CNN Student News Transcript: March 20, 2008

(CNN Student News) -- March 20, 2008

Quick Guide

Five Years in Iraq - Hear President Bush's remarks on the five-year anniversary of the Iraq war.

The Costs of Food - Learn how an increase in the cost of wheat is affecting some pizza prices.

A New Level - Find out how a college science experiment ended up on board a space shuttle.

Transcript

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

CARL AZUZ, CNN STUDENT NEWS ANCHOR: I'm Carl Azuz, and this is CNN Student News, your commercial-free source for news for the classroom. Thanks so much for spending part of your Thursday with us. If you were watching the news five years ago, this was what you heard and saw:

U.S. PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: My fellow citizens, at this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.

AZUZ: It was called "shock and awe," heavy bombing by U.S.-led forces on the Iraqi capital of Baghdad. It signaled the start of the war in Iraq. And the anniversary of that conflict is what we're putting first up in today's show.

First Up: Five Years in Iraq

AZUZ: Five years after he announced the start of the war, President Bush addressed some of its critics. Now, this is probably one of the biggest news stories of your lifetime, and it's raised a lot of heated discussion between people who oppose and support the conflict. President Bush says he understands the debate, but he believes it's important for the U.S. to continue its work in the Gulf nation. Sandra Endo has more on the anniversary.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SANDRA ENDO, CNN REPORTER: Five years ago today, the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq began. President Bush maintains it's a war America can and must win.

BUSH: Over the past five years, we have seen moments of triumph and moments of tragedy.

ENDO: Speaking from the Pentagon Wednesday, the president says the war effort is worth the cost. And Mr. Bush had this to say about anti-war protestors who took part in demonstrations across the nation:

BUSH: War critics can no longer credibly argue that we are losing in Iraq, so now they argue the war costs too much.

ENDO: The cost in money: roughly $500 billion. The cost in lives: nearly 4,000 Americans troops dead. A new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll shows 66 percent of Americans oppose the war and 71 percent think war spending is hurting the U.S. economy. But President Bush remains determined to keep troops in Iraq until the fight is finished.

BUSH: The challenge in the period ahead is to consolidate the gains we have made and seal the extremists' defeat.

ENDO: The president says the troop surge implemented last year was a turning point, and he pointed to what he sees as successes in Iraq: the toppling of Saddam Hussein and millions of Iraqis voting in the nation's first election. Congressional hearings are scheduled for next month on the war in Iraq. They could determine if and when more troops will be heading home. In Washington, Sandra Endo, for CNN Student News.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

Blog Promo

AZUZ: Opinions on the war in Iraq vary. You just heard about a poll in which a majority of Americans say they're opposed to the war, and many of them showed up in cities across the country yesterday to demonstrate their displeasure. But plenty of folks support the war in Iraq as well, like this group that showed its support by marching in the nation's capital on St. Patrick's Day. But what do you think? We'd like to know. Tell us your opinion of the war in Iraq online on our blog. We'll take a sampling and may even read a few of them on Friday's show. You can find the blog at our home page, CNNStudentNews.com.

Word to the Wise

NINETTE SOSA, CNN STUDENT NEWS: A Word to the Wise...

cost structure (noun) the expenses that a business must consider when making a product or providing a service

source: www.investorwords.com

The Costs of Food

AZUZ: If we're talking about restaurants, two of the biggest expenses that owners watch are how much they pay for ingredients and how much they charge you to eat them. Chances are, if the first cost goes up, so will the second. Alan Chernoff checks out a pizza joint to see why the price of dough is rising so high.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE VICARI, PIZZERIA OWNER: $37 dollars. I couldn't believe it.

ALAN CHERNOFF, CNN REPORTER: Gold Medal brand flour seems more golden than ever to pizzeria owner Joe Vicari.

VICARI: Like a gold. Yes, it is like a gold.

CHERNOFF: The pizza dough that Joe and his temporary apprentice knead is suddenly more precious than ever, because the flour from which it is made now costs $37 dollars for a 50-pound bag, a price that has more than doubled in the past month.

VICARI: I can't even believe how much the flour go up when I see the bill. I can't believe it. That's too much money.

CHERNOFF: Vicari raised the price of a slice up to $2.50 earlier this year after the cost of cheese jumped. If flour keeps climbing, Joe says he'll have to hike it again.

