CNN Student News with transcript Week 8, 2015

CARL AZUZ, HOST: Hope you had a great weekend, whether it was three days or two.

I`m Carl Azuz.

We`re glad to be back with you this Tuesday, February 17.

First up, the U.S. government has said Egypt is helping in the international fight against the ISIS terrorist group. There have not been

a lot of details about how, but one way was pretty clear over the weekend.

News broke that ISIS had executed 21 Christians from Egypt. The murders appeared to have been carried out in Libya, a country that shares a

border with Egypt. So Egypt struck back, sounding multiple waves of fighter jets to Libya, targeting ISIS camps, training grounds and weapons

stashes.

The Egyptian military says avenging Egyptian blood and punishing criminals and murderers is our right and duty.

Next in the headlines, another European country is dealing with an apparent terrorist attack. A gunman targeted a free speech event in

Denmark Saturday. He might have been targeting this man, Lars Vilks. Vilks is a cartoonist who`s illustrated the Prophet Muhammad, which many

Muslims find offensive.

He survived, but three police officers were wounded and a 55-year-old man was killed. Police say the gunman later targeted a cafe in Copenhagen,

killing one person there. Officers eventually killed the suspect in a shootout.

Last night, tens of thousands attended a vigil in the Danish capital to honor the victims.

NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, has a new warning out about mega droughts, droughts that could last generations.

There`s not one happening now in the U.S., but scientists believe one is possible if conditions continue the way they are now.

In fact, NASA says parts of the country look like they`re going to get drier no matter what.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (voice-over): A new NASA study predicts that by the end of the 21st century, the American Southwest and Great Plains are

likely to experience longer and more severe droughts than at any other time in the last thousand years.

(ON SCREEN)

NASA warns of “mega droughts”

BEN COOK, NASA CLIMATE SCIENTIST: So recent droughts such as the ongoing drought in California or in the Southwest, or even historical

droughts such as the Dust Bowl in the 1930s, these are naturally occurring droughts that typically last several years or sometimes almost a decade.

And our projection for what we`re seeing is that with climate change, many of these types of droughts will likely last for 20, 30, sometimes even 40

years.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Scientists looked at 1,000 years of tree ring data and compared those records with soil moisture data from 17 different

climate models in order to extend this drought information into the future.

Scientists looked at two different possibilities.

First, a business as usual scenario where worldwide greenhouse gas emissions continue on their current course. In this case, the future risk

of lengthy droughts rises to 80 percent.

Alternatively, if the world were to take aggressive actions to reduce emissions, the models still show drying, but the trends will be less

severe.

COOK: These droughts really represent events that nobody in the history of the United States has ever had to deal with. And so even in the

modern era, droughts such as the ongoing droughts in California and the Southwest, these normal droughts act as major stressors on water resources

in the region, so we expect that with these much longer droughts, it`s going to be even more impactful and cause even more problems for

agriculture and ecosystems in the region.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

(ON SCREEN)

Roll Call

AZUZ: Indiana is indisputably The Hoosier State.

Now you might be asking, OK, who`s your pick for today`s Roll Call?

Tri-County Jr..-Sr. High School. It`s in Wolcott, Indiana. It`s the home of The Cavaliers.

We`re going to jump a few states west of there to visit our friends in Kansas. Southwest Middle School is in Lawrence and it`s where we found The

Bulldogs.

And we`ll wrap up in South Dakota, where we`re Elk-cited for the Elks of Elkton. Hello to everyone watching at Elkton Public Schools.

Yesterday, we and many of you were off for President`s Day, but employees of the U.S. federal government were off for Washington`s

Birthday.

Which is right?

Both.

The holiday started as Washington`s birthday. The government still calls it that. But Abraham Lincoln was also born in February, and thanks,

in part, to stores having sales, it came to be known as a day to honor all presidents.

Here`s some trivia about the monuments to those presidents.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MICHAEL KELLY, NATIONAL PARK SERVICE RANGER: Some guides, some books, even, note the fact that only men were allowed to ride the elevator, the

thinking being that if the cable snapped, that only men would be among the casualties, not women and children.

There`s no truth to that whatsoever.

The real history is always more fascinating, but, you know, it never takes much to get a rumor started and perpetuated.

