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CNN International: SpaceX Crew Completes First Ever Commercial Spacewalk; Gaza Health Ministry: Death Toll Reaches 41,000 Plus Since Oct 7th; Storm Bebinca Headed for China & Japan; Ohio Reacts to Trump's False Claims of Migrants Eating Pets; Pope Francis in Singapore on Final Leg of Asia & Pacific Trip; Tech Giants Meet at the White House on AI's Energy Needs. Aired 8-9a ET

Aired September 12, 2024 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN HOST: Hello and welcome to our viewers all around the world. I'm Fredricka Whitfield, and this is the CNN Newsroom. Just ahead, a daring mission in space. We are witnessing history. This is the world's first commercial spacewalk by the Polaris Dawn Crew.

Plus, Donald Trump allies do damage control after what some viewed as a disappointing debate night for the former president, while Vice President Kamala Harris rides a fresh wave of momentum as she gets back on the campaign trail. And with the high-stakes election less than two months away, America's top diplomat is in Poland today, after reassuring Ukraine that support for the country will endure.

All right, history was made just minutes ago, some 700 kilometers above the earth, that is where the crew of a SpaceX Dragon Capsule is making the first ever commercial spacewalk. The four astronauts on board the SpaceX ships are in their third day in space, hatch was open to explore around their vehicle for about two hours. Jared Isaacman, the CEO of a finance company who helped pay for the mission, was the first to exit the spacecraft. Here is what he said upon exiting the spacecraft.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JARED ISAACMAN, SPACEX ASTRONAUT: Back at home we all have a lot of work to do, but from here, looks like a perfect world.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: All right, let's bring in CNN Space Correspondent, Kristen Fisher, with more on this. Kristen, wow, that was pretty spectacular. We've seen government sponsored space walks in the past. NASA has been doing them for decades now. So why is this one so important and so different?

KRISTIN FISHER, CNN SPACE & DEFENSE CORRESPONDENT: This is part of a trend that's been happening for quite some time, this shift from governments being the only entities that can send people to space to now private companies and now private companies can do it typically faster and eventually for far less money than the government.

And so, this is part of the technology that NASA actually has been funding. They want SpaceX to have this capability. But Fred what we saw today was truly remarkable. I mean, when they first announced this, when SpaceX first announced that they were thinking of doing an EVA, a spacewalk in just 2.5 years, people's minds were blown.

They just did not think it was possible to get everything ready that fast. And what they have just done, and Fredricka, they just completed the spacewalk moments ago, the hatches closed, the interior of the spacecraft has successfully repressurized.

So, this spacewalk was a resounding success. And what they have proven is that they are capable of doing not just space travel, but now a spacewalk and Fred for decades that has been widely considered to be the most dangerous and risky thing that anybody can do in space Fred.

WHITFIELD: Yeah. I mean, and that alone was an incredible test. What -- were there some other, you know, science related purpose that was attached to this as well?

FISHER: Yeah. So, in addition to this spacewalk, two other main things that they were doing. They flew farther into space than any humans have flown since the end of the Apollo Program back in 1972. And in doing that, they flew through what's known as the radiation belt.

And so, when you fly through the radiation belt, your body and also the spacecraft is exposed to really high levels of radiation. And anybody that wants to go to the Moon or Mars is going to have to fly through that radiation belt. So, the astronauts and the spacecraft were hooked up with all sorts of equipment to monitor how they fare in going through the radiation belt.

They're also doing a ton of scientific experiments while they're up there. One -- just to pick out one of the many that they're doing. They're wearing these contacts that make you look kind of like a robot, like a cyborg, is what they call it.

But the reason they're doing it is because your eyes don't do well in zero gravity after an extended period of time. I mean, think about it, the fluid in your eye-balls kind of floating around weightless in your head.

[08:05:00]

WHITFIELD: Oh my God.

FISHER: And so, I know. So, these contacts are designed to sort of measure what's happening to your eyes and hopefully keep astronauts in the future from having their vision diminished.

WHITFIELD: OK. Well, that's fantastic. And hey, all of it with a purpose. So makes perfect sense. Thank you so much. Kristen Fisher, appreciate that. All right, for more additional perspective on this history making mission, we're joined by Retired Astronaut Chris Hadfield. He was a Commander on the International Space Station and has made several spacewalks in his career. He is also the Author of multiple books. His latest is "The Novel: The defector".

All right, always great to talk to you. What are your thoughts about this first commercial spacewalk and a first for this SpaceX suit?

CHRIS HADFIELD, RETIRED ASTRONAUT: Fredricka. I was really holding my breath at two different moments. One was as the pressure was dropping in the cabin. That's the first time they've ever let all the air out of one of these SpaceX ships and see if everything still works. You know, imagine if in your studio, if suddenly there was zero air pressure, would all the computers keep working? You know, how would everything function? So that was a big step.

