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Israel, Lebanon on High Alert, Hezbollah Leader Threatens with a Response After the Recent Device Explosions; Japanese Citizen Killed in a Knife Attack in China; Bank Warns That Scammers Are Using A.I. To Clone Voices; Factory Shreds Evidence Of Marriage For Divorced Couples. Aired 2-2:45a ET

Aired September 20, 2024 - 02:00   ET

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

[02:00:00]

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KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and welcome to all of you watching us around the world. I'm Kim Brunhuber. This is CNN Newsroom.

As cross-border strikes leave Lebanon and Israel on high alert for a new phase of war, Hezbollah's commander threatens a crushing response to the device blasts.

(VIDEO PLAYING)

Oprah Winfrey joins Kamala Harris on the campaign trail in Battleground, Michigan, we have the details from the star-studded rally.

And a warning, scammers could be using your voice to steal your money. New survey reveals another disturbing reality of A.I.

UNKNOWN (voice-over): Live from Atlanta, this is "CNN Newsroom" with Kim Brunhuber.

BRUNHUBER: Israel and Hezbollah are ramping up their fighting in the wake of the twin device attacks in Lebanon earlier this week. Hezbollah's leader is vowing to retaliate for the attacks when thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies exploded across the country. The blasts killed at least 37 people and wounded nearly 3,000. The threats are raising fears of a wider regional conflict.

Israel's military carried out dozens of strikes in the past 24 hours, hitting what it says were about 100 Hezbollah rocket launchers, weapons depot and other sites in southern Lebanon. Iran-backed Hezbollah said it launched at least 17 attacks on Israeli military sites in northern Israel using drones and rockets. Israeli authorities say at least eight people were hospitalized.

Meanwhile, more funerals were held in Lebanon and the leader of Hezbollah made his first public comments since the pager and walkie- talkie attacks. CNN's Ben Wedeman has more from Beirut.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Final prayers for a Hezbollah militant, one of many killed in the spate of pager and walkie-talkie blasts across Lebanon linked to Israel. Outside, others pay respects to the family.

The blasts killed dozens, including children, and wounded thousands.

WEDEMAN: This is a memorial and graveyard for Hezbollah fighters killed in action. And what the group has seen since the beginning of this week is its highest death toll since the start of hostilities with Israel last October.

WEDEMAN (voice-over): Group supporters, however, are putting on a brave face.

The enemy is terrified of us, Beirut resident Meriam tells me. They're afraid. They attack us with planes. We fire back with rockets and bullets.

But there's no denying the attacks have taken the serious toll. Surgeon Ghassan Abu Sitta has treated the war injured across the Middle East, most recently in Gaza.

GHASSAN ABU SITTA, SURGEON: So the problem is we don't have enough equipment because of the sheer number. And more importantly, these are injuries that will need between five and 12 surgeries in the next few years.

WEDEMAN (voice-over): In a televised speech, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah conceded the group had suffered a major unprecedented blow and called it a mass terrorist event. While the speech was broadcast, Israeli warplanes roared over Beirut, adding, perhaps, insult to injury. Yet Nasrallah insisted. Hezbollah is unshaken.

I say to Netanyahu, Gallant, the enemy army and the enemy entity, he declared, you will not be able to bring the residents back to the north.

He vowed Hezbollah will stop firing on Israel when Israel stops its war in Gaza. And then Israeli warplanes returned, breaking the sound barrier twice over the Lebanese capital.

Ben Wedeman, CNN, Beirut.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRUNHUBER: And I want to go live now to Beirut and Paul Salem, the vice president of the Middle East Institute. Thank you so much for joining us here. So first off, you're there. You're in Beirut. What is the mood there right now?

PAUL SALEM, VICE PRESIDENT, MIDDLE EAST INSTITUTE: Well, two things that have been (inaudible), the attacks of Tuesday and Wednesday have been a pretty severe blow to Hezbollah.

[02:05:05]

They've shaken people in the country since these pagers, walkie- talkies, blew up in all neighborhoods and places where people live and work.