CHRIS MOODY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: For President`s Day this year, we went and visited some of the presidential monuments around Washington, DC.

We want to share with you some of the secrets, some of the facts and some of the myths about the monuments here in town.

In the Washington Monument, you find graffiti from Civil War soldiers who used the space as a lookout during the war.

KELLY: Soldiers went up to the top of the shaft, which was 156 feet above ground, used it as an observation platform to detail and study any

Confederate movements across the river. And while soldiers were in it, they left behind a lot of evidence of their presence.

You can see dates, names carved into the marble here, and initials, as well.

MOODY: You might need a flashlight for this, but if you look very closely at part of the Lincoln Memorial you can find one of the names of

the artists chiseled into the stone.

There`s a myth going around that Robert E. Lee is sculpted into the back of Abraham Lincoln`s head in his curls. But the rangers say that

that`s absolute bunk.

A lot of times these secrets of the presidential monuments are in the history.

KELLY: Behind the statue of Lincoln, there is a symbol of Robert E. Lee. And that symbol is famously the view across the river. We see atop

Arlington Ridge, the column`s impediment of Arlington House, which is now the Robert E. Lee Memorial.

MOODY: Did you know that it was President Franklin Delano Roosevelt who worked tirelessly to get the Jefferson Memorial built?

Most people look at Thomas Jefferson`s gaze in his memorial and they think he`s looking across the tidal basin at the White House, when, in

fact, he`s looking just slightly to the right of the White House, where there`s a statue of Alexander Hamilton looking right back.

KELLY: Both men served under George Washington. Both became, effectively, the leaders of political parties. George Washington hated the

idea of factions in political parties. So it`s quite interesting that if you look at it in that context, that Jefferson actually is looking at

Alexander Hamilton and Alexander Hamilton is looking back, and standing between them is the monument to President Washington, who tried to bridge

their differences, tried to unify them in a common purpose, but failed.

So with memorial architecture and siting of statues, we can tell that story.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

(ON SCREEN)

Before We Go

AZUZ: The Batman movies, the Superman movies, the Harry Potter movies, Casablanca, they all have a few things in common. Many are highly

successful. They`re all affiliated with Warner Brothers. And they all had costumes, sets, vehicles, stages designed especially for them.

Where does all that stuff go?

The exact answer is a secret, but it`s one the outskirts of London, United Kingdom.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: More than 10,000 props, 3,000 costumes, iconic objects from some of the world`s favorite films, all meticulously sorted

and stored here, in the Warner Brothers archive.

MAX FOSTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So in this section, rail upon rail of costumes. You`ll recognize the Hogwarts uniform there. And you can get a

sense of how Daniel Radcliffe aged as he played Harry Potter over the years.

This from the first movie and this one from the last.

More Harry Potter items, right.

Indeed, the golden snitch, which is used in the Quidditch scenes.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, COURTESY WARNER BROTHERS)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There`s no magic to be used between the classes in the corridors.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What`s that?

MORGAN FREEMAN, ACTOR: Oh, the Tumbler?

Oh, you wouldn`t be interested in that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: Check out the Tumbler, all two and a half tons of it, fully functioning, from the wind screen wiper to the 5.7 liter engine.

(voice-over): Some of the props were stored so they could be repurposed later on. But above all, Warner Brothers says it`s about

preserving their shared history.

LISA JANNEY, VP, CORPORATE ARCHIVES, WARNER BROTHERS: Today`s day and age, the value of memorabilia is huge. People love and connect with those

assets, with those television shows and feature films.

FOSTER: The advances in special effects mean that much of what we see in movies today is done with computers. But even the most high tech film

still needs some real props.

George Clooney`s space suit from “Gravity” and Sandra Bullock`s. And the capsule that falls into the water right at the end of the movie. But

in order to film the scenes inside that, they built this.

So this is the space where Sandra Bullock was desperately trying to get back down to Earth. The detail really is incredible. There we are.

I`m ready. My task is complete.

Max Foster, CNN, I can`t tell you where I am.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

AZUZ: So no word on the exact whereabouts of the warehouse, where it houses ware worn in the house of Warner Brothers Pictures. But we`re glad

we could picture it for you, though the door is clothes to us otherwise, except for maybe the most movie savvy costumer.

