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CNN Student News
Aired February 28, 2002 - 04:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANNOUNCER: You're watching "CNN STUDENT NEWS" seen in schools around the world because learning never stops and neither does the news.
SUSAN FREIDMAN, CO-HOST: Your "CNN STUDENT NEWS" for Thursday is underway. The hunt for bin Laden extends to the science lab. Get the details in our "Lead Story."
SHELLEY WALCOTT, CO-HOST: Later, we "Chronicle" the musical mix of girls and Grammys.
FREIDMAN: Then, are you ready for a new millennium system of identification? Check it out in today's "Science Report."
WALCOTT: And moving on to our "Student Bureau Report," we sit down with Education Secretary Rod Paige.
FREIDMAN: Welcome to "CNN STUDENT NEWS". I'm Susan Freidman.
WALCOTT: And I'm Shelley Walcott.
The U.S. war on terrorism may expand to the Republic of Georgia. The Pentagon says it's thinking about sending up to 200 troops there to boost internal security. The troops would help train the Georgian army to go after al Qaeda cells and guerrillas linked to Osama bin Laden.
FREIDMAN: The overriding question right now among many government and military officials is whether Osama bin Laden is dead or alive. In an effort to answer that question, the Pentagon is asking some of bin Laden's relatives to provide DNA samples. Officials hope to end speculation that bin Laden was killed in a recent CIA military strike in Eastern Afghanistan.
CNN's Barbara Starr reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BARBARA STARR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Trying to determine whether Osama bin Laden was killed in missile strike in Afghanistan, sources tell CNN that the U.S. government has asked the bin Laden family for DNA samples. And sources confirm the request was made through foreign government intermediaries in the last few days. A spokesman for Osama bin Laden's brothers and sisters tells CNN that the government could readily get family tissue samples from doctors and hospitals where bin Laden family members have been treated. The family has disowned Osama bin Laden and is willing to cooperate, he said.
The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology is studying human remains collected in eastern Afghanistan after a CIA missile, fired from an unmanned drone, killed three men on February 4th. A video camera on the drone showed that one of them was tall, dressed in Arab robes and treated with deference by the other two.
The best test option would be DNA from Osama bin Laden himself, but the U.S. doesn't have any. DNA from bin Laden's mother, or any of his brothers and sisters who have the same mother could also establish whether the remains are bin Laden's. DNA from a half-sibling, one with the same father, but a different mother, is another possibility. But a match is less certain.
(on camera): Officials insist that they have no particular reason to believe that Osama bin Laden was killed in that CIA missile strike. But if they can get the DNA tissue samples, they hope to learn more about his fate.
Barbara Starr, CNN, the Pentagon.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WALCOTT: Our "Headlines" begin with a familiar story today, the collapse of Enron. Yesterday, Wall Street analysts were called to testify before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee. Senators questioned the panel on why they recommended buying Enron stock even as the energy company was headed toward bankruptcy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOE LIEBERMAN (D), CONNECTICUT: Enron's ad campaign, or one of them, is, some may remember, was ask why. It now seems clear that too many analysts failed to ask why before they said buy. And often when they did ask why but didn't get a straight answer from Enron's executives, they went right on touting the stock.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALCOTT: Yesterday, a study came out stating underage drinkers consume 25 percent of alcohol in the U.S. A federal health agency is disputing those numbers though. According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the figures should be 11.4 percent. However, the agency said regardless of any discrepancies between their analysis of data and the study's reported results, underage drinking remains a serious problem in the United States.
And our "Headlines" wrap up today with the space shuttle and a rather large telescope. If all goes according to plan, the shuttle will rocket into orbit Friday. The purpose: a service mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. This will be one of the last missions planned by NASA to keep the telescope in good working order.
Miles O'Brien gives us a preview of the trip and the possible future of Hubble.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): You're looking at Hubble Mission Control. Astronomers here have borne witness to a 24- by-7 stream of cosmological revelation for about a decade now. Amazing, isn't it? Launched with a flawed mirror and myopic vision, at first Hubble didn't just rhyme with trouble, it embodied it in epic proportions.
Astronomer Ed Weiler was there for it all, including the day in December of '93 when the first 20/20 image appeared on the screens.
ED WEILER, NASA SCIENCE ADMINISTRATION: We knew we had redemption from going from a national joke that the nighttime TV hosts were, you know, using us to we did it, we fixed it, and then the rest is history. We went from a "national disgrace," in some people's minds, to a symbol of the great American comeback.
