(upbeat music) - Coming up next on "News Depth", storms in California bring rain, flooding and snow.

Planes are grounded nationwide because of a computer outage.

Is ballet a sport?

Doctors and dancers think so.

And we visit Zygote Press for a lesson in printmaking.

"News Depth" is now.

(upbeat music) Storms of relentlessly ravaged communities in parts of California.

Hello everybody, I'm Rick Jackson.

Thank you for joining us.

Sink holes, flooded roads, desperate rescues and heavy snow.

All of that has impacted the state over the past few weeks.

Kyung Lah reports.

- [Lah] During recent historic droughts, California prayed for rain, but not like this.

Two days of torrential rain, thunderstorms and wind gusts are pounding California, causing mudslides, overflowing rivers and triggering extensive flooding.

- We've got trees down, we've got mudslides.

We've got folks actually trapped in areas where we had major road failures.

- [Lah] More than 18 inches of rain fell in parts of Southern California and high wind advisories were issued on the central coast.

- The rain hammered here pretty bad.

- [Lah] In Northern California, the Russian River has flooded following torrential downpours.

Some residents have been without power for a week.

In Santa Barbara County, mass evacuations after back-to-back storms saturated the ground.

- It was pouring.

The wind was whipping.

- [Lah] Following years of extreme drought and fires.

- From the mountain side here, the debris just started coming down and just filled up four feet or so and pretty much buried the truck and now it's starting to flow towards the house.

- [Lah] More than 30 million people are now under flood alerts and mud and rockslides created havoc for residents.

- The 800 pound rock, it just smashed the house.

It just hit the wall and blew everything up.

- [Lah] In Northern California, the rain flooded roads and vineyards, but almost double the snowpack in local mountains, offering hope that these storms may somehow ease California's historic drought.

- With the worst of the storms behind them, communities are starting to deal with the damage and cleaning up debris, debris is the remains of something destroyed.

One community is devastated the storm knocked down a tree hundreds of years old.

Tori Apodaca takes us there.

- To the ordinary eye, this may just look like another tree destroyed by the most recent storms, but to the people here on the ridge, it represents resiliency.

- I actually started to cry.

- [Apodaca] That was Carol Stark's reaction when she saw this tree toppled over the weekend.

It once looked like this standing in front of Veterans Hall.

- [Stark] One of the last really big landmarks that survived the fire that was still here, you could still tell you were at Skyway in Elliot because the tree was there.

- Well, this tree has seen every person pass by up and down this road for well over a hundred years.

- [Apodaca] That's why Stark is working with the Gold Nugget Days Museum and local tree services to memorialize the fallen landmark.

- [Stark] We're hoping that some of the smaller branches inside can be used to make keepsakes for people.

- I mean, just really take a look at how large this tree is.

I'm about 5'6" and the roots of it are well above my head, I'm told that this tree was the largest one standing in this area, well above a hundred feet, for over a hundred years.

- It would tell us it saw the first pioneers settling in paradise on the ridge in 1850s and '60s.

- [Apodaca] On Sunday, Crossfire Tree Services took about four of the smaller logs to the museum.

This video Stark posted on Facebook got more than 2,500 views.

- Which tells you how attached people are to this community, to this town and what happens here.

- We heard about the tree falling, my wife and I did, so we wanted to come by and just take a look at it and kind of mourn its loss, I guess.

- Thank you, Tori.

That brings us to this week's write-in.

I want to hear about a landmark in your neighborhood.

Think about what object or feature is unique to where you live, it could be a building, a sculpture, or a tree like the story we just saw.

You can send in your descriptions through our website and extra points if you snap a photo as well.

Last week we asked you, what do you think winter looks like on your favorite planet?

Well, let's head to outer space by opening up our inbox.

(upbeat music) Lilly from Greenbrier Middle School in Parma starts us off.

"Dear News Depth, my favorite planet is Saturn and Saturn's moon Enceladus has geysers that shoot water vapor out into space.

It then freezes and falls back to the surface as snow.

Some of the ice also escapes Enceladus to become part of Saturn's rings, the normal temperature on Saturn is 285 degrees below zero, so I think that Saturn would look a bit snowy."

Seth from William Bruce Elementary in Eaton sent us this drawing along with the description, "Dear News Depth, my favorite planet is Neptune because it looks like space and I love space, the temperature in Neptune is minus 373 degrees, cold and too cold to snow, but it may rain diamonds."

