CNN news 2013-03-05 加文本

cnn news 2013-03-05

Fridays are awesome, I love starting with I-reports like that one from Ms.Tiffany's class. I'm Carl Azuz, this is our March 1st edition of cnn Student News, it's also a deadline for the U.S government. About 85 billion dollars were set to be eliminated from the federal budget unless Congress and the president can agree on a way around these automatic spending cuts. That's not expected to happen, even known none of the politicians really likes these cuts. Here is basic problem, the government spends far more than it takes in, but neither, the executive branch nor the legislative branch has total control over what the government spends money on and they disagree on how to tax and how to spend. These cuts are set to lower government spending. And one big question is, are most Americans gonna know this?

"If you would listen to only the White House, you would have the sense that we're going to a sequestration nation pretty soon, and that everybody would be hit in all these diferent areas, food safety, education and our tax returns, our national parks, everything, and, this seems to be true. If you were the right person doing the right thing, you in fact may see an effect here for example, if you were in a military town, and you rely on military business, you might see an impact fairly soon. If you were at airport waiting for the right flight, at the right busy time, you might have a delay, if you were waiting on unemployment benefits and the check comes in lighter than you expected, that would also be a real effect on you fairly soon. But notice I'm talking about specific groups of people, doing specific things, the broader picture of the whole country may be different, and to address that, I want to talk about one of the hardest things that came up today. Eric Holder speaking up, and he had this point to say in the middle of today where he said, "Look, we will be less safe. If our budget adjusted cut next year from 27 billion by 1.6 billion to 25.4 billion, if this cut happens, the nation will be less safe." These are his words, and this is why he says that, because he says, there'll be furloughs at the FBI, we'll have fewer people looking into crimes, and trying to prevent crimes. ATF inspections of things like gun permits, all of that, will be knock down a little bit. There'll be fewer people to man the prison, so prisoners will spend more time on lockdown, there'll be fewer grants for local law enforcement, all of this will make things less safe in the country according to him. This is the budget if he gets the sequester, 25.4 billion dollars for next year, that's how much it would get. But look at this, this is a grap of funding for the Justice Department for the last 11 years, and if you'll notice when you look at this graph, in fact, that line would be right about here. So in fact, for the past 11 years, only the past 3 years has this Justice Department had more money, then they would have under the sequester, so does that mean that all these years, we were less safe when the national crime rate was steadily moving down during that period of time? These are the tough challenges out there, because in many ways, as Democrats in the White House say, all this cataclysmic things are going to hit if the sequester comes in. I think Republicans maybe betting on the ideas, but for a few weeks pass, a couple of months pass, and the public doesn't notice it because of things like this. Then there're going to be able to turn around to the White House and say, you were just trying to scare us. Here is a lot of things and we haven't seen it come to pass."

At two o'clock eastern yesterday afternoon, the doors of a papal retreat closed. It signified the official end of Pope Benedict, the 16th's papacy. And it followed a day of goodbye, in his last public apperance as Pope, Benedict said he was a pilgrim begining the last leg of his pilgrimage on earth. In his last tweet as Pope, Benedict wrote, thank you for your love and support, may you always experience the joy that comes from putting Christ in the center of your lives. This is historic in part, because it's the first time in 600 years, that a papacy is ended in retirement rather than death. At cnn studentnews.com, we posted yesterday's explainer on how the Catholic Church will choose its next leader.

Next up today, a bit bad news from the governor's Highway Safety Administration. Driving death, among American teenagers, apparently increased in 2012, the jump is almost 20% over the year before. Researchers aren't sure why, but they've known for years that motor vehicle accidents have been the leading cause of dead for U.S teenagers. The overall rate is still lower than it was five years ago, according to the reseacher who led the study. But if the goes to to decrease the number of driving related death every year, this is a setback. Different states have different laws and limits on driving ages. Would you accept stricter teen driving laws if it meant the possibility of fewer accidents, if you're on facebook, tell us what you think at facebook.com/cnnstudentnews.