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Auckland Hits by Deadly Flooding; Tyre Nichols Protests Erupt Across United States. Aired 4-4:10a ET

Aired January 30, 2023 - 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: Welcome back. I hope you had a great weekend. I`m Coy Wire. This is CNN 10.

Here to help you kick start your week with some of the top stories of the day and having a little bit of fun along the way.

We start though with some really heavy news out of New Zealand. Record rainfall wreaking havoc on the northeastern part of the island country over

the weekend. Auckland, the nation`s largest city, declared a state of emergency.

Look at these scenes from the airport there which had to be closed as torrential downpours have caused major flooding with numerous evacuations

in the area. Several lives have been lost.

On Friday, Auckland was hit with its average amount of rainfall for the entire month of January, all in just one hour`s time. New Zealand Prime

Minister Chris Hipkins says it`s been an unprecedented event.

More now from CNN international anchor and correspondent Michael Holmes.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Mud on the floor, waterlogged drawers. This is what the floods left behind in

Auckland.

This was someone`s house full of a lifetime of possessions. Residents say it took just minutes before chest deep waters washed through it. No time to

save anything except themselves.

REBECCA MAGEE, RESIDENT: I felt quite helpless, never been in that situation before. It happened real fast.

HOLMES: New Zealand`s new Prime Minister Chris Hipkins inspected the damage by air and on the ground and says the cleanup will be massive.

That`s because the amount of rain that fell Friday in Auckland has never reached such recorded levels in such a short amount of time. The city had

its worst downpour on record a burst of about 240 millimeters of rain falling in just a few hours. The heavy rains caused flash floods, closing

highways, grounding flights and stranding passengers, plunging neighborhoods underwater.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The water I think is up here, but when we`re trying to open that door to swim outside.

HOLMES: The waters have since receded but there are new fears in Auckland and further south where the storm has moved. The saturated ground giving

way to landslides in some areas leaving houses dangling from cliffs and backyards sliding down hills.

Stunned neighbors are trying to determine the scale of the damage using the drier conditions to try to find anything salvageable from their homes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have been in this community my whole life, 45 years, I`ve never seen it like this.

HOLMES: But the brief cleanup that was started may have to be on hold as meteorologists say there is more rain in the forecast.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WIRE: All right. Protests took place in multiple cities in the United States over the weekend after the release of a video of a police encounter

that happened in Memphis, Tennessee, on January 7th.

According to a police report, Tyree Nichols was pulled over for reckless driving. After an initial confrontation, Nichols fled. He was then arrested

at a second location.

But in the video, officers are seeing striking nickels repeatedly during the encounter in a manner that law enforcement analysts have described as

well outside the limits of police training. Tyree Nichols died three days after the incident. The actions by these police officers have been widely

criticized and rallies in cities across the nation, including New York, Atlanta, Boston and L.A. have called for the end of such abuses by

authorities.

All five police officers involved have been fired and charged with crimes and the police unit of which they were apart has been shut down. Lawyers

for at least two of the officers say their clients will plead not guilty to the charges and that no one in ended for the 29-year-old Nichols to die.

We`ll hear from CNN correspondent Polo Sandoval who has the latest.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Here in the United States, it was another night of demonstrations from coast to coast in the wake of the

release of the series of videos showing the beating of Tyre Nichols. On Friday night, there was one incident in Times Square where at least three

arrests were reported. But outside of that, according to authorities, things have remained relatively peaceful. On Saturday night, another group

of protesters coming together here in Manhattan, hoping to stand in solidarity with the Nichols family, hoping that their voice makes it to

Memphis and beyond.

Here`s what one of the organizers of Saturday night`s event told our affiliate WCBS about why they`re coming together here in New York.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are out here to fight and call for justice once again and continuously because the work did not stop in 2020, it didn`t

stop in 2021, and it did not stop in 2022. We are still here and we are still fighting until justice is done.

