CARL AZUZ, HOST, CNN STUDENT NEWS: Hi, I`m Carl Azuz, broadcasting from the CNN Center in Atlanta, Georgia. We welcome all of our viewers around the world to the first February edition of CNN Student News.
We`re leading things off today in Florida, with the race for the Republican presidential nomination. Three states held primary or caucus events earlier last month, and a different candidate won each contest. So some experts were looking to see if the Florida primary would bring some clarity to the Republican field.
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AZUZ (voice-over): The goal of these primaries and caucuses is to win delegates. You need 1,044 of them this year to be the Republican Party`s nominee for president. There were 50 delegates up for grabs in Florida, and yesterday`s primary was winner-take-all. You win the primary, you get all 50 delegates.
Representative Ron Paul and former Senator Rick Santorum moved on to campaign in other states, because they didn`t think they had much chance of winning Florida. That left former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
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AZUZ: As the results came in last night, CNN projected that Mitt Romney would win the Florida primary.
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AZUZ (voice-over): cnnstudentnews.com is where you can always get the latest details on developing stories, like yesterday`s Florida primary. The full results came in after we produced this show. But you can find them. They`re going to be in the "Spotlight" section on our home page.
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AZUZ: We`re staying in Florida now to talk about a series of car crashes that happened along a major highway over the weekend. At least 12 cars and seven tractor-trailers were involved in these accidents. You can see some of what happened in the pictures we`re showing you right here.
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AZUZ (voice-over): The highway was covered in smoke from a nearby brush fire. That made it very difficult for drivers to see. Ten people were killed in the wrecks. More than 12 other people were taken to hospitals.
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AZUZ: Chad Myers spoke with CNN`s Anderson Cooper about why the smoke was covering the highway. They also talked about the conditions that led to these crashes over the weekend. Have a listen.
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CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: There was a fire in the swamp and in the forest, only 60 acres, not that big. But in a regular fire, smoke goes up and keeps going up. But in Florida, it didn`t keep going up. The reason why is because there was a layer of warm air up here. So as soon as the smoke tried to go up, it hit the layer of warm air and came back down. It`s called inversion.
The most famous inversion ever was in Donora, Pennsylvania, many, many years ago where people died because they suffocated from the smoke that just wouldn`t leave the valley.
That`s the Allegheny-Monongahela Valley near Pittsburgh I`m talking about, but that`s what happened. The smoke was trapped near the surface. It couldn`t go away. People drove into the smoke and they were hitting cars that were already stopped in the roadway.
ANDERSON COOPER, HOST, AC360: And a lot of survivors, I mean, they were saying the smoke and fog was so thick, they couldn`t see -- you know, a woman said they couldn`t even see the hazards. This isn`t that common, though, is it?
MYERS: It is not. What happened here, this smoke and fog got in a bowl, this bowl is just south of Gainesville. I`ve driven through this bowl many times on I-75, it`s the prairie right through here. Literally, it looks like you`re driving through the Serengeti.
You look to the left and you look to the right, and it`s completely flat, but all around you are hills. When you drive this, you`re literally - - you look for giraffes, because you think you`re in Africa. It looks crazy, high elevations here. High elevations there.
And right through there, it`s kind of a swampy area. And that air, that smoke settled right into that low area, into the bottom of that bowl and that`s what caused the visibility down to literally zero.
COOPER: And I guess, one thing investigators will be looking into, is could this have been avoided? I mean, should there have been warnings or road closures?
MYERS: Well, Anderson, there were road closures. The roads were closed for three hours, and then the smoke kind of cleared, because the wind blew just a little bit. But then half an hour after they re- opened the road, the crashes happened and 10 people died.
So I guess, you have to think the road probably should have stayed closed. There`s not much you can do. Once you are in this smoke, you are in it.
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AZUZ: February 1st marks the beginning of Black History Month. It`s a time to honor the accomplishments and contributions of African-Americans. When Dr. Carter G. Woodson started the tradition in 1926, it was a week long. The celebration was expanded into a month in 1976 by President Gerald Ford.
