AP 2011-05-17（在线收听）

1. Federal officials have opened a Mississippi River floodgate for the first time in nearly four decades. Opening the Morganza spillway will ease pressure on levees downstream and help prevent flooding in Baton Rouge and New Orleans.

2. President Barack Obama is directing his ministration to ramp up US oil production. He will do so by extending existing leases in the Gulf of Mexico and off Alaska's coast, holding more frequent lease sales in a federal petroleum reserve in Alaska. A Republican said it's time for Washington to get serious about the challenges facing the country, including gas price issue.

3. An Iowa man is believed to have fatally shot his two young sons, their mother and her sister in an eastern Idaho home. Police say he also set fire to the house and then shot himself.

4. And Cuba marked International Anti-Homophobia Day. It's the fourth consecutive year. Supporters are taking a speech in Havana, marching along with Mariela Castro, the daughter of President Raul Castro.