Coming up next on NewsDepth.

Gas prices are spiking amid the war with Iran.

Anna whips through a whirlwind of tornado history in our state.

We stop and smell the flowers at Daffodil Hill.

Plus, a bald eagle was rescued in the Tahoe National Forest.

NewsDepth is now.

President Donald Trump says U.S.

oil reserves will be refilled quickly to help ease rising gas prices, driven by the war with Iran.

Hello, everyone.

I'm Gabriel Kramer.

Thank you for joining us.

Gas prices are climbing as the conflict with Iran disrupts the global supply chain for oil.

The global supply chain is a world wide network of production and distribution of goods and services.

Oil is becoming harder to get as the key shipping route.

The Strait of Hormuz, which carries about one fifth of the world's oil, is being affected by the fighting.

People across the United States are already feeling the impact of the pump and worry prices could continue to spike.

But President Trump says an international agreement is in place for what he calls the largest release of emergency oil reserves in history, an effort aimed at stabilizing energy prices amid the conflict.

Sherelle Hubbard has more.

Presidnt Donald Trump speaking to reporters Wednesday night while trying to quell fears about the rise in oil and gas prices, said oil reserves are on the way.

I'm going to be doing it very quickly and then we'll fill it up.

We'll fill up our reserves.

But many Americans say the US's war with Iran is causing them to feel the squeeze at the pumps.

It's really hurting us right now.

Gas prices have now jumped 20% since the start of the war in late February.

That's a nearly 22 month high, according to AAA.

One food truck owner says it's impacting business.

Three weeks ago it was like $3, around $4 for a gallon of gas.

And then right now it's $6.

And gas prices rose 4% again Wednesday to an average of $3.58 per gallon.

I think it's outrageous.

I can't wait for it to start coming down again.

The latest report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, released Wednesday, shows annual inflation was unchanged last month.

But energy prices, including gasoline, ticked up before strikes on Iran, sent oil prices soaring.

Speaking Wednesday, Trump claimed without evidence that the war has already been won.

You never like to say too early.

You won, we won.

We won the bet in the first hour it was over.

But his messaging has been unclear about the war's timeline and the transit restriction in the Strait of Hormuz.

Around 20% of the world's crude oil passes through the strait, and its effective closure could push oil prices higher.

Thank you Sherrell Rising fuel prices are cutting into the already thin margins for farmers who rely on the Rhodes Stockton Bean Co-op, making it harder to stay profitable during harvest.

A co-op is a business owned and controlled by the people who use its products or services.

The grower owned co-op serves both small and large farms and operates on lower margins, leaving little room to absorb higher costs.

Reporter Charlie Lapastora spoke to this co-op about how increased gas prices is affecting their distribution.

Trucking their beans to the plan If fuel prices stay the way they are when they start harvesting, you know, it's obviously just cuts into their margin as well.

And it becomes harder to become, to be a farmer.

The Rhodes-Stockton Bean Co-op gives local growers a place to bring their beans, and then they process and market their beans.

It's a niche business in California agriculture compared to produce, strawberries, tomatoes or almonds.

Serving small and big growers and working off of smaller operating margins.

We're owned by the growers.

We we have members.

You know, we're controlled by the people who who use our facilities.

We're not we don't have private investors or anything like that.

So we literally are there to serve all our members.

Kubo says the increase in gas prices increases their cost, not just for the warehouse, but also for the farmers with beans being trucked to the plant.

With inbound freight, you have a big, increase in fuel prices over the past week, right?

With, especially here in California.

And so with beans, you work off of lower margins than you do with, let's say, a strawberry.

They get hit pretty hard as a farmer in California and higher fuel prices just make it even make it even more challenging.

The co-op brings beans in from other states like Idaho and North Dakota, causing them to rely on high price freight.

I think everyone wishes that fuel prices would hit, you know, going down as time goes on.

But obviously things happen... on the world scale and and it just affects everything else.

Thank you Charlie, Now let's turn to the weather.

Last week, an EF1 tornado damaged homes and farms in Indiana and Illinois.

The powerful storm tore through a rural neighborhood, ripping roofs off homes and trapping residents as they scrambled to escape before sunrise.

Though shaken and facing heavy damage.

Families say they're grateful it wasn't worse.

Tracy Hinson reports.

I hope I never have to go through this again.

Startled awake, hours before sun up.

Karl Reinke and his wife had not made it down stairs before The roof above them was ripped off.

I looked out the window and, I seen that pine tree fly up, so I took off running.

He ran to wake up his wife and it was too late.

