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America's Choice 2024; Crisis in Haiti; Daylight Saving Time. Aired 3-4a ET
Aired March 10, 2024 - 03:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[03:00:00]
PAULA NEWTON, CNN ANCHOR: And a very warm welcome to our viewers here in the United States and all around the world. I'm Paula Newton.
Ahead here on CNN Newsroom, a Biden-Trump rematch begins in Georgia as the two trade attacks in dueling rallies.
Plus, the violence and chaos in Haiti is only getting worse. We'll hear stories of survival from the most vulnerable.
And did you just push your clocks an hour ahead? Well, some love it, some hate it. We'll have more on daylight saving time from the man who wrote the book on it.
And we do begin with the U.S. race for the White House and another set of nominating contests now just two days away. On Saturday, President Joe Biden and Republican Presidential Candidate Donald Trump held dueling rallies in Georgia.
The key battleground state is one of a handful of states holding presidential primaries on Tuesday. Both men are ramping up attacks on each other as it becomes clear they will face a rematch later this year.
Mr. Biden drew a stark contrast between his administration and his predecessors in a fiery speech in Atlanta Saturday. He also slammed the former president for the company he's been keeping, including Hungary's authoritarian prime minister, Viktor Orban, and Republican House member Marjorie Taylor Greene, who interrupted the State of the Union Address.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENT: Here's a guy who's kicking off his general election campaign on the road up with Marjorie Taylor Greene. I can tell you a lot about a person who he keeps company with. And yesterday, he was hosting at his club Viktor Orban, who says he doesn't think democracy works, call him a fantastic leader. Seriously, he's been sucking up to win -- no, anyway.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NEWTON: CNN's Steve Contorno was there at Trump's rally in North Georgia and has his report. STEVE CONTORNO, CNN REPORTER: Former President Donald Trump held a rally Saturday in Rome, Georgia, his first is becoming the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. He wastes a little time in his remarks going after Joe Biden. In fact, he also made fun of Biden's delivery of his speech at the State of the Union.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Two nights ago, we all heard Crooked Joe's angry, dark, hate-filled rant of the State of the Union Address. Wasn't it -- didn't it bring us together? Remember, it's a lot more to bring the country together.
Joe Biden should not be shouting angrily at America. America should be shouting angrily at Joe Biden.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CONTORNO: A major focus of Trump's remarks was on the situation at the U.S. southern border. And ahead of his remarks, he met with the family of Laken Riley. That is the 22-year-old nursing student who was killed in Georgia allegedly by an undocumented man.
Trump also criticized President Biden for saying that he shouldn't have used the word illegal to describe that individual.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: And I say he was an illegal alien. He was an illegal immigrant. He was an illegal migrant. And he shouldn't have been in our country. And he never would have been under the Trump policy. Biden should be apologizing for apologizing to this killer.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CONTORNO: Trump's visit to Georgia is the first of many expected in the coming months. The peace state is going to be one of the top battlegrounds in the 2024 election. It's one Trump lost by less than 12,000 votes four years ago. And his team knows it's going to be close to this go-around.
Steve Contorno, Rome, Georgia, CNN.
NEWTON: Joining me now is Andra Gillespie. She's a political scientist at Emory University. Good for you to be with us.
Quite a weekend in Georgia. Now, if we try and set the scene here, of course, we know that Biden's win in the state was very slim in 2020. What hurdles does he face if he has a shot at winning the state again?
ANDRA GILLESPIE, POLITICAL SCIENTIST, EMORY UNIVERSITY: Georgia still has more Republicans than it does Democrats, and so Democrats are going to have to find every possible voter and get them out to vote on Election Day. Both sides are talking about the possibility that there are going to be protest non-voters in this election. Democrats just can't afford to have as many as Republicans can have and still be able to win the state.
[03:05:04]
So, the advantage is that the Democrats have beaten Donald Trump in this state before, and they've also beaten Trump-attached Senate candidates that have been compromised as a result of that. But this is not 2020. COVID isn't happening. And so they're going to have to run a perfect and flawless campaign and get every Democratic vote out in order to be able to keep on to the state.
