tv CNN Newsroom Live CNN August 22, 2015 12:00am-3:01am PDT
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-- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com the following is a cnn special report. ♪ people are lighting up all over the country. they call it the green rush. marijuana has moved out of the back alleys and into the open. >> in some states it's legal to grow, to sell, to smoke. and marijuana could be legalized in a city near you. so easy to get and many think,
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so harmless. but when the smoke clears, is marijuana bad for you? or could pot actually be good for you? >> marijuana is better than all pose pills for you in terms of treating? >> yeah. >> i travel the world for answers. what does marijuana do to you? what does it do to your kids? a special investigation, "weed." ♪ our journey begins here in this small-town home nestled in the mountains with a family who has never allowed tv cameras in before and you're going to soon learn why. >> this is so pretty out here. >> yeah. >> they live in colorado, one of two states where it's legal to smoke pot legally and recreationally. but here it's also taboo to residents to paige figi and her husband, matt. >> i'm sure it was mentioned to us by someone. hey, you should try this. and i thought no way. >> you thought that's fringe stuff? >> no way, not in a million
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years, no. >> but in this area, marijuana is far from fringe. >> and do you want island sweet skunk? >> medical dispensaries are everywhere. people are smoking in private clubs. and public festivals. but none of this is for matt. he is a military man, and marijuana would be a career-ender. >> i grew up in wisconsin in a well-loving family and i was educated that that's a drug. you don't do that. and i never did. >> but just decades ago, marijuana was a legitimate medication. also called cannabis, prescribed by doctors and dispensed by pharmacies. >> rolling. >> this is harry -- >> but that all changed in 1930. >> a relentless warfare. >> henry anslinger. the united states first drug czar. for him, public enemy number one, you guessed it, marijuana. >> this guy saw how he could increase the budget of his department by having this
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mission, going after marijuana. >> you know, saying there is this drug that the mexican migrant workers are smoking, and it's loco weed and it's going the make them crazy and they're going to rape your women. >> he got the anti-marijuana message out through news reports. and then came this. >> convinced that he is hopelessly and incurably insane. >> the film "reefer madness", portraying the users of marijuana as unproductive, crazed. >> people are still afraid of what pot can do to them. >> in many ways to have defined our attitudes for 70 years. >> marijuana then became illegal in 1937. and by 1970, it was a schedule i controlled substance. the government was saying it had no medicinal value, and had a high potential for abuse. all reasons why the figges stayed away from marijuana, until this. and this might be hard for some of you to watch.
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>> it's okay, baby. >> this is their daughter charlotte having a seizure. >> we just thought it was just one random fee -- febrile seizure? >> a fluke. >> a fluke made sense. after all charlotte, nicknamed charlie, was born perfectly healthy, a fraternal twin to sister chase. >> charlie always had big, big smiles. just happy kids. >> easy. >> easy. very much so. >> so it was around three months you said that when you first noticed that charlie had a seizure. >> i was chaining her diaper, well putting a new diaper on from after the bath, and her eyes just started flickering. >> it led to the first of many trips to the e.r. >> they did the million dollar workup, mri, eeg, spinal tap.
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they did the workup and found nothing and sent us home. >> no abnormal blood test or scan. >> and developing normally too, talking, walking, the same day as her twin. nothing was behind yet. >> by the time she was 2, though, the seizures had become constant, and started to take their toll on their once happy, joyful little girl. >> she started to really decline, cognitively. and she was slipping away. and she just wasn't keeping up with her twin. >> the figis finally found an answer. it was awful news. gervais syndrome. it is severe intractable epilepsy. the seizures start during the first year of life and are unstoppable, difficult to control, and very damaging. >> severe behavioral problems. attention deficit and hyperactivity. the self injury, banging her head on the floor and pulling her hair out. like a possessed child. this isn't your perfect, happy charlotte. >> it was a race against time. many gervais kids die young, in early childhood. charlotte was almost 3.
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for the next two years, the figges tried everything. strange diets, acupuncture, and dozens of powerful drugs like valium, ativan, phenobarbital, but nothing seemed to help. even worse, some of the medications nearly killed her. >> after one dose, she stops breathing. and after two doses, her heart will stop. >> did you have to do cpr on her yourself? >> yes. i remember when her heart stopped and i had her pulse and i lost her pulse. there was just nothing. the ambulance is on its way. >> she survived. >> you're okay. mommy is here. >> but that was fall of 2011. and charlotte was 5 years old. >> when things were at their worst, she just seizes all night. and the kids are sleeping in my room or next door. they can hear the seizure scream all night, 50 times a night. and chase would come in the morning and just, misses her twin. and just hug her and rub her head and say i'm so glad you survived through the night last night.
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>> matt had been deployed to afghanistan. and the only thing he could do to help was start scouring the internet. and he stumbled on to this video of a child using marijuana. >> so how is everything going? >> jamie had four days without a seizure. >> i was like wow, this having success on specifically gervais, this is interesting. it's natural. >> and while he couldn't ever imagine taking marijuana himself, he was now in the stunning position of recommending it for charlotte. >> i was like we need to do this. >> and i said i don't know. >> charlotte. there you are. >> and then charlotte's condition got worse. 300 seizures a week. almost two every hour. she was not talking or moving. basically, catatonic. as a last resort, doctors wanted to either prescribe a powerful veterinary drug used on epileptic dogs, or put charlotte in a medically induced coma so her brain and body could rest.
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for paige, those were not good options. but maybe, just maybe marijuana now was. but she was about to find out how hard that would be. >> this isn't go to the pharmacy and pick up your medicine. there was no protocol. >> when we come back, what will the figges do? and what would you do if this were your daughter? ♪
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is she allergic? >> i had resigned myself. i don't think she's going to survive this. >> we've seen her flatline in a hospital. we've said good-bye. >> you're listening to matt and paige figge describe their own daughter. what would you do if this were your child? charlotte figge had an extreme form of epilepsy.
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her body was so frail that any seizure could kill her. with no traditional treatment left to try and the clock ticking away, her parents decided to try marijuana. charlotte was just 5 years old. >> i need a card in order to be able to get the cannabis from a pharmacy. doctors have to prescribe it. >> you need two doctors in colorado to get the card for a juvenile or a child. it was hard. we were the first young child, and they said no. everyone said no, no, no, no. >> certainly her age played a role in my hesitance. >> dr. alan shackelford is a harvard-trained physician. he is also among a handful of doctors in colorado who give prescriptions for medical marijuana. from the moment charlotte entered his office, he knew she was in trouble. while he was just examining her, she had two seizures. >> she had failed everything. there were no more options for her. everything had been tried, except cannabis. >> here's how scientists think it might work.
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marijuana is made up of two main ingredients, thc, that's the psychoactive part that makes you high. and cbd, also called cannabidiol. it's the cbd that modulates the electricity in brain to help quiet the activity in the brain that causes seizures. >> dr. julie holland is the editor of the pot book, a complete guide to cannabis. >> for a long time the work on cannabis and epilepsy was sort of inconclusive. maybe it works. maybe it doesn't. they couldn't quite figure it out. it's only when they really started separating thc from cbd that they saw definitively, yes, cbd seems to really stop seizures. >> so the figges needed to find something that was rare, a strain of marijuana that was low in thc. of course, they didn't want charlotte getting stoned. but also high in cbd to treat her seizures. and that wouldn't be easy. dispensaries and growers, they make their money off strains that are high in thc.
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>> i'm joel. >> i'm josh. >> no one knows that better than the stanley brothers. their family business is pot. and if you look at these clean-cut guys and what you see surprises you, don't worry. they've heard it all before. >> when we were round the corner they're like, oh, wait a second, you know, did you finish high school? >> they all not only finished high school, but also college and in some cases graduate school. now they are some of colorado's biggest growers and dispensary owners. they produce up to 600 pounds of medical marijuana a year, and much of that marijuana is high in thc. but here on their remote farm at this undisclosed location in the mountains -- >> it takes a lot of plants. we're allowed to grow six per patient. >> they have been growing something different. something they call revolutionary. >> it's greenhouse one. >> greenhouse one, yes. welcome to it. welcome to paradise. >> behind closed doors and under
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tight security, we enter what the stanleys call the "garden of eden." >> there's nothing like this in the world. >> this plant is 21% cbd and less than 1% thc. >> it took years of crossbreeding plants to get to this point. >> instead of breeding up the thc we've bred down the thc and bred up the cbd, and people said, you're crazy. you know, who is going to smoke that? >> so why grow it then? well, the stanleys also believed in cbd's potential to treat many diseases. and they had seen it change lives before. >> i always have two -- >> meet 19-year-old chaz moore. he uses many different strains of marijuana. many of them high in cbd to treat his rare disorder of the diaphragm. >> my abs lock up. >> that's why he is talking this way, almost speaking in hiccups, like he can't catch his breath. it's called myoclonus
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diaphragmatic flutter. >> this fluttering, it's annoying but it becomes painful pretty quickly, i imagine. >> yeah. >> after, like, 15, 20 minutes this is where i can start to really feel. >> he is about to show me how the marijuana works. he has been convulsing now for seven minutes. >> how quickly do you expect this to work? >> within like the first five minutes. >> and i'm done. like -- >> that's it? >> that's it. >> it was actually less than a minute. >> depending on the attack and the day, like, it will work within the first couple of hits. >> hear how his voice is completely different. that attack lasted eight minutes, but some have last much longer and happen as often as 40 times a day. and like charlotte, he had tried so many things before.
