REI DUDLEY, BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS NATIONAL YOUTH OF THE YEAR: Hi, this is Trei Dudley, the Boys and Girls Club National Youth of the Year, and you`re watching CNN STUDENT NEWS.
CARL AZUZ, CNN ACNHOR: See if you can fill in the blank here -- Colin Powell, then Condoleezza Rice followed by Hillary Clinton. We are talking about former U.S. Secretaries of State. And the next in line for that job is John Kerry. On Tuesday, the U.S. Senate confirmed Kerry as the next Secretary of State. The vote was 94 to 3. Here`s little background on Mr. Kerry: for starters, he`s been Senator Kerry for nearly 30 years, he was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1984. He wanted to be President Kerry, but he lost the 2004 election to President George W. Bush. He was Lieutenant Kerry when he served in the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam War. Now, he is going to be Secretary of State Kerry. A few things you might not know about that job: it goes all the way back to Thomas Jefferson, the first secretary of state. The person who has the title is fourth in line to the presidency, and most importantly, the Secretary of State is the country`s top diplomat. That means he or she is responsible for representing the president`s policies to other countries in the world.
All right, our next story today: there has been a lot of talk about issue of guns in America since last month school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. That conversation continued yesterday on Capitol Hill. It included senators, it included the head of the National Rifle Association, and it included a former congresswoman who herself was a victim of gun violence.
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GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, FMR. REP.(D-ARIZONA: Too many children are dying. Too many children.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Newtown and Tucson are terrible tragedies.
WAYNE LAPIERRE, EXECUTIVE V.P.& CEO, NRA: It`s time to throw an immediate blanket of security around our children.
SEN. PATRICK LEAHY, (D), VERMONT: Why is there a risk when responsible people fail to stand up for laws?
SEN. CHARLES GRASSLEY, ( R), IOWA: The deaths in Newtown should not be used to put forward every gun control major that`s been floating around for years.
LEAHY: ... stand up for laws, we`ll keep guns out of their hands. Those who use them to commit murder ...
LAPIERRE: About a third of our schools right now have arm security already, because it works.
GIFFORDS: We must do something.
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AZUZ: All right, next today, I want you to picture a map of the United States. Starting the upper Midwest, so we are thinking Michigan and Illinois, and then move, go all the way down to the southeast, Georgia and Alabama. That is how far a severe weather system stretched yesterday. It`s about 1000 miles. In northern Georgia, it caused this. What you see in the middle of your screen there is a tornado. You can even see it moving a little bit. A crossed over I-75, a major highway, an emergency official said in one area the storm flipped over around 100 cars. By the time the tornado was gone, this is what it left behind: the officials described the damage as significant, a motel manufacturing plant, several other buildings, all of them damaged by this severe weather. And check out this video from Tennessee. Flooding caused by the storms. The winds knocked down trees and power lines. The owner of this barn in Indiana thinks lightning caused it to catch on fire. There were tornadoes confirmed in Indiana and in Kentucky. If you go to the spotlight section on our home page, that`s cnnstudentnews.com, you`re going to find a video on tornadoes. It explains how they form and where they are most likely to hit. We hope you`ll check it out.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is this legit? Natural propane gas has no odor. It`s true. Companies add a chemical odor so that you can smell propane.
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AZUZ: Well, some of you might have smelled propane and actually smell the odor that they add to it around the grill at your home. ESPN anchor Hannah Storm says she didn`t smell any gas right before a grill accident last month.
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HANNAH STORM, ESPN: I turned everything off. I turned the gas on the gun very low and I tried to ignite. And that was my mistake.
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AZUZ: So what happened, was that Storm ended up with severe burns on her hands and her neck. We`re going to bring in Ben Tinker now. He`s the producer with the CNN medical unit, and we`d like you to tell us, Ben, how can our viewers, how can anyone avoid this kind of accident?
BEN TINKER, SR. PRODUCER, CNN MEDICAL UNIT: Now, we`ve all been guilty of trying to get dinner on the table a little too quickly sometimes, but there is some really important lessons that we need to stop and look at here. So we can all learn from Hannah Storm`s accident.