NEWTON: Yes, it's so important, really, when you think about that ground game in Georgia. I do want to talk about the former president, though. He has challenges of his own, right? I mean, he's been indicted in this state for allegedly interfering in Georgia's 2020 election result. And now he's still feuding, of course, with Georgia's Republican governor. How do you think that affects him in the state?
GILLESPIE: Well, I expect that there's going to be a rapprochement between former President Trump and Governor Kemp. Brian Kemp might not campaign vigorously for Donald Trump, but I don't expect him to tell Republican voters to stay home or to go vote for Joe Biden. So, I don't think that that's going to be a problem.
At least as far as the indictments have gone so far, Republican voters seem inured to the fact that Trump has been indicted as much as he has. And Trump has actually been very successful in framing his indictments as persecution that actually ends up affecting all Republicans in the state.
So, he has a base of support around him that's really strong. There are some polls that suggest that he would lose some voters if he turns out that he actually is convicted, but the delay strategies that he is using are effective.
And so we're going to wait to see whether or not the one case that probably will finish before the election will have had that effect because it's the Stormy Daniels case. And it's the one that legal experts suggest is the weakest of the four indictments, four sets of indictments that have been brought against him.
NEWTON: Understood. You know, immigration is a real focus in Georgia this time around, especially given the gruesome murder of Laken Riley, a nursing student from Georgia. You know, a Venezuelan migrant who entered the country illegally, he is charged in her death.
But I could not believe the striking difference with Biden and Trump through these campaign rallies. You know, Biden in an interview even had to apologize for calling that suspect and illegal, and yet Trump boldly uses these words in Georgia, including this weekend.
Does it help Trump press his point on immigration? It's a really stark difference between the two candidates.
GILLESPIE: It certainly helps to press his point with his base who cares an awful lot about immigration, and is helping to propel that to the top of the issue salience board in the 2024 election. So, you have to keep in mind that for a lot of people, they care about abortion but they also care about immigration.
And in particular, if you're watching certain media outlets, it's been something that's been at the top of the news cycle for years. And Laken death helps to focus attention again on that issue. And they're using it to focus on the cooperation between local government officials and the federal government. So an issue here is just the notion that Athens-Clarke County wasn't turning in people who they caught arrested for minor crimes and informing ICE that they had undocumented people kind of in their custody.
And so this has now become a flashpoint in local politics in that area and it's certainly something that Donald Trump and the Republicans are going to make hay of, and they are making hay of it as evidenced by President Trump's comments today.
NEWTON: Yes, it certainly is going to be an interesting race in this state given all the issues that you just highlighted.
Andra, thanks so much. We really appreciate you joining us.
GILLESPIE: Thank you.
NEWTON: Time may not be on his side, but U.S. President Joe Biden is still holding out hope for a ceasefire deal in Gaza by Ramadan.
In an interview on Saturday, he said his CIA director is conducting last-minute talks in Israel. And Mr. Biden said an agreement could still be hammered out before the Muslim holiday begins Sunday night. The U.S. president, who's been supporting Israel, also expressed concern about the growing death toll among Palestinians.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: It is a red line, but I'm never going to leave Israel. The defense of Israel is still critical. So, there's no red line. I'm going to cut off all weapons so that I don't have the Iron Dome to protect them. They don't have -- but there's red lines that if it crosses and it cannot have 30,000 more Palestinians dead as a consequence of going after them. There's other ways to deal, to get to deal with the trauma caused by Hamas.
It's like, well, look, the first time I went over, I sat with them and I sat with the war cabinet. I said, look, don't make the mistake America made.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NEWTON: Now, the death toll from an Israeli strike in Central Gaza has now grown to 13 people. That's according to Palestinian hospital officials who say the strike hit a building in the area on Saturday.
[03:10:01]
We have to warn you now, the next video you're about to see is incredibly disturbing. Some children were apparently wounded in Saturday's strikes as you can see here in this footage from the Al- Aqsa Hospital.
This footage was obtained by CNN. It shows hospital workers scrambling to help a child amid chaos after the strike. CNN has reached out to the Israeli military for comment.
Now the military says it's operating to dismantle Hamas military and administrative capabilities.
