CNN 10 February 28, 2017

CARL AZUZ, CNN 10 ANCHOR: On this February 28th, thank you for taking time for CNN 10. I'm Carl Azuz.

Tonight, U.S. President Donald Trump makes his first address to a joint session of Congress. You can watch the Republican leaders speech and the Democratic response starting at 9:00 p.m. Eastern on CNN.

When we bring you some highlights tomorrow, we'll explain why a president's first speech like this is not technically a State of the Union address. One thing President Trump is expected to do is outline his goals for the coming years. And on Monday, he released some information about his first budget proposal, which is expected next month.

The Trump administration plans to increase U.S. defense and security spending by $54 billion and decrease about the same amount from non-defense programs.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This budget will be a public safety and national security budget. This defense spending increase will be offset and paid for by finding greater savings and efficiencies across the federal government. We're going to do more with less.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AZUZ: The president added that, quote, "lower priority programs and most federal agencies would see their budgets reduced in the proposal."

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer says President Trump's budget proposal would, quote, "help the wealthy and special interest and that it would significantly cut programs that help the middle class." A president's budget proposal is a blue print. It reflects his priorities but it's Congress that determines the final budget for the federal government.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AZUZ (voice-over): Ten-second trivia:

What nation's full name includes "Democratic People's Republic" though it's a communist state?

Bangladesh, Cuba, North Korea or Vietnam?

The DPRK or the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is the full name of North Korea, a communist country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AZUZ: An international murder mystery is deepening. It started with the apparent poisoning of a man named Kim Jong Nam. He was the half-brother of North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un. And he died on February 13 while traveling through Malaysia at Kuala Lumpur International Airport.

The murder is having ripple effects around the world. Malaysia says four North Koreans were involved in Kim Jong Nam's death, and South Korea has accused the North Korean government of ordering the murder.

North Korea has repeatedly denied being involved and says the South is publishing false report. But all this is believed to have caused the cancellation of informal talks being North Korean officials and former American government workers. The talks were set for this week in New York, but the Trump administration changed its mind on approving the North Koreans travel. That decision was made after officials announced how Kim Jong Nam was killed.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATT RIVERS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: This is a spot where Kim Jong Nam was poisoned. He was here awaiting to check in for a flight to Macau, when as you can see in some pretty incredible CCTV footage, a woman walks up behind him and police say she then puts VX nerve agent on his face, one of the world's most deadly chemicals.

She flees the scene and he immediately becomes uncomfortable. He starts walking this way and eventually ending up at this information desk right here. He goes up, cuts several people in line and asks for help. He tells the attendants that he's feeling dizzy.

And standing here, this is a really public place. It's big, it's open, and frankly, it's kind of bizarre to think that an alleged assassination of such a public figure could happen in a place like this. And yet here we are.

He then heads down to the clinic where the Malaysian health minister said he later fainted. From the time he was poisoned, from the time he died en route to the hospital in the ambulance, it's only 20 minutes.

Once officials confirmed that VX nerve agent was used, they finally sent in a hazmat team to check if there were any chemicals left over here in terminal two. And thankfully, they didn't find anything, but it begs the question, what took so long to send in the team. Why didn't they send them in earlier?

And that's not the only question here. The two female suspects involved both told investigators that they thought they were just part of the prank show. That they didn't know they were doing anything wrong. But Malaysian police say they specifically trained for this attack.

So, which version is correct? And furthermore, police say that they had VX nerve agent on their hands. So, why didn't either one of them get sick?

The fact is that we've learned a lot over the past two weeks since this alleged assassination took place but there are many questions that still remain in this most public murder of Kim Jong Nam.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AZUZ: Later this week, President Trump is expected to issue a new executive order concerning immigration to the U.S. Courts put his previous travel restrictions on hold. Separately from that, though, Democratic and Republican lawmakers had introduced bills that could reduce the number of people from other countries allowed to work in the U.S.

The most popular program for this is the H-1B visa program. Healthcare, media and tech companies all use H-1Bs to get international talent and to hire trained workers that they can't find in America.

But critics say the H-1B program is flawed, that some companies abused H-1Bs to pay foreign workers less money than they pay America employees. That apparently hasn't stopped people from around the world from wanting to work in the U.S.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RAVI AGRAWAL, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Aayush Suwalka symbolizes the Indian dream. He grew up in a small town, studied hard and wants to take it to one of the country's best engineering colleges.

