NPR 2010-03-25

From NPR News in Washington, I’m Korva Coleman.

 

President Obama has signed an executive order spelling out limits on federal funding for abortion¹ under the new health care law. NPR’s Scott Horsley reports.

 

Michigan Congressman² Bart Stupak and other anti-abortion Democrats³ were invited to join the president in the Oval Office for the signing. The executive order helped sway Stupak and others to support the health care overhaul⁴, giving House Democrats the majority they needed just hours before Sunday’s vote. The order is potentially awkward for President Obama who supports abortion rights, but White House spokesman Robert Gibbs says it merely reaffirms existing limits on federal funding for abortion.

 

“The president has always believed that health care reforms should be about that, not about other issues. The president did not, in health care reform, believe we did change the status quo, and believes that this reiterates⁵ that it’s not changed.”

 

No news cameras or microphones were allowed into the Oval Office to record the signing. Scott Horsley, NPR News, the White House.

 

Meanwhile, the House majority leader says some congressional Democrats have been threatened in the wake of a law. Democratic Congressman Steny Hoyer says the FBI and Capitol Police have been called in. Over the weekend, black lawmakers were menaced by protestors who oppose the new law with racial and homophonic epithets⁶. One lawmaker was spat⁷ upon.

 

The House has approved another bill on job creation and now forwarded it to the Senate. The bill would offer more than three billion dollars in tax cuts to local builders. It will also offer states more money, so they may continue to pay unemployment benefits to out-of-work Americans.

 

Saudi Arabia says it has arrested 101 suspected terrorists who may have been planning to attack the country’s oil sector⁸. The Saudi Interior Ministry⁹ says more than half of those arrested are foreigners. NPR’s Peter Kenyon reports from Cairo.

 

According to a statement from the Interior Ministry, the suspects were seized along with suspicious documents, computers and weapons, including explosive belts of the type worn by suicide bombers¹⁰. The statement did not say when the arrests were made. It identified the suspects as 47 Saudis, 51 Yemenis and a Somali, an Eritrean and a Bengali. Many of the arrests occurred in the southern district of Saudi Arabia near the border with Yemen. In 2006, suicide bombers attempted to cripple the giant Abqaiq oil complex in the eastern part of the kingdom. The attack on the world’s largest oil processing compound failed. Saudi press reports are quoting security officials as saying at least one of the suspects is a Yemeni with no links to al-Qaeda. Peter Kenyon, NPR News, Cairo.

 

The White House says the United States and Russia are very close to signing a new nuclear arms reduction treaty. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs says nothing’s final until President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev speak again in the next few days.

 

On Wall Street before the close, the Dow Jones industrials were down 49 points at 10,839.

 

You’re listening to NPR News.

 

Reading scores for the nation’s eighth graders are up slightly, but that’s not true for kids in fourth grade. NPR’s Claudio Sanchez reports.

 

The latest reading scores from the National Assessment¹¹ of Educational Progress show that 33% of eighth graders are reading at or above grade level. That’s 1% higher than a year ago, 4% higher than in 1992. Despite a 13-point increase for black students and an eight-point increase for Latinos, the gap between white and black and Latino children is still significant and has not budged¹² in nearly 20 years because white children’s reading scores have gone up, too. Overall, a whopping 70% of eighth graders read below grade level. That means they struggle to draw conclusions from what they read or locate and recall information. Average reading scores among fourth graders, meanwhile, are unchanged since 2007; scores of private school students were stagnant¹³; the average score for Catholic school students, however, is up six points. Claudio Sanchez, NPR News.

 

Thousands of people lack power in the Greater Denver Area. A heavy snowstorm blanketed the region, forcing airlines to cancel thousands of flights but rather hundreds of flights. The National Weather Service says Denver received about nine inches of snow as of this morning and as much as 23 inches have fallen in Jefferson County, west of the city. The weather service is predicting a few more inches of snow will fall on the region before the spring storm moves out.

 

The government reports sales of new homes dropped sharply last month. The Commerce Department says they were down 2.2%. Some regions of the country were especially hard hit. The Midwest saw a drop in new home sales of about 18%. The government says bad weather is partly to blame.

 

I’m Korva Coleman, NPR News in Washington.
 

1 abortion   

n.流产，堕胎

参考例句：

• She had an abortion at the women's health clinic.她在妇女保健医院做了流产手术。
• A number of considerations have led her to have a wilful abortion.多种考虑使她执意堕胎。

2 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。

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 overhaul   

v./n.大修，仔细检查

参考例句：

• Master Worker Wang is responsible for the overhaul of this grinder.王师傅主修这台磨床。
• It is generally appreciated that the rail network needs a complete overhaul.众所周知，铁路系统需要大检修。

5 reiterates   

反复地说，重申( reiterate的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• The Chinese government reiterates that the question of Taiwan is China's internal affair. 中国政府重申，台湾问题是中国的内政。 来自汉英非文学 - 汉英文件
• Wang Jianzhou reiterates a fact and a viewpoint in Davos. 王建宙在达沃斯重申一个事实和一个观点。

6 epithets   

n.（表示性质、特征等的）词语( epithet的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• He insulted me, using rude epithets. 他用粗话诅咒我。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He cursed me, using a lot of rude epithets. 他用上许多粗鲁的修饰词来诅咒我。 来自辞典例句

7 spat   

n.口角，掌击；v.发出呼噜呼噜声

参考例句：

• Her parents always have spats.她的父母经常有些小的口角。
• There is only a spat between the brother and sister.那只是兄妹间的小吵小闹。

8 sector   

n.部门，部分；防御地段，防区；扇形

参考例句：

• The export sector will aid the economic recovery. 出口产业将促进经济复苏。
• The enemy have attacked the British sector.敌人已进攻英国防区。

9 ministry   

n.(政府的)部；牧师

参考例句：

• They sent a deputation to the ministry to complain.他们派了一个代表团到部里投诉。
• We probed the Air Ministry statements.我们调查了空军部的记录。

10 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》

11 assessment   

n.评价；评估；对财产的估价，被估定的金额

参考例句：

• This is a very perceptive assessment of the situation.这是一个对该情况的极富洞察力的评价。
• What is your assessment of the situation?你对时局的看法如何？

12 budged   

v.（使）稍微移动( budge的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）改变主意，（使）让步

参考例句：

• Old Bosc had never budged an inch--he was totally indifferent. 老包斯克一直连动也没有动，他全然无所谓。 来自辞典例句
• Nobody budged you an inch. 别人一丁点儿都算计不了你。 来自辞典例句

13 stagnant   

adj.不流动的，停滞的，不景气的

参考例句：

• Due to low investment,industrial output has remained stagnant.由于投资少，工业生产一直停滞不前。
• Their national economy is stagnant.他们的国家经济停滞不前。