But the second one was when Jared reached up, and I know, if you watch it or not, but was jiggling, and opened that hatch. Because if that hatch doesn't close again properly, then there's no way to get air back into the cabin. They'd have to do an emergency deorbit back to Earth, with everybody still in their big pressurized suits.

So, I was -- you know amongst everything else, I was really pleased to see both those things work perfectly, have the crew safely back inside. And maybe most importantly, we have now a proven new spacewalking suit. It's been a long time since we've had a new one. That's great for the world.

WHITFIELD: I know. I mean, what do you think? I mean, this was a heart beating moment for all of us. But you know, to hear you say it. I mean, it really hits home, because you understand the intricacies of it all. You were thinking about things that -- you know the layman really were not. So, this SpaceX suit. What's impressive about it to you. I mean, because the NASA suit is what -- you know some 40 years old, and this is kind of -- you know the next level maybe?

HADFIELD: Yeah, the suits that I space walked in were designed in 81 but they were really very similar to the suits that were developed to walk on the moon, you know, 50 years ago. So, it's great to see a new suit. We've integrated I think maybe the cleverest part is that you don't take a bunch of technologies and put them together to make a suit.

They actually started at the beginning and tried to integrate all the manufacturing techniques to make it as sleek and as light and as simple and foolproof for the crew as possible. The way you integrate cooling and how the air gets to the crew properly, laser heads up display so they all the information, a communication system.

And it looked like all spacesuits - if bulky to wear, but at the same time, as far as I could tell, everything worked. And boy, that's pretty amazing compared to the very first spacesuits that the Soviets did and the very first spacesuits the Americans did, this was a resounding success today.

WHITFIELD: Incredible. So even though spacewalks have been -- you know happening for what, more than 60 years now? You know each time is extraordinary. But what does this one mean to you in terms of a new chapter in space exploration?

HADFIELD: Well, this -- this is -- you know, to take Neil Armstrong strays. This is one small step, not a great big deal. Open up the hatch, pull yourself out, make sure the suit works properly. You know, it sounds simple, obviously, it's a huge accomplishment.

But what it does, it now shows this is a useful and functioning suit that SpaceX can continue to aerate and get better now. You can make it so self-contained, so you don't need to be attached to an umbilical. And this will be sort of the grandmother suit of the one that people will be wearing when they're walking around in the South Pole of the Moon here fairly shortly.

This you needed that first big step, and so it's just really exciting to be here now, watching this happen, realizing what this is leading to, that we're going to be taken for granted 10, 15, years from now.

WHITFIELD: Oh, my Goodness. Also, very cool. Thank you so much. Retired Astronaut Chris Hatfield, always a pleasure talking to you. Thank you.

HADFIELD: Thank you, Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right. U.S. President Joe Biden is feeling the pressure. He's facing calls from Republican and Democratic lawmakers to green light Ukraine's use of Western supplied weapons deep inside Russia. They say the current limits put Ukraine at a disadvantage. America's top diplomat discussed the weapons restrictions with Ukraine's President and Britain's Foreign Secretary during their meeting in Kyiv on Wednesday.

[08:10:00]

Secretary of State Antony Blinken says he will share that conversation with his boss. For his part, Blinken's Ukrainian counterpart, who is standing in the center of this video, is echoing those U.S. lawmaker appeals for fewer restrictions.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDRII SYBIHA, UKRAINIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: The key mission is to strengthen the air shield with all the necessary contributions. We must remove all obstacles and limitations on the use of British equipment and American weapons against military targets in Russian territory. We also need decisiveness when it comes to downing Russian rockets, missiles and drones over the territory of Ukraine that will provide sustainable peace and a strong position for Ukraine.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: I want to bring in now CNN's Clare Sebastian. Good morning. Good day to you, Clare. So, how much pressure is the Biden Administration under to lift those weapons restrictions?

CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, it's definitely mounting. Fredricka, both internal pressure within the U.S. you talked about, lawmakers from both sides of the aisle. There was also an open letter by 17 former national security officials, and then, of course, external pressure Ukraine's lobbying efforts towards this have stepped up dramatically, especially since the Kursk incursion, emboldened by that success there.

And we just heard today, Secretary Blinken is in Poland, the Polish Foreign Minister, Radek Sikorski, adding his voice saying that he is of the opinion that Ukraine has the right to use Western weapons to prevent Russia from committing war crimes. So, the pressure is certainly mounting.

