 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, Gregory Stockle reports on how the U.S. government has offered work permits to half a million Venezuelan immigrants living in the country. Andrew Smith has a story on the future of work at the office. Next, Katie Weaver reports on a new UNESCO World Heritage Site that was once a secret detention and torture center in Argentina. Donna Mateo has a story on how Saudi Arabia plans to meet its water needs with solar power. Later, John Russell brings us the everyday grammar lesson on ordering things to drink. But first, the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden says it will temporarily stop deportations of nearly half a million Venezuelans already in the country. In addition, the immigrants will be able to get permission to work. It is estimated that about 472,000 Venezuelan immigrants entered the U.S. on or before July 31. They now have the ability to get temporary protected status, or TPS, that will last for 18 months. About 243,000 Venezuelans already have the status from a 2021 policy change that was renewed last year. The promise of work permits will not affect people who cross the border illegally and seek asylum. People who enter the country illegally must wait for six months to receive work permits. The policy for Venezuelans is important because they make up such a large number of the migrants who have been arriving in the country recently. Biden, a member of the Democrat Party, is seeking re-election in 2024. During Biden's time in office, the country has faced more illegal border crossings than ever before. The mass migration is partly the result of people fleeing severe economic and political problems in Venezuela. It is estimated that at least 7.3 million Venezuelans have left the country in the last 10 years. Most have migrated to neighboring South American countries, but in the last three years many have been coming to the United States. On Wednesday, New York City Mayor Eric Adams praised the Biden administration's plan to expand work permits for newly-arrived migrants. However, news media have reported that local officials have said it is difficult to deal with large numbers of migrants entering cities and towns. New York City, for example, is required to provide housing for anyone who needs it. The city is currently paying to house about 60,000 newly-arrived migrants. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, or DHS, said the expansion of protected status for Venezuelans was needed. It said this was because of Venezuela's increased instability and lack of safety. The number of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally dropped in May. But crossings returned to high levels in the following months. The Biden administration said the U.S. Department of Defense will send an additional 800 military troops to the border. That is in addition to 2,500 National Guard troops already deployed. The aim is to aid U.S. Customs and Border Protection operations. Also, the Biden administration will expand a program launched in May to quickly process migrant families seeking asylum and possibly to deport them. I'm Gregory Stoggle. The COVID-19 pandemic has changed how people in the U.S. work. Before the pandemic, only 5.7% of people worked from their homes. But a recent report from the business advisor McKinsey & Company found that 58% of people worked from home at least one day a week in 2022. Ryan Luby helped write the report. He said the office needs to change because the role of the workplace has changed. Aditya Sangvi is with the property business of McKinsey & Company. He said, the office has suddenly become a choice. It's an option. And the office has to be better for someone than working from home and enduring the commute to come into the office. One change office spaces need is more focus on community in the workplace. When you get to the office, if you're not engaging with anyone else, you might as well not be there, Luby said. He added, the office should be a place where you're doing group work. Sangvi added that, in the new workspace, people should feel like there's no difference between whether or not someone's sitting with you in the office or somebody's on video. The office of the future might even help workers with their personal responsibilities. One of the reasons that a lot of people work from home is that they have to pick up the kids or take care of the dog, Sangvi said. And so, what if there were animal care in the building? What if there was child care in the building? Sangvi believes companies that own the office space should be more active in changing workspaces for the new way of life. The U.S. General Services Administration, or GSA, is the government agency that supervises federal buildings. The GSA has been a leading force in establishing what the office of the future will look like. Chuck Hardy is GSA's chief architect. He supervises GSA's Workplace Innovation Lab, a 25,000-square-foot space inside the organization's headquarters in Washington, D.C. What we're trying to do is create a workplace and an environment that allows you to be as productive as you can be without getting in the way. And that means a variety of spaces for a variety of the people that work for us, Hardy said. The Workplace Innovation Lab will be open for one year. Federal workers can try out the latest in workplace furnishings and technology and then provide comments on their experience. Some spaces in the lab look like traditional workspaces. Some spaces feel pleasant. Almost everything can be moved around. The air quality is controlled and technology that is