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Happy New Year! Welcome to CNN STUDENT NEWS and our first show of 2014. My name is Carl Azuz. We’re starting off this January 6 program with a ‘Bang!’ millions of them.
Cities worldwide lit up their landmarks1 as the clocks struck midnight, January 1. One of the most remarkable2 fireworks displays was in the Middle East. The United Arab Emirates has the world’s tallest building, biggest shopping mall and now the Guinness world record for largest fireworks display. The previous record, 77,000 fireworks in just over an hour. The new one, 500,000 and who cares how long it took.
Of course, some folks stayed in on New Year, some were stuck inside or inside an airport due to winter weather. Some were stuck in a ship. A group of scientists, journalists and tourists were trapped by sea ice on a holiday cruise to Antarctica. They have plenty of food and supplies during the ten days they were stranded3, but they had to be rescued by helicopter when another ship that tried to help also got stuck in ice. How does that happen?
You’d think that because this is a glacial environment, sea ice would move in a glacial pace. Not the case. Roughs of ice move quickly, rushed over the sea by wind. They can expand and grow thicker, rise and fall with the waves beneath them and blizzard4 conditions common to Antarctica even in summer. Don’t help.
You might remember this scene from Minnesota, when wind blew ice ashore5 from Mille Lacs Lake, climbing and cracking in the doors and window. Think of the same principle and a massive frigid6 sea. And you can see how a Russian research vessel7 en route to the Antarctic got trapped. How Ernest Shackleton in ‘The Endurance’ were surrounded and how that ship was eventually crushed. Even animals used to these conditions like the trapped whales dramatized in last year’s movie ‘Big Miracle’ are vulnerable.
So what does it take to get through the ice and rescue whales, cruise ships or anything else that get stranded? Wait. Sea ice as thick as ten feet can be broken and the sloping holes of some icebreakers are designed to actually wedge up on top of the ice, so the heavy ship can crush down on it. The bows are also designed to then move the cracked ice to the side, plowing8 a path that other ships can follow, a crusty road to open water out of frozen maize9.
As many of you are getting back into the swing of school today, the US Congress is getting back in session this week, getting back into the swing of making laws. The Republican Party controls the House of Representatives. The Democratic Party controls the Senate. And for most lawmakers, this is an election year. So there are a lot of challenges ahead on their to-do list.
The president’s vacation is over. He faces a colder reality now - Congress. ‘If you`re a glass half full kind of person, like I am, they are the number one most unproductive Congress in modern history.’ Get ready for possible deja vu.
‘I wish I had a magic want to say, I know things will be better.’
This year Congress has a full plate - right off the bat, a potentially easy one for the Senate, confirming Janet Ellen as the first woman to head the Federal Reserve. But next, a real battle over long-term unemployment benefits, both sides arguing Sunday. Even before vacation was over, President Obama pressed this weekend to extend the payments.
‘With regard to unemployment insurance, I’ve always said that I’m not opposed to unemployment insurance, I’m opposed to having it without paying for it.’
‘We have never offset10 emergency spending. This foolishness. We have people who are desperate. They’ve been out of work for, some, as much as two years.’
On January 15, a major deadline to fund the government: a deal was reached last year, but it needs to be finalized11.
As early as February, a deadline to raise the debt ceiling again, with both sides already dug in.
‘I think that it will be harmful not just for the economy, but I think it will be harmful politically, if republican choose 2014 as a year to threaten defaults again on the debt limit.’
And an even heavier lift, for a deal on immigration reform, which has escaped Congress for years. ‘It can’t be my way or the highway on such a big issue’;
not to mention, continue by Republicans to change Obama care. ‘This has been a failed launch, a flawed law and it needs real change.’
Don`t hold your breath for all of this to be crossed off the list. According to a CNN/ORC poll released last year, two thirds of Americans called Congress ‘the Worst Ever’. And the midterm elections will suck up much desire this year to compromise. ‘These are not likely to be times of large fruitful legislative12 harvest.’
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1 landmarks | |
n.陆标( landmark的名词复数 );目标;(标志重要阶段的)里程碑 ~ (in sth);有历史意义的建筑物(或遗址) | |
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2 remarkable | |
adj.显著的,异常的,非凡的,值得注意的 | |
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3 stranded | |
a.搁浅的,进退两难的 | |
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4 blizzard | |
n.暴风雪 | |
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5 ashore | |
adv.在(向)岸上,上岸 | |
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6 frigid | |
adj.寒冷的,凛冽的;冷淡的;拘禁的 | |
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7 vessel | |
n.船舶;容器,器皿;管,导管,血管 | |
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8 plowing | |
v.耕( plow的现在分词 );犁耕;费力穿过 | |
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9 maize | |
n.玉米 | |
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10 offset | |
n.分支,补偿;v.抵消,补偿 | |
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11 finalized | |
vt.完成(finalize的过去式与过去分词形式) | |
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12 legislative | |
n.立法机构,立法权;adj.立法的,有立法权的 | |
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