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COY WIRE: Welcome back.
I hope you had a great weekend.
I'm Coy Wire.
This is CNN 10 here, to help you kick-start your week with some
of the top stories of the day.
And having a little bit of fun, along the way.
We start, though, with some really
heavy news out of New Zealand.
Record rainfall wreaking havoc on the Northeastern part
of the island country, over the weekend.
Auckland, the nation's largest city,
declared a state of emergency.
Look at these scenes from the airport,
there, which had to be closed, as torrential downpours
have caused major flooding with numerous evacuations
in the area.
Several lives have been lost.
On Friday, Auckland was hit with its average amount of rainfall,
for the entire month of January.
All in just one hour's time.
New Zealand Prime Minister, Chris Pipkins,
says it's been an unprecedented event.
More now, from CNN International Anchor and Correspondent,
Michael Holmes.
MICHAEL HOLMES: Mud on the floor.
Waterlogged drawers.
This is what the floods left behind in Auckland.
REBECCA MAGEE: This is the main waterway.
MICHAEL HOLMES: This was someone's house, full
of a lifetime of possessions.
Residents say it took just minutes,
before chest-deep waters washed through it.
No time to save anything, except themselves.
REBECCA MAGEE: I felt quite helpless.
Never been in that situation before.
It happened real fast.
MICHAEL HOLMES: New Zealand's new Prime Minister,
Chris Pipkins, inspected the damage
by air and on the ground, and says,
the clean up will be massive.
That's because the amount of rain that fell Friday,
in Auckland, has never reached such recorded levels,
in such a short amount of time.
The city had its worst downpour on record.
A burst of about 240 millimeters of rain
falling, in just a few hours.
The heavy rains caused flash floods,
closing highways, grounding flights,
and stranding passengers.
Plunging neighborhoods underwater.
- The water, I think, is up here.
But when we're trying to open that door, to swim outside.
MICHAEL HOLMES: The waters have since receded.
But there are new fears in Auckland and further South,
where the storm has moved.
The saturated ground, giving way to landslides in some areas,
leaving houses dangling from cliffs.
And backyards sliding down hills.
Stunned neighbors are trying to determine the scale
of the damage, using the drier conditions
to try to find anything salvageable from their homes.
- I have been in this community my whole life.
45 years.
I've never seen it like this.
MICHAEL HOLMES: But the brief cleanup that was started,
may have to be on hold, as meteorologists say,
there is more rain in the forecast.
COY WIRE: All right.
Protests took place in multiple cities in the United States,
over the weekend, after the release of a video of a police
encounter that happened in Memphis, Tennessee,
on January 7th.
According to a police report, Tyre Nichols was pulled
over for reckless driving.
After an initial confrontation, Nichols fled.
He was then arrested at a second location.
But in the video, officers are seen striking Nichols
repeatedly during the encounter, in a manner
that law enforcement analysts have
described as, well outside the limits of police training.
Tyre Nichols died three days after the incident.
The actions by these police officers have been widely
criticized in rallies, in cities across the nation,
including New York, Atlanta, Boston, and LA,
have called for the end of such abuses by authorities.
All five police officers involved have been
fired, and charged with crimes.
And the police unit of which they were a part,
has been shut down.
Lawyers for at least two of the officers,
say, their clients will plead not guilty to the charges,
and that no one intended for the 29-year-old Nichols to die.
We'll hear from CNN Correspondent, Polo
Sandoval, who has the latest.
POLO SANDOVAL: Here, in the United States,
it was another night of demonstrations from coast
to coast, in the wake, of the release
of the series of videos, showing the beating of Tyre Nichols.
On Friday night, there was one incident
in Times Square, where at least three arrests were reported.
But outside of that, according to authorities,
things have remained relatively peaceful.
On Saturday night, another group of protesters, coming together
here, in Manhattan, hoping to stand in solidarity
with the Nichols family.
Hoping that their voice makes it to Memphis and beyond.
Here's what one of the organizers of Saturday night's
event told our affiliate, WCBS, about why they're coming
together, here, in New York.
- We are out here to fight, and call for justice, once again.
And continuously.
Because the work did not stop in 2020.
It didn't stop in 2021.
And it did not stop in 2022.
We are still here.