O'BRIEN: Hubble came back to prove black holes existed and found them all over the place. It found hints of solar systems, like our own, and it showed us how the universe looked 10 billion years ago when galaxies were toddlers.
WEILER: If Hubble is seeing the 7 or 6-year-old kids, the new camera will get us back maybe the 3 or 2 year olds.
O'BRIEN: That new camera, the main reason for this trip, will be 10 times stronger than the one it replaces. Seven astronauts, the fourth crew to service Hubble, will be there for a week, ticking off a long to-do list of telescope improvements during five arduous space walks.
SCOTT ALTMAN, SHUTTLE COLUMBIA COMMANDER: It's an incredibly challenging mission and yet one with an incredible reward as we look at Hubble and extending its reach.
O'BRIEN: Not to mention its depth.
(on camera): Every Hubble image ever beamed back to Earth is here in this room. It used to be they were stored on disks this size in machines which filled up the room. Today the disks are a lot smaller, as you might suspect, and so are the machines. But don't let the size fool you, inside here is 7.5 terabytes of Hubble data. To put that in some perspective, the entire Library of Congress consists of 10 terabytes.
MARK POSTMAN, HUBBLE DATA PROCESSING CHIEF: The sum total of all the data we have is pretty impressive.
O'BRIEN (voice-over): But wait, there's more. Hubble successor, the so-called Next Generation Telescope, will orbit much farther from Earth and use infrared cameras to capture the universe at the beginning. That's eight years away. But don't count Hubble out even then.
WEILER: Because Hubble is so powerful, there's a lot of science buried in those observations.
O'BRIEN: Even when Hubble is gone, it most certainly will not be forgotten.
Miles O'Brien, CNN, Baltimore.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WALCOTT: Do you listen to rap music? Well if you do, you're probably familiar with a song that's been striking a chord with young single parents.
Beth Nissen takes a closer look at how music can become a powerful voice.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
OUTKAST (singing): I'm sorry, Ms. Jackson, I am for real...
BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): If you're under 25, you've probably seen the video, heard the song, and may own it. The album it's on has sold 6 million copies worldwide.
OUTKAST (singing): I am for real...
DAVID WILLIAMS, OUTKAST FAN: The song is just a hot song. But the good thing about it is, it's about something, and they're talking about something that's a realistic issue.
NISSEN: The issue, unwed fatherhood. In the song, boy meets girl, they fall in love, have a baby. Their love dies, they separate. Girl and her mother -- that's Ms. Jackson -- are angry. The song is an apology from the young dad.
OUTKAST: Never meant to make your daughter cry, I apologize a trillion times...
NISSEN: It is also a vow to be a committed father to the child.
BILL STEPHNEY, NATIONAL FATHERHOOD INITIATIVE: It's a very deep commentary on the family issue within the community. In 1960, about 80 percent of African-American children were born to two married parents. By 1995, nearly 80 percent were not born to two married parents.
NISSEN: Both members of Outkast, the Atlanta rap duo who wrote the song, grew up without a father in the home and are themselves unwed fathers.
ANDR'E "DR'E" BENJAMIN, OUTKAST: And what we were trying to say with the song was, even though we had a kid, OK, me and the parent not together, I'm going to do my best to do what I can, you know, to take care of my child. ANTIONE "BIG BOI" PATTON: What the man got to realize is, even if you're not with the woman, you know what I'm saying, like, you're with the kid for life, you know what I'm saying, like, that's an obligation.
NISSEN: That resonates with what sociologists say is a growing number of men like these, in a young fathers' support group in Harlem.
GLEN FIELDS, COORDINATOR, LOUISE WISE SERVICES YOUNG FATHERS PROGRAM: That could be coming out of any one of these guys' mouth, what they said in that song.
NISSEN: Take this verse on how separated fathers are often cut off from their kids.
OUTKAST: She never got a chance to hear my side of the story, we was divided. She had fish fries and cookouts, on my child's birthday, I ain't invited.
DARNELL SMITH, YOUNG FATHERS PROGRAM: My daughter's 3, and I missed two of them birthdays, you know what I'm saying, because her mother didn't invite me.
HARRISON DALEY, YOUNG FATHERS PROGRAM: But little do they know, they're not really hurting us more, they're hurting their child more, because not allowing the father to be there for that child's special day.