Thanks for the drawing, Seth.

Brooklyn from Marion Local in Maria Stein prefers a warmer planet, "My favorite planet besides Earth would be Mercury, Mercury is the closest planet to the sun, so I don't imagine that it would snow.

I do know that Mercury gets cold, but I don't think it gets cold all in winter."

Dalia from Avon Heritage Elementary in Avon knows a lot about her favorite planet, "Dear News Depth, winter on my favorite planet, Pluto, would look very cold for multiple reasons, my first reason why winter on Pluto would look amazing is because the snow on Pluto is not actually snow, it is frozen methane.

The next reason why winter on Pluto would be amazing is because Pluto already has a very cold average temperature, my final reason why winter would look amazing on Pluto is because even though Pluto is far away from Earth, it still has winter."

And the planet Cora from Buckeye Online School for Success picked is always cold, "Dear News Depth, my favorite planet is Uranus, Uranus is an ice giant.

I think Uranus would still be an icy planet, maybe just a bit colder than usual, if I think it could snow on Uranus or maybe there's already snow on Uranus."

Well, thanks for all your letters, your description is so very detailed, felt like I was actually in outer space, well, before we come back down to Earth, NASA has an update on its latest mission.

A NASA astronaut and two Russian Cosmonauts are planning to spend a few extra months on the International Space Station.

The astronaut is Frank Rubio, the Cosmonauts, Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin.

They were supposed to return to Earth in March, but last month, a leak damaged their spacecraft, the MS-22.

Now, NASA and Russian space officials say they'll launch an empty capsule, the MS-23, in February.

It's a replacement in order to complete the mission, the MS-23 was originally meant for the next crew heading to the ISS, with that launch delayed, Rubio, Prokopyev and Petelin will likely have to stay in space until September.

Officials say they're safe and healthy enough to remain up there until then.

Well, flights here on Earth are also being delayed, even canceled, all due to a computer outage.

The FAA, or the Federal Aviation Administration, has lifted a ground stop that brought flights to a standstill for a couple of hours last week, just as airlines were getting back on track following those recent holiday travel nightmares.

Ivan Rodriguez has the latest from Atlantis Hartsfield Jackson Airport, one of the busiest in the country.

- [Announcer] Ladies and gentlemen, I know we're all getting a little antsy as far as what is taking place, the FAA did just post that no US departures will happen today until 9:00 AM.

- [Rodriguez] The Federal Aviation Administration halted all domestic flight departures across the US after its pre-flight information system went down.

The NOTAMS, or Notice to Air Mission Systems, alerts pilots to real-time information on flight hazards and restrictions.

- Every pilot, before he or she, as they're doing flight planning, they review the NOTAMS, these are abnormal things happening at an airport that happen too recently to get out the word by other means.

- [Rodriguez] The outage forced airlines to cancel hundreds of flights, thousands more were delayed, causing backups and frustrations at airports across the country during the morning travel rush.

- She was like disappointed 'cause it was delayed two hours and now we're gonna miss whatever we had planned for like, right now.

- [Rodriguez] While others took the news in stride.

- Actually, my driver told me that everything was delayed, so I knew it was gonna happen, so I'll have an extra cup of coffee and some breakfast, I'll be fine.

- [Rodriguez] President Joe Biden said he was briefed on the outage and was in contact with transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

- They don't know what the cause of it is, they expect in a couple of hours, they'll have a good sense of what caused it and we'll respond at that time.

- Thanks Ivan, you know what?

I think News Hound said he had an airport-related story as well, let's check out what he has for this week's Petting Zoo.

(upbeat music) Hey there, News Hound.

Wow.

Looks like you're having a ball.

I thought you were working, okay, there he goes.

What'd you find, oh hey, a story about the TSA's top working dog retiring with honors.

Now, the TSA is the security agency that checks your luggage when you're traveling through an airport.

To sniff out this canine, click the Petting Zoo button on our website and thank you, News Hound.

Okay on with the news, businesses are seeing an increase in egg prices and consumers are seeing a shortage at grocery stores, prices are up thanks to inflation and an avian flu outbreak.

Cole Higgins has what's behind the soaring prices and the empty egg shelves and how soon conditions might improve.

- [Higgins] Egg-flation hitting shoppers at grocery stores nationwide, a shortage of eggs resulting in empty shelves and forcing consumers to shell out more cash for those hard to find egg cartons.