I think some are also seeing that the delivery by Iran, as the U.S. sees it, of ballistic missiles to Russia, is also adding to that pressure, given that we have now heard both Secretary Blinken and the UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy use the word escalation to describe that in recent days, that is leading some to speculate that they believe some of the feared escalation around lifting these restrictions on using long range missiles in Russian soil has already happened, so certainly, hopes are being raised in Ukraine at this point.

WHITFIELD: All right. Clare Sebastian, we'll leave it there for now. Thanks so much. All right, the UN and Gaza officials say Israel targeted a school sheltering some 12,000 Palestinians for the fifth time since October 7th. At least 18 people, including six UN staff, were killed on Wednesday. Israel says it conducted, quote, a precise strike on terrorists operating inside the school unquote.

Condemnation is pouring in. The Head of the World Health Organization says, quote, no words can reflect the true horror and loss of life in Gaza. CNN's Nic Robertson is joining us right now from Tel Aviv. Nic, the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees, says more than 200 of its staff have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war. What more can you tell us about Wednesday's strike?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yeah, we've heard from somebody who was inside the school, somebody who was working for UNRWA, the agency you're talking about the UN principal agency for getting humanitarian aid to displace people inside of Gaza.

They describe sitting in a room with colleagues having something to eat around lunchtime, and then there was a huge explosion shortly after they left the room. And they say when they tried to go back to the room where they'd had lunch with their colleagues, they found nothing there. The room destroyed their colleagues just as well destroyed in the blast.

So, a very, very powerful blast. The IDF says that this was targeted, that they were targeting a Hamas command-and-control facility, and say that this shows that Hamas continues to use schools and places of you know where civilians are gathered as a place to hide, but the metrics here are quite staggering.

We've heard from various people, not only the UN Secretary General himself, saying that these violations of international law must stop, but you mentioned there the fifth time that this school has been hit. That was something that was picked upon by the UN's Head of Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell. He commented on that.

The Irish Foreign Minister he commented on the number of UN -- of UNRWA workers who've been killed since October 7th, 220 he said that number was. We've heard from the UN Special Rapporteur on these issues, who says that 70 percent of all UNRWA schools now in Gaza have been hit at one time or another since October 7th.

Now that doesn't sort of change the humanitarian suffering on the ground one iota. We know that 18 people were killed, six of them UN official, UN workers. 44 people were injured.

[08:15:00]

But it's not reshaping the dynamic of the operations here, because Israel continues to go and strike where it says it believes Hamas are operating from and increasingly now that appears to be in humanitarian safe zones and inside UN schools.

So, these UN schools where there are massive gatherings of displaced people because they have nowhere else to go, their centers of distribution for aid and water and shelter, lacking shelter elsewhere, the civilians are just caught up in the middle of this with no safe place to be. And it appears to be another example of that amidst all these terrible metrics, not least of which, the biggest number of UNRWA workers killed in a single Israeli strike since October 7th.

WHITFIELD: Incredible. All right, Nic Robertson, thank you so much. Still to come, first responders and good Samaritans jump into action after Hurricane Francine pounds, the State of Louisiana with wind, rain and flooding, we're live after the break. Plus, heavy rains, flooding and deadly landslides a look at the devastation Typhoon Yagi is bringing to Vietnam. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: All right, hundreds of thousands of homes in South Louisiana are in the dark right now, after what was Hurricane Francine roared ashore Wednesday night as a category two storm, it quickly weakened to a tropical storm, but still brought flash flooding, heavy rain and powerful winds.

We're looking at video of Morgan City, Louisiana, which is surrounded on three sides by water. And take a look at this video from New Orleans, a good Samaritan jumping into action to save a driver from his fully submerged truck. This after Francine pounded the city with a month's worth of rain.

You can see that rescue happening right there. The storm is now moving out of Louisiana, and at last check was north of New Orleans. CNN Meteorologist Derek Van Dam is joining us now from Morgan City. Still pretty wet, what -- I see cars moving behind you. So, what's going on?

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yeah, well, the water has receded considerably compared to what was happening last night, just 12 hours ago, as a storm moved on shore as a category two, kind of catching people off guard, because it strengthened when everyone thought that it was kind of leveling off in terms of its strength and its speed, Fredricka,

But really harrowing video to see the Good Samaritans rescuing that individual out of the vehicle. There were several scenes like that with high water rescues across many of the parishes in Southern Louisiana. We were in St. Mary's Parish, where I'm located now, just outside of Morgan City. And we also encountered some heavy, significant flooding in this general vicinity.

[08:20:00]

Remember, really, this is only about 5 to 10 feet above sea level, much of Southern Louisiana so susceptible to flooding as well as storm surge. And when you have an approaching hurricane that is strengthening, all that water gets pushed ashore several miles inland through the buoys and through the canals and the rivers.

