美联社新闻一分钟 2008-06-27

（单词翻译）

Americans can keep guns at home for self-defense. That’s according to the Supreme¹ Court who struck down the District of Colombia’s 32-year-old ban on handguns today. The court’s 5-to-4 decision is the first major ruling on gun rights in U.S. history.

On Wall Street the Dow tumbled² more than 300 points in afternoon trading, hitting its lowest level of the year. The drop comes after word that oil prices would spike³ and warnings of trouble in key financial, automotive and high-tech⁴ industries.

This British man was sentenced to two life prison terms for shooting to death his wife and 9-month-old baby inside their Massachusetts home. Neil Entwistle was convicted⁵ yesterday of two counts of first-degree murder for the 2006 deaths.

A grocery store is voluntarily recalling ground beef after E.coli outbreak in 2 states. Kroger says people who bought its ground beef between May 21st and June 8th should return it to stores for an exchange or a refund⁶. Nearly 3 dozen people in Ohio and Michigan have been sickened.

WORDS IN THE NEWS

1.strike down

law to say that a law, decision etc is illegal and officially end it

2.tumble[intransitive][always + adverb/preposition]

to fall down quickly and suddenly, especially with a rolling movement

3.spike[intransitive]

if the number or rate of something spikes⁷, it increases quickly and by a large amount

4.automotive adj.[only before noun]

relating to cars

5.life time term无期徒刑

term [countable]n.a fixed⁸ period of time during which someone does something or something happens

6.ground beef [uncountable]n.

American English beef that has been cut up into very small pieces, often used to make hamburgers [= mince⁹ British English]

7.E.coli [uncountable]n.大肠杆菌

a type of bacteria that can make you very ill if it is in any food that you eat

8.sicken[intransitive]v.

old-fashioned to gradually become very ill