Meantime the U.S. is moving ahead with a plan to build a temporary floating pier for aid deliveries in Gaza. Military officials say the equipment for the project is now on its way there. The U.S. and Jordan conducted new air drops of aid on Saturday as U.N. officials warn of a looming famine in Gaza. The two countries dropped tens of thousands of meals and other aid.
Clarissa Ward has more now on diplomatic and humanitarian efforts.
CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It was just about ten days ago that President Biden seemed very confident. He said that he hoped for a ceasefire to be announced on Monday. This is last Monday. Obviously, that did not happen. Now, we are heading into Ramadan this coming Monday. And it appears that no one is closer to being able to establish a deal.
We do know there are attempts to continue to hash out a deal for some kind of a release, obviously, of the hostages and also a temporary ceasefire to ease the absolute, dire humanitarian situation inside Gaza, which continues to spiral really out of control.
We've heard updated figures again tonight from the health ministry inside Gaza. They are now saying that 25 have died as a result of acute malnutrition and dehydration. CNN cannot independently confirm that because international journalists are not allowed into Gaza to report on the ground.
But it certainly gels with what we have been hearing from groups, like the U.N., who have warned that hundreds of thousands of Gazans in the northern part of the enclave are one step away from famine, who have announced, as you mentioned, that four out of five people do not have -- or four out of five households, I should say specifically, do not have access any longer to clean water.
And while these aid drops, you know, show a certain level of intention and goodwill, they, according to aid organizations, are not terribly efficient and effective in terms of the mechanism for actually distributing aid. We heard from one humanitarian worker who said they're a great photo op, but they are terrible in terms of trying to make sure that people on the ground get the aid they need.
What aid agencies are saying is that they need it to be distributed on the ground. In order to distribute it on the ground, you need some kind of a ceasefire, and you need more openings into the Gaza Strip to ensure that the aid can get to some of those more isolated pockets.
NEWTON: Our thanks to Clarissa Ward there in Israel. Meantime, U.S. and coalition forces shot down at least 28 Houthi drones around the Red Sea on Saturday. U.S. defense officials also say there were no reports of any commercial ships being damaged during that airstrike.
The wave of drones comes as allied forces continue to hit the rebel group in Yemen. The Houthis started targeting ships in the Red Sea shortly after the Israel-Hamas conflict began.
Now, months of bloody violence and chaos and Haiti is only getting worse, displacing thousands of people in the process.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAVID CULVER, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And he says they've been here about a year and a half. Before that, they were in their own home, but they said because of the gang violence, it was overtaken, their home was burned down.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NEWTON: As gangs continue their rampage, we'll hear from the children who are paying the price.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[03:15:00]
NEWTON: The international community is keeping a very watchful eye on Haiti as the country plunges further into chaos. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Kenyan President William Ruto discussed the worsening situation during a call Saturday and underscored their commitment to try and restore security to the island nation.
Violence is spiraling out of control in Haiti, and a prominent gang leader warns of civil war unless Haiti's prime minister resigns.
But as CNN's David Culver reports, he is in fact just back from Haiti, and he's telling us that the situation on the ground is already extremely dangerous.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CULVER (voice over): On an abandoned airfield turned makeshift campsite, we step into this cramped space, the Cado (ph) family's home. Lying on her family only bed, we meet eight-year-old Mujina Cado (ph), looking at us with eyes that have seen the torment and suffering that is engulfing Haiti.
Do you remember where you were when the bullet hit you when you got shot?
With her four-year-old sister keeping close watch, Mujina tells me she was playing with friends when they were caught in the crossfire of a gang shootout. She and her friends hid, but not quickly enough, a bullet tearing through her back and out her abdomen, her dad frustrated by life.
And he says they've been here about a year and a half. Before that they were in their own home but they said because of the gang violence it was overtaken, their home was burned down. So, here they are hoping to have found what would have been a safe refuge but he says not even this is safe.
Feel better, okay?
Chaos now grips much of Haiti especially the capital, Port-au-Prince. For the first time a Haitian security source tells us rival gangs are now working together, launching a wide-scale series of attacks against the government, going after the airport, police stations and prisons.
[03:20:01]
The terrible toll of the violence felt nearly everywhere, even here behind the high walls of Kizito Familie's home for children. Run by Sister Paese, the rules here posted on the wall.
