Monday, August 22, 2016
CNN Student News - August 22, 2016
CARL AZUZ, CNN STUDENT NEWS ANCHOR: Welcome to CNN STUDENT NEWS. And if you`re just coming back from your summer break, it`s great to see you again. I`m Carl Azuz at the CNN Center in Atlanta, Georgia.
First up today, turmoil in Turkey. It`s a country that joins southeastern Europe with southwestern Asia. And for the past year, it`s been struggling with political upheaval, domestic violence and international terrorism.
Turkish government officials say the ISIS terrorist group which is based partly in neighboring Syria is likely behind the latest major attack.
It happened in an outdoor wedding celebration in the Turkish town near the Syrian border. A suicide bomber killed at least 51 people and wounded dozens of others. Turkey and the Kurdish ethnic group that lives in the region had given support to the fight against ISIS. So, observers say ISIS might have planned Saturday`s attack in revenge.
Earlier this summer, suspected ISIS suicide bombers killed 44 people at an airport in Istanbul.
Turkish government has also fought against an armed rebel group for decades. It was blamed for bombing Turkish police forces last week and the nation has been under a state of emergency after
an attempted coup over the summer. It did not succeed in overthrowing the government but hundreds were killed before that violence came to an end.
"Were you had land, it was water." Those were the words of a national guardsman in Louisiana whose home was flooded while he and his wife worked to save lives in the state`s historic flood. At least 13 people died across the state and more than 60,000 homes were damaged. Many of the displaced are staying in shelters, without knowing when they`ll be able to go back to heir homes or schools.
The cause was a tremendous amount of rainfall, almost 3 trillion gallons of rain that poured over Louisiana between August 8th and 14th. It led to America`s worst natural disasters since Superstorm Sandy hit the Northeast in 2012.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DREW LABLANC, GONZALES RESIDENT: This is where the kitchen was right here. The water got up to about 2 1/2 foot in the house.
POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Step to Drew LaBlanc`s door in the city of Gonzales, and you`ll see what hundreds of homes in southern Louisiana look like today, a bare interior stripped of any comforts of home.
D. LABLANC: We had to gut everything totally in the house.
SANDOVAL: LeBlanc only saved what he and his son Adlai (ph) could carry out as the water approached his doorstep last Monday, most of what was left behind had to be discarded and now sit soaked to the front lawn.
AMBER LABLANC, GONZALES RESIDENT: It happened fast and it`s sad. You do what you got to do. We saved a lot. We -- thanks to him and my brother, they put everything as high as they could.
SANDOVAL: LaBlanc save his family and the small irreplaceable items, including his mother-in-law`s albums.
D. LABLANC: Her stuff, she kept on the (INAUDIBLE). I said, we`re not going, we don`t need to get that. So, I felt bad the next day, because
I don`t want to destroy, and I said, I`m going back, I don`t care how deep it is to get her things that she wanted.
SANDOVAL: And he used his cellphone to capture that return home along with his son.
D. LABLANC: I don`t even remember it was his birthday because all of the trauma that was going on.
SANDOVAL: There was time for a brief celebration. Amid the heartbreak, though, dad fashioned a makeshift cake out of a whipped cream and a few cookies.
D. LABLANC: I actually sang happy birthday to him while we were standing in the water in the house.
SANDOVAL: Like many of the families on his block, LaBlanc has helped from friends, neighbors and co-workers.
D. LABLANC: I`m leaving in my camp, and it`s going to be rough for the next two months, but we -- you know, all of us are safe, we`re alive.
SANDOVAL: Even with those helping hands, he says it will be weeks, perhaps months before he turns his house into a home again.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AZUZ: If you`re looking for ways you can help, CNN`s "Impact Your World" initiative has some ideas on that. You can find a link to "Impact Your World" on our homepage, StudentNews.com.
Next story today: the Centers for Disease Control, a U.S. government health organization, is telling pregnant women to avoid to areas of Miami, Florida, including part of Miami Beach. Why? The Zika virus has been transmitted there. It`s carried most extensively by mosquitoes, though human to human transmission is possible.
For many people, Zika is not a major threat. Most people who get it won`t even show symptoms. But if a pregnant woman gets infected, Zika can cause severe birth defects or miscarriage of the baby.
Last month, Florida`s governor announced the first local transmission of the Zika virus in the continental U.S. It was in an area north of downtown Miami. The CDC announced a travel warning for pregnant women and heavy mosquito control measures, including spraying insecticide were taken.
That seemed to clear up the problem in that area.
The country hardest hit by Zika is Brazil. But though it was a major concern leading up to this year`s Olympic Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro,
Zika did not keep the events from taking place. And South America`s first ever Olympics officially wrapped up last night with closing ceremonies in Maracana Stadium.
Officials say more than 41,000 tickets had been sold for the giant party. There were still some seats available. In fact, there were a lot of empty seats at this year`s Olympic events.
And Zika fears might have had an impact on international travel to Brazil. The country`s recession and political chaos might have had an impact locally.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SUBTITLE: What happens to Olympic venues?
The 1992 Olympics helped modernize Barcelona. The new infrastructure in the port city increased tourism. Most venues like the football stadiums are still in use today.
The 1996 Olympics placed Atlanta in the global spotlight. The Games spurred more urban development. Some facilities were also remodeled for college athletics.
Several former sites from the 2004 Olympics in Athens have been abandoned. This is partially due to the country`s financial problems.
Many of the stadiums are now home to weeds. But a few buildings have become shelters for refugees.
The 2008 Olympics in Beijing left some venues useless. The famous Bird`s Nest stadium brings in little, if any, revenue. But the aquatics center found new life as a water park.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AZUZ: Can owning a pet make you happier? There`s quite a bit of scientific evidence that suggests it can.
First, the statistics. It`s estimated that more than 60 percent of Americans have at least one pet. According to the Harris Poll, a market research poll, 71 percent of Americans who have a pet owned at least one dog, 49 percent have a cat, and then come fish, birds and other animals.
A "Psychology Today" study found a few years ago that the type of pet didn`t really matter when it comes to people`s wellbeing, but the benefits that a pet brings are pretty extensive.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SUBTITLE: Pets are the best medicine.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: I preface by saying that I`m a pet lover. I love dogs. I`ve had dogs my whole life.
And I`ve always known that dogs improve your mood. Certainly, if you have a dog or any kind of pet, you know what I`m talking about.
But now, there`s data that show that it can improve your health as well. People who are pet owners tend to have lower blood pressure, lower triglycerides and lower cholesterol levels. I`m not exactly sure why that is. It could be that they`re more active as a result of having a pet. But whatever the reason, having a pet seems to improve both your emotional as well as your physical wellbeing.
Stress, anxiety and depression are something that plague all of us at one time or another. But we know now even more than anecdotally that people who are pet owners tend to have lower levels of these things, particularly a hormone known as cortisol. Think of that as the stress hormone.
When you have a lot of cortisol in your body, it`s usually a result of some sort of stressor in your body. If you are a pet owner, you tend to have lower levels of cortisol overall. It`s not that you can`t get stress. It`s not that you can`t get anxious or even depressed at times, but the peaks and the valleys tend to be much more muted.
One of the things we know about living to a hundred is that being social is a big part of that. It`s not always easy for people to go out there and meet new people. What they find is that people who have pets are actually out in public with those pets oftentimes have the pets act as an icebreaker. They tend to be more social as a result and that can be part of what helps them live to a hundred.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AZUZ: Finally, today, open up and say "ahh" and glad you`re not a dentist and this thing doesn`t need a check-up. Paleontologists say it`s a skull of a Tyrannosaurus Rex, a very well-preserved skull. It was found in a part of Montana that`s famous for dinosaur bones. So far, researchers say they`ve been able to dig up about a fifth of this T-Rex. It was discovered last year by two museum volunteers who saw the skeleton`s vertebrae sticking out of a hillside.
So, you can see why there`s a skele-ton of interest in it. They probably thought leaping lizards, this could greatly facilitate deeper scholarship. It`s perfectly paleontological that with this dino-scovery, a lot of folks will dig it.
Whether or not you dig those puns, we`ll have more news for you tomorrow, right here for CNN STUDENT NEWS. I`m Carl Azuz.
END
Friday, August 19, 2016
CNN Student News - August 19, 2016
CARL AZUZ, CNN STUDENT NEWS ANCHOR: Just a random observation to start
today`s edition of CNN STUDENT NEWS -- Fridays are awesome!
I`m Carl Azuz at the CNN Center.
We`re starting today`s ten minutes of news coverage in the U.S. state of California. There are currently nine large wildfires burning there. Tens of thousands of acres have been destroyed, hundreds of buildings and have been lost, and almost ten thousand firefighters are involved in trying to blazes.
This state is no stranger to these disasters. Throughout the summer, lightning strikes, camp fires, sometimes arson sparks them. And the danger so widespread because about a third of California`s homes are in areas prone to wildfires, according to the U.S. Forest Service.
Though this year season has been distracted, its fires are not setting records at this point. Still, a severe drought has parched parts of California for years, combined with the warm, dry Santa Ana winds that blow westward in the fall could make things worse.
Here`s a perspective on one of the wildfires that`s currently out of control.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This Blue Cut fire has been an erratic blaze for firefighters to battle. That`s because with the winds coming in, it is burning in multiple directions and it is also it has plenty of fuel as this is a real dried parched part of California, as we`ve been under
drought conditions for several years now. We were talking to one fire official who`s talking about the danger as well of these power lines that are out here. Listen to what he had to say.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These power lines are called KV lines and it`s a huge concern for us, to have a high amount of electricity, hundreds of thousands of volts in those KV lines. It impacts our aircraft. It makes it unsafe for aircraft to fly above them.
ELAM: And those embers are really a big concern because those spot fires can blow up into new branches of this fire and that is what they are concerned about. Thousands of people remained under evacuations, mandatory evacuations. They`re fighting this fire from the sky. Also, hand cruiser
out there, as well as bulldozers to try to battle this blaze.
But let me just show what something that this fire has done. Take a look at this right here. This is a school bus where the fire has already run through, unbelievable the damage, how the wheels have been burned off, the glass broken out all by the blaze here.
And this you can see in this little community here, a little rural community, but obviously very devastating for the people who live here to see much of what they own burned up and destroyed.
Stephanie Elam, CNN, San Bernardino County, California.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AZUZ: There`s another side to a recent story that involved four U.S. Olympic swimmers in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. On Wednesday, we reported that Olympic gold medalist Ryan Lochte said he and three other Americans were in a taxi when they were stopped by armed men and robbed.
But yesterday, Brazilian police said there was no robbery. They said the four Americans who were intoxicated were stopped by a security guard because the swimmers vandalized the gas station.
Brazilian officials say police questioned their claim of having been robbed in part because their stories about it didn`t quite match up.
Three of the swimmers are still in Brazil. Two had their passports taken, so they couldn`t leave. Lochte is back in the U.S. and his lawyer says none of the American swimmers committed a crime.
If Brazilian police determine that they did, though, Rio civil police chief says it`s not the kind of crime they`d be arrested for. They might instead be charged with lying to police and damaging private property. The investigation continues.
As the floodwaters rose in Louisiana, one resident of suburban Baton Rouge left is neighborhood in a truck, he had to come back in a boat. The Red
Cross called Louisiana`s recent flooding the worst natural disaster to hit the U.S. since Superstorm Sandy struck the Northeast in 2012. The cause of all this was rain, historic amounts of it, and more is in the forecast.
A CNN meteorologist says because Louisiana`s topography is so flat, it could take many days for waters to recede in some areas. Still, there are small signs of recovery.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, take a look behind me and you`ll see the story that we`re seeing right here, right now in Southern Louisiana.
You`ll see mounds of stuff down the street. That as people are trying to rebuild their homes and their lives.
Take a look here, you`ll see, they`re bringing out everything that will soak inside their houses. This is just the first step. And just to let you know, I`ve been with first responders going door to door as they look for people to make sure that they`re OK. And they tell me that this is a good sign because when they see mounds of stuff in front of homes, that means that the home owner is OK, and that they`re starting to rebuild their lives.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AZUZ: The U.S. National Park Service, which overseas and maintains hundreds of national parks, monuments and historic sites officially turns 100 years old next week . Through the end of the month, we`re featuring a series of reports on the NPS.
And today, we`re taking you to Northwestern Wyoming. That`s the site of Grand Teton National Park, was first established in 1929 and many of those who work their today specialized in saving lives.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The majesty of the Tetons is what draws people here. There`s another layer, and that is I can look at the range and say, people have died there.
SUBTITLE: Life and death in Grand Teton National Park.
SCOTT GUENTHER, JENNY LAKE DISTRICT RANGER, GRAND TETON NATIONAL PARK: You can basically access any part of the Teton backcountry in a day`s hike.
That also means that it`s easy for people to get in trouble sometimes. They think, oh, I`m just going to climb the Grand Teton in a day and they may go in their sneakers and their running shorts. If somewhere along that way, they fall, they roll a boulder, they break their leg, now they`ve become something that could jeopardize their life.
RON JOHNSON, JENNY LAKE RANGER, GRAND TETON NATIONAL PARK: It`s kind of like climbing rangers. One of our primary jobs is to respond to any sort
of rescue or search that might happen in the backcountry up in the mountains. That can run anywhere from a lost kid near the camp ground by Jenny Lake or he could be a major tragedy in the mountains involving several people in a climbing fall.
This is a mesh, a mash of steep terrain, rocky river cruisings, everything like that. So, if we do have to go out on a search or a rescue, it isn`t just one simple technique. It`s a combination of everything. It may be partly flying to get close to where the patient is. It may be ladder transport, maybe steep terrain and lowering ropes and everything else.
