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Israel Widens Attacks on Iran-backed Militant Groups; Recovering from Hurricane Helene; Yamilee Toussaint, Found a Big, Bold, and Fun Way to Get Girls of Color Working in STEM. Aired 4-4:10a ET

Aired September 30, 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, everyone. Hope you had a wonderful weekend. I am pumped to be back with you here. And so pumped I was able to meet some

of you when I drove up to South Carolina this weekend to see my Stanford Cardinal play the Clemson Tigers. Didn`t go well for my Cardinal, but big

shout out to Mr. Marshall`s class at R.C. Edwards Middle in Central South Carolina. I see you, John.

I`m Coy Wire. This is CNN 10, the best 10 minutes in news because of you.

Let`s start with some of your headlines. First, in Lebanon, Hezbollah has confirmed that its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was killed in an Israeli

airstrike in Beirut on Friday. His death is a major escalation in the long- running conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, and it`s adding to growing concerns of a wider regional war.

Nasrallah was one of the founders of Hezbollah in the 1970s. He oversaw its transformation over the years into one of the most powerful paramilitary

forces in the Middle East. The Israeli airstrikes that killed Nasrallah targeted densely populated areas and destroyed residential buildings.

Strikes continued over the weekend on more sites that Israel says are Hezbollah targets in Lebanon.

Government officials in Lebanon say an estimated one million people have already been displaced by recent fighting in southern Lebanon.

Next, the southeastern United States is reeling in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. The storm made landfall as the strongest hurricane on

record to hit Florida`s Big Bend region, a Category 4 storm.

It weakened once on land to a tropical storm and then a post-tropical cyclone, but it continued to level communities, knock out power, and cause

dangerous floodwaters that stranded many across several states.

Now, massive search and rescue operations took place in North Carolina, where more than 60 people were unaccounted for in just one county. The

storm has killed dozens of people overall.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DIA VARTSAKIS, OWNER, NEPTUNE GRILL: We`ve lost everything in this building.

CARLOS SUAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A common refrain along much of Florida`s West Coast.

VARTSAKIS: Now there`s nothing, just some sticks.

MAJOR LIZ ALPERT, SARASOTA, FLORIDA: This is the worst probably we`ve seen in our area in 100 years. I know I`ve been in Sarasota for 22 years and

I`ve never seen anything like this.

SUAREZ: Heavy rain bringing historic flooding, forcing water rescues.

MATTHEW HELLER, TAMPA BAY, FLORIDA, RESIDENT: Holy cow, that storm surge, the whole lower level of my home was filled with water. I ended up hopping

on to one of my little kayaks to float around in my living room.

This has been just a heck of a storm surge. It`s wiped out all my neighbors. I see just the destruction going all down the road.

SUAREZ: Boats thrown about, power lines down, homes and businesses destroyed.

VARTSAKIS: Some of it`s outside, some of it`s in here. This is by far the worst I`ve ever had.

SUAREZ: And even amidst the flooding, massive fires, rescuers pass a burning home.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Anybody in your house?

SUAREZ: Using their resources instead to search for survivors.

RANDY VON ALLMEN, GULFPORT, FLORIDA RESIDENT: Boy, it`s devastating. I`ve never seen something like this. I`ve known people that lived here 20 years

that said they`ve never seen anything like it.

SUAREZ: After slashing Florida, Helene pushed north, battering Georgia and the Carolinas, also leaving life-threatening flooding.

In Atlanta, communities left underwater as Helene held its strength as a hurricane until halfway through the state of Georgia.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the worst I`ve ever seen. I`ve seen the creek high, like right up to the bottom of the bridge but nothing like this.

SUAREZ: But it wasn`t finished yet. Helene`s massive size spread the rain and misery into North Carolina, where a relentless deluge caused historic

flooding in Asheville just one day after a one-in-1,000-year rainfall saturated the region.

GOV. ROY COOPER (D-NC): This is one of the worst storms in modern history for parts of western North Carolina.

SUAREZ: And Helene continues to move, now into Tennessee, bringing rising water and dangerous flooding.

