Scott: What is up? It is Monday, December 8th. I am Scott Evans and Channel One News starts right now.
The protests in the streets in Ferguson, Missouri and across the country all stem from situations where police officers killed unarmed men. And the decisions not to charge the officers were made by grand juries, which is leaving many people asking how the system works and is it fair?
Tom Hanson has more.
Tom: Over the weekend thousands of people took to the streets across the country.
Crowds packed city streets in Manhattan. And at UC Berkeley, what started out as a peaceful protest turned violent.
Waves of fury after the deaths of two unarmed black men. One in New York and the other in Ferguson, Missouri. Both killed by police officers. Neither of whom will be charged with a crime because they were not indicted.
An indictment is a formal charge of a serious crime. And in the U.S. there are two ways to be indicted; by a judge or by a grand jury, where a prosecutor shows evidence to a group of people selected at random. Then the group decides if it's enough to go to trial.
A grand jury is very different from a regular jury in a trial. It meets in secret to protect those who may not be charged. Prosecutors decide what evidence and witnesses the jury sees, and there's usually no judge or defense attorney.
Now, there’s a growing criticism that government prosecutors are hijacking the system to get results they want.
Timothy Lynch: If they want an indictment they’re going to get an indictment. If they don’t want an indictment, it won’t happen.
Tom: In fact according to the website, Fivethirtyeight, out of 162,000 cases in 2010, the grand jury indicted all but eleven.
Stats also show that the grand juries rarely indict police.Critics say it is because prosecutors don't like to go after cops.
Lynch: Prosecutors are often unwilling to take on members of the police department because they work with the police week in and week out.
Tom: The prosecutor in the Ferguson case said he wanted to give the jury all the evidence and let them decide. And while the two cases are over, the conversation about grand juries and police brutality has just begun.
Tom Hanson, Channel One News.
Scott: Thanks Tom. Coming up, why Rolling Stone magazine is saying sorry.
Let's take a look at headlines. And we begin with a failed rescue attempt in the Middle East.
Two hostages were killed when American forces tried to rescue them from a terrorist groupin the country of Yemen.
Forty U.S Navy SEALs flew into Yemen and hiked to a large wall compound where the hostages were being held. One was American journalist Luke Somers; the other, South African teacher, Pierre Korkie.
As the seals approached the compound Saturday morning they were spotted and a firefight broke out. A man was seen running to where the hostages were held. By the time the SEALs got to them both of them were bleeding, apparently shot by the man who was running into the building.
One died on the way to the hospital. The other man died on the operating table. Unfortunately the South African man was supposed to be freed yesterday after ransom was paid for his release.
Next up, Rolling Stone magazine apologized over the weekend, backing off a story about an alleged assault on campus at the University of Virginia.
The article told the story of a woman named Jackie, who said she had been raped at a fraternity party. But yesterday the magazine apologized, saying they made a mistake by not interviewing any of the men Jackie said attacked her. And also adding discrepancies in Jackie’s account of the story.
Shortly after the original story, the UVA president suspended all fraternity and sorority activities. But some are still supporting Jackie and are worried this will make it harder for other victims to come forward.
The hashtag #istandwithjackie has taken off on twitter.
“I stand with Jackie because 92 percent of rape allegations are true,” one person posted. "But thanks to Rolling Stone, all victims’ accounts will be doubted."
That's it for headlines. Coming up, we go undercover in a high school cafeteria.
We are continuing our celebration of twenty-five years of Channel One News with a look back at our Lunch'd series.
Now Steven Fabian went undercover in a school lunch line to see what you eat and what you toss to the side.
So the Channel One team has taken over this cafeteria at Boynton Middle school in Ithaca, New York. So why are we here?Well, we are going to conduct a little experiment.
See, professors at Cornell University have found that just by switching up the layout of a lunch line, you can make students eat healthier without them even knowing it. So, let's see if it works.
Right now the lunch line is set up the way it normally is, so we are going to track what the students choose with this layout.
Alright, so we have this cafeteria completely bugged with twelve hidden cameras. We hid them in boxes around the room. We have actually got one in this water bottle right here. We have a few in the ceiling tiles. My producers have a glasses cam and a bag cam. And last but not least, I am going undercover as a lunch man. I got a camera right here. I am going to serve some lunches.
We are filming the teens undercover because later we are going to give their lunch line a makeover and see if this method really works. If a lunch line redesign will help students make better food choices.
But on this day what do these teens want to eat the most?The bad stuff! They snapped up tacos, cookies and sugary drinks.But the skim milkand the bean burrito were a tough sell.
The first girl in line, Samantha,didn't get any fruit or veggies. But neither did Massimo, Richie, Allayah, Lauren, Brenna, Leavante, Marci, Evan, Narissa, Sammy.
In fact, just 6 percent of the school got fruit and only eleven percent got vegetables. Based on my experience as a lunch man, these teens aren't even close to the government's goal of having half their diet be fruits and vegetables.
Alright, so lunch is over. I served a bunch of pizza and a bunch of tacos, but our secret operation isn't done yet. Little do the students here know, in three weeks we are coming back with the secret cameras and a new plan to see if we can get these students to make some healthier choices.
Ok we are back.
Ok guys we are back and our secret operation continues. We are about to serve the students the exact same lunch. Except this time, we are switching up where things are on the lunch line.
The masterminds behind the cafeteria redesign are Cornell University professors David Just and Brian Wansink. I wanted to know how they're going to basically trick teens into eating right.
Steven: So this here is the drink cooler. Ok, so this is, I am sure, a big culprit because everybody likes a sugary drink. So what are we doing here?
Brian:The first thing we're going to do is, we’re going to take a bunch of the milk, put it in front so if a persons’ thirsty at least they have the option of picking something up. At least they can reach over the white milk if they want to pick up a flavored sugared beverage.
Steven: Step two. They took thepizza, which was the first things in the lunch line, and moved it towards the back. And the veggies and the healthy bean burrito moved right to the front.
Step three. They renamed the healthy food.
Brian: We find that changing something as small as calling these mixed vegetables California Blend or Big Bad Bean Burritos, increases sales about 27 percent.
Steven: Step four. They moved the fruit from a plastic tub into a pretty fruit bowl.
And finally they took the cookiesand put them just out of reach.
Brian: We're not saying no to cookies. We're just moving them where people have a harder time to reach. So if I wanted…
Steven: Far over there. Ok.
Brian: They're going to have to ask one of the food service workers to help pick it up. We think that’s just enough of a barrier to keep some percentage of kids from say, “Oh, whatever, I’ll just have an orange.”
Steven: The professors rolled up their sleeves, made their changes,and now it is lunch time!
First up, Samantha ignored the healthy main course and got pizza. Even the professional lunch man couldn't get her to change.
So is this going to work or is the joke on us? We will see when we come back tomorrow.
Scott: Tomorrow we will see if that lunch line redesign worked.
Now, to see if you are making healthy choices for lunch, take our quiz over at Channelone.com.
And that’s going to do it for us today. I am Scott Evans. Make this week awesome. And we will see you right back here tomorrow.
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