Preview of North Korea and United States Summit; "Kona Low" and Its Effects; History of Valentine`s Cards; Black Panther Caught on Camera in Kenya
CARL AZUZ, CNN 10 ANCHOR: Well Happy Valentine`s Day everyone. We love that you`re taking 10 minutes for our show. I`m Carl Azuz at the CNN Center. We have a Valentine`s related report coming up but we`re going to start across the Pacific. Because two weeks from right now the leaders of the United States and North Korea will be holding their second ever summit. The first time they met, it was the first time that sitting leaders from these two countries ever came face to face was last summer in the Asian island country of Singapore. On February 27th and 28th, U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un will sit down and Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam to discuss their priorities for a possible peace agreement. The nation`s have been rivals since fighting stopped in the Korean War in 1953. More than 65 years later, the U.S. is pushing for North Korea to completely get rid of its nuclear program and to stop trying to develop nuclear weapons. North Korea is pushing the U.S. to remove it`s sanctions, it`s penalties on North Korea`s economy and promise that America won`t attack the Asian country. Analysts say the results of their last meeting are a mixed bag. It was a foreign policy success for President Trump and leader Kim and military officials say that tensions have calmed down on the border that joins North Korea and South Korea, a U.S. ally. On the other hand, analysts say there hasn`t been lasting, concrete results from their first summit and the North Korea`s military is still a risk to South Korea, the U.S. and their allies.</s>WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A sobering assessment commander of U.S. forces Korea General Robert Abrams. He`s sitting there in South Korea watching the Korean people`s army conduct their winter training exercises. He says they`re the same size, scope and at the same time the North Koreans done it over the last four years even during the height of tensions. Meanwhile U.S.-South Korea joint drills have been significantly scaled back or suspended on orders from President Trump. Obviously the concern here, you know, as U.S. soldiers rotate out of South Korea and new soldiers come in, well they don`t have that joint training. And over time, the U.S. and South Korean militaries are less and less prepared to counter any potential action by North Korea. Now speaking of that, about two weeks from now President Trump and Kim Jong-Un will be meeting in Hanoi for the second time and my colleague in DC, Kylie Atwood is learning from her sources that U.S. negotiators are asking North Korea for a list of nuclear scientists. They know a lot about the nuclear program from spy satellites but they don`t really know about the people behind it. Even if North Korea does eventually get rid of nuclear weapons, which U.S. intelligence officials have said is unlikely to completely happen. North Korea will still always have the knowledge and analysts like Adam Mount do say though with realistic expectations this diplomacy does have the potential to make the world safer.</s>ADAM MOUNT, NUCLEAR SCIENTIST ANALYST: Kim Jong-Un has substantially slowed the progress of his nuclear and missile advancements in order to hold this dialogue. At the same time, it`s clear that sanctions pressure has slipped. It seems clear that there`s a deal that could still be on the table here. It may not be the deal that John Bolton and Donald Trump want.</s>RIPLEY: Diplomacy has already greatly reduced the North Korean threat according to a new report from Stanford University in the U.S. It was co- authored by Siegfried Hecker who`s the former director of the Los Alamos Weapons Lab in the United States and he says basically because North Korea has not conducted a ballistic missile or nuclear test in more than a year. The program is far less dangerous now than it was a year ago for example. And even though he says satellite imagery shows that North Korea is continuing to produce bomb fuel, possibly enough for up to seven additional bombs during this period of diplomacy. Nonetheless, you know, they still - - because they`re not testing the weapons it is a safer situation today than it was. Will Ripley, CNN, Hong Kong.</s>CARL AZUZ: 10 Second Trivia. What is a kona low? Is it a type of coffee, a weather system, a surfing trick or a Hawaiian region? While kona is a part of Hawaii`s big island a kona low is a weather event that often brings cooler weather to the islands. Rain and gusty winds are also part of a kona low and the island state was recently hit with a big one.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Check this out.