[music playing]
Hi, I'm Carl Azuz.
It's my pleasure to welcome you to CNN 10
on this Thursday, September 16.
Our first subject today concerns murder hornets.
Yes, we now have everyone's attention.
Also known as Asian giant hornets,
these insects are native to Japan and China.
They're invasive in the United States.
And several of their nests have been located in Washington
state since last year.
In fact, officials there say they've found three murder
hornet nests this year alone.
The first two have been destroyed.
That's also the plan for the third.
One of the reasons for that is the same one
why they got their name.
Enough stings can kill a person.
And dozens of related deaths are reported each year in Japan.
There haven't been any murder hornet
deaths in the United States.
And agriculture officials hope to keep it
that way by eliminating any nests they find.
These insects are the largest hornets on the planet.
They can grow up to 2 inches long.
They're bad news for honeybees.
Entomologists say it only takes a few hours
for a small number of Asian giant hornets
to destroy an entire honey bee hive.
US officials don't know for sure how
these insects got to America.
It's possible they stowed away in an international cargo
shipment.
The Washington State Department of Agriculture
is asking residents to report any suspected
sightings of murder hornets.
Officials plan to stay on the hunt for them
for years to come.
Microchip shortages, aluminum shortages, bike shortages.
The ripple effects of a pandemic that
started more than a year and a half ago continue to widen.
But even if certain goods weren't in short supply,
people who work with them are.
Many businesses simply can't find
enough employees, especially in retail and manufacturing.
It's a labor shortage that's gotten so bad
that an official with the US Chamber of Commerce
calls it a crisis.
Executive vice president Neil Bradley
says one solution could be for businesses
to list the skills they're looking for in employees,
and for community colleges and local workers
to then help people develop those skills.
But some employers are finding that even
when everything matches up, keeping the workers
is a challenge.
- It's impossible to be in three places at once.
But Nate Phillips is trying to do just that.
Fishing on his family's boat, running his new clam shack,
and cutting the day's catch in his fish market.
NATE PHILLIPS: I've got two guys here besides myself.
Normally I have seven.
- It's the same in all three locations.
How many people's jobs do you think you're
actually doing right now?
NATE PHILLIPS: I don't even know if I can put a number on it.
But for just the sake of saying, probably five.
- The seafood industry, like so many others,
is experiencing a labor shortage.
And it's currently high season in Greenport, Long Island,
where seafood is in demand.
How would you say business is going?
NATE PHILLIPS: It's insane.
- US seafood prices are up 2 and 1/2% since last year,
the fastest pace in years.
This should be good news for Phillips,
but he says customers often leave frustrated
and without making a purchase.
With little staff, people are forced to wait.
Are you missing out on potential business because--
NATE PHILLIPS: Absolutely.
I feel every day we are.
Every day.
- The US imports up to 85% of the seafood we eat.
But with slowdowns in international trade,
there's even more pressure on US operations to make up the loss.
In Louisiana, it's the tail end of the brown shrimp season,
but a lousy harvest and fewer workers
means less business for places like Louisiana
New Pack Shrimp Company.
KARL TURNER: We have to use temporary agencies
to get people to come in.
And it's hard to get them even today.
- Karl Turner runs the plant and says
many workers are either collecting unemployment
or left the industry for good.
KARL TURNER: People want to work in different industries,
cleaner industries.
And it's a challenge to attract people to work
in a shrimp processing plant.
- In the Gulf Coast bayous, Faith Family Shrimp Company
owns this dock and five boats.
But the family sold two because they couldn't
find anyone to run them.
ANGELA PORTIER: If I would have known what I know now,
five shrimp boats, a big shrimp dock facility,
I would have had five sons.
- It's a grueling, messy, monotonous business,
but one that takes skill.
ANGELA PORTIER: We'll start people out at a really good
pay, a really good hourly pay.
And in a week or two, they quit.
And we're like, what's going on?
And it's very hard to replace them.
- This is where Phillips says he needs to be.
But the lack of workers leaves him to choose between working
on land or at sea.
How often are you able to get out on the boat these days?
