Welcome to Learning English, a daily 30-minute program from the Voice of America.

I'm Katie Weaver.

And I'm Mario Ritter Jr.

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, Andrew Smith reports on artists in Lebanon.

Jill Robbins tells about the ability of bees and dogs to find cancer. John Russell has a story about student athletes on the education report, and then the passive voice on Lesson of the Day.

But first,

Charbel Samuel Aoun is a working artist in the Middle Eastern nation of Lebanon.

As the Israeli military launches a deadly attack against the militant group Hezbollah in his home country,

Oin asks, does art still have a place in such a crisis?

Lebanon has long played an important part in the Arab world's artistic community.

It has been a center for arts, music, and theater, combining traditional and modern influences.

Now, Lebanese artists are using their work as a way to express the anger and loss they feel after a year-long Israeli offensive that has killed more than 3,200 people, most of them since September.

Aoun's works of art are directly connected to the conflicts Lebanon has seen.

In 2013, he began gathering dust from Syrian refugee camps in Lebanon to create a series of paintings before moving on to explore other materials. Now, he says the darkness and hopelessness of the war and the waste left behind by

Israel's intense bombing campaign have renewed his desire to create art

from dust. You either stop everything or keep going with the little that still has meaning,

he said.

Two of his exhibitions have been cancelled due to the war.

While he once made money from selling art, he now also relies on selling honey from his beehives,

which he first set up as a project to create art from beeswax.

I can no longer rely on the art market, he said.

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