But the dream in Aayush's mind isn't Indian, it's American.

Why America?

AAYUSH SUWALKA, TECH STUDENT: It's always America because the companies, all the big companies are there in America and the life there is like really amazing.

AGRAWAL: At Aayush's college in Bangalore, students are recruited by the world's biggest companies. With months to go before he graduates, Aayush has already gotten a job at the local branch of JPMorgan, the American investment bank.

His dream is to work with them for a few years here, and then transfer to the United States.

Every year, tens of thousands of Indians move to the United States on highly skilled work visas and many of those workers tend to come from technology and engineering schools like this one here in Bangalore, in the city that is known as the heart of India's Silicon Valley, and when you speak to the students here, they'll tell you that they often entered these universities with an end goal in mind, and for a lot of them, that end goal is America.

Congress is deliberating three separate bills aiming to curb immigrant work visas. One of those visa programs, the H-1B for highly skilled workers, is being watched closely. Of the 85,000 visas handed out every year, an estimated two-thirds go to Indian workers.

As we leave Aayush for the day, I have little doubt he is going to make his dreams come true. The only question is when.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AZUZ: The U.S. government says it's hard to determine exactly how many children are adopted each year in America. It's estimated to be around 135,000. For many families, the cost of adoption is an obstacle. The government estimates that adopting American children can range from $15,000 to $40,000. International adoptions can cost $20,000 to $50,000.

But the founder of Adopt Together devised a way for people to share those costs.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HANK FORTENER, ADOPTTOGETHER.ORG: I grew up with a brother and a sister and we had 36 foster kids over a seven-year period. And then my mom and dad adopted four boys and four girls from five different countries.

In the morning, you didn't know who's going to be at the breakfast table, but there was always more seat.

Did you have this pillow with you?

UNIDENTIFIED KID: Yes.

FORTENER: What a cool idea.

Who's this right here?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Daddy.

MATT RIEHM, FATHER OF ADOPTED SON: Tacy came to me and said she wanted to adopt. We're really concerned about the costs.

FORTENER: And oftentimes, a family is looking at bill of $30,000, $40,000, $50,000. If so many families would adopt if they can eliminate this financial barrier, then what if we could carry the burden together?

AdoptTogether.org is designed as a first ever crowdfunding platform for adoption.

We're raising funds to pay those bills. That's when you friends and family and co-workers get to be a part of your adoption stories, simply by donating to your process.

TACY RIEHM, MOTHER OF ADOPTED SON: We aren't anything crazy special. We're not rich. We and a community brought him home.

FORTENER: AdoptTogether.org has helped over 2,400 families, raised $10.5 million to bring their kids home and it's so rewarding for me to get to do this work because I get to continue in the family business of helping children come in to families.

Nice!

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AZUZ: Usually the words "Chile" and "Ring of Fire" are used when talking about earthquakes. This phenomenon was celestial. It's a solar eclipse when the moon passes between the earth and the sun. It was visible on Sunday in the southern hemisphere. Countries like Chile. But scientists say a Ring of Fire eclipse is unique because the moon is too far away from the Earth to appear to cover the sun completely. So, with its edges exposed, a ring of sunlight surrounds the moon.

Johnny Cash would have fallen into that. And though it might not happen every February, it's still annular, which has a nice ring to it. It leaves some observers moony-eyed and it makes for a satellight-hearted ending to CNN 10.

I'm Starl Azuz.

CNN 10 February 27, 2017

CARL AZUZ, CNN 10 ANCHOR: CNN 10 is 10 minutes of world news explained and I'm your anchor Carl Azuz. Thank you for watching this Monday.

Thousands of Iraqi civilians, more than 2,300 over this weekend alone have fled the city of Mosul as the international battle rages on to take control of it back from ISIS terrorists. Mosul is the second largest city in Iraq. It's also ISIS's last major stronghold in the country. So, ridding it of ISIS control would be a major setback for the terrorist group, though it still controls other parts of Iraq and Syria.

The battle for Mosul has been going on for months. Over the past weekend, dozens of ISIS fighters have been killed in the battle, dozens of civilians have lost their lives.

And the tool is cultural as well. The United Nations says ISIS has done a lot of damage to Iraq's heritage, destroying religious and archeological sites, partly because they don't fit with ISIS's interpretation of Islam, partly because the terrorists have made money by selling Iraq's antiquities on the black market.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the spring of 2015, the extremists meticulously documented their destruction of the ruins of the ancient city of Nimrud, founded in the 13 century B.C.

