Keith: What is up, guys? I am Keith Kocinski. It is Tuesday,February 20. Let's get right to it.
First up today, the shooting at a southern Florida school last week has once again ignited the debate around guns.Tom Hanson is at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida — the site of last week's deadly school shooting.
Tom: Yeah, well, as you can see, a lot of people are showing up to pay their respects. The school is closed this week as the community comes to grips with the tragedy. Seventeen students and teachers were killed, and more than a dozen were injured by a gunman last Wednesday.
These students want to be heard. Teen after teen, all survivors of the shooting, addressed this rally over the weekend.
Emma Gonzalez: We are going to be the last mass shooting! We are going to change the law.
Tom: Students like Emma Gonzalez want to stop mass shootings with stricter gun laws, hoping to achieve what adults before them couldnot.
Emma: It's a shame, but I think it’s kind of fallen on the kids to take care of this one.
Tom: And the student-led movement is spreading. A group calling itself Teens for Gun Reform staged a lie-in outside the White House Monday.
President Trump will host two "listening sessions" about school safety this week. And the White House says the president supports legislation to improve background checks when purchasing a gun.
Teen: I feel like no one listens to us because we are kids.
Tom: The students are pushing for a ban on assault weapons like the one used at their school.The original federal assault weapons ban was passed in September 1994 but expired after 10 years. Between May 2003 and June 2008, there were at least 17 attempts to renew or replace the ban, but none made it to a vote.And an effort to pass a permanent ban after the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre failed to get Senate approval.
Gun rights advocates say that putting more restrictions on who can own guns and what types violates their Second Amendment rights.And they say people who are carrying guns could help stop shooters sooner.
Bob Weiss: I think this is a tipping point.
Tom: Bob Weiss' daughter was one of six students killed by a gunman in 2014 in Isla Vista, California.
Weiss: A lot of times in the wake of a shooting, people are all upset and motivated for about five or six days. This is the first time I've ever seen people take to the streets.
Diego Pfeiffer: It's not something that we can just accept as a normal because in no way is it normal!
Angelina Lazo: I've cried a lot, and it's turned into anger — anger as in motivation to actually do something.
Tom: These students say this is just the first step.
Delaney Tarr: Our lives have changed from this point on, that there's no going back to the way things used to be.
Tom: Tom Hanson, Channel One News.
Keith: Thanks,Tom.
Now, next up, the investigation into Russia's interference into the U.S. presidential election is heating up, with the first criminal charges against Russians. The goal — to divide Americans and make them lose confidence in our democracy.
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein: The defendants allegedly conducted what they called information warfare against the United States.
Keith: The indictment charges 13Russians and three Russian companies with spending more than $1.2 million every month on the operation that began in 2014.English speakers were used to pose as Americans to stir up controversy on social media leading up to the election. The Russian operatives were allegedly "instructed to 'use any opportunity to criticize Hillary and the rest, except Sanders and Trump — we support them.’"
It typically looked like this: online posts attacking Hillary Clinton, promoting Bernie Sanders and thencandidate Donald Trump. Early on, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio also were targets.
Investigators believe the Russian campaign also tried to stop people from voting.An Instagram message from a fake group called Woke Blacks advised against voting for either party's nominee: "We cannot resort to the lesser of two devils," it said. "Then we'd surely be better off without voting at all."
Prosecutors emphasized the charges do not say any American had a role in the operation or that the Russian plan influenced the outcome of the 2016 election.
Now, all the charges go after people in Russia, and the indictment — well, it doesn't carry any weight under Russian law.
Which brings us to Words in the News: indictment, which is basically the formal charge of a serious crime.
All right, when we come back, some people are asking if the Winter Olympics are becoming too extreme.
Keith: All right,Emily is herewith a look at how far some Olympic athletes will go for gold.
Emily: Yeah, Keith, these guys are not messing around. They are pushing the limits.
Last week, a Japanese snowboarder suffered a scary collision in the half-pipe competition.American snowboarder and gold medalist Shaun White crashed on a training run last year.And British snowboarder Aimee Fuller landed on her face in a qualifying jump at these games. Which has some people asking, are the games becoming too dangerous?
