一周新闻看点：中国举行第八届南京大屠杀死难者国家公祭仪式、美国遭受龙卷风袭击……

“绿水悠悠天杳杳。浮生岂得长年少。” 转眼间将近12月下旬了，新的一周，继续努力哈！

今晚昕妈再次抽空给小伙伴们整理一周新闻看点，学有料的英文，修有趣的灵魂。

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NANJING, Dec. 13 (Xinhua) -- In front of the darkly-dressed crowd, China's national flag flew at half-mast as the country held its eighth national memorial ceremony Monday for the victims of the Nanjing Massacre.

Despite the winter chill, thousands of people who observed epidemic prevention protocols attended the ceremony in Nanjing, east China's Jiangsu Province, with white flowers on their lapels conveying condolences.

At exactly 10:01 a.m., sirens started to blare and the city came to a halt. Drivers in the downtown area stopped their cars and honked; pedestrians paused for a minute of silence in remembrance of the victims.

Teenagers read out a declaration of peace and citizen representatives struck the Bell of Peace. White doves, symbolizing peace, were released over the square of the Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders.

The Nanjing Massacre took place when Japanese troops captured the city on Dec. 13, 1937. Over six weeks, they killed more than 300,000 Chinese civilians and unarmed soldiers in one of the most barbaric episodes of World War II.

解析：周一，中国举行第八届南京大屠杀死难者国家公祭仪式，人们身着深色服装，降半旗致哀。

昕妈建议小伙伴们平时做个有心人，注意时事热点等方面知识积累，这样才能在考场上应对自如，避免出现上周四六级考试中遭遇现场翻车的尴尬局面。（像抗日战争等短语表达，有的小伙伴不会翻译，其实昕妈之前曾在相关文章里写过）

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The coronavirus has now killed more than 800,000 people in the U.S., just two years after the first COVID-19 cluster was reported in Wuhan, China, and a year after vaccines were first rolled out.

"It's tragic on so many levels," said Dr. Helen Chu, an immunologist and epidemiologist at the University of Washington.

It was Chu's team in Seattle that identified the first case of community spread of COVID-19 in the U.S., as she and her colleagues pivoted from testing nasal swabs for influenza to test for the coronavirus — and raised the alarm about its presence, despite political and bureaucratic obstacles.

With surges fueled by more transmissible variants of the coronavirus, the U.S. hit the tragic new record Tuesday, shortly after surpassing 50 million COVID-19 cases — by far the most in the world.

解析：目前新冠病毒病毒已经在美国夺走80多万人生命，这距离中国武汉报告第一例COVID-19聚集性疫情仅仅两年，距离疫苗首次推出也只有一年时间。随着传播性更强的奥密克戎病毒的激增，美国周二创下了悲剧性的新纪录，此前不久，美国新冠肺炎病例超过5000万例，是迄今为止世界上最多的。

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NASHVILLE, Tenn. — All of the people reported missing in Kentucky after tornadoes swept through the state last weekend have been accounted for, Gov. Andy Beshear said Saturday.

Beshear hailed the report by state emergency management officials and said he hoped it meant that no additional people in Kentucky would be found dead from the storm.

"How about a piece of good news today?" Beshear said at the beginning of a briefing Saturday on recovery efforts. "Right now, missing persons based on this tornado event are at zero."

The Democratic governor said the 78 people killed in what he described as the most destructive tornado event in the state's history was still "a huge number of Kentuckians to lose."

"We mourn with their families," he said.

解析：肯塔基州州长安迪·贝希尔周六表示，上周末龙卷风席卷肯塔基州后，所有被报告失踪的人都已经找到了下落。贝希尔对州应急管理官员的报告给予赞扬，并表示他希望这意味着肯塔基州不会再有更多的人死于风暴。

昕妈温馨提示一下，期末即将来临，愿小伙伴们吸取前面大学英语四六级考试的经验教训，给这学期画个圆满的句号。