Hello and happy Thursday. Happy Friday
Eve. I'm Coy Wire here with your daily
dose of CNN 10 for March 5th, 2026.
While millions of Christians around the
world are officially 2 weeks into their
40 days of Lent, the tradition where
people give up some sort of comfort or
luxury as a way to refocus on their
faith, there's another religious
tradition just kicking off in India
where large crowds took over the streets
across the world's most populous nation
on Wednesday to celebrate Holi, the
festival of colors. Holi is celebrated
at the onset of spring each year and it
symbolizes renewal and fresh starts.
This is one of those festivals where
everyone is equal. No one is rich or
poor. People belonging to every
community or group come together. Now,
Holi isn't just about color. It has deep
meaning. The festival is connected to a
traditional Hindu story about good
overcoming evil. The night before the
color celebration, families light
bonfires in a ritual known as holika
dian, symbolizing the victory of good
over evil, forgiveness, and
reconnection. The next day, people
gather outside to toss colored powder
called gulal and spray colored water on
each other. For students in India, it's
one of the most exciting holidays of the
year. No school, lots of laughs and yes,
a big Jackson Pollock painting looking
sort of celebration. And Holi is not
just celebrated in India. Indian
communities in the US, the UK, and other
parts of Europe have celebrations
planned for later this week. We've been
talking a lot about the economic fears
many adults and soon to be graduates
have about artificial intelligence
taking jobs. Here's something to think
about. These companies, they better not
take away too many human jobs or there
won't be many people who can afford to
pay for the products they are making.
But fears that AI could soon replace
many of the skills and industry needs
that justify jobs and careers in many of
our everyday lives still justifiably
persist. Well, a new tech startup called
Meror AI is hiring experts to train AI
to be even better. But the company says
they believe this will actually benefit
human society. Our Hadas Gold takes us
behind the scenes.
>> Meet the people training AI to replace
your doctor, lawyer, banker. Brendan
Footy is the 22-year-old co-founder and
CEO of Merur, one of the hottest
startups in Silicon Valley, valued at
$10 billion.
>> They manage a network of some tens of
thousands of professional experts who
help train the major AI models to think,
act, and talk like them. Most people, I
think, believe that AI just learns off
the internet and what's out there. Why
do you need humans involved in the
process?
>> The largest driver of AI progress right
now is how do we effectively identify
model mistakes, measure those mistakes,
and allow models to learn from them. And
so, the AI labs are hiring large armies
of people to help create these data
sets, and teaching models how to learn
from them. The average expert is paid
$95 an hour, although some specialized
roles can earn up to $250 per hour. The
most popular subject is software
engineering, followed by finance, then
medicine and law. Are these people not
kind of training their future
replacements?
>> The way I think about it is that we're
not going to run out of things to do as
a society. We have so many problems that
we need to solve. We need to cure
cancer. We need to solve climate change.
Um, and making everyone 10 times more
productive so that they're able to
better work on those key problems is
going to be a huge, huge benefit to how
we make progress as a society.
>> Mccor experts present the AI they are
training with a prompt, then grade their
response using a rubric they've created
in consultation with other experts in
their field. Dr. Alice Chow is one of
these experts. She used to teach at
Stanford University's medical school.
Now her student is an AI model. So tell
me what it's like when you sit down in
front of the computer. What are you
doing?
>> I am looking at the AI model that I'm
working with and I am posing real life
questions or challenges that I've faced
or I've seen patients face and I ask the
model provide me with the potential
diagnosis. Suggest several treatments
and list the evidence that you used to
support these these diagnoses.
>> I've heard from doctors that sometimes
medicine is a lot about a gut feeling.
Can you train an AI on that?
>> So, this is where it's really important
to note that the AI is not a doctor.
It's not a human being. It does not have
the 20 years of clinical experience that
I or another one of my colleagues might
have. This is where you need to be
really careful.
>> Do you ever feel like you're training
your replacement?
>> No, I do not. I I don't want to see it
as AI taking over our jobs. I want to
see it as AI taking over the aspects of
our jobs that prevent us from being good
doctors, good healers, and good
listeners.
Pop quiz hot shot. In which historical
period was long-distance trade first
established? The Bronze Age, the Middle
Ages, the Renaissance, or the Industrial
Age?
