[clock ticking]
[music playing]
CARL AZUZ: A shortage of fuel, sightings of whales,
and one macho terrier, are all featured
this Tuesday on CNN 10.
I'm Carl Azuz, and we're thankful to have you watching.
We're starting in Washington D.C. Where lawmakers
are grappling with some major pieces of legislation,
this week.
One of them is funding for the US government.
That's expected to expire on September 30th.
If lawmakers can't push that through before the end
of this week, a government shutdown is possible.
That doesn't mean the country shuts down,
but it can send hundreds of thousands
of federal workers home without pay.
And it can suspend some government services until
Congress passes a funding bill.
One holdup with the current funding bill,
is that it would raise the US debt ceiling.
That's the limit on what the government
is allowed to borrow as it spends
more money than it takes in.
Congress has always raised the limit when the US reached it,
but it's not a politically popular thing to do.
So Democrats want Republicans to help raise that ceiling,
while Republicans want Democrats to raise
the limit on their own.
What remains to be seen, is whether Democrats, who control
Congress, will separate the debt ceiling
vote from the government spending vote
in an effort to get the bills passed.
There are two other spending bills
that Congress is debating.
One of them is a $1 trillion infrastructure package.
Money for roads, bridges, waterways,
railroads, electric vehicles, and charging stations.
Some Republicans have joined Democrats
in supporting this bill.
The other piece of legislation is a larger $3.5
trillion social policy bill.
It would spend more on immigration reform,
universal preschool, free community
college, climate related policies, and public housing.
No Republicans support this bill,
and there's some disagreement among Democrats over it
as well.
The reason why all of this is being so closely watched
is because these packages include
major legislative priorities of President Joe Biden.
If they don't get passed, the fallout
could affect his presidency in the coming years.
10 second trivia.
In what country would you find the Jurassic Coast?
Argentina, Britain, Costa Rica, or New Zealand?
[beeps]
Landmarks, land forms, cliffs, and rocks
characterize the Jurassic Coast in the southern United Kingdom.
The United Kingdom has more than 8,000
gas stations, according to the British
Broadcasting Corporation.
And most of them are either out of gas or running out fast.
Leading companies in Britain's fuel industry
say there's actually plenty of gasoline in the country.
The problem is it's located at refineries and terminals, not
gas stations.
And a big part of the crisis is that there's
a shortage of tanker truck drivers
to get the fuel from A to B.
Another problem-- panic buying.
Experts say people who are afraid of running out of gas
are topping off their tanks or storage cans
when they don't actually need it,
and that that's hurting availability.
Suppliers think that once panic buying settles down,
demand will drop down to its normal levels
and pumps will once again have gasoline.
In the short term though, lines are long.
Some cars have been abandoned after running out of fuel.
And the leader of the Gas Sales Association
says there's no single action the industry and the government
can take to solve the crisis.
NINA DOS SANTOS: Well despite petrol pumps like this one
in Central London having run dry,
the government says that there is no national fuel shortage,
rather just localized, supply chain
issues exacerbated by a lack of lorry,
or truck drivers across the country.
This is something that supermarkets have
been contending with for weeks.
It's affected their fresh produce delivery.
And now, what we're seeing, is this labor
shortage showing up at places like this Shell garage
behind me.
What can the government do about it?
Well it says that this supply chain problem
is largely linked to COVID.
Experts in the sector also say that Brexit
is playing its part, too.
Because remember that visa rules are now more restrictive now
that the UK has left the EU.
The government could reverse, temporarily,
some of those restrictions and say
that delivery drivers are essentially highly skilled
workers.
Whatever the difference, industry body experts
say the government needs to act fast if it's to make sure
that scenes like these aren't replicated
across the rest of the country, and also that goods
continue to flow across the UK.
Nina Dos Santos, CNN in London.
CARL AZUZ: Got a whale of a tale to tell you next.
