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CARL AZUZ: It is Friday the 14th of January.
Thank you for taking 10 minutes for our show.
My name is Carl Azuz.
We are you're down the middle overview of world events.
US Supreme Court was in the news Thursday
for its rulings concerning two vaccine requirements
by the US government.
In November, the Biden administration
said it would require businesses with 100 or more employees
to either make sure those workers were
fully vaccinated against COVID-19
or to get a COVID test every week.
The government said the new rule applied to more than 84 million
American workers, about 2/3 of the country's
private workforce.
The president also announced that health care workers
at facilities that get certain types of government funding
would also have to be fully vaccinated without the option
to test weekly.
The government said this rule applied to more than 17
million American employees.
The president said the mandates would result in millions
of Americans getting vaccinated and that they'd save lives
and strengthen the economy.
But 27 states sued the Biden administration
over the mandates.
They said the requirements were unconstitutional
and that they'd cause staffing shortages in businesses
and ultimately hurt the economy.
Concerning the mandate on businesses,
the Supreme Court struck it down.
The majority of justices said the Biden administration went
too far, that the government's job and health safety agency
doesn't have the power to require vaccinations
for 84 million Americans.
In dissent or disagreement with the decision,
three justices said it prevented the government
from responding to the pandemic in the, quote,
most effective way possible.
Concerning the mandate on health care workers,
the Supreme Court said it could take effect, meaning health
care workers at facilities that receive Medicare and Medicaid
funding can lose their jobs if they don't get a COVID vaccine.
The high court's decision on the business mandate
is considered a defeat to the Biden administration's efforts
to require vaccinations nationwide.
But the White House said it still
encourages businesses to put their own vaccine
requirements in place.
10-second trivia.
Which of these US cities was named
for a Native American leader?
Cincinnati, Ohio; Fayetteville, North Carolina;
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; or Seattle, Washington.
Chief Seattle, a Duwamish Indian leader
is the namesake of the Washington City.
Would you pay more than $1 million
for a one-bedroom apartment in a tower that is leaning?
We're not talking about a historic tower
like the one in Pisa, Italy.
We're talking about the Millennium
Tower in Seattle, Washington.
The $350 million structure was opened in 2009
and since then, as it settled into the ground,
it has leaned a total of 24 inches
to the west and almost 8 inches to the north.
Is this normal?
Not these days.
The Millennium Tower's uneven settling
has caused cracks in the sidewalk
and in the basement walls of the building next door.
Why is this happening?
Experts say nearby construction projects
and the removal of groundwater contributed to the problem.
Is this safe?
Engineers say it is but owners aren't happy.
And in a $100 million repair project,
workers are installing new supports
to shore up the building and help reduce its tilt.
- The sky has long been a fascination,
a realm of the gods.
And civilizations have been building
toward it for centuries.
But a skyscraper is an all together modern idea
made possible by modern technologies.
- Skyscrapers are really an American invention.
The first use of the word was around the 1880s.
They were office buildings that concentrated a workforce.
They employ technologies like the elevator,
like steel construction to build very efficiently,
and to pile a lot of space onto a small piece of land.
- By using steel frames for structural support
rather than heavy masonry wolves,
architects were able to get creative.
- Skyscrapers began to get taller around the turn
of the 20th century.
There was competition to be the world's highest.
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And that pinnacle tower becomes so intimately
connected with modernity.
- The skyscraper hitching post for the great airliners
of tomorrow.
- The Empire State Building never actually word once
but it gave that aspiration.
After World War II, a new kind of technology of glass
allows for the curtain wall.
- Windows you could open made way for giant glass walls.
They gave more floor space and natural light,
but fresh air was shut out and replaced with air conditioning.
- The 1960s and '70s, that was the period of the World Trade
Center with the Twin Towers.
The Sears Tower in Chicago got a little bit taller,
but it was also the end of an era
as American cities began to suburbanize and spread out.
- The US had led the charge into the skies
but the rest of the world soon caught up.
- In Hong Kong where the land is very scarce,
going high is almost the only solution as that need
in terms of urbanization.
So people need to move the cities,
they need to work, to live.
In Asia and the Middle East, we took it to another level.
Every city wants to have this landmark that gives
that sense of distinct culture.
- From the end of the 20th century, architects in the East
have been developing new techniques to beat the wind
and climb even higher.
- You want to design a shape that is not square,
you want rounded corners or faceted corners
so that it takes pressure off the building
when the wind hits it.
You design the building to sway a little bit.
We use the reinforced concrete to have that flexibility
that also absorbs movement.
- The Taipei 101 used to steppe design, cut out corners,
and a 700-ton suspended dampener to help it withstand
typhoons and earthquakes.
But it was Dubai's Burj Khalifa that redefined super to.
Its exaggerated tapered shape, ability
to flex up to 6 feet at its top, and a double layered
outer skin help it to counter desert storms and extreme heat.
- To build the world's tallest tower is a great
demonstration of technological know-how as well as wealth,
of course.
But the vanguard of architects has been
very focused on sustainability.
- We want to design something that's
as sustainable as possible in terms of the spaces
the use of materials.
Tall buildings is sustainable where we can have a lot
of people in a small footprint.
But we all understand that building in itself
is taking resources from the Earth.
- In cities like Hong Kong where skyscrapers dominate
the environment but also contribute significantly
to greenhouse gas emissions, the centuries-old reaching
to the sky is now in question.
- Skyscrapers become complicated negotiations between the way
that we want to live in the future and the possibilities
of how we can.
There are many different approaches of culture,
of government, of public policy that either constrains
or enables skyscrapers.
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CARL AZUZ: A police rescue in Miami, Florida gets a 10
out of 10.
The call wasn't about a person in distress,
it was about a dolphin in distress.
A young marine mammal had gotten tangled in a fishing net.
A Marine patrol officer sailed out to the dolphin,
pulled it close to his boat and started cutting
the net to set the animal free.
The dolphin did not cooperate at first.
But after a few patient attempts--
- Gotcha.
Whoa.
Yeah.
CARL AZUZ: It's easy to endorse such a rescue sensation.
It's no fluke when something saved at sea from echolocation.
From the surface to the coral, there's
no quarrel about immoral, whether on the sea or shore,
if you don't rest on your laurels,
you can net a mammal free from its tail to its pectoral.
Be forever in the fin club of every set free dolphin.
Use your melon they'll be yelling the Fridays
are awesome.
I'm Carl Azuz.
Kellum High School gets today's shout out.
Hello to our viewers in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
We will be off the air Monday for the Martin
Luther King Jr Holiday.
So we'll look forward to seeing you Tuesday right here at CNN.
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