Throughout our coverage of Black History Month, we`re going to focus on some of the people, the places, the moments that have been significant in African-American history. We`re starting with a lunch counter and an event that happened 52 years ago today.
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AZUZ (voice-over): That`s when four black college students walked into a Woolworth`s in Greensboro, North Carolina. They sat down at the "whites only" counter to order lunch. They stayed in their seats after they were refused service, and launched a peaceful protest for civil rights. The Woolworth`s lunch counter in Greensboro was desegregated later on that year.
Some other events on February 1st: in 1790, the U.S. Supreme Court met for the first time. The first court had six justices, not nine like the U.S. has now.
In 1865, President Abraham Lincoln signed the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which would abolish slavery. The amendment was ratified by the states later on that year.
And in 2003, the space shuttle Columbia broke apart while reentering the Earth`s atmosphere. All seven crew members were killed.
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AZUZ: Checking out some other international headlines, starting off the coast of Italy, that`s where a cruise ship ran aground last month. And experts have been running a salvage operation around the ship. Now they`re recommending that the underwater part of that mission end.
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AZUZ (voice-over): The underwater salvage has stopped and restarted a few times before. But these experts say it`s getting too dangerous to continue at all. Salvage operations above the water line will still go on. Officials say it could take seven to 10 months to remove the wreckage of the ship. But that process won`t start until the fuel that was on board is removed.
Next up, the Middle Eastern nation of Syria. The Arab League sent in monitors to see if the Syrian government was ending the violence that`s been going on there.
Yesterday, Arab League officials told the United Nations Security Council that Syria is operating a quote, "killing machine" against peaceful protests. Syrian officials say they`re the victim of false information. They accuse the Arab League of interfering with Syrian affairs.
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AZUZ: The U.N. is considering a resolution that would call for Syria`s president to step down. Meantime, the violence has not stopped. Reports said at least 37 people were killed in Syria yesterday.
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AZUZ (voice-over): U.N. representatives are part of our next headline, too. This one is in Japan. It involves the country`s nuclear facilities.
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AZUZ: A team from the IAEA, the U.N.`s International Atomic Energy Agency, spent the past week in Japan. They were looking over the nuclear safety reviews that were ordered after last year`s meltdown at a nuclear power plant. The group said Japan can go ahead with so-called stress tests on the country`s other nuclear facilities.
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AZUZ (voice-over): Most of the country`s nuclear plants were taken offline after the meltdown, which one of the worst nuclear disasters ever. The IAEA also recommended that Japanese regulators create more comprehensive plans for dealing with severe accidents.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is this legit? The U.S. federal government requires American children to attend school.
It`s not true. Individual states, not the federal government, set laws about school attendance.
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AZUZ (voice-over): Every state requires children to get an education. What they don`t say is how kids are supposed to get it. Last year, around 250,000 American students went to school online. They did that in what are called virtual schools, when your classes taught over the computer and the teacher`s there to kind of guide you through the lessons.
Some parents think their kids do better in virtual schools than traditional schools. Others like the flexible schedule. The critics say there`s more to learning than just getting information. There`s class discussion. There`s interacting with other students. One thing many supporters and critics agree on is that the effectiveness of online learning depends on the individual student.
We want to hear what you all think. Would you want to attend a virtual school? Think about the pros and cons of this one, then go to our blog at cnnstudentnews.com and tell us your opinions.
And remember, when you post on our blog, we only want you to tell us your first names, so please, no other information, just first names only.
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AZUZ: Before we go we want to show you a lineup from Australia.
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AZUZ (voice-over): But this one ain`t breaking any laws, just world records. Look at this. What you see is 145 water skiers all being pulled by a single boat.
The record-setting attempt started off with 154 people up on skis. Nine of them fell off. They`re OK, just all hurt that they won`t be part of the record. But it`s their own fault. They could have had their names in the record books, too. All they had to do was toe the line.
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AZUZ: But for those nine, their dreams were just washed out. Still, 145 people riding in unison? That`s a sight you have to "ski" to believe. Can the record be topped? You`ll just have to "wake" and see. It`s time for us to dock this program and its puns. For CNN Student News, I`m Carl Azuz. We`ll see you soon.