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CNN STUDENT NEWS For July 31, 2002

Aired July 31, 2002 - 04:00   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: We're all about business this Wednesday. "In the Headlines," President Bush tackles corporate crooks. And we tally the emotional toll of bullying. Your peers speak out in "Chronicle." Fast forward to "Perspectives" to jump into a hot Hollywood debate. And take a trip to somewhere in the world. Here's a clue, it's known as the Keystone State. You have about 26 minutes to figure it out.

Welcome to CNN STUDENT NEWS. I'm Susan Freidman. Glad you could join us.

Pennsylvania is setting up a nine-member special commission to investigate the cause of a dramatic mining disaster. One focus likely will be the inaccurate maps the Quecreek miners were using when they became trapped more than 240 feet below ground. For three days, rescuers dug and drilled determined to get the nine men out. Success came early Sunday morning as each miner was brought to surface. Many involved say the credit belongs to one man.

CNN's Brian Palmer has his story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRIAN PALMER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): After three harrowing days, surveyor Bob Long is back in his regular routine.

PALMER: Tell me what we're looking at?

BOB LONG, ENGINEER TECHNICIAN: Well, right now, I'm just going to get my Rover and the data collector for the GPS unit and get my base started up.

PALMER: Long used this same high-tech GPS gear to tell the rescuers where to drill the 6-inch-wide shaft that kept the trapped miners alive.

LONG: And that was the whole objective, at that point, was to get some warm air down there and some fresh oxygen because, at that point, we didn't know what the atmosphere was.

PALMER: At what point did you know you hit the right spot?

LONG: When we saw -- well, when we saw the drill bit drop down, we knew that we were through and that we hit a void. Within a couple a minutes, the miners starting banging on it, and when we heard the tapping and we knew.

PALMER: Long made sure his measurements were accurate, within a fraction of an inch.

PALMER: They wouldn't have known where to put that air hole, if they didn't know, exactly, what the coordinates were, and that's what surveyors do, correct?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right. Yes, it was a pretty tense moment, when I was driving that stake and I said, right there, that's where you need to go.

PALMER: Long says he'd rather not relive that tense night and the three days that followed. But the payoff, the rescue, was priceless.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I mean, I remember how I felt when my daughter was born, my first daughter, the second one, my son, you know, -- that ranks right there, you know, with -- when they were getting them out, that's what I felt like, you know, like there was a new life, right there.

PALMER: Brian Palmer, CNN, Somerset, Pennsylvania.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FREIDMAN: Now that we know what it was like for the rescuers above ground, let's look at what the survivors went through in the debts below.

For a unique view of that, we go to CNN's Jeff Flock.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELVIN "JAKE" MILLER, RETIRED MINER: It is four feet high. You notice, if you can kneel down like this, I'm 6 foot tall, I can't straighten my head up because it hits the roof.

JEFF FLOCK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: this is what they had been up against, right?

MILLER: The kind of conditions they were in down there the same as this, 4 feet high.

FLOCK: Obviously, were in water, very damp conditions. What do you do when you're like that?

MILLER: Every worker in a coal mine -- this is always wet, damp and dirty, and if you get a break and you want to sit down, you go sit down there and you'll get your butt wet. So a lot of them named this hammer a third leg, so you go like this with it. Now you sit on it like that.

The upholstery is not very good on your butt, but at least it keeps it dry and you're up out of the water.

FLOCK: Reporter: I hear you. If I can see past you. Johnny, can you get past him? We trained some light back there. We have a heck of a lot more light than they had down there. And we can see what it looks like. Again, this is about the same width, and you have got timbers up in here, which they didn't have. This is an old mine, and that's the way you used to do it with these timbers, correct?

MILLER: Yes. The mines now today, technology, they put bolts in the roof to hold the roof up. They don't have these timbers in here no more.

FLOCK: Got you. And in terms of what these guys are going through, Glenn, I got to ask you, this very confined situation, you talked about not really freaking out about anything down here, but that's what they did, correct?

GLENN KERR, SCHOOL TEACHER: Well, I imagine anybody would be a little apprehensive if the water was that high in there. One thing you got to remember, in the mines, if you get excited, you're going to do something stupid and get yourself killed, so you have to maintain your composure as much as you can.

