Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Newsroom
CNN International: A Look Back at the Life and Turbulent Times of O.J. Simpson; Remembering the Chibok Girls, 10 Years Later; Severe Storms Systems Tear Across Parts of U.S. Aired 4:30-5a ET
Aired April 12, 2024 - 04:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[04:30:00]
MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back to CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Max Foster. If you're just joining us, here are our top stories today.
Ukraine's president is sending a message to allies. It's time to walk the walk when it comes to military aid. Vladimir Zelenskyy says his -- Volodymyr Zelenskyy, rather, says his armed forces need more air defenses and other military supplies.
Israel is preparing for a possible attack from Iran, and the U.S. is working diplomatic channels to try to prevent that. Iran has threatened retaliation after an Israeli strike on the Iranian consulate in Syria last week that killed a dozen military officials.
And China appeared to be top of mind during historic talks at the White House on Thursday. U.S. President Biden hosted the first ever trilateral meeting with the Filipino president and Japanese prime minister. We'll have more on those stories in the coming hours, of course.
Meanwhile, though, reactions are coming in over the death of O.J. Simpson, the former U.S. football star who was acquitted in the deaths of his ex-wife and friend.
Simpson's family says he died on Wednesday at the age of 76 after a battle with prostate cancer. His career achievements were overshadowed by his 1995 double murder trial for the killings of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. Simpson was acquitted in the high-profile trial that divided the U.S. along racial lines.
But he was later found liable in a wrongful death civil lawsuit and ordered to pay millions in damages. CNN's Tom Foreman has his story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LARRY KING, FORMER CNN ANCHOR, LARRY KING LIVE: Police believe that -- that O.J. Simpson is in that car.
TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For two hours over 60 miles almost 30 years ago, the low-speed pursuit of an American icon became an American sensation.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People were leaving their homes and their work and wherever they were, and they were racing to these overpasses.
FOREMAN (voice-over): And when the white Broncos stopped for O.J. Simpson to face murder charges over the killing of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman, the country was hooked.
CARI CHAMPION, SPORTS BROADCASTER: That was our first introduction into reality TV and what it looked like, and we were obsessed.
FOREMAN (voice-over): Simpson was a superstar, a Heisman trophy winner in college, one of the most dazzling running backs in NFL history. For many black families, in particular, a runaway success.
O.J. SIMPSON, ACQUITTED OF WIFE'S MURDER: Nobody does it better than Hertz.
FOREMAN (voice-over): Juice was a beloved celebrity in commercials and movies.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Norberg! (ph)
SIMPSON: Hi you, buddy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How are you feeling?
SIMPSON: Doc says I should be on my feet and as good as new in a week.
FOREMAN (voice-over): And yet, his role as defendant eclipsed everything else. Through 11 months of court proceedings and nonstop media coverage, the nation was captivated by daily debates over DNA evidence, police procedure, and dramatical moments made for TV.
[04:35:00]
JOHNNIE COCHRAN, ATTORNEY FOR O.J. SIMPSON: If it doesn't fit, you must acquit.
FOREMAN (voice-over): When the verdict came down --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Not guilty of the crime of murder.
FOREMAN (voice-over): -- by one estimate, 150 million people watched live, many splitting along racial lines over whether the ruling was just or just wrong.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's just unfair.
FOREMAN (voice-over): A massive civil suit by the victims' families did not go as well for Simpson, and he was ordered to pay tens of millions in damages. He lost his house and Heisman but kept hundreds of thousands in pension funds.
FRED GOLDMAN, FATHER OF RON GOLDMAN: Our family is grateful for a verdict of responsibility, which is all we ever wanted.
FOREMAN (voice-over): Simpson had future legal problems, too. In 2007, he was arrested after an armed robbery involving sports memorabilia he said was his.
SIMPSON: I am sorry. I didn't mean to steal anything from anybody, and I didn't know I was doing anything illegal.
FOREMAN (voice-over): He wound up convicted and sentenced to 33 years in prison. He was paroled in 2017. And through it all, he maintained his innocence in the murders that changed his life and American society, too.
SIMPSON: Right now, I'm at a point in my life where all I want to do is spend time -- as much time as I can with my children and my friends. And I've done my time.
FOREMAN: For the families of the victims, the Browns and the Goldmans, O.J.'s continued presence in the news served as an open wound, a constant reminder to them of the justice they always felt was denied.
Tom Foreman, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FOSTER: Well, the family of Ronald Goldman says Simpson's death is a reminder of how long Ron has been gone.