I`m Carl Azuz from the CNN studios in Atlanta.

We`ll produce another moving picture for you tomorrow.

CARL AZUZ, CNN HOST: The forecast for the Eastern U.S., it`s cold and it`s going to get colder.

That`s what`s first up this Wednesday on CNN STUDENT NEWS.

Some are calling it Snowmageddon. Some are saying they`re snowverit. High temperatures yesterday were 10 to 25 degrees lower than they usually are.

And an even colder blast of Arctic air was forecast to roll in today from the Midwest to the Eastern Seaboard. Hundreds of thousands of people had

their power knocked out by ice. At least six deaths have been blamed on the latest round of winter storms and this is having an economic impact,

too.

The city of Boston, Massachusetts, for instance, has spent more than $30 million just to move snow out of the way.

Well, at least it`s almost over, right?

Wrong.

Forecasters say another winter storm could be on the way at the end of the week, but it`s too early to tell if that will materialize.

Since Sunday, there`s officially been a cease-fire between Ukrainian government troops and the pro-Russian rebels who have been fighting them.

But in some parts of Ukraine, the fire has not ceased. And even though the international community is calling on both sides to stop fighting, to

respect the terms of this cease-fire, in some areas, the Ukrainian military and the pro-Russian separatists say they`re not backing down.

It`s possible that the truce agreed to last week is falling apart.

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The cease-fire remains in this town. These fighters load their weapons with great care, then head

to the front line.

(on camera): We`re on the road here with a Ukrainian battalion called the East Corpus Battalion and they say that they still get shelled all the

time, that there`s attacks from pro-Russian separatists and that they`re doing their best to try and hold this town, but they`ve already lost a

considerable amount of it to the pro-Russian separatists in the past couple of days.

(voice-over): “right now, only about a third of the village is under our control,” machine gunner Yuri (ph) says.

With pro-Russian separatists close by, we need to move carefully and frequently run for cover.

(on camera): So the men tell us we have to really watch out here, because apparently there`s a sniper, they believe, somewhere in the distance over

there. They say they take fire here pretty much every day and several times a day. So they really don`t believe in the cease-fire that`s going

on. They say it never really took hold here.

“The cease-fire is a farce,” says Commander Oleg Shiryayev. “The fighting is continuing now the way it did before. They continue to attack us, shell

us. They use artillery and mortars, and sometimes they launch raids.”

It`s impossible to tell which side is responsible for breaking the cease- fire here, but to the few civilians we saw, that didn`t seem to matter. They were packing any belongings they could and leaving.

“The fighting here is very heavy,” this woman says. “All the windows of our house are broken. It`s very terrifying. We saved all our lives to buy

our house and now we have nothing.”

To get back to safety, the fighters lob a smoke grenade to mask our retreat.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Time for the Shoutout.

Which of these languages is the oldest?

If you think you know it, shout it out.

Is it Spanish, Dutch, Romanian or Afrikaans?

You`ve got three seconds.

Go.

The Spanish language, also known as Castilian, dates back to the ninth century, making it the oldest language on this list.

That`s your answer and that`s your Shout Out.

AZUZ: According to the U.S. Census Bureau, more than 17 percent of the U.S. population is Hispanic or Latino. It`s about 54 million people,

making those of Hispanic origin the largest ethnic or race minority in the country.

So it`s probably no surprise that politicians would want to reach that group.

But does speaking Spanish sway Hispanic voters one way or the other?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JUAN CARLOS LOPEZ, CNN EN ESPANOL CORRESPONDENT: There is a big debate over how you reach Latinos.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want to just say a few words in Spanish. The cameras here are going to cover this. I don`t want them to tell them what I said,

I want to say it myself.

LOPEZ: Some call it pandering, some call it outreach. There was a day when outreach was based on having majorities (ph) and repeating two or

three sentences.

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: Si se puede. Si se puede.

LOPEZ: And that`s not necessarily what convinces people.

A lot of people who come to the States later in life and try to learn English have a real hard time. They`re afraid to put themselves out there,

to embarrass themselves by mispronouncing words.

So seeing a politician do it, I think, brings people — politicians to a level that people can identify with.

