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Maggie: Hey guys! I am Maggie Rulli here at Georgetown University in Washington DC, about to have dinner with these seven strangers, but we're going to learn a lot more about them later on in the show, and…

Group: Channel One News starts right now!

Azia: And we will hear from Maggie in just a bit. I am Azia Celestino with a look at headlines.

And first up: just this past Friday, there was another extremist attack. This time a terror group went after a luxury hotel in the West African country of Mali. A group of heavily armed and well-trained gunmen stormed the Radisson Blu Hotel in Mali's capital city of Bamako.

They drove into the hotel, detonated bombs and opened fire at security guards. People staying in the hotel blocked doors and huddled in the rooms, waiting for up to seven hours for help. One hundred seventy people were taken hostage.

Soon after, Malian Special Forces moved in. They were backed up by their French counterparts and one off-duty special forces member. They moved floor to floor, looked for the attackers and tried to free guests and staff.

At least 22 people were killed, including one American aid worker, Anita Datar.

The jihadist group Al-Mourabitoun claimed responsibility for the attack. And this terror attack is the latest in a string of high-profile attacks from bombings in Beirut to the downing of a Russian airliner in Egypt and the recent Paris attacks.

Over the weekend many parts of the country saw the first significant snow of the season. And with Thanksgiving just days away, temperatures are expected to drop in many states.

Some areas in the Midwest were slammed with heavy snow. From South Dakota to Wisconsin to Illinois, some areas saw more than a foot of snowfall.

Ice and wet snow blanketed roadways, creating dangerous traffic conditions and plenty of accidents. The suburbs of Chicago saw whiteout conditions.

It wasn't so bad for kids in Michigan, who got a chance to enjoy their own winter wonderland. And while millions were left digging out, this guy from the Henry Vilas Zoo in Madison, Wisconsin couldn't get enough of it.

All right, coming up: we brush up on our nutrition facts and find out what is really inside of that cereal box.

Azia: When you see the word "natural" on a food label, it doesn't necessarily mean that Mother Nature created all of the ingredients in it. In fact, there are no formal rules when it comes to what is considered natural. And that has been getting a lot of pushback, so much so that last week the Food and Drug Administration announced that it is now asking for the public's thoughts on how to define the word "natural." Keith Kocinski shows us what is really in the food we eat and the consumer push for more transparency.

Keith: I am so hungry; I could really go for a bowl of cereal right now. Oh, wait, before I pour this bowl, let me see what type of ingredients are in here: butylated hydroxytoluene. Would you eat your favorite cereal if you knew it had BHT, an ingredient also used in jet fuel?

And it is not just cereal. This yogurt here claims to be "natural," but it has a variety of ingredients here that I can't even read. These are just a few of the many artificial ingredients in some of our favorite foods.

The government says these are all legal and okay for us to eat in small amounts. But some major food companies say they are taking artificial coloring and flavors out of their products.

Kraft has pledged to remove that bright yellow color, really a synthetic dye, from its mac and cheese by next year. General Mills, maker of Trix and other cereals, says natural alternatives like beet juice and turmeric will soon provide bright colors instead of artificial dyes.

 

The companies say it is about listening to their customers. General Mills says,

"We're really doing this because we've heard from families who say this will make the products better."

And it is probably about profits too; a report this year shows 80 percent of consumers are willing to pay more money for natural products.

 

Heather White: The reason that companies are making this step is because they listen when we start to vote with our pocketbooks.

Keith: Artificial ingredients weren't always controversial. In the early 1900s, when food contamination was a norm, consumers responded positively to the idea of manufactured food.

Nadia Berenstein: The fact that the food was made in a big factory by a big company was a thing that guaranteed in consumers’ minds that it was safe. 

Keith: Food processing en masse drove the need for additives even more. Every item coming off the assembly line had to taste the same.

In the 40s and 50s, new technology like freezers and microwaves gave rise to novelties like TV dinners, packed with chemical preservatives but widely popular. But experts say regulations haven't kept up with the changing times.