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by 16, chaz was taking these powerful, addictive, potentially deadly narcotics and muscle relaxants daily, like valium and morphine. >> it would be safe to say that marijuana, what you have in your hand there, is better than all those pills for you in terms of treating what's going on? >> yeah. i'm not zombified. i've had 16, 17 attacks today, and i'm still sitting up talking to you. my first attack on all these, i would be in the hospital. >> i'm a firm believer that marijuana has actually saved my son's life. >> chaz's father, sean. >> his quality of life now is 1,000 times better than what it was when he was on the pharmaceuticals. >> a quality of life that paige figge desperately wanted for her daughter charlotte. but she still had one hurdle to cross, convincing dispensary owners like the stanleys to sell marijuana to a 5-year-old little girl. >> when charlotte's mother called my brother, joel, the brothers had a meeting and said tell us about this patient. she's 5 years old he said, and
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we said, no, we can't do that. >> why? it was the fear of the unknown. charlotte was one of the youngest patients at the time wanting marijuana. would it be too much for her? or would it change her life forever? we'll find that out later, but, first, learn more about what marijuana does to your kids' brain and yours as well. if your purse is starting to look more like a tissue box... you may be muddling through allergies. try zyrtec® for powerful allergy relief. and zyrtec® is different than claritin®. because it starts working faster on the first day you take it. zyrtec®. muddle no more™ .
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>> april 20th, denver, colorado. >> we like weed, smoke weed! >> tens of thousands from around the country and the world lighting up legally. >> happy cannabis, y'all. >> for some it's a lifestyle. for others it's a lifeline. >> we're working with the lupus foundation and rheumatoid arthritis. >> but for all of them, i wonder, what was it doing to their brains? >> some of my patients call me pot doc. >> your patients call you pot doc? >> well, they never meet anyone who is as interested as hearing about their marijuana use as i am. >> dr. stacy gruber is serious about pot. >> i want you to name the color and not to read it. >> okay. >> i met her in her labs in mclean hospital near boston. she's using high-tech imaging to see what happens in the brain when you smoke. >> when you first smoke, that you light up a joint, a spliff, a spoke, receptors throughout the brain respond. and these are areas of the brain
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responsible for things like pleasure, memory, learning, sensation, sense of time and space, coordination, movement, appetite and other drives shall we say. so it's sort of an all-over impact. >> so reward, pleasure, hunger. you have this overall feeling of well being, they say. >> that all sounds pretty good. >> it does sound pretty good. >> and it's not just feeling good, but there is this phenomenon reported by many smokers over the years, especially famous artists, the ability to be more creative. >> when you feel that high, there's sort of a release of dopamine, and your brain has the ability now to perceive things slightly differently from the way you might have if you hadn't been smoking pot. what you really see is this reduction in inhibitory function. >> welcome, doctor. >> pretty spectacular. >> less inhibition. that's something that painter amir says helps him be more creative.
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a successful artist, his canv canvases sell for up to $25,000. >> it's my favorite way to work. >> using marijuana? >> yeah. >> he has been painting for 14 years, smoking for even longer. he says it makes him feel more relaxed, but most importantly for him, he says it makes him less critical of his own work. >> stop worrying so much about this and that and just sort of looking and being as present as possible. >> amir does caution that it's a delicate balance for him. >> it would make me very apprehensive, as maybe a little paranoid. just too analytical. >> you can get paranoid, have disorganized thinking, you can get disoriented. it can be uncomfortable. it can lead to panic attacks or anxiety attacks in people. >> how do you know when you've done too much?
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>> simple tasks become very frustrating, like mixing paint, and then just sort of get into this state of, you know -- >> and why that happens is exactly what columbia university neuroscientist carl hart is investigating. >> exhale. >> research subjects in his lab smoke marijuana and then take a variety of cognitive tests. >> the effects will be disturbance in memory, disruptions in inhib tour control. they will become slower at cognitive functioning, a wide range of things. this effects are temporary but they are pretty pronounced and they are clear. >> and it's slowly becoming clear to scientists what part of the brain is most affected. it's the prefrontal cortex. >> it's very important for planning, thinking, coordinating your behaviors.
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there are tons of marijuana receptors in this region, and we think that marijuana, particularly in the novice, can disrupt all of those behaviors. >> an impairment that hart cautions could be dangerous. especially when driving. >> you may prematurely hit your brakes. you may prematurely hit the gas pedal. a wide range of things. you may make a turn without looking more carefully. >> look at this experiment done by cnn affiliate, kiro in washington state. subjects smoked marijuana and then drove. one was a daily medical marijuana smoker and another an infrequent weekend smoker. >> relaxed and buzzed. >> the more the novice user smoked, the more trouble behind the wheel. >> watch yourself. watch yourself. >> but interestingly, the habitual smoker didn't have as much trouble. >> i wouldn't pull her off the road, no. not yet. >> and that's something i witnessed firsthand driving around with 19-year-old chaz moore.
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the day that i spent with him, he had been smoking all day long. >> do you feel impaired at all? >> no, i don't. i feel normal. >> turns out when you test people who have a lot of experience with cannabis, you don't see many disruptions, but if you test people who have sort of limited history with cannabis, you can see some clear pronounced disruptions. >> of course, no one thinks that driving when using marijuana is a good idea, but what scientists can't answer is if there is a safe legal limit and if people who use marijuana daily as a medicine should be able to drive. how impaired are they? what is more clear, though, is the effect of marijuana on the young brain. >> what we see is a very big difference in people who begin to smoke prior to the age of 16 and those who smoke after age 16. what we call early versus later onset. >> gruber's brain scans show the white matter, those are the highways that help the brain
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communicate from one point to another are impaired in those who start smoking early. >> maybe that there's underlying white matter connectivity differences. >> that's your concern, it sounds like, that those highways, those white matter highways are just more disrupted in people who start smoking early. >> that's what we see. >> perhaps not surprising given what we know about the young developing brain. >> that's a very delicate time in brain development, and that's not a good time to be taking any drugs. >> preliminary research shows that early onset smokers are slower at tasks, have lower iq's later in life, higher risk of strokes, and increased incidents of psychotic disorders. while these studies are not conclusive, some scientists are still concerned because in 2012 35% of high school seniors lit up, and that could mean a generation of kids with damaged brains. many fear something else. >> i never really told myself i needed help. >> a generation of marijuana addicts.
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when we come back, the truth and the science behind what's being called a growing epidemic. , later, charlotte's story, one of the first and youngest children to try marijuana in colorado. one of those people who needs to keep busy. if she's not working in her garden, she's probably on one of her long walks with bailey. she was recently diagnosed with a heart condition. i know she's okay, but it concerned me she's alone so often. so i encouraged her to get a medical alert button. philips lifeline offers the best options to keep her doing the things she loves in the home she loves. if she ever falls, or needs help, i know we can get to her quickly, and with her condition that can be critical. and even though she doesn't typically go far from home, the button always goes with her. these days, she's still as busy as ever. just the way she likes it.
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>> at his bedside his father, sean, watched his son go from being catatonic to what he calls high as a kite. >> how high are you on the morphine? >> i'm not high on -- >> i watched friends of mine die from taking the same drugs that he took. >> you see, sean was a drug addict, and he had struggled for decades to get clean. >> it was scary. it was important for him not to take these drugs if he could avoid it. >> if he could avoid them. i know how addictive they are. i've seen it. it scared the hell out of me. >> but sean is not scared of marijuana and neither is chaz. >> this right here, i don't get sick off of it. i can't overdose. >> and chaz is right about that. while there are fatal accidental prescription medicine overdoses, every 19 minutes in this country, there are virtually no reports of fatal marijuana overdoses. and it's perhaps one of the biggest reasons most people think pot is safe.
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in fact, a new study of children showed that by high school only one in five think marijuana is harmful. that's the lowest number in more than two decades, and it's something we heard over and over as we travelled around the country. >> not really that harmful. >> it has a lot of benefits. not really too concerned about it. >> i think it's safe if you're a safe person. >> but the experts we spoke to said there is more to the story. >> there are people who compulsively smoke, who want to stop smoking, but they can't stop smoking. >> in fact, 9% of marijuana users will become dependent. now, that's not as high as other drugs, like heroin. 23% of users become addicted. 17% with cocaine. 15% with alcohol. it's still approximately one out of every 11 marijuana smokers. >> there's no longer any
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scientific debate that marijuana's not just psychologically addictive, but also physically addictive. >> so give me an update. how are you doing? >> dr. christian thurston runs one of colorado's largest youth substance abuse clinics. the number of marijuana addicts he treats has tripled in the last three years alone. >> literally i cried about it. marijuana is number one on their list of priorities. they have dropped out of life. >> back in the day i would have not felt like my day has really started unless i got high. >> joel vargas started smoking when he was just 13. by 15 he was smoking more than a dozen times a day. he stopped skateboarding. he even dropped out of school. >> i like getting high. i need to get high because my brain is telling me. >> adolescents, starting about age 13 have a pretty mature brain reward center. so they can experience rewards and pleasures the same way
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adults can, but the problem with that is that their prefrontal cortex, which helps people think ahead, control their impulses, that's not fully developed until age 24. that explains why adolescents are much more vulnerable. >> there's something else that addiction experts believe is likely happening in the brain. when you smoke pot, the feel-good chemicals that make up marijuana called cannabinoids, remember them? they cause your brain to stop producing its own natural cannabinoids. when you stop smoking, you have no feel good cannabinoids of your own. until your body kickstarts production, you feel lousy, so many people smoke again to feel better. and today's marijuana could be more addictive. it has more of the psychoactive ingredient thc than ever before. brain researcher dr. nora volkow. >> if you smoke a very potent
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marijuana, then the thc content is going to go very fast into your brain at relatively high concentrations, and then that increases its rewarding effects and likelihood of transitioning into addiction. >> how much stronger is it? >> you see the barbed wire, obviously, on the fences. >> well, i traveled to mississippi where marijuana is illegal, but here on the campus of one of the country's oldest universities, ole miss, a huge stash of marijuana is under lock and key. >> this is our vault. >> this is some pretty tight security. look at this door. >> mahmoud el-soli runs what's called a marijuana potency project. what's the potency of this? >> this is about 8%. >> for three decades now his team has analyzed weed confiscated from drug busts. >> this is 36% thc. you can smell it. it has a good aromatic smell. >> how much is this worry you, 36% thc confiscated?