The roof left and, lights went out.

Next thing I know, my wife's screaming and she's buried under debris.

He helped her out.

By the time we got to the staircase, it was over the Reinke's and their dog had made it through the storm.

Just down the road.

Larry Gueldner and his wife had a similar but less harrowing story to tell.

And about that time we heard glass, boom, something comes through the window and got up and looked and there was a board yay long come through the window!

And that's what we found.

That board could have come from anywhere.

The storm took out part of his barn and knocked a massive tree over onto the house.

The debris blocked their way out.

We usually use the front door there, that door to come out.

And obviously I get ready to open the door up.

And you got a tree down there Both uninjured, They started cleaning up and called for help.

This is all family.

Yeah, I work with family and that's who's here.

Surveying the damage, both Guildner and Reinke had the same thoughts.

It could have been a lot worse.

we're still here to to talk about it.

Thank you Tracy Ohio has a long history with powerful tornadoes, including rare EF5 storms capable of winds more than 200mph.

Two of the most destructive events, the 1974 Xenia tornado.

In the 1985 outbreak in northeastern Ohio caused widespread devastation, but also highlighted the importance of warnings and community resilience.

While EF5 tornadoes are extremely rare, modern technology now gives people more time to prepare and stay safe.

Anna has this week's Know Ohio about our state's most powerful tornadoes.

Our state has a whirlwind of history with tornadoes, including a couple of EF5s The EF or Enhanced Fujita scale rates tornadoes based on their wind speed.

At the bottom of the scale, an EF0 tornado has winds up to 85mph, while the highest rated EF5 can be more than 200mph.

Since 1950, Ohio has had only four tornadoes reach that strength.

The most recent was in May of 1985, in Portage and Trumbull counties.

11 tornadoes formed in the state that day, one of them being a massive EF5.

It traveled for 47 miles from eastern Ohio into western Pennsylvania, with estimated wind speeds of up to 300mph in Newton Falls, Brave storm spotters on the roof of City Hall saw it approaching and were able to sound a siren, even though the warning only gave folks a minute to prepare, it saved many lives, including 150 nearby bingo players.

The storm was so powerful, bowling balls were found a block away from a demolished bowling alley, and documents from City Hall were blown all the way to New York.

11 years earlier, Ohio found itself in the middle of what became known as Super Outbreak, an 18 hour period where 148 tornadoes were documented in 13 states.

An EF5 formed in Green County, coming down particularly hard on the southwestern city of Xenia This destruction would be compared to World War II, So yeah, it was pretty bad.

The tornadoes half mile wide path left half of the buildings in the city damaged or even destroyed.

It even blew a school bus into Xenia High School's stage.

President Richard Nixon visited the site, declaring it a federal disaster area and calling it the worst disaster he'd ever seen.

Still, the city persevered, just days after, cars were seen with bumper stickers reading "Xenia Lives."

One year later, 80% of homes and 40% of businesses had been rebuilt.

Though powerful, EF5s are still very rare, and technology nowadays makes it much easier for us to prepare.

So you've got a lot of time to hunker down.

When a twister does come to town.

Thank you for the history lesson Anna NewsHound!

You're here pretty early today.

I guess he's just excited to tell us about the story he found for this week's Petting Zoo.

Hey NewsHound!

Are you staying sheltered from all these storms?

Smart puppy!

What did you find for us this week?

Oh that's cool!

It's a story about a therapy dog helping students in Michigan feel better after an extreme tornado hit their town.

Hey, buddy... Not even a year old Duke is Union City Community School's newest therapy dog.

Sometimes it's easier to communicate with an animal than talk to the person in the room school counselor Ashley Seckler says Ironically, the lab was brought in a week ago, and he will be put to work when nearly 300 students and staff return after this past Friday's tragedy.

Starting out with just supporting staff, supporting bus drivers to kitchen staff, to all of our employees.

And then, we'll likely go on and do some debriefing sessions with all of our students and kind of see what their needs are.

As a counselor, what are you going to be looking out for?

I would imagine we're going to have a lot of students that are coming in with some of that previous trauma.

It's probably triggering for a lot of them.

Duke, any words of advice?

How are you going to remember this tragedy?

It's the biggest destructive hit that I've seen close up in my life.

I hope that we remember mother nature is an incredible force when she wants to be.

But community is stronger.

To learn more about Duke, the therapy dog, and how he is helping his students, click the Petting Zoo thumbnail at the bottom of this episode page.

Another dog with an important job.

Thanks as always NewsHound.

