CNN 2011-12-10

 CNN News from here Atlanta, Georgia straight to your classrooms, I’m Carl Azuz, this is CNN Student News. Today we’re starting something called a payroll¹ tax. Here’s the deal on the payroll tax from A to Z. Americans have been getting a break on their federal payroll tax, what does this mean is that they’re taking home a bit more of what they earn. For example, someone making around $50,000 this year took home an extra $1,500 thanks to the payroll tax break. The government has to take action to extent the payroll tax cuts in the next year, otherwise the payroll tax goes back up and Americans see less money in their paychecks. What Democrats² and Republicans don’t agree on is how to pay for this, extending the payroll tax break would cost the government about 200 billion dollars, Democrats including the President want to pay for this by raising the taxes on millionaires whom they believe can afford to pay more. Republicans don’t want taxes go up for anyone during a lousy economy, they wanna pay for the extension by cutting government’s spending. Well the two sides found common ground may be, may be not, but no matter how much you or your parents make, you’ll probably notice. There’re few weeks left for Congress to vote on whether or not to extend the payroll tax cut. During a speech yesterday President Obama urged Congress to act immediately, Democrats and Republicans have both been offering plans on this, but the proposals have been criticized sometimes form members of the same parties who offer them.

Yesterday we brought you headlines from // and far, far away, today we’re going a little bit farther, like 600 light years, a light year is the distance that light travels in a year. And 600 light years away is where NASA’s scientists say they discovered a first confirmed planet what they called the habitable zone that means in theory that planet could have liquid water in its surface. It’s found during the Kepler mission which cost around 600 million dollars, back in 2009 NASA launched this giant telescope out into the space, it’s exploring the Milky³ Way Galaxy⁴ for stars and their nearby planets. Scientist were looking for planets that could like earth, this one which is called Kepler 20-2b is the first one that NASA says it found could be similar to ours. Chad Milers looks to the comparisons. 

Here’s what we know, we have our sun and we have our blue planet, our earth’s rotation⁵, our orbit around our sun. The sun that the sun they found up here, Kepler 20-2b system slightly smaller than our sun, slightly cooler than our sun, but the same type of class, the same type of sun, and then they found this planet rotating around it almost the same exact distance away, in fact, we take 365 days to go around approximately, this planet takes 290 days to go around. So it’s almost the exact perfect spot

1 payroll   

n.工资表，在职人员名单，工薪总额

参考例句：

• His yearly payroll is $1.2 million.他的年薪是120万美元。
• I can't wait to get my payroll check.我真等不及拿到我的工资单了。

2 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》

3 milky   

adj.牛奶的，多奶的；乳白色的

参考例句：

• Alexander always has milky coffee at lunchtime.亚历山大总是在午餐时喝掺奶的咖啡。
• I like a hot milky drink at bedtime.我喜欢睡前喝杯热奶饮料。

4 galaxy   

n.星系；银河系；一群(杰出或著名的人物)

参考例句：

• The earth is one of the planets in the Galaxy.地球是银河系中的星球之一。
• The company has a galaxy of talent.该公司拥有一批优秀的人才。

5 rotation   

n.旋转；循环，轮流

参考例句：

• Crop rotation helps prevent soil erosion.农作物轮作有助于防止水土流失。
• The workers in this workshop do day and night shifts in weekly rotation.这个车间的工人上白班和上夜班每周轮换一次。