It is definitely a major blow to Hezbollah's fighting capacity in the near future, and a lot of speculation as to whether Israel on the heels of this is preparing potentially an invasion or an escalation of some kind.

BRUNHUBER: Yeah well on that I mean what is your opinion do you think that this does signal the start of a wider war?

SALEM: Well, the Israeli government, as you know, made war in Lebanon a part of the war plan, so officially opening up a second set of military goals for the Israelis. And they've declared that this is, even before these attacks, a new phase in the confrontation with the Hezbollah (inaudible) now that they've been exchanging fire, and Israel is seeking to raise the pressure on Hezbollah, either to force them to ceasefire on their own without a ceasefire in Gaza, or Israel potentially staging an invasion of parts of southern Lebanon to rebuild a buffer zone.

The timing of these detonations seems to have been more (inaudible) was about to be uncovered so they had to detonate it right away rather than an immediate signal of a pre-planned timing.

BRUNHUBER: Hezbollah have promised to retaliate. What kind of response do you expect from them given that until now they've been fairly careful to avoid escalation?

SALEM: Well, I think they and the Iranians are stuck in the same bind they've been in for a while. There was the attacks in Beirut and in Tehran a month and a half ago. The retaliations on the Hezbollah side have been fairly limited. Iran has not retaliated. They, on the one hand, are kind of pleased with the bleeding that they're imposing on Israel.

They don't want to escalate into a full-scale war. They want to keep this medium level of hostility, but the toll on civilians, on Hezbollah's own people, certainly will depend some kind of show of force. But again, I think it will be carefully calibrated. We don't even know when the timing will be. It might be weeks or months from now.

Hezbollah is very careful to try to avoid a major war, whereas Israel, I think, is beginning to put potentially an invasion or a serious escalation as part of its (inaudible).

BRUNHUBER: You've recently described Lebanon, I'll quote you here, as an all but collapsed state, a cratered economy and shuttered banking system, a powerful armed group backed by Iran dominating the political chessboard, a corrupt political class sitting atop the ruin. So given the state of the country as you describe it there, what would a potential wider war mean for Lebanon? SALEM: Let me even further devastation the country has been on its

knees since the economy and banking sector and currency collapse in 2019. The (inaudible) president of the functioning government almost for two years, many parts of the country are resilient that you know it's the activity and see people moving forward but certainly a wider war with Israel would not the population many rungs further down economically, socioeconomically in terms of energy, in (inaudible), obligated disaster.

I think what Israel potentially might be contemplating, though, is a more targeted, limited invasion of the southern strip, which they've already largely destroyed along the Israeli-Lebanese border, to reclaim and reoccupy some of that territory, and to target much more intensely, even than they've done before Hezbollah targets and that was certainly hit a lot of villages towns and residences where Hezbollah's community resides. So potentially not an all out on this criminal war but certainly a ramping up of intensity which will only put the country further back.

BRUNHUBER: Unfortunately. Listen, we have to leave it there but really appreciate your expertise. Paul Salem, thank you so much for joining us.

SALEM: Thank you, Kim for having me.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OPRAH WINFREY, TV HOST: Please welcome Kamala Harris for us.

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRUNHUBER: Well Kamala Harris brought out the star power to the campaign trail in the battleground state of Michigan. Oprah Winfrey hosted the "Unite for America" virtual rally on Thursday for the U.S. vice president. The Harris campaign called the event a big moment to reach a broad range of voters. Now during the discussion, Winfrey said it felt as if a veil had dropped after President Joe Biden suspended his presidential bid.

[02:10:08]

Winfrey then told Harris that she appeared to have stepped into her power as Democratic nominee. Here she is.

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WINFREY: Literally, looking at you at a speech like the week before, which was a great speech, very nice, and then the next week I saw you walking in the thing. And I said, what happened to you?

VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS (D), U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You know, we each have those moments in our lives where it's time to step up.

WINFREY: Time to step up.