Children must be friends.
SISTER PAESIE PHILIPPE, FOUNDER, FAMILIE KIZITO: We must be friends and we must get along with each other.
CULVER: Getting along, that's the challenge here. Sister Paese has lived in Port-au-Prince for 25 years, the last five of which she's dedicated to creating safe spaces for children. Many of those here orphaned because of the deadly gang violence.
PHILIPPE: I never could have thought that things could become worse, but it did, it did, it did, year after year, more corruption, more violence, more weapons.
CULVER: This place is now at capacity, and then some. The children keep coming, she tells me. Sister says she also gets prayer requests from those you might not expect.
PHILIPPE: Sister, pray for us. Don't you see we are in danger? Pray for us. I'm hearing that every day from the gang members. Yes.
CULVER: The gang members are asking you to pray for them?
PHILIPPE: Yes, yes, yes, yes.
CULVER: Some of the gang members themselves just kids. This 14-year- old says he was recruited at 11. I can't go to school, he tells me, wishing he could escape the gang's control. I watched so many people get killed, and then I have to set their bodies on fire, he says.
Outside of Haiti's capital, it's more often the anti-government protests rather than the gangs paralyzing cities. In Jeremie, we drive with members of the World Food Program to a local school.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And these kids have not been in school since early January. They'll tell you why. CULVER: The Catholic priest who runs it shows us around.
Just noticing on the chalkboard here, the last date, January 11th, it's the last time kids were actually inside this classroom since it's been empty.
Violent protests erupted in January making it too dangerous for the school's 234 students to travel to. For the staff here, it's heartbreaking.
Do you think about them in what's been now more than a month that they haven't been here? Do you think about their situations?
FATHER LOUIS JEAN ANTOINE, FOUNDER, ST. JOHN BOSCO SCHOOL: It is very sad for them, for us also, because I know --
CULVER: He knows it's about more than missing out on an education.
ANTOINE: They are at home, they are hungry, they have nothing, they are children, they have to eat.
CULVER: Hunger is what drove this young team to go out at night alone in gang-controlled territory last year hoping to find food. Instead she tells us she was attacked and raped, giving birth in January to a baby boy, the son of a likely gang member, she thinks
I can't abandoned him, she tells me. My mother struggled a lot with me, so I have to do the same for him, even if it is a child raising another child, she says.
Children bearing the brunt of a broken country that is spiraling further into chaos with each passing day.
David Culver, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NEWTON: Early voting is underway across parts of Russia ahead of the presidential election next week, and that includes occupied areas of Ukraine where Russian forces have taken control. And it would be a big surprise, of course, if President Vladimir Putin doesn't win this vote given most opponents have been barred, locked up or worse.
Mr. Putin is expected to hold power for years after signing a new law in 2021 allowing him to run for two more terms.
Still to come for us, United Airlines just had a very bad week. Not one, not two, not even three, no, four major incidents involving their airplanes. That's ahead.
Coming up, U.S. National Guard troops are now patrolling New York City's subways, why some New Yorkers aren't so happy about it.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[03:25:00] NEWTON: The governor of New York is facing backlash for sending National Guard troops into New York City subways to help tackle crime. Now, the critics aren't just politicians or subway riders. Even some in the New York Police Department are now blasting the move, with the department's patrol chief saying on social media, quote, our transit system is not a war zone.
Polo Sandoval has our story.
POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And so this is the first weekend for these two security measures to be in place after New York Governor Kathy Hochul made that announcement of approximately a thousand more personnel added to the subway system here to try to really reassure the passengers that use the nation's largest transportation system here.
Important point out though that the governor making very clear that they will have a very principal, a very main objective here in terms of what we can expect, which will be to assist with those random searches of things like luggage and also purses.
It's important point out that these are actions that we've seen before from the NYPD in the past. So, this will essentially supplement those efforts in the past, this after recent, very highly publicized incidents that have taken place on the New York City subway system.
Though it's important to point out that since New York City Mayor Eric Adams increased the number of NYPD personnel patrolling the MTA system, there has been a decrease in the number of some of those violent incidents.