Mark McMorris: I broke my jaw really bad in two places, ruptured spleen, collapsed lung, bruised heart.
Emily: After nearly dying last year in a snowboarding accident in backcountry, or not on an official trail, Mark McMorris feels lucky to do what he loves most: catching air and soaking in what he calls "ultimate joy."
McMorris: When they took me out of the coma and everybody was standing there, I couldn't talk, but they gave me a pen and paper.And I wrote, "Do I have brain damage, and can I go to the Olympics still?"
Emily: Not only did Mark make it to the Olympics, he is the snowboard slopestyle bronze medalist.
McMorris: It was really scary to start trying some of those tricks again, but I just need to remind myself I got hurt in the back country hitting a tree. I didn't get hurt trying those crazy tricks.
Emily: Buthistorian David Wallechinsky,whohas attended every Winter Games since 1992, says the Olympics have gotten more dangerous.
David Wallechinsky: Let's face it, it's good TV. To see people risking their health, their lives, is great television — sorry.
Emily: The “British Journal of Sports Medicine” studied the 2014 Sochi Olympics and found nearly 49 percent of all aerial skiers in those games suffered an injury. Many of the most dangerous sports, according to the study, are extreme sports, which made their Olympic debut in 2006.
Wallechinsky: The International Olympic Committee, several years ago, decided that they were losing the youth audience. Not a lot of Americans watch biathlon, but they will watch snowboarding, and so they just kept adding these. I think they're going to get harder and harder until, at some point, somebody suffers a complete paralysis during an Olympic event or actually dies.
Emily: Mark says his sport has skyrocketed in complexity since he started competingbut doesn't believethe games should change.
McMorris: Every sport has a lot of danger. I think just because we're an extreme sport, it seems a little crazier in everybody's eyes.
Emily: Emily Reppert, Channel One News.
Keith: All right, next up, we have got this week's next big thing.
Now, before we wheel into this week's next big thing, let's find out what you thought about last week's.
We told you about the new confection taking the sweets industry by storm — ruby chocolate. So is it the next big thing? Well, 70 percent said,“Yes — break me off a piece!” Thirty percent said,“Nah— melt this idea away!”
Class: This is Ms. Greene's sixth-grade science class at T. A. Dugger Junior High in Elizabethton,Tennessee, and we think ruby chocolate is the next big thing!
Class: This is Ms. Hall's sixth-grade class at … Middle School in … Alabama, and we think the ruby chocolate is not the next big thing.
Keith: Wow, great responses — thank you so much, guys.
All right,Cassie is here with a new way to find your dream home, right?
Cassie: That is right, Keith, and I have a feeling youare going to love this one. I am taking you on board the latest trend in tiny living spaces, and it all starts at your bus stop.
Like many young people, Lydia Dreyer didn't want to go into debt, or owe people a lot of money.
Lydia Dreyer: So I really wanted to own my own home, but I couldn't afford it. I mean, I don't really know too many 20-year-olds who could.
Cassie: So the college student bought an old school bus for $4,000 and spent the next year turning it into this small home, called a skoolie. She is part of a growing number of nontraditional home seekers looking for affordable housing.
And they are showing off these tiny homes on wheels all over social media. Gary Hatt, of “Bus Conversion” magazine, says skoolies are popular in cities where it costs a lot to rent or buy a home.
Gary Hatt: People picked up on the skoolie idea pretty quick too because they're kind of like a low-cost option to get into this and convert a bus and be very safe.
Cassie: In a 276-square-foot space, every inch counts. This stock tank in the bathroom doubles as a shower tub and washer for clothes. It has rooftop solar panels and a windmill to generate enough energy to power batteries.
Dreyer: I am completely off the grid.
Cassie: The renovation cost $25,000.Lydia says it was worth every penny.
Dreyer: I only have to pay for school and my land right now because I own a home.
Cassie: So are skoolies the next big thing? Vote and leave us a comment at ChannelOne.com, oreven better, send us a video response to .
Keith: That is socool, Cass.
Cassie: So are you going to get one?
Keith: Yeah, definitely, down the road — you get it? Down the road?
All right, well, we are going to cruise on out of here, but we will see you right back here tomorrow.
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