NewsHour Example #3 - Excellent Submission

Oranges are a key element of Florida state's economy. This past year Florida projects the worst citrus harvest since the great depression. William Brangham talks about how the fields go on for miles but What's not so visible is the disease that is slowly killing one of this state's biggest industries. By looking at it you can tell how many oranges the trees are actually not growing as much as they should be. These trees are suffering. They are not generating an economic crop. Someone I talked to was Frank Hunt, a third-generation citrus grower. He talks about the effects of citrus growth. How so many are being wasted. He tells us how probably 50, 60 percent of the crop that was set ultimately drops on the ground before it's harvested. The crops are suffering because of an insect borne bacteria that has infected virtually every orange tree in Frank Hunt’s grove. “Some trees take a little longer than others to die, but we're basically fighting a losing battle trying to sustain the tree,” said Hunt. They visited a packing warehouse where millions of oranges were once processed, sorted, and shipped from this packing house. But with the ultimate peak of the borne bacteria, it is creating a lack of produce and solutions to fix this problem. Just last year 50 workers lost their jobs, due to this Florida crisis. They stated how Florida projects its orange harvest will be the lowest since the 1930s. Michael Rogers, Citrus Research And Education Center, University of Florida: talked on how in 2004 Florida produced over 220 million boxes of oranges, however now follow up 20 years later, and they can't produce enough oranges. The state is down to a 16 million box crop from 220 million down to 16 million. While several factors are to blame for this crisis. “Rogers says the main issue is this blight, which is known as citrus greening disease. It's spread by tiny insects known as psyllids. While nearly impossible to see with the naked eye, their impact has been catastrophic.” Shortly all the trees become infected. This disease slowly kills the roots which leads to the trees of their nutrients causing them to change color and affects the taste of the fruits grown. Before they realize a tree has been affected, they will find that 30 or 40 percent of the root system has been lost. This disease has affected a wide spread of growers from huge manufacturers to small businesses that produce citrus. “Most of your mom and pop, I would say farmers that had 10, 20, 40, 80 acres, they're very few and far between,” said Archie Rich. Archie Rich runs a general store in Haynes. This threat of this infection has only gotten larger. The state has never dealt with something this severe. And if not solved it will bring the citrus growth in Florida to zero. Brenda Eubanks Burnette told us viewers how “we're seeing people investing back into the industry so hopefully it's not something that's going to be completely going away.” Although there are a lot of short term resolutions in the end if they don’t find a long term solution the growth will highly decrease more in successful crops. How will crops look in 10, 20, 30 years if they don’t learn to control this borne disease.

Now applying how this relates to the economy. The scarcity is the fruit becoming less accessible because of this disease. Losing large production of citrus makes it hard to get your hands on because there aren’t as many ready to pick up in large quantities. The opportunity cost is being able to stay open. With no way to bring in income, (no fruit ) a lot of time and money will go back into saving these businesses and mom and pop businesses. The resources being allocated are all going into research. Trying to find a fix and save the problem before it's too late. Trial and error will save the largest marketing crop in Florida State. Now through the government their command is helping the research process through the studies being done at University of Florida. Working together with the farmers to find a solution that will indefinitely fix the problem. The market itself was not specified. Besides how popular the demand is for these crops because it is known as the widespread crop grown in Florida. So I assume the demand will increase in Florida but won’t see a sharp increase in other states especially on the west coast. The supply is low. And this will affect many economic branches. The disease kills the roots, which kills their change to produce healthy, fresh, fruits.

 

 

Gun violence is a big reoccurring issue amongst the United States. However, in Texas recently, It's been an up and down week for both advocates and opponents of laws restricting gun buyers by age. With the argument of restricting the legal age to purchase a firearm they want to bill to raise the age for buying a semiautomatic rifle from 18 to 21. However, this bill has been stalled and now is most likely not gonna be voted to be passed by the full house. On Wednesday, a judge in Virginia struck down federal laws barring gun dealers from selling handguns to anyone younger than 21. In the end the Justice Department is likely to appeal that ruling, which does not affect either state laws or private gun sales. Looking at the bigger picture of gun violence, Lisa Geller is the Director, State Affairs, The Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions was asked, there are eight states that have age restrictions, fairly tight age restrictions for buying any kind of firearm, any firearm at all. Do we have an expansive sense of what it tells us about whether it helps or not? Where she replied “we do.” She commented on how several states have already begun to raise the required age to buy a firearm. And what we know about this is that the age range from 18 to 20-year-old is a dangerous time where those are at high risk to harm themselves and others. Throwing in statistics “We know that arrests for murders are highest among this age group. We also know that policies in states to restrict gun purchases to those 18 to 20 have lower rates of gun suicide. So we do know that protecting those under 21 from buying guns is backed by evidence and keeps youth safe.” Looking back on recent events of the Uvalde and Buffalo Market shootings, both cases were executed by a teenager who obtained possession of a firearm legally. John Yang had asked the question, would an age limit have helped if passed during those times in preventing the violence? Where Lisa responded she does believe it would have. She spoke on the notable events of Sandy Hooks and Parkland where both armed men brought their weapons legally after turning 18 shortly after. And she brought the awareness that if the age was restricted to 21 they wouldn’t have been able to possess the weapons at the time and carry out mass harm to the community. So what is the significance? What is the ruling in Virginia striking down the federal law that restricted handgun sales to people 21 and over? It was noted this is a federal law. Federal law states that you have to be 21 years old to buy a handgun from a licensed dealer. So the Department of justice has already indicated that they're going to appeal this. “But we know that this is dangerous. This goes against the will of the people. In fact, even a Fox News poll from just a couple of weeks ago found that 81 percent of people are in favor of raising the age to 21 to buy all guns. We also know that guns are the leading cause of death for teenagers. So doing this and issuing this kind of dangerous decision at a time when guns are killing teens more than any other means is extremely dangerous and not consistent with what we see in the data,” said Lisa Gellener. However this ruling would not apply to private gun sales. Just like access to drugs, those can carry out illegal hand-offs to create extra money. There are overall too many loopholes when it comes to getting access to firearms.

The scarcity to this issue would be the supply of firearms. They are becoming less accessible with this new law in place. The opportunity cost is people's safety giving up personal ownership. This can affect the sales of firearms. It sounds like most are purchased by this age group that this law will prevent them from buying, and also with that the businesses will lose sales because a lot of people within this age range will go off and buy their weapons on the downlow, illegally. The government is in charge of this law so their command would be passing this law and preventing the purchase of firearms. The market is firearms, and hunting. The demand for guns recently I feel has been at an all-time high, mainly because those who are buying them for protection over violence. The supply will become larger because not that many people will be purchasing firearms because it legally excludes those who are the majority paying for them and buying them.