Press Releases

01/18/2008

Ask AP

From caucuses to crude oil to cornerbacks, AP answers your questions about the news

By The Associated Press

What does college football eligibility have to do with the price of oil?

Not much, usually. But both topics inspired people to e-mail The Associated Press with questions about the news -- questions that are getting answered in this first installment of the interactive Q&A column "Ask AP."

AP editors selected six of the 150 questions submitted by the news-reading public and got answers from AP reporters and editors -- the ones who spend their days covering the very news stories that inspired the questions.

If you have your own question about the news that you'd like to see answered by an AP journalist, send it to newsquestions(at)ap.org, with "Ask AP" in the subject line.
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Q: What ever happened to Baghdad Bob?

Bob Evenson
Galena, Ohio
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A: Saddam Hussein's information minister, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf -- who earned the moniker "Baghdad Bob" during his break-from-reality news briefings -- left Iraq in the chaotic months after Saddam's fall in 2003 and surfaced in the United Arab Emirates.

It was never clear, however, whether he was questioned and released by coalition forces or if he departed without much notice from troops -- but with a worldwide following for his surreal spin doctoring that included the pronouncement that Baghdad was secure even as U.S. missiles landed nearby.

Al-Sahaf appeared occasionally on Abu Dhabi TV and inspired an Internet cottage industry of T-shirts and other Baghdad Bob memorabilia. His current whereabouts are uncertain, but some reports have placed him in Qatar.

Brian Murphy
Iraq Editor, AP International Desk
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Q: Background (my numbers maybe a little off, but you will see my point): About five years ago, oil sold for around $20 per barrel and gasoline was around $2 a gallon. Now oil is about $100 per barrel and gasoline is $3.25ish per gallon. Over the past five years, no new significant oil wells have come into production and no new refineries have come on line. So...
How can oil go up in cost by a factor of five and the cost of gasoline go up by a factor of two? We can only get so much gasoline out of a barrel of oil and our refining efficiency has not improved significantly. The math just does not make sense.

Richard Driscoll
Winnsboro, S.C.
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A: Oil and gasoline prices often move in the same direction, but aren't tied at the hip.
Oil prices fluctuate with production decisions from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, or when conflict in the Middle East or Nigeria threatens supplies. Increases or decreases in crude inventories, which come from imports and domestic production, also affect crude prices.

Gasoline prices are more closely tied to demand from U.S. drivers and how well refineries are doing producing gasoline. Falling production and inventories often send prices skyrocketing.

Lately, though oil prices have been at records, gas prices haven't kept pace, and refiners' margins have been squeezed. Refiners are making a far smaller profit now than they were in the spring, when gas prices were at records and oil was in the mid-$60s.

The refiners are limited by market forces in their ability to raise prices to try to maintain big profits. So when crude prices go way up, that doesn't necessarily mean they can raise the prices they charge.

And to clear up those numbers a bit: About 5 years ago -- in 2002 and 2003 -- gas prices averaged $1.345 and $1.561 a gallon, respectively. Oil averaged $26.15 a barrel in 2002 and $30.99 in 2003.

Gasoline is now at $3.061 a gallon -- up 128 percent from 2002 -- and the recent record oil price of $100.09 was up 283 percent from the 2002 figure.

John Wilen
AP Energy and Transportation Writer

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Q: What happened to Meredith Emerson's dog Ella?

Colin Weymouth
Daytona Beach, Fla.
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A: The parents of 24-year-old hiker Meredith Emerson have adopted her dog Ella and are taking the black Labrador mix back to their home in Longmont, Colo.

The dog was with Emerson when she disappeared while hiking at Vogel State Park in north Georgia on New Year's Day. Authorities charged 61-year-old Gary Michael Hilton with murder in the woman's death after he led them to her body Jan. 7 in a remote wooded area.
Emerson family spokeswoman Peggy Bailey says it was an easy decision for Emerson's parents, Dave and Susan Emerson, to decide to adopt the dog. Bailey says Ella is "a part of Meredith that they'll always have."

Debbie Newby
AP Atlanta Broadcast Editor
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Q: What is the difference between a caucus and a primary?

Gail Cellamare
Old Hickory, Tenn.
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A: A caucus is a community meeting held at a selected time where activists discuss politics, elect local officials and make suggestions about a party platform. In general election years, those attending also express a preference for their party's presidential nominee -- publicly, amid fellow caucus participants -- and elect delegates to later meetings, such as county conventions.

A few states hold caucuses, with Iowa and Nevada the most prominent because they occur early in the candidate-selection process.

Many more states hold primaries, which are traditional elections in which polls are open for a specified period of time and voters show up individually to cast their ballots in private.

The contests also differ in how they allocate the delegates candidates need to win each party's nomination.

Some primaries give all the delegates to the winning candidate in the state, while others divvy them up among the top few finishers.

Caucuses, meanwhile, have several different systems for determining who gets delegates. In Iowa, for example, delegates supporting various candidates are chosen at the caucuses; later, those delegates go to county conventions, where the field is winnowed and delegates are chosen for the district convention. That field is then narrowed to a set of delegates for the state convention, where delegates to the party's national convention are selected.

Mike Glover
AP reporter who has covered Iowa politics since 1982
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Q: What is a "redshirt freshman"? It seems college teams (and announcers) are always talking about "redshirt" players. Has to be something about eligibility, but I just don't know what the phrase means.

David Howell
Tallahassee, Fla.
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A: The term is used to identify a player who is in his first season participating in college sports, but not in his first year in college.

Any college athlete can take a redshirt season, though it's used most often in football during freshman year so we'll keep the description to football.

A player has five years to use four years of eligibility. If a player is "redshirted" during his freshman season, he practices with the team but does not play and retains his full allotment of eligibility. A player can also apply for a redshirt season at any time during his college career if he plays in less than 20 percent of his team's games and gets injured.

After sitting out his freshman year, the player is called a redshirt freshman the next season.
Where did the term come from? There was a time when players in their redshirt season would wear red jerseys in practice to distinguish them from other players.

Ralph Russo
AP College Football Writer