美联社新闻一分钟 2005-08-27

（单词翻译）

1.Hurricane Katrina treads across South Florida, leaving 5 dead, 5 missing and millions of homes and businesses without power.

2.Shiites wait for a response from Sunni Arabs to what they call a final compromise offer to break the impasse¹ over Iraq's draft constitution.

3.Fire races through an apartment building in Paris housing African immigrants, killing² 17, nearly all of them children, and injuring 23 others.

4.Fed Chief Greenspan warns creeping trade protectionism and bloated budget deficits³ pose a risk to long-term US economic health.

5.And handlers of a smoking chimp⁴ in a Chinese zoo are trying to get her to kick the habit by giving her milk instead of cigarettes.

WORDS IN THE NEWS

1. tread
1 tread treads treading trod trodden
If you tread on something, you put your foot on it when you are walking or standing⁵.
Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to tread on your foot.
I had white rugs on the floor, but people were scared to tread on them in case they marked.
VB

2. race
7 race races racing⁶ raced
If something races towards a particular state or position, it moves very fast towards that state or position.
Do they realize we are racing towards complete economic collapse⁷?.
American economic growth raced ahead.
VB

3. creep
3 creep creeps creeping crept
If something creeps in or creeps back, it begins to occur or becomes part of something without people realizing or without them wanting it.
Insecurity might creep in.
An increasing ratio of mistakes, perhaps induced by tiredness, crept into her game.
...a proposal that crept through unnoticed at the National Council in December...
Now his other major works are creeping back into concert programmes.
Their organisation⁸ has been subjected to creeping privatisation since 1981.
VB

4. protectionism
protectionism
Protectionism is the policy some countries have of helping⁹ their own industries by putting a large tax on imported goods or by restricting imports in some other way.
The aim of the current round of talks is to promote free trade and to avert¹⁰ the threat of increasing protectionism.
N-UNCOUNT
* free trade

5. bloated
3 bloated
If you describe an organization as bloated, you mean that it is larger and less efficient than it should be.
...its massive state apparatus¹¹ and bloated bureaucracy.
ADJ-GRADED: usu ADJ n

6. handler
1 handler handlers
A handler is someone whose job is to be in charge of and control an animal.
Fifty officers, including frogmen and dog handlers, are searching for her.
N-COUNT: usu supp N

7. chimp
chimp chimps¹²
A chimp is the same as a chimpanzee. (INFORMAL)
N-COUNT