CNN10 2025-02-12 CNN 10 Trump Imposes 25 Percent Tariffs On Steel and Aluminum; Getting Rid Of The Penny?; How Polar Bear Fur Could Advance Anti-Icing Products; Deep Sea Fish Makes Surprise Appearance Near the Ocean's Surface. Aired 4-4:10a ET Aired February 12, 2025 - 04:00 ET THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. COY WIRE, CNN 10 ANCHOR: What's up, superstars? I'm Coy Wire. This is CNN 10. Today, it is your CNN 10, especially because one of you helped us write today's show. It's Your Word Wednesday. Thank you for submitting a myriad of words to my Instagram, TikTok, and X. Listen up to see if your vocab word was submitted as the winner. Winner, chicken dinner. Let's get this show on the road. We start today with the latest round of tariffs out of the U.S. President Donald Trump signing a new executive order, this time imposing a 25 percent tariff on all steel and aluminum imports into the states, with no exceptions or exemptions. The U.S. gets most of its steel from Canada, Brazil, and Mexico, with a small portion of those imports coming from the world's largest producer of steel, which is China. On the campaign trail, then-candidate Trump promised to rebuild America's steel industry. Americans steel mills produce about three times more steel than that which is imported here, but the U.S. isn't the same type of manufacturing-focused economy that it was in the past. So, much of the tens of millions of tons of steel and aluminum it uses every year are imported. Now, steel is a key component of everything from consumer goods like cars, refrigerators, washing machines, power line towers, pipelines, skyscrapers, bridges, roads, and all kinds of things. Aluminum is also a key metal. We find it also in cars, canned goods, planes, boats, golf clubs, windows, doors, crucial infrastructure like electrical power lines, and on and on, and holy moly, maybe we should have just named the things for which these metals are not used. Now, tariffs could increase the cost of production for many, if not all, of these types of items. Remember, tariffs are a tax placed on goods imported or exported from one country to another. Foreign companies are not responsible for paying tariffs, so U.S. businesses would pay the federal government directly for the cost of the tariffs on the goods they import. So, in the end, it will be the consumers, most likely those of us who buy or utilize the infrastructure in which these metals are used, who will likely have to pay more. Companies won't want to cut into their profits. This new tariff comes on top of a 10 percent tariff imposed on all Chinese imports to the U.S. last week, causing China to retaliate with tariffs of its own. And this is all causing some to worry of an expanding trade war. President Trump did suspend tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada until at least March 1st. Pop quiz hot shot. Who was the first U.S. president depicted on a U.S. coin? George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, or Abraham Lincoln? If you said Abe Lincoln, you're so money, baby. He was the first U.S. president shown on a circulating coin, the penny, back in 1909. Though George Washington was our first president, he didn't appear on the quarter until 1932. Some news about coins. First, a little brain teaser for you. What two coins add up to 26 cents? But one of them is not a penny. Go ahead. Press pause if you have to. Ruminate, discuss. OK. Well, if you said a quarter and a penny, you are correct. I said one of them is not a penny. The quarter is not a penny. Play on words type of brain teaser, I know. If you got it, well done. Now, many believe the penny is pesky and problematic, saying that those coins worth one cent just don't make sense. This week, President Donald Trump said he will order the U.S. Mint to stop production of the penny, mainly because they cost way more to make than they are actually worth at the store. But does it really make sense to get rid of the penny? Many others feel it does not. Our Brian Todd lays out some of the pros and cons of eliminating our iconic one cent coin. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): To some of us, they're a comfort, jingling in the pocket, there if we need them at a convenience store or coffee shop to pay an exact amount. To others, they're a nuisance, a never used pest that we leave in a jar, a cup holder, or on the street. Now, there's new momentum to get rid of the penny, or at least stop producing it. For far too long, the United States has minted pennies which literally cost us more than two cents. This is so wasteful. It actually cost 3.7 cents to produce one penny, according to a report last year from the U.S. Mint. One of the reasons anti-penny advocates like Professor Robert Whaples say it's time to end our ties to the penny. ROBERT WHAPLES, PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS, WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY: You see that people consider them to be a nuisance and they just don't bring them back into the store. You see them lying on the sidewalk, people don't even pick them up. TODD (voice-over): Whaples argues that because many Americans don't