And we actually had to abandon our live shot yesterday because water started to overtop this berm that was protecting our crew, our vehicles and our live shot location. Trying to get to safety, we encountered so many flooded roads, water lapping up to people's front doors. It was -- it was quite a journey and a difficult night for people here because there was no electricity. We still are without power, part of over 400,000 customers without power right now.

In New Orleans it was significant because the storm moved through the city right in the evening and dumped over 200 millimeters of rain, 8.38 inches of rain, officially at the airport, that is over a month's worth of rain. This is the third wettest September on record for the city.

Now it's finished raining in New Orleans and where I'm located, but I'll tell you what this storm is not done just yet. You can see it now still a tropical depression moving through parts of Mississippi, but it's still pulling in a lot of moisture from the Gulf of Mexico, so the flood threat remains today.

Over 14 million Americans under flood alerts from the Florida Panhandle right through Central Alabama, and looking at Birmingham, because that's an area that has more of an enhanced risk of significant rain that could lead to flash flooding. And on top of that, there's also the potential for tornadoes.

So anytime you get landfall and hurricanes coming in off the Gulf of Mexico, get those little spin up thunderstorms that can produce a very quick but potentially destructive tornado. And that's what we're looking out for with a tornado watch from Panama City, just outside of Tallahassee.

And that severe weather threat is going to shift inland towards Central Alabama today, so hundreds of thousands of people in the way of potential severe storms. The wind not over yet. This is quite a wind maker. Lots of energy associated with this.

So as the storm moves inland, gusts from Birmingham to Atlanta to Nashville will start to cause delays at the airports. But Fredricka at its peak, Francine was pushing winds in the triple digit category, 105 miles per hour, where I was located, getting battered right along the shoreline of Morgan City.

We experienced winds roughly 90 miles per hour. Very difficult to stand up in those conditions, but that was the reason why people were under a voluntary evacuation and a mandatory curfew here in Morgan City Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right, Derek Van Dam in South Louisiana. Thank you for all that. Appreciate that. All right, days after it made landfall, Typhoon Yagi has brought devastation to Vietnam. State media is reporting that nearly 200 people have died and more than 100 are missing.

The storm's heavy rains have flooded towns and cities and rivers in some areas, and it's dangerously high. In the north of the country excuse me, at least 50 people are still missing after flash floods swept away a village earlier today. Authorities say search and rescue efforts are ongoing.

And it comes as another tropical storm has formed and is headed for the Asian Pacific. CNN Meteorologist Allison Chinchar is here to save me and alert us of everything else that's happening.

ALLISON CHINCHAR, CNN METEOROLOGIST: That's right. Fredricka, go get you some water. Let's take a look at what we're dealing with here. This is tropical storm Bebinca. You can see well north of Guam sustained winds right now of 111 kilometers per hour. It is expected to intensify over the next several days.

It's going to gradually make its way to the north and west, impacting portions of Japan and eventually China, as we head through the end of the upcoming weekend. And each and every day, it is expected to continue to grow in strength, eventually, perhaps making a peak up around 190 to 195 kilometers per hour, just before it is expected to make landfall into China.

Now, one of the big concerns here is that is a very heavily populated area in and around the Shanghai location, but even some of the southern suburbs as well. That population up around 24 million people, even in the short term, however, still expected to dump a tremendous amount of rain across many of the Southern Japanese islands, then again, continuing off towards the Chinese Mainland.

Some of these places are looking at widespread totals of 100 or more millimeters. That would be at least four inches in some of these spots. And a few areas could end up seeing double that as this particular storm continues to make its way off towards the west.

Now it looks like landfall over towards Mainland China would likely be in the latter portion of the day on Sunday. But that's still several days away, and a lot can take place in the coming days. So, any kind of tweaks or shifts in this particular storm could cause that to maybe perhaps be sped up or even delayed in terms of landfall time.

[08:25:00]

So, a lot to kind of keep track here of this system over the next couple of days. One thing to note, though, is, because it is expected to strengthen, you're going to start to see those typhoon winds begin to spread out, especially the closer we get towards China and as well as the tropical storm force wind spread also starting to expand. So, a lot of folks potentially impacted by this system will keep a close eye on it in the coming days.

WHITFIELD: All right, thank you so much. Allison Chinchar, appreciate it. All right still to come, one wants to capitalize, the other needs to rebound how the Harris and Trump campaigns are each moving on from Tuesday's big presidential debate? And the most viral moment from the U.S. debate, how immigrants in Springfield, Ohio feel about being the subject of Donald Trump's most controversial statement at Tuesday's face off.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: All right, after a day spent processing the impact of Tuesday night's presidential debate, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris will be back on the campaign trail today. Harris will hold two rallies in North Carolina and has dispatched top surrogates to Michigan, Nevada and Arizona today.