In our work, when we were off in a rescue, there are times when the situation will be heinous. Being able to look at someone, your colleague, and know that they are there for you and you are there for them is a bond that is rare and almost any other sort of work group.
At the end of a big rescue, we might have brought a husband, a father, a mother, a daughter, and that in turn has an impact on us. I can`t be more proud to be a Jenny Lake ranger. It`s awesome.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AZUZ: Not every day you see something this eye-opening on the ocean floor. First, it doesn`t look like much. So, let`s get a close-up. Too close, too close.
This wide eyed stare had researchers aboard the AV Nautilus using words like googly eyed and fake. But it`s not. It`s a Stubby Squid. It hides itself and uses those eyes to track potential prey, though in this case, it`s probably shocked at the giant lit up camera that sank down into its environment.
What helped it win the staring contest was the sheer deep of the competition. There was so much going on below the surface. You can easily see that under the sea, anything is cephalopod-sable. We`re going to squid while we`re ahead. We`ve got to squidabble anyway.
We hope you have a great weekend and then you`ll keep an eye up for more CNN STUDENT NEWS on Monday.
I`m Carl Azuz at the CNN Center.
We`re starting today`s ten minutes of news coverage in the U.S. state of California. There are currently nine large wildfires burning there. Tens of thousands of acres have been destroyed, hundreds of buildings and have been lost, and almost ten thousand firefighters are involved in trying to blazes.
This state is no stranger to these disasters. Throughout the summer, lightning strikes, camp fires, sometimes arson sparks them. And the danger so widespread because about a third of California`s homes are in areas prone to wildfires, according to the U.S. Forest Service.
Though this year season has been distracted, its fires are not setting records at this point. Still, a severe drought has parched parts of California for years, combined with the warm, dry Santa Ana winds that blow westward in the fall could make things worse.
Here`s a perspective on one of the wildfires that`s currently out of control.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This Blue Cut fire has been an erratic blaze for firefighters to battle. That`s because with the winds coming in, it is burning in multiple directions and it is also it has plenty of fuel as this is a real dried parched part of California, as we`ve been under
drought conditions for several years now. We were talking to one fire official who`s talking about the danger as well of these power lines that are out here. Listen to what he had to say.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These power lines are called KV lines and it`s a huge concern for us, to have a high amount of electricity, hundreds of thousands of volts in those KV lines. It impacts our aircraft. It makes it unsafe for aircraft to fly above them.
ELAM: And those embers are really a big concern because those spot fires can blow up into new branches of this fire and that is what they are concerned about. Thousands of people remained under evacuations, mandatory evacuations. They`re fighting this fire from the sky. Also, hand cruiser
out there, as well as bulldozers to try to battle this blaze.
But let me just show what something that this fire has done. Take a look at this right here. This is a school bus where the fire has already run through, unbelievable the damage, how the wheels have been burned off, the glass broken out all by the blaze here.
And this you can see in this little community here, a little rural community, but obviously very devastating for the people who live here to see much of what they own burned up and destroyed.
Stephanie Elam, CNN, San Bernardino County, California.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AZUZ: There`s another side to a recent story that involved four U.S. Olympic swimmers in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. On Wednesday, we reported that Olympic gold medalist Ryan Lochte said he and three other Americans were in a taxi when they were stopped by armed men and robbed.
But yesterday, Brazilian police said there was no robbery. They said the four Americans who were intoxicated were stopped by a security guard because the swimmers vandalized the gas station.
Brazilian officials say police questioned their claim of having been robbed in part because their stories about it didn`t quite match up.
Three of the swimmers are still in Brazil. Two had their passports taken, so they couldn`t leave. Lochte is back in the U.S. and his lawyer says none of the American swimmers committed a crime.
If Brazilian police determine that they did, though, Rio civil police chief says it`s not the kind of crime they`d be arrested for. They might instead be charged with lying to police and damaging private property. The investigation continues.
As the floodwaters rose in Louisiana, one resident of suburban Baton Rouge left is neighborhood in a truck, he had to come back in a boat. The Red
Cross called Louisiana`s recent flooding the worst natural disaster to hit the U.S. since Superstorm Sandy struck the Northeast in 2012. The cause of all this was rain, historic amounts of it, and more is in the forecast.
A CNN meteorologist says because Louisiana`s topography is so flat, it could take many days for waters to recede in some areas. Still, there are small signs of recovery.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, take a look behind me and you`ll see the story that we`re seeing right here, right now in Southern Louisiana.
You`ll see mounds of stuff down the street. That as people are trying to rebuild their homes and their lives.
Take a look here, you`ll see, they`re bringing out everything that will soak inside their houses. This is just the first step. And just to let you know, I`ve been with first responders going door to door as they look for people to make sure that they`re OK. And they tell me that this is a good sign because when they see mounds of stuff in front of homes, that means that the home owner is OK, and that they`re starting to rebuild their lives.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AZUZ: The U.S. National Park Service, which overseas and maintains hundreds of national parks, monuments and historic sites officially turns 100 years old next week . Through the end of the month, we`re featuring a series of reports on the NPS.
And today, we`re taking you to Northwestern Wyoming. That`s the site of Grand Teton National Park, was first established in 1929 and many of those who work their today specialized in saving lives.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The majesty of the Tetons is what draws people here. There`s another layer, and that is I can look at the range and say, people have died there.
SUBTITLE: Life and death in Grand Teton National Park.
SCOTT GUENTHER, JENNY LAKE DISTRICT RANGER, GRAND TETON NATIONAL PARK: You can basically access any part of the Teton backcountry in a day`s hike.
That also means that it`s easy for people to get in trouble sometimes. They think, oh, I`m just going to climb the Grand Teton in a day and they may go in their sneakers and their running shorts. If somewhere along that way, they fall, they roll a boulder, they break their leg, now they`ve become something that could jeopardize their life.
RON JOHNSON, JENNY LAKE RANGER, GRAND TETON NATIONAL PARK: It`s kind of like climbing rangers. One of our primary jobs is to respond to any sort
of rescue or search that might happen in the backcountry up in the mountains. That can run anywhere from a lost kid near the camp ground by Jenny Lake or he could be a major tragedy in the mountains involving several people in a climbing fall.
This is a mesh, a mash of steep terrain, rocky river cruisings, everything like that. So, if we do have to go out on a search or a rescue, it isn`t just one simple technique. It`s a combination of everything. It may be partly flying to get close to where the patient is. It may be ladder transport, maybe steep terrain and lowering ropes and everything else.
In our work, when we were off in a rescue, there are times when the situation will be heinous. Being able to look at someone, your colleague, and know that they are there for you and you are there for them is a bond that is rare and almost any other sort of work group.
At the end of a big rescue, we might have brought a husband, a father, a mother, a daughter, and that in turn has an impact on us. I can`t be more proud to be a Jenny Lake ranger. It`s awesome.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AZUZ: Not every day you see something this eye-opening on the ocean floor. First, it doesn`t look like much. So, let`s get a close-up. Too close, too close.
This wide eyed stare had researchers aboard the AV Nautilus using words like googly eyed and fake. But it`s not. It`s a Stubby Squid. It hides itself and uses those eyes to track potential prey, though in this case, it`s probably shocked at the giant lit up camera that sank down into its environment.
What helped it win the staring contest was the sheer deep of the competition. There was so much going on below the surface. You can easily see that under the sea, anything is cephalopod-sable. We`re going to squid while we`re ahead. We`ve got to squidabble anyway.
We hope you have a great weekend and then you`ll keep an eye up for more CNN STUDENT NEWS on Monday.
Thursday, August 18, 2016
CNN Student News - August 18, 2016
CARL AZUZ, CNN STUDENT NEWS ANCHOR: Hi. I`m Carl Azuz. Just two days
from the weekend, we`ve got a lot of interesting reports lined up for
you today on CNN STUDENT NEWS.
One story we`ve been following this week is the historic flooding in the U.S. state of Louisiana. A by the numbers look helps us explain how bad it is, especially in Southern Louisiana.
Six-point-nine trillion, that`s the number of gallons of rain that started all this, between August 8th and August 14th. Livingston Parish in particular got more than 31 inches of rain in just one day.
Forty thousand, that`s the number of homes that had been damaged, in what Louisiana governor calls a major disaster. Twenty thousand, the number of people who`ve been rescued so far. Eleven deaths have been blamed on the floods across the state.
Five hundred years, the likelihood that a flood this catastrophic would occur in the Baton Rouge. It means once every 500 years.
And finally, 12, the number of Louisiana parishes that had been declared federal disaster areas. That speeds up federal government assistance to them. More than 12 other parishes may also get this declaration.
We touched on the definition of flash floods the other day. Jennifer Gray now explores what makes this flood so dangerous.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JENNIFER GRAY, CNN METEOROLOGIST: In the U.S., flash floods kill more people than tornadoes, hurricanes or lighting. A flash flood creates a rush of moving water than can sweep a grown man off his feet, a car off the road and even your entire home off its foundation.
When the ground becomes so saturated that water can no longer seep in to the soil, it begins to run off quickly into rivers and streams and this causes a rise in water and a flash.
Densely populated areas have an extremely high risk of flash flooding with additional concrete than less grassy areas for the water to soak into the soil. And they can see flash flooding very quickly. In mountainous terrain, the combination of gravity, plus the easy runoff can lead to catastrophic flooding when all of that water is funneled into rivers, creeks and even the valleys.
Remember, flash flooding can happen in a blink of an eye. That`s why it`s important to stay alert and pay attention in case a flash flood watch or warning is issued for your area.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AZUZ: Next today, there are at least two historic American publications that give long range predictions about the weather. One is the old Farmer`s Almanac, the other is the Farmer`s Almanac. Why? Because we like to confuse you.
Not really. The old Farmer`s Almanac was founded in 1792. The younger Farmer`s Almanac was founded in 1818. They are different publications, and
while the old one predicts the upcoming winter in the U.S. will be colder than last winter but still pretty normal, the Farmer`s Almanac, the younger one, says winter will be a freezing beast from the central to the eastern U.S., lots of cold and snow.
Both publications say they`re accurate about 80 percent of the time. A CNN affiliate in north Texas once found that the younger Farmer`s Almanac was pretty accurate for that region. But no matter which almanac you`re talking about, modern meteorologists predict inaccuracies.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SUBTITLE: Farmer`s Almanac: fact or fiction?
TOM SATER, CNN METEOROLOGIST: The Farmer`s Almanac has been around for about 200 years and people continue to buy it for the forecast. Five, six, seven months, they want to know those three-day spreads of when they have a chance of rain, snow or ice. I can tell you, as a meteorologist, we
struggle with five, even the seven-days out.
You know, I think a lot of farmers do use it. First of all, they live by the sun. I mean, they`re up at down. They work all day. I don`t know if they really use it so much for a forecast.
The mystery behind the forecast is just that, it`s a mystery. The secret is actually locked up in a vault. Some think it has to do with magnetic fields in the atmosphere. They`ll tell you they use sun spot activity, there`s no scientific proof that that helps forecasting long term.
Ultimately, let me just say, if you`re planning, six months from now to go on a vacation on the beaches in Florida and the almanac says you`re going to be rained out, don`t change your plans.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AZUZ: We`ve been looking at several different aspects of the ongoing Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. One major and very public challenge for the South American city, pollution, especially in the water, in places like Guanabara Bay where sailing events are held.
In its bid to get the Olympics, Rio officials promised they`d clean up the pollution flowing into the water. And last weekend, the communications director for the games said the water levels at the venues were satisfactory, though there`s still work to do.
To explain how the bay got so polluted in the first place, we`re taking you inside the city.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SHASTA DARLINGTON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Rio`s sailing venue is called the dirtiest Olympic athletes have ever competed in. Floating garbage, even a sofa seething with raw sewage. You`ve seen the pictures. We want to show you where it`s all coming from.
Even after recent improvement, only half of homes in Rio connected to a sanitation network. All you have to do is head uphill, that`s where you find raw sewage and garbage flowing freely between houses.
In the sprawling favela of Rocinha, Jose Martin Rivera (ph) has been fighting for basic services for decades.
"If we had sewage systems, we`d have good health, he says. Instead, we have tuberculosis, rashes and gastrointestinal infections."
He takes us on a tour of some of the 23 open sewage canals he`s documented in the neighborhood.
(on camera): Oh my God!
Here you can really see what this is all about. You have pipes coming straight out of people`s bathrooms and kitchens, dripping the sewage down.
There are even rats running around. It doesn`t get worse than this.
(voice-over): Flushed out, untreated, families of rats and the smell that just makes you gag, flowing past houses and along footpaths, whisking trash along with it especially in heavy rains. Until it all ends up on Rio`s beaches, in the lagoon where rowers are competing, Team USA armed with anti-microbial suits, and Guanabara Bay sailors and wind surfers are warned to shut their mouths against the toxic spray.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AZUZ: When you`re out shopping, watching for sales or styles, cameras might be watching you and not just for security. Retailers want to know what displays get the most attention, what store locations get the most foot traffic.
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission says that many shoppers don`t want their movements tracked. They`re concerned about their privacy if they`re being electronically followed around. But for retailers, monitoring could be key to sales.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
REPORTER: This type of shopping is becoming the old way of doing things, e-commerce is nipping at the heels of brick and mortar retail sales.
That`s because online retailers know you better. They can track your every move, what we like, what we buy, and how we shop.
But a new heat mapping technology called Prism is evening the playing field for brick and mortar stores like Rachel Shachtman`s (ph).
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think we`re on the edge of retail Armageddon, which might be a little bit extreme. But I do think, you know, what would Amazon be without incites and analytics.
REPORTER: If you can`t track them while they shop, customers might as will be invisible.
