Fridays are awesome. So are jobs, chocolate and football. They are all featured today
on CNN STUDENT NEWS. First up, the U.S. will be getting a new Attorney General. Eric Holder
announced yesterday he`ll resign from his job. The Attorney General leads the U.S.
Department of Justice. It`s the highest legal job in the land. Holder became the first African-American
Attorney General in 2009. Opinions of his work are strongly partisan. Democrats generally
think he did a good job, saying he made achievements in civil rights. Republicans mostly wanted
him out saying he disregarded the U.S. Constitution. Holder`s strongly supported the same sex marriage,
and he prioritized issues related to voting rights. He also became the first U.S. cabinet
member to be held in contempt of Congress after he refused to turn over documents related
to a failed government program involving guns and Mexican drug cartels.
The latest targets in the U.S.-led war against the ISIS terrorist group, oil refineries in
Syria. ISIS has been using these to pay for its operations getting up to $2 million a
day from them. The U.S. wants that stopped, even though the U.S. military official says
the group has a billion dollars in the bank.
ISIS stands for Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. The terrorist group wants its own country
in the region, bases on its own interpretation of Islam.
ISIS has slaughtered civilians, soldiers, journalists, and an American defense official
says the fight against ISIS will likely last for years.
It won`t be cheap.
Expending military strikes into Syria come with an expending bill to pay for the effort.
U.S. military forces and its coalition partners launched air attacks in the country, with
the blunt force of 47 tomahawk missiles across northern and eastern Syria.
Those weapons which carry thousand pound warheads and can be reprogrammed in flight, have a
hefty price tag, $1.5 million apiece, and that`s just the beginning. For the first assault,
the Pentagon said four dozen fighter jets took off from both land and sea, loaded with
200 pieces of munition.
Now, between fuel and maintenance the cost for flying these jets on an hourly basis ranges
from 22,000 to 62,000 with the air force`s newest and most stealthy aircraft, the F-22
Raptor, topping the least.
As for these jets are carrying, outside military experts point to the JDAN, the joint direct
attack munition, which can be launched miles away from the target. Its manufacturer Boeing
calls it the warfighter`s weapon of choice. It goes for about $29,000. And the SDB, the
small diameter bomb, which is dubbed the all-weather solution.
It goes for about $21,000. Now, it`s easy to see how the bill for these operations adds
up. The last we hear from the Pentagon it said the costs were averaging about $7.5 million
a day. But the back of the envelope estimate for the Tomahawks alone is $70 million. Granted,
these are missiles the U.S. and its partners have in their arsenals. But those will likely
need to be replenished.
Bottom line, the average daily cost has to be significantly higher today than it was
just a few weeks ago.
From Thursday`s transcript page at cnnstudentnews.com. Here are three of the thousands who wanted
a mention on our "Roll Call". Prowling around Hollis, Oklahoma, say hello to the Tigers.
They are at Hollis High School. In Flowood, Mississippi, we`ve got the Chargers watching.
They are at Northwest Rankin Middle School. And over to Germany now, it`s great to see
everyone at Teresa von Bairon (ph) Shuler (ph) in Munich.
A recent report looked at 464 different types of jobs in the U.S. It found that if you are
looking to work in a secure profession, one of your best bets is in the medical field.
Optometrists, podiatrists, nurses, we are going to need more of them in the years ahead.
Also, blue collar fields, waste water treatment plant workers, building inspectors, we`ll
need those, too. And if you are going into a stem field, in general, the harder the degree,
the better the pay.
Stem. It stands for science, technology, engineering and math. There`s a school of thought. There
are more jobs than there are qualified people to feel them.
The theory, train more Americans, reduce unemployment and help the economy. Let`s look at the class
of 2012. Just 16 percent of undergraduates got a degree in the stem majors. That seems
small, right?
The Obama administration certainly thinks so, and has invested millions to increase
those numbers. But is it worth it? Some say no, they say there is no skills gap, just
a lack of competitive wages and training options from companies. There`s no doubt STEM jobs
are on the rise. The Department of Commerce predicts they`ll grow nearly twice as much
as other professions between 2008 and 2018, and that workers in another fields are more
likely to be unemployed.
So, how about wages?
The same report shows that STEM workers earn 26 percent more. In fact, the top ten paying
majors for the graduating class of 2013 were all STEM. But, before you reach for that (INAUDIBLE),
let me drop some knowledge.
The Bureau of Labor says the vast majority of STEM jobs are related to computers and
I.T. Their mean wages are higher than the U.S. average, but not by much.
And guess what, CareerBuilder says I.T. jobs are the hardest ones to fill. So, what about
the big bucks? The five highest paying STEM graduates jobs, according to Forbes, are marine
engineer, petroleum engineer, nuclear engineer, technology analyst and chemical engineer.
You know, the easy ones.
So, as technology evolves and becomes an even bigger part of our lives, one thing is clear:
no matter what job you do, STEM will be everywhere. So make sure you are ready.
See if you can I.D. me, I`m a food that`s being consumed for hundreds of years. First,
by indigenous people of Mexico.
I`m made from the seeds of a fruit tree, many would - their best when ground up and combined
with milk and sugar. I`m chocolate. And my seeds come from the cacao tree.
Those seeds are used to make everything from the chocolate we eat to the cocoa we bake
with to the syrups we put on our ice cream. They were used as money by the Maya, who lived
in what is now Mexico.
But chocolate, as we know it, didn`t get popular until the 1850. So, is it healthy? As part
of his "Living to 100" series, Dr. Sanjay Gupta looks into that. The answer - sort of.
(Ph)
Everyone likes to hear that chocolate could be good for them, and the truth is that it
can be, but there are a couple of caveats. First, chocolate just because of some of the
ingredients in it, tends to increase your metabolic rate a little bit.
That`s the number of calories you are burning just by sitting there.
It is also giving you some, calories, obviously. But when you take both those things in comparison,
you are burning a little bit more than you are taking in, as long as you don`t overdo
it.
So, there are good chocolates and there are not so good chocolates. You`ve probably heard
that dark chocolates probably are going to be your best bet.
In addition to that metabolic effect it has, it`s also rich in more anti- oxidants, things
that will help clean up some of the - the dirty cells in your body.
Cacao chocolate is not quite as popular, but it can have some health benefits as well.
It can lower the bad levels of cholesterol, known as LDL, and can help raise the good
levels, HDO, just a little bit.
You want to find about 60 or 70 percent cocoa in the chocolate you might be buying.
So, if you want to live to 100, you can eat chocolate, but just a little bit.
Friday night football, watching your team blast through a banner and onto the field.
Not all banners are created equal. A New York peeve team found that out recently. They charged
at full speed, but unfortunately, for the wall kill mighty mites, the sign was mightier.
The first few players are closed line, others just pile on. To their credit, it`s made out
of vinyl. It was being held backwards, and the Velcro fasteners didn`t break away like
they should have. So, even though it made the first tackle of the game, the bad sign
wasn`t a bad sign, the mighty mites won 24 to nothing. It was truly a banner night. They`ll
have to decide whether to keep the sign or banner it. Either way, it shouldn`t be too
hard to vinyl another one. I`m Carl Azuz. Thanks you for watching. Have a victorious
weekend.