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Half a Million California Fast Food Workers Will Now Earn $20 Per Hour; Cleanup, Underway for the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore; Colorado Released Wolves to Balance Its Ecosystem. But Some Ranchers Aren`t Happy. Aired 4-4:10a ET

Aired April 02, 2024 - 04:00   ET

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


COY WIRE, CNN 10 ANCHOR: Hello, friends. Let`s get our energy up, up, up and take some time on this terrific Tuesday to give a shoutout to all the

teachers out there who are uplifting, informing and inspiring us every day. So be sure to give your teacher a handshake, a high five, a fist bump. Let

them know, I see you.

I`m Coy. This is CNN 10, the best 10 minutes in news. Rise up.

We start by taking you out to California where many fast-food workers just got a pay raise. That`s because of a new law that went into effect on

Monday, one that requires all fast-food restaurants to pay their employees at least $20 per hour.

There are more than half a million fast food workers in California and many of them aren`t teenagers working an after-school job. They`re adults

looking to keep a roof over their heads and food on their tables. And just this week, many of them just got a 25% pay bump.

But not everyone is ready to order a happy meal after hearing this news. Many of these chain restaurants, they`re not owned by the larger

corporation, they`re owned by franchisees. So they`re more like small businesses. And these franchise store owners, they`re worried that the

increase in pay will make it too expensive to run their business, meaning they`ll have to maybe lay some people off or stop plans to open new stores

or even close some of their existing stores.

But some researchers are questioning those fears around pay increases. They state that over the past decade, California doubled its minimum wage,

ending up at the current $16 per hour. And during that time, the data shows that the increase in pay did not lead to a lot of layoffs or a slowdown in

the pace of hiring.

However, companies like Jack in the Box, Starbucks, McDonald`s and Chipotle say they`re going to raise prices in a state that`s already one of the most

expensive places to live in the country.

All right, next we take you out onto the Patapsco River to see the remnants of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore. As you may remember, last

Tuesday in the early morning hours, a freight ship crashed into a pillar of the famed bridge, causing it to collapse. Officials say that a group of six

men working an overnight shift fixing potholes died when it collapsed. Gloria Pazmino has more on what`s next for the city of Baltimore.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GLORIA PAZMINO, CNN BALTIMORE, MARYLAND: So you can see we have been able to get extremely up close to the wreckage of the Dali and we`re starting to

really get an appreciation and a sense of just how massive this job is going to be.

You`re looking at 4,000 tons of steel and concrete that are sitting on top of that bow. That is going to be the most complicated part of this

operation. Moving all of that debris and taking it off the ship so that they can begin this cleanup process and then there`s everything that`s

laying below the surface. The part that we can`t see.

There is more metal, more concrete, more debris in the water and that`s going to be critical because they have to be able to make that safe for the

divers whose mission it is to get back into the water and continue searching to attempt to recover the bodies of those who were lost.

But as we`re sitting here, you know, now finally being able to really see it and get up close to it, you really just get a sense of the enormity of

the job at hand.

But all the officials here have told us that they are confident that they`re going to be able to get it done. They`re working together, have all

of the technology necessary and they`re going step by step, taking a meticulous approach to make sure that they get it right and that eventually

they can reopen the port. They can start rebuilding and that this important symbol for the City of Baltimore, and the City of Baltimore and the State

of Maryland can get cleaned up and the people here can start getting back to normal.

I`m Gloria Pazmino, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WIRE: Pop quiz hotshot. Which animal is often depicted as a villain in children`s stories and can be heard from more than five miles away? A lion,

a wolf, a dolphin, or a snake?

Wolf is your answer here. They`ve created havoc in "The Boy Who Cried Wolf," "Little Red Riding Hood," and "The Three Little Pigs," just to name

a few.

Owooooo, sorry, just getting reintroduced to my inner wolf. And that`s a lot like what`s happening in Colorado, where people voted to reintroduce

wolves back into their state. That`s the first time ever in the country`s history that a state has voted on this kind of ballot initiative.

But as Lucy Kafanov shows us, after the vote passed by a slim margin, some folks in the more rural parts of the state weren`t exactly howling with

joy.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KELLY MURPHY, ANIMAL CARE SUPERVISOR, COLORADO WOLF AND WILDLIFE: Humans adapting with wolves is going to be the biggest obstacle that we`re going

to be dealing with.