If you said the Bronze Age, ding ding,
you are correct. In Mesopotamia, people
learned to mix copper and tin to create
bronze, which made for stronger weapons.
The need for different metals
established trade networks that
connected regions across Europe, Asia,
and Africa. This next story brings the
Bronze Age right through airport
security in Philadelphia. US Customs and
Border Protection officers just released
these photos to the public. They
intercepted 36 short swords and 50
arrowheads last October, and they now
know the weapons date back a minimum of
4,000 years to the Bronze Age. The
package arrived on a flight from the
United Arab Emirates and was labeled as
metal decoration articles. The box was
headed to Jacksonville, Florida. But
when officers x-rayed the package, they
spotted something a little more pointy,
and archaeologists later authenticated
the artifacts as bronze age antiquities
from what is now Iran. They date back to
roughly 1600 to 1,000 B.CE and are
thought to be from the Talish Mountains
region near the southwestern Castian
Sea. Former FBI agent Robert Wittmann
suspects the weapons may have been
purchased by a collector on the black
market. The time period is very
interesting to the uh to the collectors
because it's the Bronze Age. So, we're
talking u minimally 4,000 years ago.
>> Investigators believe the artifacts may
have been illicitly excavated from
ancient burial sites where weapons and
important belongings were often buried
with the owners. Wittmann estimates the
collection could have sold for 15 to
$25,000 on the black market. For now,
the swords and arrowheads are being
safeguarded by CBP, or Customs and
Border Protection. Investigators expect
they'll eventually be returned to the
Middle East, ensuring this piece of the
past finds its way home.
Today's story getting a 10 out of 10. a
group of high school basketballers who
went from riding the bench to the
championship charter bus thanks to one
secret weapon, a blue heart-shaped
plastic bucket. CNN affiliate KCBS
explains.
>> Did you know?
>> All right, girls. Phones in the bucket.
Let's go. Phones in the bucket.
>> That separating teenage girls from their
cell phones makes them better at
basketball.
>> It has made a world of a difference.
Just ask varsity girls head coach Sandra
Duckering here at Sierra Vista High
School in Baldwin Park.
>> The one thing I noticed was we were
super disconnected.
>> Her observation that maybe the Dons kept
losing games because they were making
Tik Toks, texting, and scrolling on
social media instead of being present
with each other and confiscating their
phones before practices and games. Just
unlocked their best season in the
school's history. Once they got
connected, we got flow and it was was
like just amazing. The game changed.
Their bond changed.
>> They started winning games by landslides
leading to the school's first CAF
Southern Division Championship win.
>> And today they're boarding a bus to
Bakersfield to play the school's first
ever state championship playoff game.
We've been ranked lower so we're kind of
like the underdogs into in this story.
>> The girls say the phone band freed up
their attention so they could focus on
working together as a team.
>> Talking with each other as a team and
just being with each other. I think that
really got us close and we just been
working hard.
>> And that hard work is paying off thanks
to a little help from their secret
weapon.
>> I want to be able to come home with
another championship if we can. Like I'm
willing I want to work hard. I know my
teammates want to work hard.
>> In honor of this ReadAcross America
week, we are highlighting some of your
favorite books and books you are reading
right now. We want to spotlight Mrs.
McCcluskeyy's class at Gotham Middle
School in Windermir, Florida. Thank you
for reading with us. Their class is
diving into the book I will always write
back. How one letter changed two lives.
The true story follows an American
student and one from Zimbabwe who become
pen pals through a school assignment.
Over the years, their letters grow into
a powerful relationship that bridges
continents, cultures, and different
experiences. It's a powerful reminder
that sometimes a single letter and a
little curiosity about someone else's
journey can help open the door to a
whole new world. Keep turning those
pages. Keep those stories coming.
Message us on our Instagram page, CNN10,
or email us at CNN10@cn.com.
All right, superstars. One more shout
out before we go and I hope this one
sparks a little bit of a trend. Last
month, Mr. Beby got a shout out and he
wanted to pay it forward asking for a
shout out for his favorite
paraprofessional in another state. Mr.
Huffman at Benton High School in St.
Joseph, Missouri. Rise up and way to
spread the love team. Hope you have a
wonderful day. It's almost Friday. I'm
Koi Wire and we are CNN 10.