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First Driverless Semis Start Running Regular Long-Haul Routes; Prince Harry Tells BBC His Father, King Charles, Won't Speak to Me; Inside the Fight to Save Florida's Manatees. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired May 02, 2025 - 14:30   ET

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

[14:30:00]

JOANN MULLER, TRANSPORTATION CORRESPONDENT, AXIOS: ... Hands hovering above the wheel. And I was pleasantly surprised at how smooth they are and how safe I felt, to be honest. So there's a lot of technology that goes into these.

And, you know, I think it could make the road safer. That's at least the hope.

ERICA HILL, CNN HOST: So it could make the road safer. Good to hear your experience, right, sitting in that.

But we have this poll from AAA. Just 13 percent of Americans -- this was in February -- would trust driving in an autonomous vehicle. There have been plenty of headlines, right, and plenty of concerns about autonomous vehicles and how they work. Are you seeing real efforts within the automotive industry to overcome that distrust?

MULLER: You know, it really comes from experience, right? And most people are afraid because they know nothing about it. And the idea of riding in a car or a truck with no one there is is obviously frightening.

I will tell you, a couple of weeks ago, I spent an entire day in Los Angeles riding around in Waymo robo-taxis, and it was phenomenal. And it really made me think that I would like to do this all the time instead of calling an Uber or a taxi.

You have privacy. The driving is very smooth, very cautious. I didn't have to converse with anyone about things I didn't care about.

HILL: Always a plus.

MULLER: And you know, yes, yes. Obviously, there's some concerns. This industry is not -- there are no federal regulations about self-driving vehicles. And so it's up to each company to prove that their technology is at least as safe as a human driver.

Now, the first trucking company to do so is Aurora, and they are now the ones running trucks between Houston and Dallas right now. And they have been very meticulous and very transparent in sharing why they say their technology is ready.

Texas happens to be a state that doesn't have a lot of regulations to prohibit this kind of thing. So it's a very natural place to start.

HILL: Yes. I mean, I think that's something too, though, even for people as they're reading into it, knowing that there isn't a ton of regulation. I guess it depends on who you are, but that could give a number of people pause.

There's also, you know, there have been so many headlines, I feel, over the last couple of years about the need for drivers, the need for truck drivers. You see the commercials on TV. Is there resistance to this, right?

Because this is satisfying that need to get goods from A to B. But of course, if no one is behind the wheel, how is the trucking industry dealing with this?

MULLER: Well, you can imagine the trucking drivers -- truck drivers are not thrilled with this because it's a threat to their employment, of course. And there are a lot of things that truck drivers do, human instincts that they say, you know, no, no robot can do this. But the reality also is that the trucking industry is facing a shortage.

It's very hard to get drivers who are willing to give up two weeks on the road, for instance, to be driving across the country with a load of stuff. So, you know, the trucking industry will argue that they can use the robots for the long haul and then use drivers locally to deliver the last leg to the warehouse, let's say. But, you know, there's going to be tension about this for a long time.

Automation is coming into our lives in so many ways, whether it's driving or factories, retail. There are a lot of jobs at stake here, a lot of jobs at risk. And so naturally, there's going to be opposition to it.

HILL: Yes, and it's coming so quickly that sometimes it's hard to wrap your head around. Joanne, appreciate -- I have to say, as you're talking about this, I have this vision of teaching my son to drive years ago and that feeling of having no control sitting in the car. And I imagine in some ways that's what it feels like. Thank you.

MULLER: You get over it pretty quickly, I must say.

HILL: You do eventually get over it. Yes.

MULLER: Yes.

HILL: Yes, And he's a good driver now, just in case anybody wanted to know. Joanne, thanks so much.

Still to come here on CNN NEWS CENTRAL, a candid revelation from Prince Harry about that rift with the royal family. That's next.

[14:35:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HILL: Prince Harry giving an explosive interview to the BBC after losing his appeal to keep his security detail from being stripped while he's in the UK. In that exclusive interview, Harry, who at times appeared emotional, said the ruling made it, in his words, impossible for him to return to the UK with his wife and children. He also noted that his father, King Charles, no longer speaks to him.

Here's some of the interview.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRINCE HARRY, DUKE OF SUSSEX: I would love reconciliation with my family. I've always, I've, you know, there's no point in continuing to fight anymore. As I said, life is precious.

I don't know how much longer my father has, you know. He won't speak to me because of this security stuff. But it would be nice to -- it would be nice to reconcile.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HILL: CNN Royal correspondent Max Foster joining me now with more on Prince Harry's very personal revelation. So first of all, this is certainly getting a lot of attention, Max.

[14:40:00]

How are these comments being received by both the royal family, which I imagine they're not saying too much, but I'm going to ask anyway. And also by the public in the UK.

