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France`s Macron Plans to Address His Nation Amid Continued Unrest; SpaceX Marks a Success and a Failure; A Young Wonder Helps Children in Africa Play Ball

Aired December 10, 2018 - 04:00   ET

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

CARL AZUZ, CNN 10 ANCHOR: Hi, everyone. I`m Carl Azuz.

CNN 10 is kicking off its last week on the air in 2018. Our next season begins on January 3rd of the New Year.

First story this Monday takes us to France where the nation`s president is getting ready to address his country Monday. Growing protests have put

tremendous pressure on his government. This is because of the "Yellow Vest" movement. It`s called that because demonstrators wear the yellow

safety vests that French drivers are required to keep in their cars.

It began over the French government`s planned increase in fuel taxes. But it`s expanded, to include the rising costs of living, the gap between

France`s rich and poor, and general dissatisfaction with French President Emmanuel Macron. His government has cancelled plans to raise the fuel tax.

He`s planning to meet with business and political leaders, trade unions and local officials on Monday to hear their concerns, and his national address

is expected to focus on national unity.

But the protests which have been going on for four weekends now have had an impact. Because of violence at some of them, sports events have been

cancelled. The Eiffel Tower has been closed to the public. France`s finance minister says the protests have created a catastrophe for the

nation`s economy and all this has raised questions about the future of the French presidency as well as the future of Europe.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The interior minister came out and shared some of the numbers. He said that nationwide, about

125,000 people are going to these protests, 10,000 of them here in Paris. He also said that 1,385 people were brought in for questioning, 974

remained in custody.

Now, what`s interesting is that earlier this week, the fuel tax that sparked these demonstrations that began on the 17 of November was

cancelled, but nonetheless, there is broad discontent with the situation in France under the leadership of Emmanuel Macron, who is 40 years old, a

former investment banker, many people feel that he`s simply out of touch with the reality of life in France today.

So, there`s a very good possibility that next week, there will be more protests.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

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

Which of these space shuttles was the last to visit the International Space Station?

Endeavour, Discovery, Enterprise or Atlantis?

The last space shuttle mission ever which included a trip to the ISS was completed in 2011 by space shuttle Atlantis.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AZUZ: Since then, other vehicles from Russia`s Soyuz capsule to the Dragon capsule by American company SpaceX have been used to ferry supplies to the

ISS. They also carry out other space missions like deploying satellites.

SpaceX recently delivered 64 of them in the orbit, all at once, earlier this month. It was a record for the company, which has a $1.6 billion

contract from NASA, but it`s not a world record. India space agency has that for launching 104 satellites with one rocket.

So, what are these things? Small satellites are exactly that. There are a lot of them waiting to get launched in the low earth orbit, and sending

dozens of them up at once is of, if not the cheapest way to do that. They`re used for everything from expanding Internet services, to keeping

track of goods that are shipped around the world. And yes, there are concerns that putting all of these things in orbit will increase the amount

of debris that`s already circulating around the Earth.

But the missions continue, and this one was considered a success for SpaceX. Its rocket booster landed safely on a remote controlled platform

in the Pacific Ocean. It`s already been used three times. Recycling rocket boosters is a major way the company can save money.

But several SpaceX landings have not gone as well. After a recent mission to launch a Dragon capsule to the International Space Station, this rocket

had what was described as a failure in hydraulic pump. That caused it to spin out of control and splash down off the coast of Florida last week.

Still, the rocket did manage to slow its self down enough to stay together as it splashed into the Atlantic.

Ahead of last night`s "CNN Heroes: An All Star Tribute", which named the CNN Hero of the Year, our network featured a special on Young Wonders.

It`s a title given to people who are essentially up and coming heroes in their communities. These are young people who are passionate about

tackling the problems they see. And a great example is 18-year-old Max Bobholz.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MAX BOBHOLZ, CNN YOUNG WONDER: What I like about baseball is the mental aspect of the game. All eyes are on you, especially when you`re in the

mound. Dealing with adversity, dealing with negative situations happens a lot in life, and I think baseball teaches you how to deal with that.

My name is Max Bobholz and I`m 18 years old. I started the organization Angels at Bat. When I was younger, baseball meant a lot to me because it

was the game that I love playing, it was the game that I always kind of wanted to be better at.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: One thing about Max, as we often said, he plays as good as his coach believes in him. And so, Todd was one of those coaches

that believed in Max.

BOBHOLZ: We thought that we were going to do great things.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When Max was 12 years old, his coach had taken his own life. We had to tell him that his coach had died.

BOBHOLZ: I felt numb. I didn`t know what to do. I didn`t know how to deal with it, so I kind of spent the next six months or so trying to figure

out a way to honor him, to grieve the process.

In August of 2012, I watched the Little League World Series, and Uganda was representing Africa for the first time in its history and they has stories

of where the teams came from, and not everybody had enough balls to play and no uniforms, no hats, no shoes. I know I had that in my garage, I know

all my friends had it in their garage, and I thought, why don`t we gather that together and send it to the kids in Africa so they can play.

It stuck with me for two years until it was a thing, and it still stuck with me.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Probably the easiest part of this charity has been the collection of equipment.

It`s great. Thanks for doing this.

UNIDENTIFIED BOY: You`re welcome.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There`s a lot of good people in this world and they want to help.

BOBHOLZ: We get equipment in a variety of ways. Sometimes, we have people just dropped off equipment at our doorstep.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We were fortunate that after about a year and a half, we meet a Rotary Club member who invited us to join them on a trip to

Africa.

BOBHOLZ: That first trip when we went to Kenya, me and my mom, took 19 suitcases worth of equipment.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The very first day we arrived, we played baseball with children in an orphanage. He realized his dream just came true.

BOBHOLZ: Teaching them baseball, it hit me like a brick. I was a 14-year- old kid, at the time, I had no idea the magnitude or the effect that it could have.

Having this organization has made me more driven. It`s made me see that anybody can do anything as long as they put their mind to it, they believe

in it and they want it.

I`ve been asked a lot what`s my mission statement, and my mission statement is that I don`t have one because my goal is to never stop.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(MUSIC)

AZUZ: Even in the Land of the Midnight Sun, people don`t usually expect visitors at 1:30 a.m. And again, most visitors aren`t usually this big a

deal. It wasn`t this moose`s antler or hoof that rang the bell. Let`s call that his hind quarter and by the time the owners got to the door, the

moose had ding-donged ditch them. Thanks to the security camera, the owners found exactly who do such a thing.

So, there`s no moose-tery as to who is behind it. It`s too bad he didn`t wait for them to antler. If they`d known he was a member of the deer

family, they might have offered him a muffin.

Something about the whole story does seem to ring a bell. We`ve apparently opened the door to a new tail (ph) of moose and men.

I`m Carl Azuz for CNN 10.

END