Here are I am, trying those sun glasses.
Prism figured out how to use security cameras to capture shoppers` motions, what they touched, which way they entered and which areas they like most.
Is red good or bad?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Red is busy. The same way the Amazon or all these big online guys understand their customers to what they do and what they click and what they go on, the retailers need to understand that as well. So, we get that same kind of data.
REPORTER: There`s about 25 things on this table. How do you know what people are picking up?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So, when you`re looking at the map, that will give you a sense, right, of where the most action is. So, kind of look at that and pull the queues here, look at sales and say, you know what? This journal is not selling and maybe it`s because this sign is right in front of it.
So, I think we might have to play a little bit of retail Tetris.
REPORTER: Prism`s clients range from supermarkets, to furniture stores, to big tech retailers.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just to make sure that all my stores kind of conform and check on it is an action that`s going to increase sales if everyone executed properly or it`s going to save costs, because I didn`t need to travel around 20 stores to do that. Because retail is real life thing that`s happening every minute. So, every minute, you don`t change something to retail, you`d probably miss an opportunity.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AZUZ: Many of your teachers might remember playing Pac-Man while eating Twinkies. In this live game, Twinkie is Pac-Man while eating balloons.
Let`s explain. The Pac-Man you see actually a Jack Russell Terrier named Twinkie. He holds the Guinness World Record for popping balloons. In this awesome YouTube video, he`s just doing it in a large maze with paper ghosts floating around on sticks. No one gets hurt except the balloons, the dog is super cute, so why not?
You can`t deny, it`s amazing. The balloons don`t have a ghost of a chance. It looks just like the original arf-cade and that dog is Russell enough fun Jack with no time to terrier.
That gobbles up all our time on CNN STUDENT NEWS. Play again tomorrow. It won`t cost you a quarter.
One story we`ve been following this week is the historic flooding in the U.S. state of Louisiana. A by the numbers look helps us explain how bad it is, especially in Southern Louisiana.
Six-point-nine trillion, that`s the number of gallons of rain that started all this, between August 8th and August 14th. Livingston Parish in particular got more than 31 inches of rain in just one day.
Forty thousand, that`s the number of homes that had been damaged, in what Louisiana governor calls a major disaster. Twenty thousand, the number of people who`ve been rescued so far. Eleven deaths have been blamed on the floods across the state.
Five hundred years, the likelihood that a flood this catastrophic would occur in the Baton Rouge. It means once every 500 years.
And finally, 12, the number of Louisiana parishes that had been declared federal disaster areas. That speeds up federal government assistance to them. More than 12 other parishes may also get this declaration.
We touched on the definition of flash floods the other day. Jennifer Gray now explores what makes this flood so dangerous.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JENNIFER GRAY, CNN METEOROLOGIST: In the U.S., flash floods kill more people than tornadoes, hurricanes or lighting. A flash flood creates a rush of moving water than can sweep a grown man off his feet, a car off the road and even your entire home off its foundation.
When the ground becomes so saturated that water can no longer seep in to the soil, it begins to run off quickly into rivers and streams and this causes a rise in water and a flash.
Densely populated areas have an extremely high risk of flash flooding with additional concrete than less grassy areas for the water to soak into the soil. And they can see flash flooding very quickly. In mountainous terrain, the combination of gravity, plus the easy runoff can lead to catastrophic flooding when all of that water is funneled into rivers, creeks and even the valleys.
Remember, flash flooding can happen in a blink of an eye. That`s why it`s important to stay alert and pay attention in case a flash flood watch or warning is issued for your area.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AZUZ: Next today, there are at least two historic American publications that give long range predictions about the weather. One is the old Farmer`s Almanac, the other is the Farmer`s Almanac. Why? Because we like to confuse you.
Not really. The old Farmer`s Almanac was founded in 1792. The younger Farmer`s Almanac was founded in 1818. They are different publications, and
while the old one predicts the upcoming winter in the U.S. will be colder than last winter but still pretty normal, the Farmer`s Almanac, the younger one, says winter will be a freezing beast from the central to the eastern U.S., lots of cold and snow.
Both publications say they`re accurate about 80 percent of the time. A CNN affiliate in north Texas once found that the younger Farmer`s Almanac was pretty accurate for that region. But no matter which almanac you`re talking about, modern meteorologists predict inaccuracies.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SUBTITLE: Farmer`s Almanac: fact or fiction?
TOM SATER, CNN METEOROLOGIST: The Farmer`s Almanac has been around for about 200 years and people continue to buy it for the forecast. Five, six, seven months, they want to know those three-day spreads of when they have a chance of rain, snow or ice. I can tell you, as a meteorologist, we
struggle with five, even the seven-days out.
You know, I think a lot of farmers do use it. First of all, they live by the sun. I mean, they`re up at down. They work all day. I don`t know if they really use it so much for a forecast.
The mystery behind the forecast is just that, it`s a mystery. The secret is actually locked up in a vault. Some think it has to do with magnetic fields in the atmosphere. They`ll tell you they use sun spot activity, there`s no scientific proof that that helps forecasting long term.
Ultimately, let me just say, if you`re planning, six months from now to go on a vacation on the beaches in Florida and the almanac says you`re going to be rained out, don`t change your plans.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AZUZ: We`ve been looking at several different aspects of the ongoing Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. One major and very public challenge for the South American city, pollution, especially in the water, in places like Guanabara Bay where sailing events are held.
In its bid to get the Olympics, Rio officials promised they`d clean up the pollution flowing into the water. And last weekend, the communications director for the games said the water levels at the venues were satisfactory, though there`s still work to do.
To explain how the bay got so polluted in the first place, we`re taking you inside the city.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SHASTA DARLINGTON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Rio`s sailing venue is called the dirtiest Olympic athletes have ever competed in. Floating garbage, even a sofa seething with raw sewage. You`ve seen the pictures. We want to show you where it`s all coming from.
Even after recent improvement, only half of homes in Rio connected to a sanitation network. All you have to do is head uphill, that`s where you find raw sewage and garbage flowing freely between houses.
In the sprawling favela of Rocinha, Jose Martin Rivera (ph) has been fighting for basic services for decades.
"If we had sewage systems, we`d have good health, he says. Instead, we have tuberculosis, rashes and gastrointestinal infections."
He takes us on a tour of some of the 23 open sewage canals he`s documented in the neighborhood.
(on camera): Oh my God!
Here you can really see what this is all about. You have pipes coming straight out of people`s bathrooms and kitchens, dripping the sewage down.
There are even rats running around. It doesn`t get worse than this.
(voice-over): Flushed out, untreated, families of rats and the smell that just makes you gag, flowing past houses and along footpaths, whisking trash along with it especially in heavy rains. Until it all ends up on Rio`s beaches, in the lagoon where rowers are competing, Team USA armed with anti-microbial suits, and Guanabara Bay sailors and wind surfers are warned to shut their mouths against the toxic spray.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AZUZ: When you`re out shopping, watching for sales or styles, cameras might be watching you and not just for security. Retailers want to know what displays get the most attention, what store locations get the most foot traffic.
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission says that many shoppers don`t want their movements tracked. They`re concerned about their privacy if they`re being electronically followed around. But for retailers, monitoring could be key to sales.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
REPORTER: This type of shopping is becoming the old way of doing things, e-commerce is nipping at the heels of brick and mortar retail sales.
That`s because online retailers know you better. They can track your every move, what we like, what we buy, and how we shop.
But a new heat mapping technology called Prism is evening the playing field for brick and mortar stores like Rachel Shachtman`s (ph).
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think we`re on the edge of retail Armageddon, which might be a little bit extreme. But I do think, you know, what would Amazon be without incites and analytics.
REPORTER: If you can`t track them while they shop, customers might as will be invisible.
Here are I am, trying those sun glasses.
Prism figured out how to use security cameras to capture shoppers` motions, what they touched, which way they entered and which areas they like most.
Is red good or bad?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Red is busy. The same way the Amazon or all these big online guys understand their customers to what they do and what they click and what they go on, the retailers need to understand that as well. So, we get that same kind of data.
REPORTER: There`s about 25 things on this table. How do you know what people are picking up?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So, when you`re looking at the map, that will give you a sense, right, of where the most action is. So, kind of look at that and pull the queues here, look at sales and say, you know what? This journal is not selling and maybe it`s because this sign is right in front of it.
So, I think we might have to play a little bit of retail Tetris.
REPORTER: Prism`s clients range from supermarkets, to furniture stores, to big tech retailers.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just to make sure that all my stores kind of conform and check on it is an action that`s going to increase sales if everyone executed properly or it`s going to save costs, because I didn`t need to travel around 20 stores to do that. Because retail is real life thing that`s happening every minute. So, every minute, you don`t change something to retail, you`d probably miss an opportunity.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AZUZ: Many of your teachers might remember playing Pac-Man while eating Twinkies. In this live game, Twinkie is Pac-Man while eating balloons.
Let`s explain. The Pac-Man you see actually a Jack Russell Terrier named Twinkie. He holds the Guinness World Record for popping balloons. In this awesome YouTube video, he`s just doing it in a large maze with paper ghosts floating around on sticks. No one gets hurt except the balloons, the dog is super cute, so why not?
You can`t deny, it`s amazing. The balloons don`t have a ghost of a chance. It looks just like the original arf-cade and that dog is Russell enough fun Jack with no time to terrier.
That gobbles up all our time on CNN STUDENT NEWS. Play again tomorrow. It won`t cost you a quarter.
Wednesday, August 17, 2016
CNN Student News - August 17, 2016
CARL AZUZ, CNN STUDENT NEWS ANCHOR: Thank you for watching CNN STUDENT NEWS today, from the CNN Center in Atlanta, Georgia. I`m Carl Azuz.
Starting off today`s current events coverage: The Obama administration has transferred 15 prisoners out of an American naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
We`re explaining why this is significant.
First, the facility. The U.S. operates it on land that it`s leased from Cuba since 1903. Starting in 2002, the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay has been used to house suspected terrorists, that the U.S. captured from other countries, many during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Next, the controversy. Hundreds of prisoners have been held at Guantanamo or Gitmo over the years and there have been accusations that some of them were tortured or mistreated.
President Obama has said the facility is a symbol that`s been used to recruit terrorists around the world. But though he`s tried to bring Gitmo prisoners to the U.S. for trial, lawmakers from both major political parties have resisted that, saying the detainees are too dangerous to be held in U.S. civil prisons, and some of the former Guantanamo prisoners who`ve been released have returned to terrorism.
These are some reasons why President Obama has been unable to close Guantanamo, though he`s tried since he took office. It`s not clear where the remaining prisoners would be sent. The president also needs but does not have congressional approval to close Gitmo. Currently, 61 prisoners remained in the facility.
We mentioned on Monday how violent crimes have been one of the challenges surrounding the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Now, the
International Olympics Committee is calling for better security at the Rio events. One reason why: four U.S. Olympics swimmers, including medalist
Ryan Lochte, were robbed over the weekend.
Lochte told NBC that armed men who were posing as police officers stopped the swimmers` taxi and then took their money at gun point. The swimmers were otherwise unharmed and Rio de Janeiro`s police say they`re investigating.
Security is not the only concerned of the athletes, though. Besides the physical conditioning they`ve sharpened for years, there are mental games at the Olympic Games.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: It`s the moment every top athlete for and hopes to achieve, if they don`t choke under pressure.
So, just what goes on here in the brain that can keep you from doing your best and how can you stop it from happening.
The body of a highly trained athlete knows exactly what to do. Those skills are stored in muscle memory and over here, an area of the brain the
Striatum. It`s sort of the brain`s autopilot. The key to winning is to keep the brain`s thinking part, that Prefrontal Cortex area from interfering. Now, to do that, to be in that zone, means being calmed and focused.
Meditation in yoga helps slow the heart rate and calm the mind. They also turn down that thinking part of the brain.
Visualization is a tried and true approach. Feel like you`re catching a basketball so that when it really happens, you`ve already gone through the motions. Many top athletes have learned to see the positive in pressure and then use it to their advantage. They train their amygdala, that`s the brain`s memory and emotion center, to associate the signs of stress to a success. In failure, they certainly don`t think of that.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AZUZ: Time for recess, and we`re taking you to the park. It has been 100 years since U.S. President Woodrow Wilson signed the act that created the
National Park Service. By 1916, American had already established 35 national parks. What the creation of the service did was better organize, supervise and maintain them, and allow for the establishment of dozens more national parks.
Visitation is booming. The National Park Service says last year, more than 307 million people went to U.S. national parks. That`s a record, but it might be broken this year.
One thing we`ll be doing the rest of this month is bringing you reports on these parks, starting with one that`s just off the coast of California.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`m at the east end of Anacapa Island, one of five islands in the Channel Islands National Park and this is the iconic Arch
Rock behind me. It is raw. It is beautiful, it is rugged, it is craggy, and it is memorable.
(MUSIC)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: With me is Kelly Moore of the National Park Service.
And, Kelly, what does Arch Rock symbolized in terms of these islands?
KELLY MOORE, NATIONAL PARK SERVICE: So many people associate this rock with the Channel Islands. And it`s the first thing you see when you visit
Anacapa Island and you can`t help but be moved by this beautiful geographic feature.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Breathtaking, Cathedral Cave and Cathedral Cove here in Anacapa Island. There are 30 caves on this island and you`ll notice that we`re wearing our helmets and that`s because this is a little tricky, you got to shot the gap here and when the swell comes up, it`s possible for you
to get bounce a little. They certainly don`t want anybody hitting their heads on the sides of these walls.