Her campaign also releasing a series of TV ads highlighting some of her top moments from the debate as they try to capitalize on momentum from what many saw as a big victory for her. Trump will be in Arizona today for his first post-debate rally.

CNN sources say even Trump's staunchest allies say the debate was at best a tie. Let's get some analysis now of what both campaigns are doing. I'm joined by CNN Politics Senior Reporter Stephen Collinson, great to see you, Stephen.

STEPHEN COLLINSON, CNN POLITICS SENIOR REPORTER: Hey.

WHITFIELD: All right, so you're reporting that Trump allies are launching a frantic cleanup after his dud of a debate performance in what way?

[08:30:00]

COLLINSON: Really interesting yesterday, if you listen to any conservative media, there was a coordinated campaign to the effect that the debate was rigged, that ABC News was biased and unfair, that its fact checked Trump and didn't do the same to Kamala Harris.

To some extent, that was true, although at the same time, Harris didn't produce the same scale of lies and falsehoods that were contained in almost every answer by the Republican nominee. So, I think that's what you're seeing happening, whether it's going to be successful in convincing swing state voters, those movable voters that could decide the election, that they didn't see what they actually saw on the debate night, which was that Trump had a very bad night.

It seems unlikely that. The interesting thing is that nobody in Trump's orbit, and this is a testament to his power of personality, is able to come out and say, well, we had a bad night, but we'll do better next time, if there is a next time that tells you something about the whole Trump has over the Republican Party.

WHITFIELD: Meantime, Harris, I mean, she's launching an aggressive new phase with ads and appearances. What is the vice president about to do?

COLLINSON: Yeah, the campaign is saying that, well, we're moving to an aggressive new stage. I think that's what -- exactly what you would expect them to do seven weeks before the election, crank up the pace of rallies, perhaps do more off the record appearances, as they call them -- you know going into shops and cafes, getting the footage of the candidate, meeting people.

We're going to see more trips to swing states. She follows up her trip to North Carolina with several stops in Pennsylvania, which is absolutely a must win state if she's going to get to the White House. So, I think you'll see a greater intensity.

The question is, after that debate where she did well, is she going to start doing more major media interviews where she could get into situations where she actually gets more scrutiny than Trump was able to bring to bear in his underperforming debate on Tuesday night? That is something to watch.

I think they'll still be very careful to make sure that the message is sharp and perhaps a little constrained. They don't want to give Trump anything he can seize upon to try and stem her momentum that she has coming out of the debate.

WHITFIELD: And then off a new endorsement from one of the world's biggest stars, Taylor Swift. I mean, how is the Harris campaign planning to attract younger voters, to actually get them to the polls.

COLLINSON: I think that was something the campaign, the Swift endorsement, had been hoping for, for some time. It was interesting the way that the timing was coordinated. So, she came out of that debate and she got another big headline. I think it was another attempt to try to almost play with Trump's head, to get him annoyed and angry, as happened during the debate.

Because the Harris campaign thinks that when the president -- former president, feels like that, he does things that make his situation even worse. I would look, I think, to lots of events in universities as we get closer to the election, I think it's still unclear how directly Taylor Swift will get involved in this, but it clearly is something that the campaign would welcome.

One thing which they really do not want to happen is a resurgence of those demonstrations that we saw at a lot of campuses in the early summer by pro-Palestinian supporters who are angry about the Israeli operation in Gaza. If that happens, that could really offer an opening to the Trump campaign and complicate the outreach to students who are -- generally they vote Democratic, but they're quite difficult to get to the polls.

WHITFIELD: All right. Stephen Collinson, always great to see you. Thanks so much. COLLINSON: Thanks.

WHITFIELD: All right, Haitian community leaders in the U.S. are criticizing remarks Donald Trump made about Haitian immigrants during Tuesday's presidential debate. They say his baseless claims that immigrants in Springfield, Ohio are eating household pets are raising fears for the safety of immigrants in that city. CNN's Omar Jimenez went to Springfield to find out more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: When you hear allegations of Haitians eating dogs and cats and taking them off the street and stealing them from people's yards, what is your reaction when you hear that?

VILES DORSAINVIL, PRESIDENT, HAITIAN COMMUNITY HELP AND SUPPORT CENTER: It was shocking to me, honestly, because the first question I asked myself, where in the world of people eating pets?

JIMENEZ (voice-over): Viles Dorsainvil is the Head of the Haitian Community Help and Support Center in Springfield, Ohio. He came to the United States about four years ago from Haiti, and he hasn't just questioned the nature of the recent rumors, he's questioned what they will do to his community.

