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(单词翻译:双击或拖选)
The Senate easily passed a proposal to extend unemployment benefits for five months, lawmakers voting 59 to 38 to approve the bill. But as NPR’s Ailsa Chang explains, the measure has slim chances of surviving the House where Republicans demand to attach job creation provisions.
House Speaker John Boehner has already said he has problems with the Senate bill and that he’d support an extension of unemployment benefits only if there were a company by job creation programs. So House Republicans say they plan to attach their own provisions to the legislation, proposals they say will lead to more jobs, such as building the Keystone XL oil pipeline1 or mandating2 employer-provided healthcare coverage3 only to employees who work 40 hours a week rather than 30. More than a million people lost their benefits Dec. 28th, but that number has since grown to nearly three million. Ailsa Chang, NPR News, the Capitol.
The international community continues to praise this Saturday’s presidential election in Afghanistan. NPR’s Sean Carberry reports the turnout far exceeded expectations and Taliban violence, while significant in rural areas, fell far short of projections5.
Election officials estimate that more than seven million Afghans turned out to vote. That’s nearly double the turnout of the 2009 election.
“We don't know who has won. We know that the Taliban has lost.”
Thijis Berman, head of the European Union monitoring team, says all eyes will now be on Afghanistan’s electoral bodies that are tallying6 the votes and evaluating claims of fraud.
“We do not know how these elections went.”
More than 150 fraud complaints have been filed against the eight presidential candidates. The final election results will be released in May after the allegations have been resolved. If no candidate gets more than 50%, there will be a runoff between the top two. Sean Carberry, NPR News, Kabul.
If you are running Microsoft XP on your home computer, starting tomorrow you are essentially7 unsupported. That’s because 12 years after the release of its popular operating system, the company says it will stop supporting XP. Patrick Thomas, a security consultant8 with Neohapsis, explains what it essentially means to millions still using the system.
“Computers will continue to work as they have before April 8th except that at that point users’ security is essentially entirely9 in their own hands because Microsoft provider is no longer stepping in to release updates, to release patches."
One reason many individuals and businesses have been slow to move on from XP is it’s relatively10 stable, thus made it roughly 30% of (companies) computers being used by businesses and consumers around the world are still running on XP.
Consumers boosted their borrowing again in February, though much of the rise was due to an increase in non-revolving11 credits, things like education and auto12 loans rather than for revolving credit which covers store and credit card debts.
On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 166 points to end the session at 16,245. The Nasdaq dropped 47 points today.
You are listening to NPR News in Washington.
The official death toll13 in the Washington state mudslide has now risen to 33 with 30 of the victims now positively14 identified by Medical Examiner’s Office. Latest victim id, there’s 30-year-old Billy L. Spillers, who, like the other victims, died as a result of blunt force trauma15 after a wall of earth and mud swept across a residential4 area on the North Fork of the Stillaguamish River that’s located some 55 miles northeast of Seattle, and dozens of people are still listed as missing after the devastating16 mudslide.
Airlines delayed more flights and lost more bags last year, but fewer passengers complained to the federal government about it. That’s according to an annual study of airline quality. As NPR’s David Schaper reports, the overall marks to the airline industry are the highest ever.
The annual Airline Quality Rating’s report finds that the airline industry appears to be in a pretty good place right now, according to one of the study’s authors Dean Headley of Wichita State University.
“Almost 80% on time with about three out of 1,000 passengers have their bags not shown up with them—that’s not a lot. And there are only about 1 out of 100,000 passengers are complaining about it. But that may be the ramp17. People have maybe gone to the point where they say ‘I just don’t care anymore’.”
Headley says many consumers just don’t bother complaining to the federal government and seem resigned to the fact that poor service is the new normal for most airlines. David Schaper, NPR News.
In a film career that began at age six and continued well into his later years, actor Mickey Rooney is being remembered today. Rooney, who died over the weekend at the age of 93, never really stopped working. His bodywork included 16 of the Andy Hardy18 comedies over the course of two decades, including one that featured child star Judy Garland. Rooney gained nearly as much attention for his personal life—he was married eight times.
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1 pipeline | |
n.管道,管线 | |
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2 mandating | |
托管(mandate的现在分词形式) | |
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3 coverage | |
n.报导,保险范围,保险额,范围,覆盖 | |
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4 residential | |
adj.提供住宿的;居住的;住宅的 | |
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5 projections | |
预测( projection的名词复数 ); 投影; 投掷; 突起物 | |
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6 tallying | |
v.计算,清点( tally的现在分词 );加标签(或标记)于;(使)符合;(使)吻合 | |
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7 essentially | |
adv.本质上,实质上,基本上 | |
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8 consultant | |
n.顾问;会诊医师,专科医生 | |
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9 entirely | |
ad.全部地,完整地;完全地,彻底地 | |
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10 relatively | |
adv.比较...地,相对地 | |
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11 revolving | |
adj.旋转的,轮转式的;循环的v.(使)旋转( revolve的现在分词 );细想 | |
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12 auto | |
n.(=automobile)(口语)汽车 | |
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13 toll | |
n.过路(桥)费;损失,伤亡人数;v.敲(钟) | |
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14 positively | |
adv.明确地,断然,坚决地;实在,确实 | |
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15 trauma | |
n.外伤,精神创伤 | |
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16 devastating | |
adj.毁灭性的,令人震惊的,强有力的 | |
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17 ramp | |
n.暴怒,斜坡,坡道;vi.作恐吓姿势,暴怒,加速;vt.加速 | |
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18 hardy | |
adj.勇敢的,果断的,吃苦的;耐寒的 | |
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