周一，与美国总统特朗普站在一起的四个州的原告突然撤销了最近提起的质疑选票的诉讼。请看本报昨日的报道：

Voters in four states who had brought longshot lawsuits to disrupt Joe Biden’s win and went nowhere in court dropped their cases Monday morning.

The cases were short-lived in Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania federal courts, and fed into a pro-Donald Trump legal strategy to block Biden’s presidential win before the Electoral College formalizes it.

That effort is almost certain to fail — even more so now. Cases seeking to block battleground states’ popular vote wins for Biden are getting fewer by the day.

报道中的longshot就是“胜算极小的”, 名词long shot可以指“远景拍摄、远射”，引申为“不太可能的事、风险极大的赌注”，因为从很远的地方难以命中目标。例如：

It’s a long shot, but you could try phoning him at home.

虽然找到他的可能性不大，但你可以试试给他家里打电话。