SEN. TIM KAINE (D), VIRGINIA: Es como es la gamara por la debatier (ph).

LOPEZ: Now, it`s easy to make fun of Mayor Bloomberg.

MICHAEL BLOOMBERG (I), FORMER NEW YORK CITY MAYOR: Estamos todo mondo (ph) precauciones para que todos (ph).

LOPEZ: The fact that he`s willing to go out there, it brings him closer to the people who don`t speak English fluently.

Jeb Bush was governor of Florida. It`s very helpful to speak Spanish in South Florida.

I think the thing he has in common with his brother is that they understand the Latino culture, that they know how to speak to Latinos.

GEORGE BUSH, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Gracias sienta se (ph).

LOPEZ: It`s played them well and it`s going to play well with Jeb Bush if he ends up being the Republican nominee. When he launched a PAC recently,

he did a video in English and then he had a video in Spanish.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hoy estamos esta luciendo (ph) (INAUDIBLE).

LOPEZ: People see that he knows the language, that he cares, that he understands, at least he wants to speak to them.

It`s more a party thing than a candidate thing. Former President Clinton is still very popular among Latinos and he doesn`t speak Spanish.

BILL CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Prodesco a los mexicanos (ph).

LOPEZ: But he did get a lot of support.

Their issues and the way they present them are going to be a lot more important than if they speak the language…

SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R), FLORIDA: Que la palara (ph) visa Presidente Joe Biden.

LOPEZ: — or don`t speak the language.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Que placar esta aqui con tantos amigos.

LOPEZ: Having someone say it in Espanol will help, but it will not define a candidacy. It will not sway a vote. People are not going to vote for

someone just because they sound like them or they look like them or they have a Hispanic last name.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

(ON SCREEN)

Roll Call

AZUZ: Welcome to the CNN STUDENT NEWS Roll Call.

One source for these schools, our transcript page at CNNStudentNews.com.

West Nodaway High School, we`re calling on the Rockets. They`re in Burlington Junction, Missouri.

Next, the Dodgers of Dodgeville. That`s fun to say. Dodgeville Middle School is in Dodgeville, Wisconsin.

And we wrap up our Roll in Morocco. Great to hear from The Casablanca American School. It`s in Casablanca.

The challenge — replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct, a major bridge in downtown Seattle, Washington. It`s simply worn out.

The method — bore a giant underground tunnel beneath the city.

The tool, Bertha, a massive digging machine built in Japan.

The problem — Bertha broke down and repairing a drill this massive takes an engineering feat in itself.

(ON SCREEN)

Getting Bertha Back on Track

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (voice-over): This is Bertha, one of the world`s biggest digging machines. Bertha`s tall, as high as a five story building.

It measures about as long as a football field and it was named after Bertha Knight Landes, Seattle`s first woman mayor.

But Bertha has a big problem. For more than a year, it`s been sitting broken and useless 60 feet underneath the city`s downtown.

The problems all started in 2013 when Bertha began digging a 1.7 mile highway tunnel using its 260 red and yellow Tungsten carbide teeth.

Bertha`s internal conveyor system moved massive amounts of dirt to the surface for removal. Then, after tunneling about 1,000 feet, Bertha`s

bearings failed and it started overheating.

So the digging stopped until engineers could figure out how to fix it.

Here`s the solution they came up with. Workers dug a vertical shaft 12 stories deep and lined it with concrete. Next, engineers will fire Bertha

back up and send it boring down through that concrete wall and into the shaft.

Then, they`ll hoist its 2,000 ton cutting face to the surface. They`ll fix it and then they`ll lower it back into the tunnel. Engineers hope Bertha

will be able to dig the tunnel`s remaining mile and a half.

Will it work?

Will Bertha come through in the end?

There`s a lot at stake. Failure will hike the price tag of the $2 billion project even higher and delay its completion even longer.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

(ON SCREEN)

Before We Go

AZUZ: Basketball buzzer beaters are always fun, at least for the team that gets them. But this one is nothing short of amazing.

Why?

Because it`s made from half court. This happened at an event for wounded U.S. service members at Fort Belvoir. Wheelchair basketball is one of the

events that dozens of American athletes compete in. It helps determine who will advance to a major Department of Defense competition this summer.

