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CNN 10
Wind-fueled Wildfires Impact Southern California; Trump Wants to Buy Greenland Again; Meta Getting Rid of Fact Checkers. Aired 4-4:10a ET
Aired January 09, 2025 - 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: What`s up, sunshine? I`m Coy Wire, and I hope you all are safe and well. It is a really tough day, especially for all of our
viewers in Southern California. The wildfires there are some of the worst we`ve seen, so please know that we are thinking of you and hope that all
will be okay.
It is Thursday, January 9th. Let`s get to your news. We do start with the wildfires, three devastating fires springing up overnight, raging across
the nation`s most populous county. Scenes there are just terrible. Homes and businesses have been burned at rapid rates.
The largest fire in Pacific Palisades forced tens of thousands of people to flee under evacuation orders. Tens of thousands more have fled due to two
other fires raging in the county, the Hurst fire north of San Fernando and the Eaton Fire in Altadena. The fires sprang up so quickly, flames jumped
over highways.
Many people had to abandon cars on the roads near Malibu and Santa Monica. Fire officials had to use a bulldozer to move those vehicles to get to the
fires. At a Pasadena care home, workers raced to evacuate elderly residents with a blaze just one block away.
The fires have burned thousands of acres and firefighters still aren`t able to contain them. Crews are on the ground and in the air working to put out
the flames, but dry conditions and super strong winds are super charging the fires. Wind gusts are hitting hurricane force at times with reports of
telephone poles being knocked over.
Without containment, the Palisades fire has blazed at the rate of about five football fields per minute. Both the smoke and fire from the blaze are
so intense they can be seen from satellite images from space. More than 200,000 homes and buildings are without power in the county and 19 of LA
County`s 80 school districts have announced closures or remote learning.
The out-of-control flames sprang up on residents so fast and our team on the ground there, wrapping up reporting, learned just how quickly the fires
had spread. Our Natasha Chen captured her team`s scary escape to safety.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NATASHA CHEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): There were flames on both sides of the highway. There were embers flying over the lanes of the
highway. So as we`re driving behind this emergency vehicle, I`m hearing an explosion on my right. There are houses on fire right up against the road
on the left. And so at this point, I`m just holding my breath and I can feel the heat from inside the car just watching the embers fly across the
windshield.
We get put on a lot of kind of risky assignments and in this situation, we had to make a calculated risk for the best way to leave. And thankfully we
got out of there and we got a real look at just the level of destruction and really the fear that a lot of those residents might be feeling if
they`re looking at those images on the news. If they`ve evacuated, I can`t imagine. They`re wondering if their house is the next one on fire, if they
have anything to go home to.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WIRE: Ten-second trivia. What European territory is the largest island in the world that is not a continent? Sardinia, Greenland, Iceland or Reunion?
Your answer is Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark that`s more than three times the size of Texas. The largest island that is a continent
is Australia.
If you`ve been hearing a lot about Greenland lately, you are not the only one. Last month, President-elect Donald Trump called for the U.S. to buy
the Arctic island. He brought that up in his first term as president as well.
Now, his son, Donald Trump Jr., visited Greenland this week, raising questions about what exactly his father`s plans might be for the island.
CNN`s Fred Pleitgen explains why President-elect Trump is interested in buying the autonomous territory, whose capital city, Nuuk, is closer to New
York than it is to Denmark`s capital, Copenhagen, and what strategic importance it might bring the U.S.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Donald Trump wants Greenland. The president-elect has called acquiring the
autonomous Arctic territory, which is of course part of the Kingdom of Denmark, a strategic necessity for the United States.
Now, he sent his son, Don Jr., to Greenland, even though its leaders say that that is just a private visit. In a social media post, Donald Trump has
said, I am hearing the people of Greenland are MAGA. He has also vowed to both cherish and protect Greenland in what he calls a very vicious world.
Now, all this could make strategic sense for the United States. Greenland is situated in a very important place right between North America and
Europe. The U.S. also has some pretty important military assets there as well, like the Thule Air Base and a missile defense radar. But there is
something else. The Chinese have been increasing their footprint in Greenland, a lot of that through possible mineral deals.
However, the big problem that Donald Trump faces is that neither Greenland nor Denmark want Greenland to become part of the United States. Donald
Trump has floated the United States buying Greenland in his first term in office. But even back then, both Greenland and Denmark have said that the
island is not and will not be for sale.
In fact, the Kingdom of Denmark has now increased the presence of Greenland on the coat of arms of the country, clearly indicating that the Danes want
to hold on to their Arctic territory.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WIRE: Now to major changes happening at Meta, removing fact checkers from its platforms, Facebook and Instagram, and replacing them with user
contributed community notes similar to those implemented on X. The content review changes are a major reversal in how Meta handles keeping false and
misleading claims off its platforms and will significantly change the way that posts, videos, and other content are moderated online.
CNN`s Clare Duffy breaks down the changes for us and explains what factors went into these changes.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CLARE DUFFY, CNN BUSINESS WRITER: So Meta is rolling back some of its content moderation practices. In particular, it is getting rid of its
third-party fact checkers, which the company started its partnerships with in the wake of concerns that foreign actors were manipulating the platform,
using them to spread disinformation and sow discord among American voters around elections. But now the company is getting rid of those fact checkers
and it will instead rely on user generated context labels that will be added to posts. They`re called community notes. This is something that Elon
Musk has done on X since he took over two years ago.
And Joel Kaplan, who is one of Meta`s top Republican executives, he recently took over as its top policy executive. He announced these changes
on Fox News this morning. Let`s listen to how he described the system.
JOEL KAPLAN, CHIEF GLOBAL AFFAIRS OFFICER, META: So somebody can write a note and then the way it works is different -- different people on the
platform can sort of vote on that note. And if you get people who usually disagree, who all say, yeah, that sounds right, then that note gets put on
the post and people see it. X has been doing it for a while. We think it`s working really well and we`re going to adopt that system.
DUFFY: Now, Meta says that this is an effort to address mistakes that its content moderation systems have made, that they have been too restrictive.
And Meta said it has censored some voices. And, you know, this is Mark Zuckerberg says this is an effort to increase free expression. But I think
it also looks pretty clearly like an effort to appeal to the Republican voices, including Trump, who have accused the company of censoring
conservative voices.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WIRE: Today`s story getting a 10 out of 10, a one-month-old who`s hippo- ness brings happiness because she just might be the cutest thing we see all day. A baby hippo needed a name. So her home zoo took a poll and more than
116,000 votes came in from 165 countries from around the world.
Here`s what voters chose.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The Metro Richmond Zoo in Virginia announced the name of a baby pygmy hippo girl that was born in December. The name was decided
by a poll with more than 116,000 fans worldwide casting a vote. And the winning name is Poppy. The flowery name received 52.8% of the vote and is a
nod to her mom`s name, Iris.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WIRE: That little calf can hippotize with those eyes. That`s a cutie patootie right there.
Shout out to our neighbors to the North today. Alberta, Canada, the Trojans of Westwood Community High School in Fort McMurray, rise up.
And St. Benedict`s Episcopal School in Smyrna, Georgia. Mr. Flemingster and all the stingers, you rock. I see you, Austin.
I`m Coy Wire. Happy Friday Eve, everyone. See you right back here tomorrow for the best day of the week, Friyay.
END
