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U.S. Lawmakers Debate White House Offer Concerning Immigration; American Remembers Martin Luther King, Jr.; Super Blood Wolf Moon; Oysters Are Being Returned To New York Harbor to Help Shore Up New York City
Aired January 22, 2019 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CARL AZUZ, CNN 10 ANCHOR: Welcome to a new addition of CNN 10. We are your source for objective explanations of the day`s news and I`m your host
Carl Azuz. It`s great to be with you this Tuesday. The partial shutdown of the U.S. government which has directly effected about 25 percent of it`s
workforce is now 32 days old. The previous record was 21 days. The main reason why this ones gone on so long is because Democrats and Republicans
are so dug in . They`ve been unwilling to compromise on what they want. For President Donald Trump and other Republicans that`s $5.7 billion in
funding to build a barrier between the U.S. and Mexico.
For Democrats, that`s a wall they don`t want to be built and don`t want to approve the money for. On Saturday President Trump made a speech and an
offer from the White House. In exchange for funding for the border wall or barrier, he said that people who were illegally brought into the U.S. as
children would be allowed to stay for an additional three years without the threat of being deported, sent back to their home countries. Some others
who were temporarily allowed to stay in the U.S. because of stability in their home countries were also included in the president`s offer.
Republican leaders say this is a reasonable and fair compromise that could end the partial government shutdown but some other Republicans say it goes
too far in helping people who are in the U.S. illegally. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats said the offer was unacceptable. Partly
because it includes proposals that Democrats have already rejected and partly because it didn`t include permanent protections for undocumented
immigrants. Something Democrats want. Negotiations between Republicans and Democrats have continued throughout the shutdown but an end to it is
still nowhere in sight.
On Monday, President Trump and Vice-President Mike Pence attended a wreath laying service at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial on the National
Mall. It was one of several events across America held in honor of the renowned civil rights leader on the day named after him. Martin Luther
King, Jr. Day is a Federal holiday that was first observed in 1986. It`s held on the third Monday of each January because the date is near his
birthday of January 15th, 1929. Despite the fact that it`s not a work day for Federal staff and many other Americans, they`re encouraged to make it a
day on instead of a day off.
The holiday was designated as a national day of service in 1994 with volunteering and working on community projects all part of the event.
Yesterday, observances took place from Columbia, South Carolina to Memphis, Tennessee and from San Antonio, Texas to Ebenezer Baptist Church in
Atlanta, Georgia where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his father both served as pastors. For his work in civil rights, the younger Dr. King
became Time Magazine`s man of the year. He won the Nobel Peace Prize and he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom nine years after he was
assassinated in 1968.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So tonight we have a super moon because it`s full and it`s close to the earth. It is a wolf moon because it`s the January full
moon and it`s a blood moon because it`s a total eclipse. So we have a super wolf blood moon eclipse according to some folks.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARL AZUZ: 10 Second Trivia. An oyster can produce a pearl by covering a grain of sand with what substance? Naker, Ockria (ph), Scarab, or Terub
(ph). When a tiny intruder like a grain of sand enters an oyster it covers it with naker that forms a pearl.
But if you like eating oysters, you`re not going to chip a tooth on a pearl. The kind that produce gems are in a different family than the kind
we eat. Still, they`re valuable and not just because they`re edible. Live oysters can filter 50 gallons of water a day. Their shells make great
fertilizer and the parts that restaurants throw away can be used to shore up New York City.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What if I told you that over 200 years ago some of the best oysters in the world were being harvested here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When Europeans first arrived in New York Harbor, oyster reefs everywhere, 200,000 acres of oyster reefs.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They were once a big part of the culture of New York, part of the food culture of New York. Oysters used to be sold on basically
like hot dog carts.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What happened to them?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We ate them.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Early New York boomed on an oyster economy but it turns out these oyster reefs had a much more important role.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We had tragedy happen in Super Storm Sandy. People lost their lives. There were waves hitting structures because this rich,
3D, mosaic of protective wetlands is no longer there.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That`s something a team of designers and engineers are trying to solve. Funded by a Federal Disaster Relief grant and
designed by Scape, a landscaping architecture firm, the Living Breakwaters Project is meant to safeguard part of New York City`s coast line.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s roughly a two mile long chain of breakwaters that are designed in an ecological way to create fish habitat. It is
reducing risk and the incredible wave action that was faced by communities.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And a major component of the project is the small and briny oyster.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oysters are ecosystem engineers in the harbor. They help to (inaudible) and create reefs. They filter water. They clean
water.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The oyster reefs actually reduce the impact of storms and storm surges and things like that. When you had a complex 3
dimensional shoreline that is both oyster reefs and salt marsh and all that working together.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In other words before New Yorkers polluted and over harvested their harbor, oyster reefs used to provide a natural protection
against big waves like the ones produced by Hurricane Sandy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Without the oyster reefs and with - - you know, the whole shoreline is fundamentally changed. New York is more vulnerable to
storms.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That`s why since 2014 the non-profit Billion Oyster Project has been working to restore the city`s oyster reefs. The group
starts by collecting restaurants discarded oyster shells, drying them and then seeding them with oyster larvae. Once back in the water, those shells
become the habitat for other oysters to build on. So far about 28 million oysters have been installed in various sites around the harbor. And while
the water quality of the harbor has improved, the number of oysters in the water is only a tiny portion of what it used to be and they`re still not
safe to eat but something recently changed.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For restoration to be successful, you need recruitment of wild oysters from the system.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Meaning wild baby oysters need to be able to find these reef installations in order to latch on and establish a home for
themselves.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That`s something we`ve seen in very small numbers periodically over the years. So we started looking in earnest at all of
our sites around the city and it`s - - it`s true for just about everywhere we have oysters. That this year, there`s a lot more natural improvement.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So that`s a - - a really exciting sign.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A large scale arrival of wild baby oysters is good news for the Living Breakwaters Project.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oysters are not going to keep the water out of New York but oysters that combine with breakwaters can be an integrated solution.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So these breakwaters are seeded with oysters and oysters will agglomerate on the structure, attach onto it. Grow and form
their own, kind of, layer of complexity on top. It`s also a social enterprise in a sense that we`re engaging school children and - - and
teachers through the Billion Oyster Project.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So these guys are basically forming a reef. Right. They`re building more and more structure.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The Living Breakwaters Project will be in construction through 2020 but rebuilding an entire ecosystem can take time.
ORF thinks that by 2050 the habitat around the breakwaters will be fully revitalized.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think New Yorkers need to get into this new paradigm of being a costal city again. Living with water, embracing our
watery context not fortifying ourselves off but understanding what it means to - - to live with this kind of risk and really preparing for it and being
smart about it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARL AZUZ: Whether you love gazing at the sunrise or the sunset, this hotel could let you see 16 of them per day. It`s the world`s first space
hotel or is it space`s first world hotel? Right now, it`s neither. The low orbit sleeper is just a proposal at this point. But if it gets built,
developers say you could be staying in it in the year 2021 that is if you have $9.5 million to spend on a 12 day "spacecation".
Well it`s not exactly a breath of fresh air, it`s where all the "stars" stay. There`s plenty of "space" available. It`s great for weight loss and
if everything "airlocks" up properly, there`s nothing to "atmosfear". I`m Carl Azuz and that`s CNN.
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