FLOCK: That's what they didn't do. I want to do one thing and show our viewers what it is like. And go ahead and kick our camera lights off, because we brought some additional light backs down in here, and I just want to give them a real sense of what these guys were looking like. Is it possible for you to turn one of your cap lights off, maybe? I don't know, Glenn, if you can. We have the one light.

MILLER: When the guys were in there, this is all the light they had. This thing on my helmet, is shines pretty good. You shine around, it shines pretty good. This here other thing is what they call a methane proof flame safety light. It checks for methane gas and black (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

FLOCK: Of course, they wouldn't have had that, because that would have been knocked over by the flood, right?

MILLER: A boss or an operator, this is on his belt, this is part of his gear. He carries this wherever he goes. He always has it on its belt.

FLOCK: One more time, the lights on if you would, guys, because I want to look at the sides. I'm looking at coal here is that, correct?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

FLOCK: This is just -- whoa, I got more than I need here, don't I? This is the coal seam in here. Why would this have been left here?

MILLER: Yes, that is the coal seam there. That there is what they call a block of coal or a stump or a pillar. That stump there...

FLOCK: Holds up the ceiling.

MILLER: It's about a 75-foot square and holds up the rock above you.

FLOCK: Jake, Glenn, I appreciate it. I very, very much appreciate this tour, again, 1,000 feet in, about 500 feet down. This is something like they were up against. Of course, we can go out pretty easy.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FREIDMAN: We switch our focus to business news now.

President Bush has signed legislation to crack down on corporate criminals. The president says the new business fraud law will expose and punish executives who cook the books. Mr. Bush says he hopes the new law will restore investor confidence. Stocks on Wall Street took a beating in the wake of highly publicized boardroom scandals at Enron and WorldCom. The president says the new law will make it harder for company executives to deceive investors and it will quadruple jail time for those who do.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Their actions hurt workers who committed their lives to building the company that hired them. Their actions hurt investors and retirees who place their faith in the promise of growth and integrity. For the sake of our free economy, those who break the law that -- break the rules of fairness, those who are dishonest, however wealthy or successful they may be, must pay a price.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FREIDMAN: Stocks were mixed Tuesday. The Dow lost 43 points, a day after its third biggest point gain ever. The tech-heavy Nasdaq was up nearly two points.

More from the world of business later in the show as we celebrate the 100th anniversary of some technology many of us couldn't do without.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A CNN viewer wants to know, "Why is the United States' money called the dollar, and where did that come from?"

JASON ZWEIG, "MONEY": Well, Alpha, the U.S. dollar originates in Bohemia, in Czechoslovakia, in the 16th century. That's where silver was first mined and minted into silver coins, and the place where the silver was mined was called Joachimsthal, and the coins were called talers.

In 1792, shortly after the United States became independent, Congress wanted a name for our money and settled on dollars, based on the old taler that came from Eastern Europe.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FREIDMAN: For a survey of international news, we travel to Afghanistan. The people of that country are working to rebuild their nation. One of their primary areas of concern is healthcare, especially for children.

Mark Phillips has the story of one doctor who has traveled to Kandahar and the challenges he faces there.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARK PHILLIPS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Dr. Scott Harrison is taking a tour through Kandahar's only general hospital. He's here to define greatest needs from medical equipment, to drugs like antibiotics. His main focus is to assess what could be done to improve the treatment of child patients.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Almost every one is an adult. Do you do many children?

PHILLIPS: For the past five years, Dr. Harrison's worked around the world, setting up children's hospitals in some of the poorest and neediest corners of the world. Now, he, and his Christian-based charity, Cure International, have come to Kandahar in southern Afghanistan.

DR. SCOTT HARRISON, CURE INTERNATIONAL: The needs here are probably greater than almost any place in the world I can think of. The 23 years of civil war has created a loss of infrastructure, which is truly catastrophic for these people. And yet as I've learned in the short period of time I've been here, they're way ahead of where I thought they would be.

PHILLIPS: Twenty-three years of war in Afghanistan has left little infrastructure and almost no medical care. With 1.5 million children patients in Afghanistan, Dr. Harrison feels that there's a need for a hospital specializing in children.

HARRISON: The problems with infectious diseases will be enormous in these children, because they're -- there will be some malnutrition, which makes these children much more susceptible to disease.

PHILLIPS: So, on this dusty field outside Kandahar, the region's governor, Gul-Aga Arzai (ph), attends a ceremony to lay the foundations for the new Cure children's hospital.

