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the harrowing scenes from the movie

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gravity the oscar-nominated hollywood

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thriller that brought the attention to

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the dangers for astronauts when they

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step outside the international space

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station hello everyone i'm michelle

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franzen in new york that danger was all

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too real for american astronauts rick

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mastracchio and mike hopkins when they

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had to make the dangerous trip to repair

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the cooling system on the iss back in

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december but that mission was a success

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and they are both joining us now for a

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unique look into life in space guys

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thank you for joining us

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i just wanted to get this out of the way

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right off the bat

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from what you've seen in the movie

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gravity is that something that could

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actually happen a robotic arm breaking

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well of course things can happen in

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space things go wrong there's always

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risk there is danger that's that's

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definitely true but uh you know it was a

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movie uh they over dramatize things they

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uh

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the the actors overreact to situations

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we train for a lot of off nominal

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situations and if something goes wrong

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we stay very calm and we run procedures

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and we work with the ground to

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you know to recover whatever goes wrong

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so

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the the movie gravity was a very

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exciting movie it was great to watch but

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and rick you're a spacewalk veteran but

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you had some trouble with your suit

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during one of the evas is that a drip

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well whenever you're out doing a

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spacewalk you definitely have heightened

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alertness and heightened awareness of

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where you are and what you're doing

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uh so

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but you also remain very calm because

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like i said we trained this many times

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i've done many spacewalks now i've

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trained many many times in houston in

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the large swimming pool so if something

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goes wrong we have procedures we work

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them with the ground like i said before

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and uh but every once in a while

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something does get your attention if you

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get an alarm on your suit or something

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goes wrong it definitely gets your heart

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and mike want to ask you a question too

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do you ever get a chance to sort of take

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in the moment when you're out there are

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no actually there were several times

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when we had uh we had time to just look

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around and see the earth going by and it

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was actually

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amazing truly incredible because for the

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first time you get to see the earth

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passing by without any obstructions

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without having to look out a window

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with the frame around it and all of that

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so

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we were certainly very busy but there

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are times when you need to just slow

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down and pause and maybe there's

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you're waiting on a step that the ground

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needs to take with the system or

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something of that nature so we had a few

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very good now there's been an

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interesting video that's been making the

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rounds from one of your colleagues katie

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coleman showing us how the toilet works

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all that stuff you know that everyone

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has questions about

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in space using m ms that doesn't look

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too comfortable but it does represent

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is there a through

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well yeah so the the systems up here uh

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like the like the toilet and all of that

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uh it's certainly a little bit different

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than than what we use down on earth but

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uh it does work pretty well but it also

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takes a lot of maintenance to keep it

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going so

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you know that's one of those things that

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if anything does go wrong with it it

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now of course you've been out there

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doing all sorts of repairs but there's

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also experiments you're doing up there

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for students on earth one of them

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involves an ant farm what happens if

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well the uh the ants were obviously

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encased in a uh in a container and

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unable to escape but uh

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you know if they got out i guess it

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would be our job to catch them and uh

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and

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corral them back up but luckily none of

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i know all those things you have to

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think about and all those questions we

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have here some of them seem very silly

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but i know that your space there is very

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limited so how are you dealing with the

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yeah actually that's a that's a

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fantastic question and very relevant to

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what just happened so yesterday we

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actually released the cygnus orbital one

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vehicle

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about a month ago brought up a bunch of

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supplies it brought up food clothes

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experiments brought up the ants

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but when it left yesterday it took away

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all of our trash and so it's it's a

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great day here on on station because

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it's nice and clean there's hardly any

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trash around uh it smells really good

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and and actually i think as we're

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speaking right now orbital is orbital

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one is is probably getting close to

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you know mike let's stay with you it

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looks like you've been trying to bring

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some new life to the iss but it hasn't

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seemed to work out some of those

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yeah that's right i i was able to bring

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a few seeds up with me some pumpkin

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seeds some sunflower seeds and it's

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pretty amazing how easy it is to to get

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them started to get them to germinate

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and

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got the right kind of light unless

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you've got the right kind of food

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it's not very easy to keep them going

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and so that's that's been pretty tough i

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can i can make them last for about uh

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about three weeks to to six weeks or so

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but but then after that they just they'd

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pushing those hydroponics so can either

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of you describe an average day on board

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the iss of course we

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don't normally have a chance to go up

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there and see that so give us an idea of

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what you guys go through on a daily

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okay well we wake up fairly early we get

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about an hour to eat breakfast and get

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ready for work first thing in the

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morning after that is we have a meeting

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with the ground folks and they kind of

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give us our schedule for the day and

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that schedule include three basic things

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a lot of exercise about two and a half

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hours of exercise

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a certain amount of maintenance of the

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space station if we have to do some

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maintenance on the on the toilet or any

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other systems and but the biggest part

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of it will be science today i was

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working in this glove box right here

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burning small samples to see how a fire

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and flames react in space or behave in

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space so it's uh most of our day is set

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with experiments and science but then of

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course we have maintenance and we have a

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lot of exercise so that we can walk when

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and back to mike you're about ready to

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come down in march and your schedule

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could actually be moved up a little bit

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because of too much snow what's going on

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yeah actually we were scheduled to

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return on the 12th of march but

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as of right now that's been moved to the

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11th of march and basically because of

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where we're going to land so we're

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originally going to land in the northern

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part of kazakhstan which still has a lot

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of snow there and so for the search and

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rescue folks and for all of those to be

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able to to get us out of the vehicle

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safely once we touch down we've moved to

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a southern landing zone and just due to

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the orbital mechanics and all of that

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that means we're going to we're going to

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depart the station a day earlier and

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well you know something like i don't

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know a billion people are watching the

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oscars on earth are we also going to

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have two viewers from space rooting for

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i don't think we're going to be watching

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it live but we'll probably ask houston

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maybe to uplink it for us or at least

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give us the results of all the movies

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that won the awards but uh it'll be

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well astronauts rick mastracchio and

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mike hopkins thank you so much for

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joining us and giving us a unique look

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and a link to the international space

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station you of course can get a complete

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recap right here on abcnews.com for now

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i'm michelle franzen in new york with

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this abc news digital