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what's up sunshine and congrats to all
of us for having this extra day in our
year 366 days instead of 365 thanks to
leap year today we get that rare extra
day in February it's Thursday the 29th
happy Friday Eve I'm Coy wire welcome to
CNN 10 the best 10 minutes in news we
start today in the northern part of
Texas where the SmokeHouse Creek Fire is
one of the several Texas Panhandle
wildfires forcing evacuations of towns
the loss of power and water shortages to
thousands of homes and businesses and
the temporary shutdown of a nearby
nuclear weapons facility out of an
abundance of caution at the time of this
recording the fastmm moving Blaze had
scorched through an area spanning
approximately 500,000 Acres that's about
11 times the size of Washington DC
making this the second largest Wildfire
on record in Texas burning more land in
48 hours than all of the state's 2023
fires combined Texas governor Greg
Abbott issued a disaster declaration for
60 counties in the area he urged people
to stay safe and to refrain from any
activities that may cause any sort of
spark because the conditions there are
ripe for further fires extremely dry
high temperatures and winds let's all
send some positive energy and thoughts
to Texas we're going to continue to
monitor this situation and keep you up
to date right here on CNN
10 pop quiz Hot Shot what year was North
Korea founded 1946 1948 1950
1953 if you said 1948 put your hands up
after World War II the Korean Peninsula
was split in two along the 38th parallel
that border was upheld after the Korean
War and is now called the demilitarized
zone or
DMZ let's head to North Korea now which
has been an esoteric isolated place on
this planet for years especially For
Tourists but that is changing now as
North Korea welcomed Russian tourists to
their country this week North Korea and
Russia have recently developed friendly
political and Military ties and that is
Raising concern from us intelligence
officials lately many Russian tourist
have found themselves unable to visit
popular tourism destinations around the
world but North Korea offered a rare
opportunity for about 100 Russian
Nationals to visit what is called The
Hermit Kingdom this group is believed to
be North Korea's first tourist since the
pandemic our will Ripley has
more after years of near total isolation
North Korea is rolling out the red
carpet for Russian visitors this group
of 100 believes to be the first post
pandemic
tourists visiting Kim jong-un's
hermetically sealed Nation amid its
deepening ties with
Russia they flew from vlasto to
Pyongyang on a vintage Russian plane
operated by air Coro North Korea's only
Airline I've flown it more than a dozen
times when westerners were still allowed
in this Russian tour and perhaps more to
come is about more than than sightseeing
it's about the bigger picture of
international relations Russia and North
Korea strengthening ties icing out the
West
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wooo ilav venski is a travel blogger
from St Petersburg a tough job these
days many European nations ban Russian
tourists the result of Putin's war on
Ukraine I signed up for this tour the
moment I heard about it it's like
stepping back in time reminiscent of the
stories my grandparents told me about
life in the Soviet Union the empty
streets the lack of advertisements it's
surreal Iana bitkova is a marketing
professional from
Moscow the meticulous preparations for
our visit felt like being in a theater
production but amidst the choreographed
scenes I couldn't shake the feeling that
there's another side to North Korea one
that remains
hidden beneath the carefully controlled
facade encounters with North Korean
children revealing curiosity genuine
interest in the outside
world all right so 2024 is a leap year
we get 366 days on the calendar instead
of 365 but why what is a leap year first
off there are 365 days in a calendar
year because that's how long it takes
for the earth to travel around the Sun
right well it's actually about 365 and a
quarter of a day which means our
calendar gets out of sync by a quarter
of a day each year so in the year 45 BC
Julius Caesar declared that every four
years a day needed to be added to the
calendar to balance things out thus the
Julian calendar was born but one caveat
it was later determined that it actually
takes slightly less than 365 and a quar
days for Earth to rotate around the sun
44 minutes less to be exact and over
time those 44 minutes add up so in the
16th century Pope Gregory the 13th
tweaked the system again so that leap
years would occur in any year that's
divisible by four but only in centuries
that are evenly divided by 400 confusing
I know that means that in the 1600s the
2000s those have leap years but not the
1700s 1800s and 1900s is that math
mathing yeah okay Pope Gregory also made
February 29th the official date to add
during a leap year and he dubbed this
new system the Gregorian calendar and
that's the one used in the majority of
the world
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today today's story getting a 10 out of
10 has us flipping out one of the HBCU
historically black college and
universities has become the first to
have a gymnastics team Legends like
Simone biles and Gabby Douglas have
inspired a myriad of youngsters to
pursue a passion they may not have had
otherwise and now Fisk University in
Nashville Tennessee is helping to create
a brighter
tomorrow gymnastics was considered a
white sport if you look at the sport as
a whole there's probably about 10% maybe
of athletes who would classify
themselves as a black athlete in the
sport of
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drastic the teams I Were Always On were
very supportive even though of course
usually I was only like one of two black
girls on those teams I was the only
black girl on many of the teams Gabby
was like my idol I watched her win the
Olympics and that inspired me to take
gymnastics a little bit more
seriously getting ready for competitions
you know everyone was do their hair
together and stuff and my hair is a way
different texture from anyone else's I
absolutely hated my hair you're
constantly surrounded by girls that are
just doing slick backs and like can put
their hair up in a bun easily and stuff
and it's like okay well my hair doesn't
do that we're going to cheer her on and
then she's going to do a routine the
first thing I noticed about Coach D was
that she had locks this is the first
time I've ever had a black woman coach
in my life and she had hair that looked
like me and now I'm on a team with girls
with hair like mine and they can help me
with my hair and I don't feel like I
have to change anything about myself to
fit in let's go right here that hand
Goa sometimes they had to choose between
an HBCU or gymnastics and so now they
don't have to choose it is the first
gymnastics program at an HBCU or
historic blue black college or
university in
history and Naima is remembered as the
first HBCU gymnast to ever compete in
history and that was like crazy high
emotions I was crying I was like oh my
God this is amazing every meet after
that we would be signing autographs or
meeting young girls after the
competitions because this was huge for
them I get so many DMS and so many
messages and so many I get tagged in so
many posts from little black gymnast all
over you're one of her favorite gymnast
to watch do you think maybe you could
send her some motivation you were truly
an inspiration this girl
Kamaya she did her Black History Month
project on me looks like she wrote like
a whole thing and that's also funny
because I I
did I did a black history project on
Gabby Douglas so it is a full circle
thing I remember making like doing a
project like this and now someone's
doing one on me we still have a long way
to go now as a young gymnast you're
going to see people who look like you
year after year after year
on rise up higher and higher we go one
quick random thought for you this
Thursday how is it that our brains
remember that we forgot something but we
can't remember what that thing was one
thing I will not forget shout out time
this shout out goes to Godly High School
in Godly Texas go Wildcats and this
shout out goes to the Cougars at South
pontac Middle School in ponak
Mississippi keep it 100 y'all especially
in that grade book see you tomorrow
Superstars it'll be Friday we'll finish
this week strong I'm Koy wire and we are
CNN 10