美国国家电台 NPR 2012-08-20

 Wikileaks founder¹ Julian Assange appeared in public today for the first time in two months. He has been inside Ecuador's embassy in London where he is evading² arrest by British authorities who want to send him to Sweden for questioning in two sexual assault cases. Assange says if he is extradited, Sweden will hand him over to the United States for trial on Wikileaks' release of secret US documents. Sweden says that won't happen, but Assange doesn't believe them and remains³ holed up inside the Ecuadoran embassy.

 

The presidential candidates are preparing for several days of campaigning. Their surrogates appeared on news talk programs today. Kevin Madden is an adviser⁴ to Republican presidential candidate Mitt⁵ Romney. He told ABC's “This Week” the tax plan backed by Romney and vice⁶ presidential candidate Paul Ryan will mean more take-home pay for middle-class Americans.

 

“Governor Romney has made it very clear that what he is doing is putting forth⁷ an economic vision, an economic plan, along with Congressman⁸ Ryan. That's focused on helping⁹ the middle class, so that we have more jobs and more take-home pay, and that's the focus.”

 

But Obama deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter disagreed. She says the GOP's ticket’s financial plan will harm middle class Americans.

 

“The tax plan that is on the table — even if Congressman Ryan is now agreeing with Mitt Romney on his tax plan — it's a five-trillion-dollar tax cut, mostly geared toward the wealthy, that independent analysts¹⁰ have said in order to pay for it, they’re gonna have to increase taxes on the middle class.”

 

Cutter also spoke¹¹ on ABC's “This Week.”

 

Wildfires are burning in at least ten western states parched¹² by the devastating¹³ drought. Residents of Featherville, Idaho are anxiously watching an approaching wildfire that could burn through their town today. As Scott Graf of Boise State Public Radio reports, the Trinity Ridge¹⁴ fire led many residents to evacuate¹⁵ the area yesterday.

 

Heavy smoke from the fire led authorities to go door-to-door to urge residents to leave. Sheriff’s deputies did not order residents to evacuate, and some decided¹⁶ to stay. The fire started two weeks ago about ten miles outside of Featherville. Nearly 90,000 acres of burned remote mountain areas so far. Structure loss has been minimal¹⁷, but that could change today. More than 1,000 personnel are currently fighting the fire. The government has spent nearly 11 million dollars so far on the firefighting effort. Officials don't think they’ll have the fire contained for at least six weeks. For NPR News, I'm Scott Graf in Boise, Idaho.

 

Dallas County, Texas hopes to resume aerial mosquito spraying to fight the West Nile virus. At least ten people are dead from the mosquito-borne virus in the region. Many people are ill. Aerial spraying efforts stopped Friday night because of heavy storms, and the weather blocked last night's attempt. At least 88,000 acres were sprayed. More than 220,000 acres must still be covered. 

 

This is NPR.

 

NATO says a uniformed Afghan man shot and killed a NATO service member today in Afghanistan. The attack occurred in southern Afghanistan. Also today, NATO says a roadside bombing killed three service personnel in eastern Afghanistan, an area often patrolled by US troops. NATO has not released the nationality of any of the troops killed today.

 

Long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad is back in the water as she continues her quest to become the first person to swim from Cuba to Florida without a shark cage. As NPR's Joel Rose reports Nyad began her latest attempt on Saturday afternoon.

 

Nyad is hoping to set an open water record by swimming 103 miles across the straits of Florida without a wetsuit or a cage. The 62-year-old swimmer suffered a number of jellyfish stings early Sunday, according to teammates who were traveling with her by boat. Jellyfish stings derailed one of Nyad's two attempts to swim the Straits of Florida last year. She also attempted the crossing in 1978. This time, Nyad is wearing a custom-made swimsuit that covers nearly her entire body. Nyad's team says she's already swum the equivalent of one English Channel with four more to go before she reaches the Florida Keys. Joel Rose, NPR News.

 

Sudan says one of its government helicopters crashed today in a mountainous region. Everyone onboard was killed, including a senior government minister and two military generals. It's not clear what caused the helicopter to crash. There is word it was raining heavily.  

 

The National Hurricane Center says Hurricane Gordon is driving across the eastern Atlantic Ocean toward the Azores islands. Gordon is expected to strike the chain early Monday morning.

1 Founder   

n.创始者，缔造者

参考例句：

• He was extolled as the founder of their Florentine school.他被称颂为佛罗伦萨画派的鼻祖。
• According to the old tradition,Romulus was the founder of Rome.按照古老的传说，罗穆卢斯是古罗马的建国者。

2 evading   

逃避( evade的现在分词 )； 避开； 回避； 想不出

参考例句：

• Segmentation of a project is one means of evading NEPA. 把某一工程进行分割，是回避《国家环境政策法》的一种手段。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法
• Too many companies, she says, are evading the issue. 她说太多公司都在回避这个问题。

3 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

4 adviser   

n.劝告者，顾问

参考例句：

• They employed me as an adviser.他们聘请我当顾问。
• Our department has engaged a foreign teacher as phonetic adviser.我们系已经聘请了一位外籍老师作为语音顾问。

5 mitt   

n.棒球手套，拳击手套，无指手套；vt.铐住，握手

参考例句：

• I gave him a baseball mitt for his birthday.为祝贺他的生日，我送给他一只棒球手套。
• Tom squeezed a mitt and a glove into the bag.汤姆把棒球手套和手套都塞进袋子里。

6 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。

7 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

8 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。

9 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

10 analysts   

分析家，化验员( analyst的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• City analysts forecast huge profits this year. 伦敦金融分析家预测今年的利润非常丰厚。
• I was impressed by the high calibre of the researchers and analysts. 研究人员和分析人员的高素质给我留下了深刻印象。

11 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。

12 parched   

adj.焦干的；极渴的；v.（使）焦干

参考例句：

• Hot winds parched the crops.热风使庄稼干透了。
• The land in this region is rather dry and parched.这片土地十分干燥。

13 devastating   

adj.毁灭性的，令人震惊的，强有力的

参考例句：

• It is the most devastating storm in 20 years.这是20年来破坏性最大的风暴。
• Affairs do have a devastating effect on marriages.婚外情确实会对婚姻造成毁灭性的影响。

14 ridge   

n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭

参考例句：

• We clambered up the hillside to the ridge above.我们沿着山坡费力地爬上了山脊。
• The infantry were advancing to attack the ridge.步兵部队正在向前挺进攻打山脊。

15 evacuate   

v.遣送；搬空；抽出；排泄；大(小)便

参考例句：

• We must evacuate those soldiers at once!我们必须立即撤出这些士兵！
• They were planning to evacuate the seventy American officials still in the country.他们正计划转移仍滞留在该国的70名美国官员。

16 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

17 minimal   

adj.尽可能少的，最小的

参考例句：

• They referred to this kind of art as minimal art.他们把这种艺术叫微型艺术。
• I stayed with friends, so my expenses were minimal.我住在朋友家，所以我的花费很小。