DORSAINVIL: It's just like a xenophobia. It's just like bigotry, discrimination and racist.

[08:35:00]

And they do not normally take time to see the impact that can have on the mental health of the immigrants fleeing the country from all kind of chaos.

JIMENEZ (voice-over): To be clear, Former President Donald Trump's claims are not supported by evidence. In a statement to CNN, a spokesperson for the city of Springfield said there have been no credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community. But all of this has also come as part of a very real surge in Haitian population in Springfield.

ROB RUE, SPRINGFIELD, OHIO MAYOR: We have realistically been saying 12 to 15,000 immigrants is what we -- what we have counted through the Health Department and other agencies.

JIMENEZ (voice-over): And they are here legally under the immigration parole program. Once here, immigrants are then eligible to apply for temporary protected status. Haitian temporary protected status was recently extended and redesignated for Haiti, mainly due to violent anarchy in the country.

But the total population of Springfield is around 58,000 so that's around 25 percent Haitian, and the growing pains in the community have not always been easy. State officials say it's stressing resources. GOV. MIKE DEWINE (R-OH): That obviously represents a massive increase based upon percentage of the population in Springfield. It is unprecedented in such a short period of time. Federal government simply has to be part of the solution, they have to step up. It is their policies that have created these surges.

JIMENEZ (voice-over): The influx of Haitians has also manifested itself in other ways, including a tragedy, specifically in 2023 when 11-year-old Aidan Clark was killed in a Springfield bus crash, one that involved a Haitian immigrant who had a driver's license that was not valid in Ohio, as reported by "The New York Times".

Aiden's father declined to speak on camera, but as others have posted about the tragedy recently, he told CNN in a statement, we just want our family out of the news and for Aiden to not be mentioned in regards to politics, putting aside any unverified theories about cats and dogs. Vilbrun Dorsainvil, also Haitian, says he understands the criticisms about the strain on resources caused by the influx of immigrants.

VILBRUN DORSAINVIL, SPRINGFIELD RESIDENT: I agree with these people.

JIMENEZ (voice-over): But he also painted a harsh reality.

DORSAINVIL: If it was not for a matter of death or life in my country, it could be better to get back.

JIMENEZ (voice-over): Omar Jimenez, CNN Springfield, Ohio.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: And NATO's outgoing chief, is reflecting on the military alliance's past mission in Afghanistan. Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg spoke with CNN's Christiane Amanpour as he prepares to step down at the end of this month. The U.S. and its allies pulled out of Afghanistan in August 2021 after almost 20 years of fighting the Taliban. Stoltenberg says NATO's ultimate goal in Afghanistan was simply a step too far.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JENS STOLTENBERG, NATO SECRETARY GENERAL: Afghanistan that is and was painful, because we tried something that we didn't achieve. We tried to build a democratic, free Afghanistan with equal rights for men and women. We realized after some years, that that was too ambitious, that was something that required too much, because reality was that we didn't have the resources they will to do that for decades.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF ANCHOR: And yes, yet it was more than 20 years. There was like trillions of dollars spent lots of people. And now we can safely say that it's gone 360 back to Taliban, 1.0. I mean, that is a catastrophe, in fact.

STOLTENBERG: Extremely bad. And catastrophe, not least for the people of Afghanistan, in particular, women. And I met many women members of parliament, journalists who begged us to stay. And for many years, I promised that we will stay. We were going to live on a conditions- based approach.

AMANPOUR: Yeah.

STOLTENBERG: But after 20 years, and after paying a high price in blood and -- we realized NATO allies, realized the United States realized that we could not continue this, and therefore we made the decision to leave Afghanistan.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: And tune in later today to see the full exit interview with the NATO Secretary General, Stoltenberg. That's at 01:00 p.m. Eastern, 06:00 p.m. in London. All right still to come, the Pope and the politicians Pope Francis meets leaders in Singapore as he wraps up his longest ever trip. We'll have the latest. Plus, a typhoon might just have saved this young penguin's life, that story in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:40:00]

WHITFIELD: All right, let's take you to the UAE, where the Abu Dhabi government is teaming up with a cutting-edge healthcare company to try to map the genomes of every willing citizen in the UAE. The aim of the project is to be able to offer precise and personalized medical care like never before. Veronica Miracle has the story as part of our "Bold Pursuits Series".

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

VERONICA MIRACLE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is the Omics Center of Excellence, a biological repository where DNA samples are selected, stored and analyzed with the help of advanced artificial intelligence. It's the work of M42 a global health tech company based in Abu Dhabi.