- I've noticed it being $1 a dozen to now $5 a dozen.

Definitely the prices have went from comfortability to not.

- [Higgins] According to the food market data company, Urner Barry, as of Tuesday, January 10th, the average price for eggs was $4.33 per dozen, this time last year, that price was around $1.33 and that's forcing businesses to pass on the higher costs to consumers.

- Prices has just quadruple, it's just amazing.

- [Higgins] So what's behind the higher costs, an avian flu that's wiped out egg-producing hens, leading to a major supply squeeze.

According to the USDA, about 60 million birds are gone because of the disease so far.

- It's 18 eggs some days, when we were usually getting, you know, 15 to 18 dozen this time last year.

- [Higgins] And on top of all that, higher prices for transportation, feed and energy for producers are also forcing egg providers to raise prices and experts from research firm IRI say it could take several months for production to return to normal.

Experts say to avoid scrambling to find eggs, avoid shopping on Sunday night or Monday mornings, since most stores restock overnight during the week.

- Thank you for that report, Cole.

Back on January 2nd in Cincinnati, Buffalo Bill's football player Damar Hamlin collapsed during a game against the Bengals.

Hamlin is now out of the Cincinnati hospital that helped save his life after he suffered a cardiac arrest, it's a remarkable turnaround for the Bill's safety, who's now receiving care from a medical team back in Buffalo.

Coy Wire has details.

- We're happy to have him back.

- [Wire] Damar Hamlin is back in Buffalo, returning home for the first time after suffering a cardiac arrest during a Monday Night Football game in Cincinnati.

- It's clear that he continues to move and take steps in a positive direction here and even though I'm not physically with him right now, we're not physically with him, it's like anything else when you have your family close by, it just feels right.

- [Wire] Hamlin was released from the University of Cincinnati Medical Center after his condition upgraded he was cleared to fly.

- Damar Hamlin has met a number of key milestones on his journey to recovery, all to get him to this point that he could be safely returned to Buffalo.

- [Wire] The 24-year-old Bills safety tweeting, "Happy to be back in Buffalo," along with this heartfelt message, "Watching the world come together around me on Sunday was truly an amazing feeling.

The same love you all have shown me is the same love that I plan to put back into the world and more."

His positive health updates throughout the week fueled his team in their first game since his collapse against rivals New England Patriots.

- [Announcer] 35, 30, 20, 15, 10, five, touchdown.

Nyheim Hines, 96 yards.

- [Wire] Fans erupted with joy on the first play and Hamlin shared his excitement, tweeting from his hospital bed with mom and dad by his side.

- When the opening kickoff was run back, he jumped up and down, got out of his chair, set, I think, every alarm off in the ICU in the process, but he was fine.

It was just appropriate reaction to very exciting play.

- [Wire] The last time the Buffalo Bills took a kickoff back for a touchdown, three years and three months ago, the same number Hamlin wears.

The number three, now a symbol of support for Hamlin across the NFL, Hamlin has been transferred to Buffalo General to continue treatment.

- I know his parents are gonna be with him there and I think that helps as well and knowing that he's well taken care of, just think overall, it just continues to put our minds at ease that he's in good hands and that he's moving in the right direction.

- Thanks Coy, one high school student in Wisconsin is changing her ballet shoes for cleats, hoping her football kicking skills will help get her through college, even after breaking barriers and proving herself, she's still working to be the best of the best, Colton Molesky has the story.

- Mckynzee is kicking her away into college.

The teen is pursuing her passion for sports at the collegiate level, even if that means breaking a few stereotypes.

- I just loved it.

Like I enjoyed it.

- Marshall High School senior Mckynzee Schepp finished the season a first-team, all-conference player a kicker, with 37 made field goals in the 2022 season.

Tell me, how long have you been playing football?

- Since eighth grade, in middle school.

- [Molesky] It's a passion Schepp has followed through two schools and many challenges, going from Sun Prairie High to Marshall.

- I got bullied a lot and I just didn't feel comfortable.

- It's been a journey, that's for sure.

She's had a lot of ups and downs, a lot of struggles, a lot of trying to beat the odds.

- [Molesky] Her mother, Kris Ganske, says the ballerina turned football player always returns to her work ethic to push past hardship, spending hours at Sun Prairie athletic club working on her craft.