The hospital is expected nine months to complete, at the cost of $1.5 million U.S. The charity hopes that when it's completed, its doors will have room for as many as 100 beds and care for more than 10,000 sick children every year.

Guma Amana (ph) arrives at this, the only hospital in the region. He's traveled three hours from his village to find someone who'll help his 4-year-old son. UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): This is the only hospital I know of. This is the only place I can bring him.

PHILLIPS: The little boy Nabibullah (ph) fell ill two days ago. His father says two of his five children have already died from illness.

DR. NASIR, MINISTRY OF PUBLIC HEALTH: We have medicine and (UNINTELLIGIBLE) different steps here. We are not sectioned for our patients who are admitted here in (UNINTELLIGIBLE). And also we have many difficulties about (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

PHILLIPS: For Dr. Harrison, scenes like this will someday be a thing of the past. For Nabibullah, the help has come too late. The little boy doesn't make it through the night.

Mark Phillips, CNN, Kandahar, Afghanistan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FREIDMAN: Sticks and stones may break your bones but words can also hurt you. A recent survey sheds new light on the type of school violence that worries teens most.

Kathy Slobogin fills us in.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KATHY SLOBOGIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): When most of us think of school violence, we think of this. But it turns out, if you ask kids what they think, it's not physical violence they worry about.

These teens are from suburban Maryland. Listen to their war stories.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The entire group began to talk about her behind her back.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And more people started picking on him. So you have the entire grade picking on him.

SLOBOGIN: A new survey of 1,000 kids in 5th through 12th grade found the violence they are most worried about is emotional.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Put downs and exclusions from groups, and just teasing and bullying.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it's bigger than -- a lot bigger than the physical violence problem.

SLOBOGIN: The survey found many kids feel they are in a culture that is, essentially, mean.

ELLEN GALINSKY, FAMILIES AND WORK INSTITUTE: We're talking about teasing that is cruel. We're not just talking about joking and having fun and kidding around and that sort of thing. We're talking about cruelty.

SLOBOGIN: Twelve percent of the kids surveyed had been bullied five times or more in the past month, and 23 percent admitted they had bullied someone else.

GALINSKY: They said, Adults will say to you, you know, words can't really hurt you, or they said, Adults will say, Oh, it's just all part of growing up, kids have always been that way. Well, the kids said, this is a different generation, and they said, Words do hurt, and they said it's the little things that lead to the big blow- ups.

SLOBOGIN: There is no evidence today's youth culture is any meaner than in the past, but to those who say bullying and put-downs have always been around, these kids say that doesn't diminish the problem.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think people who say, What is the big deal, I don't think really they have been through that dramatic experience themselves.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Once it happens to you, it sticks in your head and it just stays with you for the rest of your life.

SLOBOGIN: And, they say, Meanness can make you mean.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And I think some kids do make that big switch around, saying that this is not how I want to be, I want to be the person, basically, dishing out all the emotional damage on the other kids, to make up for all the stuff that happened to me."

SLOBOGIN (on camera): What happens to you if you are not part of the meanness?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Then you're the ones who normally get picked on.

SLOBOGIN (voice-over): The survey authors say the kids are asking for a more civil society.

GALINSKY: They are saying, Help us create a culture where the teasing doesn't get cruel.

SLOBOGIN: And, she says, they are asking for our help.

Kathy Slobogin, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FREIDMAN: Emotional damage is one thing, but some kids are making sure they know how to protect themselves from physical harm.

Eric Horng reports on young people learning self-defense.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) ERIC HORNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): These kids are learning to punch and kick, but perhaps the most important skill they're being taught...

THOMAS GUZMAN-SANCHEZ, INSTRUCTOR, YOUTH POWER TACTICS: Now if somebody comes up and tells you your mom and dad said it's OK if you come with them, what do you -- what do you say?

HORNG: ... how to use their eyes and ears to spot trouble.

Thomas Guzman-Sanchez, a black belt in hakito (ph) and tae kwan do and a father of two, teaches a self-defense class for kids called Youth Power Tactics.

GUZMAN-SANCHEZ: Abductors don't want a fight, they don't want to be noticed, they want an easy target. I want to teach these kids to be loud, be aggressive, empowered.

