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CNN Student News

Aired May 21, 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.

MICHAEL MCMANUS, CO-HOST: Today's news agenda begins with the relationship between the United States and Cuba. Get the details in our "Lead Story." Changing "Focus" now, discover how comic book characters fare on film. Later, get a healthy "Perspective" on fad diets. Then, learn all the right moves from the women of wrestling.

CNN STUDENT NEWS takes a turn into Tuesday. I'm Michael McManus. Thanks for joining us.

U.S. President Bush defends a decade's old embargo against Cuba, first at the White House and again at a Cuban Independence Day rally in Miami. As expected, Mr. Bush announced yesterday that trade and travel restrictions will remain at least until the Castro regime makes some political changes.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Cuba's scheduled to hold elections to its national assembly in 2003. I challenge Cuba's government to make these elections free and to make them fair.

(APPLAUSE)

BUSH: In order to make sure we know if they're free and fair, they must let human rights organizations into Cuba to make sure that the elections are free and fair. Once the 2003 elections are certified as free and fair by international monitors, once Cuba begins the process of meaningful economic reform, then and only then, I will explore ways with the United States Congress to ease economic sanctions.

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MCMANUS: And Mr. Bush did say yesterday that he'd help Cuban dissidents in other ways. Among them, the negotiation of mail service between the United States and Cuba and the easing of restrictions on Cuban aid from American charities. The ban on U.S. trade with communist Cuba, which was denounced last week by former President Jimmy Carter, no doubt has domestic implications, especially for many Cuban-Americans, a group the GOP takes very seriously.

CNN's Kitty Pilgrim has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KITTY PILGRIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): The discussion over Cuba has reached the Presidential level, make that two presidents, one Republican and one Democrat. President Carter claimed the headlines last week, President Bush claiming the attention of cameras today in high profile speeches.

IAN VASQUEZ, CATO INSTITUTE: Presidential politics always give the Cuban-American community a big consideration. That has always been the case and it is especially the case now. We only need to remember how close the Florida vote was in the last very contentious elections.

PILGRIM: Miami's Little Havana is the home of 400,000 Cuban- American voters. Hispanics will be the largest minority group in America in the next few years. Seventy-five percent of the Latino population is concentrated in the five largest states. That's nearly two-thirds of the presidential electoral votes, Texas, New York, California, Illinois and Florida.

In Florida, the strong Republican Cuban-American base is offset by Democratic votes from Hispanic groups from Puerto Rico, Mexico and South America. A little less than two-thirds of the Hispanic vote went to Gore and a little more than one-third to Bush, but the Cuban vote nearly 80 percent voted for Bush.

ARTURO VALENZUELA, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY: This probably goes to the mid-term election next year, but it really does mean that the administration is holding the line on the current policy on Cuba.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PILGRIM: The fact is Cuba policy is linked to yet another election issue. Free and fair elections in Cuba are the condition for opening up trade with that country. The problem is the U.S. elections will probably come first.

Kitty Pilgrim, CNN Financial News, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCMANUS: And we "Focus" today on those comic book heroes that jump from the page to the silver screen. "Spider-Man" has been breaking box office records everywhere, but the movie isn't alone. It's one of a long list of successful motion pictures born from a colorful read.

CNN's Sam Rubin fills us in.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SAM RUBIN, CNN ENTERTAINMENT NEWS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): "Spider-Man" is the latest in a long line of comic book stars making the swing to the big screen. And if you think Hollywood is crazy over these characters now, just you wait.

STAN LEE, CO-CREATOR, "SPIDER-MAN": There's "The Hulk," the "X- Men." "The Hulk" is being shot right now. The sequel to the "X-Men" is being shot right now or it's being worked on in some phase or other. "The Fantastic Four," "The Silver Surfer," "The Dare Devil."

RUBIN: You get the picture. So does Stan Lee who co-created the webbed wonder 40 years ago.

(on camera): There are special qualities, quite clearly, to what we enjoy in comic books. For the people in Hollywood who take those comic books and put them on the big screen, what do you want them to know? What should they be reminded of?