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>> very dangerous material. for someone that is not experienced in marijuana smoking takes some of this, and they're going to go into the negative effects of the high, the psychosis, the irritation, irritability, paranoia, all of this. >> while not all the plants are this high, there's no question he has seen a trend. in 1972 the average potency was less than 1% thc. now it's nearly 13%. >> are people becoming more obsessed with high thc marijuana? >> i think so. they're starting out with a half a percent and 1%, and they get a good high, and then as they continue to use that, it doesn't give them the same high anymore, so they seek either smoking more or higher potency material. >> it happened to joel vargas. after a couple of years of smoking daily, joel eventually ended up in rehab where he faced mild withdrawal symptoms like irritability, insomnia, nausea.
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>> certainly it isn't anything nearly as dangerous as abrupt discontinuation of alcohol. you know, for somebody like joel, going rehab is really about learning new behaviors more than it is about sort of treating the physiological dependence or tolerance or withdrawal issues. >> joel has been clean now for six months, but these kinds of risks, they don't scare off charlotte's parents. >> people ask us that a lot. like, how do you make that decision? it wasn't a decision. it was the next viable option. >> and some would say a radical option, marijuana for a 5-year-old. but it was an option they hope would change her life forever. >> baby. >> when we come back, matt and paige figge finally give their charlotte marijuana. the results are shocking.
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it was january 2012, afghanistan, about 7,000 miles away from his family in colorado, matt figge received this video from his wife paige. >> it's horrible seeing these videos when i'm deployed. >> it was his 5-year-old daughter, charlotte, seizing. diagnosed with a severe form of epilepsy, she was having 300 seizures a week. each attack so severe it had the potential to kill her. they had already tried dozens of high-powered drugs. >> we needed to try something else, and at that point in time marijuana was that natural course of action to try.
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>> at home in colorado paige searched for marijuana high in cbd. that's the ingredient some scientists think helps seizures and also low in thc. remember, she didn't want to get her daughter stoned. she found a small amount in a denver dispensary. the owner was surprised that anyone would even want it. >> they said it's funny because no one buys this. that was the general consensus, no one wanted it. it didn't have any affect. >> paige paid $800 for a small bag and took it home. >> i had a friend that was starting a business making medicine, and i said can you help me extract the medicine from the bag of marijuana? i measured it with a syringe and squirted it under her tongue. it was exciting and very nerve-racking. >> holding charlotte in her arms, paige waited. an hour ticked by. then another. then another. >> she didn't have seizures that day.
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then she didn't have a seizure that night. >> did you sit there and look at your watch? >> right. i thought this is crazy. and then she didn't have one the next day. and the next day. i thought that is -- she would have had 100 by now. i just -- i know. i just thought this is insane. >> i remember how happy paige was. it's really working. i can't believe it. yeah, that was pretty amazing to hear. >> it had worked. but in just a couple of weeks the excitement was overshadowed by panic. paige was running out of marijuana and the dispensary didn't have any more of that particular strain. even if there was more, the monthly price tag would have been astronomical. $2,000, and not a penny of it covered by insurance. but then paige heard about the stanleys, the six brothers and their greenhouse of marijuana that is high in cbd. >> i said, oh, my goodness. he says i don't know what to do with it. we're trying new things with it, but no one wants it. it's not sellable.
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i said just don't touch that because we need that plant. >> at first they didn't want to take the risk of giving marijuana to such a young child. but then they met her. >> tell me about the first time you met matt, paige, and charlotte. >> hmm. >> i'm going to get you misty-eyed. >> yeah, you get all of us crying when we start talking about that little girl. >> the figges had hit the jackpot, a steady supply of high-cbd marijuana, and they only had to pay what they could afford. >> people have called us the robin hoods of marijuana. they say we sell pot so we can take care of the kids, and the truly less fortunate. >> charlotte was the first of those kids. late spring 2012 she tried the stanley special marijuana, and again it worked. >> i can't tell you what that means to us. >> gets you, doesn't it, a little bit?
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>> if it doesn't get you, something is wrong with you. she lived her life in a catatonic state. now her parents get to meet her for the first time. what a revelation. >> the child who had 300 seizures a week was now down to just one every seven days. >> pitter pat, tiptoe. >> when i first met charlotte, march of 2013 it was one year after that first dose of marijuana. >> achoo. >> after almost two years on a feeding tube, she was now eating on her own. >> yellow. >> she was talking. even walking. >> please. >> she said please. >> but these stories, they are not without their skeptics. one of the country's two hospitals dedicated to dravet syndrome in florida states at
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present there is no evidence that cannabidiol is effective for the treatment of epilepsy. the american academy of pediatrics also opposes cannabis, as does the national institute on drug abuse. >> it is such an amazing turn of events that it really can't be a fluke, but i do still wonder. >> do you still wonder too, matt? >> hell no. >> you know it's working? >> it's working great. >> you just look wonderful. >> and charlotte's doctor, alan shackelford, also agrees. yet his commitment to medical marijuana has drawn criticism. he has even been called dr. feel good. >> how difficult is this for you to talk about as a physician? >> we are typically conservative as a profession and probably as individuals. we want more proof, and cannabis doesn't have that. >> and it's why he has traveled the world to look for researchers who might have the answers. that took him to the place many call the medical marijuana
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research capital. israel. it might surprise you, but actually, research into cannabis and epilepsy started here in the 170 -- 1970s with studies that showed it can reduce convulsions in rats. today shackleford is hoping to start clinical trials in humans there. >> we need to understand it well enough that they won't be reluctant to at least give it a thought. at least try it. >> and it's not just epilepsy, but researchers in israel are studying a variety of illnesses. when we come back, what they're finding up close, and an amazing look inside hospitals and nursing homes where patients are lighting up courtesy of the israeli government.
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as the sun was rising on the ancient city of jerusalem, the final leg of our journey was just beginning. >> there had been some great advances here, and i'm proud of that, obviously. >> dr. boas lev is with israel's ministry of health. here they have pioneered marijuana research. they were the first to isolate thc and cbd decades ago. and now, the country's ministry licensed 10,000 patients to use marijuana medicinally and has approved more than a dozen studies to treat illnesses like ptsd, pain, crohn's disease, even cancer. >> hopefully this would prove to
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be the best medication. i really hope so. we're not there yet. >> the answers might come from places like this. it's a state-run nursing home outside of tel aviv. residents here are using marijuana for pain, loss of appetite, parkinson's disease, and dementia. moshe root is one of those residents. he was 77 when he smoked his first pipe of marijuana. he is 80 now, and he smokes a couple a times a day. it's to help with the pain and the hand tremors caused by stroke. >> it's a mixture of tobacco and marijuana. >> he even decided to light up during our interview to stop his hands from shaking. >> you are saying your hands are steady because of the marijuana? >> it also helped ease a deeper pain hidden from sight. you see moshe is a holocaust survivor. when his wife died a couple of
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years ago, he was haunted by nightmares of his childhood hiding from the nazis. the marijuana, he says, took him out of the darkness. >> you dream. you fly. >> when you smoke? >> yeah. >> there are 19 other patients here. scientists at tel aviv university are now studying their progress. they call the results outstanding. including weight gain, improved mood, pain and tremor reduction. but i can tell you as a doctor it was my next stop that proved the most surprising. this is israeli's largest hospital, sheba medical center. he is using marijuana to help him with the pain and nausea from chemotherapy. >> filling up the spoon. so that's your medicine inside there. >> you want to take it out? >> and he's doing it inside the hospital.
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>> how are you feeling? >> relief. first of all in the muscle in the leg. >> and you're not worried about any potential damage to your body? >> not at all. the opposite, actually. i really believe i can be cancer-free for a long time if i continue, you know, consume cannabis. >> yes, he said cancer-free. very early studies on mice in israel, spain, and the united states are now showing the potential of marijuana to kill cancer cells. it's exciting research, but it is still in its infancy, and it's inconclusive. this program at chiba is well established, and experts say, a teaching tool for using marijuana in other hospitals. >> do you think this could happen in the united states?
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>> i don't know that there's yet enough really concrete evidence of cannabis's benefit that's satisfactory. at least in that context. i think it's going to come. >> but it could be slow going. >> the fda has been great at approving studies. but national institute of drug abuse has been really stonewalling and blocking any studies looking at therapeutic effects of cannabis, because that's not their mandate. their mandate is to look at the harms of drug use. >> it's very easy to blame an organization. >> dr. nora volkow, who is the director of nida says they are not standing in the way. she claims they are not the only government institute that approves marijuana research. >> if you would come up with a grant that says, okay, this is going to be a treatment for drug addiction, then it would go to us. but if it is cancer, it goes to the national cancer institute. if it is schizophrenia, it goes to imh, the institutes have a mission with certain diseases. >> what is clear, there are bureaucratic hoops that most researchers simply don't want to jump through. neuroscientist carl hart.
