NPR美国国家公共电台 NPR 2013-09-25

 Senate Majority Leader Harry¹ Reid has blocked two long-shot moves by GOP Senator Ted² Cruz, aimed at having the Senate approve without changes the stopgap spending bill passed by the House to keep the government operating past the end of this month. NPR's Craig Windham reports Reid says the bill is dead on arrival in the Senate because it includes a provision that would defund the president's health care law. 

To keep Reid and the Democrats³ from removing the defunding provision, Cruz is likely to try to stall consideration of the House measure with a filibuster⁴, and he's urging his GOP colleagues to join him. 

揑t is our obligation to our constituents⁵ to do everything we can to prevent the majority leader from funding Obamacare with just 51 votes.?

To sustain a filibuster though, Cruz will need the support of at least 40 other senators. There are 46 Republicans in the Senate, but a number of them, including Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell, say they will not support the effort by Cruz and other Tea Party-backed conservatives to hold up the stopgap spending bill. Craig Windham, NPR News, Washington. 

Officials in Kenya now say the security forces there are in control of nearly all of the upscale shopping mall, where militants⁶ opened fire over the weekend leaving more than 60 people dead and many more wounded. Kenya抯 foreign minister said today they are 搗ery certain?there were few if any hostages still inside the Westgate mall. Members of a Somali terrorist group Al-Shabaab began shooting people on Saturday. It抯 still not clear if gunmen may still be inside that facility. 

Wall Street is still getting over its shock at the Federal Reserve抯 decision last week to delay cutting its bond purchases. Steve Beckner of Market News International says one key Federal Reserve bank president says there should be a two-part test for quantitative⁷ easing to scale back. 

Not only must labor⁸ markets improve, says New York Fed chief William Dudley, the economy must show enough forward momentum⁹ to make him confident improvement will continue. The vice¹⁰ chairman of the Fed's policymaking Federal Open Market Committee says the drop in the unemployment rate overstates labor market improvement, and he says the economy isn't growing fast enough to sustain sufficient job creation to keep the rate heading down. Only when Dudley sees better numbers, will he be comfortable cutting the 85-billion-dollar monthly bond buy. Dallas Fed chief Richard Fisher says the Fed should do so now. Atlanta's Dennis Lockhart suggests it's not yet time. For NPR News, I'm Steve Beckner. 

Smartphone maker¹¹ Blackberry, which has found itself increasingly under the gun in terms of falling sales, has now since agreed to be acquired by a consortium for 4.7 billion dollars. The consortium is being led by Fairfax Financial Holdings, a property and casualty insurance company, offered nine dollars a share in cash to Blackberry; comes as the company's reporting quarterly losses upwards¹² of a billion dollars. 

Stocks after an erratic¹³ showing last week gave ground to begin the new trading week. The Dow was down 49 points at 15,401; the NASDAQ fell nine points; the S&P 500 lost eight points today. You抮e listening to NPR. 

The death toll¹⁴ as a result of recent flooding in Colorado has now risen to eight. That's after authorities there announced the discovery of the body of a 79-year-old woman along the banks of the Big Thompson River over the weekend. The woman's name was not being released, but authorities say she was one of three people listed in missing and presumed dead. Vice President Joe Biden was in Colorado meeting with that state's governor today. 

Number of unauthorized immigrants living in the US has stopped declining. NPR's Ted Robbins says a new report indicates the first change in that trend since the recession. 

The Pure Research Center says the total number of unauthorized immigrants is 11.7 million, still below the 2007 high at more than 12 million, but up from numbers during the recession. The halt in the decline is not statistically¹⁵ significant, but it may be politically significant in any immigrant debate. The study's author Jeff Pasellx says fewer Mexicans are crossing the border illegally, and more people are arriving legally from other places. 

揟he non-Mexicans are disproportionally people who come on temporary visas and overstay.?

Central Americans, Asians, South Americans and people from the Caribbean now make up about 40% of all unauthorized immigrants in the US. Ted Robbins, NPR News. 