However, New York City officials here, again, mainly Governor Kathy Hochul here, hoping to reassure some of those passengers. Again, this was the addition of roughly 750 personnel with the National Guard in addition to about 250 state police and also MTA police.
Here's how some of the folks who use this system every day feel about these new changes.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think it can be sometimes hard to like process the statistics when you hear about really scary, high-profile incidents. So, some of it is certainly an emotional reaction, just like the comfort that I get from the presence of the National Guard's people is probably somewhat emotional but it helps me go about my life so I appreciate it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've never had a problem on the subway system or the Long Island Railroad. I think everybody that works in this system does a great job.
[03:30:01]
This is New York City. Stuff has been happening for as long as I can remember. (END VIDEO CLIP)
SANDOVAL: And, of course, no changes come without criticism. There is some of those critics who say that there is no evidence that indicates that some of these random bag searches can actually serve to prevent some of these random attacks that we've seen in the past.
Nonetheless, Governor Kathy Hochul maintains that one of the main priorities is to make sure that the people who use this system every day feel safe for doing so.
Polo Sandoval, CNN, New York.
NEWTON: Joining me now is Mitchell Moss. He is the Henry Hart Rice Professor of Urban Policy and Planning at New York University's Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. And I thank you for joining us.
I do not know if you've been on the subway in the last few hours, but let me ask you, is this about safety or is it about politics, because it is an extraordinary move?
MITCHELL MOSS, PROFESSOR OF URBAN POLICY, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY: Politics is always going to find a way to insert itself into the safety issue of New York, because we have 8.5 million people, and the subways are not an airplane. The subways are viewed as something that are sacred space. In fact, they've been quite safe for the past half, you know, 30, 40 years. It's only recently since the pandemic that we've seen a rise in crime on the subways. And since the beginning of 2024, we had three homicides.
The politics is very simple. The governor of New York, no matter who it is, Democrat or Republican, sits in Albany, a tiny town, meets 100,000 people on one or two days a year, they left coming to New York and meddling in things here, getting attention.
And Governor Hochul saw the people concerned about crime, and she took the weapons she has, which are not very many, which are the state troopers and the National Guard.
Now, let's be very serious. The National Guard is a military force. They can't arrest anyone. They are there for disasters. They are there for terrorism. And during the post-9/11 environment, they were involved in helping make the subways safe by checking people, not carrying dangerous objects.
However, New York Police Department is quite adept at fighting crime and brought crime down during the Bloomberg years and the Giuliani years, and, of course, it rose during the de Blasio years because of the pandemic.
And what we have now is a surge of basically violent antisocial behavior, as well as having a much more lenient criminal justice system.
NEWTON: You're getting to really the heart of this, because what we want to know is how New Yorkers are reacting to this. And do you think that they feel really some of the futility of this? Why couldn't the transit cops continue to do this job?
MOSS: Well, Mayor Adams asked the governor if she would provide more money to pay for police overtime, and instead of giving the mayor money, she sent down the National Guard. I think most New Yorkers realize that it is not something the National Guard know how to do. They may be good in making the apple orchard safe, but they're not going to make the subway riders safer.
Some people like looking at them, especially the commuters at Grand Central, but basically they're there for cosmetics, for theatrical purposes to make people feel good. We need cops, not National Guard people on the subway platform, outside of the core business district. That's where the crime is. We have fewer people cutting on and off the train.
And I think there's a real tendency to forget, we did this in the 80s by having police walk up and down subway cars and subway platforms. So, rather than having groups of National Guardsmen hang out and be together in Grand Central, we need to have police in the system, on the platforms, in the cars. This has not being done as the National Guard wouldn't know what to do.
NEWTON: Mitchell, I don't have a lot of time left, but tell me, when you've been speaking, we've been showing pictures of people, you know, getting their bags checked. How much is this going to irk New Yorkers and others as well, because this is really an infringement on some civil liberties that we've all grown used to?
MOSS: I think the reason New Yorkers are going to get tired of this, they have understood that the subway system is based on trust. By having all these people together, you trust the person next to you is not going to be at risk for two years of safety.
No one gets on the train taking a slow walk to the subway. Everyone in New York is walking very quickly. What makes New Yorkers, they like to move fast. So, being held up to show your bags, when most people carry very few things in them except basically personal items, is going to be something that they're going to resent over time.