</s>CARL AZUZ: What he wants you to check out is exactly what it looks like, snow at Polipoli State Park on the island of Maui. Hawaii`s Department of Land and Natural Resources says this might be the first time ever that snow has fallen in a Hawaii state park. It`s common at the tops of the state`s volcanoes but not at all common at elevations as low as 6,200 feet but there`s a lot more to this kona low. As it approached the islands last weekend, the mayor of Hawaii county tweeted that every beach, park and every state park would be closed. And as the system moved away from the state earlier this week, it left behind broken trees, power lines and traffic lights. At one point, 10`s of thousands of Hawaiians were without electricity. At the summit of Mauna Kea, a dormant volcano on the big island, wind gusts of 191 miles per hour were recorded. That`s the same wind speed of a very powerful hurricane. As you might expect, the system brought some high and dangerous surf. In northwest Maui, Hawaii News Now says a man from California was killed after he got stuck in rough ocean conditions. Some waves near the islands measured 60 feet and there was coastal flooding on Oahu`s north shore. The National Weather Service expected more cool, rainy weather on Thursday. That also happens to be St. Valentine`s Day, a holiday probably named for a Christian religious leader who lived in the third century. Though its history`s been debated, one thing that isn`t is that Americans spend money on the holiday. In fact an annual survey released by the National Retail Federation, a U.S. trade association, indicates that Americans plan to spend more than $20 billion this year. That works out to about $162 for every person who plans to celebrate and that`s despite the fact that the survey says fewer Americans are celebrating the holiday. It`s down to 51 percent this year from a high of 63 percent 12 years ago. The NRF doesn`t know why fewer people are celebrating but for those who do, greeting cards are a big seller. They account for more than $900 million of spending. That tradition dates back decades.</s>KAREN CAPPA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: With sweethearts spending sweet sentiments inside, no two valentines will be exactly alike but they all share similar roots. Hallmark cards archivist Samantha Bradbeer says their company Valentines date back more than 100 years. Postcards as early as 1910, cards with the traditional fold, 1916. Also in their collection, Valentines that predate Hallmark back to the 19th century.</s>SAMANTHA BRADBEER, ARCHIVIST FOR HALLMARK: These are all antique, Victorian Valentines designed by Esther Howland. She was the daughter of a well known bookstore and stationary store owner out of Massachusetts and she received her first lace Valentine in 1847 as printed in England. And she thought she could make something very similar.</s>CAPPA: Howland`s handmade Valentines bear a lot of the same icons of today`s cards. Hearts and of course cupid who was long been a natural fit for the holiday.</s>BRADBEER: Cupid is sort of the junior partner of Venus in Rome or Aphrodite in Greece where he would be known as Aros. And he is often depicted as this kind of playful, mischievous character.</s>CAPPA: Playful, mischievous, serious and silly each Valentine is a collaboration like the one between designers like Kelly Blocksome and writers like Renee Daniels that produced this Hallmark card.</s>KELLY BLOCKSOME: We`re taking kind of puns and using them in Valentine`s Day cards. So Renee gave us the awesome writing and then I took it and we kind of want to give it a more casual design feel. And I worked about putting dimension on it and using the whole heartbeat as a reference for Valentine`s Day.</s>CAPPA: And while Esther Howland had to round up her friends to help mass produce her handmade cards, today`s card companies get a little more help. During Valentine`s Day week at Hallmark Headquarters artists were already at work on Valentine`s Day 2019. Knowing their cards may leave a lasting impression. In Kansas City, Missouri, I`m Karen Cappa.</s>CARL AZUZ: Black panther rates a 10 out of 10, in this case we don`t mean the movie we mean the animal that was recently caught on camera in the African country of Kenya. It`s also known as a black leopard and there hasn`t been a confirmed sighting of these cats on the African continent since 1909. Most of them live in South East Asia. A zoologists says that now they`ve been caught on camera, there`d be a lot of value in protecting them in Kenya. Assuming the animals let "prrrrardon" the effort. Though they might think posing for more pictures is "panthering" but they are some "cool cats". So you can`t blame the researchers who spotted them from "rrrrroaring" with excitement. For CNN 10, I`m Carl Azuz. END