Fridays are awesome. This is the 10 minutes of commercial free current events known as
CNN STUDENT NEWS. My name is Carl Azuz. If you were to ride a rollercoaster with ups
and downs like the stock market`s had recently, you`d be sick. The Dow Jones Industrial Average
is exactly that, an average of 30 significant stocks in the New York Stock Exchange. It`s
one measure of how the whole stock market is doing. Wednesday, it jumped; yesterday,
it dropped. 335 points, its worst day of the year in points. Why? One reason is the European
economy.
Investors are getting nervous that Germany, Europe`s biggest economy, could slip into
a recession. And when investors get nervous, they sell stocks.
Another reason, The Fed. Its recent moves indicate that it thinks global economic growth
may be slowing down.
So we`ve all heard that phrase, that, you know, money makes the world go around, but
you may have asked yourself once or twice, OK, well, who makes the money go around? And
so the answer is the Federal Reserve, or as my friends and I like to call it, the Fed.
So the Fed is pretty much unlike any other U.S. institution that I can think of. It`s
run by a board of governors based in Washington, D.C. It had 12 Federal Reserve banks located
around the main banking centers of the country. So places like New York, San Francisco, Philadelphia.
The presidents of these banks and the board of governors, they meet eight times a year
to make big policy decisions and to ensure the economy is moving at a stable clip. So
the Congress oversees the Fed, but the Fed does not really answer to Congress. The Fed
operates completely independently, because the Fed doesn`t care about politics. All it
cares about is basically two things. Number one, keeping prices stable. And no. 2, trying
its best to ensure that everybody who wants a job gets one.
So if the economy is heating up, it tries to cool things down by raising the cost of
borrowing by making it harder to borrow money. And if things are getting too cold, it does
the opposite. So you can sort of think of the Fed like Goldilocks. It doesn`t really
like things too hot, too cold.
It wants everything to be just right.
So you`re probably wondering, OK, well, how does the Fed work its magic? What is its secret
weapon? The answer is interest rates. So the way the Fed gets interest rates at just that
right level, at that sweet spot, is through buying and selling U.S. Treasuries and other
bonds. So when it wants to cool the market down, it sells U.S. Treasuries, stashes away
the cash, and that reduces the money supply, so that makes it harder to borrow money, and
that basically slows down economic growth. When it really wants to heat the market up,
it essentially starts buying up U.S. Treasuries and other bonds. That floods the market with
cash and fuels economic growth. So it`s not necessarily a perfect system, but it works,
at least for now.
And as they say on Wall Street, don`t fight the Fed.
In Hong Kong, the city`s government has called off talks with protesters, and it`s not clear
what will happen next in the standoff between these two sides. Some background. Thousands
turned out in recent weeks, most of them students. They blocked access to Hong Kong`s business
district. They demanded a greater say in how Hong Kong`s leader is chosen, without intervention
from mainland China. Hong Kong`s current leader was approved by China. He says the upcoming
elections will be fair, and his government has called the protests illegal. But it also
scheduled talks with the protesters, talks the government called off when protest leaders
asked supporters to keep their occupations going.
The protests in Hong Kong have set the territory`s population in direct confrontation with its
political masters in Beijing. Here is the history. For 150 years, Hong Kong was ruled
by Britain, and as a result, Hong Kong people came to enjoy a number of freedoms that are
unheard of on the mainland, freedom of the press, freedom of expression, and freedom
of assembly, the right to protest. Now, when Britain handed Hong Kong back to China in
1997, China promised to keep Hong Kong`s special status. They called it one country, two systems.
Including allowing Hong Kong people to have direct election of their chief executive,
their governor, so to speak, by the year 2017. It is that promise that Beijing is now reneging
on, saying that the Hong Kong people can vote, but it`s Beijing that is going to choose the
candidates.
Here is what`s at stake. It`s precisely Hong Kong`s special status that has made it so
attractive to so many people. 60,000 Americans live there.
