CNN Student News - October 31, 2016

CARL AZUZ, CNN STUDENT NEWS ANCHOR: Whether you`re watching on a TV, in class, on a desktop, a tablet, or on your phone, we welcome you to the special edition of CNN STUDENT NEWS. I`m Carl Azuz.

Today and tomorrow, we`re taking an in-depth look at the dangers of distractive driving. Timing is no coincidence -- kids in the U.S. are more likely to be hit by a car on Halloween than on other days of the year. On any day or night, there`s more to pull the driver`s attention off the road than there has been in decades past.

CNN`s Kelly Wallace shares the personal stories of some people who`ve been directly affected.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KELLY WALLACE, CNN DIGITAL CORRESPONDENT: Think about it, how often when you`re driving do you see people checking their phones? And let`s be honest, how often do you do it yourself while behind the wheel?

(voice-over): And it`s not just texting, drivers are on Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and now, Pokemon Go. You name it, drivers are checking their phones on roads from cities to rural communities like this one.

Looking at your phone to read one text is the equivalent of driving the length of a football field at 55 miles an hour with your eyes off the road. 

One text increases your chances of crashing by at least six times. One text can have deadly consequences.

MATT BOEVE, ANDREA`S HUSBAND: Andrea was a perfect mom. She loved kids, I loved kids. We were going to have more kids. It was the high of life. 

We were settled, loving what we did, raising a family and breaking ground on a new home. In a blink of an eye, it was -- our world changed. 

WALLACE: On June 30th, 2014, Andrea Boeve took her darling girls, then 11 months and four years old, for a bike ride right near their home in rural Steen, Minnesota. Her husband, Matt, was doing some dangerous work on the family`s farm. 

BOEVE: I had a two-way radio that kept in contact with one of my guys to keep me safe, you know. And all of a sudden over the two-way mom said,   "Matt, where are you?" I could hear in my mom`s voice right away. And she said that Andrea and the girls were in an accident. 

DISPATCHER: 911, where`s your emergency? 

CALLER: There`s a girl who I think got hit by a car.

WALLACE (on camera): What was that like and you get to the hospital and see Claire? 

BOEVE: It was something I`ll never forget because I was told she`s OK. And I came in and she was sedated, and she had breathing tube down her throat to keep her along from collapsing. And it just -- it was shock. It was complete shock.

So, it was -- it was horrible. No parent should have to go through that. 

WALLACE: What do you tell the girls? 

BOEVE: For any parent to go to their four-year-old and their 11-month-old and say mommy`s in heaven is something, I don`t know, that`s been the hardest part, when to say that mom is no longer with us.

WALLACE (voice-over): A driver, Chris Weber, a South Dakota National Guardsman and father of two, admitted he decided to make a payment on his phone. He says he looked down at his phone and heard a thud. He says he never saw Andrea and the girls. 

CHRIS WEBER, DISTRACTED DRIVER: I failed number one because I was on my phone. I was distracted that day. 

BOEVE: I just knew he was on his phone. A guy told me that. Even before I got to the scene, I knew it. 

And it`s tough. It`s so preventable. I mean, we are addicted to our phones. Anything can happen, and that anything happened to us. 

WALLACE: Every day in the United States, more than eight people are killed and more than 1,000 are injured in crashes that are reported to involve distracted driving according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Distracted driving includes activities such as talking on 
 a cellphone, texting, and eating. 

A recent study found that two out of three teens admit to using apps while driving, and that study was done before Pokemon Go. 

To get a sense of what it is like to drive distracted, we headed to the University of Alabama at Birmingham`s distracted driving research lab. 

(on camera): My friends are so fun on Facebook, oh, my gosh. And I wanted a friend of mine had this great picture I wanted to show you. So I would have been in another lane just by looking at friends. 

Despina Stavrinos is the lab`s director. 

DESPINA STAVRINOS, PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA AT BIRMINGHAM: Many of the times when you are engaging in social media while driving you were taking your eyes off the road for long glances. Those are those glances over two seconds that significantly increase your crash risk. 

WALLACE: Matt`s girls, Claire and Mallory, are now six and three. 

(on camera): You must think about it a lot, Matt, because you could have lost all your girls. 

BOEVE: It`s so preventable. Yes, a blink of an eye, you think you can take your eye off the road to read a text, check an app. But a split second took my wife, you know? And almost took my children. 

My girls no longer have a mom. I don`t have a wife, a soul mate. It is just something that didn`t need to happen, and it did. 

WALLACE: Here`s a dirty little secret. It is not just teens who are checking their phones while driving. We parents are doing it too. 

In a recent survey, 56 percent of parents admitted checking their mobile devices while behind the wheel. How can we convince our kids not to do it if we`re doing it ourselves? 

LAURA MAURER, DISTRACTED DRIVER: That`s a horrible, horrible feeling to deal with. And the guilt that comes with it is awful. And it is nothing that I want anyone to have to go through or experience in any way. 

