AP美联社一分钟新闻 2008-11-24（在线收听）

1. A Democratic official says President-elect Barack Obama will name New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson as commerce secretary. The official says Obama plans to announce the selection after Thanksgiving.

2. Three people have been shot, one critically inside a northern New Jersey church. Some two hundred people reportedly were inside the Asian-Indian house of worship in Clifton when the gunman opened fire just before noon.

3. Asian and Pacific countries are predicting the world's economic crisis will be history by the summer of 2010. The optimistic forecast comes at the end of the APEC summit in Peru. The goal is to overhaul global regulations to prevent future crisis.

4. And rescuers returned eleven pilot whales to sea Sunday. That's a day after officials say they discovered a pod of 64 mothers and calves stranded on a beach in southeastern Australia. Rescuers say they hope the whales will rejoin another migratory pod once they swim back into the Bass Strait.

WORDS IN THE NEWS

1. pilot whale: n. 【动】巨头鲸,圆头鲸

a small whale with black skin

2. pod: n.

a group of sea animals, such as whales or dolphins, that swim together

3. calves: n.

the plural of calf

the baby of a cow, or of some other large animals, such as an elephant or whale