美联社新闻一分钟 2006-02-11(在线收听

1. American journalist Jill Carroll's captors are threatening to kill her on Feb. 26th, if the US military doesn’t release all Iraqi women from prison. Carroll, a freelance reporter for the Christian Science Monitor, was kidnapped in Baghdad Jan. 7th.

2. Former FEMA chief Michael Brown blames the Department of Homeland Security for the government’s slow response to Hurricane Katrina. Brown says officials were warned that New Orleans' levees were breached on the day that Hurricane Katrina roared ashore.

3. In a surprise move, Lewis Libby admits he leaked the name of a CIA operative. But he says he was following orders by his superiors. The former top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney also told the federal grand jury the classified material was used by the Bush administration to justify invading Iraq.

4. This California woman who's 3 feet tall and weighed 37 pounds before she got pregnant has given birth to her first child, a healthy boy. The new mom suffers from a rare disorder that makes her bones soft and brittle

WORDS IN THE NEWS

1. freelance : adjective, adverb
doing particular pieces of work for different organizations, rather than working all the time for a single organization:
e.g. Most of the journalists I know are/work freelance.

2. breach : verb
to break a hole in a wall that is intended to protect a place:
e.g. The storm had breached the sea wall in two places.

3. superior : noun [C], adjective
(a person or group of people who are) higher in rank or social position than others:
e.g. I will pass your complaint on to my superiors.

4. brittle : adjective
delicate and easily broken:
e.g. As you get older your bones become increasingly brittle.

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