Goldman's father, Fred, and his sister, Kim, released a statement that read, quote: The news of Ron's killer passing away is a mixed bag of complicated emotions and reminds us that the journey through grief is not linear. For three decades, we tirelessly pursued justice for Ron and Nicole. And despite a civil judgment and his confession in "If I Did It," the hope for true accountability has now ended.
Well, veteran sportscaster and CNN contributor Bob Costas became friends with Simpson after they worked together at the NBC television network. He says at the height of Simpson's fame, he was, quote, not just admired, but beloved. Costas was covering basketball finals on the night of the infamous police slow speed chase back in 1994.
He says he was told to hand off to NBC's Tom Brokaw for an update on the Simpson story. Costas tells CNN he visited Simpson in jail and learned that during the case, Simpson tried to call him from the Bronco.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BOB COSTAS, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: O.J. and Al then, as part of small talk, say, we tried to call you from the back of the Bronco.
And I inquired, why? Why would you call me in that moment? And his statement was they were -- the press was on me, not so much about this, but about my whole reputation on my whole life. And in effect, he wanted me to act as a character witness for him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FOSTER: Well, Costas also recounted the conversation during that jail visit about the double murder. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COSTAS: He tried eventually, as I'm sure he did with others, to convince me that he couldn't possibly have done this. Bob, you know me. I wouldn't do this. And if I did it, I'd be smarter than to leave all this evidence behind or however he phrased it.
And to everything he said, I just said as gently as I could. Well, you're going to have your chance to tell your side of the story in court, and you'll be well represented by capable people.
And as it turned out, that jailhouse visit was the last time I saw or spoke to him.
I think he deduced those in his circle of friends who still believed in his innocence and those who, like me, reluctantly came to the unavoidable conclusion that much as we would like to hold out a sliver of hope, there was no other conclusion to reach other than that he did it.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FOSTER: Well, still ahead on CNN, a look back at the mass kidnapping that shocked the world.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHANIE BUSARI, CNN SENIOR EDITOR, AFRICA (voice-over): Hawa was just 16 when she was snatched from her boarding school late at night by Boko Haram militants.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They burned the hall for writing exams.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FOSTER: Revisiting Nigeria's Chibok girls 10 years after their lives changed forever, straight ahead in a live report for you.
[04:40:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
FOSTER: Nearly 10 years after the Chibok school kidnapping that stunned the world, in April of 2014, Boko Haram militants stormed a school in the north of the country. They snatched nearly 300 students, sparking a global cry to bring back our girls.
A decade on, the legacy of those abductions is still reverberating. Sadly, many of the children, of course, never made it home at all. Let's bring in CNN's Stephanie Busari live for us in Lagos, Nigeria.
Stephanie, you went back to Chibok to meet some of the girls who did manage to escape. How are they doing?
STEPHANIE BUSARI, CNN SENIOR EDITOR, AFRICA: Max, as you can imagine, they are trying to pick up the pieces of their lives. They shared very harrowing stories. Some of them were in captivity with Boko Haram for three years. And in that time, they suffered forced marriages, physical violence, forced conversion to Islam. And the ones that didn't want to convert -- didn't want to get married were forced to become slaves to their sisters as they refer to each other.
Very, very emotional journey for me as someone who has covered this story for 10 years, Max. Take a listen to some of their stories.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BUSARI (voice-over): The road to Chibok, northeastern Nigeria. Ten years on from the kidnapping of nearly 300 schoolgirls. We've come to meet some of the girls who were taken that night in April 2014 and see how the threat of abduction still shapes children's lives here.
HAUWA ISHAYA, FORMER CHIBOK SCHOOLGIRL KIDNAPPED BY BOKO HARAM: They came from this way.
BUSARI: And there were many cars, many trucks.
ISHAYA: Yes, they had plenty.
BUSARI: Hauwa was just 16 when she was snatched from her boarding school late at night by Boko Haram militants.
ISHAYA: And then they burned the hall for writing exams.
BUSARI: So they burned the hall where you were supposed to write your exams.
ISHAYA: Yeah.
BUSARI: They were really against education that much.
BUSARI (voice-over): The Islamist group took more than 270 girls into the vast Sambisa forest, though some managed to escape.
Amina, now 27, was also abducted that night, told by Boko Haram leaders that marriage was the only way to avoid repeated abuse by fighters in the camp.
AMINA ALI, FORMER CHIBOK SCHOOLGIRL KIDNAPPED BY BOKO HARAM: They just say they will take us as a slave and then anytime he want to sleep with you, he will sleep with you. And then when he tired of you, he will hand over to someone. And so, I just think that I better agree to get married to the one person.
