NPR 2008-12-09

President Bush today said any plan designed to bail¹ out the nation's domestic automakers must be examined to ensure they can survive over the long term and the taxpayer² dollars get paid back. In an interview with ABC, Mr. Bush says all aspects of the companies need to be reexamined. President's remarks followed a word of a tentative agreement between Congress and the White House to move on a 15-billion-dollar financial rescue plan for the industry, a plan that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says won't come without accountability. "If they don't meet the conditions of restructuring and the rest, there is not going to be an endless flow of money, to this industry to continue, left to their own devices, the practices they have been engaged in." The proposed measure will still have to be voted on by Congress and would demand the industry restructure itself but also place an overseer appointed by the president in charge of monitoring the effort.

Five private security guards have been charged with voluntary manslaughter in the shooting deaths of 14 Iraqi civilians³ in Baghdad last year. The Justice Department unsealed the indictment⁵ today after the accused men surrendered in Utah. From Salt Lake City, NPR's Howard Berkes reports.

The Justice Department says the five Blackwater guards fired a grenade into a girl school, shot an unarmed civilian⁴ point-blank as he held his hands high and used machine guns on bystanders. None were armed or insurgents⁶, prosecutors⁷ say, so the five faced 35 counts of voluntary manslaughter and other charges. A sixth Blackwater guard has already pleaded guilty. The incident occurred last year in a busy Baghdad intersection⁸. The guards who surrendered in Salt Lake City are trying to get the case moved to Utah where they think they will find sympathetic jurors. They say they were attacked before they opened fire. The Justice Department says the shooting was unjustified and unprovoked. A key issue in the case is whether the guards were under military jurisdiction⁹ since they worked under contract for the State Department. Howard Berkes NPR News, Salt Lake City.

President-elect Barack Obama is being encouraged to do more to prevent genocide and mass atrocities¹⁰. He's getting the advice from former Cabinet Secretary who has some experience in the Balkans and Rwanda. NPR's Michele Kelemen has more.

Former Defense¹¹ Secretary William Perry says preventing genocide is not only a moral issue, but an issue of national security. "What we hope to do is to have the president of United States embrace the thing, this is a matter of national importance to us, and then we have a secretary of defense who will then give direction to the military to say, that this is something that we have to prepare for and train for." Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright says the report recommends that Mr. Obama set up a team in the White House to focus on these issues and to set aside 250 million dollars a year to help prevent conflicts. Michele Keleman, NPR News, Washington.

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed up 298 points, ending the session at 8, 934. The NASDAQ was up 62 points. The S&P 500 rose 33 points today.

This is NPR.

Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich today ordered all of the state agencies to stop doing business with Bank of American. The governor's order came in response to a sit-in at a Chicago plant by workers from the Republic Windows and Doors. The workers launched the sit-in in the company Friday demanding assurances they will receive severance¹² and vocation¹³ pay. Union officials said they were told by the company it was forced to close the plant after Bank of American withdrew financing. The move by the Illinois governor is under pressure. Bank of America which, like other financial firms, has received government bailout money to help the business.

Women with the most serious kind of heart attack die more often than men. That's a conclusion of a new study involving more than 78, 000 patients. NPR's Richard Knox reports.

Women hospitalized with the most dangerous kind of heart attacks die 12% more often than men after taking into account age, weight, race, blood pressure, and a variety of other risk factors. The findings appear in Circulation, a journal published by the American Heart Association. Study authors found that women were much less likely to receive clot-busting drugs following the most life-threatening kind of heart attacks. Women were also less likely to have angioplasty to clear blocked arteries¹⁴ or to receive recommended drugs. And when they did get the right treatment it was often delayed. One reason the authors say is that women and their doctors are not as quick to recognize there are heart attack symptoms. Richard Knox, NPR News.

Speaking today at the National Counterterrorism Center in McLean, Virginia, President Bush said the US will continue to face a terrorist threat. The president said the best way to counter that is to keep the pressure on constantly. Mr. Bush thanked employees of the center outside Washington which served as a primary hub but now serves for foreign intelligence.