And we shoot out to the other side. Look out, Kelly.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AZUZ: From the NPS to FCC, the Federal Communications Commission, it`s an independent U.S. government agency. It`s overseen by Congress. It makes the rules for radio, television, satellite and cable communications in the U.S. And what it`s considering right now could change how most Americans watch TV. This concerns a set-top box. This is the device that decodes signals for pay TV, like cable channels.
If the FCC changes the roles on how TV signals maybe decoded, the set-top box may become a thing of the past.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
REPORTER: Right now, if you have cable, you pay on average $231 a year just to rent this, a set-top box, and you can pretty much only get it from one place, your cable provider.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let`s take a look at what we`re dealing with here.
REPORTER: Those cable companies make about $20 billion a year just for renting these things out, but all that could be changing soon, because you might be saying goodbye to the box.
The FCC is looking over two proposals to regulate the cable box, both of which would stop cable companies from forcing you to rent one. But the two plans are very different and they fit tech companies and cable channels and providers against one another.
The first proposal is dubbed "Unlock the Box", and it`s the one supported by tech companies, most prominently Google. Instead of typical cable box, you get TV channels on some new device. Cable providers would have to give them a direct feed of those shows, so Google would get that feed from say
Comcast and then Google could place its menus, its graphics, its branding all over it.
Cable companies and content providers almost universally hate this plan. They say it makes their content easier to pirate, that they`re handing over their entire content to tech companies and will have no say in how it`s ultimately distributed, things that may seem minor like what number a cable channel is, is actually decided after intense negotiations, between providers and channels.
This leads us to the second proposal and this is the one favored by the cable companies. It`s called "Ditch the Box". The counterproposal more
closely resembles the system that we have now, but minus the mandated cable fees. So, instead of paying for the box, you could just get it through an app, an app which they control. So you`d be able to go to an Apple TV, download a Comcast app, and watch TV. But through Comcast interface.
And unlike TV apps like CNN Go, which can be access anywhere you have Internet, these apps could only be access via your home network. You won`t be able to borrow your parent`s password for this one.
But the tech company say that the cable companies` proposal is just replacing one closed system, the box, with a new closed system, an app, and that a closed system will it make harder for streaming devices to integrate cable content in the search results and will overall stifle innovation.
And they say that a closed app could force consumers who want to use a DVR to still have to rent a cable box, rental fees and all, essentially forcing consumers to have two boxes instead one.
While the FCC is currently weighing the two proposals, what is clear is that the days of cable box rental fees might soon becoming to an end.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AZUZ: It`s kind of like a temporary tattoo that can be used to control your phone. Using gold left with circuits imbedded into it, MTI researchers are working on wearable technology that could be used as a track pad, it could turn up the volume on your music. It could be used
like an NFC tag to transfer from your skin. Privacy might become a concern. And this probably wouldn`t work for more than a day or two before the material peels off.
But if you`re not sunburned and the idea doesn`t make your skin crawl, it could be golden opportunity to lift your phone in your pocket and actually feel what we`ve all been epidermissing.
I`m Carl Azuz, reporting events and puns for CNN STUDENT NEWS.
Tuesday, August 16, 2016
CNN Student News - August 16, 2016
CARL AZUZ, CNN STUDENT NEWS ANCHOR: Thank you for taking 10 minutes to
get up to step on international world events. I`m Carl Azuz. This is
CNN
STUDENT NEWS and our second show of the academic year.
We`re starting with an update on the civil war in Syria. We`ve been covering this since 2011 when that war begun. It involves the Syrian government that`s fighting to hold to power, rebel groups that are trying to overthrow the government, terrorist groups who are trying to expand
their power in Syria. It also involves the United States, which is using Special Forces and airstrikes against terrorists, as well as Russia, which is launching airstrikes in supporting Syria`s current government.
Since 2011, more than 250,000 Syrians have died in their nation`s civil war and one site of some of the worst fighting and destruction is the Syrian city of Aleppo. It used to be the country`s most populated city.
To date, part of it is controlled by government troops, part controlled by rebels, and United Nations officials are trying to figure out if an attack on the rebel-controlled part of Aleppo involved chlorine gas. That`s a chemical weapon. Rebels and doctors in the area say at least three people died in an apparent chemical attack.
The Syrian government has been accused of using chemical weapons before in this civil war. The government denies it. But this is significant because chemical weapons are illegal, even in war.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Chemical weapons are known as the "poor man`s atom bomb", because at relatively cost, they could have devastating effect, both in terms of casualties, but also in the sheer horror of the injuries and the sheer fear of contamination.
In the history of warfare, they`ve been used very seldom. You have to go back to World War II for widespread use, although Saddam Hussein used in the late 1980s, killed some 5,000 people in northern Iraq, in Kurdistan. More recently, the Assad regime has used them repeatedly in the war in
Syria. It`s estimated, some 1,500 people have been killed, 15,000 injured in chemical weapons attacks in Syria.
The Geneva protocol of 1925 banned the use of chemical weapons in warfare, but not the production. It was until the early 1990s that the Chemical
Weapons Convention banned the production and stockpiling as well, and since then, some 90 percent of the world`s chemical weapons have been destroyed.
But still, to this day, there`s a lot out there in 17 countries still have them from the ones you`d expect, North Korea for instance, which did not sign on to any of those treaties, but also the U.S., although the U.S. has committed never to use them in warfare and is committed to destroy all of them by the 2020s.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AZUZ: Following up now on historic flooding in the U.S. state of Louisiana. Forecasters say more rain is on the way to the area of the capital Baton Rouge.
According to Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards, the National Weather Service can`t really predict how wide or deep the water is going to get because this flooding is so far above anything they`ve seen before. He expects to declare disaster areas in almost 30 of Louisiana`s 64 parishes.
That will speed up government money and assistance to the places that need it.
At least five deaths have been blamed on the floods. First responders have rescued tens of thousands of people and some of the hardest places aren`t
even those where most of the rain fell.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We`re standing in the middle of what used to be an intersection in this neighborhood, and now it`s become part of the Manchac Bayou, which is actually just behind these homes. And you can see just how high the water level is, going into these homes and destroying just about everything inside.
I can tell you this area specifically and this neighborhood actually didn`t get a whole lot of rain compared to a lot of other areas here in Louisiana, but rather, it was the flow of the flooding from other locations that really caused the bayou to rise dramatically.
And in a matter of hours, a woman told me that late last night, she looked outside and there was really not much flooding. And then, early this morning, getting close to 3:00 a.m. about a foot of water started coming into her home.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AZUZ: Next story today, when you go out to eat, you might have noticed a disclaimer at the bottom of many menus, consuming raw or undercooked meats,
poultry, sea foods, shellfish or eggs may increase your risk of foodborne illness. That`s there in part to protect restaurants and to warn customers in case they insist on ordering something raw.
But that concerns food that`s prepared. What about food is stored, how it`s packaged, where it`s placed in the kitchen, the temperature it`s kept before at before it`s put on a burger or burrito.
There are a number of ways to keep track of those temperatures and now, our next report explains one. It can cause a restaurant several hundred to several thousand dollars a year, and that doesn`t include additional monitoring costs. The reason, it`s online.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
REPORTER: Americans like to go out to eat, so much so that we`re expected to spend $720 billion this year dining out. But to stand out from the competition, restaurants have to work hard to meet our demands. Healthy food is one of the top reasons we choose a restaurant, and we don`t want food that makes us sick.
One in six Americans get sick from food every year and half of food outbreaks happen in restaurants, one of the industry`s biggest concerns.
KYLE BROWN, SENIOR TRAINING MANAGER, HONEYGROW: What a danger zone is nearly above 41 percent degrees. It`s the temperatures at which bacteria can grow and thrive in.
REPORTER: To help control that temperature, restaurants are getting help from digital technology like fresh temp.
BROWN: What Fresh Temp allows us to do is using a thermometer probe and Bluetooth connected to an iPad. If it`s bad and it`s a no, it`s going to say, OK, this is out of temp, what do you want to do? You can either discard, you can cool it, you can switch it out with something that is at temp.
REPORTER: Before, that information would be written down in a law.
JEFF RIEGER, FOUNDER & CFO, FRESH TEMP: This kind of brings us back to where we got our start.
REPORTER: Which left room for error or simply forgetting.
RIEGER: Someone handed me this and said, is there any way that we can get this in a computer and they could very easily do so.
REPORTER: Jeff Rieger and his company figured out how to connect sensors and probes to the Cloud. It tracks temperature data, stores it in one place and sends it directly to the chain`s headquarters.
RIEGER: So, we have wireless sensors that capture temperature data. Surprisingly a low is equally concerning as above if you walk in cooler, goes to 20 degrees and everything freezes, that`s very bad.
REPORTER: Fresh Temp is helping smaller restaurants and chains compete with larger ones, that have their own in-house operations. It also helps restaurants keep up with new federal guidelines around food safety. Digital tracking is easier to trace and monitor.
JUSTIN ROSENBERG, FOUNDER & CFO, HONEYGROW: When you take that temperature, it`s logged. So, you can`t say, oh, it`s 53 degrees, I`ll just put in 40 just in case the health department come. We need to know, is there a refrigeration problem. What`s going on here?
So, for us, it`s that extra step in ensuring the food safety that`s critical for our business.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(MUSIC)
AZUZ: Can you make a living just by playing in the sand? No. But some people can make one by sculpting sand. Fees are between $300 to $500 an hour. Yearly salaries of more than $60,000, all possible. Most professional sand sculptors only work part time and what they build goes far beyond waterside castles.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KAREN FRALICH, PROFESSIONAL SAND SCULPTOR: The process is making a sand sculpture, you can`t just do soft, fluffy, dry sand. It has to be very wet, it has to be very compacted, before you can start carving it.
It`s one of the biggest misconceptions in sand sculpture is that it`s a super easy job where you sit on a beach and then you carve and it`s actually extremely physically and technically interesting.
The Sugar Sand Festival is like a great big sand sculpture park inside a tent and there`s probably eight to ten sculptors working in here and I`m just one of them.
MARK MASON, PROFESSIONAL SAND SCULPTOR: It is a hobby turned into a passion, turned into a profession. We probably got 1,200, maybe 1,400 tons of sand in this tent.
FRALICH: So, behind me is Jimi Hendrix and he`s about nine feet tall and it took me three days and about eight hours a day to create just this part behind me.
The tools that we use in sand sculpture are anything and everything. It can be a spoon from a kitchen, a melon baller. I used a lot of margin trowels that you use for dry wall work. Anything will do, even straws.
MASON: As an art, sun sculpture is the fastest medium from conception to finish product that I could ever think of.
I love this. But I do want this to be here forever? No, I don`t. I`d love to make this sand something else. You know, I want to work on things.
You don`t miss it. You continually build. That is the fun of sand sculpture.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AZUZ: So, sun sculpting certainly seems to depend on how things shape up. Whether they make waves, whether the end result holds water and whether the artist is willing to watch all wash away, it surely someone whose skills go against the grain.
I`m Carl Azuz for CNN STUDENT NEWS. Thank you for watching.
STUDENT NEWS and our second show of the academic year.
We`re starting with an update on the civil war in Syria. We`ve been covering this since 2011 when that war begun. It involves the Syrian government that`s fighting to hold to power, rebel groups that are trying to overthrow the government, terrorist groups who are trying to expand
their power in Syria. It also involves the United States, which is using Special Forces and airstrikes against terrorists, as well as Russia, which is launching airstrikes in supporting Syria`s current government.
Since 2011, more than 250,000 Syrians have died in their nation`s civil war and one site of some of the worst fighting and destruction is the Syrian city of Aleppo. It used to be the country`s most populated city.
To date, part of it is controlled by government troops, part controlled by rebels, and United Nations officials are trying to figure out if an attack on the rebel-controlled part of Aleppo involved chlorine gas. That`s a chemical weapon. Rebels and doctors in the area say at least three people died in an apparent chemical attack.
The Syrian government has been accused of using chemical weapons before in this civil war. The government denies it. But this is significant because chemical weapons are illegal, even in war.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Chemical weapons are known as the "poor man`s atom bomb", because at relatively cost, they could have devastating effect, both in terms of casualties, but also in the sheer horror of the injuries and the sheer fear of contamination.
In the history of warfare, they`ve been used very seldom. You have to go back to World War II for widespread use, although Saddam Hussein used in the late 1980s, killed some 5,000 people in northern Iraq, in Kurdistan. More recently, the Assad regime has used them repeatedly in the war in
Syria. It`s estimated, some 1,500 people have been killed, 15,000 injured in chemical weapons attacks in Syria.
The Geneva protocol of 1925 banned the use of chemical weapons in warfare, but not the production. It was until the early 1990s that the Chemical
Weapons Convention banned the production and stockpiling as well, and since then, some 90 percent of the world`s chemical weapons have been destroyed.
But still, to this day, there`s a lot out there in 17 countries still have them from the ones you`d expect, North Korea for instance, which did not sign on to any of those treaties, but also the U.S., although the U.S. has committed never to use them in warfare and is committed to destroy all of them by the 2020s.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AZUZ: Following up now on historic flooding in the U.S. state of Louisiana. Forecasters say more rain is on the way to the area of the capital Baton Rouge.
According to Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards, the National Weather Service can`t really predict how wide or deep the water is going to get because this flooding is so far above anything they`ve seen before. He expects to declare disaster areas in almost 30 of Louisiana`s 64 parishes.
That will speed up government money and assistance to the places that need it.
At least five deaths have been blamed on the floods. First responders have rescued tens of thousands of people and some of the hardest places aren`t
even those where most of the rain fell.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We`re standing in the middle of what used to be an intersection in this neighborhood, and now it`s become part of the Manchac Bayou, which is actually just behind these homes. And you can see just how high the water level is, going into these homes and destroying just about everything inside.
