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Britain Pulling Troops Out of Afghanistan; International Day of Chocolate; New Amazing Technology by Magic Leap
Aired October 28, 2014 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CARL AZUZ, CNN ANCHOR: We learned a lot of interesting stuff producing this Tuesday show. Hope you enjoy it. I`m Carl Azuz. Welcome to ten
minutes of commercial free current events for the classroom.
First up today .
The British flag was lowered over Helmand Province in Afghanistan this week, a symbol that the U.K.`s combat mission in the country is over.
Britain`s defense minister says Afghanistan is no longer a safe haven for the al Qaeda terrorist group and that the country now has a chance of a
better future. In a recent BBC poll, though, most Britain said the war was not worthwhile for the U.K.
Afghanistan is still a dangerous place, where terrorists and insurgent attacks happen regularly. The U.S. combat mission there formally ends this
December, but the U.S. and Afghan government signed a deal last month that will allow American troops to stay in the war torn country.
From South East Asia, we are headed out into the Pacific Ocean to the island state of Hawaii. On the Big Island, scenes like this near Kilauea
volcano are pretty common.
It is the most active volcano mass on the planet. But this particular lava flow is threatening a village named Pahoa, so much so that a main road
through town had to be closed, and officials say Pahoa`s 945 people need to be ready to evacuate.
Most have already left. The lava has crept over fields, a fence, a cemetery. After accelerating over the weekend, it was moving toward the
town at the speed of about a foot per minute. That`s fast for something a 150 yards wide, and incredibly destructive. Kilauea volcano has been in a
constant state of eruption since 1983. This particular lava flow started threatening Pahoa in June.
We are setting sale this Tuesday. It`s a boat to be awesome. Say hello to the sailors of Oceanside Middle School. They are casting off from
Oceanside. New York.
Next, it`s night time. The golden nights of Welch, West Virginia on the roll. They are at Mountain View High School and gather around table with
more nights. DeLong Middle School in Eau Claire, Wisconsin thanks for watching, day or night.
One week from today, Americans will be voting in the country`s midterm elections. And there`s a new political poll out from CNN-OTV
international. It indicates that almost seven in ten Americans are angry at the direction their country is headed and that 53 percent disapprove of
President Obama`s job performance. But he is not on the ballot. Lawmakers are, and as far as Congress goes, the poll showed that 85 percent of
Americans don`t approve of how it`s doing its job. What cold this mean next week? Well, we`ll let Jonathan Mann explain that as well as what
exactly is going to be on the ballots.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JONATHAN MANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: How angry are Americans at Barack Obama and the rest of the men and women they`ve put into government? Or to put
another way, how good do they feel about their elected officials. Well, we are about to find out because millions of Americans will be going to the
polls November 4 what it`s called midterm elections. Midterm because they fall halfway through the president`s own term. Barack Obama`s name will
not be on the ballot.
Instead, we are talking about state and local officials and lawmakers at the federal level, members of the two houses of Congress. 435 members in
the House of Representatives and about a third of the U.S. Senate.
Now, the House of Representative is reelected in its entirety or elected, for that matter every two years. Republicans have a majority there.
That`s not likely to change. In the Senate where senators serve six year terms, about a third of the Senate faces election or reelection every two
years. This year adds some vacancies and there are 36 Senate seats up for grabs. We are expecting the House will stay in Republican hands. The
Senate will be the real battlefield. The Republicans there are hoping that they can pick up a few seats. But Democrats have a majority, the
Republicans hope to have their own majority there when the ballots are cast and counted.
The White House, though, stays in President Barack Obama`s hands, which is to say a Democrat in the White House will be looking at a Republican-
controlled House of Representatives and a Republican majority, probably, in the U.S. Senate.
What does that give us? Well, it`s what Americans already have, divided government.
In Washington, to see nearly paralyzed because Republicans and Democrats don`t work well together. When all the ballots are cast and counted this
time, they are probably going to find they`ve got more of the same.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AZUZ: Staying in the U.S., we have just four more days of daylight saving time. It is this Saturday night, and we can look forward to an extra hour
of sleep because Sunday morning at 2 a.m. is officially when our clocks fall back one hour.