believed to be good for the environment is being tested. Hardy said the office of the future needs three qualities. It should be well-designed, serve a purpose, and feel pleasant. All of this might mean that the office of the future could feel a little bit more like home. I'm Andrew Smith. Argentina has welcomed a United Nations decision to include a former secret detention and torture center as a World Heritage Site. A UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization conference in Saudi Arabia agreed this week to include the ESMA Museum and Site of Memory on its list of places considered to be of outstanding value to humanity. The former Navy School of Mechanics, known as ESMA, is in the Argentinian capital Buenos Aires. It contained the most infamous illegal detention center that operated during Argentina's last dictatorship from 1976 through 1983. It now operates as a museum and a larger site of memory, including offices for government agencies and human rights organizations. Argentina's President, Alberto Fernandez, praised UNESCO's decision in a video message. The memory must be kept alive, he said, so that no one in Argentina forgets or denies the horrors that were experienced there. Fernandez later said to the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Tuesday afternoon, by actively preserving the memory that denialists want to conceal, we will prevent that pain from recurring. It is estimated that some 5,000 people were detained at the ESMA during the dictatorship. Many detainees were tortured and later disappeared. It also housed many who were later thrown into the ocean or rivers from planes known as death flights. The ESMA also housed pregnant women brought from other illegal detention centers. They were kept there until they gave birth, and their babies were later taken away by military officers. Argentina's Human Rights Secretary Horacio Piatregala Corti praised the decision to recognize the site. He said it is a strong answer to those who deny or seek to downplay state terrorism and the crimes of the last civil military dictatorship. A video posted on social media by Argentina's foreign ministry showed the official with tears in his eyes as he celebrated the UNESCO decision. Piatregala was one of the babies taken by military officers and raised under a false identity. The group Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo discovered his birth history, as well as those of 132 other stolen babies through genetic testing. Argentina has done more than any other Latin American country to bring crimes of former dictatorships to trial. It has held almost 300 trials, all linked to crimes against humanity since 2006. The ESMA's addition to the World Heritage List speaks to more than just Argentina. Piatregala called the recognition a tribute to the thousands of disappeared individuals in our continent. I'm Katie Weaver. Saudi Arabia is a dry place. In many areas, people there depend on turning salt water from the Persian Gulf and Red Sea into drinkable fresh water. That process is called desalination. Desalination centers supply drinking water to cities and towns in the kingdom. However, observers say the process of desalination is not good for the environment because it mostly uses oil and gas. One goal of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is to make Saudi Arabia a leader in business and tourism. For this, the country must meet growing demands for water. But Saudi Arabia's environmental goal is to reach net zero emissions by 2060. So the country's leaders say they want to reduce the amount of carbon gases produced. Some people say carbon gases are warming the earth's atmosphere. A desalination plant in the eastern part of the country uses solar panels. The Jezala plant is the first in Saudi Arabia to use solar power for desalination on a large scale. Officials said the panels will help save 60,000 tons of carbon emissions each year. More projects like Jezala are needed because Prince Mohammed has another goal. He wants to increase the population to 100 million people by 2040. The country's current population is about 32.2 million. Marco Arcelli is chief of ACWA Power, the company that operates the Jezala plant. He said usually the population grows and then the quality of life of the population grows. That means more water will be needed in the future. Using desalination is a do or die issue, said historian Michael Christopher Lowe. He has studied the kingdom's struggle with water at the University of Utah in the United States. Lowe said this issue is a matter of survival for Saudi Arabia. At the same time, he added, there are limits to how desalination can be done so that it does not affect the environment. The Saline Water Conversion Corporation, or SWCC, is a government company that operates desalination and power plants in Saudi Arabia. The company says it produces 11.5 million cubic meters each day at 30 centers. But growth has come at a cost, especially at centers that use oil or gas. The AFP Press Agency reports that by 2010, Saudi desalination plants were using 1.5 million barrels of oil per day. That is more than 15% of today's production. The SWCC said it wants to cut 37 million metric tons of carbon emissions by 2025. The company hopes to do this by moving away from plants that use heat to separate water from salt to plants like Tesla that use solar electricity powered systems. The SWCC said in its latest report that solar power is expected to expand to 770 megawatts compared to 120 megawatts today. But how long that will take is unclear. In the future, there is little doubt Saudi Arabia