We`d say that guy has got a pretty good shot. It makes sense he`d get a lot of buzz for it. It netted him some nationwide attention.

I`m Carl Azuz, CNN STUDENT NEWS rebounds tomorrow.

CARL AZUZ, HOST: It`s Thursday, February 19th, and we`re glad you`re taking 10 minutes for CNN STUDENT NEWS.

I`m Carl Azuz at the CNN Center.

We`ve seen a couple of important dates on international calendars this week.

Yesterday was Ash Wednesday, the first day of the Christian season of Lent. Many Christians have a cross marked in ashes on their foreheads.

For Roman Catholics, it comes from the palms used on Palm Sunday. Lent is a time of fasting and repentance lasting 40 days, until Easter Sunday. It

commemorates the 40 days Jesus Christ fasted in the desert.

And today is the Chinese New Year. It`s also called Lunar New Year because it starts with the new moon and lasts 15 days, until the moon is

full. It`s a major holiday for Chinese all over the world. In fact, it`s the world`s annual human migration, with millions of Chinese workers going

home for the holidays.

2015 is the year of the sheep or goat in the Chinese zodiac. Some who follow Chinese astrology expect it to be a good year, some don`t. But

celebrations are taking place far and wide.

It`s one of the world`s greatest aviation and maritime mysteries — what happened to Malaysia Airlines Flight 370?

On its way from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to Beijing, China, it vanished from radar on March 8th of last year. The search has been anything but

smooth.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANNA COREN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Among the massive container ships and live export vessels at Perth`s Freemantle Harbor is a

boat that`s just arrived at port. This is Discovery, a former Norwegian Coast Guard vessel that`s taking part in one of the most challenging

searches in history.

CHRIS MORRIS, FURGO DISCOVERY SURVEY CHIEF: If there is a plane down there, you know, we will see it. It will show up in our records. But it

takes time.

COREN: Chris Morris and his survey team have just spent the past 42 days looking for MH370 in the remote Southern Indian Ocean, 1,000 nautical

miles offshore.

JAMES KENT, DATA SUPERVISOR: You see it`s trailing here. We`ve got the whole survey area where we started with the seventh arc. We`re looking

at this southern section down here.

COREN: The Boeing 777, with 239 people on board, disappeared almost a year ago. And according to satellite data, experts believe it`s somewhere

here on the ocean floor.

After an initial search zone roughly half the size of the United States, it`s been narrowed down to a priority area of 60,000 square

kilometers. But the conditions are horrendous. Trenches, volcanoes and underwater mountains are part of the terrain. And for the sonar equipment

that`s towed 10 kilometers behind the ship and four kilometers below, it`s a logistical nightmare.

As for the conditions above the surface, search crews recently weathered three cyclones and waves up to 16 meters high.

(on camera): If MH370 is in the Southern Indian Ocean, then the discovery is one of four ships that is going to help find it. They`ve

already covered one third of the priority search area and are on schedule to complete the zone by May.

But what they`re looking for, the debris field on the ocean floor, is quite literally a speck on a map.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

AZUZ: We`ve talked before about the Mars One project. It hopes to start a colony on the red planet by sending people there in groups of four,

starting in 2024. They just announced they whittled down the list of 100 candidates out of the 200,000 people who applied for the project. It`s a

one way ticket.

A recent MIT study found that if — if the first colonists safely make the seven month journey to Mars, they could expect to live on the planet

about 68 days. There is a way to research what Mars life could be like without having to give up stuff like, say, oxygen.

(ON SCREEN)

Camp Mars

Hanksville, Utah

ASHLEY DALE, COMMANDER, MARSCREW 134: Transitioning from Earth life to Mars life, in terms of the way I do things, has been quite interesting.

MICHAELA MUSILOVA, SCIENTIST, MARSCREW 134: Going to this Mars Desert Research Station is really a first step for me in my path of hopefully

becoming an astronaut one day. And ideally, would like to be one of the first people to actually go and colonize Mars in the future.

DALE: The Mars Desert Research Station was a facility put together about 15 years ago by a group of individuals, primarily from NASA and the

European Space Agency. They run the facility, but scientists and engineers from around the world come here for two weeks to conduct relevant research

in getting people to Mars.

