CARL AZUZ,
CNN 10 ANCHOR: Hey. I'm Carl Azuz for CNN 10. And Fridays are awesome -- unless
you're in the U.S. Northeast and you hate snow.
The region is
dealing with the affects of what could be the most significant storm of this
winter. When the snow emergency is declared in places like Boston,
Massachusetts, you know the weather is bad. Blizzard conditions, whiteouts,
more than 1,600 flight cancellations, the closure of the largest school
district in the United States, and the warnings to people not to leave their
homes except in an emergency. This is all because of a storm system that's
affected more than 60 million people in some way. That's roughly one-fifth of
America's population.
It came on
suddenly. Wednesday's temperature at New York's John F. Kennedy International
Airport was 65 degrees Fahrenheit. Yesterday, it was 25, sinking to a low of 18
overnight, and it came with snow.
Forecasters
predicted eight to 12 inches in New York, with wind gusts of 50 miles per hour.
Boston was expected to get 12 to 15 inches of snow.
And
yesterday, in Massachusetts and Connecticut -- thundersnow. Pretty unusual
event when a winter snowfall brings the thunder.
The system
was moving out of New York by last night, but it was expected to impact Boston
through the weekend. National Weather Service doesn't expect the temperature
there to get above freezing until Sunday.
Despite the
storm's location, though, and despite its affects, it moved from west to east,
from land to sea. It's not technically a nor'easter, though some folks were
calling it that.
What exactly
is the difference?
(BEGIN
VIDEOTAPE)
JENNIFER
GRAY, AMS METEOROLOGIST: A nor'easter occurs within the most crowded coast line
of the United States, the Northeast, and they can occur any time of year but
are most common between the months of September and April. That's when weather
conditions are primed for a nor'easter.
You start
with a low. It's going to travel from the Southeast to the Northeast and
intensify. Nor'easters are strongest around New England as well as the Canadian
Maritime Provinces.
Now, we have
very warm water in the Gulf of Mexico and all around the coast of Florida, it's
going to warm the air above it and that warm air is going to clash with very
cold air coming from the north. Now, nor'easters carry winds out of the
Northeast at about 58 miles per hour or more. And keep in mind, the win
direction out of the Northeast is what defines a nor'easter.
It's also
going to cause beach erosion, as well as coastal flooding and very, very rough
ocean conditions.
Now, not all
nor'easter have snow, but some of the most memorable ones have dumped lots of
it.
(END
VIDEOTAPE)
AZUZ: Feeding
a growing population, the price and availability of land, government rules and
regulations, international trade laws -- these are a few of the challenges
faced by farmers worldwide, and they're on top of the every day demands of
producing a successful crop and making a living from it.
They have a
new tool that can help, though -- crowdsourcing, getting information usually
through the Internet from other farmers who faced and overcome specific
problems.
What about
those farmers who don't have Internet access?
(BEGIN
VIDEOTAPE)
REPORTER:
What if you could stop global food shortages with this?
Seventy percent
of the world's food comes from small isolated farms that are an average only
two acres. About 0.8 hectares, like Darrell's farm in Kenya. If farmers like
Darrell didn't produce food, the world wouldn't eat.
So, what
happens when Darrell, who's only been farming for a few years finds out his
crop is mysteriously dying?
DARRELL
KITHEKA, FARMER: There came a disease. It came from nowhere. And nobody knew
about it.
REPORTER:
That's where an emerging social network that connects rural farmers with no
Internet access comes in. WeFarm, a London-based startup that's recently raised
$1.6 million in seed funding, works on a simple premise. Have a problem? Send a
text that goes out to 120,000 other farmers and crowdsource the answer.
That's
exactly what Darrell did when worms got into his tomato crop.
KITHEKA:
Luckily, whoever got that question, it is like God, who worked there. He gave
an answer, as if he was in my mind.
REPORTER: The
solution, a pesticide that killed the worms and saved his tomatoes.
At its roots,
farming is about generational knowledge. Your mom was a farmer and her dad was
a farmer and so on. But in millions of small isolated farms, that knowledge
only goes as far as you walk.
