2008.04.03 CNN 学生新闻　

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CARL AZUZ, CNN STUDENT NEWS ANCHOR: Hello and welcome to this Thursday, April 3rd edition of CNN Student News. Glad to you've tuned in to check us out. I'm Carl Azuz. Let's get right to it.
[b][color=#004276]First Up: High School Dropouts[/color][/b]
AZUZ: First up today, we're gonna talk about the place where most of you are right now: Of course, that is school! We're not focusing on those of you who are in class; we're looking at the number of people who aren't. According to one organization, one American high school student quits school every 26 seconds. That means one person's already dropped out since the start of this show. It's just one of the shocking statistics about dropouts.

AZUZ: In the U.S., where the literacy rate is 99 percent, how many high school students in the largest cities would you say graduate? 90 percent? 80 percent? Not even close. A new report says in 17 of the biggest U.S. cities, high school graduation rates are less than 50 percent. Less than half! Detroit: one in four; Indianapolis: three in ten; Cleveland: just over one in three.
A new report from America's Promise Alliance, an education group founded by former Secretary of State Colin Powell, found the news nationwide is a little better, with 70 percent of high school students getting a diploma. What we're seeing is a serious difference between graduation rates in some urban areas and ones in the suburbs. For example, though only about a third of Cleveland's municipal city students are estimated to graduate, the suburban graduation rate is 78.1 percent! In Baltimore city, an estimated 34.6 percent get diplomas; in Baltimore suburbs, more than 81 percent do. Info on dropout rates is kind of vague, so Education Secretary Margaret Spellings is moving to require all states to use the same formula to figure them, something they don't do now.
One thing we do know: About 1.2 million U.S. students drop out every year. Colin Powell calls that "a catastrophe." Now, we're not gonna preach to you about the moral of this story, just give you a few facts to think about: This study was based on school district info from 2003 to 2004. That year, 2004, people with graduate degrees made an average annual salary of about $78,000 dollars. College graduates averaged a little over $51,000 a year. And high school dropouts? $19,000. That was only about ten grand above the poverty line for 2004, something to consider if you're adding up the pros and cons of dropping out of school.

[b]Word to the Wise[/b]
GEORGE RAMSAY, CNN STUDENT NEWS: A Word to the Wise...
[b]budget[/b] (noun): a plan of estimated income and expenses
source: [url=http://www.wordcentral.com/][color=#0000ff]www.wordcentral.com[/color][/url]
[b][color=#004276]Life on a Budget[/color][/b]
AZUZ: The whole point of creating a budget is to make sure that your money's being used the way it needs to be. It can be tough to stick to it, but if you do, it can really pay off in the long run. Allan Chernoff shows us how one young New Yorker is living life on a budget.

ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN REPORTER: Twenty-three-year-old actor Ryan Watkinson has a couple of things that very few young adults have: a part in the Broadway show, Xanadu, and an aunt who's a certified financial planner.
ERIKA SAFRAN, CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER: The objective is for you to be saving at least ten percent.
CHERNOFF: Aunt Erika Safran worked out a budget with Ryan so he'd have something else few people his age have: savings.
CHERNOFF: Do you like being on a budget?
RYAN WATKINSON, ACTOR: I enjoy having the freedom to know exactly where my money is going at all times. I walk around knowing exactly how much I have, not wondering, not worried about my financial situation.
CHERNOFF: How do you make a budget? Start with income: Ryan is earning about $7,500 a month. Then, identify spending: fixed expenses like rent, taxes withheld, phone and utilities, transportation and insurance. Then add variable expenses: Ryan tracked all his spending for a month.
WATKINSON: Whenever I made a purchase, I wrote it down. And at the end of the day, I typed it up on my computer. And at the end of that month, I knew exactly where my money went: food, entertainment, clothing, gifts; all variable expenses.
SAFRAN: Take your income, subtract your expenses and see what happens. Now, if you have a deficit, and that's not unlikely, now you want to identify which are the areas that I can improve on.
WATKINSON: Erika had targeted saving nearly 20% of Ryan's salary. It turned out to be too tight of a squeeze on Ryan's wallet, especially with the recent rise in food prices. So, Erica and Ryan adjusted the budget. Now, Ryan is still saving $640 a month in addition to the 10% he automatically contributes to a 401(k) plan.
SAFRAN: The purpose of a budget is to meet a goal. The purpose of a budget is to create, to create wealth.
CHERNOFF: Safran says a budget has to be livable, or else you won't stick by it. Don't you wish you had your own Aunt Erika? Well, you do have our website, CNNMoney.com. Go to the Personal Finance tab and you'll find a template for making your very own budget! Alan Chernoff, CNN Student News, New York.