NISSEN: The song protests the treatment of fathers as just walking wallets.
OUTKAST: And I let her know her grandchild is a baby and not a paycheck. Private schools, day cares, medical bills, I pay that.
FIELDS: Listen, I'm not -- I -- that's not all I want to be is a paycheck. I want to be a paycheck and I want to be Daddy, I want to be the father, I want to be the one near to or the ups and downs with this kid also.
NISSEN: And throughout the child's life.
OUTKAST: So know, just know that everything's cool, and yes, I will be present on the first day of school and graduation. I'm sorry, Ms, Jackson. I am for real.
WILLIAMS: I guarantee I'll be there the first day of school and graduation. And you need to know it and soak it in your brain.
NISSEN: The catchy hit has made its way into the brains of millions of potential fathers.
KENNETH DAVIDSON, OUTKAST FAN: And constantly hearing it on the radio, MTV, the words is going to be automatically just come in your head, and you're going to be saying, (singing) Sorry, Ms. Jackson...
You know what I'm saying? Just constantly it's in your head, it sinks in your head.
NISSEN: These young men say the message sinks in too.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: It's time to start, it got -- it's a change. Everybody has to take responsibility, and just take care of their own.
STEPHNEY: The great thing about rap music is that it's the music of its generation, it's information music. That at the same time that you're getting sometimes melody and a lot of rhythm, you're also getting information that you get to process and digest along with all the cable stations and magazines that are thrown at you.
NISSEN: Outkast sees rap as both soundtrack and creed for a generation.
BENJAMIN: It's powerful, it's like we did this commercial.
PATTON: It's, like, they're not just listening to the beat, they're buying the record, they're listening to the words.
BENJAMIN: Exactly.
PATTON: So long as they walk away with something.
NISSEN (on camera): Can a song like "Ms. Jackson" change minds?
BENJAMIN: Most definitely.
PATTON: We made a song that makes it cool to be a father to your child, you know what I'm saying?
NISSEN (voice-over): Cool to commit to the hardest work there is and stay with it, even through harsh times, to see it through, to do one's part for a brighter future.
Beth Nissen, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WALCOTT: Well last night the music industry turned out for the Grammy Awards, an event to honor its best and brightest with a category with a large female population. Do the names Alicia Keys or Nelly Furtado ring a bell? They're just two of the ladies making their presence felt on today's music scene.
Our Jodi Ross explains.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JODI ROSS, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: They're sisters and ladies. The queens are king. This year the "G" in Grammy could stand for girl.
EMIL WILBEKIN, "VIBE": There were a lot more women coming out on the scene in 2001, and the music that they were making was much more soulful, much more heartfelt, and extremely popular. ROSS: So popular that females dominate top categories like best new artist, song of the year, and the R&B field.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Women, definitely.
ROSS: Leading the pack are newcomers Nelly Furtado, Alicia Keys, and India.Arie with 17 nods among them.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Last year I couldn't get in, see what I am saying?
ROSS: The trio posed for a recent cover of "Entertainment Weekly," headlining the musical story of the year.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I would say it's a girl's world.
WILBEKIN: It's new, it's hip-hop, it's urban. These women have dreadlocks, or braids, and they wear really funky clothes, and it's very artistic. It's not, kind of, this cookie cutter "sex bomb" image that we're used to females having to wear in the music industry. These women are very powerful and strong.
ROSS: In both lyrics and attitude. An eye for an eye is Blu Cantrell's empowering message. Rapper Eve is making no apologies, and Mary J. Blige is taking command of her life.
MARY J. BLIGE, SINGER: I'm not perfect, and there will be drama, but there will be no more negative drama, because I know, you know, the secret to keeping it under control, and that is controlling my emotions.
WILBEKIN: I think we're seeing a change of, not just packaged flashy bling bling, but actually substance, soul, and real music.
ROSS: That's an encouraging trend for nominees and veteran singer/songwriters like Tori Amos, Melissa Etheridge, and Stevie Nicks.
STEVIE NICKS, SINGER: I would say it is probably all about song writing, you know, and that is what I love about this year, is that there really are some wonderful song writers.
MICHAEL GREENE, PRESIDENT, RECORDING ACADEMY: This crop of nominees should make us all very optimistic, that our membership really took the time to look deeply and acknowledge that, wow, here's power, here's prowess.
ROSS: As for Alicia, Nelly, and India, they are just proud to be front and center on a Grammy evening which could become lady's night.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It is a beautiful thing to see.