WALLACE (voice-over): Laura Maurer visits the site near Brooklyn, Iowa, where her life changed two years ago. The mother of two and hair salon owner was driving along Old Highway 6. She pulled over, texted a client whose house she was heading to, and started driving again. 

MAURER: I think I had gotten three miles down the road when she texted me back. And it dinged three times. And I don`t think I even read the whole thing. I kind of skimmed and it set it down. And when I looked up, there he was. 

And I slammed on my brakes and I went to swerve. And unfortunately I clipped that tiller, it was falling (ph). And that was it. 

WALLACE: A cross marks the place where 75-year-old Marvin Beck of nearby Malcolm, Iowa, was ejected from his tractor. 

MAURER: I held him in my arms, you know, and called 911, and his sons ended up coming and took him out of my arms, and I think I called 911 again at that point. And I was in the police car when we found out that he didn`t make it.

WALLACE (on camera): What was that like? I mean, it is going to be impossibly difficult no matter what. 

MAURER: I don`t think there is an hour that goes by that I don`t think about it in some way. 

WALLACE (voice-over): Laura received a 30-day jail sentence, although 16 of those days were deferred. She is in the process of completing 200 hours of community service, sharing her story and warning others of the dangers of using a phone while behind the wheel. 

MAURER: Even if I can save one kid from not doing it or one person, I think at least that is a little bit of comfort. Open people`s eyes and make them realize we need to change the way we`re driving. 

WALLACE: Especially when you think about how many people, including parents, text or post on social media while driving. 

STAVRINOS: We`re finding estimates before half of all parents say they drive distracted. So, that`s not really helping for where we`re trying to get in terms of shifting the societal norms. If mom and dad are doing it, then, hey, it must be OK. 

WALLACE: Sometimes the kids are the ones telling their parents to stop. 

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My mom is a big Facebooker. So, every single second, she`s always on her phone texting. And I always tell her, mom, your kids are in the car. It is one thing if it is just you. But like, my little sister is with us. Can you just stop for maybe a couple minutes? 

MAURER: It is amazing how many people will say, I don`t think there`s one person who hasn`t been in a car with somebody who has been distracted at one point or another in their life. 

WALLACE (on camera): If you can give any message to the Beck family, if they could hear any message for you? 

MAURER: I`m just so sorry. There is nothing I would ever -- I mean, I understand. I can`t imagine. I`ve lost people in my life and I`m just sorry. I can`t -- that`s the hardest part to live with is that I took somebody`s father and somebody`s husband and somebody`s grandfather, you know?

CNN Student News - October 28, 2016

CARL AZUZ, CNN STUDENT NEWS ANCHOR: We are CNN STUDENT NEWS and Fridays are awesome! I`m Carl Azuz. Thank you for watching.

The World Wildlife Fund, an international conservation group, says more than two-thirds of the world`s wildlife could be gone by the year 2020. 

The organization says there`s already been a 58 percent decrease in the number of fish, mammals, birds and reptiles since 1970. The number of elephants as we`ve reported has dropped drastically, in part because of poaching. And the WWF says overfishing could make a third of the planet`s sharks extinct.

Looking at wildlife as a whole, one major reason for all this is habitat loss. A WWF conservation scientist says it`s because people are using so much of the planet and destroying so much of the animals` habitat. His organization suggests more government laws protecting the environment and 
that people look for more sustainable products and renewable energy. 

But not all scientists totally agree with the WWF report. A conservation ecology professor at Duke University says it`s true that wildlife is declining, but he called some of the WWF`s numbers sketchy and said its research is flawed, in part because most of it focuses on Western Europe. 

As history books defined it, the Cold War started after World War II. It involved the U.S. and its allies versus the Soviet Union and its allies. 

The rivalry was political, economic, ideologic, but it stopped short of an outright military conflict.

Now, though, there`s a military buildup in Eastern Europe that`s the largest since the Cold War. The United Kingdom is planning to send fighter jets to Romania. The U.S. is set to send troops and tanks to Poland. Russia recently sailed warships close to British waters on their way to Syria.

It all has international officials asking, is this the beginning of a new Cold War?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, not since the end of the Cold War have tensions between Russia and the West been this high. 

SUBTITLE: The new Cold War?

CHANCE: The big flashpoint is, of course, Syria. Russia`s bombing in support of its ally, the Syrian president, has drawn condemnation from the United States and Europe. Russia has responded by bolstering its military in Syria, deploying even more state of the art anti-aircraft missiles, and by upping its rhetoric.

Of course, the Syria conflict is only one of the flashpoints between Russia and the West. Another is Ukraine, where Russia is under Western sanctions for fueling of bloody rebellion in the east of the country after annexing Crimea in 2014. 