LUCY KAFANOV, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): After being nearly eradicated from Colorado about 80 years ago, wolves are officially back in

the state. Thanks to the first ever voter-mandated reintroduction of endangered wolves in U.S. history, these wolves, captured in Oregon, were

set free in Colorado`s wilderness last December.

KAFANOV (on camera): You are hungry. I never thought I`d be able to get so close to a wolf.

MURPHY: She`s a very special ambassador.

KAFANOV (voice-over): Kelly Murphy, the Animal Care Supervisor at the Colorado Wolf and Wildlife Center, is one of the advocates who`s helped

bring wolves back to the state.

(On camera): Obviously, this is not an interaction we`d ever have in the wild.

MURPHY: Right. Absolutely. If you see a wolf in the wild, our advice is to take a picture and consider yourself lucky because it`s probably never

going to happen again.

KAFANOV (voice-over): Some two million gray wolves once roamed freely throughout North America. But when European settlers arrived, they brought

their old-world myths and hatred of wolves with them. By the 1940s, wolves were nearly wiped out.

MURPHY: There`s so many myths and misconceptions that are surrounding wolves. Sometimes it`s difficult to understand that they`re not exactly

true.

KAFANOV: As an apex predator at the top of the food chain, they help keep certain animal populations in check, which in turn helps plants, trees and

other wildlife thrive.

MURPHY: They are critical to maintaining the balance of our ecosystems, and that means that it`s a more productive landscape for ranchers to also

graze their cattle.

KAFANOV (on camera): So what did the wolf do to this specific cow?

DON GITTLESON, RANCHER: So he got a hold of her by the throat and then he got a hold of her by the hind leg. It`s healed a lot.

KAFANOV (voice-over): Don Gittleson was fending off wolf incursions on his ranch in northern Colorado long before the ballot initiative.

GITTLESON: We`ve had wolves here for several years.

KAFANOV: They`ve been coming from neighboring Wyoming, which reintroduced wolves in the 90s.

GITTLESON: To me, this is my home. To them, this is their home. And they`re not just going to leave.

See these marks in the snow here?

KAFANOV (on camera): Are those the wolf tracks?

GITTLESON: That`s the last time they came through.

KAFANOV (voice-over): In Colorado, the wolf reintroduction proposition barely passed, with most of the votes in favor of reintroduction coming

from urban areas like Denver and Boulder.

GITTLESON: People have very strong opinions about wolves, and it doesn`t matter what side they`re on.

KAFANOV (voice-over): But here in rural Colorado, there`s no confusing which side they`re on. The state compensates ranchers for livestock

attacks. But because it`s illegal to hunt wolves in Colorado, Don has had to get creative, using donkeys.

GITTLESON: They bite and they bite hard.

KAFANOV (voice-over): Longhorns, and shooting blanks. As for fencing?

(On camera): It`s a pretty big place to put a fence around.

GITTLESON: Yeah, a foot chain link fence to keep the wolves out. I have moose, I have mule deer, I have elk, and I have antelope that cross this

country to migrate back and forth. And I would absolutely stop them from doing that. And I`m not willing to do that.

KAFANOV (on camera): You care about this landscape.

GITTLESON: So you don`t manage things one species at a time.

MURPHY: We don`t want to just leave it to the ranchers to deal with that on their own. There are a lot of organizations and NGOs that are willing to

help implement those non-lethal measures because at the end of the day, ranchers and wolf advocates want the same thing. We all want clean air,

clean spaces and healthy environment and ecosystem. And I think that wolves are a very key element into making that happen.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WIRE: Today`s story, getting a 10 out of 10, we`re headed to an elementary school in Nevada where a teacher took a very different and delicious

approach to teaching kids about math and physics. After collecting nearly 1,000 unopened boxes of cereal donated by parents, Roger Becker had his

fifth-grade students line him up and knock him down. Look at him go.

All right, superstars, tomorrow is #YourWordWednesday, where your word can make it into the show and boost our vocabulary. Follow me @Coywire on

Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok.

Submit your unique vocab words in the comment sections of our most recent posts, along with your name, school, city, state and your teacher`s name if

you`d like. And we`ll shout out a winner in tomorrow`s show.

Today`s shout out goes to Pickens High School in Jasper, Georgia. Go Dragons.

And this shout out goes to Oliver W. Winch Middle School in South Glenn`s Falls, New York. We see you, Bulldogs. We hope you and everyone watching

around the world have a wonderful one.

I`m Coy. And we are CNN 10.

END