CNN 2011-12-03

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They are connected by the war on terror, but that’s also what’s causing the tension between them. There have been accusations¹ for months. Pakistan says Afghanistan is allowing militant² fighters to leave there. Afghanistan says Pakistan is supporting terrorists who launch attacks against Afghan forces. One official said the two countries could end up in a military conflict. The relationship between Pakistan and the United States is pretty rough right now too. The countries have fought together against al-Qaida, but the head of the terrorist group, Osama Bin³ Laden⁴ was found inside Pakistan. And Pakistan is still angry about the US raid inside its borders to kill Bin Laden. Pakistan is also upset about a NATO air strike last week that killed two dozen of Pakistani troops. US commanders are investigating what happened, Pakistan responded by boycotting⁵ a conference on the future of Afghanistan. Other officials said that decision would hurt efforts to try to create stability in this region. 

What’s the word? It’s a financial term that describes the business they can’t pay its debts. Bankrupt, that’s the word. 

Well now that word can be used to describe American airlines. It filed for bankruptcy⁶ yesterday. It doesn’t mean the company is going out of business, certain kinds of bankruptcy let companies reorganize and that’s what American airline is planning to do. During that time, the airline says it will honor all of its tickets and reservations and it plans to run a normal flights schedule. If you have a trip book on the American airlines, you should be affected⁷. American is one of the last major US airlines that actually hadn’t filed for bankruptcy. But the company officials said they weren’t able to compete with other airlines. That can spend less money because they have already gone through bankruptcy reorganizations. 

Congress says a busy few weeks ahead as the year winds down. This week lawmakers are considering whether or not to extend the couple things. A payroll⁸ tax cut, less money has been taking out of American workers’ paycheck which means more money in their pockets. If congress doesn’t extend it, it would be like rising taxes. But the extension would cause around 115 billion dollars, and that money would have to come from somewhere. Congress is also considering an extension of long term unappointed benefits. There sets run out for more than 2 million Americans to start at 22. The federal government has been helping⁹ paid to keep them going, but the price tag for extending nose is around 55 billion dollars. 

 

Well there’s a new study about head injuries and sports. You might be thinking football, this one is about soccer. It’s just a small study, just 39 players, so the results will need to be seen in other players before they can be considered conclusive¹⁰. The research says players who hit the ball with their heads too much could cause damage to their brains. The study looked at how water molecules¹¹ move through the white matter in the player’s brains. In healthy brains, there’s a solid pattern, in injured brains, the molecules move more randomly¹². So how many headers is too many? The study says if you take more than around 1300 headers per year, that’s when you could be causing some damage. To affect the similar head injuries in football, you can see it on this animation¹³. When the head is hit, the brain swells¹⁴ up. In the soccer study, scientists said the damage seem to be connected with memory problems and how quickly players’ brains could process information. Doctor S says the sport is what matters here.

The big issue is how the brain is affected.

Keep in mind. A lot of our focus has been on football specifically, we have been a lot reporting on this. But the thing to keep the mind when you think of the brain, it’s the brain movement within the score. That’s the bigger issue, even more so related to the brute¹⁵ force served in these impacts. So how the brain reacts to the force.

We want you to send us your I-report. You could do it on practically any digital camera, we did this on a phone. Tell us in 20 seconds or less “what are you looking forward to in 2012”. It could be graduation, getting a driver’s license¹⁶ or voting, the only thing is you gotta be at least 13 years old, and we only want hear you talking. So no music or anything like that. The deadline for this is Tuesday, December 8th. Send your I-report in this spot section at CNN student news.com. 

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