Now let's fly over to Hawaii, where stormy weather is having a ripple effect on the local economy.

In a state where the tourism industry depends heavily on sunny skies and calm seas.

Even the threat of bad weather can hurt business.

The stormy weather is forcing tour boats and water recreation businesses on Oahu to shut down operations, cancel trips and reschedule customers while visitors adjust their plans.

Captains say the downtime is costly, impacting both business owners and employees who rely on daily tours for income.

Paul Drewes reports.

Last one before the storm hits!

With south winds, we typically can't run.

Just because it makes it really rough out there.

And then with the wind, we have some surf that comes in too Instead of preparing for another tour.

Captain Ashley with Tradewinds Charters has to pack up this power catamaran.

Most of the boats out here are shutting down for the next week until this passes over.

Tour boats, dive operations and other water recreation businesses are always at the mercy of the weather with the rain.

Typically, sometimes people will call to try to reschedule, and if we can move them to a nicer day, we will.

That's what happened with Neil and Mason Vance, who just flew in from Tennessee.

I was just looking forward to, like, exploring the island, and I've never been here before, so it just be cool to, like, go to the beach and stuff down here and explore the island.

And plan was to really do a lot of adventuring on the island and, you know, ATV tours, snorkeling, luaus We had it all booked, so, I did have to change a few things up this morning, just based on the weather, trying to pack everything.

A few things on today because the weather was better.

They were on the last tour out before stormy weather was expected to move in to Oahu.

Meanwhile, on land, the threat of stormy weather may be a factor in keeping people away.

Some hotel managers I talked with said they normally get last minute bookings, but those numbers are down this week.

At Kewalo Harbor, the silver lining to the dark storm clouds is the additional downtime will give crews a chance to catch up on boat maintenance or repairs.

Captain Ashley says the stormy weather will be a costly break for them all.

It affects not only us but then all the employees and, you know, the economy, right now, everyone could use some extra money.

So it is unfortunate we still have bills to pay and people to pay.

And, we just don't have, the trips to pay for them right now this week.

Thank you Paul.

After tracking Stormy skies, let's shift to a sign that sunnier days are ahead because spring is almost here and I can already smell the flowers blooming.

What do you say we visit Daffodil Hill and Lakeview Cemetery in Cleveland's east side?

The daffodils date back to the early 1940s, when an area enthusiast donated thousands of bulbs to the historic cemetery.

As the daffodils return every season, so do visitors season after season, making the visit an annual tradition for so many.

Carrie Wise has this week's Sketchbook to remind us to stop and smell the flowers every once in a while.

Spring has sprung at Lakeview Cemetery with people eager to take in the bright blooming daffodils.

These daffodil faces date back to the early 40s, when an area enthusiast donated thousands of bulbs to the cemetery.

Back in 1941, when a doctor, William Weir, wanted to donate, 6000 bulbs, we gladly accepted because we had the perfect hillside for daffodils, which is populated with some pretty trees.

And the daffodils bring so much green and beautiful yellow explosions of color.

Quite frankly, they're big, showy daffodils.

The daffodils have been enchanting visitors for decades.

Newspaper articles show the original donor, William Weir, was noted for his exceptional collection, growing more than 170 varieties and putting on Narcissus shows with the Garden Center of Greater Cleveland, which went on to become Cleveland Botanical Garden.

More than 80 years later.

People are still enjoying the daffodils each spring.

I know that a garden club planted the original bulbs they planted in the snow and sleet and rain of the fall, to get.

They were all volunteers and they got the original batch in the ground.

Visiting Daffodil Hill soon became an annual tradition with people spreading the word when the blooms arrive each year.

The way we get the word out is through social media.

In fact, we have people on social media starting in February asking us when the daffodils are going to be in bloom.

Each year, peak viewing depends a lot on the weather, but daffodils are pretty hardy and offer extended color once they arrive.

We typically see a couple of weeks worth for sure, but some of them bloom a little bit earlier than others, and it's a little hard to tell.

Mother nature has a lot to do with it, but we consider it around April 15th in full bloom, and it continues into early May.

Over the years, the cemetery has supplemented the original plantings with now more than 150,000 bulbs.

They're mainly yellow daffodils of the Carlton and King Alfred varieties.

We're actually going to be taking a several photographs of the hill to see where are we?

We have blank spaces and we courteously ask people not to walk through the daffodils so they don't get trampled.

If they do.

They won't grow back the next year.

Of course, many of these daffodils return just like visitors.

Season after season, brightening the hillside and people's spirits at the same time.

Special thanks to Carrie Wise with the Ideastream Arts team for sharing that story with us.