Now, these
farmers have a global community to lean.
MWINYI BWIKA,
HEAD OF USER ACQUISION, WEFARM KENYA: Our first function is to connect all the
farmers, and insure that they able to tap into this generational knowledge.
REPORTER: The
network has already answered over 280,000 questions and shared 18 million
pieces of information.
BWIKA: It's
not just about sharing the challenges that they're having. They're also sharing
the winds that they get on a day to day basis.
REPORTER:
Basically, the more successful the farmer, the more land he can buy and the
more crops the can grow for the world.
KITHEKA: The
farming, it's in my blood. Hopefully, I think it will -- it's going to take me
somewhere.
(END
VIDEOTAPE)
AZUZ: Coming
Monday, full coverage of a U.S. federal appeals court ruling concerning
President Donald Trump's executive order on refugees and immigrants. We'll
bring you a complete explanation and reactions from both sides on CNN 10.
(BEGIN VIDEO
CLIP)
AZUZ
(voice-over): Ten-second trivia:
Research into
the structure of DNA made scientist(s) famous?
Thomas
Edition and Nikola Tesla, Louis Pasteur, Marie Curie, or James Watson and
Francis Crick?
In 1953, it
was Watson and Crick who described the structure of DNA as a double helix.
(END VIDEO
CLIP)
AZUZ: You
hear a lot about DNA evidence used in crime investigations. And when people are
accused of crimes in the U.S., they have rights under criminal due process.
That's not the case with dogs. A legal expert says they're considered property.
So, DNA testing when an animal is accused of killing another one isn't part of
their legal process.
Still, the
owners of Jeb, a service dog that helps care for an elderly man in Michigan,
spent $416 to obtain DNA evidence and prove Jeb's innocence when he was found
standing over the body of a neighbor's dog. The rest is now canine court room
history.
(BEGIN
VIDEOTAPE)
ELIZABETH
COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Jeb, you were accused of a very
serious crime. Did you do it?
SUBTITLE: DNA
saves dog from death row.
Jeb, a
service dog, was accused of killing a neighbor's dog.
COHEN: When
you heard Jeb killed another dog, what went through your head?
PEGGY JOB,
JEB'S OWNER: No, Jeb didn't do it.
SUBTITLE: The
neighbor took Jeb's owners to court.
COHEN: At the
end of the trial, what was the judge's order?
JOB: That Jeb
needs to be put down because he's a dangerous dog. He had his mind made up that
that dog needs to die.
SUBTITLE: To
prove Jeb's innocence, his owners swabbed his mouth for a sample of his DNA.
Then a lab
checked to see if Jeb's DNA was in the deceased dog's wounds.
COHEN: When
it came back, what did it say?
JOB: It said
that Jeb did not kill the dog. His DNA was nowhere on any of the samples.
SUBTITLE:
After the judge learned about the DNA results, Jeb was returned to his owners.
COHEN: If you
had not gotten that DNA, would Jeb have been killed?
JOB: Yes,
certainly would. There was no question about it.
COHEN: How
did your husband respond when Jeb came home?
JOB: He was
in shock. He cried.
COHEN: Ooh.
So happy.
JOBS: He was
so happy.
UNIDENTIFIED
MALE: You're a good doggy.
(END
VIDEOTAPE)
AZUZ: Well,
they say that no two of these things are exactly alike and these pictures prove
it. At least in the close-up snowflakes captured by this CNN iReporter.
He says the
pictures were taken by a smartphone with a lens attachment. They are particles
that fell out of the Ohio winter sky and stuck to the windshield of a parked
car.
The
photographer says he's been taking pictures like this for three years. And
though some people might ask why, to us, it's crystal clear. Seeing snow
chilling on his car precipitated the idea and he probably thought to himself,
lattice take a closer look. As a matter of fractal, who'd want to flake out on
a chance to branch out and capture some frozen flake-tography. Like these puns
themselves, the pictures just kind of snowball.
I'm Carl
Azuz, hoping you have a great weekend a sled of you.
No comments:
Post a Comment