S. LEE: Well I think the first thing they should think of is forget that these are comic books. These are stories with characters. The characters have individualistic personalities. The characters when they speak it has to be real dialogue, it has to be believable.

RUBIN (voice-over): The phenomenal success of films like "Batman," "Superman," "The Matrix" and "X-Men," to name just a few, is easy to explain for some. One comic store operator says audiences connect with the characters because they're simply old friends.

DEREK MAKI, "THINGS FROM ANOTHER WORLD": Whether you're a child that reads it or whether you were an adult that read it as a child, and we have a lot of adult people that still read it which is cool, you look up to them and they're your heroes.

ANG LEE, DIRECTOR, "THE HULK": I think we all have that Hulk inside of us, our alter ego.

RUBIN: But with comics turned big screen cash cows, does Hollywood risk going to the well too often?

S. LEE: They did magnificently when you talk about "Blade." Certainly "Spider-Man" and the "X-Men" were great. We've had a few that weren't.

RUBIN: "Steel," "Tank Girl" and "Barb Wire" are some examples of comic inspired big screen disappointments. Despite the risks, the payoff can be like "Spider-Man" amazing. The top 10 comic-inspired films have collectively grossed nearly $2 billion in the United States, making the future for those that will follow look very bright.

S. LEE: If something is good, the public can't get enough of it as long as you keep doing it well.

RUBIN: Sam Rubin, CNN Entertainment News, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

Established in 1958, NASA, National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Sean O'Keefe, NASA administrator, "In broad terms, our mandate is to pioneer the future."

MCMANUS: A quote there from Sean O'Keefe.

Pioneering the future is a tall order, but NASA's new boss says he is ready to deliver. Sean O'Keefe is known for keeping costs down and budgets in order, and he's the first to admit that rocket science is not his forte. However, many say O'Keefe brings a charm and personality that some believe NASA needs right now.

Here's Miles O'Brien.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's a new day at NASA.

SEAN O'KEEFE, DIRECTOR, NASA: How are you? It's good to see you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good to see you. Thanks.

O'KEEFE: Welcome to Goddard.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Appreciate it.

O'BRIEN: And there's a new sheriff in town.

O'KEEFE: How you doing? Sean O'Keefe.

O'BRIEN: NASA, meet administrator Sean O'Keefe. Sean O'Keefe, meet NASA. On the surface it may seem like an unlikely union.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As to his lack of qualifications as a rocket scientist...

O'BRIEN: You see, Sean O'Keefe is most assuredly not a rocket scientist. He doesn't even want to play one on TV and is the first to admit it. He often warms up audiences with a story about his family's reaction to his new job.

O'KEEFE: My oldest son's response to this, he's 12 years old, said gee, I thought you had to be really smart to be in that job.

O'BRIEN: Of course, O'Keefe is no dummy, but he is well schooled and seasoned in the intricacies of public administration, not Newtonian physics. For most of his career, he has orbited the beltway, working as a Senate staffer, a Pentagon controller and Navy secretary. Close to the president and a good friend of the vice president, he comes to NASA via the White House Office of Management and Budget.

(on camera): When people call you bean counter, are those fighting words?

O'KEEFE: They don't know, shoot.

O'BRIEN (voice-over): Sean O'Keefe knows beans about beans and they tell him a story. O'KEEFE: It gives you a window into the full range of operations of what goes on in any organization. The foray, there are very few things that go on in any organization, public or private, that don't require any money. And so as a consequence, whether folks like it or not, you become more and more familiar with what it is, the dimensions of their business are all about.

O'BRIEN: And the more he gets to know NASA's business, the more he is learning the dimensions of its bright, shining problem, the international space station. It was supposed to cost U.S. taxpayers $14 billion, but the price tag now stands at at least $30 billion and no one knows for sure what the total cost might be. Senator Barbara Mikulski heads the Senate committee which holds NASA's purse strings.

SEN. BARBARA MIKULSKI (D), MARYLAND: The space station could be its own black hole, that going through it, its very gravitational pull will pull out and suck out every nickel from every other program.

O'BRIEN: So NASA has had to curtail its lofty ambitions. Plans to expand the station beyond its three person capacity are now on hold. It languishes far short of its advance billing as a bustling laboratory in space.