Heather White: There is 10,000 different chemicals that we are exposed to in food, and there are about at least 3,000 which we don't know anything about, so fundamentally we really need to overhaul our system when we are thinking about chemicals in food.

Keith: Keith Kocinski, Channel One News.

Azia: Thanks, Keith. The FDA will be accepting comments for 90 days. All right, after the break, we get an invitation to a secret supper.

Azia: Dinner is usually a time to eat and have good conversations with friends and family. But what if you got invited to dine with a table full of strangers? Maggie Rulli snagged a seat at one mysterious dinner party. 

Maggie: There is a mystery lurking at Georgetown University. Thousands of people want in, but only a few get picked. Oh, looks like I have dinner plans.

It is called Dinner with Seven Strangers, an experience at the Washington DC campus clouded in secrecy. Seven strangers chosen at random to attend a dinner and conduct a conversation.

Do you know who is behind Dinner with Seven Strangers?

Bailey Bradford: I don’t.

Maggie: No?

Bailey Bradford: No.

Mariah Driver: I have no idea who organizes it.

Laura Harvey: I don't.

Maggie: But I got to meet one of the organizers, who didn't want to be revealed.

Organizer: The mystery, it kind of keeps the allure of the dinners. Some of my closest friends have asked me, “Oh, who runs Dinner with Seven Strangers?” and I'll always play it off like I have no idea.

Maggie: Do you really? “I don’t know, not me.”

Organizer: It’s fun. There's a group of four of us who put on the events and send out the emails, keep up with the Facebook page. There's a lot to do, but we each have our job.

Maggie: Then it was my turn.

Thank you so much for having me.

Scott: Yeah, no problem; go ahead and make yourself at home.

Maggie: Hey, you guys, hi, I am Maggie.

Group: Hello!

Maggie: On the menu tonight, education is being served at the dinner table.

Scott: My name is Scott Harrington.

Tiffany: I’m Tiffany Kassidis.

Sinmi: Sinmi Tinubu.

Sofia: Sofia Gomez.

Emperatriz: Emperatriz.

Cathleen: Cathleen Ung.

Charlotte: My name is Charlotte Kirks.

Max: My name is Maximiliano Astruc.

Maggie: Things started off a little awkward. Each dinner guest dishes different stories from different walks of life.

Maggie: I didn't really go to Georgetown, but don’t tell them.

Scott: I did a five-day trek around Torres del Paine in Chile.

Tiffany: I spent 10 years studying ballet.

Sinmi: I piloted a small passenger plane over the Chesapeake Bay.

Sofia: My fun fact is that I'm currently studying Arabic here, in addition to French, and I've also studied Spanish in the past.

Emperatriz: I went by the name Junior from when I was born to age 11.

Charlotte: I study Mandarin here at Georgetown, and I actually just got back from a six-week backpacking solo tour of China.

Max: I’m probably the only person you will ever meet that got deported from a third-world country.

Sofia: So I was not sure who was going to be here, what it was going to be like. But then I got here, and everyone was really nice, so it's been great.

Maggie: And that is exactly the point.

Organizer: Dinner with Seven Strangers was started with the idea that once you get to college, a lot of times you get kind of stuck in a rut. You meet a group of friends, and you don't really expand outside of those friends.

Maggie: Conversation about classes, concerts, college life, even the best places to get cookies.

Dinner was delicious; we had butternut squash lasagna. Very tasty, but I love that it was made for us by Scott, who was our host tonight.

Scott: I definitely think I made some new friends that I'm going to stay in touch with. There's a lot of people who I've seen around campus but I’ve never actually said hi, so it's kind of amazing to actually get to meet them.

Producer: What did you think of our dinner guest named Maggie Rulli?

Charlotte: I love her; she's adorable. She's a little ball of fun.

Maggie: By the time dessert was served, it was safe to say these strangers were now friends. Maggie Rulli, Channel One News.

Azia: And to hear more about what it was really like to eat dinner with strangers, check out Maggie Rulli's blog post at .

And while you are there, take a moment to take our poll and answer the question: is it easy or difficult to make new friends?

All right, guys, that is all for now. But we will see you right back here tomorrow!

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