First things first, you want to cook outside in a wide open well-ventilated space, you want to open the lid of your grill first, then turn on the gas, then try and light the grill. If the grill goes out, you want to wait at least 15 minutes before you try and reignite it. Now, if you`re cooking inside, carbon monoxide is really what you want to pay attention to. It`s a very, very dangerous odorless gas. It deprives the body of oxygen, it can cause injury, it can cause death. It`s very important that you keep the area you`re cooking in well ventilated. Now, you have to keep that fan on above your stove the entire time you`re cooking, maybe even after, just to make sure that that gas is removed from your house. Make sure you have carbon monoxide detectors installed in your home, keep the batteries fresh and check them every now and then to make sure that they are working. Lastly, keep the flame under the pot to the right side. You want to keep the flame underneath the pot, not coming up around the sides. So either get a bigger pot, turn the flame down or make sure that those flames are not coming up around the sides of the pot.
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TREI DUDLEY, BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS NATIONAL YOUTH OF THE YEAR: I just feel so strongly about my role at Boys & Girls Clubs of America to ensure more young people are given the support they need to graduate on time, and with the solid plan, resources and opportunities for their future.
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AZUZ: All right. That was from Trei Dudley`s State of the Youth Address. You heard from her a few minutes ago introducing our show. During her big speech, she talked about the results of a survey of the top issues for teenagers. She got to present those results to President Obama. I spoke with Trei earlier this week before she gave that speech. The whole interview is up on our Web site. Here is some of what we`ve talked about.
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AZUZ: What experiences did you have in high school to help give you a sense of the issues affecting young people?
DUDLEY: The experiences I had in high school, I think, the one that hits home with me the most, was when I was in- my senior year of high school, and I was talking to some of my friends about how, you know, stressful it was, trying to find scholarships and filling out college applications. And, you know, getting enrolled to take the SAT, filling out the FAFSA, and not having as many of them know about the things that I knew, about those different steps you had to take to actually get to college. And so, that`s kind of what has inspired me to do this kind of thing, and to also set my career path in the future.
AZUZ: What are some of the big issues you`re going to be bringing up in your speech?
DUDLEY: Well, in the survey that Boys and Girls Club conducted with the teens that there are three issues that they feel are the most relevant. And one of them, the tough one being, not being able to find funding for a college education or jobs after high school. The second one was, that they feel like there is a lot of youth violence. And third, you know, risky behavior, such as drug and alcohol abuse.
AZUZ: According to the Boys and Girls Club survey that`s coming out, only ten percent of teens feel that the elected leaders are going to address the issues that are most important to them. What do you think of that?
DUDLEY: I think it`s sad, it definitely is sad, but I think that, you know, our leaders are going to be able to, hopefully with this National Teen Advisory Committee that Boys and Girls Club is working towards -- getting as well, like with the other non-profit organizations. I think that that will definitely enter answer a lot of questions and get that voice for young people out there, so that they can get their issues solved.
AZUZ: That`s one way. Do you have any other advice for teens getting their voices heard by elected officials?
DUDLEY: Don`t be afraid, they give you opinion. I think that`s all -- as a child, you know, you`re always told like respect your adults, and, you know, some things you`re not supposed to talk about, but if it really -- if it truly is an issue, it needs to be talked about, because we are the future for this country and if we don`t like feel we have a bright future, then, you know, there is not going to be a bright future for us.
AZUZ: Trei, you`ve committed a lot of time to serving your community. Do you have any advice for teens who might want to get involved in community work, but they don`t know where to start?
DUDLEY: They can start at the Boys and Girls Club. That`s where I started. And it`s an amazing way to, you know, make connections and find out about yourself and be able to express those feelings that you might have, that you can`t share otherwise.
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AZUZ: So, what are the issues that you think are the most important to young people right now. You can tell us on our blog at cnnstudentnews.com, or if you`re on Facebook, you can talk to us on our Facebook page, that address is Facebook.com/cnnstudentnews.
Before we go today, surfs up! Way up! Like 100 feet up! Watch this! 100 feet is exactly what Garrett McNamara was hoping for. A daredevil surfer hanged ten times ten on this wave off the coast of Portugal. He might have set a new world record for doing it, too.
You don`t need to feel badly for the old record holder, it`s the same guy. Back in 2011, at the same beach, McNamara rode a wave that was 78 feet high. So, if this ride breaks that old record, well, it surfs him right. Since he`ll have the new record, he shouldn`t be crest-fallen. If he ever gets bored of setting records in the water, he can try on something for land, for sure, and leave the door open for the next wave of surfers. We`re going to buggy on out of here. The punishment ends here, have a great day, and we`ll look forward to seeing you tomorrow.
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