1 . This is news on the hour, Ed Wilson reporting. The President and First Lady will visit Africa on a goodwill tour in May. They plan to visit eight African countries.

Reports from China say the Chinese want closer ties between China and the U. S. and Western Europe. A group of top Chinese scientists start their ten-nation tour next month.

Here in Miami, the mayor is still meeting with the leaders of the Teachers’ Union to try to find a way to end the strike (罢工). City schools are still closed after two weeks.

In the news about health. Scientists in California report findings of a relationship (关系) between the drinking of coffee and the increase of heart disease among women. According to the report in the American Medical Journal (杂志), the five-year study shows this. Women who drink more than two cups of coffee a day have greater chance of having heart disease than women who do not.

In sports, the Chargers lost again last night. The BBs beat them 1 to nothing. The Wingers had better results. They beat the Rifles 7 to 3. It was their first win in their last five matches.

That’s the news of the hour. And now back to more easy listening with Jan Singer.

6 . Children are starting on digital devices at ever younger ages, and opinions on the effects of children’s digital-media habits are deeply polarized (两极分化的).

Jean Twenge, a psychology professor, thinks excessive (过度的) use of the internet and social media makes children lonely and depressed and poses serious risks to their physical and particularly their mental health, sometimes to the point of driving them to suicide.

However, Daniel Kardefelt-Winther of the Innocent research office of Unicef examined various evidence and found less cause for alarm than is often suggested. Most of the studies he examined seem to show that the technology helps children stay in touch with their friends and make new ones.

The relationship between the use of digital technology and children’s mental health, broadly speaking, appears to be u-shaped. Researchers have found that moderate use is beneficial, whereas either no use at all or extreme use could be harmful.

What worries some experts more is that screens are becoming part of the middle-class armory(武器) for perpetuating (巩固) social advantage. Children from well-off homes are enrolled in private classes to learn skills like “How to be a YouTuber”, which poorer parents cannot afford.

7 . Addy Barrett, an 11-year-old girl from Maryland, the US, is a regular visitor to the zoo, and never gets tired of watching gorillas (大猩猩). “I really fell in love with these smart animals after reading a book about them,” Addy said. “I also learned they were being killed for unnecessary reasons. And I knew I needed to do something.”

Addy is now working to save her favorite animals. She has sold T-shirts and home-made cookies to raise money, and she hosts a party about the gorilla yearly.

Addy asked Meredith Bastian, a zookeeper, about the challenges that wild gorillas are facing and that many people ignore. Bastian said it’s because of habitat loss, climate change and the spread of disease. But there is also the problem of mining. “Some mines in Congo, Africa destroy gorillas’ habitats and make their living conditions worse,” Bastian told Addy.

Addy decided to start the Gorill a Heroes project. She has held fundraisers (筹款活动) hoping to start a conversation on the risks to gorillas. The animals, which are native to Central Africa, are endangered. There are fewer than 900 mountain gorillas and about 100,000 western lowland gorillas in the world. So far, Gorilla Heroes has raised more than $11,000. Addy was recently named a winner of the 2019 Gloria Barton Prize for Young Heroes for her work.

Addy hopes to get close to a gorilla in the wild, but she can’t because she is too young. So for now Addy is sticking to raising money for gorillas.