BUSARI (voice-over): She was the first of the Chibok girls to escape after being held in a forest, emerging with her Boko Haram husband, who also fled the group, and their young baby after two years. Now eight years old, Amina's daughter has faced stigma for being a child of a Boko Haram fighter.
School kidnappings are a shadow that hang over the education system in northern Nigeria, with an estimated 1,700 children abducted from school in the past decade, according to Amnesty International. Just last month, more than 100 students, some as young as eight, were taken by armed men who stormed their school in Kuriga, Kaduna province.
[04:45:02]
In recent years, criminal gangs have created a kidnapping for ransom industry spanning across the northwest of the country, which successive governments have struggled to grapple with.
OBY EZEKWESILI, CO-CONVENER, BRING BACK OUR GIRLS CAMPAIGN: The failure of governance around the Chibok girls' issue led to an industry of abduction, a society that has scant regard for human life.
BUSARI (voice-over): Many Nigerian mothers are now too scared to send them to school.
EZEKWESILI: Guess what Chibok girls' tragedy did? It made the mothers feel guilty in their mind that what they did by arguing for education for their daughter was to say, pay with your life in order to be educated.
BUSARI (voice-over): Fewer than 50 percent of Nigerian girls attend school at a basic education level, according to a UNICEF report, in a country with five percent of the world's children by 2030. The United Nations has said, quote, what happens to children in Nigeria matters significantly to regional and global development.
Back in Chibok, for many mothers, the pain continues a decade on. Yana's daughter, Rivkatu, was among the Chibok girls stolen from school and remains missing along with 81 others.
BUSARI: Do you believe in your heart --
YANA GALANG, MOTHER OF KIDNAPPED CHIBOK SCHOOLGIRL: Yes.
BUSARI: -- that she's alive?
GALANG: I believe she's alive. She's my blood and I believe she's alive.
BUSARI (voice-over): She's kept her daughter's clothes ready for when she returns.
GALANG: This is how we keep it. We always wash the clothes, fold it, and then keep it for almost 10 years now.
BUSARI (voice-over): Never giving up hope, despite the agony she and so many parents in Nigeria have to endure.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BUSARI (on camera): Max, 82 of these schoolgirls, now young women, are still missing. And many say the lessons from Chibok still have not been learned. Schools in Nigeria, in this part of Nigeria, are still suffering from mass kidnapping attacks. As of this time, there's been an ideological shift. Where Boko Haram was against secular Western education, particularly for girls, now it's evolved into a criminal industry, a kidnapping for ransom industry, where the winner takes all. And we know that the bandits, as they are referred to locally, know that when they target schools, the government and the public response and ransoms are paid to free these children.
So it's really a very, very precarious situation for education, both for girls and boys in parts of northern Nigeria right now -- Max.
FOSTER: OK, Stephanie Busari, really appreciate that report from Lagos. A part of CNN's ongoing series on gender inequality called "AS EQUALS."
Now, the first round of the Masters is set to resume in just a few hours after a day of pretty bad weather. We'll take you to the leaderboard and we'll have the very latest on the Augusta National.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
FOSTER: A fast melting snow and ice caused one of Europe's longest rivers to burst its banks. Look at that.
[04:50:00]
Triggering catastrophic flooding in parts of Russia and Kazakhstan. Local officials expect the Ural River to continue to rise through the weekend as well. More than 100,000 people have already been evacuated and there have been protests over the response in some areas. Kazakhstan's president said the floods might be the biggest disaster in more than 80 years.
It's a rescue mission that sounds like it's straight out of a movie. Three fishermen were left with very few options when their boat sank, leaving them stranded on a remote tiny island in the Pacific Ocean.
With no way home and a radio that had run out of battery, how did they ensure their rescue after surviving more than a week on coconuts and fresh well water? They used palm fronds to spell out the word "help" on the white sandy beach.
A Coast Guard plane spotted the sign and plot twist, one of the rescuers turned out to be a relative of the castaways.
A series of powerful storms are slamming parts of the U.S. with destructive winds and rain. A strong gust hit North Carolina on Thursday. There are reports of downed trees, power outages and major roadways closed down.
In Pennsylvania, heavy rain swept through streets and gushed into homes. Emergency workers scrambled to rescue people trapped by the rising floodwaters.
And a tornado looming over coastal Florida appeared to touch down earlier in the day. At least five tornadoes struck Alabama, Texas and Louisiana on Wednesday, causing widespread power outages and damage.