They took their sledgehammers to the city's famous winged bulls, the lamassu, reducing them to a pile of rubble. Iraqi forces recently retook Nimrud, just south of Mosul, we came to have a look -- lone visitors to a lone hilltop that hasn't seen a tourist in years.

(on camera): The scale of the vandalism that took place here boggles the mind. Only ISIS could ruins into ruins. By some estimates in northern Iraq, the extremist group destroyed or severely damaged around 80 sites, archeological ones like this one, as well as Muslim and Christian shrines.

(voice-over): Through the work lens of ISIS's logic, all idols must be destroyed. Their every action here nothing less than utter contempt, for Iraq's rich multi-millennial history, and that includes the remains of the vast Assyrian empire that once stretched from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea, the ruthless super power of its day.

The statues, the cuneiform inscriptions now lie in pieces exposed to the elements.

(on camera): In ancient Mesopotamia, ordinary structures like houses or shops were made out of mud bricks. With time, they simply turned into dusts. But for the statues of the gods and the kings, they used stone. The purpose was that they would last for eternity, that is until ISIS came along.

(voice-over): Archaeologists may someday be able to piece some of this together, but that won't happen until the war against ISIS comes to an end.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AZUZ (voice-over): Ten-second trivia:

What happens on March 20th, 2017?

Is it the Vernal Equinox, Spring Solstice, Easter, or St. Patrick's Day?

The Vernal Equinox, aka the first day of spring, is on Monday, March 20th.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AZUZ: Regardless of what Punxsutawney Phil saw on Groundhog Day, spring has been in the air in Western Pennsylvania and states throughout the eastern and southern U.S. They've had warmer than average temperatures so far this year.

Though there was some heavy snowfall in the American West and North over the weekend, during a cold front that made things feel like they normally do in February, thousands of record high temperatures have been recorded this month, contrast it with a few dozen record lows. And forecasters say this week, they expect highs of 15 to 20 degrees above average for the East and Southeast.

Why?

One major factor is probably La Nina. It's a natural climate pattern that brings colder than normal ocean surface temperatures to the Pacific. But it results in warmer than normal temperatures in the American South. Government meteorologists say a relatively weak La Nina event has come and gone, but its impacts could continue through March.

Continuing now, a sort of spring theme. You might think bees are just smart enough to pollinate, make honey, maybe sting once in a while. New research at London's Queen Mary University suggests otherwise. That they're not only able to learn new tricks, but also improve upon what they've seen other bees do.

The insect's task was a sort of bee soccer, something they would not have to do in the wild. If they were able to drag the ball to a goal, they'd get a bit of sugar water as a reward.

Studies showed that after watching a demonstrator bee scored the goal and get the threat, the observer bees quickly learned how to do the same thing. What's really getting buzzed in all this, he-he, is that it wasn't just a case of copying another bee. In some cases, multiple balls were on the field, and bees watched the demonstrator dragging only the farthest ball back to the goal. But when given the chance to do it themselves, the observers would pick the closest ball to get the reward with the least effort.

One of the authors of the study concluded that bees are able to accomplish a lot more than scientists previously thought.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUBTITLE: NASA has released the initial findings of its Twins Study.

Identical twins Mark and Scott Kelly were studied to determine the effects of long-term space travel.

Scott and Mark were studied before, during and after Scott's nearly one-year mission in space.

They found that Scott's chromosomes lengthened while he was in space.

Increased exercise and reduced caloric intake were said to be possible causes.

On earth, Mark Kelly's chromosomes got shorter during the study.

Scott was also 2 inches taller when he returned and showed a slight decrease in cognitive abilities.

NASA researchers plan to release more complete findings from the study later this year.

The data will be used to help astronauts travel safely on future trips, such as NASA's Journey to Mars.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AZUZ: One of the twins, Mark Kelly, supports an idea that could let people into the stratosphere without using a single rocket. The stratosphere is part of earth's upper atmosphere. It's between around eight and thirty miles over our heads. And while private space flights are estimated to be in the range of a quarter million dollars, a high altitude balloon flight could lift you up, up and away for around $75,000, assuming you're not afraid of heights or not going to let that keep you from a pressurized capsule that floats 19 miles into the sky.

The projected ride would take an hour or two and give you one out of this world view.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUBTITLE: World View wants to launch you into space.

