Authentic BBC Learning English audio — listen, read the transcript, and pick up key vocabulary.
BBC news stories explained in plain English with key vocabulary.
199 episodes · page 1 of 20
An independent review into mental health has found a rise in mental distress among children and young people, with anxiety, depression, self-harm and eating disorders among the most common issues. Hea
2026-09-30
US President Donald Trump and China’s President Xi Jinping will meet in a summit at the White House this week for the first time since 2023, following on from a President Trump’s visit to China earlie
2026-09-23
Head of Anthropic, Dario Amodei, published an essay explaining how he feared that humans could lose control of AI systems. Following recent hacking incidents Amodei said that it is possible that AI sy
2026-09-16
A transplanted pig kidney has worked inside a patient for a record nine months. Learn about this news story in simpler English with Becca and Phil. Get a worksheet for this episode to practise the voc
2026-09-09
More than 1,000 people have been confirmed dead after last week’s flash floods on the border of Nepal and Tibet, according to Nepal’s disaster agency. Almost 4,000 people are still missing. Rescuers a
2026-09-02
AI has been hacking other companies during tests, causing fears over safety. There’s been a series of hacks by AI software in recent months. A hack is when secure technology is broken into in order to
2026-08-26
Meta, the owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, has gone on trial, accused of breaking state and federal laws around child privacy. The trial is expected to last around six weeks. The lawsuit has
2026-08-19
Many parts of Europe will experience a solar eclipse, when the Moon blocks the light from the Sun, on Wednesday evening. It will be the first in Europe since 1999. Total eclipses are rare events but i
2026-08-12
Around 60,000 migrants swam around the border from Morocco into Ceuta, part of Spain. Spanish officials said almost all those who reached the enclave have now returned, but at least 72 migrants died a
2026-08-05
New PlayStation games will no longer be released on discs from January 2028, the gaming giant has announced. It’s owner Sony said that games will still be able to be bought in shops, but they would co
2026-07-30