For this week's poll, we'd like to know what are you most excited about this spring?

Jump over to our poll page to vote.

You can choose between warmer weather, spring sports, maybe a school event, or of course, spring break.

on our episode.

Last week, Margaret told us about some fearless female scientists whose discoveries still impact the world today.

And we wanted to know who of those scientists is your favorite?

Wow.

Almost 67% of you said you look up to Jane Goodall.

About 19% voted for Marie Curie.

I think she's my favorite too 11% said your favorite female scientist was someone else, and 3% said you admire Marie Tharp.

Thank you all for voting.

Now, let's take a quick visit to California, where a bald eagle was found unable to fly.

But was rescued by hikers with the help of wildlife officials.

California Wildlife Encounters took it to a rehabilitation center for treatment.

Experts are now running tests to determine the cause, with the goal of returning the bird safely to the wild.

Peyton Headlee has the story.

This what two hikers saw Sunday evening in the Sawtooth Recreation Area near Truckee.

A bald eagle on the ground, unable to fly.

The hikers called rescuers and waited nearby until they got there.

They say Placer County Animal Services responded, along with Ben Nuckolls from California Wildlife Encounters.

With little daylight left.

Both were armed with nets, but the bald eagle was tough to get Ahold of.

While it couldn't fly, it could run.

In a matter of minutes, they were able to catch the bird and transport it to the Gold Country Wildlife Rescue in Auburn.

It's not a very common patient for us.

Christy Berger says they're working with Bird of prey health specialists, trying to figure out why it can't fly.

His body condition is pretty good.

He's not super skinny or anything like that.

No physical trauma that we can tell.

She says they're running tests, continuing supportive care and waiting on bloodwork.

He's getting some testing for any toxicity.

They can get lead poisoning.

It could be a rodenticide issue.

So regardless of what it is, there are different treatments that can be provided.

The goal-- get the bald eagle back into the wild and into the skies Thank you for the report Peyton Our Write to Us This week is going to be a little bit different.

The NewsDepth team is producing a special Earth Day episode in April, and we'll be talking to an animal health specialist who works for the Cleveland Zoo.

But we need your help coming up with interview questions.

So tell us, what would you like to ask a zoo animal health specialist about their job?

Students You can use our inbox form online to send in your questions on our last episode, we met some pretty cool students from across the country and wanted to learn about impressive students in our state.

Let's hear about some remarkable kids by opening up our inbox.

A fifth grader at Oak Hills Local School in Cincinnati said, Eleanor is one of the best students at my school.

She always works really hard and is really nice.

She also won the spelling bee at our school.

Great job Eleanor.

A fifth grader at Bellevue School in Bellevue said the most impressive group in my school is The Rocks group.

It's a program where girls learn about communication, defense and how to keep good relationships with each other.

We also do fun games.

After we do the games, we talk about what went well and what went wrong.

A sixth grader at Strongsville Middle School in Strongsville said one group of impressive students at school is our drama club.

Last week, they put on a very impressive show.

It was full of fun music, singing and dances.

It was so fun to watch all of their work finally get showcased.

Another thing was there were so many cool costumes and props.

Overall they did an incredible job.

That's awesome.

Great job.

Drama club.

A fifth grader from Sherwood School in Cincinnati said an important group of students at my school is the student council.

The student council is a group of students that helps the school and runs our fundraisers in carnivals.

I was in my fifth grade student council too.

A fifth grader from Cuyahoga Falls School in Cuyahoga Falls said, I think the most impressive group of students at my school in my opinion, is the honor choir and the art club.

I think this because the honor choir is working so hard and we're able to sing high and low.

The art club is very unique.

They're making a project by dressing ducks and making things for the art walk we are having in April.

An art walk sounds like a lot of fun.

A couple of great groups at that school.

Thank you all for writing and special shout out to everyone who gave a shout out to their fellow classmates.

How about one more shout out?

This one goes out to our A-plus award winners for the week.

Computers and email are great.

They really are.

Email is such a fast way to stay in touch.

And believe it or not, here at NewsDepth Headquarters, we get hundreds of emails each week from students across Ohio.

I bring up email because we recently met a group of Girl Scouts who were using a different form of written communication to make new friends and make a difference.

I'm talking about Girl Scout Troop 70178 from Bay village.

They've been exchanging letters with a group of senior citizens as pen pals, and they're at this week's A-plus Award winners.

If you're wondering what a pen pal is exactly, it's a person that you regularly exchange written letters with through the mail.

How exciting.

