美联社新闻一分钟 2007-03-03（在线收听）

1. After getting a firsthand look at the devastation, Alabama's governor defended administrators at Enterprise High School. Questions have been raised about why school officials didn't evacuate the school before a tornado ripped through the building killing eight students. Warning sirens apparently went off three hours before the twister hit the building.

2. A tour bus carrying a college baseball team plunged off Atlanta interstate ramp and slammed onto the highway below. Four students from Bluffton University in Northwest Ohio were killed along with the bus driver and his wife.

3. Anna Nicole Smith was laid to rest next to her son in the Bahamas Friday. An estimated 100 mourners attended the funeral and graveside service for the former Playboy playmate.

4. Army Secretary Francis Harvey abruptly stepped down Friday. It comes as the Bush Administration struggles to cope with the fallout from a scandal over the substandard conditions for wounded Iraq war soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

WORDS IN THE NEWS

1. twister: n-count
A twister is the same as a tornado. (AM)

2. ramp: n-count
A ramp is a sloping surface between two places that are of different levels.

3. slam: verb
If one thing slams into or against another, it crashes into it with great force.

4. graveside: n-count
You can refer to the area around a grave as the graveside, usually when you are talking about the time when someone is buried.

5. fallout: n-uncount
If you refer to the fallout from something that has happened, you mean the unpleasant consequences that follow it.