I can tell you this area specifically and this neighborhood actually didn`t get a whole lot of rain compared to a lot of other areas here in Louisiana, but rather, it was the flow of the flooding from other locations that really caused the bayou to rise dramatically.
And in a matter of hours, a woman told me that late last night, she looked outside and there was really not much flooding. And then, early this morning, getting close to 3:00 a.m. about a foot of water started coming into her home.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AZUZ: Next story today, when you go out to eat, you might have noticed a disclaimer at the bottom of many menus, consuming raw or undercooked meats,
poultry, sea foods, shellfish or eggs may increase your risk of foodborne illness. That`s there in part to protect restaurants and to warn customers in case they insist on ordering something raw.
But that concerns food that`s prepared. What about food is stored, how it`s packaged, where it`s placed in the kitchen, the temperature it`s kept before at before it`s put on a burger or burrito.
There are a number of ways to keep track of those temperatures and now, our next report explains one. It can cause a restaurant several hundred to several thousand dollars a year, and that doesn`t include additional monitoring costs. The reason, it`s online.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
REPORTER: Americans like to go out to eat, so much so that we`re expected to spend $720 billion this year dining out. But to stand out from the competition, restaurants have to work hard to meet our demands. Healthy food is one of the top reasons we choose a restaurant, and we don`t want food that makes us sick.
One in six Americans get sick from food every year and half of food outbreaks happen in restaurants, one of the industry`s biggest concerns.
KYLE BROWN, SENIOR TRAINING MANAGER, HONEYGROW: What a danger zone is nearly above 41 percent degrees. It`s the temperatures at which bacteria can grow and thrive in.
REPORTER: To help control that temperature, restaurants are getting help from digital technology like fresh temp.
BROWN: What Fresh Temp allows us to do is using a thermometer probe and Bluetooth connected to an iPad. If it`s bad and it`s a no, it`s going to say, OK, this is out of temp, what do you want to do? You can either discard, you can cool it, you can switch it out with something that is at temp.
REPORTER: Before, that information would be written down in a law.
JEFF RIEGER, FOUNDER & CFO, FRESH TEMP: This kind of brings us back to where we got our start.
REPORTER: Which left room for error or simply forgetting.
RIEGER: Someone handed me this and said, is there any way that we can get this in a computer and they could very easily do so.
REPORTER: Jeff Rieger and his company figured out how to connect sensors and probes to the Cloud. It tracks temperature data, stores it in one place and sends it directly to the chain`s headquarters.
RIEGER: So, we have wireless sensors that capture temperature data. Surprisingly a low is equally concerning as above if you walk in cooler, goes to 20 degrees and everything freezes, that`s very bad.
REPORTER: Fresh Temp is helping smaller restaurants and chains compete with larger ones, that have their own in-house operations. It also helps restaurants keep up with new federal guidelines around food safety. Digital tracking is easier to trace and monitor.
JUSTIN ROSENBERG, FOUNDER & CFO, HONEYGROW: When you take that temperature, it`s logged. So, you can`t say, oh, it`s 53 degrees, I`ll just put in 40 just in case the health department come. We need to know, is there a refrigeration problem. What`s going on here?
So, for us, it`s that extra step in ensuring the food safety that`s critical for our business.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(MUSIC)
AZUZ: Can you make a living just by playing in the sand? No. But some people can make one by sculpting sand. Fees are between $300 to $500 an hour. Yearly salaries of more than $60,000, all possible. Most professional sand sculptors only work part time and what they build goes far beyond waterside castles.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KAREN FRALICH, PROFESSIONAL SAND SCULPTOR: The process is making a sand sculpture, you can`t just do soft, fluffy, dry sand. It has to be very wet, it has to be very compacted, before you can start carving it.
It`s one of the biggest misconceptions in sand sculpture is that it`s a super easy job where you sit on a beach and then you carve and it`s actually extremely physically and technically interesting.
The Sugar Sand Festival is like a great big sand sculpture park inside a tent and there`s probably eight to ten sculptors working in here and I`m just one of them.
MARK MASON, PROFESSIONAL SAND SCULPTOR: It is a hobby turned into a passion, turned into a profession. We probably got 1,200, maybe 1,400 tons of sand in this tent.
FRALICH: So, behind me is Jimi Hendrix and he`s about nine feet tall and it took me three days and about eight hours a day to create just this part behind me.
The tools that we use in sand sculpture are anything and everything. It can be a spoon from a kitchen, a melon baller. I used a lot of margin trowels that you use for dry wall work. Anything will do, even straws.
MASON: As an art, sun sculpture is the fastest medium from conception to finish product that I could ever think of.
I love this. But I do want this to be here forever? No, I don`t. I`d love to make this sand something else. You know, I want to work on things.
You don`t miss it. You continually build. That is the fun of sand sculpture.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AZUZ: So, sun sculpting certainly seems to depend on how things shape up. Whether they make waves, whether the end result holds water and whether the artist is willing to watch all wash away, it surely someone whose skills go against the grain.
I`m Carl Azuz for CNN STUDENT NEWS. Thank you for watching.
Monday, August 15, 2016
CNN Student News - August 15, 2016
CARL AZUZ, CNN STUDENT NEWS ANCHOR: Mondays are awesome -- at least this one is.
CNN STUDENT NEWS is launching into a brand new academic year. We are 10 minutes of international events serving a worldwide audience and we`re grateful you`re part of it.
My name is Carl Azuz.
Our coverage today begins with severe flooding in part of the southern U.S. Baton Rouge is the capital of Louisiana. It`s in the southeastern part of the state and the area around Baton Rouge has been soaked.
The community of Livingston, for instance, has gotten more than 24 inches, more than two feet of rain and that since last Wednesday alone. The
National Weather Service says that a chance of any area getting this much flooding in a given year is just 1 percent.
At least three people have died because of this. Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards deployed the National Guard and says more than 7,000 rescues have been made so far.
Here, you see a man saving a woman and her dog after trying to open the convertible top of her sinking car. More rain is expected. A flash flood emergency has been declared in some areas.
Now, a quick explanation on the difference between a flood and a flash flood.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: This is the radar estimated total. You can see the color coordinated legend at the top of your screen. That
shading of white indicating 500 or more millimeters of rain. And this has significant impacts on the rivers and streams across Louisiana. They all flow into the Gulf of Mexico, of course.
This is interesting. This is a flood gauge from the Comite River. And I want you to see that rapid rise in the river. It actually rose 25 feet in 12 hours and that my friend is called flash flooding. That line right there that you see in top portion of this graph, that is the record flood
stage. It`s actually was higher than that by about four feet.
But take a look at this. This is a difference, a flood is a rise of a river or stream out of its natural banks. But a flash flood is the rapid rise of a river or stream and people just cannot handle a rapid rise in the water, including this 911 call center. They had to be evacuated.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AZUZ: National Guards are also been activated in the northern U.S. state of Wisconsin but for a different reason. On Saturday afternoon, two police officers in the city of Milwaukee pulled over a car for what police called suspicious activity. The two people inside the car tried to run away on
foot. Authorities said one of the suspects, a 23-year-old man was armed with a gun and that he did not drop it when the officer ordered him to.
The officer opened fire and killed the suspect.
Violent demonstrations then followed Saturday night. Protestors burned several businesses and cars and threw rocks at police. A city alderman says Milwaukee has been a powder keg for potential violence this summer. He says the area`s African-Americans have faced injustice, unemployment and
under-education. Officials planned to meet with church and community leaders yesterday to discuss ways to move forward.
This was one a series of incidents involving U.S. police and communities over the summer. In July, two African-American men, one in Louisiana and
one in Minnesota were shot to death by police. And in Texas, during a protest over those killings, an African-American military veteran killed five police officers and wounded seven others. That shooter was later killed. Violence continues and tensions remain high in several parts of the U.S.
Now, moving to the Southern Hemisphere. Despite the spread of the dangerous Zika virus, a lasting economic recession in Brazil, government
corruption scandals, a suspended president, and widespread violent crime, the show has gone on for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
Opening ceremonies were on August 5th. The Olympics wrap up next Sunday.
And when we put this show together, the United States had the lead in total medals won, with more than 60. China had earned more than 40 medals.
Great Britain more than 30. Russian and Japan rounded out the top five medal-winning countries.
The values of the medals themselves: gold is worth about $564, a silver $305, a bronze, not as much. But U.S. athletes do have to pay taxes on the medals and the prize money they bring home.
In swimming, one athlete`s success is bringing money to the sport itself.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
REPORTER: The story of Michael Phelps can be told in numbers. Five Olympic games, a gold medal count higher than most countries, countless calories consumed and powers in the pool.
Phelps is the greatest swimmer of all time. But he`s always been clear that to him, his career was about more than races won.
MICHAEL PHELPS, OLYMPIC SWIMMER: I want to change the sport of swimming and take it to a new level. That`s been the one thing that I`ve wanted to do my whole entire career.
REPORTER: By any count, Phelps achieved that goal. But aside from records broken, and medals won, his biggest contribution to the sport might be the dollars he`s earned.
Michael Phelps made his Olympic debut in 2000. And even though he didn`t win a single medal in Sydney, his potential made him a marketing star.
Then, in Athens in 2004, he racked up eight medals and scores of sponsors. Not all of those endorsements survived his assorted controversies or his
foray into and out of retirement. But he still has deals with Under Armour, Omega and Aqua Lung, which makes a line of swimsuits under the MP brand.
According to USA Swimming, the sports governing body, Michael Phelps made swimming cool again and his endorsements invincibility pumped more money into the sport than ever before.
Swimming events used to air on the (INAUDIBLE). Now, they get live primetime coverage. More eyeballs means more attention from sponsors, and more sponsorship money means swimmers can afford to stay in the sport.
USA Swimming now pays swimmers a stipend of about $40,000 a year for living expenses and develops programs to let the best swimmers win larger purses at meets. USA Swimming says Phelps will stay on as an ambassador after he retires. So, while all eyes will be on the hard assets he earns in Rio,
it`s his liquid assets that will leave a lasting legacy.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AZUZ: Got a "Character Study" for you today on the 21-year-old Australian man who started with what he called a crazy idea, put two washing machines and two dryers in the back of an old van and drive it around, washing people`s clothes for free. The impact that his nonprofit has had goes well
beyond hygiene.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NIC MARCHESI, CNN HERO: Most people take for granted putting a fresh clean set of clothes on. Going for job interviews, or just trying to have a chat, you can`t really do that with dirty clothes.
For someone who is sleeping rough and who really doesn`t have access to washing and drying their clothes is something that`s continually overlooked.
Orange Sky Laundry is Australia`s first ever mobile laundry for the homeless.
First thing in the morning or really late at night, we`re going to their communities where they feel comfortable to wash and dry their clothes for free.
It`s the opportunity to take someone`s only possessions and return them in a better condition.
We`re able to restore respect. My whole stand (ph) is we found ways through our service to actually train and employ our homeless friends.
But the biggest thing homeless communities need is that connection.
Our service is run by 622 amazing volunteers who help us foster really renewed (ph) conversations. They`re not trying to train anything. They`re trying to be really emphatic and listen and through that opportunity to have a massive impact on someone`s life.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: First impressions count a lot. If they see you day after day in dirty clothes, they develop a certain impression about you but if you can freshen up your clothes, that`s a different way in which you`re treated.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If I come and talk to you -- that`s great, that`s the young generation that`s willing to not be worried about stigma.
MARCHESI: I couldn`t think of anything better that we`re doing in my life right now, the people that we help are not customers, they`re our friends.
No matter who you are, wherever you are, being clean and being confident is something that everyone deserves all around the world.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AZUZ: Before we go, when you gather a whole bunch of people dancing at one time, you have a party. When you gather more than 1,000 robots dancing at one time, you have a new Guinness World Record. This video comes to us from Shandong, China. Not every robot made the cut. Some fell over or just didn`t want to dance. But 1,007 of them, quote, "bopped and shimmied" according to Guinness. They were reportedly controlled from a single cellphone.
They could certainly pop and lock, and while they didn`t appear to moonwalk, they totally own the electric slide, maybe those that malfunction were simply break dancing. One thing is for sure: all of them were unstoppable at the robot.
CNN STUDENT NEWS is pun-stoppable. Our puns will grow on you, kind of like a pungus. I`m Carl Azuz, a pretty pun guy and we`ll look forward to seeing you tomorrow for our second show.
CNN STUDENT NEWS is launching into a brand new academic year. We are 10 minutes of international events serving a worldwide audience and we`re grateful you`re part of it.
My name is Carl Azuz.
Our coverage today begins with severe flooding in part of the southern U.S. Baton Rouge is the capital of Louisiana. It`s in the southeastern part of the state and the area around Baton Rouge has been soaked.
The community of Livingston, for instance, has gotten more than 24 inches, more than two feet of rain and that since last Wednesday alone. The
National Weather Service says that a chance of any area getting this much flooding in a given year is just 1 percent.
At least three people have died because of this. Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards deployed the National Guard and says more than 7,000 rescues have been made so far.
Here, you see a man saving a woman and her dog after trying to open the convertible top of her sinking car. More rain is expected. A flash flood emergency has been declared in some areas.
Now, a quick explanation on the difference between a flood and a flash flood.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: This is the radar estimated total. You can see the color coordinated legend at the top of your screen. That
shading of white indicating 500 or more millimeters of rain. And this has significant impacts on the rivers and streams across Louisiana. They all flow into the Gulf of Mexico, of course.
This is interesting. This is a flood gauge from the Comite River. And I want you to see that rapid rise in the river. It actually rose 25 feet in 12 hours and that my friend is called flash flooding. That line right there that you see in top portion of this graph, that is the record flood
stage. It`s actually was higher than that by about four feet.