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>> there are not many people studying marijuana. it's very difficult to get approved to study marijuana. >> what's nice about israel is that the government is helping the research to happen. >> and it's research that could give hope to patients like charlotte figge. scientists in israel are learning that marijuana use might actually protect the brain, not damage it. >> they've been able to show that it can decrease the amount of brain damage from head injuries in mice. >> right. to be able to give a medicine after the injury to reverse some of the damage, that's huge. >> i want to paint my nails. >> you want the paint your nails? i'll paint your nails. >> i literally see charlotte's brain making connections that haven't been made in years. it's almost seeming to build her brain where before it seemed broken. >> and while scientists are still at the early stages of knowing if this is actually
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happening, i can tell you it was remarkable to see her progress. in the three months since we first met her, we saw a change. she was now talking more. >> say puppy. >> puppy! >> yay! >> she's horseback riding. >> good girl. >> she even rides a bike on her own. and the special strain made for charlotte is now named for her. it's charlotte's web. >> it is charlotte's plant. >> it's charlotte's plant. not anymore. now it's for all the children. >> more than 41 children are using charlotte's web here in colorado. all of them are reporting significant seizure reduction, and there are dozens more on a wait list hoping, praying that a plant could change their lives. just like it did for charlotte. >> i'm going to get you. >> you both seem very at peace. >> i'm very at peace, yeah. very peaceful. >> we've been given a great life. it's unfortunate that charlie has this dravet syndrome, but
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thank god we've got something now that's working. >> she's doing so great today. ♪ new hope, we'll have the latest on a a live report on efforts to calm tensions in the korean. peninsula. plus three americans are being applauded for their bravery as they stop a potential massacre in france. later fears over china's economy send global stocks into free fall and some investors say this costly correction may be far from over. it's a story a a lot of people are paying attention to. welcome to you vur es in the united states and around the world. >> you're watching "cnn newsroom." good day to you. in just about an hour,
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government ministers from north and south korea are set to meet and talk about tensions rising between the two nations since the beginning of this month. the tensions that led to an ultimatum, then a deadline, then a threat of war from north korea on friday. today's meeting is set to happen here in the heavily fortified demilitarized zone that forms the boarder between the two countries. >> one of the main sources of contention, but certainly not the only one, is these loud speakers. the south has been using them to blast propaganda messages into north korea. kathy novak is covering the story for us from south korea, just. let's start with this new development about these hopeful talks. >> reporter: hopeful would be the word. these ministers agreeing to come together from both sides of the
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boa border. just as this deadline basically is pong us. if they didn't stop using the speakers, by right about how, it would start launching attacks and they were preparing for the speakers to be targeted. . in the last hour we heard of talks that will be happening shortly at the truce village there. but what we also know is that north and south korea generally agree on not much, so they are having the talks. what comes out from them will be the big question because the standoff over the speakers remains and has been the case of who will blink first. north korea was ramping up its rhetoric, kim jong-un putting his front line soldiers on a war footing ready to launch surprise
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attacks. certainly a lot of hope pinned on this meeting and we'll be watching to see what comes out of it. >> because this back and forth happens quite often between the north and south. but this time there were some south korean soldiers hurt. there was a shelling and intense rhetor rhetoric. where you are people have been evacuated. >> that's right. so this often happens. we often hear threats coming out of north korea. that's nothing new. especially when we see joint military exercises that always angers the regime. we heard the state news agency threatening on saturday to attack the u.s. mainland over these joint exercises, but as you say, there are a lot of other factors playing into the situation at the moment. what seems to be causing a lot of the concern is this
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combination. you have the joint exercises, but you have the sequence of events that started with land mines that saw two soldiers injured. north korea was to blame for those land mines. then north korea started this campaign of psychological warfare in. retaliation for that. that angered the regime of kim jong-un. we saw the exchange of fire that seemed to be going on from these speakers and on and on it goes. what comes next is likely to escalate even further is what has a lot of people worried and people here taking precautions. we hear people being evacuated in this region and just where i am now, you may be able to hear some sirens and people being told to get out of this area because of the danger. >> we certainly hope this is the beginning of the end. we'll wait and see.
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kathy novak in south korea, thank you. now for more, here's george. >> let's get some perspective on these latest developments. allison evans is a senior analyst for country risk. she joins us via skype from e engla england. good to have you with us. here's the situation. the two countries will talk, but given all the rhetoric, given the deadlines and the threats, the question is who will blink first? what does this meeting say to you? >> i think a as you already mentioned this meeting is a positive development. there have been a lot of concerns recently because as kathy mentioned, what's happened recently has been a combination of incidents and the annual exercises between the u.s. and south korea, which north korea views as preparations for an offensive attack. this combination has led to
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fears of an escalation. so although both sides don't want o to return to all out full blown conflict, we need steps like this meeting to deescalate the situation now. >> negotiating table, the question about the loud speakers. north korea wants them silenced. how important will that issue be? >> i think it will be quite important. the loud speakers are a big issue. they call it psychological warfare because all the state media is controlled there. it's difficult to get other kinds of information. it's not clear how many people can hear the broadcast from the south korean speakers in north korea. but they have also started their own broadcasts likely in the hopes of drowning out the sound from the south korean loud
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speakers. i think it will be important for the two sides to reach an agreement about this psychological warfare as north korea sees it, but it will be difficult for south korea to be seen to compromise too soon, particularly because there have been some protests in seoul yesterday. >> all of the focus, of course, on north and south korea, but fair to say there are outside factors at play. china, specifically, has urged d both sides to step back. the u.n. has urged restraint. how important do you think their influence has been in what we're seeing play out now? >> china has been a supporter economically and the u.n. most recently carried out that investigation into the source of the land mines that injured the south korean soldiers. i think these international
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actors are speaking to north and south korea and will be emphasize i emphasizing the fact that no one wants to see a full conflict on the korean peninsula again soon. >> allison evans, we'll stay in touch with you as this meet iin is set to take place. we'll see how that works out and certainly hope for the best. thank you so much. as we mentioned, the rising tensions between these two countries has worried regional neighbors. we'll hear from will ripley in the next hour from beijing for more reaction from the region. a potential massacre was averted on a train passing through belgium and france. i mean, this was a close one. thanks to two u.s. service members that were on board. >> a passenger carried a rifle out of the bathroom and he was jumped by men who subdued him. this exclusive video shows the
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scene inside the train afterwards. the gunman stabbed one of the service members multiple times, but he is reportedly doing okay. here is one of those service members as well as two people on board who helped describing what happened. >> relief. nobody got killed. >> really proud of my friend that he reacted so quickly and so bravely. he was really the first one over there. he went to go help the other man who was bleeding. without his help, that man was bleeding from his neck profusely. >> he ran a good 10 meters to get to the guy. e we didn't know his gun wasn't
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working. spencer ran any way. if anybody would have gotten shot, it would have been spencer. we're lucky nobody got killed. >> he's doing great. >> he's in good spirits. he's in disbelief it happened himself. >> crisis averted there. president obama was updated on the attack. in a statement he praised the courage and quick thinking of those on board that train. the united states says the second in command of isis has been killed in a drone strike. the u.s. released a a stam confirming he was targeted on tuesday. the u.s. described him as being heavily involved in the group's finances and military operations. now on to wall street, the dow jones closed with its worse loss of the year down 530 points punctuating a miserable week in global stock markets. it stems partly of worries over
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china's economic slowdown fueling friday's sell off. the dow plunged 1,000 points for the week. european exchanges fell sharply. markets in the uk, germany and france were down about 3% and the shanghai lost more than 4%. bad news all around the world. i want to bring in david stubs, global market strategist for jp march began chase and he joins me now from london. you'd rather relax and enjoy your saturday than talk more about this. are we at a point that so goes china, so goes the world as far as its economy affect iing the global economy? >> i think we have already seen a lot of china's influence play out in global markets. . you have to look at where commodity prices are now.
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that's reflecting the weakness but it's also an oversupply issue. . the last decade had a huge amount of investment into these markets. . that's what's pushing the price down. we can't look at the state of the global economy and think things are falling apart, but you have to deal with the fact that major growth has slowed and has implications for investors. >> let's talk about what investors are affected in different regions of the world. are some countries more vulnerable to china's situation and devaluation? >> absolutely, the devaluation they did was a very small one in the grand scheme of things. what it markets is what it means. is it a a mission of their economy going weak, is it the start of a sustained devaluation campaign. i don't think it is, but the glory days of china's expansion are probably behind us.
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the primarily transmission mechanism is commodity prices and chas causing significant issues in russia and brazil in the emerging markets but also canada and uaustralia are offering. taiwan and asian countries are tied into the chinese manufacturing sector are in a pinch. i think most of this has already played out, but we need to keep our expectations contained for what the global economy can deliver. >> china has reportedly misrepresented some of its numbers, so how tricky does it make it for people like you trying to figure out what damage the chinese economy could cause in the months ahead? >> well, for a long time,
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there's been a lot of justified skepticism over the stability of china's gdp numbers. they have never revised. for awhile they have had had to look at other measures to understand the health of the chinese economy. and those have pointed to a slower rate of gdp growth than the official numbers. china is a very difficult place to understand. it's a massive country and a huge economy. this is not some up and coming story anymore. this is a huge global player. that's why they will be watching the trade blows to understand where china is going. it's important one of the big risks with china is the housing market. this was supposed to be bringing down the banks because mortgages
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were going to go bad. the housing data has improved significantly. prices are rising. one of the big in china is looking better. it's not all doom and gloom in china. >> with that, we'll end. that's a positive note and we appreciate you bringing that to us. thank you, david. donald trump draws a big crowd in alabama. up next we'll go inside the largest campaign event yet. plus the role german officers are playing in the lives of long traveled refugees awaiting asylum. you wouldn't do half of your daily routine. so why treat your mouth any differently? complete the job with listerine®. kill up to 99 percent of germs. and prevent plaque, early gum disease and bad breath. sfx: ahhh listerine®. power to your mouth™!
