For the first portion of our program, we are going to dive into this week’s headlines. We’ll start with a discussion on the first criminal charges brought against some of President Trump’s former aids on Monday by Special Counsel Robert Mueller in the Russian meddling investigation. Next, we’re going to talk about the Russian use of social networking platforms Facebook, Google and Twitter to influence the outcome of the 2016 United States presidential election. After that, we’ll discuss the publishing of Stephen Hawking’s doctoral thesis on Cambridge University's website. And finally, we’ll talk about the findings of a study suggesting that drinking alcohol could improve one’s pronunciation when speaking a foreign language.

- First charges filed in Russian meddling investigation
- Facebook, Twitter, and Google admit to wide-reaching Russian influence
- Stephen Hawking’s doctoral thesis crashes its host website
- Drinking alcohol improves pronunciation in second language, study shows

As always, the second part of our show will be dedicated to American culture and the English language. In the grammar section of our program, we’ll illustrate the use of today’s topic: Irregular Noun/Verb Agreement. And we’ll close this week’s program with a new English expression: “To bridge the gap.”