But take a look at this. This is a difference, a flood is a rise of a river or stream out of its natural banks. But a flash flood is the rapid rise of a river or stream and people just cannot handle a rapid rise in the water, including this 911 call center. They had to be evacuated.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AZUZ: National Guards are also been activated in the northern U.S. state of Wisconsin but for a different reason. On Saturday afternoon, two police officers in the city of Milwaukee pulled over a car for what police called suspicious activity. The two people inside the car tried to run away on
foot. Authorities said one of the suspects, a 23-year-old man was armed with a gun and that he did not drop it when the officer ordered him to.
The officer opened fire and killed the suspect.
Violent demonstrations then followed Saturday night. Protestors burned several businesses and cars and threw rocks at police. A city alderman says Milwaukee has been a powder keg for potential violence this summer. He says the area`s African-Americans have faced injustice, unemployment and
under-education. Officials planned to meet with church and community leaders yesterday to discuss ways to move forward.
This was one a series of incidents involving U.S. police and communities over the summer. In July, two African-American men, one in Louisiana and
one in Minnesota were shot to death by police. And in Texas, during a protest over those killings, an African-American military veteran killed five police officers and wounded seven others. That shooter was later killed. Violence continues and tensions remain high in several parts of the U.S.
Now, moving to the Southern Hemisphere. Despite the spread of the dangerous Zika virus, a lasting economic recession in Brazil, government
corruption scandals, a suspended president, and widespread violent crime, the show has gone on for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
Opening ceremonies were on August 5th. The Olympics wrap up next Sunday.
And when we put this show together, the United States had the lead in total medals won, with more than 60. China had earned more than 40 medals.
Great Britain more than 30. Russian and Japan rounded out the top five medal-winning countries.
The values of the medals themselves: gold is worth about $564, a silver $305, a bronze, not as much. But U.S. athletes do have to pay taxes on the medals and the prize money they bring home.
In swimming, one athlete`s success is bringing money to the sport itself.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
REPORTER: The story of Michael Phelps can be told in numbers. Five Olympic games, a gold medal count higher than most countries, countless calories consumed and powers in the pool.
Phelps is the greatest swimmer of all time. But he`s always been clear that to him, his career was about more than races won.
MICHAEL PHELPS, OLYMPIC SWIMMER: I want to change the sport of swimming and take it to a new level. That`s been the one thing that I`ve wanted to do my whole entire career.
REPORTER: By any count, Phelps achieved that goal. But aside from records broken, and medals won, his biggest contribution to the sport might be the dollars he`s earned.
Michael Phelps made his Olympic debut in 2000. And even though he didn`t win a single medal in Sydney, his potential made him a marketing star.
Then, in Athens in 2004, he racked up eight medals and scores of sponsors. Not all of those endorsements survived his assorted controversies or his
foray into and out of retirement. But he still has deals with Under Armour, Omega and Aqua Lung, which makes a line of swimsuits under the MP brand.
According to USA Swimming, the sports governing body, Michael Phelps made swimming cool again and his endorsements invincibility pumped more money into the sport than ever before.
Swimming events used to air on the (INAUDIBLE). Now, they get live primetime coverage. More eyeballs means more attention from sponsors, and more sponsorship money means swimmers can afford to stay in the sport.
USA Swimming now pays swimmers a stipend of about $40,000 a year for living expenses and develops programs to let the best swimmers win larger purses at meets. USA Swimming says Phelps will stay on as an ambassador after he retires. So, while all eyes will be on the hard assets he earns in Rio,
it`s his liquid assets that will leave a lasting legacy.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AZUZ: Got a "Character Study" for you today on the 21-year-old Australian man who started with what he called a crazy idea, put two washing machines and two dryers in the back of an old van and drive it around, washing people`s clothes for free. The impact that his nonprofit has had goes well
beyond hygiene.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NIC MARCHESI, CNN HERO: Most people take for granted putting a fresh clean set of clothes on. Going for job interviews, or just trying to have a chat, you can`t really do that with dirty clothes.
For someone who is sleeping rough and who really doesn`t have access to washing and drying their clothes is something that`s continually overlooked.
Orange Sky Laundry is Australia`s first ever mobile laundry for the homeless.
First thing in the morning or really late at night, we`re going to their communities where they feel comfortable to wash and dry their clothes for free.
It`s the opportunity to take someone`s only possessions and return them in a better condition.
We`re able to restore respect. My whole stand (ph) is we found ways through our service to actually train and employ our homeless friends.
But the biggest thing homeless communities need is that connection.
Our service is run by 622 amazing volunteers who help us foster really renewed (ph) conversations. They`re not trying to train anything. They`re trying to be really emphatic and listen and through that opportunity to have a massive impact on someone`s life.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: First impressions count a lot. If they see you day after day in dirty clothes, they develop a certain impression about you but if you can freshen up your clothes, that`s a different way in which you`re treated.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If I come and talk to you -- that`s great, that`s the young generation that`s willing to not be worried about stigma.
MARCHESI: I couldn`t think of anything better that we`re doing in my life right now, the people that we help are not customers, they`re our friends.
No matter who you are, wherever you are, being clean and being confident is something that everyone deserves all around the world.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AZUZ: Before we go, when you gather a whole bunch of people dancing at one time, you have a party. When you gather more than 1,000 robots dancing at one time, you have a new Guinness World Record. This video comes to us from Shandong, China. Not every robot made the cut. Some fell over or just didn`t want to dance. But 1,007 of them, quote, "bopped and shimmied" according to Guinness. They were reportedly controlled from a single cellphone.
They could certainly pop and lock, and while they didn`t appear to moonwalk, they totally own the electric slide, maybe those that malfunction were simply break dancing. One thing is for sure: all of them were unstoppable at the robot.
CNN STUDENT NEWS is pun-stoppable. Our puns will grow on you, kind of like a pungus. I`m Carl Azuz, a pretty pun guy and we`ll look forward to seeing you tomorrow for our second show.
Friday, June 3, 2016
CNN Student News - June 3 2016
Hi. I`m Carl Azuz and Fridays are awesome! Last time I`ll say that on air for the 2015-2016 school year. Our daily show will pick up back again on Monday, August 15th.
All right. Let`s get to today`s current events.
First up, this morning, the southern and central parts of Texas were under a flash flood watch. May was the wettest month in the U.S. state`s history, but June hasn`t brought any relief so far. Rainfall of more than two inches per hour is in the forecast.
The governor has declared a state of emergency in 31 Texas counties and what that does is speed up assistance to the areas that need it most. The grounds are already saturated in many parts of the state. So, our forecast of more rain can only increase the threat of floods.
For perspective, last month alone, Texas got more than 35 trillion, that`s trillion with a T, 35 trillion gallons of rain. That would have been enough to cover the entire state with almost eight inches of water, though the rain was concentrated in specific areas.
Where is it all going?
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: We`ve already seen the water come up and actually, the sheriff office came by and said, have you seen the water go down? Because we think we`ve crested it.
No, it hasn`t crested yet. It`s still coming up. And let me get out of the way here. You can see behind me.
This is the river. It`s Brazos River. We should be talking about a river that`s about 200 feet wide. It is well over a mile to the other side.
This is not a boat ramp. This is an exit ramp from the turnaround to go under the bridge and back up unto the highway the other direction. People won`t be driving on this for quite some time.
The rain continues in places that have seen now up to 20 inches of rain just this month. So, all this dirt that I`m standing out of here, I`m over kind of on the side, over by a fire ant hill and fire ants aren`t that happy about this rain either.
But all of this is completely soggy. Nothing that rains today is going to soak it. It`s just going to run back off. This whole place is like a big concrete parking lot. When it rains, it runs off, and these rivers are still coming up. They will be coming up still four days.
This rain doesn`t stop until Saturday afternoon, maybe Sunday, we`re watching upstream because all that water has to run back down right here.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AZUZ: Some residents of the city of Fort McMurray, Canada, have begun returning home. Last month, the massive wildfire forced the evacuation of 80,000 people in the area. Thousands of firefighters are still trying to get a handle on it, though the blaze is no longer a threat to Fort
McMurray. The fire destroyed about 10 percent of the city, at least 2,400 buildings or homes.
Not everyone in Fort McMurray is allowed to come back yet. Authorities say debris from the fire has to be removed before some homes can be occupied.
Many are still intact, but some residents don`t know what they`ll see.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SUBTITLE: Coming home after a wildfire.
A massive wildfire in northern Alberta has destroyed more than 877,000 acres.
Some of Fort McMurray`s 61,000 residents are returning to their damaged community.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AZUZ: From Canada, we`re moving across the Atlantic to Switzerland, where the longest, deepest tunnel in the world is now open. It`s named the
Gotthard Base Tunnel. It`s 35 miles long and runs underneath the Swiss Alps. In some places, it`s one and a half miles deep and the trains that traverse it hit speeds of up to 155 miles per hour.
Will it save time? Yes. Officials say trains will be able to get from Zurich, Switzerland, to Milan, Italy, about an hour faster on this route than trains on other routes.
Would it help in other ways? Yes. Officials say freight will be moved more quickly, more efficiently and more reliably.
What was the cost? The tunnel took seventeen years and $12 billion to build, about 2,600 people worked on it along the way.
(MUSIC)
AZUZ: Thank you for all of your "Roll Call" submissions this school year. We received more than 100,000 requests.
The last three schools we`ll mention with Avon Grove Charter School. It`s in West Grove, Pennsylvania, the home of the Wolves.
Moving west to Charlotte, Michigan, hello to the Orioles. Great to see everyone at Charlotte High School today.
And in Big Sky Country, the community of Big Sky, Montana, we totally dig the miners of Ophir Middle School.
There are a number of ways scientists can measure air quality, monitoring stations can keep track of the air in one specific place and detect any changes. Trucks loaded with mobile instruments can be sent to different areas, measuring carbon monoxide and ozone levels. And satellites can track pollutants and how the move over a city.
There`s another way to measure the quality of the air, though, by flying right through it.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: 0600 hour, NASA prepares to fly. A beautiful sunrise masks by a lingering haze, one of the reasons this DC-8 jetliner is here in South Korea.
This flying laboratory will find out what pollutants are here, who`s causing them and how they can be measured more accurately from space.
Eight hours flying the length and breadth of South Korea, over cities, mansions (ph) and seas, collecting and analyzing data.
The equipment on this flight may be state-of-the-art, but the plane itself is almost half a century old. It first flew back in 1969 I`m told, as part of the Al Italia fleet. But, as you can see, NASA has completely refitted it to suit its purposes -- 25 different instruments for measuring solution and 34 scientists.
All of them excited to be part of this mission, a joint study with the South Korean environment agency.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don`t think it`s a discovery but the air here is pretty dirty. We kind of knew that.
HANCOCKS: South Korea has long blamed China for much of its pollution, so- called "yellow dusts" is known to blown in from deserts in Mongolia and northern China, picking up some pretty toxic hitchhikers along the way.
But fine dust particles, very detrimental to your health, may often originate closer to home.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The flight we`re on today, we`ve seen some of the largest pollution that we`ve seen in the entire campaign. And most of that is coming from local sources.
HANCOCKS: To capture some of this data, the plane has to fly low, involving skillful flying from former Air Force pilots and some deft negotiating with air traffic controllers and a fed dose of turbulence.
It`s not every day you fly just a few hundred feet over the center of a 10 million strong metropolis. South Korean ranked 173rd out of 180 countries in terms of air quality in a recent study by Yale University. But this year`s environmental performance index underlies the fact it is a global problem, saying more than 3.5 billion people, half of the world`s population, live in nations with unsafe air quality. As more than one scientist on board told me, at least South Korea was acknowledging it`s a problem and opening up its air space to NASA and its expertise.
Paula Hancocks, CNN, onboard NASA`s DC-8 research jet over South Korea.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AZUZ: We`re not going to run away without a look at, let`s call it lighthearted news, or in this case, light-footed.
Check it y`all. A moose on a loose. This happened in Watertown, Massachusetts, earlier this week, not too common a sight in the neighborhood.
The wayward mammal didn`t really hurt anyone or cause any mischief, though it did leave police on 45-minute chase. Eventually, it moosied (ph) over into the woods, it moose have realized its moose-take and decided to huff it.
Maybe it woods having fun in the forest. It wanted to stretch its moose- cles or look for something more amoosing. But straying into the suburbs probably wasn`t the antler.
My name is Carl and I`m Azuz on a loose. We`ll see you again on August 15th. Please keep up with us over the summer on Instagram, Facebook, or
Twitter. I`m @CarlAzuzCNN.
And thanks to the millions of you who`ve watched worldwide in this extraordinary year for CNN STUDENT NEWS.
END
All right. Let`s get to today`s current events.
First up, this morning, the southern and central parts of Texas were under a flash flood watch. May was the wettest month in the U.S. state`s history, but June hasn`t brought any relief so far. Rainfall of more than two inches per hour is in the forecast.
The governor has declared a state of emergency in 31 Texas counties and what that does is speed up assistance to the areas that need it most. The grounds are already saturated in many parts of the state. So, our forecast of more rain can only increase the threat of floods.
For perspective, last month alone, Texas got more than 35 trillion, that`s trillion with a T, 35 trillion gallons of rain. That would have been enough to cover the entire state with almost eight inches of water, though the rain was concentrated in specific areas.
Where is it all going?
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: We`ve already seen the water come up and actually, the sheriff office came by and said, have you seen the water go down? Because we think we`ve crested it.
No, it hasn`t crested yet. It`s still coming up. And let me get out of the way here. You can see behind me.
