Mount Agung Creates Huge Ash Cloud Over Bali
WARD: Here in the UK, Britain's most eligible bachelor is looking forward to his future, with American actor Meghan Markle by his side. Prince Harry confirmed their engagement on Monday, saying he knew Markle was the one the first time they met. Amara Walker has more on the woman now set to become British royalty.</s>AMARA WALKER, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Rachel Meghan Markle is an American actress who has reportedly been dating Prince Harry for more than a year. The 36-year-old stars as paralegal Rachel Zane on the legal drama "Suits". She currently lives in Toronto where the show is filmed. Markle, who was raised in Los Angeles, is the daughter of an African-American mother and a white father. She identifies as biracial and has spoken publicly about struggling with her ethnic identity as a child. Markle went on to graduate from Northwestern University with a degree in communications. Markle has also appeared as a model and she ran her own lifestyle website. She's appeared in a number of TV shows, including the TV sci-fi thriller "Fringe" in 2009. She's also appeared in several films, including the 2011 comedy "Horrible Bosses". Markle was married to film producer Trevor Engelson for two years. They divorced in 2013. She is involved in several charities as the global ambassador for World Vision Canada. She's traveled to Rwanda to promote clean water. She's also a United Nations advocate for women. Most recently, Markle wrote a powerful essay for "TIME Magazine", "How Periods Affect Potential," about the stigma in some countries surrounding menstrual cycles, prohibiting young girls from pursuing an education. But ever since news broke of her alleged relationship with Prince Harry, Markle has stepped into a much larger spotlight, becoming the subject of global scrutiny as a possible royal in waiting. Amara Walker, CNN.</s>WARD: The pair have not played out their love story too publicly. Still, the world is captivated. So, let's go over to CNN correspondent Stephanie Elam. She is in LA. Stephanie, give us a sense. How is America reacting to the news that it may finally have its own princess?</s>STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Clarissa, there is this intrigue with what's going on with the royal family. No matter what, even here in the United States, a lot of people have lot of speculation about it and a lot of people are thrilled about the news. But, obviously, this is very different in the sense that, yes, she is from here in Los Angeles. She grew up in California. She's a graduate of Northwestern University with a degree in communications. And she has grown pretty much around Hollywood because her dad was a lighting director on a show called "Married with Children", which was on the air forever. It's in syndication. So, I imagine a lot of people across the pond know it as well. So, because of that, she got to see the inside of Hollywood workings early on and still decided that that was something that she wanted to pursue. But now, she's giving that all up to go into this new life. What's interesting to a lot of people is the fact that, yes, she's 36 years old, she's divorced and she's half black. So, a lot of that very intriguing to see how that will be taken in the UK and whether or not that will be something that people will have a problem with. But, overall, here, people are happy with this news and enthralled for the couple and waiting to see all the pomp and circumstance about where they're going to get married. Some wondering if they'll get married here in Los Angeles. My guess is that they'll probably stay there where you are, Clarissa.</s>WARD: That would be my guess too. One thing I found interesting. She gave this interview with Prince Harry and she talked about the fact that it's been a shock to be sort of thrust into the spotlight. You would think as an an actress she would be prepared for that. But take a listen to what she had to say about the shift into the spotlight.</s>MEGHAN MARKLE, PRINCE HARRY'S FIANCE: There's a misconception that because I have worked in the entertainment industry that this would be something I would be familiar with. But even though I've been on my show for, I guess, six years at that point and working before that, I've never been part of tabloid culture. I've never been in pop culture to that degree and lived a relatively quiet life, even though I focus so much on my job. And so, that was a really stark difference out of the gate. And I think we were just hit so hard at the beginning with a lot of mistruths that I made the choice to not read anything.</s>WARD: Stephanie, for a lot of our international viewers, they basically don't have a point of reference for how big a celebrity was Meghan Markle before this whole romance blossomed.