ALBARAH EL KHANI, SVP OPERATIONS, M42: This is our biobank that we store our DNA samples for our population genome program.

MIRACLE (voice-over): It's here where Albara El Khani is leading an ambitious project to map the genome of every single willing UAE citizen. Since 2019, they've successfully collected and sequenced the DNA of 600,000 Emiratis that's 62 percent of the local population.

MIRACLE: 600,000 genomes here, more than how much data is that?

KHANI: That's over 100 petabytes worth of data. Now, what is 100 petabytes worth of data worthwhile? So, you're talking about hundreds and thousands and millions of terabytes worth of data. So, it's an immense amount of data that you have to store, and that's why it's critical that we're using AI to be able to interpret this data and pull insights from this data, because humanly impractical to go through such vast amount of data sets.

MIRACLE (voice-over): El Khani got his microbiology degree from the University of Westminster in London; after working in some of the UK's leading hospitals, he moved to the Middle East and now leads the project with more than 14 years of technical experience in the clinical laboratory field.

The work he and his team are conducting led to a groundbreaking partnership between M42 and drug manufacturer AstraZeneca, by obtaining the genome of every individual, M42 believes they can begin to treat patients with more precision.

KHANI: We used to in the clinical practice, treat the disease. Now we're treating the individual with that particular disease with the right medication that's precisely treated for that disease.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: All right, in the past few hours, Pope Francis has been meeting leaders in Singapore, the final stop of his tour of Southeast Asia and the Pacific. The 12-day trip is the longest ever undertaken by the Pope who made the journey despite health challenges, at the age of 87. The Pope called for migrant workers in Singapore to be guaranteed a minimum wage. Christopher Lamb is there with more.

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CHRISTOPHER LAMB, CNN VATICAN CORRESPONDENT: Papal mass here in Singapore, the last big public event of Pope Francis' 12-day tour of Southeast Asia and the Pacific. This has been the longest trip of Francis' pontificate, but it's been an opportunity for the 87-year-old Pope to emphasize some key themes of his pontificate.

Interfaith dialog, the protection of the environment, and crucially, the church going out to the peripheries. Francis has been able to connect with Asian Catholics here in Asia is a part of the world where increasingly the Catholic Church is playing an important role. Now, on Thursday, the Pope addressed the authorities Singapore and called for migrant workers to be paid a fair wage.

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POPE FRANCIS: I recognize and commend the various policies and initiatives put in place to support the most vulnerable, and I hope that special attention will be paid to the poor and the elderly, whose labor have laid the foundation for the Singapore we see today, as well as to protecting the dignity of migrant workers. These workers contribute a great deal to society and should be guaranteed a fair wage.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LAMB: Now in the background to this trip is the Vatican's relationship with China. The Pope trying to rebuild the Vatican's diplomatic ties with Beijing. And whilst traveling in Southeast Asia and the region, he has been able to meet with leaders, and undoubtedly that relationship with China has been very much in the background to his time here.

Now there's been great excitement in Singapore for the Pope. The last time there was such excitement was when Taylor Swift was here to play a number of concerts. Francis, of course, will be traveling back to Rome on Friday after what has been a very important and historic trip. Christopher Lamb CNN, Singapore.

WHITFIELD: All right, and the biggest thing in tech is artificial intelligence. But do we have enough energy to power the emerging technology? Probably not. What the U.S. is doing about it next.

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WHITFIELD: All right, Taylor Swift is adding to her record haul at the Video Music Awards. Last night, she won seven awards, including video of the year. She has now won 30 VMAs in her career, more than any other solo artist. And fresh off her endorsement of Kamala Harris, she also encouraged people to register to vote.

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TAYLOR SWIFT, SINGER: And the fact that this is a fan voted award, and you voted for this. I appreciate it so much. And if you are over 18, please register to vote for something else that's very important for the - Presidential Election.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: Chappelle Roan won best new artist, and Sabrina Carpenter also went home happy winning song of the year for "Espresso". Let's bring in CNN Entertainment Correspondent Elizabeth Wagmeister, great to see Elizabeth. So pretty big night for Taylor Swift, but lots of other great artists also picking up awards. What were some of the best moments of the night?

ELIZABETH WAGMEISTER, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely, it was a huge night for Taylor Swift. And really are we surprised? No, we are not. This is the year, the week. It feels like it's always the moment of Taylor Swift. She went in with the most nominations, and she walked away with seven wins.

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She is now the most decorated solo artist, but has tied Beyonce for the most VMA awards of all time. As you said, she gave a call to action there reminding her fans to vote, and her endorsement after the debate of Kamala Harris has already made huge impact Fred.

