Scott: What is up? It is Wednesday, March 11th. I am Scott Evans and Channel One News starts right now.
First up today, let's check out what's making headlines and we head to Washington, D.C. where there is a war ofwords brewing over the president's plan to make a deal with the country of Iran over putting a freeze on their nuclear program.
This week 47 Republican senators issued an open letter to the leaders of Iran
warning them that anything not approved by Congress is a mere executive agreement and could be revoked by the next president with the stroke of a pen.
Democrats fired back, saying the letter was sabotageand put delicate negotiations at risk.
Sen. Harry Reid: I disagreed with President Bush so very, very much with what he was doing to our country. But I would never ever have considered anything even close to this.
Scott: Senator Tom Cotton, who wrote the letter, defended the move.
Sen. Tom Cotton: Congress must approve a deal for a deal to be lasting. And Congress will only approve a deal if it stops Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.
Scott: The U.S. and five nations have been working to finalize an agreement by April that would eliminate Iran's ability to build a nuclear weapon for at least a decade. In exchange, some economic punishments against Iran would be lifted.
Many Republicans have called those terms unacceptable. But President Obama insists he doesn't need Congress to sign off.
Iran's foreign minister called the letter a "propaganda ploy" and said it had "no legal value."
Later this week Secretary of State John Kerry will travel to Switzerland for the next round of negotiations with Iran.
And there is more outrage growing from those racist chants by some University of Oklahoma students.Two university students have now been expelled, but the fraternity’s house mother is now getting some unwanted attention after her own racist video went viral.
This is the latest video to surface from the SAE fraternity. This one showing the fraternity's 78-year-old house mother using the same racial slur back in 2013, although she says she was just singing along to a rap song.
But she is being called out because earlier in the week, before her video was released, she expressed shock at the same racial slur being used by the SAE frat members.
Beauton Gilbow: I heard the words. Unbelievable.This is not, this is not SAE.
Scott: The SAE house has been shut down. All students living in the house and their house mother were ordered out. And yesterday, the President of Oklahoma University expelled two students for their alleged leadership role in the racist chant video. Hundreds of students are still reeling over that recording.
JD Baker: Somebody should have stood up and said, “Hey we should not say this.”
Scott: And last up, a decision came down yesterday in the case of whether or not “Blurred Lines” is a rip off of another song. And the jury calls it a copycat.
A Los Angeles jury said the song by Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke ripped off Marvin Gaye's 1977 hit “Gotta give It Up.”
The ruling is a win for Marvin Gaye's family which sued on copyright infringement. The family will now be awarded$7.3 million.
That's it for headlines. But coming up, some of the best young minds compete for big money.
Ok, our next story is like “American idol” meets “The Science Guy.”High school students present their ideas in front of a panel of judges and there's a cool million dollars in prizes up for grabs. But as Tom Hanson shows us, you will need more than a good voice for this one.
Tom: They are young, smart, and innovative. The 40 2015 finalists competing in the Intel's Science Talent Search came from all over the country.
See, this isn't your average cafeteria science fair. Yeah, there are no exploding volcano models. The contestants presented their own scientific research andtechnology ideas that could just change the world.
And last night, the winners were announced for three different categories.Noah Golowich of Lexington, Massachusetts took home first prize in thecategory of Basic Research.He developed a ground-breaking mathematical proof to solve long and complicated math problems.
First place in the category of Global Good went toAndrew Jin of San Jose, California who developed a machine that finds the genetic causes of many diseases.
And finally in the third category,Innovation,Michael Hofmann Winer of Bethesda, Maryland created a study of complex atomic structures,which got him a first place prize.
These three winners each were given a grand prize of $150,000 thousand.But they are just a few of the more than 2,000 contestants that initially applied for the talent search.
And they join a pretty impressive roster of past finalists, including eight Nobel Prize winners and Oscar Best Actress winner Natalie Portman, who was an Intel semi-finalist.
But even more impressive are the issues these teens took on. Let's just say, the competition was pretty stiff.Finalist projects ranged from cyber security to detecting parasites of blood samples.
Tanay Tandon: Take the slide, put it underneath the smartphone and the lens attachment, take a picture on the camera, send it to the server, the server analyzes it and within a couple of seconds you get an output with sort of a preliminary blood report.
Tom: Eighteen-year-old Tanay Tandon says that report can detect blood disorders and the presence of parasites indicating a tropical disease. And high school senior Kriti Lall designed a machine to help the 137 million people affected by arsenic-polluted water.
Kriti Lall: I made a novel water treatment system to inexpensively remove arsenic from water. This novel system uses a bacteria that I genetically engineered and it also uses a bioreactor that I designed and built.
Tom: Win or lose, simply being a finalist is a pretty big deal. And one thing all the students can agree upon is hoping their innovations will have a real-world impact.
Tom Hanson, Channel One News.
Scott: My science fair project was which freezes solid faster, hot water or cold water?And I did not win anything.
Coming up next, it is a unique coming of age story.
Arielle is here now with a major milestone for a panda baby you guys know and love.
Arielle: Well panda cub Bao Bao is a celebrity at the National Zoo in D.C., and now that she has turned 18 months old, it is time for her to start living on her own.
For panda fans everywhere, 18-month-old Bao Bao is a star; her life, documented on the panda cam.
From her earliest days, we have watched Bao Bao learn to crawl, get check-ups and play outside with the occasional tumble. She is so popular, this video of her first snow day has more than 5 million hits on YouTube. And now she is all grown up, grown and ready to leave her mother Mei Xiang forever.
Brandie: We've noticed that Bao Bao is definitely more independent. She' been more independent since the day that she was born. And it's actually great because the weaning process is going so quickly, so simply.
Arielle: Here is where Bao Bao spent her second night on her own in her favorite spot, up in a tree. It is new independence for a cub who is used to being close to mom.
Nicole MacCorkle: Mom is not sad at all. It may be more of an adjustment for the cubs but we do know that they get past it very quickly.
Arielle: The way zoo keeper Nicole MacCorkle explains it is thatin the wild, panda cubs usually are around 2 years old when they leave their mothers for good. Earlier this month they spent nights together but days apart. Bao Bao in one yard, mom in another.
The zoo says the early signs of separation were obvious.
Brandie: They spend less time together. They have less interest in each other. And it's a little bit sad to us. But we watch Mei Xiang, and when Bao Bao comes over to nurse, Mei will push her away.
Arielle: That was another sign, when Bao Bao started eating solid food, like bamboo and sweet potato. And her training was also improving.
She even started following commands inside a cage used for drawing blood from adult pandas. She is asked to stretch out her arm and squeeze the metal rod and she gets close.
Timing is everything for Bao Bao and her mother. It is breeding season for pandas and Mei Xiang will only be fertile for one to two days. If Bao Bao is still around, there's a chance Mei won't breed.
It is nature's explanation for why mother and cub must separate. But the finality of it all is hard for the zookeepers to take.
Nicole: The world changes when you’re a parent and you see things differently. But we're parents of little humans and Mei Xiang is a parent of a little panda and this is the stage where the little panda needs to go and be a big panda.
Brandie: We’re taking our cues from Mei. Mei is telling us that it’s time for Bao Bao to go. And we're letting that happen. We're helping her set Bao Bao off on her own.
Arielle: And to find out how you can help endangered species like pandas, head to Channelone.com.
Scott: And that’s going to do it for us. Have a great day, and we will see you right back here tomorrow.
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