This is the river. It`s Brazos River. We should be talking about a river that`s about 200 feet wide. It is well over a mile to the other side.
This is not a boat ramp. This is an exit ramp from the turnaround to go under the bridge and back up unto the highway the other direction. People won`t be driving on this for quite some time.
The rain continues in places that have seen now up to 20 inches of rain just this month. So, all this dirt that I`m standing out of here, I`m over kind of on the side, over by a fire ant hill and fire ants aren`t that happy about this rain either.
But all of this is completely soggy. Nothing that rains today is going to soak it. It`s just going to run back off. This whole place is like a big concrete parking lot. When it rains, it runs off, and these rivers are still coming up. They will be coming up still four days.
This rain doesn`t stop until Saturday afternoon, maybe Sunday, we`re watching upstream because all that water has to run back down right here.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AZUZ: Some residents of the city of Fort McMurray, Canada, have begun returning home. Last month, the massive wildfire forced the evacuation of 80,000 people in the area. Thousands of firefighters are still trying to get a handle on it, though the blaze is no longer a threat to Fort
McMurray. The fire destroyed about 10 percent of the city, at least 2,400 buildings or homes.
Not everyone in Fort McMurray is allowed to come back yet. Authorities say debris from the fire has to be removed before some homes can be occupied.
Many are still intact, but some residents don`t know what they`ll see.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SUBTITLE: Coming home after a wildfire.
A massive wildfire in northern Alberta has destroyed more than 877,000 acres.
Some of Fort McMurray`s 61,000 residents are returning to their damaged community.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AZUZ: From Canada, we`re moving across the Atlantic to Switzerland, where the longest, deepest tunnel in the world is now open. It`s named the
Gotthard Base Tunnel. It`s 35 miles long and runs underneath the Swiss Alps. In some places, it`s one and a half miles deep and the trains that traverse it hit speeds of up to 155 miles per hour.
Will it save time? Yes. Officials say trains will be able to get from Zurich, Switzerland, to Milan, Italy, about an hour faster on this route than trains on other routes.
Would it help in other ways? Yes. Officials say freight will be moved more quickly, more efficiently and more reliably.
What was the cost? The tunnel took seventeen years and $12 billion to build, about 2,600 people worked on it along the way.
(MUSIC)
AZUZ: Thank you for all of your "Roll Call" submissions this school year. We received more than 100,000 requests.
The last three schools we`ll mention with Avon Grove Charter School. It`s in West Grove, Pennsylvania, the home of the Wolves.
Moving west to Charlotte, Michigan, hello to the Orioles. Great to see everyone at Charlotte High School today.
And in Big Sky Country, the community of Big Sky, Montana, we totally dig the miners of Ophir Middle School.
There are a number of ways scientists can measure air quality, monitoring stations can keep track of the air in one specific place and detect any changes. Trucks loaded with mobile instruments can be sent to different areas, measuring carbon monoxide and ozone levels. And satellites can track pollutants and how the move over a city.
There`s another way to measure the quality of the air, though, by flying right through it.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: 0600 hour, NASA prepares to fly. A beautiful sunrise masks by a lingering haze, one of the reasons this DC-8 jetliner is here in South Korea.
This flying laboratory will find out what pollutants are here, who`s causing them and how they can be measured more accurately from space.
Eight hours flying the length and breadth of South Korea, over cities, mansions (ph) and seas, collecting and analyzing data.
The equipment on this flight may be state-of-the-art, but the plane itself is almost half a century old. It first flew back in 1969 I`m told, as part of the Al Italia fleet. But, as you can see, NASA has completely refitted it to suit its purposes -- 25 different instruments for measuring solution and 34 scientists.
All of them excited to be part of this mission, a joint study with the South Korean environment agency.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don`t think it`s a discovery but the air here is pretty dirty. We kind of knew that.
HANCOCKS: South Korea has long blamed China for much of its pollution, so- called "yellow dusts" is known to blown in from deserts in Mongolia and northern China, picking up some pretty toxic hitchhikers along the way.
But fine dust particles, very detrimental to your health, may often originate closer to home.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The flight we`re on today, we`ve seen some of the largest pollution that we`ve seen in the entire campaign. And most of that is coming from local sources.
HANCOCKS: To capture some of this data, the plane has to fly low, involving skillful flying from former Air Force pilots and some deft negotiating with air traffic controllers and a fed dose of turbulence.
It`s not every day you fly just a few hundred feet over the center of a 10 million strong metropolis. South Korean ranked 173rd out of 180 countries in terms of air quality in a recent study by Yale University. But this year`s environmental performance index underlies the fact it is a global problem, saying more than 3.5 billion people, half of the world`s population, live in nations with unsafe air quality. As more than one scientist on board told me, at least South Korea was acknowledging it`s a problem and opening up its air space to NASA and its expertise.
Paula Hancocks, CNN, onboard NASA`s DC-8 research jet over South Korea.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AZUZ: We`re not going to run away without a look at, let`s call it lighthearted news, or in this case, light-footed.
Check it y`all. A moose on a loose. This happened in Watertown, Massachusetts, earlier this week, not too common a sight in the neighborhood.
The wayward mammal didn`t really hurt anyone or cause any mischief, though it did leave police on 45-minute chase. Eventually, it moosied (ph) over into the woods, it moose have realized its moose-take and decided to huff it.
Maybe it woods having fun in the forest. It wanted to stretch its moose- cles or look for something more amoosing. But straying into the suburbs probably wasn`t the antler.
My name is Carl and I`m Azuz on a loose. We`ll see you again on August 15th. Please keep up with us over the summer on Instagram, Facebook, or
Twitter. I`m @CarlAzuzCNN.
And thanks to the millions of you who`ve watched worldwide in this extraordinary year for CNN STUDENT NEWS.
END
Wednesday, June 1, 2016
CNN Student News - June 1, 2016
Welcome to Wednesday`s edition of CNN STUDENT NEWS. My name is Carl Azuz. We`re grateful to have you watching.
First up, every city that`s hosted the Olympic Games in recent years has faced considerable challenges. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, is no exception.
The cost of hosting the games, which is in the billions, keeping residents and visitors safe, just making sure they can all get around from place to place, and building many of the venues where athletes will compete. These are common obstacles.
But there are a number of unique challenges to Rio and Brazil as a whole that officials worldwide are concerned about. Olympic organizers and city officials say these games which are the first ever to be held in South America will be a big success. So, why do some critics have doubts?
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: This has been a particularly rough run-up to the Olympic Games, which was scheduled to start here in Rio in just over two months, a whole set of challenges facing not only Rio, the host city, but Brazil as a whole.
(voice-over): It`s hard not to be seduced by Rio de Janeiro. This spectacular city soon to be the host of the 2016 Summer Olympics.
Two months before the start of the games, construction crews are putting in the final touches at the Olympic venues.
GUSTAVO NASCIMENTO, HEAD OF OLYMPIC VENUE MANAGEMENT: Everything`s going to be ready on time. We`re going to deliver the park fully commissioned the 24th of July.
WATSON (on camera): But despite Rio`s beauty, the city and Brazil as a whole are facing some pretty daunting challenges. A whole series of unexpected setbacks leading some to wonder, are Rio`s Olympics somehow cursed?
(voice-over): Just days ago, a warning from more than 100 international doctors, calling for the games to be postponed or moved, because the mosquito-born Zika virus could threaten an expected half a million foreign visitors.
That view rejected by the World Health Organization, which does advise pregnant women to avoid the Olympics entirely, because of the risk of severe deformities to unborn children.
And then there`s the political and economic crisis. Turmoil after Congress suspended Brazil`s elected president in an impeachment process last month, and high-level corruption scandals, during the worst economic recession in generations, which has left more than 10 million Brazilians unemployed.
The economic hardship aggravating Rio`s endemic problems with violent crime. Daily gun battles between police and drug gangs in the city`s impoverished favelas, as well as a surge in robberies.
This month, members of the Spanish Olympic sailing team mugged at gunpoint.
FERNANDO ECHEVARRI, SPANISH OLYMPIC SAILOR: We just turn around to see what was happening and we saw the pistols, like this.
WATSON: Olympic sailors also worried about Rio`s notoriously polluted bay, a dumping ground for much of the city`s raw sewage.
VICTORIA JURCZOK, GERMAN OLYMPIC SAILOR: We don`t want to swim in it.
WATSON: Rio`s mayor warns this isn`t a first world city.
MAYOR EDUARDO PAES, RIO DE JANEIRO: Don`t come here expecting that everything will be, you know, perfect. We live in a country that has an economic crisis, a country with lots of inequality. With all the problems we have seen concerning corruption, briberies. But the city will be much
better than it was when we got the games.
WATSON: But even one of the mayor`s new infrastructure projects is now a deadly failure.
(on camera): This brand-new spectacular cliff side bike path was supposed to be a showcase project for the Olympics. Instead, it became a tragic setback when the waves took out part of the trail, killing two people last month.
(voice-over): In the turbulent run up to the Olympics, a virtual storm of bad new that leads you wondering, what could possibly happen next?
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AZUZ: Across the Pacific Ocean, Southeast China is where we`re starting today`s call of the roll.
In the city of Foshan, thank you for watching from Nanhai Senior High School.
To the U.S. state of West Virginia, we`ve got some Vikings there. Petersburg High School is in the city of Petersburg.
And watch out for the Hornets. They`re making a buzz in Charlotte, North Carolina, where you`ll find Albemarle Road Middle School.
The term "500-year flood event" basically means there`s a rare 1-in-500 chance that a particular flood would hit in a given year. Southeast Texas has seen two of these 500-year flood events in two months, what a CNN meteorologist described as very bad luck.
Last week, there were record-setting rains in the region. At one point, the city of Brenham got 19 inches of rain in 48 hours. It stopped falling last Friday night, but not before swelling flood waters that killed six people, some of whom were trapped in cars and high water.
The National Weather Service has given several warnings, telling people not to drive through flooded areas and to be careful need riverbanks. Hundreds of homes have been flooded or swept away. Another storm is in the forecast for later this week.
Today is the official start of the Atlantic hurricane season. It runs from June 1st through November 30th, though forecasters say that these storms can form at any time. This is just when they`re more likely.
Predicting how many storms will form in a given season is not an exact science and predictions are often inaccurate. But they give coastal residents, emergency workers and insurance companies an idea of what to look out for.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JENNIFER GRAY, CNN METEOROLOGIST: NOAA has just released their numbers for the upcoming hurricane season. Their predictions on how active this season will be and they`ve actually predicted a very normal season, 10 to 16 named storms, four to eight hurricanes, and one to four major storms. It`s pretty much all in line with what the other agencies are saying, 12 to 14 named storms.
Now, a normal year, you may say, so what? But it`s actually been a while since we`ve had a normal year. You have to go back to 2012. Ever since then, we have had below normal seasons. So, forecasting a normal season, this year, will actually mean more storms, possibly.
One reason we have had some pretty slow years is because of El Nino. The jet stream shifts to the south during an El Nino year, increasing the wind shear which will rip those storms apart. But we are forecasted to go into La Nina, which means that jet stream will shift back up to the north.
We`ll have decrease in wind shear and it could be just that perfect environment to get some of the storms going in the Atlantic.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AZUZ: CNN has used a lot of hurricane footage that people captured on their phones. Digital photography is something we just tend to use without thinking about it. But 41 years ago, when the first digital camera was made, it weighed around eight pounds, it took 23 seconds to record its first picture and the resolution was 1/100 of 1 megapixel.
So, maybe all that`s why Kodak wasn`t in a hurry to invest in the technology.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RACHEL CRANE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The great irony of Frankenstein is that the doctor`s greatest discovery, creating a living, breathing human from dead matter led to his demise. Kodak can relate.
One of their engineers, Steven Sasson, invented the first digital camera in 1975.
They called the technology filmless photography. But they were never able to capitalize on it. In fact, their competitors trounced them in the digital photography space. And in 2012, 131 years after its founding, the company filed for bankruptcy protection. By then, an estimated 2.5 billion people owned digital cameras.
And that changed the business, too -- especially this business, journalism. Video and images captured on digital cameras could be instantly reviewed and transmitted all across the world.
The first journalists to use digital camera for the "Associated Press" did so at the first Bush inauguration in 1989, and cell phone cameras have made every citizen a potential reporter.
Time and time again, footage captured by amateurs on digital cameras has been vital first hand sources of information, even medicine has benefitted.
Doctors can see inside your body, thanks to tiny digital cameras, and then they can store and share those images quickly and easily with colleagues across the globe.
The list goes on and on, but if you could excuse me, I have to go Facetime with my mom.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AZUZ: On the golf course, you might encounter a bunker or a lake, hazards you generally want to avoid. Here`s another kind: this massive scale reptilian beast of a hazard was seen in the greens at a Florida golf course, recently. The alligator is estimated to be 15 feet long. The man
who shot this video said the thing was so big, it looked like two guys in an alligator suit.
It didn`t cause any problems, besides maybe abject terror. Good thing no one tried to club it. Its teeth could leave a hole in one attacker. It doesn`t need to take a shot to take a slice, and its simple presence is off putting. You know what a golfer yells when an alligator is on the course?
Carni-four (ph)!
I`m Carl Azuz and we`ll see you gator.
END
First up, every city that`s hosted the Olympic Games in recent years has faced considerable challenges. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, is no exception.
The cost of hosting the games, which is in the billions, keeping residents and visitors safe, just making sure they can all get around from place to place, and building many of the venues where athletes will compete. These are common obstacles.
But there are a number of unique challenges to Rio and Brazil as a whole that officials worldwide are concerned about. Olympic organizers and city officials say these games which are the first ever to be held in South America will be a big success. So, why do some critics have doubts?
