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CNN 10
Puerto Rico Earthquake Aftermath; The International Fight Against Australia`s Bushfires
Aired January 08, 2020 - 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 HOST: Welcome everyone. Thank you for giving us, CNN, 10 minutes of your day. I`m Carl Azuz. This Wednesday show starts in a
U.S. island territory that`s about 1,000 miles southeast of Miami, Florida. It`s Puerto Rico and the message from its governor to the people living
there is be calm and be prepared for aftershocks.
The southern part of the island was shaken by a 6.4 magnitude earthquake on Tuesday. That`s powerful. It can cause a lot of damage. And it came one
day after a 5.8 magnitude jolt.
These were just the latest in series of quakes that the U.S. territory has seen since late December. The U.S. geological survey has recorded hundreds
of tremors within the past couple weeks. After Tuesday`s quake, which was the biggest of them, Governor Wanda Vazquez Garced declared a state of
emergency and activated the Puerto Rico National Guard.
Power was knocked out for people near the southern coast. Water service was knocked out to more than a quarter of the islands utility customers.
The earthquakes also affected part of the island typography.
Punta Ventana, a rock formation in arch on Puerto Rico`s south western coast, collapsed in Monday`s quake. Parts of Puerto Rico were still
recovering from a different kind of natural disaster that hit more than two years ago.
Hurricane Maria, as a ferocious category four storm made landfall on the island in September of 2017. It ultimately affected all of Puerto Rico`s
residents in one way or another and caused tens of billions of dollars in damage. There`s an international fight going on against Australia`s bush
fires or wild fires.
And they`re the worst blazes the country has seen in decades. They flared up all over the continent. 24 people have died, thousands of homes have
been damaged or destroyed. Ecologist estimate that 500 million animals have been affected in some way. Officials say some of the fires started
naturally when lightning struck drought affected forest.
The 24 people have been charged with intentionally lighting wild fires and police say dozens of them might have been caused unintentionally like when
someone throws away a lit cigarette on dry ground.
Australia`s fire season typically coincides with its summer months, which it`s in now but an ongoing drought and high heat have made this one worse
than usual.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
ANNA COREN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: (Inaudible) of the HMA`s (ph) (inaudible) Australia`s largest naval vessel, which is sailed into Eden Harbor here on
the south coast of New South Wales. It came in yesterday under eerie skies filled with smoke.
Today it is raining and very cold, which obviously is a reprieve for the firefighters who have been fighting those bush fires raging around here.
As far as this vessel is concerned, they have been brought here to conduct any evacuations and provide any assistance necessary.
This Seahawk behind me, it has been conducting recognizance missions throughout the day, traveling up and down the coast line, looking for any
communities that have been cut off from the bush fires.
Now 3,000 Australians advance force personnel have been deployed to assist with the bush fire crisis. The government has come under extraordinary
criticism and pressure, in particularly the Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison for (ph) his lack of leadership during this crisis.
But the Australian defense force wants people to know that they are here, they are ready to help. Downstairs there are over a thousand bunks and
stretchers ready for any evacuees.
There is a medical center as well as supplies, food, water. As I say, the military says they are ready to help. These service members, they are
Australians, it has been breaking their heart witnessing the scenes. They say they are proud to be here and to serve amongst the men and women
fighting these bush fires. Anna Coren, CNN, HMA`s Adeliade (ph), Eden, Australia.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
AZUZ: 10 second trivia. Guglielmo Marconi is best remembered for his work on what? Microwaves, telepathy, food science, or telegraphy. The Italian
inventor devised a wireless telegraph that helped give rise to long distance radio.
The very idea of downloading a podcast to a smartphone would have blown his mind. But Marconi`s Nobel Prize for helping develop telegraphy was awarded
in 1909. So it`s been a few years.
One question now with the popularity of podcast on the rise is whether companies that provide them can make them profitable. Do they make
business sense. One popular streaming service is betting but not promising that they do.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
RACHEL CRANE: Spotify wants to be known for more than just music.
