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All 30 Leaders of NATO Gather In Belgium; A Tornado Strikes New Orleans; A Breakdown of The Factors In Gas Prices

Aired March 24, 2022 - 04:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

CARL AZUZ, CNN 10 ANCHOR: Hi. I`m Carl Azuz. It`s good to see you and we hope your Thursday is going well.

U.S. President Joe Biden departed Wednesday for a high-stakes trip to Europe. He`s scheduled to visit Belgium and Poland and the big focus will

be on Russia`s invasion of Ukraine. What will it take to bring the war there to an end? That`s a question Western leaders don`t know the answer

to.

And when asked what he`d say to them on this trip, the president responded:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I`m going to say that to their face. I`m going to say all I have to say. I`m going to save when I get

there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AZUZ: His first stop will be in the Belgian capital for a meeting of all 30 leaders of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization or NATO. This is an

alliance of European and North American countries. The United States is a member and the biggest contributor to NATO. It was established in 1949 as a

guard against the Soviet Union. And today, NATO countries are on guard against moves by Russia.

What`s made the current conflict such a challenge for NATO is that Ukraine is not a member. That means the NATO countries that border it and the ones

that support it are not required to defend Ukraine from Russia`s attacks.

Russia doesn`t like the fact that several countries to its West have joined NATO in recent years. Ukraine`s government wanted to. That`s a big part of

the reason why Russia says it launched a military operation there.

So what can result from NATO`s meeting this week? Part of it`s symbolic. The in-person gathering intends to show that NATO is unified in opposing

the Russian invasion. NATO is expected to announce new sanctions, penalties on Russia`s economy over the war.

But even though experts say the current ones have hurt Russia, they haven`t stopped its moves in Ukraine. So it`s unclear if additional sanctions will.

The alliance will be sending more weapons and equipment to Ukraine to help in its fight. But one thing NATO countries say they`re not willing to do is

to send their own military forces to fight on Ukraine`s side. They don`t want to be directly involved in combating Russia.

After the NATO meeting, President Biden scheduled to visit Poland and discuss the millions of Ukrainian refugees who fled there. The U.S. is

expected to announce more assistance for refugees.

Next, today, the same storm system that spawned dozens of reported tornadoes in Texas has taken a toll on Louisiana as it made its way east.

Officials in New Orleans say a twister hit their city on Tuesday night, killing at least one person and injuring several others. But authorities

say accurate weather warnings had prompted a lot of people to take shelter and that probably prevented the outcome from being much worse.

The day before, hundreds of homes had been damaged in Texas and the day after, millions of Americans were under the threat of severe weather as the

system continued east. But Wednesday morning brought us the first real look at the destruction in New Orleans.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN WEATHER: Just adjacent to the Lower Ninth Ward east of New Orleans, and we`re getting that first glimpse of daylight and giving us

and revealing to us as well as the residents here the true nature of the devastation that was left behind by this powerful tornado that struck about

7:30 local time last night. Let`s take you to the air, show you what it looks like from above and you too at home can get an idea of just how bad

it was.

In fact, we talked to the Saint Bernard Parish president earlier this morning and he told CNN that when you guys see what happened over

overnight, once that daylight hits the damage scene, you`re going to see that was truly a miracle and he was referencing of course the limited

amount of injuries that occurred with this powerful tornado. And unfortunately, there was a confirmed fatality but that number, of course,

with the devastation that we`re seeing behind us could have been much, much higher.

I want to show you the nature of a tornado. As a meteorologist, we study this in depth. We understand damage patterns. And this is very

characteristic of a powerful tornado. It is indiscriminate in what it destroys.

Look behind me here, you can see homes completely untouched, virtually untouched by this tornado. And then you can see clearly what is a school

bus behind me that has been flipped. It has traveled at least 100 yards from where it was parked earlier this morning. And then here directly

behind my right shoulder is a home where the roof has been completely lifted off.

We talked to some residents who actually rode out this tornado it was a mother and father of two children that were six and eight years old. They

lived just down the road within this neighborhood of Arabi in Saint Bernard Parish.