- Her passion and drive is just incredible.

- Super proud of what she's done.

Sort of going against the odds and already my understanding is that Marshall, one of the coaches, has a daughter that's following in her footsteps.

- [Molesky] As Mckynzee goes on college visits, hoping to push her kicking career to the next level, her father, Jacob Schepp, alludes to the other thing she hopes she can do, inspiring other girls.

- I like inspiring like, younger generations.

It makes me happy that like, girls look up to me.

- Some people might not see a connection between ballet and football, but a physical therapist at University Hospitals in Cleveland knows just how similar dancers and football players actually are.

A physical therapist is a health professional who cares for someone's disease or injury with exercise, massage, heat therapy or other forms of treatment.

Lisa Ryan reports how treating ballet dancers as athletes can help them protect their bodies from injuries.

- See, if I've been dancing professionally, like I'm dancing all day every day, my body doesn't feel young.

- The amount of stress you put on your body day in and day out, the amount of agility and stamina, if that's not an athlete, I don't know what you call it.

- [Ryan] Most people's basic understanding of ballet is point shoes and tutus, but ballet dancers want audiences to know they're so much more.

- Our job is to make it look easy on stage and we're not supposed to show that it's difficult.

- [Ryan] The Cleveland Ballet is partnering with the sports medicine department at University Hospitals, which will allow the dancers to receive more preventive care.

The physical therapists who work with the dancers know how to treat the artists as athletes.

- Our bodies are our instrument.

Those are our tools.

That's the same as football players.

They're using their bodies as an instrument, as a tool to get where they need to be in the game.

- I'll wake up one morning and I'm in so much pain and it's like, oh my gosh, I can't do jumps or I can't do this today and then I go to physical therapy and I'll be like, almost 100% better right after and I'm like, oh wait, I can do this.

I think that if I keep on going to physical therapy, the life of my dance crew will be a lot longer.

- [Ryan] It's Marla Minadeo's first season as a professional dancer, her mom, Gladisa Guadalupe is the artistic director for the Cleveland Ballet.

Guadalupe had to retire after an injury and she thinks it could have been prevented.

- The career of a dancer is very short, but if you take care of your body now in a professional environment and with professionals in the medical field that understand the wear and tear and how to prevent, they could have careers up to 45 and 50.

Why not?

And that's what we want.

- [Ryan] Dr. James Voos of UH oversees the partnership and he's also the sports medicine physician for the Cleveland Browns.

He says taking care of an athlete's body is important for football players and dancers, both professional and in training.

- Yeah, this is particularly close to me having young dancers at home, contact athletes such as football players and our performing artists such as ballet dancers, put an incredible force on their body day in and day out, that that force to jump and maintain poise and posture day in and day out puts an incredible stress on the body.

While you may be moving more gracefully in ballet, those stresses on the body are very significant, and so the ability to maintain flexibility, to put together a preventative program is just as important in most sports.

- [Ryan] Guadalupe says it takes months to put something on stage as a production, but it takes decades for a dancer to be trained.

- I don't think people understand.

They just see the beauty.

The curtain goes up and they just see the end product.

They don't see the sweat and the hard work and that's my hope, that as much as I will like the audience to enjoy, which they do enjoy the performance, that they understand what these artist go through.

- Thanks Lisa, now that you've seen how ballet dancers and pro football players have plenty of similarities, we want to know in this week's poll, do you think dance should be considered a sport?

Head online to vote between "of course", or, "hmm, it's not quite a sport".

Now for last week's poll, we asked you if you would like to spend a night in school, can't say I'm surprised to see these results, 61% of you said yes, I'll pack my sleeping bag, I bet you'd be spending all night watching "News Depth", right?

But 39% of you answered, no thank you, I like my bed.

Well, here at News Depth headquarters, we love to hear stories about students who are working hard, showing determination and exceeding their goals.

The ninth graders in the extended standards resource room at Shaker Heights High School in Shaker Heights are doing just that and we're excited to tell you their story.

Ms. Moran told us that the six freshman students have done a great job of transitioning from the middle school to the high school, this was a big change for them because they had a completely different bell schedule and for the first time, they had lockers.

I'm sure some of you can relate.

Well, I'm really proud of how courageous they are.

Their work ethic makes some great role models for all of the students here.

"They're all motivated learners and really do a great job at everything they do," she told us when we visited their classroom back in December.