Who doesn't love getting mail?

these young women started writing letters to a group of community members at Life Care Center of Elyria way back in 2020.

One of their parents told us that it was a great way for them to make connections with people they might not have otherwise met, and it was great for their letter writing partners to meet new people as well.

The girls were able to really work on their writing and communication skills.

After exchanging several letters, they even started sending each other other crafts and small gifts.

After several months of exchanging letters, the girls were able to visit their partners and help them plant flowers.

I know what you're wondering.

Did they bring Girl Scout cookies?

As a matter of fact, they did.

The scouts told us that it was a great day of planting flowers, sharing cookies, and hearing stories.

Some of the seniors were Girl Scouts when they were younger and had a blast talking about all of their experiences and camping trips.

The Scouts, who are all now in fifth grade, told us that they are really proud of the community they were able to build.

They learned a lot about people's differences and that people can be different in a lot of ways, including age and ability.

Their scout leader told us that she was very proud of how respectful the students were, and the bravery they showed in making new friends.

This week's A-plus award goes to Girl Scout troop 70178 and their pen pals for making new friends, sharing new experiences and making each other smile.

I hope we get invited for the next flower planting cookie party.

Well, that's a wrap for today's show and NewsDepth will be on spring break next week.

But don't worry, we will be back next month with more news and more stories.

Until then, you can keep the conversation going because we always like to hear from you and there are plenty of ways for you to stay in touch with us.

You can write to us at 1375 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio.

Our zip code here is 44115.

You can email us at NewsDepth@ideastream.org.

Plus you can catch all of our special segments on YouTube.

Hit subscribe if you're old enough so you don't miss out on any of our new videos.

Thank you for joining us.

I'm Gabriel Kramer.

See you in April.

NewsDepth is made possible by a grant from the Martha Holden Jennings Foundation.

Thank you all for voting.

Now let's take a quick visit to Philadelphia, where horticulture and landscape architecture students have put together the annual flower Show.

Horticulture is the art and practice of maintaining a garden.

The Temple University students worked for months to build a larger than life nature exhibit.

Mateo, out in DC, has more Good.

Yeah, it looks good.

I think it speaks to honestly the beautiful cultures that you can find here in Philadelphia.

These were all harvested by hand, by us.

We've dedicated around like 4 to 5 months on this project.

And I think it's amazing that we get to share it with so many people.

I've been going with our show since I was little, and I also volunteer for the temple exhibits for the past years.

It's like finally my turn to build the exhibit.

Basically, this is our model of our exhibit of Commonwealth.

My fellow students and I are currently building, the Commonwealth exhibit through temple for the Sodality Flower Show.

It's a different theme every year.

You kind of get to see what other companies and what other schools, what they're thinking, how they play with the theme, and then just the different kinds of plants that people are able to push.

So today we're here at Temple University Ambler Campus, inside the Tyler School of Art and architecture is Green Greenhouse Education Research Complex.

The history of our campus dates back to Pennsylvania School of Horticulture for women, which was down in the early 1900s, and we've been participating in the flower show since early on in the days of the school.

So our horticulture and landscape architecture students have been trying to trick plants into flowering for the show in March, when normally they'd be dormant, dead sticks outside during, artificial winters called criminalization, where we put plants in coolers early in the fall, and then we bring them into the greenhouse, we give them artificial daylight, warm them up, give them extra humidity if they trick them into thinking it's spring and summer.

Is this done?

And we're like, turning the corner here.

That's the finished product, which is in process.

It is going to kind of show the range of naturalized landscapes that we experience here in southeastern Pennsylvania, from the heights of the Piedmont geologic and geographic region down to our riparian areas.

And the coastal plain figures prominently, with Bertram's garden being on the banks of the Schuylkill River.

And we're also going to be taking a look at representing, agricultural landscapes.

The Philadelphia Flower Show is running from the very end of February up until March 8th.

Students will be there, other volunteers from the Temple Ambler campus community and beyond will be there.

And we provide a lot of information to those individuals and talk with them about what the exhibit's all about, what can be communicated with people who are visiting.

So it's kind of connected and kind of making sure that everything flows together.

Nature is all around us.

It's present.

It's with us.

But seeing that color and that texture and the lights that plants bring is a really profound thing for us.

Thanks.

Mateo.

A bald eagle that was found unable to fly in California was rescued by hikers with the help of wildlife officials, California Wildlife Encounters took it to a rehabilitation center for treatment.

Experts are now running tests to determine the cause, with the goal of returning the bird safely to the wild pain.

Hedley has a story.