Here on Earth, there are three places that are just like Mars. We`ve got the mountains of Hawaii, we`ve got the Atacama Desert in South America,

and we`ve got South Central Utah, really out in the middle of nowhere.

We try to live here like we would on Mars. But when you go to Mars, it`s very difficult. The sunlight level on Mars is about half of what it

is on Earth. It`s about one and a half times the distance from the sun. The gravity of Mars is about a third of what we have on Earth, 38 percent,

to be exact.

Here on Earth, traveling with the transportation rover at top speed would be about half of what I could achieve on Mars.

MUSILOVA: All these things that we`re essentially simulating here are actually very real in terms of what astronauts experience out there.

Everything here is limited. We have no space. We have limited water supply, a limit amount of food supply.

SUSAN JEWELL, OFFICER, MARSCREW 134: It just (INAUDIBLE) no matter how creative you are, it just ends up tasting the same.

MUSILOVA: You know, we can`t get any help. We`re completely reliant on ourselves.

DALE: Several billion years ago, Mars was an ocean planet. Half of it was covered in water. But now all that is frozen into the soil.

With the technology that we have today, we could change Mars back into what it was several billion years ago. The obstacle we face right now is

that there`s no real profit that could be made in going to Mars in the short-term. So money is the factor.

MUSILOVA: My real dream is to one day, to go into space and become an astronaut. I`m hoping to get humans to Mars, if not myself, then others,

at least. Whether it will happen during my generation, which I really hope it will, or it might happen in the next century or so.

JEWELL: Mars is the best candidate planet for humanity to kind of move to and then maybe one day move even further out into the universe.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

(ON SCREEN)

Roll Call

AZUZ: It is time for the call of the roll.

Here are three of the schools watching CNN STUDENT NEWS today.

Kemp Junior High School is where you`ll find the Yellow Jackets. They`re watching in The Lone Star State of Texas, in the city of Kemp.

It makes sense that Big Sky High School would be in big sky country. That`s Montana. And Missoula is where we found The Eagles.

And in The Centennial State, The Falcons are on our Roll. They`re soaring over Highlands Ranch High School in Highlands Ranch, Colorado.

It`s a film industry event dating back 87 years. MGM studio boss Louis B. Mayer and some of his dinner guests established The Academy of

Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. It`s the namesake of the Academy Awards. You`ve heard Oscar winners thank the Academy.

Who is the Academy?

Who actually determines the end of the sentence, “And the Oscar goes to?”

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (voice-over): The Academy Awards are just about the highest honor a film can get.

But who decides who goes home with the Oscar gold?

First, there are some very specific rules to get nominated. The film must be more than 40 minutes in length, must be publicly screened at a

theater in Los Angeles County and must be screened for a qualifying run of at least seven straight days.

After that, ballots are sent out and the nominations are whittled down by Academy members. Their identities are closely guarded secrets, but

here`s what we do know.

There are about 6,000 members, who are mostly white, mostly male and getting up there in age, 62 being about the average.

To become a member of the Academy, you`ve got a couple of options. Be nominated for an Oscar yourself or get yourself two recommendations from

other Academy members.

The real Hollywood magic happens right after nominations are announced. Studios make a mad dash to make sure the Academy watches their

movies. Stars of the movies will attend screenings, do press events, red carpets, interviews, you name it, just to get more buzz for their film.

In LA, studios spend millions on TV and radio ads. It`s kind of like what happens during a big election and all you see are political ads. But

it`s an annual marketing blitz to try to sway members.

And just before Oscar night, accounting firm Price Waterhouse Coopers tallies up all the votes that finally get read on that magical night.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

(ON SCREEN)

Before We Go

AZUZ: It`s been said you learn something new every day. Today, I learned there`s a Washington, DC snowball fight association. And I learned

a little about what they do.

U.S. government employees got the day off Tuesday, something, because of a snowstorm up there. Anyway, the association organized this event, an

opportunity for federal staffers, college students, teachers and non-profit workers to pelt each other with snowballs.