[b][color=#004276]Eyewitness to Murder: The King Assassination[/color][/b]
AZUZ: From the Montgomery bus boycott to the March on Washington, Martin Luther King Jr. was a living symbol of the American civil rights movement, and he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. Four years later, he was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, by James Earl Ray. This week marks the 40th anniversary of that tragic day. Soledad O'Brien travels to the spot where it happened, what's now home to the National Civil Rights Museum.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN REPORTER: That afternoon, James Earl Ray rented a room in this second-floor boarding house. The rear of the building looks out at the Lorraine Motel just across the street. Ray managed to get this room, 5-B, in the back.
O'BRIEN: It is incredibly small.
BEVERLY ROBERTSON, NATIONAL CIVIL RIGHTS MUSEUM: It is indeed, and a little bit tacky, too.
O'BRIEN: Opposite room 5-B, a dirt-streaked bathroom. It's actually not a long walk to the bathroom at all. So, everyone on this floor would have been using this bathroom?
ROBERTSON: Absolutely. Since it was a boarding house, there were boarders on either side of him, boarders down the hall, and everybody had to share a common bathroom.
O'BRIEN: In the boarding house, someone locked that bathroom door.
ROBERTSON: He stood on the tub, cracked the window and had a clear view of the people who were standing on the balcony in front of room 306.
O'BRIEN: It's not a long distance at all.
ROBERTSON: About a couple hundred feet maybe, that's it.
MEMPHIS POLICE DISPATCHER'S TAPE: We have information that King has been shot at the Lorraine.
O'BRIEN: Captain Jewell Ray raced out of police headquarters, heading to the scene. There, on South Main Street, he saw a bundle abandoned in the recessed doorway of a records store right below the rooming house.
CAPT. JEWELL RAY, MEMPHIS POLICE: I took the bedspread off and looked. It was a gun box. And I took a pencil, opened up the gun box and we could see a rifle. I knew it was a rifle. It was a hunting-type rifle.
ROBERTSON: This is the rifle that had the fingerprints of James Earl Ray on it when it was found outside the boarding house.
O'BRIEN: The rifle, the one Ray bought in Birmingham, is on display today, upstairs in the rooming house, now part of the National Civil Rights Museum run by Beverly Robertson. It's got a scope on the top.
ROBERTSON: Yes, he had a scope on it. I think he felt he needed a scope, but it was a very short distance. He didn't need to be a marksman or a sharpshooter to be able to hit the target.
O'BRIEN: It was an easy shot.
ROBERTSON: It was an easy shot. I bet you or I could have probably made that shot.
O'BRIEN: Not only did that rifle have Ray's fingerprint on it -- and no one else's -- this empty shell casing was in the gun. One shot had been fired.
ROBERTSON: This was a radio that he had in the penitentiary.
O'BRIEN: This, too, was left in the doorway beneath the boarding house.
ROBERTSON: And his prison number, I believe, is scratched on here.
O'BRIEN: And then there was this in the bundle. So, this laundry tag from his shorts was traced back to him?
ROBERTSON: Exactly.
O'BRIEN: It's amazing how all the different little threads, each individually may not make a very strong case, all led back to one guy.
ROBERTSON: To James Earl Ray.

[b]Promo[/b]
AZUZ: That was part of "Eyewitness to Murder," a special program on the King assassination. It airs tonight on CNN at 9 p.m. We have a curriculum guide you can use with the program, and there's an online special as well. It's all part of CNN's "Black in America" series, and you can access it at CNNStudentNews.com.
[b]Before We Go[/b]
AZUZ: When I was a kid, I used to play a game called red light, green light. This would be a red light. The frozen fun is actually part of a worldwide stunt that brought these people to a standstill in Beijing and Brussels on Tuesday. Here's the plan: Round up a couple hundred participants, gather in a public area and freeze for five minutes. Must be pretty freaky to stare into a sea of frozen faces.
[b]Goodbye[/b]
AZUZ: That freeze frame finishes our fun for today. We'll see you tomorrow to close out the week. I'm Carl Azuz.