CNN Student News - August 25, 2017

cnn 10

Brazil Opens Part of the Amazon to Mining; Malala Yousafzai Takes the Next Step in Her Education; A Storm Churns in the Gulf

Aired August 25, 2017 - 04:00:00 ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


CARL AZUZ, cnn 10 ANCHOR: Fridays are awesome. It seems to me I`ve said that on air at some point before.

I`m Carl Azuz. This is cnn 10, your daily down-the-middle explanation of world news.

First up this Friday is in Brazil. It`s the largest and most populated country in South America. More than 200 million live there.

And its government has announced plans to allow mining in part of the Amazon rainforest where it used to be illegal. The Amazon is gigantic. It covers more than 200 million square miles.

Brazil`s government just abolished a reserve, a protected area that covers about 18,000 square miles. Mining won`t be allowed in all of that. The government says it will only be legal in places where there are no conservative rules in areas where no indigenous people live.

But why the change? Brazil has high unemployment. It`s around 15 percent, and the country has got out of its largest economic recession ever.

The government says the region has opened up for mining has a lot of minerals, gold and iron. So, it`s looking to attract investors and create jobs.

But activists and environmentalists say this will cause more deforestation in the Amazon, that local cultures would be damaged and that water resources and biodiversity could be lost.

Brazil`s mining industry accounts for about 4 percent of the nation`s economy. The government wants to revitalize it and grow it to about 6 percent of the economy.

Also making news today, the next step in the education of a woman who risked her life to learn. Malala Yousafzai is the youngest person ever to win a Nobel Peace Prize. As she prepares to go to college, she`s sharing her excitement with followers from around the world.

In 2012, Malala was shot by the Taliban, an Islamic militant group that strongly opposes education for women. She survived and continued the work she`d been doing to promote education for women.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MALALA YOUSAFZAI, NOBEL PRIZE WINNER: We need to invest in education. This is something that cannot be ignored. This determines the future of many children and especially for a region like Iraq and Syria, which have gone through conflict, education is the only way to which these countries can go forward and achieve progress.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AZUZ: Malala hopes to get a degree in philosophy, politics and economics from Oxford University.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AZUZ (voice-over): Ten-second trivia:

Which of these scales ranks the intensity of hurricanes by their wind speeds?

Beaufort Scale, Fujita Scale, Richter Scale, Saffir-Simpson Scale?

Ranking storm sustained wind speeds in categories from one to five, the Saffir-Simon hurricane wind scale is the measure for hurricanes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AZUZ: Up next: trouble at sea. A storm named Harvey is brewing in the Gulf of Mexico. Forecasters initially thought it only be a category one hurricane at most. But that changed yesterday as the system churned toward the Gulf Coast of Texas.

The National Hurricane Center said Harvey could strengthen to category three status, with wind speeds of at least 111 miles per hour before it makes landfall Friday night or Saturday morning. Harvey is threatening to bring heavy rainfall and flooding to the Texas coast, as well as a dangerous storm surge, a rise in sea levels blown ashore by the hurricane. Residents were stacking sandbags last night and boarding up windows. Some people in Corpus Christi were ordered to evacuate.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JENNIFER GRAY, cnn METEOROLOGIST: Tropical systems come in all shapes and sizes. You have tropical depressions, tropical storms.

And once it is strong enough to become a hurricane, you have five categories, with category five being the strongest.

SUBTITLE: Hurricanes: What you should know.

GRAY: The states most frequently hit by a hurricane, Florida, Louisiana and Texas.

But as much as we know about hurricanes, forecasting them is still a challenge. Just as we name each storm, each storm has its own personality, like Katrina in 2005, which intensified rapidly overnight, going from a category three to a category five. It became the fourth most intense hurricane on record as of that time.

And the forecast track can change dramatically, like Erica in 2015, or a system that can be viewed as relatively weak, like a tropical storm could end up like Tropical Storm Allison in 2001. The remnants of the storm stalled over Southeast Texas, dumping 35 inches of rain over Houston in just five days. The storm became the first non-hurricane to have its name retired.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AZUZ: A coffee shop in Wilmington, North Carolina, had lines out the door the first day it opened. Within six months, it had outgrown its space and needed to move to a larger location. That`s pretty unique when you consider the sheer number of coffee places in America.

Then, again, Bitty and Beau`s is a pretty unique place. All of its profits go to charity and its founder is a cnn hero.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMY WRIGHT, cnn HERO: What did you do in PE?

UNIDENTIFIED GIRL: Running.

A. WRIGHT: Running?

UNIDENTIFIED GIRL: Yes.

A. WRIGHT: Did your sneakers help you run fast?

UNIDENTIFIED GIRL: Yes.

A. WRIGHT: When you become a parent of a child with special needs you are instantly thrust into being an advocate.

UNIDENTIFIED BOY: Mommy, look.

A. WRIGHT: Trying to make people see the beauty in their lives that we see.

Ben and I have two older daughters and then we have Beau and Bitty and they both have Down syndrome.

BEN WRIGHT, HUSBAND: Ready? Here it goes.

(CHEERS)

A. WRIGHT: People are scared of what they don`t know and so, we`ve decided to live out loud and to show people what our lives are like.

People with disabilities, sometimes the world just passes them by. Most of them are unemployed and we really felt like we wanted to do something about it. And it was like, coffee shop.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hey, guys! Good morning. Welcome to Bitty and Beau`s. It`s open.

A. WRIGHT: Other than our two managers, everybody that works at Bitty and Beau`s coffee has an intellectual or developmental disability, Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, autism.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And your first latte today.

A. WRIGHT: We figured out what their skill set was and we plugged them in. Now, we have 40 employees.

You made them feel welcomed. That`s awesome.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

A. WRIGHT: When you just give them a chance, they can do anything you asked them to do.

Our employees are like celebrities now. When people come in to the shop, they want to speak to Matt, and they want to dance with Trevor. For most of them who had never had a job before, it`s really exciting.

Having a workplace the makes you feel proud of yourself and gives you a sense of community is something we all want.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I love Amy and Ben so much.

A. WRIGHT: Oh, I love, too, Richard.

This is a perfect way to bring people together and to let them realize how much more alike we are than different.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The employees are really more than welcoming. It`s a like a Starbucks with lots of extras.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I always leave just filled. My heart is overflowing every time.

A. WRIGHT: We always say it`s more than a cup of coffee. It`s a human rights movement. It`s given our employees the respect that they deserved.

It`s allowed them to shine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AZUZ: Interviews gone amuck. This Q&A gets a perfect "10 Out of 10" not for the subject matter, which was supposed to focus on milk allergies, but for one of the young subjects who decided she wasn`t there to talk, she was there to take over.

Her mother tried to keep a straight face. The anchor just rolled with it, letting her do whatever she wanted. The result was one of TV`s most highly acclaimed interviews, at least by watchers on social media.

I can tell you from experience that news isn`t child`s play, but who doesn`t like a little kid being around. It`s not like she was climbing the walls. She was climbing the furniture. She was walking on air, and her good natured host kept the anchor desk from becoming a rancor desk.

I`m Carl Azuz and we hope your weekend is a perfect "10 Out of 10".

END