VOA标准英语2011--High Prices Trigger Rise in Copper Thefts
时间：2019-01-14 作者：英语课 分类：VOA标准英语2011年(十月)
High Prices Trigger Rise in Copper 1 Thefts
When you heard the word “copper” in old gangster 2 movies, you were talking about the good guys: the police, the cops. Now, when you speak of copper and crime, you’re referring to the bad guys.
A combination of circumstances has led to a meteoric 3 rise in thefts of copper from buildings, construction sites, and homes. Prices paid for scrap 4 metal, especially copper, have skyrocketed, in part because of high demand from rapidly industrializing nations such as Brazil, China, and India.
Pipes, wires, cables, gutters 5, copper coils in air conditioners and generators 6, even power lines are being ripped off - literally 7. Thieves have even disabled entire electrical substations.
And the damage caused by these rip-and-run criminals far exceeds the replacement 8 costs for the stolen metal.
In rural Pennsylvania earlier this month, two brothers were charged with stealing an entire 15.5-ton bridge - cutting it apart with a blowtorch and selling it to a scrap-metal company. Since the recycling company doesn’t get many bridges, its owners called the coppers 9.
This 150-year-old weathervane in Vermont had a lovely antique copper horse atop it until a thief scaled the roof and stole it
The problem has been compounded by the number of foreclosed and otherwise vacant buildings, sitting empty and tempting 10.
Copper thefts have caused gas leaks, water damage, and darkened streetlights in jurisdictions 11 across the country. A historic church in downtown Washington, D.C., lost its protection against lightning when thieves snipped 12 away a grounding cable.
And now criminals are committing what authorities are calling “a brand new crime” in and around buildings - especially restaurants. They’re siphoning new and used cooking oil out of storage tanks and reselling it for up to 4 dollars a gallon.
And if the storage tanks are copper, they’re carrying away the whole thing.
- The students are asked to prove the purity of copper.要求学生们检验铜的纯度。
- Copper is a good medium for the conduction of heat and electricity.铜是热和电的良导体。
- The gangster's friends bought off the police witness.那匪徒的朋友买通了警察方面的证人。
- He is obviously a gangster,but he pretends to be a saint.分明是强盗，却要装圣贤。
- In my mind,losing weight is just something meteoric.在我眼中，减肥不过是昙花一现的事情。
- His early career had been meteoric.他的早期生涯平步青云。
- A man comes round regularly collecting scrap.有个男人定时来收废品。
- Sell that car for scrap.把那辆汽车当残品卖了吧。
- Gutters lead the water into the ditch. 排水沟把水排到这条水沟里。
- They were born, they grew up in the gutters. 他们生了下来，以后就在街头长大。
- The factory's emergency generators were used during the power cut. 工厂应急发电机在停电期间用上了。
- Power can be fed from wind generators into the electricity grid system. 电力可以从风力发电机流入输电网。 来自《简明英汉词典》
- He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
- Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。
- We are hard put to find a replacement for our assistant.我们很难找到一个人来代替我们的助手。
- They put all the students through the replacement examination.他们让所有的学生参加分班考试。
- I only paid a few coppers for it. 我只花了几个铜板买下这东西。
- He had only a few coppers in his pocket. 他兜里仅有几个铜板。
- It is tempting to idealize the past. 人都爱把过去的日子说得那么美好。
- It was a tempting offer. 这是个诱人的提议。
- Butler entreated him to remember the act abolishing the heritable jurisdictions. 巴特勒提醒他注意废除世袭审判权的国会法令。
- James I personally adjudicated between the two jurisdictions. 詹姆士一世亲自裁定双方纠纷。