美国有线新闻 CNN 2015-04-19

 A former professional football player will be spending the rest of his life in prison. 25-year old Aaron Hernandez played tight end for the NFL's New England Patriots¹. He had a contract worth $40 million, but Hernandez was arrested in 2013 and convicted yesterday for the murder of his one-time friend, Odin Lloyd. Hernandez's sentence is life without parole.

 

The European Union is suing Google. The E.U. says the Internet search company is violating anti-trust laws, unfairly limiting competition in the market place. How?

 

Well, if you search Google for a running watch, for example, you'll see pictures, prices, and links for watches whose companies paid Google to advertise on the site. Competitor's watches and the best or most relevant running watches may not be top search results.

 

Google says it respectfully but strongly disagrees with the complaint, and says that when Europeans are shopping online they are far more likely to use other sites than Google anyway.

 

Today is a day of remembrance at Virginia Tech. It's the eighth anniversary of a shooting when a student killed dozens of other students and faculty² before killing³ himself. Norris Hall, where most of the victims were, was reopened two years later and now houses the Virginia Tech Center for Peace Studies and Violence Provention.

 

The al-Shabaab terrorist group attacked a Somalian government building this week. A Kenyan news aper reports that 15 people were killed, at least six of the Islamist militants⁴ who want to replace Somalia's government also died in the attack. It happened less than two weeks after al-Shabaab targeted Christian⁵ students at a Kenyan university. The terror group al-Shabaab is becoming deadlier and more ambitions. Al-Shabaab means "the youth" in Arabic, and it's a group that's risen out of the chaos⁶ of the failed state of Somalia. The irony⁷ is, as it's gained more international prominence⁸, it's actually lost ground at home due to in-fighting in the group, successful operations by government sources, but also drone strikes by the U.S. At the same time, though, it's become more aggressive abroad, particularly in September 2013 when it carried out the West Gate Mall attack which killed more than 60 people. 

 

More recently, in April, the attack at Garissa University in Kenya that killed more than 150. Like ISIS, al-Shabaab has a powerful presence on the web, particularly in terms of recruiting. 

 

An added threat are al-Shabaab's deep ties to the U.S. A number of Somali Americans from cities such as Minneapolis that have large Somali American communities have gone to Somalia to join the ranks of al-Shabaab. Some of them have become suicide bombers⁹. A man from Alabama, Omar Hammami, became the rapping jihadi, powerful in their recruiting videos, though he was later killed.

 

U.S. counterterror officials are seeing more communication as well as the sharing of know how and technology between al-Shabaab and other al-Qaeda-tied groups, such as AQAP in Yemen. And they say a credible¹⁰ next step would be cooperation on joint¹¹ terror operations abroad.

1 patriots   

爱国者，爱国主义者( patriot的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Abraham Lincoln was a fine type of the American patriots. 亚伯拉罕·林肯是美国爱国者的优秀典型。
• These patriots would fight to death before they surrendered. 这些爱国者宁愿战斗到死，也不愿投降。

2 faculty   

n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员

参考例句：

• He has a great faculty for learning foreign languages.他有学习外语的天赋。
• He has the faculty of saying the right thing at the right time.他有在恰当的时候说恰当的话的才智。

3 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。

4 militants   

激进分子，好斗分子( militant的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The militants have been sporadically fighting the government for years. 几年来，反叛分子一直对政府实施零星的战斗。
• Despite the onslaught, Palestinian militants managed to fire off rockets. 尽管如此，巴勒斯坦的激进分子仍然发射导弹。

5 Christian   

adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒

参考例句：

• They always addressed each other by their Christian name.他们总是以教名互相称呼。
• His mother is a sincere Christian.他母亲是个虔诚的基督教徒。

6 chaos   

n.混乱，无秩序

参考例句：

• After the failure of electricity supply the city was in chaos.停电后，城市一片混乱。
• The typhoon left chaos behind it.台风后一片混乱。

7 irony   

n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄

参考例句：

• She said to him with slight irony.她略带嘲讽地对他说。
• In her voice we could sense a certain tinge of irony.从她的声音里我们可以感到某种讥讽的意味。

8 prominence   

n.突出；显著；杰出；重要

参考例句：

• He came to prominence during the World Cup in Italy.他在意大利的世界杯赛中声名鹊起。
• This young fashion designer is rising to prominence.这位年轻的时装设计师的声望越来越高。

9 bombers   

n.轰炸机( bomber的名词复数 )；投弹手；安非他明胶囊；大麻叶香烟

参考例句：

• Enemy bombers carried out a blitz on the city. 敌军轰炸机对这座城市进行了突袭。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The Royal Airforce sill remained dangerously short of bombers. 英国皇家空军仍未脱离极为缺乏轰炸机的危境。 来自《简明英汉词典》

10 credible   

adj.可信任的，可靠的

参考例句：

• The news report is hardly credible.这则新闻报道令人难以置信。
• Is there a credible alternative to the nuclear deterrent?是否有可以取代核威慑力量的可靠办法？

11 joint   

adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合

参考例句：

• I had a bad fall,which put my shoulder out of joint.我重重地摔了一跤，肩膀脫臼了。
• We wrote a letter in joint names.我们联名写了封信。