Week 5 - 天津爆炸

12 firefighters among 50 dead in Chinese port city explosions

Hannah Gardner, Special for USA TODAY 4:09 p.m. EDT August 13, 2015

BEIJING — The death toll in twin warehouse blasts in China rose to at least 50 people Thursday, including 12 firefighters, state media reported.

China's official Xinhua news agency said the two massive explosions that ripped through a warehouse facility in one of the world's busiest ports in the city of Tianjin injured 700 people. About 71 people were hospitalized in critical condition.

According to Wang Xiaojie, head of the emergency department of Teda Hospital, many patients had glass or shrapnel cuts, or skull injuries and fractures, Xinhua reported. Tianjin, with a population of 15 million, is located about 90 miles southeast of Beijing.

Residents posted photos of blown out windows and doors on social media. Videos posted the night before showed a huge fire ball surging into the sky and individual explosions like fireworks going off around it.

“Tianjin looks like the end of the world has come this morning," resident Wang Kun said Thursday. "It’s like what you see in Hollywood blockbusters,” he said.

A Weibo user with the name Dawanzi said the area looked like a war zone. "The explosions, the putrid air, dead bodies everywhere, people running around and crying."

Weibo is similar to Twitter, which is blocked on mainland China.

The scale of the destruction in the area immediately around the blast sites and the size of the fire lead many on Weibo to believe the death toll could climb higher.

People as far away as Beijing began to don face masks in case the explosion released toxic chemicals into the air.

The first blast, which occurred around 11:30 p.m. local time Wednesday night, was equivalent to that caused by 3 tons of TNT.

The second explosion, triggered by the first fire, was equivalent to 21 tons of explosive material, the National Earthquake Bureau said.

Executives for Ruihai Logistics, the company which owns the warehouse where the inferno originated, were arrested, police said. The website for Ruihai Logistics said the company is approved to handle hazardous materials.

Ruihai Logistic oversaw a 46,000-square-meter facility that housed warehouses for storing and distributing hazardous materials,according to its website, Reuters reported.

China's President Xi Jinping demanded severe punishment for anyone found responsible for the explosions.

Chinese state broadcaster CCTV said six battalions of firefighters had brought the ensuing fire under control, although it was still burning in the early hours of Thursday. Authorities announced they suspended further efforts to douse the blaze because they had not been given clear information as to the nature of the potentially hazardous materials being stored in the warehouses.

Rescue teams detected high levels of sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides as far as a half-mile from the scene, Xinhua reported. A 217-member team of specialists in nuclear, biological and chemical materials was brought in to begin assessing and cleaning up toxic material, the agency reported.

The city has set up 17 monitoring stations for air, and another five for water. Three sewage outlets to the sea have been closed, said Wen Wurui, head of the city's environmental protection bureau, at the press conference.

Several buildings were destroyed in the blasts, and more than 1,000 new cars were left charred in a nearby parking lot, the Beijing News reported.

As many as 3,500 nearby residents have been relocated to 10 schools because of damage to their home. The number could reach 6,000 by Thursday night, Zhang Yong, head of the Binhai district government, said at a press conference, according to Xinhua.

Accidents of this nature are not uncommon in China's rapidly expanding cities, where residential areas bump up against industrial zones.

Tianjin is currently being incorporated into the Chinese capital of Beijing, as part of a plan to create a super city of over 130 million people known as Jing-Jin-Ji.

A spokesman for Tianjin's port said it was operating normally, despite the fire. The port is the 10th largest in the world and seventh largest in China. It has grown in importance as companies wanting lower manufacturing costs have migrated to the north from eastern and southern China’s manufacturing centers.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/08/13/firefighters-dead-china-explosions/31598019/

Structure of the Lead：

Who- not given

When- Thursday

What- the explosion in Tianjin

Why- people who work in warehouse were so careless

Where- Tianjin

How- horrible and nervous

Keywords:

1.      shrapnel-彈片

2.      skull-頭骨

3.      fracture-使…骨折；破裂

4.      putrid-腐臭的

5.      equivalent-相等的

6.      inferno-地獄

7.      battalion-軍隊；營

8.      douse-澆熄

9.      sulfur-硫磺

10.  sewage-汙穢物

Week4-美醫師殺獅王

Minn. dentist who killed Cecil the lion returns to work

2:08 p.m. EDT September 8, 2015

BLOOMINGTON, Minn. - Walter Palmer returned to work Tuesday morning in an attempt to resume his life and career, but the presence of protesters, cameras and journalists made sure his day at the office was anything but business as usual.

Palmer made a beeline for the front door of his dental practice shortly after 7 a.m. as a handful of demonstrators and animal activists shouted at him, and photographers scrambled to document his return. Bloomington Police were on hand to maintain order and assure Palmer's safety.