HARRIS: Time to step up. The idea that some would suggest and that my opponent suggests, which is that the measure of the strength of a leader based on who you beat down. Come on. The real measure of the strength of a leader is based on who you lift up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRUNHUBER: Earlier, Harris spoke to the family of a Georgia woman whose death was linked to the state's restrictive abortion law. She's set to travel to Georgia in the coming hours, where she'll address women's reproductive rights.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHANETTE THURMAN, MOTHER OF AMBER NICOLE THURMAN: You're looking at a mother that is broken. The worst pain ever that a mother that a parent, could ever feel. Her father and myself and the family, you're looking at it.

HARRIS: Amber's mom shared with me that the word over and over again in her mind is preventable. These abortion bans have been passed that criminalize healthcare providers in a couple of states, prison for life, Oprah. Prison for life in a couple of states for a doctor or a nurse who provides healthcare.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRUNHUBER: Gun ownership was another hot topic discussed during the live stream and the nominee got very candid about being an owner. Here she is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: I'm a gun owner. Tim Walz is a gun owner.

WINFREY: I did not know that.

HARRIS: If somebody breaks in my house they're getting shot.

WINFREY: Yes, yes. I hear that. I hear that.

HARRIS: Probably should not have said that. My staff will deal with that later.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRUNHUBER: Meanwhile, Donald Trump made some alarming remarks about Jewish voters in the U.S. Thursday. And they came while he was trying to woo Jewish voters at an anti-Semitism event in Washington, D.C. He says any pro-Harris Jewish supporter needs to get their head examined. The Republican presidential nominee also claimed Israel will cease to exist if he loses, added that he may blame Jewish voters for that loss. Here he is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DONALD TRUMP (R), U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: So I'm not going to call this as a prediction, but in my opinion, the Jewish people would have a lot to do with a loss if I'm at 40 percent. If I'm at 40 percent think of it that means 60 percent of voting for Kamala, who in particular is a bad Democrat.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRUNHUBER: Now Trump's campaign isn't saying whether his ally, Mark Robinson, should drop out of the race for governor of the battleground state of North Carolina. That's after a CNN K-file investigation revealed Robinson's history of disturbing, lewd comments on a message board for a porn website. Robinson denies making the comments and is refusing to leave the race. We get more from CNN's Diane Gallagher.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN U.S. NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Mark Robinson, the controversial and socially conservative Republican running for governor here in North Carolina, made a series of inflammatory comments on a pornography website between 2008 and 2012 on a message board in which he referred to himself as a black Nazi, expressed support for reinstating slavery, as well as other lewd and degrading comments about women, according to a CNN-K-file investigation.

Now, despite a recent history of very anti-transgender comments, Robinson said on the website, which was called Nude Africa, and included a message board that he enjoyed watching transgender pornography. He also referred to himself as a perv.

Now Robinson denies making these comments and they do predate his entry into politics where he is currently serving as a lieutenant governor of the state. They were made under a username that CNN was able to identify as Robinson by matching a litany of biographical details and a shared email address as well. Many of those comments were again gratuitous and sexual, lewd nature. They were made on that website. CNN is reporting only a small portion of Robinson's comments given the nature of them.

Robinson did tell CNN on Thursday that, quote, "This is not us. These are not our words. And this is not anything that is characteristic of me. I'm not going to get into the minutia of how somebody manufactured this. These salacious tabloid lies."

[02:15:07]

He also put out a video statement, getting ahead of the CNN story before it was published, saying comparing himself to Clarence Thomas, calling it a, himself a victim of a high tech lynching.

Now Robinson's camp opponent in the gubernatorial campaign, the current attorney general here, Democrat Josh Stein, his campaign released a statement saying, quote, "North Carolinians already know Mark Robinson is completely unfit to be governor. Josh remains focused on winning this campaign so that together we can build a safer, stronger North Carolina for everyone." Now Robinson has been endorsed by just about every Republican in the

state of North Carolina, as well as former president Donald Trump, who at one point called him Martin Luther King on steroids and better than Martin Luther King.