O'KEEFE: It's not something that's a five alarm fire, by any means. I just think it takes the, you know, the continuous kind of focus to it and persistence in managing it in a way that we can wrestle to ground all the issues that are required to get our arms around what it's going to cost ultimately.

O'BRIEN (on camera): For Sean O'Keefe, management is the science. During his years here in Washington, at the Pentagon during the first Bush administration and more recently at the Budget Office, he earned a reputation as a person who understands the numbers, but also as someone who can guide a large bureaucracy. And through it all, he learned how to navigate well through the halls of Congress. As a result, he has some influential friends here.

REP. SHERWOOD BOEHLERT (R), NEW YORK: To know Sean O'Keefe is to like him. Plus, a guy who has some vision for the future. He has some objectives he wants to see achieved by the space program. I think he'll get us there.

O'BRIEN (voice-over): But where and how? O'Keefe comes to NASA at a critical juncture, as old NASA hands search for new, more relevant goals in a post-cold war world.

ED WEILER, NASA SCIENCE ADMINISTRATOR: We were destination oriented in the '60s. The destin -- raison d'etre, the reason for our program was let's go to the moon. We should go nowhere unless it's driven by scientific or exploration questions. If we go to Mars, it shouldn't be to plant a flag, put footprints in the ground and hit golf balls. It should be because we're going there for a purpose.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is Valles Marineris, the enormous canyon on Mars. O'BRIEN: So don't expect Sean O'Keefe to impetuously declare it's high time to send humans to Mars. Not his style, not his mandate. He brings gravity to an agency that has a mandate to defy it.

Miles O'Brien, CNN, Greenbelt, Maryland.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

MCMANUS: Well if you've been to the airport recently, you probably noticed increased security, bomb sniffing dogs, added ID checks and random bag searches. Many changes were made after September 11, but one safety measure was in place long before then and continues to play a vital role, the air traffic controller.

Here's what veteran air traffic controller had to say about the demanding nature of pushing tin.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

VINCE POLK, AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL SPECIALIST, ATLANTA HARTSFIELD AIRPORT: My name is Vince Polk. I'm an air traffic control specialist for the Atlanta Hartsfield Airport. I've been in air traffic control for 11 years.

In 1989, I went to Oklahoma City to the FAA Academy where I proceeded with two months of training. Once I graduated from training in Oklahoma City, I was assigned to my first field facility in Columbus, Georgia. I was in training for a year and a half with the help of an instructor and after that, I was released and able to control airplanes on my own.

Air traffic control is a team effort. Air traffic controllers are responsible for designated air space. When an aircraft enters that air space, we have flight progress strips to keep track of the aircraft. A flight progress strip indicates the aircraft call sign, altitude and route of flight. When that air traffic controller is satisfied that aircraft is not in confliction with any other aircraft within his designated air space, he will hand that aircraft off to another air traffic control whose area of jurisdiction is another part of air space.

Airports have capacity rates, which Atlanta Hartsfield operates at near capacity all the time. During a VFR day, which is visual flight rules, where the sky is clear, the weather's nice, we could probably land anywhere from 94 to 104 aircraft in an hour. When the weather's bad, the ceilings are low, we have rain showers on and around the field, our arrival rates are reduced down to about 62 to 68 arrivals per hour.

There are many aspects of air traffic control that I like. It's high paced, traffic volume keeps your energy levels up, your alertness is maintained, it keeps you very sharp. In Atlanta Hartsfield, you're psyched before you even get there because you know the volume of aircraft that you're going to be working. If it's a VFR day, you can go in a little more relaxed. If it's bad weather, you know what to expect, your anxiety level is going to be higher. The weather is a major player on stress. If we have buildups of severe weather in -- within our designated air space, we lose the availability to maneuver that aircraft.

In Atlanta, for instance, the air space is sectorized, which it's broken up to where the arrival controllers handling the inbound aircraft to Atlanta have a certain amount of air space to work within. If there's an area of weather in this arrival corridor that this arrival controller is working with, that aircraft will ask to deviate around a weather buildup. When the aircraft start deviating, that could possibly force that aircraft into another sector which the other sector is not expecting that. So when you deal with situations like that, that's when the whole atmosphere, everybody's tense and it could be stressful.