I guess that`s all you can do when the weather outside is fight-ful. Oh, they could have played freeze tag or freeze bee or even red snowver,

but a good old snowball fight really puts you in the throes of the action.

I`m Carl Azuz.

And just the thought of more cold weather puns makes me freeze up.

CARL AZUZ, HOST: The fact that Fridays are awesome may not be breaking news, but it is welcome news on the last day of the school week.

I`m Carl Azuz for commercial-free CNN STUDENT NEWS.

First up, President Obama has wrapped up a three day meeting in Washington with hundreds of officials from around the world. The focus —

putting an end to what the president calls violent extremism.

He pushed for a global effort to combat the root causes of it.

But some critics, including a CNN national security analyst, say the president`s words don`t go far enough, that it`s a mistake for him to avoid

terms like “Islamic extremism,” as the U.S. leads the fight against the terrorist group that calls itself Islamic State.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JIM ACOSTA, HOST (voice-over): Trying to strike a careful balance, President Obama urged communities to be on the lookout for radicals seeking

to spread terror in the U.S., as he defended the language he`s used on the threat posed by ISIS.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Al Qaeda and ISIL and groups like it are desperate for legitimacy. They try to portray

themselves as religious leaders, holy warriors in defense of Islam.

They are not religious leaders, they`re terrorists. And we are not at war with Islam. We are at war with people who have perverted Islam.

ACOSTA: At a White House summit aimed at tackling violent extremism, the president pointed out Muslims are often ISIS victims.

He also noted the young Muslim-Americans recently killed in a high profile murder case in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. While investigators

haven`t linked the attack to the victims` faith, their deaths prompted a Muslim prayer protest outside the White House.

Even as the summit is focusing on Muslim communities, the administration has strained to avoid using terms like Islamic extremism.

SEN. TED CRUZ (R), TEXAS: The words “radical Islamic terrorism” do not come out of the president`s mouth. The word “jihad” does not come out

of the president`s mouth. And that is dangerous.

ACOSTA: It just seems like you`re — you`re tiptoeing through the tulips here.

JOSH EARNEST, DEPUTY WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Well, I don`t think I`m tiptoeing anywhere. I think we`ve been pretty clear about exactly what

we`re trying to fight here. This is not a religious war. This is not a war on Islam. And those individuals do not represent Islam.

You noted that there have been some flak that we`ve taken. It`s worth it.

ACOSTA: This imam from Minnesota who attended the summit argued the U.S. should focus on the terrorists` actions, not their professed faith.

ABDISALAM ADAM, IMAM, ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA: I think there is a problem. I mean I`m not going to deny there are, you know, people of the

Muslim faith who are doing the wrong things and not responsible for their actions. And that should be very clear to all Americans and everyone.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

(ON SCREEN)

Roll Call

AZUZ: From Asia to America, we`re going globe-trotting on today`s Roll Call.

We`ll start in Myanmar, a nation also known as Burma. Hello to the International School at Yangon. It`s good to see you in Yangon, Myanmar.

From Seattle, Washington, we heard from Chief Sealth International High School. Hello to the Sea Hawks on the West Coast.

And last but not least, the Trojans, Pahrump Valley High School in Pahrump, Nevada, welcome to the Roll.

During the Great Depression, thousands of banks failed in the U.S. and people lost billions of dollars. To restore their trust in banks, the

government established the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, FDIC, in 1933.

It insures the money that people deposit in the banks. If the bank fails, the government guarantees Americans can still get their money.

But when it comes to today`s crypto-currencies, there is no FDIC. They`re under their own set of rules.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When you look into the future, what do you see?

Not so long ago, the thought of reaching into your digital pocket for a digital currency might have seemed too far-fetched.

Not anymore. Cryptocurrencies are digital money and they`re on the rise. It`s a method of payment which cuts out the banks. Is peer to peer,

person to person. And it`s all done digitally.

The most popular is bitcoin. It was the first of its kind in 2009. Now, there are many others like Litecoin and Feathercoin. Even the small

Northern English city of Hull has its own cryptocurrency, Hullcoin, for local people to spent in their local shops and on local services.

But back to bitcoin.

You can`t hold it in your hand, it`s a long stream of numbers and letters stored on a computer or on your phone. Now, more than $1 million

is being traded in bitcoin every day. The currency is decentralized, which means there`s no central bank or person controlling everything.

