Students: We're Sunnyside High School from Sunnyside, Washington. And Channel One News starts right now!
Maggie: Special thanks to Sunnyside High School for getting us started. I am Maggie Rulli. It is Tuesday, May 27th, and welcome back from the long weekend! Now, it might have been nice to have the day off yesterday, but it is also important to remember why. Tom Hanson checks out how people celebrated Memorial Day by remembering those who lost their lives for this country.
Tom: With music, flags, wreaths and parades, people across the U.S. honored the hundreds of thousands of men and women who paid the ultimate price for our nation.
Matthew Grizzle: It's quite outstanding to see how many people have served and given their life to retain the freedom that we had ever since the Revolutionary War to current.
Tom: At Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, President Obama placed a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns, a monument to American service members whose bodies were never identified.
President Obama: Here on these hallowed grounds, we rededicate ourselves to our sacred obligations to all who wear America's uniform and to the families who stand by them always.
Tom: On Sunday, the president also honored the nearly 1.4 million Americans on active duty in our nation's military with a surprise visit to Bagram airbase in Afghanistan.
Obama: I'm here on a single mission, and that is to thank you for your extraordinary service.
Tom: He shook hands with troops after promising there will be a small U.S. military presence in the country starting in 2015. The president met with military leaders to discuss specific details on how the process would happen and how to end America's longest-running war.
And over the weekend in Washington, D.C., tens of thousands came out for a free concert – the 25th Annual National Memorial Day Concert on the Capitol lawn Sunday.
General Martin Dempsey: Memorial Day is foremost about remembrance of America’s sons and daughters from every corner of our country, in every branch of service who gave their lives so that we may live free.
Tom: A musical tribute honoring all of those who have sacrificed for our country.
Tom Hanson, Channel One News.
Maggie: Thanks, Tom.
And for a look at some of the country's most famous military monuments, just head on over to ChannelOne.com.
Alright. Coming up after the break, we are going to find out why the pope is making headlines once again, as we run down the rest of today's top stories.
Let’s get to your headlines. And first up, authorities are investigating whether more could have been done to prevent the deadly rampage in California on Friday that left six UC Santa Barbara students dead.
Twenty-two-year-old Elliot Rodger allegedly stabbed three people to death inside his apartment complex before going on a shooting spree in his BMW. One of the shooting victims was economics and math major Veronika Weiss.
Bob Weiss: She was on the fast track to graduate in three years, and she couldn't wait to move to New York and find her way in the financial industry.
Maggie: Police said they paid a visit to Rodger weeks ago, after his relatives saw disturbing videos he posted on YouTube. Rodger had been under the care of therapists, but he had never been in a mental hospital or forcibly committed, so he was still able to purchase the guns he used in the rampage legally.
Thirteen other people were wounded in the attack before Rodger turned the gun on himself.
Now, over the Holy Land. Israel and the Palestinian territories are the birthplace of the world’s largest main religions – Christianity, Judaism and Islam. And the leader of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis, wrapped up a three-day visit there. Once again, he made history.
Pope Francis visited the Jewish holy prayer site, the Western Wall in Old Jerusalem. And there he made headlines, praying with two close friends of different faiths – a Jewish leader and a Muslim leader.
Rabbi Abraham Skorka believes the pope was looking to send a message of unity. But bringing change to this region of the world is a monumental task. Israelis and Palestinians have been fighting over the Holy Land for decades.
On his visit, the pope also stopped at the wall which divides the areas where Israelis and Palestinians live. Israel views the wall as a way to stop terrorists from entering, but Palestinians say the wall cuts up their land and keeps them isolated.
Pope Francis invited the Israeli and Palestinian presidents to the Catholic Church headquarters next month to pray for peace with him. Both leaders accepted.
On the final day of his trip, the pope stopped at Israel's memorial to the victims of terror, where he prayed for the end of terrorism. He also visited the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial and wrapped up his trip at the site where Catholics believe Jesus celebrated The Last Supper.
And now, we are heading to the nation of Ukraine. The people have elected a new president, which could be crucial in pulling the country back from the brink of civil war.
Billionaire Petro Poroshenko won Sunday's presidential election with just over half the votes. He said his first priority was to put an end to the war and chaos in eastern Ukraine.
Known as the ‘chocolate king’ for a fortune he made in the chocolate business, Poroshenko supported and gave money to the revolution that kicked out the former president, who many felt was too closely tied to Russia.
Ukrainians by the millions turned out to vote in the capital and western part of the country. But in parts of eastern Ukraine, people who want to break away from Ukraine and join Russia smashed polling stations, saying they felt cheated of an election.
Yesterday, Ukrainian warplanes attacked armed rebels who were blocking an airport in the city of Donetsk.
Alright. Coming up, we will show you how lottery tickets in Tennessee are giving every student in the state a chance to be a winner. And you might be surprised how.
We have heard it before. Young people who get a degree beyond high school are more likely to land a job and make more money than students who just have a high school diploma. But some students don't go to college because of the cost. So now the state of Tennessee is trying to change that. Keith Kocinski has the story.
Nazje Mansfield: Instead of two steps back, we're, like, getting two steps up.
Keith: Nazje Mansfield wants to become a teacher. But that means going to college – something her family wasn't sure they could pay for.
Nazje: I thought I was just going to have take out a million loans and be paying them ‘til I'm dead.
Keith: But Nazje's first two years at a community college won’t end up costing her a thing. It is part of a new program in Tennessee called the Tennessee Promise.
Expert: Most of our students live below the poverty line, many of them don't have parents directly involved in their lives, many of them live with guardians, many of them live with state foster homes, and we have some that are homeless.
Keith: Like Nazje, more than half of the seniors at Stratford STEM Magnet High School in Tennessee applied for college but were unsure how to pay for it.
The Tennessee Promise will use $34 million a year the state gets from lottery ticket sales to cover tuition for a two-year degree at a community college. Thirty cities in other states have similar programs, but Tennessee's program stands out because there are very few restrictions.
Expert: Tennessee will be the very first state in the country to make that guarantee to its people.
Keith: This was Governor Bill Haslam's idea. A third of Tennessean's have a college degree. He wants to raise that to 55%.
Supporters point out that workers with a two-year degree earn an average of $20,000 more per year than those with only a high school diploma.
Expert: We have a lot of entitlement programs in this country and we've seen how much they cost us on the backend when people don't have the education they need. I’d say let's make this investment on the frontend. I think it'll be better for the individual and better for our state on the long term.
Keith: But critics of the program say it is too expensive and that money could be spent in better ways. There is also concern that the Tennessee Promise would redirect lottery money already promised to other scholarship programs or discourage students from working hard to get financial aid based on their grades. Principal Steele expects the opposite.
Principal Steele: I think it's going to have a huge impact on high school kids just giving a greater because they know that the next two years is going to be taken care of.
Keith: And that promise could kick in as early as next year.
Keith Kocinski, Channel One News.
Maggie: Recent polls show that the majority of people in Tennessee support Tennessee Promise.
Alright, guys. That is going to do it for us. I am Maggie Rulli. And we cannot wait to see you tomorrow!
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