ROSS: Jodi Ross, CNN Entertainment News, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE) WALCOTT: The female force will be with us in March as we celebrate Women's History Month. We'll profile ladies making moves in all walks of life. We'll have that for you starting next week. You won't want to miss it.
ANNOUNCER: Exploring our world, here now is "CNN STUDENT NEWS" "Perspectives."
FREIDMAN: In "Perspectives" today, the latest in our series of profiles for Black History Month. Today, Tom Joyner. He is often called the hardest working man in radio, but to more than 10 million listeners across the U.S. he is simply the upbeat and entertaining voice that wakes them up every morning, a voice that can crack jokes one minute and deliver political commentary in the next. Joyner was recently honored with a Trumpet Award.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What do you get when you combine voter registration, real fathers, real men, historically black college scholarships, Caribbean cruises, nationwide protests and a whole lot of fun?
UNIDENTIFIED PEOPLE: It's the Tom Joyner Morning Show.
TOM JOYNER, SYNDICATED RADIO SHOW HOST: Hits for the single mom. And we give away a $1,500 scholarship to a single parent at a black college next.
And in between some of the fun, we try to stick in some good information and try to motivate and try to make a difference.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tom credits his activism to growing up in a town steeped in black history and civil rights, Tuskegee, Alabama.
JOYNER: When I was growing up in my little small town of Tuskegee, on the weekends you were in a protest march of some sort. That's what you did on Saturdays.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One weekend, Tom joined a protest march against a radio station that didn't play black music.
JOYNER: The radio station owner comes out and he says, look, I don't need this. I'm going to give you all a show. You can play all the Motown you want. Who wants to do the show on Saturdays? And that's how I got into radio.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Today, the accidental DJ broadcasts to 91 markets, reaching approximately 8.5 million, mostly African-Americans.
JOYNER: They spend money. When you have money, when you -- when you vote, that's juice. Black radio stations then had a real integral part of the Civil Rights Movement, although people don't normally talk about that. But think about it, how did Dr. King get the word out where to march, when to march? Sure he made the announcement in the church, but the church congregation only had a few hundred, maybe a thousand people. They had to go to the radio station.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's not enough to sit around and wait for governments to do what we can do on our own. And fortunately, Tom understood that long before most people.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tom's outreach goes beyond his on-air advocacy. Since 1998, he has raised close to $7 million for scholarships.
JOYNER: The Tom Joyner Foundation does one thing and one thing only, we help students continue their education at historically black colleges. In other words, we're there for the broke student. We're there for the mama and daddy that's run out of money.
HPCU (ph) is very near and dear to me, and my mother helped a lot of students get through school. Helping students to get through school at black colleges is something that I saw from when I was just a small fly jock.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He connects, and when he does, we laugh, we get concerned, we get educated in the process, but most of all, I think we're all better for the fact that we have the ability to turn on our radio and to hear Tom Joyner and his wonderful cast of people.
JOYNER: A good day at work is a day when we can have some good laughs, put out some good information and feel that we've made a difference. That's a real good day at work. And I have those kind of days just about every day. It's rare that I don't have a good day on the job.
UNIDENTIFIED PEOPLE: It's the Tom Joyner Morning Show.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FREIDMAN: For more on Tom Joyner and this year's Trumpet Awards, head to our Web site, CNNstudentnews.com, where you can find all the bios of the recipients, snapshots from the red carpet and so much more.
And while you're on our site, you can also get the latest news and fashion reviews from last night's Grammy Awards, including an interactive quiz. So log on and see how you do.
Biometrics: The statistical analysis of biological observations and phenomena.
FREIDMAN: What relevance does biometrics have to your life? These days it's more than a word, it's a tool against terrorism. As travelers continue to return to the nation's skyways, the fear factor remains high. Authorities are stepping up traditional means of security, but there's a promising new technology on the horizon. This new device could prove highly effective as Maggie Lake reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MAGGIE LAKE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The computer isolates a face in a crowd, a match is made. Biometric technology can process a million images a minute, scanning databases to identify even the most elusive terrorists. It does this by using a computerized blueprint of unique human features such as a face, fingerprint or an eye.
Biometrics technology is not new, but industry pioneers like Joseph Attick, CEO of Visionics, say the September 11 attacks have spurred interest in its benefits.
