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1. The National Guard arrives in force in flood-ravaged New Orleans, bringing food, water and weapons to relieve suffering and restore order.
2. Facing criticism, President Bush tours the Gulf Coast, conceding the Federal response to Hurricane Katrina so far is not acceptable.
3. Negotiators in Iraq hold new talks on fine-tuning the country's draft constitution, hoping to still win Sunni Arab approval for the charter.
4. Machinists at Boeing walk out on strike, halting its production of commercial airplanes after a failure to agree on a new contract.
5. And Russia's Putin meets with mothers of Beslan siege victims, saying no government can guarantee total protection from terrorism.
WORDS IN THE NEWS
1. ravage
ravage ravages ravaging ravaged
A town, country, or economy that has been ravaged is one that has been damaged so much that it is almost completely destroyed.
For two decades the country has been ravaged by civil war and foreign intervention.
...the ravaged streets of Sarajevo.
...Nicaragua's ravaged economy.
VB: usu passive
2. fine-tune
fine-tune fine-tunes fine-tuning fine-tuned
If you fine-tune something, you make very small and precise changes to it in order to make it as successful or effective as it possibly can be.
We do not try to fine-tune the economy on the basis of short-term predictions.
Computers allow the plans to be fine-tuned and to be altered quickly.
VB
fine-tuning
There's a lot of fine-tuning to be done yet.
N-UNCOUNT
3. siege
1 siege sieges
A siege is a military or police operation in which soldiers or police surround a place in order to force the people there to come out or give up control of the place.
We must do everything possible to lift the siege.
They are hopeful of bringing the siege to a peaceful conclusion.
The journalists found a city virtually under siege.
N-COUNT: also under N
See also state of siege
4. in force
If people do something in force,they do it in a large member
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