RACHEL CRANE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Tell me a little bit more about the decision to use sort of this old technology of balloons.

MARK KELLY, RETIRED ASTRONAUT: You know, I've always flew (ph) on a rocket ship, you know, flew inside (ph) airplanes. This is a little bit different.

SUBTITLE: World View develops high-tech balloons that travel into the stratosphere.

KELLY: It doesn't have a lot of moving parts. So, we feel we can fill the system that carry about six passengers up to the stratosphere and do it in a very reliable, and hopefully safe, safe way.

SUBTITLE: Balloons for their Voyager system are designed to carry people to space, while Stratollites collect information like satellites.

KELLY: We'll be able to do the same thing that a satellite could do, whether it's communication, or reconnaissance or scientific platform. To launch even the cheapest rockets costs, you know, $10 million or $20 million. We do it now at a fraction of the cost of launching in a rocket.

CRANE: When are you guys actually going to be, you know, transporting passengers, paying passengers, into the stratosphere?

KELLY: In later part of next year, we could be flying passengers up of 100,000 feet into the stratosphere. When I first got to look at the Earth for the first time, it's a round ball floating in the blackness of space, it was transformative. I mean, it really changed the way that I thought of the planet.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AZUZ: Horses, good. Horses on ice, better. Horseracing on ice, "10 Out of 10".

Across the frozen lake in Switzerland's St. Moritz, it's jockeys and horses against the elements in what's known as White Turf racing. It's held every year and dates back to 1907. It includes a few different events, one of them were unique ones being skijoring when the animals pull skiers across the snow at speed as high as 30 miles per hour.

Of course, they're all main events, but that last one's kind of a drag. Well, the number of competitors taking the reins jockeying for first right out of the gate, at a gallop, you can see how the faint hearted might shy away with a saddle expression saying, "I canter. I'll just have to say neigh."

I'm Carl Azuz for CNN 10.

CNN 10 February 24, 2017

CARL AZUZ, CNN 10 ANCHOR: We're grateful to have you watching CNN 10 on this last Friday in February. I'm Carl Azuz at the CNN Center.

There's been a change in U.S. government rules regarding gender and bathroom use in public schools. We first reported on this last May. That's when the Obama administration gave a controversial instruction to schools regarding students who are transgender, people who identify as a gender that's different than their biological sex at birth.

A recent university estimates suggest around half of 1 percent of Americans are transgender, though the exact percentage isn't known.

The Obama administration recommended that U.S. public schools allowed transgender students to use the bathrooms or locker rooms that correspond with their gender identity. The government said this would protect transgender students from discrimination and it threatened schools with the loss of federal funding if they didn't follow the rules.

But more than 20 states sued the government, saying it was trying to illegally rewrite existing law and forced radical changes on schools. The directive is currently tied up in court.

The guidelines were not a law passed by Congress, so they were subject to being reversed by any succeeding presidential administration. And this week, they were.

The Trump administration says policies on this issue should be in the hands of Congress, state legislators or local governments.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEAN SPICER, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I made this clear and the president made it clear throughout the campaign that he is a firm believer in state's rights, and in certain issues like this are not best deal with at the federal level.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AZUZ: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi wrote in a statement, quote, "This is not a state issue. This is an issue of equality for all and that transgender students have the same right to a safe environment at school and in their community as everyone else."

Supporters of the new guidelines called them a victory for parents, students and privacy, and the Trump administration says it remains committed to protecting all students from discrimination and bullying.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: Ten-second trivia:

Which of these nations gained its independence most recently?

Afghanistan, South Korea, Ethiopia or Paraguay?

South Korea gained its independence from Japan in 1945, making it the most recently independent nation of these options.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AZUZ: And a new study has projected that South Korea will be the country where people will live the longest in the decades ahead. This was published this week in the medical journal "The Lancet". It looked at life expectancy for 35 industrialized nations. It took into account child mortality rates, obesity rates, health care, diets, cultural lifestyles.

Currently, the World Health Organization says the global life expectancy at birth is jut over 71 years. The Lancet study expects that to increase by the year 2030 with South Korea leading the way. It's projected life expectancy by 2030 almost 91 years for women and 84 years for men. The researchers say unhealthier lifestyles among men, which may include smoking or drinking alcohol, are reasons why they don't tend to live as long. The scientists also say the gap between the sexes is shrinking.

Other countries in the top five for projected women's life expectancy are Spain, Portugal, Slovenia and Switzerland. For men, Switzerland, Netherlands, Australia and Denmark.