bring pennies back to the store and spend them, stores then run out of pennies, ask the banks for more. Then banks ask the U.S. Mint to create more of a coin we're using less and less. But Mark Weller, Director of the pro-penny group Americans for Common Cents, which is funded by a company that produces the metal discs that are used to make coins, argues that getting rid of the penny would cause inflation because businesses would start rounding transactions to the nearest nickel and would more likely try to round up than down. Does President Trump have the power to unilaterally eliminate the penny? Experts say he likely can order the Treasury Department to stop making new pennies. But to stop the use of pennies already in circulation would take an act of Congress. And the federal government would also have to buy back the already issued pennies, which would be expensive. (END VIDEOTAPE) WIRE: Did you know that polar bears are classified as marine mammals? And did you know that their skin is actually black or that their fur is not white? It's actually transparent with a hollow core? Well, I was today years old when I learned that unlike other furry mammals, a polar bear's fur doesn't freeze as they dawdle along in their icy domains. Scientists on a mission to find out why that's the case discovered this mix of greasy compounds in their fur that make it freeze resistant. Here's our Randi Kaye to tell us all about the new research uncovering the benefits of polar bear fur and how that could be applied to creating new and improved anti-icing products that may come in handy for us non-Ursa Day creatures. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) RANDI KAYE, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Did you know that a polar bear's fur doesn't freeze even after it returns to dry land from an icy swim? According to a recent study published in Science Advances, scientists in Norway found the polar bear fur to be pretty oily, thanks to a distinct group of greasy compounds, and that may be what repels the ice. JULIAN CAROLAN, CO-AUTHOR OF STUDY: Unwashed polar bear hair stuck very weakly to the ice, whereas washed polar bear hair, where all the hair oils and lipids have been removed, stuck with a much greater strength. KAYE: And once they figured out the ice didn't really stick to the cleaner fur. CAROLAN: It suggested to us that the hair oils were the secret in stopping ice from sticking to polar bears. KAYE: Now the researchers insist Arctic people have known about the polar bear's special anti-ice abilities for centuries, but the team found that the oils in the bear's fur contained a lot of fatty acids when compared with other mammals, which makes sense since polar bears often feast on seals, a pretty fatty diet. The scientists compared their findings to human hair. For the sake of science, this guy didn't wash his hair for a week. CAROLAN: This allowed us to build up a lot of hair oils and grease within my hair. We found that when both washed and unwashed, the ice stuck very strong to the human hair samples. KAYE: That's very different from the outcome with the polar bear fur. Why does any of this matter? The scientists hope that this research will inspire new and safer anti-icing products for de-icing planes, for example. If so, we'll have our snow-white Arctic neighbors to thank. (END VIDEOTAPE) WIRE: Today, we're giving a 10 out of 10 to a phenomenally rare fish sighting. Could you believe a deep-sea anglerfish was spotted in the shallow waters off the coast of Spain's Tenerife Island? You know, the anglerfish, that denizen of the deep that looks like a gnarly tooth creature out of a scary movie with that little dangly glowing light thing that it uses to lure in its prey? Well, this is in the news because those things are usually over one mile deep. Our Ivana Scatola fills us in on this recent fantastic encounter. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) IVANA SCATOLA, CNN DIGITAL VIDEO PRODUCER (voice-over): Marine biologists say they spotted a black sea devil anglerfish alive near the ocean's surface while on a shark research campaign. The NGO Condrik Tenerife was on an expedition off the coast of the Spanish Island. The researchers were surprised because this deep-sea fish, known for its intimidating appearance, normally lives between 200 and 2,000 meters deep, according to the NGO. A predator of the ocean's depths, it uses a bioluminescent pole on its head to attract its prey. According to the NGO, only dead specimens, larvae or images captured by submarines had previously been documented of the anglerfish. (END VIDEOTAPE) WIRE: Congrats to our Your Word Wednesday winners. Mr. Payone's class, Payone, Payon, Slayon (ph) for submitting dawdle, a verb meaning waste time, be slow. Great word and thank you for leveling up our vocab today. Now, for our school shout out, this one goes to Mr. Fleming's classes at Auburndale Senior High School in Auburndale, Florida. The Bloodhounds. Yes, I love it. Rise up, everyone. Go on out and make someone smile today because you never know when or how, but you just may be the light someone needs. See you tomorrow, everyone. I'm Coy Wire and we are CNN 10. END