DR. JOSEPH ATTICK, CEO, VISIONICS: Basic technology running on a -- on a standard processor or computer does not get tired, runs day and night, can handle as many passengers as would pass through any normal hour.
LAKE: While the concept is high tech, the machinery is relatively easy to use and often small enough to be hand held.
(on camera): It may seem straight out of science fiction or a spy movie, but increased security concerns may mean this kind of technology becomes a part of our daily lives.
(voice-over): Analysts say demand for increased security means a big boost to the bottom line of biometric companies.
BRIAN RUTTENBER, MICHIGAN KEEGAN: The potential for biometrics, and specifically facial biometrics, I think, is huge post-September 11. We're talking about in airport security alone, to put -- roll it out to the 400 to 600 airports in the U.S. alone would be you know a couple billion dollars and that's just U.S.
LAKE: But the use won't be limited to the airline industry.
TOM COLATOSTI, PRESIDENT AND CEO, VIISAGE TECHNOLOGY: It's currently installed in about a hundred casinos across the country. It's used by state governments to ensure that driver's license databases are accurate and there's not duplicates in there, physical access control, getting into office buildings, schools, dormitories, ATMs.
PRIANKA CHOPRA, FROST AND SULLIVAN: Perhaps over the next year or two I think you would be interacting with a biometric reader or a biometric template either at your office or while you're traveling or you could have driver's license with your biometric template in it.
LAKE: Frost and Sullivan recently estimated that global biometrics revenues would grow to 900 million in 2006. That's an annual growth rate of about 54 percent and that was before September 11.
Not everyone is a believer. Critics say biometric systems are easily duped and provide only one piece of the security answer. Civil liberties groups are also concerned.
BARRY STEINHARDT, ACLU: Some of these biometric techniques can be used in ways that are perfectly friendly to privacy, but others are going to be used to track us, to record our movements and really in very invasive ways.
LAKE: But that may be something Americans are willing to tolerate if it means a greater sense of security.
Maggie Lake, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FREIDMAN: If you ask U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige the key to his success, he'll likely respond with a pretty simple answer, his education. School has and obviously still does play an important role in his life.
CNN Student Bureau reporter Kristin Parker has more on this man who's leading the effort to improve American schools.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KRISTIN PARKER, CNN STUDENT BUREAU (voice-over): Rod Paige was born in the Deep South during the Great Depression before the Civil Rights Movement began.
ROD PAIGE, U.S. SECRETARY OF EDUCATION: I grew up in a small town in Mississippi, Monticello, Mississippi, to be specific. Wonderful years.
PARKER: His humble beginning gave Paige an inner strength.
PAIGE: I think it's fun to kind of hunger for our achievement. And we were products of a culture that felt that hard work and dedication would be the ingredients that would take you forward. And so studying hard, developing good character were things that were featured, and as a result, we now think that that was a right -- a right prescription.
PARKER: Education has played a major role in Paige's success. His parents were both teachers. He attended college at Mississippi's Jackson State University and then Paige earned a Graduate degree from Indiana University.
His young adult life was heavily influenced by the Civil Rights Movement.
PAIGE: The activities around the Freedom Riders, of the Birmingham jailing of Martin Luther King and all of those kinds of activities so it's pretty turbulent years.
PARKER: Before President Bush named Paige to be his Education Secretary, he served as Dean of Education at Texas Southern University and Superintendent of the Houston Schools.
PAIGE: Well these things that we have for our students is the encouragement to do their best at all times, not to slack off, not to cut corners.
PARKER: Paige has a simple rule for success, a rule he adopted when he was young.
PAIGE: Don't close the door on advancement by doing silly stuff early on in your career thinking it's just fun. There are ways to have fun, there are ways to enjoy yourself and still conduct yourself in a way that's acceptable and is honorable. Because these things are not going to go away, as I said earlier, they will come back to haunt you and they'll close doors in your face.
PARKER: As the first African-American Education Secretary, Rod Paige has already made history, but his biggest mark may still be ahead.
Kristin Parker, CNN Student Bureau, Atlanta.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ONSCREEN: "Where in the World?"
Is a Muslim and Arab state.
A major oil producer.
The landscape is almost all desert?
Can you name this country?
Saudi Arabia.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WALCOTT: That wraps up today's show. I'm Shelley Walcott.
FREIDMAN: And I'm Susan Freidman. We'll see you tomorrow. Have a great day.
WALCOTT: Bye-bye.
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