They told me that they could actually feel the pressure drop within their ears as the tornado approached. That`s how powerful it was. They took a

mattress from their bed and hid inside their bath to take cover and fortunately, all were okay here.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AZUZ (voice-over): Ten-second trivia:

What was Salyut 1?

The first satellite, the first animal in space, the first moon rover, or the first space station?

In April of 1971, the Soviet Union put its Salyut space station into orbit.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AZUZ: Two of the ten people currently aboard the International Space Station stepped outside for a walk yesterday. One of these astronauts works

for NASA, the other is part of the European Space Agency.

Their jaunt was scheduled to last six and a half hours and their mission was to do maintenance and make some upgrades to the aging $150 billion

laboratory. A hose that helps with temperature controls, a power and data cable and the replacement of an outside camera we`re all on their to-do

list.

It was the 248th spacewalk on the ISS and the U.S. government intends to keep it running until when the last visitors are scheduled to leave the

station ahead of its planned crash into the South Pacific.

Gasoline prices in the U.S. and beyond have been at or near record levels for weeks. They rose in America throughout, according to U.S. government

statistics, and they spiked even higher after Russia invaded Ukraine, which led to more instability in the oil market.

The states of Georgia and Maryland are temporarily suspending their gas taxes in an effort to ease gasoline and diesel prices. Several other states

are thinking about doing the same thing.

What exactly factors into the cost of a gallon of gas?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JON SARLIN, CNN BUSINESS: What`s in a number? Specifically, that number? The number everyone can`t stop noticing these days. Well, nationally right

now, the price of gas as we`re filming this is $4.30 a gallon.

Here in California where we`re filming this, it`s even higher, the highest in the country. Right now, it`s $5.70 a gallon.

So what goes in a gallon of gas? Let`s break it down.

Here in California, they publish a breakdown of what actually goes in the cost of a gallon of gas. So we`re going to focus on that. And they use

$5.19 a gallon for this. So those are the numbers that we`re going to be using.

First up, taxes. There`s local, state and federal. And there`s a wide variance in state taxes. The median national excise tax is just over 25

cents a gallon, while the lowest is Alaska`s. It`s 9 cents. But here in California, it`s 51 cents a gallon. Those costs go to things like

maintaining roads and infrastructure.

Then you have other local state taxes and fees. That adds on another 13 cents. And then there`s the national gas tax. That adds 8.4 cents per

gallon. And this number actually hasn`t changed in decades.

So across state houses and federal government, people are calling for a gas tax holiday, to help keep the price of gas lower. But others are arguing

that no, this is too important a revenue source to cut.

Then and on 36 cents for the distribution, marketing and profits of the gas stations. That money goes towards things like rent, wages, utilities, the

cost of the pump, insurance, advertising and then the gas station`s profit. All that in 36 cents.

Then there`s the cost of refining the gas. That adds one dollar and 12 cents per gallon. That includes refining the gas, also transporting it, and

the profits for those companies.

Then we get to the biggest piece of the pie, the cost of crude oil. Right now, that adds 2.87 per gallon. Now this is the largest and most volatile

part of what makes up a gallon of gas. When you see the price of gas going up, you can count on the cost of crude oil having just gone up as well.

All of those factors go into what you pay at the pump.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(MUSIC)

AZUZ: One fun thing about working on an explainer show is that we get to explain stuff like this. On the left, inside the apparatus being towed is

Dutch speed skater Kjeld Nuis. He held the record for fastest speed skated on natural ice that was just over miles per hour, but he wanted to beat

that.

And with the help of the giant windshield you see which kept the breeze from being a factor, Nas recently clocked a new record of 64 miles per hour

on skates.

Anyone who lives on the cutting edge is going to lace up and toe pick the place to be a trail bladder or blade runner by carving out time to put

boots on the ice. But why break your own record? Cause skaters can escape. That puts us on ice.

Prattville High School gets today`s shout out. Thank you to our viewers in Prattville, Alabama, for subscribing and leaving a comment on our YouTube

channel.

I`m Carl Azuz for CNN 10.

END