Ms. Moran and her partner teachers, Mrs. Mazzone and Mrs. Roberts, told us that the students in the extended standards resource room work a number of different skills including pre-vocational skills, which means job skills, life skills, and traditional academics like math or science.

On top of that, the students go on community trips every month, so far this year they visited Patterson Farms in Chesterland, where they got to go on a hay ride and pick apples, they've also visited the Without Limits art gallery in Cleveland, which features pieces created by artists with chronic diseases or disabilities.

When they were there, they even made some art of their own.

Their most recent trip was Color Me Mine in Orange, Ohio.

That's a pottery studio, while they were there, they made holiday gifts for the special people in their lives, the students are also in charge of a monthly luncheon that they organize every month.

Teachers are able to order lunches planned and cooked by the students, they also run a coffee shop that's open twice a week, on top of all of that, the students participate in a wide range of clubs.

Adrian told us that his favorite club is the Retro Gaming Club and he enjoys Donkey Kong.

Camren told us that he likes to play basketball and volleyball, he also gave us a tip and shared that apples are very healthy for you and his favorites are the apples with red skin.

So this week's A-Plus Award winners are Audrey, Aduja, Ka'Nyah, Janelle, Camren and Adrian from the Multiple Disabilities Unit at Shaker Heights High School for transitioning into high school so well and achieving their goals.

Great work, guys.

Well, have you ever wanted to learn more about the art and craft behind printmaking?

You're in luck, right here in Cleveland is a center for all things printmaking.

Zygote Press offers access to a wide variety of printmaking tools, classes and a diverse community of artists.

Printmaking is defined as any process that transfers an image from one surface to another.

Printmaking includes multiple techniques such as screen printing, letter press, lithograph and relief prints, in this edition of Sketchbook, we visit with Jackie Feldman and Brittany M. Hudak at Zygote Press to learn how printmaking brings the community in Cleveland together.

- Welcome to Zygote Press.

This is the shop here.

This is where the magic happens.

- Zygote, the word zygote, basically just means a fertilized self, originally zygote became a printmaking studio because many commercial print shops were moving towards digital and away from printing presses and printing presses were being discarded and they were being left behind and they were being treated as if they're obsolete.

- This is our gigantic exposure unit.

(machine clanking) Clamp it down, this, turn on, okay, this is gonna be loud.

Turn on the vacuum.

(machine whirring) Voila.

- This is an example of one of the things that our founders found, literally outside by a dumpster and retrieved, and now we use it all the time.

- And our founders had this tremendous foresight to see an opportunity there because printmaking is so much more than just print.

It's a unique art form because it allows for different kinds of expression.

- This incredible line engraving collection that we have here was, most of it was in a dumpster in the nineties, but now artists come here to work because they want to work with this collection.

- One of the most recent additions to our residency program is the program for artists and educators of color who are non-print makers, they are given three months with individual educational support from our teaching artists and our staff.

And the idea is that they can acquire knowledge and skills about printmaking that can help build their artistic practice.

There are a number of different ways in which we engage with the community, we've been participating with things like the Waterloo Arts Fest and the Cleveland Asian Festival.

We also engage in things like partnered workshops and classes.

- One of the great things about Zygote is that we have what's called our mobile art presses, the great thing about this is that anybody can use this and then children, grownups, anybody that comes to our events can make a letter press poster to take home with them.

And that's how we get people interested, especially young people in printmaking.

- What we are looking to create is a cross-disciplinary arts center from children's programming and classes to professional artists and masterclasses and everything in between and this is part of our overall work, to become an arts organization that is a true ally to its community.

- Being able to work with all of these amazing, like-minded people, to get inspired by them and to lift each other up, you know, to support each other, that's what Zygote is all about.

- And our special thanks to our intern Lauren Fernandez for producing that Sketchbook.

Well, that is gonna do it for us, I gotta sketch on outta here, but we do want to hear from you and there are plenty of ways to stay in touch with us.

You can write to us, we're at 1375 Euclid Avenue.

That's in Cleveland, our zip code 44115.

You can email us at newsdepth@ideastream.org or you can tweet us, our handle is @newsdepthohio.

Thanks for joining us.

I'm Rick Jackson.

We'll see you right back here again next week.

(upbeat music) - [Child] "News Depth" is made possible by a grant from the Martha Holden Jennings Foundation.

(upbeat music ends) (logo chimes)