HORNG: Though child abductions by strangers nationwide are relatively rare and not on the rise, Guzman-Sanchez attributes extensive media coverage of recent kidnapping cases for an increase in enrollment in his class. He showed us some techniques as students learn to break free from a kidnapper's grip.

GUZMAN-SANCHEZ: See, natural tendency is for a person to pull back. But as you walk back, it comes right out.

HORNG (on camera): Using their momentum.

GUZMAN-SANCHEZ: Exactly. If I go into you, it goes against this part which is the weakest part of the body.

HORNG (voice-over): And if all else fails...

GUZMAN-SANCHEZ: Bite right in this area where there -- where there's no meat.

HORNG: Guzman-Sanchez says yelling fire instead of just help is more likely to attract attention. And he teaches students that fighting should be a last resort, that running away and using a loud voice are more effective than kicks and punches.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're tricky. Try and trick you so they can take you and kill you, but you don't listen to them. You say no.

HORNG: Eric Horng, CNN, Northridge, California.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: Exploring our world, here now is CNN STUDENT NEWS "Perspectives."

FREIDMAN: Hollywood has long been a state of mind, but soon it may take that independence to a new level. Spurred in part by a desire for better local public services, Hollywood residents are considering breaking away from the nation's second largest city. Los Angeles voters will eventually have to decide if that's a good idea.

CNN's Charles Feldman looks at the potential for this urban divorce.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHARLES FELDMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Although most movie studios long ago left Hollywood for other parts of L.A., for most people, the mere mention of the name Hollywood conjures up images of movie stars, sleek limos, and lavish, lush scandals.

But now there is a movement afoot to divorce Hollywood from the rest of Los Angeles, to make Tinseltown a real town. And this man wants to be its mayor.

GENE LA PIETRA, HOLLYWOOD VOTE: The time has come to reinvent Hollywood, to let it grow to its potential and to help surrounding areas as well.

FELDMAN: He does have a point, to a point. Tourists usually notice how rundown Hollywood is. While its had some nips and tucks in recent years -- a new home for the Academy Awards, for example -- it really needs a major face-lift.

But amputation from the rest of the city, in the view of Hollywood's honorary mayor, is, as "Variety" might say, not a boffo idea.

(on camera): Let's think about what would happen should a vote come and Hollywood be broken off from the city of Los Angeles. In your view, what would happen then?

JOHNNY GRANT, HONORARY MAYOR OF HOLLYWOOD: Well, nothing for a long, long time, because they wouldn't have the money to do it. That's what really frightens me. They have got some grandiose ideas. I respect that. I respect anyone following their dream. I followed mine. I've been here all these years. So, that's that. But I just don't think they have planned this thing out.

FELDMAN (voice-over): Writers have long argued that Los Angeles is not really a city, but a collection of small communities. But until recently, no one seriously thought that the city would or could break itself apart.

Power and money -- what else? -- are the driving forces in this scenario.

LA PIETRA: The city of Los Angeles has been historically overcharging Hollywood $19 million for police officers that are not here. We do not have a narcotics bureau in Hollywood. We do not have a visitors bureau in Hollywood, although we get charged for all of those services.

FELDMAN: But Hollywood's P.R. mayor says the secessionists are talking bunk. GRANT: They don't have candidates. We will be voting. We don't even know who the people are. They don't have a city government. They are talking about having a city hall with a city manager and a secretary and maybe three other people using a half a secretary. You would need more than that for animal control.

FELDMAN: Hollywood residents are only now starting to focus on this issue. Many here expect the campaign ahead to be a real slugfest, with the outcome far from certain. But one thing is sure today: This is bound to make one hell of a Hollywood movie.

Charles Feldman, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FREIDMAN: Los Angeles, New York, Florida, just about everywhere folks are feeling the summer heat. Decades ago, people had to get creative to stay cool. One popular trick was placing a fan over a block of ice. Well times certainly have changed thanks to a man named Willis Carrier. His invention 100 years ago has helped countless people beat the heat and in essence, it's changed society.

CNN's Garrick Utley reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GARRICK UTLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Return now to those scorching, humid, clothes-soaking days of yesteryear, when every workplace was a sweatshop. And then one day came blessed cool relief.

(on camera): It happened here in Brooklyn in this building on July 17, 1902, when the first modern air-conditioning system was installed. Now, it was not put in there for the comfort of the workers, but rather to keep the machinery running efficiently in what was then a printing press.

