Next up, we are going to head across the United States and out, out into the Pacific Ocean. It’s where you are going to see the Hawaiian Islands and it’s also where you’ll see some debris floating around. Like this, it’s a floating dock that a couple of fishermen came across. They estimated that it’s about 30 feet by 50 feet, the fishermen alerted the Coast Guard, because they were worried about other ships running into something this big without any lights to identify it, without any warning. The dock is part of the debris that was washed out to sea after last year’s tsunami in Japan. So is this, this giant, bin, normally used to hold seafood, when it washed up in Hawaii, it was covered in mussels and barnacles. The researchers who pulled it out of the water said they expected this is just the start of the debris from the tsunami showing up in Hawaii. 

 

From the islands, we are going to head over the mountains in the Asian nation of Nepal. This country is home to eight of the ten tallest mountains on the planet that includes Mount Everest. Yesterday, rescue workers called off search efforts to find the victims of an avalanche on Mount Manaslu. At that point, officials had confirmed eight deaths, another 12 people were injured, and three were still missing. The avalanche happened early Sunday morning. Experts say it was probably caused by a piece of ice, one that was the size of six or seven football fields, falling from a glacier. Officials said more than 200 climbers were on the mountain. 

 

I’m Johathan Mann with another political jargon buster. What is the electoral college? Established by America’s Founding Fathers, it’s actually a process, not a place. It’s even in the Constitution, described as a compromise somewhere between a voting Congress and a popular vote of the people. Each state has a number of electors, based on how many members it has in Congress. So, a state with a lot of people like California has 55 electoral votes, a small state like Delaware has just three. States award their electoral votes on the basis of the popular vote. In most states, it’s winner take off. But it takes some majority 270 of the 538 total electoral votes to win the presidency. After the November election, members of the electoral college meet to cast their ballots. The results are sent to Congress, which tallies the vote and then makes it official. 

 

Barack Obama of the State of Illinois has received for President of the United States 365 votes. 

 

By the way, the candidate who wins the popular vote doesn’t always win the election. In the year 2000, more Americans voted for vice president Al Gore, but George W Bush had more electoral votes. So, he prevailed and won the presidency. You can’t win the White House without it, the electoral college.