CNN news 2014-04-13 加文本

cnn news 2014-04-13

CARL AZUZ, HOST: You`re halfway through the week, nine days into April and ten minutes away from being up to speed on current events. Welcome to cnn STUDENT NEWS.

First up, President Obama signed two executive orders yesterday concerning equal pay. Basically, the orders are intended to make it easier for people to find out how much money others are making so they can decide if they`re being paid fairly. The president says this will help women earn similar pay to men. But like all executive orders, they`re limited: they only apply to companies that do work for the U.S. government. Broader action would require Congress.

Laws requiring equal pay have been around since 1963. The Equal Pay Act prohibits businesses from paying people differently because of their gender. Still, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, American women working full-time today earn about 82 cents for every dollar men earn.

This can depend on the type of job. Full-time female lawyers, for instance, earn about 79 cents to every dollar male lawyers earn. But among pharmacists, the pay is about equal between women and men. Women are also more likely to work part-time and take time off to care for their families, so these things factor into the gap, as well.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Time for the "Shoutout." What is measure in fathoms? If you think you know it, shout it out. Is it distance in space, nautical speed, audio frequency or water depth? You`ve got three seconds. Go.

(SFX: Clicks, bell ringing)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A fathom is a measurement of six feet, primarily used in measuring water depth. That`s your answer, and that`s your "Shoutout."

AZUZ: Optimism is fading for discovering what happened to Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. It disappeared more than a month ago, and though several ships in the Indian Ocean, which is thousands of fathoms deep, might have detected a ping, a signal from an aircraft`s flight data recorder, nothing has been heard since the weekend. And officials aren`t even sure if what was detected was from the missing plane.

This would be a difficult search even if the ping were pinpointed.

ANGUS HOUSTON, JOINT AGENCY COORDINATION CENTRE: Now I stress, this is very deep water.

JEAN CASAREZ, cnn CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Very deep and very mysterious. Search vehicles may have to travel two and a half miles down to try and find aircraft wreckage. And much about the ocean floor is unknown.

CHRISTINE DENNISON, PRESIDENT, MAD DOG EXPEDITION: It is a mystery. It`s very -- we know it`s deep. It`s 4,500 meters.

CASAREZ: Christine Dennison is an ocean explorer. She says what adds to the mystery is the terrain.

DENNISON: You have valleys. You have gulleys. You have mountain ranges. It`s very much an area that will mimic what we have topside.

CASAREZ (on camera): This is what searchers are trying to find with acoustic events, or pings: the black box. In air, sound travels in a straight line. But it`s not like that in the sea. It can angle and bend up to 90 degrees.

(voice-over): That means you can`t be exactly sure where the sound is coming from.

PETER LEAVY, JOINT AGENCY COORDINATION CENTRE: Acoustic energy, sound through the water, is greatly affected by temperature, pressure and salinity.

CASAREZ: If Ocean Shield hears another ping and is able to fix the position, it will likely lower the autonomous underwater vehicle Bluefin-21 into the water and attempt to find wreckage on the sea floor. If wreckage is located, though, one aspect of the deep-sea conditions may work in investigators` favor: very low temperatures.

DENNISON: Cold water does preserve everything much, much better than shallower, warmer temperatures.

CASAREZ: The search for Flight MH-370 continues.