The U.S. military mission in the country may be winding down(松开；放松；摇下), but as we saw over this weekend, the violence in Afghanistan is not over. In one part of the country at least 11 Afghan children were killed as the result of a military operation on Saturday. That same day six Americans were killed. Five of them died when their convoy was attacked by a suicide bomber. Those Americans were delivering books to an Afghan school. One of them was Anne Smedinghoff. She was a diplomat, someone who represented the U.S. government in Afghanistan. 

 

When I was in Afghanistan, she was part of my team. And she was someone who worked hard and put her life on the line, so that others could live a better life.

Heading back to the U.S. now to talk about the American economy and a report that came out last Friday. It tells us the national unemployment rate, how many jobs were added or lost in the previous months, and it’s one thing experts look at to get an idea of how the overall economy is doing. For March, the unemployment rate was 7.6 percent, that’s lower than a month before, but this isn’t necessarily good news. The report only counts people as unemployed if they are actively out there looking for work. Nearly 500,000 people stopped looking last months, and some experts say that’s why the unemployment rate went down. So how about jobs? The economy added 88,000 of those in March. That’s not good. Experts say it needs to add around 150,000 every month just to keep up with population growth.

 

It’s been a bit more than two years since a massive tsunami crashed in the parts of Japan, something unusual drifted across the Pacific and washed up in Washington State. It’s not this fishing boat, at least that’s not what unusual. It’s what’s inside. Stowing away in a bait box at the back were five fish and some other animals. They survived a 5,000 mile journey across the Pacific. Their container was open, and the part of the boat it was in was under water, so the fish could swim around outside their box, but still inside the boat. These species of fish are native to East Asia. Scientists don’t want them invading West Coast waters, so they are dissecting(解剖) all but one of the fish: they’re hoping to find out what these fish ate during the last two years. The last living fish will swim out the rest of its days in an aquarium.