Historic trains, Disasters in small counties, Protecting children on internet

Ashley Thompson and Mario Ritter, Jr. are the hosts of the VOA Learning English podcast for Thursday, August 1, 2024.
00:57 The program starts with John Russell’s report on the Italian Transberian. The old train line aims to take visitors to forgotten parts of Italy instead of the popular cities. The old train line now carries 45,000 visitors a year across its 13 lines. https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a...
04:34 Mario and Jill Robbins follow with a study about disasters in the U.S. The study from the nonprofit Rebuild by Design and New York University says disasters happen everywhere across the country. It says that eight of the nine counties with the most federally declared disasters since 2011 are in Kentucky. The government agency FEMA also notes that flooding is the most common disaster in the U.S. https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a...
12:15 For the Technology report, Bryan Lynn reports that the U.S. Senate has approved the nation’s first major legislation aimed at protecting children from internet harm. The measures require technology companies to take steps to provide a “duty of care” to protect young users and ban some targeted advertising to kids online. Now, the measures will also need to be passed by the U.S. House of Representatives to become law. Bryan then joins Mario in the studio to discuss the bill’s future. Bryan says that these bills could be approved by the House before the end of the current legislative session. https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a...
20:41 For Lesson of the Day, Jill and Andrew Smith return with a lesson on friendly and informal invitations based on the Let’s Learn English video series. Lesson 27: Fish out of Water: https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a...
Ashley and Mario then sign off.

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