[MUSIC PLAYING]
COY WIRE: What's up, everyone.
I am Coy, a.k.a.
Bald dude, Mr. Clean, and I am humbled
and grateful to be hanging with you this week
right here on CNN 10.
Lots to get to you this beautiful Tuesday, so let's go.
Starting with an update on the ongoing conflict
between Russia and Ukraine.
Let's take 10 to see where things stand.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine began February 24th
when Russian President Vladimir Putin announced
a military operation in response to what he called
NATO expansion against Russia.
The invasion has received international criticism
and a lot of countries around the world
won't do business with Russia anymore
and that has impacted the global economy.
This week, Ukrainian troops have retaken more than 1100
square miles of territory, about the size of Rhode Island,
and that's more than Russian troops have captured
in all operations since April.
As Ukraine reclaims some domain, many military and government
officials are celebrating and some government
officials across Russia are campaigning
for Putin's resignation.
But the war is far from over.
The Russian government on Monday insisted
it will achieve its goals in Ukraine
and it's responding by hitting critical infrastructure
across Ukraine and causing blackouts there.
Now, while we may be living in a time of EVs, AI, robots,
and drones, the military tactics of this war
make the conflicts look more like they're
taking place 100 years ago.
Check it out.
- Heavy artillery fire and a slow moving frontline,
we may be in an era of technological progress,
but the Russian invasion of Ukraine
seems to share many similarities with conflicts 100 years ago.
MALCOLM CHALMERS: In the West for the last 30 years,
we've been used to fighting against opponents who,
in strict military terms, have been
greatly inferior in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya.
And one of the key characteristics of those wars
has been that from the start, the United States
and its allies have totally dominated the air
and that has meant their opponents have had to hide.
The biggest difference with this conflict,
which makes it more like conventional conflicts,
is that neither side completely controls the air
and that basically means that forces on the ground
can move around without immediately
being targeted from the air.
The basic political objective of Ukraine
is to maintain its sovereignty controlling as much
of its territory as possible.
From the Russian point of view, their ideal objective
is to destroy Ukraine as an independent state
and to either annex it to Russia or to make
it a satellite state of Russia.
It's really critical where that frontline
is because at some stage, the conflict becomes more frozen
and the politics will be determined
about where that frontline is.
COY WIRE: 10 second trivia time.
President John F Kennedy delivered his,
"we choose to go to the moon" speech
from what American University?
Who says Harvard?
How about Boston College?
Maybe the University of Virginia, or is it Rice?
In 1962, JFK delivered his moonshot speech from Rice
University in Houston, Texas.
JOHN F. KENNEDY: We choose to go to the moon in this decade
and do the other things, not because they are easy,
but because they are hard.
COY WIRE: Yesterday, President Biden
channeled former President John F. Kennedy at his Presidential
Library in Boston on the 60th anniversary
of that famous moonshot speech you just heard.
But this time the topic wasn't space, it was cancer.
President Biden highlighted his administration's efforts
aimed at "ending cancer as we know it."
In his speech, the president planned to draw attention
to new technology that uses blood tests to screen
against multiple cancers.
Experts agree, though, that it's too early
to know whether these tests will have
any effect on cancer deaths.
President Biden hopes to move the US closer to the goal he
set in February of cutting us cancer fatalities
by 50% over the next 25 years.
In 2022, the American Cancer Society
estimates 1.9 million new cases of cancer will be diagnosed
and around 600,000 people will die from the disease.
This initiative is a personal one
for President Biden who lost his son
Beau in 2015 to brain cancer.
It's also a complicated one as scientists now understand
that cancer is not one disease but hundreds
that respond differently to different treatments.
Despite Biden's attempts to channel President Kennedy's
moonshot program, his current cancer initiative
lacks the same level of budgetary support
as the Apollo program, which garnered
public investment equaling $220 billion in today's dollars.
All right, many hairs ago, I was an NFL player.
So I am pumped to bring you some Tuesday motivation
from one of the most improbable success
stories in the League today.
Younghoe Koo, Korean born, couldn't
speak any English when he moved to the US at 12 years old.
He was told, "you're not good enough."