In Erwin, Tennessee, more than 50 people were stranded on the roof of a hospital surrounded by raging floods. Helicopters were sent to save them.

MICHAEL BAKER, ALDERMAN, ERWIN, TENNESSEE: They`re currently taking patients and staff off of the roof of the hospital and then transporting

them back into the city of Erwin. This is a serious situation. I would dare to say this is a life-and-death situation.

SUAREZ: Back here in Pinellas County, the National Guard has been deployed and they`re the ones that are going to be organizing the safety and

recovery effort moving forward.

And one of the things they have to figure out is how they`re going to remove the nearly half a dozen sailboats that crashed into several

structures out here, including the one right here behind me.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WIRE: Ten-second trivia. Who was the first female scientist to be awarded a Nobel Prize for physics?

Katherine Johnson, Marie Curie, Grace Hopper, or Marie Maynard Daly?

Your answer here is Marie Curie. The Polish and French scientist was the first woman to receive the Nobel Prize in 1903, and played a major role in

the discovery of radioactivity.

Now, our next story is about a young woman who, when studying at MIT, noticed there weren`t a lot of women of color in her mechanical engineering

classes.

Then she realized the same was the case for the number of people working careers in STEM, Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. So she decided

to do something about it, combining her passions for STEM and dance to intrigue and inspire the next generation and help them literally light up

the stage. Yamilee Toussaint is one of our CNN heroes.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

YAMILEE TOUSSAINT, CNN HERO: When I was at MIT studying mechanical engineering, I found that in most of my classes, I was the only or one of a

few black women.

Less than 5% of the STEM workforce consists of women of color. One of the reasons is that from a young age, many girls start to believe that they

can`t do well in math.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is strip one, and that is strip two.

TOUSSAINT: Exactly.

We have to change how girls see themselves and their potential in fields like math.

And I just started to wonder about a world where the benefits that you get from dance can lead to the outcomes that we`re looking for in STEM.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When my mom first told me about their program, I didn`t even hear the STEM, I just went straight to dance. I was like, OK,

dance? OK, I`m in.

And she was like, OK, there`s STEM to it too. Like, you know, be excited about that part.

TOUSSAINT: Can I hear about what you`re working on?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Basically, our story is like it`s the last day of school, like happiness.

TOUSSAINT: We bring STEM and dance together by allowing the girls to create dance performances that combine the two so they can work on costumes that

light up as they move.

And they`re learning how to program the circuit so that when they press a button on the circuit, the lights turn blue, or whatever effect that they

want to be able to convey a message.

Love it. This is going to be so fly.

We`re normalizing that girls of color can do computer science and create something together.

Can I see your code?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s a really good community to have other girls that look like me, encourage each other and push each other to be better and to

do STEM and to do stuff that we may tell ourselves that we can`t do and to have other people like tell us that we can actually do it.

TOUSSAINT: They have the opportunity to show off all that they learned in STEM and dance through performing and have the affirmation of hundreds of

people just cheering them on.

That feeling that they get, we want them to remember that and cherish it. And as they go off in life, that they remember that they are celebrated for

doing things in STEM.

So when they face that hard math problem, they`re reminded I could do hard things.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WIRE: Today`s story getting a 10 out of 10, there is nothing like a cat nap, especially when it`s literally a cat napping and that cat`s actually a

rescued mountain lion cub named Briar. Feline fine, all cozy and dozing off on a stuffy, you`ve got to be kidding me.

The Oakland Zoo shared this post saying the perfect plushie just hits different. Briar is napping on a repurposed stuffy and the zoo is reminding

folks to donate their used stuffies to be upcycled or repurposed and so far so good for Briar.

Thank you to all of you who have subscribed and have been commenting on our CNN 10 YouTube channel for some shout out requests. It`s time to show some

love now to St. John XXIII College Preparatory in Katy, Texas. Rise up.

Hope you have an awesome day today no matter what comes your way. See you right back here tomorrow.

I`m Coy Wire and we are CNN 10.

END