NPR美国国家公共电台 2013-01-31

　　From NPR news in Washington, I am Lakshmi Singh.

 

　　Hundreds of people crowded into a Capital Hill hearing room to hear testimony¹ about proposals to stop gun violence. Former Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords spoke² today on behalf of shooting victims. NPR’s Carrie Johnson reports she urged lawmakers to do something.

 

　　Giffords was shot point blank in the head two years ago in Tucson. She’s still recovering from her injuries. She and her husband Captain Mark Kelly urged Congress to close loopholes in the gun background check system and to ban the sale of high capacity magazines behold³ lots of rounds of ammunition⁴. The Nation Rifle Association’s Wayne LaPierre says tinkering with the background system will do nothing to prevent criminals from getting their hands on guns. He told the Senate judiciary committee adding more red tape would be a federal nightmare imposed on law-abiding people. The Senate will have several more hearings on gun violence in the weeks ahead. Carrie Johnson, NPR news, Washington,

 

　　The search is underway for the gunman behind this morning’s multiple shooting at an office complex in Phoenix⁶. Peter O'Dowd with the member station KJZZ is on the scene.

 

　　Police say a white male and older man walked into a Phoenix office complex, got into fight with somebody in that building and three people were shot, one person is in extremely critical condition, two are have non-life threatening injuries. They have been taken to the hospital. And police say right now they don’t know who the shooter is and they don’t know where he is, they do not have a suspect in custody⁷.

 

　　Meanwhile, an Alabama SWAT team is trying to rescue a child being held hostage in a bunker in a rural town of Midland City, south of Montgomery. The six-year-old boy was kidnapped from his school bus yesterday after the gunman shot and killed the driver.

 

　　A day after being confirmed by the Senate as the next Secretary of State, Senator John Kerry is delivering a farewell speech to his colleagues today.

 

　　“Nearly three decades after the people of Massachusetts first voted me into this office, the people I worked with in the Senate voted me out of it. As always, I accept the Senate sound judgment⁸.”

 

　　The lawmaker from Massachusetts will succeed Secretary Clinton. Meanwhile, Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick has selected William Cowan to fill in for the interim⁹. NPR’s Tovia Smith has more.

 

　　As a top advisor¹⁰ to the governor, the 43-year-old Cowan says he learnt the issues that matter in Massachusetts and his honor to sever⁵. Cowan will be Massachusetts’ second African American Senator, then when he starts, it will be the first time the Senate has had two African Americans at once. Cowan spoke emotionally about what it means to him and his mother.

 

　　“She is a child of the segregated¹¹ south, a woman who did not have the opportunity to attend college, but my mother told me days like today were possible.”

 

　　Cowan is not competing in the special election. So far Democratic Congressman¹² Ed Markey has announced and words were expected soon from fellow Democratic Congressmen Steven Lynch and former Republican Senator Scott Brown.

 

　　This is NPR.

 

　　It’s emerging that thousands of priceless manuscripts feared destroyed by retreating Islamists in Timbuktu, Mali, likely have been saved. xx reports the city’s mayor had earlier told NPR he’d received credible¹³ account said the Jihads had set fire to the documents.

 

　　Ahead of the French led offensive that liberated¹⁴ Timbuktu in northern Mali, Mayor Halle Ousmane Cisse said he’d reliably informed that Islamist militants¹⁵ had torched the Ahmed Baba Institute Library and other buildings housing the ancient manuscripts. The mayor said he didn’t know the extend of the damage. But journalists in Timbuktu say staffs at the center tell them that tens of thousands of documents had been stirred to the way for safe keeping are while back. However, about 2,000 of the vast collection of historic scripts ranging from Islam to mathematics and poetry are believed to have been burnt or looted by the departing Jihadists. xx, NPR news, Bamako.

 

　　Senator John McCain is warning fellow Republicans that failure to pass comprehensive immigration legislation could mean continued election losses for the party as the Republican friendly states such as Arizona, he says, will fall to the Democrats¹⁶. The Arizona Republican, one of eight Senators, assigned onto a bipartisan immigration plan this week says a failure to act means a trend of Hispanic defection from the GOP would continue.

 

　　The government is revealing an unexpected downturn in the US economy for the first time in more than three years. The Commerce Department says the gross domestic product shrank at an annual rate of 0.1% in the final months of 2012. Nasdaq was down 30 at 30,926, this is NPR.

1 testimony   

n.证词；见证，证明

参考例句：

• The testimony given by him is dubious.他所作的证据是可疑的。
• He was called in to bear testimony to what the police officer said.他被传入为警官所说的话作证。

2 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

3 behold   

v.看，注视，看到

参考例句：

• The industry of these little ants is wonderful to behold.这些小蚂蚁辛勤劳动的样子看上去真令人惊叹。
• The sunrise at the seaside was quite a sight to behold.海滨日出真是个奇景。

4 ammunition   

n.军火，弹药

参考例句：

• A few of the jeeps had run out of ammunition.几辆吉普车上的弹药已经用光了。
• They have expended all their ammunition.他们把弹药用光。

5 sever   

v.切开，割开；断绝，中断

参考例句：

• She wanted to sever all her connections with the firm.她想断绝和那家公司的所有联系。
• We must never sever the cultural vein of our nation.我们不能割断民族的文化血脉。

6 phoenix   

n.凤凰，长生(不死)鸟；引申为重生

参考例句：

• The airline rose like a phoenix from the ashes.这家航空公司又起死回生了。
• The phoenix worship of China is fetish worship not totem adoration.中国凤崇拜是灵物崇拜而非图腾崇拜。

7 custody   

n.监护，照看，羁押，拘留

参考例句：

• He spent a week in custody on remand awaiting sentence.等候判决期间他被还押候审一个星期。
• He was taken into custody immediately after the robbery.抢劫案发生后，他立即被押了起来。

8 judgment   

n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见

参考例句：

• The chairman flatters himself on his judgment of people.主席自认为他审视人比别人高明。
• He's a man of excellent judgment.他眼力过人。

9 interim   

adj.暂时的，临时的；n.间歇，过渡期间

参考例句：

• The government is taking interim measures to help those in immediate need.政府正在采取临时措施帮助那些有立即需要的人。
• It may turn out to be an interim technology.这可能只是个过渡技术。

10 advisor   

n.顾问，指导老师，劝告者

参考例句：

• They employed me as an advisor.他们聘请我当顾问。
• The professor is engaged as a technical advisor.这位教授被聘请为技术顾问。

11 segregated   

分开的； 被隔离的

参考例句：

• a culture in which women are segregated from men 妇女受到隔离歧视的文化
• The doctor segregated the child sick with scarlet fever. 大夫把患猩红热的孩子隔离起来。

12 Congressman   

n.（美）国会议员

参考例句：

• He related several anecdotes about his first years as a congressman.他讲述自己初任议员那几年的几则轶事。
• The congressman is meditating a reply to his critics.这位国会议员正在考虑给他的批评者一个答复。

13 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？

14 liberated   

a.无拘束的，放纵的

参考例句：

• The city was liberated by the advancing army. 军队向前挺进，解放了那座城市。
• The heat brings about a chemical reaction, and oxygen is liberated. 热量引起化学反应，释放出氧气。

15 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。

16 democrats   

n.民主主义者，民主人士( democrat的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The Democrats held a pep rally on Capitol Hill yesterday. 民主党昨天在国会山召开了竞选誓师大会。
• The democrats organize a filibuster in the senate. 民主党党员组织了阻挠议事。 来自《简明英汉词典》