I think this is a mistake by the governor. She doesn't know really what makes New Yorkers feel good, which is getting on and off the subway safely, not having their bags checked.
NEWTON: Okay. Professor Mitchell Moss, thanks so much, I really appreciate it.
MOSS: Thank you.
NEWTON: A United Airlines flight from San Francisco to Mexico City was diverted to Los Angeles Friday. Officials say one of the planes three hydraulic systems experienced an issue in flight The Airbus A320 was carrying 110 passengers and crew members and did, thankfully, land safely in L.A.
[03:35:00] Now, this is the fourth issue the airline has experienced this week alone. They included a tire falling off a plane just after takeoff on Tuesday, an engine catching fire in flight on Monday. Federal officials say they are investigating all of these incidents.
And now to a troubling report out in Indonesia, the country's transport ministry will launch an investigation after two Batik Air pilots fell asleep during a recent flight to Jakarta. Now, that's according to the state news agency. A preliminary report released on Saturday found the pilot and co-pilot fell asleep at the same time for nearly 30 minutes. That caused the aircraft to actually move to an incorrect flight path. None of the 153 passengers and four crew were hurt during the flight and there was no damage to aircraft.
Now it was apparently not an isolated incident if you can believe it. The report said the second in command had slept during the flight prior to this incident. The pilot in command, meantime, then asked permission to also rest and the second in command took over the aircraft. Around 90 minutes into the flight, the second in command then inadvertently fell asleep. That's all according to the report just published.
Now, we are getting ready here at CNN for My Freedom Day later this week, a day dedicated to raising awareness in the fight against modern-day slavery. Just ahead, we'll have the story of a man in India who helped rescue two children in his neighborhood.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NEWTON: The Walk for Freedom is a coordinated campaign across hundreds of cities to raise awareness to fight modern day slavery.
[03:40:00]
Shortly after participating in a march in India, a man noticed two children in his neighborhood exhibiting signs of being trafficked.
CNN's Vedika Sud met him and explains how his awareness resulted in their rescue.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
VEDIKA SUD, CNN REPORTER (voice over): Last October, tens of thousands marched in cities across 57 countries in a collective call for justice.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Every human being, every child --
SUD: The Walk for Freedom event, organized by A21, an Australian- based anti-trafficking NGO, is a day for global awareness and local action in the fight against human trafficking.
CHRISTIAN ELLIOTT, DIRECTOR OF STRATEGIC ENGAGEMENT, A21: Familiarizing yourself with what trafficking looks like in your local community and around the sphere of influence that you have in the world you live in so that they can take action SUD: This clarion call resonated with an Indian, Gourav Singha Roy.
Thank you for your time.
GOURAV SINGHA ROY, WALK FOR FREEDOM PARTICIPANT: The pleasure is mine. This way.
SUD: A21 is now putting his story onto film, which CNN got exclusive access to.
A corporate trainer by profession, Roy attended several campaigns hosted by A21 on human trafficking. But it was the March for Freedom in the city of Kolkata last year, he says, that changed him.
ROY: What I did learn is we are educated people. We are young people living in city, urban lives, yet we are blind to many things that seems very normal to us. For example, little children working in the shop below the age of 14 years is something which is not right, which is illegal.
SUD: A day after the awareness campaign, Roy identified two cases of modern day slavery in his neighborhood.
ROY: I spotted two little girls doing hard domestic labor. One was a young girl around the age of five, and the elder one was ten years old. So, the younger girl was dragging a bucket, having wheat grains in it, probably twice her weight. And the elder girl was also helping her with it.
This time, when I spotted it, it stirred my heart. I knew I had to do something about it.
SUD: And he did. Roy immediately alerted local authorities who then raided the house and rescued the girls. The minors were moved to a shelter home. But for millions of children in India, rescue remains a distant dream.
In a country where, according to government estimates, eight children were trafficked every day in the year 2022, tighter anti-trafficking laws and greater awareness to help identify cases of child labor, are crucial.
Helping bridge this gap are organizations like the Movement India, aiding local communities with information to identify and report trafficking.