MAX FOSTER, CNN ROYAL CORRESPONDENT: You know, the royal family, they don't speak about personal family issues. That's their policy. I think, you know, from, you know, my history with the family, as it were, they would not view this as a way to reconcile, to go on TV and to talk about deeply personal issues.

But Harry clearly feels that that is his only option. He hasn't done one of these sit down interviews, you know, with an independent journalist in this way for years, really. So he feels very strongly about it.

I've seen how personally involved he has been with this particular case, as opposed to the other cases. And now we really understand why, because he says it's basically at the heart of the rift as it goes on. He's not speaking to his father because of this security issue. Rather, his father, he says, isn't speaking to him.

We're not getting the royal family's point of view on that, but they have given a response, which surprised me because they actually wanted to make a point about the case specifically. So a spokesperson telling CNN all of these issues have been examined repeatedly and meticulously by the courts with the same conclusion reached on each occasion.

And I think what they're intimating here is that the King in his constitutional role, he's head of state. He's head of the Home Office Department, which made this decision. But constitutionally, he is a figurehead. He can't be getting involved in government matters to that extent.

So they're making it clear that there's no way that he could have got involved in this case to prevent it going in the way that Harry didn't want it to go.

HILL: And I would imagine the pushback there is, well, if he really wanted to, he could say, hey, my son and his family deserve some protection. Let's give it back to them. Or perhaps he could make that decision just for people who may not be as familiar with the story.

Max, what is the big difference? What is this change for Prince Harry, right, now when he comes to the UK? He says he needs this security detail.

Is there zero security around him? Is it just that he has to hire his own security if he is in the UK? How does it work now that he's no longer a working royal?

FOSTER: Well, so he doesn't get an automatic right to that top level protection, which you would get as a senior royal or a visiting dignitary or a senior member of government. He left that role, so he didn't qualify for it. But Harry's point is that he's happy to pay for his own security.

What he wanted to do was extend that to armed police. So in this country, the only people that can carry guns as security are the armed police. So that's what he was trying to get, you know, to be able to pay for that.

He feels he is a particular target because of his military background. And there's a lot of emotion there as well, going back to his mother. And he doesn't want to see history repeating itself.

He wants his family to be fully protected. And he only feels he can have that by having a full military or police protection, if you like. So routinely, police aren't guarded here.

And he does quite often get police support if he needs it when he comes over, but not the armed support that he's looking for.

HILL: Got it. And before I let you go, as you noted, this is probably not the best way, perhaps, for him to get his message to his family directly, because we know how that has worked out in the past. For example, when his book came out, that was the response, right?

We don't discuss these things in public. This is not how it's done within the royal family. The fact, though, that he is putting out -- I mean, what does that say to you in terms of the level of the rift that there may be within the family?

His desire to -- you're saying he doesn't know how much longer his father has. I mean, really sort of pulling at the heartstrings. Is that a message more to the royal family? Is it a message to the public?

FOSTER: I think he's trying to give his point of view. I mean, that line about how long his father has, you know, obviously really stood out. I mean, he's just expressing there, probably without having spoken to him about it, that he -- how difficult this has been for him, not having this relationship with his father.

He says he's forgiven the family. He wants reconciliation. But he feels that he's being punished for his decision to leave the royal role and go to the U.S., and this is the punishment that he's receiving. He says there are other exceptions to this rule, but only senior public figures who are in public service roles get that protection. He feels he's being treated unfairly. So he wants the world to know his point of view.

I think that's what he's doing here, and he did it in quite an extraordinary right way. It was a very emotional interview, if you watch it.

HILL: Yes, absolutely. Max, really good to have you this afternoon. Thank you.

[14:45:00]

Still ahead here, pollutants are causing a crisis for some of nature's most lovable sea creatures. The fight to save the manatees. Next on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HILL: Let's get you caught up on some of the other headlines we're following on this Friday for you.

Rust, the movie, now released more than three years after its cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, was shot accidentally and killed during a rehearsal in New Mexico. That prop gun, which was held by Rust star and producer-actor Alec Baldwin, of course, went off.

The film's armorer was convicted of involuntary manslaughter for allowing live rounds on the set. Baldwin's case was ultimately dismissed.

[14:50:00]

An aid ship bound for Gaza caught fire overnight off the coast of Malta. The Freedom Flotilla Coalition says that the ship was the target of an Israeli drone attack. You can hear sounds of an explosion on that video.

CNN, though, cannot independently verify those. The group has not yet provided evidence that the drone was indeed Israeli. The Israeli military has to time to comment on the alleged attack.

Activist Greta Thunberg says she was supposed to eventually travel on the vessel as part of an attempt to open a humanitarian corridor to Gaza.

