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CNN 10

U.S. Prison Reform Bill; Exam for Over 600,000 Students; New Rules Concerning E-Cigarettes; Anna Gasser First Woman To Do A Cab Triple 1260

Aired November 16, 2018 - 04:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


CARL AZUZ, CNN 10 ANCHOR: Friday`s are kind of like a cab triple 1260. They`re awesome and that`s a subject we`ll explain later on today on CNN

10. OK. First story, U.S. President Donald Trump has voiced his support for a Prison Reform Bill that`s currently making it`s way through Congress.

It`s called the "First Step Act". First step standing for "Formally Incarcerated Re-enter Society Transformed Safely Transitioning Every

Person". That`s a lot. Here are some things it would do. One, it would reduce the number of mandatory minimum sentences for certain crimes

focusing on people convicted of non-violent drug related crimes.

That could mean many inmates serve less time in prison. There`s a way for prisoners to earn extra credit for behaving well and participating in

things like educational, religious or job training programs that could help them get out sooner. But convicted murders and terrorists would not be

eligible for that. And the Act would attempt to place inmates in prisons that are closer to their homes as a way to increase opportunities for their

families to visit them. The White House says, this will help decrease the number of people in overcrowded prisons, decrease the costs of

incarcerating criminals, make sentencing more fair and better prepare inmates to re-enter society as productive, law-abiding citizens.

But some critics and lawmakers have said, it doesn`t go far enough to reform the criminal justice system. While others have said it goes too far

without punishing criminals enough and potentially making communities less safe. The first act passed in the House of Representatives earlier this

year with wide spread support from both Democrats and Republicans. The President`s support is expected to encourage its passage in the Senate,

possibly in the current lame duck session which wraps up in early January.

10 Second Trivia. Which of these countries has the largest population? Canada, South Korea, Venezuela, or Saudi Arabia. With more than 53 million

people calling it home, South Korea is the most populated country on this list.

The fact that all airline flights were grounded Thursday in South Korea so that students wouldn`t be distracted while taking a test shows you how

important the test is. It`s the nation`s College Scholastic Ability Test. The exam that high school students take to get into college. The grade

they get puts them into one of nine brackets. The higher the bracket, the better the college they can get into. Some students taking the CSAT test

more than once hoping for a slot at South Korea`s most prestigious universities and controversy welled up earlier this year when a school

administration was accused of helping his twin daughters cheat. They say they`re innocent but a parent who says they aren`t also says cheating

probably happens in other places. The stakes are high. This time around almost 600,000 students took the test.

According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration there was a 50 percent increase in vaping among middle school students last year an almost an 80

percent increase among high school students. In fact, the agency says one in five of them smoke electronic cigarettes in the past month. The numbers

came from a survey conducted in schools. Health officials are worried that vaping can get kids hooked on nicotine early in life and lead them to try

smoking and other drugs.

So the FDA has proposed new rules concerning flavored e-cigarette products that could eventually lead to their being removed from store shelves and

websites. The rules do not target menthol and tobacco flavors because the agency wants to keep them assessable for adults who try to use them to quit

smoking.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What kids don`t realize is that this small e-liquid pod that comes with the Juul has as much nicotine as 20 individual cigarettes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s been devastating to us. This is not a product for youth. It`s a product for adult smokers. One of the things that we`ve

done is accelerated adding a warning to all materials that talk about Juul, whether they`re in a convenience store or online. There will be 20 percent

of the space showing that - - that this product contains nicotine.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All right. So today we`re going to do the fourth lesson on e-cigarettes. So e-cigarette flavors, let`s look at what we`ve

got here. Hawaiian punch, Gummy Bears, S`mores, Skittles, Cotton Candy, Sweet Tarts, Fruit Loops, Banana Splits who are advertisers trying to

appeal to with these candy flavors?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They now come in over 7,000 flavors. Kids who use e- cigarettes, they do so precisely because of the flavors.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Spend some time in a vape shop and see the customers that come in for these wildly named products. They are adults and they are

the same type that watches Family Guy on Sunday nights.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No adult smoker needs cotton candy or gummy bear flavor or packaging that looks like candy. But we believe it`s incredibly

important for adult smokers to have access to flavors in order to switch and to stay switched.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I know it`s supposed to stop smokers but I think it`s almost helping teens get introduced to it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All of these flavors mask the harshness and make this feel like it is a totally benign product.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Most of my friends and I use it, to them they just think it`s water vapor. There`s nothing of it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This product contains chemicals known to the state of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm.

OK. I never read that before. Doesn`t make me feel great.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This cigarette is delivering a chemical cocktail. The story of flavorings go back almost 20 years now when we first started

looking or seeing disease develop in workers at a microwave popcorn packaging plant. The workers back then were mixing kernels with fake

butter flavor. Diacetyl is the name of the chemical and they were working over vats where the fumes would rise up and they`d be inhaling these fumes.

Well many of these workers developed a severe and irreversible lung disease called brochiolitis obliteran. We now call that disease "popcorn lung".

Well that`s very similar to what`s happening in e-cigarettes. You have a heating element. You have the flavoring chemicals. You`re heating them

and constantly inhaling them. Some users might see warnings or labels that say our product is diacetyl free and that might be true. But the reality

is that to get flavors, the many thousands of flavors of e-cigarettes, they have to use some flavoring chemical and there are chemical cousins to

diacetyl that are on the market right now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The problem here is we`re not telling the whole truth. We`re only telling the half truth. We`re talking about the harms of e-

cigarettes and we never mention that they`re much less harmful than cigarettes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When we talk about switching to e-cigarettes, we talk about the relative risks. We say, e-cigarettes are safer than cigarettes.

Everything is safer than cigarettes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Adult smokers have a right to know what`s in these products and we believe and support reasonable regulation.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Reasonable product standards, but what the FDA has proposed is not regulation it is prohibition for over 99 percent of

products on the market today.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If the e-cigarette industry can demonstrate that any of their specific products actually help smokers quit and can be marketed in a

way that doesn`t addict another generation of kids. We would welcome that. What has happened in the absence of regulation, millions of kids are using

them because of the flavors and smokers who want to quit still don`t know which, if any, of these products are helpful.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARL AZUZ: So back to that cab triple 1260 thing. What that is, three and a half full rotations in the air. Done well, it looks like this. But it

had never been done before by a woman until this week when 27 year old Austrian snowboarder Anna Gasser landed the trick. She says it was the

first time she ever even tried it. Beginners luck? Probably not. Gasser is an Olympic Gold Medalist who`s also won multiple titles in the Winter X

Games.

So there`s "snow" debating she`s got an edge when it comes to putting her best foot forward on an "invertical" "caba larial" grabbing a more than

50/50 shot at "Euro carving" into the record books. Even on a non binding first attempt, it makes a great tale. That`s all for CNN 10 this week. We

will be back next Monday and Tuesday before we`re off the air for the Thanksgiving break. So we hope to see you then.

END