ESTHER SAM, TALENT DEVELOPMENT LEAD, THE MOVEMENT INDIA: All we want is that every single citizen would be able to spot the signs of trafficking and when they do know the action to take, which is the helpline number to call, which is the local NGO or even the local police, there are bodies that exist to rescue, that exist to intervene. It's about citizens taking that proactive action.
SUD: And this one action has and continues to save children from the clutches of modern-day slavery.
Vedika Sud, CNN, Mumbai.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NEWTON: Please join us this coming Thursday for My Freedom Day, a day-long, student-driven event to raise awareness of modern slavery.
Okay, there's some more to come here on CNN. Just ahead, some will love it, others really hate it. Daylight saving time, it's here again. We'll have more on the time change after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[03:45:00]
NEWTON: We did it again. We have literally skipped an hour here in the Eastern United States, popped into the future, you might call it. It's daylight saving time. Some people love the time change, others, yes, they hate it.
Joining me now is David Prerau. He is the author of Seize the Daylight, the Curious and Contentious Story of Daylight Saving Time. And I want to thank you for being here obviously on the day where we all have to get a hold of ourselves and change the clocks.
You and I both know this is annoying for many people, and yet how did all of this get started? And please remind us why we have to do it.
DAVID PRERAU, AUTHOR, SEIZE THE DAYLIGHT: Okay. Well, it really goes, the original idea, at least the concept goes back to Benjamin Franklin in 1784, but he didn't really have a mechanism to. He wanted to get people to wake up earlier, but he didn't have a good mechanism for it.
So, the guy who led to this system we have today worldwide, it's a man named William Willett in early 1900s in England. He proposed it to an environment. They didn't accept it, but when World War I started, the Germans had heard of Willett's idea, and they adopted it.
So, it was really adopted first by the Germans at World War I to save energy during the wartime effort, and eventually every country in World War I on both sides utilized it, and that's how it started.
NEWTON: We are a long way from that. Why are we still doing it in 2024?
PRERAU: Well, it has, I think, a great many advantages. For most of the year, spring, summer, and fall, daylight same time has a lot of great advantages. First of all, it has an extra hour in the nicer spring and summer evenings. It gets people outdoors, so a little bit better for health. It also reduces traffic accidents. It reduces outdoor crime, like mugging, and it reduces energy usage. So, it has a lot of good benefits.
However, if you try to use daylight saving time in winter, you would get very light sunrises. And in the U.S., for example, a lot of the major cities would have sunrises at 8:30 or 9:00 A.M., and so most everybody would be waking up in the dark. [03:50:00]
And so when we tried it once in the U.S. in 1974 during an energy crisis, and nobody liked daylight saving time in the winter. So, therefore, the best way to have a compromise is to have daylight saving time for three quarters of the years, spring, summer, and fall. And then for four months, we have in the darkest months of the year, we have standard time so the sun rises, don't get too early.
NEWTON: You know this is contentious, it's even in the title of your book. So, would there be an upside, though, to just staying on standard time? You don't back away from the clocks. Let's just stay where we are.
You know, that some states, a couple have chosen to opt out. Some countries have opted out. What would be the big deal if we just stayed and didn't have to change our clocks?
PRERAU: Yes. You would gain that one hour of loss of sleep per year. But what you would lose is you would lose 280 days when you would have an extra hour of daylight in the evening when everybody would use it. And if you had standard time in the summer, you'd have the sun rising in many parts of the U.S., for example, before 4:30 A.M. So, nobody would be utilizing that daylight, they would just be sleeping through it.
This way, we'd take that same daylight that we're wasting in the morning while we're sleeping and move it to the evening where we can use it and enjoy it. So, you'd be losing a lot if you had standard time all year round.
NEWTON: Well, especially at spring forward, I think many people aren't enjoying it. So, for the people who really don't understand why we have to go through this disruption at all, I mean, what can you say to them?
What's one thing you can tell us about daylight savings time that they may not know, which will help them deal with it in the, you know, in the day to come?
PRERAU: Well, if you think about a daylight saving time, when you lose that hour of sleep, it's no different than going from Chicago to New York, or London to Paris, or Beijing to Tokyo -- I'm sorry, that's right, Beijing to Tokyo. In each of those cases, you lose an hour, and yet people do that all the time voluntarily.