When you look at top places for whale watching,
it's no surprise that California, Washington state,
Alaska, and British Columbia all rank
on the travel channels list.
But there's a big migratory pathway
for large whales not far from the coast of New York state.
And while that allows for sightings of amazing animals
close to where a lot of people live,
it also creates some challenges.
Busy shipping lanes, offshore wind farms, productive fishing
grounds, they're also there.
- New York's waterways may be best known for skyline views
and crowded shipping lanes, yet these busy waters
also harbor a rich community of marine mammals.
[birds calling]
[whales calling]
- Local whale species include the iconic humpback,
fin whales, and the endangered North Atlantic right whale.
These photographs captured thanks
to a multi-year aerial survey conducted by Tetra Tech
and the New York State Department
of Environmental Conservation.
HOWARD ROSENBAUM: Right off of our shores,
you know, in less than the average distance
that, you know, a New Yorker or someone from the tri-state area
would commute, these great whales are here.
- Wildlife Conservation Society scientist, Howard Rosenbaum,
studies the whale population here in the New
York Bight, the area between Long Island
and the New Jersey coast.
His mission-- to use the latest research
methods to protect the whales.
HOWARD ROSENBAUM: This is one of the busiest
urban waterways on the planet.
And they face threats such as impacts from shipping, which
could include ship strikes, or ocean noise,
incidental entanglement in fishing gear.
These areas in the New York Bight along the East Coast,
under this administration, are slated
for extensive renewable energy development,
which the planet needs.
We just want to make sure that it's done with the best
environmental and management practices
possible so that wildlife and renewable energy can coexist.
- In partnership with Norwegian company Equinor,
which has a major offshore wind project in New York,
and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute,
the WCS has deployed two acoustic buoys to detect
whale calls in real time.
HOWARD ROSENBAUM: If you can imagine, when a whale vocalizes
in the New York Bight, like for example
a North Atlantic right whale, we can
actually detect those animals.
I can get an alert on my cell phone.
And when that happens at a certain level right now,
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is
requesting ships to slow down.
- In the future, Rosenbaum says this alert system could be used
to mandate boat slowdowns, or to directly alert developers
and shippers to the presence of whales
so that they can pause noisy or potentially harmful activities.
HOWARD ROSENBAUM: It's a great tool, and a great use
of the technology, that we can begin
to use and harness the power of that
to help better protect whales.
- Rosenbaum's team also takes and analyzes genetic samples
from the whales in order to understand more about how
this population connects to others,
like how they feed and breed.
HOWARD ROSENBAUM: We're also trying
some new work, which is called environmental DNA, or eDNA.
And with that, we're actually able to detect
whale presence, and what they're eating, just
by collecting a water sample.
- By combining information from genetic and acoustic research,
the scientists aim to understand a lot more about the whales
and their behavior to find practical solutions
to the challenges facing these New York ocean giants.
[music playing]
CARL AZUZ: Evar or Ay-var Swanson.
Even you baseball fanatics might not know that name.
But Swanson holds the world record for the fastest
sprint around the bases.
He ran it in 13.3 seconds.
Well that's the fastest sprint for a human,
but at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, California,
a Russell terrier was recently unleashed to chase
down the record for a dog.
And he caught it.
Macho, his name is Macho.
His trainer reportedly spent more than a
year teaching him how to do this,
and when Macho finally came home,
his time was 21.06 seconds.
Nothing cheesy about Macho.
While he was having a ball, three left turns put
him right in the record books.
People now know him on a first name basis.
He deserves his own card because he's tops.
Its official, Macho is a baseball
diamond in the r-r-r-uff.
I'm Carl Azuz and it's time to get Loudon.
We're shouting out Loudon, Tennessee today.
It's home to Loudon High School.
Thank you for subscribing and commenting
on our YouTube channel.
As you know, that is the only way to get your school
mentioned on our show.
Have a great Tuesday.
[music playing]