DAWN OSTROFF, CHIEF CONTENT OFFICER SPOTIFY: Our goal is to be the largest global audio network.
CRANE: It`s investing big in a whole new area. Podcast.
MICHAEL BARBARO, NEW YORK TIMES: From the New York Time, I`m Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`m Steve Enski (ph) with (inaudible) and this up first from NPR News.
CRANE: People associate Spotify with music so why move into podcast.
OSTROFF: You can`t deny that podcast has now become a very important factor in people`s audio experience. The idea is for us to have a seamless
platform across music and podcast.
CRANE: The streaming giant bough Gimlet Media, Anchor, and Parcast. Three popular podcast companies for nearly $400 million. A large price tag
considering the entire podcasting industries ad revenue was less than half a billion dollars in 2018. But the podcast industry is young and growing
fast.
STEVE JOBS, APPLE CEO: We recently announced something new for iTunes and iPod and it`s called podcasting. It`s been described a lot of different
ways. One way has been a TiVo for radio.
CRANE: Apple had you guys beat a little bit in terms of the timeline. They got into podcast in 2005 and as a result most people go to Apple. So
how are you guys going to change that?
OSTROFF: It`s only been about two years and we`re already seeing 10 percent of our user base listening to podcast. We`re also very much
dedicated to creating an atmosphere where creators, producers, writers want to be here exclusively.
And so being able to offer an experience where they can not only make podcast, get the data and insights that they need and then in addition to
that, expose their podcast globally to a much larger audience is going to be a big game changer for us.
ALEX BLUMBERG, CEO GIMLET MEDIA: Season four of Startup is almost here and we`re starting off with some episodes about the company that makes this
podcast, Gimlet Media.
CRANE: Alex Blumbergo co-founded Gimlet and spent four years building it into one of the most popular podcast studios, launching hit series like
homecoming, reply all and heavyweight. When Spotify first approached him, he was nervous.
BLUMBERG: It`s a heavy thing to sort of like build a business and then sort of like hand over the reins.
CRANE: Ultimately it was the access to Spotify`s resources that sealed the deal for him.
BLUMBERG: We just have so much more understanding of our audience and how they consume podcast. In the old world people download the podcast and
then you don`t know what happens to it. You don`t know when they listen to it, how much they`ve listened to, if they`ve even listened to it.
And you don`t know what else they`ve listened to. You don`t know what their habits are. You can`t sort of make any sort of assumptions about
like well, if they listen to this then they`ll also listen to the thing that we`re making.
You`re just blind. And so as part of Spotify because it`s this huge platform of users, you can sort of see like this group listens to this
music and they like this kind of podcast. That`s one of the biggest advantages.
CRANE: For now Spotify`s bet seems to be paying off. Podcast listeners spend nearly twice as much time on the platform than just music listeners.
Eventually the company expects 20 percent of all listening on the platform to be something other than music.
OSTROFF: Our product teams have been working tirelessly to be able to deliver personalization to users on the podcast side, the same way we do on
the music side.
CRANE: Even Spotify says it can`t guarantee it will make a profit from podcasting. But for Ostroff it`s all about betting on the future.
OSTROFF: The younger generation has really taken to it. And I always say where the young people go, the older people follow.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
AZUZ: On July 7, 1999 a man in Utah bought a McDonald`s hamburger for $0.79. He didn`t eat it. He carried it around as a demonstration of how
hamburgers can deteriorate. But then it got stuck in a coat pocket and was forgotten and the burger was just reopened more than 20 years later.
The amazing thing about this is how it looks exactly the same, only the pickle on the inside looks its age. The man says the burger smells like
cardboard. A chef believes it dried so quickly that bacteria or mold didn`t have time to grow in to it. Does that make it an impossible burger?
It`s not a Whopper by any sense, but you can tell Wendy where the beef is. They could give the old burger to Old MacDonald to keep on the farm, at
least if Chick-fil-A cows would be happy that no one ate it. But its owners are hoping it`ll turn to gold if someone bullish on it offers to buy
the burger, unless of course it`s stolen by a hamburglar.
I`m Carl Azuz for CNN.
END