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welcome back to "cnn newsroom." we're talking donald trump. >> who isn't these days? >> so the thing about the donald is he can certainly draw a crowd and it's clear to see he did in this case. 30,000 people flocked into this stadium in mobile, alabama, friday all showing their support for the u.s. republican presidential candidate. >> he just keeps wearing that
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cap. demand was so high that the venue had to be changed to accommodate such a large group. the republican front runner spoke to the crowd about the current state of america and made a bold prediction. >> you look at baltimore, you look at ferguson, you look at st. louis last night over the last week, you look at all the
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human misery on display u and raw. earlier the situation reached a breaking point. hundreds of migrants tried to force their way into macedonia from greece unsuccessfully. r riot police responded with stun grenades and tear gas. a few were injured in the clashes. tensions rose after macedonia declared a state of emergency shutting their border to the world east most vulnerable. the scale of this human disaster is hard to comprehend. tens o of thousands of people enter here monthly from places like syria and somalia. they arrive any way possible. the u.n. says about 150,000 so far this year. the desperation, obvious. now with the board rer closed, many are stranded in no man's
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land. macedonia, a small country, says they can't cope with this influx since they aren't members of the european union and don't have access to those resources. without any permanent solutions to the causes behind the flood of refugees, this pressure will continue to rise throughout europe until we likely reach another breaking point. cnn, london. >> the goal of many refugees is to find a new home, a new place to live, but it's a long journey and many are in bad shape when they get there. phil black shows us what it's like for migrants and officers at the german border. >> this train stop in germany where police are on high alert. their job, to look for refugees and complete a long and arduous journey to a new and hopefully
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better life. the u.n. says about 150,000 refugees have poured into europe this year any way they can from countries like syria, somalia, most destined for germany. a as each undocumented traveller is found, they are asked to leave the train and join the sea of humanity awaiting word of their fate. but some are in such bad shape they can't wait. >> he told us he broke his leg trying to escape his country. you can actually see his open fracture. >> reporter: the conditions are cramped, loud, uncomfortable. but the officers tasked with caring for e these wary souls who shares stories of their journeys that border on the unimaginable, the work is anything but routine. >> translator: you need to talk to someone about this, with your family or someone. it's difficult. >> reporter: officer benjamin recalled what happened when e he
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asked one man to hand over his belongings to be held temporarily during processing. >> translator: he asked me to give him a second before i took his wallet. e he looked at this picture and touched it and tears were streaming down his face. this stayed with me and even now when i think about it, i get goose bumps. >> reporter: here outside the center in berlin, dr. janson is volunteering on his day off. he's already treated more than 40 refugees for various injuries and infections. >> translator: i came here at 8:00 a.m. with a a few self-purchased drugs and a few things from my office i brought with me. this is a disaster. >> reporter: hundreds of refugees wait here outside the center for weeks at a time with little choice but to sleep on the ground until they are processed. there's so many of them that officers simply cannot keep up with the demand. >> translator: a numb of refugees are growing faster than
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the number of caseworkers that we can hire to get the job done. >> reporter: they have to wait until they are granted the rights to accommodation, food or medical care. the only choice many of these people have is to wait until their number is called. >> translator: i make the rounds, distribute things like vitamins and try to make sure people are doing okay. >> reporter: this man has a fever but is afraid if he leaves to go to the doctor he'll miss his opportunity to be registered. >> translator: his number hasn't been called yet and he's in a lot of pain. >> reporter: there are plans to open additional first admission centers here. but until those centers are rea ready, the growing number of sick and hungry refugees will have to depend on the kindness of strangers to make it through another day. phil black, cnn. . >> it's a complicated situation, but so many people just trying to find a better life to get out
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of a bad situation. >> absolutely, and we have shown so much of the bad of the migrant story. it's so nice to see even though they are so sad there, so tired, the kindness of those officers and the people that showed up to volunteer. >> you're watching "cnn newsroom." in the middle of a war of words, north and south korean officials now set to meet for high level talks that could avoid a more serious confrontation. we're covering all angles of this story as this broadcast continues around the world on cnn international and cnn usa.
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welcome to our viewers in the united states and around the world. this is "cnn newsroom." >> the headlines this hour north and south korea are set to meet shortly to discuss the escalating tensions between the two countries. . officials with the president's office say the high level meeting will happen inside the demilitarized zone. >> three americans including to service members helped stop a massacre on a train. authorities say a passenger was carrying an automatic rifle when the men subdued pim. it e shows the suspect inside the train tied up. the gunman stabbed one service member, but he is hospitalized and doing okay. thai police released new pictures on friday of the motorcycle taxi that carried the lead suspect in the bomb attack on a bangkok shrine. the driver claims he picked up
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the suspect and that the man was speaking an unfamiliar language. >> as we mentioned, north korea and south korea are apparently going to talk after both threatening military action so that is a the good development in the past hour or so. when the combat ended in the korean conflict back in 1953 the 38 parallel became the border between the north and south. it divided lifestyles and most painfulfully families in the decades since. we share u some of their stories. >> at the same time, it's not. there's a woman in this city whose life u embodies a very horror that is the korean war. millions died in the war, but the people i'm looking for are still alive. we found her in a senior center.
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she hasn't seen her children in 65 years. for her and others like her, this is the war with no end. >> how old are you? >> 93 years old. what year was it that you last saw your children? how old were they? 2,5 and 7 years old. i left my children with my mother without saying good-bye, she says. i thought it would be a week. how much did they cry for me. how much did they want to e see
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me. we've never even been able to talk. it's not just this one woman's horrible story. there are so many others. i'm here in the bay area to meet another man. he's also elderly, also separated from his family since 1950. that is so painful that he spent decades just trying to pretend that they don't exist. >> they are your siblings. >> that's right. but it's too much pain. my family background, that's the best way for me to survive. >> did you know they survived? you had no information? >> no information. >> you were just going to go
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look for them. >> i saw my brother immediately. it was my brother. >> let's talk about this picture. when you saw his face, what did you think? >> i look at the mirror. it was me. he was me. so happy. >> so you spent two days with your brother? >> yeah. >> in 50 years, only two days? >> yeah, they allowed only that. how lucky i am, how happy i am.
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>> back in chicago mrs. lee remains one of the unlucky. she tells me there's only one reason she's still alive. my children, i pray for the chance to see you. i'm holding on, living, hoping to see you. i visit you in my dreams. please help me to see my children. >> two countries separated by more than just a border and politics mean many families are caught in the middle. >> that's just heartbreaking. that story we have seen it before. we had to run it again because it's so powerful. of course, the news is, the good news, it's not reuniting families, but there's a meeting set to take place.
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>> will ripley has special insight in his reporting in. north korea and now joins us live from beijing. good to have you with us. let's talk specifically about this high level meeting. i want to talk about the loud speakers. it's a key issue for north korea. what's the content of the broadcast? what are people hearing? >> this is a a tactic used for decades. it's a cold war relic. the speakers have sat silent for more than ten years and were just brought back this month by south korea after those land mines almost killed two south korean soldiers. land mines that the south says were placed deliberately by the north. that's a claim that the north denies. the spike speakers from the souds are broadcasting things as simple as music, radio broadcasts, news reports, reports about kim jong-un executing members of his own
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inner circle, things that would never be allowed to be broadcast within north korea but things that some citizens can pick up if they are transmitting or listening in on illegal radios. sometimes they are smuggled in or the propaganda leaflets are flown in on balloons. that's why you see the north korean government trying to shoot those down as well because it's damaging information, which stays in power in large part because everything that people think and all the information that they consume is tightly controlled. so on the north korean side their speakers are broadcasting the type of propaganda you're used to hearing talking about the strength of the country, to boost the morale and remind that their country is ready it defend itself. those messages are almost an attempt to distract from what's coming in from the south snigs to promising a better life.
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so it's very damaging and that's why you see north korea so upset about. >> as we mentioned bringing you in here, you have special i insight. you traveled to the dmz. you have a good sense of what it's like there. sort of a world on a hair trigger. so when tensions escalate, as we have seen here in recent days and weeks, how do people feel a about it? how does it affect people? especially with an incident like we have seen. >> well, neither side wants this to es did collacalate into a fu war. nobody wants to see a loss of life. t the village where the talks will
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take place, i was there in may and it's shared between north and south korea. they each have buildings on either side. there's blue huts that are along the dividing line. half of the hut is technically within north korea and half within south korea. we don't know exactly where the talks will be taking place, but both sides have come in from -- they both have doors into the huts and come and sit dun at a table in the middle and talk. both sides are going to have things they are asking for. the north is going to want the loud speakers off and the south is going to want accountability for the land mine explosions that almost killed two of their soldiers. if they are willing to come up with a compromise, the situation could diffuse. if not, itescalate. >> we'll continue to monitor the
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situation there. we'll have a live report from the dmz a little later as the talks between north and south korea continue as they are set to begin. that's coming up in less than half an hour right here on cnn. you're watching "cnn newsroom." we're tracking two major typhoons in the pacific ocean. we'll tell you where they are headed. plus rose pe talls and a horse drawn carriage. why this funeral sparked outrage. shopping online... ...is as easy as it gets. wouldn't it be great if hiring plumbers, carpenters and even piano tuners... were just as simple? thanks to angie's list, now it is. start shopping online... ...from a list of top rated providers. visit angieslist.com today. we stop arthritis pain, so you don't have to stop. because you believe in go. onward. today's the day. carpe diem. tylenol® 8hr arthritis pain
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>> in all 259 wildfires are burning in 17 states. . you see the video here. you get a sense of how bad it is as the flames continue to spread. many of those western states are experiencing serious drought conditions, especially in california. in the pacific taiwan and japan could be in store for flooding and mud. slides from a strong typhoon. >> from one side of the world to another that is getting hammered by rain. we have more on that. >> we have not. one but seven different systems we're keeping an eye on. you can see them all lining upstarting in the west towards the first major hurricane in the atlantic. we're still keeping an eye on these. it's weakened down to 150 kilometers per hour. but it's still a major storm in terms of its size.