Air traffic controllers are provided tools to work with. One of the tools is an automated radar terminal system displayed on a radarscope. Within the automated terminal radar system, we have the capability through radar to identify weather intensities. The weather presentation that is broadcast on our radarscope indicates level one, two, three all the way to level six. Level one being the lowest weather, possibly just rain showers, all the way up to level six is where it could include thunderstorms, tornadoes and possible low level wind shear.

The ultimate responsibility for flying the aircraft and ensuring the safety of an aircraft is the pilot's responsibility. If the pilot does not want to fly through a level three rain shower that we're depicting on our radarscope, he'll make a request for a deviation. If we have low level wind shears on or about the airport, our responsibility is to advise that pilot of the potential hazards, then that pilot has to make the decision of whether or not he wants to continue with that route of flight.

My responsibility as an air traffic controller is to remain calm and try and assist that pilot as much as possible. It helps the pilot that is in a very stressful situation to have a calm voice on the other end of the radio. Our responsibility is to offer avenues to help that pilot get the aircraft to a safe landing location. It's very difficult to train yourself to be calm during an extreme situation. It's very difficult to prepare yourself when in all actuality when you go to work a position, you're prepared for everything to go right. What causes problems is when things go wrong, and the only way to prepare yourself to deal with high stress situations is to actually deal with them.

The advice I have for aspiring air traffic controllers is to be prepared. It's one of the most challenging jobs that I've ever experienced in my life. Air traffic control demands a lot, but the awareness level you have to maintain at all times because you're dealing with human lives.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

May 21, 1888, the Red Cross is founded.

MCMANUS: I'm sure that like most people your health is important to you, and perhaps as part of your health consciousness you keep an eye on your weight. If so, you are probably familiar with some of the so-called fad diets that promise to help you shed pounds and inches, but are those promises being kept?

Dr. Sanjay Gupta gives us the skinny.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They're often touted as the fastest way to lose weight, but are fad diets right for you? Well we took a look at a few of America's top fad diets, this according to "Good Housekeeping" magazine. Most experts agree these quick fixes can restrict the body of adequate amounts of wholesome groups that include fats, proteins or carbohydrates. But just how safe are they?

CHRIS ROSENBLOOM, REGISTERED DIETITIAN: Carbohydrates are the enemy right now in most people's mind, and I think it's really misconstrued or misplaced. Carbohydrates are necessary for exercising.

GUPTA: Americans spend over $30 billion a year on diet books, pills and weight loss programs, but many still ignore eating right and exercising regularly. So diets based on little to no science continue to overshadow the more sensible weight loss plans.

Once known as the Hollywood diet in the 1930s, the grapefruit diet works on the premise that you'll drop about 10 pounds in one week. That's if you eat half a grapefruit per meal every day with a small amount of protein and selected vegetables. Many believe that grapefruits contain a special fat burning enzyme. The problem, there's no proof that grapefruit has a fat burning agent but rather it's just simply low in calories. Unfortunately, the diet is also low in protein, fiber, calcium and many other key vitamins and minerals.

The liquid diet, it might sound familiar to some. Talk show host Oprah Winfrey once revealed that she had lost a large amount of weight on a liquid diet.

OPRAH WINFREY, TALK SHOW HOST: What I did was I fasted for, without cheating, for a solid six weeks.

GUPTA: This diet requires you to replace two meals and one snack a day with the low calorie milkshake or candy-like bar. The problem, the weight generally returns when the dieter returns to eating all solid foods again.

And what about those very popular high protein diets?

DR. JUDITH STERN: I am worried that people on these high protein diets, low carb diets are endangering their heart health. You know it isn't a complete diet. You know you're not getting everything you need for good health.

GUPTA: Well here's what we already know, too much protein, it can tax the kidneys and increase extreme medical conditions like heart disease, high cholesterol and even hypertension. The American Dietetic Association says some of these diets might work if they're tweaked just a little, and then they would offer a balanced well- rounded diet.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCMANUS: Our next story centers on some women who know what it takes to stay fit and healthy. They're blazing trails into a sport that still remains, for the most part, an American boy's club. These young ladies are wrestlers, and they're holding their own against their male counterparts.

