CARL AZUZ: With two weeks left to go in our spring
broadcasting season, we're happy to have you watching our show.
I'm Carl Azuz.
In the city of Buffalo, New York, local and federal
investigators are searching for answers
after an unprovoked act of violence
was carried out on Saturday.
Police say an 18-year-old suspect drove to Buffalo
from another area that's hours away after Peyton Gendron
arrived at a supermarket.
He's accused of shooting several people in the parking lot
before moving inside the store and attacking more there.
Buffalo's police commissioner says
the suspect was heavily armed and wearing
body armor, which is why he wasn't stopped
when a security guard shot him.
The security guard was a retired police
officer and one of 10 people who were killed in the shooting.
Three others were injured in the attack,
but they're expected to survive.
After police arrived, they say the suspect eventually dropped
his gun and surrendered.
He has pleaded not guilty to the initial charge
of first degree murder.
Why did he allegedly do this?
One thing investigators are looking at
is a manifesto, a public declaration
of views that was reportedly posted online
under the name of the suspect.
The manifesto's author claimed to be a white supremacist
and spoke out against Jews and other races.
Of the 13 people who were shot, 11 were African-American,
and two were white, according to police.
Authorities are calling the attack
a hate crime, an act that can be motivated by racism.
JOHN C. GARCIA: It was straight-up racially motivated
hate crime, from somebody outside our community,
outside of the city of good neighbors,
as the mayor said, coming into our community
and trying to inflict that evil upon us.
CARL AZUZ: Prosecutors are expected to announce more
charges against the suspect.
Also, as we produce today's show,
we were getting reports of another separate attack
at a church in Laguna Hills, California, where at least five
people were shot on Sunday.
CNN.com will have the latest information on that.
Our second story today follows up on something
we reported on Wednesday concerning
the rise and fall of Bitcoin.
The cryptocurrency's recent rise was
last Autumn, when the value of one Bitcoin
was close to $70,000.
The fall was last week when that value dropped to below $30,000.
What it will do in the months ahead is anyone's guess.
Some experts say one Bitcoin could still
be worth $100,000 or more by year's end,
but others say Bitcoin and crypto in general
could go the other direction altogether.
- It's touted as nearly impossible to counterfeit,
fast to transfer, keeping users anonymous, and not beholden
to any central bank.
The appeal of cryptocurrency has led to skyrocketing value,
its market cap peaking at $3 trillion
before recently dropping to $1.2 trillion.
ELON MUSK: Well, it's the future of currency.
It's an unstoppable financial vehicle that's
going to take over the world.
MICHAEL CHE: I get that, but what is it, man?
- Made possible by blockchain technology,
the most popular cryptocurrencies
are virtually mined.
Sophisticated software crunching complex computational math
problems, with the first to find a solution
winning a block of digital coins,
which users can then sell.
Boosted by an unprecedented level of easy money
in low interest rates and stimulus spending,
cryptocurrencies soared the last couple of years.
FRANCIS SUAREZ: And it's already changed the way our city works.
- Investors, entrepreneurs, and even governments bought in,
Miami Mayor Francis Suarez pushing to make the city the US
crypto capital, and El Salvador adopting Bitcoin
as an official currency.
NAYIB BUKELE: In El Salvador, we are trying to rescue this idea
and start the design of a country for the future.
- But the mining process consumes
tons of energy, which presents serious environmental concerns.
The anonymity also invites crime.
Crypto's been used for everything
from buying illicit drugs to paying off
hackers in ransomware attacks.
Critics also charge that crypto scams are rampant.
The mania has led to instability,
prices spiking and crashing.
And in the last month alone, close to a trillion
dollars' worth of value has been lost.
BORIS SANCHEZ: Given the extreme volatility
in cryptocurrency markets, a newer kind of coin
has become increasingly popular.
Stablecoins like Tether are backed by hard assets--
things like bonds.
They allow users of Tether to exchange one coin for $1
at any given time.
Similarly, algorithmic stablecoins, like Terra USD,
are not backed by hard assets but a nebulous
term called financial engineering
that ties it to the US dollar.