For the U.S., predicted life expectancy for men would be 79 1/2 by 2030, and for women, more than 83 years.

Since the late 1960s, there's been an international treaty that establishes law in space. What?

The U.S., the U.K. and Russia agreed that space exploration should benefit everyone. That space should be free to explore and use. That countries won't station nuclear weapons in space, and that they can't occupy or claim certain parts of space as their own.

This all may seem a little farfetched now, but when you consider the steps being taken toward mining asteroids, you can see how property claims in space could come into play.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RACHEL CRANE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Life in space is happening. But if we want to move deeper into the dark and possibly colonize planets, it's going to take more than rockets and spacesuits.

Our best chance at life in space may just be asteroids.

CHRIS LEWICKI, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF ENGINEER, PLANETARY RESOURCES: Asteroids are something that we worry about threatening the Earth, but in truth actually, they are the greatest opportunity that we have.

CRANE: Chris Lewicki is an aerospace engineer who is obsessed with space. He's helped NASA land two rovers on Mars. He and his company, Planetary Resources, are confident asteroids hold the passport to the cosmos.

LEWICKI: More focused on a single task, finding resources and asteroids, and bringing those resources to a market that's going to start here in lower Earth orbit and grow into the solar system.

CRANE: These are more than just chunks of rock. Many are packed with metals that Lewicki wants to mine for building materials. In fact, many of Earth's most valuable metals can also be found in asteroids. But the real treasure in Lewicki's hunting is water.

LEWICKI: The discovery of oil and the way that it transformed the 20th century, we see the water and the fuel on asteroids as providing that same transformational capability for the 21st century.

CRANE: The idea is to build orbiting gas stations that harness the sun's power, to split water into liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen that would then be used for rocket fuel. That way, spaceships wouldn't have to carry all their fuel with them and could top off at that these cosmic filling stations, allowing them to go even deeper into space.

(on camera): Asteroid mining sounds kind of like a sci-fi fantasy. I mean, how realistic is this?

LEWICKI: What's possible is inevitable. Everything that was once sci-fi had to change at some point in time.

CRANE: So, this is a piece of an asteroid, right?

LEWICKI: Yes, it is.

CRANE: Could you theoretically create a spacecraft or 3D printed spacecraft in space if you're able to get your hands on these metals?

LEWICKI: Absolutely. These are how we will build the future starships and the future colonies and future habitats and space stations. We will use metals from asteroids to do that and we use 3D printing as the technology.

CRANE (voice-over): Lewicki and company have already launched a satellite to analyze asteroids and they're gearing up to deploy another.

LEWICKI: We're in our operations and system tests facility supporting the construction and test of the Arkyd 6 satellite.

CRANE (on camera): So, they're actually building your next spacecraft right now?

LEWICKI: We're building our next spacecraft right on the other side of these windows.

CRANE (voice-over): These mines may be up and running sooner than you think.

LEWICKI: That's something that is, you know, not 10, 20, 30 years away. For us, that's a target that's about three to four years away.

CRANE: There are 10 asteroids that Planetary Resources is considering mining. It's a dangerous job. But luckily, the company's robots will be doing the digging.

(on camera): There are a lot of people who are skeptical that you guys are going to be able to pull this off. That asteroid mining will become a reality.

LEWICKI: I think they're right to be skeptical. But it takes those people who do believe that will happen to find out how to make it happen.

CRANE (voice-over): Space mining won't be cheap. But some of the world's riches see the potential and have invested in the company.

We're programmed to go places we've never been, find refuge on land we've never touched. Could asteroid mining, as impossible as it seems, help us reach the frontier that seems most out of reach?

(END VIDEOITAPE)

AZUZ: A pushy pooch yesterday, a hopping hound today, this show is going to the dog y'all. The owner of this one says she had a hunch it wasn't just the cats who were scarping their food. So, she set up a camera and left the area and you can see that the dog is desperate to get in.

She seems to try a short running star at one point, then abandons it. But eventually, now you don't see her, now you do. It looks like she had room to spare.

Other dogs known to make leaps like that include the jumping shepherd, the bounder collie, the skip-perke, the pop-ehund (ph), the leaps-apso, the saint bound-snard, and, of course, the leaper door retriever.

Yes, I kid around with you, but what fun we have in these puns and we Beagle you, join us next week or we're bark with more CNN 10. Fridays are awesome!