The Trump campaign has said that it is focused on winning North Carolina and the presidential race. The fallout with Republicans here in the Tar Heel state does continue as many Democrats try and link their opponents today to Mark Robinson and those comments that he made.

Diane Gallagher, CNN, back to you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRUNHUBER: Japanese Major League Baseball superstar Shohei Ohtani goes where no player has gone before making history and breaking his own record.

Plus a diplomatic row between China and Japan after the second stabbing of a Japanese citizen in a matter of months. We'll have that and more coming up. Stay with us.

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BRUNHUBER: A diplomatic tension is heating up between Tokyo and Beijing after the second knife attack on a Japanese citizen in China in recent months. A 10-year-old boy was stabbed to death on his way to school Wednesday. Now Japan is demanding an explanation as the incident brings out issues rooted in the history between the two countries.

For more, Hanako Montgomery joins us now from Tokyo. So Hanako, a really disturbing story here, so take us through what happened and the reaction.

HANAKO MONTGOMERY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Kim, exactly as you described, a very disturbing attack and also a very tragic murder. This attack occurred just 200 meters away from where this boy went to school. And in the aftermath of this attack, we're seeing locals in the southern city of Shenzhen lay down flowers for this boy and for his bereaved family members. Take a listen to see what locals in this southern city are saying about this brutal attack.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNKNOWN (through translator): -- resident in Shenzhen, as the Chinese people, we oppose this behavior. We oppose this teaching of hatred. Many of us have been under such hatred education for a long time, which has led to such evil consequences. This is the evil consequence of persisting in hatred education for a long time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[02:20:08] MONTGOMERY: Now we also know that a couple of Japanese companies are offering their Japanese employees a chance to go back to their home country because they fear for their lives and for their families' safety. We also know that there's been an urgent demand for the Chinese government to better protect the lives of foreign nationals in the country.

Even though violent crimes like this are rare in China, there's been a spate of stabbing attacks recently that have caused some concern. For instance, in June, we saw four American college instructors stabbed in China. Just two weeks after that, a Japanese mother and her son were also stabbed at a bus stop in China. And a Chinese bus operator who tried to intervene later died from her injuries sustained during this attack.

Now, these concerns were echoed by the Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at a press conference on Thursday, where he described this attack as, I quote, "It was a despicable crime and a serious and grave matter." He goes on to say, quote, "such an incident must never be repeated. We strongly urge the Chinese side to ensure the safety of Japanese people."

Now, Kim, this also have to we also have to remember that this attack occurred on a very sensitive day in China, the anniversary of the 9-1- 8 incident, which is widely known in China as the beginning of the Japanese invasion of China back in 1931 on September 18th. Now, this is a day that's very fraught with tension, with grief, and with anger, and also a date that state media and the Chinese government often urges its citizens to never forget.

And though we don't yet know what the motive was behind this attack, some on Chinese social media speculate that it could have been racially motivated, given the fact that it occurred, again, on such a sensitive date. But again, this moment has been very fraught for Chinese and Japanese relations, and people in both countries have been mourning this tragic loss of life. Kim.

BRUNHUBER: All right. Appreciate that. Hanako Montgomery Live in Tokyo.

Tropical storm Pulasan is expected to turn to the east in the coming hours, bringing heavy rain to much of South Korea and northern Japan throughout the weekend. South Korea could see more than 250 millimeters or 10 inches of rain through Saturday. The storm's impacts have been minimal so far. Pulasan weakened to a tropical depression before making landfall south of Shanghai on Thursday.

Well, historic day for Los Angeles Dodgers slugger Shohei Ohtani. He's become the first major league baseball player to reach 50 home runs and 50 stolen bases in the same season. The Japanese phenom became the inaugural member of the 50-50 club. He had a home run and two stolen bases on Thursday against the Miami Marlins.

Ohtani, who also pitches, has a historic 10-year $700 million contract with the Dodgers. They are in first place in the National League West division and Otani is the odds-on favorite to win the league's most valuable player award.

