美联社新闻一分钟 2006-02-28

1. The deadline has passed, and still no word about the fate of kidnapped American journalist Jill Carroll. Her captors are demanding a release of all female prisoners in Iraq. Carroll was kidnapped January 7th in Baghdad.

2. Also in Iraq, mortar¹ shells struck a residential² area in southwestern Baghdad. Sixteen people were killed, more than fifty wounded. Officials in Baghdad lifted a three-day curfew on Monday--a curfew that quieted sectarian violence.

3. Dan Brown, the author of the best selling novel, the Da Vinci Code, was in a London court on Monday. Two men claimed Brown stole their ideas for his novel. The Da Vinci Code has sold more than thirty million copies worldwide.

4. In New Orleans, people are preparing for Fat Tuesday. It's been six months since Hurricane Katrina struck the Big Easy. Half of the city’s businesses are still closed, and Mardi Gras celebrations are scaled back from years past, but that didn’t keep people away from the traditional celebration.

WORDS IN THE NEWS

1. quiet :verb [I or T]
to (cause to) become calmer or less noisy:
e.g. Javed Miandad appealed for calm, but he failed to quiet the protesters.

2. the Big Easy :noun
a name for New Orleans

3. scale sth back :verb [M]
to make something smaller than it was or smaller than it was planned to be:
e.g. A shortage³ of money has forced them to scale down the project.

1 mortar   

n.灰浆，灰泥；迫击炮；v.把…用灰浆涂接合

参考例句：

• The mason flushed the joint with mortar.泥工用灰浆把接缝处嵌平。
• The sound of mortar fire seemed to be closing in.迫击炮的吼声似乎正在逼近。

2 residential   

adj.提供住宿的；居住的；住宅的

参考例句：

• The mayor inspected the residential section of the city.市长视察了该市的住宅区。
• The residential blocks were integrated with the rest of the college.住宿区与学院其他部分结合在了一起。

3 shortage   

n.缺少，缺乏，不足

参考例句：

• The city is suffering a desperate shortage of water.这个城市严重缺水。
• The heart of the problem is a shortage of funds.问题的关键是缺乏经费。