Officials at the Dallas Zoo say Patrick, the gorilla¹⁶, has anger issues. He's now going to be sent off to South Carolina for therapy. Officials in Dallas say the decision comes after the 430-pound male lowland gorilla beat one female gorilla and sneered¹⁷ at others. South Carolina Zoo is known for working with gorillas¹⁸ with behavior problems. Zoo officials say Patrick has no trouble with humans. Because of his was cranky behavior though, he's been kept in his own habitat separated from the other gorillas at the zoo. 

1 harry   

vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼

参考例句：

• Today,people feel more hurried and harried.今天，人们感到更加忙碌和苦恼。
• Obama harried business by Healthcare Reform plan.奥巴马用医改掠夺了商界。

2 ted   

vt.翻晒，撒，撒开

参考例句：

• The invaders gut ted the village.侵略者把村中财物洗劫一空。
• She often teds the corn when it's sunny.天好的时候她就翻晒玉米。

3 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》

4 filibuster   

n.妨碍议事，阻挠；v.阻挠

参考例句：

• A senator dragged the subject in as a filibuster.一个参议员硬把这个题目拉扯进来，作为一种阻碍议事的手法。
• The democrats organized a filibuster in the senate.民主党党员在参议院上组织了阻挠议事。

5 constituents   

n.选民( constituent的名词复数 )；成分；构成部分；要素

参考例句：

• She has the full support of her constituents. 她得到本区选民的全力支持。
• Hydrogen and oxygen are the constituents of water. 氢和氧是水的主要成分。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 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。

7 quantitative   

adj.数量的，定量的

参考例句：

• He said it was only a quantitative difference.他说这仅仅是数量上的差别。
• We need to do some quantitative analysis of the drugs.我们对药物要进行定量分析。

8 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

9 momentum   

n.动力，冲力，势头；动量

参考例句：

• We exploit the energy and momentum conservation laws in this way.我们就是这样利用能量和动量守恒定律的。
• The law of momentum conservation could supplant Newton's third law.动量守恒定律可以取代牛顿第三定律。

10 vice   

n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的

参考例句：

• He guarded himself against vice.他避免染上坏习惯。
• They are sunk in the depth of vice.他们堕入了罪恶的深渊。

11 maker   

n.制造者，制造商

参考例句：

• He is a trouble maker，You must be distant with him.他是个捣蛋鬼，你不要跟他在一起。
• A cabinet maker must be a master craftsman.家具木工必须是技艺高超的手艺人。

12 upwards   

adv.向上，在更高处...以上

参考例句：

• The trend of prices is still upwards.物价的趋向是仍在上涨。
• The smoke rose straight upwards.烟一直向上升。

13 erratic   

adj.古怪的，反复无常的，不稳定的

参考例句：

• The old man had always been cranky and erratic.那老头儿性情古怪,反复无常。
• The erratic fluctuation of market prices is in consequence of unstable economy.经济波动致使市场物价忽起忽落。

14 toll   

n.过路(桥)费；损失，伤亡人数；v.敲(钟)

参考例句：

• The hailstone took a heavy toll of the crops in our village last night.昨晚那场冰雹损坏了我们村的庄稼。
• The war took a heavy toll of human life.这次战争夺去了许多人的生命。

15 statistically   

ad.根据统计数据来看，从统计学的观点来看

参考例句：

• The sample of building permits is larger and therefore, statistically satisfying. 建筑许可数的样本比较大，所以统计数据更令人满意。
• The results of each test would have to be statistically independent. 每次试验的结果在统计上必须是独立的。

16 gorilla   

n.大猩猩，暴徒，打手

参考例句：

• I was awed by the huge gorilla.那只大猩猩使我惊惧。
• A gorilla is just a speechless animal.猩猩只不过是一种不会说话的动物。

17 sneered   

讥笑，冷笑( sneer的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He sneered at people who liked pop music. 他嘲笑喜欢流行音乐的人。
• It's very discouraging to be sneered at all the time. 成天受嘲讽是很令人泄气的。

18 gorillas   

n.大猩猩( gorilla的名词复数 )；暴徒，打手

参考例句：

• the similitude between humans and gorillas 人类和大猩猩的相像
• Each family of gorillas is led by a great silverbacked patriarch. 每个大星星家族都由一个魁梧的、长着银色被毛的族长带领着。 来自《简明英汉词典》