We've got some numbers in from vote.gov. They said that they saw over 300,000 voters visit their website after Taylor endorsed Kamala Harris and the organization vote.org, said that they had over a 500 percent increase. So, Taylor really using her platform there last night at the VMAs. But it wasn't all politics. There was also a lot of fun.

And the fun started on the Red Carpet. Katy Perry, she won the Vanguard Award, and she had a performance a medley of her greatest hits. But on the Red Carpet, if you look there on her back, you may see a tattoo that's not a real tattoo, it's a temporary tattoo, and it's a QR code that takes you to a website of her new album. So, talk about some creative self-promotion there.

Then if you looked on the Carpet at Singer Tate McRae, she was paying homage to none other than Britney Spears, wearing a black lace mini dress, which Britney Spears fans will remember. She wore a very similar dress to the VMAs back in 2001.

Now, when we go to the show, it was really a great mixture of the old and the new in music. Eminem, he kicked off the night with the first performance of the night. And he was wearing a blonde platinum wig, harkening back to slim, shady but he sang some of his new songs from his latest album, which came out this past summer.

Then Chappelle Roan, she won for best new artist, and she is really the artist of the moment. She is just blowing up. She was on the cover of Rolling Stone this week. She won for best new artist, and she also performed last night. And also, as you mentioned, Sabrina Carpenter, she performed. She made out with an alien.

Everything goes at the VMAs. It's always been the wackiest and most fun show of the year. And she also won for "Song of the Year". So, a really busy night in Hollywood. We got politics, we had some fun, we had it all.

WHITFIELD: I wish I could have stayed up to watch it. All right, Elizabeth Wagmeister, thank you so much. But you took me through it. I feel like I was there a little bit. All right, thank you. All right, by 2026 artificial intelligence is expected demand enough energy to power the entire country of Japan. That's according to the International Energy Agency.

The U.S. government wants to know what can be done to quench an AI's insatiable thirst for energy. So top execs from tech giants like Open AI, Google and Microsoft are meeting at the White House with the Energy Secretary and other officials. Matt Egan is following the story for as he's joining us now from New York. All right, so how does using things like a ChatGPT compared to regular internet use and energy wise?

MATT EGAN, CNN REPORTER: Well, Fredricka, it's a great question. It really gets to the heart of the issue here because we do spend a lot of time talking about some of the enormous potential that AI could do for good, right? And we talk about some of the concerns about how it could kill jobs.

But what doesn't really get enough attention is how this technology consumes vast amounts of energy. What's really interesting here is that a single request on ChatGPT consumes 10 times the electricity that -- as a typical Google search 10 times. Think about that. And by 2026 the AI industry is projected to consume 10 times as much energy as it does right now.

And so that is why they are meeting at the White House today. This is the first time the White House officials are sitting down with AI leaders and executives from the power industry to try to discuss how they can meet AI's needs for energy without putting too much stress on the power infrastructure. So, CNN has learned that this meeting, which hasn't been previously

reported, will include Mr. ChatGPT himself. That's Sam Altman, the CEO of Open AI. Other executives from the tech world include Ruth Porat, a top executive from Google, the CEO of Anthropic, another major AI company, and Microsoft is also expected to have a representative.

And from the federal government, as you mentioned, the Energy Secretary, Jennifer Granholm, but also Commerce Secretary, the National Security Advisor, will all be there. And this shows how we have leaders from the public sector and the private sector. They're trying to address this issue of meeting AI's energy needs.

And it's also worth noting that this is something that Sam Altman has been focused on. He's been talking at length recently and publicly about how the U.S. needs to do more to get AI up to speed, right?

[08:55:00]

Building semiconductors here in the U.S., getting that power that needs to be built, data centers as well. So, Fredricka, this is not something they're going to be able to solve today, but this is a first step. And we should be hearing more in the coming hours about what the public sector and the private sector needs to be done -- think needs to happen next to try to address some of these issues.

WHITFIELD: Yeah, we're still in the getting to know AI kind of phase of things.

EGAN: We are, you're right. We are.

WHITFIELD: Yeah. Matt Egan, thank you so much.

EGAN: Thank you, Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right. And finally, a miraculous twist of fate might just have saved this penguin's life. Meet Penn, a six-year-old Kate Penguin who escaped from a Japanese zoo two weeks ago. Born in captivity, keepers say they didn't have high hopes for Penn's survival, and then a powerful typhoon hit the region.

Despite the storm's destruction, it's actually believed to have saved Penn's life by keeping the seas clear from boats and nets that she could possibly get tangled in. Penn was finally rescued, and keepers say her survival is nothing short of a miracle. Very cute. All right, thank you so much for joining me here in the CNN Newsroom. I'm Fredericka Whitfield. "Connect the World" with Becky Anderson is up next.

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