美联社新闻一分钟 2006-11-28

（单词翻译）

1. Fire gut¹ted a Missouri home for the elderly and mentally ill Monday morning. At least 10 people died, 24 others were injured. The cause is under investigation³.

2. Nine people died in a deadly fire at a Dominican Republic nightclub. Police say the blaze broke out early Monday morning after the club had closed. The victims all worked at the club.

3. The US military says an F-16 jet crashed in Anbar province in Iraq. The military did not release information on what caused the crash or the status of the pilot. A witness says he saw the jet flying erratically⁵ before it went down.

4. It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas at the White House. A cart and horse delivered the official tree to the First Lady this morning in Washington. It reaches 18 feet tall and is from a tree farm in Pennsylvania.

WORDS IN THE NEWS

1. gut : VERB
To gut a building means to destroy the inside of it so that only its outside walls remain.

2. erratically : ADV
Something that is erratic⁴ does not follow a regular pattern, but happens at unexpected times or moves along in an irregular way. "Erratically" is the adverb form.