said, Katie, and that's today's lesson of the day. And that's our program for today. Join us again tomorrow to keep learning English through stories from around the world. I'm Dan Novak and I'm Dan Friedle.