1 bail   

v.舀（水），保释；n.保证金，保释，保释人

参考例句：

• One of the prisoner's friends offered to bail him out.犯人的一个朋友答应保释他出来。
• She has been granted conditional bail.她被准予有条件保释。

2 taxpayer   

n.纳税人

参考例句：

• The new scheme will run off with a lot of the taxpayer's money.这项新计划将用去纳税人许多钱。
• The taxpayer are unfavourably disposed towards the recent tax increase.纳税者对最近的增加税收十分反感。

3 civilians   

平民，百姓( civilian的名词复数 )； 老百姓

参考例句：

• the bloody massacre of innocent civilians 对无辜平民的血腥屠杀
• At least 300 civilians are unaccounted for after the bombing raids. 遭轰炸袭击之后，至少有300名平民下落不明。

4 civilian   

adj.平民的，民用的，民众的

参考例句：

• There is no reliable information about civilian casualties.关于平民的伤亡还没有确凿的信息。
• He resigned his commission to take up a civilian job.他辞去军职而从事平民工作。

5 indictment   

n.起诉；诉状

参考例句：

• He handed up the indictment to the supreme court.他把起诉书送交最高法院。
• They issued an indictment against them.他们起诉了他们。

6 insurgents   

n.起义，暴动，造反( insurgent的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The regular troops of Baden joined the insurgents. 巴登的正规军参加到起义军方面来了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Against the Taliban and Iraqi insurgents, these problems are manageable. 要对付塔利班与伊拉克叛乱分子，这些问题还是可以把握住的。 来自互联网

7 prosecutors   

检举人( prosecutor的名词复数 )； 告发人； 起诉人； 公诉人

参考例句：

• In some places,public prosecutors are elected rather than appointed. 在有些地方，检察官是经选举而非任命产生的。 来自口语例句
• You've been summoned to the Prosecutors' Office, 2 days later. 你在两天以后被宣到了检察官的办公室。

8 intersection   

n.交集，十字路口，交叉点；[计算机] 交集

参考例句：

• There is a stop sign at an intersection.在交叉路口处有停车标志。
• Bridges are used to avoid the intersection of a railway and a highway.桥用来避免铁路和公路直接交叉。

9 jurisdiction   

n.司法权，审判权，管辖权，控制权

参考例句：

• It doesn't lie within my jurisdiction to set you free.我无权将你释放。
• Changzhou is under the jurisdiction of Jiangsu Province.常州隶属江苏省。

10 atrocities   

n.邪恶，暴行( atrocity的名词复数 )；滔天大罪

参考例句：

• They were guilty of the most barbarous and inhuman atrocities. 他们犯有最野蛮、最灭绝人性的残暴罪行。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The enemy's atrocities made one boil with anger. 敌人的暴行令人发指。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

11 defense   

n.防御，保卫；[pl.]防务工事；辩护，答辩

参考例句：

• The accused has the right to defense.被告人有权获得辩护。
• The war has impacted the area with military and defense workers.战争使那个地区挤满了军队和防御工程人员。

12 severance   

n.离职金；切断

参考例句：

• Those laid off received their regular checks,plus vacation and severance pay.那些被裁的人都收到他们应得的薪金，再加上假期和解职的酬金。Kirchofer was terminated,effective immediately--without severance or warning.科奇弗被解雇了，立刻生效--而且没有辞退费或者警告。

13 vocation   

n.职业，行业

参考例句：

• She struggled for years to find her true vocation.她多年来苦苦寻找真正适合自己的职业。
• She felt it was her vocation to minister to the sick.她觉得照料病人是她的天职。

14 arteries   

n.动脉( artery的名词复数 )；干线，要道

参考例句：

• Even grafting new blood vessels in place of the diseased coronary arteries has been tried. 甚至移植新血管代替不健康的冠状动脉的方法都已经试过。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• This is the place where the three main arteries of West London traffic met. 这就是伦敦西部三条主要交通干线的交汇处。 来自《简明英汉词典》