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: This has been a particularly rough run-up to the Olympic Games, which was scheduled to start here in Rio in just over two months, a whole set of challenges facing not only Rio, the host city, but Brazil as a whole.
(voice-over): It`s hard not to be seduced by Rio de Janeiro. This spectacular city soon to be the host of the 2016 Summer Olympics.
Two months before the start of the games, construction crews are putting in the final touches at the Olympic venues.
GUSTAVO NASCIMENTO, HEAD OF OLYMPIC VENUE MANAGEMENT: Everything`s going to be ready on time. We`re going to deliver the park fully commissioned the 24th of July.
WATSON (on camera): But despite Rio`s beauty, the city and Brazil as a whole are facing some pretty daunting challenges. A whole series of unexpected setbacks leading some to wonder, are Rio`s Olympics somehow cursed?
(voice-over): Just days ago, a warning from more than 100 international doctors, calling for the games to be postponed or moved, because the mosquito-born Zika virus could threaten an expected half a million foreign visitors.
That view rejected by the World Health Organization, which does advise pregnant women to avoid the Olympics entirely, because of the risk of severe deformities to unborn children.
And then there`s the political and economic crisis. Turmoil after Congress suspended Brazil`s elected president in an impeachment process last month, and high-level corruption scandals, during the worst economic recession in generations, which has left more than 10 million Brazilians unemployed.
The economic hardship aggravating Rio`s endemic problems with violent crime. Daily gun battles between police and drug gangs in the city`s impoverished favelas, as well as a surge in robberies.
This month, members of the Spanish Olympic sailing team mugged at gunpoint.
FERNANDO ECHEVARRI, SPANISH OLYMPIC SAILOR: We just turn around to see what was happening and we saw the pistols, like this.
WATSON: Olympic sailors also worried about Rio`s notoriously polluted bay, a dumping ground for much of the city`s raw sewage.
VICTORIA JURCZOK, GERMAN OLYMPIC SAILOR: We don`t want to swim in it.
WATSON: Rio`s mayor warns this isn`t a first world city.
MAYOR EDUARDO PAES, RIO DE JANEIRO: Don`t come here expecting that everything will be, you know, perfect. We live in a country that has an economic crisis, a country with lots of inequality. With all the problems we have seen concerning corruption, briberies. But the city will be much
better than it was when we got the games.
WATSON: But even one of the mayor`s new infrastructure projects is now a deadly failure.
(on camera): This brand-new spectacular cliff side bike path was supposed to be a showcase project for the Olympics. Instead, it became a tragic setback when the waves took out part of the trail, killing two people last month.
(voice-over): In the turbulent run up to the Olympics, a virtual storm of bad new that leads you wondering, what could possibly happen next?
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AZUZ: Across the Pacific Ocean, Southeast China is where we`re starting today`s call of the roll.
In the city of Foshan, thank you for watching from Nanhai Senior High School.
To the U.S. state of West Virginia, we`ve got some Vikings there. Petersburg High School is in the city of Petersburg.
And watch out for the Hornets. They`re making a buzz in Charlotte, North Carolina, where you`ll find Albemarle Road Middle School.
The term "500-year flood event" basically means there`s a rare 1-in-500 chance that a particular flood would hit in a given year. Southeast Texas has seen two of these 500-year flood events in two months, what a CNN meteorologist described as very bad luck.
Last week, there were record-setting rains in the region. At one point, the city of Brenham got 19 inches of rain in 48 hours. It stopped falling last Friday night, but not before swelling flood waters that killed six people, some of whom were trapped in cars and high water.
The National Weather Service has given several warnings, telling people not to drive through flooded areas and to be careful need riverbanks. Hundreds of homes have been flooded or swept away. Another storm is in the forecast for later this week.
Today is the official start of the Atlantic hurricane season. It runs from June 1st through November 30th, though forecasters say that these storms can form at any time. This is just when they`re more likely.
Predicting how many storms will form in a given season is not an exact science and predictions are often inaccurate. But they give coastal residents, emergency workers and insurance companies an idea of what to look out for.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JENNIFER GRAY, CNN METEOROLOGIST: NOAA has just released their numbers for the upcoming hurricane season. Their predictions on how active this season will be and they`ve actually predicted a very normal season, 10 to 16 named storms, four to eight hurricanes, and one to four major storms. It`s pretty much all in line with what the other agencies are saying, 12 to 14 named storms.
Now, a normal year, you may say, so what? But it`s actually been a while since we`ve had a normal year. You have to go back to 2012. Ever since then, we have had below normal seasons. So, forecasting a normal season, this year, will actually mean more storms, possibly.
One reason we have had some pretty slow years is because of El Nino. The jet stream shifts to the south during an El Nino year, increasing the wind shear which will rip those storms apart. But we are forecasted to go into La Nina, which means that jet stream will shift back up to the north.
We`ll have decrease in wind shear and it could be just that perfect environment to get some of the storms going in the Atlantic.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AZUZ: CNN has used a lot of hurricane footage that people captured on their phones. Digital photography is something we just tend to use without thinking about it. But 41 years ago, when the first digital camera was made, it weighed around eight pounds, it took 23 seconds to record its first picture and the resolution was 1/100 of 1 megapixel.
So, maybe all that`s why Kodak wasn`t in a hurry to invest in the technology.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RACHEL CRANE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The great irony of Frankenstein is that the doctor`s greatest discovery, creating a living, breathing human from dead matter led to his demise. Kodak can relate.
One of their engineers, Steven Sasson, invented the first digital camera in 1975.
They called the technology filmless photography. But they were never able to capitalize on it. In fact, their competitors trounced them in the digital photography space. And in 2012, 131 years after its founding, the company filed for bankruptcy protection. By then, an estimated 2.5 billion people owned digital cameras.
And that changed the business, too -- especially this business, journalism. Video and images captured on digital cameras could be instantly reviewed and transmitted all across the world.
The first journalists to use digital camera for the "Associated Press" did so at the first Bush inauguration in 1989, and cell phone cameras have made every citizen a potential reporter.
Time and time again, footage captured by amateurs on digital cameras has been vital first hand sources of information, even medicine has benefitted.
Doctors can see inside your body, thanks to tiny digital cameras, and then they can store and share those images quickly and easily with colleagues across the globe.
The list goes on and on, but if you could excuse me, I have to go Facetime with my mom.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AZUZ: On the golf course, you might encounter a bunker or a lake, hazards you generally want to avoid. Here`s another kind: this massive scale reptilian beast of a hazard was seen in the greens at a Florida golf course, recently. The alligator is estimated to be 15 feet long. The man
who shot this video said the thing was so big, it looked like two guys in an alligator suit.
It didn`t cause any problems, besides maybe abject terror. Good thing no one tried to club it. Its teeth could leave a hole in one attacker. It doesn`t need to take a shot to take a slice, and its simple presence is off putting. You know what a golfer yells when an alligator is on the course?
Carni-four (ph)!
I`m Carl Azuz and we`ll see you gator.
END
Tuesday, May 31, 2016
CNN Student News May 31, 2016
It`s the last day of May 2016 and our last week on air for the school year. We`ll return to our daily broadcast, August 15.
Let`s get started. One of the biggest stories we`ve covered this academic year centers on the millions of migrants and refugees streaming into Europe, the most since World War II. Some are leaving war-torn countries behind them. Some are running from terrorists and their control. Some are just looking for a better life than their home countries have to offer.
Many of these people are trying to get to Europe by cross the Mediterranean Sea. It`s dangerous. They`re often overloaded on small votes and over the past week, at least 65 people have died trying to cross. But hundreds are still missing from several shipwrecks. And officials are afraid that more
than 700 lives might have been lost.
It could have been worst. Italian authorities say they`ve rescued more than 14,000 people in the Mediterranean, just in the past week. The overcrowded boats aren`t the only thing officials have to watch for.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The route from Libya to Europe across these waters is really exploding, especially since Greece and Turkey cracked down on their shores. You could be talking about 100,000 people trying to cross the Mediterranean.
But that`s not the only problem. ISIS are trying to get in on it.
SUBTITLE: Smuggling Jihadis to Europe.
WALSH (on camera): This trade in human souls is awful enough until you think that perhaps ISIS are using this passage of human life into Europe to try and infiltrate the continent with sleeper cells.
(voice-over): A smuggler said it begun about two months ago, 52 Tunisians tried to travel from Libya to Europe in the last (INAUDIBLE), he said. And he was also offered $40,000 by an ISIS leader to take 20 ISIS people across, but he declined.
So, ISIS already control about a tenth of Libya`s huge coastline, about 4,000 to 6,000 fighters are in that area, but the U.S. thinks many in the main stronghold of Sirte. They`ve been helped by Libya being in chaos, with three different governments now claiming they should be in charge.(on camera): Fighting the migrant across this, the whole coastline of Libyan capital Tripoli are just six boats like this, some of which not in particularly good service. You simply can`t imagine how under-resourced things are here, so close to Europe.
(voice-over): Libya`s been a failing state for years, but now, it`s a new and thriving home to ISIS as well. And what`s so staggering is that after they`re allowed to grow in Syria and Iraq, that is happening again, this time even closer to Europe and the West is doing next to nothing about it.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AZUZ: Not far from the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, a battle is raging for the city of Falluja. The ISIS terrorist group took over the area in 2014.
But now, Iraqi and local forces who are supported by a U.S.-led coalition are fighting to get the city back. The international group has captured some of the surrounding areas and they entered the city yesterday in fighting described as intense.
Meantime, there were several suicide attacks in Baghdad that reportedly killed dozens of people. ISIS said it was responsible for those. The terrorist group is also suspected of killing men and boys in Falluja who refused to fight for ISIS. Hundreds of families have fled the city to safe areas nearby, but officials say tens of thousands of people could still be caught in the crossfire.
Yesterday was Memorial Day in the United States. It`s observed every year in the last Monday in May, and it`s a time for Americans to remember those who died while serving in the military.
As commander in chief of that military, U.S. President Barack Obama participated in the traditional wreath-laying at the Tomb of the Unknowns.
The monument was originally used for the burial of an unidentified American soldier from World War II. Unidentified troops from other U.S. wars were added in later years.
Memorial Day started as Decoration Day, a time when Americans decorated the graves of Union and Confederate troops from the Civil War. Now, flags, flowers, services and ceremonies are held nationwide in honor of falling U.S. troops.Barbara Starr attended in observance at Arlington National Cemetery.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: This was really basically an empty green meadow, and over the years, it has filled as families have laid their loved ones to rest here. This is really the history of the last 15 years of war for American troops and for American military families.
You see, it all basically written here. The battles that have come back into our headlines, Falluja, Ramadi, Baghdad in Iraq. The Korengal, Jalalabad, Kabul, Kandahar in Afghanistan.
We see these families repeatedly come here year after year to visit their loved ones.
I want to have the camera pan over just a bit. You will see, there is a 90-year-old grandmother here. There are small toddlers here. These are people who pause as so many Americans do across this country to pay their respects, we see battle buddies coming here to visit their friend who didn`t make it all the way home. It is quite an awestruck sight every year that we see.
People sort of refer to Section 60 as the saddest acre in America. I got to tell you, I don`t see it that way. On a day like today, what I see is an acre that is full of probably the most solid love that you are going to find. That these are people who are coming to pay their respects, to pay their love to America`s fallen.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AZUZ: These three schools have two things in common. One, they all made a "Roll Call" requests at CNNStudentNews.com, two, they`ve never been featured before.
Casper Classical Academy is in the city of Casper, Wyoming, and it`s the home of the Cougars.
But they`re not the only ones. Cougars are also watching from Chesapeake High School. It`s in Pasadena, Maryland.
And from Calle Margarita Este, Costa Rica, hello to everyone at Tree of Life International School.
For the first time, a very dangerous superbug has infected an American. She`s a 49-year-old woman from Pennsylvania. She was recently admitted to
Walter Reed National Military Medical Center with a very rare kind of E. coli infection.
Health officials don`t know how she got it, but the infections called a superbug because normal antibiotics don`t kill it, even the antibiotic that doctors use as a last resort.
The CDC and the Pennsylvania Department of Health both investigated the case. The women survived. She reportedly responded to other antibiotics, though one report suggests that half the people who get this kind of infection would die from it.
The head of the CDC says doctors should stop prescribing antibiotics when people don`t need them and that new drugs need to be developed quickly.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Antibiotics are one of the miracles of modern medicine. They have saved countless lives. But there`s another side to them.
The bacteria that live in our body, they`ve learned how to outwit many of our most powerful antibiotics. These drug resistant bacteria are called superbugs. Every year, these superbugs infect more than 2 million people in the United States and kill at least 23,000.
Here`s how a bug becomes a superbug. When you take in antibiotic, there could be some bacteria that know how to resist that antibiotic. While those smart bacteria, they`re the ones that survived your round of antibiotics and they flourish. And that`s when you get a proliferation of superbugs.
And the more that we as a community take antibiotics, the more chances the bacteria have to become resistant.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AZUZ: Majestic, stately, magnificent, proud. This ain`t no petting zoo pony we`re talking about. We`re talking about Frederik the Great, whose long, flowing locks are stampeding across Facebook and earning him the nickname "The Most Handsome Horse in the World."
The Friesian stallion grazes the fields of Arkansas. He`s 15 years old but just recently went viral because of -- well, this -- he`s been given a lot of nicknames but the Fabio of horses. That seems to be the main one, heh.
Maybe he`s equestri-aiming for a beauty contest. Maybe he`s cultivating a winning look to trample all of naysayers. He`s a horse without echooves (ph) and a lot of people are finding beauty in the beast.
I`m Carl Azuz and we`re done horsing around. Hope to see you tomorrow.
END
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)