</s>ELAM: Here's the thing. She's on a very popular show, but that show films in Toronto. So, it's not like she's here. She's not living here in Los Angeles. So, she's in Hollywood, but removed all at the same time. So, even still, she was steadily working and doing her thing, but it's not as if she was walking around as, say, a mega superstar that we all know when everyone is watching the movie and they can't go anywhere. She was steadily working, but not that high in the profile. Because of this, her profile has been blown up and blasted and it's like everyone now knows who she is, and it's changed everything. And I think that's what people forget that in Hollywood. There are a lot of working actors who are constantly working day in and day out and you may not know their names all the time or you may not know their names at all. But there's a lot of more people that keep the machine moving. And she was definitely more famous than the average person, but she was still able to live a very normal life.</s>WARD: OK. Stephanie Elam, I have a feeling that normal life is about to change forever. Thank you so much. In Indonesia, a volcanic eruption has choked a resort island to a halt. Almost 60,000 tourists are stranded in Bali. The island's international airport is shut after the Mt. Agung of the volcano heaved thick black ash into the sky. Almost 30,000 people have been evacuated. And now, as authorities issued the highest possible warning, the island is bracing for the possibility of another eruption. Let's get more now from Tom Sater. He is our meteorologist at the CNN Weather Center. He's live now with us. Tom, what are you learning?</s>TOM SATER, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Clarissa, we've been watching Mt. Agung since September when tremors started to occur. More and more seismic activity. And even though technology was getting better, it's not an exact science. But we knew this was coming. But will there be a bigger one? Now, this tourist had taken this picture just couple of days ago. You can see the dried lava formations in the past. There's 127 volcanoes in Indonesia. Mt. Agung has been dormant for over 50 years. And the last time was 1963. And it was a big one; 1,700 people lost their lives. At 5:30 PM Saturday, the first of three eruptions, small in size, but, again, relatively speaking, you can see the ash, the gases in the air, over 9000 meters. That's over 5.5 miles up into the sky. And that's important because the one in '63 was much higher, about 12 miles in the sky. So, even though we believe there will be a larger and more dangerous eruption, it's not going to be as bad as '63, they believe. Now, the volcanoes in the northeastern part of the Island of Bali, most of the tourists are fine. They are down in this area. They're just stranded for some time. Until we can see the smoke leave the airport, and that's going to be a little erratic because we've got a cyclone that's trying to develop off the southern coast. It went through a level 4. That's the highest level to be aware. We're now seeing it change to more what we call a magmatic possible eruption. That's with the molten lava. That's the problem here because once it spews that, then we're going to have lava flows. And again, this bigger and possible eruption, yes, even though it may be imminent, it may not be as bad as '63. We've got the eruption, as we mentioned. We've got ash flow and debris now that is falling in many villages. In fact, back in September, thousands evacuated, but they didn't want to leave their livestock and it was a major operation. Many went back because it's been two-and-a-half months. Now, we've got these lahars. That's the flow. It's like a mud debris flow, but it's this volcanic material. And that could get worse. But it's what we're watching now, because we've had these three small eruptions, we've got lava that is now in the surface of the crater. And that lava spreads out, traps all the gases underneath it, so it builds up more energy and pressure. That's why we believe it's going to be possibly a stronger one to come. This is what these lava - these lahar flows look like. And again, it's the rainy season. So, we're going to have more of them. Look at the difference in the rain pattern we're seeing across parts of Malaysia and Indonesia. But, again, traffic is halted. Possibly propeller planes could get to some other parts of Indonesia. It's the jet engines that we're concerned about because they can't really ingest any of this volcanic ash because it just melts in the engines and then solidifies and chokes them. But, again, we've had a larger problem with some other airports closed up as well. So, again, most of the tourists should be fine. They're just going to hunker down for some time. Clarissa.</s>WARD: All right. Tom Sater at the CNN Weather Center, thank you very much. More to come, including a road trip with a twist. One couple drives an electric car across the globe to prove just how far it can go. More on that after the break.