He was cut from his team, but now
he's a Pro Bowler and one of the highest
paid kickers in the NFL.
Athlete or not, for those of you who have a goal to get
or a point to prove, Younghoe's message is this,
tough times make us tougher.
You move to the US, you're 12 years old.
What was that transition like?
What was that experience like?
YOUNGHOE KOO: Well, at the time, it was tough.
I was in middle school.
I had a Korean friend that was in every single one
of my classes so he can translate
for me if needed to be.
COY WIRE: So you couldn't even speak English.
YOUNGHOE KOO: I was in ESL for two years.
I remember going home and all day I'm just smiling,
you know, like nodding--
COY WIRE: --at school.
YOUNGHOE KOO: I don't want to look stupid,
but also I don't know what's going on.
And then I go home and it's like I have
no idea what happened today.
And all they were saying was just like, hey,
my name is this, nice to meet you, welcome, or something.
COY WIRE: How did football kind of help
with that transition to life here in the States.
YOUNGHOE KOO: Big time.
Without that, I don't think I would have known
what to do on the weekends.
I remember sitting in a car going to practice
with a bunch of my friends and I didn't
know how to ask, hey, what do you guys do on the weekends?
COY WIRE: You wanted to hang out.
YOUNGHOE KOO: Yeah, but I didn't know how to phrase that or even
form a sentence at that time.
I remember just like asking out, like, you know, I'm bored.
But they're like, right now?
In a car going to practice?
I was like, no, on the weekends.
So I just threw stuff together.
I remember the feeling.
I was nervous to say something because I don't want
to sound stupid at the time.
So then that weekend, they call me to hang out.
That's when I really picked up English and stuff like that.
So, without football, I probably wouldn't be talking like this
or anything like that.
COY WIRE: Did you ever experience racism being
Asian-American growing up?
YOUNGHOE KOO: I didn't really take it to heart.
I didn't really let anything come to me just
because they say something.
Now, social media is like that, right?
Everybody got an opinion, everybody has something to say.
Everybody can say something if they want to.
It's not really my responsibility to soak
that all in and absorb them.
My dad taught me from a young age,
he was like, hey, football doesn't know who's kicking it.
COY WIRE: That's right.
YOUNGHOE KOO: --if you're white, Black, Asian,
or whatever, when the ball is flying,
they don't know who kicked, it.
They just see the result and they see the ball
and they're like, all right, that kid's good.
COY WIRE: 27 years old, has any of this hit you yet?
YOUNGHOE KOO: No.
I learned a lot from my journey.
I felt like I made it my rookie year when I won the job.
Going into week one, I was like, Oh, this is it.
I did it.
Fast forward four weeks, I was cut.
It taught me.
I was like, hey, this is never over.
You got to compete every single day.
You got to produce, it's a production business.
That's what the head coach told me at the time
when I was getting released.
COY WIRE: What was that like when
you you're at the Chargers?
You think, "I've arrived," and all of a sudden,
you're out in the streets. YOUNGHOE KOO: Right.
That was tough.
That was tough for sure because for the first time ever
like in October during the football season,
I was just sitting at home.
That was a huge wake up kind of realization of like, hey,
what went wrong there?
You got to kind of dig in and see what went wrong
and get ready for the next opportunity
so when it comes this doesn't happen again.
COY WIRE: What do you hope your story says
to the next generation of Asian-Americans?
YOUNGHOE KOO: I think representation
is big because growing up for me in football,
there was nobody that looked like me.
So it was harder for me to visualize,
like oh he's doing it, I can do it, stuff like that.
If you look at my story, I didn't speak English.
I didn't know what football was.
I was struggling to say, hey, what
are you doing this weekend?
To here, you know, I think anybody can if they have
a dream and just chase it and work hard, set a plan,
and go after it
COY WIRE: No matter what you're going through,
surround yourself with good people
and remember you can always gain strength
through your struggles.
You're more powerful than you know.
Speaking of powerful, today's shoutout
is going to Cheney Middle School in West Fargo, North Dakota.
Go Packers.
We hope you and everyone watching around the world
have a wonderful one.
I'm Coy Wire.
Thanks for watching CNN 10.