美联社新闻一分钟 2008-06-19

（单词翻译）

1.With gasoline topping 4 dollars a gallon, President Bush is calling on lawmakers to lift the decades-old ban on offshore¹ oil and gas drilling. But Democrats² quickly rejected the idea.

2.The White House is also asking Congress for nearly two billion dollars in emergency disaster aid for the flood-ravaged Midwest. Right now officials fear dozens more levees along the Mississippi River may overflow³. The record-breaking storms and flooding in the area are being blamed for 24 deaths.

3.The crowd at Tim Russert’s funeral would have made a great panel⁴ on his Sunday morning news show. Presidential hopeful senators⁵ Barack Obama and John McCain were there as well as members of Congress, television journalists and several generations of politicians from both parties. The "Meet the Press" host died Friday of a heart attack.

4. Unfortunate” Tiger Woods is done for the year. That's because the golfer is having surgery to repair a torn ligament in his left knee. Woods has been dealing⁶ with the injury for the last ten months.

WORDS IN THE NEWS

1.lift [transitive]v

to remove a rule or a law that says that something is not allowed

2.offshore adj.

in or under the sea and not far from the coast

3.panel. [countable]n.

a group of well-known people who answer questions on a radio or television programme

4.be done for

informal
to be in serious trouble or likely to fail

5.ligament [countable]n.

a band of strong material in your body, similar to muscle, that joins bones or holds an organ in its place