Our affiliate WCCO also reporting on this next story about a hero hound who helped to save a four-year-old boy in Minnesota. His autism is nonverbal. Sammy had wandered away from his home. He was missing for about two hours when a Department of Natural Resources officer and his canine began their search. Bolt, who's trained to pick up human odor, was able to find that little boy in just eight minutes.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE KRAUEL, CONSERVATION OFFICER, MN DEPT, OF NATURAL RESOURCES: Needed him to get downwind of him, and as soon as he did, he took off running for him.

KRAUEL: Little boy. Hey, Sammy. Hey, I'm Mike.

TINA PONCE, MOTHER: I have three of my own dogs, but Bolt is definitely my favorite right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HILL: I think Bolt is everyone's favorite right now, absolutely. And in case you're wondering, for all his hard work, Bolt got a special meal. Sammy's actually the second person that Bolt has rescued in two years. Glad he's OK.

This week, the Trump administration dismissing all the authors who've been working on a congressionally mandated report, which details how climate change is affecting the U.S. That's according to an e-mail obtained by CNN. The latest National Climate Assessment from 2023 shows that every region in the country is transforming due to climate change.

And all of this comes as one Florida community's pollution is actually killing off the food source for manatees, the marine mammals that gather in the state's warm waters.

CNN's Randi Kaye takes us out of the Florida lagoon that's become a death trap for these beloved animals. And I do want to warn you, parts of this story are incredibly important, but really tough to watch.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): We're heading out on Florida's Indian River Lagoon, which stretches from Palm Beach County to Daytona Beach. The lagoon is where Florida manatees come for the warm water. But in recent years, the northern end of the lagoon has been a death trap for them.

PETER BARILE, MARINE BIOLOGIST: All these homes along the lagoon that are on septic tanks are slowly leaking literally tons of nitrogen and phosphorus into the system.

KAYE (voice-over): Marine biologist Peter Barile has studied manatees for decades. He says those pollutants are being released by septic tanks and water treatment facilities along the lagoon and are fueling algae growth in the water, which is causing the manatee's main food source, seagrass, to die.

BARILE: So this algae is reducing light down to the seagrasses, essentially smothering them and killing them.

KAYE (voice-over): He says manatees need to eat nearly 100 pounds of vegetation a day. Between December 2020 and April 2022, more than 1,200 manatees died of starvation, most of them here in the northern part of the Indian River Lagoon.

KAYE: Just a couple of decades ago, the water in this Indian River Lagoon was crystal clear. You could easily see down to the bottom. Now it's dark and murky and polluted with chemicals and algae.

KAYE (voice-over): With their seagrass gone, the manatees had little choice but to eat the algae that killed it, which is toxic for them. Their normally round bodies became flat as they became more and more emaciated.

Katrina Shadix is the executive director of Bear Warriors United, which sued Florida's Department of Environmental Protection in 2022 to help protect the manatees.

KATRINA SHADIX, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, BEAR WARRIORS UNITED: They suffered immensely and for a very long time. When a manatee starves to death, it's an extremely painful process, and basically their insides melt and turn to liquid.

KAYE (voice-over): These photos from Bear Warriors United show how desperate some of the manatees were, attempting to pull themselves out of the water to eat leaves off dry land or grass along the water's edge. And this video shows manatee carcasses being taken to a landfill for necropsies and disposal.

On this beach in the lagoon, Katrina says she found many manatee carcasses. She showed us some of their bones that still remain and shared this picture with us of a manatee skull.

SHADIX: There was a carcass of a mom, and the skeleton had started to show, and there was a baby skeleton inside of her body. So she died pregnant, and the bones of the baby were fitted perfectly inside the bones of the mother.

KAYE (voice-over): Earlier this month, a federal judge ruled in favor of Bear Warriors United and against the state, finding Florida's Department of Environmental Protection was, quote, in violation of the Endangered Species Act.

BARILE: There was lax leadership from the state of Florida over decades that allowed this problem to get worse and worse.

[14:55:00]

KAYE (voice-over): The judge in the case ruled that there is a definitive causal link between Florida's Department of Environmental Protection wastewater regulations and the ongoing risk to manatees, based in part on Peter Bareli's testimony, the judge found it will take at least a decade for this part of the lagoon to start seeing recovery.

BARILE: The state of Florida has admitted that it will be 12 to 15 years before seagrasses start to recover.

KAYE (voice-over): We reached out to both the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, but neither provided a response to our questions.

KAYE: Are you hopeful the manatee population will come back here?

SHADIX: I am hopeful now. I wasn't at first. I was convinced that this home herd was going to go extinct and that the rest of the state manatees would follow.

But now that we won this lawsuit, we think we have a really good chance of working with the state to make sure the manatees don't go extinct on our watch.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HILL: And our thanks to Randi Kaye for that important report.

Still to come here, new details into CNN about the trial of Sean Diddy Combs, including who is set to testify against him. Stay tuned.

You're watching CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

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