One woman, who was not a patient or associate of Palmer's, turned out to support him. "Crazy people that are out here calling for his murder and extraditing and hanging and stuff, it's insane," said Stephanie Michaelis of Bloomington, Minn. "The media should back down and let this thing be settled in the foreign courts if that's what needs to happen."

Palmer is the big game hunter who shot and killed Cecil, a beloved and collared lion who lived in a Zimbabwe game refuge in July.

In an interview conducted jointly by The Associated Press and the Minneapolis Star Tribune that advisers said would be the only one granted, Palmer said again that he thinks he acted legally and that he was stunned to find out his hunting party had killed one of Zimbabwe's treasured animals.

An avid sportsman, Palmer shut off several lines of inquiry about the hunt, including how much he paid for it or others he has undertaken. No videotaping or photographing of the interview was allowed. During the 25-minute interview, Palmer gazed intensely at his questioners, often fiddling with his hands and turning occasionally to an adviser, Joe Friedberg, to field questions about the fallout and his legal situation.

"It was interesting to see how he wanted to control what got out there," AP correspondent Brian Bakst told KARE-TV's Lou Raguse in an interview about his discussion with Palmer. "People have seen the pictures of him, this dentist with the bright white smile all over the internet. We never saw that smile once. It was just a very serious, business-like expression the entire time."

Bakst told KARE-TV that Palmer was very careful about sharing too much detail of the incident. "He wouldn't answer how much he paid for the hunt. Wouldn't really get into any level of detail of whether he would go back to Africa," Bakst said. "He wouldn't talk much about the kill and how this lion was first in their gaze. And how they targeted this specific lion."

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2015/09/08/minn-dentist-who-killed-cecil-lion-returns-work/71870386/

 Structure of the Lead：

      WHO-Walter Palmer

      WHEN-September 8, 2015

      WHAT--Walter Palmer killed a lion 

      WHY-Because people are angry about what Walter Palmer had done

      WHERE-Walter Palmer's office

      HOW-angry

1.beeline-直線:捷徑

2.extradite-拿獲歸案

3.insane-瘋狂的；荒唐的

4.collar-給...套上頸圈

5.stun-使...震驚

6.avid-貪婪的；熱心的；渴望的

7.fiddle-不停擺弄；虛度時光；不經意地做事

8.gaze-凝視
9.scramble-倉促行動；爬
10.inquiry-調查；質詢
11.undertake-答應；從事

Week3-Same sex marriage, legal, the US

Guam Couple Seek to Overturn Ban on Same-Sex Marriage

APR 13 2015, 6:07 PM

A lesbian couple sued the U.S. island of Guam on Monday, five days after they were denied a wedding license, in just the second legal challenge to restrictions on same-sex marriage in the U.S. territories.

Kathleen Aguero and Loretta Pangelinan, both 28, said in a 25-page suit (PDF) filed in U.S. District Court for Guam in Hagatna that while they could have chosen to fly to a mainland state that recognizes same-sex marriage, they "wish to marry on Guam so that all their friends and family may attend and participate in their joyous occasion."

The suit, which names Gov. Eddie Calvo and territorial Registrar Carolyn Garrido as defendants, says Aguero and Pangelinan sought a wedding license last Wednesday in the village of Mangilao but officials refused to accept the application — even though Guam is part of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which has ruled in favor of same-sex marriage.

The suit says the clerk's office gave Aguero and Pangelinan two documents — a 2009 opinion from the Guam attorney general's office and a copy of the Guam Code, both specifying that "marriage means the legal union of persons of the opposite sex."

"We're seeking marriage equality for all," R. Todd Thompson, the women's attorney, told NBC station KUAM of Hagatna. "We are asking the judge to obey the 9th Circuit precedent, which says that sex is not an appropriate distinction to make when filing for a marriage license."

In a statement, Calvo's office said: "Guam law, as currently written, prescribes marriage as between a man and a woman. Given this information, unless the law is changed by the Legislature, or unless a judicial edict is issued declaring the Guam law to be inorganic or unconstitutional, he believes the Department of Public Health should continue to enforce the law as written."

Only one other case has been filed addressing the legality of same-sex marriage in the U.S. territories, whose residents are U.S. citizens but who don't have all the rights of citizenship, including the right to vote in federal elections.