The winter solstice is the shortest day of the year for sunlight. It`s on December 21. But until then, the length of sunlight time will shrink each
day in the Northern Hemisphere. So, when we fall back by setting our clocks back, what exactly are we falling back to and why are we falling
back at all?
Daylight saving time sounds kind of special. You are not just saving time, you are saving daylight time. But it puzzles the daylight time of some
folks, why we fall back to standard time? That`s what it`s called, standard time. We spend eight months out of the year in daylight saving
time, but standard, which is hardly to standard, is still called standard.
It`s been shrinking since World War I, that`s when daylight saving time was first implemented to save energy.
The switch made the sunset time later in the day, so people didn`t have to turn their lights on as early.
But what about winter and the fall back to standard? Well, look at it this way: most parts of the U.S. only get about 9.5 hours of daylight in winter
time. That`s not much. If we didn`t set our clocks back in the fall, sunrise wouldn`t be until 8:30 a.m. in many places, you`d be starting and
ending your day in the dark.
Falling back to standard keeps the time of dawn a little closer to what we are used to. It helps us start our day in the light.
Plus, there is that whole extra hour of sleep thing, assuming you go to bad on time when we fall back. So, less daylight, but more sleep. Unless you
happen to live in Arizona or Hawaii. Most parts of Arizona and all of Hawaii don`t observe daylight saving time. They don`t have to. It`s not
required by law.
The Heisman Trophy. It doesn`t just show some generic football player, it shows Ed Smith who played NYU and later in the NFL. He was a friend of the
sculptor and modeled for free. So, why is it called the Heisman Trophy and not the Smith Trophy? Well, it was created for New York`s downtown
athletic club and the athletic director of that club was coach John Heisman. Oh, that`s random.
Magic Leap is the name of a startup company. It looks like it`s building a sort of virtual reality interface, but not the kind with the big headset
that tends to make users sick. Two reasons why Magic Leap`s in the news. One, investors are so impressed that they`ve contributed hundreds of
millions in funding. Two, it`s mysterious. It`s currently in stealth mode when a company keeps its product secret from the public, so no one else can
steal the idea.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RACHEL CRANE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A 15 second clip of a floating baby elephant has made the Internet lose its mind.
A mysterious Florida-based company called Magic Leap is behind the dazzling display, and it`s a technology they are calling cinematic reality.
It seems to be a mixture between augmented reality and virtual reality on steroids. Whatever it is, it`s frickin` cool. And apparently worth a lot
of money.
The biggest name in virtual reality right now, is Oculus VR, which Facebook recently bought for $2 billion. Now, Magic Leap says that their technology
could potentially blow Oculus out of the water.
Operating in stealth mode, magic leap just had one of the most successful second rounds in History, raising 542 million dollars.
The lead investor is none other than Google.
But everyone is asking, what is it? Here`s what we do know.
Magic Leap uses digitized light fields, to overlay 3-d images onto the real world.
It`s not virtual reality, which totally submerses the viewer in a completely artificial environment.
Instead, it`s a mixture of real and artificial.
It sounds similar to augmented reality, which is something that already exists on your smartphone, but early users claim it`s way better.
Lots of questions remain surrounding Magic Leap, the biggest being, will this stealth company actually deliver in reality. No baby elephant yet.
Before we go, National Chocolate Day? It`s today. It`s not an official holiday. It appears this one was started by candy makers to get people to
eat chocolate. Do they really need to get people to eat chocolate? The flavor as we know it has been around for hundreds of years, at one point in
Europe, it was sold strictly as a drink and bought strictly by the wealthy, the only ones who could afford it. Today, it`s cheap, it`s in practically
everything. But it`s not the number one flavor of ice cream. Chocolate holds second place for that behind vanilla.
You`ve got to say that both here are pretty sweet, but when it comes to candy, chocolates got to win bar none. A piece of chocolate always comes
in candy. You`ve got a chocolato. Add up to the fact that it`s an international flavorite. I`m Carl Azuz, and this segment has been a great
taste. Joins us for more tomorrow.
END
