【常速英语广播5分钟】 2020-4-21

欢迎光临【漂泊者联盟】第1号公众号红渡中学22班微信公众号英语学习频道

VOA NEWS

April 21, 2020

This is VOA news. Via remote, I'm Marissa Melton. 

The death toll from the mass shooting in Canada's eastern province of Nova Scotia over the weekend has risen to at least 18. Canadian Prime Minister Justin confirmed the death toll Monday. The 12-hour shooting rampage across the province of Nova Scotia was already the worst of its kind in Canada's history. 

Trudeau spoke to the nation Monday, saying "Such a tragedy should never have occurred. Violence of any kind has no place in Canada." 

Late Saturday night, a lone gunman disguised as a police officer began a string of attacks, shooting people in their homes and setting fires. The victims include a policewoman who had served 23 years on the police force. 

Royal Canadian Mounted Police Chief Superintendent Chris Leather told a news conference Monday that police expect to find more victims. 

Police teams were spread out at 16 locations across central and northern Nova Scotia, he said. Some of the victims knew the suspect, Gabriel Wortman, and some did not. 

Officials said the suspect, identified as 51-year-old Gabriel Wortman, was shot and killed by police. No motive for the killings was given. 

After weeks on a warlike footing and suffering thousands of deaths, New York's governor said Monday the state appears to be on the "descent" from its apex of coronavirus cases. 

New York state is approaching a quarter-of-a-million confirmed coronavirus cases and more than 14,000 deaths. What was anticipated to be a mountain-shaped peak on the statistical curve has been more of a plateau but at a very high level for an extended period. 

New York is the hardest hit state in the United States. It's been 51 days since its first diagnosed case of COVID-19, the disease caused by coronavirus. 

Governor Andrew Cuomo said indicators including persons being hospitalized with the virus and those being put on ventilators continue to come down. 

VOA news. 

The top U.S. infectious disease expert on Monday warned protesters who are ignoring [their gov...] their governors' stay-at-home orders [in that] that the country will not recover economically until the ravaging coronavirus is under control. 

Street protests against governors have erupted in several state capitals in recent days, with demonstrators calling for an easing of restrictions that have shut businesses and led to the layoff of 22 million workers. 

Some protesters have chanted, "Fire Fauci," targeting Dr. Anthony Fauci, who has frequently cautioned President Donald [Trump's] Trump against reopening the country's economy too quickly for fear of a resurgence of the virus. Trump has pushed to restart the world's largest economy as quickly as possible, targeting May 1, and laid out a three-phase plan to return the country to a sense of normalcy. 

Fauci is (the) director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. He told ABC's "Good Morning America" show that the protesters could be hurting the chances for economic recovery. 

Trump has praised the protesters at times, saying some governors "have gone too far" in imposing restrictions. 

The governor of the southern U.S. state of Georgia said today some businesses in his state may reopen as soon as Friday. 

An historic crash in oil prices [led to] to less than zero sent Wall Street tumbling on Monday. 

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 592 points. That's a 2 percent drop. The Standard & Poor's 500 was also off 2 percent. The NASDAQ was down 1 percent. 

Major European indexes in Frankfurt, London and Paris were all up a fraction. Asian markets were mixed. 

The contracted May price of a barrel of Texas crude oil slipped to minus 37 dollars and 63 cents Monday. That's a 100 percent drop. 

U.S. refineries are full and can't store any more product. Demand is way down [because her] because hardly anyone can travel. 

The 13-nation Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, led by Saudi Arabia and other oil producers, agreed a week ago to start cutting production by 9.7 million barrels a day on May 1, extending through June, in an effort to prop up prices. But the planned production cut has so far failed to stem the oil price decline. 

And the chief of the World Health Organization warned Monday the coronavirus pandemic is far from over even as some countries gingerly started to ease restrictions. 

"The worst is yet ahead of us," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. "Let's prevent this tragedy. It's a virus that many people still don't understand."

He compared the coronavirus, which worldwide has sickened nearly 2.5 million people, to the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic. 

This is VOA news.