We're learning more about the Titan submersible disaster, remarkable new images show the wreckage of the submersible on the seafloor. A little later in the show, we'll have new details from this week's hearing.

Plus, ghost towns dot Israel's northern border with Lebanon after months of cross-border fighting and residents are desperate to return home. We'll bring you their stories next. Stay with us.

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[02:25:00]

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BRUNHUBER: Returning now to our top story, the U.S. is urging restraint and diplomacy as Israel and Hezbollah ramp up their fighting with growing fears of a wider regional war. Hezbollah claimed responsibility for launching at least 17 attacks across the border against Israeli military sites on Thursday. The leader of the militant group says the attacks will continue until the war in Gaza ends. Israel's military says it struck about 100 Hezbollah launchers and other sites in southern Lebanon in the past 24 hours.

Meanwhile, Israeli warplanes were spotted flying over the Lebanese capital Beirut on Thursday, right around the time when the leader of Hezbollah's speech was being broadcast on TV.

Thousands of civilians in both Israel and Lebanon have had to flee their homes due to the cross-border attacks, a near daily occurrence since October. And as Nic Robertson went to one Israeli border town where few remaining residents are desperate for a return to normalcy.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR (voice-over): A ghost town close to the Lebanese border. Kiryat Shmona, a shadow of its former self. Most of its 25,000 residents evacuated last October. Silence and weeds where once there were people.

ROBERTSON: Almost all of the stores here are shuttered, frozen in time now for close to a year. And it feels as forlorn as some of the few people who stayed behind sound.

NISAN ZEEVI, JVP IMPACT DIRECTOR INVESTMENT: So now everything is empty. After empty offices, empty labs, before October 7th we had here at the Upper Galilee, 72 start-ups.

ROBERTSON (voice-over): From fungal plastics to fake eggs, Zeevi sourced hundreds of millions of investment dollars for Israel's up- and-coming high-tech hub in the north.

ZEEVI: It's a very sad feeling, because in each one of these offices there were people, entrepreneurs from all over Israel, that came here to build the next big thing in agritech, in futech, in climetech. Welcome to my humble house, humble place.

ROBERTSON: So on this side, a beautiful view of Mount Hermon, and on this side, Hezbollah.

ROBERTSON (voice-over): When we last met Zeevi nine months ago, he was hopeful his evacuated family and his old life would be back soon. Fast forward to now, it's a distant memory.

ZEEVI: We thought that we're living the dream building startups, not in Tel Aviv and living in a small shoe box, but living here at the Galilee.

ROBERTSON (voice-over): A new reality is setting in, getting his family back the dream. And the startups?

ZEEVI: It's going to be a challenging time. I think we went back like 30 years.

ROBERTSON (voice-over): So too, David Azuli, mayor of nearby frontline town Matula, much more optimistic when we met him in January, now ground down by Hezbollah's incessant attacks and the government's failure to stop them.

DAVID AZULI, MAYOR OF METULA (through translator): Things got a lot worse. Almost half the houses in Matula are damaged. The government has forgotten about us. The prime minister only cares about his own political survival.

ROBERTSON (voice-over): Not helping the mood, Hezbollah's attacks have been spiking lately. And despite the Ministry of Defence promise to get families home by the beginning of September, the IDF's response falling short of everyone's expectations here.

ROBERTSON: Was it burning when you arrived?

RON MOISESKO, ARMY RESERVIST: Yeah, it was already burning, the trees, there's a school over there, right over there, that got some rockets as well.

ROBERTSON: The school was hit as well?

MOISESKO: Yeah, the school was hit as well.

ROBERTSON (voice-over): Even soldiers like Moisesko, who is from Kiryat Shmona, there is frustration.

MOISESKO: It's tiring to wait that long. The road is endless. We need to do something. Maybe in a more aggressive way or in a peaceful way, just need to do something.