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and the wall is very intense despite the overall wind speed starting to weaken. in about 24 hours. we expect some strengthening to happen around 175 kilometers per hour, but it will continue to weaken just before it makes it towards japan. the forecast accumulations in taiwan expecting to be around 150 millimeters total. so the fact that it's going to come down quickly is likely to lead to localized flooding and mud slides as well. we have talked about the two storms here, but let's take a look at danny. you can't see it on this map. this is the side. compared with the size of danny, you can see it's this tiny dot right here. so size wise, they are not even comparable. we are talking 425 kilometers wide for atsani and 111
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kilometers wide for. danny. here's a look at the current status for danny. a category 2 strength storm in the atlantic. 160 kilometer per hour winds. 195 is what they are gusting to. the track for this storm does start to push towards the west within about the next 48 hours. once we get about 72 hours from now, we'll be edging close to puerto rico. folks are excited about this. we have a quarter of the country in extreme drought right now. 45% of that in severe. so boit looks like they are looking forward to some of the rain and believe it will provide relief in a few days. >> thank goodness, the word e relief. it's very welcome. >> thank you so much. venezuela declared a state of emergency along parts of its border with columbia. the president made the
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announcement on friday following a shootout between troops and smugglers that wounded three soldie soldiers. >> the measure will remain in place for 60 days in areas where smugglers have increasingly clashed with security forces. the country added 1500 troops along the border. fears of global growth, falling oil prices and the timing of the interest rate rise are hitting the currencies of emerging markets very hard. >> the mexican peso has fallen to its lowest level in history. >> reporter: the mexican peso spiralled to its lowest level on wednesday and ten it got worse. banks started selling dollars at more than 60 mexican pesos thursday, a a historical record. central bank governor says if it continues to lose value against the dlor, mexico would face
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higher inflation. the mexican peso lost 12% of its value so far this year and 19% in the last 12 months. he says the devaluation of the chinese currency and low oil prices have hurt the mexican peso. but he says inflation remains low, something some mexican consumers dispute. inflation is horrendous in this country even though our finest authorities say it's not, this mexico city resident says. this businessman says his purchasing power has been hit as well as his ability to travel to the united states and other parts of the world. mexico's not the only country whose currency has dramatically lost ground against the dollar. in the last 12 months, the currencies of both colombia and brazil have gone down by more than 30%. along the desperate measures taken by authorities to strengthen the mexico peso, it's
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the sale of dollars in the dm domestic market. they auctioned $233 million wednesday, but this action still didn't stop the free fall. it's a serious concern for the government of the president. officials announced in late july that 2 million people fell. into poverty between 2012 and 2014, the first two years of his government raising the poverty rate to 46.2%. a situation that can only be. made worse by a weakening currency. a funeral in rome looked like a scene from "the godfather." >> the controversial sendoff for an alleged mobster. we'll have that, just ahead.
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"the godfather", family and friends say good-bye o to an alleged italian mob boss. the king of rome. an elaborate hearse carried his remains to the church. a helicopter flew overhead dropping rose petals. this poster outside reads "you have conquered rome, now conquer paradise." many politicians are furious about the funeral. one lawmaker tweeted, never again, rome cannot be defaced by those who want it to become the set of "the godfather." and the priest distanced himself from what happened in the streets. >> translator: i'm a priest. it was not up to me. and besides how could i have done it. it was not up to e me to block a
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funeral. >> reporter: the funeral comes just a day after a judge set the trial date for 59 people on charges relating to organized crime. the 65-year-old was not on that list, but officials say he was the subject of numerous criminal investigations. a well-known figure in rome not one to shy away from attention. here he is in 2009 singing "my way." many have compared the funeral to that of 1962. hundreds gathered as his body was paraded through the streets o of naples. five decades later some traditions live on. phil black, cnn, london.
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ready to talk, north and south korea hold a high level meeting after threats of a war are sparked by tensions at the border. we're covering all angles o of that story. we'll hear from money experts who insist it's not time to panic yet. and a potential massacre averted. how these three americans, how they helped stop a gunman on board a train in europe. from cnn world headquarters, i'm george howell. this is "cnn newsroom."
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welcome to our viewers here in the united states and around the world. it's 6:00 p.m. in seoul. at any time now, north and south korean officials are set to meet to talk about the tensions that have been rising in the region over the past month the tensions have led to an ultimatum, a deadline and a threat of war from north korea on friday. today's meeting is set to happen here in the heavily fortified dmz, the zone that forms the borders between the countries. one of the main sources of contention is what you see there, the loud speakers. south korea has been using them to blast propaganda messages into north korea. let's go to kathy novak covering the story from south korea. good to have you with us.
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so i want to ask you what is the mood right now with the talks set to begin? any sense of relief now that the countries will talk? >> i'm not sure if i call it relief, george, perhaps a tense feeling of hope perhaps that at least they have come together and agreed to talk, but it's still a situation of high alert right where i am. all of the civilians around this area have been evacuated. people that are residents near the dmz have been told to leave. south korea's military remains on high alert, even as these talks are due to get under way right now. the deadline for south korea to stop broadcasting its propaganda messages through the large speakers has come and gown and south korea say it is will continue to broadcast that regime rhetoric that has been sending across the border in these huge loud speakers.
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so whether or not there's an agreement to stop we'll have to wait and see. but north korea has been issuing serious threats because of that program. so people are still concerned. >> they talked to us a little about where the meeting will happened. and the dmz, what building will it happen and how does this play out? >> this is about the truce village where it was signed at the end of the korean war. the two koreas remain technically at war because it ended with an arm this rather than a peace treaty. so it is a significant place. these are high level people including a senior person who is said to be quite close to the leader kim jong-un. so south korea is sending
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ministers, people who should be able to try to come to an agreement, but north and south korea don't tend to agree on much. whether anything at all will come out of this meeting certainly remains to be seen. >> we'll continue to stay in touch with you as this meeting is set to take place any time now. the hope is that it remains peaceful. thank you so much. so just how important are today's talks? natalie allen put that question to a senior analyst for country risk. here's what she had to say. >> both north and south korea don't want to be seen to step down, but these talks will provide an opportunity for them to talk and come to a mutual agreement. again, the artillery fire that
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you mentioned and kathy pointed out meant to evacuate villages in south korea was unprecedented in that we often see artillery shelling across the border, but across the demilitarized zone, there's usually only small arms fire. >> the regime is known for being isolated, known for being secretive and dangerous. and commanding it all is this man, someone described as brutal and worshipped kim jong-un. global affairs correspondent has more on the man north koreaen call their leader, just like his father. >> reporter: north korea's famous for creating a personality around the leaders of the country. and kim jong-un is no exception. he was the youngest son of the previous leader of north korea and his favorite wife. now as a child, he was sent to a prestigious r boarding school where he registered under an
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assumed name and claimed to be the son of a korean diplomat. he then attended a military academy was and promoted up the military ranks. . in 2011 kim jong-un was transitioned into power with support from the country's ru ruling elite. describe the status orphan the international stage, kim jong-un is creating a god-like nj image for himself at home. wherever he goes he's met with devotion. men wade waist deep just to get a look at him. it's hard to know how much of this devotion is real, but the north korean regime is doing a pretty good job of keeping the cult alive. he's been seen with this woman, his wife. they recently had their first child, but it's got to be his friendship with dennis rodman that's generated the most buzz. rodman has been to north korea several times and despite kim's international reputation, rodman insists that kim is an awesome
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guy. just like his father, kim is drawing the eye of the international community for human rights abuses since he took power prison camps have expanded and there's been a serious crackdown on would-be defectors. had he had his own uncle executed and has been purging party officials to deflect some of the criticism. he's been trying to show his softer side. he's been photographed touring children's hospitals and orphanages and ordered construction of amusement parks in the country. despite the personality kim has created, north korea is u still one of the most opaque countries in the world. north korea watchers say the soef y'all face we see marks a dark reality for the people. >> israeli media are reporting that benjamin netanyahu and his former defense minister came close to attacking iran not just
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once, but three times. the possibility of a strike against the country was raised between 2010 and 2012, but each time political or military hindrances got in the way. for more on this story, let's go to jerusalem. explain how this information came to light. >> this started in interviews that the former defense minister was having with his biographers. these interviews got out and got to our affiliate and were aired yesterday. they have gotten quite a bit of buzz. as you mentioned, the focus is on 2010 to 02012. in each of those years, these recordings come out and say that for different reasons strikes were essentially called on. so one year at a time.
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first year in 2010, it was the idea of chief of staff who they don't have the capability to carry out these strikes. one year later in 2011, they were called off, the process of planning didn't move forward because there were two high level ministers who were at first supportive but then changed their minds when they realized the risks and losses that could be involved. one year later, 2012, a different reason. this time because the idf was supposed to carry out military exercises with the u.s. and essentially made any military strike against iran and iran's nuclear facility too complicated to carry out. very interesting reports from channel 2 coming in israel. >> he was known for supporting the idea of unilateral strike. the e question, how did washington play a factor into this?
