美联社新闻一分钟 2005-12-21

（单词翻译）

1. A transit¹ strike in New York City forces millions of subway and bus riders to find new ways to get around at the height of the holiday shopping and tourist season.

2. In a huge courtroom fight over evolution, a federal judge rules a Pennsylvania school district cannot teach "intelligent design" in biology classes.

3. Traveling overseas, Vice² President Cheney defends the Bush administration's use of secret domestic spying and efforts to expand presidential powers.

4. Iranians shrug³ off their hardline president's ban on western music continuing to sell, buy and listen to everything from Hip-Hop to country rock.

5. And a Paris skyscraper⁴ climber who calls himself "Spiderman" scales a Paris tower, protesting what he calls unfair treatment by police in the US.

WORDS IN THE NEWS

1. shrug off
shrug off shrugs⁵ off; shrugging off; shrugged⁶ off
If you shrug something off, you ignore it or treat it as if it is not really important or serious.
He shrugged off the criticism.
He just laughed and shrugged it off.
PHR-V

2. scale
9 scale scales scaling scaled
If you scale something such as a mountain or a wall, you climb up it or over it. (WRITTEN)
...Rebecca Stephens, the first British woman to scale Everest...
The men scaled a wall and climbed down scaffolding on the other side.
VB
= climb