will be able to build the systems required to produce the water it needs. They have already done it in some of the most challenging settings, like massively desalinating on the Red Sea and providing desalinated water up to the highlands of the holy cities in Mecca and Medina, said Laurent Lambert. He is with the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies. At desalination plants across the kingdom, Saudi employees understand how important their work is. The Russell Hare Center produces 1.1 million cubic meters of water per day with 740,000 from heat technology and the rest from another process. The plant struggles to make enough fresh water because of high demand. Much of the water goes to riyadh. That city requires 1.6 million cubic meters per day. It could require as much as 6 million cubic meters a day by 2030, said one employee, who was not permitted to talk to the media and remains unidentified. Drinking water has been a problem for Saudi Arabia since its founding in 1932. This led to geological studies that also helped identify the country's huge supplies of oil and gas. Leaders since have supervised the birth of the kingdom's modern desalination systems beginning in 1970. I'm Anna Mateo. Consider a time you asked someone to drink tea, coffee, or soda. What kinds of terms and structures did you use? In this week's everyday grammar, we will explore a point of connection between grammar and social situations. We will talk about how to ask others if they would like a drink. You will learn about modals as well as formal and informal kinds of questions. Let's start with some important terms and ideas. Modals play a central part in everyday discussions about drinks such as coffee or tea. Modals are short words that change the meaning of the main verb. They express something about the speaker's attitude, whether something is permitted, necessary, possible, and so on. In English we have a number of modals, but for the purposes of today's lesson, let's pay careful attention to two of them, would and can. We generally use would to ask a polite question or make a polite offer. We use can for the same purpose, although it is a little less formal. Let's take an example. Imagine you are in your house or working in a restaurant. You want to offer a drink to your guest or customer. We have two ways to do that, one that involves would and one that involves can. So you might ask, Would you like something to drink? or Can I get you something to drink? The main difference between our two questions is the degree of politeness. Generally, would is considered more polite and formal. Both would and can are acceptable in a number of situations. Your house guest or customer would surely be happy to hear either of them. Now let us consider a different kind of situation. Maybe you are out with friends and want to ask them to get something to drink. We can make polite offers with would and can as in Would you like to get tea? or Can I get you a coffee? But we can also use the helping verb do to ask yes or no questions. For example, you might ask a friend Do you want to get a coffee? or Do you want to grab a drink? Such structures are friendly but less formal. As a result, you might not want to use them with your teacher or your boss unless you are very close with them. Now let's take some time to work with these ideas. Imagine you are leading a business meeting with representatives from another company. Your visitors enter the meeting room and you decide you want to offer them something to drink. How might you make your offer? Pause the audio to consider your answer. There are several possible answers but the best two choices involve would or can as in Would you like something to drink? or Can I offer you something to drink? These two sentences are polite and acceptable in official situations. Now consider the following sentence. Do you want something to drink? Why is this sentence not the best choice for an official business meeting? The question is not very formal nor especially polite. So, do you want something to drink is probably not the best choice to use with representatives from another company. But for family and good friends, that's a question they are usually happy to hear. Today we explored a few key ideas that connect to everyday situations including someone to get a drink, offering a guest something to drink. There are, of course, other ways to ask if others want something to drink. However, the structures we explored today are among the most commonly used because they work well in most situations. I'm John Russell. You just heard this week's everyday grammar from John Russell. John joins us now to talk more about the lesson. Welcome John. Hi Dan, thanks for having me on the show. In the lesson, you've explored a few ways to offer coffee, tea, or something else to drink. Are there other important issues that you did not get a chance to explore in the lesson? The lesson covered questions, formal and informal ways to ask others if they want something to drink. I didn't get a chance to explore how one might respond to a polite offer. So how might you respond to a polite question like would you like something to drink? There are a few choices. You could use the modal would in your answer as in I would love something to drink or I would like a coffee. You could also use the expression thank you. That's right. So you could say thank you I would love something to drink or thank you I would like a coffee. Well on that note, thank you for joining us on the show today John. You're welcome. See you next time. 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.