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An introduction from halfway around the world awesome. Thank you to those students and thanks to all of you for spending part of your Tuesday with CNN Student News.

First up, today is the annual Aprildeadlinefor Americans to file their taxes. All right. You hear about taxes all the time. There are different kinds of them, but they're all basically fees that governments collect in order to pay for the goods and services that governments provide.

Federal, state, local governments can set different taxes for different things. For example, most of you have probably paid a sales tax. That's extra money you pay when you buy something. If you have a job and notice that your paycheck is less than you expected, that might be because of what was taken out for income taxes.

The federal government and most states charge a fee on the money people earn. That's what today's deadline is all about. Every year, people have to file their income tax returns, which lists what they earned and what taxes they've already paid. Normally, that has to be done by April 15th. That was a Sunday this year, so people were given an extra two days.

You might be wondering what the government uses tax money for or when all this started. That's part of what Lizzie O'Leary is going to explain in this breakdown.

If you don't pay your taxes, the IRS will eventually find you. We know a lot of people get hauled into court for their back taxes.

About one-fifth of it goes to defense. About one-fifth goes to Social Security. Another fifth goes to health care, and a little less than that goes to veterans.

We had an income tax during the Civil War. Then it was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1895. Then the income tax came back in 1913, and that sets up the modern income tax as we know it today.

One of the reasons that historians think we pay in the spring was at one point, taxes were levied, mostly on the rich, and the rich started to get out of town for the summer in the spring. So the government wanted to collect taxes in the spring before rich people skipped town.

We have a verycomplicatedtax structure, and a lot of it has grown up because interest groups have asked for certain things as our tax laws have been rewritten. The last time it got a full rewrite was back in 1986. Ever since then, most lawmakers have been talking about how complicated the tax code is, but no one's rewritten it.

There are all sorts of battles about the tax code. Some people have proposed flat taxes, a national sales tax, whether the rich should pay more in taxes. Probably the biggest battle is whether tax cuts passed in 2001 and 2003 shouldexpireor be made permanent.

Today's Shoutout goes out to Mr. McConnell's English class at Robert Louis Stevenson Middle School in Los Angeles, California. Riyadh is the capital of what country? You know what to do. Is it Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan or Oman? You've got three seconds, go.

Riyadh is the capital of Saudi Arabia. It's also the country's most populated city. That's your answer, and that's your Shoutout.

An area around that Middle Eastern capital was plunged into darkness last Friday by a massive sandstorm that hit Saudi Arabia. A CNN iReporter took this video of the storm. You can get a sense for how far it stretches.

The iReporter said he's never seen a sandstorm this big before. Behind him -- you see it right there -- totally clear, but then there's this giant cloud rushing forward on the other side. He said when the storm did finally reach where he was, it was a total blackout. He jumped in his car as the sand passed over, and said the vehicle shook for two straight minutes from the power of the storm.

Our next story takes us from Saudi Arabia up to Syria. We reported yesterday on renewedviolencein that country after a temporary truce last Thursday. That was the deadline for a cease-fire and a peace plan put together by a United Nations representative.

U.N. observers are in Syria right now. They're there tomonitorthe situation, see if a cease-fire can last. Yesterday both sides, government and opposition forces, reported fighting. The opposition said the government was launching attacks on Syrian cities. The government blamed the violence on armed terrorists, a claim it's made many times.[qh]这个来自大半个地球的介绍真是太棒了。谢谢学生们,感谢你在周二腾出时间收看CNN学生新闻。
首先,今天是一年一度的4月缴纳税款的截止日期。好的。你一直听说过税。有各种不同的税,但它们都是政府征收的基本费用，来支付政府提供的物品和服务。
联邦、州、地方政府可以设置不同的税收用于不同的事情。例如,你可能支付大多数的销售税。那是你买东西时候付出额外的钱。如果有一份工作,你会注意到薪水比你想象的更少,这可能是由于所得税的缘故。
联邦政府和大多数州收取人们薪水的所得税。这就是今天的最后期限。每一年,人们不得不缴纳他们的所得税申报表,列出他们赚的及他们所支付的。通常,要在4月15日前。今年那是一个星期天,所以人们被给予额外的两天。
当这一切都被收上来的时候，你也许会想政府使用税款做什么。接下来的一部分莉兹·阿丽将会详细的解释。
如果你不纳税,国内税务局最终会找到你。我们知道很多人由于税务问题而被带到法庭上。
大约五分之一税款用于国防。大约五分之一用于社会保障制度。另外五分之一用于卫生保健,而一小部分用于退伍军人。
我们在内战时期有所得税的收入。然而最高人民法院于1895年宣布其违宪。而在1913年所得税回归,正如我们今天所知道的成为现代所得税。
历史学家认为我们在春天某一个时期缴税的其中一个原因是税收大部分对富人征收,而富人在春天时会为了夏天走出城里。所以政府想要在富人离开城镇前征收税款。
我们有一个非常复杂的税收结构体系,更多的是在增长,因为利益群体要求某些东西作为我们的税法修正进去。上一次全部重新修订要追溯到1986年。从那时起,大多数议员一直在谈论税法是多么复杂,但是没有一个人改写。
对于税法有各种各样的争论。有些人提出了平面税,一项全国销售税,富人是否应该付出更多的税等等。最大的争论可能是在2001年通过减税政策，而2003年应该废弃或应该是永久性的。
今天的大喊答题节目环节的题目是加利福尼亚洛杉矶罗伯特?路易斯?史蒂文森中学麦肯先生的英语班提出。利雅得是哪个国家的首都?你知道要做什么。是埃及,沙特阿拉伯,约旦还是阿曼?你有三秒钟,3,2，1，现在揭晓答案。
利雅得是沙特阿拉伯的首都。这也是这个国家人口最多的城市。那是你的答案吗？这就是本期的大喊答题节目环节。
这个中东地区的首都由于上周五一场巨大的沙尘暴席卷袭击沙特阿拉伯而陷入一片黑暗。CNN 记录了这一风暴的袭击。你会意识到它延伸有多远。
这个报道者称他之前从来没有见过这么大的沙尘暴。就在他身后——你会见到它——非常清楚,但之后一个向前狂奔的云使它到了另一边。他称当这场沙暴终于到他那里时,电力已经完全中断。他在第二次沙暴经过时跳进汽车，之后汽车因为风暴的力量摇晃了连续两分钟。
我们的下一个故事把我们从沙特阿拉伯带到叙利亚。我们昨天报道,在那个国家自上个星期四暂时性地休战后暴力流血事件重新开始。而这是停火的最后期限和联合国的代表们一起筹措的和平计划。
联合国观察员现在身处叙利亚。他们在那里监控局势,看看最终能否停火。昨天报道政府和反对派力量双方进行战斗。反对党称政府正在袭击叙利亚城市。政府指责武装恐怖分子的暴力行为,而且声称已经很多次。
注：听力文本来源于普特
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[page]词语解释[/page]

1. deadline n.最后期限

The deadline is drawing near; we can't delay any more.
限期快到了，不能再拖延。
2. complicate v.使复杂化，使起纠纷

Don't complicate life for me!
不要为我把生活搞复杂了！

3. expire v.终止，期满，失效

My passport is due to expire in two months.
我的护照再过两个月就到期了。

4. violence n.猛烈，暴力

They incited the workers to violence.
他们煽动工人暴动。

5. monitor v.监视，监督

This instrument monitors the patient's heartbeats.
这台仪器监听病人的心跳。