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>> at least in terms of these recent discussions the report coming out here i haven't seen a response yet from washington. but there was complications in 2012, at least at this time. there was a feeling that israel really was going to carry out a unilateral strike against iran. we see in this report from channel 2 how close that really came and how much it was very much discussed at the highest level. according to to this report, washington didn't play a part in sort of the figurings on this end, but in 2012 it was discussions between the defense minister here at the time and leon panetta in seeing if they could push back the military exercise and the strike could be carried out. again, according to this report, the complications there trying to coordinate a strike while also having this exercise one of the reasons this was called off. it's also worth note iing that report trying to. keep this report from making air
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but the military sensor approved it and it made air and created quite a bit of buzz here. >> interesting. here we are today the iran nuclear deal, that is front and center. the prime minister has been vocal in his opposition to that potential deal. is there any indication now in present day of an israeli plan to attack now that that deal is signed, sealed and delivered? >> no matter who you ask here in the highest levels of government is a military strike on the table, they will say, yes, everything is on the table. they will tell you all options remain. on the table. they won't give any specifics, but they will say all options remain on the table. . at the same time analysts here say a military strike is less likely now that the iran deal is done. >> thank you so much for your reporting. now we move on to wall street where investors are using words like fear and uncertainty
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to sum up the global economic climate after a very painful week of trading. the dow plunged more than 530 points on friday. that's the worse loss this year. european exchanges also saw steep drops. markets in the uk, germany and france were each down about 3%. last hour natalie allen spoke with the global market strategist about the impact that china's economy is having on the rest of the world. >> you look at kmcommodity pric are, a few years, they are significantly lower and that's affecting the weakness in chinese demand. but it's also an oversupply issue. . a huge amount of investment into. the commodity kmarmarkets. i don't think we can look at the
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state of the global economy and think things are falling apart, but you have to deal with the fact that some major growth in china has slowed and that has implications to investors. >> let's talk about what investors are affecting in different regions of the world. are some countries more vulnerable to china's situation and devaluation? >>. absolutely, the the devaluation they did was very small. is it a mission of their economy going weak? is it the start of a devaluation campaign? i don't think it is, but the glory days of china's expansion are probably behind us. the transmission mechanism is commodity prices and that's causing significant issues in russia and brazil in the emerging markets, but canada and australia is suffering as well
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because they are quantity based for awhile now. there's trade linkages and places like taiwan and asian countries tied into the manufacturing sector also start feeling the pinch somewhat. but i don't think there's much possibility of financial endangerment. so most of this has already played out, but we need to keep our expectations contained for what the global economy can deliver. >> you're watching "cnn newsroom." desperation on the border, tensions flare as a crowd of refugees tries to charge these lines. plus three americans jump into action when a man with a gun appears on a train. we'll hear from the brother of the u.s. service member who took action there. but your stellar notebook gives hanyou the gumptionlc. to reach for the sky. that's that new gear feeling. this week, these office depot brand notebooks just one cent.
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mourn the victims. the bombing attack killed 20 people. a potential massacre was averted on a train thanks to fwo u.s. service members and an american civilian, who just happened to be on board. authorities say a passenger carried a rifle out of the bathroom. that's when the men jumped in and subdued him. this exclusive video shows the incident on the train. the gunman stabbed one of the service members multiple times, but we understand he's doink okay. earlier our natalie allen spoke with the brother of one of those service members. he says all three men had training that came into play, listen. >> they were sitting on the train and heard a loud noise like glass was shattering and people were running. and they turned around and saw a guy without a shirt on. and they both turned to each
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other and basically agreed to confront him and my brother's friend spencer rushed the man head on and tackled him. thank god that the gun did not go off. my brother told me that the primer was basically the thing that ignites the bullet failed to ignite and that basically they were just really lucky. he got the guy in a choke hold and my brother beat up on the guy with the gun he was able to get away from his grasp. all three of them are heroes. anthony, spencer and allen, my brother was infantry so he was definitely very keen on how to use weapons. spencer had been trained as a paramedic and was able to stop the bleeding of another passenger. and anthony was able to help
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subdue the man. >> amazing, the u.s. president barack obama was updated on the attack. he praised the courage and quick thinking of those on board the train. the united states says the second in command of the islamic terrorist group isis has been killed in a drone strike. the white house released a statement on friday confirming his car was targeted on tuesday. the u.s. described him as being heavily involved in the group's finances and military operations. thousands of desperate migrants are stranded in northern greece in conditions that are said to be inhumane after chaos at the border. police fired tear gas on friday to stop the migrants from rushing across the boundary line. refugees have been camped out
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without shelter soaking from the rain. the country is under pressure from greece to figure things out. macedonia has admitted some migrants but says it can't accommodate all of them humanely. the goal of many refugees is to simply find a new home in a place like france or germany, but it's a long journey and many are in bad shape when they get there. phil black shows us what it's like. >> this train stop in germany is on high alert. their job is to look for refu e refugees using trains to complete a long and arduous journey to a new and hopefully better life. the u.n. says about 150,000 refugees have poured into europe this year from countries like syria, somalia, most destined for germany.
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as each is found, they are asked to leave the train and join the sea of humanity awaiting word that some of them are in such bad shape they can't wait. >> translator: he told us he broke his leg trying to escape his country. you can actually see his open fracture. >> reporter: free ythe conditio cramped, loud and uncomfortable. the officers task ed with carin for these weary soul, you hear stories bordering on the unimaginable. >> translator: you need to talk o to someone ant this. with your family or someone. it's difficult. >> reporter: officer benjamin recalls what happened when he asked one man to hand over what remained of his precious belongings to be held during processing. >> translator: he asked me to give him a second before i took his wallet. he looked at this picture and
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touched it and tears were streaming down his face. this stayed with me and even now when i think about it i get goose bumps. >> reporter: hear outside the refugee admission center in berlin, dr. janson is volu volunteering on his day off. he's already treated more than 40 refugees with various injuries and infections. >> translator: i came here at 8:00 a.m. with a few self-purchased drugs and a few things from my office i brought with me. this is a disaster. >> reporter: hundreds of refugees wait here outside the center for weeks at a time with little choice but to sleep on the ground until they are processed. there's so many of them that officers simply cannot keep up with the demand. >> translator: a number of refugees are growing faster than the number of caseworkers that we can hire to e get the job done. >> reporter: they have to wait until they are registered before they are granted the rights to accommodation, food or medical care, so the only choice many
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people have is to wait until their number is called. >> translator: i make the rounds, distribute vitamins and try to make sure people are doing okay. >> reporter: this man has a fever but is afraid if he leaves to go to the doctor he will miss his opportunity to be regist registered. >> translator: his number hasn't been called yet and he's in a lot of pain. >> reporter: there are plans to open additional first admission centers here. but until those centers are ready, the growing number of sick and hungry refugees will have to depend on the kindness of strangers to make it through another day. phil black, cnn. >> in yemen, the aid group doctors without borders says airstrikes in the southwestern city killed more than 65 civilians on friday. one resident describe d it as mass destruction. becky anderson reports the people of yemen are baring the
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brunt of five long months. >> black smoke billows over the capital city. the sign of another air strike by the coalition aimed at driving rebels out and freeing the government back to power. but after five months of power, there's no end to the conflict in sight. only destruction continues. over 1500 civilians dead according to the united nations. aid agencies on the ground ringing the alarm bell on yemen. >> there are 21 million people in the humanitarian system. that's 80% of the entire population and arguably the statistics, yemen needs the biggest humanitarian crisis. so many people are desperately in need. >> the essentials like food and
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water are in short supply. the world food program is holding them on the brink of famine. yemen's children are not spared. kids are in harm's way as the conflict rages on. unicef says on average eight children are killed or maimed daily in yemen. nearly 10 million youth need urgent humanitarian aid. so many in need. but with groups trying to help strapped by their budgets and challenging logistics in delivering aid, there's little hope. >> when i meet yemen people here, all the time they come back to me and say, why do we need this? because what they see in. the media and also in these communities so far is actually very little. and they can't understand it and
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i personally can't understand it either. >> a crisis in the international community cannot afford to ignore. becky anderson, cnn, abu dhabi. you're watching "cnn newsroom." in the middle of a war of words, north and south korean officials now set to meet for high level talks that could avoid a more serious confrontation. we're following this story. plus donald trump pulls off the biggest event yet. inside the alabama rally that drew thousands of supporters as this broadcast continues worldwide on cnn international and cnn usa. . you wouldn't do half of your daily routine. so why treat your mouth any differently? complete the job with listerine®. kill up to 99 percent of germs. and prevent plaque, early gum disease and bad breath. sfx: ahhh listerine®. power to your mouth™! when you do business everywhere, the challenges of keeping everyone working together can quickly become the only thing you think about.
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welcome back to our viewers here in the united states and around the world. you are watching "cnn newsroom", good to have you with us, i'm george howell. the headlines this hour, markets plunged in the united states and around the world. it was a painful end to the week for investors. the dow jones lost more than 530 points, its worst sell off since 2011. it was driven by china's economic e slowdown. the manufacturing sector hit a six-year low in july. new reports indicate that israel plans to attack iran on three separate occasions. in a recording obtained by an israeli television channel, the defense minister said he and benjamin netanyahu raised the possibility of a strike three times between the years of 2010 and 2013. each time the measure was
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blocked by other cabinet leaders. three americans including two service members, seen here helped stop a potential massacre. authorities say they sub dub eda passenger carrying an automat. ic rifle. this video shows the suspect inside the train tied up. the gunman stabbed one service member, but we're told he's hospitalized and doing okay at this hour. north and south korean ministers are set to meet this hour to discuss the escalating tensions between the two countries. officials with the south korean president's office say the high level meeting will happen inside the dmz. let's get more on this high level meeting that's taking place now. will ripley has special insight from his own travels and reporting inside north korea and joins us live from beijing. good to have you with us. . these talks are set to happen any time, if it they are not happening right now. but does this mean that the situation is resolving itself or
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over? is it just optimistic at this point? >> yeah, it doesn't. we won't know what the resolution, if any, is until after the talks are completed and both sides deliver their messages about how things went. so obviously, what we'll be listening for is the tone of the rhetoric from both the north and the south and to find out if they have been able to reach an agreement. many times these discussions do not diffuse the situation and the situation can continue to escalate. what you have here is you have the south korean side. the fact that land mines almost killed two soldiers, even though north korea denies they planted the land mines. because of angerover the ongoing u.s. military exercises that started on monday and go until friday.