VICARI: Over here, people come to buy pizza, working people. How much I going to raise the pizza now? If the flour go up to over $40, and then I have to raise.

CHERNOFF: Prices for all kinds of baked goods are heading up. That's all because of the rapid rise in the cost of a bag of flour, which is the result of wheat trading near an all-time record high. The price of wheat is now two-and-a-half times what it was just a year ago! Why? Huge demand for ethanol has farmers planting more corn to produce the fuel when they could be growing wheat. And the dollar sinking to a record low is making U.S. wheat relatively cheap for foreigners. As a result, nearly 60% of the wheat harvested last year is being exported, leaving wheat supplies here at the lowest level since the end of World War II, another factor pushing prices skyward.

FRANK KARALIS, EUROPEAN BAKERY CAFE: It's killing us. It's killing us.

CHERNOFF: So, bakery owner Frank Karalis plans to raise the price of every item on his menu next week.

KARALIS: Someone's gonna buy a croissant here for $2, and tomorrow they're going to pay $2.50 for it. They're not going to like that.

CHERNOFF: So, if you've been thinking about going on a low-carb diet, this might be a very good time to try it out. Allan Chernoff, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

Shoutout

SOSA: Time for the Shoutout! If there were nothing to cool it off, how hot could it get on the international space station? If you think you know it, shout it out! Is it: A) 32 degrees, B) 88 degrees, C) 180 degrees or D) 250 degrees? You've got three seconds -- GO! Without temperature controls, the sunny side of the ISS would boil to 250 degrees Fahrenheit, and the sun-less side would be 250 degrees below zero! That's your answer and that's your Shoutout!

A New Level

AZUZ: The ISS is helping out a Notre Dame professor and his students with a science experiment. You see, they've been working on it for about 10 years now, but they couldn't get the testing conditions just right. So, they decided to move the project into outer space! Last week we told you last week about the launch of the space shuttle Endeavour. Well, the Notre Dame experiment went along for the ride. Makes sense, because the goal of the project is to find out what happens to certain materials when they're used in space. Astronauts were scheduled to attach the project to the outside of the ISS this week, along with Dextre, a Canadian robot that will help with these kinds of outer space installations. Ryan Famuliner of affiliate WNDU has more details on the experiment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DENNIS JACOBS, VICE PRESIDENT AND ASSOCIATE PROVOST AT NOTRE DAME: For about 10 years, we've been trying to create a situation here on Earth where we can study what happens in space.

RYAN FAMULINER, REPORTER: This is what Dennis Jacobs and his students have come up with: an "ultra vacuum chamber," to mimic the environment of outer space.

JACOBS: The problem is space is really a very corrosive environment near the Earth, there's a lot of high energy particles that erode the materials. And we're trying to find materials that will be much more durable in this space environment.

FAMULINER: They want to find the most durable materials to use on things such as satellites. They've been running tests at Notre Dame for years, but the lab took off to a new setting last week.

JACOBS: Space is more complicated than we could ever simulate here. We are leaving things out from what's in space when we try to create a very pure environment like we do in this particular experiment. So, these experiments on the international space station will be a good point of comparison.

FAMULINER: Jacobs and his students will study what happens to the 100 or so materials after they're exposed to the elements of space.

JACOBS: We have some very novel materials that you would have never heard of before, but that we think are very promising because of their properties.

FAMULINER: The experiment will collect data every 20 minutes, but it'll be a while before Jacobs and his students have any answers.

JACOBS: We're blind to the experiment for the next year. It's collecting data continuously, but we won't see the data until the experiment is retrieved.

FAMULINER: So, it will be a year full of anticipation.

JACOBS: It's a very patient science, so to speak.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

Before We Go

AZUZ: And finally, a story about some homeless hounds who are in high demand. These little guys are a few of the nearly 800 dogs who were all recently rescued from the same house! The puppies' plight became national news last week, and now, the Humane Society is being overrun with adoption offers. Not just from Arizona; calls are coming in from all across the U.S. and even Germany and Australia. After seeing these adorable orphans, it's easy to understand why hopeful owners are so enamored.

Goodbye

AZUZ: And they called it puppy love. Have a great day, everyone. I'm Carl Azuz. E-mail to a friend