And we are still fighting until justice is done.
POLO SANDOVAL: New York City's Police Commissioner
did say that they will continue to have officers
out, in full force.
Not only making sure that citizens stay safe,
but also, to make sure that they protect
the right for these individuals, to peacefully assemble
throughout the city, here.
They did say, also, that they are really expressing outrage,
as well, after seeing the video that
was released-- that series of videos that
was released, on Friday night.
It's really what we're also hearing, from other police
departments, in other parts of the country,
strongly condemning what the world saw when
those videos were released.
COY WIRE: 10 second Trivia.
The inaugural contest of what sports competitions
was held in Big Bear Lake, California, in 1997?
The Goodwill Games.
Rugby World Cup.
The X Games.
Or Winter X Games.
The winter X Games is your answer here.
And the 27th edition of the event,
was hosted this past weekend, in Aspen, Colorado.
19-year-old freestyle skiing phenom,
Eileen Gu, from San Francisco, won two World
Cup events this past week.
Storming back into competition, for the first time
since the Beijing Winter Games, where she became
the first free skier ever, to win three
medals at a single Olympics.
Now, an injury during practice knocked her out
of the X Games, this weekend.
But Eileen told me, ahead of the games,
how she balances being a student at Stanford
University, a pro athlete, and professional model.
And she's also telling us, how she harnesses the power
of her mind, to help her shine.
I remember in Beijing, at the Olympics.
You were journaling.
You were writing affirmations before half pipe,
convincing yourself, you weren't tired.
How big of a role does training your mind, play in your life?
EILEEN GU: Huge.
Huge role.
I think that, for me, my biggest strength is my brain.
I'm shamelessly a nerd.
Everywhere I go, the reputation follows me.
And you know, I'll take it.
I definitely propagate it out there.
And at the end of the day, I think that so much of skiing
is in your own head.
It's an individual sport.
Which means that your biggest rival really is yourself.
And overcoming that fear, being able to perform on the day.
Learning how to deal with pressure.
These are all things that are practiced.
And they are behaviors that I've spent
a long, long time, learning about,
how I naturally cope with them.
And then trying to exacerbate my strengths.
So in that sense, I do a lot of journaling.
I do a lot of thinking.
A lot of reflection.
A lot of visualization.
COY WIRE: You once said, your wish is to inspire young girls
to break boundaries.
What do you mean by that, Eileen?
EILEEN GU: I mean that growing up, I think so much of what you
think is possible, for yourself, is dependent on what you
see out there, in the world.
It can be on TV.
It can be on social media.
It can be what you see your friends doing.
I guess, it's just feeling as though you're not alone.
Feeling that there's a place for you, in the community,
or in the sport that you want to participate in.
For me, growing up, there weren't that many girls
in the ski industry.
There were a couple.
And I looked up to them a bunch.
And they really, really inspired me.
But I guess, what I want to do is, I'm young.
And I'm trying to do my best.
And I just want to be the person that a girl at home,
can see on TV, or on their phone,
and say, hey, if she can do that, then
I want to try it too.
She looks like she's having fun.
When can I try?
And, really, that's all I want to do.
I just want to be out there.
I want to reflect the population that's interested in it.
And hopefully, inspire someone to take it up.
COY WIRE: And for today's story, getting a 10 out of 10,
something unbearably cute and funny.
A trail cam in Boulder, Colorado,
captured about 580 photos.
And around 400 of them were bear selfies.
Is it possible that this Black bear
knew exactly what it was doing?
There are all sorts of poses, like the, coming right at you.
Or the stare off into the distance.
Or how about the pretty side pose?
Who me?
There's even a, hey, look at my paw, y'all.
This paw-parazzi was having a ball, clearly.
There are roughly between 17 and 20,000 Black Bears
in the state of Colorado.
But none of them can strike a pose quite like this one.
Hey, y'all.
Hey.
Thank you very much, for all the love
on our CNN 10 YouTube channel.
We surpass 700,000 subscribers now.
So special thanks to you.
And salute to South Middle School, in Edinburgh, Texas.
You get our shout-out for the day.
Let's go out, today, and do something to make this world
a bit of a better place.
Even if it's just making someone smile today.
I'm your boy, Coy.
And I'll be right here, with you, tomorrow.
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