Students: Germantown from Madison, Mississippi, and Channel One News starts right now!
Emily: Shout-out to Ms.Holloway's seventh-grade class from Germantown Middle School for kicking us off. Hey guys, I am Emily Reppert. Let's get going.
President Trump wrapped up his visit to Asia, but tensions are still heating up between the U.S. and North Korea. Tom Hanson is in Seoul, South Korea, with the latest.
Tom: Yeah, Emily, well, as you know, the United States and North Korea have been trading threats for months, withPresident Trump threatening "fire and fury" and North Korea saying it has the ability to bomb the United States. Well, all of that tension has built up to the point where the U.S. military is now doing drills in the area to show off its strengthand also to say to North Korea, “Don't mess with us.”
These F-18 fighter jets from the USSRonald Reagan could strike targets in North Korea in a matter of minutes.Three U.S. aircraft carrier strike groups, the Reagan, the Theodore Roosevelt and the USSNimitz, are practicing massive military exercises just off the coast of North and South Korea. It is the largest display of U.S.Naval strength in the western Pacific in a decade.
Marc Dalton: All of this together, the whole U.S. military, sends the message that we’re readyto defend ourselves.
Tom: These U.S.-led exercises infuriate North Korea, which views them as rehearsals for an invasion and calls the latest drill "reckless" and "provocative."
Now, Russia and China, of course, arenot happy about this.Theysay that it only increases tensions, but the United States says it needs to be prepared. Emily?
Emily: All right, thanks,Tom. Keeping an eye on that.
All right, next up, three UCLA basketball players have some big regrets over shoplifting in China.The trio is now back in the U.S., but their actions caused an international incident, and now they say they are sorry for what they did.
Cody Riley, LiAngelo Ball and Jalen Hill faced the cameras back at UCLA yesterday.
Cody Riley: I want to start off by saying how embarrassed and ashamed I am for disappointing my family.
Emily: The players returned from China Tuesday evening after being detained there on suspicion of shoplifting. All three young men admitted to breaking the lawand stealing items from multiple stores.
Jalen Hill: What I did was stupid — there's just no other way to put it. And I'm not that type of person.
Emily: President Trump spoke to his Chinese counterpart directly while he was visiting China last week. The president said the young men were facing 10 years of jail time under Chinese law.
LiAngelo Ball: I would also like to thank PresidentTrump and the United States government for the help that they provided as well.
Emily: Riley, Ball and Hill are suspended indefinitely while the university conducts a review process.
All right,now it is pop quiz time.All week long, we have been taking you around the world in honor of Geography Awareness Week, and todayKeith is putting your skills to the test.
Keith: Hi everyone,I am here at the Everglades National Park, a wetland ecosystem sometimes referred to as the “river of grass.” So here is your question:
The Everglades are located in which state?
a.California
b.Georgia
c.Louisiana or
d.Florida
You have got 10 seconds.
All right, time is up! The answer is d,Florida.
The Everglades National Park is one of the largest and most complex wetland ecosystems in the world. With one and a half million acres, it pretty much takes up all of southern Florida.
The Everglades is often viewed as a still swamp, but it actually gets the name the river of grassbecause it is moving. Yeah, it is tough to tell, but it is — at a lazy gator’s pace, eventually flowing into the Gulf of Mexico and Florida Bay.
One of the best ways to see the Everglades National Park is by airboat. Cruising around, you see everything. It is home to hundreds of different plants and more than 1,000 species of wildlife, everything from beautiful birds, predatory panthers and, of course, some big old teeth-grinding gators and bone-crushing crocs.
TodayEverglades National Park faces some challenges, especially with invasive species. Those are animals that don't belong in a particular ecosystem. In the Everglades one of those species is the python. Every year, people are actually paid to hunt pythons because their population keeps growing and they really have no predators to keep them in check. Plus, they are wreaking havoc on the ecosystem.
It is not just snakes; pretty much the entire park is infested with exotic plants taking over places where native plants once thrived.
Keith Kocinski, Channel One News.
Emily: Wow, very cool! Looks like quite an adventure.And you just heard today's Word in the News: ecosystem. It isa large community of living organisms like plants and animals in a particular area.
And if you want to learn more about America's national parks, just head to ChannelOne.com.
All right, coming up, a teacher is turning music lessons into life lessons.
Emily: All right, next, we head to Camden, New Jersey, one of the hardest places in the U.S. to grow up for young people — a place where more than half of the children live in poverty. But one high school teacher is on a mission to make sure his students stay out of trouble, and, as Arielle Hixson tells us, he is using music to make it happen.
Arielle: Isaiah Rivera says without the teacher he calls Mr.D, he might have dropped out of Camden Creative Arts High School — or worse.
Isaiah Rivera: There's a lot of drug dealers on the streets; there's a lot of negative influence on the streets. And Mr.D helps us by taking us into the jazz band and by keeping us focused with these positive activities.
Arielle: The FBI ranks Camden, New Jersey, as America's fourth most dangerous city. It is also the hometown of Jamal Dickerson, a.k.a.Mr. D.
Jamal Dickerson: My life is lived with figuring out how to make theirs better every day.
Arielle: He keeps his students off the streets by keeping them busy.
Lots of researchers say there are big benefits when young people take up music. A recent study found that learning to play a musical instrument can actually change the development of the brain, helping you to develop a more sophisticated ear, picking up sounds you would have never been able to hear otherwise.
Sophomore Tojmere Cordy spends hours each day practicing with Mr. D and playing in the marching band.
Tojmere Cordy: He's just always there for me, always keeping me in a positive mood. He never gives me a chance to basically, like, kind of slip off, do the wrong thing, either.
Arielle: Over 15 years, Mr. D has helped his band win awards across the country.And his students are also succeeding in class, as Isaiah is applying to Stanford Universityand hopes to become a lawyer.
Isaiah: I feel indebted to Mr. Dbecause it's like he gave me a second wind, and I have to thank him for giving me a dream.
Arielle: Mr. D says he is already living his dream just by helping his students achieve theirs.
Arielle Hixson, Channel One News.
Emily: Thanks,Arielle — love that story. And if learning an instrument helps grow your brain, then this next young person is a genius. Check it out.
The saxophone, the harp and the harmonium — just a few of the 44 instruments that 12-year-old Neil Nayyar can play.
Neil Nayyar: I feel like I have,like,more expression, more smiling face.
Emily: He holds a new record, named by the Assist World Records Foundation as the youngest person to play the most instruments from around the world, like the didgeridoo, the sitar, the shehnai, and let's not forget…
Neil: It's called bulbul tarang.
Emily: …the bulbul tarang.Neil practices his instruments for about six hours a day and has learned most of them by ear.His love of music started before he was born, his father says.
Rajan Nayyar: I read somewhere in a book, you know, they mention about if you give, you know, the sound to the womb, that's going to impact his soul and heart.
Emily: Neil says he hopes to learn 100 instruments.
So cool, and you know, now I am kind of feeling inspired to pick up the violin again.
All right, guys, it is time for us to head out. Have a great day.We will see you right back here tomorrow.
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