There`s also the issue of hacking, with Russia accused by U.S. officials of breaking into computer systems of political institutions. The Kremlin denies it, but there is a growing sense that Russian and the West are locked in a collusion course over a whole range of issues. But it`s argued that Russia`s president, Vladimir Putin, is just an autocrat bent on subverting the international order to which Russia was invited to be a part. 

But I think many Russians see it differently. They see a world that after the end of the Cold War was almost totally dominated by the West and by United States in particular.

RONALD REAGAN, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: It`s our duty to speak in this place of freedom.

CHANCE: Russian interests and concerns, they believe, have been trampled on with NATO expansion and the toppling of former Russian allies in the Balkans and in the Middle East. And what many Russians like about Putin is that he is saying enough is enough and standing up to U.S. dominance.

PRES. VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIA (translated): We need to strengthen the security and defense capability of our country, to assert its position on the international stage. 

CHANCE: So, what Syria and Ukraine and hacking are really about is this: like it or not, that relationship between Russia and the West, after the Cold War, the post-Cold War settlements, as it`s sometimes called, is now being renegotiated.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AZUZ: Ray of Light, Hope, Echo -- these are the names of some of Japan`s Shinkansen, the network of bullet trains that quickly connects different parts of the country. There are hundreds of them in Japan. 

And the next generation of maglev or magnetic levitation trains promises to be significantly faster. 

Will Ripley climbs aboard for a trip through the past and the future.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It`s one of the most sophisticated transportation networks in the world. The arteries of Japan pumping millions of passengers across the country and the trains are almost always on time. 

Walking into Tokyo station, you`re surrounded of more 3,000 trains and half a million people passing through this one station every day. But trains are much more than transportation here in Japan, it tells a story of this country`s character and changing relationship with the world. 

(on camera): Was this your seat right here?

FUMIHIRO ARAKI, DEPUTY DIRECTOR AT THE RAILWAY MUSEUM: Yes.

RIPLEY: So, does being in here bring back memories for you?

ARAKI: Yes, of course.

RIPLEY (voice-over): Fumihiro Araki is leaving history. He was a conductor of the zero series Shinkansen, Japan`s first high speed rail.

(on camera): Tell me what it was like when the bullet train first was unveiled in Japan.

ARAKI (translated): I was driving the world`s fastest train for the first time, so I was really excited.

RIPLEY (voice-over): We`re standing onboard the original train unveiled in 1964. At the time, it topped 210 kilometers an hour, which was unheard of. 

The fastest trains in Europe pushed 160. The Shinkansen was a show of force.

ARAKI: The Tokyo Olympics was held in 1964. So they tried to build the Shinkansen at the same time to show how Japan had recovered after the war and been able to develop this technology 

RIPLEY: Now, Japan is upping the ante again.

(on camera): Wow, look at that. It`s incredible. How fast is that going?

TOMOAKI SEKI, MANAGER OF THE MAGLEV SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT DIVISION: Yes, so far, 311 miles per hour.

RIPLEY: Three hundred and eleven miles an hour.

(voice-over): The SCMaglev recently clocking in at speeds of 600 kilometers per hour. Testing is underway at a track outside of Tokyo, hidden in the mountains of a sleepy town called Yamanashi.

How does it go so fast?

SEKI: The SCMaglev train is levitating using magnetic force. 

RIPLEY (on camera): So, literally, the train isn`t touching the surface. It`s just floating just about.

SEKI: That`s right.

RIPLEY (voice-over): But mass travel on the maglev isn`t going to happen overnight.

SEKI: We already gained a speed of 550 kilometers per hour in the 1997. However, we need to make the system and take (INAUDIBLE) to a practical level, and that`s going to take time.

RIPLEY: This new technology requires all new tracks, 85 percent of which will be underground, to compensate for the fact that Japan is incredibly mountainous and also to avoid purchasing the land the train tracks go through. Even then, this first line is estimated to cost $55 billion. 

(on camera): Walking onboard the fastest train in the world, almost feels like you`re getting on an airplane, and the maglev can travel nearly as fast.

(voice-over): The ride is surprisingly smooth, although your ears pop after you go a certain speed, a journey many in Japan can`t wait to be a part of.

(on camera): It doesn`t get over me. It`s so cool.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AZUZ: Most penguins have special feathers to help insulate their bodies from extreme cold. But they can occasionally lose them as a penguin at SeaWorld Orlando recently did. So, check it, y`all. 

Penguin wet suit. It was tailored by SeaWorld`s wardrobe department just for this penguin. It helps her regulate her own body temperature, and she doesn`t seem to mind out-dressing the others. This has been done before successfully at another captive penguin habitat.

So, you can say it suits them, that it fits the bill, that birds of a feather dress together, that they have a vested interest in suiting. Now, I don`t mean to be flippant, but we`re about to show this show on the wing, and while we don`t have to penguin again, we hope your weekend is a penguinner.

I`m Carl Azuz.