Student Bureau reporter Jeni Sexton has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JENI SEXTON, CNN STUDENT BUREAU (voice-over): First glance around Pacific University's wrestling room in Forest Grove, Oregon seems to be an average practice. However, looking closer, you can find something truly unique about the team Pacific houses.

When Jill Remiticado first came to Pacific University and wanted to begin wrestling, assistant coach Mike Clock admits he was skeptical. He says his first thought was that women wanted to wrestle for reasons other than for the love of the sport.

MIKE CLOCK, ASSISTANT COACH: Be around boys or to get some publicity, not to really work hard. So you know I was sort of a wait- and-see thing with me as far as Jill was concerned, would she be able to do the things that the boys do and not ask for special consideration.

SEXTON: Remiticado, a former high school wrestler from Hawaii, has neither asked for special consideration nor has she received any. In fact, her attempt to grapple into the male dominated world of wrestling has been a constant struggle.

JILL REMITICADO, WRESTLER: I think that's just what a lot of people were afraid when I was coming up through high school that you know the guys would lose some of their pride and their ego by, you know, having girls present in the wrestling room.

SEXTON (on camera): Pacific University is one of only 15 schools nationwide and the only school in the northwest to house a women's wrestling program, and the females here have had to overcome much adversity to succeed. Of 750,000 amateur wrestlers nationwide, only 5,000 are women. But thanks to programs like Pacific's, the sport is growing and will be the only new event to the 2004 Summer Olympics.

(voice-over): Freshman Desiree Lockhart says she's gotten a lot of criticism as a female wrestler. Her most vocal opponents originally came from her family.

DESIREE LOCKHART, WRESTLER: Well my sister had dated wrestlers, and they had been injured. One of them had, you know, hurt a shoulder pretty bad, so if a boy could get hurt wrestling, then you know twice as bad could happen to a girl but.

SEXTON: Women wrestlers say they have to overcome much more than physical injuries to continue the sport they love. What is it though that makes women like Lockhart keep at it?

LOCKHART: The physicalness of it. I wanted a harder sport. Basketball, you know you dribble up and down a court. You know if you hit someone you get called a foul, and it's like you know it didn't hurt so what's the big deal. But with wrestling, you know it's constant physical activity.

SEXTON: Although there were many who doubted them, Remiticado and Lockhart have won their coaches and teammates over, opening doors for what is now an eight-member women's team.

CLOCK: I don't know that I was a doubter, but I was a bit skeptical as to whether, you know, a girl could handle this sort of pressure that we put on them in wrestling. And she stayed out the entire season, did everything that we asked, didn't ask any special favors, and so I was convinced then that -- and of course she does a great job in class as well. So I was convinced that this was a viable thing and that we needed to take a closer look at it.

SEXTON: So far the women are proving that they can keep up with the men on the mats.

LOCKHART: The end of a season or at the end of a week if I look back, I really feel good about myself because this sport is so much harder and it requires so much more of me that you know you're just so proud of yourself. And it just -- it does so much more for you inside than any other sport that I've ever played.

SEXTON: Jeni Sexton, CNN Student Bureau, Hillsboro, Oregon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

"Where in the World" this city was founded in 1870, only U.S. city to be planned by a woman, one of the world's leading year-round resort centers? Can you name this city? Miami, Florida, USA.

MCMANUS: One of the best places on earth, Miami, Florida.

Well if our "Where in the World puts you in the mood for sand and sun, I suggest you pull out your sunscreen. Did you know that the average person receives 80 percent of their sun exposure by the age of 18? Now head to cnnstudentnews.com to get that full story. It's a very important one.

And we also have an important programming note, get ready to reset your VCRs. Starting June 17, we'll begin airing at 4:00 a.m. Eastern, that's 1:00 a.m. Pacific. Again, that's 4:00 a.m. Eastern and 1:00 a.m. Pacific Time, you guys out in California.

All right, that's enough for today. I'm out of here. You be good. We'll see you tomorrow.

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