NATE PHILLIPS: Myself?
Not that much anymore.
This is the most important part to all of it.
Without this, we wouldn't have anything else.
CARL AZUZ: 10 second trivia.
Which of these scientists flourished
during the Scientific Revolution,
Isaac Newton, Euclid, Marie Curie, or Louis Pasteur?
The Scientific Revolution took place
during the 16th and 17th centuries
when Sir Isaac Newton was studying gravity.
Whenever we cover space stories and there's
talk about private citizens going up,
there's usually an astronomical price tag attached.
A seat on Blue Origin's first flight
was auctioned off for $28 million.
Virgin Galactic will sell you a ticket on its Unity
spacecraft for 450,000.
If the space balloon we reported on this week
gets off the ground, a spot there will cost $125,000.
But there is a way to experience similar weightlessness
to space for less than $10,000.
That's if you can stomach the price and the parabolas.
RACHEL CRANE: Oh my goodness.
Wow.
I'm feeling like an astronaut.
That's for sure.
Where are we?
And what are we going to be doing today?
MATT GOHD: Here we are, Newark Airport.
And we're going to be going up in zero gravity on G-Force one.
And you're going to get the same experience as people on the ISS
have.
RACHEL CRANE: Zero Gravity Corporation
uses a modified Boeing 727 flying in parabolic motion
to create multiple spurts of weightlessness.
Richard Branson acclimated himself to Zero G's on one
before he went into space as did the crew
of Inspiration 4, the first all civilian flight into orbit.
MATT GOHD: You don't want your first experience
in zero gravity to be in space.
And it's a very unique feeling.
And this gives them the framework to understand it.
RACHEL CRANE: I'm a little nervous.
We all know that flying on a rocket ship is dangerous.
But how dangerous are these flights?
MATT GOHD: There's no risk or danger in what we do.
We've flown 17,000 passengers over the last 16 years.
Not one injury and not one issue.
So we have all the same regulations, safety, everything
as that united flight does.
RACHEL CRANE: Oh.
Whoa.
Whoo.
Oh.
This is amazing.
Wow.
Unlike Jeff Bezos or Richard Branson's flights,
this plane isn't on a rocket aimed at space.
And airspace of 10 miles by 100 miles
is cleared for a G-Force one flight.
There's a lot of talk about these suborbital flights,
democratizing space.
But is this experience the closest thing that--
MATT GOHD: A normal person.
RACHEL CRANE: A normal person will ever experience?
MATT GOHD: Yeah, the price point--
I mean, no one would say $7,500 is cheap.
RACHEL CRANE: But.
MATT GOHD: But it's accessible.
RACHEL CRANE: It's a lot less than $28 million.
What is the value of the weightlessness experience?
Is this just for thrill seekers?
Or is there real research value to these flights?
MATT GOHD: Right now I would say half of it is research.
And then the other half is consumer facing.
We've done things that are literally
on the cutting edge for space, testing out how to do
3D printing in microgravity.
We've done experiments in how to animate freeze dried blood.
To go out and test things in zero gravity or microgravity
in space, prohibitively expensive, and not realistic.
RACHEL CRANE: Oh my god.
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CARL AZUZ: A lot of folks work out their abs.
But anyone looking to set a record for planking,
whether that's a personal or a world record,
knows it's going to hurt.
But Daniel Scally is no stranger to pain.
He has a condition that makes him extremely sensitive to it,
but also taught him how to manage it.
So to raise awareness about the condition
and to set a new Guinness World Record,
Daniel held an abdominal plank for nine hours,
30 minutes, and one second.
And thinking of challenges to compare that to,
I drew a plank.
It can feel simply abdominal.
But if you're the no ab-scuses type,
and you don't get bored while working on your washboard,
you can plankton planking is an absolutely absome absercise
that meets you in the middle.
Bridgeport High School in Bridgeport Texas
knows how to get a shout out.
Folks they're subscribed and left
a comment on our most recent show at youtube.com/cnn10.
That's the only place our staff looks for your shout
out requests.
I'm Carl Azuz.