What people do when they travel, however, is when you go to a different time zone, you may make an adjustment before you leave, maybe you'll sleep a little, you wouldn't go to sleep as late the day you leave, maybe you won't make many plans the next morning. And I think people can minimize their annoyance at that losing of that hour by sort of planning for it a little bit better.
NEWTON: All right. I only have -- this is going to be a yes or no answer. Do you predict that we will see the end of daylight savings time, though, in the next decade, let's say? There's quite a movement afoot.
PRERAU: No. Because when it's been actually -- when it's -- people have changed from daylight savings time to other times, they haven't liked it, and they had it, and they put it back.
NEWTON: All right. So, you're saying it's here to stay, so we all better get used to it, as we do.
PRERAU: I don't know. I can't prove or predict it, but that's what I would think.
NEWTON: All right. Your money is on that. I appreciate it. David, thanks so much.
PRERAU: Okay, thanks a lot. Good to be with you, Paula.
NEWTON: We did learn a lot there, didn't we?
Now, this has been, in fact, the warmest winter on record in the Continental United States. U.S. government scientists looked at data from last December through last month.
They say the average temperature of 37.6 degrees Fahrenheit, or 3.1 Celsius, is the mildest since they started keeping records in the 1890s. And, usually, warm weather has been rough on some ski resorts and other businesses that, of course, depend on snow.
Venezuela's last glacier is close to disappearing, at least partly because of climate change. Government officials say they have a plan to save what's left of it, but not everyone is happy about how they want to do it.
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NEWTON (voice over): The effects of climate change are giving some mountain lovers their last look at Venezuela's La Corona glacier. Located on Humboldt Peak in the Andes Mountains, this sheet of ice has gone from 450 hectares to just two in less than a century.
SUSAN RODRIGUEZ, FOREST ENGINEER: It's been a lengthy process witnessing the gradual disappearance of the glacier. When I hiked in December 2023 with a team of scientists and filmmakers, it was really heartbreaking.
NEWTON: Rodriguez says the disappearance will impact tourism, as many people once traveled to climb the glacier that's now turned largely to bare rock and is unsafe to step on.
In December, the Venezuelan government announced a plan to save La Corona. They want to implement a technique used on ski slopes in warmer weather and cover it with a thermal mesh to maintain its current temperature. But critics aren't too keen on the idea.
[03:55:00]
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We strongly and unequivocally oppose this project, since this project is being organized without respecting the law.
NEWTON: Some environmentalists are challenging the government and believe it's too late to reverse the already heavily impacted area. They say microplastics from the thermal mesh can have harmful effects on crops, lagoons and the air and point out that no environmental impact study has been conducted for the plan.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ignoring the environmental consequences of transporting and depositing over three tons of plastic material can have grave implications for the fragile, high-elevation Andean ecosystem.
NEWTON: Some researchers say La Corona has about four to five years before it is completely gone, while others estimated it will disappear in two years.
And melting glaciers are affecting the entire continent, from Venezuela to Argentina. The Andes have lost 30 to 50 percent of their ice cover in the last 40 years. That's according to the United Nations Environment Program.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NEWTON (on camera): So, apparently there's been a million dollar art heist in Italy. Nearly 50 gold pieces by sculptor Umberto Mastroianni were stolen from an exhibition near Lake Garda.
Now, one of the pieces called Man Woman was found on the grounds of the exhibition, but the others, unfortunately, they're still missing. The theft happened Wednesday night. The thief or thieves, apparently, they knew what they were looking for. Nearby jewels were left untouched. Only the Mastroianni pieces were taken.
A new Miss World has been crowned just hours ago. Krystyna Pyszkova of the Czech Republic became Miss World 2024. The 23-year-old law student and model competed with more than 100 contestants in Mumbai, India, Saturday.
During the interview portion of the competition, Pyszkova spoke about removing the stigma and shame surrounding menstruation, saying that, quote, being a woman is a gift and menstruation should not be a taboo subject.
Pyszkova is now the 71st Miss World.
I'm Paula Newton. I want to thank you for your company.
Kim Brunhuber picks things up from here with more CNN Newsroom. He'll be here in just a moment.
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