[02:30:09]

NISAN ZEAVI, JVP IMPACT DIRECTOR INVESTMENT: Eventually, we are the ones that paying the price. We'd like -- just like a player on a chess, no, we want to come back home. NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR (voice-over): Knocked down, not out, but flagging.

Nic Robertson, CNN, Kiryat Shmona, Israel.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN ANCHOR: As the fighting continues in Gaza, the occupied West Bank has seen a major escalation of violence. The Israeli military has pushed in expanding an offensive in recent weeks. Now, it comes as settlers continue a campaign targeting Palestinian civilians and infrastructure.

The Palestinian Ministry of health says nearly 700 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since October and in July, Israel's government approved the largest land seizure in three decades. That's according to the Israeli advocacy group, Peace Now.

A.I. scammers are searching social media and using what they find to replicate peoples voice's and identities. We'll have the story and a warning from a British bank after the break.

Stay with us.

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BRUNHUBER: The Dow and S&P 500 hit record highs at the closed Thursday, thanks to the Fed's half-point interest rate cut. The Dow crossed 42,000 for the first time with tech stocks leading the way. That large cut came as a surprise to many, but chair Jerome Powell warned that investors shouldn't expect half-point cut to be the norm going forward.

Now, U.S. futures are down going into Friday. Investors are hoping to keep the momentum going into the weekend.

A U.K. bank is warning that scammers can use artificial intelligence to replicate a person's voice with just three seconds of audio pulled from online videos. Fraudsters can then target friends and family using the voice cloned by A.I.

Online lender Sterling Bank says this kind of scam has already fooled hundreds of people and has the potential to fool millions. The bank is encouraging people to make plans with loved ones suit counteract such scamming attempts.

All right. For more, I'm joined live from San Francisco by Josh Constine, venture partner at VC firm SignalFire, and former "Tech Crunch" editor at large.

Great to have your expertise on this disturbing story here. So we're all, you know, basically familiar with the old school type of scam or someone calls or emails males the victim and claims that a family member is in trouble or in jail or something, needs money.

So how does this one work exactly? JOSH CONSTINE, VENTURE PARTNER, SIGNALFIRE: I mean, the question is, am I even really Josh Constine?

It used to be that you couldn't believe everything that you read and now you can't believe everything you hear or see either.

[02:35:02]

These new form of social engineering attacks which are hacks where instead of attacking the computer system, you trick a human being to actually helping you with this scam are becoming more and more powerful, thanks to A.I.

And so, essentially, what's happening is scammers will take a clip of your voice from social media, a YouTube video, a podcast, maybe even a news broadcasts like this. They'll create a clone of that voice, and then they'll use that to call your loved ones or business partners to try to scam them out of money.

And, you now, and oftentimes, hackers watching, lie and wait, they'll get into your email through a phishing scam. They'll wait so there's a moment where it sounds like you're going to transfer some money or got a family member in need, and that's when they're going to jump in with a phone call. That sounds just like one of your family members or colleagues, and that's why people need to come up with new ways to thwart these threats.

BRUNHUBER: Yeah, unbelievable, just so sophisticated and it seems to be becoming more common.

A recent survey by that bank found that more than a quarter of respondents said that they've been targeted by an A.I. voice cloning scam in the past 12 months, 46 percent of them weren't aware that that type of thing existed, and 8 percent said they would send over as much money as requested by a friend or family member.

So just give us a sense of how big a problem this is already right now.

CONSTINE: You know, a quarter of them, that sounds pretty paranoid. I think a lot of people are just assuming regular scams were actually A.I. powered, but, you know, spear phishing and phishing scams like this are a $1.5 trillion per year business, actually $3.4 billion phishing emails are sent every day. And that's increasing 150 percent per year.

It's getting worse fast and spear phishing where a specific person is targeted rather than just blanket be sending as many of these scam emails as possible where you target a specific person or actually 500 percent more effective because they seem really authentic. These scammers are going to a lot of work to find out how exactly how do you sound, what do you talk about? So they can feel -- fool your loved ones, you could say that they're sparing no expense.

