Arielle: Hey guys, it is Thursday, November 19. I am Arielle Hixson, and Channel One News starts right now.
We begin in France; that is where French police targeted terror suspects in an early morning raid yesterday that turned one Paris suburb into a war zone. They were looking for the mastermind behind the Paris attacks.
Dozens of heavily armed French police raided an apartment building just north of Paris.
Girl: I heard some explosions,four or five explosions, and then I opened the door, and I heard gunshots, many, many gunshots.
Arielle: Telephone surveillance and eyewitness accounts led police to believe the alleged planner of Friday's terror attacks,Abdelhamid Abboud, may have been hiding in the building.
At least two people were killed during the raid.A woman blew herself up with a suicide vest; the other was an unidentified man, possibly Abboud. Officials say they are waiting for DNA results, and French authorities say they also arrested eight people.
Saint-Denis is a poor suburb of Paris with a large Muslim community. It is also home to the national soccer stadium, one of the sites the terrorists attacked last Friday.
French President François Hollande praised the bravery of the security forces and said his nation is at war against terrorism.
French police have conducted more than 400 searches since Sunday and seized dozens of weapons.
In Paris mourners are still crowding makeshift memorials to pay tribute to the victims.
Elizabeth Hong: There's definitely a feeling that things aren't quite the same, and Ithink it's going to take time.
Arielle: The French government now says all 129 people killed in Friday's terror attack have been identified, and in a sign that the City of Light is trying to move forward, the iconic Eiffel Tower opened yesterday to tourists, although security remained high.
Next up,residents in several states are tackling some extreme weather, from heavy winds to tornadoes.
Strong winds, heavy rain and rough surf battered Washington state.Snapped and mangled trees littered busy roadways and fell onto homes.
Crews worked around the clock clearing downed limbs from power lines, racing to restore electricity to the hundreds of thousands who lost power.
Three people were killed from trees like this. Amazingly, the woman who was in this car escaped unharmed.Wind gusts reached 119 miles per hour in some spots.
Over in Colorado and Kansas, heavy snow and wind gusts caused lots of problems on the roads, trapping drivers in near-whiteout conditions.
The same storm system fueled violent storms and nearly two dozen tornadoes earlier this week in Kansas and Texas.
All right, coming up: a high-tech fix in the world of high school football.
Arielle: Football games can get pretty tough, with some serious blows to the head. Azia, you have got a story on safety.
Azia: That is right, Arielle.There have been eight deaths on high school football fields this year, sparking new concernsabout safety. Some schools are even looking into this new technology that can help keep players ahead of the game.
Isaac Pearson, a sophomore from Maplewood, Missouri traded in his football helmet for some soccer gear.
Isaac Pearson: My mom's like, no, no, no; soccer's your thing. You know, she doesn't want me to get hurt, too. But,you know, soccer's just something I really liked.
Azia: But Isaac's school doesn't have a football team anyway. Like some schools across the country, Maplewood had a hard time finding enough players due to injuries and lack of interest.
Romelle Person:When I first heard about it,I was,like, devastated. Cause, like, football is my favorite sport.
Azia: The number of high school football players in the U.S. has declined by 25,000 over the past five years. Last year,five high school players died playing football. That is more deaths than in college, semi-pro or professional levels.
Over at Oyster Bay High School in New York, football players keep this on top of their minds, so no one hits with their head. Linebacker Jason Perez learned that lesson the hard way after a concussion last season.
Jason Perez: I don't remember much from it. I just remember putting on my cleats and then sitting at home after our scrimmage and just thinking, like, “How did I get here?”
Azia: All football players, including high schoolers, have a 75 percent chance of suffering a concussion. Those numbers and the death of a player at a neighboring school on Long Island had the Board of Education close to cancelling football last year. Instead, the board bought the team five-star safety-rated helmets.
Kevin Trentowski: The crown of the helmet has a little cutout here that gives for the player when they have a contact. And another big change, there used to be bolts and screws over here in front of the forehead; those are now moved to the temple.
Azia: Inside, the helmets have wireless sensors that instantly notify coaches of potentially dangerous hits.
Dr. Duma: There is no perfect helmet that prevents all injuries.
Dr. Stefan Duma is a biomedical engineering professor at Virginia Tech. He tests helmets on a model filled with sensors that are hit 120 times at various angles.
Duma and his team look at how the helmets respond to both high- and low-impact hits.
Dr. Duma: If you move from a one-star to a four-star, that reduces your risk of concussion by 50 percent.
Azia: And that gives players like Jason a stronger defense against injury.
Jason Perez: I believe with these new helmets, we're safer now.
Azia: That means players can keep their head in the game in more ways than one.
These high-tech helmets can cost up to $400, but researchers say that they can last up to 10 years and are likely to come down in price as newer models hit the market.
Arielle: That is some pretty impressive technology. Thanks,Azia.
All right, next up: we are braving the cold in today's Geo Quiz.
Okay, it is pop quiz time! All this week we have been sizing up your map skills in honor of GeographyAwareness Week.So far we have hit Cuba, Italy and Mississippi,and today Keith Kocinski goes north, way north, to a pretty cold place.
Keith: Hey guys,I am in the chillyArctic, home to polar bears and of course the North Pole. Temperatures here are usually below freezing and often dip into the negatives. So is it always that cold here? Well, that brings us to your next Geo Quiz question. When is summer in the Arctic?
Is it
a. December through March
b. March through June
c. June through September
d. There is no summer in the Arctic.
You have 10 seconds.
Time is up; the answer is c,June through September. There is summer in the Arctic, and believe it or not,it gets pretty warm.
And with the Earth's climate warming, summer heat in the Arctic is more intense and lasting longer. The hottest temperature in the Arctic was a balmy 100 degrees Fahrenheit, recorded in 1915 in Alaska.
Because the Arctic is above the equator, it has similar seasonal timing to us. South of the equator, the cold season is actually June through September and the warmer season in December through March.
Surrounded by the Arctic Ocean, there are eight countries that fall into the region known as the Arctic Circle: the United States, Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finlandand Russia.
The Arctic is the Land of the Midnight Sun. During parts of the spring and summer, the sun remains above the horizon 24 hours a day, meaning 24 hours of daylight. However, during the winter, the sun never rises in some places in the Arctic.
It is all about the angle of the Earth's axis or tilt. It currently sits at about 23 degrees; at that angle, the Earth rotates around the sun during a 365.25-day cycle. As days get closer to the summer solstice, the Northern Hemisphere of the Earth is tilted toward the sun, but as the Earth moves closer to the winter solstice, the tilt reverses, leaving the Northern Hemisphere tilted away from the sun's rays, meaning at the poles the sun only rises and sets once each year.
Even with these harsh conditions, the Arctic is teeming with life. Millions of people call it home, and so do countless species of wildlife, like polar bears, whales, seals and plenty of migratory birds.
But scientists say as the Earth warms, this ice world is quickly disappearing. Keith Kocinski, Channel One News.
Arielle: To check out some of the places we here at Channel One have been to, plus some of your Instagram photos from your travels, head on over to ChannelOne.com.
And don't forget to keep sending us all those cool pics of all the places you've visited via Instagramusing the #Ch1GeoWeek.
All right, guys, we are out of time, but we cannot wait to see you tomorrow.
1 | Page