The inventor of this wonder was a contemporary of Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Henry Ford and the Wright Brothers.

(voice-over): But do we remember who Willis Carrier was? He changed the way we live.

GERAUD DARNIS, PRESIDENT, CARRIER CORPORATION: I think it's as big as electricity, cars, because he made human health better. He made comfort environment better. It's allowed development of cities and industries. It is truly a remarkable invention that marked a century.

UTLEY: Climate control meant perishables would perish more slowly. Air conditioning gave birth to the modern office culture. Who wouldn't want to work an extra two or four hours a day in such comfortable surroundings?

Temperatures that don't change all day or all year have led to new industries that have powered economic growth, as they have helped to preserve the art and artifacts of the past, including Michelangelo's frescoes in the Sistine Chapel or old warplanes at the Intrepid Museum in New York Harbor.

DONALD FRANCIS, INTREPID MUSEUM: We have some very priceless artifacts here. And we need to have climate control for those artifacts. And this has achieved that goal.

UTLEY: And would American life have become this without air conditioning: the boom of the Sun Belt, deserts turned into suburbia, where it is always 68 degrees inside.

If a cooler world began a century ago, it caught on slowly. Air conditioning was not installed in the U.S. Congress until 1929, followed by the White House and other government buildings. That changed government, too. Today, Congress and the president and the bureaucrats can work right through the sultry Washington summer, which has led some commentators to point out that the only way to really control the growth of government is to turn off what Willis Carrier turned on 100 years ago.

Garrick Utley, CNN, Brooklyn, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FREIDMAN: For many young people summertime is synonymous with camp. What kind of camp? Well let's see there's sleepaway camp, soccer camp, band camp, day camp. If it can be done, you can bet there's probably a camp for it. And in the north Georgia mountains, there's a camp on a very cool mission.

CNN's Student Bureau's Jodi Freedman (ph) takes us there.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CROWD: Our favorite thing about Camp Jenny is living.

(CROWD CHEERING)

KIM FREEDMAN, COUNSELOR: Camp Jenny is a (UNINTELLIGIBLE) sleepaway camp for kids from inner-city Atlanta and a program called the Study Hall.

MARY LYNN STEIN, CAMP JENNY DIRECTOR: The Study Hall is a program in downtown Atlanta where the kids go after school everyday to get extra work on their homework, a hot meal and a safe ride straight to their doorstep. The kids come up to Camp Jenny each year over Memorial Day weekend for a fun-filled weekend of swimming, arts and crafts and many other exciting activities.

RABBI JODI COHEN, CAMP JENNY: Our tradition teaches that if you save one life, it's as if you have saved all of humanity. And that's what Camp Jenny means to me that the youth of our region care enough about children they've never even met to want to raise a significant amount of money and devote time over a long weekend, as well as time beforehand, planning for and organizing this camp for underprivileged children from Atlanta.

MS. HOLLY, STUDY HALL DIRECTOR: We understand the similarities in our cultures which is one reason for the summer our students will be studying the Holocaust and comparing that to the situation with African-Americans who came to this country as slaves and seeing the type of struggles that we both had to encounter and how we've overcome them as well.

CROWD: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) brought me all the way back.

STEIN: I love the smiles on the kids' faces as they come up to Camp Jenny doorsteps (ph).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I learned how to swim better.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I learned how to stay loose (ph) and (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

CROWD: And arts and crafts.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The songs that we sing.

(SINGING)

MS. HOLLY: We get involved with Camp Jenny (UNINTELLIGIBLE) 1997 and we're very grateful for the opportunity to bring our kids here to have a chance to be kids, to be able to run and play in a safe area and to be with counselors who really take the time out to get to know our kids and to help our kids have a really great time.

COHEN: It will have an impact on them so that when they become adults they'll remember these positive experiences and hopefully become more open minded and just more tolerant and accepting of people.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

"Where in the World" the Declaration of Independence was signed in this state (ph), the Liberty Bell is located here, home to approximately 59,000 farms? Can you name this state? Pennsylvania, U.S.A.

FREIDMAN: Tomorrow we've got a few curve balls for you. Tune in to our "Science Report" to see some new technology swing into action.

Until then, I'm Susan Freidman. Enjoy your Wednesday, and we'll see you back here tomorrow.

Bye-bye.

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