Return to Transcripts main page
CNN 10
Discrimination Against Asian-Americans; Identification of An "Interstellar Object"; Virtual Vacation Through the Florida Keys
Aired March 19, 2021 - 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 ANCHOR: Hi, I`m Carl Azuz. We are wrapping up the week here on CNN 10. You`re daily overview of world events and of course we`re
always happy to have you watching. The U.S. House of Representatives just held a hearing on the issue of discrimination and violence against Asian-
Americans.
Experts say these problems have been increasing since the corona virus pandemic began early last year. The disease outbreak started in China and
Chinese-Americans have been the group targeted the most frequently in the U.S. That`s according to the non-profit social organization Stop AAPI Hate,
AAPI standing for Asian American Pacific Islander communities.
It says it`s received roughly 3,800 complaints of harassment and violence against Asian-Americans since March 19th of last year. That`s when Stop
AAPI Hate began tracking this information. So it doesn`t have perspective on how that compares to the year 2019 before the pandemic. It also says
that most of the complaints it`s received are not hate crimes.
That 68 percent of them are reports of verbal harassment, 20 percent involved what the group called shunning or avoidance and 11 percent
included physical assaults. But experts say hate crimes against Asian- Americans did increase by almost 150 percent last year in American cities and the House hearing aimed to address the recent surge in discrimination
as well as the history of what`s been directed at Asian-Americans which dates back to the 1800s`.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A hate crime is defined as a criminal offense motivated by bias or prejudice. Now hate itself is not a crime and hate
speech is protected by the 1st Amendment. The term hate crime only came into common use in the 1980s but those kinds of crimes, of course, existed
long before we used this official label for them. Laws to protect against what we now call hate crimes didn`t come around until the 1960s. Propelled
by the Civil Rights Movement, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 paved the way for the first Federal hate crime legislation in 1968.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There you go.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was the Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 that added Federal protections against crimes committed on the basis of gender,
disability and sexual orientation. As far as tracking hate crimes, the FBI didn`t even begin doing that until the 1990s, following the passage of the
Hate Crimes Statistics Act of 1990.
PRESIDENT GEORGE H.W. BUSH: Hate crimes cannot be tolerated in a free society.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But when we try to understand just how many of these crimes are being committed, we see that the data is incomplete for a lot of
reasons. The Department of Justice notes most hate crimes themselves are not reported to law enforcement. Victims are sometimes afraid to report
these types of crimes and for the crimes that are reported it can be challenging to prove an offenders intent. On top of that, the very
definition of what a hate crime is varies from state to state.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AZUZ: 10 Second Trivia. Which of these scientific discoveries was confirmed in 1758? Halley`s Comet, gravity, Bernoulli`s Principle or
penicillin. Even though Edmond Halley died in 1742, his prediction that the famous comet would return came true in 1758.
Scientists say that back in October 2017, the first interstellar object that`s ever been observed flew through our solar system. They estimated it
was traveling at 196,000 miles per hour and since then it has disappeared but they`ve continued to study and try to understand it ever since.
At first, researchers thought it could have been a comet but in comparing it to another interstellar comet, this one, they found that the new object
had a mysterious tumbling motion as it flew and that it didn`t have a commentary tail. Now there`s a new theory that the pancake shaped object
was part of a dwarf planet like Pluto that somehow broke off from another solar system and traveled near ours.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This object is simply a piece of another solar system that was expelled and that has been traveling interstellar space for
hundreds of millions of year, billions of years. We don`t know. We don`t see that in our solar system and none of the asteroids in our solar system
look like that. So it`s very puzzling how it could have obtained this shape.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AZUZ: We`re taking you on a trip down U.S. 1 today. It`s also known as the Overseas Highway that connects mainland Florida with Key West. In the early
20th Century, this was the route of Henry Flagler`s Overseas Railroad that connected the Keys. But after that was partially destroyed by the Labor Day
Hurricane of 1935, a highway was built over the railroad. And since it was completed in 1938, it`s allowed drivers to access the southern most point
in the United States. Here`s CNN 10 contributor Chris James.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS JAMES, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Hey Carl. As I have told you before, I am a huge fan of road trips. You know, sunglasses on, windows down, blasting the
music as high as you can. Nothing beats it. So for today`s virtual field trip, I am taking you on one of the most incredibly beautiful in the
country.
This the Overseas Highway which takes you from the mainland of Florida all the way to Key West which is the southern most point of the continental
United States. The road is 112 miles long and for much of the drive, you really have a 360 degree view of the ocean on both sides of the car. The
Florida Keys are a collection of small islands that curve outward into the Atlantic Ocean.
While most people make this trip with the eventual goal of getting to Key West, there are plenty of other cool spots along the way. If you are like
me and you`re interested in discovering places that are a bit off the beaten path. One stop you can make is in Marathon, Florida.
Legend has it that this city got its name from the workers who put in massive labor to build a railroad through the Keys. The work, they said,
was a real marathon. Get it? The name stuck and today you can go there to visit the Turtle Hospital. Now another really cool stop on this drive is in
Key Largo. This is one of the best spots in the world for scuba divers.
A few miles off shore, the sandy ocean floor is filled with natural and manmade reefs, and the skeletons of historic shipwrecks. Jules` Undersea
Lodge is the self-proclaimed world`s first underwater hotel. After checking in, guests have to dive 8.5 meters into their rooms. Now the highlight of
the stay is having a pizza or lobster dinner delivered to the room by a scuba diver. And if you`re like me and don`t know how to scuba dive, the
hotel also offers beginners lessons. Back to you Carl.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AZUZ: Virtual museum tours have seen an up tick since this COVID thing happened but how many of them do you get to control yourself? Here`s one.
The Art Gallery of Virginia`s Old Dominion University wanted to offer tours for people at home. So they invented "Gordon" which is kind of like a
segway with an IPad on it. And for $15 or less for ODU students, people can remotely operate "Gordon" taking a virtual and robotic tour through the
gallery.
One interesting and "amuseuming" "segway" and "remote" of transportation to "rover" around. Then you can`t "gallereally" be there to "canvas" the
"sighted art" appreciation. It`s like a "curated" "collage" of puns that decorates our show this Friday because Fridays are awesome. I`m Carl Azuz
and it`s time for us to part for the weekend with Villa Park High School. It`s located in Villa Park, California. That`s a wrap my friends for CNN.
END