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they are furious about that and it happens twice a year and twice a year they get very angry. so it's no coincidence that these explosions happened. and that the alleged firing on the loud speaker broadcasts that south korea began in retaliation. so this could go one of two ways. the situation could diffuse. the south could agree to turn off the broadcasts if the north takes responsibility for the land mine blasts, but if they are not willing to do that, if neither side is not willing to bend, this could continue and could get worse. >> let's talk specifically about the loud speakers. this is a key issue for north korea. what specifically are people hearing on the other side of the border and from your own insight why does this anger north korea? >> these are broadcasts that happen at random usually at various times of the day without any advanced warning. they go on for several hours and
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it's as simple as news reports, music, messages about how life is better on the south korean side than the north korean side. all these messages sent into the north, a a country that tries very hard to keep its people and to keep outside information from getting in. it's infuriating. there are reports about kim jong-un that would never be heard within north korea and these are targets to the northern korean soldiers stationed along the dmz. three quarters are stationed near the dmd and the broadcasts are an attempt to hurt their morale, if you will, or encourage them to defect to the other side. north korea has their own speakers set up and they have propaganda praising their country and the leadership, praising the national system and that is an attempt to distract from the message that the south is trying to send in. radio broadcasts are happening.
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they can get very serious trouble if they are caught doing it. north korea will often times try to shoot them down to prevent that information from getting to people. >> it's fair to surmise that these speakers will be on the negotiating table as this meeting takes place. will ripley, thank you so much for your reporting. we'll stay in touch with you. when the combat ended in the korean conflict in 1953, the 38th parallel became the border between the north and south korea and that divided ideologies, lifestyles and perhaps most painfully it divided families. here are some of their stories. >> reporter: chicago, worlds away from the isolation of north korea. at the same time, it's not. there's a a woman in this city whose life embodies a very horr horror that is the korean war.
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the people i'm looking for are still alive. we found her in a senior center. she hasn't seen her children in 65 years. for her and others like her, this is a war with no end. how old are you? >> 93. >> 93 years old. what year was it that you last saw your children? how old were they? 2,5 and 7 years old. i left my children with my mother without saying good-bye, she says. i thought it would be a week. how much did they cry for me.
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how much did they want to see me? we have never even been able to talk. it's not just this one woman's horrible story. there are so many others. i'm here in the bay area to meet another man. he's also elderly and separate ed from his family. and that is so painful that he spent decades just trying to pretend that they don't exist. >> i hate that in my mind. >> but they are your siblings. >> that's right. but it's too much pain. that's the way for me to survive.
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>> did you know they survived? >> no information. >> you were just going to go to look for them. >> yep. i saw my brother immediate. ly. this is my brother. >> let's talk about this picture. you saw his face. what did you think? >> i look at the mirror. it was me. he was me. so happy. >> so you spent two days with your brother. in 50 years, only two days. >> yeah, we were allowed only
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that. how lucky i am, how happy i am. >> back in chicago, mrs. lee remains one of the unlucky. she tells me there's only one reason she's still alive. my children, i pray for the chance to see you. i'm holding on, living, hoping to see you. i visit you in my dreams. please help me to see my children. >> the stories of these people are shared so well. the divide goes much deeper than the border. we'll continue to follow the situation there on the korean peninsula as the meeting is set to take place. turning over to the turmoil
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in the global markets. oil prices continue to struggle during trading on friday and at one point even dipping below $40 a barrel. that's the first time we have seen that since 2009. many experts say the low oil prices are likely here to stay. richard quest explains. >> classic laws of supply and demand, this time for the oil industry. the red line is supply. the blue is demand. and if you look where we are at the moment, you can see there's about 1.8 million barrels a day more supply than is actually being taken out of the market. that's the reason why oil prices are so low. too much supply and these are the factors. first of all, you have opec churning out more oil keeping demand as high as possible, refusing to cut to support the price. then you have iran with sanctions about to be lifted.
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iran is increasing its oil production putting more into the international market. add on the united states with its fracking and its increasing of inventories and you start to see stocks really building up. . but all of this is the supply side of the equation. more oil coming into the market. go over here and you see on the demand side, china. china, slowing down, less need for large amounts of oil. as a result, the e quill librium is out of balance. there's too much oil in the world and as long as the supply is greater than demand, you'll see prices starting to fall. richard quest, cnn, new york. on to donald trump now. the u.s. presidential race,
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trump held his biggest campaign event yet. demand was so high for the event the venue had had to be changed to accommodate the larger group of people. 30,000 packed into a stadium in mobile, alabama, friday to show their support for mr. trump. the republican front runner spoke to the crowd about the current state of america and he made a pretty bold prediction, listen. >> you look at baltimore, you look at ferguson, you look at st. louis last night, over the last week, you look at all the things that are happening. we're sitting on powder kegs. there's no spirit. there's no jobs. there's no anything. we are going to take this country, i am going to be the greatest jobs president that god ever created. i will will tell you. >> the republican candidate boasting for jobs. trump's alabama rally breaks bernie sanders's record for the
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president obama ordered additional resources on friday after three firefighters died this week in washington state. in all, 259 fires are burning in 17 states, many of those western states are experiencing a severe drought, especially in the state of california. one thing firefighters on the west coast desperately need
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right now is rainfall. unfortunately, the rain is on the other side of the country. for more on that, let's turn to our meteorologist in the world weather center. it's tough for the rest coast right now. >> it is right now. a lot of the areas that need to see rain aren't going to get. it except a few. we'll start in the western pacific. we have two typhoons right now. atsani looks to be the nicer of the two. a nice eye in the center of the storm. again, the movement of it is a little stronger. however, the winds for the two of these storms are identical. they are both 150 kilometers per hour. goni is going to slide off to the north ever so slightly to the north and east. especially in the next 48 hours. . it is expected to bring some pretty heavy rainfall starting in just a few hours and gradually over the next 48 hours
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for parts of eastern taiwan. the problem is because it's all that rain in a short period of time, they are likely to get some localized flooding and mud slides as well. 72 hours from now we'll see impacts in japan. here's a look at the totals. a lot of places, totals around 150 millimeters total in the next 48 hours. now comparing the two storms that we have in the western pacific to the first major hurricane that we had had the atlantic, danny, you can see size is quite different. we have atsani at 425 kilometers wide compared to danny, 111 kilometers wide. hurricane danny is going to track to the west at 160 kilometers per hour, but as it continues to do so, it's going to hit an unfavorable environment. we have extra wind shear and drier conditions. so it is expected to weaken considerably over the next couple days. eventually down to tropical
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storm status and over towards puerto rico in the next 72 hours. this is a welcomed sight for those in the eastern half of the country because they are dealing with 25% of the country in extreme drought. >> droughts in so many places, thank you so much. you're watch iing "cnn newsroom." basketball great michael jordan says it was a case of principle and not money. we'll tell you why a court has awarded him millions of dollars in a civil suit against a grocery chain as "cnn newsroom" continues. but your stellar notebook gives hanyou the gumptionlc. to reach for the sky. that's that new gear feeling. this week, these office depot brand notebooks just one cent. office depot officemax. gear up for school. gear up for great.
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michael jordan was usually a winner on the basketball court, but now he's scored big in a federal court as well. it's a all because of a ruling that a supermarket chain must now pay the former nba champion almost $9 million for using his likeness without permission. wgn chicago affiliate reports. >> it's my name. i worked hard for it and i'm not going to let someone take it. i will fight until the end. >> as hard as he fought on the court, jordan's lawyers fought in the courtroom.
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a 2009 page of "sports illustrated" congratulating number 23 into the induction into the hall of fame. there was a $2 off coupon for reserved steaks. for jordan, that was a bridge too far. in court his legal team says it was an ad he never would have approve approved. it makes tens of millions of endorsement deals with companies like nike. the analogy is he's the sports world's hope diamond. you can't chip off a piece. to use a a name, you have to pay. but. lawyers played up some smaller endorsements reminding that the jury that two of the coupons were ever redeemed arguing the company did not profit from the ad. >> it was never about the money. it was the principle of protecting my name and my likeness and i just felt like they took advantage of it. i'm glad the courts understood
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that today. a 25-year-old student in chile discovered a new planet. it's about 300 light years away from earth and the star it orbits is twice the size of our own sun. she found the planet while studying the red star. the mass is three times that of jupiter and almost 100 times that of earth. it's a cool discovery. we thank you for watching this hour of "cnn newsroom." i'm george howell in atlanta. for our viewers in the u.s., "new day" is next. for everyone else around the world "amanpour" starts in just a moment. ♪
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♪ breaking right now. north and south korea holding emergency high level talks and comes after a week of high tensions, threats, counterthreats. can the two enemies avoid a shooting war this morning? also, exclusive images for you, as americans tackle and overpower a suspected islamist i've gunman on a train from france. today we finally see those heroic men. plus this. >> i tried to shoot him. >> he
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