Puerto Rico's justice secretary said last month that he would ask a federal appeals court to overturn the island's ban on same-sex marriage as "legally indefensible" in a suit filed by two Puerto Rico women who were legally married in Massachusetts but whose wedding wasn't recognized on the island.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/guam-couple-seek-overturn-ban-same-sex-marriage-n340886

Structure of the Lead：

      WHO-Kathleen Aguero and Loretta Pangelinan

      WHEN-APR 13 2015

      WHAT-Kathleen Aguero and Loretta Pangelinan are seeking marriage equality for all

      WHY-They wish to marry on Guam so that all their friends and family may attend and participate in their joyous occasion

      WHERE-Mangilao

      HOW-not given

Keywords：

   1.lesbian:女同性戀

   2.defendant:被告；辯護的

   3.attorney:律師

   4.judicial:司法的；法庭的

   5.edict:官方命令；勒令

   6.inorganic:無組織的；無生物的

   7.unconstitutional:違反憲法的

   8.citizenship:公民權

   9.joyous:快樂的

 10.prescribe:規定

Week2-Nepal earthquake, 2015, death toll, kill

As time for mourning ends, Nepal turns focus to repair and recovery

By Moni Basu and Manesh Shrestha, CNN

May 7, 2015

On the 13th day of Nepal's tragedy, the nation ended a period of mourning that is customary in Buddhist and Hindu traditions.

Mourners took ritual baths in the Bagmati River and offered prayers for the loved ones they lost in the magnitude-7.8 earthquake that rocked this Himalayan country April 25.

In Kathmandu, the capital, signs of normalcy blossomed next to the scars of disaster.

At Tudikhel, the sprawling city's largest green space, rows of bright blue tents flown in by the Chinese government provided shelter for hundreds of families displaced from their homes.

Under an recreational tent sponsored by Samsung, people sat on the floor watching a Nepalese movie on a large flat screen. Inside another tent, Japanese medics provided care for the sick.

Some people said they would remain here for a while, their homes damaged to the point of being unsafe. Tremors from aftershocks can still be felt here.

The earthquake's death toll now stands at 7,803. The Kathmandu district took the brunt of the losses, with 3,035 fatalities. Nepal's National Emergency Operations Center (NEOC), says 403 people are believed to missing. It's the first time the agency has released a figure of those unaccounted for.

More than 10% of the country's homes were destroyed (299,588) or damaged (269,107), according to NEOC data.

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/05/07/world/nepal-earthquake-missing/index.html

Structure of the Lead：

      WHO-not given

      WHEN-May 7, 2015

      WHAT-the results of Nepal earthquake 

      WHY-earthquake      

WHERE-Nepal

      HOW-not given

Keywords：

   1.mourn-哀痛；哀悼

   2.customary-習慣上的；合乎習俗的

   3.brunt-衝擊

   4.ritual-儀式的

   5.magnitude-巨大；重大

   6.normalcy-常態；正常

   7.sprawl-使不規則地延伸

   8.tremor-震顫；顫抖

   9.fatality-死亡；死者

  10. sponsor-發起者

Week1-阿帕契醜聞

‘Apache helicopter scandal’ officers to be impeached

By Jason Pan  /  Staff reporter

The Control Yuan has voted to impeach 601st Air Cavalry Brigade Lieutenant Colonel Lao Nai-cheng (勞乃成) and two other officers over security breaches and rule violations in what came to be known as the “Apache helicopter scandal” earlier this year.

A nine-member Control Yuan committee yesterday said that it had voted unanimously to impeach Lao, a pilot-instructor for the US-made AH-64E Apache attack helicopter.

Brigade commander Major General Chien Tsung-yuan (簡聰淵) was impeached after a unanimous vote, while brigade personnel section head Lieutenant Colonel Tao Kuo-chen (陶國禎) was impeached after an 8-1 vote.

Lao took a group of 26 relatives and friends, including a Japanese man and five domestic caregivers who were foreign nationals, on a private tour of a restricted-access base which houses Apache helicopters and other advanced aircraft.

That visit on March 29 led to a firestorm after one visitor, TV personality Janet Lee (李蒨蓉), posted photographs on Facebook that drew widespread public criticism.

The Control Yuan report accused Lao of “wasting” the NT$40 million (US$1.28 million) the government spent to send him to the US for flight training.

“Lao took the nation’s assets as his own private property. He used the Apache helicopter as a social networking tool and took the helicopter helmet as a prop for a private party. During the investigation, Lao continued to lie about his actions and tried to cover them up. He has brought dishonor to the military,” the report said.

Chien was was the first person to breach base security with a tour for his relatives and friends on Feb. 20 this year, the report said, adding that Lao followed Chien’s example.

The investigation said that Tao was in charge of security and access to the base on March 29, but violated registration requirements and other regulations in permitting Lao’s group to bypass security checks.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2015/07/08/2003622542

Structure of the Lead：

      WHO- Lao Nai-cheng , Chien Tsung-yuan , Tao Kuo-chen , Janet Lee

      WHEN- not given

      WHAT- investigate

      WHY-Janet Lee (李蒨蓉), posted photographs on Facebook that drew widespread public criticism

      WHERE- The Control Yuan

      HOW- not given

Keywords：

   1.impeach- 彈劾

   2.breach- 突破口

   3.unanimously- 一致

   4.domestic- 國內

   5.lieutenant- 陸軍中尉；海軍上尉

   6.brigade- 旅；隊

   7.bypass- 撇開