BRUNHUBER: Yeah. Unbelievable. You know, so how worried, given the numbers that you've given us there

and how much money the conventional sort of scams like this bring in. How worried should we be that this will spread even more and become even more sophisticated?

CONSTINE: The same way that we had internet literacy programs in the early 2000s to teach out a Google search or know that Wikipedia isn't always reliable. We need A.I. literacy programs in schools and businesses to teach people about these types of scams.

And one of the biggest ways that people can protect themselves is to create a secret password for you and your friends and family or your business partners that you don't share online, you don't even texted to each other. You agree to it in person.

And then if somebody has ever making a suspicious request, well, what's the last four digits of your Social Security number, or you just send this wire transfer to a different location or a different address? That's when you can ask for that password and even if they've faked somebody else, that you knows, voice or even their face, they won't have that secret password.

Luckily, there are also some great new start-ups that are focused on this problem. Companies like Dune Security (ph) from SignalFire's portfolio. These companies specifically use A.I. to counteract A.I. We're fighting A.I. with A.I. and they act as sort of a watch tower overseeing your communication channels, flagging potential attacks, and even offering real-time training to help you prevent future breaches by teaching you what to do and not to do.

BRUNHUBER: Great advice because we know this will only get more and more common as you said.

Josh Constine, thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate it.

CONSTINE: My pleasure. Stay safe out there.

BRUNHUBER: All right. Stunning new video has been released by the U.S. Coast Guard. It shows the wreckage of OceanGate's Titan submersible which imploded in June of last year.

Now on Thursday, a former OceanGate scientific quick director revealed that the Titan suffered a malfunction just days before its ill-fated voyage. The revelations are part of a two-week hearing by the Marine Board of Investigation, which is the highest level of U.S. Coast Guard inquiry into the deadly implosion which killed all five people on board, including OceanGate's CEO Stockton Rush.

Well, in Chinese culture, newly married couples go all out with photos reflecting their love. But as China's divorce rate skyrockets, all those photographic memories can come up, bother.

As Marc Stewart explains one Chinese company's helping divorce couples shred literally all those memories.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARC STEWART, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is a factory complex about 60 miles outside of Beijing.

[02:40:03]

It's fueled in part by the business of breakups.

Divorce couples send their momentous to Liu Wei and his team, paid to destroy the evidence of their marriage.

For Chinese families, photos like these are a big part of their home on full display for friends and family to see.

But these photos are pretty much indestructible, made out of hard acrylic boards. The teams spray paints faces to ensure privacy before being placed inside the crusher. It's a better solution compared to just throwing things in the trash. Divorce is still seen as shameful in China.

This entire process is recorded on video. Customers want proof the deed has been done.

It's happening as China's divorce rate is skyrocketing, and as authorities try to avert a demographic crisis by promoting marriage and parenthood. But the slumping economy leaves many young couples feeling stressed out about work, life and relationships.

Where did you even get the idea to have a business like this?

LIU WEI, CO-FOUNDER, BEIJING ZHONGTIANJIE COMPANY: This was actually an accidental idea, but it quickly became an obvious business. During my daily contact with some customers, they will have the same way because they were troubled by the issue. There was no way they could destroy them. I had the same thought. I saw that dilemma.

STEWART: A lot of these photos have captions, talking about happiness and dreams. These were couples that were once in love.

Does this ever make you sad watching this process happen, knowing once happy couples are no longer together?

LIU: I think of myself as a doctor. I see my job as being a witness to the disappearances of all kinds of relationships. Love or not, marriage or not, it's all normal, and divorce might not necessarily be a bad thing. It may be a good thing.

STEWART: The cost of this varies up to around $30 depending on what needs to be destroyed. Yet for some people in China, it's a small price to pay for a fresh start.

Marc Stewart, CNN, Long Fung (ph), China.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRUNHUBER: All right. Thanks so much for joining us. I'm Kim Brunhuber. I'll be back in 15 minutes with more news.

"WORLD SPORT" is next.

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[02:45:00]

(WORLD SPORT)