Bad weather roughed up the first round of the Masters tournament in Augusta, Georgia as well, pushing the start time back by hours on Thursday. Golfers will tee off in about two hours to finish the round before the next one begins. This is the sixth straight year the Masters has experienced weather delays.
CNN's Don Riddell has our report from Augusta National.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DON RIDDELL, CNN WORLD SPORT: Day one of the Masters is in the books but not quite the first round. The start of play on Thursday morning was delayed by two and a half hours because of the weather and when the action did finally get underway, it was pretty gusty out there during the afternoon.
But despite all of that, we still saw some very, very impressive scores. Setting the pace so far, the former U.S. Open champion Bryson DeChambeau, the American meant business right from the off birdieing each of his first three holes, making eight birdies in total for a seven under par score of 65. He says that he's found a new approach to the game. He's keeping it simple.
BRYSON DECHAMBEAU, PROFESSIONAL GOLFER: It's been a journey to say the least. One that I have thoroughly enjoyed, but also it's taken a big toll on me in numerous situations. I'm just doing the same thing every single day in and day out. I'm not trying something new. I'm trying to figure something out. And that's what I feel like is just accumulated into playing some really good golf.
RIDDELL: Meanwhile, he's got the world number one, Scotty Scheffler for company at the top of the leaderboard. He arrived in Augusta on a red hot streak, and he navigated a gusty course without dropping a single shot. The 2022 Masters champion is extremely well placed. Just one off the lead on six under par.
As usual, much of the excitement on the course of this afternoon concerned the 48-year-old five-time champion Tiger Woods. He says he believes that he can win a sixth green jacket this week. And so far, so good. He managed to get in 13 holes before darkness fell. He's on one under par.
All things considered, it's been a pretty good day for Tiger Woods, but he will have a lot of golf now to play on Friday. Back to you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FOSTER: Well, the former interpreter for Japanese baseball superstar Shohei Ohtani has agreed to turn himself into authorities today. Ippei Mizuhara is facing federal bank fraud charges for allegedly stealing more than $60 million from the Dodgers slugger to support his gambling activities. Prosecutors say they have recordings of him impersonating Ohtani in calls with the bank in order to transfer money from Ohtani's accounts. And they emphasize that Ohtani is the victim.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARTIN ESTRADA, U.S. ATTORNEY: Our investigation has revealed that due to the position of trust he occupied with Mr. Ohtani, Mr. Mizuhara had unique access to Mr. Ohtani's finances. Mr. Mizuhara used and abused that position of trust in order to take advantage of Mr. Ohtani.
Mr. Mizuhara used and abused that position of trust in order to plunder Mr. Ohtani's bank account to the tune of over $16 million.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FOSTER: Well, stories in the spotlight this hour.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, have signed on to a co-production with two Netflix series. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are set to be executive producers of a lifestyle show and a show about the world of professional polo as well, shot mainly at the U.S. Polo Championship.
[04:55:00]
The projects are part of a multi-year deal between Netflix and Arch World Productions, which they founded in 2020 after stepping down as senior members of the royal family and moving to the U.S.
Speaking of lifestyle, a recent study published in the journal "Scientific Reports" has revealed that prehistoric humans in Brazil would intentionally carve rock drawings next to dinosaur footprints. It's unknown whether the ancient artists knew about dinosaurs or if they mistook their prints for that of native birds. So one researcher says the marks might have been left during communal gatherings, perhaps even while they were under the influence of hallucinogenic plants that are pretty common in that region.
And take a look at another discovery. Archaeologists are at Italy's famous site Pompeii and they've uncovered a dining hall with black painted walls covered in stunning frescoes. The artworks depict mythological characters linked to the Trojan War, including Helen of Troy and Greek god Apollo. According to the Pompeii Archaeological Park, the elaborate room provided ancient Romans with an elegant setting for entertainment and conversation during banquets.
Pompeii was buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in the year 79 CE and archaeologists have been unearthing it since the 1700s, actually.
And before we go, some good news for fans who thought Taylor Swift and TikTok were never ever getting back together. The Superstars music is back on the social media platform a week before the beginning -- or the release, rather, of her new album. Universal Music Group pulled various artists' songs from TikTok in January over a royalties dispute. It's not clear what led to the return of Swift's music but other Universal artists are still not listed on the platform.
Swift's 11th album, "The Tortured Poets' Department," will be released on April the 19th.
Thanks for joining me here on CNN. NEWSROOM. I'm Max Frost from London. CNN "THIS MORING" is up next after a quick break.
