专四CNN新闻听力100篇

military bus. Two others were wounded. They were security forces who were being deployed. German police have one suspect in custody. Officials say that what they think happened is that the gunman rushed onto the bus while it was waiting outside the terminal and then started shooting. This would be a federal crime in both the United States and in Germany.

News Item 44

Mexican President Felipe Calderon travels north of the border for a two-day visit to the U.S. He’s scheduled to meet with American business leaders, leaders in Congress, and he’s meeting with President Obama, the two leaders getting together yesterday at the White House. They talked about immigration policies, organized crime and violence along the U.S.-Mexico border. And of course, they discussed trade. Mexico is America’s third-largest trading partner. And it’s the second-largest market for American products that get sold outside the U.S.

News Item 45

The U.S. unemployment rate is down one-tenth of a point. It went from 9 percent in January to 8.9 percent in February. That has been the lowest unemployment since April of 2009. But experts still have some concerns about the future of the U.S. economy. Samantha Hayes explains some of those concerns and breaks down some more details from this month’s unemployment report.

News Item 46

Scientists say Kilauea was shooting lava as high as 80 feet into the air on Sunday. The state is no stranger to volcanic eruptions. That’s how the Hawaiian Islands are believed to have been formed in the first place. The islands are the tops of a chain of volcanic mountains like this. Kilauea is one of the most active volcanoes in the world. Since 1952, it’s erupted 34 times. And this lava you see here, it started flowing over the weekend: It’s part of an ongoing eruption that started in 1983. It’s happening in a remote area, so no people or homes are threatened.

News Item 47

A would-be robber calls 911 because he’s scared of the homeowner. In Portland, a man charged with breaking into a house says he was concerned the homeowner might have a gun. The homeowner also called 911 and that’s when police found the suspect, 24-year-old Timothy James Chappic, locked in the bathroom.

News Item 48

The international community is trying to find ways to end the violence in Libya. And one suggestion is a no-fly zone over the country. What that would mean is that no military planes could fly over Libya without permission. The United Nations Security Council is talking about it,

and the idea has a lot of support from countries in the Middle East. NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, is already running round-theclock surveillance flights over Libya.

News Item 49

In neighboring Egypt, about a thousand people showed up for a pro-women demonstration yesterday. Women were a major part of the protests that forced former President Hosni Mubarak out of power from Egypt last month. But this protest turned into a shouting match when groups of men started yelling antifeminist chants, like “go home, that’s where you belong”. There were men on both sides of these protests. The people who organized the women’s march said they’re demanding “fair and equal opportunity for all Egyptian citizens—beyond gender, religion or class”.

News Item 50

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a point at an event that commemorated the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day. When referring to the political unrest in the Middle East and North Africa we’ve seen lately, Secretary Clinton said women “have just as much right as the men to remake their governments”. She and first lady Michelle Obama honored 10 women with the International Women of Courage Award. Secretary Clinton said the women’s courage comes from putting others’ well-being before their own. And Mrs. Obama said the awards send a message to women that “you are never alone in your struggle”.

News Item 51

After the Security Council’s vote, Libya’s government declared a cease-fire in its fighting with rebel forces. And it invited representatives from other nations to come to Libya to make sure the cease-fire was real. Coalition forces were convinced that Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi was not following the rules of the cease-fire. On Saturday, the coalition attacked. You can hear the sounds of gunfire in the capital city of Tripoli. A U.S. commander said missiles landed near the capital and around other cities as part of these attacks.

News Item 52

All the 30,000 victims of the nation’s largest identity theft scheme had in common were credit reports. Reports on file with three of the nation’s largest credit report agencies were stolen in wholesale batches and sold for 60 dollars a piece. And federal authorities say the men who unlock those reports and sold them to a Nigerian fraud ring and others was Philip Cummins, a 33-year-old former help desk operator at a Long Island-based credit security firm.

News Item 53

In Washington, D.C., a commission set up by Congress is investigating the U.S. financial crisis.

They’re looking into what caused it and hopefully how to avoid another one in the future. As part of that investigation, the commission has been talking with some government officials. And yesterday, it met with the chief executives of four of the country’s biggest banks. The head of the commission said he wanted to hear the bankers talk about their companies’ roles in causing the crisis. The executives acknowledged that their banks had made mistakes, but said they didn’t realize how bad those mistakes were at the time.

News Item 54

An estimated 600,000 students dropped out of the class of 2008. The Alliance figured out how the country could have benefited if just half of them, 300,000, had gotten their diplomas. It estimated they would have earned a combined $4.1 billion more money in an average year. Then, they could have spent $2.8 billion more and invested more than $1 billion more.

News Item 55

It’s been used for years by computer owners to chat online but most companies ban it from the workplace. Now instant messaging is one of the hottest applications on office computers and some companies are encouraging it. Instant messaging or IM is a real-time real-exchange between one or more online computer users. It’s faster than email and it allows you to see if someone is available to chat. IM now allows you to videoconference and share files. It’s even available on mobile phones and PDAs.

News Item 56

The nation of Iran will mark a milestone later on this week. On Thursday, the country will celebrate the anniversary of when it became an Islamic republic. This goes back to 1979, when supporters of the Ayatollah Khomeini, a religious leader, overthrew the country’s government. Khomeini became the supreme leader of Iran, and the nation officially became an Islamic state. The United States and the European Union are worried about potential violence during Thursday’s celebrations.

News Item 57

President Obama has given his backing to building the first nuclear reactors in the United States in three decades. He said the country needed a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power stations to meet its

energy needs and fight climate change. Mr. Obama is offering an 8-billion-dollar loan guarantee to the first plant, but only if legislation against greenhouse gas emissions is part of the package. He said that without funding for new technologies, the U.S. risked falling behind other nations.

News Item 58

The Afghan Taliban is said to have lost one of its key leaders. Reports say its top military commander and leading strategist, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, was captured at the beginning of this month in a joint operation by Pakistani and American forces in Karachi. A spokesman for the Afghan Taliban denied that the leader had been taken.

News Item 59

Pope Benedict has called the sexual abuse of children by Roman Catholic clergy in Ireland a heinous crime that wounded human dignity. His comments followed a meeting about the scandal with Irish bishops in Rome. The Vatican said all will agree that the church’s teaching had been damaged.

News Item 60

The Inter-American Development Bank says the cost of rebuilding Haiti after last month’s earthquake could reach 14 billion dollars. The estimate is based on preliminary damage assessment and comparisons with previous disasters. The bank says the earthquake was proportionately the most destructive natural disaster of modern times when viewed in relation to the size of Haiti’s population and economy. The quake killed about 230,000 people and left the capital Port-au-Prince in ruins.

News Item 61

Some environmental groups are criticizing Australia for its poor record on caring for endangered species. More mammals have become extinct in that country over the last 200 years than in any other place in the world. And new laws to protect threatened animals are not always enforced. Australia’s Network Ten reports on the case of some endangered sea lions off the country’s southern shores.

News Item 62

Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Capitol Hill discussing lifting the ban on gays serving in the armed forces. It’s the first major step in that direction since the 1993 policy “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” ignited the firestorm. As a first step, Defense Secretary Robert Gates is expected to call for no longer discharging people who are outed by others. Over the last 12 years, nearly 11,000 people have been discharged from the military for being gay. Defense officials privately say the appetite to enforce the law is declining.

News Item 63

The U.S. Coast Guard has suspended its search in Lake Pontchartrain for a missing U.S. Navy pilot. Apparently, he and other pilot were aboard a training plane that crash landed into the lake late Saturday night. One of the pilots we’re told was rescued. The Navy has yet to identify either of