Transaction history is hidden or encrypted into the long chain of letters and numbers that is each coin`s identity, hence the name,

cryptocurrency.

Just like real cash, they can be divided up. Instead of cents or pennies, you can spend or purchase down to 1/1000th of a bitcoin.

Powerful computers create new bit coins by solving complex equations. It`s called mining and involves billions of calculations per second.

When there are 21 million bit coins, the process will stop.

Fans of cryptocurrencies like the fact that no single person or institution has control, something which has appealed to Internet

criminals. This lack of regulation means users aren`t protected if something goes wrong.

Cryptocurrencies are worth whatever the market is willing to pay for them. That can make the system volatile, meaning prices can rise and fall

very suddenly.

The idea is still very new, when you think that the first ever bank notes were traded in China in the seventh century.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

AZUZ: On a smart phone or tablet, most apps are small programs that help you do something specific — counting steps or calories or new

followers.

But there`s a relatively new one with the potential for massive impact and it`s free. It connects users who are blind with volunteers who can see

and want to help.

When we put this show together, it was linking about 13,000 blind people with around 139,000 sighted people. After every session, there`s a

chance for both sides to rate each other. That helps keep people from abusing the system.

It`s not available on anything but newer iPhones at this point, but for those who have them, it`s building a network of people helping one

another.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NEFERTITI MATOS, BLIND USER, BE MY EYES: Please identify some of the items in this vending machine.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I see chips.

SAMUEL BURKE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Nefertiti Matos is blind and she`s using Be My Eyes, a free iPhone app that connects her to sighted volunteers

via a video call.

MATOS: The first time I used it was here in the office. I just went to this vending machine that has no Braille symbols, no tactile anything.

And with Be My Eyes, I was able to identify, there`s a lot of junk food in there, but knowing that, I now could go up there and purchase something.

It`s very freeing.

BURKE: When you`re not using the app, when you have to ask somebody out in the street, is that something that`s tiresome for the vision

impaired?

MATOS: It can be. And it also makes me personally feel like it leaves this impression of dependency. And so I feel like technology of

this kind really furthers us along and giving the proper impression, which is that we can do anything, really, with the right tools and training.

BURKE (voice-over): Be My Eyes can empower the blind users as well as volunteers like Melissa Gold.

(on camera): The first time that you got a blind person calling, what was that moment like?

MELISSA GOULD, VOLUNTEER, BE MY EYES: It was sort of surreal. I just answered the call and it was a woman holding her phone at her problem,

which was on the floor. She had dropped her necklace. It was sort of surreal. I just answered the call and it was a woman holding her phone at

her problem, which was on the floor. She had dropped her necklace. And I just kept saying OK, go a little right, go a little lower. And then I

could see her hand and she took it.

And it was a little beautiful moment. I felt happy that I could help someone.

What I really feel about this app is that it`s a good deed waiting to happen.

MATOS: Open Be My Eyes.

BURKE: Blind users say the only change the app really needs is more sighted volunteers.

MATOS: I`ve been known to wait up to about five, six minutes. And by that time, I`m just like, OK, is there a sighted person around?

Could you please tell me what train station this is?

Change the app really needs is more sighted volunteers.

MATOS: I`ve been known to wait up to about five, six minutes. And by that time, I`m just like, OK, is there a sighted person around?

Could you please tell me what train station this is?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: 23 Street Station.

MATOS: Perfect.

Well, thank you very much.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There you go.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

(ON SCREEN)

Before We Go

AZUZ: Brand loyalty can be a powerful thing and not just among humans. Consider, if you will, Mango the border collie. He prefers Flippy

Flopper brand flying discs, not Soft Bite.

How do we know?

There you go. His owner says he`d rather let a Soft Bite disc hit him in the face rather than catch one. He`s turned his nose up at them ever

since the local store stopped selling his favorite brand.

Well, you can`t accuse him of flip-flopping. He`s disc-covered his favorite. And if you put a spin on that, you will catch protest.

Who knew canines could be such doggone snobs?

I`m Carl Azuz.

We`ll Frisbee back Monday.

Hope you catch some rest and fun this weekend.