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CARL AZUZ: You made it to Friday.
Awesome.
We are exactly halfway through the month of April,
and we're glad you found time to watch our show.
I'm Carl Azuz.
One of the worst storms in the history of South Africa--
that's how a local government on the nation's east coast
describes a subtropical system named Issa.
It was a slow-moving storm.
It hit the province of Kwazulu-Natal, which
includes the city of Durban, home
to more than 3 million people.
And Issa's sluggish pace gave it plenty of time to drop
heavy rains on the region.
They began on Monday and brought several months'
worth of precipitation to the area over just a few days.
So flooding along South Africa's east coast has been tremendous.
Mudslides have flowed downhill.
Buildings have collapsed.
Cracks widened into deep fissures, destroying roads.
Homes have been lost.
And officials say more than 300 people have been killed.
Rescue teams have been digging through mud and rubble
to save lives.
Most of the shipping containers that arrive in Southern Africa
are processed through the Port of Durban.
And when the weakened ground gave way,
a large stack of containers could
be seen collapsing into the muddy waters around it.
Electrical crews have been working around the clock
to restore power, but the flooding
has been so bad around some stations
that workers haven't been able to get to them.
Officials say water mains have also been damaged.
And the local government is asking for the South
African National Defense Force to help
provide support from the air.
Is there any end in sight?
Well, the rain did let up for a while on Thursday,
bringing some relief.
But with a cold front expected to stall
over South Africa's east coast this weekend,
more rain is in the forecast.
Unfortunately, this isn't the only disaster threatening
the African continent.
Another one that could become widespread
stems from a conflict that's thousands of miles north.
DAVID MCKENZIE: The early starts and the intense work
at the Phillips Atakele Bakery in Lagos used to be worth it,
used to be profitable.
ABIGAIL OLUFUNMILAYO PHILLIPS: Since early this year,
precisely around the time of the bombing of Ukraine, which
has affected the supply of yeast,
which has affected our primary item of our production,
which is a white wheat flow.
Our flow has been very expensive.
The prices are changing constantly.
DAVID MCKENZIE: Now they can only
afford to produce half of what they did
and each tin gets less dough.
This war is horrifying for Ukraine's people.
It could be devastating for global food security.
Russia and Ukraine are agricultural export
powerhouses.
On the field of battle, farmers will struggle to plant crops.
With export ports blockaded by Russian warships,
it has pushed the prices even higher.
So the 10 hours [inaudible] spends
selling bread won't be enough to feed her two children.
She says customers don't have the cash anymore.
They often refuse to pay the going rate.
And even on the fertile slopes of Mount Kenya,
they are hurting.
[inaudible] had to slash her workforce.
The cost of fertilizer for her tea and coffee plantations
has doubled in recent months.
- You have no money to buy that fertilizer at that high cost.
DAVID MCKENZIE: And Russia is one of the world's
biggest fertilizer producers.
Sanctions and trade disruptions are likely to push
prices even higher.
Could this be any worse timed?
WANDILE SIHLOBO: The war is starting at one of the worst
times, because we were already thinking
we are in a recovery mode.
On top of that, there were already inflation pressures
that were across the world.
Africans are spending a lot on fuel
and spending a lot on food.
Then in these current moment, this is
a tough time for the continent.
DAVID MCKENZIE: The impact of this conflict
is coming on top of already soaring global grain prices.
And if you look at this map over here, of course,
countries across the world could feel the pain.
But economists point to specific African countries,
like Senegal, which imports more than 50% of its wheat
from Ukraine and Russia, and Somalia,
which imports more than 90%.
And in Somalia, already suffering
from generational drought, if the rains fail again,
the war in Europe could push this crisis into a catastrophe,
even into famine.
Aid agencies depend heavily on grain from Ukraine.
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CARL AZUZ: 10-second trivia.
Who invented the exercise called the Burpee?
James Naismith, Vince Lombardi, Pat Summitt, or Royal Burpee?
[beeping]
Yes, it was an exercise physiologist
and YMCA director named Royal Burpee
who brought us the exercise.
Whether or not Burpees are part of your routine,
new research suggests even a little exercise has
another benefit to our health.
It might significantly lower the risk of depression.
First, how much is a little exercise?
Currently, the US Centers for Disease Control
recommends Americans spend two and a half hours
every week taking part in an aerobic activity,
like a fast-paced walk.
Runners can cut that time in half.
And, in addition, the CDC says we
should work out all major muscle groups twice a week.
The benefits are well-documented.
Exercise can lower stress, reduce anxiety,
improve sleep, protect us against heart problems
and diabetes.
But new research that looked at 15 other studies
found that adults who walked 75 minutes a week,
half the government's recommended level,
had a risk of depression that was 18% lower than those
who don't exercise at all.
The risk was 25% lower for people who followed
the recommended amount, but working out more than that
didn't improve depression rates.
So what's the big conclusion here?
In short, we should get off the couch and move.
The authors of the study, which was published this week
in the journal "JAMA Psychiatry,"
say it can help health experts give guidance
to people who can't find the time to follow
the CDC's recommendations.
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Eight years ago, a rock smacked into the northeast
coast of Papua New Guinea.
Cool story, bro.
But this was CNEOS 2014-01-08, what researchers
believe was a meteor--
and an interstellar one, at that, meaning it's
thought to have come from outside the solar system.
They haven't actually seen or examined it, so
how do they know any of this?
Well, Amir Siraj, the person who first observed it,
calculated that it was traveling at 37.3 miles per second.
And when he mapped out its trajectory,
he found this meteor wasn't orbiting the Sun, as others do,
but that it probably came from outside the solar system.
Years after his discovery was made,
US Space Command just confirmed the meteor
was likely interstellar.
Scientists hope to publish their findings
and maybe get the chance to find the rock.
CHAD MYERS: Questions here all the time
about comets, asteroids, and meteors,
meteorites-- what's the difference?
Well, let's start in space and work our way all
the way down to the surface.
A comet is a snowball.
It's a piece of ice.
Now the ice is mainly frozen gas, not water.
But there could be dust and rocks
and things inside the comet--
Halley's Comet.
Now NASA knows of about 3,600 other comets than that one
out there.
Closer in, in the Asteroid Belt, these are rocks, not gas.
They could be metal, as well, but they are hard surfaces.
And sometimes they come out of the Asteroid Belt,
get closer to the surface of the Earth,
or at least our atmosphere.
If one or a piece of a smaller one, called a meteoroid,
hits the surface of the atmosphere,
it turns into a meteor.
It gets bright because it hits our atmosphere
and begins to burn up.
If it doesn't make its way all the way down to the surface,
it turns into a shooting star.
Now if it does make its way all the way down to the surface
of the Earth and hits the ground and you can pick it up,
that is a meteorite.
CARL AZUZ: Of course, if they couldn't, they could
have snagged a midnight snack.
It's like delivery with Uber "bleats."
There's nothing wrong with haggis.
True, some might "lamb-baste" or completely shun the idea,
saying, you can't "woolly" be serious.
But it's tough to "bleat" if you can stomach it.
Pendleton High School in Pendleton, Oregon,
gets today's shout-out.
Calr, how did they do that?
They subscribed and left a comment on our YouTube channel.
I'm Carl Azuz for "CNN"--
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