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U.S. Attorney General Resigning From His Job; Cost of War on ISIS; STEM Diploma Means Success on Job Market; Benefits of Chocolate

Aired September 26, 2014 - 04:00:00   ET


CARL AZUZ, CNN ANCHOR: Fridays are awesome. So are jobs, chocolate and football. They are all featured today on CNN STUDENT NEWS. First up, the

U.S. will be getting a new Attorney General. Eric Holder announced yesterday he`ll resign from his job. The Attorney General leads the U.S.

Department of Justice. It`s the highest legal job in the land. Holder became the first African-American Attorney General in 2009. Opinions of

his work are strongly partisan. Democrats generally think he did a good job, saying he made achievements in civil rights. Republicans mostly

wanted him out saying he disregarded the U.S. Constitution. Holder`s strongly supported the same sex marriage, and he prioritized issues related

to voting rights. He also became the first U.S. cabinet member to be held in contempt of Congress after he refused to turn over documents related to

a failed government program involving guns and Mexican drug cartels.

The latest targets in the U.S.-led war against the ISIS terrorist group, oil refineries in Syria. ISIS has been using these to pay for its

operations getting up to $2 million a day from them. The U.S. wants that stopped, even though the U.S. military official says the group has a

billion dollars in the bank.

ISIS stands for Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. The terrorist group wants its own country in the region, bases on its own interpretation of Islam.

ISIS has slaughtered civilians, soldiers, journalists, and an American defense official says the fight against ISIS will likely last for years.

It won`t be cheap.


CRISTINA ALESCI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Expending military strikes into Syria come with an expending bill to pay for the effort. U.S. military forces

and its coalition partners launched air attacks in the country, with the blunt force of 47 tomahawk missiles across northern and eastern Syria.

Those weapons which carry thousand pound warheads and can be reprogrammed in flight, have a hefty price tag, $1.5 million apiece, and that`s just the

beginning. For the first assault, the Pentagon said four dozen fighter jets took off from both land and sea, loaded with 200 pieces of munition.

Now, between fuel and maintenance the cost for flying these jets on an hourly basis ranges from 22,000 to 62,000 with the air force`s newest and

most stealthy aircraft, the F-22 Raptor, topping the least.

As for these jets are carrying, outside military experts point to the JDAN, the joint direct attack munition, which can be launched miles away from the

target. Its manufacturer Boeing calls it the warfighter`s weapon of choice. It goes for about $29,000. And the SDB, the small diameter bomb,

which is dubbed the all-weather solution.

It goes for about $21,000. Now, it`s easy to see how the bill for these operations adds up. The last we hear from the Pentagon it said the costs

were averaging about $7.5 million a day. But the back of the envelope estimate for the Tomahawks alone is $70 million. Granted, these are

missiles the U.S. and its partners have in their arsenals. But those will likely need to be replenished.

Bottom line, the average daily cost has to be significantly higher today than it was just a few weeks ago.


AZUZ: From Thursday`s transcript page at cnnstudentnews.com. Here are three of the thousands who wanted a mention on our "Roll Call". Prowling

around Hollis, Oklahoma, say hello to the Tigers. They are at Hollis High School. In Flowood, Mississippi, we`ve got the Chargers watching. They

are at Northwest Rankin Middle School. And over to Germany now, it`s great to see everyone at Teresa von Bairon (ph) Shuler (ph) in Munich.

A recent report looked at 464 different types of jobs in the U.S. It found that if you are looking to work in a secure profession, one of your best

bets is in the medical field. Optometrists, podiatrists, nurses, we are going to need more of them in the years ahead.

Also, blue collar fields, waste water treatment plant workers, building inspectors, we`ll need those, too. And if you are going into a stem field,

in general, the harder the degree, the better the pay.


UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Stem. It stands for science, technology, engineering and math. There`s a school of thought. There are more jobs than there are

qualified people to feel them.

The theory, train more Americans, reduce unemployment and help the economy. Let`s look at the class of 2012. Just 16 percent of undergraduates got a

degree in the stem majors. That seems small, right?

The Obama administration certainly thinks so, and has invested millions to increase those numbers. But is it worth it? Some say no, they say there

is no skills gap, just a lack of competitive wages and training options from companies. There`s no doubt STEM jobs are on the rise. The

Department of Commerce predicts they`ll grow nearly twice as much as other professions between 2008 and 2018, and that workers in another fields are

more likely to be unemployed.

So, how about wages?

The same report shows that STEM workers earn 26 percent more. In fact, the top ten paying majors for the graduating class of 2013 were all STEM. But,

before you reach for that (INAUDIBLE), let me drop some knowledge.

The Bureau of Labor says the vast majority of STEM jobs are related to computers and I.T. Their mean wages are higher than the U.S. average, but

not by much.

And guess what, CareerBuilder says I.T. jobs are the hardest ones to fill. So, what about the big bucks? The five highest paying STEM graduates jobs,

according to Forbes, are marine engineer, petroleum engineer, nuclear engineer, technology analyst and chemical engineer. You know, the easy


So, as technology evolves and becomes an even bigger part of our lives, one thing is clear: no matter what job you do, STEM will be everywhere. So

make sure you are ready.


UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: See if you can I.D. me, I`m a food that`s being consumed for hundreds of years. First, by indigenous people of Mexico.

I`m made from the seeds of a fruit tree, many would - their best when ground up and combined with milk and sugar. I`m chocolate. And my seeds

come from the cacao tree.


AZUZ: Those seeds are used to make everything from the chocolate we eat to the cocoa we bake with to the syrups we put on our ice cream. They were

used as money by the Maya, who lived in what is now Mexico.

But chocolate, as we know it, didn`t get popular until the 1850. So, is it healthy? As part of his "Living to 100" series, Dr. Sanjay Gupta looks

into that. The answer - sort of. (Ph)


SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Everyone likes to hear that chocolate could be good for them, and the truth is that it can be, but there are a

couple of caveats. First, chocolate just because of some of the ingredients in it, tends to increase your metabolic rate a little bit.

That`s the number of calories you are burning just by sitting there.

It is also giving you some, calories, obviously. But when you take both those things in comparison, you are burning a little bit more than you are

taking in, as long as you don`t overdo it.

So, there are good chocolates and there are not so good chocolates. You`ve probably heard that dark chocolates probably are going to be your best bet.

In addition to that metabolic effect it has, it`s also rich in more anti- oxidants, things that will help clean up some of the - the dirty cells in your body.

Cacao chocolate is not quite as popular, but it can have some health benefits as well. It can lower the bad levels of cholesterol, known as

LDL, and can help raise the good levels, HDO, just a little bit.

You want to find about 60 or 70 percent cocoa in the chocolate you might be buying.

So, if you want to live to 100, you can eat chocolate, but just a little bit.


AZUZ: Friday night football, watching your team blast through a banner and onto the field. Not all banners are created equal. A New York peeve team

found that out recently. They charged at full speed, but unfortunately, for the wall kill mighty mites, the sign was mightier. The first few

players are closed line, others just pile on. To their credit, it`s made out of vinyl. It was being held backwards, and the Velcro fasteners didn`t

break away like they should have. So, even though it made the first tackle of the game, the bad sign wasn`t a bad sign, the mighty mites won 24 to

nothing. It was truly a banner night. They`ll have to decide whether to keep the sign or banner it. Either way, it shouldn`t be too hard to vinyl

another one. I`m Carl Azuz. Thanks you for watching. Have a victorious weekend.