That financial engineering has recently spooked investors.
And over the last few days, both of these coins have faltered.
- Tether, the world's largest stablecoin,
broke its peg from the US dollar before rebounding,
and Terra USD fell into a death spiral,
dropping to just $0.16 as of Saturday.
Terra's sister coin, Luna, also lost more than 90% of its value
in just 24 hours.
ETHAN WU: They're built on these quite
complicated mechanisms that rely on people trusting the system.
And as soon as trust evaporates, the entire thing can collapse.
- The drop triggering a panic, with a recent report indicating
that regulators at the Federal Reserve
are concerned little oversight could doom confidence
in the entire digital economy.
ETHAN WU: I think right now is the kind of pivotal test moment
for crypto to either prove the doubters wrong,
that there is something new, different, and valuable here,
or I think the entire industry will
start to look like a very bizarre sideshow
that people should ignore.
CARL AZUZ: :10 Trivia--
what is the popular term for the second full moon
in a calendar month?
Red moon, blood moon, blue moon, or harvest moon.
The phrase, once in a blue moon, can
refer to the second full moon in a month.
But it's a moon of a red shade that stargazers
across the Americas were looking up for on Sunday night.
The total lunar eclipse was also at least
partly visible in Africa, Europe,
and some Pacific nations.
It was called the Super Flower Blood Moon,
and here's what all that means.
A supermoon might appear to be bigger
and brighter than a normal full moon,
because it occurs when the moon is
closer in its elliptical orbit of Earth.
It was there at perigee on Sunday night.
"Flower," because as the old "Farmer's Almanac" says,
this is the time of year when flowers bloom
in the northern hemisphere.
And "blood" is the result of the moon's reddish shade
during a total lunar eclipse.
- A lunar eclipse is when the moon passes
through the Earth's shadow.
This only occurs during a full moon.
Two factors decide which of three possible eclipses
the moon will experience-- the tilt of the moon's orbit
around the Earth, and which of the Earth's two shadows
the moon falls behind.
The Earth's darker inner shadow is known as the umbra,
and the lighter outer one is called the penumbra.
The penumbral eclipse is when the moon passes through--
you guessed it-- just the penumbra.
NASA says this type of eclipse is so subtle,
that if you didn't know it was happening,
you might not even notice it.
A partial eclipse is when the moon only gets covered by part
of the Earth's umbra, so only part of it
is shaded in darkness by the Earth.
A partial eclipse happens at least twice a year.
And then, there's the big one-- the total lunar eclipse.
These are rare, often separated by years,
and require the moon, Earth, and sun to be in perfect alignment.
But don't think this blacks out the moon.
As the moon shifts deeper into the umbra,
it takes on a red hue, which is sometimes called a blood moon.
The moon turns red, because the atmosphere is filtering out
color at the opposite end of the visible spectrum--
the blue light.
The short wavelengths of blue don't travel as far
as the long red wavelengths, so they
scatter before reaching our eyes,
leaving behind the red glow.
Not everyone on Earth can see a lunar eclipse at the same time.
You'll need to be in an area facing
the moon during the moments it's shaded by Earth.
Unlike a solar eclipse, you don't
need any special equipment to enjoy a lunar eclipse.
They're safe to watch at any stage,
although a pair of binoculars might make it more fun.
CARL AZUZ: If you're a millionaire
and you like spending your money on skeletons--
and who doesn't--
all this could have been yours.
The Christie's Auction House just sold off a velociraptor--
at least some of the bones of one--
for almost 12 and 1/2 million dollars.
That's almost twice what they thought it'd go for.
Christie's says 126 of these bones are real.
The rest had to be fabricated, including most of the head,
according to "The New York Times."
Now, some would call 12.5 million outrageous,
but others would call it Cretaceous.
And a Mesozoic investor who's not Dino-soured on the market
might think nothing of digging up monstrous amounts of money
to Triassic his claw and managing
a skele-ton of ancient history, as long as it had good bones.
We are shouting out the rough riders today.
We're talking about you, the students
of Red River High School in Grand Forks, North Dakota.
For CNN 10, I'm Carl Azuz.
[music playing]