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What's up, sunshine? It's time to shine.
Koi wire here with the daily 10 minutes
of news. And welcome back to our wall of
friends, which got a spooktacular glow
up. Our news associate, Sabrina, taking
some of your incredible art and swag and
showing it off to the world. like this.
Miss Webster's class at Riverview High
School in Warsaw, Ohio. Magnificent. And
this is pretty special. Miss Packingham
at Andover High School in Andover,
Minnesota. She sent me this notebook
from one of our amazing students, Jack.
He created illustrations about every CNN
10 episode that he watched during the
school year. Amazing stuff. And
remember, today's Your Word Wednesday,
so listen up to see if the vocab word
you submitted helped us write today's
show. Let's get to it. We start with an
update on the ongoing US government
shutdown that brought parts of the
country to a halt. The shutdown has now
passed the oneweek mark and its impact
is being felt in some surprising places.
Here's the message one pilot at
California's Hollywood Burbank airport
got as he was preparing to take off
Monday afternoon.
>> Just get my heads on. He said
everything's closed for like our
clearances.
>> Clearance is closed. Grounds closed.
Local's closed. The tower is uh closed
due to staffing. Please just contact
SoCal and the 800 number and the green
bug for your clearance.
>> An air traffic control tower had to
temporarily close due to staffing
shortages. It's just one example of how
the hiatus is impacting vital government
professions like air traffic
controllers. Our Pete Montene has more.
Burbank is the real interesting one
because the staffing shortage there was
so deep that the tower there went into
what's called ATC0 meaning no air
traffic controllers working. Uh pilots
were asking controllers as you heard in
the lead in there uh what to do and it
essentially turns into the airport uh
instead of a crossing guard like the
control tower it turns into like a
four-way stop. So they just have to see
and avoid uh other airplanes that are in
the area. Uh remember this very same
thing happened during the 35day shutdown
back in 2019 uh when controllers started
calling out sick that led to ground
stops and delays and some of the busiest
swasts of airspace in the country. It
was pretty quickly thereafter uh that
lawmakers reached a deal ending this
government shutdown. We'll bring you
more about the US government shutdown
and its impact as we learn more this
week.
Pop quiz hot shot. What particle is
responsible for electromagnetic force?
Photon, neutron, graviton, or higs
boson.
If you said photon, keep shining. Every
color of light has different energy
photons. Blue light photons are more
energetic than red light ones. Did you
know?
Every day this week, winners of the
Nobel Prizes will be announced. The
foundation awards prizes annually to
those who embody the pinnacle of their
fields. The latest, the Nobel Prize in
physics, which goes to trailblazing
physicists John Clark, Michelle D'vor,
and John Martinez for their work in the
realm of quantum physics. They share the
award for the quote discovery of
macroscopic quantum mechanical tunneling
and energy quantization in electric
circuit. Just as I predicted in my Nobel
Prize winners bracket, their experiment
done more than 40 years ago helped
revolutionize our understanding of
quantum mechanics, which describes how
matter behaves at or below the scale of
an atom.
To Florida now, where conservationists
are busy implementing an enormous
restoration plan for one of the largest
wetlands in the world, the Everglades.
But it once was nearly twice that size,
did you know? Before canals and dams
altered its landscape. Today on Call to
Earth, will witness the monumental task
of bringing back its natural flow.
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Right now, we're standing in the
Everglades. It's the largest tropical
wetland in the United States and it's an
incredible diverse habitat. This
ecosystem is home to more than 2,000
species of plants and animals.
Known as the river of grass, the
Everglades begin at Lake Okichchobee and
flow south through cypress swamps,
sawgrass marshes, and mangro forests
before spilling out into Florida Bay.
>> This is Pete soil. unique to the
Everglades and it functions to capture
carbon from the atmosphere and store it.
It's one of the most important features
of the Everglades and something that we
work hard to protect.
>> Natalie Gir is a scientist with the
Everglades Foundation, one of many
groups working to restore and protect
this iconic wetland.
At the end of the 19th century, as
people started moving to South Florida,
they started agriculture, building
roads, cities, and all of that diverted
the natural flow of the Everglades.
Decades of human development drained the
Everglades, polluted its waters, and
threw its delicate ecosystem off
balance, impacting many plant and animal
species along the way. That's when we
started realizing that all of this water
is connected and that something needed
to be done to restore this ecosystem.
In 2000, the US government established
the comprehensive Everglades restoration
plan to remove barriers and bring back
its natural flow.
>> The comprehensive Everglades restoration
plan involves 68 different projects
across South Florida. It's a very
complex project, but the benefits are
worth it because we need enough fresh
water coming south to maintain the
biodiversity and the other functions
that the Everglaze provide us. It
protects us from hurricanes and storms.
It helps us with flooding and it
provides drinking water for 9 million
South Floridaians.
Just south of Lake Okachchobee, the
crown jewel of the restoration plan is
taking shape in the Everglades
Agricultural Area or EAA led by the US
Army Corps of Engineers. The EAA
reservoir is a mega civil works project.
It reconnects the freshwater from Lake
Okachchobee to the heart of the central
Everglades. It holds water so that it
can be redelivered back to the
Everglades in the right distribution
with good quality.
>> Basically, all this area where we're
standing right now will be full of
water. What you see around us is
limestone that is natural from this
location. We're repurposing it and
making it engineer material for the
construction of the reservoir. Expected
to be completed by 2034, this reservoir
will work in conjunction with storm
water treatment areas or STAs that
filter out excess agricultural runoff
like phosphorus, which can lead to
harmful algae blooms and negatively
impact wildlife.
While restoration is in various stages,
and there may be decades to go before
total completion, Natalie says they're
already seeing the positive effects of
their work.
>> There's ongoing scientific investigation
to understand truly the impacts that
more fresh water has on the system. So
scientists are already reporting
countless more birds and other organisms
compared to years past. The lesson we've
learned over time is that for all of us
to live here, we have to be in balance
with nature because nature is our path
to our sustainability and our future for
all of our communities.
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[Applause]
Today's story getting a 10 out of 10.
Burly Beast getting beautified for a
festival that is one of a kind. Water
buffaloos in Thailand getting a glow up
for the country's annual water buffalo
festival. You heard that right. It marks
the beginning of harvest season by
celebrating these beautiful boines that
were once vital to Thai culture. There's
a parade and and a 100 meter buffalo
dash. Eat your heart out, Kentucky
Derby. The water buffalo population
there that was once in decline as a
result of farmers turning to modern tech
like tractors. But these contests
actually helped to revive interest in
the animals. In 2017, the country even
declared a national Thai Buffalo
Conservation Day. Buffalo. Oh, yeah. All
right. Very excited. This Friday is
October 10th, 10:10, and we are
highlighting one of you. Maybe you or
your friends or your team pulled off
something incredible this year. Maybe uh
aced an important exam, learned a new
skill or danced or did something to help
those in your community. Send an email
with your parents permission to
cnn10@cnn.com
or post photos or an edited video on the
socials with the hashtagmycnn10
tagging at koiwire and cnn10 including
the who's and what'ss about what we're
seeing along with your school city and
state in the comments so we can help you
tell your story. Congrats to Mr.
Neighbor and Kamiaak High School in
Washington for submitting hiatus today.
a noun that means a pause or gap in a
sequence or series or process. Thank you
for boosting our vocabulary. Our shout
out of the day goes to the Love It
School in Atlanta, Georgia, Mr. Worba.
Rise up. Thank you for making us part of
your day. Go out. Be a difference maker
for someone today. I'm Koi Wire and we
are CNN 10.
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