SANDOVAL: New York City`s police commissioner did say that they will continue to have officers out in full force, not only making sure that

citizens stay safe but also so to make sure that they protect the right for these individuals to peacefully assemble throughout the city here. They did

say also that they are really expressing outrage as well after seeing the video that was released, that series of videos that was released on Friday

night.

It`s really what we`re also hearing from other police departments in other parts of the country strongly condemning what the world saw when those

videos were released.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WIRE: Ten-second trivia:

The inaugural contest of what sports competitions was held in Big Bear Lake, California, in 1997?

The Goodwill Games, Rugby World Cup, The X Games, or Winter X Games?

The Winter X Games is your answer here and the 27th edition of the event was hosted this past weekend in Aspen, Colorado.

Nineteen-year-old freestyle skiing phenom Eileen Gu from San Francisco won two World Cup events this past week, storming back into competition for the

first time since the Beijing Winter Games, where she became the first free skier ever to win three medals at a single Olympics.

Now an injury during practice knocked her out of the X Games this weekend but Eileen told me ahead of the games how she balances being a student at

Stanford University, a pro-athlete and professional model. And she`s also telling us how she harnesses the power of her mind to help her shine.

(BEGIN VIDEEO CLIP)

WIRE: I remember in Beijing at the Olympics, you were journaling, you were writing affirmations before half pipe, convincing yourself you weren`t

tired. How big of a role does training your mind play in your life?

EILEEN GU, FREESTYLE SKIER: Huge, huge role. I think that for me my biggest strength is my brain. I`m shamelessly a nerd. Everywhere I go, the

reputation follows me and you know, I`ll take it. I definitely propagate it out there.

And at the end of the day, I think that so much of skiing is in your own head. It`s an individual sport which means that your biggest rival really

is yourself and overcoming that fear being able to perform on the day, learning how to deal with pressure, these are all things that are practiced

and they are behaviors that I`ve spent a long, long time learning about how I naturally cope with them and then trying to exacerbate my strengths.

So in that sense, I do a lot of journaling. I do a lot of thinking, a lot of reflection, a lot of visualization.

WIRE: You once said your wish is to inspire young girls to break boundaries. What do you mean by that, Eileen?

GU: I mean that growing up, I think so much of what you think is possible for yourself is dependent on what you see out there in the world. It can be

on TV. It can be on social media it can be what you see your friends doing. I guess it`s just feeling as though you`re not alone, feeling that there`s

a place for you in the community or in the sport that you want to participate in.

For me, growing up, there weren`t that many girls in the ski industry. There were a couple and I looked up to them a bunch and they really, really

inspired me. But I guess what I want to do is, you know, I`m young and I`m trying to do my best and I just want to be the person that a girl at home

can see on TV or on their phone and say, hey, you know, if she can do that, then I want to try it, too.

She looks like she`s having fun, when can I try? And really, that`s all I want to do. I just want to be out there. I want to reflect the population

that`s interested in it and hopefully inspire someone to take it up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WIRE: And for today`s story getting a 10 out of 10, something unbearably cute and funny. A trail cam in Boulder, Colorado, captured about 580 photos

and around of them were bear selfies. Is it possible that this black bear knew exactly what it was doing? There are all sorts of poses like the

coming right at you or the stare off into the distance or how about the pretty side posts, who me? There`s even a hey, look at my paw, y`all.

This pabearazzi was having a ball clearly. There are roughly between 17,000 and 20,000 black bears in the state of Colorado, but none of them can

strike a pose quite like this one.

Hey, y`all, hey. Thank you very much for all the love on our CNN 10 YouTube Channel. We surpassed 700,000 subscribers now, so special thanks to you.

And salute to South Middle School in Edinboro, Texas. You get our shout out for the day.

Let`s call out today and do something to make this world a bit of a better place, even if it`s just making someone smile today. I`m your boy Coy, and

I`ll be right here with you tomorrow.

END