Hundreds of thousands of foreigners. Hundreds of foreign companies, including American companies,
as well as thousands of mainland Chinese, who come to Hong Kong precisely for those
freedoms that Hong Kong has but mainland China does not.
Now, from China`s perspective, however, protests are a direct challenge to Beijing`s rule,
and they worry about them not only in Hong Kong, but they worry about protests there
spreading to mainland cities, and that`s why, if you are living in mainland China right
now, you are not seeing any press coverage whatsoever of those protests in Hong Kong.
You can`t even read about it on social media.
So what now? The trouble is, neither side seems willing or capable of backing down.
From the Chinese side, Chinese president Xi Jingping, who was once heralded as a reformer,
is actually just as repressive as his predecessors. In some ways, more so, cracking down on dissidents,
censoring news coverage of stories like the protests in Hong Kong.
Now, from the Hong Kong perspective, though, people there feel that they are fighting for
their very lives. And this is one thing to keep in mind.
25 years ago, when the Chinese government brutally cracked down on popular protests
in Beijing, the people of Hong Kong mourned, and those memories are still raw. The fear
today that Hong Kong could suffer the same fate.
We`re getting tropical on this Friday`s roll call. Starting in South America and working
our way north. Paramaribo is the capital of Suriname, and it`s where we`re online at the
International Academy of Suriname with the Toucans. On the Hawaiian island of Honolulu,
there is the La Pietra Hawaii School for Girls. The Lady Panthers are watching the CNN STUDENT
NEWS today. And we conclude our call in Concord. It`s a town in Vermont, and it is where we`re
happy to see the Wild Cats of Concord School.
We have covered two significant viral outbreaks this school year. One is the highly deadly
Ebola virus. The other is called enterovirus or enterovirus D68. It`s far less dangerous
than Ebola, and it`s much more likely that you`ve been exposed to it. In fact, doctors
say that most people who get enterovirus D68 have nothing more than a runny nose and a
cough, and that as a whole, it`s a lot less impactful than the flu. Still, it has sickened
hundreds of people in more than 40 U.S. states. It was linked to the death of a 4-year-old
last month. So if you`ve had cold symptoms, how do you know when it`s time to see a doctor?
Here is what you need to know about enterovirus D68. Enterovirus in general has been around
for decades and it`s fairly common.
In fact, the CDC estimates 10 to 15 million cases in the U.S. every year. But this year,
confirmed cases are much higher, with more severe symptoms.
Who is most at risk? Infants, children and teenagers. That`s because their immune systems
are still developing. Adults can get it too, but they are more likely to have mild to no
symptoms.
The symptoms are much like a bad cold. The runny nose, coughing, a fever, but more severe
cases include wheezing and difficulty breathing. That`s when it`s time to call a doctor. And
here is the scary part. Enterovirus may also be linked to a small number of cases of a
mysterious neurological illness. This was reported in Colorado, Boston, and Michigan.
One child in Michigan even developed partial paralysis.
So how is the enterovirus spread? Much like a cold. It spreads through the air and lives
on surfaces like doorknobs or toys. But there is no vaccine. The best way to protect yourself
is to wash your hands and avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth. And stay at home if
you`re feeling sick.
Cat plus cafe equals cat-fe. That`s the idea of this event in Los Angeles. It`s part cat
petting zoo, part eatery, part animal shelter.
Because the food isn`t all you can take out. If you bond with a cat, say over coffee or
a sandwich, you can adopt it. The goal is to get all of the animals adopted out, and
yes, they are kept separate from where the food`s made, so there is no risk of sharing
a hairball with a hairball.
What does the menu look like at a cat-fe? Bet they have calid (ph) coffee, cat-puccino,
cat-fe au lait, Americatno, mochichito (ph), purrshinstant (ph) frappercino (ph), himalatayan
(ph) and of course, Javanese. Those are some fresh brewed puns right there, y`all. Have
a great weekend. Hope to see you Monday.