We're using it today.

Welcome to our penultimate program of 2019.

After tomorrow.

Show CNN 10 will be off the air until Monday, January 6th 2020.

It's always great to see you.

I'm coral, a Zeus.

We're jumping right into new developments concerning the United States and Cuba, a Caribbean island country only 90 miles away from American soil.

But in some ways, the two nations are worlds apart.

This week, new rules take effect that limit where Americans can fly in to visit Cuba.

Nine of the previous destinations on the island have been canceled.

Now U.

S Airlines air on Lee, allowed to fly into the Cuban capital, Havana.

This is expected to have a negative impact on Cuba's economy.

And it's one of the ways the U.

S government is pressuring Cuba to make changes.

The Trump administration wants the communist nation to start holding democratic elections.

It wants Cuba to stop harassing opponents of the nation's government, and it wants Cuba's government to stop supporting Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, whom the U.

S.

Doesn't recognize as Venezuela's rightful leader.

American sanctions on Cuba's economy or nothing new.

But five years ago, former U.

S.

President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro formally started the process of normalizing relations between the two countries, which have been rivals since the Cold War.

President Obama said decades of cutting off Cuba economically and politically had failed to influence its communist government to improve its record on human rights.

The critics said Cuba's human rights record didn't improve under the Obama policy, either.

The Trump administration's pressure on Cuba includes the new flight limits, a ban on US cruise ships from visiting Cuba and preventing ships carrying Venezuelan oil from sailing to Cuba.

Trivia.

Which of these events is the oldest Ramadan, Hanukkah, Christmas or Kwanzaa?

According to Jewish tradition, Tanaka was instituted in the year 1 65 BC, making it the oldest observance on this list.

Christmas hasn't come early this year, but the flu season has, and there ain't nothing Mary about that.

Flu viruses circulate around the world throughout the year, but a flare up in the U.

S is most common in the fall and winter, hitting its worst point between December and February, according to the Centers for Disease Control But it says it's been 15 years since flu season started as early as it has this time around.

Currently, the virus is classified as widespread in 16 states and as intense in 12 others.

What's also unusual is that influenza B, a type of flu that usually hits a small number of people at the end of flu season, is hitting in bigger numbers at the start of this one, and Children are particularly vulnerable to influenza.

B.

The CDC is urging Americans to get vaccinated even though the vaccine isn't perfect and many of those who get the shot still get the flu.

Last flu season, the flu killed at least 36,000 people, so this shot could literally save your life.

But it's far from perfect, even on a good year.

Influenza effectiveness of the vaccine is about 60%.

On a bad year, it's a CZ lowest 10%.

Do we need to make a better flu vaccine?

You know, we really absolutely d'oh.

In September, President Trump signed an executive order noting that the current system for making flu shots has critical shortcomings.

The order pledges to modernize the process.

The first step stop using eggs to make flu vaccine.

They grow the virus in the eggs, like the eggs you eat for breakfast, and then they kill the virus and put it in a vaccine.

But sometimes the virus changes inside the egg, so it doesn't end up matching the flu that's out there spreading among people.

That's why some companies like this one have figured out ways to grow the flu virus without using eggs.

Right here we have the cells growing, the virus virus stays the same, and when you make the vaccine, it looks closer to what's in the wild.

So no eggs here anyway.

No eggs here.

Trump's executive order is designed to encourage more of this technology and something even bigger something researchers have been working on for years.

A flu vaccine you would get only once in your life instead of every year.

Karen Crane E.

Is one of the first people in the world to get what's called the universal flu shot as part of a study at the National Institutes of Health Inverted five times, the shot is prepped and medical history is made.

Ah, universal flu shot is at least a decade away.

It's complicated.

It's not gonna be easy, but we're starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

So for now, get your regular flu shot to protect yourself and everyone around you while we wait for something even better.

Since we first reported on the Ocean Cleanup Project, which uses a giant U shaped tube and a net to corral plastic in the ocean, it's hit some headwinds.

About a year ago, one of the devices broke, and scientists have questioned whether it's money well spent, and they've floated the idea that the project could actually have a negative effect on the environment.

But Ocean Cleanup has had some success since then, and it's hoped to become one of a number of solutions to the problem of plastic in the ocean.

What we see here, actually, the stomach contents of a single seater till that was found dead two years ago.

This is what it's all in one see turn.

Look at all that plastic.

There are approximately 150 million tons of plastic in the world's oceans, and a recent UK report predicts that that number will triple in the next decade.

Pieces of plastic in the ocean can kill sea life, threatened industries like fishing or tourism and negatively affect our health.

When they end up in our food, that plastic is still going to be there in one year, so good to be there in 10 years.

It's probably still going to be there in 100 years.

Only if we go out there and clean it up.

This amount of plastic is going to go down.

One young Dutch inventor and his team have their sights set on solving the plastic problem.

How it's an almost 2000 foot long floating pipe with a net hanging below.

If you look around the world, there's plastics washing up on beaches.

Basically, we designed an artificial coastline here as a method of taking the plastics out of the water.

Over there, the wind dislike propelling the system through the area, such that the open end of the use of speak is going forward.

So it's kind of like a catcher's mitt for ocean plastic.

Exactly, and then every couple of months there's a boat coming a bit like a garbage truck in the ocean, and that takes the plastics out there on the boats and brings it back to show.

This first version of the system was deployed to much fanfare in 2018 but it failed to collect and retain the plastic.

Since then, the team has added a parachute to slow it down and a cork line to prevent the plastic from going over the top of the floating pipe.

Now the team says the new system is working, but critics have worried about the system's effect on marine life.

Are these the tubes that we see out there?

Yeah, so we have the floater at the top that keeps it afloat while we have the screen underneath it.

That prevents Plessy from going under it.

So we don't have anything that can entangle marine life.

And what happens is that the current flows underneath it all the plastic which floats will remain in this zone in front of the kingdom system.

You obviously have a ton of support for your project, but there's also a lot of critics out there who are saying, you know, you guys are just skimming the surface of this problem and you're not dealing with micro plastics.

92% of the plastic isn't micro plastic but our larger objects.

It's not micro plastics yet, right?

So it's kind of a ticking time bomb.

The sooner we get that out, the better.

They're starting with the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

Ah, floating massive trash more than twice the size of Texas.

The group plans to make consumer products out of recycled plastic from the patch.

This pair of sunglasses We already made this from plastic coming out of the great Pacific garbage, but the ultimate goal to clean up 90% of ocean plastic by the year 2040 Back in today, people said, Well, there's no way to clean this up.

The best thing we could do is not make it worse.

But to me, that's a very uninspiring message.

Everyone wants the future to be better than the present.

That's what we hope to achieve with this kid.

Ah, deck is a bridge is surface isn't redundant to say Deck the bridge.

It's not If you're on this bridge in Tennessee, it's all decked out Is part of Gatlinburg efforts to show its Christmas spirit.

This is the longest pedestrian suspension bridge on the continent, 680 feet of great Smoky Mountain walkway that's also a tunnel of color.

So if you're a fan of lights, you're not afraid of heights, and the cold never bothered you anyway.

Then leave the bows of holly in the halls and join the chorus of jolly lads and Lasses who were obviously heedless of the wind and weather as they take merrily measured steps across a bridge decked with voila!

La lights that look like yuletide treasure.

Blazing across the valley is the old year passes.

I'm Christmas Carol a Zeus, and we'll see tomorrow for our last show of 2019.