美联社一分钟新闻 2009-03-11（在线收听）

1. President Barack Obama is announcing a wide-ranging education policy that embraces merit pay for teachers and a longer school day and year. He also wants to end limits on charter schools.

2. Police in Northern Ireland say they have two suspects in custody in the case of a policeman killed last night in an attack claimed by an IRA splinter group. Police say the officer was shot in the back of the head as he sat in his patrol car. That attack follows a deadly ambush Saturday when two British soldiers were killed by another dissident group.

3. Atlantic City's eleven casinos posted a more than 19% drop in revenue last month. That's the biggest monthly decline in the state's 30-year history of legalized gambling. Every casino in the city saw a decline, several experienced a nearly 30% decline.

4. Three dozen homes along Michigan's Saginaw Bay have an unwelcome visitor, an ice flow has literally run into them. High winds push the ice over a seawall.

WORDS IN THE NEWS

1. wide-ranging: adj.

If you describe something as wide-ranging, you mean it deals with or affects a great variety of different things.

2. IRA: the Irish Republican Army

an illegal organization that wants to unite Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland

3. splinter group:

a group of people that have separated from a political or religious organization because they have different ideas.

4. dissident: adj

Dissident people disagree with or criticize their government or a powerful organization they belong to.